Overzealous Number of Donation levels and Reward Content Updates?

A caveat before I get jumped by a thousand blade wielding fanatics.. I've been playing Ultima games since the Age of Enlightment, and have always been a huge supporter of a plethora of Kickstarter and other crowd funded projects.

I've been lurking in the background as a "First Responder", and I'm a bit overwhelmed by the number of email updates I get from the Avatar team, especially when 90% of them are detailing some new object that is available for one of the upper tiers of the donators.

Even the staggering number of levels available (25 at last count) attest to the brevity of this situation.
Now, maybe I'm alone in this feeling, as a number of the upper tiers are pretty densely populated or sold out, and it's pretty overwhelming to think that some people have donated thousands of dollars towards a single game. This either speaks to the amazing support that Lord British and his team have rallied in the past, or that people are ready to pledge a good chunk of real world money for digital esteem and read estate

Maybe I'm just a bit philosophic in my rants, but I do hope that we get more content, plot, theme, and non-reward level updates that focus on content rather than pay-for-reward information. I pledged in order to get early access to the game, and to learn about what makes it unique from other games in this already crowded genre, not to get updated when a new virtual pet is available for Citizen Level Supporters. Is this meant to prompt me to increase my pledge? I'd love to, as a paid supporter, to be able to opt out of tier level updates, and to focus on gameplay and other such news.

I also hope that a percentage of all funds raised can go towards a good cause, either a charity or a country in need of clean water or healthy food.. If we can afford to spend hundreds of dollars on a piece of digital entertainment with a play life of maybe half a decade, I certainly hope we can give back. I'm aware that this comment is mostly intended to be a reflective perspective on our priorities, and on my own in particular.

Note that this thread was started with the best intentions to make a plea for more game related content updates, and to start a general discussion on the future of pay to play gaming, and should not be seen as an opportunity to start a flame war. I welcome a healthy discussion, as I think this is a great area for debate

 

I don't think many people on these forums will flame you over an honest comment (there are a few forum PKs though, so arm yourself ). I understand your feeling of being bombarded with donator updates, but this is not a permanent thing. We're in very early development, and currently most things can't be released safely without needing to be revisited later. As such, the devs are putting in a sizable amount of effort into providing the things that must be set in stone before release (such as pre-release items) to us asap. I doubt an opt-out option will be given to players who don't want to know about backer rewards (because this is how they fund everything), but in time I'm sure the pledge-to-win content will give way to the standard content.

Welcome to the forums, and thanks for not being afraid to post your opinion!

 

I think it's wise to be cautious and understandable to be weary of marketing. I haven't put in a large amount of money yet, but I intend to.
There are number of significant game features that are still TBD (as far as we know):
How does death work?
How does stealing work?
How does PVP work?
What are the details behind the combat “card deck” system?
How does player housing work?
How does the pvp opt-in/opt-out “slider” work?
How does the economy work?
What type of mechanics help to enforce player accountability?
This is just off the top of my head, there are many MANY more…
I’m comfortable with where we are right now, as a fan and customer of the game. But I agree that as we move forward through the development process, it would seem as though we should be getting more answers sooner, rather than later, marketing aside.

 

Percentage of funds raised to go to a good cause? I consider Shroud of the Avatar a good cause my friend. Have you seen what Star Citizen has raised? 17 Mil. The main objective here is to raise funds to develop this game.

Since you appear new here, I'll cut you some slack, but have you seen the forums? Its all about content , story, quests etc. 1% might be concerned with pledge level rewards and tiers. The DEVS try to do a live stream every few weeks to discuss topics and give us info. Maybe its not coming in the form of emails, but its LIVE video chat. Have you watched any?

Since the kickstarter has ended, there has been like 3 or 4 things released to raise additional funds. Nothing compared to what Star Citizen has tried to sell ($1250 ship).

I understand where your coming from, but this group of people are far from gouging us for money.

As far as the number of different pledge levels is concerned, I think its great that they give so many options to fit what people can afford.

 

The idea of giving a percentage to charity is a nice one but I expect Portalarium allocate the money for the purposes I pledged it for - their operational expenses & product improvements. However they may decide to divide and allocate it I leave up to them but I expect it to entirely remain within the boundaries of the SoTA project.

I'll worry about charity from my end.

 

Hello shoshin, I am a PK, and I approve of your message. All of these fluffy bear distraction items they seem intent on unleashing to the e-market serve only as a distraction of sorts away from the lack of proper dev progress.

I do believe that there are seperate teams involved, and that some progress must have been made, but I'd rather be seeing core gameplay stuffs rather than watching Dallas' team revolutionize rich deliverables

Although, you do have to watch what you release to the Internets these days. Nobody has been asked to sign NDAs, nor would anyone follow them if they did so you can't really blame them for not giving us the information we want. Wheather we think we are entitled to it as KS supporters or not.

 

Dev+ supporters have seen content updates, as the Portalarium team expands it's tasks to include different biomes, environments, and systems. These updates have occurred weekly, minimum, on the forums, since RTX.

To a lesser degree, Founder level supporters have also seen a glimpse of this with the daily stand-up updates.

 

InsaneMembrane - You have to remember that the point of offering these extra items is to raise more funds for game development. Despite the fact that they're raised over $ 2 million, that is a small amount compared to the budget of a game like Star Wars: The Old Republic. Even with the crowdsourcing of game art, development costs are very high. While I'm sure you would prefer that they offered ultra-powerful weapons, armor, and accessories that would make you a better PK instead as incentives, the developers do have to maintain gameplay balance. It would unfair to give players who could afford it (a small minority) such a huge advantage over players who couldn't (the vast majority of players). That is precisely why they are offering items such as different housing models, housing decorations, etc. which might have cosmetic appeal but which don't upset gameplay balance.

 

I love how people always try to bring up pay to win and have zero clue what they are talking about. Let me ask you this, if you paid for a more powerful computer, 30 button gaming mouse and higher speed internet connection, is that pay to win ? You will have an advantage over a player that can't afford the same setup. Should I send back my computer for a lesser one or reduced the speed of my internet connection so I don't have an advantage?

Thats more pay to win that buying a viking house lol.

 

I meant no offense towards viking house owners Gunga Din. I was more referring to the Citizen Level Pledge, which offers a rent free house and a rent free vendor, which offer economically valuable rewards. I support all of the pledge options Portalarium has made available to us, and your defensive tone and internet-expert attitude are unnecessary ("Pay-to-Win" is largely a colloquial term).

 

I'm not really for giving what we pledged already to charity I am however all for having a Shroud of the Avatar Humble Bundle! It would be amazing way to get more backers on the game while giving back to charity and getting more funding for the game! It would almost be like a second kickstarter. If you guys don't know what the Humble Bundle is I suggest you check it out www.HumbleBundle.com As for game updates I do hope for more concept art, and game builds to be released, and hopefully chapters from the Tracy Hickman novel. As for the Addon updates you can always unsubscribe from kickstarters emails if they really bother you.

 

Actually the days we had the votings for the clothings in the forums and they showed us the tribal clothings i stumbled coincidently after looking for more information on this side:

http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/


Then i thought if they make a cool looking tribal mask to purchase in the shop and fund it to the real still existing tribes in the amazonas to help , it would be a nice action.

First of all: The tribal mask is famous in Ultima Online - second of all it is originated from such tribes - third : Richard Garriott collects tribal stuff - fourth : why not.

I then dropped this thinking as it is not me to decide if they want to do a charity and for whom.

But as this is now a subject, i share my thinking.

 

Just because the entire world is pay to win, it doesn't mean this game has to follow suit. Being concerned that the people with extra income will have an advantage over those who do not is a valid concern. Everyone has a limit to what they can contribute. What if RG decided to make a game for people that could also afford to travel in space? Perhaps the in-game houses cost, I don't know, let's say $500k instead of $550.00. You and I could still play the game, but we couldn't get a house. (I'm assuming you don't have 500k for a virtual house, please forgive me if I've misclassified your real life wealth.)

The above scenario is exactly what this business model is like for MANY people. While you (and maybe even I) may be able to afford it, others can not. When you're talking about a TAX FREE house and vendor, that's a significant advantage, else why would people pay $550+ for it?

Gunga Din, I would suggest you tone it down a bit regarding this subject. You're wrong.

 

I think if we could try to be understanding on all sides here it would help. The question of money in relation to gaming is a complex one and worthy of discussing.

Gunga Din raises a very good point in this complex issue that pay-to-win is a far more complex topic than just getting a leg up by making a donation before the game begins. Money brings with it all sorts of curious dynamics and social behaviors that need to be considered and it's not so simple. Don't confuse your own preferences and behaviors by making grand statements about the goodness or difficulties in the way its being done by Portalarium. It doesn't help to try to be so definitive in opinions because there aren't good statistics or data to back up people's perspectives. There just aren't.

 

The answer to this is pretty simple. None of these reward tiers are going to be offered after the game is officially released. They don't have a producer to provide them all the funds they want since they are doing it through crowd sourcing. It's the reason Kickstarter in general has been quite successful on many games raising many millions of dollars. However, as nightshadow mentioned, $2 million isn't a lot of money when developing a game, especially when larger scale multiplayer games and MMOs can easily be in the 10s of millions. Therefore, the development team needs to give incentive to those who are already dedicated to the game and rewarding those who want to see a polished version of the game on release.

Many many people out there aren't as philosophical in mind, which isn't a bad thing. Sometimes individuals just need more incentive to drop more money into the game. By the time it is released, 25,000 people will be a pittance compared to (hopefully) the millions that will be playing. When you are finally in game with all your fancy gold titles and super knight castles and indestructable tools, those who didn't help fund the game will ask how you got it. When you tell them, they might consider to partake in crowd sourcing opportunities, thus helping developers rid the shackles of producers.

 

Seriously?

Here is pay to win. You purchase a weapon (that you cannot earn or craft in game) that does 200 pts of damage and the best you could hope to loot or craft does 100 pts of damage. That is pay to win and unfair. Buying items that may greatly improve performance that others could not acquire. (Not a starter shield etc) I'm talking mega weapons.

In games, those with wealth will have one major advantage, they will be able to gear up quicker than you. Happens in every MMO at release, but over time those things will balance out.

My example mostly deals with PvP and PvE issues. If you consider owning a bigger house or property as a victory or winning, I'd consider that extreme, but could see why some might get upset.

Now is a Viking house giving an advantage over someone that has a generic house? I don't believe so. Wealth and real life $$$ will mainly give people the advantage in cosmetics (nicer houses , dyes) and gearing quicker.

As long as most things are obtainable ingame (housing, property, gear etc) without having to pay real $$$, than it should be acceptable.. Housing may be limited, but hey, we need to raise some money here.

 

That's a good point, that's certainly a legitimate upside to all this.

But, I can tell you that having first heard of this game after the kickstarter was already over, I got boxed out of the Founder level rewards, and it hurts. If we apply the logic above, then I should want to start participating in other kickstarters (I have in the past already) and that might potentially take money away from SotA as this is a zero sum game.

I think you're correct though, there's a possitive to be found here, but I don't think it's a positive for SotA. This game is supposed to be running for the next 10 years and it doesn't help SotA if you put new money into other crowd sourced games.

 

True enough Goblin King, but don't forget that there will be a total of 5 stand alone episodes for SotA and this is only episode 1. It is likely that the Dev team along with Lord British will run another crowd sourcing event with very similar incentives for each episode. This being true, those incentives will be available for every episode, to that I have no doubt.

 

You have to define "win" before you can explain pay to win. Strictly speaking, there can be only one! That would be the beneficiary of such payments of course. You aren't helping your mommy out by taking her hard earned cash and spending it on weapon damage buffs or special stat increases.

Sure, the "viking" house may not be available after the game goes live, but do you really think there will never be a new house you can pay for and snatch up and horde away? Make no mistake, microtransactions are a signifigant part of all online games and it is going to have a signifigant role in Shroud of the Avatar as well.

 

If we just focus only on the Viking house, I agree that's not the biggest advantage in the world. It's an advantage for sure, just not very significant when it comes to PVE or PVP.

The OP was making a point that this is part of a larger trend though. I agree with him, it is. I'm not freaking out about it, I'm just saying that it's true that Portalarium has focused on that recently. It's also understandable that some people would be concerned that perhaps that's all they will ever focus on.

I'm totally down with that approach. In fact, I think that overall it's been performed in good taste. I just understand and agree with anyone that says it's a fine line that Portalarium is walking here. For example, let's say next month they put the Wizard Tower up for sale in the store, but this time it's not $50 but instead $100? I'd really like to have a wizard tower, and I'd be willing to pay $100 to get one. But that's a lot of money, and most people that want a wizard tower will not have that kind of cash laying around for a game that isn't even out yet.

So where do you draw the line? The OP seems concerned that the line is dangerously close to where he would no longer be comfortable. Think about it, is it really hard to imagine a new marketing campaign where Portalarium gives away villiage plots for $300 a piece? People are going to pay that because they'll be scared that they won't get to use their house if they don't. Plus it would drive up the value of the fonder and benefactor pledge levels.

Make no mistake, it's a pay to win business model. It's just a question of how far Portalarium can and will push the limits.