Trolly / needy / complainy players

The "innovators" got it WAY wrong when they thought store-bought deeds, etc were a good idea. The game's price tag is a core issue.

 

As one of the first and largest crowdfunded games I think Shroud has highlighted significant issues with that approach to game development (and others are seeing it too).

When you start the project, you are not selling a game but a concept. Its easy to sell a concept as you haven't had to actually make it yet This brings two main problems as I see it:

1 - Everyone has their own interpretation in their mind of what they want from this concept and feels entitled to get it as they've put money down up front. It would be impossible to deliver what everyone wanted. As the game is still in concept stage it would be equally impossible to specify exactly what you are going to build right at the start and stick to it without significantly constraining yourselves down the line as you develop the game.

2 - No large game makes it from initial concept to launched product without some significant changes along the way - the cycle is so long and games have got so complex this just isn't possible to have otherwise. Ideas will not turn out in practice the way you hoped and you'll have to adapt. This part of development has historically been largely hidden from players who are used to starting off with the end result. Not so here.

A combination of these factors is I think largely responsible for the significant 'troll' population SOTA has built up over the course of its development. For examples of others going through the same pain just look at some discussions going on re Star Citizen....

 

Yes crowdfunding is hard, I agree, both for the backer and for the developer, because its hard to please all for the developer and the backer feels vulnerable as he/she gave money upfront without guarantee what he/she will get and even if. I, myself, had backed a few projects that didnt end up to my liking too or others delayed alot to get sort of closer to my liking and one never even delivered even a beta version. Also companies run the risk of running out of/low on funds to deliver physical goods promises in time as we seen time and time. We see it even here where some people post every now and then for some still undelivered kickstarter physical goods

Generally speaking though? Crowdfunding has/had a lot of significant downsides but If there wasnt crowdfunding we would still find mostly wow-clones to play in the mmo market. It gave companies without the ability to shoulder the financial load to express their creativity and provide us gaming variety, and if I go more specifically for gamers like us, not too many years ago our sandbox mmo options were too limited.

 

BAM!

But I would not go so far as saying they got it wrong...they developed an economic model around doing business with the trees (backers) as opposed to the blades of grass (majority of the PPB "potential player base" worldwide), which got it this far...

Personally, I can afford it.

Unfortunately, the majority of the PPB cannot enjoy the full experience.

The game can either be a small pond with big frogs (trees/backers) sitting about croaking, with the TEAM playing step-and-fetch-it to them...or the best damn game possible by allowing a new hybrid sphere of influence to develop; that allows an appropriate balance of cause and affect going forward...and I use the term "croaking" in an affectionate way, with a smile on my face, as everyone knows that all frogs deserve a kiss every now an then, because some of them are just waiting to turn into Princes...

So please keep kissing the frogs from time to time, but not at the expense of losing it all for failing to develop an inclusive culture that embraces the PPB...

 

Not sure bout the frog thing but theres no financial barriers to owning deeds in this game.

 

Very true...

Not any more...

 

OMG when is this delusion going to STOP?! Dude, no MMO player that isn't a die-hard UO or Long or Garriott fan is willing to pay 300-15,000 for virtual real estate in an unfinished, severely flawed game even after 5 years of development?! I love SOTA but I can completely understand the majority of what players say on this subject.

Me? Die Hard fan of Garriott. That's my excuse. Now, there is another similarly crowd-funded little game called Star Citizen. I am NOT a die-hard Wing Commander nerd. Guess what? I'll play but I ain't payin' that much. And that, my dears, is what I've been trying to say all along. I'll play it, but I'm not gonna whale it, that's for sure. (And yeah, I f**cking said whale. Deal with it. I'm a gd whale here too.)

The funding here was a failed experiment. The faster everyone accepts that, the better. People thought "Oh hey, I can supplement my income with RMT here." You know what I say to that? You have to have value to do that. Ultima was the first of it's kind. An innovation. A sleeper hit. Brilliant and never seen before. What is SoTA? It's none of those things. It's good. It's fun. It's got a great community. But it's not UO and never will be from a "lets make money off a game like old times" kinda game.

That, my friends is called "putting the cart before the horse."

 

I think he is referring to two things.

One,you get free deeds. So there is no financial barrier.

Two, you can buy deeds with in game earnings. At least one town that I know of was bought with in game assets, earned by a person who had the minimum purchase back when you had to buy the game.

Heck, now you don't even have to buy the game. Work hard, and long, and own a town.

 

I guess I should have pointed out it might be too late for that now. I hope not, but without some major repairs to the game (at least maps *cough* which is woefully an obvious hint something is amiss) we're not going past this point.

I was given a city upgrade for my birthday last year from Drizzet. When I sent in the request, I asked, "Hey since you're getting almost $1,000 out of us could you at least rotate our map and fix it?" They said "No, there's no time."

Srsly? I mean, the maps, guys. The MAPS...the thing new people use, to... you know... get around?

 

I mean I have 2 row lots and 2 village lots in game I didn't pay real cash for, that's what im going off of. If you have 55 million gold in you can go buy a castle lot right now without delay if you felt like it. And that's just the most expensive thing. You can do that yourself without even having to buy it from another player except to get the cotos, which are still wildly abundant. The only stuff you cant (or at least its VERY unlikely that you will) buy in-game is expired, pledge, and livestream stretch goals tho those are usually being sold by folks for in game gold.

I didn't mention the maps or anything but, I agree they are broke.

 

I got to agree, not only it is delusion that many people will pay such amounts at once(even if they absolutely love the game) but it also means it generates bad publicity. Makes people think that it is a game only for people who can and want to whale, while its not the case and you get nowadays lots of free things to get started. For example I can only afford a subscription and 20-50 usd more monthly depending on month due to finances here but when i show the game to people with potential to love it since they come from sandboxes, some of them will see that pack in the main page and immediately say they wont even download the game saying its probably just for whales and p2w - and goodluck convincing them otherwise even I show them all my freebies so far. Yes other games got many expensive things too but no in thousands.(I am excluding Star Citizen that will release next lifetime).

Dual Universe seems it will be better anyways. I am among those that like to play one medieval fantasy and one futuristic game. For example I played years of EVE Online. Anyways now I am into SotA as main and STO(Star Trek Online) as secondary but I dont have high hopes on SC - Instead Dual Universe gives far more room for creativity and depth even if not as flashy graphics

 

*applauds* Thank you.

 

So bizarre they kept the Lord of the Isle on the main page after removing everything else. Put it somewhere else!

 

I’m confused by what your saying. You talk about freebies but then say ‘for example’ and your example is a subscription and 50 USD + monthly?

I can understand seeing the pack and walking away.

Perhaps a better idea for enticing new players is a permanent small welcome pack advertised on the main page. Something any account gets on starting a new character, that doesn’t affect gameplay nor is it over the top expensive/ideally has no value/non tradable (as it could then be abused otherwise).
Maybe something cosmetic and a couple of potions.

Most importantly it needs to be front and centre or it won’t have any affect.

 

Things like the free row lot for newbies and free village lot for later on, and cheap houses and myriad of in-game non-preium decorations aren't advertised up front because they are free. Doesn't make sense to spotlight those things on ads, but it would be benioficial to mention (and maybe show) some similar in-game items just to reference the fact that this stuff is a cosmetic version of something else in-game. They are mentioned quite a bit if your read about the game in general tho.


Another issue that exacerbates that is the folks who focus on the money making aspects of the game, spotlight it and demonize it and never reference the things you can do for free. Free things like buying cotos in-game off a vendor and trading them for premium houses.

 

It could actually be more beneficial then you realise. Anything anyone can get for free is an incentive to at least try things out. If they don’t know about these things there is no incentive.

Edit: And it shouldn’t be up to other players to advertise these free things.

 

I can agree with this

 

Good point. Maybe a good "focus on free" ad campaign would do wonders. Or at least mitigate the Rant of the month going on out there

 

It certainly wouldn’t do any harm to try.

 

It's a start. Acknowledging and accepting funding to fix broken parts of this game is also going to need to happen. For example instead of just yet more Deco stuff, perhaps we can add a tier to funding a fixed map, something else that's fixed Etc. Doesn't have to be all of it but perhaps just one thing a month and call it a community reward or something. That way there's an actual delivery time and we can watch to be sure that that is finished.
Please excuse the weird formatting on mobile using voice recognition because I just woke up I'm drinking coffee and I'm lazy.