So...what's up with SotA?

 Yeah, what's up? Haven't heard anything about it for a while. Not like it's popular outside of their little sect of SJW bodypositive fanboys.

Stumbled upon a thread on reddit. It is 10 months old, yet captures the situation in detail - for those of you who want a quick tl;dr on why SotA is shit. Enjoy the read. Meanwhile I'll try to find more detailed reviews.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/3z17iu/discussion_what_are_you_opinions_about_shroud_of/


Here are some more quotes from around the /r/shroudoftheavatar subreddit.

The community is loving but also crazy. They champion things that benefit them but are really bad for a sandbox game.
The game was a mess ever since they tried to cater to PvE, PvP, offline, Singleplayer and MMO players/aspects all at the same time. Just a colossus conflict of interest that is impossible to balance.

Well said. I was one of the early backers who poured almost a thousand dollars into plots for me and my wife. I was drawn in by the Ultima legacy and dreams that were never realistic, and I just drank the kool-aid.
And then, when there was a game available to play, I was deliriously excited and logged in and got going. But I kept wondering when it would become fun. It was lifeless, pointless, klunky, with incessant zoning and the longest load times I'd ever experienced. I kept rationalizing that "it's alpha", "it's beta". The card combat system was unbelievably stupid, taking something that already annoys everyone, RNG, and making combat dependent upon it. What a collosally dumb move. When I spoke up in the forums, I was shouted down by the true believers and whales who were ecstatic about their expensive player towns and their RP events. Dancing on tables and singing songs was ... interesting, but in the end there was no fun to be found.
I was a lucky one. I saw the trainwreck coming early and sold off both our accounts and lots and actually got my money back. This, of course, is possible because the game actually tolerates Real Money Trading.
What a disaster, what a waste. At least I got out undamaged.

Gaming for me is a social thing more than a hobby. Especially the excitement of being in early and helping to build something.. The same as Star Citizen, or Crowfall.
I have invited friends to those games and they have joined.. with Sota they recoiled in horror - And nothing I have described is because the game is "unfinished"... Pay to win cash shop trash, for example, is not a temporary development issue - it is a sign that things are very very wrong with the payment model. Is that likely to change?

they can't even figure out what they want their targeting system to be, much less make a fun and balanced pve/pvp experience. Was supposed to be in beta 2+ years ago, but is still in pre-alpha (with a persistent world.) There is just so much wrong.
I re-installed when i caught wind of the patch notes saying they added a bunch of skills and did a bunch of work on balancing combat. Come to find out the skills they added were mostly meaningless passive or stat buffs, and terrible heals in spell trees that made no sense, along side one lackluster riposte ability.
Subsequently I uninstalled. I'll give it one more go after "final" release, just to know for sure, but as a long time fan of Ultima Online and the cut-throat, cold world, I don't think this game will ever quench the thirst for "UO 2."
SoTA is a disappointment.