Shroud of the Avatar

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Might have to get this sometime; loved UO. Unfortunately, I've already backed SC and am too invested in Blizzard's franchises to commit to another MMO. Don't get me wrong; I am really hyped for this (along with the Repopulaion), but considering that the only games that I play anymore require a long term time investment, I simply don't have any left over for anything else. Also; greenlight/early acess/kickstarter games are a gamble. While I have no doubt Richard Garriot will deliever, there's not much to buy into right now, and not much incentive to (the bonuses aren't appealing). Perhaps in three or four years when Diablo and Starcraft deteroriate as their sequels are developed, during a Warcraft content drought, and when SotA is not only released but also has a few exmajor updates under it's belt. I wish anyone who's playing the game now to enjoy it, though!

PS. Surprised not that many people have backed the project; even after 15+ years there still hs to be alot more UO lovers out there just waiting for a successor.

[endersblade]

WC2:ToD and Diablo.

For me, Ultima was the premier MMO. Nothing else was like it, nor, could compete with it. It STILL arguably has some of the best PvP. Loot Death, Murderers, crafting that mattered, skills, and housing.

Anything that came after, honestly killed the game. Runic crafting, yearly rewards, champ spawns, Trammel, Chiv and Necro, and anything past T2A, for sure, was trash. Most of the improvements that were made, en lieu of WoW, were trash and made no sense to the game.

If anyone is a Backer, I have been keeping an open eye out for this game. Please tell me Shroud is pre-Trammel esque?

You mistake what I said. Ultima was a DOS-based RPG; Ultima ONLINE was the MMO :-) Ultima and Civilization were some of the most popular/iconic games of ye olden DOS days.

[Deleted]

I admit that the combat system sounds very weird, but it is intriguing. I really need to try it before casting any judgement though

[Keile]

Shroud has now been greenlit on steam if people are looking in to it at all! Its coming along slowly, can see many commun ity held events going on in each release but its still a good 6 months way from a full release I reckon.

Have a gander at the screenshot gallery

Its definitely a niche MMO, but far removed from your bog standard theme park!

This is a good sign, been waiting for this game for some time.

I was a big UO fan back in the day. I loved that it was an MMO that you could enjoy, and not even need to go around slaying stuff. I basically lived as a Miner/Blacksmith for a living, mining ore and selling wares.

You really can't do anything like that in most MMO's these days. In a way I was basically a merchant since I set up shop in my house (which was in a location that you couldn't normally place one. It was INSIDE the Minoc guard zone, and was placed before they restricted that spot ).

I'll definitely be looking into SotA. The only reason they don't call it Ultima is because EA owns Ultima. Lord British wanted to return the series to it's former glory (which Ultima 9 completely and utterly ruined. "What's a paladin?" HOW DO YOU NOT REMEMBER DUPRE?! HE SAVED YOUR LIFE!") but he can't officially call it Ultima for legal reasons.

[draykorinee]

I spent my UO days on my boat fishing up treasure chests! We are seeing elements like this in shroud, its really about creating a community and not killing X boss X number of times. It is definitely not going to be a lot of peoples cup of tea, and the combat is quirky but not always in a good way :P Its coming along anyway, and Richard Garriot is really good at communicating, the day he first tweeted back to me I had a little nerdgasm.

[bbr]

I spent my UO days on my boat fishing up treasure chests! We are seeing elements like this in shroud, its really about creating a community and not killing X boss X number of times. It is definitely not going to be a lot of peoples cup of tea, and the combat is quirky but not always in a good way :P Its coming along anyway, and Richard Garriot is really good at communicating, the day he first tweeted back to me I had a little nerdgasm.

I've done it all.
Fishing, taming, crafting, mining until my eyes bled, rune library (largest on the shard and world at it's time), banksitting, champ spawns,.
it's a very diverse game, with an ever wider diversity of players. Sadly, EA killed it, as it has so many other games.
I really can't be bothered to pay a monthly sub for a game so raped with pixel crack.

If he can keep it free from a sub, free from EA, and fair for all,. I'd be all over this.
Keeping an eye on his facebook for now, always fun to see an eccentric fellow like garriott.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

If he can keep it free from a sub, free from EA, and fair for all,. I'd be all over this.
Keeping an eye on his facebook for now, always fun to see an eccentric fellow like garriott.

SotA would've gone EA if it ran ut of funds during development. Fortunately, the Garriot name is colossal in the MMORPG genre and cobine that with Steam Greenlight (plus a working alpha), they won't ever have to.

[Deleted]

Bit of a Thread Necro here ... but the game (Early Access!!!) has been released on Steam a few weeks ago

Steam Store Page

I've played it for quite a bit now - it's okay, got a lot of the "classic" mechanics from UO and some new ideas;
Graphics are way better than i expected from a Unity Engine game, but it still runs like crap even on my high end machine ...

And I really, really don't like the cash-grab that's all over the homepage and the pledge prices are quite ridiculous (yeah, I know it's basically a donation to the developers and completely optional, but 500$ for a house?)

[draykorinee]

Na you can't necro a thread that's about a game in development.

This release is the best yet, but I agree with all your points, graphically its okay... The ui looks like it was developed for the ps2 and the characters are similar.
Overall it's shaping up to be a decent game which relies heavily on community. The pricing is slightly ridiculous, my account is up to $300.

[draykorinee]

Not sure whats happened but seems like a rocket has been fired up someones backside because this game has really improved, mainly graphically, it really is starting to look beautiful, the characters are still dodgy, the sound is in dire need of some proper assets and the combat is still a mixture of wonky/quirky, but its really coming along, and with the release unlikely to be imminent its got a lot of time to improve.
I've been in since day one and my interest has ebbed and flowed, at some points I was downright peeved, but its coming along leaps and bounds imo, again, its very niche but there will be a lot of people who will enjoy this. The housing is fantastic, overpriced to the extreme, the lowest price for a house is $275, sure there will be in game currency but I still feel the price points are a little high, especially as there is no limit to space like in UO, there are going to be countless player owned towns (PoTs).

[Deleted]

Not sure whats happened but seems like a rocket has been fired up someones backside because this game has really improved, mainly graphically, it really is starting to look beautiful, the characters are still dodgy, the sound is in dire need of some proper assets and the combat is still a mixture of wonky/quirky, but its really coming along, and with the release unlikely to be imminent its got a lot of time to improve.
I've been in since day one and my interest has ebbed and flowed, at some points I was downright peeved, but its coming along leaps and bounds imo, again, its very niche but there will be a lot of people who will enjoy this. The housing is fantastic, overpriced to the extreme, the lowest price for a house is $275, sure there will be in game currency but I still feel the price points are a little high, especially as there is no limit to space like in UO, there are going to be countless player owned towns (PoTs).

since you've been into the game this long, can you tell me a bit more about how the combat exactly flow? (if it even remained with the "deck" mechanic) does it feel like "unnatural" or like a turn based game?

[draykorinee]

since you've been into the game this long, can you tell me a bit more about how the combat exactly flow? (if it even remained with the "deck" mechanic) does it feel like "unnatural" or like a turn based game?

They'll be keeping the deck system, you can have it both ways, a generic wow style fight with a locked action bar or you can go full on random deck building. One utilises cooldowns like wow the other utilises a random system, outside of those, you wont find anything unnatural about the combat, it flows exactly like a still in development generic MMO combat system, HP, focus, skills. Quick video here explaining some deck building.

[Deleted]

They'll be keeping the deck system, you can have it both ways, a generic wow style fight with a locked action bar or you can go full on random deck building. One utilises cooldowns like wow the other utilises a random system, outside of those, you wont find anything unnatural about the combat, it flows exactly like a still in development generic MMO combat system, HP, focus, skills. Quick video here explaining some deck building.

ok the video shows it quite well. I'm very interested in how the combat is handled as they are at least trying something new.. Unnatural was a bad chosen word, but could not think of another one

[CarlingBlackLabel]

So looking at a previous post on this and it's okay to necro a thread on a game that is in development... I stumbled on this on Steam and by George, it looks very good! Not sure whether to take the plunge on the Early Access or not.

Dray - if you're around and still playing, how is it going in terms of development and playability? Could do with your opinion :-)

[draykorinee]

I play a fair amount.

So, basically the game is kind of over the flux and its now about polish which has always been my biggest issue. It is clunky and fairly ugly with some of the most pre 2005 character models imaginable, a drab UI and really poor quality sound effects (Not music, that is fantastic) all kind of spoil the experience.

Now, that being said the game is really coming along with a really neat use based skill gain system similar to the old UO which was a complete 360 from the devs because they actually listened to the community, and that is really the biggest plus as they engage their community like no other imo and they really do listen. They changed the world map very early on and I believe they altered combat all due to community involvement.

The community customisation is pretty insane with whole towns being created by communities, for example I am a part of the Bear Tavern , a fairly large guild that once wanted to be just a tavern but now has near full control over the whole layout of our player owned town. Yes this is bloody expensive, yes this isn't available to everyone, but their will be absolutely tons of player owned towns with their own unique setup and character.

The community is what makes this game, this is no WoW (no disrespect to wow), it won't tell you what to do at all, you do what you want, and the community continues to add event after event for people to engage with and all fully supported by the devs. One day they just chucked a giant troll in our town.

The house decoration is as powerful as I've ever seen, excluding the walls you can do pretty much anything, things rotate and slot in however the hell you like, its going to be so much fun.

Fundamentally I can't recommend this game to anyone because its a complete anomaly, its unlike anything I've played, even UO. It even has an offline solo play if you so wish, it is absolutely FAR FAR from perfect, particularly during early access so even though I enjoy it, and I have ploughed in >£200 in to it (over 3 years mind) its a real tough one to say go for it. What I will say is there is a good market for accounts but they are mainly from the early adoption but I think you wouldn't have an issue reselling (Again the devs have actively supported the advertisement of selling accounts on their forums, how crazy is that?)

Hope that helps, the last server reset is in July (soft launch), so I would make sure you're ready to get in on July at the latest if you're coming on board!

(I would read some of the negative steam reviews because they do hit the nail and I think its a marmite game. Whilst this is a game I like, I think it deserves its mixed reaction)

Release 27 update can be found here.

[CarlingBlackLabel]

Thanks very much for the reply Dray! I'll check the links and definitely do some more research on it before making a decision but a dev team that listen and cooperate with the community is a massive plus in my book.

Cheers again!

[draykorinee]

The latest update was solid, some really nice changes to the male avatar, a few optimisation changes, some UI updating. We're now heading in to the home straight and this update helps with some of my apprehension about recommending this game. That being said I wouldn't recommend pre ordering on any game :P

My screenshots on steam, I don't do many.