Blade of the Avatar Physical Book

Port is just figuring out how to fit the printing press in Chris's basement. Once Chris ships all the boxes, he should have enough space. Then he will have to gather pulp from reeds (down by the river) to make the paper. A few deep sea squid for the ink and they should be ready to go!... just after Chris passes the bar exam, re-negotiates the contacts, and completes his elven workshop to craft XL boxes from reclaimed office furniture.

 

Agreed.

I don't, and have Never held the opinion that Portalarium can do no wrong. They've done plenty of things that in my estimation are wrong, including silence on issues such as this. The difference is that I don't believe that the organization or individuals within the organization is somehow corrupt, and based in deception.

 

This is funny. But at the same time it's alarming how close things like this are to the truth. The perception is that Chris is running the show and Richard and Starr are pulling back more and more.

 

I also have this perception, and would like them to address it.

 

Part of this could completely be due to the really unprecedented peek behind the curtain we all got during the first five years of development - the number of streams, features and posts from Richard and Starr was pretty huge.

What is happening now just comes back to the many, many communication mis-steps this team has made - I am sorry but it truly is one of their biggest and continued blind spots. If Richard and Starr have to buckle down and just work on the game more behind the scenes due to the smaller staff (and thus cannot do a lot of the public stuff they used to do in the past), just make a post and say it. Because the silence just lets us all come to our own conclusions - my conclusion absent any communication is based on Starr's drastic reduction of posting, lack of public senior direction, and current duties that seem to only consist of a bare bones weekly update, two hour livestream, monthly release post, and a quarterly update post - that all points to pulling back absent of anything else. And Richard, well, do we even see him anymore beyond a monthly livestream?

So yeah, addressing it would be a good thing rather then letting many of us assume the worst. Just a tip from someone who drifted away in large part because of the way this team chooses to communicate - it does actually matter.

 

Same.. but how much time it's going to take before a dev show up and explain the plan about the novel ? This situation is really annoying and unprofessional.

 

Darkstarr has been on a family vacation just to FYI a little.

 

This isn't a new trend, so while I appreciate the information it isn't due to a small vacation.

 

I saw him online 3 time this week and how much time does it takes to reply ? 5 to 10 minutes ?
At this point , we can presume that he doesn't want to deal with this thread.

 

It's been over a week now and no response. Hopefully someone involved with Portalarium will make an effort to respond.

 

Totally agree. Stand up notes were a great format to very quickly to understand progress. Disappointed that its all live stream now.

 

The ongoing lack of updates regarding Episode 1 pledge rewards is troubling. I can't help but think the lack of fulfillment of Episode 1 pledge rewards is putting a real pinch on the team. There is not much hope for some form of Episode 2 pledges so long as Episode 1 remains unfulfilled. But maybe that was never the plan anyway.

 

to me it seems they are just waiting for the right time to pull the rip cord and bail. Maybe even drawing straws to see who will be last on the dying ship

 

To be honest I can't see the game being pulled............I just see a complete change of strategy. Its already a known fact that the servers are relatively cheap to run. It appears that most emphasis is being focused on giving players the ability to create their own things, such as dungeons, quests, stories etc etc.

I see a game that is moving into the realms where the vast majority of content will be created by players with the game ticking over with income from crowns, subscriptions etc. The game will never have a huge playerbase, however with things being fixed (general story, interface etc) and with additions of content that can be customized (such as player placing story npcs), the game with the right marketing could find its will into realms of having an ok following and will offer something fairly unique within the mmo genre.

 

Same. And the 1 man dictatorship bothers the heck out of me.

 

I'm glad someone else sees the possibility i'm also seeing.

They feed us what they want us to see; their transparency is measured more than ever now.

What they are feeding us right now could just be the hardship before turning off the lights routine to get a softer/sympathetic exit.

 

true. this game probably won't be pulled for good. either they raise capital or a more capable/professional studio with deeper pockets buys it. i'm hoping for the latter.

 

@Chris @Lord British @DarkStarr
An update, pls.

 

I don’t mean to rain on hopeful thoughts, but let’s be real. This game has had 3 major events (persistence, launch, and going f2p), none of which has brought in an appreciable number of new players. Shroud is stuck with a very awesome, loyal, but super small player base. I hope it keeps going, but no sane studio or other buyer would touch it unless something changes the trajectory. The days of new capital, seed invests, and kickstarters are over and aren’t coming back. The game either finds organic growth with improvements, stays stagnant as is, or slowly drifts away.

But that is a tangent - @DarkStarr is there any update you can give us on the book, or should we assume there is no book coming?