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

[Aildrik]

OK! With over 30 40 50+ hours of playing, here is a summary of what I think:

So would you classify this as a true sandbox game the way UO was? I mean looking back on UO, at least pre-T2A and even T2A, the creature AI was ... practically nonexistent. I remember running into a room of monsters, putting boxes down around my character and just sitting there firing arrows until everything died. Monsters literally couldn't deal with removing any objects/obstacles. I think later on monsters started being able to break items or move them, but I guess the point is, monster/creature AI was never a danger in UO; the real danger was always other players. Basically the entire game was player driven. No raids or anything like that.

Also, do you feel there is a progression path with doing say, just crafting? Or is this more like WoW with combat questing, and basically fighting is just part of the game.

 

[Jaesun]

There isn’t the interactive objects (like moving crates etc...). I should have mentioned that. Crafting is actually useful, as in you can repair your equipment much better, as well as craft your own gear.

 

[taxalot]

Sooo...

I did play it. For like two hours so far. There will be more hours.

At this point, I really do not know what to make of that. The game starts in an extremely retarded fashion : the first thing you see in the opening cutscene (that tries to imitate the Ultima intros) is a nerd looking at Richard Garriot's Facebook. I shit you not. After a character creation that is just identical to the classical Ultimas you are dropped in a burning village. The first person you meet is a girl that looks like 12 and is standing peacefully in her burning house, ten meters away from the flames themselves that threaten to engulf her. She says she stays here because her parents asked her to. What the hell, girl ? After asking you permission to get out of the building in fire, she does so following you.

When launched into the game world, first impression ? The game world is huge. Sooooo... let's open the world map !

Map is not supported in Linux yet.

Hey, fuck you too!

As for the rest, I do not know what to make of it. It looks strange. "Like shit" is probably one wants to describe it. Unity was not really made for this. I have no other way to describe it as "small budget devs do a big budget game". Everything is there, but not properly. The models look awkward. The interface is functional but absolutely disgusting. All the lighting is there but it can be seen popping in the not so far distance.

The rest of it, so far, looks like a mixture of both WoW and classical Ultima Online. I have far too few gameplay hours so far to give a good opinion on that subject but I will, pretty soon. Quests look pretty generic insofar and even very early in the games a few seem bugged.

I'm not thrilled. Plotwise, it looks like an actual Ultima sequel ; strangely, it appears to take place not after Ultima IX but... after the cancelled Ultima IX, from the Bob White synopsis. The one where Armageddon happened. Gameplay wise, the entire thing is super awkward.

The problems with the games are nothing good support and patches can't fix. But will they ? I highly doubt it.

More later.

 

[taxalot]

Also In two hours, I crossed path with exactly ONE other player. I yelled "OMG !!! HELLO ! " because I was shocked. He did not even turn back.

 

[Jaesun]

The reason you aren't seeing any one is because, as soon as you finish the Newbie Starter area, you then will be lead to the city of which the Virtue you are following (Like I chose Fighter, and that is Courage, so I was sent to the city of Resolute). In that city, run and check out the Player Vendor and see the items in there, and then you will say "Oh. THAT"S where everybody is..... not here". Most people are very high level, have high crafting and you will see TONS of player made items. They are all in the higher tier Adventure Areas and towns. At a certain point, enemies turn Green and then you are not going to be getting any XP or loot, so there is no reason to stay in an Adventure Area that is green (you CAN finish any left quests there, and you should). And you can still collect the resources (hides, cotton, ore etc..) BUT you will find even more resources going to a next tier adventure area that is for your level.

As for quests, yeah, most all are the standard meh boring. But there are a few good ones here and there. For example (Again I am doing the Courage path) so in that newbie area, there was a quest that you could only get if you actually explore the town and stumble upon a certain thing. You had to go out of your way to actually find it. Another good example: In this Adventure Area I've been in for a long while, there is this entrance to a Silver Mine. I was like OH FUCK YES! Except the door is locked. I then went fucking EVERYWHERE on the damn map to find that dam key. Nope, nothing. It's not there. I then decided to go to the closest city, looked around there more closely this time. Found a cave. Inside that cave were 2 monsters, that were however friendly.... and they gave me a quest. Also inside the cave was another entrance to the same Silver Mine.... of which they gave me the key I was looking for. YEAHHHHH! Of note, dungeons like the mine, is a single instance that only you or your party go to, there will be no other people there hogging resources etc... which is good.

Also since there will be fucktons of player crafted gear, be sure to equip yourself with entire sets of Armor of all the same type for a bonus (All Cloth, or all Leather, all Chain, all Plate) etc... You should be able to find an entire set of armor that will be just fine for new characters (if NOT, head near the town of Resolute and there is a Player Made town near by called Soryn Fields). That entire town was made to help new players, as well has a TONS of free books to read that have very useful information. As well as a fucking shitton of vendor for EVERYTHING.

 

[taxalot]

It really is something else.

 

[udm]

Richard Garriott de Cayeux

In 2011, Garriott married Laetitia de Cayeux. Both changed their last names to Garriott de Cayeux.[6] Richard and wife Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux had their first child, Kinga Shuilong Garriott de Cayeux, on June 30, 2012.[68] Their second child, Ronin Phi Garriott de Cayeux, was born on July 28, 2014.

Fuck me. When did my childhood hero turn into a massive joke?

I guess this is relevant to Lord de Cayeux now

 

[Max Heap]

If you think all of this is bad then remember they are officially selling "Shroud of the Avatar" assets (!!) on the Unity Asset Store!

https://assetstore.unity.com/packag...ngeon-and-cave-kit-shroud-of-the-avatar-10370

If I remember correctly a lot of the assets in this game come from the community (thus the artistic hodgepodge prevalent with all the game's textures/models). Now I don't know whether the same applies for asset packs or if those were made by Portalarium, but selling your assets is normally an exit strategy for failed projects. Not only in games, but generally.

I... I'm just at a loss of words. I don't even know if this is sheer incompetence, desperation or just greed. I can't tell anymore.
Anyway this turd is supposed to launch in 26 days and if it's anything like the last build I played a couple of months ago it's going to be a disaster.
I'm normally not one to take pleasure in the failure of games like these - especially since I was a huge fan of Ultima - but some of this shit is so fucking insolent...

Spoiler

 

[taxalot]

The offline single player is probably going to be about as fun as the days I had playing my self hosted Ultima Online server with my modem turned off.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

All of the grind with nobody to talk to. Zzzz.

 

[Infinitron]

lol he's such a dork.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

lol he's such a dork

At least he's got over his fear of looking ridiculous in public.

 

[Max Heap]

I guess I like the environment art and in some (rare) cases even their strange steampunk style seems to work out
But that doesn't change the fact that even the trailer's got performance problems.

 

[Eggs is eggs]

He has been dressing like that for decades.

 

[Irata]

Does this have the PvP of Ultima Online? I'd be terrible at it since I'd be wandering around alone, but that part always sounded neat and I was too busy (and not willing to pay a monthly fee) when the game was in its glory days.

 

[Junmarko]

The offline single player is probably going to be about as fun as the days I had playing my self hosted Ultima Online server with my modem turned off.

Lol yep.

MMORPGs are some of the most forgettable "CRPG" experiences you can have, they are entirely designed around online social aspects.

"Trying to collect 50 bear pelts in WoW with 5 friends at a contested zone and coming under attack by the Alliance players was fun - but if I could only collect those 50 bear pelts in peace..."

Garriott thinking an "offline-mmo" would be appealing to the CRPG crowd, on any level, shows how out-of-touch he is. Such a shame, because if he ran a KS for an Ultima 7-like successor, I'd probably drop $500 on it in a heartbeat.

*EDIT: Ok, ignore my entire post. Wolf-head pipe explains a great deal.

 

[taxalot]

Last time I played it, I was in a tavern having a serious conversation with a necromancer about Zombies. Another player went in, turned on a radio thing that was nearby and I heard "Girls just want it have fun." This sums my experience pretty well.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

It's "girls just wanna have fun", not ”girls just want it, have fun”.

You must have been a fapping teenager when you first heard that song.

 

[taxalot]

That was a typo.

Still, the most fun I had with the game ? Buying a Music Sheet and playing "Too sexy" everywhere on a variety of instruments. It's an Ultima, alright.

 

[Elex]

soo tell the truth: how this game is?
i have actually avoided it for years in hope of being good at release.

 

[Anomander]

I tried it this month - release 51. It looked like alpha. Seriously it was a mess. Most notable bug was disappearing NPCs (main quest givers). The whole locations were empty, I mean you enter the village and there are no one there!!!!. You see they should be there (like shops etc.), but it's empty. You have to log out and log on again to see them. It happened to me all the time (different locations, different people). I don't know, maybe it's just happened to me but what the fuck is that.
Besides this all the game screamed alpha/beta. For me it's far from release state.

 

[Makabb]

but does the game do something that hasn't been done before ? or is just another fedex mmo ?

 

[taxalot]

I tried it this month - release 51. It looked like alpha. Seriously it was a mess. Most notable bug was disappearing NPCs (main quest givers). The whole locations were empty, I mean you enter the village and there are no one there!!!!. You see they should be there (like shops etc.), but it's empty. You have to log out and log on again to see them. It happened to me all the time (different locations, different people). I don't know, maybe it's just happened to me but what the fuck is that.
Besides this all the game screamed alpha/beta. For me it's far from release state.

Yes. A lot of the single player quests were also broken on my side ; completion not triggerring, stuff staying in the journal although it's been done, keywords in conversations not working properly, etc....

It's a game I want to play, and will play to single player completion however good or bad it is. But I'm not certain release is the right moment. I'd be shocked if the map was working on Linux, it still wasn't there on last month's build, FFS !!!

I gave up and will restart a new character later. It's a game that by all point look terrible but has definitely that little something for Ultima fans.

 

[RatTower]

So I guess today this game officially launches.
The story trailer they released seems pretty solid:

 

[Grauken]

gameplay on the other hand looks like shit