Release 33 Post Mortem Q&A (those that got missed)

@amethyst25 : one way to actually achieve this right now is move an ingredient of the recipe being crafted from your inventory to another container outside your inventory - like a chest in the game world. Noticing the available ingredients changed, the game cancels the actual crafting batch.

And this is what I will consider the real final wipe story-wise. Thanks for adding it. It would be hilarious to re-do Solace Bridge attack when we will be adv level 90, but I guess that's the best we can have.

 

Perhaps you should consider a fund raising platform that allows for partial project funding as compared to kickstarter, which does not.

 

Did I miss the obvious answer of "before launch"?

Ronan September 8, 2016 at 3:18 pm

QUESTION:
When will we see the pledge rewards for Virtual Collector, the user created family crest on shield, tabard and house flag. Have been waiting to wear my own tabard for a long time.

Reply

1. Rufus D`Asperdi September 8, 2016 at 5:53 pm
   +1 My one question I was going to submit was when are we likely to see the Family Crest reward implemented. I’m Shocked… SHOCKED I say! that Ronan got to it before me.
   
   So, here’s my followup question:
   
   Question: Can one of the Craftable Items on which one might display their arms be something very like the Battle Banners (at least in concept) that might have someone’s personal arms placed on it rather than the Lord British or Dark Starr arms?
   
   If so, I would also like to request that they be made bot Lot and POT Deco items.
   
   Reply
2. Rufus D`Asperdi September 9, 2016 at 12:01 pm
   Second follow-up.
   
   Question: How will the Arms be registered and communicated to Portalarium?
   
   Early on there was the College of Arms that was charged with this. I know that Ronan is keeping some semblance of the original vision alive. Is this still to be the official method of registration?
   
   Reply

• 
  Nataurz September 8, 2016 at 3:26 pm
  Question: How close are you to fixing the potential network trouble/pelican disconnects?
  
  Reply

• 
  Vulgaren September 8, 2016 at 5:12 pm
  Will we be able to craft and/or purchase barding for mounts once they are introduced in the game?
  
  Reply
  1. Rufus D`Asperdi September 8, 2016 at 5:54 pm
     If so, it would be wonderful if this were another type of item that one might craft to display one’s Arms. (See above)
     

 

Appreciate the answer, really do. Thanks DarkStarr.

 

@DarkStarr, ok so you all are worried about crafters making money... but you'll allow someone to sell to an NPC the 2000th Halberd, Longbow, or widget? I don't get it. How can you claim one method is an endless faucet when you already have a huge leaky one? If you aren't going to let crafters sell to NPC's for any kind of profit (even small) how about preventing loot farmers from doing the same and forcing them to sell to Players (for scraps for example?).

You're allowing one faucet to overflow with gold already.

 

Pretty sure every time he answers that question in that way, he's talking about processing raw mats/gear that is from NPC and reselling after.

Stuff that is gathered is no different than mob drops. Heavily limited by time and location.

 

I agree, an Indiegogo campaign allows both partial funding, and has better international support.

Hopefully, there will be a tier for those who already have access from their previous campaign. I want to continue to contribute, but "Episode 2" access does me no good.

 

The absorb difference between chain and plate is very low and that difference as a percentage gets very, very low as you start playing with magic. The difference in avoid is higher but chain actually has higher flat resist, more available stats, and plate costs 50% more.

Even magic that both plate and chain can use reduces absorb and avoid difference as a % of total avoid/absorb. The simple fact is that on a high-level character chain has better resist even accounting for the absorb difference. Plate meanwhile has lower overall stats (chain has more coils than plate has sheets) and more importantly no other decision in the game locks a player out of as many options as using plate does. By choosing plate, you lose out on most magic, spend 50% more keeping your gear in repair, and have lower overall damage resistance and gear stats. All in return for a moderate increase in avoid, less than 10%. And melee weapon skills aren't really even all that good, so limiting yourself in this manner doesn't really earn you anything. A chain/shield player is going to have similar defensive options as plate/shield via magic, an easier time training plate-available magic options such as ice shield (since fizzle doesn't trigger a train event), and far, far better offensive options.

I just can't see this being worth it, which is why players have been moving over to chain as this information has been made more available. People who used plate assumed there was something in the math that made their defenses far better than chain's, but the truth is that the best defensive options come from magic anyway. Plate doesn't even give as much avoid advantage over chain as ice shield gives over people not using ice shield. And ice shield has no downside.

 

You can also spam the escape key.

 

I perhaps poorly worded my concerns, but yes I had this exact same thought. Re-buying everything we already have reduces the value of a pledge level, and reduces the want for some of us to pledge for another KS. Or for exclusive items like a signed book, but they release the same book with a few extra chapters, and whoops, now you have a signed unfinished book. But please buy a new finished book!

I think they perhaps have to tread real carefully on future KS tier levels and what they offer. Something I feel that the folks at iDGi and their Consortium and Consortium: The Tower (which failed on KS, but they moved to Fig and STILL took care of The Tower KS backers even though it failed there) projects did very well.

 

Logarithms can also be represented in exponent form, so yes they are being technically correct, as they are the inverse of exponential math. Either way, when most people think about things being exponential, it generally means "increasing" well.... exponentially .

 

Yeah, please stop with this. They got an opportunity to have it published traditionally. They made the right choice to have that done. Part of that agreement was that they could not distribute the new version to fulfill the pledge reward. So they fulfilled the pledge reward as they could. You lost four chapters, none of which change the story. Plus, we get two more books as part if the deal. Overall, that's a win for Shroud.

There are four more crowd funding campaign coming, fir each episode. I hope they do continue to offer exclusives. And if they get a chance to turn those into better deals for the game overall, I hope they take them. I'd love to see more authors involved, and maybe do a short story anthology set in New Britannia. Get more artists and offer exclusive sculpture of miniatures. Do more concept art items. I don't want them to be afraid of making new promises just because some backers get their tidy whities in a bunch when they actualky get what they were promised.

 

This is exactly how I understood the reward during the Kickstarter. I thought that the future episodes would be funded through the add-on store and telethons, but hey, another Kickstarter campaign is really just a larger scale telethon type event, so I am good with more.

Additionally, to mirror some of the other comments in this thread, when future Kickstarters occur, there should likely be two tracks--one for new players and one for existing players--so that there is personal value add no matter which type of player you are. One possible idea is to allow existing pledgers to convert EP2+ pledges and/or individual rewards into a new type of pledge currency that could be used in a special add-on store to purchase exclusive rewards.

As a simple example for EP2, lets look at a hypothetical pledge tier of EP2 First Responder. This reward tier would come with the following:

• EP2 Access
• EP2 Early Access
• 50 Bank Slots
• Red Replenishing Snowball Box
• Coconut Horse
• EP2 Backer Shield

For EP2, there would be a new symbol similar to the Founder and Benefactor symbols, but unique to EP2 pledges and the color for EP2 rewards would be green. For new players, the above package is special, unique and has the value necessary to encourage a pledge; however, for me as an existing backer, it doesn't quite have the same appeal. To me, the package would be viewed as the following:

• EP2 Access (30 EP2 Pledge Points)
• EP2 Early Access (5 EP2 Pledge Points)
• 50 Bank Slots (5 EP2 Pledge Points)
• Red Replenishing Snowball Box (5 EP2 Pledge Points)
• Coconut Horse (5 EP2 Pledge Points)
• EP2 Backer Shield (5 EP2 Pledge Points)

For me, I already have EP2 Access and Early Access as well as a Coconut Horse, but I want the new rewards of the Red Snowball Box, new shield and more bank slots. So, what I do is convert the items I don't want into Pledge Points giving me 40 points to purchase things with. Looking at the store, I see the following items I want instead:

• Green Backer Shield using the Founder symbol (5 EP2 Pledge Points)
• Green Backer Shield using the Benefactor system (5 EP2 Pledge Points)
• Clydesdale Mount in Barding with Green Banner displaying the Founder symbol (30 EP2 Pledge Points) --note: assumes mounts are in Ep2

Not only are these items in keeping with the spirit of EP2 (e.g. green and tied to EP2 features), but they reward my existing status as a previous backer and give me an incentive to pledge towards the EP2 project.

Thoughts?

@Berek, @DarkStarr, @Chris, @Lord British2

 

This may have already been said but will everything we have now (all the work we have put into our avatars, our lots, houses, gold, rewards, etc.) carry over to episode 2 and beyond?

 

I sure hope so, i did not invest in this game just to loose everything when ep2 comes around....

 

Of course

 

thanks for the responses @DarkStarr
kudos again to the whole team for cranking out some sweet stuff month after month!

 

I'm really pleased about this post, thank you to answers our questions!

 

Thanks so much @DarkStarr!

One last one that might be for Zack/Brandon:

QUESTION: Any word on getting allowing more than three masterwork choices after unlocking specific masterwork skills (like blades and plate)? Right now once you unlock those skills you get much less of the base masterwork options, many of which I still want (like +2% crit chance). Maybe if unlocking each specific masterwork skill adds 2 more choices to choose from (from 3 to 5?).

 

Like so many others.. really cool to see all the other questions get an answer. I hope this can be a regular thing moving forward. (Although you did miss one of mine unless I missed the answer in the hangout).