I thought long and hard about posting this to my personal blog, or here on my gaming blog. This post has been drafted in both, but I decided to put it here for the latest "ripple" hit a bit closer to my gaming passion.
As a Gamer, I delve into many worlds; namely Sosaria (of Ultima Online) and New Britannia (of Shroud of the Avatar). Most of my attention and community activities are split between these two games. However, these worlds are not alone in my personal multi-verse. I sense and feel ripples coming from other areas; Blizzard's snafu over its core values, WoW's Vanilla Release, and Terraforming Mars is Free. But a bit of news from a "smaller" title has sent more intimate ripples than the rest. Portalarium no longer owns Shroud of the Avatar.
Of course, the SotA forums (and others around the web) are overflowing with calls of doom and gloom. All sorts of speculation about this action, who the new owner (Catnip Games) is, what about backers who are still owed, and the seed investors for Portalarium were never told! The cries and whines and trolls are wide and varied (just go peek at one of the /r threads). I did a bit of research via the Texas State's Comptroller of Public Accounts site and saw some interesting bits of information. Overall I think this is a good thing for everyone if it is done well.
New Money
From a business perspective, getting rid of a tarnished name (as Portalarium has turned out to be) and having "new" leadership is a way to pique the interest of larger investors. SotA's devout following of fanatical players will tolerate a whole lot of stuff, so operating costs are most like solid. The game, although still buggy in ways, is polished to the point of needing a larger investment than what its community can provide. Granted, there are some players with very deep pockets, but that kind off skirts on some ethical issues for the amount of capital needed to generate serious growth and develop depth and architecture. Still a resource hog (I cannot play the game on my current setup), with an injection of major funds there could be some deep-level code cleanup to take care of memory leaks and overheating of client machines. Even my jazzed-up Alienware rig would scream after a few minutes of running in the Overworld Map.Investors will look at the client and player issues and want to know the plans for fixing them. Investors will also want to know just how far Catnip Games plans to take the game (realistically) in various time frames; quarterly, semi-annually, and long term. What's the plan, man? Crowdfunders don't need to know, but the portfolio holders will definitely want some sort of report and business plan. New and existing partnerships will also want certain projections before committing their own resources (such as anti-cheat programmers, software delivery partners, and e-commerce developers).
The new owner, Chris Spears, has been with the game since inception. He knows it intimately, and will most likely ensure that SotA continues into perpetuity. What would be interesting is if his announcement over having more flexibility to get money specifically for customer support and marketing pans out. What are the sources for that money, and will those sources still allow for the autonomous direction SotA has enjoyed since inception? Insofar as marketing, outside of the larger publishers (EA, Blizzard, Bethesda, etc.), there is no real marketing for indie games of this particular genre (we wail for good marketing over in the UO camp - and EA is the publisher). Any marketing is all word-of-mouth which in the gaming world is a double-edged sword. Chris' team will have to overcome the negatives and turn the buzz around while fulfilling promises - most of which are already broken by Portalarium.
Disillusioned Hopefulness
It is not easy, me being one of those early supporters and Kickstarter contributors, to sit in the virtual shadows while lurking over boards and forums wondering if the world promised will ever be delivered. Being the "spiritual successor to the Ultima franchise" is a rather large obligation. Many factors, including the groundbreaking newness of Ultima Online, will never be repeated. Some aspects can be though, and Shroud was coming close to it for a while. Namely two aspects of UO which SotA shares are what makes me still hope: open sandbox world and housing.Not being forced into a certain game style is probably what keeps me in UO and is what I found so likable in SotA. Exploring the land, learning the areas, making friends, maybe taking up a quest or task - all at my own discretion. Most other games are grind-fests (early leveling in WoW, Aria, and Tibia) or total guided affairs (RO, RO2, and ESO) which are tedious and boring. There is no way to advance in these games without leveling and following the planned quest lines. It gets very dull quickly. SotA and UO both offer that open-world-play that I love. Minecraft also offers this, but I have only tinkered with that Xbox title a few times. Its a bit blocky for my taste. Other titles offer the sandbox, but they are over my laptop's capability right now.
The other is housing - a place to call home within the world - which is the best part of any game. Ultima Online is still the king of housing, with its ease in customizing, storage, and decorating (I just remodeled one of my castles! Look for another post on that later!). SotA is a distant second, with static plots being its biggest downfall. I understand the need for static plots, it is just a serious disappointment when compared to UO's open-world housing. SotA's decorating has improved since the earliest days, but it still isn't as flexible as UO's. Systems in place that I first saw on several "free-UO-shards" like taxation and rentals I do like in Shroud; I even contributed a bit to the talks during development. Outside of these titles, there just isn't any other game out there with decent housing systems. Which is why I still have hope for SotA, despite its shortcomings and rocky history.
To note, as an original backer (or Royal Founder), I still haven't received the physical rewards due to me (as of this posting - I will update when I do get them, if ever). Communications with Chris over the past several months have brought to light that my package was part of the original shipment - from France - right around the time I left Hawaii. With international shipping halfway around the world then forwarding back over oceans and continents - I am not surprised that it is lost in the Postal-Void somewhere. It is probably sitting in some warehouse as undeliverable. As I never got a tracking number or even notice about the shipment, there is no way to trace or find the box. I was told another box would be on its way to where I am - sans the printed book. That printed book co-authored by Tracy Hickman (of Dragonlance fame!) and Richard Garriot, will never happen, but in-game rewards are being made to compensate. I really wanted another Hickman book for my personal library - so I am a little disappointed. Of course, Chris' new company is not legally responsible for the Portalarium promises, but this one event bodes ill for his new/not-new venture.
Future Past
What will be interesting to watch is how Chris and his Catnip Games will direct SotA in the short and near future. Granted, there is not much he can do right now but appease the current customer base and make it through the holidays. Maybe toss out some quickly mashed together gifts to the players and settle the business side of taking over the title. It will be in January or February (first quarter 2020) that real news will come out. Planning for Episode 2, a new round of fundraising (hopefully not relying too much upon disenchanted customers) and finding ways to deepen the game for longevity could be priorities. Atop that, seeking new revenue in an ever crowding market space will be a heavy burden for whatever marketing team he gets together.Of course, it could all be a rehash of other Garriot-Failings. All the world won't be able to save SotA without a huge benefactor (and the sacrifice of autonomy), so staying independent is going to be a real challenge for the title. I'm no business analyst, but I do watch industries and can forecast massive changes - as I did for my career in the late '90s. Entertainment is shifting and morphing as societies and cultures clash, which just might combine these ripples in my gaming-verses into multiple tsunamis of virtual chaos.
The issue isn't so much which games do I want to throw my money at, but more like which producers are ethically and morally able to compete for my hard(ly) earned dollars? Game-space is experiencing a new level of growing pains as the world continues to shrink bringing politics, wars, scandals, and worse into our online relaxation time. Policy vs. privacy vs. free speech vs. equality is killing in-game immersion. The real-world doesn't end when we log into our virtual ones anymore, so anything done with any game will need to be able to not only distract but enrich a Player for full satisfaction. The game that can do that will have no issue with generating necessary funds.
Sidenote:
I know other games offer up housing, SIMs online and Second Life are two that come to mind. However, they are a bit out of my genre. To be honest, I still believe a combination of UO's housing and a sandbox with Diablo III graphics and fighting would result in the perfect game for me. I still wish for a real UO2; perhaps java-based with 3D graphics a la Java 3D?Maybe I should create my own game...
.... again.
Update:
On March 23, 2020, amid the COVID-19 panic and craziness, a box was delivered to my doorstep. I finally received the physical rewards from the March 2013 Kickstarter campaign. The ankh is a nice touch. |
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