Ah, the responses over there are much more harmless than I would have expected. I think most of them treat this review pretty fair. The main critique I can see is that I focused too much on superficialities. And from their perspective, I guess that's a legit complaint. Of course, that's why it is a review in progress. The technical issues are the first things you stumble over. I believe immediately that for them the strengths of the game lie somewhere else, and I hope I will find them too. That's why there will be another part. Still, that doesn't mitigate the problems.
In general I am pretty surprised about the favorable responses here. I can't reply to each of them, but I definitely would have expected more headwind. Of course it's anyway nothing you can care about while writing, but I am still positively surprised, so thanks for the reception.
In general I am pretty surprised about the favorable responses here. I can't reply to each of them, but I definitely would have expected more headwind. Of course it's anyway nothing you can care about while writing, but I am still positively surprised, so thanks for the reception.
Just keep telling it like it IS and not how you might want it to be or it might be in the future. That's why I always like @Grakulen reviews. No fluff and puff. Like I said, I backed this game. I'm a big fan of Garriott. One of my fondest gaming memories is sitting in a friends basement while we finished Ultima 3 (attacked by grass!!!). I still appreciate a CRITICAL review.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
"Shroud of the Avatar is far from being released but then again, you can buy the game and your progress persists"
If you can purchase it and progress persists that is "released" to most of your readers. Why not just call it what it is and stop echoing developer gibberish.
I have not played this in a while. Might go back and try it again sometime in the future. It definitely was not anything like UO though. Like someone said, having too much fun playing Grim Dawn at the moment.
Why are you deliberately leaving out parts of the quote? The original quote says: "We are well aware that according to the developers, despite the final wipe, Shroud of the Avatar is far from being officially released." And that is a fact. The developers did not give it an official "released" tag. They are even actively stating how it is not released. But the fact alone that we are doing the review, besides that it's also explained in the article why we are doing it, should make it pretty clear that these tags nowadays don't mean too much anymore.
Because devs can call something "not released" until the cows come home, as an excuse to why things suck/are unfinished/bad, and enabling like you are doing lets them off the hook. It is simply an attempt to deflect blame for charging for an incomplete product. Developers have been using the "early access" excuse for a while now, and it is wearing thin.
But that does not make it right.
Once they are taking money (sub/premium/cashshop or other on a continuing basis) and there are no more wipes, the game is live.
Ah, the responses over there are much more harmless than I would have expected. I think most of them treat this review pretty fair. The main critique I can see is that I focused too much on superficialities. And from their perspective, I guess that's a legit complaint. Of course, that's why it is a review in progress. The technical issues are the first things you stumble over. I believe immediately that for them the strengths of the game lie somewhere else, and I hope I will find them too. That's why there will be another part. Still, that doesn't mitigate the problems.
In general I am pretty surprised about the favorable responses here. I can't reply to each of them, but I definitely would have expected more headwind. Of course it's anyway nothing you can care about while writing, but I am still positively surprised, so thanks for the reception.
You were very fair and I had to agree with some of your critiques, especially clunkiness and combat. I am a long time backer and big supporter of Sota, but I can't see much that you were critical about that isn't true. It's not finished yet so there's time for improvements still, and I hope your review of the final product will be able to be more positive.
We have a super nice dev team and community so I really want this game to succeed and I have high hopes that it will. Just like a master chef, legitimate critiques of your work help you to improve more than the praises do and I hope your review helps. It's tough to hear I know, but sometimes you need fresh eyes on your work to see the problem areas so they can be corrected.
Never cared to learn much about this game before. Like, i did not know of the different play modes (on-line, single) all that. That interested me enough to move this to a maybe someday.
Was just a never going to play till i read this review. Now i will look in in a few months and see how it seems to be going.
So to the reviewer, from my perspective, you did a fine job. Got me to learn a bit about something i never tried to learn before. Gave the game a maybe from me if they can put some good fixes into it.
Sounds like a win for all. Looks like a good honest review, and the game will get me to look at it now, where i never had an interest before.
Because devs can call something "not released" until the cows come home, as an excuse to why things suck/are unfinished/bad, and enabling like you are doing lets them off the hook. It is simply an attempt to deflect blame for charging for an incomplete product. Developers have been using the "early access" excuse for a while now, and it is wearing thin.
But that does not make it right.
Once they are taking money (sub/premium/cashshop or other on a continuing basis) and there are no more wipes, the game is live.
Period.
So Oz is exactly correct.
The game has been "early access" and "in an unfinished state" for what, three years now?
Those phrases are also the standard response given for just about every complaint about the game. It's the national SotA pastime to tell people, "it's not done yet!".
Doesn't really matter though. They'll run out of money soon and they can do another dozen telethons and sell some more blood. The SotA groupies will lap it up like Lord Sewl snorting cocaine off a hooker's belly.
There were a few things it got wrong, like saying it was the spiritual successor to ultima online...when in the kickstarter it was more a combination of that and the older ultima's. The game changed after the kickstarter when Darkstar got involved.
I have had my issues(and still do) with the developers who another poster stated are so "nice". I feel that is more of a feel for the higher backers then those that only give them a bit.
It gets down voted by a few of the ardent defenders but a lot agree with my assessment.
You also didn't touch on the fact the game isn't balanced right now, too easy to level and get things so that the economy is basically going to be out of balance from the start.
Ah, the responses over there are much more harmless than I would have expected. I think most of them treat this review pretty fair. The main critique I can see is that I focused too much on superficialities. And from their perspective, I guess that's a legit complaint. Of course, that's why it is a review in progress. The technical issues are the first things you stumble over. I believe immediately that for them the strengths of the game lie somewhere else, and I hope I will find them too. That's why there will be another part. Still, that doesn't mitigate the problems.
In general I am pretty surprised about the favorable responses here. I can't reply to each of them, but I definitely would have expected more headwind. Of course it's anyway nothing you can care about while writing, but I am still positively surprised, so thanks for the reception.
Technical problems didn't used to be breakers. Every game has them in some form or another. But frankly, after years of gaming, I have little patience for them any more. Whereas I used to be first through the door on every MMO release, now I sit back, let everyone else rush in and get burned. Sometimes I'll wait 6 months or a year before visiting a new MMO release. If they haven't gotten their stuff sorted out by then, they aren't going to.
Thanks very much for the in progress review. I was very interested in this game when it was first released, but my interest has slowly waned. Hopefully when the game is "released" it will actually be ready.
Everything said in this review have i been informing about for a long, long time over at the forums here and what surprice me the most is that nothing have changed to the better.
Every good idea that was coming from the old UO veterans were shot down by the carebears that had put thousands of dollar into the game. Developers only listened to them so they are equally responsible.
Ideas like full loot, open world PvP, a combat system that demand the same hi level of player skills as UO had (best combat system ever) and not a random card game that no one except some strange carebears over at SotA forum enjoys.
Now i can only smile when these whales slowly but finally will understand they were wrong and we the old UO veterans were right with our ideas.
It's sad that developers rather listened to the money then all the good ideas from the old experienced players.
Every good idea that was coming from the old UO veterans were shot down by the carebears that had put thousands of dollar into the game. Developers only listened to them so they are equally responsible.
Ideas like full loot, open world PvP, a combat system that demand the same hi level of player skills as UO had (best combat system ever) and not a random card game that no one except some strange carebears over at SotA forum enjoys.
Now i can only smile when these whales slowly but finally will understand they were wrong and we the old UO veterans were right with our ideas.
It's sad that developers rather listened to the money then all the good ideas from the old experienced players.
Well if you put it as eloquently as you did here...I can't see why they wouldn't listen to you. Problem was trying to make a UO game in the first place, should have tried to revive an ultima style game.
The real problem is if you look at the thread on the official forums at the thread about this review, posters like Baron Drocis are the problem, he manipulates threads then screams for mods. He has done this for years. For some reason they don't seem to see it, he has gotten a few banned from there.
Every good idea that was coming from the old UO veterans were shot down by the carebears that had put thousands of dollar into the game. Developers only listened to them so they are equally responsible.
Ideas like full loot, open world PvP, a combat system that demand the same hi level of player skills as UO had (best combat system ever) and not a random card game that no one except some strange carebears over at SotA forum enjoys.
Now i can only smile when these whales slowly but finally will understand they were wrong and we the old UO veterans were right with our ideas.
It's sad that developers rather listened to the money then all the good ideas from the old experienced players.
Well if you put it as eloquently as you did here...I can't see why they wouldn't listen to you. Problem was trying to make a UO game in the first place, should have tried to revive an ultima style game.
The real problem is if you look at the thread on the official forums at the thread about this review, posters like Baron Drocis are the problem, he manipulates threads then screams for mods. He has done this for years. For some reason they don't seem to see it, he has gotten a few banned from there.
I gave up after a long, long time of patience and hoping for developers to come arround, they never did.
My forum name over at SotA was as some have already expected Ara. Anyone can check up on all the ideas i came up with to make this a more successful game but some forum names had way to much of developers ear's. Not listening to the the majority that wanted changes to PvP but instead only listened to the player's that had invested the most money was a major miscalculation of developers.
That also put the finger on using a way like this to finance your game, developer's told us many times they were listening to their community but they only listened to the one's that had the deepest pockets.
I tried to get back into the forums but all i got was excuses from the one's responsible of accepting me as a forum user after my password for some reason didn't work one day. I was probably banned from SotA forums but they never had the balls to tell me right out.
Starr long banned me from Steam cause many of these whales didn't like what i wrote, i followed the rules but since the majority he said didn't like my opinions he decided to go with the majority, that was his explanation why i was banned.
That pissed me off to say it calmly and i decided to tell the truth about developer's, moderators and the community that i see close to a nasty religious sect.
I would like to thank MMORPG forums for being such a unbiased one (probably the best arround) cause SotA forums and it's moderators sure isnt.
Now it is to late to come arround and make excuses on the developers poor behaviour towards old UO veterans that were tricked to pledge for something it never were ment to be and not to forget the very poor treatment of the from start majority of their community that had waited +10 years for UO2.
I could tell these carebear whales this "what did i tell you", and that is exactly what i do now.
Their feud to get all the UO PvP players loose interest in the game succeeded but in the end they themself came out as the biggest loosers.
I can live with loosing my 45 bucks kickstarter money but i feel sad for the one's that invested thousands of dollars into this game.
Ah, the responses over there are much more harmless than I would have expected. I think most of them treat this review pretty fair. The main critique I can see is that I focused too much on superficialities. And from their perspective, I guess that's a legit complaint. Of course, that's why it is a review in progress. The technical issues are the first things you stumble over. I believe immediately that for them the strengths of the game lie somewhere else, and I hope I will find them too. That's why there will be another part. Still, that doesn't mitigate the problems.
In general I am pretty surprised about the favorable responses here. I can't reply to each of them, but I definitely would have expected more headwind. Of course it's anyway nothing you can care about while writing, but I am still positively surprised, so thanks for the reception.
I hope u go thu the gathering and craftin some. it takes hours worth of gatherin to even craft even a copper sword its a grind grind grind. Make a long bow i dare u lol
Based on the sheer amount of post, this certainly is a game people are interested in, maybe because it is Garriotts latest attempt.
I think where the game really destroys the immersiveness though, is in its overuse of scenes. You just have to zone way too many times and you are forced to zone, because each scene is SO small that you might stay there and fight for a bit, but at some point, very quickly you get tired of that and need to go to the city or something.
I dont see what more is needed to make the interface great either. It seems to me that it has what a typical MMO has. And the graphics is fair. I think the scenes are quite good actually, but the very clunky animations destroys the feeling.
I like the combat, its very MMO'ish. Here the interface might lack a bit, I never discovered the random aspect of the deck thing, even though I knew it was there...
Its not really a game I could recommend, the overuse of zoning is just too much, maybe because we can see game after game that knows how to avoid this. And yeah, this is said to be early-alpha, but how do you expect zoning to be removed/reduced even with further development?
Instead of trying to make a game that uses UO mechanics(which it does) and is kinda like UO/Ultima sorta. They should have just put the money into a new version of UO with the mechanics every one loves minus all the stuff that chased every one away
I watched RipperX's play through. The game looks good to me.
Hmmm, that is strange. I had the exact opposite reaction to watching Ripper's playthrough. To me it looked like a pretty boring game that he seemed to be trying to hype up as good. It actually really baffled me to the point that I wasn't sure if he was serious or just really good at laying on sarcasm.
First mmorpg.com review in years, many years in fact, that i absolutely agree with. Well done
Partly the significant number of SotA backers that have never played an mmo in their lives (yes, as you read it.. doubly ironic when you consider that some of the more prominent voices within the community fall into this category..), partly a minority of whales dictating the course of development, partly a Richard Garriot that seems keen to 'maintain' his facebook games' credit card money milking practices (Zynga).. and this is what you get.
Sad but true. I still hope for improvements, but when the mentality is set in stone, there's not much room for these, is there.
on a P.S., congratulations once again to mmorpg.com. Was getting sick and effing tired of Red Thomas' fanboying 24/7
Actually the correct statement would be "SOTA is the spiritual successor of the Ultima I-IX games, with combat akin to UO" NOT the spiritual successor of UO!!
The real problem is if you look at the thread on the official forums at the thread about this review, posters like Baron Drocis are the problem, he manipulates threads then screams for mods. He has done this for years. For some reason they don't seem to see it, he has gotten a few banned from there.
More than a few.
In other circles we call him Baron Bait & Report.
If you're looking for a perfect example of the worst in the SotA community, he's your man.
The combat system of lets be different to be different ruined it for me. Immersive yet lets stare at what card you might get.... Backed the game and after that was released sold the house. I may check it again in the future, but as it stands now, likely not.
Actually the correct statement would be "SOTA is the spiritual successor of the Ultima I-IX games, with combat akin to UO" NOT the spiritual successor of UO!!
Your wrong.
The right statement is from Garriotts own mouth and it was - SotA is a spiritual successor to UO.
The real problem is if you look at the thread on the official forums at the thread about this review, posters like Baron Drocis are the problem, he manipulates threads then screams for mods. He has done this for years. For some reason they don't seem to see it, he has gotten a few banned from there.
More than a few.
In other circles we call him Baron Bait & Report.
If you're looking for a perfect example of the worst in the SotA community, he's your man.
Well moderators over at SotA forums are corrupted so of course he do just fine.
Comments
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
Ah, the responses over there are much more harmless than I would have expected. I think most of them treat this review pretty fair. The main critique I can see is that I focused too much on superficialities. And from their perspective, I guess that's a legit complaint. Of course, that's why it is a review in progress. The technical issues are the first things you stumble over. I believe immediately that for them the strengths of the game lie somewhere else, and I hope I will find them too. That's why there will be another part. Still, that doesn't mitigate the problems.
In general I am pretty surprised about the favorable responses here. I can't reply to each of them, but I definitely would have expected more headwind. Of course it's anyway nothing you can care about while writing, but I am still positively surprised, so thanks for the reception.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
But that does not make it right.
Once they are taking money (sub/premium/cashshop or other on a continuing basis) and there are no more wipes, the game is live.
Period.
So Oz is exactly correct.
You were very fair and I had to agree with some of your critiques, especially clunkiness and combat. I am a long time backer and big supporter of Sota, but I can't see much that you were critical about that isn't true.
We have a super nice dev team and community so I really want this game to succeed and I have high hopes that it will. Just like a master chef, legitimate critiques of your work help you to improve more than the praises do and I hope your review helps. It's tough to hear I know, but sometimes you need fresh eyes on your work to see the problem areas so they can be corrected.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
Was just a never going to play till i read this review. Now i will look in in a few months and see how it seems to be going.
So to the reviewer, from my perspective, you did a fine job. Got me to learn a bit about something i never tried to learn before. Gave the game a maybe from me if they can put some good fixes into it.
Sounds like a win for all. Looks like a good honest review, and the game will get me to look at it now, where i never had an interest before.
Well done.
Those phrases are also the standard response given for just about every complaint about the game. It's the national SotA pastime to tell people, "it's not done yet!".
Doesn't really matter though. They'll run out of money soon and they can do another dozen telethons and sell some more blood. The SotA groupies will lap it up like Lord Sewl snorting cocaine off a hooker's belly.
Cha ching!
~~ postlarval ~~
There were a few things it got wrong, like saying it was the spiritual successor to ultima online...when in the kickstarter it was more a combination of that and the older ultima's. The game changed after the kickstarter when Darkstar got involved.
I have had my issues(and still do) with the developers who another poster stated are so "nice". I feel that is more of a feel for the higher backers then those that only give them a bit.
I did up a quick review of the latest build here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/shroudoftheavatar/comments/4x47c1/my_review_of_release_32/
It gets down voted by a few of the ardent defenders but a lot agree with my assessment.
You also didn't touch on the fact the game isn't balanced right now, too easy to level and get things so that the economy is basically going to be out of balance from the start.
For reference that poster regularly does posts like that...he is a high backer.
Might want to get someone to proofread your work before submitting, IMO.
Is a man not entitled to the herp of his derp?
Remember, I live in a world where juggalos and yugioh players are real things.
Thanks very much for the in progress review. I was very interested in this game when it was first released, but my interest has slowly waned. Hopefully when the game is "released" it will actually be ready.
This is one of the worst games ever created.
Ideas like full loot, open world PvP, a combat system that demand the same hi level of player skills as UO had (best combat system ever) and not a random card game that no one except some strange carebears over at SotA forum enjoys.
Now i can only smile when these whales slowly but finally will understand they were wrong and we the old UO veterans were right with our ideas.
It's sad that developers rather listened to the money then all the good ideas from the old experienced players.
Well if you put it as eloquently as you did here...I can't see why they wouldn't listen to you. Problem was trying to make a UO game in the first place, should have tried to revive an ultima style game.
The real problem is if you look at the thread on the official forums at the thread about this review, posters like Baron Drocis are the problem, he manipulates threads then screams for mods. He has done this for years. For some reason they don't seem to see it, he has gotten a few banned from there.
I gave up after a long, long time of patience and hoping for developers to come arround, they never did.
My forum name over at SotA was as some have already expected Ara. Anyone can check up on all the ideas i came up with to make this a more successful game but some forum names had way to much of developers ear's. Not listening to the the majority that wanted changes to PvP but instead only listened to the player's that had invested the most money was a major miscalculation of developers.
That also put the finger on using a way like this to finance your game, developer's told us many times they were listening to their community but they only listened to the one's that had the deepest pockets.
I tried to get back into the forums but all i got was excuses from the one's responsible of accepting me as a forum user after my password for some reason didn't work one day. I was probably banned from SotA forums but they never had the balls to tell me right out.
Starr long banned me from Steam cause many of these whales didn't like what i wrote, i followed the rules but since the majority he said didn't like my opinions he decided to go with the majority, that was his explanation why i was banned.
That pissed me off to say it calmly and i decided to tell the truth about developer's, moderators and the community that i see close to a nasty religious sect. I would like to thank MMORPG forums for being such a unbiased one (probably the best arround) cause SotA forums and it's moderators sure isnt. Now it is to late to come arround and make excuses on the developers poor behaviour towards old UO veterans that were tricked to pledge for something it never were ment to be and not to forget the very poor treatment of the from start majority of their community that had waited +10 years for UO2. I could tell these carebear whales this "what did i tell you", and that is exactly what i do now. Their feud to get all the UO PvP players loose interest in the game succeeded but in the end they themself came out as the biggest loosers. I can live with loosing my 45 bucks kickstarter money but i feel sad for the one's that invested thousands of dollars into this game.
I hope u go thu the gathering and craftin some. it takes hours worth of gatherin to even craft even a copper sword its a grind grind grind. Make a long bow i dare u lol
I think where the game really destroys the immersiveness though, is in its overuse of scenes. You just have to zone way too many times and you are forced to zone, because each scene is SO small that you might stay there and fight for a bit, but at some point, very quickly you get tired of that and need to go to the city or something.
I dont see what more is needed to make the interface great either. It seems to me that it has what a typical MMO has. And the graphics is fair. I think the scenes are quite good actually, but the very clunky animations destroys the feeling.
I like the combat, its very MMO'ish. Here the interface might lack a bit, I never discovered the random aspect of the deck thing, even though I knew it was there...
Its not really a game I could recommend, the overuse of zoning is just too much, maybe because we can see game after game that knows how to avoid this. And yeah, this is said to be early-alpha, but how do you expect zoning to be removed/reduced even with further development?
Partly the significant number of SotA backers that have never played an mmo in their lives (yes, as you read it.. doubly ironic when you consider that some of the more prominent voices within the community fall into this category..), partly a minority of whales dictating the course of development, partly a Richard Garriot that seems keen to 'maintain' his facebook games' credit card money milking practices (Zynga).. and this is what you get.
Sad but true. I still hope for improvements, but when the mentality is set in stone, there's not much room for these, is there.
on a P.S., congratulations once again to mmorpg.com. Was getting sick and effing tired of Red Thomas' fanboying 24/7
Pride, honour and purity
In other circles we call him Baron Bait & Report.
If you're looking for a perfect example of the worst in the SotA community, he's your man.
~~ postlarval ~~
Proud member of Hammerfist Clan Gaming Community.
Currently playing: RIFT, EQ2, WoW, LoTRO
Retired: Warhammer, AoC, EQ
Waiting: SWToR & GW2
Your wrong.
The right statement is from Garriotts own mouth and it was - SotA is a spiritual successor to UO.
You need to learn more of the games history dude.
Well moderators over at SotA forums are corrupted so of course he do just fine.