Guys, I understand your misgivings. Plenty of people who are simply just following the updates or reading the public boards have many misgivings. What Portalarium is doing is groundbreaking... most game studios would _never_ EVER release information at this stage of development except to only the chosen few who are testing. Believe me, in the world of game development - what RG & his team are doing is a complete 180 from the norm.
And that is why there are a whole lot of Negative Nancys out there.
First, the game (so far) has proved to be a mix of instance/stand-alone/MMO.
I run into town in MMO mode and I see people all over the place. We chat, make arrangements to go into a dungeon, fight baddies, die, laugh, return to the town and drink in the tavern with yet more people.
Now, we might not see _everyone_ who is logged into the game at that specific moment standing at the same coordinate as we are, but there are ways to join other instances via party mode. We've tested this out quite a lot, bringing people to various parties. Right now (during Pre-Alpha stages) I believe the instances are limited to about 60 players or so. That's cool... for pre-alpha! I play other games and I constantly compare the instancing to the Ragnarok Online 2 game (RO2). There, players are in channels. They can jump between channels to interact with other players, and do so for the most part to sell/buy. I believe the same thing will be done in SotA. Is it a huge mess of pixels like UO? No.. and it has been plainly stated time and time again it won't be that way. Perhaps for special events there might be adjustments to the servers, but otherwise, it was clearly stated from the get go that there are limitations to the MMO aspect. Right now it is scaled down a bit, but when the game is released I'm sure instances will be a bit broader than they are now.
The hex map is very old-skool D&D & on a personal level I'm still mixed about it. Random instances haven't been worked into the mix yet, but I believe they will be. So traveling across the hex-map won't be all that boring. Entering a Player-Town (hex) will be determined by the person (or group) who owns that hex. Granted, this will kinda kill the random, out-of-the-blue siege wars I've witnessed in UO Player Towns (PaxLair for example), but of course it really depends on the participants. I also believe (sometime in the future) that random sieges will be incurred on Player Towns by the system. After all, I'm sure the undead will be restless from time to time.
PvP gaming is still being debated in the Dev+ forums... but I see a light at the end of the tunnel. Not sure how it will all turn out - but there are literally thousands of posts regarding PvP in this game. Thieving? Not sure how that will be either. I will say there is already a super-secret-assassin guild out there. *secretly hopes they don't find out I said that*
If you do not want to donate, that is your prerogative. I will say the game is not totally instanced as is done with dungeons in WoW (I've had random players run around in dungeons I've entered) nor is it completely Sandboxed - but it is more sandbox than a whole slew of games out there.
And having the ability to play in Solo Mode is really nice. There are time, you have to admit, that you just don't want to deal with anyone. And with crafting.. that is even more the case.
When RG announced SotA, he made it _very_ clear that this is a "spiritual successor" to Ultima, _not_ another Ultima Online. I've played the Ultima series (actually just found another Ultima game in boxes from storage! WOW!) and yes, from what I've seen of the _systems_ in place, this game very much has the same feel as the Ultima series did. It has that magick meets science flair that several of the latter Ultima games had. People chose to believe what they wanted, and after several announcements and Google Hangouts and thread posts, yes - some people got upset, the majority did not. SotA is not a game for everyone - my sons utterly despise it (so they went back to Halo) - but for many this is a game they believe they will like, especially those that have played the old-school RPGs like Ultima, Curse of Ra, and others.
There's been no story arc released in the game for it is not a "game" yet - it is "a game in the making" and that is what I think a lot of people do not understand. I see it constantly in the statements people make.
I've given a lot of my hard earned money to Portalarium because I believe in what they are doing. I've played a few of their other titles, and I see those systems in play with SotA. I'm not an evangelist, there are things I don't really agree with. Until the official release... well, all I can do is contribute my opinion, request for features, and participate in the discussions the helps drive the development while testing during the Pre-Alpha releases and posting my results. I will say that SotA is one of the most publicly developed games in the market right now and it is far from being a polished game. I'm sure there are people who will scream foul or cry loudly over the path of development, but why waste that energy when there isn't even a beta date?! I donated because of the people involved with the project: RG, Starr Long, and especially Tracy Hickmann. I donated because I am excited to see a hybrid game being developed. I donated because I wanted an inside look at the conversations in the Dev+ side. I continue to contribute because what I see here jives most with what I want in a game.
If I lose my money - well, yes, it will hurt. However I believe my investment will pay off greatly if it succeeds which will far outweigh any disappointment should it fail. It is more for the enjoyment of the game, not the rewards of pixels I get. Is like reading a really good book only finding out I have to buy the entire series to get fulfillment - and even then the story doesn't end. Is my $500+ worth that?
You should see my personal library....