KickStarter Shroud of the Avatar - Lord British's Not-Ultima Online 2

[grimace]

"I want you to make a shameless virtual property cash grab not seem like a shameless virtual property cash grab even though that's exactly what I am going to boast to the press to ward off anyone burned from Tabula Rasa."

The first BIG LIE was that there would be "meaningful PVP" and dangerous "forced PVP" scenes. Player Killers (PKers) were told that they were welcome inside Shroud of the Avatar. As the whales poured their cash into the pool to buy larger castles to place on more lots the PKers had their features underdeveloped. The world grew safer and items could not be pickpocketed. Cash store items could not be stolen by other players. There was no risk of death, losing XP, or loss of items.

Tabula Rasa had interesting combat. Shroud of the Avatar had a shuffled deck minigame that was never balanced for player versus environment or player versus player. SotA combat was not fun. SotA players spent hours in a fishing minigame away from keyboard.

The last gasp of this was by Roe R. Adams III of the ubiquitous Skara Brae providing the basis for the Virtues as well as he did for Wizardry IV's lore.

Lord British Dick Garriot never mentions Roe R. Adams III when talking about Truth, Love, and Courage. He will cite Wizard of Oz before he names the name of writers who wrote his game scenarios.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Thus Richard and company, reunited again with Bueche, found themselves a minimalist office in Austin in early 1987, fifteen desks ranged along a single long hallway. And Richard himself, now becoming a very wealthy young man indeed thanks to the huge success of Ultima III and IV, started work on Britannia Manor, a custom-built house-cum-castle worthy of Lord British; it came complete with secret passageways, a cave, a wine cellar, and a stellar observatory. It was pretty clear he wasn’t planning to go anywhere else anytime soon.

Didn’t he sell that manor or destroy it? I can’t recall? Does he have a new manor?

Lessee…. WIKI YO! COME TO MY AID!

Burglar attack​

In 1997 the house was broken into by a deranged fan. Garriott held him off with an Uzi, firing a warning shot while waiting for police to arrive.

After spending several years on the market, the house was sold in December, 2014.[9] The new owner demolished the house in late 2016.

External links​

• Complete description of Britannia Manor Haunted House in 1988
• Complete description of Britannia Manor Haunted House in 1994
• New Britannia Manor Mark 3 under construction on Google Maps
• Cnet shows the documentary titled The World's Most Famous Haunted House: A Tribute to Britannia Manor

New manor Mark 3? There was a 2?




Just YouTube Britannia Manors or Britannia manor 2 and you get a list. This video says Mark III but I dunno..


Speaking of the Rich manors…

 

[Caim]

For a second I read that as Bulgar Attack.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Bulgars sack British, film at 11.

Yeah, the uzi story. Another classic Richard.

Today, by his Twatter sounding like a straight white George Takei clone, he's a typical two-tier Democrat useful idiot celeb talking shit about 2A rights and other things his privileged lifestyle allows him to be hypocritical about, such as the environment and running a cult.

The mansion that represented Richard's early liquidity and Origin's vulnerability was razed. Probably a good idea, given what has been featured by SotA like the Release 69 Dance Party at Adultima.

Richard is still trying to sell the super imaginative tinpot despot theme park of Castleton.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I kinda hate seeing any structure torn down. I guess Halloween Haunted House tours didn’t pay off.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

It certainly didn't do any favors to any of his companies or employees.

 

[Star Citizen]

Saw a documentary on this recently and shit's insane. Wont call him an outright scumbag like he legit believed in that, just way in over his head, trying to keep up with modern trends and way out of touch with reality lmao

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Big self-centered narcissistic ego hoarding credit and forgetting to include credit to others makes one very scummy. I doubt that would change even if he got all old Origin, Tabula Rasa, and SOTA ETC IP back into his personal ownership pocket. Likely, he’d get worse.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Find a Treasure Map and Set Off for Adventure In the coming days, you may find a mysterious map along your travels: perhaps on an enemy, in a chest, listed on a player vendor, or given to you by some kind and/or baffled guild-mate. Junior Treasure Hunters across Novia all know to go to Selleck, to be found along the Port Harmony docks, to learn about seeking what it leads to! There’s a guy who really knows where his shovel is. He’ll make sure you know how to use one before sending you out with some helpful hints. There may be valuables ne’er seen before! There may be guardians to battle! It’s a good thing that explorer’s shovel is a weapon… This first round added to the game includes decrepit maps that will lead you into low-tier zones accessible to players of every level and blood-stained maps that will lead you into zones frequented by players hunting other players. Be sure you trust your party members! More info is in the full patch notes. R119 is a Content month. Polish, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R120 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live as of Release 119!

Always the threat of adding Polish.

 

[grimace]

​

​ Find a Treasure Map and Set Off for Adventure In the coming days, you may find a mysterious map along your travels: perhaps on an enemy, in a chest, listed on a player vendor, or given to you by some kind and/or baffled guild-mate. Junior Treasure Hunters across Novia all know to go to Selleck, to be found along the Port Harmony docks, to learn about seeking what it leads to! There’s a guy who really knows where his shovel is. He’ll make sure you know how to use one before sending you out with some helpful hints. There may be valuables ne’er seen before! There may be guardians to battle! It’s a good thing that explorer’s shovel is a weapon… This first round added to the game includes decrepit maps that will lead you into low-tier zones accessible to players of every level and blood-stained maps that will lead you into zones frequented by players hunting other players. Be sure you trust your party members! More info is in the full patch notes. R119 is a Content month. Polish, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R120 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live as of Release 119!

​

Always the threat of adding Polish.

Has anyone working on SotA decided to finish Episode 2 and begin episodes 3, 4, and 5?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

There are episodes? What’s the synopsis of 1-5?

 

[grimace]

There are episodes? What’s the synopsis of 1-5?

• Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtue is the first of a 5 game series of full-length, stand-alone games (each using the same game system), referred to as Episodes 1 through 5. Estimated availability of Episode 1, Forsaken Virtues, is October 2014, with Episodes 2 through 5 estimated for subsequent yearly releases.

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...es-0?result=project&term=shroud of the avatar

First episode is to get the "Shroud" item for your Avatar. Second episode was a new continent and . . . as of 2022 nothing more than that.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Ohhhhh! That is suckage and likely to never be completed.

 

[taxalot]

They were unable to fill their first continent with content and most of it is a barren wasteland with empty buildings and robotic NPCs. There are dozens of towns with no interactable characters in it. Yeah, they really should expand on creating more continents.

 

[Eli_Havelock]

The dev process has been to clone a pre-existing scene and make changes until it looks different enough.

This is part of why there are so many empty scenes.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...he-game-feels-incomplete.172248/#post-1345066

Beyond that,

• There's still a lot of mid-teir zones that feel copied, empty and pointless.

Agreed. It does give our game that lifeless, unfinished and dull feeling, entering into one of those zones. But unfortunately, the development time for Episode 1 is... basically over. Obviously finally un-cloning those scenes and actually making them unique and enjoyable scenes would actually be really nice. But that's complicated..... Maybe remove them? I don't think that's the right solution though.

I see new content every day!

Oh, wait, that would be Castle Asshole. I mean Castle Atos. When the (new) lead dev's in-game pseudonym is just the reverse of the game's acronym you know you're in for a real creative treat!

Speaking of that human shitshow, where's he been? I haven't heard him blaming literally everyone else in the world for his failures in months, it almost makes it look like things might get more competent as a result. Then I remember Ravalox...

 

[Eli_Havelock]

Of course.
Mr. Chris "Totally 100% Still on SotA" Spears has another game abortion he's been working on like Iron & Magic.

https://getpangaea.com/About-us/

They're trying to hide the "talent" before it scares off all the investors.

 

[kaisergeddon]

There appears to be at least one gray squirrel on the team, so there's the "diversity" they're bragging about at least.

 

[taxalot]

It's a team of squirrels in the sense that they promise to be cute and alluring but they are, in fact, fucking parasites living off the money of people who have actual jobs.

 

[Virgil Brummond]

Fun fact about SOTA:

In their 2023 Roadmap / Vision document, Catnip games claimed that switching to Unity 2021 would be a key priority:

Moving into 2023, we continue working towards migrating SotA to Unity 2021. This update will keep us within Unity’s supported life cycle and ensure we can properly integrate their bug fixes, feature improvements, and tools. In particular, we’re looking forward to several changes in Unity 2021 that should allow for some interesting improvements to our game world over time (such as the ability to paint holes in terrain).

So far they have not announced anything about progress for the transition.

However, Unity has some interesting documentation about the status of their 2021 LTS release:

Unity 2021.3 is now the legacy LTS. It will be updated monthly until it reaches the end of its support cycle in mid-2024.

 

[El Presidente]

The fact this game is still going is actually mind blowing.

Edit: there are almost twice the amount of people playing Thief 1 on Steam:

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

When was the last update for offline play?

 

[grimace]

Of course.
Mr. Chris "Totally 100% Still on SotA" Spears has another game abortion he's been working on like Iron & Magic.

https://getpangaea.com/About-us/

They're trying to hide the "talent" before it scares off all the investors.

Take all of the assets of Catnip Games Shroud of the Avatar and build a new game with a new company?


Pangaea is a modern, 100% remote game development company that is founded on the belief that a happy team makes better games. We strive for competitive salaries, no overtime, flexible work life balance, zero tolerance for egos, and diversity.

zero tolerance for egos -- Lord British no where to be seen.

Chris Spears writes:

PROJECT RISE https://getpangaea.com/About-Project-Rise/What-Project-Rise-is-and-isnt/#wbb1​

Project Rise is the Codename for our first project, to be formally announced in 2024. While we will be keeping specifics under wraps, we will share some details about the project here over the next few months. Also, check back for design writeups by the team that will help build the foundation for what to expect from the game once announced.


Blog Posts:
‹ Back

At this point in the project we need to be fairly tight lipped about the specifics of Project Rise but there are plenty of details I can share to help whet your appetite for the game.

What Project Rise is:

• Session based
• Every session is completely unique and player decisions impact the game for everyone
• PvPvE

What Project Rise is NOT:

• Pay to win or pay to progress or pay to unlock content
  • While there will be ways to spend money in the game, none have any impact on a player's power
• Power progression through grinding
  • While there will be plenty of achievements and content elements that can be unlocked through playing long hours, none of them will result in a statistical advantage in the game. No progression grinding and no gear grinding
• Open marketplace
  • While this appeals to some players, allowing open trading tends to attracts the wrong type of players that eventually toxify the community. We are looking for people who play for the fun of the game, not those looking to make money off of it

• We are looking for people who play for the fun of the game, not those looking to make money off of it

No RMT? No real market trades? No re-selling accounts and items?

How will this game get funding?

 

[taxalot]

Making a massive game with no sense of feasibility in regards to team size and professional knowledge, and in regards of finances? That is unheard of in the Ultima community.

Aren't we sure Chris isn't simply looking for another wife ?

 

[Virgil Brummond]

MassivelyOP posted about an older presentation by Chris Spears and Starr Long at some AI bootcamp:



Project Rise is a shitty looking extraction shooter with procedural maps, LLM generated text and AI voice synthesis.

Looks extremely uninspired.

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

MassivelyOP posted about an older presentation by Chris Spears and Starr Long and at some AI bootcamp:



Project Rise is a shitty looking extraction shooter with procedural maps, LLM generated text and AI voice synthesis.

Looks extremely uninspired.

Welcome to AI content. You must be new...