Trust and Doing the Right Thing (regarding Early Founder Pledge Gifts/Transfers)

I was happy to read this post and thank you for the explanation concerning the situation. I do appreciate good arguments and opinions regardless if i agree or disagree personally.

This feature will be abused for sure but to what degree i don't know and i'm past caring about that.

Also I do love Koldar's suggestion to give KS backers even a tiny bit more recognition here, a title or emote or whatever. That would be just fair.

 

This type of conduct brings the concept of Kickstarter funding into disrepute. I will not be funding anymore projects when they can be manipulated by the very people that make promises to get the funds. portalarium seems to have been changing the rules since day one of the kickstarter launch, yet once $1 dollar as been pledged those pledges are locked and end on kickstater completion.
If any backer has made any profit from this that breaks the kickstarter rules. We are backers not investors.

It would appear to me that People are now touting for funds to buy up pledges and are being paid $25 commission from Portalarium for raising them money.
I also see that they can split any amount of pledge between their accounts, does this mean they will be stripped of the founder rewards if the original drops below a certain pledge level for that item.

 

From Dallas OP
thought this was clearly communicated in Update #25, dated April 9, 2013, when I stated:
"We are currently designing the new tiers for brand new backers, and should have those available by end-of-day Sunday, April 14th, at the conclusion of our current one-week grace period. It is our intention for all Kickstarter backers to be able to purchase/upgrade to both the previous tiers (pending availability of limited tiers), and the new tiers, whereas new backers after April 14th will only have access to the new tiers."
When I wrote "purchase/upgrade" the word "purchase" was referring to buying additional pledges, and the word "upgrade" was referring to existing pledges. Since a tier is defined by the rewards it contains, when I wrote "both the previous tiers...and the new tiers" the previous tiers was referring to rewards listed in the tier descriptions prior to the end of the Grace Period, and "new tiers" was referring to rewards listed in the tier descriptions after the Grace Period. This means that all backers up to May 20, 2013 would be able to purchase additional pledges that contain all the original rewards and the new rewards, as well as upgrade any of their pledges to tiers that contain all the original rewards and the new rewards, thru April 7, 2014.

This statement says"We are currently designing the new tiers for brand new backers, and should have those available by end-of-day Sunday, April 14th, at the conclusion of our current one-week grace period. It is our intention for all Kickstarter backers to be able to purchase/upgrade to both the previous tiers (pending availability of limited tiers), and the new tiers, whereas new backers after April 14th will only have access to the new tiers."

So after April 14th no new founder pledges.
Not the added February 4th 2014 amendment of April 14th 2014. If this date were to be used then anyone backing before April 14th 2014 is in fact a Founder already and benefactor rewards begin after that date.

Why were no emails sent out informing all backers or are emails only Add On Shop flyers

 

Buuuuut technically they were gifted from an account that was made before April 9th, 2013 then "gifted" to said player. So even though I understand and agree with your statement, they aren't "new founder pledges." I could have bought it 9 months ago and waited until just recently to send it out. See that's their argument, which is kind of a trump card.

 

They are buying them now to pass on after the 7 day extended deadline to get founder pledges buy April 14th , if its April 2014 any one can buy founder pledges the new tiers do not come into force until April 14th 2014.

 

I'm very interested to know how many of the 22k+ Kickstarter supporters actually asked for this. It must have been a huge number in order for them to make this happen and announce the change two days after the close of the Kickstart. Was it 10% (2,200 requests), was it 1% (220 requests)? Does anyone even know?

I could be wrong, but I would be willing to take a bet that it was less than 1%....

No matter how good an idea is, only running past a low percentage of your audience is probably... no wait, not probably. It is a horrible idea.

 

That was not what they promised and for what a lot of peeple paid, for me even offensive in some way. But the principal problem is that I dont really trust them anymore, and Im not the only one, thats the problem. And, sincerely, I feel their attitude far different now from KS pink days

But its my/our problem, of course, bacause all I can do is to sit and to lost a plenty of money (but more sad because of moral stuff than the real value, that also was high enough for me).

And about to make a good game, what really raise money is to show a good product than the people want and believe. If they had given us the game that they promised when we reached the 2M that could be already a great product. But 3M and far away still from that.

Sorry about that, mates. I dont want really to write nothing of this in the forum but, what can I do with my pledge? My own luxury jail.

 

The only real way to ""fix"" this is to give me the possibility to get my money back or/and something that make me feel totally OMG in a positive way about this. Something that is not going to happend. Anyway yes, obviously inappropriate. But I don't care about that.

 

This is one huge fubared mess. Imagine, if anyone does not read the forums, they wouldn't know this was happening at all. That marketplace is a huge joke. I really, really don't want to play a game with these kind of people and these kind of management fundraising decisions. Sorry Portalarium, word is getting out.

 

Greetings Avatars! I'd like to remind everyone to remain civil in discussion. There are to be no personal attacks. I will unlock this thread once I have cleaned it.


EDIT - I have reopened this thread. Let's keep this on topic and without personal attacks this time to avoid further lock downs. Thanks!

 

I'm with you in this brother. Honestly, i'd take my money back too if i could. Not because i think the game will be bad but because of the disappointment in many non game related decisions. I'm past caring about those nor am i interested in the development itself as i was during KS and short after. I will wait for the end product and judge the game itself. But i really think KS was a failure in a sense and it was falsely celebrated without any real info how much it would actually take to make a game. The team might be transparent when it comes to the game design, thank you for that, but not when it comes to the funding and business side.

 

I'm on the fence now. At first, I was upset at the apparent lack of integrity and willingness to sell out their founders. But, once some noise was made in the forums, they did just as I had hoped and wrote a nice honest letter and then did something so enough of our early founder items would still be pre-may 20th and so our titles would be different.

I'm not personally interested in using founder items, or having a title, but Portalarium has shown that they acknowledged their mistake and have attempted to make it right. I still abhor the FOUNDERS UPGRADE BUSINESS HELP ME BE A SELFLESS SHINING STAR crap, but they did promise the ability to do that (although in a very obscure and vague way). I'm still a little eerie of ol' Port, but if they could offer an upgrade system that didn't create profits for founders, I would be fully satisfied.

Honestly, if I had the money and actually wanted to upgrade my pledge further, I'd open up a $15 dollar pledge shop (that way its non-profit). This would empower me (or whoever else did it) to undercut and ultimately put an end to for-profit forum 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.

 

I don't want any Titles or other fluff for backing the project I just want it put back to the project I pledged for.
Not an unfair set of rules to benefit a few people with lots of spare cash to throw away.
No extra Founders being created by original founders buying up pledges to hand to other people.
1 plot per account, not multi plots snatched up in the hope of making a profit.
Advantage Tools etc kept out of the shop.

This should be a vote for all backers not a select few in DEV+.

 

Same , and we already got a different title when the benefactors... Next time? Maybe one day we are going able to be a "early knight commander of the mortal death elite". Maybe one day we are going able to be a "early founder knight commander of the mortal death elite".

 

If people want to expend effort marketing the game, I don't mind if they get a little compensation for their trouble. It still attracts new players, which benefits the game.

 

I could care less about a title. What I care about is gold farming. Business development and ethics.

 

I don't either. Personally I don't think advertising directly on the SoTA forums counts as marketing the game, but that's a different issue.

 

Well it may or may not be advertising, but something has happened. Backer accounts have multiplied to a shade under 3X since Jan 18th (when it was 26,712.) We now stand at 66,156. I'm not sure exactly when the ballooning started - I just noticed it a few days ago - but that's more backer growth than all of 2013.

I think Owain's position has merit. They can't all be people with 3 accounts. If it's not an actual influx of new people then it has to be the result of some change to the calculation.

Either way it's highly likely that somebody is doing something right.

 

I could be wrong but I think that figure includes all forum members (both backers and other forum members who did not back the game yet).

 

Such has been explained here : https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...icial-forum-bug-list.1202/page-10#post-120522