Lord British launches “Shroud of the Avatar” on Kickstarter • Hacker News Board

Re: Lord British launches “Shroud of the Avatar” on Kickstarter

#121

Post by outworlder » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 8:07 PM UTC

wodow wrote: post #38

simonsarris wrote: post #28

I'm glad that "Meaningful PvP" was singled out. PvP is important to me and its one of the things that Ultima Online got right that vast swaths of MMOs since have floundered with (in my opinion). In parts of the world (Felucca[1]), UO was a rare RPG where anyone could kill anyone, for any reason, but with the repercussion that they would be branded a "Bad person" (visible with a gray or red name instead of blue). Stea…

Vote yes to permanent death [1] in MMOs! Richard Bartle: "[without permanent death] Newbies (and not-so-newbies) feel they can never catch up. The people in front will always be in front, and there's no way to overtake them. The horizon advances at the speed you approach it." [2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_death [2] Designing Virtual Worlds, 2003

This is only true if you are talking about level-based systems.

UO had a skill cap, which you could reach rather quickly (less than a month if you had no life, a few months playing casually). After that, there was no difference.

And you could even close the gap faster, by focusing on skills which made the most difference. You alchemy could wait.

Also, there was a stat cap. There wasn't that much difference between a new player and a veteran. The veteran would have like 2x the amount of health compared to the newbie. This is in constrast to WOW, where it is not uncommon to have a 140x difference, or more. You actually had a decent shot against veterans, if you knew what you were doing.

Re: Lord British launches “Shroud of the Avatar” on Kickstarter

#122

Post by moron4hire » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 8:23 PM UTC

bobsy wrote: post #88

moron4hire wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quality of graphics that we see in modern games has more to do with art assets then with programming of the game engine. Take a close look at the surroundings in your next game session. Every single thing in the game at some point had to be modeled by a person. When you're just starting with a project, you don't have those various and detailed models available. What you saw here was the "programmer art" version,…

Really? Everything is modeled by a person? I thought it was done with magic. I haven't heard of programmer art. Why would a programmer work on models? Perhaps the game demo is using stock models or something but it seems strange that you would have prototypes and a demo like this with no artistic direction implemented. I am not sure what exactly you think this has in common with Minecraft.

le sigh.

I'm not even really sure how to reply to you, because there seems to be a complete lack of common ground here. Let me try again.

Garriot programmer. Garriot not artist. Garriot no choose art direction. Garriot just want to make program. Garriot just use whatever model laying around on hard drive.

No, it's not strange to create prototypes without choosing an art direction. Games are typically products of real substance. They aren't your random Rails+Illustrator startup making something flashy and pretty, banking on everyone being distracted by their "elegance" long enough to make a few bucks before the users realize they offer nothing of real substance. Art in a game is content. You can substitute any content into the game and the gameplay will be unaffected. If the game can stand on its own with unattractive content, then it will be even better with pretty content. If a game needs pretty content to catch your attention, then it's probably not a good game.

And that is where game projects fail, when they don't offer anything of substance. My point about Minecraft was that your point about "exploring on your own" not being a good concept for a game didn't hold water. A game concept can be anything, if you make it substantial.

Re: Lord British launches “Shroud of the Avatar” on Kickstarter

#123

Post by papsosouid » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 8:24 PM UTC

NoPiece wrote: post #120

sp332 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-not-a-store

First, I don't see anything on that page that would disqualify this project. Second, why is this project a staff pick by Kickstarter if it somehow violates the spirit of their rules? http://www.kickstarter.com/discover/categories/games?ref=hom...

The same reason blatant scams get allowed, kickstarted has a significant financial incentive to allow as much as possible. Why would they shut down a kickstarter that will put $50,000 in their pockets?

Re: Lord British launches “Shroud of the Avatar” on Kickstarter

#124

Post by RobotCaleb » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 8:25 PM UTC

bobsy wrote: post #84

adventured wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine how poorly something like Minecraft would sell today. Minecraft was amazing when it was released with a 256 color palette in 1993, but nobody would go for that today. People want graphics, not great gameplay... No, they want great gameplay first, and great graphics second. That has always been true and will always be true.

What is wrong with the Minecraft? The game has a blocky style to it. The artistic direction of the game suits it perfectly. The issue I have is that this game appears to have no graphical style or artistic direction. It looks like an incredibly generic low poly-count 3d game. Sure these are only prototypes but surely you wouldn't get this far into development with models completely unrelated to the finished product?

It was sarcasm.

Re: Lord British launches “Shroud of the Avatar” on Kickstarter

#125

Post by icebraining » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 8:27 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #86

icebraining wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where exactly is that stated? As far as I know, and according to the FAQ and project guidelines of Kickstarter, there's no rule or implicit understanding that only creators who can't fund their own projects should apply. In fact, they specifically mention that KS is about more than money. And I find it patronizing because your complaint is about the poor backers who get nothing for their money. Why exactly do you fee…

Yeah, they were pretty explicit that KS is for funding projects and not really a pre-order system. http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-not-a-store

That wasn't papsosouid's complaint, which pertained to the fact that the project creator can afford to pay for the project, and so shouldn't be using KS.

Re: Lord British launches “Shroud of the Avatar” on Kickstarter

#126

Post by trotsky » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 8:35 PM UTC

rschmitty wrote: post #79

For something different, here is a soon to be launched kickstarter. From someone not as successful as Mr Garriot but if you played Dark Age of Camelot you might be in love already http://citystateentertainment.com/camelotunchained/ Here is a long interview describing the goals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&... View on what is wrong with MMOs @ 4:16 No more hand holding @ 7:00 Class System -…

I wasn't familiar with this, but Mark Jacobs is a founder and they are based out of DC like Mythic was.

Re: Lord British launches “Shroud of the Avatar” on Kickstarter

#127

Post by samstave » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 8:36 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #28

I'm glad that "Meaningful PvP" was singled out. PvP is important to me and its one of the things that Ultima Online got right that vast swaths of MMOs since have floundered with (in my opinion). In parts of the world (Felucca[1]), UO was a rare RPG where anyone could kill anyone, for any reason, but with the repercussion that they would be branded a "Bad person" (visible with a gray or red name instead of blue). Stea…

UO PvP was the golden era of my gaming experience. I was Dread Lord Phlux on Napa Valley shard and was playing from beta through go-live for ~2 years.

I worked in the Intel Game Developers Lab at the time and we had ~6 accounts machines all right next to one another. We had 100 hide and also had Great Lord Phlux characters as well.

It was so much fun logging in as Great Lord Phlux and people just saw "...Lord Phlux" and would attack my good rep character and lose their rep!

So many great memories on UO.

I long for such an experience again, and since I have been playing the ultima series since Ultima II on the Apple IIe - I will always support this series...

Re: Lord British launches “Shroud of the Avatar” on Kickstarter

#128

Post by Yuioup » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 8:46 PM UTC

I was going to back then until I realised it's an MMO. Not since 1995 did I ever want anything to do with MMO's and I have no intention of playing them.

Please give me a meaningful single player experience.

Re: Lord British launches “Shroud of the Avatar” on Kickstarter

#129

Post by gavanwoolery » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 8:50 PM UTC

papsosouid wrote: post #100

gavanwoolery wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EA acquired Origin for $35,000,000. If I remember correctly, Garriott only walked with $20,000,000 -- before taxes. I think his lawsuit with NC Soft netted him $32 million -- before taxes as well. 52 million taxed is maybe 30 million out the door (very rough estimate here). His space trip cost 30 million alone, nevermind everything else in his life. I would estimate that Garriott probably has a few million dollars in…

And the millions of dollars he made owning origin while they produced hit games. >none of which he should have to risk on a venture that fans are willing to pay for. I am amazed at the amount of anti-entrepreneur sentiment here on HN of all places. How do people seriously suggest that an entrepreneur should not have to invest anything in their own venture?

I agree that a lot of people are "abusing" Kickstarter and just cashing in on nostalgia. But ultimately it is up to the consumer (or backer) to determine what they think is a farce and what is not. Garriott might be caching in on his legacy to some degree, but he has also clearly put hard work into this game, which many other veterans have not (they simply show concept art, or worse yet, nothing at all). If Garriott were just programming this himself in his basement, it might be a different matter, but he has team members that depend on him for salary/benefits, and he has already had to go through layoffs. It would seem kind of foolish to turn down "free" money in the name of being virtuous, and risking more layoffs.

Re: Lord British launches “Shroud of the Avatar” on Kickstarter

#130

Post by smrtinsert » Fri, Mar 08, 2013, 8:53 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #59

bobsy wrote: post #11

I am going to rant about graphics here. The graphics on this game look 8 years old. A game doesn't need to look fantastic to be good but surely a new game should have good graphics. I am not talking about realistic graphics. Simply esthetically pleasing graphics. The graphics in the video look like something from runescape... Looking elsewhere. Is this game not called 'Ultima Online' because Garriot doesn't own the r…

Imagine how poorly something like Minecraft would sell today. Minecraft was amazing when it was released with a 256 color palette in 1993, but nobody would go for that today. People want graphics, not great gameplay... No, they want great gameplay first, and great graphics second. That has always been true and will always be true.

Minecraft took an obvious stand against graphics, kind of like someone who purposefully doesn't comb their hair in the morning and it looks awesome. These graphics just look uninspired, like they never made the jump to modern lighting techniques or shaders. Even one man jobs have more interesting visuals. I agree, the graphics need to be updated.