funding method sometimes depressing

when its all boiled down, sometimes to me it seems like this game is already expensive but it just seems like perhaps its already nickel and diming to death.

for example to get boats or other features peple have to basically buy them via stretch goals when other games like archeage already have these features are free, i know sota will be better but is it really that reasonable to ask a player to fund every feature they want in the game that is already free in other games?

i'll likely play both games unless one or the other is a big dissapointment but i can say if there is no sailing or underwater stuff etc that are in other games because everyone didnt spend most of their life savings to pay for it i'll likely spend most of my time playing the one with the features that arent expected to be paid for by players. unless i'm mistaken the way it works.

 

1) There are several posts about strech goals and tons of opinions
2) You can't compare a game published by Trion with the 4,5 Mil SotA has.

 

Archeage is really pretty and has nice art, but the combo spamming stuff is a bit of a spreadsheet battle type turn off for me.

It's too disengaged from the actual game...

 

AA just has a lot more money to play with. It may not have the nicest graphics but the gameplay is amazing.

 

so because they chose to crowdfund and dont have money its up to us to fund it. it seems like its not our fault, that AA has money and portalarium doesnt so why are we being expected to pick up the slack?

i heard the combat sucks i'll find out on wedsnesday but its not really about combat its a sandbox game. If this game had the same options like boats and boat combat it would be the ultimate rpg but players cant be expected to fund features that are readily found in other games, despite capital investment which has nothing to do with the players.

either you crowdfund and make the players pay for the game development on some level or get a publisher and dance with the devil, but being crowdfunded shouldnt mean its okay to make players fund features other games readily have... at least in my opinion.

i dont even have money yet i've given what little i had to this game as have others, i just wish boats and sailing/water combat was an easier stretch goal to get to because a lot of us have already contributed as much as we can. i'd get a loan to give more if i could even get a loan.

i know they have perosnally invested a lot but to a lot of people this being an "immersive" game it just seems sillly and completely breaks any story continuity/immsersion when there are no boats or sailing.

 

Like I said, nobody tells you to like it. But the thing is, money is a limiting factor, the less money you have the less you can acommplish. I myself don't like the funding of the strech goals either, but that's another matter. Fact is there are tons of games that don't have boats, or even games where you can't swim. There are games with horses and games without horses. And arguing that SotA needs boats because AA has boats it's like saying I deserve some sweets cause that guy over there has some.

 

Why again i have felling that I'm dirty peasant without money

 

These stretch goals will be in the game even if they are not reached. They need the extra money to create them before EP1 goes live. That's all. At the moment they don't have the capacity to realize it in the give time frame, so if they want to put in the game before EP1 they have to hire and new member which wanted to be payed. There is not other reason behind it. You can just lean back and wait. But it can happen that will not be in even in EP2 because they have to much to do produce new content for EP2.

 

Dear Sindariya
Thanks for clarifying this
You just read my mind

 

Yeah they(Port) should mention this fact, it will help to understand the situation.

 

I can wait for that stuff. That is why I didn't chip in for any stretch goals. I am tempted by them but the core game is the part that is the most important to me.

 

Crowd funding vs developer as others stated, also in case you didn't know OP Archeage was released January 15th 2013 it's only a new release for the west.

 

It's not quite the same game. They did not keep all of the functionality for the Trion release. It still hasn't been released and they haven't made final decisions on which parts of the game to localize.

 

Not that I am saying your wrong, but where did you get that info? All I've seen regarding stretch goals is what Darkstarr posted in the announcement thread

The section in red makes me think they wont work on those stretch goals until they have been 100% funded. The section in yellow implies they wont work on them until everything else is done. So its a little confusing, I would say.

 

I know it is confussing. I have my informations from several hangouts and some more detailed talk from the dev+ section. They said, that they planned these features for further episodes, like boats and mounts. But many people already asked to have them now, so they made the compromise with the stretch goals. The red part means, that they only will start with implementing it when fully founded before EP1 launch but every other promised kickstarter goal has a higher priority then these stretch goals(yellow part). I can only guess how they will handle it internal. Altogether you can say, if a goal is reached, it will be in EP1 but it will be last thing they will work on. If it is not reached you will see the feature in the game in a later episode, the items you bought with pledging for the stretch goals will be rare items. But like everything, nothing is set in stone.

 

If its not released in this country then its new it doesnt matter how long its been out elsewhere
The candy analogy makes no sense because the kid with the candy isnt asking you to pay for it. A shop for addons and tiered payment/reward system is far enough for me.

Archeage being released elsewhere has no importance or meaning in this discussions because they never made anyone pay for funding development on top of asking to fund additional features.

Why minimize it as if it doesnt matter and comparing the two is nonsense as if the fact games compete against one another for limited audience because most ppl just dont have time to play more than one or two mmos and theres plenty of candy for people so i dont get the analogy

 

Of course it matters, because development time is also a factor just as money is, and changing a game to fit the western market is and entirely different process than building a new game since all the core mechanics are already in place.

That's because they have a publisher, SotA hasn't that's why they use crowd funding, which actually means... we the crowd pay for it, and if the money is't enough to implement boats or horses, they have to ask for more.

Like I said now several times, whether, the way the SotA team handles the funding is good or bad, is highly disputable.

Well but it is exactly the point, you can't compare (most of the time) crowdfunding to a game using a publisher since we are talking about totally different amounts of money, manpower, pr, etc. You just have to accept that with limited funds you get a limited product.

 

This post is a clear signal on who this game is really slated for. I applaud the SoTA team for recognizing their target audience and bringing something to market that improves upon the old UO experience. This game is not meant for the masses, those that grew up on WoW or those F2P Korean grinders that are in the market today.

If you ever played UO during the glory years, you would understand what I am trying to explain here as it was all player driven.

 

Part of the problem is that Sota could easily get picked up by a large publishing company, but with large publishing companies your transparency goes out the window, they dictate release dates and how the game should be made. All the things Darkstar and RG were trying to avoid. I don't like how the stretch goals are laid out either but I understand why they are there.

 

Best example: Ultima Ascention, and UO