Story Complete

According to the Travian Games press release, SotA has officially reached the Story Complete milestone.

Can anyone confirm this? Are the three storyline paths and final conclusion all complete and ready for prime time?

 

They are complete, as of Release 44:

However, don't confuse "complete" with "polished and ready for mass release". Complete just means it is possible to get through all of the quests. The rest of the year will be spent making that an enjoyable experience.

 

I can confirm, that the EP1 Story is FINISHABLE. I have done so. Is it completely polished, nope, its not.

Ready for Prime-time? Nope, but I don't think they think so either. As Browncoat said, its "complete" from a sense that you can hit the major milestones and progress the story to completion.

IMO the "Final Conclusion", as you call it, or Path of the Oracle, is the best and most polished part because the scene building was SO much better then the first 3 paths. I believe this is because the newer scenes and builders had access to much more recent tech then when the early scenes were done. I really felt I was being pulled into the game in the final scenes where as the early ones felt a little dis-jointed, almost like I was walking through a story, as opposed to being tested/challenged. Almost like the story was set down on top of the scene, but now it needs to be weaved through it and flavor added. Truth and Courage need the most work IMO. The Story is there but the player interaction/challenges are lacking (IMO) other then finding Key NPC's and progressing the story.

Lum did indicate that they were planning on circling back to add in the newer tech into the early paths and scenes to polish them up. If they succeed in making the early paths as good as the final path, I would certainly recommend it to friends at that point. Not just yet.

 

Using the definition of complete to be that it is possible to get through all of the quests, it fails that definition as well. I wasn't able to get past the conversations with Mara and Essen without it bugging out. As for Courage, you are supposed to pick it up at different points if you are bugged out, but even that doesn't work. At best I would say that the different beats of the story line are there, but you may encounter bugs along the way (and they don't seem to be in a hurry to beat them out of the quest lines). I suspect that even with the reset, they are going to even more problems.

 

Several terms have been used starting a few months ago. "Story release" & "story complete" were never great ways to describe the milestone. Thankfully, the language was dialed back a little, but unfortunately "complete" appeared in the release notes. Complete to me, and I assume most people, usually means more than finish-able. And for some people, as @jiirc and others have said, it's not even that.

It's not that the milestone wasn't an admirable or necessary goal. I like that the story is now (usually) finish-able because the task of providing real feedback and substantially enhancing it can begin. Please people provide your feedback in the forum!

Yet here again it's about communication, communication, communication. A basic rule is don't over-promise. We've been through way too many cycles of over-promising and under-delivering at this point to be too surprised. But geez, let's again ask for and hope that the type of excitement generated by language will be clarified (using standard and accepted definitions of words) and dialed back. That way people will be pleasantly surprised at each milestone rather than confused. I do want to say that this is part of the growth of trying to provide as much communication as Port does. This is a growth area for the whole industry for sure, particularly important in this way of development.

This is another lesson for the upcoming release (please, please not too soon)! It may take someone from outside Port to be able to take an objective look and express accurately what's going on and what people should reasonably expect.

 

Not just the communication, but also a sense of situational awareness of the timing of the communication. Cannot always control that, but a well timed announcement can make more impact.