What Did RG Think Shroud Was Going To Cost?

Correct. The only problem with that situation, however, is with sub-70K copies of the game being sold in total, we start with a small base.

When we deduct people who didn't even bother to come and play the game they paid for, the base shrinks into the sub-10K area (RGs recent figure given in an interview).

Then if we start taking out people in that sub-10K figure who feel they don't have to pay again, the potential base to be backing Episode 2 shrinks even again.

 

And alts.

 

This is the quote I was responding to:
"If you ask for too much money up front because of the rules of Kickstarter, it’s very,
very hard to ask for the complete development budget." - Molyneux

Kickstarter is designed for projects that can reach a state of completion; it does not disambiguate 'game types'. You don't need me to describe to you why Peter Molyneux essentially thinks he needs to cheat to get a game funded, simply read the Kickstarter FAQ, particularly the part about what the 'funding goal' means. And please don't take it as rude if I don't respond to this discussion anymore. I have grown tired of explaining these very transparent and easily understood aspects of kickstarter and hold harmless any projects that failed to understand and implement the standards of kickstarter. That being said, extreme transparency is required on behalf of any project that desires to deviate from these standards if the project lead wishes to meet the expectations of backers.

 

There is somehow this really persistent idea that like, because it got some funding like, 5 years ago, that should be enough forever... its so weird to me. And they create ways for people to support it all optionally and its seen as cash grab, dunno why !

 

Not sure why you think that statement is cheating in any form... This game requires far more than the original kickstarter as its gone beyond what the initial game was and continues to do so. Sound more like you have beef with some guy and are trying to lay that on top of SotA. Read the FAQs still don't see where there are or what rules were broken. I saw no explanations from you on it either. As far as transparency, there has been transparency with every dollar. It's been posted before where every bit of the money has gone between development, production, staff costs, building rental fees, etc. Not sure what you are trying to implicate with that statement of transparency is required.

 

I think most people expected the product to start bringing in sales and players ( like most released games ) and for the majority of fhe funding to come from game sales, and new players. Not another fundraiser.
Least thats my take on it.

 

It should've been enough for Episode 1... as they claimed that's all they needed when they did Kickstarter.

Then, you see throughout many, many months (years, even) that most of what they talk about is houses and decorations, which is aimed for more funding rather that focusing on more pertinent content such as character art, weapons, general assets used for level art... houses that are sold for an insane amount of money. $200+ for a single in-game item is NOT normal!

It's funny that it took them 5 years to finally decide that they should change/revamp the questing system... something that they'll do for Episode 2, I might add.

Lets not forget the controversial discussions about using free unity assets and re-packaging them for $20+ on the addon store... to continue funding.

That's why a lot of folks sees it as a cash grab. You may or may not agree with people's general sentiment... but I can't blame them for feeling this way concerning the product.

 

No beef.
Read here: https://help.kickstarter.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005028514-What-are-the-basics-
States:
A project is a finite work with a clear goal that you’d like to bring to life. Think albums, books, or films.

The funding goal is the amount of money that a creator needs to complete their project.

Funding on Kickstarter is all-or-nothing. No one will be charged for a pledge towards a project unless it reaches its funding goal. This way, creators always have the budget they scoped out before moving forward.

(No emphasis added).

I once wrote at length as to why these standards exist to protect backers from partially funded projects and scope creep, but it's not worth my energy. Transparency comes into play in terms of the funding goal, budget, and resulting scope of project, which should be mostly static at the time of the kickstarter, according to kickstarter standards.

I'm still here. I still play and contribute. But no one should be surprised why people are confused and upset when kickstarter states clear standards for projects that are deviated from. It's not an attack; it's a lesson to absorb for them moving forward.

 

Kickstarter - they completed the project. They built a game, fulfilled the pledges and released it in about 5 years from funding. during that time it was playable for about 2 years from land persistence on or so. Many people beat the game back in 2017. It finally was released, physical rewards may even be shipping now or soon thereafter. So it's done... The 1.8 million from the original kickstarter - successful.

I'm backing a kickstarter now where all they have to do is make a comic book - one that was already done - in a special edition and ship it. They are almost year late doing that. So a video game ? This could have gone the way of a lot of projects - nothing to show for it.

What's so bad now about asking people to help keep the game going ? Port just laid off a ton of staff, up to half if rumors are true. If that's the case, I don't think anyones laying back and laughing all the way to the bank.... this thing is a labor of love.

It's pretty clear they've gone to all means to keep the game afloat including: seed invest, selling distribution rights, telethons, add on store, optional subs, etc.

What more would you want when the game is not super popular ? We all know it's not. That's the reality. Still here, 5 years later, with a game, we've had access and we've had a hand in development. To me this was one of the more succesful projects I backed, even if it feel short of market expectations. We got a modern Ultima game.

 

I can understand some of that, but it's not like its one of those games where they milk players for all their cash and you see nothing for months... years... and the game just sits... stagnant. Look at DDO, seemed like it was in that boat before Standing Stone Games took over and actually took money and put into the game instead just milking whatever blood was left in the rock. The money goes back into the game. It may not be on all the projects you like, but at least you can see all the stuff they are working on all the time. They literally show you all the time as well as tell you and you can see the products rolling in. As far as housing, yeah its pretty expensive, but then again, its one of the highlights of the game and no one else is doing anything like this, so yeah, it could be cheaper if they were getting more funds elsewhere but it's one of the big selling points & accomplishments of the game. But then, you can't win over everyone on everything. There are some people who will adamantly hate PvP no matter how well it's implemented. Some people have no clue why anyone would want a house in a game. Some people think it's silly to collect stuff in a game and think that you should just kill everyone. Some don't even like RMT (real money transactions) and no matter how little or insignificant it is on the impact to the game you will never change their stance on it. So I don't think we'll ever get everyone on board with this stuff but I think they'll continually need revenue coming in and im fine with that as long as I see progress being made and I think that's moving in the right direction.

 

Gotcha and understand that part of it, but what isnt or hasn't been completed? It's not like they said the game would be completely done, never changing or moving from the state of what they develped for launch (episode 1). Have there been changes, sure, they've even stated they couldn't do some of the things they wanted to initially. It's one thing on paper, its another thing bringing it to reality especially for this kind of game. It's not like they were making a single player RPG with a beginning and an end to the story/quest. It's an mmo with a lot more that they would like to bring into it. Just like most MMO types, there is usually expansions and continual content (if its successful). I see no wool being pulled over anyone's eyes here with SotA. They release what they are working on and what still needs working on all the time, even in live streams. I know the physcial goods are behind schedule, like the books being sent out, but wouldn't consider having to keep revenue coming in to keep creating content as "cheating" anyone. What do you think was considered the full package for the "kickstarter" project to get the game up and running.

 

That is the limit of what I was discussing.

I didn't say 'cheated' I said 'cheating'. When you engage in business with and entity that has prestated standards of operation, and then violate the prestated standards of operation with that entity, I consider that cheating. That's what Molyneux seemed to think was necessary to have a successful kickstarter. I think if you know going into it that you can't conform to the established standards, you should find another option. I also think it is reasonable for people involved in such a transaction to be distressed by it. The 'cheating' is circumventing the kickstarter standards.

The business model is important for game mechanics...I suspect there are a few backers that may have changed their mind knowing then what they know now. It's fine if you don't care about it; but to ignore that others might is essentially to write them off as potential contributors.

 

Ok and you still haven't listed what they are cheating at, what isn't finished, etc. As far as I can tell they have done what they have said they would minus what they said they were working on like the last parts of physical goods (the books). It seems you are just making generalized statements and tap dancing around the questions when pressed on your statements. It's all very vague and no details at all.

 

I've demonstrated numerous times in this thread how some projects have deviated from the standards of kickstarter. I can't make it anymore clear for you. I'm not going to address the unrelated issues such as successful vs. unsuccessful content creation you seem intent on diverting to. It's fine if you don't mind what happened; it's irrational to deny it over and over.

 

No, you are just putting out vague statements. And on top of that, you're talking about "other" projects? We're talking about Shroud of the Avatar... not others. The questions posed to you from your statements were, what has failed, how has SotA cheated or is cheating anyone? You are not listing any details. If you've already posted the details, just link them. But your arguments are nonsensical with all the vagueness you're giving. It's starting to look more like conspiracy theory writing than anything of substance.

If you have details and can actually answer them, then please do. If you are actually trying to inform people of something, with SOTA, then please do.

 

Ok

 

Statistically, they've delivered about one third of what was promised in the kickstarter. Again, that was 1.8 million needed, and they got 12 times that so far and still have not delivered. Because you feel that this isn't a cash grab and they have completed, allow me to enumerate the items.

Starting off with "What is Shroud of the Avatar"

1. Shroud of the Avatar is infused with rich storylines, deeply integrated into game play, developed by Best Selling Author Tracy Hickman and RPG legend Richard Garriott.
   
   • Not true. Tracy Hickman has stated in interviews he was contracted to write the books. He has not written quest or story text. That was mostly Lum, plus FireLotus and others, as has been stated before. Since the Oracle quest runs a lot like U4, let's say for argument, RG wrote the whole thing. So, that's less than half of this item. I know he didn't write the side quests - we've had multiple devs pop up to explain why they wrote them!

   ​
2. Players will adventure in an interactive world where their choices have consequences, ethical paradoxes give them pause, and they play a vital part in weaving their own story into the immersive world and lore surrounding them.
   
   • What choices have any consequence on the world itself, outside of decorating? And while some of the ethical questions may give someone pause, you don't have a choice. What if I don't like the children in dungeons that I am required to accept as part of the main quest? You can write in a book (after you grind out the wood pulp) and try to insert yourself into the story, but it will have no effect. Let's say this is a 2 on a 10 scale.

   ​
3. Shroud of the Avatar is a Selective Multiplayer game, allowing players to choose how they want to play! Whether in Single-Player Offline mode or any of three online modes, the main quest line will provide greater than 40 hours of focused, story driven content.
   
   • 40 hours of grinding. That's not story. Multiple new people have come here posting about how disjointed it is. And once you have the levels, it's nowhere close to 40 hours. Multiple people have posted here about how they redid the entire three quests, for purposes of "checking that it works" in a single evening.

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4. Shroud of the Avatar can be played as an offline DRM free solo experience or online, where our servers will enable player to player transactions, group finding, patching, streaming of dynamic content, and exploit prevention.
   
   • As has been pointed out especially in recent interviews, the game runs on the players PCs, with the servers basically doing a quick "yeah, that looks ok" now and then. Exploits, especially in PvP are still out there. The current pickpocket and insta PvP flag exploit comes to mind. There's no game-driven dynamic content. A dance party is not content unless this is Ballroom Dancing Online.

   ​
5. Built using the Unity Game Engine, Shroud of the Avatar will support Win/Mac/Linux for official launch.
   
   • It does technically have an engine on all three of these platforms. The Mac and Linux clients run with the same polished functionality you see in a three-legged race at the company picnic after a few too many drinks, but it does have a client. And without question, it is built with Unity assets. As many free ones as they can download.

   ​
6. Players can specialize in a wide range of combat and non-combat skills, provided by a robust, classless skill system, and full-featured crafting and housing mechanics. Play the way you want to play, molding your character into the hero, anti-hero, or artisan you want to be!
   
   • Combat skills that still are broken and untuned, and change wildly with each patch. Crafting is far from full-featured, being so horribly boring that it is the #1 place botters get caught. Two words: wood pulp. And you cannot craft unless you get the experience first by harvesting. And you cannot harvest unless you have the character experience level to be there first.

   ​
7. Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtue is the first of a 5 game series of full-length, stand-alone games (each using the same game system), referred to as Episodes 1 through 5. Estimated availability of Episode 1, Forsaken Virtues, is October 2014, with Episodes 2 through 5 estimated for subsequent yearly releases.
   
   • I think we all can agree we missed this "estimation" by a smidge.

   ​
8. Shroud of the Avatar is a “buy-to-play” game that, once purchased, does not require a subscription to play!
   
   • Not required, but now you can sign up for one

   ​

Let's move onto the other items that should be in, that were unlocked as stretch goals by getting to $1,919,275

1. Combat and non-combat pets
   
   • Both are in

   ​
2. Seasonal weather - game changing weather in game
   
   • Negative

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3. Interactive musical instruments
   
   • Definitely in.

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4. Taming - can train monsters as pets
   
   • Doesn't work well, but is in.

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5. Content is King + Spoony interview + Iolo music + 20 more unique scenes + starting continent doubles in size
   
   • We haven't gotten the boxes, so no idea if Denis did this. He was contracted to. Did Iolo do the song? No idea. There was a 14 or 17 part interview of RG though. And he talks about how much he loves to kill children in it! As far as "20 more", we have no idea what the original planned size was. I'm not sure there's 20 uncloned scenes right now. And the continent is literally the same size as listed in the KS initial offering (a recolored Ultima 3 map)

   ​
6. Shipping lanes, new island, ports
   
   • The "mysterious island" is Owl's Head, so, yes! But shipping and boating? Not even close.

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7. Dynamic nodes, minimap, meteroites, volcanic eruptions, rare plants/animals that appear and vanish, and Lost Vale
   
   • Lost Vale yes. The rest never happened.

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8. Tracy Hickman novel, interconnected underworld with a story and ecology, apprentice system, cloaks with wind interaction
   
   • Hickman did one novel. The rest have been removed from his "upcoming works" as of a year ago. There is no underworld, but there is a mostly interconnected dungeon so I think partial credit one one part of this promise item is fair. It doesn't have an ecology of any sort. And you'd need wind to have wind interaction.

   ​
9. City Theatre building rentable by people, seating areas, backstage controls, vendor money to people who stage events, masks and costumes to be used, etc etc
   
   • Yeah, no.

   ​
10. Castles and Keeps are a town type, guilds can declare war on other guilds, guild houses and guild banks, castle merchants with unique merchandise, castle defense scenarios including offline
    
    • Partially implimented with keeps, nothing else in this is in game at all. Richer guilds do buy a house and then share it, but that's not a guild house - that's sharing permissions. And a chest only the guild can access isn't a guild bank. Of course, there is no guild war, there's no unique castle merchants, and no castle defense especially not offline.

    ​

Alrighty, now onto the misses on the pledge items! Just going to make a list of misses here by tier because it's just so long. Going to skip the digital downloads of books and stuff where I am unsure and assume those were done. Did RG send out his Mondain book to people? No clue. Also, there are multiple levels where people have prepaid all the way to episode 5.

Immortal Adventurer - 2 week early access to skills as they are added to game. Not as such
Royal Artisan - Ability to tame a unique monster. Perhaps a snipe?
Virtual Collector - Ingame lute designed by Iolo. Well, did he do all lutes?
Virtual Collector - User created family crest. You paid $100 for this and now we all get it. This was a special thing.
Virtual Collector - Box cover art as in-game house decor. The mystery box returns!
Explorer - Collectors box with game, soundtrack, printed manual, cloth map. The physical goods. The Box! The one that doesn't fit!
Collector - Physical reprint of RG's Mondain story, Akallabeth D&D story. Will that fit in the box?
Patron - Story above signed by RG. Name listed in "domesday book" in game, "domesday" certificate in game. Perhaps one of the stickers will suffice?
Ancestor - Your name on a tombstone in game. Duplicate of this for home decor. Here lies my wallet. Slain by Port's incompetance
Navigator - Your cloth map will be signed by RG. Well, your sticker will be . The only signed maps were telethon people 5 years later.
Developer - Regularily scheduled unity packs released for free use, tinkerer house decor. Well, the free assets they downloaded from Unity you could also download, I suppose.
Citizen - Novel signed by RG&TH. A sticker from RG. TH, who knows. He doesn't have it on his work list.
Lord - Custom avatar head. Cost $10k to get this. And remember, Darkstarr and RG have custom heads in game. Instead of yours, you get a weapon that looks like every other weapon but has some words on it if someone inspects it. Not something most people can see all of the time like your face.

And this doesn't get into all of the other promises over the past nearly 5 years they have made. This is right off the Kickstarter page. So, no, they haven't delivered what they promised. They have delivered a small portion of it. It is like you went to the restaurant, ordered a steak and they brought you a 2" square piece of ground beef. Technically, that is steak, but it is not what you ordered.

 

Your loathing and bias against this game oozes out in your post. You deliberately cherry pick and take everything and look at it in the worst possible way.

"What is Shroud of the Avatar"

That statement doesn't mean he wrote or did the quests in the game... he developed the stories in the books which are used as part of the lore and backstories in game. There are quests in game which use the lore and info from the books. You deliberately look for a way to try and twist it to not be true for your agenda.

There are consequences for choices in many of the quests. There are consequences for your actions as well, taking virtue hits or gaining virtue depending on your actions. The world may not shake at your choice, but there are choices with some consequence, enough to meet the criteria of the statement. Some of it sticks with you, especially with the oracle, and now the goodies from the main quest are affected too.

What? You don't have to grind for 40s hours... you can do more than 40 hours if you just stick to quests, much more than 40 hours. Even if you were adventure level 110+ it would still take you a long time running around trying to knock out all the quests even if you could breeze past the mobs as a lot of the quests involve puzzles as well. Since you are only going by what others have said and not having done it yourself, you do not know what your are talking about.

Wow, seriously? Yeah for online modes it still takes the server to do most of the transactions, especially between players and others, even their vendors. You think everytime someone does something in game, be it adding stuff to vendors or putting out housing, it just magically appears on your computer somehow? Streaming of dynamic content? Again, trying to look for the worst possible aspect of everything you read. Maybe they stream their telethons/livestreams? Could be patches and updates. Not sure how you only take away "there's no game-driven dynamic content" from the statement you're commenting on. What do dance parties have to do with this? Your loathing is oozing out again.

Yes, it uses the Unity Engine for all 3. Yes there are still issues with Linux but still playable. So what's the beef there? They did what they said. As far as Unity Assets, what exactly are you complaining about again? They used free assets... OMG, for shame! Would you rather them have done it all from scratch? Seriously? I'm sure they'll be glad to review your assets you developed for the game to help out! Seems like your loathing for SotA is clouding your judgement again.

And yet none of that takes away from the delivery of the statement you are trying to bash. What you expected everything to be perfect and copied from the storyboard to game as is on DAY 1 of development? This game is constantly evolving and adapting. Skills definitely need polishing or changing and its been that way from the start. You'd rather keep a broken system? It's not like its not being constantly tested and adjusted both by devs and player feedback. Im sure itll change a lot more in the future but a system was in place. Crafting is pretty robust in this game. It may be boring but its definitely full-featured and important in this game. There are many ways to craft and there are many ways to get craft xp. You don't have to harvest if you don't want to. You could have others give to you, friends/guild, etc, break down stuff gotten from adventuring, buy resources from others, etc. You're vision is limited by you're disdain for the game without even trying to give it a chance or look for alternatives.

How many companies have to push back their deadlines or release dates for games, books, movies, etc etc? Happens ALL THE TIME, especially in development. No matter how well the plans are, something can always go wrong or cause a hitch in development. This seems more like a lack of understanding or lack of being reasonable. Yes, the deadline was missed but it's not like you were kept in the dark. Every week and every month they showed the progress, the problems, the additional content, the changes, and the combinations of those things causing problems, etc. But hey, if you'd like to help out with your expertise in game programming I'm sure you'll be quite welcome to the team.

How again is this a "not delivered" on their promise kind of thing??? It is a buy once (the game) and you can play. It DOES NOT require a subscription to play. The subscription is not a pay-to-play subscription... but you'd know that if you were so biasted against the game and actually gave it some thought.

NEXT

While there is no changing of seasons, there is changing weather like snow and rain in areas. I suppose you could look at it one way or the other to meet the reqs or not. I would ultimately guess they are still going to improve upon it as they have been. I don't even see this as being anything substantial other then looking for things to rail against or trying to fan dissent.

Are you kidding me? It's been in the livestreams already. You must not have seen anything recently or paid attention to the release notes. There are a lot of uncloned scenes and way more than 20. When was the last time you actually played? As far as the continent doubling it size, it way more than doubled in size. The first continent was Hidden Vale and you started off near Braemar. It's a hell of a lot more than that now. Now you start in Novia at one of 3 different locations there. Far more than double the size of Hidden Vale.
http://sotawiki.net/sota/Hidden_Vale

There are boats/shipping lanes as described that take you to different regions of the map. Brittany, Xenos, Aerie, Storms Reach, and other little spots across the map I can't recall their names atm. This may help:
http://shroudatlas.com/Assets/Images/Novia_Overland_R52.jpg

As far as i know all nodes are dynamic, there is a minimap (how long has it been since you played again?), there are meteorites... especially true during and leading up to launch, only place i see for volcanic eruptions is blackblade mts and oracle colossus region and that volcano is active, flowing and has some animations around it so depending on what you're expecting I'd say they delivered on it. Rare plants/animals "vanishing" and "reappearing" can just as easily be attributed to the Lost Vale as not. It's not very definitive on what they mean, but since its in the same goal mark as Lost Vale which vanishes & reappears if you pay attention, I'd lean toward that for now.

You know for a fact he only did "one novel"?
Sword of Midras - https://www.amazon.com/Sword-Midras-Shroud-Avatar-Novel-ebook/dp/B0191JTYR0
Shardsof the Avatar - Says hes almost done if not done by now leaving just 1 left in contract to do - http://www.trhickman.com/life-reset-button/
As far as interconnected underworld.. THERE IS. It's been entwined in multiple quests/story arcs and definitely has its own ecology, I especially like the various crystal caverns with various elementals. Don't necessarily need wind for wind movement on cloth like cloaks, esp when moving or running, it's there. However there is wind/weather movement so... how long again has it been since you actually played the game?

You got one! No it's not in yet but you can see some of those mechanics were worked into the player INN's and eventually into housing/chapter houses, all around. So some of it was at least developed and implemented.

Yes, partially implemented but you can see the groundwork there. Guild War option there but not enabled yet. It's not a matter of wealth of guild, more the wealth of a patron of that guild who uses one of their lots/buildings as a guild chapter house and YES it is a guild house. We've had plenty of people use guild houses and guild store fronts for temporary homes til they got their own or decided where they wanted to live. Guild chests... thats debatable for a guild bank. Sure it's not like a player's bank, but if people are gonna be objectionable and hold everything to a negative view, then we can just as easy paint it in a favorable light and say it's a form of bank as well.

Your misses on pledge items:

"Exclusive Early Bird Alpha and Beta Access" - You most certainly got early access to skills just by playing before release but they did say they put in the Obsidian Potions of Guidance to make up for it as there was no way, with the way the game developed, they could do that at the time of release.

You got the mimic. "Creature Taming Call - Unique ability to tame an elusive monster that an ordinary player could never tame!"

The Iolo Lutes are in, so whats the problem there? User created crest... where does it say "only you" get this and no one else will ever get it or have access? That is not even insinuated. And they have box art cover paintings, whats the problem there as well????

The rest of the stuff you should have seen in the livestreams or release notes. They all fit in the box except for the book. They shown all the content, the maps, the signatures, stickers, certificates, coins, etc already. As far as the "heads" for 10k pledgers (lord or lords of the manor) or better, I can't see where it says anything about heads. I've heard talk about it, but haven't seen it so can't comment on whether it was promised or not. All that being said, still very, very few things not delivered in your long post of disdain for the game, out of all that, what two things? Doesn't sound too rational to hold such a grudge over something minor. It's not like they took the money and ran. It's not like you cant see constant work week after week, month after month, with very transparent going-ons within the company and development of the game.

 

Being able to map realistic heads for the Dukes and LOTMs ended up not being reasonable from a time or visual standards viewpoint, so they replaced that with a unique custom item for them. And yes, some of them weren't happy about it even tho they have more than virtually anyone else playing the game.

Did they promise to do too much in the Kickstarter ? Yes.
Does that happen with a lot of Kickstarters ? Yes.
Should people in general know better by now ? Yes.

There is a real level of entitlement going on all around it seems. You know what Lincoln said: "You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but never all of the people all of the time".

I have noticed that a lot of arguments come from people that are not active players, it's been pretty obvious when they say things don't exist that actually do.
Probably because it didn't fit the vision of the game that they imagined in their heads in 2013, I think.

 

I am just going to tackle one of the statements. The quote could mean what you said or it could actually mean what @Evadrepas said. It's a matter of interpretation. For me personally, I focus on what can't be a matter of the way the sentence is worded, for example, "rich storylines." I think many who have some experience playing RPG's would not call the current state of story in game a "rich storyline", but again that comes down to interpretation. Port would certainly argue they are "rich" and thus say, "we did it!" I would say tot this that there is a smoke screen of well-developed lore as reflected in BotA/Sword of Midras that is not "deeply integrated into gameplay." Again, that is interpretation. I would use basic story and writing theory and comparison to other contemporary games as exmaples of why SotA doesn't have "rich storylines deeply integrated", but I'm not going to "win" an argument that is a matter of perception. All I can do is encourage (without any effect really) them to consider strengthening the RPG side of the game.

You have to wonder though why all the reviews on such points are always "mixed". For Shroud it's always split with some interpreting yes, some no. I think the mixed interpretations and resulting mixed reviews lend more support to the fact that there was a problem meeting this goal. But again, people can itnerpret reviews in different ways! So you see the problem. Perhaps more of us can agree that mixed reviews do not help the perception of the game to be one that was a "success".