Obviously she was interrupted while writing, the interruption made what she was writing irrelevant. She was then able to finish the letter at a later time, writing about something else because the situation had changed.
@@doltBmB If she was able to finish the letter, she wouldn't have left a paragraph end with a single character, she'd tie that up somehow then keep writing. when you're texting do you just end mid se then expect people to understand it when you get back to it without finishing the mid-sentence? Hopefully you can see how little sense this makes in natural, normal human written communication by being confused at this comment
I believed Love (and candle as its symbol) is one of the three principles within the Ultima world, rather than virtues. Honestly, the Ultima series were way better than this abomination, so don't feel bad remembering those principles/virtues.
@@tofuro9736 Oh that's right, I forgot about the whole venn diagram thing. And yes, it's sad to see such a unique series ending up as a nostalgia bait cashgrab. I'm surprised Hayes didn't mention the time LB used kickstarter money to go to space.
@@bennemeth625 Actually, he didn't use KS money on that. The space trip was earlier - amidst the Tabula Rasa development. If I recall right, his absence from... the planet... was used as tool to boot him from that project.
@@bennemeth625 the space thing actually has a bit more to it than what we've been hearing recently - his dad is a famous astronaut, so he would have been brought up in that world I imagine
“She’s forced to stand in a burning zombie infested village while Mr. Vengeance Night Batman goes absolutely ham on this training dummy” It be like that sometimes
"he is a farmer, why is he close to a chicken" well before the era of modern chicken production, they were rarely killed as chicken eggs as a constant resource far outweighs the value of a one time meat meal
Even then, it’s the same with rural people now a days who own chickens. My ex’s family owned quite a few for fresh eggs. They lived up in the mountains
@@HollowGolem Roosters are bastards for sure. But surprisingly their rooster was alright, just a bit defensive. Usually it was the yotes who got to them. Went out with my rifle to help them since they didn’t have any guns to deal with the yotes
@@somechannel8275 I agree : it looks like it will be finished some day. But I've given money years ago (I don't even recall when) and the direction went everywhere. I'm not even sure the "bonus" of backer is worth anything anymore. Hence my decision to never back a game again. Instead, for any game, I'll wait for the release and reviews from reputable youtubers (never from shills like IGN, RPS, ...) and then decide to buy or not.
@@somechannel8275 Does that even matter at this point? SC has the unmistakable scent of 'scam' to a lot of people and whether true or not, in this space, perception forms reality. By the time the game comes out (in 2033, at this rate), its specs will be far behind the current standard (and don't tell me they designed the game to run on 3070s when not even Nvidia knew in 2012 the 3070 would be dropping in these conditions) and all non-space visuals will be reminiscent of Duke Nukem Forever. This game isn't anywhere near ready but that's what Early Access used to be for. It was a beta test you paid to be a part of. Nowadays, you're basically paying to be part of an ALPHA test.
@@Remianen Dont talk about something you dont know about. "some people said" well.. the game attracted a lot of trolling. Have as look at it, before you rule it out.
@@somechannel8275 I've watched and read plenty of reviews. Enjoy your scam of paying for a ship that may or may not ever exist. Over $300M earned, close to a decade of development, and the game is still in an alpha state. Whales gonna be whales.
If you check Shroud in a single-player mode, you'll get even more of an idea of how bad the idea of letting the players design huge swatches of your game world is. Every town has big tracks of empty land, as the player built stuff stays in the online side of the game. So the big cities you visit are merely a couple of shacks waiting for the building boom to happen.
This can be pulled off, but I think if they do it, singleplayer should have some extra little stand-in buildings. They don't have to do much, but they can be *something*
@@RolandTHXAt least fallout 4 was a survival game with multiple factions specifically designed around propping up communities (Garvey haters are just not very good at the game)
First time I've seen an escort NPC actually be the one escorting you. Not only that they're a little girl that would gladly watch the burning building consume her if you didn't come and say, "Let's leave." Truly fascinating. Too bad you can't just make her a companion you can keep.
I do wonder what would happen if you just clicked on the boat without talking to the quest reward NPC. Is the game well-written enough to gate access to the boat to having completed the quest?
This is how paralysing fear works, and many people die because of it, especially children or elderly. The first paragraph might not be finished because the author got distracted and then started to write about something else. Well, in the Middle Ages not many people could write, and the paper expensive, but SOTA is more based in a steampunk alternative reality - which considering some appliances and clothing pieces is post XIX century style. In XIX many people could write and wrote a lot of letters especially during the time of war or other important events, and it was not like the mailbox or a mail man was on every corner, in SOTA cities public mailboxes are in banks. So complaining that people there had letters is like complaining XXI century people had cellphones with them. Shots are not always aimed, but aiming can be better or worse, you can also aim at multiple targets using AoE etc. SOTA is not perfect, but at least the developers tried to put some depth into the game.
@@platynowa "Paralyzing fear" is not actually a medical or psychology term. In fact it's not a term in any field of research, it's just a known symptom of terror and used as a description to emphasis how scary something is. Which is why there are no statistics regarding how many people experience it, why, or how many people die from it. Which makes your first line a baseless assumption. Second, is that a serious argument for why everyone has lets on them that ONLY seem to pertain to the quests taking place? His point was that you never find letters about anything else. No letters about lore, no letters about mundane activities, only letters that conveniently dumb exposition on the player about the specific quest taking place. If you're going to use letters as a vehicle for story telling then you have to have letters that seem like they belong in the world and not just about one thing, otherwise you might as well just have a narrator because it accomplishes the same thing and requires less suspension of disbelief. Lastly, if someone is shooting a bow they are aiming the shot. It's not a gun; you don't just shoot in the general direction of an enemy with a bow as though you're laying down suppressive fire or destroying cover. Anyone trying to hit a target with an arrow is aiming. So calling an ability "aimed shot" implies that the other shots are not aimed and the person is just blindly firing arrows at random. It makes far more sense if "aimed shot" were for a gun since not all guns require actual aim to be effective. OR to call the ability for a bow something more like "precision shot", implying that extra accuracy is being applied to that arrow. I feel like the jokes, the points of his statements, and the logic all kind of went over your head and I'm not sure if that's because you genuinely didn't understand or if it's because you are defending a game that you personally enjoy.
There is an actual technique in violin playing where you bounce the bow while playing it, to produce very sharp, quick notes that don't link together like normal violin playing. It's called spicatto, and it's not seen all that much( in my admittedly limited experience as a violin player), though it beats inserting rests everywhere when you don't want to produce a continuous sound.
@@gregorhellmundt9559 then the sota musicians should to get themselves some of that Session Strings, ProjectSam Symphobia, or Ostinato Strings VSTs to get that good string legato. I have those expensive kits, but i'm still learning how to use them.
@@westingtyler1 yeah I haven't worked with synth strings in a while but in my experience you just need to trick the program by moving the legato notes to slightly before the beat. The difficulty lies in finding how much before the beat the note needs to start.
ahh, shroud of the avatar. remember when you heard richard garriot was making a game and you were excited to play a good sandbox again, only to find out what you got instead was a bizarre virtual real estate scam?
EA ruined UO. They lost 40% of their subscriptions after their first expansion. They turned a sandbox game into a wow clone. It went from playing to explore and see what you could do to hanging out at the gauntlet. Grinding away for artifacts because all gear was worthless compared to them. They destroyed warriors forcing you to play as paladins instead. They tried to make an option to be a necromancer fighter but it's not very effective since the spells require too much mana to cast due to needing str and dex more than int. They tried ninjas and samurai but neither are effective against pve and in pvp they are only useful to be exploited like sam vamps. Item insurance and LRC destroyed the economy and removed what made mages balanced. You used to have to keep track of regs because you didn't want to bring too much and not have space for loot leading to times when you would run out and have to survive. Fuck I miss when UO was just a world to explore.
@@theFLCLguy You can still do it on freeshards, but it's all razor-botting and such. If you're into that it can be fun. It seems like hard-core shards that are one account/no razor don't last long. UOSecondage was fun years back, no idea what the population is like now.
@@theFLCLguy I think you're misremembering, UO was still growing after its first expansion, The Second Age. It was the 5th expansion that added things like Necromancers and Paladins. And while controversial, it actually improved player count, though a lot of long time players did leave. It should also be noted that EA was there all along for UO (they purchased Origin in 1992, 5 years before UO was first released). And it does not seem like it was really EA itself that was to blame for the changes, but rather the heads at Origin at the time. Also, UO was at the time waning in popularity. Games like EverQuest, Asheron's Call & Dark Age of Camelot had really been eating into UO's playerbase and Age of Shadows was a rather desperate attempt by Origin to actually salvage the game and keep it relevant. It had not changed much mechanically in the 6 years it had existed (though the third expansion did pretty much kill the open world PvP). EA has done a lot of wrong over the years, but 5th expansion of UO is not really on them
I was a huge fan of Ultima, so much so that I had an online comic called "Sosarian Tales" which was advertized though UO Stratics for some years and met my partner of 15 years whom was a member of UO Auction through the game. When I heard he was releasing a new spin on his creation I was hugely excited about the concept of throwing myself back in to his world. Wow, what a f**cking disappointment. He made a huge mistake of allowing some of the largest contributers be a part of what was included in the game and it ended up being this mash of steampunk, medieval, scifi poop that played like dogshit. I was pretty gutted. In the end I went with shards online as it was the closest to the old uo I remember, but even that just wasnt the same.
If you liked Ultima Online from 1997-1999 and want more with a modern twist, check out Ultima Online : Outlands, a free shard. Super popular and definitely gets you back to those early days, but with modern game design.
I think much of UO's succes after a rocky launch was due to Raph Koster (Designer Dragon); he was clearly the brains in that design team. Unfortunately he's pretty much retired from game design and just talks about it in seminars in between writing books and music. (Edit: nvm apparently he's created a company in 2019 to produce a new MMO.) One of the best things it had going for itself was it's catering to roleplay; I've got a plethora of great memories from IGM and Seer storylines that played out like a D&D campaign instead of doing the same thing thousands of other players did before you at a ?-npc. At one point I had an unique staff, not some rarity qualification, but an actual one of a kind unique item. Too bad a lawsuit threw a wrench in that whole machine (although I understand they later revived it with paid employees for a while.) When they also chased EQ and changed the PvP from skill to item based I called it quits. Unfortunately I don't think any game can capture the same lightning in a jar that was UO simply because the novelty of the internet has worn off; when UO came out I was one of the few in our street that had an internet connection (and pissed off my parents with an 800 buck telephone bill in my first month of playing.) The first time someone complained about lag I thought he was out of stamina because he kept stopping :) We experienced this whole new era of connectivity together through this game and created new friends and some even found romance. Or maybe I'm just cynical about modern game development and full of nostalgia for a game I played during my formative years.
@@deltav864 I was going to make the same sorta comment. Raph Koster is a great game designer. He got also got trashed on Star Wars Galaxies: 1. The gameplay was made for a different game, but he managed to make it work with Galaxies, 2. They totally gutted his system to be more like wow, which totally killed the game and it's uniqueness.
You explained diegetic vs. non diegetic quite oddly. Diegetic things are just things that are actually happening in the world. A sword clashing noise is diegetic because it just happened, while the background music is non diegetic because the hero doesn't just hear music in his head all the time.
this game looks bad but also like in a weird way... it's also fucking awesome. it has a very peculiar sense of humor about it and i'm really loving it. i haven't laughed this much at a game in a very long time. also credit to you josh, you just added to the endless laughter with your dry wit and honest reactions. what a lovely video
The "bouncing the bow off the strings instead of actually playing it" is actually a real violin technique (minus the "not actually playing it" part) called spiccato, meant to create distinct notes rather than one note flowing into another. It's not even that bad from the clip you played, but if it's like that the whole time without changing note duration, length or speed, and playing the same loop of the same three to five notes for five hours then I can understand it getting grating
And in that universe, he is not an asshole that treats its fans like trash, that would be a good universe. I never played an Ultima game, but a reboot would be awesome, imagine a skyrim-like game with fantasy and science fiction shit blended together.
After Ultima 8 and 9, it might be better that he does not know about this one. I know I wish I did not gain this cursed knowledge, as a long-time Ultima fan.
"this is what happens when you give players building options!" ... ... ever heard of an old game called Spore, that let players design their own animals and people? "penisaurus rex". a Meme-worthy absurdity.
@@JohnSmith-ox3gy yes, the default was that your universe in Spore would be populated with other players' creatures, civilizations, etc. you could disable the content marked adult. Will Wright called Spore a "massively single player online game."
Can you do a review of Silkroad Online? I played this game more than 10 years. I really want yo hear your opinion and I'm ready to hear the worst of the worst :D
UO fans (there are a healthy ten thousand 30+ year olds) were told it would be like UO. SoTA however, is a rather bad attempt at bringing this idea back. We wanted the wild west interaction of UO. What we got instead was a neutered rpg and janky rip off the nostalgic base. They took our hopes and stomped on a chance to bring back a true legacy.
I died laughing at the "run around a tree and wait for health to respawn, and then spin around" part. I too backed this, and the way things turned out, including the staff attitudes and treatment of us (high paying idiots who supported the game), sorta tarnished my opinion of Ultima as a whole for awhile. This game is a complete disaster. The money spent to produce trash is obscene. It's almost criminal.
I was excited about this game til I saw the graphics, the combat system, basically everything. It is hot garbage, and it's a shame because I like the old school no hand holding approach...but the game plays worse than the original Ultima Online. Why would anyone choose to play this?
I was looking forward to crafting. I quickly found out that the materials to make a crappy item were worth far more than that item. Collecting the materials, selling them then buying the item is cheaper and gives you a better quality item. I was so disappointed in this game. Yes, I backed it. Now he wants to make an NFT game. *shakes head*
@@Hanneth Ive essentially lost all respect for Garriott. Between this and the new NFT game it's clear he's lost his mind and should no longer be involved in making games because he has no clue what he is doing anymore. Him / Starr / etc. are all past their prime and have never/will never do anything of worth ever again and I am convinced they only succeeded in the past on accident due to being "first".
One of the points I liked the sound of was the 'complicated' leveling system, I was really hoping this game was going to be a modern Ultima Online. I wanted to much to recreate my animal taming bard who had pet dragons.
When Richard Garriott sells the game just 3 years after release you know it's BAD! The game is run by a dev that used to work for Richard's bankrupt studio and has no experience in modern MMOs. The game has become a Sim type that has Star Wars knockoffs, Marvel Avenger costumes, beach towels, other pixel crap for sale. It's a dumpster fire that will burn your wallet if you try to play.
Lightsaber knockoffs, yes. These must have been added after I played as I don't remember them. They could have been passed off as kobold technology but not even that minimal effort was made, at least in the shop flavour text. Marvel Avenger costumes I have not seen in the cash shop nor can I find an image of such online or anything close to it. I don't believe this claim is true. A wide assortment of other garish rubbish, yes. The cosmetics they sell and placement they allow greatly undermine the atmosphere of the game when one is around them. Thankfully most of that can be avoided when one isn't making use of player shops or questing in major cities and towns. Still, it would be far better without that junk existing at all.
Man, as a player of this game I can't stop laughing.. you literally hit the game on the head with everything we mention to devs, although it can be a pile of shit at times, its our pile of shit and we love it. Ha
After having watched many of your WorstMMO series, I can confidently say this is the funniest one so far. Well done, literally laughing while working for 20 minutes.
As a marksman Hunter main, I've always taken aimed shot to mean you take extra time to draw back further and aim at a particularly vital spot. Hence why it has a cast time. Other shots like Arcane shot are just quickly fired at center-mass and rely on the magic, or in some cases poison, on the arrowhead to do the damage. And steady shot is just your Hunter firing a simple arrow without drawing back much in order to take a small break to regenerate Focus. Hence why it also has a cast time but does not do much damage and allows you to move while casting.
Except that's not how bows work. And that your ingame abilities don't take "extra time." And you can use those abilities WITH A GUN ingame. Are you half-trigger pulling?
Sure, that's what it means, but that doesn't make it any less stupid, of course an archer is going to aim for vital areas to begin with, they would train to do it without thinking. Even something basic like 'power shot' makes more sense, pulling it back further for more power
after watching all of your Worst MMO ever videos, I have laughed alot at all of them but this one just blows me away from batman to chicken fucker farm, you are simply a wordsmith
One thing you can say about Richard Garriott, when he has a bad idea, he commits to it. Kind of like that religious colony of nudist beekeepers who decided to build their commune/apiary in a monster-infested active volcano. That actually happened in an Ultima game.
You should check out Skill Up (or Shill Up if u like) if you like a master grasp of the language. THAT dude is the gd Shakespeare of video game commentary. Check out the first 5 or so minutes of his review of “Detroit: Become Human” - if you don’t want to play that game BADLY after that video, you might not have a soul lol
@@billvolk4236 This makes me even sadder that I missed out on the Ultima franchise during my early gaming years 😞. Do you think it's possible to find an Ultima game that will run on Windows 10 and won't feel too convoluted to current gen gamer? I'd love to experience some part of the series.
I think what they should do is write it like this in the actual journal, but also have something like FF14's little sidebar that just says it outright like "Bring Thing to Mr. Personman in Townshire"
Pathfinder Kingmaker's quest journal is written from the perspective of the party bard who's writing a book about your adventures. It was a neat concept
Daggerfall did a similar thing. But it was simple and a blend of the character talking and normal instructions. But it got the job done. "I have been asked by Arthurius Copperfield of Knightstower Hill Fighters Guild to go and kill some vermin in The Rat and Bucket in Sharpstone." "I have taken care of the vermin." I may have made up some words there but that's the kind of thing it did. It was like the character writing their own instructions, but to make sure they don't forget anything as opposed to an actual journal. There is an actual diary in the game somewhere I think but the quest log was a bit like one anyway.
I immediately thought of Martian Dreams - the same thing happens in one of the dream worlds. Martian Dreams was perhaps the strangest entry in the Ultima series, but in spite of that, it is a great game - certainly far better than the mess that was presented in this video. I haven't tried out this mess of a game, and I don't intend to. Richard Garriott has thoroughly lost his touch - it's sad.
Sad to see this game on this list. . . but I saw it coming. I was an early backer and had Alpha Access. I still have my sealed, physical copy. Given just how much money he was trying to raise during the Alpha through an e-store made it pretty clear what the main focus of this project really was. . .
Honestly i think hyperlink dialogue is the superior of the two, that atleast has the illusion of choice, and even if the npc responds to specific words in what you write, you can still roleplay quite effectively with that system, atleast compared to a binary option of "good, bad and the joker"
No we didn't and neither you nor him understand the Hyperlinks. A number of recent RPGs have began reimplementing hyperlinks in Dialogue like Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous. They make big, intimidating RPGs more accessible, with just a quick movement of the mouse players can gain immediate access to important background story, directions or can learn about game mechanics. They aren't an alternative to dialogue responses. Many games with the hyperlinks still use dialogue response and even question trees. They began doing that increasingly through the 90s (as dialogue responses became more common.) and as I said they're bringing it back now. The system in Shroud of the Avatar though clearly comes directly from the original Ultima games. It's a 'text parser'. A system used in many 80s and 90s Adventure games and Role playing games. What it was replaced by were scripted dialogue question trees. Though often text commands were sometimes used for more than just to ask about topics. Ironically the hyperlinks in Morrowind were a replacement of the text paser.
@@7dayspking the downside is sometimes what you need to discover is hidden from players so you tend to collect a list of possible keywords to test on every NPC, Morrowind did the same and ow... so yes it can be useful, but not necessarily the best mechanic from a player or design POV.
@@cericat Did you even understand my comment? Keyword systems and text parsers are NOT just alternatives to dialogue trees. The problem you've identified with Morrowind is the scarcity of non generic question trees and dialogue responses to be able to quickly access this information.
I miss being able to "talk" to NPCs. Getting Paragon Yes or Renegade Yes isn't a choice. Yes, No, Yes But Sarcastic. That's not... choice. Especially when "No" leads to "Be serious!" and then you get the Yes, No, Sarcasm prompt again
Barely past the 14:00 mark and I’ve smiled and had a sensible chuckle a few times, THEN I get to your David Attenborough impersonation and I’m like “this guy’s pretty funny.”
Well to be fair in ancient warfare archery often was not actually aimed but was rather used more like suppression archery. A ton of it was indirect fire. They weren't aiming so much as saturating the opposing lines with arrows
I'm 2 years late, and unfortunately have to be that guy, but Diegetic sound isn't the sound that makes sense in that context, it's a sound that is actually playing in the world. Non-diegetic sound would be something like a voiceover, or the music.
And yet... "Total Raised: $12,865,148" They don't care about losing players, they just need to keep working on the game to get their salary. They've made their money. They don't need players.
@@roqsteady5290 Or as a lot of people find, being a good ideas person can be a hindrance without the editor to scale things back, and a team to implement it.
@@GodwynDi Wouldn't want to accuse Garriot of outright dishonesty, but he does have a very expensive lifestyle to support including a $30m trip to space. Possibly that kind of thing is not conducive to the kind of attention to detail needed to make decent games. Isn't this what often happens when struggling, passionate artist makes it and becomes corporate overlord?
I grew up playing the early Ultima games, and kind of miss the newness of it. Some of what you described in here shows systems from the original games, like typing in keywords when talking to NPCs to get the clues you need. The early game hints were limited to 4 letter input. My favorite was Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, which was the first to introduce the system requiring good acts. Since to complete the game, you had to become the Avatar by being good, it added a nice change to a series which actually required you to kill certain innocents to progress in some quests. I'd honestly like to see a modern retelling of those types of games (and NO, nothing like just Warcrap III Reforged where they just upgrade graphics; just a new game on those concepts).
Outstanding video and review. Your narration and sense of humor are fantastic, you deserve more subs and will surely grow with this level of content! Just for the record, I have played every major (and most minor) MMORPG's since 1996 and when all factors are considered Shroud of the Avatar is far and away my pick for worst MMO ever. In fact, when you consider the available resources, pre-established fan base, development time, and all the other advantages SotA had, it is not even a close consideration, Shroud of the Avatar is the worst MMO and most absurd failure ever in the genre. Richard Garriot has no excuse for how awful this game is.
I mean, the candle on the side of the Helmet of Love actually does make sense in-universe, as the Candle of Love is a holy artifact of the Avatar philosophy.
The XP system reminds me a bit of Cataclysm, except there the shared pool builds up over time at a rate and to a limit decided by your character's mood, which makes a lot of sense for a survival game. It would be weird to tie it to kills specifically even for skills that have nothing to do with killing.
Well technically he's not wrong, it's a player, of a female avatar. So literally a "female player". On the other hand most of the women who game that I know personally IRL usually use male avatars though, funny that.
I actually thought the XP system was interesting, just too limiting. The XP pool should have served as BONUS XP which should be assigned as desired, not the total XP you're ALLOWED to use...
I feel so sad about the promises that were broken in this game that I kickstarted back in 2013. Garriot was on his own and had some really good ideas for the game but development was slow, buggy, and released in a half assed state back in 2018. There are things that have improved each year when I check in but the experience that Josh had in 2020 is the exact same experience that I had 3 weeks ago. The floating sparkles told me that they haven't fixed that bug which has to do with the map. You see, the map shows sparkles to represent quests, but when you resize the map, the sparkles stay in the spot they were in when the map was full screen. I really hope the devs over there stop living in an echo chamber with their whales that keep the game running.
At this point I expect those that operate the game are scrabbling for whatever money they can get, so I doubt they will displease whatever remaining income source they have. I also think many early supporters have been alienated from the game by the genericizing of it.
I've always vehemently disagreed with early access (paying for a unfinished product, and outside of video games, simply DOES NOT EXIST in any other market), even worse, shamelessly charging hundreds of dollars to back your development, and TEST THEIR GAME FOR FREE. I used to work in SQA before finishing my degree in Computer Science, then working as a software engineer. I still know many people in SQA that make 60-80k a year, but game devs want us to PAY THEM TO TEST THEIR GAME??????? Back in the real world, backing development of a product uses investors, which have a literally stake in the success, and MAKE MONEY later on from that success. What do you actually get for backing a game? Virtual items and promises the game will be amazing? Over the years, I've seen almost zero games fulfill their promise. I will NEVER, EVER back a game, especially for $100-$300!!! I think it's beyond idiotic. Let them get their own investors like the industry has done for decades now. Don't be a rube.
Systems upon systems? You didn't even learn there's TWO battle systems. The first hotbar one you experienced where skills lived on your hotbar but you are limited to I think the 10 slots no matter how many skills you get. Then there's the random card one where you can put as many skills as you want and they will RANDOMLY come up on your hotbar. Need a heal? Well if it doesn't come up, you can't heal! (You can sorta lock some and make sure some of the hotbar gets some skills but still). The game starts with the first system. It's balanced for the second system. It's not fun in any system no matter how deep you get.
Alternatively, you can lock a healing ability on your bar and also include it in your rotating abilities. This will make the spell always available on cooldown, but also randomly provide the ability to bypass that cooldown, making your character more survivable overall. It's an interesting system, but also one that can be daunting to a new player so it is best to start with standard bars. Also not covered was switching between clicked and charged attacks. In archery, I used charged attacks to simulate prolonged aiming and varying pull on the bow. Otherwise, I stuck with the standard click attacks.
@@kevinarnold8634 This sounds like an interesting system, on paper. I've never really liked the formulaic MMO "learn your rotations", then mash on your keyboard as hard as you can thing. This sounds like they were going for something new. I wonder how well it played.
About archers, in Warlock: Master of the Arcane, the beast race archers, which are goblins, before they attack utter the line: "Release!! EHMM, Aim?!" and I laughed so hard at that part of the video about "aimed shot"
I actually tried this mmo because of the vid and turns out you can just buy a new weapon at the blacksmith in the soldiers' camp that makes the fights only a few second long
Combat is better if you learn some attacks. For example, training up mace and shield gives access to stuns, knockdowns, charges etc. There were trainers in the village with garish player housing. The game does get quite dark at night, but every character gets a light spell that won't fail. You actually had it on your lower right bar, so I'm guessing you didn't hover over your abilities to see what they do. That in particular seems a bit low effort on your part. Still, the game has many flaws as you encountered as well as those you had not yet run into. The main issues that kept me from playing are the horrible performance in major cities and the continued adoption of more mainstream elements in an attempt to draw more players. It's main draw as a niche title were the old school aspects of the game. It made the game much more distinctive from it's contemporary fellows. Those looking for modern MMORPG elements can get them elsewhere in abundance at a far better quality, so it isn't the best field for them to attempt to compete on.
@@leadingauctions8440 Well, yeah. Like Vandiril's videos on League bugs - they all sound clickbait-y, but they're all actual things that happen in that broken mess of a game with spagetti coding.
@@leadingauctions8440 Spaghetti code is a pejorative phrase for unstructured and difficult-to-maintain source code. Spaghetti code can be caused by several factors, such as volatile project requirements, lack of programming style rules, and software engineers with insufficient ability or experience. -- Wikipedia
The reason for all the player buildings being so incoherent, isn't just because of the players, a lot of the assets are from, you guessed it, the Unity store. They just shoved it into the player housing system and went for lunch.
A few bits of wider information. ; * The game isn't set in the Ultima universe, Electronic Arts owns all that IP. And Richard Garriott is largely uninvolved now as his company went bankrupt and they had to sell Shroud to one of the developers. He owns "Lord British" as a personal IP which is why it appears here again. * The map isn't in the same artwork because it's not included in game. They weren't able to code a global map. Seriously. It's using a third party plugin, originally built by one of the early backers, and it can go down occasionally and leave you without such a map. * I see the tutorial structure hasn't changed at all in five years. You can see a video of me running through it, with literally the same issues on my own UA-cam channel; including how the text can't check your character name so you can input anything and make a mockery of the atmosphere, the fact the tutorial isn't coded for any other skills but archery... * It's not just the chickens that got fucked. You didn't even discuss the wider nature of the game. The Kickstarter in 2013 promised us an Ultima game, but Portalarium planned right from the start to actually do a permanent live service, a simple wrapper into which they'd purchase assets from the Unity store and cram them straight into game, then resell access to said assets. Almost all that awful theme breaking decoration is purchased for real money from the Add On Store. Going up to $30,000 to own a Golden Castle. Player owned towns? $6000 for some of those. Those houses you see? Hundreds of dollars... Then in game, player Real Money Traders mark up the items and sell them on to the newbies; selling the gold for real money itself is legal (and used to be run through Portalarium's own forums) too. These self same RMTs have spent years distorting the media coverage to keep the game looking interesting (whilst lying directly about how it works), including deliberately manipulating polls, whilst stalking and harassings critics because telling the truth about the actual state of the game got in the way of making real money. * In my own case, one of them actually wrote in to Portalarium and demanded they help him harass me "Until he goes insane". Which they did, shutting down my account. That one ended up going to Arbitration Court, where it turned out Portalarium had lied in their EULA and they weren't even a member of the American Arbitration Association scheme, and were told to pull any reference to them from the EULA. Which they didn't even bother doing. You can see more detail about that on my own UA-cam channel too. Thus I speak from now legally provable personal experience, that the developers are unbelievably toxic and have resorted to some quite despicable behaviour to try and harm critics; to the point that even MassivelyOP.com, which was supporting the game long after most media had given up reporting on it, ended up turning on them when Catnipgames/Chris Spears who owns the IP now turned up and went on a bizarre unhinged rant at them in their comments for reporting issues with the game... * Flirt emote? Ahh you've discovered that not only do the remaining staff still not have any artistic awareness or design chops, but they again just cram their Unity store bought emotes in anywhere because the point is not to tell a story but treat the game like an asset delivery service. At one point, the mother of the NPC you rescued learns her husband is dead... then taught you the "Backflip" emote because she was so happy her daughter at least survived. Mmmm.... * You may joke that you are not, but I indeed am an expert on cows. Especially that one. It's the same model with the same broken animation from the first public version of the game back in 2013. If it can't directly be monetized, virtually nothing is ever fixed. * Steam achievements eh? Again, as I noticed when I was making videos way back when, player achievements for actual gameplay are unbelievably low. As above, people aren't really playing the game, it's a shell that is kept alive by a tiny number of cultists who are treating it as a Medieval Second Life, a housing decoration sim, and a few dedicated Real Money Traders trying to lure new players in to sell them the items they're sitting on. And many of those in game are alt-characters or goods holders/sockpuppets for the core audience; Steam figures show concurrency of sub 100 people playing at any one time. * Thus it's hardly surprising you only ever saw one person in game. Considering the quality of those who DO play (my own stalker STILL turns up trying to gaslight me now 5 years after he first started, and coming on for 3 years after his appalling behaviour led to me getting a legal judgement against Portalarium) that might be a blessing in disguise for you. Stay far, far away from this Shitshow Of The Avatar, folks...
I read this whole thing, thank you for taking the time to reply. This sounds like an absolutely fascinating backstory, when i return to this garbage fire, and i likely will, i'll message you and we can work together on something.
@@JoshStrifeHayes Be glad too. Short term, there's old.reddit.com/r/shroudoftheavatar_raw/ which covers most of the wider issues, as well as where I saw your video first linked ;)
@@RobbyRaccoon It's not, and he knows it; as should I, as I'm former EA staff who actually worked on Ultima Online, and was in the honor guard when "Lord British" came back to the game. The difference is, I won't lie to players to sell them a third rate knock off of warmed over real world religious and apothecary systems (nightshade and mandrake only exist in Ultima do they? DO THEY?), that have been given another half assed makeover in Shroud to try and fool obsessive fanboys that they're getting another Ultima... which they then bullshit to others about to try and get them to waste money keeping their failed and toxic tiny community alive. Note he didn't dare try and address any of the points I actually made though.
Oh wow, this was a good laugh! I was one of the unfortunate souls that believed this was going to be Ultima Online 2 and backed the Kickstarter campaign.
So did you just not notice the flashing red sword while in combat, clearly showing that you weapon is broken and that this is why combat takes ages? not to defend this game, it is hot garbage, but come on man
If you look closely, you will see that the girl risked nothing in the burning house, because the fire was literally too scared to approach more than 5 meters (15ft) of her. That's why she didn't feel the need to escape, the fire started, she looked at it and then the fire was like "Sss... Sorry, Mam... I will stay on that side and not bother you... Please, have mercy on me!"
The only time I've enjoyed hyperlinks was in a single player RPG where the hyperlinks were there to explain things that the character should know naturally that the player might not or need to be reminded of. Where hovering over the hyperlink gave a brief overview of the topic of the hyperlink and clicking would bring up the page associated with it. Tyranny got hyperlinks in chat right, and I would love to see more RPGs use it in that way.
Exactly this. It's a great way to provide big lore and world-building exposition without making every dialogue instance a massive, incredible (as in 'not credible') lore dump. I really like this mechanic and can't believe it's not more widely used. Don't think it's patented like the Mass Effect choice circle either.
I do remember when this game came out that I was baffled by the amount of shameless cash grabbing options and tiers of ways for one to pay for it. I had a weird curiosity since one of the first games I've ever own was Ultima 6 so for some reason I thought this ought to be good. Luckily, when this came out I was poor as a farm chicken in Shroud of the Avatar so I didn't buy it. Thanks for finally justifying and confirming my good decision.
Yeah I remember testing this game.. and I played through the same area.. this was not the experience they promised when the developed the game.. I thought this game would be like Ultima Online.. but now it's just a basic-whatever-game completely pointless to play.. good review btw..
the candle on the helmet of love is a reference to the Candle of Love, one of the artifacts the Avatar needed to enter the Stygian Abyss, in Ultima 4. And it seems to be the only connection so far to the world of Ultima.
"Why 10 animal hides? I'm pretty sure you only need one to cover a human head." This must be your first MMO. All seasoned MMO vets know the NPCs run a racket.
@@hariman7727 As far as I got, it was basic D&D plotlines for low-level players. Find out what scary necromancery magey person is the cause of the undead and then take them down. Definitely not riveting stuff.
@@hariman7727 The story is minimal, and quite bad. It also wasn't helped by their keyword system for NPCs working poorly and being crippling to some quest progressions. It's not a good game to play for story, at all, unless some major changes have been made since I last went through. Character progression and combat have some interesting features not found elsewhere. Crafting has more depth to it than is typical, including the enchantment of items. Exploration of the little areas one can access from the over map often yields unexpected surprises and inscrutable puzzles (to me, anyway.) I found it to have a greater sense of mystery and adventure than most MMORPGs provide these days. The game is quite flawed, but is possible to enjoy despite that if one likes the distinctive elements of it enough to overcome the negative aspects they come bundled with. It's not a good game, but can provide a good experience to those in the niche it serves.
Regarding the cow at 26:10: Being a Wisconsinite, I am something of an expert on cows. We live and breathe cows. Even toddlers know a lot about cows As such, I can safely say that cow is not standing normally, but is indeed a cow that was walking and got frozen in time.
I think more celebrities should sell/auction their blood, could you imagine a fundraiser for blood cancer research where a bunch of Hollywood heartthrobs auctioned off their blood? Weirdos would pay millions for that sort of stuff.
"A lot of people tell me in these videos, that it gets better later on. But I'm playing now, and it sucks....now." That's my thought on most games. I've had people tell me so many times "Oh, it gets better after the 5 hour mark." "Oh it picks up when you unlock this ability." "So much more fun once this mode unlocks 25 hours into the game." Like... I don't want to be bored, or annoyed, or frustrated, for however many hours it takes before the game becomes fun. Why would I play a video game, designed to be fun, just to sit there and not have fun for hours before I'm allowed to start enjoying something? If the game can't be bothered to try and hook me in early on, I can't be bothered to care enough to get to that point.
The game for sure was not what anyone of us was expecting, I am one of the early backers and I am still searching for that "UO2" experience. I remember my dissapointment when I realize that the game was not g oing to be Open World.
Writing a 2nd paragraph to explain why you didn't have time to finish the first paragraph sounds like a Monty Python skit.
"The Castle of AAAAAAAARGH" comes to mind. xD
Ye, its actually great. I think it couldve been an intentional joke :D
Lord British is hilarious, so I wouldn't doubt it was on purpose
Obviously she was interrupted while writing, the interruption made what she was writing irrelevant. She was then able to finish the letter at a later time, writing about something else because the situation had changed.
@@doltBmB If she was able to finish the letter, she wouldn't have left a paragraph end with a single character, she'd tie that up somehow then keep writing.
when you're texting do you just end mid se
then expect people to understand it when you get back to it without finishing the mid-sentence?
Hopefully you can see how little sense this makes in natural, normal human written communication by being confused at this comment
9:23
Creepy Guy: "Don't worry, I won't hurt her..."
Josh: "Cool, but I can't promise she won't hurt you."
hahahahaha
I hate that I remember this but the candle thing makes sense, the artifact associated with the virtue of love in Ultima is the candle of love.
Remembering game trivia is good.
I believed Love (and candle as its symbol) is one of the three principles within the Ultima world, rather than virtues. Honestly, the Ultima series were way better than this abomination, so don't feel bad remembering those principles/virtues.
@@tofuro9736 Oh that's right, I forgot about the whole venn diagram thing. And yes, it's sad to see such a unique series ending up as a nostalgia bait cashgrab. I'm surprised Hayes didn't mention the time LB used kickstarter money to go to space.
@@bennemeth625 Actually, he didn't use KS money on that. The space trip was earlier - amidst the Tabula Rasa development. If I recall right, his absence from... the planet... was used as tool to boot him from that project.
@@bennemeth625 the space thing actually has a bit more to it than what we've been hearing recently - his dad is a famous astronaut, so he would have been brought up in that world I imagine
“She’s forced to stand in a burning zombie infested village while Mr. Vengeance Night Batman goes absolutely ham on this training dummy” It be like that sometimes
Mr Vengeance Night Batman is awesome. I never expected a game would even think of doing this.
"he is a farmer, why is he close to a chicken"
well before the era of modern chicken production, they were rarely killed as chicken eggs as a constant resource far outweighs the value of a one time meat meal
Even then, it’s the same with rural people now a days who own chickens. My ex’s family owned quite a few for fresh eggs. They lived up in the mountains
@@stuglife5514 My wife's family raised chickens, and kept them alive until the rooster raped them to death, usually.
Also, roosters are bastards.
@@HollowGolem Roosters are bastards for sure. But surprisingly their rooster was alright, just a bit defensive. Usually it was the yotes who got to them. Went out with my rifle to help them since they didn’t have any guns to deal with the yotes
@@HollowGolem Fkn HATE roosters.
Well since you’re raising them it’s not a one time meal.
"I tried using the flirt emote on Kinsey, but nothing happened... *yet*."
Perhaps he should have tried it on a chicken.
As a wise Echidna once said "OH NO!"
"How goddamn awful my character's butt is"
The dangers of not having a 1st person perspective. Forced to look at a single butt all the time.
Well, quite a few of my male friends pick sexy cat girl avatars when playing MMOs so they have a nice butt to stare at.
@@mikoto7693 "If you have to look at an ass for multiple hours, you might as well look at a nice ass"
@@moreauclement9702 My reasoning exactly.
@@moreauclement9702 Same
I mean...if it's a good butt, no one would complain.
"I think she's safer than he is..." Im dying of laughter over here! 😂😂😂🤣🤣
The helmet of love having a candle on it is a reference to Ultima games, where the holy artifact for the virtue of Love is the Candle of Love.
I was a backer of this garbage. I've also backed Star Citizen years ago.
These two made me decide to never back a game ever again.
SC comes together nicely.. this here wont.
@@somechannel8275 I agree : it looks like it will be finished some day.
But I've given money years ago (I don't even recall when) and the direction went everywhere.
I'm not even sure the "bonus" of backer is worth anything anymore.
Hence my decision to never back a game again.
Instead, for any game, I'll wait for the release and reviews from reputable youtubers (never from shills like IGN, RPS, ...) and then decide to buy or not.
@@somechannel8275 Does that even matter at this point? SC has the unmistakable scent of 'scam' to a lot of people and whether true or not, in this space, perception forms reality. By the time the game comes out (in 2033, at this rate), its specs will be far behind the current standard (and don't tell me they designed the game to run on 3070s when not even Nvidia knew in 2012 the 3070 would be dropping in these conditions) and all non-space visuals will be reminiscent of Duke Nukem Forever. This game isn't anywhere near ready but that's what Early Access used to be for. It was a beta test you paid to be a part of. Nowadays, you're basically paying to be part of an ALPHA test.
@@Remianen Dont talk about something you dont know about. "some people said" well.. the game attracted a lot of trolling. Have as look at it, before you rule it out.
@@somechannel8275 I've watched and read plenty of reviews. Enjoy your scam of paying for a ship that may or may not ever exist. Over $300M earned, close to a decade of development, and the game is still in an alpha state. Whales gonna be whales.
If you check Shroud in a single-player mode, you'll get even more of an idea of how bad the idea of letting the players design huge swatches of your game world is. Every town has big tracks of empty land, as the player built stuff stays in the online side of the game. So the big cities you visit are merely a couple of shacks waiting for the building boom to happen.
Ah, the Fallout 4 method.
This can be pulled off, but I think if they do it, singleplayer should have some extra little stand-in buildings. They don't have to do much, but they can be *something*
@@RolandTHXAt least fallout 4 was a survival game with multiple factions specifically designed around propping up communities (Garvey haters are just not very good at the game)
Yes but also no. This was awesome in Star Wars galaxies.
There was a space shuttle & space combat in Ultima I. I can accept the robot guarding the bridge.
First time I've seen an escort NPC actually be the one escorting you. Not only that they're a little girl that would gladly watch the burning building consume her if you didn't come and say, "Let's leave." Truly fascinating. Too bad you can't just make her a companion you can keep.
I do wonder what would happen if you just clicked on the boat without talking to the quest reward NPC. Is the game well-written enough to gate access to the boat to having completed the quest?
Arya from GoT came to mind.
Gothic I and II,
There are characters that lead us to another areas in game and murder everything on the way we can agrro.
We get the exp
This is how paralysing fear works, and many people die because of it, especially children or elderly. The first paragraph might not be finished because the author got distracted and then started to write about something else. Well, in the Middle Ages not many people could write, and the paper expensive, but SOTA is more based in a steampunk alternative reality - which considering some appliances and clothing pieces is post XIX century style. In XIX many people could write and wrote a lot of letters especially during the time of war or other important events, and it was not like the mailbox or a mail man was on every corner, in SOTA cities public mailboxes are in banks. So complaining that people there had letters is like complaining XXI century people had cellphones with them. Shots are not always aimed, but aiming can be better or worse, you can also aim at multiple targets using AoE etc. SOTA is not perfect, but at least the developers tried to put some depth into the game.
@@platynowa "Paralyzing fear" is not actually a medical or psychology term. In fact it's not a term in any field of research, it's just a known symptom of terror and used as a description to emphasis how scary something is. Which is why there are no statistics regarding how many people experience it, why, or how many people die from it. Which makes your first line a baseless assumption.
Second, is that a serious argument for why everyone has lets on them that ONLY seem to pertain to the quests taking place? His point was that you never find letters about anything else. No letters about lore, no letters about mundane activities, only letters that conveniently dumb exposition on the player about the specific quest taking place. If you're going to use letters as a vehicle for story telling then you have to have letters that seem like they belong in the world and not just about one thing, otherwise you might as well just have a narrator because it accomplishes the same thing and requires less suspension of disbelief.
Lastly, if someone is shooting a bow they are aiming the shot. It's not a gun; you don't just shoot in the general direction of an enemy with a bow as though you're laying down suppressive fire or destroying cover. Anyone trying to hit a target with an arrow is aiming. So calling an ability "aimed shot" implies that the other shots are not aimed and the person is just blindly firing arrows at random. It makes far more sense if "aimed shot" were for a gun since not all guns require actual aim to be effective. OR to call the ability for a bow something more like "precision shot", implying that extra accuracy is being applied to that arrow.
I feel like the jokes, the points of his statements, and the logic all kind of went over your head and I'm not sure if that's because you genuinely didn't understand or if it's because you are defending a game that you personally enjoy.
To think I spent money to buy this crap because of my childhood love for Ultima, makes me feel like a "Fresh Zombie"...
They didn't listen to us in the forums, even censored us. It is a shame that the wild west legacy of UO seemed so close to recovering.
You and me bro. But I only spent a few hundred dollars. I pity those who spent thousands.
@@balancer182 I was a kickstarter backer, JFC how did it get here?
@@balancer182 Feel pity for any who spent even a single penny.
@@balancer182 "only a few" hundred dollars
intravenous copium
There is an actual technique in violin playing where you bounce the bow while playing it, to produce very sharp, quick notes that don't link together like normal violin playing. It's called spicatto, and it's not seen all that much( in my admittedly limited experience as a violin player), though it beats inserting rests everywhere when you don't want to produce a continuous sound.
Pretty sure they just used a violin synth and those sound awful when playing legato.
@@gregorhellmundt9559 then the sota musicians should to get themselves some of that Session Strings, ProjectSam Symphobia, or Ostinato Strings VSTs to get that good string legato. I have those expensive kits, but i'm still learning how to use them.
@@westingtyler1 yeah I haven't worked with synth strings in a while but in my experience you just need to trick the program by moving the legato notes to slightly before the beat. The difficulty lies in finding how much before the beat the note needs to start.
Spiccato, but yes.
martellato and spiccato, not "spigaddo" like a seppo would say :(
ahh, shroud of the avatar. remember when you heard richard garriot was making a game and you were excited to play a good sandbox again, only to find out what you got instead was a bizarre virtual real estate scam?
Now I begin to understand why EA wouldn't let Garriot remaster any Ultima game.
EA ruined UO. They lost 40% of their subscriptions after their first expansion. They turned a sandbox game into a wow clone. It went from playing to explore and see what you could do to hanging out at the gauntlet. Grinding away for artifacts because all gear was worthless compared to them.
They destroyed warriors forcing you to play as paladins instead. They tried to make an option to be a necromancer fighter but it's not very effective since the spells require too much mana to cast due to needing str and dex more than int.
They tried ninjas and samurai but neither are effective against pve and in pvp they are only useful to be exploited like sam vamps.
Item insurance and LRC destroyed the economy and removed what made mages balanced. You used to have to keep track of regs because you didn't want to bring too much and not have space for loot leading to times when you would run out and have to survive.
Fuck I miss when UO was just a world to explore.
Years later after ultima 10 and nothing changes. They still have no idea how to work with 3d.
@@theFLCLguy You can still do it on freeshards, but it's all razor-botting and such. If you're into that it can be fun. It seems like hard-core shards that are one account/no razor don't last long. UOSecondage was fun years back, no idea what the population is like now.
@@theFLCLguy I think you're misremembering, UO was still growing after its first expansion, The Second Age. It was the 5th expansion that added things like Necromancers and Paladins. And while controversial, it actually improved player count, though a lot of long time players did leave.
It should also be noted that EA was there all along for UO (they purchased Origin in 1992, 5 years before UO was first released). And it does not seem like it was really EA itself that was to blame for the changes, but rather the heads at Origin at the time.
Also, UO was at the time waning in popularity. Games like EverQuest, Asheron's Call & Dark Age of Camelot had really been eating into UO's playerbase and Age of Shadows was a rather desperate attempt by Origin to actually salvage the game and keep it relevant. It had not changed much mechanically in the 6 years it had existed (though the third expansion did pretty much kill the open world PvP).
EA has done a lot of wrong over the years, but 5th expansion of UO is not really on them
@@theFLCLguy At no point in UO history was it a wow clone. Wtf is wrong with you?
I double-click and dissolve, because that's how boats work.
You sir, won me at that point.
I was a huge fan of Ultima, so much so that I had an online comic called "Sosarian Tales" which was advertized though UO Stratics for some years and met my partner of 15 years whom was a member of UO Auction through the game.
When I heard he was releasing a new spin on his creation I was hugely excited about the concept of throwing myself back in to his world.
Wow, what a f**cking disappointment. He made a huge mistake of allowing some of the largest contributers be a part of what was included in the game and it ended up being this mash of steampunk, medieval, scifi poop that played like dogshit. I was pretty gutted. In the end I went with shards online as it was the closest to the old uo I remember, but even that just wasnt the same.
If you liked Ultima Online from 1997-1999 and want more with a modern twist, check out Ultima Online : Outlands, a free shard. Super popular and definitely gets you back to those early days, but with modern game design.
To be fair the original Ultima games had weird mashups, remember how in the first one you find a spaceship fly into space and battled tie fighters...
Ultima, the OG isekai
I think much of UO's succes after a rocky launch was due to Raph Koster (Designer Dragon); he was clearly the brains in that design team. Unfortunately he's pretty much retired from game design and just talks about it in seminars in between writing books and music. (Edit: nvm apparently he's created a company in 2019 to produce a new MMO.)
One of the best things it had going for itself was it's catering to roleplay; I've got a plethora of great memories from IGM and Seer storylines that played out like a D&D campaign instead of doing the same thing thousands of other players did before you at a ?-npc. At one point I had an unique staff, not some rarity qualification, but an actual one of a kind unique item. Too bad a lawsuit threw a wrench in that whole machine (although I understand they later revived it with paid employees for a while.) When they also chased EQ and changed the PvP from skill to item based I called it quits.
Unfortunately I don't think any game can capture the same lightning in a jar that was UO simply because the novelty of the internet has worn off; when UO came out I was one of the few in our street that had an internet connection (and pissed off my parents with an 800 buck telephone bill in my first month of playing.) The first time someone complained about lag I thought he was out of stamina because he kept stopping :) We experienced this whole new era of connectivity together through this game and created new friends and some even found romance. Or maybe I'm just cynical about modern game development and full of nostalgia for a game I played during my formative years.
@@deltav864 I was going to make the same sorta comment. Raph Koster is a great game designer. He got also got trashed on Star Wars Galaxies: 1. The gameplay was made for a different game, but he managed to make it work with Galaxies, 2. They totally gutted his system to be more like wow, which totally killed the game and it's uniqueness.
You explained diegetic vs. non diegetic quite oddly. Diegetic things are just things that are actually happening in the world. A sword clashing noise is diegetic because it just happened, while the background music is non diegetic because the hero doesn't just hear music in his head all the time.
Who says they don't?
@@cenciende9401 whhen the hero is in direct contact with the gods, and the heavenly choir keeps having practice sessions.
lol I just commented on this myself. Oddly is generous, I mean he just plain explained it incorrectly.
this game looks bad but also like in a weird way... it's also fucking awesome. it has a very peculiar sense of humor about it and i'm really loving it. i haven't laughed this much at a game in a very long time. also credit to you josh, you just added to the endless laughter with your dry wit and honest reactions. what a lovely video
"I remembered there was cotton back on chicken-fucker farm..." omg I lost it! XD
The "bouncing the bow off the strings instead of actually playing it" is actually a real violin technique (minus the "not actually playing it" part) called spiccato, meant to create distinct notes rather than one note flowing into another. It's not even that bad from the clip you played, but if it's like that the whole time without changing note duration, length or speed, and playing the same loop of the same three to five notes for five hours then I can understand it getting grating
I came here to find this comment lol
It's sad to know that Spoony would have made a video on this in an alternate universe.
And in that universe, he is not an asshole that treats its fans like trash, that would be a good universe.
I never played an Ultima game, but a reboot would be awesome, imagine a skyrim-like game with fantasy and science fiction shit blended together.
@@farenhaid13421 So Elder Scrolls Online meets EVE online?
@@ervinpucchi6951 yes but more player friendly
@Allison VP He kinda shifted that way, yeah. I don't think he started out that bad...
After Ultima 8 and 9, it might be better that he does not know about this one.
I know I wish I did not gain this cursed knowledge, as a long-time Ultima fan.
I love the dry wit and humor in your vids. And this series is perfect for that. lol
"this is what happens when you give players building options!"
...
...
ever heard of an old game called Spore, that let players design their own animals and people?
"penisaurus rex".
a Meme-worthy absurdity.
Couldn't you like import species to spawn randomly from online?
@@JohnSmith-ox3gy yes, the default was that your universe in Spore would be populated with other players' creatures, civilizations, etc. you could disable the content marked adult. Will Wright called Spore a "massively single player online game."
The perfect organism. It's perfection matched only by its hostility.
I would commit unspeakable crimes for a Spore 2
Okay but to be fair, I have never actually seen an animation for enemy spawning. that was neat
Wow has Zombies that spring up from the ground as well.
New World does it for animals, but plants jarringly appear. So quickly that they can trap a player.
This episode was heartbreaking, to see how far Richard Garriot’s ambition has fallen.
Can you do a review of Silkroad Online? I played this game more than 10 years. I really want yo hear your opinion and I'm ready to hear the worst of the worst :D
Careful if you criticize the game, The Devs like to ban you.
I doubt he's still playing it, much like most people who try the game.
UO fans (there are a healthy ten thousand 30+ year olds) were told it would be like UO. SoTA however, is a rather bad attempt at bringing this idea back. We wanted the wild west interaction of UO. What we got instead was a neutered rpg and janky rip off the nostalgic base. They took our hopes and stomped on a chance to bring back a true legacy.
I doubt that will be any huge loss with this game ROFL
@@RobbyRaccoon Been playing since release 10....
@@GriggsC123 My condolences.
I died laughing at the "run around a tree and wait for health to respawn, and then spin around" part.
I too backed this, and the way things turned out, including the staff attitudes and treatment of us (high paying idiots who supported the game), sorta tarnished my opinion of Ultima as a whole for awhile.
This game is a complete disaster. The money spent to produce trash is obscene. It's almost criminal.
I so much wanted to like this game. Game became to boring after a while.
I was excited about this game til I saw the graphics, the combat system, basically everything. It is hot garbage, and it's a shame because I like the old school no hand holding approach...but the game plays worse than the original Ultima Online. Why would anyone choose to play this?
That's literally my fighting style in Genshin Impact.
I was looking forward to crafting. I quickly found out that the materials to make a crappy item were worth far more than that item. Collecting the materials, selling them then buying the item is cheaper and gives you a better quality item.
I was so disappointed in this game.
Yes, I backed it. Now he wants to make an NFT game. *shakes head*
@@Hanneth Ive essentially lost all respect for Garriott. Between this and the new NFT game it's clear he's lost his mind and should no longer be involved in making games because he has no clue what he is doing anymore.
Him / Starr / etc. are all past their prime and have never/will never do anything of worth ever again and I am convinced they only succeeded in the past on accident due to being "first".
One of the points I liked the sound of was the 'complicated' leveling system, I was really hoping this game was going to be a modern Ultima Online. I wanted to much to recreate my animal taming bard who had pet dragons.
When Richard Garriott sells the game just 3 years after release you know it's BAD! The game is run by a dev that used to work for Richard's bankrupt studio and has no experience in modern MMOs. The game has become a Sim type that has Star Wars knockoffs, Marvel Avenger costumes, beach towels, other pixel crap for sale. It's a dumpster fire that will burn your wallet if you try to play.
Lightsaber knockoffs, yes. These must have been added after I played as I don't remember them. They could have been passed off as kobold technology but not even that minimal effort was made, at least in the shop flavour text. Marvel Avenger costumes I have not seen in the cash shop nor can I find an image of such online or anything close to it. I don't believe this claim is true. A wide assortment of other garish rubbish, yes.
The cosmetics they sell and placement they allow greatly undermine the atmosphere of the game when one is around them. Thankfully most of that can be avoided when one isn't making use of player shops or questing in major cities and towns. Still, it would be far better without that junk existing at all.
Man, as a player of this game I can't stop laughing.. you literally hit the game on the head with everything we mention to devs, although it can be a pile of shit at times, its our pile of shit and we love it. Ha
"It is our pile of shit and we love it" is... honestly every honest MMO player talking about their favourites, now that I think about it lol
@@GarlyleWilds that's how I feel with both wow and swtor. Neither are perfect both have their glaringly obvious faults but I enjoy them anyway lol.
How do you rationalize that you're playing a shit game, though? Help me understand
@@BansheeKing22 how can you compare wow to this game lmao
@@GingerBun They aren't comparing the games, just how they feel about them
After having watched many of your WorstMMO series, I can confidently say this is the funniest one so far. Well done, literally laughing while working for 20 minutes.
>Magic disappearing sword on back.
Reminds me of pulling a minigun out of my arse in Fallout 4.
As a marksman Hunter main, I've always taken aimed shot to mean you take extra time to draw back further and aim at a particularly vital spot. Hence why it has a cast time.
Other shots like Arcane shot are just quickly fired at center-mass and rely on the magic, or in some cases poison, on the arrowhead to do the damage.
And steady shot is just your Hunter firing a simple arrow without drawing back much in order to take a small break to regenerate Focus. Hence why it also has a cast time but does not do much damage and allows you to move while casting.
Except that's not how bows work. And that your ingame abilities don't take "extra time." And you can use those abilities WITH A GUN ingame. Are you half-trigger pulling?
Sure, that's what it means, but that doesn't make it any less stupid, of course an archer is going to aim for vital areas to begin with, they would train to do it without thinking. Even something basic like 'power shot' makes more sense, pulling it back further for more power
@@cenciende9401 Firing a bow accurately while having something dangerous running at you is difficuly. You don't get much time to aim.
after watching all of your Worst MMO ever videos, I have laughed alot at all of them but this one just blows me away from batman to chicken fucker farm, you are simply a wordsmith
One thing you can say about Richard Garriott, when he has a bad idea, he commits to it. Kind of like that religious colony of nudist beekeepers who decided to build their commune/apiary in a monster-infested active volcano. That actually happened in an Ultima game.
You should check out Skill Up (or Shill Up if u like) if you like a master grasp of the language. THAT dude is the gd Shakespeare of video game commentary. Check out the first 5 or so minutes of his review of “Detroit: Become Human” - if you don’t want to play that game BADLY after that video, you might not have a soul lol
Don't forget about the zombie birth, done with his best David Attenboro impression
@@NightRogue77 Oh, and also the Zero Punctuation guy!
@@billvolk4236 This makes me even sadder that I missed out on the Ultima franchise during my early gaming years 😞. Do you think it's possible to find an Ultima game that will run on Windows 10 and won't feel too convoluted to current gen gamer? I'd love to experience some part of the series.
The idea of having the quest log be written in the 1st person is actually a really interesting idea. Needs to be done competently, but not a bad idea.
It's not an interesting idea. It's an outdated idea that was how all rpg's were done 30 years ago
I think what they should do is write it like this in the actual journal, but also have something like FF14's little sidebar that just says it outright like "Bring Thing to Mr. Personman in Townshire"
Pathfinder Kingmaker's quest journal is written from the perspective of the party bard who's writing a book about your adventures. It was a neat concept
Daggerfall did a similar thing. But it was simple and a blend of the character talking and normal instructions. But it got the job done. "I have been asked by Arthurius Copperfield of Knightstower Hill Fighters Guild to go and kill some vermin in The Rat and Bucket in Sharpstone." "I have taken care of the vermin." I may have made up some words there but that's the kind of thing it did.
It was like the character writing their own instructions, but to make sure they don't forget anything as opposed to an actual journal. There is an actual diary in the game somewhere I think but the quest log was a bit like one anyway.
Skyrim has first person quest log right?
That mushrooms-reversing-controls bit has to be the most quintessentially Ultima thing ever. Those games always loved that kind of meta trolling.
I immediately thought of Martian Dreams - the same thing happens in one of the dream worlds. Martian Dreams was perhaps the strangest entry in the Ultima series, but in spite of that, it is a great game - certainly far better than the mess that was presented in this video. I haven't tried out this mess of a game, and I don't intend to. Richard Garriott has thoroughly lost his touch - it's sad.
The Charlotte is safer than him got me. I spilt water all over my keyboard and i subscribed. This series is pure gold
Sad to see this game on this list. . . but I saw it coming. I was an early backer and had Alpha Access. I still have my sealed, physical copy. Given just how much money he was trying to raise during the Alpha through an e-store made it pretty clear what the main focus of this project really was. . .
me: i feel like finally trying shroud of avatar today
me: *watches this video*
me: maybe next year
Oh my freaking god. My drink came out of my nose when i heard that "batman" bit. *LMAO!*
Don't you mean "Vengeance the Night Batman"?
@@Nukestarmaster That's _Mr_ Vengeance the Night Batman to you!
We replaced hyperlink dialogs in favor of "yes/no/sarcasm" ones. Not sure it's better.
Honestly i think hyperlink dialogue is the superior of the two, that atleast has the illusion of choice, and even if the npc responds to specific words in what you write, you can still roleplay quite effectively with that system, atleast compared to a binary option of "good, bad and the joker"
No we didn't and neither you nor him understand the Hyperlinks. A number of recent RPGs have began reimplementing hyperlinks in Dialogue like Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous. They make big, intimidating RPGs more accessible, with just a quick movement of the mouse players can gain immediate access to important background story, directions or can learn about game mechanics.
They aren't an alternative to dialogue responses. Many games with the hyperlinks still use dialogue response and even question trees. They began doing that increasingly through the 90s (as dialogue responses became more common.) and as I said they're bringing it back now.
The system in Shroud of the Avatar though clearly comes directly from the original Ultima games. It's a 'text parser'. A system used in many 80s and 90s Adventure games and Role playing games. What it was replaced by were scripted dialogue question trees. Though often text commands were sometimes used for more than just to ask about topics. Ironically the hyperlinks in Morrowind were a replacement of the text paser.
@@7dayspking the downside is sometimes what you need to discover is hidden from players so you tend to collect a list of possible keywords to test on every NPC, Morrowind did the same and ow... so yes it can be useful, but not necessarily the best mechanic from a player or design POV.
@@cericat Did you even understand my comment?
Keyword systems and text parsers are NOT just alternatives to dialogue trees.
The problem you've identified with Morrowind is the scarcity of non generic question trees and dialogue responses to be able to quickly access this information.
I miss being able to "talk" to NPCs. Getting Paragon Yes or Renegade Yes isn't a choice. Yes, No, Yes But Sarcastic. That's not... choice. Especially when "No" leads to "Be serious!" and then you get the Yes, No, Sarcasm prompt again
Barely past the 14:00 mark and I’ve smiled and had a sensible chuckle a few times, THEN I get to your David Attenborough impersonation and I’m like “this guy’s pretty funny.”
Well to be fair in ancient warfare archery often was not actually aimed but was rather used more like suppression archery. A ton of it was indirect fire. They weren't aiming so much as saturating the opposing lines with arrows
Fun Fact: Have a robot in a game in a ultima universe isn't weird when you remember that in the first games you could take a rocket to the space.
I'm 2 years late, and unfortunately have to be that guy, but Diegetic sound isn't the sound that makes sense in that context, it's a sound that is actually playing in the world. Non-diegetic sound would be something like a voiceover, or the music.
the game is losing players all the time. i seen on the steam chart player numbers were at 46 couple days ago. damn...just 46....
And yet...
"Total Raised: $12,865,148"
They don't care about losing players, they just need to keep working on the game to get their salary. They've made their money. They don't need players.
My guess is they were forced to make something so as not to get sued by the backers. The whole thing is a celebrity cash in of Garriot’s name.
@@roqsteady5290 Or as a lot of people find, being a good ideas person can be a hindrance without the editor to scale things back, and a team to implement it.
@@GodwynDi Wouldn't want to accuse Garriot of outright dishonesty, but he does have a very expensive lifestyle to support including a $30m trip to space. Possibly that kind of thing is not conducive to the kind of attention to detail needed to make decent games. Isn't this what often happens when struggling, passionate artist makes it and becomes corporate overlord?
you know im pretty sure most of the combat difficulty came from the fact you were supposed to *spend* those level points you had 60 of
'You can't just mix diagetic and non-diagetic.'
Me: Laughs in MGS
18:32
“What design do you think a helmet of love will have on the side of it?”
Me: a heart!
“Yeah, that’s right. A candle.”
😭😩
A chicken would have been great :/
A chicken would have been my guess.
I grew up playing the early Ultima games, and kind of miss the newness of it. Some of what you described in here shows systems from the original games, like typing in keywords when talking to NPCs to get the clues you need. The early game hints were limited to 4 letter input. My favorite was Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, which was the first to introduce the system requiring good acts. Since to complete the game, you had to become the Avatar by being good, it added a nice change to a series which actually required you to kill certain innocents to progress in some quests. I'd honestly like to see a modern retelling of those types of games (and NO, nothing like just Warcrap III Reforged where they just upgrade graphics; just a new game on those concepts).
Outstanding video and review. Your narration and sense of humor are fantastic, you deserve more subs and will surely grow with this level of content!
Just for the record, I have played every major (and most minor) MMORPG's since 1996 and when all factors are considered Shroud of the Avatar is far and away my pick for worst MMO ever. In fact, when you consider the available resources, pre-established fan base, development time, and all the other advantages SotA had, it is not even a close consideration, Shroud of the Avatar is the worst MMO and most absurd failure ever in the genre. Richard Garriot has no excuse for how awful this game is.
Thanks Webby, glad you enjoyed the episode. Ill be returning to this series from next week, with even more terrible games!:D
I mean, the candle on the side of the Helmet of Love actually does make sense in-universe, as the Candle of Love is a holy artifact of the Avatar philosophy.
The XP system reminds me a bit of Cataclysm, except there the shared pool builds up over time at a rate and to a limit decided by your character's mood, which makes a lot of sense for a survival game. It would be weird to tie it to kills specifically even for skills that have nothing to do with killing.
"a female player..." oh my sweet summer child...
The internet.
Where men are men.
Women are men.
And children are the Fbi.
@@JoshStrifeHayes xD
@@JoshStrifeHayes MMORPG has always stood for "Millions of Men Online Roleplaying as Girls"...
Well technically he's not wrong, it's a player, of a female avatar. So literally a "female player". On the other hand most of the women who game that I know personally IRL usually use male avatars though, funny that.
@@JoshStrifeHayes sword art online abridged? :D
I actually thought the XP system was interesting, just too limiting. The XP pool should have served as BONUS XP which should be assigned as desired, not the total XP you're ALLOWED to use...
I feel so sad about the promises that were broken in this game that I kickstarted back in 2013. Garriot was on his own and had some really good ideas for the game but development was slow, buggy, and released in a half assed state back in 2018. There are things that have improved each year when I check in but the experience that Josh had in 2020 is the exact same experience that I had 3 weeks ago.
The floating sparkles told me that they haven't fixed that bug which has to do with the map. You see, the map shows sparkles to represent quests, but when you resize the map, the sparkles stay in the spot they were in when the map was full screen. I really hope the devs over there stop living in an echo chamber with their whales that keep the game running.
At this point I expect those that operate the game are scrabbling for whatever money they can get, so I doubt they will displease whatever remaining income source they have. I also think many early supporters have been alienated from the game by the genericizing of it.
I've always vehemently disagreed with early access (paying for a unfinished product, and outside of video games, simply DOES NOT EXIST in any other market), even worse, shamelessly charging hundreds of dollars to back your development, and TEST THEIR GAME FOR FREE. I used to work in SQA before finishing my degree in Computer Science, then working as a software engineer. I still know many people in SQA that make 60-80k a year, but game devs want us to PAY THEM TO TEST THEIR GAME???????
Back in the real world, backing development of a product uses investors, which have a literally stake in the success, and MAKE MONEY later on from that success. What do you actually get for backing a game? Virtual items and promises the game will be amazing? Over the years, I've seen almost zero games fulfill their promise. I will NEVER, EVER back a game, especially for $100-$300!!! I think it's beyond idiotic. Let them get their own investors like the industry has done for decades now. Don't be a rube.
Systems upon systems? You didn't even learn there's TWO battle systems. The first hotbar one you experienced where skills lived on your hotbar but you are limited to I think the 10 slots no matter how many skills you get. Then there's the random card one where you can put as many skills as you want and they will RANDOMLY come up on your hotbar. Need a heal? Well if it doesn't come up, you can't heal! (You can sorta lock some and make sure some of the hotbar gets some skills but still). The game starts with the first system. It's balanced for the second system. It's not fun in any system no matter how deep you get.
Alternatively, you can lock a healing ability on your bar and also include it in your rotating abilities. This will make the spell always available on cooldown, but also randomly provide the ability to bypass that cooldown, making your character more survivable overall. It's an interesting system, but also one that can be daunting to a new player so it is best to start with standard bars. Also not covered was switching between clicked and charged attacks. In archery, I used charged attacks to simulate prolonged aiming and varying pull on the bow. Otherwise, I stuck with the standard click attacks.
@@kevinarnold8634 This sounds like an interesting system, on paper. I've never really liked the formulaic MMO "learn your rotations", then mash on your keyboard as hard as you can thing. This sounds like they were going for something new. I wonder how well it played.
About archers, in Warlock: Master of the Arcane, the beast race archers, which are goblins, before they attack utter the line:
"Release!! EHMM, Aim?!" and I laughed so hard at that part of the video about "aimed shot"
I actually tried this mmo because of the vid and turns out you can just buy a new weapon at the blacksmith in the soldiers' camp that makes the fights only a few second long
unfortunately that doesnt make the fights any less boring.
@@SpydersByte I actually don't find the Fights to be all that boring especially if you're using something other than auto attack
@@mews6969It seemed like he refused to deal with the combat skill/progression system and then called the combat boring.
@@someguyonyoutube236I agree, but if the game was well designed that simply wouldn't be possible instead of just making everything take two hours.
@@kentknightofcaelin4537 I don't know what you mean. Nothing took two hours. The progression is very fast.
Combat is better if you learn some attacks. For example, training up mace and shield gives access to stuns, knockdowns, charges etc. There were trainers in the village with garish player housing. The game does get quite dark at night, but every character gets a light spell that won't fail. You actually had it on your lower right bar, so I'm guessing you didn't hover over your abilities to see what they do. That in particular seems a bit low effort on your part. Still, the game has many flaws as you encountered as well as those you had not yet run into. The main issues that kept me from playing are the horrible performance in major cities and the continued adoption of more mainstream elements in an attempt to draw more players. It's main draw as a niche title were the old school aspects of the game. It made the game much more distinctive from it's contemporary fellows. Those looking for modern MMORPG elements can get them elsewhere in abundance at a far better quality, so it isn't the best field for them to attempt to compete on.
This had me giggling throughout, guessing I had a *lot* more enjoyment watching than you did playing this sorry mess!
This is an extraordinarily exceptional episode, I laughed all the way through
"Most games will not allow you to put your head up a Cow's...."
I am not usually for click bait, but he should have put that in the Thumbnail.
its not clickbait if its true.
@@voilvelev6775
Hmm....
@@leadingauctions8440 Well, yeah. Like Vandiril's videos on League bugs - they all sound clickbait-y, but they're all actual things that happen in that broken mess of a game with spagetti coding.
@@voilvelev6775
I hear spaghetti coding being said a lot concerning that game.
What exactly is spaghetti coding?
@@leadingauctions8440 Spaghetti code is a pejorative phrase for unstructured and difficult-to-maintain source code. Spaghetti code can be caused by several factors, such as volatile project requirements, lack of programming style rules, and software engineers with insufficient ability or experience. -- Wikipedia
The sudden way he puts his arms out during the calm down emote is one of the least calming things I've ever seen
The reason for all the player buildings being so incoherent, isn't just because of the players, a lot of the assets are from, you guessed it, the Unity store.
They just shoved it into the player housing system and went for lunch.
Lost it at "i remember there is cotton on Chickenfucker's farm" I think that would be a better game title
HOLY shit your davey attenborough is spot on brother haha... couldnt stop laughing..
I suppose whoever made the decisions to do what they did to this game really has "Forsaken Virtues"... all of them...
A few bits of wider information. ;
* The game isn't set in the Ultima universe, Electronic Arts owns all that IP. And Richard Garriott is largely uninvolved now as his company went bankrupt and they had to sell Shroud to one of the developers. He owns "Lord British" as a personal IP which is why it appears here again.
* The map isn't in the same artwork because it's not included in game. They weren't able to code a global map. Seriously. It's using a third party plugin, originally built by one of the early backers, and it can go down occasionally and leave you without such a map.
* I see the tutorial structure hasn't changed at all in five years. You can see a video of me running through it, with literally the same issues on my own UA-cam channel; including how the text can't check your character name so you can input anything and make a mockery of the atmosphere, the fact the tutorial isn't coded for any other skills but archery...
* It's not just the chickens that got fucked. You didn't even discuss the wider nature of the game. The Kickstarter in 2013 promised us an Ultima game, but Portalarium planned right from the start to actually do a permanent live service, a simple wrapper into which they'd purchase assets from the Unity store and cram them straight into game, then resell access to said assets. Almost all that awful theme breaking decoration is purchased for real money from the Add On Store. Going up to $30,000 to own a Golden Castle. Player owned towns? $6000 for some of those. Those houses you see? Hundreds of dollars...
Then in game, player Real Money Traders mark up the items and sell them on to the newbies; selling the gold for real money itself is legal (and used to be run through Portalarium's own forums) too. These self same RMTs have spent years distorting the media coverage to keep the game looking interesting (whilst lying directly about how it works), including deliberately manipulating polls, whilst stalking and harassings critics because telling the truth about the actual state of the game got in the way of making real money.
* In my own case, one of them actually wrote in to Portalarium and demanded they help him harass me "Until he goes insane". Which they did, shutting down my account. That one ended up going to Arbitration Court, where it turned out Portalarium had lied in their EULA and they weren't even a member of the American Arbitration Association scheme, and were told to pull any reference to them from the EULA. Which they didn't even bother doing. You can see more detail about that on my own UA-cam channel too. Thus I speak from now legally provable personal experience, that the developers are unbelievably toxic and have resorted to some quite despicable behaviour to try and harm critics; to the point that even MassivelyOP.com, which was supporting the game long after most media had given up reporting on it, ended up turning on them when Catnipgames/Chris Spears who owns the IP now turned up and went on a bizarre unhinged rant at them in their comments for reporting issues with the game...
* Flirt emote? Ahh you've discovered that not only do the remaining staff still not have any artistic awareness or design chops, but they again just cram their Unity store bought emotes in anywhere because the point is not to tell a story but treat the game like an asset delivery service. At one point, the mother of the NPC you rescued learns her husband is dead... then taught you the "Backflip" emote because she was so happy her daughter at least survived. Mmmm....
* You may joke that you are not, but I indeed am an expert on cows. Especially that one. It's the same model with the same broken animation from the first public version of the game back in 2013. If it can't directly be monetized, virtually nothing is ever fixed.
* Steam achievements eh? Again, as I noticed when I was making videos way back when, player achievements for actual gameplay are unbelievably low. As above, people aren't really playing the game, it's a shell that is kept alive by a tiny number of cultists who are treating it as a Medieval Second Life, a housing decoration sim, and a few dedicated Real Money Traders trying to lure new players in to sell them the items they're sitting on. And many of those in game are alt-characters or goods holders/sockpuppets for the core audience; Steam figures show concurrency of sub 100 people playing at any one time.
* Thus it's hardly surprising you only ever saw one person in game. Considering the quality of those who DO play (my own stalker STILL turns up trying to gaslight me now 5 years after he first started, and coming on for 3 years after his appalling behaviour led to me getting a legal judgement against Portalarium) that might be a blessing in disguise for you. Stay far, far away from this Shitshow Of The Avatar, folks...
I read this whole thing, thank you for taking the time to reply.
This sounds like an absolutely fascinating backstory, when i return to this garbage fire, and i likely will, i'll message you and we can work together on something.
@@JoshStrifeHayes Be glad too. Short term, there's old.reddit.com/r/shroudoftheavatar_raw/ which covers most of the wider issues, as well as where I saw your video first linked ;)
@@TotalCowage that's the first time someone else has linked a video of mine on reddit, that's made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
@Aunchient Pistol Okay, so instead of being just a shitty game, it's a shitty Ultima game. Thank you for clearing up that mystery.
@@RobbyRaccoon It's not, and he knows it; as should I, as I'm former EA staff who actually worked on Ultima Online, and was in the honor guard when "Lord British" came back to the game. The difference is, I won't lie to players to sell them a third rate knock off of warmed over real world religious and apothecary systems (nightshade and mandrake only exist in Ultima do they? DO THEY?), that have been given another half assed makeover in Shroud to try and fool obsessive fanboys that they're getting another Ultima... which they then bullshit to others about to try and get them to waste money keeping their failed and toxic tiny community alive.
Note he didn't dare try and address any of the points I actually made though.
Oh wow, this was a good laugh! I was one of the unfortunate souls that believed this was going to be Ultima Online 2 and backed the Kickstarter campaign.
So did you just not notice the flashing red sword while in combat, clearly showing that you weapon is broken and that this is why combat takes ages?
not to defend this game, it is hot garbage, but come on man
I just love how angry he always sounds. Very british
If you look closely, you will see that the girl risked nothing in the burning house, because the fire was literally too scared to approach more than 5 meters (15ft) of her. That's why she didn't feel the need to escape, the fire started, she looked at it and then the fire was like "Sss... Sorry, Mam... I will stay on that side and not bother you... Please, have mercy on me!"
The only time I've enjoyed hyperlinks was in a single player RPG where the hyperlinks were there to explain things that the character should know naturally that the player might not or need to be reminded of. Where hovering over the hyperlink gave a brief overview of the topic of the hyperlink and clicking would bring up the page associated with it.
Tyranny got hyperlinks in chat right, and I would love to see more RPGs use it in that way.
Exactly this. It's a great way to provide big lore and world-building exposition without making every dialogue instance a massive, incredible (as in 'not credible') lore dump. I really like this mechanic and can't believe it's not more widely used. Don't think it's patented like the Mass Effect choice circle either.
I do remember when this game came out that I was baffled by the amount of shameless cash grabbing options and tiers of ways for one to pay for it. I had a weird curiosity since one of the first games I've ever own was Ultima 6 so for some reason I thought this ought to be good. Luckily, when this came out I was poor as a farm chicken in Shroud of the Avatar so I didn't buy it.
Thanks for finally justifying and confirming my good decision.
Yeah I remember testing this game.. and I played through the same area.. this was not the experience they promised when the developed the game.. I thought this game would be like Ultima Online.. but now it's just a basic-whatever-game completely pointless to play.. good review btw..
yes! My experience exactly. I had the "luck" to play the game before it hit Steam, nice to see that they improved nothing at all
@@VheeShane Improved? No. Add new broken systems? Yes.
the candle on the helmet of love is a reference to the Candle of Love, one of the artifacts the Avatar needed to enter the Stygian Abyss, in Ultima 4.
And it seems to be the only connection so far to the world of Ultima.
"I'm playing it now, and it sucks NOW." lawl
This archery stance is really weird considering Garfield is supposed to be this huge fantasy meganerd.
"Why 10 animal hides? I'm pretty sure you only need one to cover a human head."
This must be your first MMO. All seasoned MMO vets know the NPCs run a racket.
If it doesn't take two hours to do something that would take a literal minute in real life, you're not playing an MMO.
Just got round to watching this - it definitely contained phrases I never thought I'd hear.
I kickstarted this game with quite some money. after Bards Tale 4, this is the biggest disappointment of my life
Why was Bard's tale 4 a disappointment?
Me "died in burning house"
Also me "ONE MORE PARAGRAPH!!!!!!"
Is it that strange that I liked this game? I haven't paid any money and don't really care about the crowdfunding drama, so that might be why.
How is the story in it? The biggest reason I would ever play it is to play the story that was promised to continue off of what was built in Ultima.
@@hariman7727 As far as I got, it was basic D&D plotlines for low-level players. Find out what scary necromancery magey person is the cause of the undead and then take them down. Definitely not riveting stuff.
@@stevewhite5045 eh. Sounds like it was supposed to be more, but that a variety of factors kept it from being something. I don't know what.
@@hariman7727 The story is minimal, and quite bad. It also wasn't helped by their keyword system for NPCs working poorly and being crippling to some quest progressions. It's not a good game to play for story, at all, unless some major changes have been made since I last went through.
Character progression and combat have some interesting features not found elsewhere. Crafting has more depth to it than is typical, including the enchantment of items. Exploration of the little areas one can access from the over map often yields unexpected surprises and inscrutable puzzles (to me, anyway.) I found it to have a greater sense of mystery and adventure than most MMORPGs provide these days.
The game is quite flawed, but is possible to enjoy despite that if one likes the distinctive elements of it enough to overcome the negative aspects they come bundled with. It's not a good game, but can provide a good experience to those in the niche it serves.
That little girl is clearly an escapee from prison. That skill with the shiv is too much
im here after KIRA tv
Josh "I am pretty sure this guy F'ed a chicken"
Me "Well isn't it the Chicken F*cker!" - Fable reference for those that do not know.
Now I just need a healthy ovum to grow my own Richard Garriott.
Regarding the cow at 26:10:
Being a Wisconsinite, I am something of an expert on cows. We live and breathe cows. Even toddlers know a lot about cows
As such, I can safely say that cow is not standing normally, but is indeed a cow that was walking and got frozen in time.
That intro nearly killed me lol. 😂 I own this game but have yet to touch it. So I guess I’m about to find out if I regret installing it.
How did that pan out?
@@Cyromantik - I uninstalled. The open PvP is not for me. The game feels too empty as well. It’s more survival then RPG. But that’s just my opinion. 😊
Game is called Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues and has a chicken fxker in it... Why am I not surprised...
I think more celebrities should sell/auction their blood, could you imagine a fundraiser for blood cancer research where a bunch of Hollywood heartthrobs auctioned off their blood?
Weirdos would pay millions for that sort of stuff.
"A lot of people tell me in these videos, that it gets better later on. But I'm playing now, and it sucks....now."
That's my thought on most games. I've had people tell me so many times "Oh, it gets better after the 5 hour mark." "Oh it picks up when you unlock this ability." "So much more fun once this mode unlocks 25 hours into the game."
Like... I don't want to be bored, or annoyed, or frustrated, for however many hours it takes before the game becomes fun. Why would I play a video game, designed to be fun, just to sit there and not have fun for hours before I'm allowed to start enjoying something? If the game can't be bothered to try and hook me in early on, I can't be bothered to care enough to get to that point.
The game for sure was not what anyone of us was expecting, I am one of the early backers and I am still searching for that "UO2" experience. I remember my dissapointment when I realize that the game was not g oing to be Open World.
You are exactly who RG was trying to trap into spending money. Anyone willing to pay for nostalgia