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

Hadn't occurred to me. You're probably right. Well if that's the case then they need to start airing out their wallets

 

I would love the number far more if it would be real backers considering how we all expect it from the kickstarter system.

Backer is a well established term due to kickstarter.
We all understand it and know how to measure it.

New Britannians may look better in numbers but does confuse.

Like you just got confused and realy believed that we made that awsome jump.

 

Well, SotA just got a lot of notice on some pretty big websites. It's one of the most anticipated of 2014 as well as being on a few more high profile watch lists. I wouldn't be shocked if quite a few were new backers.

 

I suggest getting back to the original figures of Founders and SotA so we get the true amount of Backers, not some highly dubious inflated number that cannot be verified and the Dev's do not have the time to validate.

 

It'll be okay.

 

NO it won't its just a number the forums have 59k+ the webpage states 66K+

Myrcello has been doing this update page for a long time now you thought it was Great, so now all his time and effort become worthless.
CAMPAIGN UPDATE THREAD
Myrcello:
Date: 3rd Feb 2014 CST Time 5:45 am

• Raised: $3,142,602 + $7,534 since last post
• 27,368 backers +42 since last post
• Special Occasion: None

Estimated Money still required for the additional 1 Million $ Richard talked about: $ 239,999 Average Money a day that has to be made to reach the $ 239,999 in 240 ( Day Calc ) days till October 2014 : $ 999,99 Money required from each current backer to reach the amount : $8,76

Below from SotA Webpage.

Don't Get Left Behind

66,176 New Britannians have helped raise $3,154,933 to fund the game they've waited fourteen years for. Will you be one of them? Help support the development of Shroud of the Avatar by making a pledge.

 

It is great, and his effort is not worthless. Far from it. It will be okay.

 

It will be ok. We all adjust to the new numbers.
May be only the next days some confusion.

I would have preferred if they posted both numbers.

No matter what number, they did make a good jump in regards to money raised.
We all benefit from it.

I was a little cynical the last post and days.
Sorry. At the end we only give feedback. What i hope is good.

 

They are still continuing to publish the original and new numbers here.

New Britannians: 66177
Raised through KS ($): 1919275
Raised through SotA ($): 1235873
Total Raised: 3155148
Backers through Kickstarter: 22322
Backers through SotA only (not KS and SotA): 5100
Backers Total: 27422
Still Unlinked KS accounts: 6194

In fact, the Devs have already stated that they are updating the website here and there over time, so we are seeing it in bits and pieces. And they said they will eventually have a much more elaborate Stats page than what is shown above.

 

I completely understand where you are coming from, you have put in a lot of work just to have it complicated. I'm sure the end of the pipe result will be a positive one.

 

So, do these numbers mean there are almost 39,000 people on the forums that are really just waiting to see how things turn out before buying?

That's a lot.

 

Yet Portalarium gives them credit on the Web Page as having helped to raise the money, will they will be getting Founders status next.

 

I spend the last month in Africa and I thank you, Dallas for the post. In the end I'd say the more the merrier, and the money helps us all.
As someone who always loved the Ultima Series, I am very happy I had the chance to gain a Founder Status via a gift, because I honestly didn't hear earlier about this project.

 

I got the impression a large number of those were false, Spam accounts

 

This is exactly what I wanted to point out for some time. I'm sure many people concerned with the less exclusive founder reward are die-hard fans of Lord British, and imagine for a second you had missed the kickstarter campaign. Wouldn't you be crazily happy you could get a second chance to enjoy those rewards. Have some empathy please, take a little pilgrimage to the Abbey

 

Yes, but others don't see it like this. The HUGE influx of <1000 "new" founders is diluting the pool of 23K+ Kickstarter backers so much that the Devs had to take action!

 

The idea is that it's the community that spreads the word. Joviex calculated half the names on the forums, of them 12% are spam accounts, but that might not be accurate if most fake accounts use the first half of the alphabet. 6,000 or so fake accounts vs the thousands from kickstarter that 1) haven't even linked their accounts and 2) haven't even signed up on the forums. It comes out to a wash.

So there are missing valid backers from that count since it's just total forum members right? I'm pretty sure they didn't add the kickstarter #s to the forum# because that would be all sorts of duplicates.

I don't really care how they do it, or if they even show the number of backers/community members. They could remove all the stats if they wanted to. To me what matters is the dollars. As long as that keeps going up it gives us a positive outlook on the future of this project and what the team can do with those funds.

 

While I agree that it must be a welcome benefit for those who missed out, and I'm glad they (and you) are able to participate. But this could have been handled entirely differently. They could have announced a tier that costs the same as those in the marketplace are charging, but call it something else. They could have thought it through that people aren't gold farming for it. Are they really being paid to bring more backers? I could do the same thing but chose not to, for obvious reasons. If those same backers could get the same dollar amount and some sort of backing that didn't disrupt the early backers rewards, it would have been a far better choice.

The 2 things people are disturbed by is that their early backing was diminished by this practice. And that people are actually making their own pocket money off of the game and it hasn't even been released yet.

Edit: Not to mention, wouldn't everyone rather the profits go to Portalarium for game development, rather than backers pocketing the money? I know I would.

Yet it has much wider implications. If this gold farming is rewarded, it will continue after game release (there has already been threads on these topics of making cash outside the game and Pay 2 Win). It's a slippery slope that, once allowed, there is no going back. It most definitely will ruin what could otherwise have been a good game. People's impressions count for a whole lot. When impressions are a big part of what sells a game, what have they done to derail people's trust and enthusiasm? A lot.

 

I guess you may have overlooked Mr. Dallas post about gold farming and the issue at hand. so here it is:

And as far as "pocketing the money", I have gifted some pledges... I haven't made 1 cent. I guess you mean the $25 referral bonus. Should you get a $25 referal bonus for refering freinds and family? Well yes of course you should. Should I get a referral bonus (virtual money mind you) for raising another $40 for the game? I would say yes to that too. It is a win/win no matter how you look at it. There would be a whole lot less $40 payments if the virtual $25 reward was not attached.

 

Not true. It's $40.00 in and $25.00 out in credit, which is spendable as cash in their shop. They could just keep selling Benefactor level account which actually brings in money, instead of selling upgrades for $15.00. If they needed the $15.00 that bad, they should have just lowered the price of the tiers, although then they would have had an entirely different issue to apologize for. If their sales thus far were less than they expected them to be, then they needed a way to get new buyers; that's the proper way to generate revenue.

At this point, people are either going to buy the game or they are not. You can't spin it. Sorry.