KickStarter Shroud of the Avatar - Lord British's Not-Ultima Online 2

[Eli_Havelock]

This game had fansites??

As I absolutely fucking failed to ninja-edit in fast enough to explain, these "fansites" are more like Multi-Level Marketing to try and get some of that sweet, sweet cultwhale ca$h.

Like the SCA LARPing version of Mary Kay.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

British could have paid for thr server for ever. Some king/lord. Lord Putz.

 

[Caim]

British could have paid for thr server for ever. Some king/lord. Lord Putz.

You'd be surprised as to how many kings are actually rather poor, which forces them to marry off their younger children to those of rich "merchants" for an influx of cash.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

British could have paid for thr server for ever. Some king/lord. Lord Putz.

You'd be surprised as to how many kings are actually rather poor, which forces them to marry off their younger children to those of rich "merchants" for an influx of cash.

Lord Brexit bailing might be why Not Portalarium are trying to sell more "micro"transactions as updates.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I just noticed this SOTA bit due to links about failed Ultima franchise.

• Episodic Content: Shroud of the Avatar will consist of five episodes that will tell a series of virtue based stories created by Richard Garriott and Tracy Hickman. All supported by a series of prequel novels starting with Blade of the Avatar.
• Single Player Offline Mode: Players adventure through over 40 hours of story in an interactive world where their choices have consequences, ethical paradoxes give them pause, and they play a vital part in weaving their own story into the immersive world and lore surrounding them.

How'd I skip over that? Bah! I deleted that from my computer. Oh well.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

"Our game needs more exposure."

I think it's already known for being bad:

Hey all,

You have seen some good posts and some not so great posts in the past from me. There are vast portions of our game that I absolutely love and there is so much to do. I created another character and I havent done the starter area in years and i'm impressed with the improvements. Sometimes we get locked into a certain set of tasks that we complete once our character has a clear "direct path to power" and we do not open our mind to covering a different path or going another way. The sheer scope of all there is to learn in our game from Adventuring, to the glyph system and deck types to the vast chasm that is harvesting resources and all the nuances with crafting. Farming and Fishing to cooking and all the tasks in between along with the massive decoration and housing items available including dungeons and dungeon creation and maintenance. It literally takes YEARS to absorb most of the content available and I daresay I have still only scratched the surface.

My point is we need to support the twitch streamers and open a dialogue with the gaming communities across all platforms. Our game needs more exposure. Sure there will be some gamers that do not like the "pace or graphical look" of our game, but there so many more that can see this game is truly a Masterpiece. There are all kinds of trade and commerce opportunities in the game and the economy has some of the greatest potential going for any game out there today. We just need to find more players. I encourage all the older players that have gotten into a routine, to break that routine and help get these new players started. Sometimes just by helping a new player get started it will prompt them to talk about the game to their other gaming buddies and it will help build our community. I'm exploring magic tree combinations that I have not dared explore with my new character and it is like playing a brand new game.

I have 20 things that i need to do on this new character. It is all possible because i stepped back and took a look at all the content the game has to offer and chose the path not often travelled. So spend some time in those newbie areas...bring some potions and scrolls with you to help them get started. Teach them about their xp pool and remind them to relax and enjoy the journey!!

"The twitch streamers."

Shroud's Friday streams are a masterclass on development mistakes. I'm entertained at how the Shroud community somehow think they're somehow an elite walled garden when they're just repeating Furcadia. And the first UO:AoS. Chris Spears = Evocare II.

RIP Lord Brexit, Oct 23 2020.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Pride Month accidentally came early as ass elves turned pink and started ravaging the land in search of players.



This happened as the result of their new speedrun record of failing their own new standards:

• Monthly Releases: Our monthly release schedule will continue, however we’ll be alternating what is provided by utilizing what we refer to as a “tick-tock” concept. The upcoming release for R88 will be a “tick” and primarily feature game polish, fixes, and improvements, while the following release will be a “tock” and feature more new game content. The polish month (tick) will feature highly abbreviated Release Notes, while the content month (tock) will feature more robust Release Notes similar to what has been provided up to this day.

• Below are a list of updates that are live as of Release 88 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! In our tick-tock development cycle, this is primarily an improvements and bug fixes month (a tick), with some new content coming your way for R89. This round has an AMAZING amount of changes! For new content, some new crafting recipes have been added that should give players many more things to gather, loot, craft, and sell between players. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 88!

Pink elves? Are they ashamed they actually give their players titles for going around acting like QA and this happens? 2-3 days later:






But wait - THERE'S MOAR! They may have discovered patching that doesn't require several GB a time.



...GOOD THING TO KNOW THIS MANY YEARS LATER!

TL: DR:
In the first Tick polish update of the New Updates they've turned the elves pink for days and surprisingly there were no Dick pics. Fabulous.

 

[kaisergeddon]

Reminder that Shroud raised over twelve million dollars for its development.

 

[gurugeorge]

Reminder that Shroud raised over twelve million dollars for its development.

12m for a game in which you can't even control your literal avatar comfortably and smoothly. Jesus wept.

 

[luj1]

I remember Cucktron flagging my posts butthurt and retarded in 2017 when I said this was a scam.

 

[a Goat]

Reminder that Shroud raised over twelve million dollars for its development.

I don't want to defend LB and the devs, they don't deserve it, but 12M for what they set out to do was waaaaay too little. This happened to quite a lot of failed kickstarters btw. They've set their goal way below of what the production would actually take to get any money at all and I guess hoped sales of EA plus some loans(I guess) will carry the rest of their endeavour.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

$12m for an MMO is peanuts.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Targetting niche audience/fanboys? Yeah, I know UO was pretty huge but perhaps many have just given up on avatars/LB/Virtues/and anything resembling the old IP.

Game is free right? And you can play offline? When I go to the shroud site it sure looks like they want you to buy a lot of shit like some korean/china game. And the real estate... eh NO.

If you can truly play offline SP, I'd try this. What's the DL size now 22gig +?

 

[Tweed]

I sincerely hope thine virtue hath not waivered in the face of such troubles, remember how thine Lord and Saviour hath worked himself to the quick to provideth thee with legendary RPGs and thine choice and consequence ye cherish so much now. Surely our Lord is worthy of thine money to afford himself comfort in his twilight years for all he gaveth to thee.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

He actually responded to my tweet about asking how much he thinks EA would want for the IP? He said ask them or something. I did... EA didn't respond.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Reminder that Shroud raised over twelve million dollars for its development.

I don't want to defend LB and the devs, they don't deserve it, but 12M for what they set out to do was waaaaay too little. This happened to quite a lot of failed kickstarters btw. They've set their goal way below of what the production would actually take to get any money at all and I guess hoped sales of EA plus some loans(I guess) will carry the rest of their endeavour.

The whole thing was a scam to ride on indefinitely like they once assumed of cashing out for the EA gravy train of old, and then again for NCSoft. Shroud was meant to bring in the nostalgiafags like Squadron 42 was to do with the Freelancer and Wing Commander thirsty, then with that as an investment signal switch it up into a full-blown MMO to lure in the real money traders like the UO cash sites. You can see this by how the KS for Shroud states that it wasn't meant to be MMO. After that, big time deals with Markee Dragon for gold selling for a cut. The only problem that made Lord Brexit bail from Shroud was that it brought in much, MUCH less money than they were expecting.

"Now" there are "new" mechanics that will fuck you if you try to play this like a single-player backer. $12M for Shroud? It's a miracle they did this much, of a second-rate ESO built from frequent looting of the Unity Asset Store for anything that could be flipped cheap. Plenty of that shit and the subscriptions as well make for a lot more than a budget of $12M. The literal investment scam with the SeedInvest Series B should have made it obvious to even the most delusional blood-buying cultist this side of Spoony. (He should do more promotion for this game since they are both pretty much in the same place.)

It's not like Shroud was the start of this; Shroud was merely a symptom and crowdfunding just offered no accountability for the disease.

$7M of Series A investments in 2012 - IN ADDITION TO WHAT ZYNGA PONIED UP - was for Ultimate Collector and didn't last a year until mass layoffs while Lord Brexit parties.
There was another few million blown overdeveloping a Facebook poker game.
Portalarium has been nothing but a giant money pit from the start.

I sincerely hope thine virtue hath not waivered in the face of such troubles, remember how thine Lord and Saviour hath worked himself to the quick to provideth thee with legendary RPGs and thine choice and consequence ye cherish so much now. Surely our Lord is worthy of thine money to afford himself comfort in his twilight years for all he gaveth to thee.

What does that make Trip Hawkins, God-Emperor of Gamedev? We could go by successful number of Facebook games. It seems that having an alter-ego as a noble leader was the key to public perception in this industry, because now we're seeing Garriott without a publisher to blame.

 

[Tweed]

What does that make Trip Hawkins, God-Emperor of Gamedev? We could go by successful number of Facebook games. It seems that having an alter-ego as a noble leader was the key to public perception in this industry, because now we're seeing Garriott without a publisher to blame.

Not sure. It doesn't seem like Trip pushed that rockstar image as much, or at least his name stopped showing up as often though Garriot did dis him in Ultima VI along with Joe Ybarra. Meanwhile, people are or were enamored with Richard for creating Ultima IV and blowing their minds so despite everything he still gets a free pass. I mean, this man was able to sell his blood in reliquaries to fans willing to pay for it.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-07-08-richard-garriott-selling-vials-of-his-blood-on-ebay

Ok... now I'm going to be sick. WTF!?!? I didn't know this at all.

 

[Caim]

$12m for an MMO is peanuts.

WoW was like $62m in 2004 money, which admittedly was quite a bit even back then.

 

[Taluntain]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-07-08-richard-garriott-selling-vials-of-his-blood-on-ebay

Ok... now I'm going to be sick. WTF!?!? I didn't know this at all.

The Belle Delphine before Belle Delphine.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

You guys keep missing the other, bigger monetary pulls, spread out seasonally for optimal cookery of the books.

The Cash Shop where the big shit happens. Years of begathons. The bundles sold for thousands each. Fraudulently charging VAT.

Like HOLY FUCKING SHIT. Yes, one of the blood buying cultists! Most of all.. You, too, can sell off your kids' future for some prime virtual real-estate and online sex dungeons for THOUSANDS of dollars*. (These are everywhere in the scenery and mostly empty or whorehouse Garriott... I mean, garish.) I hope you have Scientologist money, because that's what you're buying into. Enjoy the random nerfs to your $100 (each) walls!

Sadly, since all the good cultists already gargled the koolaid on the way down, what is left is not as entertaining. One of their dance party DJ thingies taking over for Starr Long is between public meltdowns, so thank god the SotA gods gave us pink elves.

Will it be your player-owned ghost town sex dungeon tonight or mine? PLAY SOTA TODAY!
(Shit's gone so Furcadia.)

* - It gets worse. Not only do you pony up several thousand dollars for the Player-Owned Town, but then you have to buy the buildings for it, right? Haha, no! You FIRST have to buy LOT DEEDS to places in the Player-Owned Town you just bought! Then you have to buy the other buildings! And THEN you can buy all the things to decorate it all!

Some brief calculations and you'll end up with a LOOOOOOOOT more than a few million.

Now you understand where the REST of the money has been from, and the dramas behind trying to keep the value of their investments...

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Oh! Speaking of all that fuckery:





Casual-tested, carebear-approved!

 

[kaisergeddon]

You guys keep missing the other, bigger monetary pulls, spread out seasonally for optimal cookery of the books.

The Cash Shop where the big shit happens. Years of begathons. The bundles sold for thousands each. Fraudulently charging VAT.

Yeah, when I said they raised twelve million dollars, I was referring to just the cash handed over by people on the internet, free of charge, no strings attached. Garriot made out like a bandit.

 

[kaisergeddon]

The only thing left for Catnip Games to get from Shroud are the slim pickings of remaining clueless boomer pay piggies like Markee Dragon who suffer from sunk cost after buying their Unity asset store turkey toilet paper statues and etc.

 

[gurugeorge]

I feel sorry for the people who worked on the build system and "deck" system, because it does actually sound quite cool.

I wonder if the game actually started off as a scam? I remember that the combat system was different the first time I played it, from what it is now, so it's had a lot of iterations, and it seems unlikely that people would work on a system like that unless they were at least a bit serious about making an actual game at some point in its history.