Shroud of the Avatar - Update of the Avatar #76

Myrthos

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Here we go with another update of the Avatar. Next to the news we brought earlier about their E3 presence, backers can play the game for the entire week of E3. Next to that the update contains the usual news that apparently is interesting to many and requires you to throw money at them if you want to use it, such as another type of house you can own, that you can even own an entire village, new tiers, a stretch goal store, a birthday cake and a fireworks box.

More information.
 
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The development of this game has got to be the biggest money grab of any Kickstarter I'm aware of. It makes me sad to see RG more like a fast talking infomercial spokesperson rather than the awesome designer behind the company whose motto was 'we create worlds.' I hope that I am totally wrong and will love this game. But I'm very skeptical at this point. Thank God for Divinity: OS.
 
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I share your feelings TMD but a money grab? Looking at the numbers, people keep giving Garriott cash hand over fist. They are practically throwing money at him. And he is quite open about what he is doing. Remember that the game's title is "Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues".
He is parting fools (I don't mean lower tiers backers) from the money they have too much of. That's practically a community service!
For a while now I have suspected that Richard Garriott is just a pseudonym and that his real name is Reacher Gilt.
 
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I share your feelings TMD but a money grab? Looking at the numbers, people keep giving Garriott cash hand over fist. They are practically throwing money at him.

You may be right as I admit I've lost interest in following the project very closely. From the 100 thousand foot level, comparing the kickstarter experience between original sin and SotA is night and day. Larian did their KS, got their money, and that was kind of it. SotA did their kickstart, then started selling one virtual asset after the next ever since. Two very different animals. But if the backers are happy to back up dump trucks of money to RG, so be it.
 
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I share your feelings TMD but a money grab? Looking at the numbers, people keep giving Garriott cash hand over fist. They are practically throwing money at him. And he is quite open about what he is doing. Remember that the game's title is "Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues".
He is parting fools (I don't mean lower tiers backers) from the money they have too much of. That's practically a community service!
For a while now I have suspected that Richard Garriott is just a pseudonym and that his real name is Reacher Gilt.

Absolutely true. I questioned them on the absense of single player information in their updates on their forum, and their project director Starr Long openly said that they are doing all this housing nonsense to attract funding (from fools, because I can't think of any decent person who worked hard for their money to give it to these con artists).

In fact, they describe the game as a 'multiplayer game' in all their official updates and project web site.

Indeed this is the biggest con job in the history of Kickstarters, and I am just waiting for their downfall.
 
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I guess Rune isn't around anymore. If he were, he'd be posting here. This thread would make his head explode. :p
 
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I guess Rune isn't around anymore. If he were, he'd be posting here. This thread would make his head explode. :p
Shh don't Jinx the site.:paranoid:

I have to say I agree with the above posters as the game is described as a multi-player game now. The offline content seems to be an after thought nowadays.:disappointed:

Update:
I have little interest in this game anymore, and really don't believe anything that comes out of Richard Garriott's mouth nowadays.
 
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I think that even Rune would be hard pressed to explain/justify the way in which SoA development is going.
 
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Personally I read the updates and shake my head not so much in discus as I did in the beginning. More now in wonder if there is anyway LB can moon gate back into RG body.

I have said this before, it is a lot of work maintaining a house in real life. Why the heck would I want to tried to do one online.

Was so hoping for some part of the past in this game beside in name only.
 
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Medieval Housbuilding Simulator 2015?
 
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Medieval Housbuilding Simulator 2015?

Believe it or not, that would intrige me. However you can't build any house in the game. It's more decorate the house they designed.
 
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Interior Decorator Simulator 2015!
 
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I think I can already predict what will happen… Like with the game screenshot crowd, mutual adoration groups will form where people will visit and praise your house and you will go and do the same for them.
Otherwise what's the point?
 
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So I'll take the challenge and play Devil's advocate for a bit.

The Kickstarter raised nearly $2 million dollars. That's a nice sum for Kickstarter, but it's not even close to the realm of funding a AAA game.

The innovation here is that Garriott is attempting to create a near-AAA game solely through crowdfunding. And he appears to be succeeding. In this update, they revealed that in the year since the Kickstarter ended, they have more than doubled their Kickstarter amount, with over $4 million in total funding. And this update shows they are hungry for more, as they introduce new tiers to keep the cashflow coming.

It's an incredibly ballsy business move. They're effectively paying their staff in pay-as-you-go fashion, creating a constant stream of in-game assets that people can buy with real money, which is used to pay for the development of the actual game in real time. And the resources to create these in-game items are likely very small; probably one full-time 3-D artist cranking out new pieces on a weekly basis that will generate hundreds or thousands of sales.

This game isn't an old-school-influenced Wasteland 2 or Pillars of Eternity. This is a full 3-D game, with an over-the-shoulder perspective of a fully customized character, with 3-D graphical representation of every weapon and armor in the game. The art assets for a fully 3-D game like this are staggering, and shouldn't be possible through crowdfunding. But that's exactly what they're trying to do, conventional wisdom be damned...

I've played some of the release versions, and there really is a game shaping up underneath all the fundraising. There are quest-givers that lead you to dungeons, where you fight monsters with powers from a skill tree, and find secret doors with chests behind them that contain unique weapons and armor. I've also crafted a few items. Obviously, this is alpha, but my point is that I haven't done anything with house buying or decorating, but I see potential.

The main thing folks here will have to get past is walking into a town, and seeing row upon row of player housing, and spending time trying to find the "real" part of town with a tavern, store, NPCs, etc. Once I got used to all these houses, and knew what they looked like so I stopped clicking on every sign in front of them, they were easily ignored in favor of the "real" town buildings.

Garriott claims he's worked hard with Tracy Hickman on a good story, and I see no reason not to believe him. He's also made it clear that one can play the game offline if we choose, and I see no indication that they are reneging on that commitment. But in-game assets for an online game sell for good money (go figure), so it makes sense that this would be their primary method of fund-raising (almost like an early access F2P system).

We can laugh at their fund-raising method all we want, but the fund-raising can be orthogonal to the actual game design. Personally, I think it's too early to discount the game's quality based on their method of raising cash...
 
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If there is an actual game design, I would like to see that more regularly in the updates. As it stands now, there appears to be little interest from them in sharing information about it.
 
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This game should be called "Tabula Rasa: No, Really"
 
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If there is an actual game design, I would like to see that more regularly in the updates. As it stands now, there appears to be little interest from them in sharing information about it.
Exactly this.

If they can use a part of the house-building-news-cashflow to improve the single player offline mode (which is the only one I'd play), than this strategy is ok for me and I gladly go without any news about the actual game design, if news about new housing options bring in even more funds.
 
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My god is this for real; they have literally copied the 'chest coming alive and attacking' from Dark Souls 2 - just pathetic.

…like DS2 would be the only game that has a chest that comes alive ;)

Game looks pretty dull imo :/
 
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