Why Play this game?

Hi all,

I have been playing SOTA for a few days now and after researching deeper into what this game has to offer it seems to come up short.

Much of the information I found states that the best gear in the game is player made so if that's true why fight monsters in the world? wouldn't they just become an inconvenience while trying to farm materials for crafting?

Typical:
Level Character via (farming materials/combat) -> Gear up (craft/purchase/loot drops) -> Fight monsters (for better gear drops to increase monster level fighting capabilities/rare items drops etc.)

it seems more like this:

Level Character via (Fighting monsters while farming materials) -> Gear up (best gear in game) to fight monsters and farm faster?

Does this game have loot drops that are a must have or is all the loot garbage when compared to the player crafted items?

I have to me missing something... Please let me know what you all think.

thank you

 

Well I personally really don't care for these things. Unlike in other MMORPGs I enjoy just doing quests and puzzles. I really don't care what gear I have. I got 2 pieces of courage Plate armor set from seemingly random quests thou. No idea how good they are...but they look amazing and are better than regular plate set

So I don't know...take it slow and try just play it like regular RPG? Cause to me this simply does not really plays like MMORPG in first place.

 

Depending on your build there are loot only artifacts which can be better than any crafted gear. But either way you don’t have to craft yourself. It’s generally much cheaper to buy gear from player vendors than to build the skills to craft it. Of course the absolute top of the line gear might be hard to find on the market without connections. But the game has much more to offer with its freedom and open world than just working for end game imo.

 

Got pulled in by the topic title, so I'll respond a bit to that. The gear stuff is answered I see.

Why play Shroud? Because you want to play with freedom in a world that's growing and being built by the players, with RPG style combat.

Not because you want to play RPG style combat in any typical way, though. If you want to be on a normal treadmill that takes you through gear upgrades and precisely balanced mobs up to the endgame, with quests exactly set up to get you that next piece of gear you need to beat the next boss you'll be disappointed.

Here, you can just walk out the front door (tutorial level) and go straight into end game combat if you like. You'll get destroyed of course, but it's there, the choice is yours.

Or you can walk into town and never come out again, having taken up the life of a crafter.

Or show up Friday night for the Gustball tournament!

I got in because I wanted to be a Merchant. I looked at games on Steam that you run a shop, and they all seemed very "Gamey." I'm tired of gamey. In Shroud, it's up to you what your game looks like, but it rarely feels "gamey," a bit of the Outskirts excepted.

Anyway, welcome aboard, swing by the S Mart Factorium if you're ever out by Resolute!

 

Everything in this game is a resource package. Cotton bush = cotton, mob = gold. Those things you either sell to make more gold and buy gear from established players or you actually use it yourself to make gear. It has quite a massive and robust economy to do this already.

What it is not is WoW with epic lootz. While their are "atrifacts" that are powerful and are great for lower level people, they have a cost. Most of the "rare" drops are for making better gear.

The best gear is from players.

 

I play it because it's fun! Isn't that why anyone plays a game?

 

Just like paws, I play games for fun. I do not have fun watching the zombie box. Killing mobs is part of every mmo.

 

It's great to have you here!

 

Welcome! This is why I play SotA:


CRAFTING:

In my opinion SPECIALIZE. That way your products will stand out and have better/rarer stats than the next guy and your gathering skill for your specialization will reinforce the creation of those products. For example, when I started the game I decided to focus on Smithing Plate Armor...and virtually nothing else. So in turn I only mine and smelt (when i can help it) because they reinforce the smithing with better/quicker yields. And I sell every piece i make in order to recoup costs. (I realize crafting isn't for everyone but having it as a unique part of my characters identity compared to other players is a lot of fun for me.) If I'm with a group of players in a zone with "gatherables" like cotton/trees etc, I don't care about anything but mining because I can get better yields on those ore nodes than a forester for example and vice versa. So likewise If I ever need a special leather component for an order of plate armor, I will find someone who refines the leather materials and gets better yields than I do. Same with Enchanting. I really appreciate the encouragement in this game for players to trade/interact with each other in order to accomplish your crafting goals. (And if your like me, you have no interest in playing 8+ hours a day to master every trade.)

COMBAT:

I cannot stress how inventive the combat system is. Any spell or ability you choose to put in your rotation is acceptable, which leads to almost infinite possibilities for uniqueness of character. My advice - Do what is fun for you! Bash heads with a mace! Burn your enemies to a crisp with a fireball! Then go heal your buddy before he dies because he stepped on a dragon tail by mistake! Or JUST HEAL and do nothing else. You can be as versatile or as specialized as you want to be. I personally use an unlocked deck which causes the abilities to pop up at random. The process of stacking them together for more potent combinations (and at a lower focus cost) is a rush for me. (Makes even the most mundane encounter more fun imo.) Open your deck builder sometime and check out all the glyph combinations available. Also look at the skill screen and study the differing magic schools and skills. Visualize the kind of character you want to build (Like carving a statue) and go for it!

COMMUNITY:

This is the best community I've found in all my years spent playing online games. I've never seen so many people genuinely excited about helping new players and getting into a game world. This kind of attitude harbors a sense of mentoring and tradition which continues on once the newbs level up and become "mentors" themselves. Aside from the culture of this game, the apprentice system for skills provides additional benefit from "Training under a Master". (This is another feature that, if previously implemented in gaming, is definitely not common.) Find a good guild and invest in them, as they will surely invest in you. Also, navigating through the stories/puzzles/leveling etc. and then chatting about them with others has been great fun for me thus far.


No game is perfect but this one really is special. Let me know how I can help anytime!

 

Thanks for the thoughts everyone.

My experience last night: Farming ore, fighting monsters only when they interfered with that. I actively avoid them unless I need gold for Recipes or coal and the like.


This is my opinion -> "There is nothing wrong with getting that new shinny when you had to farm materials, craft great gear, Learn skills, farm mobs, party with friends in order to get it" <- that's where the "fun" is found, the journey.

I held this opinion when playing UO (early years) and they delivered and because of that I hold every MMO I play to the same standard.

A WoW type game is not something I'm looking for however my only complaint with SOTA (for now) is that fighting Mobs as underwhelming and not profitable and in some cases you can lose money if you choose to fight higher end mobs.

I am looking forward to R53 which may help with drop items but for now.

I hope they improve loot drops, If I get one more Shoddy/rusty weapon I swear! lol

 

I would say yes you are probably missing it. This game isn't just about one thing or the other. It's about finding your thing in the game. Most of us had no idea what we'd be doing in the game. Coming into this game one might have expected to jump in and that is that. It is more complex than that being the type of game it is. One may have started out with one thought and then that evolved into another thought that we found we enjoyed. So trying to just find your personal game from combat or crafting or housing or the music system we have, you probably would come up short.

No one can tell you how that looks for you but they could show how to make some things work. Most systems are a bit complex in this game. It can be hard to see the whole picture. So some players might have businesses or museums or have built obstacle courses, stages to have plays, concert Halls. They may have mail order businesses since we do have a mail system that is pretty awesome. You can send gold and items through our mail system as well.

So for example One day you might feel like going out and doing some boss kill runs with a group. Another day you might feel like syncing music with a group since we have an awesome music system in the game and quite a few instruments with more coming. And one day you might feel like just restocking your vendor doing some crafting and chatting with a friend while you both work away.

There's tons to do but it's going to take you discovering your thing as I said that may look different each day you play the game. But it won't be everyone's game that is only up to you to decide. Deciding from seeing how it works and we can help you with that. I get crazy ideas everyday. I could go on and on while I did do that and sorry for the lots of words, but there is a lot of game here so far and as I say much more is coming.

And really what all I can say is that more still coming so this isn't even all of what there will be and I have only touched upon a few things. In the future you will see boating, treasure hunting, mounts that I'm hoping will be fun and I want to have ability to train our horses and have horse races. We will also get additions to our fishing system to include fishing off a boat and sea monsters and more.


And now I just noticed that thread by Lord British talking talking about creating tools for us to be able to create player Quests.

So anyway I hope that expresses some of the game for you and as always I am majoria in the game if I can help.

edited types- sorry my phone has a mind of its own when I use it

 

Majoria70 that's all well and good however the most fundamental mechanic in any game world is purpose.

If a game doesn't effectively create a purpose for being via design I consider it a failure. Having fun in a game as you described is great but it's finite.

keep this in mind that I'm bitching about it because I want it to be better, don't mistake my post as hateful that is not my intent.

like I said in an earlier post, R53 may help the looting system a bit but it should go further.

I'm going to start another thread to into game development details and ramble on about stuff... lol

 

No worries. Yes your feedback is important too. There are many places we can improve. I have lots of ideas too. I look forward to reading your ideas.

 

I have to agree with @Hurricane , as a new player I feel like I'm lacking purpose in SotA. I have loved Ultima since I was in college and before, buying a new computer to play each new game as it came out (Ultima 4 required the first new computer). I'm only playing Shroud because of that - many other games are in my Stack of Shame, awaiting attention, and none of them are MMOs. And so far, other than the intro sequence and a few NPCs calling me an Avatar... it's a vast open sandbox, with no real Ultima feel. Where's Iolo? Shamino? Lord British? What happened to Ultima 9's

Spoiler

Armageddon the world, except for Skara Brae

impact to the world? Where's the *Ultima* of this?

I don't need a standard "kill the bad guy" campaign goal - which Ultima hasn't been about for 30 years - but I'd like just a little more flavor than "deliver mail to Bramble, and get a boat... something something an Oracle".

 

GRIND > Sell junk to NPC > Sell crafting materials to players > buy gear with IGG.

Best gear are player´s creations

 

The Ultima is Richard Garriott’s Stories intertwined through out SotA. For me, Richard’s stories is what I really liked about the Ultima single player series when I break it down.

The other parts (puzzles, fighting monsters, talking to NPCs, crafting, etc) are in all RPG games.

I like his humor, his opinions in the game with the level of decisions what to do and who to help. I poisoned the Blood River elves and now they don’t like me (which makes sense). I decided to help the humans instead. Now I have to live with what I did and that I got caught. I can live with it as it was my choice and the story is responding to that with me.

Richard Garriott is what makes Ultima, Ultima.

 

Sota has more "purpose" then UO, UO basically didnt even have any NPC's when I played it (first 4 years). aka no story at all.

I really dont know what more to tell you but I have 3K hours in the game now, more then any other MMO I have ever player (probably a dozen over the years that any one could name). So its doing something right for me. But you are not me and you have a different idea of fun. So me trying to explain why its fun really wont help much.

My advice to you would be to play it past the "noob", at least adv lvl 70+ when you can easily go anywhere and do anything, then formulate your opinion. you can do this even as a casual player in under a month.

 

freedom.

 

One of the things that drew me to this game was there was supposed to be a feature where player crafted items would wind up on MOBs. Set it up so items were "sold" to NPCs (i.e. taken off the vendor list after awhile, deconstructed/destroyed items, directly sold to NPC vendors, etc.) and those would in turn be put out in the world as loot. This would then be paired with "leveling" the weapon based on how it was used (undead boosts after killing tons of undead creates an "Undead Slayer" tag, etc.). This would have made loot much more interesting while still leaving player crafted gear as the best (as that is what would be getting found on all mobs). Most of this initially would have been getting pulled from what was crafted during Beta prior to the final wipe when the game was launched, while waiting for post launch players to build up crafting skills and amounts. Needless to say, this never happened as such. The changing design models killed that buffer option completely, and they still haven't managed to implement the culling of crafted items into loot yet and with how the economy is structured, I don't see it ever happening in the original concept.

Beyond random loot drops, if you look at Ultima 7 (both parts), you could get "end game items" really early by lucky discovery. There wasn't really a growth pattern towards gear as such (and gear from the very beginning could be effective throughout the entire game). This game is similar in that gear is not overly important (yes it makes a difference, but not like most MMOs or RPGs).

As to the topic title of why play, I can't answer that for you. As @2112Starman said, everyone has different values of what is fun. If you enjoy the typical MMO power level/gear progression, this game will not be what you are looking for. If you enjoy being the top dog and have the time to grind and train all skills up, this game might provide a good challenge as we have a lot of people who have skills really high so there is a target for those seeking to knock off the king of the hill. If you enjoy interesting worlds and world building, this game has a good base to build on. If you enjoy socially interacting with others, this game has the best community I've personally come across. If you thrive on PvP, this game isn't there yet (we've lost some very passionate PvP players and there are always threads popping up about it) but hopefully it will one day provide what they are looking for. If lore and story is your driving passion (one of mine), it is getting there (both those crafted by the devs and those created by fellow players) but has a ways to go. If you like being a crafter/builder, we've got a solid community to help you get going but there are some definite hurdles to get over and the economy has serious issues. All in all, as most people have said, play and find fun where you can because there isn't any "purpose" to the game as such.

 

Coming up on the end of week two with SOTA

My thoughts:

1. we need to be able to have rune books and be able to mark locations, I know they wanted regional economies however people don't care about that and cheat the system by friending everyone they see and using a teleport scroll to get around it. I want to recall to the vendor I most shop at.

2. upgrade the gold loot from higher end mobs because lets face it, if a T3 gives out the same gold as a T5 guess what I'm fighting.

3. Higher Tier areas need to give more resources at each nod, give me a reason to go there. I bought into the risk now I want to see the reward.

4. A buddy and I went on a dungeon crawl the other night where we got the Bone Throne chair, turns out it's not worth very much I even had someone on the forum tell me,
"not to burst your bubble but Sorry but this goes for like 400 gold on public vendors Sorry."

My only thought was , thanks for embarrassing me buddy thinking we killed the boss and got some great loot but nope.
You can defend this all you want but how am I or anyone else for that matter going to take these dungeons seriously.

5. The Instances or Scenes I believe SOTA calls them are to empty, Put some mob spawns in towns at least.

That is all for now.

Thank you