Lord Forged item - Has anyone received theirs?

People tried to. The threads were locked. I'm honestly surprised this one hasn't been yet.

 

I have not filled in my form and will not. I do not feel any of these items is an acceptable replacement for the custom Duke head. That is my way to peacefully protest Portalarium's decision not to provide custom Duke heads and announce it at the very last minute...

While I am thankful for the opportunity of a lifetime to work with a game development team and with @DarkStarr and @Lord British in particular, this is just another example of agile development gone too far off the rails for my taste. That said, I'd like to believe that they WILL fulfill the requests already made for the Lord Forged Items. Hopefully sooner than later.

My request just won't be among them. Ever.

 

I was gobsmacked when the original 'replacement' was announced. And I say 'replacement' like that because it was nowhere near a like-for-like thing.

It seems so much was said, at the time of the Kickstarter, just to get people throwing cash at the game and, "We'll try and see if we can do all this stuff later..."

 

True, but $5,000 is a lot of money to throw, at least in my book. The digitized head to look like your own is a very personalized piece. I can bet money that LB is not making a personal item for your replacement. It will be one of the other devs that gets the piece off the unity store and color codes it for you. Not much of a comparison.

 

I could not agree more!

Sadly, I am a Benefactor Duke and not privy to the custom head, but if I were this would be unacceptable. The only thing that would be even close to suitable would be a tax free Keep Lot deed AND the Lord Forged item. I mean, this is a pretty big reward that was ganked rather suddenly. The replacement needs to be commensurate with what it is replacing.

 

How about a custom head painting? Leo storm has done impressive work. Perhaps port can render his services for an exclusive in game portrait.

 

We have asked about it over the years but at first just figured was not a priority on par with the making of the basic game. Some of us used a photograper in order to make sure it met the requirements specified by an artist. This was one of the primary reasons for investing at this or or higher level. Not all of us wanted our head to look just like us but unique. I love the game and glad to be playing it over the years. I just wondered why this had not been addressed years ago. Since knowing they changed their minds I wonder why the substitute was not treated special due to the fact it was placed into kickstarter as a special item.

 

I've not even been able to get basic questions answered such as if it is a weapon or armor, can we get it to match our template? (ie: Picking a weapon and getting a war hammer when you play swords, or a light chest piece when you fight in heavy armor), or if the item would count as a pledge item and have max durability locked? or would it be stealable or able to be ransomed?

Sorry - but it is a horrible replacement for the original pledge reward item and like many others, I have not, and will not, pick one.

 

Thank you for all of your feedback here!

 

We all know Portalarium doesn't have the capacity to make 200-300 unique items (heads or anything else), nor the money to outsource the task. Richard and Starr would have to find hundreds of hours of time off the books and cheat like crazy to generate Lord forged items. Then there would be complaints that some are more powerful than others, or overpowered compared to what everyone else can make.
It's a big mess.
I bet these rewards never happen.
We made donations to fund the game.
We did not purchase custom items.
These rewards were only realistically possible when there were 32 Dukes and Lords of the Manor.
Expecting anything unique is just wishful thinking.

 

I see and agree with quite a few of your points. But I think if either one of them defaults on providing lord forged items to those who have requested them, that will be kind of like a "screw you" on top of a "you are S.O.L." situation. Gonna be Captain Obvious here and say - NOT GOOD!

In any case, I'll bet they don't have *hundreds* of requests for these things because the way this was handled went from bad to abysmal. My guess is that the ambivalence of the many far outweighs the requests of the few. So IMO, there is ZERO wiggle room on reasons not to get in a crafting center and make the items.

 

I truly hope that isn't the case my friend. If that does turn out to be so, it was a gross misrepresentation and shouldn't have been offered in the first place.

True, but you all did donate/purchase for a custom head. I'm not trying to be a stickler here, but at what point are folks held accountable for these things? I mean, I am quite saddened by the fact that I can't visit your mint in Dead Horse and see that beautiful, custom made, buzzed head of yours!

 

Not misrepresentation. Poor management.
What shouldn't have happened was selling hundreds of pledges that should have been limited.
They should have made new Duke(2) and Lord of the Manor (3) pledges that didn't include the custom heads.
But they let it get away from them, and now they're in a pickle.
I see nothing they can do, except admit there is no way they can fulfill this reward.
Nobody can be held accountable.
They can hope the game suddenly becomes popular, sales explode, and then use some of the income to finally provide a reward.
What's the likelihood of that?

 

You're breaking my heart man. Keep hope alive! My inner child NEEDS it. I don't ask for much, just "some" hope that this game will find its footing and become popular outside of those of us who haven't thrown in the towel and sold off all our stuff :-(

 

Then that is what should be done, as hard it may be. They already did that tough messaging with the actual Duke head reward being canceled; if they need to do it again with the lord forged items, do it.

Letting the duke head issue linger and slide for so long created part of the problem. If committing to making hundreds of LB/DS items is also not feasible, they surely know this by now. And if it is, just admit it and either state that there is no replacement or, reach out to the dukes this time and offer up other possibilities. Several options have been floated in the original thread in June about replacements that literally cost no dev time. There is no way to make everyone happy in this scenario but there are ways that give a substantial item in replacement, with no dev time impact, and most importantly brings closure to the issue.

The original replacement announcement states the lord forged items would be created on an on-going basis; that was over four months ago. This is an item clearly important to a very loyal section of the community; it is hard seeing perhaps the same thing happen twice. Communicating the actual state of things would be helpful, even if that message is a tough one.

I hope so too Fionwyn. I am commenting in this thread without being an affected Duke because I want the game to succeed, and at the very least, not have more long term and loyal backers drift away. I unfortunately hit my limit the ways certain things have been communicated and have ceased further financial support; this one affects a large pool of players so I am wishing for better communication so others do not follow my path.

 

100% agree. Same goes for Player Owned Towns IMHO, but I digress.

Can't speak to LotM, but they did do this with the Duke pledge. As a Benefactor Duke myself, the custom head was not included in my pledge.

I disagree, my friend. There is always something that can be done, the question is how? One such example would be to limit the scope to only weapons. They can even front load this process by polling each eligible player and asking what type of weapon they would like. This way, if no one requests a specific weapon they do not have to waste the time creating it. So although it may not be unique to each and every individual player. It is unique in the sense that only a select few players have said item.

Just a thought my brother!

 

Oof.

If this issue isn't resolved, I see no reason to ever come back.

Fortunately I didn't sink several stacks into this project.

 

@HannahAlpenglow2 I was shocked and dismayed to learn you sold off *all* your stuff. Same with a number of other people who were at one time, huge cheerleaders of SOTA.

I have been a backer nearly four years and have seen a lot of boneheaded moves done by Portalarium. This is one of the most egregious in my book.

That said, I have also spent more time with the Devs than most of the player base due to my involvement with going to SOTACON and before that, the last duke tour. So I have seen firsthand how dedicated ALL the Devs are to making this game enjoyable for everyone. A better bunch of people you will not meet. They take pride in what they do and they are generous with their time in trying to engage with all of us.

Yes, mistakes have been made and we all have our "straw that broke the camels back". I'm not sure what mine is honestly, but I have seen the absolute worst side of development thanks to SOE and Star Wars Galaxies. So the boneheaded moves by Portalarium just don't come close to that for me.

I have learned some important lessons about about agile development and how things can change. I accept that. I continue backing the game because I truly believe in the project.

On the flip side of the coin, this type of unfulfilled commitment actually alarms me. Make the dang lord forged items and get them to the people who ordered them. No excuses, just do it already.

 

I agree Fionwyn - the commitment and passion of the dev team is not in question and I appreciate the metric ton of work over the years; I wish I could have attended the Sotacon tour this year as I originally planned as I found them all engaged and passionate at the launch party.

It just breaks my heart to see communication create issues that do not need to occur; my straw is probably bit closer on these topics because my job is centered on customer experience and communication.

 

What is the actual non weapon/armor Deco item? They didn’t even tell us what that is, right? For all I know it could be a torch crafted by LB!!!

@DarkStarr and @Lord British both need to address this sooner than later. I think sometimes they hope we all forget about certain things and it will just go away on its own.