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[Interview] Shroud of the Avatar: Release 11: Its Steamy!
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
I am quite literally just back from Austin as I sit down to write this latest update on Shroud of the Avatar. I wasn’t able to make it up for my typical week-before-release hangout with the guys, so today was pretty much a drive by. It’s well worth staying up past my bedtime to hack this article out, though. Despite the brevity of my visit, I got a load of cool information to share with you folks, and I’m excited to do it.
Read more of Red Thomas's Shroud of the Avatar Release 11: It's Steamy!
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Test out your new skills in defense of Vertas Pass.
Comments
Did you make the article public? The link just redirects back to:
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/935/view/features
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
No, it's a 3D version of Ultima Online. And Legend of Grimrock is already 3D? So at most it would be an MMO version..
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high
And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll
Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde
And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
actually its not a 3d version of Grimrock or Ultima online.. maybe more of a 3d version of the older Ultima games... but then something different as well.
saying its a 3d version of Ultima online kind of implies that its a full on mmorpg but its not.. its more of an rpg with some multiplayer features
Still its shaping up pretty well so far
Not being an mmorpg is the only thing that kept me from buying into it
I hope someday he does an mmorpg out of this, as I only play mmorpgs.
*edit* Hubby bought into the game when it was Kickstarter, and Nov/2014 convinced me to try it out. Thanks Lord British for your response, I'm enjoying the alpha.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
Ice-Queen,
Shroud of the Avatar allows players to select between Solo-Player and Massively Multiplayer (and a few modes in between). When playing in the default configuration, it is more MMO than most MMO's! Most MMO's have "Shards" to prevent overpopulation of one server. Shards mean that people on separate shards will never meet, which arbitrarily fragments the community. SotA actually allows ALL players into the same single world. We manage overcrowding by temporarily spinning up multiple instances of an overcrowded area, and sorting people into them based on your friends graph. I think this is both an MMO and better than Sharded MMO's!
Shroud of the Avatar has the best features of many of this teams prior work: Virtue Quests as seen in Ultima IV-VII, Detailed World interaction and NPC schedules as seen in Ultima VII, Massively Multiplayer play as seen in Ultima Online, and persistent player world impact as seen in both the Housing of Ultima Online and the Contol Points of Tabula Rasa.
If you are looking for an MMO, you will not be unhappy with SotA! If you are looking for a story driven RPG, SotA will also deliver. And you can play it in solo mode if you wish.
See you in the game!
- Lord British
But is there an open world that is shared by everyone at the same time?
Isn't everything instanced? Is the game not hosted locally on a player's client machine (with some server checks).
Aren't villages/towns/cities also instances? Why is housing advertised as non-instanced (like for example UO or Archeage housing)?
This sounds more like coop multiplayer where friends can join your game, with some persistent elements.
Perhaps Lord British should also mention extremely small zones...after zones....after zones. Absolutely no freedom no exploration. City zones...leave the city and you don't run out...you load onto a map. Click on a wilderness tile, you enter into a small forest zone...run for less than 5 minutes, you are back into a loading screen.
The combat is horrible. Random 'cards' thing just are not fun. You're spending your combat time watching these cards roll around and hope some useful skill pops up!
Graphics and animations are well below the standard of most F2P games. And I get the 'oh it is still in alpha'. Alpha for like two years now and graphics have improved minimally in that time.
Housing is ok. But it is a matter of whoever spends the most RL money is going to see the most benefits from housing.
This game was originally slated to be released by the end of 2014. I would be surprized if we see an official release much before the end of next year.
Lord British and fans will continue to attempt to sell this as a UO like game. Only to get the money from old school UO players. Who loved the freedom and exploration that UO offered in so many ways. But SOTA is not remotely close to the open world of UO. And to compare this game not only to UO but to Tabula Rasa as well is only a dib to get more money from fans of these games.
I sadly put my money into this game. I wouldn't feel right recommending this game to anyone else. If you are after a dated look, instanced, horrible combat, overly complex crafting and housing run by RL cash...well then guess this is the game for you!
I think a lot of the confusion about is it an MMO, is it a coop, etc. is borne out of the sheer insanity of the design of the game. Lord British and Darkstarr are the go big or go home type of guys. I honestly don't think that they would be doing this if they weren't trying something revolutionary. They don't particularly need to develop a game(read their bios).
With that being said, thank goodness someone is trying. The current state of MMO's is sad and its up to them to fix what they invented!. I know my friends and I want to play an online game but cant play something for 5 minutes that has question marks above npcs heads for questing(npc auction houses suck too). The beauty of online gaming is that you and your friends are supposed to set out on an adventure and the adventure writes itself by what the players want to do.
If you question the success of open sandboxes just look at minecraft. Super popular because people get to use their own imaginations facilitated by GUI. As simple as mining blocks and letting people place them. Shroud is that concept on roids.
At first I was worried about the instancing but the game mechanics will make it so that you will play with friends and people you come in contact with. Rarely do you see more people in an MMO than is what is allocated for the instances in Shroud of the Avatar. And they are allowing more palyers into certain instances where it is needed(arenas, etc.).
In my opinion, this game will cover all of the critical aspects of a what an online game should be. Good story line, actual open sandbox, and some strategy sprinkled in. To top it off let's get the community involved and have a say. A lot of people have been waiting a long time for something like this.
This is like Minecraft on ROIDS? Seriously? Where is the freedom to build in this game? Your freedom to build depends on how big your RL wallet is and then you can have the biggest house! And there is no freedom to build anywhere. You can build in a marked town zone. You cannot mine anything and place it somewhere. Everything when it comes to actual building is premade...and available..you guessed it...in the Cash Shop!
On top of that...open sandboxes as minecraft, are just that...an open world. Not full of loading screens and instances. Not full of pre placed house plots...in instanced zones.
Everquest Landmark is perhaps closest to Minecraft on roids. This game has absolutely nothing in comparison to Minecraft.
I see the devs speaking how this game is comparable to Ultima Online...which really it isn't. Now comparing it to Minecraft...which it is not even close. Next you'll be calling it the new WoW just to try n get some money out of that crowd as well.
I think you missed the point.
Definetly not Ultima Online.
Ultima Online was a open and totally free game world where risk vs reward PvP played a major part (older UO when Richard Garriott played a part in UO development).
There is just about no risk vs reward in SOTA.
Yeah, the non-open world aspect sucks in many ways. I wouldn't have minded zone-to-zone travel. The scenes can be as small or large as they want which gives them flexibility. But yeah, open world would have been the preference. Plus, it looks like they're moving away from thousands of individual zones into what appears to be more like "regions", so maybe they are going to attempt really huge zones instead.
And combat can be played like every other MMO using a fully locked hotbar. If that's what floats your boat, you can play that way. To me, that's personally boring having played so many damn MMOs it really bores the hell out of me how locked hotbars work in all those games. I'm giving this one a chance with its random deck combat system, which is a player choice. Again, you can play using a typical MMO locked hotbar or play using random deck combat. I thought it was fun and will probably stick with it.
Graphics are indeed subpar, that I agree with. They need to spend tons more focus on this to fix things up at some point.
Housing? Yeah, you get what you pay for. I don't see a problem there. Shell out cash now or just buy it in-game later. Every other crowd funded project does this.
Their initial October 2014, then changed to "end of" 2014 target release date was a big joke. I honestly can't believe anyone fell for that. The scope of what they committed to during their Kickstarter was insane for what they were asking -- and to have that completed in 18 months? Seriously, was anyone that stupid to believe they could accomplish all that in 18 months? A full blown RPG and an MMO in 18 months??? Seriously???
This is a 2016 title, in my opinion. From KS to launch, it'll take at least 3 years based on what they signed up to do. I can't believe they're now saying it'll be done in "first half 2015" according to their Steam page.