http://store.steampowered.com/app/326160/

Just want to ask anyone who actually tried it out.

I remember this game when it was in Kickstarter. From what I know so far its suppose to be an MMORPG, but it is NOT a WOW Clone, They refer to this game as being closer to the old school Ultima Online days. More like a Sandbox than a Theme-Park MMORPG like most these days.

Just so you know it is practically a Pre Alpha but so far the Steam reviews is mostly positive and all the more hopeful the game will be alot better when it fully release.

I am curious if this game does release on GOG Galaxy.

I've actually tried it (backed it on kickstarter) and while I haven't played much, it's starting to shape quite nicely. There's a lot of neat ideas and I clearly hope that when it's done, it'll be a great joy to play.

I haven't played much for the pre-alpha because, well, it's a pre-alpha. Right now, there's not much of a narrative (the locations are not even complete) and they only now included the character developpement (and trainers). And having a game without a tutorial or at least a clue of that I'm supposed to go is kind of a turn off for me (one of the reason I have an hard time getting into the old Ultima, but at least I'm trying).

On the other hand, they make new builds every months and in each of them, they introduce new mechanics (the fighting mechanics were only introduced six months ago, I think), new locations and new objects (as well as re-balancing the old ones) so it's kinda like watching the game being build. Right now, only the multiplayer mode is on and most of the quests are dungeon crawling, but that's mainly because they need to test that part thouroughly. I'm sure I'll be playing a lot once the single-player part (which was promised and being worked on (the developpers updates confirm that) is available.

I do hope that it'll find it's way to GOG Galaxy, but that will depend if GOG decides to have early-access games. And I'm pretty sure that will turn off many GOGers, unfortunately.

I think it all depends on trust.

Early Aceess games are not bad per say. What is bad is releasing a early access game is such an unplayable and buggy mess that its not even worth, "Testing"

And we don't like it when a game is still in beta and has not released a complete version in years.

Mechwarrior Online (From what I know) is still in some form of Beta and many features are not avaliable yet but they keep on selling the game because of the DLC store. Why finish the game when we are already making money :P

That sort of early-access can be good, especially for small developpers (this is kinda how episodic games started in the late 90s.

A beta that's buggy (even to the point of being unplayable) isn't really a bad thing. The beta phase is when you take care of the bugs since the game is feature complete (alpha is for introducing the new features one by one). Hell, I think that Deep Shadows would've greatly needed early access (to give you an idea, it took Boiling Point: Road to Hell the 2.0 patch before enemies started walking around obstacles (among many things)). I don't mind a buggy beta because they're supposed to be buggy. I only mind when the gold version is as buggy as a beta.

I don't know about the Mechwarrior Online game, but it sounds more like an alpha than a beta (if they're advertising it as beta, it's false advertising) since they're adding new features. And are they adding them at a constant pace? Or have they stopped? At least Shroud of the Avatar is showing new stuff every months.

I had bought into this over a year ago and was playing the pre-alphas every month, but recently sold my account. It just wasn't turning into what I thought it would be when I first looked at the KS.

When they talked about a single player campaign and Richard G "returning to his roots" I thought we might finally be getting an Ultima 7 type experience wrapped in a modern engine...but alas this truly is going to be something of a "Ultima Online 2" with single player game-play being almost a side show.

So much emphasis, by both the devs and the backers, is being placed on player housing and customization, player cities, etc

It will probably be a great MMOG, just not what I wanted.

To be fair, it's still pre-alpha so they're concentrating on the gameplay mechanics. That's what the pre-alpha phase is about. Player housing was the first part, only two months ago are they concentrating on the fighting mechanics (and they added trainers this month).

In my opinion, it's still too early to get an opinion on how the single player experience, but I think they can pull it off.

So what's the latest update on this game?

About a month late but I might as well answer that last post: you can check up on the latest updates via the game's website. I can't link it, but it's just the game's title and a dot-com, no spaces or anything, and also you don't need the subtitle (just "shroudoftheavatar").

You can keep up with the game and all of its builds there, and participate in early access stuff if you pledge $45 or more (they're still accepting crowdfunding money through their own site and have a really long list of different in-game and some physical rewards for backing by a certain amount). Signing up on the site gets you e-mails with updates when they roll along, even if you don't pledge, so it's worth keeping an eye on.

It seems a heck of a lot more complex and involved than other MMOs, but my favorite feature is probably the choice between single player, friend-only, and open multiplayer. Nothing takes me out of an immersive experience quite like sixteen different players running aimlessly around a quest area so being able to experience the game solo or in private campaigns when I'm not in the mood for MMOing will be pretty neato in my book.