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

[mindx2]

Fucking BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21714906

FFS, what connections did he pull to line all of this up?

From the end of the article:

Shroud of the Avatar is being created by a company called Portalarium that Mr Garriott set up after the failure of an online game called Tabula Rasa that he helped to develop.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of his abilities from the BBC.

 

[Jaesun]

Fucking BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21714906

FFS, what connections did he pull to line all of this up?

From the end of the article:

Shroud of the Avatar is being created by a company called Portalarium that Mr Garriott set up after the failure of an online game called Tabula Rasa that he helped to develop.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of his abilities from the BBC.

 

[I_am_Ian]

The BBC is like a shining beacon of fair and unbiased journalism compared to gaming news sites. Hell, Fox fucking News is a glorious nirvana compared to them.

 

[Jaesun]

http://sota.ultimacodex.com/2013/03/will-iolo-appear-in-shroud-of-the-avatar/

Norbert Norbertson @CorboUK
@DavidRWatson2 Does Iolo feature in this new venture?

David R. Watson @DavidRWatson2
@CorboUK He certainly features in the promo. But to answer directly, I believe Iolo will be in the game.

I *think* he cannot specifically use the name Iolo? (Because EA owns that in their Ultima IP).

 

[Menckenstein]

Aiolo. Problem solved.

 

[Saduj]

Saduj
You mean, Single/Multi-Player where a internet connection with the playerbase affects the gameworld?

Yeah that's what I was talking about. If its been done before, then I've missed it......

Maybe I'm just getting old but it doesn't appeal to me that what someone else does affects my single player sandbox. For example, someone else buys a building I had my eye on and puts a dildo shop there. And the reason why he had the resources to buy it first is that's he's a spoiled 11 year old who plays 24/7 and who's mommy gave him money to throw a bunch of cash at microtransactions ..... Now what? I've got a dildo shop forever in my sandbox and I can't use that location in my fucking game? Can I burn it down so I can put my own thing there? Doesn't that defeat the whole concept? And if I can tear it down, does the other guy connect to the internet and see that his dildo shop has been destroyed? (That last thing would be kind of fun but that ain't going to happen)

Just seems like the people with the most time on their hands and most money to burn are going to fill the world up with their crap...... I live in New Jersey. If I want to see a world dominated by tasteless children throwing around their parent's money, I can leave my house and go for a drive.....

I'm guessing you can just not connect to the internet at all and keep your sandbox pristine by doing so. But if the game is designed around the "social" aspect, how good is the single-player-keep-your-shit-out-my-sandbox part anyway?

 

[Jaesun]

Devoting developer time and money on the "social" aspects is a complete waste to the single player game.

It is a total waste of time and money with no benefits at all.

 

[Jaesun]

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=689

Archive of the live broadcast earlier.

 

[Excommunicator]

Now somebody please make that Ultima VII but With Turtles game.

Isn't that a bit redundant?

 

[Saduj]

You have to be a fucking degenerate, spotty faced little greb twat to prioritise making a shitty computer game over a chance to go into fucking space...space you cunts.

It's his money, he can spend it however he wants.

But if you've got $30 million dollars to blow on something like that, forgive me for questioning what you're doing asking regular people to finance you shitty computer game.

Has nothing to do with priorities. He could easily do both.

 

[Jaesun]

http://sota.ultimacodex.com/2013/03/shroud-of-the-avatar-will-be-a-series/

…the way we’re releasing Shroud of the Avatar is…well, Forsaken Virtues, in particular, is the first episode of five episodes that are currently intended for Shroud of the Avatar.​

And we actually have the outline of all five episodes. We understand what story will be unfolding in each of these five episodes. We’re hoping to release each episode about once per year, and they’ll all be expansions of the actions of this game world. In fact, the map that I think you now have a copy of, is the center tile, you might say, of a 3×3 Tic Tac Toe grid, and that world will expand for you.​

And so yes, Forsaken Virtues is episode one, and two, three, four and five will come.​

Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues is the first of five episodic releases in Garriott’s new fantasy gaming franchise. Episodic may not be the best term. Garriott tells me that each release will expand around the world’s original core, essentially tripling its size. The second installment will be twice the size of the first; the third twice the size of the second, and so on and so forth.​

 

[Average Manatee]

To be fair to Garriott, it could have an online system similar to Dark Souls/Demons Souls, where other players online affect your game and can enter it from time to time. I see a lot of things in an Ultima and Dark Souls merging that could work really well.

I see no reason to be fair to Garriott though

 

[Excidium]

…the way we’re releasing Shroud of the Avatar is…well, Forsaken Virtues, in particular, is the first episode of five episodes that are currently intended for Shroud of the Avatar.

It keeps getting better.

 

[Jaesun]

So basically they are re-naming the word "Episodes" with Expansions for their MMO?

 

[Jaesun]

On Friday, the designer who goes by the nom de cyber Lord British launched a Kickstarter effort for a new game called Shroud of the Avatar. Like many crowdsourced projects from game designers that enjoyed their peak of popularity in the 1990s, Avatar is pitched as a spiritual successor to the classic gameplay of that era. And fans with deep pockets who back Garriott’s Kickstarter to the tune of $10,000 will find themselves with a reward perfectly suited to the devotee of all things Ultima: A tour of Garriott’s elaborate home Brittania Manor — and a now incredibly rare original copy of Akalabeth.​

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/03/akalabeth/

 

[Broseph]

Jaesun, I feel like you are larping Infinitron with all these updates.

 

[Excidium]

Somebody has to keep us informed about this trainwreck.

 

[Jaesun]

I'm a huge Ultima fan. I am just helping to chronicle the HUGE fucking DECLINE.

 

[Broseph]

Keep it coming, bro. I need to get back to my U7 playthrough!

 

[Xavier0889]

Aiolo. Problem solved.

Yolo

 

[Delterius]

Saduj
You mean, Single/Multi-Player where a internet connection with the playerbase affects the gameworld?

Yeah that's what I was talking about. If its been done before, then I've missed it......

Maybe I'm just getting old but it doesn't appeal to me that what someone else does affects my single player sandbox. For example, someone else buys a building I had my eye on and puts a dildo shop there. And the reason why he had the resources to buy it first is that's he's a spoiled 11 year old who plays 24/7 and who's mommy gave him money to throw a bunch of cash at microtransactions ..... Now what? I've got a dildo shop forever in my sandbox and I can't use that location in my fucking game? Can I burn it down so I can put my own thing there? Doesn't that defeat the whole concept? And if I can tear it down, does the other guy connect to the internet and see that his dildo shop has been destroyed? (That last thing would be kind of fun but that ain't going to happen)

Just seems like the people with the most time on their hands and most money to burn are going to fill the world up with their crap...... I live in New Jersey. If I want to see a world dominated by tasteless children throwing around their parent's money, I can leave my house and go for a drive.....

I'm guessing you can just not connect to the internet at all and keep your sandbox pristine by doing so. But if the game is designed around the "social" aspect, how good is the single-player-keep-your-shit-out-my-sandbox part anyway?

Oh, its much worse than that.

The kind of sandbox that LB wishes to resurrect is the one that intends to actually value the blots of land where the dildo shop was built.

And the way that's done is simple: there's a limit on how much the sandbox can be affected by the playerbase. Such as the number of vacant lots for dildo shops and limited sources of wealth - meaning that, ultimately, the 'price' (gametime investment whatever) that one must pay in order to engage in 'endgame' content continues to build up, creating a higher barrier of entry.

While the estabilished fanbase may not be bothered with that due to steady inflation, the game's community is fated to die simply because the game becomes unfun for new players. Gold sellers, e-bay and bot programmes are symptoms of said inflation and serve only to lenghten the game's life.

So, in conclusion, while I don't necessarily disagree with the premise of players contributing to the gameworld's state, such interaction should be controlled somehow. Ultimately, the gameworld should be yours and your friend's, should you choose to call upon them, playground. But frankly, things are vague enough that I'm not really sure where LB's project stands - I'm merely presuming its a full-blown social game.

 

[FrancoTAU]

40 buck pledge for the first installment of a episodic game is really steep. I don't know, I'm leaning towards the game being a shitty MMO with a token single player version. I'm still willing to follow along the updates until it's 100% though.

 

[Jaesun]

40 buck pledge for the first installment of a episodic game is really steep. I don't know, I'm leaning towards the game being a shitty MMO with a token single player version. I'm still willing to follow along the updates until it's 100% though.

Just imagine if he spent 100% of all the money on making a fucking great single player game.

 

[Xavier0889]

40 buck pledge for the first installment of a episodic game is really steep. I don't know, I'm leaning towards the game being a shitty MMO with a token single player version. I'm still willing to follow along the updates until it's 100% though.

Just imagine if he spent 100% of all the money on making a fucking great single player game.

We would have to travel back in time to 1992 then.

 

[Delterius]

40 buck pledge for the first installment of a episodic game is really steep. I don't know, I'm leaning towards the game being a shitty MMO with a token single player version. I'm still willing to follow along the updates until it's 100% though.

Just imagine if he spent 100% of all the money on making a fucking great single player game.

Just imagine a parallel universe where Ultima was incline from Akalabeth all the way up to IX, if no through XII or whatever.