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

[Jackalope]

These screenshots make it look like Second Life

 

[Metro]

What's up with this project anyway? I always thought it is just a KS scam to get some easy money, and as I see it, it is still in development after 3 years. Is the project going anywhere?

It's about as sincere as your relationships.

 

[grimace]

What's up with this project anyway? I always thought it is just a KS scam to get some easy money, and as I see it, it is still in development after 3 years. Is the project going anywhere?

Shroud of the Avatar can be play tested now in a pre-alpha state. Those who log in are able to complete a quest for a decorative hat/mask item that will be trade-able when Episode 1 launches. The project has been transparent from the first playable release 20 months ago. There is a road map on the project forums for the next few months.

These screenshots make it look like Second Life

Art asset creation can be costly and time consuming. Some of the assets are community made and submitted to the developers.

Shroud of the Avatar has been described as an Ultimate Roleplaying game and player housing and decoration is a major part of that. The world can be interacted with.

There are many people who enjoy Second Life, The Sims, Animal Crossing, Minecraft, Terraria, etc. Shroud of the Avatar features crafting, decorating, and roleplay.

The next release will feature a major update to the experience progression system.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Shroud of the Avatar has been described as an Ultimate Roleplaying game

definitely a plant.

 

[Metro]

Jaesun Looks like someone needs an ad plant avatar.

 

[Jaesun]

If we gave ad plant avatars to everyone with shit taste in games, every person on here would have one...

 

[grimace]

What is a Lord British “Ultimate” Role Playing Game?

Lord British here! Welcome to my vision of the “Ultimate” Role Playing Game. In this 4-part blog, I will share my insights into what makes a great role playing game by reflecting on the past and looking towards the future. So, without further delay, we will begin where many great stories do, in a Kingdom long ago.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=179

It begins before personal computers
I was attempting to make the “Ultimate” Role Playing Game before they were called Ultima and will continue long after they have been called Ultima.

I began my pursuit of creating the “Ultimate” Role Playing Game (Ultimate RPG) around 1974 while in high school. It’s been 36 years but it feels like yesterday. 1974 was an auspicious year for me. In 1974 my sister in law gave me a copy of The Lord of the Rings, the first fantasy fiction I had ever read, and I was instantly hooked. Soon after, I was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons which had just been released. I quickly built one of the earliest and largest gaming groups which brought together 30-100 people most every Friday and Saturday for all night gaming sessions in many rooms throughout my parent’s home in Houston. My English reports in school became fictional fantasy writings about my first fantasy world Sosaria, the basis of my D&D campaigns, as well as many of my computer games. Finally, still years before the personal computer showed up on the scene; I discovered a lone computer teletype terminal, unused by any class at the time. I convinced the faculty to let me have my own class, with no teacher or plan, other than to teach myself how to program on it, and show them the results of my work for a grade and count it as my foreign language credit. Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC) is a foreign language to most people! Right? When the school agreed, my quest for the Ultimate Role Playing Game began in earnest! My quest continues to this day.

The first generations of my games were called D&D 1-28. These were games written on the schools teletype, stored on paper tape spools and run via an acoustic modem running on a distant PDP 11. They used alpha numeric characters for graphics. “A” was a giant ant, “$” was a treasure chest yet it was unmistakably, an Ultima like Ultimate RPG attempt, with text characters instead of the later familiar tile graphics. Graphic style is not the essential element of an Ultimate RPG.

The First Grand Era of Games – Solo Player Games
My first commercial game, one of the first commercial computer games at all, was Akalabeth. When the Apple ][ arrived on the scene, finally I could create with real time graphics! Fully realized 3D dungeons joined the top down outdoor scenes. Deep down this game was clearly rooted in the history of the 28 previous “D&D” games I wrote. Akalabeth was not made to be published; I made it merely for myself and my friends. It was John Mayer the manager of the Computerland store where I had a summer job, who encouraged me to spend the vast $200 to “publish” it on the store wall.

Beyond being quickly picked up by a national distributor and the success that meant, my first distributor Al Remmers of California Pacific suggested we drop Richard Garriott as the author and leave Lord British my in game character) instead. This ended up being more than just a quirky use of a pen name on the package, Lord British, is me as both the creator and as a resident representing the creation to the player from within the game. I joined and shared the experience alongside the player, something which would prove more valuable over time. Participating in the world alongside you, is a valuable part of an Ultimate RPG

And a bit of Trivia – Softalk Magazine ran a contest “Who is the real Lord British” wondering if it might be a person who lived in Los Angeles, named Beth… Also-Known-As-LA-Beth -> Akalabeth!

Please return tomorrow for part 2 of What is a Lord British “Ultimate” Role Playing Game?

Lord British

a.k.a. Dr. Richard Garriott de Cayeux

Looking for part 2 and 4 ...

Here is 3.
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=208

What is a Lord British “Ultimate” Role Playing Game? Day 3
Ultima IV, V, VI – The Hero’s Journey: Reflecting player behavior in values, virtues and social issues.

With Ultima IV I began my first strong effort to craft a unique world not drawn on movies, books or other games to the degree I had in my previous work. Thus the first incarnation of Britannia was born. Originality in world craft became an important element to my designs, as did the social and virtuous context of the stories found within the game. I became a student of story craft and the works of Joseph Campbell. Living and playing through detailed realistic worlds with stories about virtue and social issues, became the central essence of my “Ultimate RPG”.

Ultima V and VI continued in this vein. Reflecting to the player the results of their deeds is for any interactive story as important as it is in any linear story. It must touch the reader / player at a deep personal level to be compelling and relevant! Holding a mirror up to yourself is part of an “Ultimate RPG”.

While portals from earth to my worlds were common, something I borrowed from my readings of the Chronicles of Narnia, it became essential starting with Ultima IV. In theory playing a role playing game as Conan the Barbarian is fine, but your success should be judged on how well you embody the beliefs of Conan. In Grand Theft Auto, you should be judged as how good a thug you are. Since my story was intended to be the story of YOUR PERSONAL evolution as a person, it was important that you were you, not someone else! Fiction supporting your journey from earth to the new world is part of The Ultimate RPG.

Ultima VII-IX – Unique & Internal Consistent Fiction
In Ultima VII, for the first time, I actually believed and planned on their being a game after the one I was working on, and thus planned characters and stories that would transcend a single game for the first time. While Ultima VII continued deepening the stories in Britannia, Ultima VIII explored a new realm with Pagan, and we concluded the trilogy of trilogies back in Britannia with Ultima IX.

In each of these games since Ultima IV I have carefully removed overused often plagiarized standard RPG elements like orcs and elves, and instead tried to create a new fully realized world of my own, that had a sense of deep history and self consistency, nothing that was not justified by the new reality was included, new items were fully researched and justified. An original deep and consistent world is a critical part of the “Ultimate RPG”.

Far too often in magic and science fiction, a bad storyteller will solve the final problem with the last minute discovery of an unknown mystical power. This is just as bad as the adventure games I hated, where unless you could guess that the designer thought it would be funny to only let you get past the yeti by throwing a cream pie in his face, the game was otherwise unsolvable. Thus in these mid Ultimas I refined the designs of internally consistent pseudo science and magical concepts from reagents, to linguistics. Logically constructed internally consistent fiction is part of an Ultimate RPG,

Please return tomorrow for the final installment of What is a Lord British “Ultimate” Role Playing Game?

Lord British

a.k.a. Dr. Richard Garriott de Cayeux

 

[Metro]

 

[Caim]

Ultima VII-IX are self consistent? Yeah, no.

 

[Zetor]

Dr. Richard Garriott de Cayeux? Well, I suppose after Dr. Derek Smart (PhD) I shouldn't be surprised at stuff like this anymore.

 

[Caim]

Dr. Richard Garriott de Cayeux? Well, I suppose after Dr. Derek Smart (PhD) I shouldn't be surprised at stuff like this anymore.

Dude's degree is honorary, but he has been to the ISS for 12 days, so he's got that going for him. And he's got that last name from marrying into nobility, from what I've gathered.

 

[grimace]

She's a COO?

 

[Name]

She's a COO?

Probably means the head of HR team.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Probably means the head of HR team.

Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux
President / Co-founder at Escape Dynamics

Escape Dynamics is transforming the aerospace industry with affordable electromagnetically-powered single-stage-to-orbit spaceplanes

 

[Grokalibre]

Did they meet in UO? She must have been 12 at that time.

 

[grimace]

A greatly controversial part of Ultima lore includes the "killer children" room; first encountered in the dungeon Hythloth in Ultima V (see screenshot at right), this is a part of the game wherein the player is assaulted by multiple children and must somehow deal with them. Richard Garriott originally included this dilemma to force players to consider their actions and hopefully provoke an emotional response... not to promote child abuse.

http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Children

I'm looking forward to little rascals in Shroud.

 

[Metro]

 

[Jaesun]

I think I can now play this with my Win 7 64 Bit OS, I shall DL and give this a try. Hopefully now it won't crash every 5 seconds...

 

[Roobenator]

So when is this coming out? Backed for 130€, now regret it abit tho. I used to play uo europa back in the day. Some roleplaying at the yew crossroads, mostly yew guardsmen. Besides that i pvped alot.
Not sure if i can invest my time to fully enjoy a morpg again, but uo sure was great. Is the codex up for some communal stuff after release?

 

[Jaesun]

So it has a keyword system, that's awesome <3

Holy shit, it is like my DREAM guy <3 <3

Made it through the very easy tutorial, and then took the boat to town. There actually were a few people online playing this. I'll fuck around with this some more since it now actually runs, instead of crashing.

 

[grimace]

Made it through the very easy tutorial, and then took the boat to town. There actually were a few people online playing this. I'll fuck around with this some more since it now actually runs, instead of crashing.

Keep us updated with your in game experiences.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

i played through release 14 and 15. then stopped. when I got back, I lost all my progress... So I'll try it when it's completed.

 

[grimace]

From the developers:
Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 21 Postmortem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c5Qe7VVUrA

i played through release 14 and 15. then stopped. when I got back, I lost all my progress... So I'll try it when it's completed.

Next wipe is for pre-alpha Release 23.

Is the codex up for some communal stuff after release?

Any codexers planning on starting a guild? Probably wait and see what the beta release brings.

 

[Metro]

So when is this coming out? Backed for 130€, now regret it abit tho.

A bit?

 

[grimace]

A bit?

Garriott, like many other crowdfunded studio leads, takes the lowest possible salary for benefits. For him, its minimum wage at any point the studio isn’t making a profit, which also includes the need to have a year+ of operating expenses before they’ll even consider any of the income profitable (the game must flow). Not only is this a major sacrifice, but we must all consider that Garriott has millions invested into the game.

“I have been at minimum wage at any time our revenue has been below breakeven, I take the first sacrifice of going back to minimum wage. At any time we’re profitable, I go back to making the same salary as other senior managers which is low compared to anywhere else in the industry and I’ve put millions of my own dollars into it. I say all of that just to say that this project is incredibly meaningful to me. I need it to succeed, I’ve funded it to the best that I can personally, but we are literally reliant on our backers.”

http://www.tentonhammer.com/feature/feel-burn-many-ways-shroud-avatar-conserves-cash

Literally reliant on our backers!