Shroud of the Avatar – Update of the Avatar #325 and #326
Greetings Friends! Not much for updates today but there are a few bits of news for everyone. I will be editorializing more in today’s post so please enjoy the extra “color commentary”. We have the following news items:
- Shipping Counter on Ultima Codex & Recap on Shipping
- Release 64
- Quarter 2 “Schedule” Update
Shipping Counter on Ultima Codex & Recap on Shipping
If you haven’t noticed yet, in the header portion of the Ultima Codex’s website we now have a counter that is tallying the months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and yes even seconds, until Withstand the Fury aka WTF Dragon receives his SotA Box. In fact, he wrote a whole article on why a few days ago.
If you haven’t been keeping up with the Shroud of the Avatar news, Shroud of the Avatar has been negligent in getting kickstarter and the post kickstarter pledge backer rewards out to individuals. In Q4 of 2018, “phase 2” was another set of boxes out to backers finally, however there is (what I would call) a significant portion of backers who have yet to receive their box or even the rest of their boxes. There is also the fact that not one backer, eligible for the print copy of the Blade of the Avatar book (Patron backer level and above) or the Citizen and above “signed by Richard and Tracy Hickman print copy of the book “, has received theirs as well. This is cause they decided to “self publish” the book. Let’s not forget the lack of tracking numbers too. Which as someone who has had a number of packages lost or stolen when delivered by USPS, is rather frustrating.
Now I understand that there were some missing addresses and missing unit/apt/suite type numbers as well. From one individual, it sounded as if some boxes even were returned to Portalarium due to invalid addresses. There were address verification issues as well. Plus on top of this all, there are dozens of emails that were sent to Portalarium with questions on the boxes that were never once responded to (even after multiple attempts) nor did they even get the typical auto-response email back confirming receipt of the email question, such as, “Thank you for contacting us! We have received your request and are working on responding to you as soon as possible. Since we are a small team…” So this lack of communication among other things certainly leaves much to be desired from Portalarium.
Some news was leaked in a stream, however surprisingly that video on twitch was deleted as of the last time I looked. I was able to find it here. Chris stated he “[didn’t] even have a good list of addresses…”
However . so I assume this was tied to one member of the dev team being out, so they are probably trying to put together decent list of addresses of people who still need their boxes. This certainly leaves me wondering why they don’t have a customer database of who already had boxes shipped to, who had boxes returned, and who never even had them shipped. This also calls into question why this documentation isn’t available to all dev team members securely via cloud/online file storage in case someone needs to take over the duties, as has happened. We also learn as you hear that the book is being worked on still to some extent.
So, I look forward to seeing how long this counter will have to go, my guess is one of two things will occur: 1) WTF orders one of the boxes from Amazon using Amazon prime and since it is in the Amazon Warehouse he will actually get it in a timely manner… or 2) WTF waits and the box either never arrives or won’t be shipped until Dec 2019. Maybe we will get lucky and Chris ships out one to WTF Dragon faster, or so I can hope. I hate to see any good friend of mine feeling frustrated.
Release 64
Release 64 was available starting March 28, for player to patch up to to see the following changes that were highlighted by Portalarium:
- Arch Lapin Returns with new loot!
- Spring Equinox Items
- Food Decoration Items (beyond just fruit and veggies)
- Universal Trade Channel
- POT MOTD
- Guild MOTD
- More Pirate Items
- More Player Dungeon Encounters & Totems
- R60 & R61 Livestream Items
- Performance Improvements
- More Bug Fixes
- and more!
Quarter 2 “Schedule” Update
Starr Long typically posts in the forums a Quarterly Update/Schedule for what the plans are estimated to be for the upcoming quarter of development. As a fan of transparency, this is a fantastic thing. We recently got the Quarter 2 of 2019 post from him and you can read the entire post here yourself, should you wish to read all the details included. It contains the following bits of news that I believe are worth highlighting, along with my commentary:
- Starr highlights early on planned Q2 features such as: Raid Groups, Crafting Specialization, and the ability to flag row lots as empty for such use as crops/agriculture. Nothing really to say on this, just features that I would expect being worked on.
- Starr specifically states “Our priority continues to be to deliver new content to our players regularly, so that you can give us feedback that will help us iteratively improve Shroud of the Avatar.” However, there is much existing content that has yet to be completed. Plus, recently focus on vanity content for microtransactions via the in game store and the possible bringing back of retired content “from the vault” that was promised to KS backers to never be brought back, is likely what he is talking about here.
- Release 66 at the end of May is when Episode 2 areas “will” first start to appear. Again I expect this to be delayed again, so I firmly believe this is wishful thinking on the part of Starr. I would expect “under construction” version of these zones, at best, by Quarter 4 of 2019.
- The “Luminous Atavists” as you see in the image above are those who are anti- outlanders and thus anti-player characters. If you look at the garb you have, you can guess where the inspiration was for their outfits.
- Shipping phase 3 of backer rewards is scheduled. Discussion of this issue was taken care of above in the first section of today’s update post.
Not really too much new looking ahead, a lot of “quality of life” and “performance” updates seem to be the major plans. With small feature updates to things like lots, crafting, and social aspects of the game. I expect some of these items to be popular among the player base (like the agriculture updates).
Oh, the counter only has one end condition: I get my backer reward box in the mail.
Well, I suppose there’s a second condition, too: Portalarium officially closes, takes Shroud offline, and announces that they will not be fulfilling any more physical rewards, ever, end of story. Note that I am not anxious to see this second condition emerge, as some others who’ve commented here may be, but there’d be little point in keeping the counter running if there was actually no hope of receiving what it anticipates. While such hope remains, however slight, the counter will stay up.
I’m definitely ordering a box via Amazon, though. I’ve had a few work assignments in the US over the last little while, and I’m sure there’ll be more to come as 2019 plays out. The next time I cross Canada’s southern border, I’ll be sure to queue up an order and have it shipped to whatever hotel I’ll be staying at. But since this won’t be my backer reward box, its receipt will not impact the visibility of the counter.
It’s kind of a race, in a way. What will get into my hands first: the backer reward box that I’ve already paid for – again – and which I should really have received quite a long time ago now, or the not-yet-self-ordered box that Amazon guarantees will reach my within two days of my paying for it, whenever I have occasion to order it?
figured you probably would pull the trigger on the amazon shipped retail box, but didn’t’ want to show my hand that i knew that knowledge. <3 honestly, with how The Realm Online was run in a closet server box for so long, if ppl keep putting money into the microtransactions, i could see it basically run in a similar way for years using AWS or another service, if enough $ came in regularly. So that would mean no need to ever fully dissolve the company.
It’s extremely frustrating to see all these livestreams and begathons and yet so much is still missing and/or simply not working. Moreover, their refusal to address certain issues, like the book and any outstanding or missing boxes just further fuels my suspicion that they are doing the bare minimum until they close up shop and declare bankruptcy, thereby no longer being liable to provide these rewards to backers and players.
Never in my life would I have believed Richard to fail so badly with the development of Shroud. It was absolutely unfathomable that he wouldn’t crush it this go around. I mean his track record had been spotty at best I truly believed this would be his redemption instead of being the nail in the coffin, if you will. I don’t expect to hear ANYTHING from him moving forward as his name has become synonymous with failure by both his fans and the video game industry as a whole. I also no longer believe that EA was the big bad monster he purported them to be.
This is becoming a theme with these legendary devs. Just like Molyneux, and Roberts (of now infamously unfinished Star Citizen) without someone over them, supervising their work and focusing them, these guys just don’t seem to have what it takes. Just like you, and I know many others, I believed this was going to be a return to (what now feels like an illusory) golden age of RPGs, and yet here we are. It pains me to say it, but Garriott is a hack. The Ultimas may have been great, not because of him, but despite him. Many, largely faceless artists, programmers, and managers came together to forge his fanciful junk iron into the steel legends we have revered. It’s sad, but looking ever more true. In the end, his “creativity” seems limited to creative ways to chase money.
Oh, but EA is still a monster. To draw a comparison, Garriott is a Ferengi, but EA is the Borg.
Heh heh, EA is a monster…I will not deny that! Their monetization of full priced game through loot boxes, etc. is unconscionable.
Your points on these former “greats” is well taken and 100% accurate. I have come to realize that my love of Ultima’s V-VII stems more so from the work of folks like Warren Spector than Richard Garriott. Those games were made great because of a competent team of people surrounding Garriott. Whereas with Shroud, I feel like Garriott just exhibited cronyism to recruit people who really weren’t up to the task or had the necessary experience.
To this day I still don’t know what Lum actually did. He was in charge of the story/quest system and look at how badly it turned, it’s a steaming pile of hot garbage. To make matters worse, he had players name and write dialogue for a number of NPC’s! What did he actually do? Then you have “Tech Lord” Chris Spears taking the lead on the actual design of the game and he doesn’t even it play it enough to recognize that combat is totally unbalanced and crap! Then you add in Darkstarr’s lack of presence and inability to answer basic questions and the whole thing equates to a train wreck!
Like I said, this is a lesson to me to never back a video game on Kickstarter again and certainly never trust another thing I hear from Richard Garriott. As you said, the guy is total hack!
>I also no longer believe that EA was the big bad monster he purported them to be.
If you’ve read the widely shared article on Bioware & Anthem over at Kotaku, I suspect development of Ultima VIII, IX and UO followed the same path as Anthem did; EA gave them plenty of time to ship but they got distracted by too many shiny new things and had to bodge it together at the last moment. I know IX is confirmed to have been the case from what I’ve read…
Regarding Ultima Online, since at least 2015 when I was on staff, it’s been the completely the Mesanna/Dudley show and neither EA nor Mythic/Broadsword have had much direct input. My contract was Electronic Arts, but I don’t think I spoke to a single person from the actual EA.
None of which is defending EA of course. But they’re not as engaged in sub-studios as people assume them to be.
Everything I have read about regarding IX is that they diverted many of the developers over to UO and had them scrap a majority of the original game because it wasn’t utilizing 3D graphics, or some such. Then like everything else, they rushed it out the door as a crappy buggy mess. Doesn’t this sound familiar with another game currently being pushed by Garriott?
At least with Ultima VIII he sent out a letter of apology along with the patch that made the game playable. VIII isn’t great, but with the patch it certainly was a fun game and light years better than IX in my humble opinion.
Yeah, it’s funny to think, if only they had gone with another 3/4s view single player RPG, that’s all he had to do. Instead Garriott had to think, “I’m going to revolutionize it again by making an mmo that’s cross platforms and mobile, and I have no financial backing outside of kickstarter and no in place infrastructure! This is definitely going to work!” At no point did anyone say, “Hey, we can’t make a commercially viable and complete 3d mmo on a few million dollars, this is fucking stupid.”
“Yeah, it’s funny to think, if only they had gone with another 3/4s view single player RPG, that’s all he had to do.”
…and it isn’t like we weren’t shouting this from the rooftops. I (and many others) championed the isometric style view for many moons, citing all the many reasons why it was a better idea… but like in so many other occasions, we were ignored.
Watching Chris struggle to make his own RELEASED game work out of what is obviously his garage, having lost his office is entertaining on a vindictive level, but I can’t help but notice how unfocused the development of the game has become. Seriously, this is what our “Ultima revival” has become? A hacked together, lack-luster dungeon making game? And why should anyone run these dungeons when combat and loot are so unrewarding?
This is depressing. They just need to end this already.
I totally agree Zeph it’s like hitting a deer and not putting it out of it’s misery, and letting it suffer on. I am honestly embarrassed that I pushed so many of my friends to buy the game early on. Not a single one of us still plays. I have tried to go back and check it out, but it is still as buggy and crappy as ever. Listening to Chris during his Twitch streams is absolutely painful! It’s so obvious that he is clearly running the show now and simply doing whatever he wants in his online “stream of consciousness” twitch feeds. The player dungeons are still crap and offer no compelling reason to enter the them, plus they are a buggy mess. Loot is just as bad as ever as is the ever persistent shoddy UI. I cannot wait for the end of April when they have to release their annual report to the SEC for the SeedInvest.
At first, I was telling my friends about how great this would be, but I’m glad my cautious nature panned out for once. I started having misgivings after I first played. I still hoped it would turn around and become something better, but I quickly backed off from recommending it. I had already paid more than enough for 10 people. That was embarrassing enough. I would never have forgiven myself if I had gotten my friends involved.
Ha, yes. I met up with a friend who I’ve not seen for about 3 years last week; as I was telling him about the scamming, the harassment etc he said “Wait, is that the game with the custom housing you showed me back then?” That was all he could remember about it. Little did either of us know that would be largely all we’d ever get…
I can recall not just trying to engage my friends in the game, but I helped set up 4 people (I think it was) with the Founder accounts when the referral program was running as well. But Portalarium’s concern for what their backers experienced only lasted as long as we continued to be blind supporters of their game. I’m just amazed they haven’t put Signed Loyalty Oaths in the Add On Store (Signature is a photocopied sticker).
https://epic-site.com/catch-22-loyalty-oaths/
I already missed Ultima Forever by the time Shroud was officially released, and I dearly wish that game had never been shuttered. And that it had been ported to Android, and then brought back to PC thereafter.
Mythic had grand visions for an “Ultima revival”, and would have done better by the name than Shroud has done.
I’ll agree that Ultima Forever had the setting down, and that the devs seemed to legitimately love the source material, but I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much as what was proposed by SotA. I definitely wanted a world I could share with friends, and make new ones in. Plus, I’m a huge RP nerd, which SotA seemed to offer more opportunities for. I can’t see any of that ever coming from UF. It may have been fun now and then, but I never saw it holding my lasting interest.
Going back to the source material, now that I think about it, Ultima Forever really did seem to love it, while SotA seemed to actively detest it. I know they had legal concerns with content, but nothing in SotA feels even a little Ultima-like. EA can’t hold the copyright on stone circles and blue portals. (to which the dungeon gates bare a striking resemblance) So why abandon it all? The virtues, the principals, the magic… It all rings hollow of any love for its origins. No reverence for what we loved at all, only what almost feels like contempt.
I missed the boat on this as well and wish I had the opportunity to play it at least once. The friends of mine who did play it, actually really loved it!
I honestly jumped at the chance to fund the Shroud Kickstarter and now feel so foolish for having done so. Though like anything in life, it was a lesson learned and a clear wake up call regarding someone I regarded highly during my childhood. I sadly have lost all faith in Richard Garriott and wish he would send a letter to his players owning up to all the mistakes made during development of Shroud. Right now he just seems foolish as they roll him out for begathons and he babbles on about nothing. It’s awful!
EA owns all the Ultima copyrights etc, except for “Lord British”, which is a personal trademark of Garriott. That’s why Starr Long is now “DarkStarr” rather than “Lord Blackthorn” as he was during the Ultima days… EA owns that within the context of the Ultima setting (Blackthorn with regards to cider however…) along with everything else.
The model for Lord British is still in Ultima Online (Talisman model 990), which is why Garriott was able to use it when he returned to the game, but it was a sackable offence to use it yourself as an EM, because you risked getting Broadsword sued for violating his trademark.
You could use generic stone circles, and moongates because those have real world, non-trademarkable counterparts; likewise “New Britannia”, because you can’t really lay legal claim to the concept of a set of islands. It’s the same reason Skara Brae turned up in so many 8 bit games. The 8 virtues were pinched from Buddhism, but the specific 8 would have been too close to EAs ownership again. The 3 Principles, Truth, Courage and Love however were vague enough to get away with, as long as they didn’t relate to each other like they did in Ultima…
And in a way, I’m kind of glad now that Shroud couldn’t be a true spiritual successor. It means that the disaster that it became doesn’t destroy every happy memory I once had of the originals.
Let us all take a moment to be thankful and show proper gratitude to Larian Studios, who have picked up the reins of the Ultima legacy… and have done it properly. Their games are everything that I originally hoped Shroud would be, a worthy successor to the RPG throne.
Nope.
Oh, Larian talked a good game when they brought D:OS to Kickstarter. Spiritual U7 sequel, interactive world and NPC schedules…all that jazz. And yet the game they ultimately produced was not particularly close to any Ultima in form or execution, to say nothing of the fact that they stripped out things like the day/night cycle, NPC schedules, and other hallmarks of the series.
And with D:OS2, they didn’t even bother raising the spectre of an Ultima successor when discussing or pitching the game.
So no, let’s not look to Larian to do well by the Ultima namesake. At least, not at present.
Couldn’t disagree more.
World interactivity, exploration, incredible deep lore, intriguing original creatures, compelling NPCs. DDOS2 has all of these things in spades, and then some. True, there are no NPC schedules, but that is a minor gripe. There is not another game I am aware of that is worthy of the title of “spritual successor to Ultima”, but DDOS2 takes that title with ease.
I agree with WtF. Larian got kinda sorta close. They have crafting, but it simplified, and pretty worthless after the first chapter. They started, then scrapped day/night cycles and NPC schedules halfway through the first D:OS and didn’t even try with the second. A massive shame as it would have gone a long way to making the world feel alive as opposed to a bunch of manikins standing around waiting for you. And the world is very chapter-based. You can’t revisit old areas, everything is separated by load screens. (even second floors) The world just never feels like a believable place, just a bunch of scenes.
They did get SOME things right however. I’ll give them that the world is somewhat interactive. The fact that I can rearrange crates and furniture to set up ambushes and such is fun to no end, but it’s still no stealing into the bakery at night to prepare my party’s rations for the next journey. The characters are rather memorable, though you can tell which were available in the first EA release, and which were added later, as the later additions are far FAR better due to player feedback. The world is colorful, attractive, and light hearted, in contrast to the often visceral violence that’s encountered. Very U6/U7-like.
All the good points is why I so wanted to see the community pick up the engine and get into making some Ultima-themed content for it like they did Dungeon Siege. A little tweaking and I think it would be perfect, but having tried the editor myself, and from the lack of real content on their workshop, I can say that the editor is NOT very user friendly, which is a shame on several fronts.
Note what I’m saying and not saying.
Do D:OS and D:OS2 have interactivity in their game worlds? Yes, of a kind. But the kind they have is not particularly in line with what we’d expect from an Ultima.
Do D:OS and D:OS2 allow players to explore a well-realized game world? Again, yes, in their way. But they way in which they allow for this, and the kind of world they present to players, is not particularly in line with what we’d expect from an Ultima.
Do D:OS and D:OS2 feature deep lore and engaging NPCs? For sure, they do. But, again, they do not do so in a way that particularly hearkens back to Ultima.
And the lack of a day/night cycle and NPC schedules is not a particularly minor gripe in this regard; it’s flourishes like that which came to define what set an Ultima apart from the rest in terms of its world and character design. It’s the fact that characters weren’t just static decoration in shops, but had lives of their own, that helped give Britannia its very particular “lived in” feel. And D:OS/D:OS2 are missing those key elements that make their worlds feel the same.
Are D:OS and D:OS2 competent, well-made RPGs? Absolutely, and I wouldn’t dream of saying otherwise. But are they particularly akin to Ultima? Not really; they are a different style of RPG than that. And there’s no harm in that, but it certainly doesn’t mean they’re any kind of worthy successor to the Ultima namesake.
I guess this would be an “agree to disagree” moment.
I don’t think LB is a hack. But what he did was create a successful formula for a game, and get many talented, hungry young devs to execute and iterate on that formula for him. The core gameplay loop of the Ultimas is that they are scavenger hunts in an open world fantasy setting with focus on lore, exploration and discovery and then eventually on characterization as well. As far back as Ultima I he did this, though he first really nailed it in Ultima III.
And then by putting “A Lord British game,” and talking about how much of a genius he was all the time, he stole all the credit from people like Denis Loubet, Ken Arnold, Dr. Cat, Warren Spector, Roe R Adams III, Raph Koster, Raymond Benson, etc. etc.. For example, with Ultima VII RG came up with the idea of the fellowship and the Guardian and then virtually everything else was done by other people.
Hack is too strong of a world, but he is rather blind to reality at times. One case is that LB is majorly behind modern times when it comes to game development and games in general. He was already beyond late when he finally did Ultimate Collector, because by then even Facebook games were basically dead. Looking at SotA stuff, World of Warcraft was the MMO he always kept focusing on. He had never touched so many other ones, that honestly are better than WoW. Even mentioning modern MMOs during SotA’s development, in regards to say combat mechanics, caused a “deer in headlights” look from more than just him too.
For example, when active combat where left click to do a simple melee or ranged attack was first mentioned, as a preference for many in the community, the SotA Devs claimed it was impossible due to latency. Various MMOs have had that function before (some for years) without issues. In fact TESO is a great example of it, that I used at the time. Speaking of TESO, it is a perfect example of taking a Single Player IP and adding online features. You can play the majority of the game solo and have hundreds of hours of content easily at your fingertips. Never having to group up for content once, if you don’t want to. They could have learned alot from modern games if they only took the time.
Richard is a good creative mind, but he needs the right supporting cast around him, including a good publisher to help reel him in to prevent scale getting out of control or feature creep. You listed some great supporting cast he has had that truly show that the right hiring decisions can make a huge difference. Leaves many wondering how SotA would have been different with different hires at some positions.
It occurs to me that SotA would have benefitted from its developers having played more Cryptic MMOs. Cryptic has really nailed the “action combat in an MMO” thing.
mhm, looking forward to streaming Outward on my primary twitch channel and NOT my GolemDragon one. Though my GD one should autohost me anyways…
(edit for addition): the tutorial was fun to do, alot of stuff I wish SotA had done…
Like City of Heroes… what a classic that was. Such a shame NCSoft shut it down even whilst it was still making money. I’ve been keeping an eye on the “spiritual successors” to that, but I fear it’ll never be quite the same. Go. Hunt. Kil Skulz.