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Anime Legends of Aria - spiritual successor to Ultima Online by Citadel Studios

Revenant

Guest
Formerly known as Shards Online, Legends of Aria is a sandbox MMO currently in alpha stage of development. From the official website:

Legends of Aria is breaking away from the modern MMO conventions of levels, classes and quest grinds.

Instead, we are returning to living virtual worlds where stories emerge naturally as players explore the worlds laid out before them. The game will launch with a complete game containing several official rule-sets. Our current plans include one with a well-balanced set of gameplay, a hardcore PvP battle-royale, and even one featuring permanent character death: the ultimate game of risk versus reward.

We are initially targeting the PC platform, and plans for a Mac and Linux launch are in the works. When you purchase the game, you will be able to play on official or player run servers and run a single ‘shard’ with no additional cost or subscription fees. Players will be able to form massive servers by connecting their self-hosted worlds together using a ‘cluster server’ hosted by Citadel Studios. These servers, when marked public, are listed in-game for all players to see and join.

Legends of Aria is the first game that legitimately allows you to run and moderate your own game worlds with the potential to support thousands of users at one time. Customize every aspect of your servers’ gameplay experience from character development, to combat, to items and equipment, to monsters and AI. You can even add completely custom game worlds!



The game gives strong Ultima vibes, from the UO skill system to similar inventory management...
 

luj1

You're all shills
Vatnik
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How are they "breaking away from modern conventions"?

I see a typical, cancerous MMO interface. The artstyle is infantile (which I am not always against), generic and absolutely indistinctive. Game also features virtual real estate (?).

Not impressed at all. With all concurrent MMOs out there none will play this.
 

thesheeep

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Does give off some UO vibes, yeah.
But... can you use some awesome keyboard contraption to keep a button pressed to hit a training dummy overnight to increase your ass-kicking skills?
 

Aildrik

Savant
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Sep 10, 2014
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Anyone still playing this? Played with a friend in the beta. Hung out and raised combat skills in the first dungeon. Seems there is still some work to be done as many dropped crafting components and monster parts have no use.
 

Aildrik

Savant
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
159
Just built a new system so I will probably reinstall tonight and give it a try. A friend of mine already placed a small house.
 

Jokzore

Arbiter
Joined
Mar 18, 2017
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I can't help but notice that none of these ''spiritual successors'' actually succeed anything ... or at anything for that matter.
 

Aildrik

Savant
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Sep 10, 2014
Messages
159
I would be very surprised to see a game like UO or classic Everquest released in today's market just because there are so many barriers to the casual player. UO had lawless PKing which really made for exciting moments you don't find in mainstream games nowadays. Everquest had corpse runs; harsh death penalties with XP loss, etc. Hard to be a spiritual successor if you can't capture that visceral, 'throw your keyboard across the room because you lost all your shit' gameplay.
 

thesheeep

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I would be very surprised to see a game like UO or classic Everquest released in today's market just because there are so many barriers to the casual player. UO had lawless PKing which really made for exciting moments you don't find in mainstream games nowadays. Everquest had corpse runs; harsh death penalties with XP loss, etc. Hard to be a spiritual successor if you can't capture that visceral, 'throw your keyboard across the room because you lost all your shit' gameplay.
I remember always losing my shit when I lost my shit...
 

ADL

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I would be very surprised to see a game like UO or classic Everquest released in today's market just because there are so many barriers to the casual player. UO had lawless PKing which really made for exciting moments you don't find in mainstream games nowadays. Everquest had corpse runs; harsh death penalties with XP loss, etc. Hard to be a spiritual successor if you can't capture that visceral, 'throw your keyboard across the room because you lost all your shit' gameplay.
I think the casual MMO community is more open to it than most other genres because RuneScape. If the upcoming generation that is now putting loads of time into MMOs, they either started with something like World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2 or RuneScape and one of those started as a UO knockoff for people too broke or too young to justify to their parents a UO subscription.
 

Aildrik

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Sep 10, 2014
Messages
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There was a recent update and server wipe. Lot of improvements, although I am still trying to wrap my head around spellcasting. I went with a mage build and started with 3 spells; a heal, fireball and another damage spell. Fireball fizzles like mad. I also have archery and it wrecks mobs compared to trying to kill shit with spells :( I can only hope that magic is one of those skills you need to just put a lot of work into but it pays dividends later.
 

Roqua

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YES!
I think the mechanics and rpg systems of this game are above par for mmorpgs and pretty good, but the controls and UI currently are really bad. They listed them as being critical items to fix before steam EA. What will hurt it for me is, so far, there is no real content. No quests, no direction, just crafting and grinding. But, unlike most crafting focused games, I could skip it in this game and just sell and profit. But then that just leaves grinding.

I'll still play it - I just tend to get bored quickly when the two things to do is craft and grind. Not as quickly as I do with atrocities like Albion Online where there isn't even any chardev as a carrot on a stick, or the forced, crafting focus games they call survival games. But I really don't understand the unreasonable hate people have for real content in games that tilt towards pvp.
 

Revenant

Guest
I don't think it was ever alive to begin with. Game presented itself as a carbon copy of UO, but as beta went live people commented on the game being grossly unfinished and lacking content. It will probably be lost in the graveyard of all these kickstarter MMOs.
 

grimace

Arcane
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Jan 17, 2015
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This was called Shards Online on Kickstarter?

I get this confused with Albion Online.
 

Aildrik

Savant
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Sep 10, 2014
Messages
159
Looking like release is December 4th. I am torn on this game. I enjoyed UO back in the day, but I also just don't have the patience in me anymore to raise my strength chopping down trees all day.
 

Aildrik

Savant
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
159
So wanted to share my experience playing the early access over the weekend, from the perspective of crafting (mining, blacksmithing).

First off, there have been some decent quality of life improvements in the game since the beta. There is a menu now which gives quick access to your pack, game settings, etc. The graphics have been polished up a bit as well. If you've played an MMO in the past and also played UO, you can pretty much jump right into the game.

So diving into the game itself, I started off in the city of Helm. I started off with the 'warrior' template which granted 30 pts in a few combat skills. Beyond those starting skills, you can talk to various NPCs to give you 30 pts towards a skill which is what I did for blacksmithing and mining. I suspect some people will be meticulous about having dedicated crafting mules and whatnot but I went with the self sufficient model of a melee who can craft his own armor and weapons.
Close to the starting area is a large mine where you can mine ore and begin skilling up. As was the case in UO, mining is raised by... mining! Smelting will actually raise your blacksmithing skill as well as crafting weapons and armor. There are two metals you will be mining in the starter areas; iron and copper.

Obtaining recipes is done by completing work orders (or purchased/given by other players). You talk to an NPC in the smithing area and he will give you a scroll such as "10 iron longswords". You bang out 10 iron longswords, click on the work order and then click on 10 swords in your inventory and it becomes a completed order. You then turn in the order for a random recipe, some cash and usually some metal ingots. Completing work orders gives you a nice income early on, and as you complete work orders for the more rare metals such as copper and gold, you get more cash for completing said orders. A friend of mine is going the lumberjacking/woodworking route and it works similarly for him in regards to work orders and obtaining recipes.

Past iron and copper, you have rarer metals such as gold, cobalt and obsidian. These are apparently obtained outside of the 'safe' starter areas (PKs can get you).

I will add some more info and screenshots later. I will say, if you enjoyed UO and are interested in an MMO that isn't mass market the way WoW is, I think this game has promise. It has a definite UO feel to it and I think billing itself as a spiritual successor is an accurate statement and not just marking schtick.
 

Thane Solus

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i played a bit, but its very rough on just about everything, needs more work 6-12 months.
 

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