Shroud of the Avatar Fire Sale!

Can we do this now or is it too late? Would they be willing to put in the time to do it? ( only they can answer this ) I am not saying what could have been done, but can we fix it now.

 

it is not too late: for instance, they somewhat recently distributed servant vendor patterns to everyone whose pledge included a servant.

 

As to your point "Exclusive"/"Special" items that have equivalents created should be different in some visual or functional way...

I believe Portalarium has no qualms about this at all, it may be their current policy, and its certainly their M.O. for the last couple of years. The only debate I see is if a CF Vendor qualifies, which is why digging into the words are important.

Here's the problem, I don't know what "special" means. You can also go on the Crowns Merchant web page and try to figure out what Exclusive means. https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=64674 What I want to know is if its coming back or not, same as you. However, Portalarium isn't a brick wall, you can do what I do -- ask them directly on a Livestream.

If you said that a CF vendor from KS can have a special skin, they sort of do with the Knight's Servant, Lord Marshal's Servant etc. patterns, only available from the Kickstarter campaign, that change the appearance of your vendor. You would have gotten one with all the KS pledges that feature a CF Vendor.

Sincerely,

Engineer

 

See, the thing is you don't seem to care that the funding model you're defending so vehemently from your bubble of "me! me! me!" didn't work in the long run. It's unsustainable because it works only with deep-pocketed Lord British fans and not the MMORPG gaming community at large. It failed in that it created haves and have-nots in a space that should be equitable in all game systems INCLUDING housing and most especially the economy.

Being satisfied that your investment got the game live isn't enough for you. You want so badly to have your perceived glory you would rather see the game flounder with minimal population and developmental stagnation.

That's greed so hard you can't see past your own nose. Yes, I know, ad hominem, but damn.

I got news for you. If the game continues to see an up-tick in population because its become accessible to everyone, your rares WILL become much more valuable. You need to realize the game was "cart before the horse" so to speak. Now we're trying to correct.

 

Well, you COULD, before they removed Q&A from the Livestream schedules.

Pointed this our a couple pages ago.

 

First entry in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary.

1. distinguished by some unusual quality , especially: being in some way superior.

Special does not mean rare; it means commission-free. As far a unique vendors go, Portalaium already gave backers unique vendor patterns.

[edit] To be clear, every pledge that came with a commission-free vendor also got an eternal ornate steel cash register pattern.

 

I'm mostly sitting out on this thread.

I do think that Portalarium should try to be transparent about what its really promising when it puts something in a pledge or on the add-on store in the future, because there's been a lot of confusion about this over the years. Some of it I think is unreasonable, like expecting that if they sell something once, they can't offer something similar later even if it makes sense to offer something similar, like another version of a common animal you'd expect in the game (because that's 're-skinning' and lowers their resale value). When it comes to items that were implied to be unique, and turned out not to be, there's more of a basis for complaint. And while some people might be comfortable that they spent a lot of money on something that wasn't unique because they had the money and were glad to spend it for Portalarium's sake; I've interacted with some players over the years who really put more money in the game than they should have according to their personal budget, and while this might have arguably been bad judgement on their regard, they did so on the idea that they were getting something unique. So, I would not be so callous about that and lecture those people that they shouldn't have expected anything. In the end though, Portalarium's gonna do what Portalarium has to do; I would just urge them to think about more transparency, rather than set up vague language and then 'lawyer' their way through it later.

I'd also say that I really don't think accessibility of things like CF vendors and housing really has much to do with what the population of the game is -- that rests solely with whether the gameplay is good or not. If the gameplay is good, people would be attracted to the game regardless if they got a CF vendor and house -- and if it's bad, they're not going to stick around long enough to get them. For most players, a vendor and house is something you get once you settle in the game and want to stay there. And while there's a 'perception' problem about the barrier to entry to some things in the game, I also doubt it would be much of a holdback to playing if people were so wowed by the game itself.

 

There are many sandbox mmo players, especially from UO and SWG, that are domestic, non-combat players. I am one of them, at least 75% of my time is spent at home. I craft, homestead and have shops. Your statement is a large generalization.

 

That's fine. By gameplay, I didn't mean 'combat' specifically.

 

Agreed. They could still alter the original bundle/pledge vendors somehow, probably. (speaking as someone who does not own one)

 

Using Barugon's quoted definition, the "special" commission free vendors offered as rewards for pledging support for the game early on are not special at all since current commission free vendors are exactly the same. Would you be fine with his quoted definition from Merriam-Webster? Of course, it would seem Barugon is attempting to defend Portalarium re-issuing special items so that they are no longer special, but ironically he keeps contradicting himself. There is no special commission free vendor if all of them are "special" and the same.

Servant skins are not actually a component of the special vendors, as a result it is likely that nobody was given a servant skin, at least not intentionally, when they purchased or traded for a special vendor second-hand. The same would apply with cash registers. The cash registers received with pledges are not special from ones that can be bought anyway, are they?

Once again, regardless of the verbiage, it's a bad move to re-sell items originally described as "special"without distinguishing them in some way so that they actually remain special.

 

They did. They gave every pledge that come with a vendor an eternal ornate steel cash register pattern. These did not come with bundles and you can't buy it in the add-on store.

 

It's a unique look that you cannot get anywhere else. However, I suspect that the real issue here is that you expected to have a permanent advantage over jonny-come-latelys.

 

So how do people get these? Many people bought "special" vendors in the marketplace or obtained them through trade, but didn't receive any registers. It appears this is a separate item, that just so happens to have been given to players that also received "special" vendors originally. Is there any statement as to why these were given out? While this sounds encouraging, as if at least Portalarium may have been thinking about the issue at one point, the greater problem is the fact that people paid around $500 very early on to be able to obtain a "special" vendor originally, $500 to obtain a re-issue in bundles, or around $100 on the open market to obtain a "special" vendor second hand, only to have Portalarium undercut all three types of customers, selling the exact same "special" vendor for $19 now. So while it may have at least been an attempt to remedy the situation, overall I don't think it was effective, certainly not for people that bought "special" vendors in the marektplace or traded in game.

Overall, it still appears that early backers of the game were misled or betrayed when the "special" vendors were duped in the bundles, and everyone that bought or traded for them was betrayed when Portalarium began selling the exact same "special" vendor for $19. At each step of the way the newly offered vendors should have been modified in some way to distinguish them from previous "special" ones. If that were done it wouldn't look as much like a fire sale and customers wouldn't feel as misled or betrayed.

It would have been better to make the newly duped "special" commission free vendor a cash register only and make it POT only. That would have made it significantly different over previous "specials."

 

This thread will be gone in the morning, and the world will be a better place.

 

Especially when nothing about this entire thread is news...

 

So you support silencing critical feedback and dissent? You have nothing better to offer than spamming the topic with an unrelated video?

It was terrible news to me that the exact "special" reward vendors offered to early backers of the game were being put on a fire sale for only $19 without any modification. And it's probably terrible news to many people that don't spend their lives living in the forums or deeply involved in a game world. Regardless, it was not meant as news, it was meant as critical feedback.

If anything should be removed it's your spam reply.

 

In this case, yes, I do. I find your tenor and tone, along with the repeated Ad Hominem attacks objectionable.

• Rather than debate the issue, you simply keep repeating the same accusations over and over again, effectively bumping your own post.
• You're not seeking any actual input, or compromise, only seeking complete agreement with your original stated position.
• The timing of the original post, at the beginning of a long holiday weekend, when you knew there was likely to be no moderation in conjunction with your uncivil tone points to an ulterior motive.
• Evidence suggests you're not actually making an honest complaint, providing feedback, or interested in having a healthy debate, but rather simply trying to provoke a reaction...
• There's a common term for that type of behavior.

To the crux of your arguments:

• Portalarium has already addressed the 'example' concern you expressed in your original post by providing backers with alternate patterns for their pledge vendors (Servant and Automaton Patterns), and the Steel Cash Register patterns for their Bundle purchasers.
• Portalarium has in some cases, as has been pointed out, recognized that they've broken promises, and at least made the attempt to rectify the situation by providing an equivalent reward.

 

I don‘t think the thread will be gone, just forgotten.

In quickly browsing through this thread I didn‘t see any strong objections to your complaint per se nor to the solution you suggested about reskinning the vendor. So there was really no need for this conversation to devolve into a mud-slinging fest. I have been following the forums since 2014, and I know that people you are accusing of not supporting critical feedback and dissent are themselves the authors of much critical feedback and dissent. So what's going on here?

In my opinion the reason for the argumentative nature of many threads like this one is:

1) It's not what someone says but how they say it. People react and respond not only to the feedback itself but to the attitude displayed. When someone starts calling people names, it only gets worse.
2) Insistence on being right. Often someone will post feedback and other people disagree with the feedback. It is their right to disagree, just as it is the right of the OP to post the feedback in the first place. If the OP and other thread participants would accept that not everyone need to agree with them there would be no further argument, just a civil discussion. But when the OP or another participant keeps defending their position over and over again and displays obvious resentment when someone disagrees with them and starts calling them names, that is when things have gone too far.

I personally hate reading argumentative threads like this, which is why I will be glad when it disappears from my list of new posts. I would much prefer it if everyone (including myself) simply voiced their opinion in an objective manner.

 

eventually someone will reply in the way he's looking for - personally I've learned to just take a break and do something different when something in Sota starts to piss me off or is broke. it stops me from rageposting after researching the forums for why it is broke o.0 I learned a valuable lesson two years ago, that I can't change the bug or the game, so find the fun in something else and go back and check on it in a month.

as a cheap player, I've had 90% pleasure playing over the 4 years i've been at it. I'm not very deco -centric, so i don't have to buy anything really.

these things should have been left unique. I'll say the idea was threre at the get-go, when you would have skills for two weeks before other players for being a backer. So Port may think that you've had the packages unique for months before other players. The money though.. the price reduction is hard to justify.

So i read this post, thought 'aha cyber monday' and went to the store page, thinking i'll pony up for something. I saw episode 2 stretch goals, the horse mount page.... and I read the claims of 'unique.. many items are similar but THESE are unique, will not be sold with bundles' etc ... and thought to myself 'yeah, whatever you say now.' and changed my mind to purchase anything.

sad and true story. and I love this game. So its a hard subject. AND just the forum posts about the subject turned me off from a sale. Had the forum topic not been here, would I have bought? I don't know anymore. I'm all for open discussion though - we eventually get to some interesting topics and solutions

confusingly, I just saw you could back episode 2 and paid 19 bucks for early access. so lol

THE HENDOMAN