Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
This game any fun !
delete5230
Member EpicPosts: 7,081
I usually stay on top of things but Shroud of the Avatar slipped by my radar. Anyway, I found it last night on steam. At first I was excited, a new game in alpha made by Richard Garriott.
I instantly began my YouTubing to find out all I can. My first video impressed me. The guy doing the review was upbeat and positive about the game. I liked the instant Old School look of the game. I'm thinking finally an mmo with deep play rather than graphics. I don't need graphics, put all resources into rich content. I was impressed with detail, he talked about crafting, open world and typing conversations with NPCs.....I fell in love !
Well, several videos later, not so much............I understand full well the game is in alpha. I'm open minded. I started catching several un impressive stuff like typing conversations to npcs don't work. Infact not at all. Players on Youtube were trying hard to make this work but no. Zero interacting ! The most you can do is click on EVERY npc and try to catch highlighted clues to do something, so you better be extra smart for no real good reason.
The game has housing, non instant housing, this scares me. It sounds like another mad rush to get your house like Archage, this has been proven a bad idea. Infact watching a commentary from Richard Garriott he even admitted first come first serve !
With more and more Youtubes things are really getting bad. I'm lessoning to reviewers talking about how expensive houses are. I'm not grasping full well of this. Expensive how ?....Several Youtubes later, I found out !.....CASH SHOP !....yes, CASH SHOP. Small house $60 larger over $100........Micro transactions, more than just housing too, very expensive ones !
I should have stopped watching there but I pressed on.
Now Youtubes often make games look bad. I know I talked about not caring about graphics. BUT everyone was dressed the same with this goofy top hat and drab armor, and the world looked depressing and all zones looked the same. Did I say zones ? Yes I did. The game is heavily instanced. You zone often with Longg load screens.
I watched a player that found an exploreable dungeon. This should be good, I love my dungeons. Well, not so much. The first room had this clickable thing on the ground. He pressed it and 4 wolfs appeared. Kind of cheap. The next room was the same, 4 skeletons, then 4 bears and so on !
Now I'm willing to give up graphics, but in Shroud of Avatar, why ?... There seems to be no deep rich game play trade off.
I should have stopped watching with the CASH GRAB SHOP !!!!
Comments
The basic premise of the game is something that appeals to me. There are some basic problems though:
Combat is very susceptible to lag. Combat mechanics are essentially old fashioned. Circle strafe kiting (even for melee) seems to win out against mobs easily when there is no lag. They chase you around and don't catch up enough to hit you. Meanwhile you are behind them (cause they're dumb) hitting them. With lag, you can be trying to hit things that aren't where you expect while your hit points are dropping when the mob appears to be fighting an invisible opponent.
Also the game is vulnerable to griefing by training mobs onto other players. You can train a mob onto someone already fighting, just run around so the mobs don't get you and they kill the other guy then finish off the mobs and loot them both. There's no recourse with no pvp, and even if there is pvp, you can just zone out and you cant be chased.
Combat has a card system that you can choose not to use but you're more gimped if you want fixed hot bars as with other games. With the card system, you choose a subset of abilities and they randomly pop up for a period. You can put skill points into this system to make it more powerful, including skill combos. I'm all for experimentation and not being the same as others but this just seems arbitrarily annoying.
Makes it sound like I don't like the game; I do, its just that combat is what I do most and its the weakest part.
It is a pre-alpha/construction zone. That "dungeon" you are talking about is not a real dungeon, it is a test zone. They appear to be testing encounters.
I have no problem with a business selling items so the cash shop doesn't bother me. I wish there was something I wanted in there so I could buy it and support the developers, but there isn't (yet).
If the proposed feature set isn't something you are interested in and supporting, probably best that you wait on a purchase of this title. For me, it is a lot of fun however!
Pre-alpha/construction zone ?.....At $45 with a huge cost Cash shop ?
So much for Richard " Lord British " Garriott ( high rolling millionaire ) being for the player !.....More like lets see what kind of money we can get from people !
I have my own little saying " to be that rich you had to take from people ".
I disagree but I can't force you to see it from my point of view. So I will just agree to disagree. I hope you find a game you enjoy.
There are some basic things in place, but you are correct that there is not much game there yet. Development seems to be quite fast though, new areas coming in a few days.
Sometimes it's just straight forward ...
"Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development."
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The game is also Peer 2 Peer. I quit months ago, when i tried 2 pvp, all it is is people skipping all over the place, just like any garbage peer 2 peer game. You want a castle though, give him 10000 dollars, and you can have a useless castle in a useless game lol. I personally think the game is retarded, and i wish i looked into it way more. I was going off the things i read were it was going to be UO 2, because i quit uo at that time. This is far far far far far far from UO, i dont even know what to compare it to. The combat system is terrible, picture wow but your hot bar skills are randomly popped onto your bar.
The pvp is bad due to lag, which may get fixed by the end but i doubt it, because its peer 2 peer. The graphics are terrible, the story line is garbage, the crafting is overly confusing, and basically gonna be pay 2 win, kinda like arche age. But at least arche age doesnt charge 10000 dollars for a castle haha.
And that right there is why I wouldn't take anything you say seriously.
You are completely ignoring the fact that you can get rich thru voluntary trade with other people.
If you can't understand that, and are hung up on being jealous successful people, answer me one question. Why should we believe that you can comprehend something on the scale of financing and developing an MMO?
Asbo
Well said, actually spot on.
And when you try to inform potential buyers this on different forums developers ban you.
So watch out before dropping alot of money on these guys.
This game have nothing with UO PvP to do even though Richard do his best to make you believe just that.
Praise the Lord for differences of opinion and the 1st amendment
Actually Richard tells us this game will be nothing like UO. Also there will be more housing than needed, not a rush for housing. I can't speak about pvp because I haven't yet been involved in it. However, the combat system is the best I've seen. It's very immersive, introducing an element of luck into each fight like in real life. You can't set up macros or just hit auto-attack. and fighting something your level is not an automatic win. You have the ability as you progress to allocate points in such a manner as to decrease the amount of luck involved, or turn it in your favor. Now mind you, this is simply my opinion, and you know what they say about opinions. I can certainly see why some folks will hate this game. However I have been looking for something since Everquest in 2000 that would capture my attention like this game does. As for cash shops, it makes no difference to me. You can get better equipment through crafting. However I'm guessing that if you're into pvp, a cash shop would give you a big advantage over many folks. Personally I suck at pvp, so it doesn't make a difference to me, I can spend money or not. Please remember that this is PURELY my opinion of the game. Your mileage may differ 
Oh I forgot to add, I've not had any problems talking with npcs. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I was surprised to ask a question and have it answered. Of course they have limited responses, but I enjoy it none the less.
jr
Really?
http://i.imgur.com/e5BgsFm.png
Thanks for the correction! I think I made some incorrect assumptions because of some of his other quotes.
RG: It is a spiritual successor. I mean, the very least of the reasons would be because it has to be. I have to be very careful not to connect too directly to, and become a derivative work of someone else’s…since EA now owns the intellectual property of the original Ultima series............And so that’s why, by all means, I’m creating a world which is not incompatible with what has come before, but is also not derivative of what has come before.
Also I had remembered reading :
SotA is a RPG game being created by a team lead by Richard Garriot and Starr Long. It is intended to be a spiritual successor to Ultima Online.
No, this is not UO 2. It's not even UO. I'm making a special point of this because it comes up often enough on the official forums. While it has a shared ancestry with UO, it is its own game. Going into this expecting a carbon copy of UO is setting yourself up for disappointment.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
Me too !
No, he didn't. Not even close. The only thing he said was that SotA would be a spiritual successor and, deny it all you want, PvP was a relatively small part of UO. Fact of the matter is, the game wasn't doing so hot until they released Trammel, allowing people to enjoy the environment and game systems without being killed by some jerkbag every five minutes. Not to mention that RG has a well-known dislike of PvP games; he hated the free for all gank fest UO had become.
I agree with the RMT thing though. The prices really are ridiculous,.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
Yes he did. many times.
This game is being commercialized with those exact words and many pledgers feel they have been tricked. The words "spiritual successor" can be interpreted in different ways according to people. SotA developers had to make clear during kickstarter campaign which features would be implemented from UO. They deliberatly decided not to cause if the old hardcore UO PvP players would have been aware of what this game would turn out to be then noone would have given these developers a single cent.
They decided not to mention one word about PvP, combat system or death mechanics during kickstarter campaign but they didnt forget to mention it was a "spiritual successor" to Ultima Online. They tricked the players that expected it to be a new UO PvP game to pledge on those 2 words. Very smart of them but definetly not being honest to their pledgers.
UO mean different things to different UO players and not explaining in detail what features would be implemented from UO is the reason why many feel betrayed today. The least you could have expected was that SotA developers had made clear which features would be implemented from UO. Mentioning nothing during the raise of money during kickstarter about PvP, their worthless combat system and how the death system should work when they were raising money during kickstarter was making the old UO PvP hardcore players this game was to be something it never were ment to be.
Calling it a "spiritual successor" to UO and saying nothing about PvP, combat or death systems is being deliberatly vague just to get more pledgers to support something it never was ment to be.
Only ones not understanding or want to accept this reasoning is the fullblown fanbois with pink coloured glasses as the ones in this thread over at steam -
http://steamcommunity.com/app/326160/discussions/0/612823460253789672/
Edit: PvP was huge in UO, most likely the game that had the highest % of players taking part in PvP and mainly played the game for it's PvP.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
Agree.
Calling it a spiritual successor to UO tricked alot of old UO hardcore PvP players to pledge during kickstarter.
Not mentioning anything about PvP, combat and death systems during kickstarter campaign combined with the promise it was a spiritual successor to UO was a very successful money raiser for these developers.
All developers should be forced during kickstarter to in detail present all there main features including PvP, death and combat systems and also stick to them.
That will lead to less players feeling they have been tricked.