Pay to Play Professions

Yeah some clarification would be nice.

Does the $120 Explorer level include episodes 1-5 and any additional content that is created in between the episodes? If not, is there a pledge level that does include the various optional things in between?

I ask because one may choose to hold off on donating money at this early stage, if the kickstarter pledge rewards are not comparable to what we will see post launch. I would assume that Portalarium would rather have people pledge/donate now so that the money could be better utilized developing the game...

Or are we going to be credited with our pledge dollar value to spend on these potential future upgrades?

I understand that this is all very early and the guys at Portalarium are still working on the various ways they are going to be monetizing the game... but I think that at some point backers should be granted all of the game content, period.

 

There will most likely be some free content post-launch.

But perhaps there will be some additional or modified tiers that gives you all post-launch paid content. I've seen other Kickstarter projects do something similar. For example, Divinity will give you every new game they release for the next 10 years if yo pledge at the $500 level.

Maybe Portalarium can do the same at some pledge level or higher. I'd be amazed if they gave away all paid content to any level backer for 5 years after launch.

 

"I?d be amazed if they gave away all paid content to any level backer for 5 years after launch. "

@smack Sure, but I would not think that they would expect someone who pledged $10,000 to cough up more money for a new game skill. There must be some level of support where you get the whole package...

Maybe that is the $120 mark, and I am just misunderstanding?

 

As I understood it, there won't be microtransactions. You won't be buying floppy hats or cloaks or costumes. I don't believe they want any part of that.

I'm also glad there won't be a subscription to play either. That would drive me away. I know the servers and electricity cost money and everyone needs to get paid, but I detest that model of play.

New content will come with a charge, but I suspect that will either be a new episode or an expansion pack. To me, that's fine. Just adding a new skill tree isn't enough to justify asking for money. Quite frankly I'm sick of games asking me time and time again to pay for me. Charge me for the game and then charge me again for a slew of new and improved content, not a single change.

I don't believe backers "should be granted all game content, period". There is a MASSIVE difference between someone who paid $10,000 to make this vision come to live and someone who paid $33. The $10k tier should get everything for free and they deserve it. Without them, we wouldn't be this far. Unless you put in $400-500 I don't think you should expect too much free content.

 

Richard Garriott has said that the kickstarter pledges will get everything, if they release new pledge tiers or rewards, you will get those new ones(at or below your pledge level). There is no reason to wait, they will eventually remove some pledge rewards, so waiting will mean you get less, not more.

He wants to be sure that their earliest supporters who believe in him and his team will be treated very well. I have confidence that this is the case. Nothing about them or their past suggests we should be worried that they will try to nickel and dime us, especially the higher tier pledges.

We can ask during the next hang out for some clarity on his vision of content purchases, this was new information in an interview. So far he has mentioned new skill trees, which surprised me. As quickly as they have episodes planned (1 year intervals) I'd be surprised if they even have time to release new content like that, unless all of that content becomes unlocked with the new episode purchase if you haven't bought it already.

I think he has been careful about saying what would be viable content for purchases, partly because it's still unknown and partly because people (Pledges) will worry about what that means to him. He said he doesn't like pay to win, and he doesn't like micro-transactions. so that rules out most of the things people hate about most free to play games.

To me, Pay To Win means I can't reach the highest point in the game without paying. Like if the best equipment(for combat) in the game can only be bought, and not earned in game. Even allowing the best to be bought I don't like, and I'm pretty certain they wont do that either. Pay to win isn't, here we'll save you 5 hours of "gold farming" by letting you purchase this.. like you can buy (with real money) tokens for wow now too, for new mounts, pets, higher level starting characters(they still aren't max level, just saves you 20 hours of grinding). nothing in that helps them beat me in PVP though or Raids or anything else, so they aren't paying to win.

Diablo 3 might be considered pay to win, since you can buy the best gear in the game on the real money auction house, and some of the best equipped players did that. It didn't damage my gaming experience though (the game itself did that).

 

@PeteWi Believe what you will. My source is Chris from an earlier dev chat.

 

@PeteWi

?should be granted all game content, period?
"I think that at some point backers should be granted all of the game content, period"

I should have chosen my words a little more carefully I guess, What I meant was more along the lines of:

"I think that at a certain pledge level, ($120 for example) backers should be granted all of the game content"

 

There should probably be a threshold somewhere for all the in-game content. I'm at Lord level and likely won't continue to buy things via an in-game store and would likely be annoying by such a thing if it had things that I needed to buy in order to experience the full gambit of the game.

However, don't read that as my disapproval of such a system. I just feel my investment level is enough to warrant allowing me access to all content (in-store and otherwise) they release up through game 5. I won't bust out in protest or flame them for deciding not to, but it would really be a kick in the teeth for me.

That's my 2 cents. I'm ok with them selling piecemeal content, additional content, and downloadable content. Well, Pay2Win should definitely be off limits anywhere and everywhere... but beyond that, fair game in my opinion.

 

My understanding before giving my hard earned cash was that I would be getting everything in all 5 games including a unique building and that people who buy the game after kickstarter may be able to buy certain things.

That being said I have no problem with them opening a store and offering to sell special items/pets/houses that have no real bearing on the game. However given the amount of money I have pledged I would be very disappointed indeed to find out that an entire branch of game play is not available to me unless I fork over more cash.

 

I don't like saying things like "all content should be this or that". They should be free to make whatever business model or games decisions they want. You cannot really have "all content" available off line. Or say that someone can play "all content" without a smartphone (or whatever new device/platform they may add). People have reasonable expectations of what a "game which doesn't suck" is. If they want to build more than that and have different methods and business models around unlocking bonus content, good for them.

 

I agree with PrimeRib with not saying ''all content.....'' because we love the game and I will enjoy everything I do get with my pledge. I paid 200, I know that isn't as much as some have put in but remember you are not only getting in game stuff, you are getting free physical merchandise. Whether I put in my 200 or the 10k...heck from the looks of it you guys get to meet Richard Garriott and see his house!!! I would LOVE that opportunity, plus higher tiers get houses and other free in game stuff. I think they have been very generous and are taking care of all of us, to just continue to ask for more and more things for free isn't right. If they are going to ask for some more for other assorted things that come out down the way than I have no problem with it, within reason of course.

 

I have to disagree with you there
Yes we want to help make the game but a game isn't a charity, the developers will be making a profit from this and unlike a publishing company who will expect a return on there investment we wont be receiving a return on the money we have put in. That's fine, we knew that going into this that we wouldn't and its fine too that some of the lower tiers are only getting a discount off the game price because of the amounts they have put in.

But those above the cut off for all 5 chapters may have only paid about what you would pay for a collectors edition in EB (around $150 depending) but if the game flops EB have to return that money and they don't have to make final payment until the game is due, all we have to pay is a deposit of maybe $50 to reserve that bundle. In this case the risks are much higher, we have no idea of the time frame for delivery of all we have paid for, if the company went bust (not that I think it would) we would see nothing at all where as if I had put money down for darksiders 3 (for example) I would have got all that back straight away.

So I think its fair that those who have paid up to at least the 120 mark (where you receive all the chapters) have an expectation that they receive EVERYTHING, that if expansion packs are produced that they receive those as well as there 5 games.

This is not greed, its the return on there investment they have a right to expect

That being said that only refers to in game content. If the team wants to make coffee mugs or chess sets or shot glasses and charge extra for THOSE kinds of things that is a different story as these are compleatly different products

 

in game shot glasses or real ones?

Because I don't have a problem with them charging for in game shot glasses as a decoration. like a $5.00 kickstarter fun pack with shot glasses, dippy birds, pen of the avatar pen, and whatever else might come along before release that are only house decorations.

Since they are purely decorative, it doesn't impact my enjoyment of the game, and I probably wouldn't buy it anyway

If you say I'm wrong.. it looks like we are the same pledge tier so I don't think you could argue investment value with me, I don't think we've earned everything they create for it.

Now for skill trees, yeah at $750 I think I should get any additional skills and areas or anything else they release that impacts my gameplay experience.

 

How do you think we haven't earned everything they have created? This microtransaction thing was something companies which released free games used to make some money, games like path of exile which charge nothing at l upfront and nothing per month. It's only greedy companies like EA and ubisoft which thought it acceptable to charge full price for a game and ON TOP OF THAT put in microtransaction.

Most of us have paid more than the most expensive off the shelf game at EB (and that's in a country netorious for being ripped off by game prices), the most expensive game I can think of was that new guitar game at $250 and that came with a real guitar

Yep currently I have paid $750 for myself and $215 for my partner (another thing which has become a thing of the past is the ability to buy a game once for your house rather than multiple times) and intend to go up to a normal lord if all goes to plan. I'm not saying that to one up you but to show where I'm coming from

More than likely in a few years all these games will be bundled together for $100 or maybe $150 with all there expansions. I picked up almost every Star Wars game ever made for $30 a couple of days ago

So why should someone who has supported the game from the start, taken all the risks that it will suck or become vapourware or the company will go bust etc and who has paid a SIGNIFICANT amount above what any reasonable person would expect the whole thing to go for even at launch, not be able to have an expectation that any content they want would be included in that expenditure?

Hell most season passes are alot less than $100 after all and they come with a garentiee on the content you will get unlike this where we have a garentiee on the games and nothing further, there may not even BE any further content

 

so you didn't pay the money for the rent free house, developer access, the commission free vendor, and all of the other loot you get, real life and ingame items... you did it for everything that might ever come out for the game?

Every MMO that is still out that I've played, offers these extras, UO does even WoW does, go to blizzard store and click on collectibles. If you just bought their current in-game pet offerings that is $200, their mounts? $100.

I spent $200 just for skins and heroes in LoL..

Star wars the old republic sells something that costs $400 on it's own.

It's the way online (especially free to play, no subscription) games are now..

They found the poor will play, the okay off will buy extras maybe buying hundreds of dollars worth, and those with money will blow thousands a year on a game.

This can be more profitable, and make your game more popular than forcing subscription plans at $15 per month, netting 180 a year. if they don't cancel after a month or 2...

This is also not Micro transactions.. There is a significant difference between charging .25-1.00 for everything in the game, want a new weapon? that'll be .50, want a new cloak? .25.. etc. And getting something rare, mostly decorative because you think the 3d model for this mount is the best and are willing to pay the $25 for it.

now the only way i can get behind them charging for a skill is if its in the new episode, but you can buy it without buying the new episode... which would be weird... but in that case we'd get that new skill since we have that episode.

If later on, after ep 5 that is how they wanted to release new content, I don't know if i'd like that, but if they still do it in episode blocks, $50 for this content all together, or buy the pieces you want (which would cost $75 in the end if you piece-meal it) Then that is fine.. it gives players options for what they want.

 

RG stated this will be pay to own, you buy it you own EVERYTHING about it just like a single player game, he specifically stated that they wouldn't be pestering us to buy a new hat every 2 seconds and that the only things which you would be required to pay for is something that took a significant amount of development time like a new skill tree which THEY would have to pay developers to make

BTW Diablo doesn't require you to pay for anything, you can get everything in the game by working for it or paying in game gold

Furthermore those other games require massive server farms which this game won't, from what I understand its more like playing on battlenet with starcraft 1 or diablo 2, the game is on your computer not on the server the server is just checking some transactions but most of it is peer to peer

 

When I consider the fact that with 1 UO account per year cost 1700.00 to only have permission to log on for a month, 3 times that considering I have 3 accounts running at one point, but you do it because you enjoy the game. UO also had expansions that you have to buy in order to get into new lands, hopefully that doesn't become the case in this game because that is annoying, I can't even enjoy a boat ride with my friends because I don't have the expansion.

The point that you brought up about not knowing when it will be delivered is rather concerning because there, as far as I know, has not had the developers level stuff opened up yet. If I remember correctly all of the 'inside info' has supposed to have been made available by now. I understand that they have needed to get other people to work on some of this extra stuff but that should have been taken into consideration before giving a timeline.

I understand that this is an investment and that we all have put a risk on something negative happening and we lose the things we were said to get, even more-so those with a high level of a pledge, but it's like buying stock, you put money into it hoping it doesn't crash and the company goes belly-up. With Richard Garriott's track record I don't feel that is a concern, if this was a brand new company I wouldn't have put my faith into it and put a pledge in. I have had many good experiences with his games, and maybe I didn't put in 750 or 10k, but my 200 hundred was still an investment that I had scrape together the funds to do so. If I could have I would have put in more, I'm sure many others would have done the same.

 

2 points on that

1) that's EA so what do you expect
2) that's an MMO with massive server farms that have to be paid for, this is not

Really don't understand why people keep HOPING we will have to pay more. If you want to pay more then up your pledge

 

@ Sir Mishri

I totally agree with you on pretty much all your points great post!


And I totally agree with charging for content I spent hundreds per year on any game I enjoyed and I want to do the same here with Shroud of the Avatar I love working hard in real life and being able to put some of that hard work into fun things in the game rather than just paying for mortgage and dining out etc. Games are meant to be fun and when I pay for something in game it is like a mini christmas for me... It's not pay to win - it is play to enjoy.

Some people enjoy to play many long hours... I like this sometimes.
Others like to pay real money for exclusive things... I also like this sometimes.

Give players a choice, to be able to play to enjoy the beautiful world they are creating.

 

I myself never said I hope we have to pay more, and I don't remember it being said by anyone else. What has been said is that if needed we don't mind if we do have to. I would prefer to not pay for anything more, it makes it much easier for me to not lose out on anything that I would like to do or try, but if there is another fee ,(like I said before, within reason), then I'm ok if it happens. I would prefer to not have to pay more, when the interview had Richard say about it wouldn't have any fees YET that bugged me a lot but reading the back and forth in this thread I'm not as upset.

You bring up about upping our pledges, not everyone can simply say ''I'm going to put more into my pledge right now'', this came out about tax time so people had a little extra they could use. I have 2 children to care for, and other real life issues that keep me from upping my pledge any more, if a year from now I have to buy some expansion then it isn't going bother me a lot. It will bother me a lot however if it blocks off parts of the game other than things that are just there for extra amusement like having an alchemy skill I won't be that upset. I realize you put more into the investment, but you are getting more than I am, some things I would LOVE to have the opportunity to get or have. So yes, you put in more but are also getting out more than those of us who can't afford a huge pledge.