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

[Beast British]

So far this has ruined every single commercial roleplaying server I've played on and I ain't shittin you either.
I played Ultima Online on a very strict RP shard, with quite a lot of players.
Roleplaying mostly meant a believable world there. You had factions, political organisations, intrigue, organized crime, religious zealots, traders, markets, rivalries, a working feudal system, etc. etc.

What was the name of that strict UO rp server? It sounds pretty cool.

 

[Samantha]

Shroud is a great game. I like most things about it. I love my house, it's a free row lot that I was rewarded with after completing the main quest of the game to obtain my shroud. Yes, it is still being tweaked even though it was released this year.

Even if they have lost money for some previous mistakes, they are fixing them now. Yes to save the game maybe? Do we really for sure know they are in as much trouble as everyone says? Or is that all drama everyone is trying to cook up? The only people who know are those in control of the funds.

Either way, the game is still going. There have been significant improvements. There are still new players joining the game to see what it is about. This forum is filled with trolls who don't have anything but bad to say and yet it's still going. Even now in the middle of summer when player count is usually down, a lot of people are still playing.

There is so much about the game that is good and never discussed. Everyone focuses on the bad because there were some mistakes.

Yes, they did heavily moderate before. That was a mistake. They have now opened it for everyone to voice their opinions. They are listening to everyone's complaints, harsh they may be, and focusing on them.

 

[Grauken]

Pretty good satire for a first post

 

[Bocian]

This forum is filled with trolls who don't have anything but bad to say and yet it's still going.

This is an outrageous claim. As an official representative of the Codex Hivemind I demand you cease and desist your slanderous behavior.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ex-review-shroud-of-the-avatar.122699/page-13 This is the forum's happy place, I think your friends are already there. Enjoy.

 

[Samantha]

This forum is filled with trolls who don't have anything but bad to say and yet it's still going.

This is an outrageous claim. As an official representative of the Codex Hivemind I demand you cease and desist your slanderous behavior.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ex-review-shroud-of-the-avatar.122699/page-13 This is the forum's happy place, I think your friends are already there. Enjoy.

Thank you for the suggestion but I will post where I want. Have a blessed day.

 

[Dodo1610]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-07-05-is-richard-garriotts-shroud-of-the-avatar-on-the-ropes

Garriot still seems to believe in his game.

 

[taxalot]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-07-05-is-richard-garriotts-shroud-of-the-avatar-on-the-ropes

Garriot still seems to believe in his game.

The moment he says otherwise, even should hope remains, his company goes bankrupt.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-07-05-is-richard-garriotts-shroud-of-the-avatar-on-the-ropes

Garriot still seems to believe in his game.

Is Richard Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar on the ropes?
Because it looks like a flop.

Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, Richard Garriott's spiritual successor to the legendary online role-playing game Ultima Online - and for a long time the second-most-crowdfunded game around (with more than $10m raised) - launched a only a few months ago, 27th March 2018. Did you notice? I don't blame you, because it appears to have been a flop.

Steam doesn't paint the whole picture, because you can buy and play the game through the official Shroud of the Avatar website, but the picture it does paint is worrying. In the launch month of March, Shroud of the Avatar had a peak Steam concurrent player count of only 562, which is tiny - way outside of the top-100 let alone the top-10. And customer reviews average at 'Mixed', which means you see plenty of off-putting negative reviews.

But more worrying was news of layoffs. A reporter from MMORPG visited Shroud developer Portalarium a couple of weeks ago, coincidentally a day after the layoffs happened, and said "half their team" had been let go.

It didn't look good. Online games (Shroud can be played offline in a separate mode, but online is the focus) are expensive to maintain and only work if people are playing them. If people aren't interested, how long can Shroud stick around?

I spoke to Richard Garriott yesterday about it.

Firstly, "The majority of players don't play on Steam," he told me. "We are in the many thousands but not in the many tens of thousands of monthly active users at the moment. We'd be quite content with tens of thousands of monthly active users, and we're within shooting range of that."

Secondly, there were layoffs but Portalarium didn't halve the team. "We were more than 20 [people] before and we're a little under now," he said, though this number doesn't include contracted help.

Portalarium may also be bulking back up, which sounds positive. "We did make some reductions to get back to the size we could afford at the burn rate we had been at previously, but we hope to staff back up here if we get the marketing to take hold again," he said.

Marketing is the key issue as Garriott sees it. In short, there wasn't any. Garriott and team paid for marketing which no one saw materialise. "We spent a chunk of money on the April marketing but literally no one in our office saw it," he said. No one in the game community apparently saw it either. "Sadly we misfired a chunk of change on mistargeted marketing."

Garriott believes there are still "millions" of Ultima Players unaware Shroud of the Avatar exists. "We think we've only hit about twenty per cent of our core audience," he said. "I can't tell you how many people on my own Twitter feed still go, 'Oh wait what? You came out with a new game?!'"

Portalarium has been trialling new marketing internally and thinks it's onto something. "If this proves out then we think in the next few months we'll be able to start turning this and creating a much larger audience," he said, "but it's taken us a few months to figure this out."

But what if the marketing doesn't work and nothing changes - how long can Shroud of the Avatar run? "Forever," Garriott insisted. "We have total confidence we'll go through all five episodes, come hell or high water."

Episodes are essentially Shroud's expansions - big bundles of content themed around a story. Forsaken Virtues is Episode 1, and Portalarium is currently planning Episode 2.

Portalarium is not working on any other games besides Shroud of the Avatar, and nor is Richard Garriott. "I'm still focused fully on Shroud of the Avatar," he said - "this will keep me busy for another year or two for sure."

Overall, then, there's optimism. But if Shroud of the Avatar cannot turn its fortunes around I wonder what it will mean both for Richard Garriott (whose recent track record will be Shroud of the Avatar and Tabula Rasa) and for the other crowdfunded online games selling virtual property like Shroud of the Avatar is - Star Citizen being the biggest and most famous of them. In many ways Shroud is a litmus test for it.

"We spent a chunk of money on the April marketing but literally no one in our office saw it," he said. No one in the game community apparently saw it either. "Sadly we misfired a chunk of change on mistargeted marketing."

 

[grimace]

I'll continue the game discussion here. The review thread is not discussing the game nor is it discussing the review.


massivelyop.com/2018/07/05/richard-garriott-rejects-idea-that-shroud-of-the-avatar-is-a-flop-says-the-game-will-run-forever/

Article in spoiler.

Spoiler

Richard Garriott rejects idea that Shroud of the Avatar is a ‘flop’, says the game will run ‘forever’
July 5, 2018 Bree Royce 83 comments

Shroud of the Avatar has long been an odd bird in the MMORPG crowdfunding space. Driven by the eccentric Richard Garriott, it raised large sums of money and managed to be one of the first nostalgia-driven MMOs to make it from Kickstarter to launch – several times, we’ll note. And yet today, Eurogamer went so far as to call the game an apparent flop, citing its low Steam numbers and the layoffs we covered a few weeks ago.

Garriott has rejected the idea that the game is “on the ropes.” To Eurogamer, he reiterated Portalarium’s party line that the majority of players play off Steam and that the playerbase is “in the many thousands but not in the many tens of thousands of monthly active users at the moment.” He also rebuts the claim that half the team was let go, stating that the company went from more than 20 to a “little under” that now, not counting contractors.

So what the heck is going on over there? Garriott says Portalarium has struggled with marketing, spending on publicity that didn’t materialize; the company is “trialing new marketing internally” to try to tap into the “millions” of Ultima fans who still don’t know his new game exists.


And even if that doesn’t work, Garriott isn’t giving up. “We have total confidence we’ll go through all five episodes, come hell or high water,” he says, suggesting he’ll keep the game running “forever” and that SOTA will “keep [him] busy for another year or two for sure.”

Still concerned? Here’s a palate cleanser; MOP reader Kabalyero sent this video of a player emerging victorious from the game’s Obsidian Trial.

And in the comments:

Spoiler

Chris Spears
We used to broadcast to Youtube and twitch. We would get 10-20 on Youtube and 750-1000 on twitch so we stopped broadcasting to youtube. We were only broadcasting to youtube because some work places block youtube but not twitch.

The mystery of how we survive with just a few fans is that there are a good number of fans, just not millions. Mystery solved…

Reader
Chris Spears
Hopefully you will give it another try. The combat system has improved dramatically over the past year and is now one of the highest rated features.

Chris “Atos” Spears has been slaving away in the pixel mines for more than 25 years. He has shipped titles on consoles dating back to the PS1, hand helds, PC games, MMOs, mobile games, and even a few smart toys. Chris joined the games industry after his brother tricked him into quitting his job teaching graduate students how to program this crazy new language called C++ at the University of Texas at Arlington. Chris usually wears the “Tech Director” or “Lead Programmer” hat, but is taking on more of a leadership position for Shroud of the Avatar.

In the small amount of time Chris spends away from the office each week, he enjoys playing with his daughter, cooking for his wife, playing computer games, hiking, and playing with his Italian Greyhound. While Chris believes that any good game is worth playing no matter the genre, fantasy RPGs are where Chris spends most of his time. Most recently Chris played Skyrim, Diablo 3, and Guild Wars 2 but enjoyed them all far less than he should have because he continuously studies their design and tech choices instead of just sitting back and letting art flow.

Role: Technical Director

Chris “Atos” Spears along with Star Long are the two with the greatest impact on the game.

Chris, please take care of yourself.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-07-05-is-richard-garriotts-shroud-of-the-avatar-on-the-ropes

Garriot still seems to believe in his game.

Chris Spears will fight to defend the honor of his game. I have fought that fight too!

I play and enjoy aspects of SotA. I'm looking forward to improvements.

 

[thesheeep]

So... what will happen first: Star Citizen release or SotA shutting down?

 

[Grauken]

So... what will happen first: Star Citizen release collapse or SotA shutting down?

Why not both?

 

[Eggs is eggs]

Does he believe it? I mean regardless of whether he does or not he could never say "I don't believe in it." or "I think it's a flop. Whoops. My bad" He might not be in denial but just have to lie about it to save face for the game.

Though the idea that marketing is one main reason for the game's underwhelming performance is a joke. RG is an industry legend and has had SO MANY articles and free press written about him and the game in the last few years. Plus, there is the ravenous Ultima fan base, many of whom at least tried to give the game a chance. Compare that to any other small/mid budget MMO like this which would give their left nut to get even half the free press and built-in fanbase that SotA has.

Also, trying to market an MMO in 2018 is like trying to market a text-based adventure in 1990. You missed the boat by a few years.

 

[Mustawd]

But what if the marketing doesn't work and nothing changes - how long can Shroud of the Avatar run? "Forever," Garriott insisted.

 

[thesheeep]

Also, trying to market an MMO in 2018 is like trying to market a text-based adventure in 1990. You missed the boat by a few years.

I don't really think so. The big growth is over, sure, but there are still a few around doing okay.
Of course, that is if the games don't suck...

 

[Samantha]

I think it will grow even more as time progresses. Things are already getting better. Everyone is crying about old issues. Try it out, see for yourselves!

 

[KitchenTong]

I would like to think shroud of the avatar was just a case of ambition lacking any skills or cash.

 

[Infinitron]

New review by Polish magazine: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/shroud-of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues/critic-reviews (not available online)

CD-Action
Jul 6, 2018

40

The title says it all. There is a corpse underneath the shroud and the virtues were indeed forsaken. The informal successor to the Ultima series proves that Tabula Rasa was not a one-time slip and Richard Garriott belongs in the past. [06/2018, p.70]

Brutal. Anybody here have a copy?

 

[grimace]

I think it will grow even more as time progresses. Things are already getting better. Everyone is crying about old issues. Try it out, see for yourselves!

Are you me?

Are you my alt?

 

[taxalot]

I am too lazy to link, but you will all be happy to hear that funding for Episode 2 has started. Buy items on the store and maybe they'll afford putting ridables horses in the game.

 

[taxalot]

oh fuck it

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=40715

 

[Samantha]

I think it will grow even more as time progresses. Things are already getting better. Everyone is crying about old issues. Try it out, see for yourselves!

Are you me?

Are you my alt?

No, you're me.

 

[Aildrik]

So, Taxalot's review inspired me to log in and give this game another look. Still doing the 'help the elves' starter quest but ran into a few things that could really use fixing.

1. Weird rubber banding issue. NPCs and players will appear to walk in place and then suddenly vanish and reappear someplace else.

2. Off-putting graphical anomalies. Here, my guy is swimming and the water ripples from my character being in the water are like 3 feet ABOVE the water:

3. Really sloppy animations for jumping, etc. My guy self-lobotomizes with each jump:

4. OMG the dark elf model... simply nightmare inducing. Its not even ugly or scary, its more like what I would find in medical literature for some sort of horrible deformity that occurs in 1/10000000000 births:

Still playing through the starter area. Skill system looks interesting. I am personally leaning more towards a magic/caster build. I am trying not to get hung up on small details but I really feel Richard should have done some thinking outside the box with regards to graphics style and engine, because what new players experience is something that looks like any other generic MMO but with textures, models and animations from the mid 2000's era. There could have been something unique there. It could very well be that Portalarium conceded the graphics early on and is just hoping that nostalgia and Ultima fans comprise the bulk of the playerbase and financial support.

Not being able to drop items on the ground is a real let down as well, especially for a game that is supposed to be, spiritually, an Ultima. Even EQ on release let you do that, with the item usually represented in the world by a small generic bag graphic.

Anyhow.. will keep plugging away to see how the rest of the game shapes up.

 

[Samantha]

So, Taxalot's review inspired me to log in and give this game another look. Still doing the 'help the elves' starter quest but ran into a few things that could really use fixing.

1. Weird rubber banding issue. NPCs and players will appear to walk in place and then suddenly vanish and reappear someplace else.

2. Off-putting graphical anomalies. Here, my guy is swimming and the water ripples from my character being in the water are like 3 feet ABOVE the water:

3. Really sloppy animations for jumping, etc. My guy self-lobotomizes with each jump:

4. OMG the dark elf model... simply nightmare inducing. Its not even ugly or scary, its more like what I would find in medical literature for some sort of horrible deformity that occurs in 1/10000000000 births:

Still playing through the starter area. Skill system looks interesting. I am personally leaning more towards a magic/caster build. I am trying not to get hung up on small details but I really feel Richard should have done some thinking outside the box with regards to graphics style and engine, because what new players experience is something that looks like any other generic MMO but with textures, models and animations from the mid 2000's era. There could have been something unique there. It could very well be that Portalarium conceded the graphics early on and is just hoping that nostalgia and Ultima fans comprise the bulk of the playerbase and financial support.

Not being able to drop items on the ground is a real let down as well, especially for a game that is supposed to be, spiritually, an Ultima. Even EQ on release let you do that, with the item usually represented in the world by a small generic bag graphic.

Anyhow.. will keep plugging away to see how the rest of the game shapes up.

They are currently working on those issues you mentioned.

Mage builds are great, focus on the core skills like train intelligence, train strength, and train dexterity as these all impact your skills in various ways. Especially spell damage. I'm thankful for not being able to leave loads of crap all over the place. I did not like that about UO. You can right click and destroy those items.

 

[Samantha]

I think one of the mistakes was calling this game the spiritual successor to Ultima because it is based off the Sword of Midras book. There are very few elements that remind me of Ultima. It is its own game. For a kickstarter I think it's great. I'm sure if they had 80 million or some such then there wouldn't be as many issues.
Your honest feedback is valued though. The good and the bad, because there actually are a lot of great elements about the game that has the current players hooked.

 

[FireKing]

This game is total shite and in no way should or could be considered a spiritual successor to any of the Ultimas or UO. It is just simply total fucking garbage!