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

Well plenty of us know what makes a good game and what doesn't even if we don't have the tech knowledge...

 

Some of it yes absolutely, quite alot of it no not really for me at least.

 

Well, don't get me wrong, i find this whole fishing thing very disturbing for different reasons ^^
Non the less they need to add a bit of content here and there and fishing was promised for a long long time now, so they are only making good on that one. The rest are all optimisations and bug fixes. But yes, more are still in order, i agree with that as well.

 

The introduction of free to play recently has revitalized the community, lots of new players trying out the game. Will they stick around? Time will tell.

The devs spent a huge chunk of time focusing on the game performance and bugs (combat, crafting, quests) as of late. In fact, their productivity is shy of legendary.

Focus on the basics? Don’t think so. The devs are doing it all. Not as much of new things/mechanics, but slowly and surely.

For example, the updated spider queen down in Spectral Peaks in R60, Pumpkin Head in R59 and Krampus incoming in R61. Introducing an entirely new boss mechanics - nearby power - I’m certainly grateful for that one, forces players to coordinate and pay attention while playing together.

 

WOW, lots of rampant speculation here. And the only "player investors" are those that bought in and now have the golden stuff. So I see no reason that any other business dealings need to be discussed / divulged to the player base in general.

"An investor is any person who commits capital with the expectation of financial returns. Investors utilize investments in order to grow their money and/or provide an income during retirement, such as with an annuity. "

 

Outstanding attitude /sarcasm

 

Thanks.........

 

That's what happens when there is no communication.

 

Depends on what is "necessary" to communicate to the masses. Inner business dealings aren't one of them in my opinion unless you have an express right to that information.

 

By having one of the most open developments ever, it somehow created the expectation that the developers would tell us absolutely everything, as soon as soon as it happens.

 

The monthly patches are open development...
But certainly not the communication from Portalarium.

 

To be fair, i dont believe chris is in charge of marketing. He is primarily tech lead and has been focusing on mechanics and bugs relentlessly.

 

Lol

 

They sure trumpeted an "inner business dealing" when they started them, so I guess it's only to necessary to communicate when it's good news?

And yes, it may not be entirely normal, but this team has touted it's open development, so there are expectations built by the team in communicating. If there is some legal angle here where they cannot talk, is it really that hard to say here "we see this thread, but we cannot comment"?

You are absolutely right that Port does not have to do or say anything to us about it - whether or not that is the right choice, I will leave that to the individual.

 

Sounds like its probably a better idea to avoid communicating business moves from now on to kill that expectation then. That is if it is just “the priciple of it”.

But i dont think the i baught a product and therefore am intitled to future company dealings mentality is legit at all.

 

Interesting read: https://www.gameswirtschaft.de/wirt...QyHMlZho-cRmefYnap0gH1ASjDxGaU90iykJ_iEBp66mM
Short: Travian let go about 20% of their staff. They also confirm that their partnership with Portalarium ended. I guess the $1M investment and extra OPEX turned out to have no return.

 

That is one way to see it.
There is another.
In my subjective opinion, i didn't see Travian do "their part". At all. Beside a bit of community management it seems like the rest of the deal (e.g. promotion) didn't really happen. We only got a resonable influx of new players after the game went f2p. If i got the deal right, that would have been part of Travians job.
Pure speculation on my end of course.

 

I can’t comment on the marketing bit. But they invested more than the upfront $1m license fee, they had several part/full-time staff working on this and did more work (questionnaires, website) which indicates they were active. In addition they paid for the Austin party and Gamescon booth. So I believe they did their part. Pure personal opinion ofc

 

Pretty much depends on what you think is more important tbh. Theri community managers where awsome, don't get me wrong.

 

I really appreciated the Travian community managers. I will miss them.