Anyone trying this game out? Its made by Richard Garriott.

Demoyn wrote on Nov 4^th, 2017 at 9:10pm:

So it's like DDO, then?

Technomage wrote on Nov 4^th, 2017 at 9:53pm:


I worded it that way intentionally, yes.  There are significant differences and they don't feel similar at all, but when you break it down they're both extremely grindy games that make you feel like you're playing against yourself.  DDO is a bit lighter and SotA has nice scenery / player housing, but otherwise if you like one you'll probably like the other (at least for a little while).

noamineo wrote on Nov 6^th, 2017 at 1:25pm:


I started playing back when they had the special accounts before the land rush happened.  It was definitely worth it at the time.

noamineo wrote on Nov 7^th, 2017 at 7:31pm:


While that's technically a possibility, I really doubt that will ever happen in this game.  There are entire towns owned by players and most of those towns reserve spaces for guild members.  If there were a new guild member who needed space certainly the mayor of a guild town would, at the very least, boot someone that hasn't logged in for months and give you their space.

When someone gets booted their house and all the stuff inside of it just gets put in their bank, so houses and basements should never be permanently lost.  If the player that was booted logs in again a few weeks later it's a simple process to just find them a space and let them put their house down again.  You can even buy houses specifically for player owned towns and those houses are cheaper than the place anywhere houses.  On top of that, depending on the level of account you have, you only have a certain number of months that you're allowed to keep your property without logging in.  I'm a Knight Marshall, for instance, so I can go four months without logging in without forfeiting my land spot.

In fact, one of my guild leaders has three player owned towns of his own and another has (I believe) eight player owned towns.  Even our main guild town still has spaces left.  It will be very rare to get an amazing vendor spot at this stage in the game without spending money, but getting a spot to put a storage spot shouldn't ever be a major issue. 

There are even workarounds for the vendor spots issue.  If you are a guild mate of mine I can set my vendor to allow anyone in my guild to use it and then you'd be allowed to place your items on the vendor at my good vendor location.  It's even completely safe because if I were to take your stuff off my vendor for any reason they'd go straight into your bank.  I never actually have access to your items to take them.

WonderfulFoppyBint wrote on Nov 7^th, 2017 at 8:49pm:


Weeeeeellllllll... yes, there is.  The problem is that one of their methods of making money for the game is to sell workarounds for things like this for real money.  Almost everyone who purchased accounts before or shortly after the game launched has housing that doesn't require taxes, and even to this day you can purchase houses straight from their store to avoid paying taxes.  Some of the REALLY expensive accounts even came with a rod that reduces taxes on one house per month by half.

I'd estimate that a third of the housing in the game requires weekly taxes (though you can pay a month in advance, I believe).  Even the houses that don't require taxes will vacate their lot if you don't log in for a while, though.

SotA has trial periods where you can get a free account for two weeks quite often.  If you want to look into that I'd be happy to schedule some time to get you in my guild's Teamspeak and show you around the game for a few hours.  I believe I mentioned earlier that I don't play it very often right now (I spend most of my free time in DDO), but I still completely plan to go back to that game again one day when it gets more content and becomes fleshed out a little better (think DDO back when we only had 10 levels).

Thanks for the insight, Dem!

I have a lot of faith in Garriott to design a game that's fair and has mechanics which encourage players, so that's all very fullfilling to hear.

For myself, I'd almost rather hide in the hills and be a hermit than worry about life in a town, but that's just me I might hit you up for guild membership though when I really get into the game. I, too, am waiting for it to kind of get on its feet before I put in any serious time.

Of course, I might still transition over sooner as I am getting really sick of DDO's bullshit. Here's hoping Shroud gets a comparable reincarnation system