Travian and Portalarium don't work together anymore - officially confirmed by Starr Long

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Trinityismyname, Nov 28, 2018.

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  1. evillego6

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    They were the publisher. They also helped fund the project with $1 million. They were marketing, distribution, localization for almost the entirety of Europe. They also hired full time staff (Cerus) to assist with community services, and paid mods were present for the various language sections of the forums.
     
  2. evillego6

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    The Travian and Black Sun publishing deals were both confirmed, rather than announced, after people on the forums asked about off-site news of the agreements. This is, unfortunately, typical.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2018
  3. Pounce

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    Especially Black sun and how things go around krim right now has certain implications.... just saying (does anyone at port watch news aside sports?)
     
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  4. Datendrache

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    In case people missed it, here's the videos and footage of the event starting from the "Obsidian Assassin" event that was (unofficially) kicked off at SotACON 2018 but made public just a few days after. I don't believe this series of videos have been posted all in one place before.






    @Hemswal The Descended deserves a ton of credit as well as @Cerus for this event. There was also a fine supporting cast of players. If there is one thing about this series of events surrounding the Dark Messenger that inspired me, it demonstrates all of SotA's magic in one place -- the Sandbox, PvP, RPG, and the MMO. It also shows serious wow-factor in how the community participated.

    I am looking forward to the next Portalarium event -- it would be nice to have a contest or something to keep us warm over the Holidays. :)

    Sincerely,

    Engineer
     
  5. Vladamir Begemot

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    Please post those in Steam vidoes. People need to see this!
     
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  6. Jens_T

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    Indeed, this game requires investment of time for new players. Portalarium’s business model now comes down to people playing and buying either many cheap or few expensive add-ons in the store. If I am not certain this game will be around soon, if I don’t trust the seller to keep a stable environment then I will think twice about spending money or time. Travian and Blacksun were publishers and the deals originally were not disclosed either. There was little communication and lots of confusion about BS dealing with Eastern players and the forced transfer to Travian (stopped before happening). Now they exit these big deals and don’t inform on their own. This is in line with the last five years of communication after the fact and after too many inquiries. IMHO it didn’t do good in the past and it won’t now.
     
  7. Gorthyn

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    Yet another "self inflicted wound" by Port. Will they ever learn ?
     
  8. Earl Atogrim von Draken

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    I am not going to fall for your rethoric question trap!!!111
     
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  9. Jezebel Caerndow

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    If they were suppose to do the marketing, and they did not do it, then it seems understandable to me.
     
  10. Lord of the Sheep

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    A good marketing campaign would, except for new player influx, not be visible to the existing users.
     
  11. Aelender

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    If I had to hazard a guess, just by looking at steam numbers, the peak player loads are often during Euro prime time hours...if Travian were given control of accounts as originally contracted, Port would have serious income problems if only left the US accounts. Which (according to my guess), is why they backtracked their original agreement from the start. They likely (again, according to my fevered imagination) have been trying to renegotiate since launch to work something else out, which has ultimately failed.

    Again, all pure speculation.
     
  12. Verit

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    Wasn't Port also supposed to do a "big marketing push" ?
     
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  13. taxalot

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    The only question that matters is : does that leave Portalarium with more funds or less funds ?
     
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  14. Jezebel Caerndow

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    well chris did some stuff in a couple days and saw more results, but hes really too busy to be adding that onto his list of stuff, that list is like a mile long.
     
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  15. Moiseyev Trueden

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    Not sure we will ever know. Generally though, I would assume that if they paid $1 mil for the rights to the European market, they would either be refunded with a potential penalty fee (depends on contract) or it would default back to Port if there was a breach of contract on Travian's side. Until one of the devs officially makes a statement though, no way to guess and kinda pointless to speculate. Definitely understand people's frustration though.
     
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  16. Aeryk

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    This was such an amazing event. I hope some of the remaining staff took notes while this was ongoing. It was a perfect example of how a live event can push story forward in a sandbox environment. Bug fixes and tweaks to systems are certainly important, but this -- this was exactly the type of play i dreamed to see from this project back in 2013 when i backed it after listening to RG's dreams for the initiative. The event was a modern take on the Seer program and a chance to reveal more of the lore folk like me crave within a roleplaying game.
     
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  17. Hemswal The Descended

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    @Aeryk If the remaining staff doesn't have said notes, they could always tap @Datendrache and me, as we were both present for nearly all of this event series, including the countless hours of planning and preparation. I think I can safely speak for myself and @Datendrache when I say, that neither of us are going anywhere and are both more than happy to help in any way that we are able.

    Also, thank you for the compliments, both of you.

    We did work directly with @Cerus and I can say it was a pleasure working with him. There are several others that contributed as well (I lack the complete list but it is present on the forums elsewhere). I do hope there are more events of this kind as well.

    I remain the first avatar to officially join the Obsidian's. The devs can feel free to tap me as an "evil", plot hook character any time they wish. <3
     
  18. Gorthyn

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    Too busy to properly market the game and hopefully increase the games population ???

    Hmmm ok perhaps less time spent on "nice to haves" and more on "the basics" would be a good idea ? Ports odd priorities in this game continue to baffle me.
     
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  19. Barugon

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    I love the comments from people that have no clue about what it takes to produce a game but think that they do.
     
  20. Earl Atogrim von Draken

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    If you take a look at the last couple of releases....that's pretty much waht they are doing?
     
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