I'm a backer too and as was mentioned by someone else: the overly aggressive/desperate attempt to squeeze even more money out of people without a way of avoiding it and then what was delivered last time I bothered to log in again ... yawn.
I backed it because I could and for Ultima's sake. But I'm by now filtering the emails into some folder and am not going to bother looking into them - and I won't back him again. There is Indie creative and appealing and there is a sad attempt to redo the same thing over ... and over ... and over. And at some point people should be honest and assess that they seem only able to make a garage product. And I don't mean the Minecraft, Papers Please or Don't Starve! type of garage games.
If parents pat their kids on the shoulder for everything because they are biased and think what was achieved was great - that is one thing. But if adults make something that is so lacking while constantly pressing for more money ... I'm out of it.
Played: Pretty much any fantasy MMO, some did not even make it to release ... Favorites: UO, EQ2, Vanguard, Wurm Online, Salem, ESO, Creativerse Playing: ESO, Creativerse, Guild Wars 2 Anticipating: (sigh) ... maybe Ashes of Creation
The words avatar, instance, and terms like pk, pvp, are from Ultima Online.
In 1996 there were a ton of games with better graphics to choose from over UO. I picked it because it was new and online. Sheer Madness! Well, it turned out to be the grandaddy of all the games that you are discussing here. No argument on that.
I know I sound like a "fan boy" but when certain people do stuff I pay attention. i.e. Richard Branson, Mark Cuban, etc. Why?? Because they came out of nowhere and innovate stuff. Its rarer than you think.
Let's put whats going down with Shroud of the Avatar into perspective. How many Kickstarter games have you played(maybe a few since Portolarium decided to do one)? How many items have you presented to the developers of your favorite game? How many of those have been implemented. How many times have you searched for worms, to catch the special fish, that has eaten the map to a dungeon, which hold the ore, to craft the special sword, to present to the Lord, so he can dawn you knight of his city, so you cab represent the city as champion in The Realms PvP tournament(all player run)?
Anyway, I like the coolest cooler, too, on Kickstarter. Could go to Wally World and buy a well insulated, aesthetically pleasing. I want a radio and bottle opener on mine. kinda what Ive been wanting out of a cooler for a while.
Maybe someday, games will pull a page from Shroud and have crowd sourcing and player driven plots with super nice graphics. We'll never know until Lord British and the gang potentially pull this off.
I like the combat in most AAA MMOs, both tab-targeting and action. It's the one thing that keeps me playing this genre instead of first-person shooters. I think it's the other gameplay elements - character levels, quest grinding to get to end game, the concept of end game, on-rails experience - that need innovation, not combat.
As much as I loved the Ultima series, I don't think I've seen many games with as stale art direction as Shroud. I don't need super high res textures or models with thousands of polygons, but the look of the game turns me off long before I can even start to think about whether its combat is good or not.
Axxar pretty much sums up how I feel as well.
And I pretty much like any art direction, from the goofy cartoonish style of Wildstar to the almost real looking style of games like Black Desert, and anything in between.
I can't help getting the feeling that the graphics in Sota was made by a few coders who like to draw a little on the side. Almost like there is no art style, more that it reached the limit of the artists capabilities...
combat was very strange at first but once you figure out you could in actuality cheat the card system too allow your skills to become permanent on the 1 -9 button set it then seemed more familiar but by doing so you had to go down a very specific route to allow cards to be permanent and once they were permanent they took a huge slap in terms of resource management so you had to by default continue down the route to remove the negative aspects of having permanent cards. For myself why would I risk random card drawing when I can build exactly what I want and have the card called whenever it was ready? As soon as people figure this out it really removes any aspect of an innovative card combat system since this route was much more efficient and allowed you to play combat exactly the way you wanted. Though I could be wrong but it seems to make combat much easier and not random card drawing. In pvp I would assume having what you want when you want will defeat one with a set of cards on random chance of duration and draw, unless I'm missing something here?
I really do hope the visuals improve as they are just generic and boring in my opinion they remind me of when I read an old science book and you get those horribly drawn pictures of humans, animals etc that are just so generic you cant stand to look at it any more but again that's my opinion. Also animations I hope they improve as well it just kills me to see horrible animations in a game albeit in a alpha/beta build it will require some major improvments.7
There is alot of critic against the combat system but as long as SotA developers don't accept this fact i believe this random card combat system will stay.
This is what Chris wrote about his combat system and the feedback he had noticed -
You really should give it a try for a few hours before criticizing it. There were a LOT of people who raged against the system until we got it live and now it has almost universal support.
I also get the same feeling reading SotA fanbois response over at SotA forums towards criticism against the game. It seems SotA fanbois with rose-coloured glasses and SotA developers live in a imaginary world where SotA is going in the right direction no matter what response the game get.
All I can do is LOL at Chris Spears' comment.
Universal support? Well, if you constantly ban dissenters from the forums, don't count all the people who've sold their accounts and left the forums, and those who are so disgruntled with the game and forums, they never come back to dissent.... then really all you have left is universal support. Fanboys are almost all that's left there, save for the brave few who try to give useful negative feedback. The place is nearly a ghost town.
I disliked the whole idea of a card system for combat at first as well. After using it, tweaking it, and implementing it, I actually like it now. Who would have thought?
Give it a try before you knock it and don't forget, this is still Alpha. Most places don't have the stones to let people play no less review their work so early on
I think they have just stuck Portalariums online poker mechanics into the game, it looks and plays like any Texas hold'em game you just don't see the deck.
They may looking to add an in game Poker casino to drag in some $$
Comments
Actually. It is not.
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/poll-sota-or-uo2-which-do-you-want.7448/
http://insanemembrain.wordpress.com/
I'm a backer too and as was mentioned by someone else: the overly aggressive/desperate attempt to squeeze even more money out of people without a way of avoiding it and then what was delivered last time I bothered to log in again ... yawn.
I backed it because I could and for Ultima's sake. But I'm by now filtering the emails into some folder and am not going to bother looking into them - and I won't back him again. There is Indie creative and appealing and there is a sad attempt to redo the same thing over ... and over ... and over. And at some point people should be honest and assess that they seem only able to make a garage product. And I don't mean the Minecraft, Papers Please or Don't Starve! type of garage games.
If parents pat their kids on the shoulder for everything because they are biased and think what was achieved was great - that is one thing. But if adults make something that is so lacking while constantly pressing for more money ... I'm out of it.
Played: Pretty much any fantasy MMO, some did not even make it to release ...
Favorites: UO, EQ2, Vanguard, Wurm Online, Salem, ESO, Creativerse
Playing: ESO, Creativerse, Guild Wars 2
Anticipating: (sigh) ... maybe Ashes of Creation
-WARNING*WARNING*WARNING*WARNING*WARNING*WARNING*WARNING*WARNING-
DO NOT LOOK AT SHROUD OF THE AVATAR UNLESS YOU ARE INTRIGUED BY INNOVATION AND INVENTION.
-WARNING*WARNING*WARNING*WARNING*WARNING*WARNING*WARNING*WARNING-
The words avatar, instance, and terms like pk, pvp, are from Ultima Online.
In 1996 there were a ton of games with better graphics to choose from over UO. I picked it because it was new and online. Sheer Madness! Well, it turned out to be the grandaddy of all the games that you are discussing here. No argument on that.
I know I sound like a "fan boy" but when certain people do stuff I pay attention. i.e. Richard Branson, Mark Cuban, etc. Why?? Because they came out of nowhere and innovate stuff. Its rarer than you think.
Let's put whats going down with Shroud of the Avatar into perspective. How many Kickstarter games have you played(maybe a few since Portolarium decided to do one)? How many items have you presented to the developers of your favorite game? How many of those have been implemented. How many times have you searched for worms, to catch the special fish, that has eaten the map to a dungeon, which hold the ore, to craft the special sword, to present to the Lord, so he can dawn you knight of his city, so you cab represent the city as champion in The Realms PvP tournament(all player run)?
Anyway, I like the coolest cooler, too, on Kickstarter. Could go to Wally World and buy a well insulated, aesthetically pleasing. I want a radio and bottle opener on mine. kinda what Ive been wanting out of a cooler for a while.
Maybe someday, games will pull a page from Shroud and have crowd sourcing and player driven plots with super nice graphics. We'll never know until Lord British and the gang potentially pull this off.
Axxar pretty much sums up how I feel as well.
And I pretty much like any art direction, from the goofy cartoonish style of Wildstar to the almost real looking style of games like Black Desert, and anything in between.
I can't help getting the feeling that the graphics in Sota was made by a few coders who like to draw a little on the side. Almost like there is no art style, more that it reached the limit of the artists capabilities...
combat was very strange at first but once you figure out you could in actuality cheat the card system too allow your skills to become permanent on the 1 -9 button set it then seemed more familiar but by doing so you had to go down a very specific route to allow cards to be permanent and once they were permanent they took a huge slap in terms of resource management so you had to by default continue down the route to remove the negative aspects of having permanent cards. For myself why would I risk random card drawing when I can build exactly what I want and have the card called whenever it was ready? As soon as people figure this out it really removes any aspect of an innovative card combat system since this route was much more efficient and allowed you to play combat exactly the way you wanted. Though I could be wrong but it seems to make combat much easier and not random card drawing. In pvp I would assume having what you want when you want will defeat one with a set of cards on random chance of duration and draw, unless I'm missing something here?
I really do hope the visuals improve as they are just generic and boring in my opinion they remind me of when I read an old science book and you get those horribly drawn pictures of humans, animals etc that are just so generic you cant stand to look at it any more but again that's my opinion. Also animations I hope they improve as well it just kills me to see horrible animations in a game albeit in a alpha/beta build it will require some major improvments.7
Gnomon Workshop Nov 2016, 3rd Place 3D Contest Winner
Gnomon Workshop April 2014, 1st Place 3D Contest Winner
Gnomon Workshop February 2013, 1st Place 3D Contest Winner
Gnomon Workshop December 2012, 3rd Place 3D Contest Winner
All I can do is LOL at Chris Spears' comment.
Universal support? Well, if you constantly ban dissenters from the forums, don't count all the people who've sold their accounts and left the forums, and those who are so disgruntled with the game and forums, they never come back to dissent.... then really all you have left is universal support. Fanboys are almost all that's left there, save for the brave few who try to give useful negative feedback. The place is nearly a ghost town.
I disliked the whole idea of a card system for combat at first as well. After using it, tweaking it, and implementing it, I actually like it now. Who would have thought?
Give it a try before you knock it and don't forget, this is still Alpha. Most places don't have the stones to let people play no less review their work so early on
I think they have just stuck Portalariums online poker mechanics into the game, it looks and plays like any Texas hold'em game you just don't see the deck.
They may looking to add an in game Poker casino to drag in some $$