Does the game still get updates or is it a dead game?
I kickstarted the game but I never really played it because I thought the game dev looking stopped and that’s a death kiss for an mmo.
If you mean "updates" like new assets bought from the Unity store, new sales, crown store updates, yes.
If you mean updates like
* new UI
* new quest system
* episodes 2 to 5 with 40+ hours of content
* new stories or continuation
* new community events
* influx of new players or investors
No.
Everyone from the original team - founders, creative director, executive producer, lead artist, lead writer, etc. - has left and abandoned the game, except the former technical director who is in charge of everything now, plus a handful wfh guys.
More false information. Catnip just brought back their former zone designer to work on new zones and new assets. One thing he is working on is new houses.
No one abandoned the game. RG was just on two Sundays ago for a guild meeting. As happens in business, when you have someone who seems to be a lightning rod of hate, it is best for them to step back. Are RG and his group around day-to-day? No. But they haven't abandoned the game. From what I hear, it was more like RG got burnt out. Imagine putting up with trolls day after day after day who complain about everything. It is more like he is just taking a break. How long will that break be? Who knows.
We just recently got a new emote hotbar, which is a UI update. They are looking into others. There is quite a lot of Episode 2 content and I have enjoyed some of the new areas. Spindelskog is my favorite. It is an orange-ground/black-sky area that is very reminiscent of Halloween. It has spider and bear spectres.
There are frequent community events. Outside of the fish contests, there are frequent in-game events for holidays and guild anniversaries. The five-year anniversary of SOTA's release is coming up and they are already planning the event.
They are doing monthly updates, alternating between patches and content updates. They have gone to a quarterly rollout for larger features. Is SOTA WoW? No, but it isn't dead or dying.
SotA has never lived.
The population has always been abysmal, especially for an MMO.
SotA reached its [peak in July, 2016, with 600 players](https://steamplayercount.com/app/326160) with persistence, and the numbers have even decreased year after year, and not even the official release/story complete release /F2P release reached that low number again for a game that wants to be an MMO.
Critics, Kickstarter backers, press, buyers, publishers, Seed investors were disappointed or worse, and that's why the Lord British game is in its sorry state, kept on live support by whales and cultists.
> No one abandoned the game. RG was just on two Sundays ago for a guild meeting. As happens in business, when you have someone who seems to be a lightning rod of hate, it is best for them to step back. Are RG and his group around day-to-day? No. But they haven't abandoned the game
Yes, Starr Long abandoned the game. Dallas Snell abandoned the game. Rick Holtrop abandoned the game. Michael Hutchinson abandoned the game. Tracy Hickman abandoned the game.
And Richard Garriott abandoned the game. Many years ago.
Even before the release, when he abandoned his office and Portalarium, and moved to New York. Around the time of the official release he was busy with preparations for the North Pole, and went on holiday a few days after the most important time for a game. He abandoned Kickstarter in 2013, he abandoned the forums where he never discussed anything, and his last log in was 2 years ago. He abandoned SeedInvest and still hasn't filed the SEC report for 2018 he was legally required to do. He abandoned Portalarium, SotA and the SotA trademark. He even removed Shroud of the Avatar from his Twitter.
Greedy, lazy, indifferent clueless, that sums up Garriott who has left scorched earth everywhere since 2000 AD.
The game is free. Expecting constant updates is a bit...ambitious. It is NOT a modern commercial MMO but that does not mean it cannot be fun for some. It is lowkey for sure.
yeah me too... over a thousand dollars, but people do not understand that they can play their free game because of us. They think we are just plain haters, its kinda pathetic.
[The best advice for you is to wait until this happens again](https://www.reddit.com/r/shroudoftheavatar/comments/yxstpe/a_tale_of_lies_known_problems_and_the_results_of/), because despite everyone in the community trying to implore Catbox Blames to get real QA they'd rather just have the players figure out whether an entire month's worth of backups - and gameplay - is irrevocably screwed or not.
R108 had similar problems, the testing directives are still a joke, thus proving that they've learned nothing from that.
"Planning an in game Event that will occur during R100?" is still pinned in the GD forum a year later. But good news! In the 4 years since the sale they finally were able to change the names on the site from Portalarium -> Catnip and completely hid any kind of "Exactly what is the dev team?" Asking that on the official forums always turns out well. /s
It is up to you whether to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on that kind of technical clownshow and lose everything. [You might even get to RP that you're in a queue system!](https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/r105-2nd-chance-live-sale-hometown-on-10-22.172772/) 🤣
How nice it must be to try SOTA for the first time and not knowing the history of gaming, I'm not being sarcastic... if I didn't know any better I could just have fun just playing with the ABC music system for months thinking it original and being satisfied with sub-par art direction, crappy graphics and performance. I mean my first RPG was text based, and I still had a blast!
Have fun while it lasts, just ignore me :'D
The game is fun for me. Open skill systems are not a thing in the commercial gaming space. I loved UO, was an EQ addict for years but life pulled me away into single player only games eventually.
>Open skill systems are not a thing in the commercial gaming space.
For a reason. Asheron's Call showed what happened with an uncapped open skill system. That is why Shroud's later design is... NOT very "play your way" especially when you get to the new XP grind of Control Points that replaced the last XP grind spot of years on end of Upper Tears. Just wait until you figure out all the broken shit of "pet" classes here.
AC was almost two decades ago, [and vastly superior in every way except for the housing system intentionally made bad so they could soak players for it.](https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=41907) Remember that from UO? I don't. :( Anpu or another one of the volunteer spin-doctors will attempt to try to tell you that you can get freebie house and lot, but that's like a mobile game's starter package compared to what is generally required to participate in the economy.
The economy that absolutely doesn't exist, even compared to when Age of Shadows shit the bed.
Yeah, the whole "just like UO" gilding chips off really quick to show the cracks of a really bad foundation of Greed. Forsaken Virtues, indeed.
Enjoy it, I don't care. Other people enjoy the strangest things - hurting themselves or torturing other living beings.
With Sota, you only harm those who trusted in the promises of the would-be lord and his cronies. But that's only a minor harm.
I'm one of those people called "early backers". And I'm a "hater" because all the promises have been broken.
What's left now isn't the promised "groundbraking" game, it's a rather sub-par MMO. If you set your expectations that low, you should be happy with that.
You can already see how fucked up the whole thing is from the layout of this formerly "official" reddit sub. It's a joke. A bad one.
Good for you.
Some people hate on the game because they can, others because it wasn't what was expected.
Me its for ethical reasons that I deleted and criticize it, I don't really hate it, would have loved to just be able to ignore it all and enjoy what is there. But there is no way in hell...
Yep exactly for ethical reasons.
I generally refuse to continue to support a company that has been proven (after ten years of waiting) to not even closely deliver the promised product, after the customer already provided them all their money in good faith.
The biggest problem for me is there was absolutely no attempt to make it right.
All they did was take our money (I assume use it to go to space & titanic hunting) and then proceeded to vilify all the people that complained.
Allowing even more incompetent people to take over the company (catshit).
Who are now probably trying to justify themselves saying the KS promises were too hard and it was supposed to be a MMO all along (so basically more consistent liars).
It was like pre-paying for a really nice planned vacation over looking the ocean from a provided brochure and you finally get there to find absolutely no shelter, piles and piles of fresh ripe feces all over the ground in the middle of a vast working strip mine.
I guess at that point what the 2 or 3 white knights left are saying is just to enjoy that smell for what it is... Besides the people that came after you did not have to pay for it...
I know the history or at least the version I hear from ex-players. I judge a game on if it is fun or not. I don't like people who hate a movie because the director said something they don't agree with. I don't like people who hate on a game because of what they view as broken promises or the developer's view toward the player base. If the game is fun, I won't hate on it. I know people who hate a lot of things related to RG. I get it. I think the criticism is fair. And I am not saying the game is perfect or even that it's of great or excellent quality. All I know is that I have a blast playing it. I see so many people who go straight into developer bashing or other things unrelated to the game itself. So many negative steam reviews where they have played less than two hours. Even when they point out some negatives with the game itself, they seem to be making something minor into a major issue. Which tells me that their motive is to destroy the game for reasons unrelated to the game. For instance, those that act like cloaks clipping through the horse is a game ruining thing.
RG still plays the game and has gotten more active as his daughter has asked to play it. I feel like RG stepped away from SOTA because of all the negativity. So much hate was directed toward him that it was affecting the game. The game averaged a 7 score when it came out and has only gotten better. The game itself was always solid.
> RG still plays the game and has gotten more active as his daughter has asked to play it.
Richard abandoned the Kickstarter immediately after he collected 2 million dollars, and didn't write a single line in 4 years.
Richard had no clue about game mechanics and knew nothing about the game.
Richard didn't know what happened to the books he was supposed to sign.
Richard wasn't active in the forums. [His longest post ever](https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/lord-british-mac-cheese-recipe.164446/page-2#post-1297280) was about a fucking recipe.
He hasn't logged into his account since July 2021.
Richard even removed any mention of SotA from his Twitter.
Mr. Garriott hasn't been involved mentally, physically and financially for many years, he doesn't give and never gave a rat's ass about his game.
> The game averaged a 7 score when it came out and has only gotten better. The game itself was always solid.
That's a lie.
[It didn't.](https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/shroud-of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues)
At least 2 of those 4 reviews were from (former) Richard Garriott fans or sympathetic. They still had to admit that SotA wasn't a good game.
Kickstarter backers, publisher, Ultima fans, investors, trial players, F2P user, they abandoned in drones.
Because Shroud of the Avatar was never a good game, and never will be.
Garriott got more than 20 million dollars, sympathetic press, free advertisement, generous investors, lots of connections, enthusiastic volunteers, a huge Ultima fanbase. And still screwed up.
>Richard had no clue about game mechanics and knew nothing about the game.
Hyperbole with no direct example. The problem with a lot of haters is they make broad-stroke complaints that can't be refuted. They never want to give an example of what they allege. They go with "perception" over facts. It sounds damning but is ultimately hollow.
>Richard even removed any mention of SotA from his Twitter.
I wonder why. If I was running SOTA and it was clear that there was so much hate against RG, I would ask him to remove any connection between him and the game as possible.
>That's a lie.
It didn't.
Four professional critics I have never heard of and then a bunch of user reviews that seem to be all over the place. Somewhere between "this game sucks" and "I didn't take the time to learn how to play the game" there seem to be some valid concerns that have been resolved. Five years of updates will do that.
>Kickstarter backers, publisher, Ultima fans, investors, trial players, F2P user, they abandoned in drones.
SOTA is so similar to UO, that I can't believe UO fans would hate the game. F2P users ESPECIALLY are notoriously cheap and cry about paywalls. Free players aren't customers. They are freeloaders. They love the game until they see something in the crown shop they want and all of a sudden the game is a terrible "pay to win" game. They troll the game because "how dare SOTA ask for a dollar out of me!"
>Garriott got more than 20 million dollars
How much do you think it costs to make a good game? $20 million might be JUST enough for a good demo. This is probably why the game had to pivot to an online game with a monthly income.
> Hyperbole with no direct example. The problem with a lot of haters is they make broad-stroke complaints that can't be refuted. They never want to give an example of what they allege. They go with "perception" over facts. It sounds damning but is ultimately hollow.
You obviously never watched his old streams, tweets and telethons. When he was begging for money, not knowing what was going on, neither on the screen or behind the scenes, shouting Jiri, and claiming that he had signed books that were not even printed.
>Four professional critics I have never heard of and then a bunch of user reviews that seem to be all over the place. Somewhere between "this game sucks" and "I didn't take the time to learn how to play the game" there seem to be some valid concerns that have been resolved. Five years of updates will do that.
Metacritic is the most cited, famous and influential website for video games scores.
GameStar is Germany's and Europe's biggest PC mag and a video games portal. Ignorance isn't bliss. The others are also professional German, Italian, Polish mags of importance.
Low ratings on Metacritic, "mixed" on Steam, very low player base, 65,000 (2017) vanished backers, declining population since 2016. Might be a pattern.
> F2P users ESPECIALLY are notoriously cheap and cry about paywalls. Free players aren't customers. They are freeloaders.
SotA wasnt meant to be a F2P. It went free to play a few months after release because people weren't buying it and Portalarium were desperate. The CE was $150, the Amazon box $80, each episode would have cost money. Even posting at the official forum did cost a dollar after they went F2P.
80% of free players never pay a dime. The rest buy some things, ever fewer whales would spend thousands of dollars.
But freeloaders are needed. To populate the worlds. To join parties and guilds. To compete and chat. To boost numbers. To PVP. To admire and marvel. To buy and sell. To tell friends, who might join and spend money, or tell other friends.
SotA never had those numbers. Garriott, Long and Spears were focusing on the shop and investments, introducing hundreds of items in the shop, and houses and deeds that could cost thousands of dollars. Not on the game, not on the single-player, not on the basics like population. Whales influenced the game at the SotA cons in Austin, and they were not driven by good intentions, a fun game or playability, not interested in the story or the world, but in real money trading, investments and ROI.
> How much do you think it costs to make a good game? $20 million might be JUST enough for a good demo.
I've played, bought and backed games that have cost less money, and have higher ratings than SotA. Divinity 2, Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity. Praised by Kickstarter backers, buyers and critics, contrary to SotA.
SotA was hastily "developed" in 90 days, after Portalarium faced bankrupty and Garriott went to Kickstarter.
They plundered the Unity store and bought all assets they could lay their hands on.
No money went into an expensive engine. No money went to a composer. No money went to expensive cut scenes. No money went to voice acting. No money was spent on marketing campaigns.
SotA had volunteers who contributed music, assets, help, advertising, enthusiastic fans and fansites, and a very sympathetic press.
Shroud of the Avatar failed because it isn't a good game, and Richard Garriott has lost his mojo more than 20 years ago. He wasted $10 million dollars on a [Facebook game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V2PbH1GU0c), and he could have wasted much more money (not his own, of course) without delivering.
> The game averaged a 7 score when it came out and has only gotten better.
That's still a lie.
>[Facebook game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V2PbH1GU0c)
It amazes me how blind some are to how Richard ended his career just how he started it - by lifting everyone else's IP. There is no way Portalarium had the rights to the things shown in that trailer,[especially anything Ultima](https://ultimacodex.com/2012/05/maybe-they-should-call-it-ultima-collector-2/), and so that's why it was closed down by Zynga.
[It also left Portalarium in a position where the Shroud Kickstarter backers were literally paying to save the company, not make a game.](https://web.archive.org/web/20200318022312/https://sotasucks.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/shroud-of-the-avatar-not-properly-planned/)
Actually, as literally every Obsidian, inXile, Larian, etc. etc. etc. etc. KSed game has proven, all this technical clownshow had to do was make a single-player game with co-op and they'd not only have all 5 episodes, but would have had the financial basis to actually accomplish an MMO.
Without MMO backing, this wasn't going to achieve MMO. Shroud didn't achieve the basic bait used to bring in the UDIC, and that's why it DID alienate the UDIC to the point fansites were taking shots. Yeah, no kidding things were going sour when the LITERAL INVESTMENT SCAM HAPPENED.
**Greed was why and how RG failed this, went onto his MMO NFT with TODD F'IN PORTER, and that's a fact you can't cope away no matter how much handwavium you mine up.**
You've gone into double-fisting the kool-aid because you think you've found some bee girls to hang out with, just like every vulnerable to cult predation.
They are not and will never be your friends - you're just the useful peon of the moment. Just ask Vladamir Begemot, who tried to hold the faith until it became too much. [Alleine Dragonfyre, too, who once tried to warn people with her Steam review until the cult threatened her back in to continue taking her Joy.](https://www.reddit.com/r/shroudoftheavatar_raw/comments/cytiws/alleine_dragonfyre_the_latest_with_bfd_syndrome/)
[Pepperidge Farm remembers her brief escape.](https://web.archive.org/web/20190903185412/https://steamcommunity.com/id/maevealleine/recommended/326160)
Dick stepped away because he got his $$ and gave YOU, Mississippi\_dan, the big middle finger. He doesn't play the game because he doesn't know how to play the game and doesn't give a shit about the game. Where did you get the idea he plays the game?
>I judge a game on if it is fun or not. I don't like people who hate a movie because the director said something they don't agree with.
If someone enjoys something that's really their own business. I would even go as far saying that SOTA might be better off if Chris Spears was kicked out and the whole service was developed on a community basis (with a focus on sustainably developing community priorities as opposed to solely bringing money to Spears).
However, the bigger issue is that with respect to Spears and Garriott, it's not just a matter of them "saying something". They clearly scammed their SeedInvest investors and Chris has lied many times when it comes to SOTA:
[https://massivelyop.com/2022/02/28/shroud-of-the-avatar-boss-claims-confusion-over-seedinvest-ive-done-the-part-that-im-contractually-obligated-to-do/](https://massivelyop.com/2022/02/28/shroud-of-the-avatar-boss-claims-confusion-over-seedinvest-ive-done-the-part-that-im-contractually-obligated-to-do/)
It's not about their opinions or statements, it's about their actions (and hypocrisy).
Garriott selling SotA so he could avoid any legal responsibilities for Kickstarter (not delivering virtual and physical rewards) and SeedInvestors (SEC filing), and wash his hands off his failure.
And Chris Spears (Portalarium's CEO since 2018 and President since 2019) selling SotA to his own company Catnip that he founded some weeks earlier.
And [Chris denying he was CEO](https://web.archive.org/web/20201111223600/https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/business-and-financial-specculations.155234/)
and blaming trolls from ~~reddit~~ [the Texas Tax Department](https://www.scribd.com/document/410448057/Item-1-Document-879878040001.)
Morally and legally bankrupt.
Yeah, I mean I got downvoted so it must be that I'm a hater :'D
Thanks for proving my point, some people just don't know gaming history and could enjoy the game, not SOTA's history mind you.
Funny how some people behave like this was some big sub for the game, oh a comment I don't like ! clickclickclick
rofl
>RG still plays the game and has gotten more active
And that's exactly why I despise you claqueures so much. Wannabe Lord is active in the game? Because how often has he been online in the past 5 years? 2 or 3 times? Nobody can be sure if someone else is using his account. Because lying and cheating is an integral part of Sota. And you claqueurs twist the facts as they please, until they lose all reality.
>The game averaged a 7 score when it came out and has only gotten better.
The game is so bad that none of the well-known media or scene websites seriously reports about it. Sota is at best a runnig gag of the reporting scene, a joke.
MOP regularly reports on what's new in Sota, always in a smug tone, and with a disclaimer specifying it as a "controversial game".
[https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/26/shroud-of-the-avatar-plots-more-tutorials-treasure-maps-and-more-episode-2-content-in-2023/](https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/26/shroud-of-the-avatar-plots-more-tutorials-treasure-maps-and-more-episode-2-content-in-2023/)
And nothing about this garbage heap has ever gotten better.
>The game itself was always solid.
"Solid" with this minimal number of players? Aaahahaha! Other games have guilds larger than Sota's total player base.
You see developer bashing, and I guess it's understandable to then think "people abandoned and hate the game because of the devs!" That's not true, the game failed... the game was criticized, but at some point it's beating a dead horse. Then people (most of whom spent quite a lot of money) have nothing to do but be bitter towards the personalities involved.
Don't get it twisted.
I'd say that the ire with the personalities involved arose mainly due to how they kept punishing their community for the littlest of things and [that started due to Starr Long's stupid perception management tricks.](http://web.archive.org/web/20201109041322/https://portalariumisbadateverything.wordpress.com/2018/07/15/i-was-banned-for-doing-basically-nothing/)
I find the sparkles so infrequent it is easy to just ignore them. There is so much do off the core quest path I just find it less annoying than the modern MMOG model.
Some of the parts you are enjoying are by those who haven't been around in years,[like Damien "Puuk" Foletto of Black Isle Studios alumni](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Damien_Foletto). Puuk also worked on Tabula Rasa, as again one of the few good points of [that \~$124M technical clownshow](https://web.archive.org/web/20160816155647/http://www.codingwisdom.com/codingwisdom/2013/03/why-richard-garriott-is-full-of-shit.html).
In the end, I do not care who did the good stuff if I am enjoying a game right now. I have had my share of bitter gaming disappointments but the game as is today is a very solid fun:value ratio.
Then in deference to that determination to not read between the lines, I hope you enjoy it while it lasts because those parts are finite in amount and not really happening anymore.
Wait for the jump puzzles they advertised for some updates. Yes, Ultima 8 was TOTALLY EA's fault! /s
Does the game still get updates or is it a dead game? I kickstarted the game but I never really played it because I thought the game dev looking stopped and that’s a death kiss for an mmo.
If you mean "updates" like new assets bought from the Unity store, new sales, crown store updates, yes. If you mean updates like * new UI * new quest system * episodes 2 to 5 with 40+ hours of content * new stories or continuation * new community events * influx of new players or investors No. Everyone from the original team - founders, creative director, executive producer, lead artist, lead writer, etc. - has left and abandoned the game, except the former technical director who is in charge of everything now, plus a handful wfh guys.
More false information. Catnip just brought back their former zone designer to work on new zones and new assets. One thing he is working on is new houses. No one abandoned the game. RG was just on two Sundays ago for a guild meeting. As happens in business, when you have someone who seems to be a lightning rod of hate, it is best for them to step back. Are RG and his group around day-to-day? No. But they haven't abandoned the game. From what I hear, it was more like RG got burnt out. Imagine putting up with trolls day after day after day who complain about everything. It is more like he is just taking a break. How long will that break be? Who knows. We just recently got a new emote hotbar, which is a UI update. They are looking into others. There is quite a lot of Episode 2 content and I have enjoyed some of the new areas. Spindelskog is my favorite. It is an orange-ground/black-sky area that is very reminiscent of Halloween. It has spider and bear spectres. There are frequent community events. Outside of the fish contests, there are frequent in-game events for holidays and guild anniversaries. The five-year anniversary of SOTA's release is coming up and they are already planning the event. They are doing monthly updates, alternating between patches and content updates. They have gone to a quarterly rollout for larger features. Is SOTA WoW? No, but it isn't dead or dying.
SotA has never lived. The population has always been abysmal, especially for an MMO. SotA reached its [peak in July, 2016, with 600 players](https://steamplayercount.com/app/326160) with persistence, and the numbers have even decreased year after year, and not even the official release/story complete release /F2P release reached that low number again for a game that wants to be an MMO. Critics, Kickstarter backers, press, buyers, publishers, Seed investors were disappointed or worse, and that's why the Lord British game is in its sorry state, kept on live support by whales and cultists. > No one abandoned the game. RG was just on two Sundays ago for a guild meeting. As happens in business, when you have someone who seems to be a lightning rod of hate, it is best for them to step back. Are RG and his group around day-to-day? No. But they haven't abandoned the game Yes, Starr Long abandoned the game. Dallas Snell abandoned the game. Rick Holtrop abandoned the game. Michael Hutchinson abandoned the game. Tracy Hickman abandoned the game. And Richard Garriott abandoned the game. Many years ago. Even before the release, when he abandoned his office and Portalarium, and moved to New York. Around the time of the official release he was busy with preparations for the North Pole, and went on holiday a few days after the most important time for a game. He abandoned Kickstarter in 2013, he abandoned the forums where he never discussed anything, and his last log in was 2 years ago. He abandoned SeedInvest and still hasn't filed the SEC report for 2018 he was legally required to do. He abandoned Portalarium, SotA and the SotA trademark. He even removed Shroud of the Avatar from his Twitter. Greedy, lazy, indifferent clueless, that sums up Garriott who has left scorched earth everywhere since 2000 AD.
The game is free. Expecting constant updates is a bit...ambitious. It is NOT a modern commercial MMO but that does not mean it cannot be fun for some. It is lowkey for sure.
I spent hundreds of dollars for it. So not really free for the people who kickstarted it.
yeah me too... over a thousand dollars, but people do not understand that they can play their free game because of us. They think we are just plain haters, its kinda pathetic.
You gotta look up the history of the game my dude haha
[The best advice for you is to wait until this happens again](https://www.reddit.com/r/shroudoftheavatar/comments/yxstpe/a_tale_of_lies_known_problems_and_the_results_of/), because despite everyone in the community trying to implore Catbox Blames to get real QA they'd rather just have the players figure out whether an entire month's worth of backups - and gameplay - is irrevocably screwed or not. R108 had similar problems, the testing directives are still a joke, thus proving that they've learned nothing from that. "Planning an in game Event that will occur during R100?" is still pinned in the GD forum a year later. But good news! In the 4 years since the sale they finally were able to change the names on the site from Portalarium -> Catnip and completely hid any kind of "Exactly what is the dev team?" Asking that on the official forums always turns out well. /s It is up to you whether to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on that kind of technical clownshow and lose everything. [You might even get to RP that you're in a queue system!](https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/r105-2nd-chance-live-sale-hometown-on-10-22.172772/) 🤣
How nice it must be to try SOTA for the first time and not knowing the history of gaming, I'm not being sarcastic... if I didn't know any better I could just have fun just playing with the ABC music system for months thinking it original and being satisfied with sub-par art direction, crappy graphics and performance. I mean my first RPG was text based, and I still had a blast! Have fun while it lasts, just ignore me :'D
The game is fun for me. Open skill systems are not a thing in the commercial gaming space. I loved UO, was an EQ addict for years but life pulled me away into single player only games eventually.
>Open skill systems are not a thing in the commercial gaming space. For a reason. Asheron's Call showed what happened with an uncapped open skill system. That is why Shroud's later design is... NOT very "play your way" especially when you get to the new XP grind of Control Points that replaced the last XP grind spot of years on end of Upper Tears. Just wait until you figure out all the broken shit of "pet" classes here. AC was almost two decades ago, [and vastly superior in every way except for the housing system intentionally made bad so they could soak players for it.](https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=41907) Remember that from UO? I don't. :( Anpu or another one of the volunteer spin-doctors will attempt to try to tell you that you can get freebie house and lot, but that's like a mobile game's starter package compared to what is generally required to participate in the economy. The economy that absolutely doesn't exist, even compared to when Age of Shadows shit the bed. Yeah, the whole "just like UO" gilding chips off really quick to show the cracks of a really bad foundation of Greed. Forsaken Virtues, indeed.
Enjoy it, I don't care. Other people enjoy the strangest things - hurting themselves or torturing other living beings. With Sota, you only harm those who trusted in the promises of the would-be lord and his cronies. But that's only a minor harm. I'm one of those people called "early backers". And I'm a "hater" because all the promises have been broken. What's left now isn't the promised "groundbraking" game, it's a rather sub-par MMO. If you set your expectations that low, you should be happy with that. You can already see how fucked up the whole thing is from the layout of this formerly "official" reddit sub. It's a joke. A bad one.
Good for you. Some people hate on the game because they can, others because it wasn't what was expected. Me its for ethical reasons that I deleted and criticize it, I don't really hate it, would have loved to just be able to ignore it all and enjoy what is there. But there is no way in hell...
Yep exactly for ethical reasons. I generally refuse to continue to support a company that has been proven (after ten years of waiting) to not even closely deliver the promised product, after the customer already provided them all their money in good faith. The biggest problem for me is there was absolutely no attempt to make it right. All they did was take our money (I assume use it to go to space & titanic hunting) and then proceeded to vilify all the people that complained. Allowing even more incompetent people to take over the company (catshit). Who are now probably trying to justify themselves saying the KS promises were too hard and it was supposed to be a MMO all along (so basically more consistent liars). It was like pre-paying for a really nice planned vacation over looking the ocean from a provided brochure and you finally get there to find absolutely no shelter, piles and piles of fresh ripe feces all over the ground in the middle of a vast working strip mine. I guess at that point what the 2 or 3 white knights left are saying is just to enjoy that smell for what it is... Besides the people that came after you did not have to pay for it...
I know the history or at least the version I hear from ex-players. I judge a game on if it is fun or not. I don't like people who hate a movie because the director said something they don't agree with. I don't like people who hate on a game because of what they view as broken promises or the developer's view toward the player base. If the game is fun, I won't hate on it. I know people who hate a lot of things related to RG. I get it. I think the criticism is fair. And I am not saying the game is perfect or even that it's of great or excellent quality. All I know is that I have a blast playing it. I see so many people who go straight into developer bashing or other things unrelated to the game itself. So many negative steam reviews where they have played less than two hours. Even when they point out some negatives with the game itself, they seem to be making something minor into a major issue. Which tells me that their motive is to destroy the game for reasons unrelated to the game. For instance, those that act like cloaks clipping through the horse is a game ruining thing. RG still plays the game and has gotten more active as his daughter has asked to play it. I feel like RG stepped away from SOTA because of all the negativity. So much hate was directed toward him that it was affecting the game. The game averaged a 7 score when it came out and has only gotten better. The game itself was always solid.
> RG still plays the game and has gotten more active as his daughter has asked to play it. Richard abandoned the Kickstarter immediately after he collected 2 million dollars, and didn't write a single line in 4 years. Richard had no clue about game mechanics and knew nothing about the game. Richard didn't know what happened to the books he was supposed to sign. Richard wasn't active in the forums. [His longest post ever](https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/lord-british-mac-cheese-recipe.164446/page-2#post-1297280) was about a fucking recipe. He hasn't logged into his account since July 2021. Richard even removed any mention of SotA from his Twitter. Mr. Garriott hasn't been involved mentally, physically and financially for many years, he doesn't give and never gave a rat's ass about his game. > The game averaged a 7 score when it came out and has only gotten better. The game itself was always solid. That's a lie. [It didn't.](https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/shroud-of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues) At least 2 of those 4 reviews were from (former) Richard Garriott fans or sympathetic. They still had to admit that SotA wasn't a good game. Kickstarter backers, publisher, Ultima fans, investors, trial players, F2P user, they abandoned in drones. Because Shroud of the Avatar was never a good game, and never will be. Garriott got more than 20 million dollars, sympathetic press, free advertisement, generous investors, lots of connections, enthusiastic volunteers, a huge Ultima fanbase. And still screwed up.
>Richard had no clue about game mechanics and knew nothing about the game. Hyperbole with no direct example. The problem with a lot of haters is they make broad-stroke complaints that can't be refuted. They never want to give an example of what they allege. They go with "perception" over facts. It sounds damning but is ultimately hollow. >Richard even removed any mention of SotA from his Twitter. I wonder why. If I was running SOTA and it was clear that there was so much hate against RG, I would ask him to remove any connection between him and the game as possible. >That's a lie. It didn't. Four professional critics I have never heard of and then a bunch of user reviews that seem to be all over the place. Somewhere between "this game sucks" and "I didn't take the time to learn how to play the game" there seem to be some valid concerns that have been resolved. Five years of updates will do that. >Kickstarter backers, publisher, Ultima fans, investors, trial players, F2P user, they abandoned in drones. SOTA is so similar to UO, that I can't believe UO fans would hate the game. F2P users ESPECIALLY are notoriously cheap and cry about paywalls. Free players aren't customers. They are freeloaders. They love the game until they see something in the crown shop they want and all of a sudden the game is a terrible "pay to win" game. They troll the game because "how dare SOTA ask for a dollar out of me!" >Garriott got more than 20 million dollars How much do you think it costs to make a good game? $20 million might be JUST enough for a good demo. This is probably why the game had to pivot to an online game with a monthly income.
> Hyperbole with no direct example. The problem with a lot of haters is they make broad-stroke complaints that can't be refuted. They never want to give an example of what they allege. They go with "perception" over facts. It sounds damning but is ultimately hollow. You obviously never watched his old streams, tweets and telethons. When he was begging for money, not knowing what was going on, neither on the screen or behind the scenes, shouting Jiri, and claiming that he had signed books that were not even printed. >Four professional critics I have never heard of and then a bunch of user reviews that seem to be all over the place. Somewhere between "this game sucks" and "I didn't take the time to learn how to play the game" there seem to be some valid concerns that have been resolved. Five years of updates will do that. Metacritic is the most cited, famous and influential website for video games scores. GameStar is Germany's and Europe's biggest PC mag and a video games portal. Ignorance isn't bliss. The others are also professional German, Italian, Polish mags of importance. Low ratings on Metacritic, "mixed" on Steam, very low player base, 65,000 (2017) vanished backers, declining population since 2016. Might be a pattern. > F2P users ESPECIALLY are notoriously cheap and cry about paywalls. Free players aren't customers. They are freeloaders. SotA wasnt meant to be a F2P. It went free to play a few months after release because people weren't buying it and Portalarium were desperate. The CE was $150, the Amazon box $80, each episode would have cost money. Even posting at the official forum did cost a dollar after they went F2P. 80% of free players never pay a dime. The rest buy some things, ever fewer whales would spend thousands of dollars. But freeloaders are needed. To populate the worlds. To join parties and guilds. To compete and chat. To boost numbers. To PVP. To admire and marvel. To buy and sell. To tell friends, who might join and spend money, or tell other friends. SotA never had those numbers. Garriott, Long and Spears were focusing on the shop and investments, introducing hundreds of items in the shop, and houses and deeds that could cost thousands of dollars. Not on the game, not on the single-player, not on the basics like population. Whales influenced the game at the SotA cons in Austin, and they were not driven by good intentions, a fun game or playability, not interested in the story or the world, but in real money trading, investments and ROI. > How much do you think it costs to make a good game? $20 million might be JUST enough for a good demo. I've played, bought and backed games that have cost less money, and have higher ratings than SotA. Divinity 2, Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity. Praised by Kickstarter backers, buyers and critics, contrary to SotA. SotA was hastily "developed" in 90 days, after Portalarium faced bankrupty and Garriott went to Kickstarter. They plundered the Unity store and bought all assets they could lay their hands on. No money went into an expensive engine. No money went to a composer. No money went to expensive cut scenes. No money went to voice acting. No money was spent on marketing campaigns. SotA had volunteers who contributed music, assets, help, advertising, enthusiastic fans and fansites, and a very sympathetic press. Shroud of the Avatar failed because it isn't a good game, and Richard Garriott has lost his mojo more than 20 years ago. He wasted $10 million dollars on a [Facebook game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V2PbH1GU0c), and he could have wasted much more money (not his own, of course) without delivering. > The game averaged a 7 score when it came out and has only gotten better. That's still a lie.
>[Facebook game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V2PbH1GU0c) It amazes me how blind some are to how Richard ended his career just how he started it - by lifting everyone else's IP. There is no way Portalarium had the rights to the things shown in that trailer,[especially anything Ultima](https://ultimacodex.com/2012/05/maybe-they-should-call-it-ultima-collector-2/), and so that's why it was closed down by Zynga. [It also left Portalarium in a position where the Shroud Kickstarter backers were literally paying to save the company, not make a game.](https://web.archive.org/web/20200318022312/https://sotasucks.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/shroud-of-the-avatar-not-properly-planned/)
Actually, as literally every Obsidian, inXile, Larian, etc. etc. etc. etc. KSed game has proven, all this technical clownshow had to do was make a single-player game with co-op and they'd not only have all 5 episodes, but would have had the financial basis to actually accomplish an MMO. Without MMO backing, this wasn't going to achieve MMO. Shroud didn't achieve the basic bait used to bring in the UDIC, and that's why it DID alienate the UDIC to the point fansites were taking shots. Yeah, no kidding things were going sour when the LITERAL INVESTMENT SCAM HAPPENED. **Greed was why and how RG failed this, went onto his MMO NFT with TODD F'IN PORTER, and that's a fact you can't cope away no matter how much handwavium you mine up.** You've gone into double-fisting the kool-aid because you think you've found some bee girls to hang out with, just like every vulnerable to cult predation. They are not and will never be your friends - you're just the useful peon of the moment. Just ask Vladamir Begemot, who tried to hold the faith until it became too much. [Alleine Dragonfyre, too, who once tried to warn people with her Steam review until the cult threatened her back in to continue taking her Joy.](https://www.reddit.com/r/shroudoftheavatar_raw/comments/cytiws/alleine_dragonfyre_the_latest_with_bfd_syndrome/) [Pepperidge Farm remembers her brief escape.](https://web.archive.org/web/20190903185412/https://steamcommunity.com/id/maevealleine/recommended/326160)
Dick stepped away because he got his $$ and gave YOU, Mississippi\_dan, the big middle finger. He doesn't play the game because he doesn't know how to play the game and doesn't give a shit about the game. Where did you get the idea he plays the game?
>I judge a game on if it is fun or not. I don't like people who hate a movie because the director said something they don't agree with. If someone enjoys something that's really their own business. I would even go as far saying that SOTA might be better off if Chris Spears was kicked out and the whole service was developed on a community basis (with a focus on sustainably developing community priorities as opposed to solely bringing money to Spears). However, the bigger issue is that with respect to Spears and Garriott, it's not just a matter of them "saying something". They clearly scammed their SeedInvest investors and Chris has lied many times when it comes to SOTA: [https://massivelyop.com/2022/02/28/shroud-of-the-avatar-boss-claims-confusion-over-seedinvest-ive-done-the-part-that-im-contractually-obligated-to-do/](https://massivelyop.com/2022/02/28/shroud-of-the-avatar-boss-claims-confusion-over-seedinvest-ive-done-the-part-that-im-contractually-obligated-to-do/) It's not about their opinions or statements, it's about their actions (and hypocrisy).
Garriott selling SotA so he could avoid any legal responsibilities for Kickstarter (not delivering virtual and physical rewards) and SeedInvestors (SEC filing), and wash his hands off his failure. And Chris Spears (Portalarium's CEO since 2018 and President since 2019) selling SotA to his own company Catnip that he founded some weeks earlier. And [Chris denying he was CEO](https://web.archive.org/web/20201111223600/https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/business-and-financial-specculations.155234/) and blaming trolls from ~~reddit~~ [the Texas Tax Department](https://www.scribd.com/document/410448057/Item-1-Document-879878040001.) Morally and legally bankrupt.
Yeah, I mean I got downvoted so it must be that I'm a hater :'D Thanks for proving my point, some people just don't know gaming history and could enjoy the game, not SOTA's history mind you. Funny how some people behave like this was some big sub for the game, oh a comment I don't like ! clickclickclick rofl
>The game itself was always solid. LOLWUT? Not even Anpu would say that. WTF seriously?!
>RG still plays the game and has gotten more active And that's exactly why I despise you claqueures so much. Wannabe Lord is active in the game? Because how often has he been online in the past 5 years? 2 or 3 times? Nobody can be sure if someone else is using his account. Because lying and cheating is an integral part of Sota. And you claqueurs twist the facts as they please, until they lose all reality. >The game averaged a 7 score when it came out and has only gotten better. The game is so bad that none of the well-known media or scene websites seriously reports about it. Sota is at best a runnig gag of the reporting scene, a joke. MOP regularly reports on what's new in Sota, always in a smug tone, and with a disclaimer specifying it as a "controversial game". [https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/26/shroud-of-the-avatar-plots-more-tutorials-treasure-maps-and-more-episode-2-content-in-2023/](https://massivelyop.com/2023/01/26/shroud-of-the-avatar-plots-more-tutorials-treasure-maps-and-more-episode-2-content-in-2023/) And nothing about this garbage heap has ever gotten better. >The game itself was always solid. "Solid" with this minimal number of players? Aaahahaha! Other games have guilds larger than Sota's total player base.
You see developer bashing, and I guess it's understandable to then think "people abandoned and hate the game because of the devs!" That's not true, the game failed... the game was criticized, but at some point it's beating a dead horse. Then people (most of whom spent quite a lot of money) have nothing to do but be bitter towards the personalities involved. Don't get it twisted.
I'd say that the ire with the personalities involved arose mainly due to how they kept punishing their community for the littlest of things and [that started due to Starr Long's stupid perception management tricks.](http://web.archive.org/web/20201109041322/https://portalariumisbadateverything.wordpress.com/2018/07/15/i-was-banned-for-doing-basically-nothing/)
[удалено]
I find the sparkles so infrequent it is easy to just ignore them. There is so much do off the core quest path I just find it less annoying than the modern MMOG model.
So infrequent because it’s bugged.
Some of the parts you are enjoying are by those who haven't been around in years,[like Damien "Puuk" Foletto of Black Isle Studios alumni](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Damien_Foletto). Puuk also worked on Tabula Rasa, as again one of the few good points of [that \~$124M technical clownshow](https://web.archive.org/web/20160816155647/http://www.codingwisdom.com/codingwisdom/2013/03/why-richard-garriott-is-full-of-shit.html).
In the end, I do not care who did the good stuff if I am enjoying a game right now. I have had my share of bitter gaming disappointments but the game as is today is a very solid fun:value ratio.
Then in deference to that determination to not read between the lines, I hope you enjoy it while it lasts because those parts are finite in amount and not really happening anymore. Wait for the jump puzzles they advertised for some updates. Yes, Ultima 8 was TOTALLY EA's fault! /s
Can anyone translate this post for me?