Please join us Wednesday, January 14th at 3pm CDT for our next Hangout of the Avatar! Richard, Starr, and Chris will be chatting about Release 13, recounting their favorite moments while also looking ahead to Release 14. And as usual, I’ll be taking your questions and feedback about R13 live in the chat-room and also in advance in the comments section!
QUESTION- Can we have a WoW style mouse control option? Currently it is difficult to look around while walking in a straight line.
+1
Question – related to camera and controls – Any thoughts on a camera follow mode?
Missing the function for left mouse button = camera pan
Question: How do you envision stealth skills working?
Question: It appears that there will be a “reveal spell” on the magic sigil. Will there also be a way to detect stealthed and hidden things using a skill on the combat sigil?
Question: Have you come closer to making a decision on when you might be closing PoT purchases? And a related question, what is your stance on town owner’s being given any portion of the rent collected from lots within their town?
No rent should be given to you, if you want rent, make it part of your agreement. In game rent is IN GAME.
What new features of Unity 5 will Release 14 be leveraging to improve polish, performance, stability, etc.? And what other improvements can we expect to see for rest of Q1?
+1 for this question. I’m also interested in knowing more about how Unity 5 will affect/help SOTA.
In the context of U5 and the conversion, are you going to consider using / converting to the ‘new’ Unity 4.6 GUI? Would that manage to get us a little performance boost as the Unity advertisement states? Maybe even together with some additional UI elements?
+1
Loved the mines, seamed like a small release other than the new areas.
I have a couple concerns, going into future releases.
1. The zones have a small feel still will these get larger as we move to main land areas?
2. I’m very worried about taming and it’s attachment to the crafting side . I like the idea of finding things in the wild with different possibly rare skins / abilities. Also everyone is going to want to be a tamer / what ever attack type they choose. Taming in uo was very powerful and used up skill points. I think it’ll be powerful here and one should sacrifice attack points (adventuring points) to be a tamer. What can you share the current thinking regarding taming.
Thanks
+1 – Will breeding be considered in taming? Bonding?
Completely agree that this should take some form of skill points. A new tree?
Animal Husbandry tree!
When can we expect to explore the Novia overworld map in the game?
Also, if we continue to go with a dual-scale map design, have there been any thoughts about tweaking that scale further to improve / enhance the experience of roaming the overworld? While other graphical enhancements and random encounters may help, the scale might still be too far of a limiting factor.
Will we see a actual Bank Location in the Towns we have to go to in R14?
Question: There was originally a lot of debate over the style of the overland map, and some people wanted to stick with the paper map style. After seeing the 3D modeled map progress, would you guys say it was worth it?
It took me a little while to get used to it but I really like it and hope it doesn’t change.
I am still one who is not liking it – I miss the paper map. A switch between the two would have been a lot more work to put into the coding but would have been a nice option for those that are still wishing the old school paper map.
I agree. The paper map look was Boss! The current one is yeech.
Question: Are there any plans in the future for free access passes?
Or, specifically, being able to invite friends for a limited time as pledge reward?
Can you tell us more about the 1.3million stretch goal, interactive instruments? If nothing has been coded yet, what is the current thinking about the system/how interactive would you like them to be?
How well is the current development schedule matching up to the goals you have set for Alpha and Beta deployment? What feature is a must have before Alpha?
Question: There’s been several discussions on the forums on how to incentivize people towards pledging for the stretch goals. Have you guys been reading these? — One of the issues has been how pledge horses will be different than horses purchased through in-game gold. Have you given thought to this?
Question: i’ll try to be brief I made a post about DEATH sounds.. not a real good response however cpl of Trolls and some decent attempts non the less. You can edit that out i’m sure
My question of course is: Are you Fella close to getting death sounds?
I’ve seen some of my favorite criminals be slain NOW hehe I want to hear them squeel like a ___________ as I pierce them with a icy cool breeze YEaaH!!!
So what say you
Guilds and guild war mechanics. Will we be able to have alliances soon? Will we have the opportunity to fund the guild housing feature in player owned towns? EX. Castles and such as stated in the kickstart stretch goal.
Will you set up rules for house and plot decoration in order to prevent the immersion breaking decorations we have now in the game?
How will you manage the sense of achieving something in the game? Will we be able to clear areas of enemies and will the evil Lichlord that terrorizes the village stay dead forever after we defeated him so that we get the feeling of achieving something in the world – at least in single player mode?
When is the estimated release date?
Could we got a status post on all Kickstarter goals?
Before Player Owned Towns (POTs) were introduced, it was said there would be more than enough lots in NPC towns to cover pledges as well as a buffer for new player bought homes during launch. Is this still the case, or are POTs now apart of this calculation? Will there be a shortage of lots in NPC towns?
Will we ever see the 2.25 and 2.5 million dollar Kickstater goals implemented, or introduced as a stretch goal? I’m most interested in the goal to “expose options to player modification to limited elements of the online game.”
Can you talk to your philosophy on meeting Kickstarter goal expectations while dealing with feature creep?
Can you talk to the optimization that can be made to improve zone loading times?
What Unity 5 features will eventually be used to improve graphics?
Is Richard’s idea for playing on a mobile device still just a dream? Is anyone actively thinking about the hurdles, or planning to think about it in the future?
Will Duke Founders get a custom Avatar head for each character slot?
I missed the R13 gold handout; when is the R14 gold handout scheduled?
I agree with Tarsin, I would like to know the latest estimated release date at least out of Alpha, I am just curious not trying to be pushy.
How about removing EXP for combat? The game Dead State offers no EXP for combat and this makes combat much more interesting. As healing is very rare as well as resources you always have to consider if it is worth attacking an enemy. You would need what he carries with him but you could get hurt. Also combat gets much more dangerous adn exciting if it is not in the game to advance the hero and grinding is completely removed. The whole dynamics of combat change because you don’t get EXP.
Also are there any news about the implementation of real companions?
The Kickstarter had the following words:
“Meaningful PVP that also minimizes griefing:
An incentive-driven system will draw players into the challenge and intrigue of the PVP experience, whether they become the hunter or the hunted!”
What does meaningful pvp really mean? I’ve followed the game almost from the very beginning and I don’t think I’ve ever heard what the full pvp vision is.
I was surprised How Small the Graff Gym Mines were in size, is there plans to expand it more?
Question – Housing – After a few rehearsals from the New Britannia Theatre Troupe. My question is two fold:
1) Will there be a “I ban theee” or permissions for entry set to house lots?
2) Will there be a grief mechanic put in place on PKs? Some people may be set to PvP for a “roleplay” or “stage play” purpose. Killing the entire cast, as much as I enjoyed the chaos of it all, was a bit of a hinderance.
Along these lines, if there is an “I ban thee,” what will happen? Will it be similar to UO, where the player is teleported outside of the property, and an invisible wall prevents them from entry? I’d love to see something more interesting that can be tied into game play… Summoned and attackable guards, locked doors, doors left open, stealth, enabled PVP flag on banned player but not house guests until attacked, etc. Let “I ban thee” be effective but implemented as a cat a mouse game.
+1 Agreed. Would be good to have some control in a particular area.
Hello, Id just like to know when will Beta start; its been in Alpha for a Long time now.
Along these lines, what is the criteria for moving from pre-alpha to alpha, and alpha to beta, and finally beta to release 1? Have we officially transitioned into alpha? Are you expecting alpha and beta development to move much faster than pre-alpha?
Question- Is there any plans on having a decoration mode where we can toggle it on or off?
Are any more iterations planned for camera perspective when speaking with an NPC? Occasionally line of sight with the NPC is obstructed, by the environment, or even other players moving in and out of my view. I find myself trying to correct the camera only to find it locked. It would be great if I could control the camera or re-engage the algorithm to find and use the next best perspective. Would be even more awesome if this happened automatically.
And could the zoom in for NPC conversations become optional?
I’d like to opt out
Questions
1. Are you still considering the UO style skill system (skullcap, statcap, etc.) I feel the actual one is not very immersive and unrealistic.
2. Can we expect full loot? (In both PvP and PVE) as we have the choice whether to do or not PvP I feel full loot could give much more immersion to the game. I’m personally against ransom system.
3. Are you considering a more complex combat mechanics such as in chivalry or mount & blade?
Thank you
In the context of skills, could you elaborate and iterate on ideas for limitations that skill trainers might apply in the future (given that the system stays as is)? For example, would a skill trainer maybe require some amount of handling the blade before going higher up in the rank on that skill tree?
I will try to explain myself clearly.
First of all what we have now is a level system, which unlocks abilities (we don’t have any skills), therefore a basic sword swing at level 1 will be the same at level 10. The difference is that at lvl 10 you will have more ABILITIES to enhance your swing. Skill trainers shouldn’t exist.
Reasons why I prefer a real skill system over the level system + abilities are the following:
– Is more immersive
– Gives a real feeling of progression (when my sword is 0 I will miss a lot whereas when my sword is 100 I’ll hit almost every time)
– You are obliged to think a lot because with a skillcap of 600 or 700 you can have only 6/7 skill maxed or maybe some skills to 100 and others to 50
– I am rewarded for the skill I am using
– It is possible to implement a system of skill loss on death or when you become a PK
Reasons why I don’t like the level system
– Breaks the immersion
– I personally find it very linear and simple
– Once you get an ability you’ll be able to access it most of the time like if you already had 100 of that skill, even if you are just level 2.
– I can raise any combat skill by doing something else. Eg. I can kill with a sword and put my points on archery, which in my opinion is illogical
This is of course my opinion.
Has the recent success and popularity of single player RPGs, especially on Kickstarter, changed how relevant a full-fledged and deep single-player mode is for SotA? For example, the Kickstarter of Shadowrun Hong Kong tripled it’s funding goal just a few hours after the crowdfunding campaign started which indicates that there is a huge demand for deep single player RPGs.
Question to each of the devs: — What was your New Year’s resolution?
Question: Is there any way to increase the size of ‘zones’? What is the reason behind the zoning? I play other Unity based MMOs and the maps are much much larger, Is this something that is being looked at for improvement?
Avatars: Are avatars going to be improved over the course of 2015? Are these placeholders that we are seeing in Alpha now? At the moment everyone seems to look very much alike. Hoping for many more face selections.
Combat: How much improvement to combat do you expect to be able to make?
Will the newer Unity build also assist in other than aesthetic ways?
Thank you and look forward to watching the game grow during 2015!
Question 1: Any chance we’d get some statistics on how many people played/logged in each Release compared to how many got their hat (for 10 through now)?
Question 2: Are you willing to consider more immersive / story-telling-like skill implementation? Such as not granting ‘armour’ (= damage resistance) for yielding a Polearm, but getting better fending off weapons (=damage avoidance) instead?
Also statistics on how many duels DarkStarr personally lost.
With NPC schedules coming how will we find important NPCs in big cities? Will they be marked on a map or will have to ask other NPCs where we can find them?
Question: Will there be more to do in the next release? I’m excited to play, but after completing a couple of quests and making myself some armor there’s currently not a lot to do in the game. Could there be some temporary quests or something?
I am very new to this game, but not to gaming. I was testing out the housing decorating and I was wondering if the props would be able to be sized up or down in the future. (if I can now I don’t know how to do that) I also noticed that some of the house props were not able to be placed in some places. like a picture (tapestry) could not be placed on some walls and some where there was a timber could not be placed in front of the wall timber.
Question: Why is there no Windows XP and Vista support planned ?
Question: as soon as i start playing, i feel lost. Are you guys going to improve the whole tutorial system?
Also, on a technical side: if today loading times are “100”, by launche how much this number will decrease? around 50? Less? More?
Thanks
Lordy
For R13:
How well do you guys feel the lot expiration worked? Have you thought about trying to work with backer at citizen+ getting 2 weeks instead of 1 week (to work in the +6months+1per tier coding to reflect the FAQ)?
How well do you guys feel the new spells worked?
For R14+ (updates on some knowns and unknowns):
When is your plan to give better control of pets and force them to never damage their masters? I personally cannot use summoned elementals because 80% of the time they damage me and/or don’t attack my target so they’re a complete waste of skill points.
When is your plan to give “assist target” so people coordinating attacks can use a hotkey to target the same target?
When is your plan to rectify heal spells and how often they fizzle. They’re the #1 spell I see myself fizzling and they’re supposed to have the least fizzle! I fizzle more rez than ANY other spell hands down (and I’m a fire mage… DOH!)
When is your plan to work in wands/staffs so they are more than an exploiters hat trick (movement glitch + combat auto-attack glitch + deck glitch = hat trick to exploiting)? I’d love to see wands and staffs lower the chance of fizzle and use 1/2 the focus that other auto attacks use… as it is they use more and increase fizzle!!!
When is your plan to close the gap on gathering to make it viable? Currently in the pre-alpha you can spend an entire month farming enough stuff to gear your guild and then get it wiped… we should have it take less than a week in release and less than a day in pre-alpha… resource nodes need increased spawn rates and increased production when used.
When is your plan to close the gap on NPC loot vs server generated loot? I’d love to see the stuff people die with go into the system… I know we need loot first so…
When is your plan to implement the looting system?
I think that’s enough of my questions. Who’s next?
When will guilds/players be working with the developers on their towns? When will we expect to see these in game?
Can you give us a hint as to the “secret things” RG is working on mentioned in todays Stand-up?
Will you try to prevent the banning of the world from lots creating a world of invisible walls.