Shroud of the Avatar Fire Sale!

To be fair, Henry Ford was the only one selling Model T cars.

 

Now,when a business is not doing well, they should change nothing and just hope it turns around? No, you have to change things otherwise your going under, and if your publicly traded, you go out of business and your stock is worth 0. Just like the stock market, you made an investment and you lost, suck it up.

 

LOL ok fixed you grammar nazi LOL. ( I would have probably said the same thing )

 

Right and he SATURATED the market with them by making them accessible to everyone. Your point is valid, @Mac2.

 

If it turns out things don't go great I will just consider it a 2 bitcoin loss.

I have to admit I am not a very good game investor. I have lost everything I put into: Monopoly, Risk, Life, Hungry Hippos and won't even get into all those decks of now worthless Bicycle playing cards.

 

Have you ever considered, as the original post you are replying to already points out, that you can re-skin or modify virtual assets to both preserve the originals as special rewards for the supporters that were rewarded with them, while at the same time making a similar re-skinned or modified item available for everyone? Why do so many fail to grasp this when it's right in the initial post?

 

Oh how wonderful, yet another failed attempt by the great Rufus D`Asperdi, to argue about the argument rather than the actual topic itself using a fallacy that does not apply. If you actually had read my original post you would have noted that I specifically mentioned that the vendors were the most obvious example, and not the exclusive concern. I was giving you undue respect simply because you are a town owner, but I'm done replying to your nonsense.

 

As pointed out in the original post you are replying to, if virtual assets are going to be re-issued because it is deemed it would make the game more fair, at least they should be re-skinned or modified. Doing so preserves some of the uniqueness of the original assets rewarded to supporters while maintaining customer trust in the management of all assets going forward. Assets that are re-issued in the name of fairness or accessibility do not need to look exactly the same, nor even function exactly the same as special rewards that were rewarded previously. Two possibilities I mentioned in the original topic with regard to the vendor example is that they could be re-skinned and function in POTs only. This would not only allow new players to sell their items commission free, but it would also preserve the uniqueness of the original rewards. Care has been taken with regard to other assets so it's very disappointing to see a lack of care or consistency.

 

It was originally called a "special" vendor, but it's not very special anymore if a duplicate is reissued and resold over and over indefinitely, even if it is still called "special." You're not seeing the forest for the trees. Quite simply, a rare or special item is not rare or special anymore if an exact duplicate can be bought by anyone at anytime, even if it is called "rare" or "special" by the seller.

 

Honestly, Port needs to make all in-game vendors commission free, and remove the paywall. Then sell the patterns, and still sell the vendor for those who don't want to save 10K gold.

Game functionality should not be behind a paywall. There should be an in-game means using game mechanics to obtain all game functionality.

I would include lot deeds in this ideal. Housing is a big part of the game, and although it has gotten much better, it is still unclear or difficult for new players to obtain.

There are certainly many different ways to set up a funding model.

 

Back in the 80's I was paying $60+ per NES game. You of course can buy those games now for $0.99 oftentimes. You're correct there. But where you missed the mark completely is the games from the 80's are collector pieces now and some sell for thousands of dollars.

In almost any collectors market it's never the function that matters, it's the rarity.

Things only depreciate if there's no market for them. If Commision free vendors have no market anymore and they went down in value from hundreds of dollars to $19. Then this speaks to the health of the game, not the natural course of time.

 

This makes a lot of sense. I agree

 

After re reading your OP, I note this as a minor point in a greater argument. Tangential at best. I also hardly see this as a big problem - seems very low tech to provide this. I also wasn't aware there was a greater consensus that this is a good thing, let alone desired or requested in the past.

Have you ever considered that your accusatory and judgemental tone, wild extrapolation of a few facts into opinions-as-argument, and generally putting a lot of negative and undesired words into others' mouths, have prevented your audience from understanding your point? Perhaps not arguing like a self-righteous demagogue might allow others to hear the true intention and substance in your arguments. Creating a post to politely request that the original backers' items be (slightly?) reskinned would have been far more effective.

Pardon me for being a bit distracted by your "flair", and having not "grasped" such a juicy and poignant detail.

For the record, I lose no trust in Portalarium over this action, rather, I gain trust that they are making very tough decisions that they believe will result in greater longevity of the game. This is not blind trust, I am a fair critic; this is my agreement in the underlying intention.

 

I'm a collector and the principal moderator of the SotA Collectables and Rares list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...Ywxdr-Gz8NfhIEAxoMMebFRDw/edit#gid=1917241776. My research into these items is more than the text line, I've been actively trying to find the terms to describe "discontinued", "exclusive", etc. and its not easy sometimes. Mistakes do get made by Portalarium from time-to-time, but my observation from working with them on these matters is they attempt to fix them as quickly as possible.

Counterfeiting is a strong claim. This is easily researched, though. Referring to the Original Kickstarter Page, the language of what people signed up for is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/portalarium/shroud-of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues-0

The Lord Pledge shows Commission Free vendor, but only in the graphic. I see nothing that says its "special" in any way and it doesn't state "unique to this pledge" like similar lines. Portalarium is clear on which lines have "Unique" or "Founder" in them, and Commission Free Vendors is not one of them. There isn't any language that clearly states that these won't be resold, never will be made again, etc. It is, for what its worth, a line that says "Commission Free Vendor". I.e., there's others that are clearly going to be sold or made available later, for example Episode 2+ access, books, and unity asset packs.

I'll use another example from the same page. The Knight Pledge shows the Crafting Stations, although it says this version is clearly marked for them, doesn't specifically state about other versions. I'd argue it implies there were different versions would exist if they went that far out of their way to point the change out. I don't see where it says in the Kickstarter campaign that these were exclusive in any way to not being sold or even found in game in different forms. More details about which items are special only to a pledge are located in the Pledges section in the Add-On store menu.

Anyway, I feel "counterfeiting" is debunked, unless you'd like to provide evidence that shows Portalarium stepped back and later restated Commission Free vendors were unique to Kickstarter. I couldn't find solid evidence that Portalarium ever made such a claim.

Sincerely,

Engineer

 

If you actually did read my entire post you would see the main point is that Portalarium should not merely re-issue special rewards - at least make some changes. That's no minor point, it's the main one. There are many ways to do that like, modifying or re-skinning items that are re-issued, but it is certainly the main point. Maybe all you read was the title or first paragraph?

I'm not trying to win friends or a popularity contest here, I'm simply sharing my honest feedback that I'm extremely disappointed that Portalarium is mismanaging game assets and destroying customer relations when it's completely avoidable. If I didn't know any better, it would seem like they're trying to self destruct.

 

Do you have a solution to this that we can put in place now? If not, then this whole conversation is pointless.

 

Well as to deeds such as the free one offered from doing the quests, I really do feel the opportunity to gain a players first row deed should come out from the questlines. Perhaps the row deed quest could be offered from the decorations vendor along with a tutorial of housing, renting, and decorations options and even as a reward offer perhaps a mailbox, chest, or some deco. It could be gotten in many ways, perhaps one part of the quest is to visit all the pots in the game and even npc and prt towns. I still think for larger deeds some can be offered as they are now, but who knows what will happen with it all and I am trusting that the team will do what they need to do for the game.

Some players just do not want to do quests and this particular deed is still too inaccessible imo. @DarkStarr @Lord British. Lots of opportunity to have a housing quest.

 

This is the most shocking defense of Portalarium's mismanagement of game assets and customer trust that I've seen in the topic so far. Not because it brings anything new to the discussion, it essentially amounts to the often repeated, "they didn't promise anything," argument (what a great slogan), but because it is being made by someone that is clearly a dedicated collector and understands virtual assets, their values, and what makes things rare or collectible to begin with. You, more than anyone, should understand why people are disappointed in Portalarium and why re-issuing rares without any changes is a bad way to manage game assets and almost always destroys trust in the player base.

Counterfeiting is the proper term for duplicating something that was offered as a "special" reward to encourage people to financially back the game long before release. The mere fact that it was initially offered as a reward to get people to invest in the game before it existed and was then later duplicated and offered to anyone with money without the same risk or investment into the game is enough to establish that it was counterfeiting, regardless of the specific words used or not used to describe its exclusivity.

The Kickstarter page does not tell the whole story, there are other websites, videos and emails too. The text "special" used in my original post is the exact text that Portalarium originally used once the store was setup to encourage people to financially pledge support for the game long before release. Like others, are you also going to argue "special" means something different than special in defense of Portalarium re-issuing special rewards? I hope not, your response is well written and you seem more intelligent than that.

Regardless, the overall problem doesn't change no matter what words were used to describe special rewards for financially supporting the game early, nor what 'promises' were made or not made. The fact of the matter is that when a game company re-issues, duplicates or counterfeits special or limited game assets it destroys their collectible nature and value along with destroying any trust that players have in spending money with the company in the future. It's a lose-lose proposition, and an all around bad idea, especially when virtual items can be renamed, re-skinned, or modified fairly easily.

 

In fairness, he suggested a fairly simple solution multiple times in this thread. The suggestion was to reskin the vendors so that the originals were at least visually distinct.