Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Shroud of the Avatar - Richard Garriott - Goals, Milestones, and Expectations - MMORPG.com
This discussion has been closed.
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments
Just like 99% of the players who try the game. They don't last long.
I mean , the game is already a failure. And with no sales, they won't do much other than crying and begging for money.
~~ postlarval ~~
That's just how sociopathic some of the backers are: so the above accusation of an account here which has been idle for years but now suddenly has woken up to start trolling Shroud critics isn't an exaggeration or paranoia, that's just how broken and nasty some of the community is.
And as you can see above, you can be blatantly obvious in your sockpuppeting on the official forums (noganoo) have a link to your abuse of posters on your other account (which Jammaplaya's did at the time) proving they're all you, including the poster dragging Portalarium's own name through the mud on Reddit.... and it's all fine, as long as you're doing it only to the critics and continue to fund the game.
That's just how bad the sense of community relations, or even building a game and community anyone else wants to play is over at Portalarium.
What you don't get is that most of SotA bad reviews come from well experienced MMO players, and most of them started playing MMO with Ultima Online.
We know how a good game looks like because we played hundreds of MMOs, we've played good MMOs (few), mediocre MMOs (most) and few bad MMOs, and unfortunately SotA is one of the bad ones.
I am tempted to force myself going through the pain of playing SotA once again (for the 7th time) so I can make a detailed and more articulate review of the game.
But I am not sure you will like that, trust me.
I wonder if UO was really created by him. lol
My computer room is not messy.... it's an obstacle coarse to keep me fit.
For me the game has to feel right, it has to be well put together.
But most of all it has to cater for a specific audiance and it has to deliver the expactitions of that specific audiance.
I personally can adapt to anything.
From Darkfall to ESO, from EQ to BDO, from EVE to GW2, from WoW to Archeage, from UO to SWG.
The type of Content is not the only thing I look for in a game, for me it is really important how they deliver it.
SotA is not well put together, it doesn't feel right, there is no purpose, there is no soul.
When you play SotA it just feels like playing several different features from separate games, it doesn't feel like you are playing the same game.
Plus most of the features are either too boring, or outdated or flat out out of place.
It just feels like they never really coded anything and just used Unity default features.
Only the Crafting can be salvaged, probably because that's the only feature where they had to write some line of code, as I don't think there is anything like it in Unity.
SotA is just a lazy piece of work, and you feel it while you play.
SotA should have been Ultima Online spiritual successor.
Now go and play UO, pre or post Trammel and tell me SotA is anything like it.
But even if they tried to make UO2 that doesn't mean that it would have been a success, but certainly it would have been a start, having some kind of reference helps.
If you ask me, what kind of game SotA is, what is the closest game it could be associated with, my answer would be "I don't have a clue".
To me it's just a big mess.
1) An ideas guy with no ability to attract the right talent to his team or control his staff. In other words, too nice to be a boss.
Or
2) Competent only by the standards of 20+ years ago and incapable of meeting modern standards.
A little harsh here aren't we?
MAGA
Option 2 is harsh, but it is at all unrealistic? All of his efforts in the past decade or so have been total flops.
Or as his former Vice President and co-founder of Portalarium, Stephen Nichols said: "Richard Garriott Is Full Of Shit."
"I've worked with many game designers in my time. There are some within Portalarium that I'd take any day of the week over Richard to work on a game with me. This is because Richard isn't a game designer by my definition. He's more of a creative director. High level ideas and broad strokes are nice, but they don't make the game. I repeat, they don't make the game."
I wonder who those friends are? Because if one of them is Chris Spears... his design ideas are shit too. We don't want to play them.
I love Lord British's ideas. At least, the ones he tries to sell us on when he's publicly spinning. Can we play a game with them in, please? PLEASE? Like, you know, getting Heraldry working in game as we were promised in the Kickstarter, instead of more Add On Store items and limited features for Player Owned Towns we can't afford? Or $30,000 Golden Castles?
There is a reason the vast majority of backers have turned away. It's because we were looking for an Ultima cousin and instead got something closer to Frankenstein's monster. All these scavenged pieces poorly stitched together hoping for a bolt of lightening.
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
The skill system is reminessent of UO , the comparisons STOP right there ..
The Crafting is Inferior
The Housing system is Inferior and a blatant greed cash grab
The world is Inferior , lacking soul and a feeling of immersion that UO brings ...
My god , why all the load screens , its 2017 , RG did better in 97 with this , the overland map is a horrible system , seperating the player from the world , very off putting ..
I have a BBQ to go to , will play more tonite ,and give some more feedback
A part of me still hopes that RG and co. can save this game , im a big fan of his work , but to this point , i am underwhelmed
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Seeing him now makes me wonder who the real problem was between him and Origin, and then ultimately EA. There's probably more the story with Tabula Rasa and NCSoft than he wants you to know as well.
~~ postlarval ~~
Did you actually read my post?
SotA is nothing like UO, that's its biggest problem (Yes I did play UO for 2 years).
The second problem is that the game sucks balls even as a generic MMO.
You're missing the boat. The backers are still there, they're just in some "idle mode".
Anyways, once the game hits the market, people (old enough and non-casual players) will realize it's potential (and all of you maybe, if you ever are able to EXPERIENCE the game FOR YOURSELF for MORE that a couple of hours)...and bam! That's when we (the backers) are all gonna cash in on you...watch and see.
Keep whining all you want if this is what makes you feel better, but hey, I gotta get my Sota fix...later:).
Note: If ANY of you really want to know "how" the deck system REALLY works, you'll get a pretty good idea down here, even though it has progressed since in a better way for less player-skilled people, the core mechanics are still in place (there's so much more to the PvP strategy aspect due to the depth of the game, but the video doesn't explain it, you gotta experience the game to get that knowledge):
Part 1:
Part 2:
The lady who's done the above vids, also done a few others explaining some other mechanisms of the game that really helped me understand some parts of the game, and would give you a better idea of what you think you are talking about.
Have a nice day.
It must be frustrating to try and have a discussion with people who disagree with you, no matter what you say.
Welcome to our world over on the SotA forums.
Karma is a bitch.
~~ postlarval ~~
Here is a news flash: The game already "Hit the market". It's on Steam (for a long.. long time) and they stopped wiping ages ago. Don't really care how it's wordsmithed, but once an MMO stops wiping... they are launched. The magic backer-fairy isn't going to appear and wave her wand and suddenly have all of us come back to the game.
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
Personally I think NCsoft just made mistakes on the wording of how they released an employee and he exploited the mistake they had made.
Playing the game right now.
So far bored to death, but I will keep playing even if my eyes are bleeding.
A loading screen every 5 minutes though...that's what I call fun!!!
I started afresh.
A small update about my Journey so far (that's just the first 2 hours):
1) The starting zone is pointless, it serves no purpose.
2) Music is good but for a Thriller Movie, not for a game. It's repetitive and doesn't adapt to the different situations (ex: when you start a fight), it also gives you depression so I turned it off.
3) Sound. Non-existent. The world is silent except for a couple of grunts and moans here and there, which are quite creepy by the way.
4) My inventory is already full with 100s items, most of it notes, books and other stuff I have no clue what to do with. Useful, Useless? No idea.
5) The UI is atrocious, every time you exit a conversation it goes in Cursor Mode (this is basic stuff). It also requires too many buttons to perform simple actions. And it is really, really ugly. Just rubbish.
6) NPCs conversations are way too long and most of the time they don't give you any Quests or say anything interesting. Just a waste of time.
7) Animations are generally really basic, but sometimes can be really bad, characters and NPCs sliding as if they were walking on ice is not a rare occurance.
8) Did I mention a Loading Screen every 5 minutes?
9) Some zones are really small and feel cloustrophobic, also invisible walls are back with a vengeance (Last I saw them was Age of Conan).
10) No General chat. That's controversial as many would say that this type of game doesn't require one and it would kill immersion. I disgress, the game feels dead.
11) Lag is bad. I am playing on my little brother PC which is not as powerful as mine and the game lags like hell while in a (empty) city. On mine it's ok, but that's a proper gaming rig.
12) Graphics is generally ok, as in barely acceptable. But player characters and some armor look dreadful.
13) NPCs enemies seems to be mainly Skeletons, Wolves and Bandits. Not a lot of variety.
14) Population. Is there any? I didn't meet anyone so far in the starting city, maybe they are all partying in Lord British Manor, who knows.
15) Quests so far are really boring and somehow difficult to complete. I don't have a problem reading long quests, but even reading the text few times sometimes is quite difficult to understand what you need to do and where to go.
16) The Travel Map is flat out awkward and not necessary. You could get lost quite easy because the point of interests are not clear at all, it doesn't encourage exploration. You really don't know where to go because the Map doesn't make it clear what the zones are or do. The fact that the Zone Names are written in Hieroglyphics doesn't help either.
17) Combat is just Meh. I don't mind slow combat, but this feels too repetitive and unresponsive. In general is really boring. It's something you'd see in a game from the 90s.
18) Crafting is decent, probably the only saving grace. I actually didn't play it this session, but I messed around before. It's ok.
And that's only the first 2 hours!
How people can play this tripe willingly for more than two hours?
I will try to keep playing it, because @klash2001 said that playing just a couple of hours it's not enough to appreciate the quality of the game.
I am sure that playing another 15 hours will make all those problems disappear...
But for today I had enough.... now I need a bottle of vodka to recover.