Video Game Review "Shroud of the Avatar"

So every game that has such a window should not be rated so that the devs can hide behind a "construction zone" while still collecting money from the players?

 

I respect that

 

I'm not sure where "every" game comes into this argument, this is a discussion about SOTA and SOTA is in "pre-alpha" and blazing a trail as a self funded kickstarter which yes "collects money from players". The second part of this is a bit of a passive aggressive attack on the SOTA game dev's and I have to remind you that SOTA is in pre-alpha and the Dev's clearly notify people of this and every single person in these forums should hopefully know that.

 

We want to ensure you understand the state of the game before you enter it, which is why we have messages like this. They are also on Steam and in other parts of the official website. They are also there to warn you in advance of purchasing items, should you not wish to participate in a still in development game.

 

I am no friend of this financing model. Basically the devs - and not just the devs of SotA but every dev that uses this model - is charging the full price for an unfinished product. I wrote it elsewhere but when I have to pay full price for a burger and get it in pieces over time I am not satisfied.
I wonder why people accept this with games.
Yes, let them charge money for an unfinished product but in relation to what is available. If it is not finished yet then they should not get the full price. They should get a part of the price - a part that relates to what is available in the game.
I don't buy a car, paying full price knowing that the engine will be ready in a year at the earliest...

Yes, I backed the game during the Kickstarter phase but I see this more as pre-ordering. But really selling a unfinished product for the full price - I don't like this at all. This leads to more and more devs wanting to get full price without delivering the finished product for years - or not at all...

 

500,000 people have paid Tesla $1000 to get a car thats not being built for 2 years. Tesla is using this model to produce cars now too.

I think this method of release may work for SOTA because of LB's reputation but I don't think its going to work in this industry. I recall reading I think quotes from LB that he would prefer to beholden to the customers vs a big companies lawyers like at EA.

Every business professor I had in college as well as my friends who are business owners clearly state that having a "boss" at a company is easy, they have to follow normal business rules. Have the "customer" as you boss is that absolute worst thing you can have. Customers dont have to follow any rules and are always right.

This project is open to customers really early in a development process and its clear that many of these customers don't understand that this game is in development and attack it.

Seriously, could you imaging being in the Dev's shoes for this game reading what we read on the forums? Trying to heard cats... no matter what you do someone gets angry and nobody seems to have empathy for other players who want to play the game different then another.

 

Where and when did you forget this is crowd funded? Hell I'm surprised they don't charge double, just to get more income, look at telethons..There is nothing of use that comes from them other than extra revenue for the game.

 

I understand the intent, Berek. I think you've missed the mark as far as implementation goes.

The problem is, this funding and development model has burned me and mine so badly, that two things are true (for us):
1) We will never fund another Kickstarter/start-up for more than the value of a finished game ($40-$50) ever, for the rest of time.
2) My trust of game developers has dropped to almost politician levels. DLMB? What does that really mean to me? Don't hold me accountable. Don't make me demonstrate integrity.

It is the height of irony that the title of this game is "Forsaken Virtues" if you consider integrity a virtue. Dynamic Lighting. Half-done deck/combat UI. Half-broken targeting system. Magic/Combat trees designed in less than 2 days by two people. Crafting completely changed at least 4 times, and the most recent iteration is going to blow up the world. Every one of those decisions made badly, with eyes wide open, knowing it would all be extremely bad for the customer. And so much hubris that you refuse to compromise and change those decisions for the betterment of the game. And yet freely compromise where it does the most harm.

I don't know how the decision makers sleep with a clear conscience, honestly. I would have put in pre-baked lighting to get reasonable frame-rates, completely pulled or fully implemented the deck system. Completely pulled or fully implemented the first-person-shooter targeting system. Fixed magic. Fixed combat. And pick a freaking crafting system a year ago! You're supposed to be industry veterans, and all we're getting is half-baked cakes and amateur-hour designs pushed through QA.

However, I will say this; You've saved me hundreds, no, THOUSANDS of dollars in the future, because these scars aren't going to fade. So thanks for that.

 

The more games are released in "Early Access" the more I hate this whole system. The more I get the impression that devs just want to get money for an unfinished product.
Either the game should cost signifcantly less until it is "finished" or the time a game is allowed to stay in Early Access should be limited to a year max.

Also I fear that the new attitude of games being an ongoing process instead of being finished is more and more an excuse for devs to never finish a game and have an excuse when the ratings drop...

 

I doubt any of the things you list are different then any other game in pre-alpha development like SOTA. It just so happens that people knew to the dev environment are playing it and don't understand it.

My dev on my Never Winter Nights persistent module was even worse then this. Since I was the sol developer, I was *always* adding content into the existing game world. These areas were alpha in a finished product and my players would go through them and test them for bugs all the time. I had to fight with people all the time on new content. I was one of the few mods that used the "UO crafting" kit which was based of UO that I changed to work better under D&D rules.

I did the same things as Pol, I asked for donations to keep the module up and running on new hardware and people sent them to me in Paypal. If they donated enough, I would give them in game benifits such as allow them to create their own named wep/armor (restrictions on how powerful they were of course).

At least I had the NWN toolset (as Pol is using the Unity with a lot more customization) to work in but I can tall you that my persistent world was just about as large as SOTA is now (After 5 years of dev) and it also serviced 200,000 different players.

 

The game would not exist (or if it did, it would certainly take longer to reach a similar state of development) without the crowd funded model. You say "should" or "allow" as though there are some kind of legal rules that could be applied for software development. That is more a fantasy than the setting of this game.

I'm a little surprised at the vitriol of some unhappy folks. People bought into the game have been given a pretty full disclosure about the nature of the process and the risks involved. Nothing, and I mean nothing can match potential. This is particularly more so when so many different people have a very different idea of what the final product "should" look like. As soon as that wide world of possibilities is whittled down by implementation choices, more and more people see their ideal fade away. I understand this can be disappointing, but it is the harsh truth of making any idea into something real: compromise and tradeoffs.

We gave them $ and said "I trust you to make a cool game". So... trust them. Or not. It's your choice. I don't get the impression these people are laughing on their way to the bank. I get the impression they're trying really hard to make something cool. If you want something new, that means experimentation, mistakes, back-tracking, compromises and tradeoffs. Its the nature of the process. If you don't want to be part of that process then ya, don't buy into early access or kickstarters.

 

So what is "new" with SotA?
Basically it is a MMORPG with housing, combat, quests - nothing new here.
We have the typical MMO UI and HUD - nothing new here.
We have a single player mode that basically is a MMORPG in which we are alone - Not what I expected from this mode.
Focus on story - really?
We have POTs - Maybe this could be seen as something many other MMOs don't have.

What is making SotA stand out from any other MMO?

SotA had the potential to become something unique - it even looked interesting during the Kickstarter campaign. But the game changed and it didn't change to something bold and new it changed to a well-treaded path other MMOs have treaded before. The game got the typical HUD/UI, it got basic quests (every player does the same quests), it got housing, PvP, social features, pets... If I had to tell a friend what makes SotA unique, the only feature to come to my mind would be that we can play it in different modes - but then, all of those modes feel and play the same...

 

NWN!

I loved that game. Stopped playing it when I decided to create my own PW. Attempt #1 was an Ultima - stopped when the project would be too large of an undertaking for a 1 man team.

Attempt #2 was a King Arthur world. Stopped after I got burned out from #1 and #2.

I applaud you guys for entering the PW of NWN!

 

In fact, I keep railing on DarkStarr to actually take some time off. He's on these forums 7 days a week, 16 hours a day. They really do care.

 

Sounds like you're mentioning the Single Player Online Mode. To me that mode is exactly as I expected it to be. Also keep in mind the first Single Player Offline features haven't been given to us yet and are supposed to go live in the upcoming release 30. Let's just hope those features don't get pushed back, like roving encounters have been.