Recruit - a - friend ... ended? how frequently we have to read FAQ

Hello Portalarium,

i gifted a pledge a few ago and wanted to assign it as a recruit... after still not showing a recruit counter, i tried to search the forums, i didnt find any real information.

So i went to the chat, some guys told me it ended early december. Really ?
How can a recruit a friend program end ? Do you realize games like World of Warcraft , Rift , ... have recruit a friend programs ?

So that i got a friend into the game isnt enough anymore? it has to happen prior to a certain date?
To be honest, i dont see any sense in that.
I wont get the Thumbs Up emote because the recruit-a-friend program ended. Programs like that usually dont end, im sure i can still get a friend into WoW and get a mount or whatever.

im really disappointed. maybe include a thumbs down emote for everyone that recruited someone past 2nd december!

oh ... the friendly guy from the chat told me its written down on the FAQ ... i've red it .. i really did, but i did it prior to the end of the recruit a friend bonus ... i don't think we should read the faq every few weeks or months to notice stuff like that...

p.s. : i wanted to recruit myself because i dont have any friends, yes i made a second account because i thought i can support portalarium and get an awesome emote.

 

It did end a bit abruptly, but there some advance notice in the Update 101.

 

okay i guess its due to steam. lets say just remove the 25$ "bounty" instead but keep the emote or something similar. why have to remove it entirely?

 

I think keeping the emote (and pet and moondial) as rewards moving forward makes sense.

 

Dont feel b ad I bought my kid a recruit a friend 45 dollar pledge only to find out right after that it had ended as well, the whole point of buying it was to get the reward for buying into it.

 

ditto

 

Keeping up to date with the updates seem to work. The default seems to be that you get those in the account email as well.

You can skim the FAQ though. The new parts are usually in larger font.

Steam and the after effects of steam happened really quickly. It was the reason that the Alienware coupons are gone as well.
And that you can't trade or merge the first $45 on any account with steam key activated.

 

Ahhh perhaps we need a community petition to revive this program.

 

It was announced in several of the weekly updates leading up to the actual event. I was aware it was ending prior to the fact.
Read your weekly updates.

 

Well I had mentioned to them that instead of just telling people to check the forums for nearly any info you ask for they should actually organize and consolidate their sloppy info system that looks like a random hot mess your think programmers would be some of the most organized PPP around afterall their code has to be clean or else it won't work

 

They do organize the info and send out regular email updates to everyone.

The fact that the refer-a-friend program was ending was mentioned in at least two of the email updates that I recall.

 

well i dont read most of those, i neither read the standup comments. To be honest, after hearing Darkstarr at the GDC im pretty disappointed with portalarium. He basically said those weekly emails and stuff like this is just so they get more money, obviously they have a peak in sales while sending these weekly notes. The further this project goes the more i get disappointed, and im sure its not just me. Best Thing i recall is that they want to do 5 !!!! kickstart campaigns, so episode 2-5 will have seperate kickstarters and most likely another lotm - like pledge for each...
so if you want the new "backer" items you will most likely have to kickstart it again

i guess we shouldnt wonder why so many high level pledges went on sale recently

best portalarium reaction i saw : closing the thread about the GDC "for internal reviewing" , darkstarr dallas and firelotus seemed not to like that post, although they unlocked it after 1-2 hours...

edit: i tried to look for the thread with dark starr ... i found it but apparently its LOCKED once more ... https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...-crowd-sourcing-cr-funding.19931/#post-304256 ...

 

It is hard to say "I never read the emails" and then complain the team isn't trying to communicate with you or keep their players informed.

Harebrained Studios is doing another Kickstarter for their next Shadowrun game even though they admit the first sold well. The profits may have not been enough to fully pay for startup development costs on the next.

I fully support Portalarium doing more Kickstarters to get more funding, because honestly the budget they have right now is still really tiny for what they are trying to pull off. More funding just means a better game for everyone.

Whatever housing and pledge rewards you have currently don't magically go away because there is a Kickstarter for Episode 2. If you have a house in Britanny, you keep your house in Britanny.

More than likely, once this game launches, the user base will more than double. Tons of people will discover this game post-launch, wishing they had gotten in during the initial Kickstarter and those people will be happy to participate in the next.

 

They hardly include much pertinent info in the emails it's mostly new news not where to find the plethora of old news it's just scattered randomly

 

tbh its 1-2 mad hermit videos per "newsletter" otherwise than that dallas tells how to subscribe a pledge and they show a few new screenshots. again, these weekly newsletters give them a peak in sale, thats why they send them accordingly to dark starr...

actually im thinking of dropping both of my accounts right now, but well i shouldnt put that into public lol.
though i was really looking forward to this ... but hey, its justs another cash grab to send everyone to space lol

 

So a few observations:

• The removal of the bonus for recruiting a friend was well advertised and although I do have some sympathy that you made a purchase expecting to get it; I wouldn't say you have any grounds to complain.
• I find the newsletters reasonably informative. I don't understand the resentment in Portalarium advertising their own product in order to maximise sales. Portalarium is a business and it has to raise funds for the project; despite the staff really enjoying their job, they still deserve to get paid just like everyone else.
• I struggle to see the distinction between not giving a recruitment bonus and Portalarium performing a 'cash grab', surely complaining about the change would suggest the 'cash grab' is being performed by the other party?

 

As far as i understood thats exactly what Starr Long said at the GDC. "as you can see those peaks are where we send out our weekly newsletter" "..." im no native speaker so i might have gotten this one wrong , maybe you can explain what i got wrong, im refering to the GDC video of cause : http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1021428/Crowdsharing-Crowdfunding-and (28:26)

again, im not sad because they cut the 25$ bounty, i couldnt use it for upgrading my pledge anyway. so what im sad about is all those "refer a friend" benefits. yeah its about a emoticon, i understand portalarium wants to make it rare so they could sell even more "before the program ended" but the thing is these programs shouldnt end. what would have became out of WoW if they would have cut their refer-a-friend program HALF A YEAR before release? its like 10 years after release and they still give out mounts and pets and stuff!

Shroud of the Avatar is supposed to be a pretty social game, i guess. But why cut out one of the major social aspects? Getting a reward for refering friends to the game, this would actually be a real loop ! players try to get many friends into the game so they get rewards, each of them get new friends into the game, yeah thats snowballing but who cares!

Shroud of the Avatar newsletter said they have so amazing steam reviews... but ever thought why? They send out steam keys to everyone that got the game through this site, those are fanboys. Yeah they will post a positive feedback, in the time the newsletter got released, i think no one was able to actually buy the game off steam and make a review. at least not many people did that, if you check the reviews by now ... it changed : http://steamcommunity.com/app/326160/reviews/

people that complain about shroud of the avatar gets banned from the steam discussions, thats totally not cool!
instead of answering to any of those amazing discussions some GM'S respond copy-pasted answers about "not trolling on the forums". That's not transparent, thats not a good way to deal with customers.

Just my 2 cents.

most likely ill merge my 2 pledges and sell it except the 45$ i need for steam activation.

 

The use of the word "fanboy" shows a disturbing increase in the trend of spitting on people for being happy and enjoying something. I am not sure what has you upset to the point of selling two accounts. WoW is a terrible choice for comparison since many of us who tested it and played very early on left due to that fact that nothing is rare at all in that game and it offers no reward at all for its early supporters and long time players. Even if you work your butt off to achieve something, it is going to be made easily obtainable for even the most unskilled player the following month. The point of offering limited edition vanity objects is to attract early backers and to say thank you to those players for helping to make the game possible. There is nothing at all in the store or pledge rewards that anybody NEEDS, it is all just fluff. That being said, i love fluff. There may be more recruitment pushes later anyway, lets not set fire to the place.

 

Sorry; I really don't understand what your problem is with this.

Starr is doing a presentation based around the 'business' side of the project and how that relates to funding in general. There seems to have been some criticism over this; and it eludes me as to why.

I'm sure that there are good reasons why some of these promotions have ended. It wouldn't surprise me if it has something to do with launching on Steam in order to comply with pricing policies.

I never understand why free things should be given out for referring a friend unless it is part of a limited marketing campaign. Their your friend.......if you enjoy why wouldn't you want to get them to play anyway?

So your saying people who have purchased the game shouldn't be able to give a review on steam?

In terms of people being banned (yeah I've been banned); it tends to be done after several warnings. There are ways to ask questions and comment on various aspects of the game; if you end up being banned immediately due to making a post of that nature, it is probably because it has been done in a very offensive way.

 

Talking about other people's finances is rude and disrespectful, but I think someone should clear the air on this frequent accusation thrown around that Richard has unlimited funds and that this game is some greedy cash grab.

I think it is no secret Richard Garriott largely ran out of cash and didn't finish building Britannia Manor 3. Britannia Manor 2 is up for sale. He is famous for always wanting to live in a castle, but as it stands he is trying to sell the one he has without being able to build the next one.

He paid for all the initial development out of pocket but didn't have enough cash left to pay for all the development.

They've raised $5 million where as games like SWTOR cost $200 million in initial development, and had subscription fees. They need to not only afford to make Episode 1, but future episodes. On day 1, Richard was telling the press that he figured he needed $5-$7 million minimum to make the game. They still have to ship physical rewards like challenge coins, novels they're printing, cloth maps, etc. None of that is free. They had to pay Amazon and Kickstarter fees (each about $100k) after the Kickstarter. The money counter on the main page isn't how much money they have to spend on development. They might have to push the money counter on the front page to $7 million to meet that bare minimum of $5 million in actual development funds.

Calling this a cash grab isn't only factually wrong, it is pretty disrespectful to the Portalarium staff. I won't name names, but I know there are devs working for far less, and working really long hours because this is a labor of love for them.

I love how people throw around Richard going into space as if that means he has unlimited funds or that there is something wrong with that. If you don't know, Richard's father was an astronaut. Where he grew up, his neighbors were all astronauts. It was his life-long dream to go into space but NASA told him he'd never go because of health reasons.

When the opportunity arose to invent private space tourism (he wasn't the first to actually go up because of health reasons, but he was the first to actually negotiate with Russia and basically invent space tourism), he jumped at the chance even though it meant he couldn't afford to finish building his new house. He spent almost his entire fortune, but it was his life long dream.

As an adult he is free to spend his money how he chooses without being judged by us. All he has to do for us is give us a game if we give him money.

If you want to sell your pledges, I recommend Lord Andernut's fine services. But please don't accuse the Portlarium staff of a greedy cash grab. It isn't right.