Release 55 telethon Part 2

Not even a month ago DarkStarr put out a post "Company Status"(which is locked now), that says:
"Right now we will shift our focus from creating new content to polishing our existing systems. This means making a stronger new user experience, fixing bugs, reworking the quest system, performance improvements, user interface polish, and more."

But all we have seen from the telethons are "We plan to go deeper on some of the Episode 2 features we discussed in the first livestream, like Item Affinity, but we also plan to tease some new information too! One of the new features we plan to discuss is a set of new building tools including dungeon creation (player property) and defense building (player property, castle defenses and control points). These are part of a larger effort to increase the community’s ability to craft their own adventures that includes existing tools like notes and signs but is also expanding with other new features like advanced container settings (locks, place/take settings, etc.) along with craftable/purhasable/placeable traps and spawners (spider eggs, skeleton crypts, etc.). When you put all of these things together your ability to craft adventures will be limited only by your imagination!"

It doesn't seem like they "shifted their focus" from creating new content.

 

Relax... they ran the livestream on the weekend that SO many people were heading out of town, because of how the 4th of July landed this year...

They've done two telethons on weekends with awesome weather and a huge reason for people to head out of town. This explains a dip in participation, considerably.

The sky isn't falling, time just lined up oddly, twice.

 

The feedback from a number of players, myself included, was that hearing about the forward-thinking was very exciting - I'm glad they're doing a follow-up. I've always enjoyed the look-forward posts (like the Quarterly ones) and wait for patch notes etc.

It's important to polish systems and destroy bugs and enhance performance - which you can see from the stand-up notes everyone is focused on. BUT, it's also important to keep looking forward as well and keep people aware of future goals. And I don't want to see 4 hours of livestream about bugs.

Livestreams are a fun way to engage with the community and a look forward and into their future plans is always exciting. They actually do a livestream every Friday and have been for quite awhile, the "telethon" livestreams just go a little longer and also has the store sale. The sale is more convenient if you wanted anything from the store and I'd rather see the longer 4-hour streams monthly as it's a big chunk of time, but in this case I'm quite happy to see the look forward this time. I also wouldn't be surprised if a number of the US folks on vacation around Independence Day with the mid-week holiday. I'd predict another 15-20k come in this Friday from people who wish to take advantage of the discounted prices.

 

You should learn about business accounting and the books are supposed to look at the end of the fiscal year, each year, for tax purposes.

This would likely explain a good deal of things to you.

 

That is a silly answer, you know exactly What he ment.
A huge amount of time and money had been placed into other things than What was promised during kickstarter. Prio #1 should be to deliver What is promised before you go into other stuff.

There are still a TON of things from kickstarter and the stretchgoals that had not seen light in the game, and focus is already shifted to ep2.

 

I agree that Livestreams are fun to see new and exciting things, but I think it would be great to see things that they fixed and enhanced. If you went by the stand-up notes than there shouldn't be any bug or issues since they ares listed week after week. I think a livestream showing fixes to the quest system, journal, crafting, deco, performance would take more than 4 hours and I bet would make it exciting to jump in the game to test out the fixes and enhancements. A livestream (I emphasis single) would get the word out about fixes and perhaps bring people back to the game that left due to all of the issues that were never resolved.

 

Some people are invested in interpreting any action in the worst possible light, taking any statement, no matter how innocuous and easily explained, and twisting it into something dark and sinister.

 

Much of what they are working on right now is part of what they had already planned to work on from the first stretch goals. Such as the castle raids, locking features, etc. There is a list somewhere. Some of the items that they reached, they were not able to fulfill yet, and that is some of what they are working on. They also did say they were getting ready to work on Episode 2, and they are talking about it because they want to raise funds for new content later. It is good that they are telling us what we are going to be paying for.

 

I truly dislike those types.

There's a time for cynicism. There's a time to be "realistic".

Not every single moment of every single day. I say to them, go get a hobby that makes you happy, because... clearly you aren't happy yet.

 

Word.

 

Funding has remained more or less the same for at least the last year. Here are the totals for the last 11 releases.
[EDIT] These totals are for Telethons/Livestreams only. They do not include any revenue from other sources such as game sales or non-livestream purchases.

Jul 6+20, 2018 R55: 54,500+
Jun 4+7, 2018 R54: 80,000
May 4, 2018 R53: 90,000
Apr 6, 2018 R52: 80,000
Mar 2, 2018 R51: 110,000
Feb 2, 2018 R50: 50, 000
Jan 8, 2018 R49: 45,000
Dec 1, 2017 R48: 75,000
Nov 3, 2017 R47: 60,000
Oct 12, 2017 R46: 80,000
Sep 6, 2017 R45: 52,000

 

No offense, but ...

 

What are you out of context, attempting to say?

There are people who are continually negative, all of the time. Anything that's posted by Portalarium is immediately taken as a sign of the 'end times'.

...wait... did you think I was talking about you and you took offense? Is that what this is about?

 

I don't think that taking Port's word that they would fix the current issues before proceeding to develop new content was a sign of the "end time".

 

No I did not think you are talking about me and no it is not out of context. You talk about how you dislike people who are unrealistic. At the same time you mention that "awesome weather" was a problem for the telethon. I think this dislike for "not being realistic" goes in both directions. Being unreasonably negative and turning every little thing into "the sky is falling" but definitely also people who complain about people simply pointing out facts and acting as if everything is fine when it clearly isn't. It is both a huge turn off imo.

 

It was a holiday weekend, a lot of people were travelling, visiting or hosting barbecues.

The last double telethon they did coincided with another holiday weekend, past telethons at the same time did better, only now we have had a playable game for a few months now, that does continually add features, build out scenes, etc., etc.

If you were going to have a birthday party would you have it on the same weekend as or day as December 24th and expect everyone to be there or maybe host it on another weekend?

Things need to be taken into context. If it was me? I would have done the monthly released and maybe waited until a week after the holiday "weekend" was over for the telethon, but I'm not a decision maker at Port.

 

Ah new excuses, marvelous but erm not every player lives in America, hard to grasp I'm sure but it is a fact of life that the internet and gaming is global.

Forward thinking is great, but current status is woeful and too many things need addressing like quests, combat and PvP. trying to hide the every widening cracks behind 'exciting & fluffy stuff' isn't cutting with a far greater 'number of players'

Believe it or not most players who actually still bother to post on forums about poor state of affairs actually do care, snide comments are pointless and pathetic

Based on the experience previous telethons any other business would have altered their schedule, you even sort of admit that by saying you didn't make the decision. I will however refer to my previous comment above that not everyone is in America that plays this game, you have no breakdown to prove either way those who play or back the game are mainly in the USA. I appreciate many players are but your doing an injustice to us that aren't and there's quite a few all over the world from what I've met and gamed with.

Chaoux (might be wrong spelling) addressed a thread yesterday on 150k registered users by saying it's now 255k and locked the thread, again I laughed as he failed to add what the active player count was and stopped anyone asking within the thread, that on its, own doom mongering aside, spoke volumes.

I did actually tune into the telethon however as soon as I did the screen greeted me with a bunch of musicians playing instruments that sounded appalling, Starr then apologised as their sound got cut off and recapped on 'wonderful' RP stuff happening, it was utter trash and wasn't addressing anything that needs fixing, I still didn't put $5 into the pot this month which is a first for me. I didn't see a running total either on a wipe board as it was covered up however I did leave fairly quickly as RP fantasy in the air stuff won't make me put monies into the game like most who've already left.

Priorities: Fix the game play, quests, pvp and then come up with a coherent plan on funding Episode 2, too many backers walked away already to fund it so far and be realistic with the stretch goal, maybe then people will start to fund the game and telethons better

Look to hold a telethon when America isn't on holiday / having a BBQ / it's raining and maybe those couple who play in the UK might be able to attend too?

PS can you have your annoying POTUS back please, we don't want him in the UK!

 

Don't say that!
Makes a refreshing change for people to whinge about something other than Brexit

 

I haven't been following this thread, but wanted to clarify for you that what you mentioned above wasn't a Livestream/Telethon.
It was the Community Livestream, where they talk about different aspects of the game. This time the topic was Music in the game.
So there wasn't a wipe board with money raised, because it wasn't the Telethon (Which is next week)

 

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please keep politics out of this or we will devolve into an argument about potato peelers, free speech, grooming gangs, internet censorship, royal family inbreeding and most likely a large portion of immigration, and gun control.