UPDATE 3: For those without credit card, you can now pledge via Paypal on their homepage! https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/
UPDATE 2: Trailer:
This is not directly related to Redemption, but it so huge it has to be in our news
Lord British teases us with a puzzle piece:
and a webpage:
http://www.lordbritishpresents.com/
It looks a lot like Ultima. Unless he got the license from EA it won't be called Ultima, but it sure will be more Ultima than anything EA does without him.
I would not be surprised if he will finance it with Kickstarter just like his buddy Chris Roberts did with the new Wing Commander game, Star Citizen. Chris Roberts wrote during his Kickstarter campaign, that he told Garriott to use Kickstarter if he wants to create a new Ultima.
Ok I am jumping to conclusions here, but one can hope right?
On Friday we will know more!
UPDATE 1:
It's called SHROUD OF THE AVATAR
Go to their Kickstarter page and pledge! https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/
I am so excited!
Yeah I am not crazy about the graphics yet, but it's early
The Third Grand Era of Games – Social & Mobile gaming
Today, with my new company Portalarium, and with the talents and skills of many who made Ultima an Ultimate RPG, we set forth to forge a “New Britannia,” a new world from scratch, internally self-consistent, deep and refined. We have lofty goals as an Ultimate RPG. An Ultimate RPG does not fear going where others fear or have failed.
Few believed I would find success during the years I took to craft Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar and its deeply introspective plot. Fewer yet believed in “MUltima” when we began that design journey, and it opened the doors to the MMO space. Many traditional gamers are concerned about the growth of the new social and mobile gaming and its impact on games with meaning and depth. They are doubtful that this era will provide them the Ultimate RPG experience they crave. But this new era has unearthed some powerful new tools that add to the value of an Ultimate RPG.
For example, let’s look at two hypothetical versions of Ultima Online. Version A is the version that was shipped. You drive to the store to buy it, pay $50, drive home, go through a lengthy install, subscribe for $10+ / month, create a character, get dropped into the virtual world, and about 4 hours later, you have explored the game far enough to know it’s amazing. Now imagine version B of the same game. You receive a link from a friend and click on it. You start to play immediately for free. The install and intro to the game has been written in a way that you understand the game within minutes…not hours. After you have played long enough to know it’s worth the money, you are asked to pay by whatever method you find acceptable. I would argue that with these otherwise identical games, version B would totally dominate, because it was in fact a better game and better game experience.
There are staggeringly important new features unearthed by some of the early movers in this space. Powerful new asynchronous tools allow friends in the real world to aid each other and “play” together without being forced to play online at the same time every day or risk falling out of the leveling curve and ultimately losing the ability to play with friends. Instead of paying huge upfront costs, it is better to let players try before they buy, and for those unwilling or unable to pay, it’s fair to ask them to help you bring others to the game in return for continued free play. Proper social tools are compatible with the Ultimate RPG.
So when traditional gamers look at all the “Ville” clones out there in the world, take heart! See not what is popular now, but rather what is happening in this new era that also would benefit them! A great game, like a great movie, need not be inaccessible to the masses. Great story and depth need not come at the cost of up front effort, pain and cost. Free to play does not mean the game has to be riddled with advertising and calls to spam your friends. But, for those unwilling or unable to pay fairly for what they now play, asking them to work for the developer and find us players is not unfair. Great games can and will be made in this new era, to the benefit of all, traditional and new players. We intend to be a leading maker of such games.
I continue to debate how much of the new world designs to discuss in public as we work. Some part of me wants the new direction to be as new as possible to you when it arrives fully realized. Another angle is that this world will ultimately be your world, and player participation could both help me in its crafting as well as clearly communicate its depth long before its ready. So, we will see. Likely a mix of secrecy and sharing will be the right path to tread.
Here is what I feel is safe to say: Lord British’s Ultimate Role Playing Game, which may be called “Akalabeth” or may be called “New Britannia” or may be called “a name I cannot yet say as it describes the setting I am considering and think I should keep secret at least until I know if it’s likely true,” will be an Ultimate RPG. You will have customized Avatar homesteads and real roles to play in a deep, beautifully realized highly interactive virtual world. It will have virtues and the hero’s journey reflected back to the player. It will have the best of synchronous and asynchronous features in use. Fiction will support your arrival from earth into this new world. I even hope to make maps, coins and other trinkets available to players of the game.
But, please be understanding. It took 25 years to craft all the detail in Ultima. The new world will start smaller, thinner and lighter. It will have fewer features than some or most MMOs. Critical elements of the story I have just told may be missing upon launch. But fear not, this is where we are headed. Come play with us in the brave new world. Help us grow it. Teach us about what you have learned in your years of playing. Invite in your new friends who are new to gaming. They will be a new spirit and provide new ideas about what to do. They will likely not tolerate bad instructions, bad interface or huge upfront fees, which is a good thing! We will teach and learn from them as well.
I hope you will support and join us in the creation of the best ever “Ultimate” Role Playing Game!
I am really surprised that there aren't more comments about this new game. I'm excited since I'm a fan of the solo mode of game playing. Let's hear more comments about this new RPG.
Originally posted by SorenDat
I am really surprised that there aren't more comments about this new game. I'm excited since I'm a fan of the solo mode of game playing. Let's hear more comments about this new RPG.
I think it's simply because not many people visit this site anymore, bot because people aren't excited.
I didn't pledge yet - only because I am not sure HOW MUCH I should pledge, not because I am not sure IF I should
But I read the comments on the Kickstarter page and the Forum on shroudoftheavatar.com
The only bad thing about the Kickstarter comments is, that there is a Troll in there that has nothing better to do than badmouth the game day and night.
I hope the graphics so far are pre-alpha, because the game looks like crap: especially the overhead map and the clumsy character animations. I guess that Garriott has chosen the Unity engine because he is not only thinking about but rather seriously planning to release the game for mobile devices (which is a wise choice), but still it could look a lot better IMHO. I also don't like the prospect of playing with top-down view and zoom in on encounters; that seems a bit outdated and also aiming on mobile devices (like e.g. InXile's "Bard's Tale" port of the PC version from 2005 for iOS and Android).
That's no problem though, if only the concept of the game will prove interesting and immersive. I guess it all depends on the story and LB's promise that we'll be able to interact with almost everything.
One thing pleases me greatly: the focus on offline (single player) gaming, with multiplayer option only being an additional feature. I absolutely hate everything that looks like MMORPG.
The denizens of this mystic place assault you without warning.
You see 99 Berserkers, 99 Berserkers, 99 Berserkers, and 99 Berserkers.
Will your stalwart band choose to (F)ight or (R)un?
This post has been edited 2 time(s), it was last edited by Xelasarg: 11-03-2022 11:00.
My theory is that before they really wanted to create a mobile game, like stated in the "Ultimate RPG" information on the Portalarium site.
Now we can read things like "this is a PC game developed on PC for PC". Which clearly is a change of direction.
So yes I think those graphics were done with having mobile devices in mind which don't have too much power and they will up the graphics now.
I am not too worried about that.
What worries me more is the general art style. I want a new Ultima to be more vibrant like Ultima VI and VII. I am not talking about a comic look here, I simply mean a colorful fantasy world like we had in those 2 games. There are too many dark and sinister RPGs out there already.
I love the isometric view though!
In the end I can live almost all graphical choices they make as long as the game has the qualities of Ultima VI/VII
I like the isometric perspective, too. I just don't think that zooming in on encounters is something they should do nowadays. Ultima VI and VII were already more advanced, and they should at least be able to do better than U5-Lazarus (regarding graphics and world building details, Lazarus itself is brilliant, of course).
I agree with your thoughts about the art style. I loved the colourfol look of both U6 and U7; U8 was much too.... grey... (Spoony got it right in his retrospective
). U9 was again looking well enough, but graphics were the least problem with that one.
Well, let's just sit and wait and hope for the best.
The denizens of this mystic place assault you without warning.
You see 99 Berserkers, 99 Berserkers, 99 Berserkers, and 99 Berserkers.
Will your stalwart band choose to (F)ight or (R)un?
See I rather have a world that is really interactive than a world that is JUST pretty.
I cannot tell you how much I hated Diablo back when it came out. I had hopes it would be a real RPG but it was just pretty and full of action and loot. Yeah it was good in its own right, but it was/is so far from a RPG. I blame Diablo for killing RPGs back then (till Baldurs Gate came along)
Give me a great RPG with Ultima VII graphics today and I will much rather buy it than Diablo 4 or Dungeon Siege 4 or whatever.
Even Baldurs Gate was disappointing to me. Yeah I liked it much more than Diablo, but it was such a sterile, pretty, but sterile world. Baldurs Gate had a great story and pretty visuals, so it was a step up from games like Diablo, but it still did not have what U6 and 7 had.
But the great thing about Ultima was that it combined pretty visuals with a compelling storyline AND deep gameplay (overall, not talking about combat) and that's what would be optimal again of course.
Isn't it amazing that a game was so great without having combat at it's center like all the other RPGs do nowadays? In U7 combat was so unimportant it's difficult to put it in words.
Don't get me wrong, interaction is much more important to me in an Ultima game than nice graphics:
quote:
That's no problem though, if only the concept of the game will prove interesting and immersive. I guess it all depends on the story and LB's promise that we'll be able to interact with almost everything.
But ever since Ultima VI, graphics in Ultima games have been top notch, so it would come as a disappointment if it were different this time, even though I would enjoy it anyway, of course.
The denizens of this mystic place assault you without warning.
You see 99 Berserkers, 99 Berserkers, 99 Berserkers, and 99 Berserkers.
Will your stalwart band choose to (F)ight or (R)un?
This post has been edited 2 time(s), it was last edited by Xelasarg: 13-03-2022 16:37.
Originally posted by Xelasarg
But ever since Ultima VI, graphics in Ultima games have been top notch, so it would come as a disappointment if it were different this time, even though I would enjoy it anyway, of course.
I completely agree. I also posted basically that thought on their official forums. Ultima VII's graphics were mind blowing back then, especially considering it was an open, interactive world. Same with Ultima IX and VI before.
Ultima was a perfect package and optimally SOTA should be the same.
I personally don't want SOTA to try breaking any new ground in the graphics area.
Back in the day of U7 and U9 rendering was mainly bottlenecked by the CPU.
These days we have vastly superior graphics cards where even a mid-range card is capable of producing stunning visuals.
I'm really looking forward to SOTA but I won't buy a cutting edge graphics card to play it nor do I want to wait 5 more years until the average hardware that I can afford is up to the task.
Fortunately these days we have the option of playing at lower graphics settings for a slightly less pretty picture but otherwise the same game play experience. :-)
As for zooming in for encounters...
On the one hand it's a nostalgic approach that I/we remember from earlier Ultimas and I agree it probably indicates an initial target platform of mobile devices.
On the other hand I actually enjoy roaming a vast landscape that's full of things to discover. I've really enjoyed this free form adventuring in all of the Ultimas I've played (I started with U4). But this has worked in the Ultima series only because the landscape has always been chock full of things to find and do.
Congratulations to Richard Garriot and his team for getting the $1million in pledges needed for Shroud of the Avatar. And plenty of days left to get even more pledges.
I was really excited when I heard (read) about this (on the main ToE page), but the more I look into it, the less I'm feeling it.
The steampunk elements, the cringeworthy graphics, the focus in the wrong place: (on game mechanics instead of STORY) - all that excitement about how you can shoot a chain/rope to make the drawbridge drop, but almost nothing on the setting of the game and who the characters are and what's going on; (on format instead of content) - oooh aaaah let's make a game for phones and pads because that's gonna SELL, but what exactly is it that's gonna make that game worth playing as opposed to, say, Angry Birds??
I'm just hoping my first impression is VERY VERY wrong.
Originally posted by LSD
I was really excited when I heard (read) about this (on the main ToE page), but the more I look into it, the less I'm feeling it.
The steampunk elements, the cringeworthy graphics, the focus in the wrong place: (on game mechanics instead of STORY) - all that excitement about how you can shoot a chain/rope to make the drawbridge drop, but almost nothing on the setting of the game and who the characters are and what's going on; (on format instead of content) - oooh aaaah let's make a game for phones and pads because that's gonna SELL, but what exactly is it that's gonna make that game worth playing as opposed to, say, Angry Birds??
I'm just hoping my first impression is VERY VERY wrong.
You are VERY VERY VERY wrong
The things you are worried about are basically the only things I am not worried about at all - and I have been following the project very closely, read almost everything and watched everything. Here is the deal with your worries:
Graphics: So far they only worked on the tech behind the game. They said that they only used STOCK graphics for those videos, art that came with the Unity engine - they only added some "randomly stolen textures" as they said themselves. RG said they only have 1 artist so far and are in the process of hiring. There was 0 focus on graphics so far! You can check out the stock graphics thing by looking at the Greed Monger project which also uses the Unity engine and has the SAME dragon in their pictures that you saw in SOTA (red with greenish wings) - it's right there when you click that link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/appl...mmorpg?ref=live
Because people keep overlooking this fact they even went so far that when they showed off the size of a town they pixelated the graphics so people would not argue about them since they are not at all for this game yet:
So please rest assured that graphics will improve drastically because what you saw so far is simply nothing from the actual game.
Story / singleplayer experience:Not only did Richard Garriott say OVER and OVER again in various video interviews that first and foremost he wants to create a story driven game and each of the 5 planned parts of this game will be about as long as previous single player Ultimas but they also hired Tracy Hickman for story support: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/port...-0/posts/429043
All the multiplayer will be additional and not the other way round.
This is what they just a few minutes ago posted in the Kickstarter comments:
quote:
the main focus of the story line and quests is very single player focused. Trust us when we say that if all we were trying to do is create a UO experience then we would not be partnering with people like Tracy Hickman to create a full flushed out story line as deep or deeper than any Ultima title.
If RG saying that the story is his main focus and them hiring one of RGs favorite Authors is not enough proof for you that they focus on story then there is nothign I can add that will change your mind
Also he said that he wants this to surpass the level of interactive world that Ultima VII had. Everything that looks usable should be usable...
Because of all of this and way more info that I am quite frankly not feeling like summarizing here now I am NOT AT ALL worried about the story / quest / singleplayer experience and I am VERY happy about that.
If anything I am still confused about how the multiplayer really turns out since I loved UO too and want this to also be a real MMO experience.
). U9 was again looking well enough, but graphics were the least problem with that one.