1 Instanced House Per Account

I did not accept the level of risk to owning a house that is currently proposed. In fact, I didn't realize how serious an issue it was until I started crunching numbers and discovered that, with RG's desire for 100-150 lots per village, you'd need more than 150 cities/villages to accommodate only the original backers.

It made me refuse to upgrade my backing, and believe me, I was definitely wanting to do so until I learned this.

The real risk here is, will the game even be attracting enough backers or customers if they stand at the current model?

3.5 million in backing is a pittance in today's gaming world. It won't make a huge or fantastic game. It will only support a small niche market.

If that's what people want, that's what they'll get.

 

"Deeds are the crucial part of housing. You need one to claim a lot of land to build a house on it, and there are "reasonable odds" that all the deeds will be taken by Kickstarter backers by the time Shroud launches. This is because housing is persistent on Portalarium's servers and so manifests in a tangible cost.

"Housing is something that will persistently change the world that you will now own on our servers, and because that costs us to maintain, we don't think we can just make that forever for free," Garriott said to me."

"There [at Portalarium's website] it says new deeds may come available for in-game currency but they'll be rare and cost, likely, an arm and a leg."

Quotes from this link:

Richard Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar: What's the big idea?

 

Agreed, I've been asking the same question for months, without an answer - ever.

Can I ride in your tardis, doc? lol

 

Portalarium will be taxing housing sales, from what I understand. At least, that was mentioned at one time. Lot transfers, changing houses, those will be taxed too.

Is it enough to move the dial? I don't know. Probably not. However, I don't know what other resource they could have fund-raised with....

Spaces ships in SC are unique in that they don't have to have a physical location in the world where they are always at, but they give you the chance to customize and make them your own. Could we have done this with mounts? Water vessels? Armor? Something that isn't completely unique in function (i.e. everyone can get a ship in SC) but still has some kind of limited availability (not everyone can have that model).

To me, lots serve the function of having limited availability and can be customized to the person (with houses). They're like the higher level ships in SC. My ideas on implementing instanced rooms (obviously limited when compared to houses on lots) would satisfy that part where everyone has access to a 'home,' or the entry-level ships in SC. I think it would calm the masses who think there is a large gap between the haves and the have-nots. They would also be regular money in Portalariums pocket, assuming that you could directly pay for them in cash, or via some other means that pulls real money from our hands. Even though instanced rooms would only be for your own eyes, or the eyes of a few friends, they would certainly encourage people to buy decorations from other players or from Portalarium's special NPCs (should they decided to do a second currency to limit real cash use in game).

I don't think you could fund raise with armor. Too temporary. Mounts would be interesting, as long as there were dozens of them with their own properties and abilities, and they were handled much like SC handled introductions and sales of ships. Unfortunately, mounts seem less important to SotA than housing does. I could see another round of fundraising in later episodes using water vessels more closely matching the method SC used. Imagine selling ships and another round of lots attached to islands, singly or in groups. How much is a private island worth?

 

#1 Then don't buy instanced housing
#2 How can instanced housing appear if you don't own an instance of it?
#3 Answer to #2: See #1

 

I would hesitate to use quotes that are a year old because 1) Portalarium has gone back on many things they have said and 2) This was before Starr was on board to wrangle things into schedule. Bonus) Richard has the tendency to talk from the hip without thinking things through.

One thing his quote "reasonable odds" does is create a sense of urgency to pledge now. When he said this, they were in the middle of the initial pledge drive. A few things said at that time did not materialize. For example, he also said that every dollar you pledged would count toward your lot placement priority. We've seen from Starr's placement schedule that it does not count $505 as higher priority over 504, 503, 502, 501, 500....

 

I'd brought up, many times, in other threads, that housing did not have to be a part of obtaining funds. There are other KS campaigns that have not included housing and generated enough funds.

Using the strategy to obtain funds on a severely limited resource is, quite simply, bad marketing strategy.

 

As for "plenty of lots" - and as for repeating past mistakes, here we have it.......

Lord British and the Oklahoma Land Rush

"If we have enough players, we will run out of land in Episode One," said Long. "There won't be any more left. That's when we think the secondary market between players will really pick up, when people will want to sell real estate between players."

Market between players - which means, a limited fundraising model for the company. And then players are the ones that profit.

NO THANKS PORTALARIUM.

 

Sounds like quite the conflict.

A year ago, RG said that lots would be limited. However, as the year went on they probably realized that they need to continue to offer them in order to keep money coming in. The problem is that the 'limit' isn't really a limit. I hope they eventually come up with another good fund raiser (for new people) and cap lot sales.

One of the problem is that what they earned was supposed to be enough to complete certain features, but it seems like they need to keep earning just to give us what we were supposed to already have earned enough for. However, it's hard to keep bringing in money if you don't offer new stuff, which means more work and the cycle continues.

 

And yet people fall at RG's feet, as if he's a gaming god, and think everything he says will become reality. And if things fall short, they blame the devs or others.

If RG says it, it may or may not become reality. In any case, it's caused me to stop additional funding.

 

You're being more optimistic, based on what has been said.

The reality is, they will never have a landmass that will support 10's of 1000's of persistent houses. Not even the original backer numbers of 26,000. That will take 160+ cities with 100-150 lots per city to service 26,000 customers.

There are not infinite abilities to manufacture landmass, even after 5 episodes. Even Skyrim did not have 150+ cities/villages. To think a game with 3.5 million in funding could manufacture a larger landmass than current multi-million dollar games is simply inconceivable.

 

I think 26k is overstating the needed lots. I think last guess was 3000-5000? Still, that's a lot. This is the reason I think they went back on their "no wilderness" lots statement. If they could throw a couple dozen or more houses in each POI, it would contribute to a solution for problem. Wilderness hexes would thematically have less services, and therefore, less structures, layout, NPCs, and conversation to create.

Like I said earlier, it'll be a challenge finding places to put lots while continuing to sell them because it's hard to fund without them. We need a new method that would entice new people, though I fear that whatever it is will be aimed at squeezing more blood from turnips.

 

They will get house taxes whether houses are sold or not. That dollar amount will be finite.

Are you saying they will charge people real dollars if they transfer their house to someone else? For "taxes?"

If so, do you have that written statement somewhere?

 

i also read that such transfers are taxed, i'm assuming with in game gold but i don't think they were specific

something like "these transfers will be taxed in game"

 

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=19#faq_57


Can I sell my lot to another player?

You can sell a lot to another player. If the lot currently has a house on it that house will revert to the owner’s inventory. This trade will be taxed by the game.




Can I sell my house to another player?

You can sell a house to another player. This trade is independent of the lot (i.e. you do not need to sell a lot with the house). This trade will be taxed by the game.

 

Real dollars being inserted into the game is still on the table, as far as I know. Whether it would be directly involved in any housing transfers, I don't know. If not, it's all a trickle down. Sinks pull out, and somehow Portalarium has to have a way to pull in real money without a monthly subscription. I really hope there isn't a continual pledge drive mentality for the next four years.

 

The one thing that I always enjoyed about UO was the housing. As things stand in SoTA housing is really only intended for those that have a crap ton of money to throw at the game. I am not at all sorry that I have supported this project, but I will most likely not be playing it when it finally goes live, nor investing any more funds. I will always happily follow it's path to what I hope is a huge success though.

 

Exactly what i've been saying for months.

 

Concerns like these are exactly why I'm hesitant to increase my pledge.

 

I find it ironic that part of the FAQ is quoted in this thread yet parts (here and here), specifically dealing with instanced housing, are being over looked entirely. This is not new information; it dates back to the kickstarter campaign. There also seems to be a large amount of fear mongering taking place about the number of plots that are available for backers. DarkStarr posted back in December, and several times since, that deeds will not be oversold thereby leaving numerous plots for people in-game, with in-game resources, once it is launched. No one is required to spend real money to own a plot (aside from the initial purchase of the game, of course). Most of these issues can be answered by perusing the FAQs.

There is nothing wrong with the OP asking the question and there is certainly nothing wrong with having a discussion about instanced housing. However, for some who continually beat the same drum across multiple threads, page after page, it is a breach of forum policy.

I understand that there is high interest in this topic, and there are some interesting suggestions. However, it has been the stance of Portalarium, from the very beginning and for the reasons they have chosen, that housing is to be persistent and limited.

With that said and against my better judgement, I will leave this topic open for further discussion provided no more forum rules are broken.