OMFG! (heritage items)

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Barugon, Sep 27, 2019.

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  1. Sulaene Moon

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    If you look further below it shows a day or two ago 140ish people created new accounts. A lot yet no one talks about that?

    So 600 to 700 people are creating 140 new accounts? If that was true Portalarium would have been out of business years ago. Yet there is talk about another book coming out soon and Episode 2 releasing in 3 months so the numbers don't really represent true health.
     
  2. A'chelata

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    Well, that's because if you read the info on how they gather the api, that doesn't necessarily accurately reflect new accounts.
     
  3. A'chelata

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    If that were actually 140 new accounts on just one day . . . how are we still at 600-700 people? Where are those 100+ new people a day at?
     
  4. redfish

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    Well, its not new accounts, its a new characters.

    And yea, a lot of times even a single person will create a ton of new characters at once for reasons. If you look at the PvP leaderboards you'll often see Kill-Death ratios of 50-0 and this is because they're killing alts. I know people who have done this, so its just just me doing conjecture.
     
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  5. Sulaene Moon

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    So everyone is creating alts and every place people use to get player counts can't be trusted then how is this game still going? Either way, if you don't like it move on and if you don't like the way they are selling their deco items then don't buy them. It's your money, your subscription, your play time. I brought a few people in and they are enjoying it, so it's not all doom and gloom and I'm sure things will keep moving along as it had been.
     
  6. Bedawyn

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    One doesn't have to be an investor to see trends and make predictions, nor is there any need to lump people into black and white categories. We care about the game or we wouldn't bother with the forums. I enjoy the game I can play now. I wish it were the game I signed up for last spring. I'm going to keep enjoying it as long as I can, but when they make decisions that I think are going to hurt the game's longevity and make it harder for me to keep enjoying it, I'm going to do the best I can -- however little that may be -- to try to convince them otherwise.

    As a free player, I need the game to have a healthy economy and a healthy population base. And I believe if they continue this trend of issuing new decos as Heritage items, they'll be weakening both, when both are already in a state where they can't afford much weakening.

    Life is complex. There's nothing in the world that doesn't have both strengths and weaknesses, including this game. But you can never solve problems or compensate for weaknesses without first acknowledging that they exist.
     
  7. A'chelata

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    You are correct, player counts can't be trusted and portalarium doesn't give out the real numbers (not that I blame them), and you are also correct in the fact that it is not all doom and gloom. It is certainly possible that the game will over time draw enough players to sustain it, and that over time it will develop into something that is a more finished polished and maybe even a game that has some mass fun appeal other than what it currently provides to the few people that like this design style.

    So, while the things you have said are true, the things we have said are also true as to the history and current trajectory of this game. No one who plays wants the game to fail, we can all agree on that, but those of us who have been here for the ride, certainly aren't wrong for pointing out the bumpiness of it and questioning whether it will run out of gas before it reaches a point of being a marketable success.
     
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  8. A'chelata

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    As a matter of fact, i'm currently so mad at Chris that I haven't actively played in about 2 weeks, but I still don't want the game to fail, I just want it to be a game that I can enjoy playing. But that is sometimes hard to do when they make changes that wipe out 2 years worth of work in 2 releases.
     
  9. Sulaene Moon

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    What changes are you referring to? The archery and other changes that everyone else was fine with?
     
  10. A'chelata

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    Well, I don't think it is a fair representation to say 'everyone else was fine with', but that's a big part of it yes. I'm not saying that some balance wasn't needed, but much like they always do, they went way overboard in my opinion.

    But that doesn't matter, i'm not trying to re-litigate that issue, they made the choices they wanted to make, and that's their right, just like it's my right to not play rather than switch to melee or magic since i've pretty much played an archer in every game i've played for the past 25 yrs.

    At least i'm not here calling him names or all over reddit trying to destroy the game, i'm just commenting on current and longstanding population trends and mentioning that it would be nice if someone in charge actually cared to make decisions that were inclusive rather than exclusive.

    We don't make the lesser great by making the great lesser. It's not a hard concept.

    If archers were overpowered, why not bump up the magic and melee and let them have fun too? It's not a zero sum game.
     
  11. Spinok

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    Sure it could be solved... But I`m angry too...
    Selling the items that cant be reselled its joke...
    If Port chose to play in those games(kill the secondary market for those types of items) I understand that situation is even worse then I thought.
    I would never buy such item. I find to buy such items in SOTA is an encouraging DEVS on their wrong step.
     
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  12. oplek

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    Of the MMO-like games I've played,
    • Eve Onilne: Yes
    • SOTA: Yes
    • WoW: No (but last time I played was long ago, before they got all microtransactiony... I don't think they even had a premium currency)
    • FO76: No
    So about 50%. You could argue that it's a bad practice for them as a business, but it is anti-consumer as well. If I bought a thing, I should be able to do what I want with it. There are parallels here with the France/Steam reselling ruling. If I bought a DVD in real life, I'd be in full rights to give it away or resell it once I'm done with it. Yet, the movie industry still exists.
     
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  13. Sulaene Moon

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    Pretty much all the games out there where you can buy deco housing items and patterns don't allow you to resell or trade them.

    If you're upset that Portalarium decided to change the business model so they can improve their bottom line, then why are you playing? You want all the development improvements without helping Portalarium to stay profitable.

    It is so easy, if you like an item that you want to use/have then buy it. If you want to get something for someone give them cotos to buy it. If you want to resell items for your potential profit go find another game. Easy
     
  14. kaeshiva

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    Having experienced the frustration of 'heritage items' when a friend bought one of those obsidian platforms and placed it on my lot -

    Its not mine, so I can't put it in my inventory to try and move it. Which means constantly trying to shuffle it around other things while decorating - and its not small. In the end, I just ended up giving it up and having to zap it to his bank but of course that presented its own problem as there were items on top of it that couldn't easily be moved.

    I don't care about reselling stuff. I buy a load of deco crap from the store and I've never sold a thing for cash, and very very rarely (in fact, I can't even think of an example) even for gold. So I'm not raging at heritage because I can't sell stuff. That's a non-issue. What bothers me is that it ruins collaborative deco projects, community lots, guild halls, event venues, etc. Not to mention that it exacerbates existing deco problems, like when more than one person is moving stuff and items glitch out, you can't pick it up to fix it - its not yours. Lastly, I can't store it in my deco boxes with my other deco. It can only go in my bank. And I know they made it so it doesn't count against bank capacity, but that's not the point. I don't want my bank cluttered up with a bunch of unrelated crap that only increases its load time. That free dog pet they gave us I've got chained up in a basement somewhere because I don't want it cluttering up my bank.

    Looking at the 'other games' comparison, a lot of games do not allow trading of premium items, sure. But those games don't have Sota's housing/deco system and the majority of the stuff you buy isn't furniture - its wearables, often that take up no physical space (rather, its an outfit toggle or such ,usually linked to the account), account upgrades, summonable mounts that take up no physical space, that sort of thing. I think heritage would make sense in those sorts of scenarios - an untradeable outfit would be less hassle than untradeable-house-deco. Still run into the storage issues though. The prosperity tools are a good example - something you buy for yourself and equip and can't sell. I have no issue with that. I think its a way for Port to get some income on a highly desired utility item without flooding the game with resellers of it. But most of the stuff for sale is NOT utility items, its display items.

    The thing is though, we allow completely free trade of COTOs - (which many games do not allow, the trading of currency). So it makes heritage items kinda moot - a needless restriction that isn't really restricting anything at all, except for trying to unload crap you're not using anymore - even for free!

    When I saw the new fishing statues were heritage ...well, it meant it made more sense for the governer to buy them on his account. But as steward I can't pick it up and put down other one if I wanted to change water type, which is annoying. And if we want fresh water again, have to wait for governer to come pull it, and oh look, he can't put it in the box of town stuff, it has to go in his bank. Just seems shortsighted all around.
     
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  15. oplek

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    It doesn't have to be everyone. Some people seem hell bent on not understanding the nature of the Steam numbers. It's a representative sample.

    If I start monitoring how much traffic is in the road in front of my house, the entire world's population does not have to travel it before I can reasonably reliable observe that the rate increased or decreased in the past month.

    When the game launched, when it went F2P, etc, there were positive spikes in Steam traffic. Was that people suddenly dropping the native launcher and switching to Steam? Each night, the Steam charts show a drop in player count, then the next morning, it rises again. Is that people zig-zagging between Steam and the launcher on a daily cycle?

    Or do these actually show a relative representation of people joining and leaving the game?

    Sure, there can be a long-term trend of people permanently switching. I myself engaged in this lately, because they don't know how to patch in Steam properly. My experience was that, it wasn't obvious how to do this, and I almost gave up and went back to Steam, before I posted a question here on the forums (and then my eyes glazed over after 15 minutes of playing and I went off to do other things). I don't see others doing that... and for anyone who picked it up in Steam, they would also have a high chance of having this issue.

    Unless a person can prove that, when the numbers on Steam drops, 100 unambiguous percent of them are transferring to the native launcher, then yes, the Steam charts do show a loss of players.
    • And given that Chris stated lately that they have 10k MAU (even ignoring alts), and the game had many times more that in backers...
    • And given the amount of people (many of who were vocal supporters at one time) have stated they quit here in the forums.
    • And given the independent confirmations from other information sources, such as shroudoftheavatar.net
    Yes, in fact, the Steam numbers do represent an actual, factual, loss of players over time - in reality - even if the exact numbers have some error margins.

    Why does this recognition matter? Knowing is half the battle. A person cannot make good decisions if their beliefs are factually incorrect... and there seems to be a lot of denialism here. Everything is not fine.
     
  16. Sulaene Moon

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    I agree with you on most of these, but I'm sure Chris knows the actual numbers, alts or not. We've seen people quit and come back. Most of if not all who say they've quit on the forums don't actually quit the game. I've seen some still in game playing. Most just threaten and throw their toys because something was changed they didn't like, but in the end they all keep playing.

    The places that show player numbers really don't show a significant player drop. Not sure where people are getting these gloom and doom numbers from.


    The OP was about Heritage items, not player numbers or people who voice that they are leaving the game who we know won't actually leave.
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2019
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  17. A'chelata

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    That's a wishful sentiment, but the factual numbers just don't support that theory. The API data numbers, while separated by the anonymous tag, do indeed reflect actual numbers that obvious trends can be observed from. If most of these players 'all keep playing', where are they?


    Most of the people intimating 'doom and gloom' numbers, as you put it, have been here much longer and have seen people leave and NOT come back, and how can you argue that when your project has over 50,000 backers and 6 years later can't draw 900 players, is not a little troubling to people who contributed decent to insane amounts of money in hopes of helping create a popular long lasting game that they could play and enjoy for years to come.

    And some people posted that this was yet another example of a dev decision that creates division, needlessly angers some of the playerbase in a game that desperately needs more players to survive, and here we are, once again discussing the elephant in the room that no one wants to acknowledge in an honest way.

    You aren't wrong in wanting to be excited about your support for this game, and we have long long needed much more of that excitement for this game, but you are dealing with adults here, you have to be factual with your numbers, and any reasonable person would see by the real numbers that the game is struggling.

    That doesn't mean it is doomed, but to the people who have been here for 6 years and have watched the numbers absolutely do nothing but decline, it's not fair to call them out as naysayers. If you wanna argue that the game population is healthy and mass appeal is just around the corner, forgive us if we have a little skepticism based upon our own real experiences and the real factual data.
     
  18. Spinok

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    Yes, most "Korean" work this way, even harder they dont allow trade between people for most type of goods, this why I don't play them and play Sota. One step closer to "Korean" type gameplay. Cant like this )
    I think the focus on significant player base increasing is a much better business model than this.
    I from the group of people who satisfied when they have the ability to do smth, even if they don't do this. I`m not a reseller of crown shop items. I just want an ability to sell items which I dont need any more, even maybe 10 times less in price but not zero. Its about feelings.
     
  19. Cora Cuz'avich

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    I believe the deco palette feature is partly intended to allow others to deco with no-trade items.
     
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  20. Oakenhammer

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    As a general point of clarification regarding stats, Chris mentioned on a steam that we have roughly 10,000 active players per month and he'd like for us to be more at the 20,000 level.
     
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