What if this was your business? or is it? .....

We all want this game to succeed. That's why we have been here, that's why we are still here, and that's why some of us will be here until success or flatline.

But most of us are grown adults with many years of life experience under our belts with successes and failures of our own in life. We have a little credibility from which we speak concerning sound business principles.

We aren't here bashing people and the game for the fun of it. The Devs have a problem understanding the wants of their customer base. It's about time they get it figured out. They are human beings just like the rest of us, they aren't perfect either. They need to swallow some pride and ego and remember that they put their pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else. There are plenty of backers here who have been far more successful than them in far more areas of life.

They can either learn and adapt, or they can look back in later wiser years and reminisce about what might have been just like so many other people end up doing in their lives. WE ARE trying to lead the mule to water, obviously, this one is more stubborn than most, and might just die of thirst before it figures it out.

 

Respectfully, you started in 2017. The original KS was back in March -2013-. They have had well over 6 years, a full staff, and a LOT of people's patience to work on these issues. Some are legitimate, some are not, but this is definitely NOT a new topic of discussion.

I want them to get new players too. Sticking the heads in the sand and ignoring legitimate criticism and glaring problems is not productive either. They have lost a lot of revenue, and need to figure out how or if they are going to replace it. Betting on the come doesn't work any better than in Vegas.

 

I remember early on when we had many forum battles and wars over the card draw combat system as it was being designed and whether to go with it or something more traditional, which chris said was always an option if the card draw system proved unpopular.

I specifically said to chris at the time, go a little more traditional, be more inclusive, it is your game, you can always morph over time into a more unique style of system and bring people over gradually, AFTER you have captured the audience's attention and loyalty. There's no need to alienate people when you have all the time in the world to develop in the future, with a large and loyal fanbase.

Nooooo, we want to be 'ground-breaking' and different for the sake of being different.

If this was my business, I would have spent much more time focusing on what retains the golden egg layers that I attracted by kickstarter rather than being obsessed with 'my vision' of what I thought was ground-breaking and different. We didn't need all this crap, we had story, we had lore, we had fans already who were happy with just the idea of continuing the world of Richard. Just make a damn game that is fun to play, with the back story of Ultima and let people have fun, there would then be PLENTY of $$ to guide development into 'ground-breaking' areas with the quality of support needed to pull it off.

 

So let's continue to bash and hammer down on SoTA so it doesn't stand a chance to make a comeback of any sorts. All the time and money you have invested in the game is thrown out when it's shutdown. That makes perfectly good sense. I am more concerned about the game thriving then the amount of dps I need to feel comfortable while gaming. I guess I am a rare breed of player. I am dedicated to this game and can handle the changes. I Don't have a problem right now with high Range damage. I'm critting for 200-1000 pts. I wear heavy armor. But my point is, I have gone through these changes too and my character was turned into a wet noodle. But, We always find something else to make us more powerful. It becomes a guessing game again to become a inferior PvPer or PVEer. Just when you figure it out, the rug gets jerked out from under you,right? And THAT'S what really gets a player angry. It's not the amount of backers the game once had or the number of players today. If that was the case, then we all would be a little more compelled to do what we could ( other than buying store items) to support this game with some common courtesy and patience. But it's always easier to take the easy way out right?

 

Well, if we ALL are aware of this, here in the forums that has been around for quite some time now, then why can't we all pull together, the ones left, and act as a better community with the will to make things better? Small things count. I'm in no damn hurry... I got plenty of time to play this game. I'm 50 years old. I'm good for at least another 20 years. At least my wife says so anyways lol .

 

*Raises hands to the SoTA God's*

Amen!!

 

Dude, relax, you haven't been here long enough to have the rug pulled out from under you enough times to say, 'don't I really have better things to do that are more rewarding? or, hmmm, don't I play games to have fun'?

The trajectory of this game's customer base has been on NOTHING BUT A DOWNWARD SPIRAL, and now they are completely at rock bottom. If they are dumb enough to think that players enjoy this, i can't help them.

We have spent YEARS giving them feedback, buying their promises, buying their store crap, and the directional changes that need to happen simply have not happened.

I refuse to give them any more $ (10k + is more than my fair share to play this game and expect it to be fun don't you think?), I refuse to act like somehow a new dungeon from chris is going to fix the problems he continues to hide from.

 

Spot on - for newer folks - no one, and I mean no one, is buying items of the Port cash shop and reselling them for RMT today. You can't do it because prices have collapsed and items don't expire to create RMT rarity.

The "RMTers are buying up tons of items and reselling them later at a profit" stage ended, oh, about the end of 2017. Things sold today RMT are for a steep loss from original purchase price.

And now a current mantra seems to be "we have to make changes to be like every other MMO out there, if they do xyz so do we"...

 

Totally understand and agree. I think Chris needs to be more delegative and stop with the Livestreams and focus more on what your saying here. I think the transparency is good, but he's in charge. He should look at what the players such as yourself are saying and make a list and put some people to work and focus on that list to achieve better results for this game and it's future.

 

Yes, yes he should. He should have started doing that a long time ago, probably before we got to the point where making payroll each month requires begging/bribing people to buy coto packs from the store during livestreams.

But he hasn't, and he won't.


I don't claim to have all the answers, but I definitely have 4-5 answers that would move this company to a point of having cash flow for breathing room and that creates options to build upon. It's not rocket science, it's simple economics, very simple economics. Like Trump said, after years of broken promises, what do you have to lose?

 

Irony.

Anyway, to address both @Chris and @Ragnarr Lodbrok s worries about the forums scaring potential new players away, I think your concern is misplaced. Maybe I'm wrong, and other people go to forums first before trying a game, but I think that is a minority case.

Steam? Now THAT's hurting us. Those steam reviews should be looked at for a checklist of what to fix for new players.

//Chris excluded from the following, he shows up, even though he shouldn't need to.

You want a place where you could actually help? A place potential new players are likely to see? How about people show up for the two places that run stories about Shroud, instead of giving them up to the negative. Are we a bunch of milk sops? "Well, we don't want to engage because we are totally scared and just wanted to look positive, so we'll let half a dozen haters own every news article about the game and just spew all over everything that is written about Shroud."

How do you think THAT looks to people considering the game? And to the news sites? They must all think the game is dead if no one in the community will take a stand.

There is plenty of things that can be corrected in the comments of every single article. If more than one person will show up and post facts to counter the worst exaggerations, derailments, and lies. Or show up and say "Yeah it has problems, but this is what I like about the game."

Instead it's been me and maybe one other person holding the line for years now, and I finally gave up on that. If no one else is going to back the game up then obviously I'm wasting my time doing it alone.

(BTW @Chris, low pricing the entire cash shop is going to get you nowhere in public perception if you leave the $7k bundle up. That is the ONLY thing that will ever get attention. You could make the rest of the shop free and the story will be about the one $7k bundle.) And I know you show up sometimes, and really shouldn't have to, so the above call to action is not addressed to you.

Spoiler: Another way you can help if internet combat is not for you

Go to The Avatar Express and become a contributor. With SEO, it actually WILL be a place new players start to see. We are already getting google search hits and we are almost at 3,000 pageviews!

Not only do we need some boots on the ground reporters, but we need EVERY guild who is a guild to get their best scribe signed up and posting articles teasing their events, and then screenshots and wrap ups afterwards. If you want people to know about the events and your guild, this is an easy way to do it.

 

spot on.

 

I really can relate to your point of view. I don’t care either if they make all the items in my subscription or crown store no trade items, because I buy them for me and me alone. When a friend liked one of the items I had, I literally sent him some money via PayPal and told him to buy himself one. I don’t look at the items I bought or received from my subscription as an “investment” or something that holds value, because in the end it’s all digital pixels and it is here today but can be gone tomorrow.

That said, I can relate that people who are upset about nerfs, bugs or items that can’t be traded. While I might not share the same view or have a different opinion on the subject, I don’t shout or discredit them. At least I try not to. Either way people should be allowed to voice their pleasure or displeasure. Opinion, feelings, etc as long as it doesn’t turn personal.

My main issue with the game is the lack of communication. I don’t know to believe at times, like what is said on a stream or what is said on the forums is correct. Something like a change in policy in how RMTs/trading items is going to be handled should have been communicated well in advance of any sudden changes. No matter if it concerns me or not.

The same can said with regards to nerfs. If the devs would have shown to everyone both in a stream and on the forums as to their reason behind any nerf it would have gone over a bit smoother. They could have stated the problem/issue, possible solutions, testing results, and how and when it will be implemented. Rather then what seemed like a knee jerk reaction by the players. Will everyone be happy, probably not, but a majority will see and understand why a change is needed.

Portalarium should be looking at the underlying issue that people are posting as to why they are leaving. It will give them the best metric as to what could be corrected to retain players. Like most people who have put negative feedback on Steam, you can see that a majority of them have issues with bugs and the way quests work. So that tells me that should be a top priority. It doesn’t matter the size of your current employees, all successful business starts out with a small staff and budget, but grow as their product demand grows. The opposite is happening to Portalarium, the demand for their product is shrinking, due to many issues. If Port wants to succeed, they need to address those underlying issues rather then building new dungeons. I haven’t seen any negative comment that has said this game is lacking dungeons.

 

They have been incredibly helpful in one major way. Getting bugs and stupid **** fixed that was driving us all nuts. It's a bit odd that he had to start livestreaming for a dev to figure out how bad the "prance around the tree to the correct spot" thing was, but now it is FIXED! Four+ year problem gone in five minutes because it was suddenly understood.

The devs should be rotating through, not just Chris. @DarkStarr needs to do one once a week or month. @Bzus needs to be doing the crafting challenges with us. Etc. Only Chris doing them misses a big opportunity.

 

This really sums it up for me in a nutshell and is a big reason why I gnash my teeth over what the game has become.

Portalarium literally had the golden goose with their original Kickstarter idea. The creation of an "Ultima Next", if you will. A selective multiplayer game with a compelling, story rich environment reminiscent of Ultima IV and VII. When I read that, I was sold, throwing thousands of dollars at what should have been a complete slam dunk! Who among us Ultima fans hasn't dreamed of an updated and modernized Ultima game? Supporting that effort was a complete no-brainer to me. Never in a million years would I have thought things would have developed in the manner that they have.

While I do not regret my decision, in so much that I made a number of wonderful friends here, it was a valuable reminder of two basic and immutable facts from my days working on Wall Street. Avoid making emotional investments and don't fall victim to sunk cost fallacy. Admittedly, my nostalgia got the better of me with the first but I was smart enough to avoid the latter.

Yet it isn't all doom and gloom. Things can still be turned around if hard choices and decisions are made. Stop with all these new and incomplete systems and focus back on the story. Give us a reason to care about adventuring in New Britannia again; because right now a lot of us sadly don't anymore.

 

I think the tough spot of the comments in MassiveOP or MMORPG stories is that you can't really have a discussion in a comments venue like that. ESPECIALLY, not the devs, who have wandered in there and frankly get crushed and at times even corrected by the editors of the site. Devs. shouldn't. be. posting. like. that.

What one can do, is comment in those stories by saying something simple "I enjoy this game, others do to - instead of taking the word of people who dislike the game, you can try it for free here at (insert link to free download)." Anything beyond that is just food for the haters and will deflect from the intent of showing positive support.

 

I don't think Chris doing livestreams is a problem. They started as a bonus; he would do his normal day's work, then turn on the stream and do something like work on a dungeon, or answer questions. The problem is this coincided with a big reduction in other official announcements from Port, and have now become the only way to get info from the company. So people coming in now, or who don't follow things that closely, see his livestreams as "official" and not an extra. (Which isn't really a wrong view.)

 

Soooo, by the logic of this post, you should be going out and buying multiple copies of all the one star review games and one star review products on Amazon, because those reviews are terrible for their business and you should be supporting them.....

 

This right here.. I couldn't agree more. You will always have the offhand rage quitters, but the lack of information has driven off your older base. I literally lost an entire guild because of the fact that adults have jobs and can't watch 2 + hour streams 3 to 4 days a week to find out game news. You took down the roadmap, fair enough not every game does that, but it doesn't help showcase what you are working on. It leaves too much up to the imagination in a negative light. You are also getting feedback from a very small group of your population on livestreams; it isn't enough to base big changes on. The next bit is there is a large population of gamers who never read forums and won't pay attention to the long rage posts. We are doing our best to support the game by trying to tell you what would help. I think it is wrong to say that players trying to give constructive criticism and good ideas is a negative impact to new players. Matter of fact I have heard from new players that our community is one of the best out there. I think this community is also very good at praising your good qualities; of which there are many.

If you feel the posts are so tough on new players opinions; I would suggest creating a general forum and a paid player forum. Perhaps you let your player rant and construct in one and closely moderate the other; be fair and state such moderation as warning. Just don't make the mistake of ignoring the paid section or subscriber forums. My guess is the news outlets see the posts and report more than the new players see them. Matter of fact I have seen some good press from Massively of late on SoTA updates. I have yet to hear from a player man that game must be bad; look at all the negativity on the forums.