New Pledge Rewards, New Pledge Tiers, Player Owned Towns & Stretch Goal Store Megapost

Then how will we get players looking for certain houses and certain NPC merchants, or sense of community?

I think they're trying to strike a delicate balance of providing housing for as many people who are willing to pay a premium up front for a guaranteed spot, leave some obtainable after launch, and yet avoid instancing housing. We'll have a big world, but it is nice knowing that your house is part of a city and part of the shared world everyone sees.

 

That's my point though. If housing can just be added so simply (as stated in the post I quoted) then there'd be no value in these lands.

 

location location location

 

I agree with you about the competition, value and desire in housing... Taking from the real world of real estate, the housing market does its best when the inventory is small. So, I'd imagine Portalarium's goal is to influence how small the inventory is by controlling how many lots are released into the world. I'm not suggesting that houses should, or will, be a cheap commodity. I'm also not suggesting that the inventory will be eliminated. I'm suggesting that as best as Portalarium can the housing market will probably have a consistent inventory size to help keep them desirable -- new lots, and zones will arrive in the game at a rate proportional to the demand.

 

I do hope so.

Which could be very dynamic. Those "extra spots" on the edge of no-where could suddenly all align into a player town. And thus their value increases and could even depreciate the spots closer to towns.

This is something we see in EVE Online.

 

Rent free property makes it worth it for me. There are times I might need to be away for work, it's comforting to know I won't lose my spot in that time due to rent fees not being paid.

 

Yup.....housing markets are great.

 

One issue that bothers a number of people is that they market housing as a key feature in many ways. If you look at the splash page when going to shroudoftheavatar.com you will find 2/3 of the space taken by posts focused on housing. These are the same since December and to a large extent the game has been marketed on this feature, not only to early backers but also to the general public. Having a key feature that is "rare" seems a bad design decision at best, and can surely be perceived as misleading.

 

Ok, I'll admit I haven't read any of the previous posts on this topic about the new tier rewards, and them being from a certain range of pledge or higher, etc. I only just saw the email and read it. However, I don't understand how the math works in this case:

Going by the graphic in the email, the "valley":

from Collector to Patron is an 81% drop, and from Knight to Lord is a 63% drop.

That seems to imply that only those that have major cash to fork over are worthy of the biggest "perks"; when all the data (going by the graphic in the email) points to the fact that the company would be better off offering a little something more to those that haven't (as of yet) pledged beyond the Collector level.

Is it me or is the marketing philosophy a bit wonky on this; because it seems to me it's the latter, in this case.

 

Yeah -- I think you're suggesting you'd like to see more advertising and bragging related to game play that's unrelated to housing.. I'd like this too. I think though that because of the business model, a lot of what's on the front page, and a lot of the talk on the forums, is related to things that help fund the game further.

 

Another thing, it seems like the number of housing spots previous to this information coming out are now irrelevant. There is going to be a lot more housing available with the introduction of both Row houses and player run hexes that were not part of that equation before which will be great for people who are waiting till they are in game to buy a house with in game currency.

 

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Hey Caliya, haven't seen you around for a bit. Welcome back. So I just jumped in again on this topic. I think all the new fundraising and add ons are terrific for the game. Yaaay we will get the stuff we want most, our better looking avatars, rideable mounts that stay in game and can go to a stable. There is no sense in holding the development back for a lesser game. This funding is truly necessary and will make a very wonderful game. It may be difficult to picture at this point, but I say watch and see and for those that don't want to don't watch. So onward and upward to our 30 mil why settle for less? We deserve it.

 

I agree, yet this is not without its problems. Once houses have been marketed as rare making them more commonplace is essentially breaking a promise that is bound to upset another part of the community. Altering key designs advertised as part of the kickstarter campaign definitely is an issue. Overall I get the impression that the crowdfunding approach lead to a lack of concept with regard to the business model and tensions it creates when looking at the implications of the business model on design choices. I guess there is no free lunch: Having a sound worked out concept that would convince traditional investors can not be given up without creating problems.

 

As a Royal Founder I'd really like - because we were not able to opt-in *before* cutoff date - if we either got a temp discount, or (much easier IMHO) if our pledges were leveled with the benefactor equivalents of our current levels (the latter would be a very easy SQL script to run on the background!!!).

Sure, I'd like (royal) founder items added to those new tiers, but what I would *really* prefer to have (royal) founder specific titles for these tiers

We had "Knight" and "Knight Commander", now "Knight Marshal", so perhaps something like "Knight General"?
We had "Baron" and "High Baron" or "Lord", now "Lord Marshal", so perhaps something like "High Lord"?

Just my 2 coppers...

 

Hear you on this. Ideally, I think it would be great to see an equal amount of devteam posts about non-housing game play, as there are regarding things for purchase. I've sort of accepted though that we're still very much in a funding raising phase. I listen to my local NPR station, and at least once a quarter they have fund raising week... It's somewhat of an inconvenience, but it is a necessary evil.

 

Couldn't you just load up the bank with plenty of money to pay for it, pay for the rent in advance or monthly blocks?

And what of players who don't see this game until after release. They never have access to this perk. Do we simply offer it to them later for a cost? Then we're allowing a pay-win, pay-for-convenience system, gah! It just gets so convoluted with all these options! It's a very saturated cash shop now.

Where is the traditional system. You buy a game. you expand it for costs (either premium or subscription).

 

Going from no property at Collector to property and three character spots at Ancestor (as opposed to having to jump all the way to Citizen to get property) seems like incentive to me.

 

I have yet to see anyone complain that the rarity of their house is at stake because of adding more housing since the decision was made to do so. If anything, there has been greater support in favor of adding more housing. In any event, you should be overjoyed over this considering your posts in previous threads so not too sure why you're playing devils advocate on the issue. Many people wanted more opportunity to make sure they got a house even after Starr had mentioned several times there would be enough in game; now there is even more!

 

We still don't know what rent will be or how it's to be paid once the game launches, so better safe than sorry.
As for newer players, this is one of our perks to being founders in the game. Unfortunately for newer players, it won't be available to them.
The traditional system is still in place for other games. It's the system that charges you monthly for a game, plus DLC or expansions and is typically run by companies like EA which give limited decision making to the developer and put unrealistic deadlines on a game which force it onto the market before it's finished which can really tarnish a game in the eyes of its fans. A good example of this was given by a developer for Watch Dogs and how Ubisoft essentially messed up a lot of his work because they had the final say.

 

The titles Knight Marshal and Lord Marshal are both sooooo loooooong. I would probably still use Sir over Knight Marshal. Marshal by itself sounds pretty good, but maybe it changes its meaning? Highlord instead of Lord Marshal if you ask me. Overlord might be giving a bit too much credit...