A plea for the single player experience.

I was pointing out that the work being done is mainly geared to NPC Bot's not companion's

 

How many RPGs with a budget less than $25 million have complex companion AI then?


If it was trivial, everyone would do it.

 

It is pure speculation on my part, but I think the beta might be extended and release pushed back a little.

 

im sure the devs all appreciate you being their #1 cheerleader. But, like I said before, all of my points still stand. Arguing semantics or saying they need more that four times the original requested amount helps no one.

 

What can I say.... "what they said"

Oh and enderandrew... that sig with DS is freaking me out.... it, looks just like me

~Time Lord~

 

Uh. I am pretty sure Ultima 3-7 were done for less than 25 million?

Straight from RG himself:

"G: It's far differnet. Ultima VII cost $1,000,000 to develop. When
you're spending that kinda money, it's a very serious business. Also,
my musical and artistic skills used to be adequate back then for the
marketplace. The audio-visual impact is a lot more important now.
It's why the Wing Commander games were instant runaway hits when they
were released."

http://web.archive.org/web/20110512211145/http://www.uo.com/archive/ftp/text/intrview/richgar.txt

Ultima 7 cost 1 million bucks.

For 4 million I would expect that we could maybe squeeze at least the same verve of companionship into this version.

 

I will not go into detail - I could write a novel(and i am!) - However, i shall say. For the first time .. i actually agree with everything Bubonic has posted in this thread. Except perhaps the map - I like the map - It makes me feel like i'm playing super mario bros 3.. oh wait right.. thats not an ultima! Agreed most on companions, i cared more about my companions then i did my own avatar!

I know it is still in conception, still much work to be done, and still so much more they want to get in that can not be worked on currently. But the direction some things are going --- I fear things are going to be less "single player" conceptual and more "run of the mill mmo". Ultima IS and always will be different from the others on the market. Please remember the roots... go back to them.

 

I agree entirely. It seems to me, like the HUGE hype that pvp got, has been part of a shift away from a single player game, and moving towards an MMO. To me is seems like single player is getting no attention at this point, and comments like Chris made (now don't quote me on this, as i am not watching the hangout) about how they don't plan on enabling offline until the end of development, really make you wonder if its really getting any focus, or is just something that will be dealt with as a last minute thing.


And not going to start quoting as a few people mentioned it, but by today's standards, a complex AI would be something along the lines of 'The Last of Us.' That has really detailed AI, and something that, though would be amazing to have in SotA, I know that it would not be possible. However, as an amateur programmer, even I have been able to code a basic AI system that is able to react to several different 'events.' So having the programming staff that they do, I don't think even a mid level AI would be unfair to expect from the companions in SotA offline. The fact that the game is just that, offline, there would be zero server overhead on the Port side, and it would even be realistic to expect higher end AI.

Just my 2¢

 

I'm still confused at the POV many of you are taking on this. It's like you think the single player storyline doesn't exist in the multiplayer world.

From where I'm sitting, the single player storyline sits at the heart of both single player offline and multiplayer. As such, it exists... period. It doesn't exist "more" in one game over the other. It just exists.

 

I'll just go ahead and quote myself here:

 

Yup. For instance, some things I enjoyed besides the stories in the Ultima series.

U5. Going around and exploring the world and adventuring; collecting crops for food and camping from night to night, and getting lost in the forest or at sea, looking for lighthouse beacons to help me find my way home. Finding secret passages behind fireplaces and discovering all sorts of hidden secrets in the world.

U7 & U8. In U7, the fact that the story was built on top of an interactive world, so, for instance, you would have to look through bags to find hidden keys or other items (sometimes inside dead fish) and you would have to stack crates to get to climb to the second stories of buildings. Also following NPCs around and watching them interact; for instance, they would go to pubs in the evening and talk to each other. In one instance, it was fun stalking Mayor Patterson around to see he had an affair. It freed the game from the linearity of most RPGs before that and since. In U8, climbing into buildings, or inside crevices in the wild, and looking for clues or hidden treasures.

 

I'm sorry, but your quote had nothing to do with what I said. Infact, now I'm not even sure what you believe I'm saying to think that it was a response. I'm not saying this in a rude way, but a genuine way.

Let's start again. You say that the story is only one part of the Ultima experience. Ok, great. My comment, on the other hand, is that the story sits at the centre of both the singleplayer and the multiplayer experience. Why did I make that comment? Because there are comments in this thread -- and they aren't actually from you, Bubonic -- that are saying the story in singleplayer is being messed around with because of a focus on the multiplayer game.

So what I'm saying is that if the story sits at the centre of both the multiplayer game and the singleplayer game, it's just important to both flavours of the game and I find it weird to see it written about as if it's two different things.

 

If SotA was done without a 3D engine with 2D sprites, that wouldn't be a problem. You can't compare the cost of 2D games from 12 years ago to today.

Brian Fargo, Chris Roberts and others have cited $25 million as the lowest price to make a AAA game today because the cost of produce quality 3D assets and engines is so high and requires such a high staff.

You won't find a recent game without a AAA budget that can pull off 3D graphics, a world of this size and complex companion AI.

 

It might be a little less. AFAIK, Chris' original plan for Star Citizen was 3-4 million from crowdfunding and up to about 10 million from angel investors and he was good to go.

 

True, but he also said that was the bare minimum to make any sort of game, but he didn't feel like it would be up to AAA standards until he raised $25 million.

Companions will still have lengthy dialogue. That is more akin to a single player game than an RPG.

The conversation system will see some love in the future.

Crime and punishment is the same on the single-player and multi-player side. There is no clear correlation that complex justice systems in games always happen in single player games, or that justice systems don't happen in MMOs. If anything, I've seen more justice systems in MMOs than single player games.

The overland map also has nothing to do with multi-player. It is an art style decision that I disagree with, but this repeated claim that it is only bad because they're focusing only on multi- player and spending no time on single-player simply isn't true. The new map took new development effort to replace the previous one.

I agree that I would like to see changes to all 4 of those. But none of these claims suppor the theory that single-player is compromise for multi-player.

Your argument simply doesn't make any logical sense.

 

you seem to keep changing wanting to change what people are saying. I'd appreciate you stop changing my intent. No one said complex companion behavior. it is laughable what you are suggesting that it requires so much more work btw.

One of the reasons they went with unity was to reduce cost and ramp up time. Instead of building an engine they could focus more on other systems and content.

behavior trees or even old school style of just fat switch cases has squat to do with graphics.

 

I haven't changed anything. I clarified at the beginning of the thread that the devs had said that companions can have tons of dialogue, but complex behavior may not happen because they may not have the develop bandwidth for it.

You said that the technology for that is 20 years old and it is trivial to add, and SotA is millions above their original goal, so they should have the money to add it.

SotA is millions above their initially requested crowd-funding goal, but their initial budget was $5 - $7 million. There is a reason RG was demoing the tech engine at places like South by Southwest. Their budget also called for outside investment, and I don't think the outside investment has happened.

I'm a Senior Software Engineer by trade. I know what it costs to hire and maintain good developers. I know how much work it is to develop complex systems. And I paid attention to as much of the behind the scenes details as possible. For example, when I first heard the pitch and they were asking for $1 million, I sincerely wondered if the Kickstarter was really only to get media attention. I knew that a game of this scope would be impossible for only $1 million. Either had had the personal funds for the whole project, he already had outside investors, or the intent was to use the success of the crowd funding campaign to attract more investors. Right it now it seems like option C was the case.

I'm more passionate about this project than any other crowd funded project I've ever seen. The Ultima series was a hallmark of my childhood. I want this to be everything I dreamed a new Ultima could be. But I'm also very pragmatic about what a budget can or can't buy you.

Had this blown up a bit more in the initial Kickstarter (like Wasteland 2, Torment, Project Eternity, Star Citizen, etc) and they had $4 million from the Kickstarter alone, then I think we'd be in a very different position today.

The Kickstarter launched amid some other serious competition and split its audience with projects like Torment. Many fans of crowd sourcing seemed burned out on the concept at the moment. And we were seeing projects like Broken Age struggle to deliver.


The reality is that SotA has to deliver the best game they can with their budget, and they can't ship too late because there isn't unlimited funding. They need to get something out the door to attract new sales and start funding the next episode. I still think SotA has the potential to be amazing over the course of its life, but I don't believe it will be everything I had hoped it might be when Episode 1 initially ships.

 

That is all correct. It is trivial to add technology invented 20 years ago to provide the same level of interaction we are asking for.

It is also within reason to expect it given the hard sell on this being an Ultima adventure in the spirit of said universe.

And since you want to compare E-peens, I am the Supervisor of Senior and Junior Engineers doing R&D and pipeline development for the entire CG arm of Nickelodeon. So, yeah, I kind of know what it takes as well.

 

Ad-hominem attacks serve no purpose.

I've asked two questions and didn't get a response for either.

How are the complaints listed here related to single-player versus multi-player?

If this is so trivial to add, then how come no one is doing it except AAA titles?

 

The only question you asked in the last four posts (excluding your above two questions) implied that cost was a limiting factor to what we are asking for. I answered with a link and a direct quote from Richard Garriott on how Ultima 7's "super complex AI" was a part of the total 1 million dollar budget it had.

As for the last two, actual questions, Bubonic was quite clear in the OP that he was, and is ONLY talking about how various parts of the SP hard sell from the KS are now apparently overshadowed by the MP aspects of the design.

It is trivial to add, and I will say it a third time, because the person who did it in the first place, alone, solo, is the one designing this game. He knows how it worked, and what it entails. Given the team is literally 7x+ the size of the game we are basing our thoughts on, it would be trivial to do it here.

What you are seemingly wanting to do is convert what we want: A spiritual successor to Ultima 3->7's companion interactions into some new AAA permuation. That is 100% why AAA game DONT do it. Because that is just ludicrous.

For the fourth time, I am pretty sure I am talking for the people who want to see it make it into the design, NO ONE IS ASKING FOR THAT.

We are looking for the original flavor, or whatever is akin to that, in the SP version of this game. Not super fancy chat bots, or auto-worker bees. This is not a Turing test game.