Non-citizen backers being virtually ignored

Jesus... think I'm 'bout to buy this Knight package. Am I crazy? I think I'm crazy...

 

Do it!!!!!

 

Just get a Citizen and a huge basement, and send me the difference to put onto my pledge.

 

Ah, knighthood. How I wish I could afford you.

 

I only pledged for Dev+.. I got up to Knight by submitting assets. One of these days I hope to earn that $400 back.

 

NEVER tell a crazy man he is crazy!! Especially when he is carrying a loaded gun!
But there are professional listeners who are very concerned to sit down and talk with you and hear what you have to say. Just lower your weapon and come this way, please...

 

Not the first X number of pledgers, no. Anyone who pledged during the Kickstarter campaign (+ I believe a one-week grace period after it ended).

Ah, found it... here's the text: "Exclusive Early Founder Rewards are only available to Backers who pledged any amount by May 20, 2013"

As to the "episodes," I have a feeling they are similar to the expansions in World of Warcraft (not to compare SotA to other, lesser RPGs!)

They've said that each one will add large new areas to the world as well as continuing the main story.

It's been said, for example, that a player who was unable to find land available during the first episode will have a whole new opportunity during the next expansion. (Each expansion will probably be accompanied by a "land grab!")

P.S. One last comment to ANYONE who says they feel "ignored" - try pre-ordering any other game a year before it comes out, and see how much "attention" the developers pay to you.

(Star Citizen doesn't count.)

 

Ok, thanks for clearing that up. I'm regretting not pledging back then. I wasn't sure what the game was realling looking out to be. Now I'm getting a more UO vibe from it. Oh well, too bad.

 

Episodes will be full games and not be expansions. The world will be extended (I think they might have said doubled) every episode and new features will be added. That might be a descriptions of expansions as well, but they have gone out of their way to say full games. So instead of a few extra quests and features, we should get just as much game and story as the first installament gives us. It will be more like sequels rather than expansions.

 

I was obviously comparing rewards... er, not obvious to you obviously, to the rewards listed specifically between the "Explorer" level and the "Citizen" level. I stand by my contention.

What is becoming obvious, to me, is the relative intolerance for "any" non postitive position posted about any aspect of this game or its funding strategy. This may be part of the reason Shroud has only raise 2.5 million in pledges while Star Citizen has raised almost 23 million, to date.

I'd like to reiterate that I have pledged support for Shroud Of The Avatar. I want and look forward to the game(s). I just think there is way too many old school hippy attitudes and ideas going into the game that don't push the threshold of computer RPG gaming in really interesting ways. Therefore my limited support. Agree or disagree, that's fine, so be it. I really don't care enough to get upset about it. Peace... have a nice day planting herbs, making furniture and hanging pictures in your future cyber home.

 

SotA has only raised $2.5M, not 3.5. And the reason Star Citizen has raised 23 million and SotA hasn't is partly because the Fantasy RPG genre has been beat to death. There are many alternatives. Richard Garriott's name is great, but he's also had some failures that people may have fresh in their memory. Meanwhile, a true space flight sim has been underrepresented for many years and there are a great many people itchy for a new one.

Added to that, Star Citizen has had their * together when it comes to raising money. I don't think anyone at Portalarium has done a good job planning the fundraising past Kickstarter. There should have been a specific plan going out 6 months after Kickstarter and a sketchout of the full 18 months. Limited edition items of all types, special limited time sales, and most importantly, better communication. There have been many instances where information was missing and the ambiguity likely led to people not committing to buy an item. The most recent example is that the houses and basements in the addon store were not listed as being unique to the addon store pre-launch. I know some people said they'd pass and buy it in-game before we knew it was unique to the store.

All of us here and in chat follow the game pretty closely. But that's only a handful of the total numbers according to KickStarter and the SotA main page. Many other people only look at the weekly updates and that's it. If they don't get the impression that things are limited and they must buy-buy-buy now, they will just ignore it.

I'm sure part of the problem on the Portalarium side is the way they are making the game. It's a very nimble approach, and they can head in whatever direction as the need arises. Many systems aren't designed yet, and like the basements, were never a part of the original idea. They just kind of happened. However, without clear paths forward it becomes hard to plan ahead for special addons and take the long-term approach.

Another big reason that SC has raised a lot of money is how the game is designed. Ships are a big part of it. Nearly everyone will have one, so upgrading and buying a better ship seems more natural. On the SotA side, houses are the best equivalent, however, the game is designed so that houses are not needed and are really just optional content. There is less incentive to buy a house or upgrade.

SC also has a lot of employees. Part of that is because they have a lot of money, but the other part is because those employees are creating content that is shown off which helps drive the sales both of the initial game and in their addon store. SC also has had more special events to push new major content additions which lead to large jumps in funding. Portalarium is running nearly on minimum required, and it shows. Richard, Starr, Chris, community manager FireLotus and everyone else is stretched thin. They could use another employee who just plans and communicates the funding cycles (i.e. addon store items and sales), and who coordinates with the managers on revealing new content in a timely manner to encourage more spending. They could put on special shows, say one Friday night a month to show off the current special item and really plug it like a sales drive. Maybe with a more laid-back appearance by Portalarium dev employees, special guests and even community members. Whoever was hired to help facilitate this could swap some responsibilites from FireLotus and they could both do it. As more lore is released, perhaps in-character shows could be used to build support.

The heads-down, we're working approach is fine for making the game, but it sucks for keeping the backers in the loop and drawing in more funding. I'm not a business guy, nor do I know exactly how things are going behind the scenes, but this is just my two cents on what could build more goodwill, raise more funds and strengthen the community.

*edited for language - Koldar

 

Since the Kickstarter pledge rewards system add to each other the first 10,000 backers gets the Early Bird Alpha. For example, I was a first repsonder literally within 15 minutes the Kickstarter went live. Then later I upgraded to $150 level before the 10,000 backers was reached, so if their bookkeeping works properly then I would be in the Early Bird Alpha build targerted for December 2013.*


*Estimated dates do change. Also, if they changed the requirments for the Early Bird I'm not aware of them.

 

You are comparing very bad.

SC had 9 Million after 6 month.
SoTA 2.5 Million in 6 months

Total different perspective now. SoTA is doing awesome!

The amount spend will increase more and faster we move on. We are now 35000 forum members. It is only very short time ago we had 25000

 

I want to play Star Citizen... It looks awesome.

 

Star Citizen is bringing in about 1 million a WEEK now! How is that for a comparison? I and many other are being forced to upgrade our computers to even play the projected SC game. We don't have to do that for Shroud... It won't push current computer graphic requirements very much. The Star Citizen community pledges to support the game developement for new and better ships and weapons and for the outstanding graphical promise the game presents, along with their supposed benefit to our player characters.

Hey Shroud developers.... just a friendly suggestion... begin selling some very special swords, axes, bows, slings, war hammer, armor types etc. See if people will pledge for them. They probably will if they are beneficial for their avatars during game play. I know I would. If you want more of our money, offer us such special items that our in game character can actively benefit from. For a price of course.

 

Ahh, but then you are basically creating a "pay to win" scenario, which I know is against what RG and the team want to do (tax free lot/vendor aside). I agree though, if there isn't any real gameplay advantage it will be hard continually sell people on additions. I mean, in Star Citizen you can have more than one ship and use them in different situations due to their designed purpose. In SotA, there isn't much advantage to having more than once house, except maybe spreading them out on the map and making it easier to drop loot or resources, and even then it's not a big deal if we can rift around.

 

I am not saying that Shroud will do better. But comparing the amount a game raised having far more development time was not correct. I did point that out. That is all

 

Not all optional addons need to be weapons. I'd love to see things on the order of the Edelmann beer recipe available, for example. I know I'd buy quite a few of them....

 

Peace to everyone... I am not an enemy. I truly want Shroud to be the best RPG ever made.

 

Salutations,

After some deep meditation and thought... I disagree... it's not a bit your fault, it's all your fault.