Shroud of the Avatar - Catch All

I play it off and on.

It is early release still so I will make a guy and play him a bit every few months. I haven't played since my post about the game 2 months ago.

It has a UO feel to it. Not sure about the overland map concept with the small adventure areas but not sure if that will change as the game development progresses.

You can see changes in each release and some of them are large. So will be interesting to see what the finish product, if it ever makes it there, will be like.

I was an early kickstarter supporter, and to be honest I'm pretty annoyed by the length of time it's taken to get something remotely playable and by the constant email updates and patch notes.

I probably won't go in on another game Kickstarter again. After SotA and the new Planescape:Torment project I learned that I just don't have that desire to really participate in the alpha/beta sausage-making anymore.

I joined SotA mainly to support Garriott because I still have warm & fuzzy feelings for the Ultima series, but only put a few disappointing hours into the early build. Last week I installed it on my spiffy "new" pc, and I have to say they've improved it quite a bit. The jumping is still damn awkward, though. Worse than Ultima IX, I think. Hope they fix that. The world still seems sparse, it needs much more activity by npc's and critters before it will feel like an Ultima game.

Final wipe is coming up. Everything after that is going to stay in when the game goes live, meaning your chars, housing, etc.

Okay, I bought in. I actually backed this game, but for $1 or something silly. It gave me access to Backer updates, which was my main interest even though it turned more into an annoyance than boon.

I've been watching and reading stuff about it and it looks to be unique in its approach, even if it does appear to have the same sort of cash shop that turns me off from Star Citizen. But, as they say, you can earn it all in-game. Fine, I'll grind for that pipe skin. (Seriously, some weird stuff for sale.)

Anyway, as a fan of quasi-MMOs and SP MMOs this seems to be fitting in my wheelhouse. Let's see if I'm up for its old school quirks. Probably not, but hey, I tried.

Watched bits of gameplay over the last 24 hrs from 3 different streamers & thought the game really had an Ultima Online vibe to it. Anyone actively playing since the final wipe took place? Never played any of the single player Ultima's, but played UO off/on for 15 yrs on various servers.

Its very rough and ui and controls are horrible still. I dont hold much hope for it anymore, sadly,

Running Man wrote:

I joined SotA mainly to support Garriott because I still have warm & fuzzy feelings for the Ultima series, but only put a few disappointing hours into the early build. Last week I installed it on my spiffy "new" pc, and I have to say they've improved it quite a bit. The jumping is still damn awkward, though. Worse than Ultima IX, I think. Hope they fix that. The world still seems sparse, it needs much more activity by npc's and critters before it will feel like an Ultima game.

I feel the same way. I supported the game and I haven't even logged on. My version of playing the game is deleting all of the emails they send.

I was an early backer as well and am pretty disappointed so far. The game just feels so dated. Like it was made 20 years ago. This includes poor combat animations / design. Horrible UI.

I may write something out much longer as I think on it today but the short of it is: I feel like they made Ultima Online again, which sounds good on paper, until you realize that we've made some nice advances in game design since that game came out. While I would like a sandbox game like UO again, I also want some of the improvements that have come along since (UI , graphics, animations). What this is , is just a complete exact rehash of that game. Crafting the same weapons, armor. Fighting the same creatures. Even the base story is pretty much the same (what little of it I experienced).. They just didn't seem to go in any bold new direction at all.

I'll probably check back in a few months again, but everytime I check back in on the game it doesn't seem to feel that much different.

Well, I decided to give SotA another shot. Logged in and immediately hit a wall, trying to decipher the rune system just to read my map. I didn't see the need for it during Ultima's heyday, even less so now.
Instead of playing I have to leave the game and do homework to learn the runic alphabet all over again. There's no option to turn the language back into English, as far as I can tell. Talk about a momentum killer.

Great job Garriott, I'm sure new players will flock to SotA in droves when they hear about the chore of learning runic before playing your game.

I've still never logged in once. Seems I made the right decision.

So from everything I've read it seems like this game went the Star Citizen route? Focusing more on things you could buy in-game than the actual game itself?

Yeah - Despite promises, there isn't really going to be any kind of real single player game here. All the added content is pretty much meant for either real dollar payments (Housing, villages and so on) or PVP and the online world.

The controls and UI are beyond horrible, and the systems are still being reoworked, and its what - 2 years overdue by now?

That's too bad as I was really looking forward to another single player Ultima, even if it was billed as a "spiritual successor". Oh well, guess there's always Exult.

I tried a newbie quest, something about fighting bandits under a cemetery, and it was going well fighting them two at a time, til I reached the last room and there were what seemed like eight of them, they chased me all the way to the surface. For an introductory quest it was sadly unbalanced.

Back to the pesky runic language system, it seems they only use runic for important signs, not for everyday information, which begs the question, why would the citizens of New Britannia put up with that? Bilingual countries have signs in both languages. I'm beyond baffled.

Houston, we have a problem.

Seems like a complete train-wreck and I'll be somewhat surprised if it ever reaches a true retail release.

Badferret wrote:

Houston, we have a problem.

Seems like a complete train-wreck and I'll be somewhat surprised if it ever reaches a true retail release.

Honestly i'm not surprised. I logged in to check things out a couple months ago and was shocked and how little they'd done in a years time.

Saw more improvements done with the Project: Gorgon in the same time frame which is like a 2 man shop and a much better game than what SotA is.

My weekly updates consist largely of cosmetic enhancements that do nothing to entice me to return to the game. Garriott should put some of that Ultima money I gave him toward finishing it.

I backed this back when it was on Kickstarter but have been ignoring the updates for a couple years now. And from the looks of it I am better off to keep ignoring them and count my money lost since I wanted a single player Ultima...

Malkroth wrote:

I backed this back when it was on Kickstarter but have been ignoring the updates for a couple years now. And from the looks of it I am better off to keep ignoring them and count my money lost since I wanted a single player Ultima...

Exactly where I am. I should have paid more attention and seen that Ultima Online was really their goal more than the glory days of U7 or U4, whatever they said about single player support. But that was in the days when I'd back all sorts of stuff on KS. Now I'm basically done with KS unless something is so deeply indie that I can make a difference or if I really trust the people and I'm effectively getting a heavily discounted preorder.

I also backed this but was hoping for it to be a spiritual successor to Ultima Online, it is also piss poor at being that. The combat is horrible, the world is very uninspired. Walking around the zones it really feels like they spent more time working on how to sell digital real estate to people vs actually making a compelling game.

Apparently launching on March 27th. I'd totally forgotten I'd backed this way back when.

"launching"

No, that's not a space joke. This is one of those "well, we have to release it at some point as the early access money is slowing down so let's release it now" launches.

I'll give it another spin in a few weeks, but hopes are not high.

Certis wrote:

Apparently launching on March 27th. I'd totally forgotten I'd backed this way back when.

Same here. The only thing that reminded me is all of the updates that filled my mailbox after backing it.

shroud
noun
1.
a length of cloth or an enveloping garment in which a dead person is wrapped for burial.

2.
a thing that envelops or obscures something.

Both appropriate definitions, I think. Some light reading for yall:

http://gigi.nullneuron.net/gigilabs/...

https://portalariumisbadateverything...

If Shroud of the Avatar got nothing [else] right, it has a great name. Forsaken Virtues very much reflects its overall direction. Honesty, for instance, was thrown out the window along with the Kickstarter promises. Compassion is shot down once you read the aforementioned email correspondence. Sacrifice is done by Portalarium only insofar as other people’s money and their own staff are involved.

As for humility, there are multiple aspects to this. One is that the game tried to be everything (scope creep anyone?), and thus failed to be stand out (or even be decent) in any one department. Another is that the top people behind the game need to get off their pedestal and start listening to their fans.

Ouch.

Makes me kind of glad I stopped paying attention to this game and counted my $120 pledge lost after I saw the first few emails were hyper focused on being an MMO.

I was in for only $30 or so, the minimum that got the game, but I've also pretty much written it off. It came out when I was a lot sillier about backing KS stuff, and I was too lost in U4 and U7 nostalgia to notice that it was catering more to the UO crowd that I couldn't care less about. I'll probably install it and kick the tires a bit, but I've got clearly better RPGs to play.

edit: just noticed I said pretty much the same thing upthread a year ago. But on reading that review I now doubt I'll even give it that much time. Oh well.

I've stopped getting my hopes up about meaningful gameplay improvements. There's virtually nothing here to attract new players. From the latest email:

Highlights of this week's update include:

Fishing Phase 2 Updates: Lava Fishing Rod
2018 Rare Spooky Items
Release 58 on QA Server
Player Made Books Livestream (take 2!)
Release 57 Livestream: Last Friday for Stretch Goals
Shroud of the Avatar Rewards Program
Weekend Flash Sales: Dyes
Community Event: Novia Market R57 Grandmastery Bundles
Community Event: 4B - Where is Riya? - forum event
Community Event: Novia Market R57 Grandmastery Bundles
Meretz: Win a Gothic Village Inn
Meretz: Win a Pair of SOTACON 2018 Tickets!
Project to Support: SotA: New Beginnings Comic No. 2
Project to Support: King's Dinner at SOTACON
Project to Support: AERIE Fund - Cult of Bob - Direct Relief Fundraiser
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