Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues - Kickstarter Updates

The tricky thing here is the "too many cooks spoil the broth" aspect of crowdfunding. There are two divergent audiences clamoring for attention, the UO fans and the old-school Ultima fans.

I think this is a big issue right now. I think trying to be everything to everyone hurts him. I would feel better if he came out and said "if you never want to log in and never want another player to affect your game AT ALL, this may not be the game for you. But keep us in mind because I believe even you will like our game in the end" .

This quote from Richard says it all for me "My honest expectation before starting this campaign, was that while the game could be played offline for periods of time, I did not expect people to desire to "never connect"."

The game is multiplayer, maybe nothing like what is out there now and having story aspects like the old Ultimas, but it is multiplayer focused. That's fine, but just admit it.

I do understand the disappointment though. Yes in a perfect world people would see a new game by Richard Garriott and go in with a perfectly open mind saying "oh I wonder what this is. Hmm interesting, I will wait for more info before I make up my mind completely."

In reality, old school Ultima fans see a new game by Richard Garriott and say to themselves before they click the link "holy crap a new Ultima RPG from Richard Garriott. Sweet!" Happy dance. Click link. Multiplayer. "Awwww F@#k!"
 
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I have watched the videos to date….as of a slow day at work yesterday…and remain unswayed to pledge to this project. It is indeed an MMO….or perhaps better called a "limited MMO"…..or perhaps better yet an "extended coop." If I were interested in multiplayer, I would almost certainly pledge to this campaign. I think he has a couple of interesting ideas for online play, particularly PvP being triggered by a quest of sorts, i.e. you take on a mission to deliver illicit good across the world map and now PvP players are brought into your game to hunt you down.

But, I'm afraid, I'm just not interested in multiplayer these days and, therefore, not interested in this game, because that's where its focus lies. Single player is an afterthought meant to mollify the Kickstarter crowd and old Ultima fans and, as a result, will likely suffer in its quality.
 
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Maybe its my age, maybe it is the long days at work, who knows could be all the running around I do with my wife and children for sports etc. None of which I am complaining about at all.
Point is I don't want to play with others never mind strangers. I just want to go to some world on my laptop and have fun for an hour or two when I have the time. Solve some quest, kill a dragon or two...
This whole social online bullshit is for the birds. I am sure old schoold Ultima fans all feel the same way. Just give us a game we can lose ourselfs in for the brief moments in time that we get to play our games.
If Lord British thinks he is going to capture a new generation by adding this I think he is saddly mistaken...Though if he stuck to what made so many Ultima fans in the past he just might pick up some younger followers..
 
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I am surprised as to why people continue to question the form of this game: it is a multiplayer game. It is clearly written in the product features (although put as the last feature as if this is the least important feature or they are trying to hide this fact - compare this with the first feature in the Torment kickstarter which clearly specify that it is a single player game).

This is unfortunate as it belongs now with the massive pile of MMO and free-to-play, microtransactions riddled games littereing the digital world.
 
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I am surprised as to why people continue to question the form of this game: it is a multiplayer game. It is clearly written in the product features (although put as the last feature as if this is the least important feature or they are trying to hide this fact - compare this with the first feature in the Torment kickstarter which clearly specify that it is a single player game).

This is unfortunate as it belongs now with the massive pile of MMO and free-to-play, microtransactions riddled games littereing the digital world.


You are right if you blatantly ignore all the info out there. I mean, it makes your argument but it is not correct. Everything they have said so far was that it would have a single player storyline like U4 to U7 timeline with the option to play cooperative in a persistent area.

I'm not sure why it is hard for you to understand.

Richard Garriott here:Let me address your question about solo and multiplayer play. The game has both! The game is absolutely story driven, similar to early Ultima's. We do not intend to force anyone to play "online". That being said, I believe many or most will find our interpretation of multiplayer to enhance their experience. When the game is played online, there is a global persistent world that ALL players are part of (no shards intended), all player shops with their vendors as well as homes and other permanent structures are seen by and visited by all players. In addition, you will see and interact with other players in real time. But, the people you will generally bump into will be connected preferentially based on if you already know them, or have some other reason we think you would enjoy playing with them.

I guess I'm different in that I am going by what the developer has said instead of making up what I want.
 
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You are right if you blatantly ignore all the info out there. I mean, it makes your argument but it is not correct. Everything they have said so far was that it would have a single player storyline like U4 to U7 timeline with the option to play cooperative in a persistent area.

I'm not sure why it is hard for you to understand.

Richard Garriott here:Let me address your question about solo and multiplayer play. The game has both! The game is absolutely story driven, similar to early Ultima's. We do not intend to force anyone to play "online". That being said, I believe many or most will find our interpretation of multiplayer to enhance their experience. When the game is played online, there is a global persistent world that ALL players are part of (no shards intended), all player shops with their vendors as well as homes and other permanent structures are seen by and visited by all players. In addition, you will see and interact with other players in real time. But, the people you will generally bump into will be connected preferentially based on if you already know them, or have some other reason we think you would enjoy playing with them.

I guess I'm different in that I am going by what the developer has said instead of making up what I want.

I am not making up what I want, RG statements continue to be clear/deceptive/contradictive but all strongly point to the fact that this game is multiplayer based. I don't have the time or patience to go through all his interviews and text as they all say the same thing to me.

You might want to ask yourself or maybe ask RG, how populated and interesting the world is going to be offline?

You like online multiplayer aspect is prefectly legitimate and acceptable, but this is NOT a single player focused game and I don't want that. The core is multiplayer no matter how many layers of paint you (RG) try to cover it with.
 
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I am not making up what I want, RG statements continue to be clear/deceptive/contradictive but all strongly point to the fact that this game is multiplayer based. I don't have the time or patience to go through all his interviews and text as they all say the same thing to me.

You might want to ask yourself or maybe ask RG, how populated and interesting the world is going to be offline?

You like online multiplayer aspect is prefectly legitimate and acceptable, but this is NOT a single player focused game and I don't want that. The core is multiplayer no matter how many layers of paint you (RG) try to cover it with.

BS. I posted a quote from Richard that said exactly what I said in my post. Back up what you are going to say or it is opinion not fact.

You are the same person who thought he was copying mount and blade and now you think he is trying to deceive us with a multiplayer with nothing single player game.

You are making up what you want to make your point.

And for the record I may try the multi player part of it, but I am playing it for the single player part.

another qoute to back up my FACTS.

@Derek, the game can be played single player without an additional dime spent. The main story lines are all single player focused and will live up to Richard's standards for a single player experience.
 
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@rune_74 - Not sure what that RG quote means exactly. If all players are in the same persistent world, then how will they show all the player homes & shops? If they have 1m players that's going to be a hell of a lot of homes & shops, unless they are as rare as hen's teeth… Plus, if there are no shards how will you be preferentially matched with players you know?

I am not hating on the game (pledged), but I sure don't understand it and sort of wonder if they are making stuff up as they go along - what exactly do they mean by multiplayer do you think?
 
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@rune_74 - Not sure what that RG quote means exactly. If all players are in the same persistent world, then how will they show all the player homes & shops? If they have 1m players that's going to be a hell of a lot of homes & shops, unless they are as rare as hen's teeth… Plus, if there are no shards how will you be preferentially matched with players you know?

I am not hating on the game, but I sure don't understand it and sort of wonder if they are making stuff up as they go along - what exactly do they mean by multiplayer do you think?

They do have a limit to the houses and shops. At least that is what they have said so far.

What does that mean? Well I'm thinking each town probably has a player area that can be rented or what not. Not everyone wants to pay for that so it won't interest everyone. They mentioned that the game would connect you with your friends list or people with similar likes.

I'm beginning to think the multiplayer will be more like how guild wars 1 did it and allow you to work on quests with friends or what not.

One interesting idea was to have the map being updated online and adding to your map when you log on, so this could be for world changing events or something.

I think what they are looking for is a more social(as in interacting with other humans) game experience to go along with your single player game to give you a place to go to talk to other people playing the game.

One thing for sure though, is that they are listening and talking about things people bring up. Richard couldn't figure out why one would never want to connect, I think because he sees it as a way for people to socialize like the old days of DnD.

Problem is, all of this is hard to pigeon hold into a genre. It isn't a MMO, it isn't only single player, and it isn't just multiplayer. We live in a world where everything should fit into it's proper hole.
 
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I'm beginning to think the multiplayer will be more like how guild wars 1 did it and allow you to work on quests with friends or what not.

Yes, I did speculate above that they might be doing something like Guild Wars 1. But, GW1 would be very odd with player housing all over Lion's Arch. And if they have 1m players, which I imagine is on the low side of their target the amount of people wanting housing/shops is going to be anything but small.

Incidentally Elder Scrolls Online has a concept they call the mega server, whereby you get funnelled into the same instances as people you know or have something in common with, but that too isn't going to work in an environment where everyone is somehow in the same virtual space at once.
 
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I don't think there will be a ton of houses offered….I think it would be hard to manage. I think there will be also prime houses and shop locations that will be highly sought out.

Will have to wait and see what they have planned for that, to me it isn't the big draw however.

They did post this today as well:

Several big posts coming today that will clear up about 90% of the questions.


This answers about kickstarter DRM and online/offline play as well as the single player microtransactions.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/portalarium/shroud-of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues-0/posts
 
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Yep, good update info for the singleplayer folks. Also this comment from the devs might be of interest:
Portalarium said:
@Michael, main quest line will be nearly identical in both versions! Just think of the online version as playing an old Ultima but your companions are played by real people! We'll give some more updates daily but we wanted to answer those three questions since they make up about 70% of the concerns people were expressing.
 
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