Post by Morreion on Sept 9, 2016 9:02:55 GMT -5
Shroud of the Avatar is a game in development- it hasn't 'released' yet, but you can play it on Steam. Oh brave new world of long-term beta playing.
Created by UO's Richard Garriott and Starr Long, Shroud intends to be a sandbox game with more than a few features from that MMO legend of the 90s, Ultima Online.
I crowdfunded Shroud, buying a package that would give me a tax-free town lot and house. Player housing is a big part of the game (as it was in UO).
How's the game now?
You can tell it's still beta. Things are unfinished.
But there is enough of a game to make it interesting if UO-type sandboxes are your thing.
To start with, you can play in 4 modes- single-player offline, single-player online, friends online, and multiplayer online. The last mode makes it MMOish.
There are many emotes in game- some of which you learn from NPCs and even other players- and you can sit in chairs and lay on beds. Community, and RP is encouraged in this 'old school' approach.
Your player inventory is based on weight, not number of items- if you carry too much weight, you will slow down and lose dexterity. Fortunately you can train up your strength to carry more!
There are many villages, towns and cities in the land of Novia. To move between them, you travel on an overland map, sort of a map that a small figure of you travels on. There are many 'zones' (moderate-sized instances) where you can adventure. Also, at random times when traveling, you can have an Encounter, which places you in an instance where something of interest is (mobs, resources, special vendors). Sometimes you can take the mobs, other times you have to run from them!
Combat, general abilities and crafting are all skill-based (no levels). The more you do something, the better you are at it- as long as you have an experience point pool (gained from tasks NPCs give you) to allow skill-ups. There are no classes, either. You can be what you want to be. You can purchase special abilities to put on your hotbar when you have enough skill in the basic category to be able to use them.
Dialog with NPCs is prominent. You can pick up tasks from some NPCs by speaking to them. There are no exclamation points or question marks over their heads- old school. You gotta talk.
Crafting is fairly in-depth. Shroud is aiming for a player-run economy, so crafting is a prominent part of the game.
Harvesting is also a big part of the game- need those raw materials to drive a player economy!
There are thousands of players who have houses in the game, many with their own vendors selling items (there is no auction house, but each town has a public vendor that you can consign goods to if you don't have your own vendor). Houses range from town row houses to castles, a great variety. Decoration is a big thing of course. There are even player-run towns that foster community.
Speaking of community, there are a lot of old UO players around, and the maturity level is higher than normal. Check out the game forums to see.
Overall, the game is moving in a good direction if you like old-school sandboxes, though it is not a full-fledged experience yet. Lots of things are unfinished or not put in yet. If that bothers you, wait until it 'releases'.
