Silent declaration of being disappointed by founder mass production

Man..i'm really sad to say it but now i feel dumb for defending SotA among my all doubtful friends. I'm sorry to say yet time and time again how dissapointed i am, not of the development of the game, but the development how money raising is done. I've said it before but makes not want to follow the project much because of that... maybe this project wasn't a KS success after all in a sense.

 

After all our pleas have been accepted. Thank you Portalarium for the cooperation and giving us back some faith in the future.

 

This is what you reap when you sow it by giving away pledge rewards that arguably could be seen as having investment character.
I am not talking about the OP in this thread, but of course a money making scheme with pledges that would appeal to those wanting to make a quick buck rather than to support and play a game,will attract that kind of crowd.

I have stressed on many occasions why i do not believe this to be a good strategy for the longevity of the game, and we are starting to see it already before launch.

 

I hear you Tarsilion. I'm very happy with the latest Early Founder update, as I think everyone gets to win with it, but i still feel the AdamZax's original concern from a similar thread is relevant. Still, this third-party upgrade business was promised (albeit unintentionally) in the KS. Keeping that in mind, if you have the cash, and want to upgrade your pledge, why not undercut these filthy player markets and start selling upgrades for $15, that way you break even, and you break all the for-profit businesses?

 

Because of the recent influx of New Founders, we feel it is important to differentiate all the original Early Founders (backers prior to May 20, 2013) who, during our brief Kickstarter campaign, championed our team and our project. It was their efforts and generosity that allowed the Shroud of the Avatar project to happen! We are doing a poll with the Dev+ group on a new set of rewards for Early Founders. Rewards will include a new title and a different color scheme for the Founder items (weapons, armor, cloak, etc.). We will announce the results of the poll on Friday with the update and even include an example item.

 

And that pretty much fixes it for me.

 

That's a gesture of goodwill that goes a long way. Thank you, Portalarium.

 

Looks like the idea I mentioned in the early beginning of this thread - thanks for taking this up!
*Salute*
Olahorand

 

Sometimes it happens when depends of the money. Diablo 3.

 

That's what it should have been all along. Small discount, cosmetic and titles, for those that hit the 30 day KS window. But the game needs to grow and build and reward everyone who prepays into it in the years leading up to launch. Forcing benefactors to pay more and get far less in game was a disaster and all you need to do is look at the massive continued growth of backers into Star Citizen for proof. SOTA should be up there with $10m+ in backing as well. Can not regain all that lost momentum but if you reward new backers and treat them fairly we can make up a lot of lost ground and deliver a massive game way beyond the original plans.

 

As far as I know all the backers were rewarded. By the way: try to pledge now a "forever spaceship" in SC.

 

So by your logic, we should carry this on even further and allow the gifting, what forever! After launch, there's no reason to punish people who never supported the game pre-launch right? It's not their fault they didn't buy in earlier!

Pft, let's flip the argument; people who buy the game late aren't missing much of anything why do they think they need the Founder status? They get almost everything a 'founder' would get. In actuality there ARE benefits to being a Founder, the most glaring is that you can continue to upgrade your account for a substantial discount. It's a bigger deal than is being let on.

See the difference is that they (Post KS donators) weren't paying attention, didn't have money or didn't believe in the project at the beginning. We (KS donators) who forked over our cash, sight unseen did. We were promised 'exclusive rewards' for that cash and now we just get rewards, sans the 'exclusivity'. It's not punishment for them to still be able to get Benefactor accounts, it's a privilege!

If people don't care about the words that were put out in the Kickstarter, then they don't care, but I do. I think it's the basis, the foundation of this company as it has presented itself to the gaming community. They did not put their best foot forward and this is shades of the business practices we can most likely expect in the future.

It's my understanding that new Founder rewards are being created... what the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks?!?!?! Then why did this happen to begin with?

 

That's more like it. It sort of rolls back the recent changes (not exactly, but in spirit). I think back to some of my early posts where I laugh at people (incl myself) pledging hundreds and even thousands of dollars on almost no pictures but merely on the words of Richard. Huge leap of faith that's easy to forget about when with the current eye-candy out there (I like the graphics despite some folks' complaints). Very easy for people to say they are deserving of such rewards long after the fact that a ton of pictures have been released a playable demo has already been opened up twice.

It reminds me only too well of the housing debate. Really isn't rocket science. :-/

Many thanks Darkstarr. I hope this is enough to re-cement trust from the founders.

 

Oh wow it seems that our "moaning" here has made some impact, congrats on Grayhawk for making this thread and everyone that supported her words.

I wish something "physical" is included, I mean... digital stuff can be cool but having something that you can put on your nerd shelv is always a plus for me (if the project ends up being something that deserves beeing in that precious shelv!)

 

As for me, at the Kickstarter funding time I trusted nearly blindly in RG and his team. After the end of Kickstarter there were made several sudden alterations and at the same time the communication between the dev team and the players decreased (of course they had to develop the game, but after a very intensive time during Kickstarter it felt unfamiliar) and so did the amount of available informations. This often made me wondering about but I still had no doubt that it has been right to pledge. By and by more things changed and I did't understand some of their decisions. The moments when I had a feeling of something being wrong got more often.

After what I called "founder mass production" and these events not only being authorized but actually being promoted and supported by Portalarium, along with many deprecative comments of other players and initially Portalarium not doing anything else than apologizing for the trouble caused and selling the early backers down the river, I lost my confidence.

I was positively surprised about Portalarium after all being accommodating and trying to calm the waves. I got back some hope in the future development but it will take time to rebuild confidence and probably it then still won't be as complete as it has been about one year ago.

It's a long way to go, let's go on and maybe meet in the game in R3.