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

[Taxnomore]

I just tried this for a bit. My frames drop to the low teens in the first city I entered (named like Resolute I think). I don't understand. I have all the graphics options either on lowest or off besides textures and still this? I have had no problem running a steady 30 frames (I have after burner and a 30 fps cap because more than 30 does nothing for me besides waste electricity) on game, for instance, I have almost everything maxed in ESO and don't drop below 30 even in the city with a ton of people.

You must not have bought the "Framerate Improve" item from the Shroud Store. It's only $300 Garriott bucks.



Zep--

Anyone else have huge performance issues?

The dev tram is performing poorly.

 

[grimace]

Anyone else have huge performance issues?

Instructions:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z-svq1OvcZwViqGxFCKdjH3NCn2LTfLuGny5qaAqjTM/pub


Known issues:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EQczZJxj38npLbysCEjSa_xiWwx7jQ9zFgvX9yPg2xY/pub

Performance

1. The client may irregularly crash on attempting to change scenes, especially in Solace Bridge.
2. Waterfall VFX cause low performance nearby.
3. There may be framerate issues and slowdown in game, as optimizations are ongoing.
4. The game may “hang” for several seconds after loading into select scenes.
5. Displaying nameplates can sometimes cause performance issues on the client.

1. 
   

 

[Roqua]

Anyone else have huge performance issues?

Instructions:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z-svq1OvcZwViqGxFCKdjH3NCn2LTfLuGny5qaAqjTM/pub


Known issues:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EQczZJxj38npLbysCEjSa_xiWwx7jQ9zFgvX9yPg2xY/pub

Performance

1. The client may irregularly crash on attempting to change scenes, especially in Solace Bridge.
2. Waterfall VFX cause low performance nearby.
3. There may be framerate issues and slowdown in game, as optimizations are ongoing.
4. The game may “hang” for several seconds after loading into select scenes.
5. Displaying nameplates can sometimes cause performance issues on the client.

Pre-alpha released with no further wipes? Pre-alpha and no wipes? Pre-alpha and no wipes? In online games no wipes means live, which comes after beta, which comes after alpha, which comes after pre-alpha. This is what I was told by numerous experts when Pathfinder Online was released in alpha. Let me repeat - numerous experts who know everything about everything, like everyone on the internet. There is no reason I can run DAI on almost max without dipping below 30 ever and getting 7 frames in this game.

 

[Zep Zepo]

Spoiler

Zep--

 

[grimace]

Roqua, the official forums are the place for up to date information. Quartely "devoloper roadmaps" are posted by Executive Producer DarkStarr.

Greetings Avatars,

As we have stated previously, our goal is to once-per-quarter post an updated schedule for our monthly releases. Even though these goals will likely change somewhat as we react to feedback, we feel it is important to provide you an updated roadmap periodically.

Our goal continues to be to deliver our backers content each and every month so that we can get feedback and use it to iterate improvements. This continues to benefit the game, with sweeping changes, like the switch over to use-based advancement. Meeting that monthly goal is our highest priority, but we require flexibility in our deliverables in order to meet that goal. As you have seen in previous releases, sometimes we push things out, but we also often pull new things in.

The third quarter of 2016 starts with theFinal Wipe and Lot Selectionand then moves on to steadily progressing through the list of features and content promised during our Kickstarter.

As always, all dates, durations, and deliverables are subject to change as we adjust our designs based on direct feedback from you, our backers.

RELEASE 32, July 28, 2016

• Final Wipe:Please note thatif you have been waiting to convert your purchases to store credits, these will be your FINAL three chances to do soas long as you doNOTclaim your rewards at the bank. There will be three windows the week of release to convert your purchases to store credit. These windows will be on Monday, Wednesday, and then finally on the day of release, Thursday. This will work exactly as it has in previous releases.
• Lot Selection:Starting at 11:00 CDT players can begin selecting lots in the game in order of their lot selection group. You can view your lot selection group on your account page.
• Story:The Love Path will get a major polish pass with a special focus on NPC behaviors in Soltown and Ardoris. Greater Brittany will be finished with the addition of the final neighborhood of Brittany Estates, a plush area composed mostly of City sized lots. Additionally several NPC towns, including Spite, that are currently clones will be replaced with original scenes.
• New User Experience Polish:Continued polish passes will be done on the Tutorials, hints, and starting scenes with special focus on the Isle of Storms and Bloodriver.
• Service Hardening:We will continue a series of passes through the client, authentication, and server to harden the service for security and customer service. Special attention will be paid to the Patcher.
• Player Towns & Player Housing:Player-Owned Towns that have locked submission forms will appear in the game. New variations on the town templates may also appear.
• Performance:Major efforts will be done to optimize performance. This will include frame rate improvements, load time improvements, and memory footprint improvements.
• Multiplayer Economic Balance:A pass will be made through creature loot bundles, merchant pricing, property taxes, public vendor fees, harvesting rates, agriculture growth, crafting recipe ingredient amounts, and other factors to begin establishing an equilibrium for the multiplayer economy
• Multiplayer Combat Balance:A pass will be made through combat skills, creature stats, player stats, advancement rates, zone difficulties, and other values to establish an equilibrium for multiplayer combat.
• Crafting:More enchantments and more masterwork modifiers will come online. Most decorations will be removed from NPC merchants and moved to recipes for crafters. Additionally several homes will be craftable for the first time.
• Character:A polish pass will be completed through all the hair styles.

RELEASE 33, August 25, 2016

• Story:The polish pass through the Love Path of the story will continue with special focus on NPC behaviors in the town of Spite. Brittany NPCs will also get a behavior improvement pass. Additionally several NPC towns that are currently clones will be replaced with original scenes.
• New User Experience Polish:Continued polish passes will be done on the Tutorials, hints, and starting scenes with special focus on Highvale.
• Player Towns & Player Housing:Player-Owned Towns that have locked submission forms will appear in the game. New variations on the town templates may also appear. Additionally the Lot Deed Lottery system for in game purchase of Lot Deeds will come online.
• Offline Mode Combat Balance:A pass will be made through the game to adjust combat balance for play in offline mode with companions.
• Offline Mode:Patching and Reward delivery for Offline Mode become available to players using this mode to play.
• Crafting:Cooking and the Food System will expand with more recipes and more functionality including more food buffs.
• Creatures:We will begin a major polish pass through our creatures.

RELEASE 34, September 29, 2016

• Story:A final polish pass will be completed through the Love Path of the story and we will begin a polish pass on the Courage Path. Aerie and Resolute NPCs will also get a behavior improvement pass. Additionally several NPC towns that are currently clones will be replaced with original scenes.
• Player Towns & Player Housing:Player-Owned Towns that have locked submission forms will appear in the game. New variations on the town templates may also appear.
• Offline Economy:The economy in offline mode will be tuned to be better balanced for single player. NPC merchants will buy player crafted items at a profit to the player for instance. Additionally pledge and add-on store items will be available from NPC merchants for purchase with in-game gold.
• Crafting:Recipes will become teachable (much like emotes). Agriculture will get a polish pass and some new content.
• Creatures:We will continue a major polish pass through our creatures.
• Roving Encounters:Potential encounters (wandering merchants, monsters, etc.) will appear on the overworld for players to engage (or avoid).

We continue to be incredibly thankful for the support we receive from this amazing community. While the funding you provide makes all of this possible, it pales in comparison with the faith you have in us, the feedback you provide us, and the content you are making for everyone to enjoy. We are humbly grateful, and we cannot wait to see you again in New Britannia!

Before I go, I wanted to include an excerpt from my original post about our Early Release Schedule that is important to set the framework for our ongoing schedule:

As a crowd funded and crowd sourced project, we feel it is incredibly important that we provide our backers with information and access well before game studios would normally do so in a traditional development model. Traditionally, the players are given information and access only after the development team has already decided exactly how things will be done, and at times, even after it has already been implemented. By the time the public normally has access to the product, there is usually no time to meaningfully react to the public feedback.

Shroud of the Avatar is different than the traditional model, as we intend to offer our backers extremely early access to information and even the game itself. With that said, we also want to be very careful that we only provide access to portions of the game when they are ready for a wider range of feedback. If we can play it internally and we know it is not ready, then there is nothing to be gained by having a wider audience come to the same conclusion. In fact, it could be quite damaging to do so.

Our strategy over the next few months is to provide you with focused and iterative releases of content. Your feedback during these releases will be critical to making the final product the best it can be, and we appreciate that you are all so willing to devote your time to helping us. With each release, we will have specific tests we will ask you all to make. As we get closer, we will send instructions on how to download, install, report bugs, etc. After each release we will review the results and reevaluate the plan including the duration of availability of each release. Please note that game data will be wiped periodically during early access.

It is important to note that all dates, durations, and deliverables are subject to change.

Sincerely,
Starr Long
Executive Producer
Shroud of the Avatar

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/q3-2016-schedule-update.53494/#post-584364


And daily standup notes are posted:

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/standup-corner.2315/page-40#post-638363

Monday August 29, 2016

ARTISTS
Bob Cooksey: Elven row homes
Fletcher Kinnear: Halloween concepts
Kevin Wells: A bug & Integration documentation & hair
Matt Schmitz: Emotes for sigh and wait and shrug & One-man band
Reid Rollo: R33 bugs & Dead tree decorations

DESIGN
Dan Brennan: Bugs & Discoveries & R33 bugs & R34 planning
Finn Staber: Gates & Interactive animation timings
Keith Quinn: Bugs & Novia collision
Steve Zaldivar: Bugs & Estgard

TECH
Erik Touve: Bugs & Player home navigation
Jason Yenawine: Exploits & Matchmaking & Login queue
Joaquin Del Canto: Bugs & Item renaming
Justin Gilbert: Bugs & Bugs
Ken Pfile: Buildmaster & Bugs
Tassilo Phillipp: Account refactoring for expirations

QA
Rhys Romero: Sanity testing & QA interview preparation
Sarah Dworken: CS & More CS

PROD/MGMT/OTHER
Brekken Holtrop: QA forums bugs & Love quest testing
Chris Spears: Bugs & Exploits & Systems review
Dallas Snell: Updates & Add-ons & General business
Mathew Anderson: Syndcon report & Moderator meeting & Community cleanup & Reports
Michael Hutchison: Bug fixing & PRT polish & Player town form support
Richard Garriott: Quest line review & Haunted house planning & Dragoncon preparation
Rick Holtrop: Add-on store support & Patch notes & DB & CS
Starr Long: R34 planning & Bundle planning & Syndcon report

 

[Roqua]

View attachment 7291

Spoiler

View attachment 7292

Zep--

I know people complain about unity all the time, but I honestly have never had a performance issue with any Unity game before this.

Roqua, the official forums are the place for up to date information. Quartely "devoloper roadmaps" are posted by Executive Producer DarkStarr.

I don't see what this has to do with performance. It was only addressed in the patch that made it go live, in which they said performance was improved dramatically. For who? I am far from running a potato and my performance is unacceptable. Let me express again I am running everything besides textures on off or low and am getting single digit frames in offline in the city I am in.

I am far from a graphics whore and will play anything that doesn't have ascii graphics and not give a shit. All I want is a steady 30 frames. No more, no less. I have yet to see anything graphically impressive enough to justify my super low fps with everything off or on low (besides textures). If I turn textures down it looks like a blurry mess and my frames don't even go up to a steady 30.

 

[Zep Zepo]

My LULZ are

Zep--

 

[Roqua]

My LULZ are

Zep--

I'm not sure what this means so I'll reply with some confusing nonsense too.

My shimshams are :mrfussy::mrfussy::mrfussy::mrfussy::mrfussy::mrfussy:

 

[grimace]

Community of the Avatar Livestream - Hometown Tour!
https://youtu.be/EoU5QGF0bmU

Portalarium Austin has a new video to showcase player housing.

 

[Zep Zepo]

Just when you thought this game couldn't get any worse...They prove it can.

Zep--

 

[BlackGoat]

This is about as far from everything good about Ultima as I can imagine

 

[Jazz_]

It's basicly Second Life in Unity.

 

[grimace]

This is about as far from everything good about Ultima as I can imagine

What was your level of participation in player housing in Ultima Online?

 

[Zep Zepo]

What was your level of participation in player housing in Ultima Online?

0

But it was always fun to run across some poor sods house that had expired and find all his shit on the ground where the house used to be.

Real men used the Bank. We don't need no stinkin' house!

Zep--

 

[Metro]

This needs to be tagged as vaporware already.

 

[Aenra]

You wish.. if it was vapourware, there might even have been consequences somewhere down the line.
It's very real, it's shit, it's very costly and people keep paying for it. That's what it is

 

[grimace]

Metro Aenra Roqua BlackGoat

Seems most of the responses to Shroud of the Avatar from this thread are mixed.

SotA has had a playable release each month for 36 months. The release of episode 1 (the storyline of which there will be 5 episodes) will release in the next 5 months.

I'm trying to understand why most of the codex seems to pan this project.

 

[Zep Zepo]

I'm trying to understand why most of the codex seems to pan this project.

MICROTRANSACTIONS. (Some of which are not so MICRO).

It's all about the Garriott Bux store with them, man. Not the game.

Zep--

 

[Aenra]

I'm trying to understand

If you're too fucking lazy to read my previous posts/explanations in this thread (some of which going into detail), hardly my fault now is it.
If you're too fucking stupid to understand that in forums reading before posting is a must since communication is staggered (time lapses between posts).. hardly my fault now is it.

Lastly, extract your reading glasses from your anus and equip them in the standard manner; the responses here are not mixed, not at all; they're predominantly negative.

 

[Grauken]

Metro Aenra Roqua BlackGoat

Seems most of the responses to Shroud of the Avatar from this thread are mixed.

SotA has had a playable release each month for 36 months. The release of episode 1 (the storyline of which there will be 5 episodes) will release in the next 5 months.

I'm trying to understand why most of the codex seems to pan this project.

the kickstarter conned lots of people into thinking this was an Ultima game, while it's really Ultima Online

also player housing is retarded

 

[grimace]

https://www.twitch.tv/shroudoftheavatar

Fall into Winter Telethon of the Avatar

As a special bonus, we are offering Telethon Funding Stretch Goal Rewards to any backer that pledges a minimum of $5 from the start of the telethon, until Midnight (Spending Store Credit to make $5 minimum purchase does not apply). The Fall Into Winter Telethon of the Avatar Funding Stretch Goal Rewards are:

• $10K: /rainautumnleaves
• $25K: Autumn Leaf Crown (increases length of /rainautumnleaves emote)
• $35K: Autumn Fairy Leaf Dress + Autumn Leaf Wings
• $50K: Pet Squirrel
• $65K and beyond: Secret Winter items!

They've raised over $65,000 today as of 6PM CST.

 

[grimace]

the kickstarter conned lots of people into thinking this was an Ultima game, while it's really Ultima Online

also player housing is retarded

The project has evolved over 3 years of playable releases due to player feedback.

 

[Zep Zepo]

FIXT!

Zep--

 

[grimace]

I'd pay $3.50 for that Faggoty Thing.

An ascot tie, or ascot or "hanker-tie", is a neckband with wide pointed wings, traditionally made of pale grey patterned silk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascot_tie

Also,

The Telethon has raised $87,500 for Portalarium.

 

[grimace]

Starr Long: Video Game History & Methods
Published on Dec 21, 2016
This is a lecture I gave at the University of Texas about my history in the video game business. Includes a deepdive into my current project Shroud of the Avatar, currently the second highest crowdfunded video game of all time.

https://youtu.be/7QT_ATraHKQ