Shroud of the Avatar

[BrowncoatJayson]

Not sure how many of you grew up on 80s video games, but if you did you surely know of the Ultima series. Ultima Online was one of the first successful MMOs, and probably the only long-running sandbox type game available.

Well, many of the men behind those games, including Richard "Lord British" Garriott, have started a new company. Their goal is to create a five-game series that builds upon itself into an epic MMO, but which uses selective sharing to allow you to play with the people you choose to. Shroud of the Avatar came through Kickstarter with double its asking amount, and is looking good in their demo from a month ago.

Check it out at shroudoftheavatar.com

Also, if you are interested, some fans are running a Telethon-style community building campaign this weekend. It started a few hours ago, and plans to run a full 24 hours. Can check it out at hearthofbritannia.com. The goal is to get as many new users to pledge, and as many existing players to increase their pledge.

If anyone wants to pledge this weekend, the fundraiser has a HUGE amount of prizes to be won. You can use my referral #1583 to sign up at the SotA site, and forward your confirmation e-mail to [email protected] to have a chance to win.

[Psyren]

I'm guessing they can't call it Ultima for legal reasons.

The demo video looks interesting. Looks like they brought back GUMPS (i.e. the "container windows" from U7).

Not sure how I feel about a text-based chat interface though; unless they have something pretty beefy parsing it behind the scenes, you'll basically have to know the right phrases to get through the game, similar to the adventure games of old, and that can cause frustration easily. It's particularly odd to me since Ultima kind of pioneered the menu-based dialog tree to get away from that problem in the first place. ("Name!" "Job!")

[Cikomyr]

I am still waiting for the interview with Spoony.

[Shannon77]

It is a fantasy video game that is spiritual and technical.

[erikun]

This looks interesting, and I'm liking a lot of what I'm seeing so far with the demo. I do hope that the game has some sort of in-game notepad, though. I can understand the desire to have the player write down important notes about events and quests, rather than have a system-generated "quest log" automatically update. However, far too often I find myself misplacing said batch of notes for the game and end up needing to start from scratch, either by talking to everyone or just restarting the game. Having said notes accessable in-game at least ensures they won't end up separated from the game itself.

Other than that, I am kind of interested (perhaps confused) about the multiplayer aspect. It sounds like a game hosting system, where only select people invited play in the world at the same time, rather than anything massive multiplayer.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

This looks interesting, and I'm liking a lot of what I'm seeing so far with the demo. I do hope that the game has some sort of in-game notepad, though. I can understand the desire to have the player write down important notes about events and quests, rather than have a system-generated "quest log" automatically update. However, far too often I find myself misplacing said batch of notes for the game and end up needing to start from scratch, either by talking to everyone or just restarting the game. Having said notes accessable in-game at least ensures they won't end up separated from the game itself.

So many games would be vastly improved by an in-game method of note-taking...

[Airk]

I'm aware of this, and have backed it, because, well, the Ultima games were pretty formative for me, and I'm pretty sure I didn't buy them all back in the day, so... there ya go, Richard Garriot.

That said, while a lot of the stuff here looks like just what I'd want, I'm kinda wary about the weird multiplayer stuff they're putting in. I haven't been following the project that closely, but I'm a little concerned that they are going to wander too far away from the core experience I am hoping for.

[erikun]

This thread (https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/selective-multiplayer-rpg.2662/) on their forums seems to be the clearest answer to how multiplayer works.

It looks like you get options on who to include, and can choose a full single-player offline game, a full public game, only encountering friends, and so on. Towns and different areas are instanced, like we saw in the demo, and you only run into others if they are in the same instance as you go into. There's a few more details in the thread it looks like, including PvP questions and friend's houses showing up in towns, and so on.

[Psyren]

I'll hold off on excitement until I see the magic system. Ultima had a pretty cool "words of power" thing going on that I would like to see fleshed out even more in this latest installment. ("Kal Vas Flam")

As far as supporting Ultima, I bought pretty much the whole damn thing on GoG during the sales blitz. I'm pretty sure some of that will go to LB as a royalty.

[Airk]

This thread (https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/selective-multiplayer-rpg.2662/) on their forums seems to be the clearest answer to how multiplayer works.

It looks like you get options on who to include, and can choose a full single-player offline game, a full public game, only encountering friends, and so on. Towns and different areas are instanced, like we saw in the demo, and you only run into others if they are in the same instance as you go into. There's a few more details in the thread it looks like, including PvP questions and friend's houses showing up in towns, and so on.

This was relatively clear from the original kickstarter; The problem I have, really, is that fooling around with all that multiplayer stuff is going to waste a lot of time, money and effort that could've been put into a better single player experience.

Well, we'll see.

[Psyren]

This was relatively clear from the original kickstarter; The problem I have, really, is that fooling around with all that multiplayer stuff is going to waste a lot of time, money and effort that could've been put into a better single player experience.

On the other hand, having multiplayer can attract interest in the game that makes it successful, allowing for the production of even more fun content (both SP/MP).

[Airk]

On the other hand, having multiplayer can attract interest in the game that makes it successful, allowing for the production of even more fun content (both SP/MP).

Sure, it "can". But it's also starting from a position of, effectively, "debt" that the multplayer has to pay off before it - whatever money is spent on the feature has to be earned back before it can contribute to success.

There are also other features that "can attract interest" and therefore create more sales. Multiplayer is not unique in this regard. It IS unique in that many of the things you need to develop for it end up being things you wouldn't have needed if you hadn't included it.

Which is a long way of saying "shoehorned in multiplayer does no one any favors". Maybe it won't be shoehorned in. But when it's optional the way it is... I dunno. It makes me uneasy. This is just a gut feeling.

[Psyren]

Sure, it "can". But it's also starting from a position of, effectively, "debt" that the multplayer has to pay off before it - whatever money is spent on the feature has to be earned back before it can contribute to success.

All investments start with "debt"; You have to put something in to reap the rewards. Expecting something for nothing is unrealistic at best and puerile at worst.



There are also other features that "can attract interest" and therefore create more sales. Multiplayer is not unique in this regard.

Actually, multiplayer is unique. Other players generate content in real time through their interactions, extending the life of a game. You also attract people that may not have tried your game otherwise, e.g. people that are looking for a co-op game to play with friends, roommates, or significant others.



Which is a long way of saying "shoehorned in multiplayer does no one any favors". Maybe it won't be shoehorned in. But when it's optional the way it is... I dunno. It makes me uneasy. This is just a gut feeling.

This is a tautology; tantamount to"if it's badly implemented it will be bad." That goes without saying.

What I gather you meant to say is that it will be risky - but risk leads to reward.

[Airk]

All investments start with "debt"; You have to put something in to reap the rewards. Expecting something for nothing is unrealistic at best and puerile at worst.

Somehow, I knew I was going to get a super simplistic, borderline insulting response when I typed that. Look. It's zero sum. It's very straightforward.

I have $500k to spend on a game. If I spent $100k of it on multiplayer, I have reduced the single player experience significantly. The game now needs to make up that $100k (and then spend it exclusively on single player content) in order to make a game that is as good, from my perspective, as a game that had just spent all of that $500k on the single player experience.

It starts out "behind" in my valuation.



Actually, multiplayer is unique. Other players generate content in real time through their interactions, extending the life of a game.

To be frank, I hear a lot of people trot out this line, and most of the time, it's complete garbage. In my experience, players are far better at ruining content than they are at creating it. Even granting that it is possible, I think that the "limited multiplayer" that they have elected for in Shroud of Avatar seems unlikely to produce this sort of 'emergent content'. It is being designed to allow people to protect themselves from people ruining the content. Unfortunately, that also "protects" you from most emergent content.


You also attract people that may not have tried your game otherwise, e.g. people that are looking for a co-op game to play with friends, roommates, or significant others.

Yes. You may. And you will have watered down your core experience for it. I am saying I would have preferred the unwatered version.



This is a tautology; tantamount to"if it's badly implemented it will be bad." That goes without saying.

Then let me say it again. Adding multiplayer to a game for the purpose of having multiplayer in that game tends to produce bad multiplayer. The list of games that suffered from adding multiplayer is long. The list of games that weren't designed from the ground up for multiplayer that were improved by adding it is very short.

This game does not strike me as a being designed from the ground up for multiplayer.



What I gather you meant to say is that it will be risky - but risk leads to reward.

No, risk CAN lead to reward. There's a difference. And unfortunately, the kind of reward this is likely to reap doesn't really interest me. Therefore...

[erikun]

I would like to point out that it was unlikely that Richard Garriott would be creating a single-player game anyways; everything I've read about him has indicated that he wants the multiplayer aspect to be relevant in the game. That is, it's not a question of development between a Single-Player Only game and a Single-Player/Multi-Player game. It's a question between a Single-Player/Multi-Player game and no game at all.

And to be honest? I'm liking how the multiplayer aspect is being handled. It's entirely optional, allowing a person to play through with a through single player experience. They seem to have considered the problem with MMOs these days, and so allow people to play either a "local" multiplayer with just friends, or one open to the public at large. I can't say how it will turn out, but it does look interesting and that they seem to know what they are doing.

[Psyren]

Somehow, I knew I was going to get a super simplistic, borderline insulting response when I typed that. Look. It's zero sum. It's very straightforward.

I have $500k to spend on a game. If I spent $100k of it on multiplayer, I have reduced the single player experience significantly. The game now needs to make up that $100k (and then spend it exclusively on single player content) in order to make a game that is as good, from my perspective, as a game that had just spent all of that $500k on the single player experience.

It starts out "behind" in my valuation.

Your valuation is inaccurate. There are many factors to consider - economies of scale, projected returns, market differentiation, resource transferability etc. You do not simply debit multiplayer budget for X and credit singleplayer budget for X, nor do you reduce singleplayer returns by Y and increase multiplayer returns by Y.

Can it go badly? Sure. But can it go very, very well? Also sure.



To be frank, I hear a lot of people trot out this line, and most of the time, it's complete garbage.

We'll have to agree to disagree.



No, risk CAN lead to reward. There's a difference. And unfortunately, the kind of reward this is likely to reap doesn't really interest me. Therefore...

What I'm reading from your posts is "It doesn't interest me, therefore nobody should get it." Which is certainly a stance one could take.