Shroud of the Avatar – Update of the Avatar #317 and #318
Greetings Fellow Avatars! Here’s what we have for you in this biweekly edition of Update of the Avatar:
- Release 62
- Release 62 Livestream
- Customer Support and Shipping Updates
- Golem’s Other Random SotA Thoughts
Release 62
Release 62 launched January 31 with some changes:
- Back Slot Item Enchanting
- Row Lot Deed for Completing the Outskirts Quests
- Village Lot Deed for Completing Story
- Masks as Patterns for Helms
- Young Dragons
- Valentine Items
- Natural Caverns Player Dungeon Rooms and Hallways
- In-Game Store Changes
- More Bug Fixes
- and more!
Release 62 Player Instructions
One thing to notice is that with some Store Changes, even MassivelyOP brought up even the fact that some ppl are seeing it as Pay to Win. I don’t blame them, but at the same time, I would expect this as they have been pushing hard to expand the options for increased revenue. The build number that references this will be listed below. Let me know your thoughts!
February 8, 2019
Build Number 912 7:45 PM
Updates – To encourage players to try out the new crown store, they will get a small 1 day long buff with any purchase. The buff strength is the same whether you spend 1 crown or 1000. You can have up to three buffs at once and there are currently 22 variations. If you make another purchase and already have three buffs, the oldest one should be overridden, and you can also dismiss the buffs yourself. These buffs will remain in place for at least two months but possibly longer to help players with the transition to an in game store instead of web store.
Player Quest Livestream
Another Community Livestream occurred February 8 at 4 PM CT on Twitch! As you can see the planned focus was Player Made Quests. Feel free to watch if you are interested in this feature.
Customer Support and Shipping Updates
So based on a forum post, it looks like Customer Service will be backlogged even more as well as the shipping of those Collector’s editions still due to backers. I feel bad for Withstand the Fury Dragon who still has yet to get his copy.
<A forum post by Chris Spears>
As many of you know, we have been woefully understaffed in our CS department. As of 2 weeks ago we went from understaffed to UN-staffed as our only CS person suffered a major back injury and is on mandatory bed rest for weeks. This has resulted in several weeks of support tickets backing up.
Finally some good news, we have a new CS person who will be starting tomorrow. Please be patient with them as they learn the ropes over the next few weeks but hopefully they will get the log jam cleared out.
The other impact was to our continued shipping efforts. We have roughly 400 boxes still left to ship, primarily these are higher end boxes that require signatures from Richard to finish and also a number of overseas boxes.
The employee that suffered the major back injury is also the one who was responsible for shipping the remaining boxes. As a result, I’m taking over all remaining shipping personally. Unfortunately, I’m about to go on a trip for a week BUT when I return I’m going to try and get 25-50 boxes shipped per week after that in the mornings and evenings until they are all taken care of.
Again, thanks for your patience and you WILL get your box, just hang tight and again so sorry for massive fuster cluck that caused less than 10% of you to not get a box in a timely manner.
~Chris Spears
Golem’s Other Random SotA Thoughts
So I have been quite grateful for all the comments as of late, so thank you everyone who continues to comment and make your thoughts known. It is a joy to see the comments section here on the Codex being used more often. To toss some more smaller thoughts out there for more chat discussion:
We have had some amazing discussions lately on Discord and one thing that comes to mind is how much gaming has changed since the 90s and even early 2000s. Who are gamers now? How gaming culture has changed so much? I have the pleasure of being part of a number of different communities outside the Ultima one and this topic has come up among those of us in our mid to late 30s, and our lovely 40 somethings.
What things do you see from the older Ultima games would you say, wouldn’t fly with the gamers of today? One to start you off would be no quest log/journal. This was part of the initial proposal for SotA, for those who remember. Thankfully that changed as it would have driven away and frustrated many new players.
If there is any specific topics you would like discussed in regards to Shroud of the Avatar, please let me know. I have requests already from 2 individuals, any more are welcome to be included below.
I really enjoy reading your posts each week Golem. I just wish you would give more Shroud editorial commentary on what your thoughts are and, for example, if they have impacted how you think about Richard Garriott and even our beloved old Ultima games. Personally, the debacle that has become Shroud of the Avatar has permanently changed how I perceive Richard Garriott. I no longer believe the failures of Ultima VIII, Ultima IX and even Tabula Rasa to be those of Electronic Arts and NC Soft, but rather the failings of Richard.
The more I read and watch about Shroud, the more convinced I am that he simply is out of touch with the modern gaming market. I also, was quite taken aback by the youtube video where he openly states Shroud was created solely as a way to save Portalarium from bankruptcy. He essentially sold us all vaporware and we happily threw money at it, predicated on our nostalgia of the old Ultima games. Granted his admission of this wasn’t until AFTER the Kickstarter, but still it had me agog!
I truly find the whole thing disgraceful and complete embarrassment. For all the talk of virtues and Shroud of the Avatar is completely dearth of any of them, making Forsaken Virtues an extremely apropos name for this game. The fact that Richard Garriott and Starr Long keep pushing this narrative incenses me beyond belief! They have no honor and clearly lack the valor to do the right thing and tell the truth! The truth being that they squandered the millions of dollars we gave them as supporters to create a game that is broken and buggy.
Now the game has gone F2P and is completely P2W and people are ok with this? Where is Richard leading the development of this game and putting a stop to all those things they said they would NEVER do back in the beginning? What happened to all the money that was raised to create this new “spiritual successor” to the Ultima games? It is positively shameful, how all our money got spent to create a game that is now free! I am still amazed at my own stupidity for spending $500 on this vaporware scam!
Have you ever thought about reaching out to Richard and asking him to do an interview here on the current state of the game? I would love to hear his responses to some of the harder questions, which he always squirms around! I just wish someone would actually hold these liars accountable…
I reluctantly have to agree with a lot of this. And it sounds like we got conned at the same tier. I’d like to hear Garriott respond to some questions too, or even say anything at this point. He’s become suspiciously absent from his own supposed creation.
>. I also, was quite taken aback by the youtube video where he openly states Shroud was created solely as a way to save Portalarium from bankruptcy.
When was that? I thought he started Portalarium in order to -create- Shroud and Ultimate Collector and the poker game was a means to that end.
It was right after the Kickstarter. The video is still on youtube, you just need to track it down. Richard, Starr and Chris do a presentation at the Austin Community College (I think) and they spout all the usual BS we have heard for years about agile game development and the efficacy of using Kickstarter to help self-publish a game…all lies in the end…
If you mean this video, I’m not sure where you’re hearing that. I’ve watched it a few times. A lot of tech talk, and design talk, but nothing much about the company itself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwdesp4g-KU
I found it, it’s at the 41:10 mark of the youtube Zeph Gray posted.
I would editorialize more, but I also tend to believe most things that I need to say have already been said about how terrible their decision making was, their inability to recognize their bad decisions on things like scope which a number of people were calling out as an issue before the Kickstarter was even done, the fact they refuse to complete Episode 1 and it’s incompleteness that is quite obvious in far too many zones, to quite honestly… arrogant and sometimes unprofessional behavior in the dealing with criticism.
By not beating a dead horse, so to speak… I have taken great pleasure lately in playing a few certain games and in, what may be a bad idea, of even considering returning to streaming a few times a month. I have some fun fan art projects too that are Ultima related and have been teased that i need to maybe bring back certain projects I had ended. I do hope to someday with Withstand the Fury Dragon, do interviews of former devs and Richard himself on the project. However, I do not know when that will be. I will even ask the hard hitting question about one tweet, that remains a bit infamous, that was sent to him that sadly is no longer on Twitter.
I am not one who likes beating a dead horse for too long, it wears on a person to do that. If something moves me enough that I feel the urge to do so, trust me… I will. 🙂
It’s good that you don’t ignore all the bad bits, but are also aware of the lack of need to go on about it. I will say, as a reader, it’s good to hear that I’m not the only one disappointed. Some of the community had me concerned that there was something in SotA I was missing, or that I just wasn’t finding all these players I was constantly assured were out there.
It’s good to know it’s not just me. XD
It’d probably have to be a few years after the company closes for Richard to give an interview that would be even remotely considered objective about SotA but I’m sure you can get the truth about what happened from former devs. RG has his head completely up his own ass.
I appreciate you not wanting to beat a dead horse and I myself have all but moved on, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit that their lies and incompetence still irks me. I look forward to future interviews with devs and such, it will be exciting to hear their take on all this!
What tweet was that? If it was really infamous there’s a very, very good chance it’s archived somewhere online. What were the rough contents?
As for beating a dead horse, I have to wail on this particular one again myself; whilst I understand what you’re saying on a personal level, even just having access to publishing a webpage, you are in a privileged position compared to many other people. You have a larger megaphone, and should use it.
Because it’s far too easy to claim that people Below The Line (as it were) are just obsessives, or even irrelevant when they take aim at Shroud or anything else, and thus their words are largely forgotten. But you have an ability, even if comparatively minor, to shape the story itself, to prove an appetite that is there but ignored because it’s not in big enough font at the top of the page, and thus I believe a moral duty to put more effort into doing so than the people in comments. This is what Forsaken is referring too I suspect, and I agree with this too.
You don’t even need to do it every week; but without influencers getting a story rolling, none of us can do anything either, because we’re simply not noticed. I personally have worked my ass off trying to do so, including sending you guys contact details again; and I’m quite happy to do all the work after the story takes off too. But it doesn’t, because no one in the media at all dares go near it; without that larger approval then, there is no story, just alot of us BTL yelling desperately to be heard.
Gaming has definitely changed, in so much that the audience has changed. In the 90s and early 2000s it was “just us nerds.” You wouldn’t dare reveal your hobby to others for fear of scorn and being stereotyped. “Cool” people didn’t play video games after the age of 12, and they NEVER played D&D. Now, we could go very in depth with conversations about “real” nerds and such, but the expansion and inclusion of gaming culture is ultimately a good thing, though it still feels weird to tell people “I’m a gamer” as most still assume that means I’m pwning newbs in some online shooter. (which I’m not above from time to time, but it’s definitely not my groove.)
As far as the aspects of earlier Ultima games vs. what we see today? (though I’d only consider 4 to be a real divergence from anything else on the market at the time) Honestly, I seems like a lot of games take a “lite” approach to the mechanics that those games introduced. They had a far deeper morality system compared to today’s typical good guy/bad guy version, or even good guy/kinda bad boy good guy. They also did a far better job of tracking player behavior, unlike today’s games where you literally HAVE to steal from the NPCs to succeed, not that they really seem to care much. Some people may object to so many constraints on their in-game behavior, but so many people still complain about a lack of depth and immersion, that I think they’d have a hard time facing systems like these and saying they were really a bad thing. I for one would like to see them brought back. I did think it was odd that people complained about an overland map in SotA, as that was an RPG staple for decades. I just wish SotA did more with it, instead of just treating it like a content dodge. I’d also like to see more done with day/night cycles and NPC schedules. The feel of playing in a living world is becoming a lost art, sustained only by Bethesda, which seem to do it worse with each iteration.
On a personal note, I’m enjoying interacting with people on the Codex lately too. I hoped to reconnect with the community through SotA, but…yeah. Not gonna happen. It’s good to see I’m not alone in my disappointment, and that it hasn’t ended the community as much as I feared it would. Maybe if we can stick together we can still someday see the game we all really want to play someday.
The closest thing to the old school RPGs like Ultima that is made recently are the Dark Souls type games where they throw you in the world, give you little to no instruction or directions, no quest markers or arrows to follow and you have to figure everything out for yourself. The only problem is that those games are brutally hard. At least with most old school RPGs you could generally grind your way past most difficult parts.
Well, the Soulseborne games are kind of a modern take on roguelikes, too…at least in that the whole die-try again-progress a bit further-die again cycle is kind of core to their design.
another great modern take on roguelikes was Binding of Isaac… neat story, fun art style, and very much that whole die-try again progress and RNG too. I still enjoy playing it from time to time, which surprises me. Forever glad that game gained some popularity at one point.
Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2 actually fit the bill pretty well. While much more story driven, they have a mildly open world to explore, and complex reputation system which includes some morality, and a lot of old school goodness in general, especially since they made turn-based tactical combat an option. They’re not perfect, but we shouldn’t ignore them when looking at CRPG revivals.
Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2 are decent as well. Even more story driven, and a much more funneled world, but possibly the best tactical combat I’ve ever seen in an RPG.
Oddly enough, one of the games that most evoked the “Here’s a world, good luck!” feeling of the Ultimas for me was Minecraft. Obviously not a carefully crafted world, but it was very much about just giving you a huge box full of toys and letting you play as you like, which is what I spent a lot of time in Ultimas 6 and 7 doing anyway. I’d have one save where I was the hero I was supposed to be, and another where I just ran around, cheated, and enjoyed the world.
I’d love to see something come out that lands comfortably between these experiences. An open, possibly even procedural world, ready for the player to explore, preferably not as a “chosen one” but as a common adventurer, where morals and reputations are built, and mechanics give room for the player to build their character as they like. You know, an RPG. There’s been a few attempts at it. and Outward looks especially promising right now, but we’ll see.
Yeah I guess the Souls games are more like the earlier Ultimas like U3, U4 and other games that took inspiration from them like the early Dragon Quests, Final Fantasy etc. The later Ultimas were much more exploration and story driven which the Souls games are not.
I don’t think you can really compare Dark Souls to the Ultima games, which came with copious amounts of printed materials detailing the world and it’s lore; The DS games were deliberately vague about the world, but concentrated on being atmospheric. Maybe more like Ultima Online, where the entire game lore after 2003 was deleted by EA, and even staff didn’t have any real idea what happened in the fictional world!
I’d say what made Ultima unique was having a huge world with many small, personal stories within, but one over-arching, slow paced central plot that ultimately tied all the smaller stories together. That’s perhaps why the different world map scales, between towns and combat and world travel seemed to fit, because you also swapped between small scale takes on Justice (say) for an individual and the larger quest for Justice as a system and moral value within the world as a whole.
What Shroud gets so horribly wrong is that at the global, systematic scale the game operates as a greed driven exploitative market, whilst NPCs used to teach you backflips when they discovered their husband was dead but you’d saved their daughter. Adding tonal whiplash to the sins of incompetence and avarice.
I’m not sure these days what would be a good RPG along the lines of Ultima though. After working on UO, then the Shroud experience, I’m utterly exhausted with the entire genre for now… perhaps the closest recommendation would be yes, a rogue-like, but one on a different genre entirely. I’m thinking maybe instead of “FTL: Faster Than Light” which has a similar plot driven vignette set up, but which slowly adds up to an entire journey told through each run. Sacrifice a crew member to save the ship? Avoid combat, or burn and loot everything in the hopes you can earn enough to brute force your way to the final battle? One thing is for sure, giant spiders are never a joke…