rgart wrote:

I have come to the conclusion a substantial portion of the SotA crowd are serious die hard Richard Garriott fans.... […]
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I have come to the conclusion a substantial portion of the SotA crowd are serious die hard Richard Garriott fans....

My wife recently allowed me to increase my pledge 😀

Minor Updates for those who are interested:

Here we have the largest home for the aristocrats out there:
It only costs a cool $11,000 US Dollars (yes....eleven thousand)
A lot too rich for me, but there are craz.....err people out there who have pledged this much.

Lord of the Manor Home: (this package means you get to meet Richard too)

You'd have to be a pretty serious gamer to accumulate enough virtual junk to fill that thing. I'm having enough trouble filling the two houses in Whiterun and Riften in Skyrim that I have bought so far. The game would probably go offline before I accumulated enough stuff to show off in a house that size.

Is this thing going to be an online/hosted game? If so... no thanks.

I don't like the first person view... I much prefer UO style. Does anyone know if RunUO ever caught up all the way with KR?

sliderider wrote:

You'd have to be a pretty serious gamer to accumulate enough virtual junk to fill that thing. I'm having enough trouble filling the two houses in Whiterun and Riften in Skyrim that I have bought so far. The game would probably go offline before I accumulated enough stuff to show off in a house that size.

I think your right - Its a huge house and basements can be 5 levels deep.
My house in Skyrim took forever to load. Too many things I wanted to horde.

megatron-uk wrote:

Is this thing going to be an online/hosted game? If so... no thanks.

It will have 3 options: single player, multi-player and online play and there is no monthly charge.

mockingbird wrote:

I don't like the first person view... I much prefer UO style. Does anyone know if RunUO ever caught up all the way with KR?

I haven't used RunUO for so long I'm unsure if it ever caught up to Kingdom Reborn - A quick google and it looks like it has...
I could never get used to the enhanced client in UO. It looked terrible! Even the paperdoll..(something dev's probably should get right) looked like a complete fail to me.

I have recently been Pre Alpha testing Release 1.
Combat has still not been implemented yet so It was not as fun for me as maybe some other people.
Unity looks like a pretty amazing Engine!

The textures and shadows need much improvement and so does the general plastic look of the characters but It was great to be in an Ultima related world again 😀
I am really unimpressed with some of the cartoon graphics and I hope to god they push some more realism.

Some great things I noticed:

+Amazing sunlight
+Accurate sun and moon cycles
+Great Night Sky
+Old School Ultima Inventories
+Old School Ultima NPC conversations
+Excellent items (realistically shaped and forged black smithed items)
+Excellent wind effects
+Reasonable character psychics
+Excellent skies
+Animals+Livestocks+Enviromentals(flocks of birds) etc.
+Reasonable animations
+Excellent housing system and houses
+Lighting is simply Amazing...

Here I am playing at 2560x1440 with AA and everything else set to MAX
I pretty much constantly get 58-60fps but it does occasionally drop to 33 or so

Here are some screenshots.

Sunrise in Owl's Head

Sunrise in Owl's Head

I like Windmills

Fireplace and Plastic Character

Water

Falling through the ground - Bugz 😀

It looks nice. Can every backer download it? I have registered but not tried yet.

I think every backer but only possible up to today. I don't have time, so I'm going to wait for the next public alpha

If you want to be part of the Alpha and Beta tests you have to pledge $45.
Then you get DEV access on the forums and can push your great ideas for the game 😀

No monthly fee / No subscription fee.
Anyone who backs the game can download.

Not sure if these large screenshots will look right on your screen.. They appear fine in my Mozilla Firefox.

Playing at a very healthy resolution of 8080x1440 on my new computer with bezel correction turned on.

AA set to 8 and all settings on high.

A very playable 28-38 FPS at this stage with very little optimization.

If you can read Britannian Runic you will notice in the 1st Screenshot at least 3 "For Sale" signs. They are homes and land plots around Owl's Head and there exists approximately 66 plots in this town.