Shroud of the Avatar thread? Rich Garriot AKA Lord Brittish (UO)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The MMO HMO > Shroud of the Avatar thread? Rich Garriot AKA Lord Brittish (UO)

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Thursday Next posted:

I recently got the chance to play this game. It's really, really rough.

The graphics are awful - not just placeholder textures or uneven art design (although those are all problems too), but just bad copy-and-paste jobs. They have billboard forests for zone edges, and the whole thing looks and feels like a game ten years older than it is. It's really bad.

Combat is terrible, too. There's no feel of connecting, when you swing. Your range is probably realistic, but in game it's not very fun. Like, you can be standing almost inside the model of a skeleton and still not be able to swing at it because you're somehow out of range. And the skeletons in particular suck. There are three types: mages, archers, and melee skeletons. Mage skeletons can hit you from across a zone. Archers run away after hit, causing you to chase them for hours (each of your swings deals very little damage). Melee skeletons will go toe to toe with you, but their range exceeds yours so every swing causes them to "push" themselves backwards a tiny bit... just enough to move out of range. So you have to swing, step, swing, step, step, swing, etc and hope you're still hitting.

I know it's pre-alpha, but drat, it has a long way to go.

I really want to play this when it's done, but the original 2014 launch date is laughable. I'd be surprised if this is ready by 2017. It needs serious work. My guess is that they'd be looking at a mid-to-late-2018 launch if they could keep the funds coming in. Again, I REALLY like Ultima and I want to play this video game. I would be a goony gently caress and spend a fair amount of Real Cash Monies on this video game if it were good enough.

The funniest part though is how if you mention any of the problems on the Steam forums you get thirty fanbois howling and throwing poop at you almost instantly. Game is apparently perfect and needs absolutely no improvement on any front whatsoever, and any criticism - no matter how minor - is absolutely invalid. Reminds me of the early days of Wildstar in that way.

The only other game i've played that started with the alpha, was Project CARS and that was in a very similar state to what Shroud of the Avatar is in, where everything is really rough, especially the production values. During alpha, a lot of art assets are not place holders per say, but are not completed either. I would keep an open mind for now and see where the game goes and how it looks once it's in beta. Shroud of the Avatar still has a long ways to go and i'm a bit concerned about the direction it's going though, especially since it's a year behind schedule. Just from experience playing other games in the early alpha stage, Shroud of the Avatars current state is standard.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2015 01:17

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 19, 2024 07:38

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

yoloer420 posted:

You will never have these hats!

Since this has a offline mode, won't we be able to just mod these in eventually?

# ¿ Dec 13, 2015 01:50

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Node posted:

Richard Garriot could totally beat up Chris Roberts

Absolutely agree. Even if Shroud of the Avatar is no longer a game I really can defend, I still respect Richard Garriot.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2016 01:55

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Richard unironically lived in a real castle in Texas and then sold it so he can goto space.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2016 02:24

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Stefan Prodan posted:

I've been to a bunch of LB's dragoncon panels and honestly he seems like a really chill cool guy who palys up his weird Ren Fair persona as a goof

I've always figured he was a very chill person considering the sort of hobbies he is into and what he does for a career. I really miss Origin Systems though and wish Ultima was still a thing. Ultima Online is still going but it really sucks now.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2016 17:18

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Node posted:

Lum the Mad's site was always in the background when I was playing UO. Other than making me laugh all the goddamn time when it came to UO and EQ, the infamous World War 2 Online launch chatlog put me in tears.

https://web.archive.org/web/20050924071704/http://www.brokentoys.org/ww2o-irc.html

And holy poo poo, would you look at that:

The fifth line in the chatlog. And Derek Smart is here on the forums now, fifteen years later, fanning the flames in the Star Citizen dumpster. I just, I mean, w

lol I remember this stuff. World War II Online is still going too. Speaking of the early days of MMO launches when every game was beyond terrible, who remembers Anarchy Online launch?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2016 13:21

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Open world PvP mmos will never work.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2016 19:09

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

iminers posted:

So any hint as to when this gonna be fully released?

Pre-Alpha launched November 2014 and it is still pre-alpha. Wouldn't expect release for at least another 2 years.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2016 06:23

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

The official FAQ doesn't have a release date. July or August is not going to happen or at least I hope not. Game is not anywhere close to polished enough to make that happen.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2016 17:27

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

iminers posted:

How the hell does that happen when this game has been in development since 2014?

One of the major disadvantages of crowd funding games is that the developer has no oversight or people that they have to answer to. Crowd funding removes any and all obligation to the developer to deliver an actual game, this is why this method of funding games has become so popular for the smaller developers not already under one of the major publishers. So they don't have a reason for their producers to do their job, game is already funded, everyone is already paid, they can take their time delivering the title. In theory this means a better game, but in reality that is usually far far from how it actually works. If Richard Garriot was still at Electronic Arts then I have no doubt Shroud of the Avatar would have launched in 2014 and would have been a much better game for it too. His idea's are so off the wall insane though that every publisher knows better then to fund his projects because they aren't games people really want to play.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2016 15:22

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Can you have your own plot of land and house in the single player offline version?

# ¿ Apr 10, 2016 15:29

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Is there a set in stone release date yet?

# ¿ Jun 5, 2016 16:39

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Kickstarter games are a god drat scam. I'm going to say this forever and nothing will ever change my opinion about this. If a dev openly admits that their game wasn't accepted by the big publishers then that right there is a gigantic redflag to steer clear. Shroud of the Avatar was one of those games.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2016 04:02

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

DancingShade posted:

This. A video game should only exist if brought to the market by a proven, trustworthy developer in the arms of a big publisher that looks out for consumer interests.

Like say, EA or Ubisoft. You know, good reliable names that always live up to expectations.

Frankly any devs that goes it alone outside of the protection of Big Publishing should be treated like raw milk advocates, rounded up and send to the camps.

All of the big publishers have departments in place to scout out indie studios and give them the funding and marketing they need to release their games. Asking gamer's to invest in your title before its even begun development, and then keep your game in a state of pre-alpha forever and providing no concrete time lines, is exploitative and shady.

A kickstarter game has to be fully finished and on Steam for me to even consider looking at it.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2016 14:58

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 19, 2024 07:38

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

DancingShade posted:

Apparently you didn't get the memo. No games are finished anymore and everything gets patched and updated eternally.

With Early Access games, they are only in that state so long as the dev is hitting marketing and financial goals. Once that stops their game suddenly goes full release on Steam.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2016 00:34

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The MMO HMO > Shroud of the Avatar thread? Rich Garriot AKA Lord Brittish (UO)