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

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Ragnarr Lodbrok, Oct 8, 2019.

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  1. Hornpipe

    Hornpipe Avatar

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    [​IMG]

    I would act as if we were a team and stay silent about my deepest concerns if everyone was playing by the rules and if the game was promising.

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    I cared about this game. I really did. Now I don't care so much, because some people (and some devs included) just gently drove me out with the way they acted or the decisions they took.

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    Of course, I would like to see SotA to be a successful game, but I don't see any reason for it to be the success it deserves with the way it goes. Let's be serious. We had 50 000 players giving money, hoping for a great game with Lord British working on it. Now we have less than 10 000 active accounts playing the game, with some alt. Lord British is nowhere to be seen. And despite good ideas, the overall design is probably not worth $18M (my polite way to say that's it's totally underwhelming).

    Nobody here wanted everything to be done by yesterday. But the game was planned to be delivered a huge amount of days before yesterday anyway, in a good shape. People who paid dollars fulfilled their engagement. Portalarium still has to do the same by many ways.

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    You're a young one in this business apparently, so I totally understand your point of view. But believe me or not, when people feel like they have been screwed somehow, they just don't walk away like if everything was fine, business or not. And they have no reasons to do so, even to preserve your own hopes when other people just screwed with theirs. Some here are probably just waiting to know the outcome. Some others, well ...

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    Now are the critics the reason behind the failure of the game or is the game not as much attractive as it should in order to keep players ? I'll let everyone have an opinion on this. Personaly, I played this game 4000 hours for more than two years with great loyalty. I paid AND invested a lot in order to help its developpment. I met friends here. I would not be so negative if it was not for a good reason. And I won't let anybody judge me for that. Not even you when you look sincerely sympathic. Thank you.
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2019
  2. evillego6

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    There are like 8 people total in the company, down from 30. They can barely keep up with the work they have. There's no one to delegate to.
     
  3. Greyfox

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    You are NAILING it! Many of us were quiet for years. Industry Vets know what they are doing, Last 20% is the quality, We have the experience let us decide, oh so many others. One last ditch effort to get the Developer(s) to listen and make the necessary changes.

    Hint, those changes DO NOT INVOLVING NERFING your most popular build! It's the economy, stupid.
     
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  4. Arkah EMPstrike

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    I thought this game to be a grand experiment in the level of involvment of the players and payed close attention to alot of changes and whether or not they acted on player feedback.

    I quoted what you said there because there are some very neat ideas i would have enjoyed in this game that were axed due to player feedback like advancing sieges with world-affecting mechanics, exploring any area on the overworld, and more reward for the risk of exploring PvP areas (which they technically did do, but not the way they originally planned at all) are 3 that stay on my mind, as well as ignoring story elements because feedback from players prioritized greater convenience instead. These are jsut thigns i personally liked alot or would have liked that i watched get protested and changed.

    Theres been lots of good changes too to come from player feedback like the ability to jump, locked glyph heat and charging, free attack, attunment, specializations. Again, those are just things i personally enjoy.

    My point is feedback was and is still constantly being acted on so the way the game is built is actually the result of both player feedback and dev decisions, as well as the staffing issues and logistics and stuff but thats beside my point.

    Also HI RIBALD o/

    EDIT: just to throw my 2 cents int he hat, an evolving world, lore, and storyline are what i want to see improved (exist) most too
     
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  5. Magnus Zarwaddim

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    I can see how this is frustrating. Being a small team, it seems their choice was "fix the UI / Quests" (which are serviceable now) or put in new content for players, such as dungeons. My vote would be for dungeons right now, because it gives players something to do.

    And if they are waiting until E2 for the UI/Quest revamp, there might be good enough reason to do that. I am just speculating here, but E2 is going to have new quests, and is also supposed to give us customizable NPC's, etc. These things might all be tied together, thereby making sense to wait for the UI/Quest revamp.
     
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  6. Cora Cuz'avich

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    How long are we supposed to wait? When was the last time we got any update at all on the state of episode 2 content? They've not even indicated anybody is even working on it. Maybe they are, but I suspect if that were the case they'd have been eager to update us. I'm not going to wait anymore. If it happens, I will come back to check if out. Until then, I would rather do something else.
     
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  7. Magnus Zarwaddim

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    IMHO, this is the challenge of having an online game with solo vs. group play. *Every game faces this challenge, which only gets worse exponentially after launch since most people who will stay are at or near the top.

    There was discussion between persistence and now about* scaling combat in a zone based on players in it, or based on players engaged with a mob/mini-boss/boss/elite, so that it could be easier on the lower end, and scale up as more players / more powerful players engaged. That's something that is technically difficult to pull off - and given the small team a pipe dream, to be sure (not to say they can't do it).

    Unicorns and the Spider Queen are end-game content. I cannot solo them, but I can try to get a group together to try.
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2019
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  8. Forum Name

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    This is my worry - again, the team works hard on so much, but when the devs stream, one in particular usually just cannot stop himself from showing anything and everything being worked on, well before release (Tartarus loot fiasco anyone?). That nothing has been shown about Ep. 2 lands or features, well, makes me wonder how much has been worked on. If we get a surprise that a ton of it has been done behind the scenes, that would be amazing, but would be out of character for how things get rolled out by the team these days.

    In short, my mind would be blown if in Q4 we get a " and here is a 50%+ complete rollout of Ep. 2 stuff for you to look at!". They could be working on it in total black ops mode, but I wouldn't bet on it. Let's see what, if anything, comes out of Sotacon this week (someone going please ask and press on Ep. 2 progress).
     
  9. Magnus Zarwaddim

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    I definitely agree with you about playing something else, which I have been doing. In terms of E2 announcements, there are none. However, there are mentions sprinkled throughout the news updates (check for the last week or two). And today Chris was on Discord talking about some stuff, and I came away with the impression that they are going to announce something in the future, just not sure if that's by the end of 2019 or Q1/Q2 2020.
     
  10. Ragnarr Lodbrok

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    When I said put some people to work, I should have said hire.
     
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  11. Ragnarr Lodbrok

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    I personally think we need to revamp the forums again and do a wipe of them and have the forum moderators create a "VETERAN" Forums to supply those comments and threads to moderators only to keep ideas open just as @Arkah EMPstrike stated, ideas come from players with playing experience. If this can be done, then I feel that the newer players coming in should have their "OUTLANDER" forums to give them a chance to feel comfortable about making post dealing with their experiences and game play. I'm Sorry everyone, but these forums ARE intimidating to a new player reading all this. I was once there myself. This way the Port team can sort through the threads in a more bilateral way to see and read the differences.
     
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  12. Forum Name

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    Port has no resources to start bifurcating the forums in such a way.

    The devs are not "sorting through our comments to take in feedback" - they occasionally come in to tell us of new crown shop items, log bug reports and clean up threads getting too heated. There is not time or resources to do anything more than that without a full time person(s) doing community management. Sorry, ain't gonna happen with the team size right now.

    The rest of the discussion is honestly among ourselves - I may still post my thoughts, ideas and critiques with a small hope but am fairly sure no one is listening, either by choice or by lack of time.

    Oh, and we used to have a forum where major changes were bounced off backers before being released to masses - it was the dev plus forum, away from newer players. Lost to the sands of time like so many other things. So we actually already had what you are asking for.
     
  13. evillego6

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    Your suggestion to a company that has had to shrink it's workforce by 75% over the last year, has been without an office for 7 months because of a lack of revenue is to hire more people?

    They do not have the revenue to hire people.
     
  14. Ragnarr Lodbrok

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    Hornpipe I found your comments most intriguing and with the most truth I have seen. I only wish Chris comes and reads the rest of everyone's comments here.
     
  15. Ragnarr Lodbrok

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    And you are the accountant for Portal? You have first hand knowledge? I find your comment non conclusive.
     
  16. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Which is part of my point- if you reach endgame level, and can't do endgame content, in a game that's supposed to provide a solo play experience, what reason is there to play? If the game's design is now intended to force you into groups to do endgame content, it needs to be up front about it, and remove all references to a solo game experience and "play how you want." And, if refunds are not possible, at least sincerely apologise to those who were tricked into purchasing a game that wasn't delivered as advertised.
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2019
  17. evillego6

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    Chris has first hand knowledge. I believe he is honest when he speaks and trust what he says in regards to the current financial necessities the company has.
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2019
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  18. Elwyn

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    Or maybe they're waiting for some event like... hmm... SotaCon?
     
  19. Cora Cuz'avich

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    Really? They stopped giving quarterly updates and the roadmap, and made us wait almost a year with no news at all about episode 2 so they could make an announcement to the (relatively) small group that will be at SotAcon?

    How about just a, "hey, were working on some ep2 stuff! Stay tuned!" Silence implies they have not done anything. Which may be wrong, but how are we to know?
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2019
  20. Bedawyn

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    We have the bifurcated forum NOW.

    Free players can only post to the new user, release feedback, and bug forums -- though thankfully they can still read everything. A game that prevented potential users from investigating it properly would never have gotten a second chance from me.

    Even after we've paid something to get access to the rest of the forum, we still can't reply everywhere. And of course the Dev+ forums (the part I'd be most interested in) is still off-limits even to read. Although I don't think it gets much traffic, the last post was only a couple weeks ago. So it is there if folks want to offer feedback to the devs while simultaneously hiding the information new folks need to make good decisions about how to spend their time.

    Of course, IMO, that would fly directly in the face of the friendly community that is one of SotA's biggest selling points. As would prioritizing feedback only from "veteran" players and not from the new players they're trying to attract.
     
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