Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues

[rjshae]

Sorry, I loved me some Ultima back in the day but I like to do my RPG's in the old fashioned way, anti-social and antiquated. I'm also not financially supporting a multi millionaire, who can pop off into space ocassionally.

 

Yup, some people like team sports and some like individual sports; it's the same with CRPGs. Besides, I think you're more likely to get a better story with a single-player game.

[Hurlshort]

Yeah, I don't remember much of anything storywise in UO.  I imagine there will be a bit more structure in this game.

 

They spoke about the graphics being in pre pre alpha, so that really shouldn't be too big of a concern.  It will still look dated, but this seems decent to me:

 

[TSBasilisk]

Well, I don't think this will break any Kickstarter records like Torment, but just under five hours in it's already brought in a quarter of the needed funds, so I suspect it'll make the distance. I'll wait until I can get a look at the video before I decide one way or the other, but right now I'm leaning toward funding.

[SophosTheWise]

I don't get why people fail to understand that this is not an MMO. It's just an ad-hoc drop in/drop out singleplayer game, where actually PEOPLE create the persistent world, instead of cardboard-NPCs. I'm quite impressed honestly.

[alanschu]

Aye these modern bloody millionaires with their space trips and their technological innovations, in my day we made do with champagne, laudanum, societal repression and expensive escorts, and we were thankful for it i'll have you know!

 

 

Luxury!

 

In my day a bloody millionaire was lucky if he made $2.90/hr and wasn't mired in debt.  If he had a shoebox to live in, he was probably a billionaire!

[TSBasilisk]

To me, the drop-in mechanic sounds a bit like Journey. You can play it alone, or have other people appear and they'll impact the outcome as well. It's a good way to include the good of an MMO (encountering unknown people with their own objectives) while avoiding the bad (overcrowding in questing areas, static world).

Edited March 8, 2013 by TSBasilisk

[Hurlshort]

I don't get why people fail to understand that this is not an MMO. It's just an ad-hoc drop in/drop out singleplayer game, where actually PEOPLE create the persistent world, instead of cardboard-NPCs. I'm quite impressed honestly.

 

Actually I was a bit confused about that myself.  Is it going to be like NWN servers where they are hosted by the public, or is it going to be more like Guild Wars where you have kind of a public area and then you travel to adventure areas with groups?  It's very unclear to me.

 

The reason I ask is because home ownership is emphasized, but if that home is not in a public area that would kind of defeat the purpose.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Hurlshot

[TSBasilisk]

It's more like Journey, in that people will be chosen to drop into the same server as you. Preference will be given to your friends, after them being people the game believes you'll find like-minded based on quest choices and such. The number of people who can be in the same instance will be limited like Guild Wars. You can also choose to play completely offline.

 

I think your house will change across all servers when you modify it. People can visit it and, if you have a shop, an NPC version of your character will act as a trader on your behalf. That's why ownership is important.

Edited March 8, 2013 by TSBasilisk

[Hurlshort]

Ah, your house will exist in all instances of the game, that's awesome!  So just like UO, having a house near town with merchants plays an important role in the economy.  Cool beans.  It sounds like a decent streamlined way to create an online game.

[Rostere]

It's a hack'n'slash MMO, nothing like the original Ultima games.

 

People who give money to these kinds of projects are the reason Van Buren was scrapped instead of FO:PoS, the reason why Black Hound was scrapped for Dark Alliance series, and well, you get it. Don't allow the dumbing-down to happen, pledge for Torment: Tides of Numenera instead, which actually looks like it will try to be true to it's predecessor.

[alanschu]

What if a hack'n'slash MMO in this vein is what one wants, however?

[Theobeau]

A bit meh with this KS as well but did the  $10 nostalgia / guilt pledge (more nostalgia on my part).

 

Came across this interesting interview from the KS backers comments thread; a Garriott launch interview that covers that curious hybrid MMO/offline cRPG model that he is using for the game

 

http://sota.ultimacodex.com/interview-with-richard-garriott/

 

Will consider pledging up to a digital copy if the updates point to a decent single player experience.

 

I also wonder whether Garriott saw the phenomenal success of Torment and decided to launch his KS and ride in its slipstream.  That or he's saving up for his next adventure. 

 

After all, don't you know that space travel has gone up in price since 2008 ?

 

Edit:

 

Garriott really rocks that rat's tail. He even wore it during his space adventures !

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garriott#Spaceflight

Edited March 9, 2013 by Theobeau

[alanschu]

Eh, Fargo is an affluent individual as well.  If we're going to slag on Garriott for asking for outside investment (a common thing for rich folk to do), we'd have to drag Brian through the coals as well.

 

I have zero interest in contributing to this product, but I have no qualms about Garriott using Kickstarter to fund it regardless of how rich he is.

[TSBasilisk]

The hack'n'slash part is temporary until they flesh out the combat system, I thought.

[Hurlshort]

I'd say it is pretty clear they were planning this kickstarter for awhile, so it coming out at a similar time as the Torment one is simply a coincidence.  Honestly they don't seem to share that much in common.   

[Rostere]

What if a hack'n'slash MMO in this vein is what one wants, however?

Then I say pledge.

 

But I'd be surprised if that's what classic Ultima fans want.

[alanschu]

Well, I suppose that depends on what you mean by classic.

 

Going back to the original games, yeah that's pretty much what they were.  If you are a fan of Ultima Online (which has a stupidly devout following, which Richard Garriott himself was super enthused to work on) it'd probably still work quite well as well.

 

 

Ultima games are a lot of things and depending on the type of player you are at the time, it could appeal to you.  For me in 1993, Ultima 6/7 were awesome because they resembled open, living worlds.  I sucked at the game itself, and didn't finish the actual story until I played Exult over a decade later (at a time when story narrative was my primary reason for playing RPGs).  I replayed through  Ultima 6 recently thanks to GoG, which I also never finished and wasn't very good at either, to conclude the game itself was actually pretty easy and not even all that long (beat it in a weekend of not even that intense sessions).

 

 

I think it's tough to label what a "classic" Ultima fan really is, given the games are pretty diverse among the primary trilogy of trilogies, never mind the spinoffs (UO, UU, etc)

[Sacred_Path]

from venturebeat:

 

 

Backers already contributed more than $300,000 to Garriott’s newest
game in under six hours. That’s impressive, but it clearly won’t reach a
$1 million faster than Torment did.

“Brian’s team, I believe, is doing its second Kickstarter into the
same audience,” Garriott told GamesBeat. “So out of the chute, you’d
expect them to do quite well.”

 

Your relativism is kind of sucky, Mr Garriot. Out of the chute, you'd expect them not to get a cent, because their audience is already saturated.

 

Also, does anyone else slowly get the creeps from his Lord British persona? It was ok in the goofy 80s, maybe the early 90s, but I don't enjoy hearing an old man talk about how he's lord of the realm and we are his good subjects.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Sacred Path, I know what you mean, this is a sum-up of what I and others thought about his kickstarter version of Ultima - Shroud of Avatar:

While a pocket plane/universe to RPG with friends in sounds great, I really doubt this is the case here. And is it just me, but isn't Lord British the least British I've seen in years? He looks like an expat gone Siegfried &Roy Las Vegas style. *Shriver!* A filthy rich space-travelling pimp didn't go done well to a lot of Torment-posters, it seems.

And we would have to have him around on that server all day (or rather once in a blue moon) according to his promise, the prospect is bleak for that MMO single player hybrid.

it was the SP moments in Ultima that did it for me, and mostly U VII then.

I'm just worried that Lord British is forever steeped in an Origin casing of sorts, and he's a bit like those quacks in the wild West: Here's his quoted promise in the comments section there: [i'll give you "the creation of the classic fantasy role playing experience you have been waiting for!" It's like he selling a perfume jar full of air and stale water. It all sounds so empty. He is also reinventing the wheel again, making old stuff seem new, and we are supposed to be amazed?

Let us not be doomsday prophets and claim that Lord British is the first vampire invited to the cozy KS home, coz if he is it could be the beginning of the end, with big publishers masquerading kickstarting.

Kaedryl, Obsidian Order's Mad Doctor wrote:

"Looked at SotA, eh... I loved the Ultima series and personally liked 7 and 8. I played UO for the first 2 years it was out. Regardless, I don't know if I'll back SotA. First, Garriott of the last few years comes across as a tool. I read through the his Ultima RPG defined treatise and I think this about sums it up - "It is clear to me that I, Richard Garriott, am an essential ingredient of at least the Ultimate Ultima, if not more broadly the Ultimate RPG." So, more or less, if he's not part of the game it can't possibly be that good. If you're that wonderful, pay for the game yourself. Where as the inXile and Obsidian teams seem grateful for our support and somewhat humble, Garriott oozes smarmy arrogance. Constantly adding "Dr" to his name for his granted degree doesn't help either.

The other issue is the thing I HATED about UO - limited housing. After the first year or so, if you didn't already have a housing site staked, good luck. I believe this was addressed a little in the later expansions, but it just rubbed be the wrong way that if you didn't get in on the ground floor, the likelihood of owning a place to put your stuff was out of reach. If you read through the proposal, it looks like that's the plan for SotA.

Also the timing rubs me wrong too. I'm sure he didn't (ok, not really), but it does feel like they rushed this to KS to ride on PE's and now Torments coattails.

So I'd like to wish him well, but in good conscience, I just can't."

Edited March 9, 2013 by IndiraLightfoot

[Hurlshort]

I don't really get all the negativity, there seems to be plenty of room on Kickstarter for these projects, as evidenced by the fact they all are doing great on funding.  I also really don't see a lot of similarities with what InXile is doing.  Yeah, they are both RPG's, but that is about where it ends.

 

As for Richard Garriot, the guy is clearly insane.  But he's always been insane, and he still has put out a lot of great games.  His pitch wasn't really filled with any more hyperbole than any of the other ones I've seen.  

 

I get that this won't be the project for a lot of people, it seems genuinely geared towards the Ultima Online crowd, but the complaints about Garriot's bizarre behavior or his wealth are silly. 

[Tigranes]

Eh, Fargo is an affluent individual as well.  If we're going to slag on Garriott for asking for outside investment (a common thing for rich folk to do), we'd have to drag Brian through the coals as well.

 

I have zero interest in contributing to this product, but I have no qualms about Garriott using Kickstarter to fund it regardless of how rich he is.

 

Yeah, that's a big strawman, because Fargo couldn't afford to fund W2 or Torment by himself without risking his financial future, whereas Garriott could (and if he can't, then he's wasted a lot of money). 

 

Unless Fargo has more than $5 million in the bank...

[Keyrock]

I don't really get all the negativity, there seems to be plenty of room on Kickstarter for these projects, as evidenced by the fact they all are doing great on funding.  I also really don't see a lot of similarities with what InXile is doing.  Yeah, they are both RPG's, but that is about where it ends.

 

As for Richard Garriot, the guy is clearly insane.  But he's always been insane, and he still has put out a lot of great games.  His pitch wasn't really filled with any more hyperbole than any of the other ones I've seen.  

 

I get that this won't be the project for a lot of people, it seems genuinely geared towards the Ultima Online crowd, but the complaints about Garriot's bizarre behavior or his wealth are silly. 

I'm with you, while this project doesn't look like it's my kind of thing (too MMO-ish), I have no problem with it, nor do I have any problem with Lord British using Kickstarter to fund a project.  I'm unlikely to back it, but I'll spread the word and wish it well.

[Hurlshort]

 

 

Eh, Fargo is an affluent individual as well.  If we're going to slag on Garriott for asking for outside investment (a common thing for rich folk to do), we'd have to drag Brian through the coals as well.

 

I have zero interest in contributing to this product, but I have no qualms about Garriott using Kickstarter to fund it regardless of how rich he is.

 

Yeah, that's a big strawman, because Fargo couldn't afford to fund W2 or Torment by himself without risking his financial future, whereas Garriott could (and if he can't, then he's wasted a lot of money). 

 

Unless Fargo has more than $5 million in the bank...

 

How much of his own money should Garriot be expected to front on this project?

 

If you watch the video, they've got a playable game there.  It's obviously very early alpha stage, but it is farther along than quite a few kickstarters.  Who do you think paid for that development?

 

Also, Chris Roberts has hollywood money, and he still raised a huge amount to fund Star Citizen.  

Edited March 9, 2013 by Hurlshot

[SophosTheWise]

It's a hack'n'slash MMO, nothing like the original Ultima games.

This goes out to everyone making similar statements:

Seriously, how do you know that? You're just making assumptions based on a FEW SECONDS of gameplay and a very crude description. You haven't played nor have you seen extended footage, an introduction to combat. There is not even a review/preview of it. It's a vague description and about 30 seconds of footage. It really annoys me that guys like you just hate on everything from the start on without any basis for your bias other than your obnoxious "old school cred" that somehow makes you feel superior. 

Secondly, Garriott has stated in the Rooster Teeth stream, that SotA is first and foremost going to be a single player game focused on heavy storytelling in the vein of the old Ultimas. It's not even an MMO, it's a singleplayer game with an online-based drop-in/out function and a persistent world. That's NOT an MMO, not even close. And to adress the hack'n'slash prejudice: Garriott has stated that they only have a basic idea of how combat will work and that the main input is going to be community feedback.

 

And lastly, adressing the old Ultimas. Seriously, how was Ultima VII-XI NOT hack'n'slash? Hell, 90% of the time you couldn't even really interact in battles in Ultima VII. And As for Ultima IV-VI: The combat system may have been turn-based, but still it was a very basic thing and absolutely NOT exciting. You're just drawing some kind of ridiculous romantic fantasy of what "old school" has been. To quote from Everon's "Wasn't it good?"

 

Nostalgia is a dangerous poison
If mixed with bitterness and grief
Makes the past look so much brighter
Forms illusions of relief

 

Now I'm done ranting.

[Keyrock]

about 5 minutes of gameplay from the prototype, for those interested.