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

[KeighnMcDeath]

Can this still be played offline or did I misread that FAQ?

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Can this still be played offline or did I misread that FAQ?

Yes, it can be played offline, but generally the only time anyone bothers to is to fail at QA for a MMO.

Also, ARK's single-player has better tuning.

 

[grimace]

The open development process, along with this thread and other RAW forums, are essential game making lessons.

I do hope one of the staff members writes a book about this experience.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

The open development process, along with this thread and other RAW forums, are essential game making lessons.

I do hope one of the staff members writes a book about this experience.

If they do they'll find every way on the planet to fuck up shipping it out until they shovel out some in-game asset flip as compensation.

 

[grimace]

What's the pitch for a documentary about Shroud of the Avatar?

They make documentaries about everything!

Spoiler

LuLaRich - Official Trailer | Prime Video

We can talk about the limited in game real estate!

Spoiler

That was later sold unlimited.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

There's a sale going on so you, too, can have your very own ghost town city Teralolotrololololapaloozalopolis!

What other MMO features the ability to house the whole game in your city? Amazing!

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

QA?

 

[Eli_Havelock]

This is a hilarious shitshow.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Pretty boring. I've alway found having a vendor/selling tiresome. If i can, I just hoard resources. If not, I sell the dhit to npcs (if possible).

This governor shit sounds annoying. I hate governors and senstors IRL because they are powermad assholes.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

This thread sure was a ride to read through. The early Kickstarter naivete, the sharp decline in expectation - Jaesun shitting on the game then coming back months later to repeat Ultima Dragon shill cope before forever disappearing into the mist of gay ERP with fellow Gen X autists.

Although I'm still playing through the Ultima games (currently on U6) and liking them, I can't imagine why anybody was really excited for a follow-up. The Ultima name has no weight anymore but loads of baggage. Nobody is gonna take a game seriously when its creator made himself king of the world. SotA took all the goofy shit (IE developer self-inserts) from Ultima without anything good, so it's only gonna appeal to retarded fanboys like Jaesun who still seems to think that Ultima 8 is good.

Then again, I don't know what to expect from a fanbase that has most of its presence on fucking Facebook of all things. Fags that old belong in a retirement home or a wooden box. At least Ultima Online sounds kinda cool if you get on one of these custom servers I've seen mentioned. I like Space Station 13, a similarly LARPy game, but that one's only good if you can avoid all the furry sex dungeons. Sounds like I've already played UO without even knowing it.

 

[grimace]

This thread sure was a ride to read through. . . .
Then again, I don't know what to expect from a fanbase that has most of its presence on fucking Facebook of all things. Fags that old belong in a retirement home or a wooden box. At least Ultima Online sounds kinda cool if you get on one of these custom servers I've seen mentioned. I like Space Station 13, a similarly LARPy game, but that one's only good if you can avoid all the furry sex dungeons. Sounds like I've already played UO without even knowing it.

Shtroud of the Avatar was pitched as the spiritual successor to Ultima Online 2.

Many took this to mean that SotA would be brutal with open PVP and danger in exploration, bounties on evil player killers, and a virtue system for player actions.

Others took this to mean that SotA would be the Ultimate Collector Home and Garden property decorator with merchant re-seller scum features (in game and real cash transactions).

Concessions were made until all that remained were peaceful AFK fishing parties.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Then again, I don't know what to expect from a fanbase that has most of its presence on fucking Facebook of all things. Fags that old belong in a retirement home or a wooden box. At least Ultima Online sounds kinda cool if you get on one of these custom servers I've seen mentioned. I like Space Station 13, a similarly LARPy game, but that one's only good if you can avoid all the furry sex dungeons. Sounds like I've already played UO without even knowing it.

After Portalarium's previous game, Ultimate Collector, proved to be too shitty for even mobile (after their previous sub-par Facebook Poker game) there was this big post by RG on Facebook about the future and how the next evolution of RPG was to be on social media via Facebook and phones.

After that warned anyone with enough technical savvy at any point in the last 20 years, RG's cash grab attempt to return to rockstar status progressed into a Kickstarter where nobody knew what the fuck they were doing except say anything to get the stupid to throw money at it.

People still had faith in this even after RG was selling his blood like a celebrity crackhead trying to make enough for his next fix: Move over, $30k Star Cultizen casuals!

Another is trying to recruit entire guilds of Thai ladyboys to promote this. "It is with diligent hopes that other internet cafe operators and gaming streamers who know me here in Thailand will also be hosted through the character known as Sum Savage."

Shtroud of the Avatar was pitched as the spiritual successor to Ultima Online 2.

Many took this to mean that SotA would be brutal with open PVP and danger in exploration, bounties on evil player killers, and a virtue system for player actions.

Others took this to mean that SotA would be the Ultimate Collector Home and Garden property decorator with merchant re-seller scum features (in game and real cash transactions).

Concessions were made until all that remained were peaceful AFK fishing parties.

Except for the Kickstarter, where it briefly became "not an MMO" up until they smelled the money rolling in from Markee Dragon and other flippers flipping asset flips, pushed the farce of anything resembling a single-player game further and further back until you "can play this offline" with irrelevant messages about online plastered everywhere. Unlike anything Lord British Presents - this has no functional intro.

The cherry on the shit sundae? The retard Lord British left this game to just figured out that maybe there should be a cooldown on potions or else PvP balance was going to continue being a joke.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Many took this to mean that SotA would be brutal with open PVP and danger in exploration, bounties on evil player killers, and a virtue system for player actions.

Sounds cool. People are such pussies about losing their loot in a game. It's just pixels. I used to play Sea of Thieves, a game where the only progression is entirely cosmetic, and even there people would bitch and whine when you killed them. If there's no danger from other players then what's the point of an MMO?
By the way grimace , I enjoyed your strange arc in this thread - from paid bot shill to beloved shitposter.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I can't imagine why anybody was really excited for a follow-up

Ultima fans are by far the biggest and weirdest cultists in the cRPG genre.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

I can't imagine why anybody was really excited for a follow-up

Ultima fans are by far the biggest and weirdest cultists in the cRPG genre.

All the Oral Roberts followers had to go somewhere.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...i-helped-put-william-shatner-to-space.170175/

I am not a fan of bragging or spamming as I am humble by nature. But the only pubic forum in the world I would posts this is this one. Not because I want any pats on the back, but because this is truly amazing to me in my real life having been a treky for ever. I just wanted to share this moment with my friends here.

I helped put William Shatner to space! I did not know I was doing it and my contribution was minuscule. But I did it do it. Had I had known, I would have done it harder. That has to go on my tombstone

 

[Eli_Havelock]

(Non-Media tag links are to a series of giant-related tweets.)

How it started:



https://twitter.com/catnipgames/status/1429567933525774342
https://twitter.com/catnipgames/status/1429859870665232386
https://twitter.com/catnipgames/status/1429941474981031936
https://twitter.com/catnipgames/status/1430599983565348870
https://twitter.com/catnipgames/status/1430959743867232256
https://twitter.com/catnipgames/status/1430971444108873729

"100% we did it and it was long fight but was awesome."

How it is going:

Frost Giant defeated 2021

"Crap poor AI. The beast didn't move. Didn't change targets. Didn't do anything but stand there and take it. This wasn't a fight, it was simply an execution."

"If you don't balance your Aggro correctly the Frost Troll has a few other moves that make him quickly turn and kill you, (note the skeletons on the Ice) he also has some AOE spells that will mess you up unless you stand in the right place. I do agree that when you control him correctly he looks too passive."

How the dev team is going:



How the marketing is going:

"Why won't other games work with me?"

https://clips.twitch.tv/BlueExquisiteJalapenoBudBlast-WKo0P-ZCW__c2L-A

Richard Garriott is about to Kill WoW all over again!

 

[Eli_Havelock]

RIP single-player

No, PAY 2 WIN will save it!

"Trippin SOTA Balls Offline" !'
or
"Pay to Win Your Heart Out!" !'

I play offline sometimes, and the only thing I'd change is to make it even more easy than it currently is through adding even more exp gain and bring pay to win items sold through our coto shop for fighting higher content. Offline should be just a thrill ride in a super nerfed world, yet where P2W is the norm beyond Ep#1. To use a term used by Elon Musk, our offline sota game should be just a "Trippin Balls" experience to play there. Our offline sota should continue to be a shell of our online game, never as good as our online game.

Our offline content can be played from scratch again and again, which is a quality unto itself which should be exploited for furthering our entire game's development.

In the above lines of thought, P2W becomes meaningless, meaning that there is no competition offline and therefore should have products sold in our coto shop that cater to Pay to Win. If such items could be sold for only offline use, then the entire dynamic of what things for offline cost and what things could be aquired is totally different than what our online game offers.

Offline should be unique through just these simple few "Offline Pay to Win" changes.

Examples:
If I don't want to blacksmith offline, then I should have offline equipment in our offline store to purchase.
If I don't want to make my own food, then I should be able to buy a Burger King, or Whataburger to place on one of my offline lots I aquired through buying an offline deed.
If I don't want to make my own potions, then I should be able to buy my own Potion Smoothie Shop.
If I want bulk regs our offline game should encourage me to "need" to buy agricultural things like planters and lot deeds to place more planters to get those regs.
If I don't want to quest to get companions, then I need to buy a place to hire minions... (ie.. needs to be manditory to fight the frost giant and other high offline content).

In every aluring way possible, we need for our offline players to become dependent on Pay to Win.

Simply put:

• We need to make Ep#1 content a super nurfed exp gain while Ep#2 and above should slowly increase the player to pay to win.
• We need a seperate offline coto store full of pay to win items in every shape and form.

All this should require the least amount of modifications from what we currently have, while keeping the offline game within our current micro-transaction ways of funding content development.

"Trippin' SOTA Balls Offline!"

Everything Funds Everything!
~Time Lord~:D

That'll kill it for sure. Or are they hoping to get new players by receiving attention for making this even more of a ripoff scam? It's a desperation play, but understandable given their position and how they're barely able to fill PvP Fishing or Dance Parties:

https://steamcharts.com/app/326160

Last 30 Days:
Month Avg. Players
47.2

Gain
-12.5

% Gain
-20.95%

Peak Players
89

Changing all this to make a playable single player game would require more dedicated resources than the development team has or can afford.

I think this is a bit of an understatement as a truly single player experience would likely require a complete rewrite of some core systems the original team spent over a year putting together.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

The remaining Jonestown diehards also believed they had it better when eating bugs and dirt because no functional economy.

SOTA is very strong with PVE. But I was rather disappointed (translate: irritated) when I was in a full party, spent two hours taking down the ice giant, and ONE person got an eyeball. That didn't really encourage me to want to do that again.

Imagine still paying money for this bullshit. There's some good news for the morons who do.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Average SotA player

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Did they finally fix it?

 

[Eli_Havelock]

This is an actual thing in the newsletter.

Have a friend already bored with New World?
Get them to sign up for Shroud of the Avatar and they'll get a special
welcome package with a pirate sword, tricorn hat, brass raven,
and an extra 500,000 XPs in their pool to help them get going fast!
Just have them sign up through this link:
New World Welcome

And being broadcast on all channels.



What. people played New World and were all like "This is cool, but what I'd really like is to play something even more buggy and unfinished"? There is absolutely no way this is going to backfire.

 

[grimace]

There is absolutely no way this is going to backfire.

For this to backfire (and for people to notice) there would need to be a SotA login queue.

No one stands behind this project apart from Chris catnipgames.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

For this to backfire (and for people to notice) there would need to be a SotA login queue.

No one stands behind this project apart from Chris catnipgames.

Absolutely no one, except for those who run around other MMOs trying to say how good this shit is and get upset when they are laughed at because people think they're making a joke. The last stream they did has all kinds of funny stories from those who supposedly played a bit of New World and told everyone how great SotA was and they were all amaze. Here's one from a volunteer player wearing a dev tag.

It's basically New Britannian Cock & Bull on who makes the best feel-good cult-reinforcement story, something they have played for years. Think Elizabethan Scientology, with far less budget and responsibility than either.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

to be fair, it's probably better than nu world

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I can't believe that subreddit is trashing the game almost as much as the Codex.