No one wants to play a fantasy game that reminds them they're broke.

I don't have all the answers. I do know that everyone, at some point, will throw what money they can at their entertainment. I also know from personal interactions and the general consensus in most places that this game is too expensive.

I really just want the game to do well and survive it's competition.

 

I share your want for the game to do well. I also understand that in its current state that's not happening.

One of the problems, I believe, is not that the game actually makes players pay too much money (it doesn't). It's that people see the game and immediately say CASH SHOP!11!!!!!1!1111!!!!!1 and walk away. That's a marketing problem Protalarium is failing to address. But it's not a design problem, imo.

 

It doesn't cost a dime of real world money beyond the purchase price if you don't want it to.

Want a place to stay? Come talk to me and I'll let you have a room... If you need a place to store stuff, I might even make you a couple of chests... Free... Help you along until you can get on your feet... Drop 5000g every month and buy a lottery ticket (You can pay for that, or three just visting the Oracle every day, this will also pay the rent on a taxed Row lot, but the smarter way is to by a COTO for 2K off a vendor which pays your taxes for a week... you save 1500g), or save your pennies (pennies you're not spending on a place to live) and buy a deed off a vendor in game. Come talk to me again if you want to place it, and I'll see what I can do to accommodate you. Craft a house to put on it, or buy one off an in game vendor... All with in-game gold and the virtual sweat of your brow.

 

I agree! Maybe if "the plan" is disclosed, that would she some light, ease some concerns etc.

 

At this point, the amount of false comments about "CASH SHOP!!!1!!!!1!1!!!!!" are so over the top (in general not just on our forums) that I wish Portalarium would make a video explaining how the game is not P2W and none of this stuff is "required" and how everything can be obtained with in-game gold.

I wish whenever someone clicked on "Add-on Store" it would immediately play this video and start with some guy yelling "CASH SHOP!!!1!!!!1!1!!!!!" in the dumbest way possible. Maybe then people would think through what's really going on here and stop creating a narrative where they assume this game is like candy crush or something.

 

I had previously said my peace but now its apparent I must come in and defend my like minded sane and rational side here!

There are some issues with sota that are things I consider to be fact while technically my theory that I can't prove I am very confident these things are true!

1.
Lord British is not infallible and also not all knowing, he is ultimately an Entrepreneur first and an MMORPG Developer second. He did some great things and made one hell of an MMO in Ultima Online
but he had the opportunity to be the first into a phase, the multiplayer phase as he said, he was late in getting into the social gaming phase in fact he entered it as it was dying. And he made a big mistake thinking that was the path forward much like the mistake he made years ago when he thought no body would use those weird IBM PC's and the Apple was superior, it almost costed him his company as did his dabble into social gaming, he again almost lost Port...

To summarize he is a man not a god and he makes mistakes many are obvious when you look at sota....

2.
a) First huge issue with sota, Marketing of the MOST IMPORTANT CORE CONCEPTS of what makes sota a great mmo and placing them behind a paywall so they can only attract a small playerbase of whales.
Castles and Keeps are for whales
Premier locations are for whales

But every single piece of land in the game???? IS NOT for whales!!! The Housing price range goes from priced for the super rich too the rich and forgets about the middle class and the working poor!
85 dollars for a taxable row deed is ludicrous!!! There is ZERO Housing available for the NORMAL gamer its all priced far beyond and that gives the game the appearance of being a GIANT cash grab!!!

b) Second huge issue vendors!!! Commission free vendors are locked into a $550 dollar package again CORE game mechanic locked behind a huge paywall.... Next issue Vendor space limiting NPC amount per domicile limiting. NPC Vendors is one of the most important draws to sota, every other MMO uses the broken and lame auction house system.... Vendors are a far far superior way of doing business to many players but there ability to do this business is hidden out of reach bye poor decisions! Decisions that force players into giant guilds so they can utilize the socialist like NPC's provided bye the 1 or 2 huge whales in each guild.... what happens when some of these giant backers who own 10% of the commision free vendors in the game by themselves decide there done with the game.... it leads to the next issue where the vendors in game are empty shopping is straight hard.... UO vendors were not so expensive that when you closed up shop or ran out of product you simply removed the vendor... UO vendors dressed there part you could organize what you were selling instead of sticking every single type of item in the game on the ONE vendor...

***To summarize point 2. Housing and Vendors are the single biggest draw too sota the single biggest game mechanics that set it apart from the other MMO's and all of that content is trapped behind HUGE paywalls, This is a big Mistake***

3. Why is trapping all of this content behind paywalls so bad and why is it obvious that R.G. is a business man first and developer second!
Because its obvious that if you where to have lowered the price point on housing and vendors to realistic price points you would have had a far larger influx of people in the game! The measure of a successful game is the number of people in it.... but more people in a game brings with it other issues....
You have to spend more money on back end infrastructure to hand 50,000 players where as 10,000 players is something you can do with each without having to commit as much money to hardware!
So there are two logical ways to go Over Price housing and get a fairly safe amount of income
or
Price housing more realistically which would mean a smaller initial income that would pay it self off in the long run, but the long run is "Unknown" so its less safe...

The fact is that if housing and vendors would have been far more realistically prices so that more people could enjoy the MOST IMPORTANT draw of sota the content that sets it apart from its competition that we would have a far healthier population.
but this would also incur infrastructure costs on the back end and would cut the initial profit margin off of housing but all of that would have easily off set itself because 50,000 players spending 5-10 dollars here are there over a long period of time is far better then 1,000 players spending 500 - 3000 over a short term limited amount of time....

So the business man took the easy and safe pay out where a real developer would have put the success and long term viability of the game first and foremost and the profit margin second....

****But the thing that is most Ironic is the Developer would end up making far more money in the long run****

So R.G. when did you turn into EA??? Or NCSoft when did you become Business man and NOT the developer?!?

 

@jfoytek

I'm not going to go point by point with you. I'll just repeat that you can get whatever you want for in-game gold. So that pretty much counters everything you just said.

 

Thats fine I am not the person you need to go point to point with I am already playing the game,,,, Deliver this message to the 100,000 of gamer's that already came and went and didn't stick there ear out long enough for you to say
I'm not going to ........................ (There gone, the opportunity for them to play this game has left)

Its just like a good book with a bad cover! If you pick up the book and it has a lame cover you set it back on the shelf and walk away..... doesn't really matter what was written in it...

Things that do matter are appearance's, opinions, media, twitch, reviewers....

This is what you learn via steam:

RECENT REVIEWS:
Mostly Negative (11)
ALL REVIEWS:
Mixed (576)
RELEASE DATE:
Nov 24, 2014

The game released in 2014 on steam and has only 576 reviews??? And the last 11 were mostly negative!

 

I don't disagree that we've missed opportunities to get more people in here. I don't disagree that the average person sees the add-on store and thinks it looks like a mobile P2W game.

All I'm saying is that the reality is different. I would love to see some good marketing go into creating an easier to digest narrative that shows what this game is really about. I'd love for the average gamer to understand clearly this game is not P2W and it's not for rich people.

@DarkStarr @Berek Maybe this is something Travian Games and Blacksun can assist us with?

 

I do... They've pointedly Not made any real effort to get more people in here. Even so bluntly stated on numerous occasions.

 

I agree with you that game as is, is not pay to win!!!

What the game is, IS PAY TO ENJOY

Its Pay to have fun....

its like the only way to get it your way right away at Burger King is if you filled out a form to buy stock at the register....

This is an MMORPG
Role
Playing
Game

I use to fish in UO infact I loved fishing in UO I would put on the fishing attire and people would walk up to me and Roleplay with me. Knights in there armor would try to give me there implements of war and I would be like what do I need with your weapons or people would attempt to give me gold like I was a beggar, and again I would tell them to give there gold to the Priest I was a rich man thanks too the bounty of the sea, and my house with a roof over my head.

Role playing games need roleplaying friendly game where some of the most important tools are not trapped behind silly pay walls like your home! Or your vendor!

These things are almost the heart and sole of a good RP game and there only available to fat cats with a big check book or players who play the game for a year and a half slaving away in Elysium Mine and sell all there silver and gold to get there 1.5-2.5 Million ingame gold....

 

Sure, but that only tells part of the story. We're not retaining a large number of active players for a number of reasons, one of which is probably due to poor marketing. Yes, before you say it, they haven't done a lot of marketing.

But if 50k players walked through the door tomorrow, that wouldn't be a problem that would make Portlarium unhappy. Ideally we'd have more than a few hundred people playing this game right now because the game sold it self better than it currently does. To ignore that fact is not helpful to improvement.

 

That is true.

 

As long as someone is willing to buy that gold from you, yes.

 

It's certainly pay to have convenience. There's no doubt about that.

But as someone that has almost everything I could want in this game, I can tell you that the satisfaction I get from the game comes not from items but from moments of roleplaying that are unfortunately too rare due mainly to our small population.

 

Ever hear of supply and demand?

 

Don't insult me.

 

No insult intended.

I was trying to make a point that with supply and demand there is always a price point where someone will say "ok, sure I'll sell you my rare castle deed for that amount of gold." It's not a question of IF it's a question of HOW MUCH?

 

Deeds are in the millions for igg, how long will that take me? Constant playing for how long? Sorry that's a lot of time some of us don't have, I believe most of us have jobs and families that need tended to, so how much time am I supposed to take out of my average everyday life? I don't collect any extra money for anything else just a biweekly pay check that is almost or mostly gone on pay day (I get paid decent) but I have other more important responsibilities financially than this game! I'm not retired I don't live at home with the parents, I have financial responsibility. So it seems your saying since you don't have the time or money its your fault! Stuff in the store is way too expensive for the average gamer, that's factual, you don't have to agree with me on that but ill sit back and laugh to myself and say "must be nice not to have to worry about money!"

 

I am sorry but the majority of people that have played this game and have left(some have not) were the ones that were fans of previous work. If you can not keep the fans of previous work how the hell do you plan on keeping players who do not know you?