Concerns about Cash Items

We can argue all day if its pay2win or not, some will say yes some will say no

However the fact remains the impression in the wider gaming community and for potential new backers it appears to be skewed in favour of pay to win.

If they need more money and for those who have backed alot (and yes thankyou) we need a big influx of new players to make the big backers seem less obvious and more powerful.

Again its just a perception but a perception is a tangible thing and has direct impact on the game and prospective new players

 

Unfortunately, it 2015. If I want something in game, Im gonna get it one way or another by paying hard earned cash. The question is who do you want to have that cash?

 

My only gripe with this is that it takes time to build the things that they're selling... to fund their game...

... like... just make the game and gate your features with stretch goals.

 

I came to SoTA via LOTRO. I was a perfectly content music transcriber there until Turbine broke the music system, rolled it back and then broke it again. My kin leader was singing the praises of SoTA so I decided to check it out. Months later, here I am, fully invested in helping to develop this game and my major goal is to help with the music system. LOTRO is pretty much in my rear-view mirror. CYA Turbine. I was *turbined* twice, never again.

Some people may have concerns about cash items, but I do not. LoTRO, SWTOR, STO and other games I have played all have micro-transactions. People in STO (Star Trek Online) for example, will buy new ship packages for 12,000 points. That is $120.00! Is that P2W? Vanity? Who knows? And frankly who cares?

It just seems to me that the hand wringing over cash items in the SoTA addon store and the cries of *Pay to win* are mightily overblown. I may not like the business model that huge gaming companies employ to soak players out of moolah, BUT - Portalarium is NOT a huge, international gaming company. SoTA is a crowd funded game and you either invest in it or you don't. Period.

I have invested more money than I care to divulge. I'm investing time as well, playing and reporting bugs, trying to be a part of this community and looking forward to offering my transcribing skills to test the music system when it comes online. I had the honor of being directly involved in one project with the Devs and you know what? I want to be involved in another...lol. But that's me. My focus is on *building* something, not tearing down what has already been accomplished. That includes whatever goodies are made available in the addon store.

 

I've cut most of your post, but I just wanted to say your own situation is very similar to mine, and I agree with most of what you said. I reheard a song lyric today which really fit my feelings too, originally about real life shallow materialism but it fit so well here; "Go broke appearing rich". And I want to add the mathematics of my own situation into the pool too to back up your impressions... This will be a VERY long one, sorry, because I really want to hammer home how the financial structure appears even to those who are emotionally invested in it.

Spoiler

All I want to do is own a boat and be a salty sea dog too. Currently, with a Royal Founder Ancestor account, I can't even place a home at all. I've been logging in every day and checking all the row houses, but one hasn't been free for weeks. I've spent a few hours when I can mining and making swords to sell, but at only 10k gold I'm still 50k from a Village Plot. This will change at launch, but the way the placement order was set up the last time I looked, I'd be amongst the very last to place, and if I missed the tiny 10 hour slot authorised for it (which if I'm working is very, very likely) I wouldn't place at all until the game fully launched.

And this remember is after paying $275 already, or roughly £174.67 for the dubious honor of living in a tiny slum, a 2 floor Row house; and this is only after they opened up property to that pledge level.

That total was all I've been able to scrimp and save, and only because coincidentally being contracted to work part time on another MMO whilst Shroud started opening up. And I wanted to spend the wages from that here, in thanking the Dev team for decades of prior enjoyment. And Ancestor appealed because I fondly remember translating grave stones in Ultimas IV onwards; my teenage roleplay character that came from Ys to Ultima, my first and second ever RPGs, will be laid to rest in Shroud... it's just an image that makes me feel the circle is complete, as Ultima decades later becomes Shroud, and he makes way for someone else too.

But anyway, in between that job and the new one, its meant making a few sacrifices, a lot of weeks eating noodles when I wanted a black Ships Cat from the Store and so forth, but that was my choice. So here I am, after spending 4 to 6 times the price of a AAA title. Bear that in mind as we move on...

Now I hopefully have a more stable income, I've been wondering how much further I can go towards my dream. I too was considering Edelmann, as the most obvious break point, and because as well as opening up not just a village lot, it gives the Waterfront Cabana. Except, as you address, there's no guarantee we'll be able to place them, sigh. And a ship won't go on a village Waterfront lot.

By the way, I asked in a previous Hang Out, whether there would ever be any Castles and Ships purchasable via in game means. And the answer was, for Castles, never; online, they will always remain exclusive to the current mega-backers. In Ultima Online, I did finally own a Castle. I can never here.

Ships however weren't addressed. I fear they will be the same, at least until Episode 2.

At present, with a small community and the game still in development and relatively friendly media coverage, all things remain bright and beautiful; I'm rather suspect when the forums to explode when people sign up for the hymn sheet and get to this verse however...

"The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them high and lowly,
And ordered their estate."

That simply doesn't fly these days. People like the setting of Feudalism but the actual class structure from those times is anathema to the modern MMO audience. Anyway, drifting from the financial facts again!

So I asked about purchasing a ship from Pledges who didn't want theirs; there's potentially a few available, but of course we can't talk about pricing yet. And unfortunately Edward, I expect we'll have to compete for the ones being sold. The thought already leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

But in that thread, the real issue came up. It's unlikely there'll be many City Waterfront lots, as they don't need to honour specific types, as backers at that level can choose land or sea. Even if I can get the ship from someone then, I can only be sure I'll ever be able to use it if I can secure a city plot myself. And the only way to be sure to do that is via spending in the store now.

The first pledge to include one is a whopping $3200, and I'd also get my own Frigate anyway. What else could I buy for that? Well there's a whole lot of things I've been putting off buying, including a new computer... I'm under the minimum expected spec now for Shroud (I wasn't at Alpha launch, sigh) and lack of RAM makes me suffer in Ardoris. So I've also been looking at new Computers... even avoiding the "slap your own drives into a barebones discount", even adding in Windows 8.1 Pro instead of Win7 I have now and taking the upgrade to Win10, and just going all out for "Go ahead, abuse my wallet" spending for the amount of money I could spend on becoming a Baron, I could have this monster of a PC instead.

For those who don't want to click links, that's a computer with the basic specs of;

Intel Core 4th Gen i7 Processor
32GB DDR4 2133Mhz Memory
3TB Hard Drive
2x 120GB Solid State Drives
NVIDIA GTX 980 Graphics

And then I could buy Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag for Steam at £15 (it's currently 40% off and under £10 though, thanks Gaben) to run on it. And still come out cheaper than a Baron account.

Or to put it into another perspective again, for the price of Baron, I could buy approximately 127 copies of AC IV for the price of one immovable ship in Shroud.

Maybe I can just get the City Lot itself cheaper? Well, if you count $1050 as cheap... And this is a taxed lot, without including the Ship from another player's price (that I can only guess at) and won't have the discount from already being Ancestor that would apply if I went for Baron. It probably still works out better, but still at 42 copies of AC IV for just the lot, I just can't persuade myself I want a ship that much, or am spending wisely... it means dedicating for weeks or months my free money, abandoning trips out with the girlfriend, movie nights, who knows what to afford just a simple plot of land.

So off I went back to Owl's Head to check the current in game price of City Lots. Maybe just try and get the ship, buy a Lot that way, and hope? But are they likely to be cheap in game, if people had to pay $1050 for one out of game? Whilst they currently cost 100,000 gold, which is I suppose reachable after a few weeks of play currently, the long term answer is likely to be "No", and that's a mistake right from the start as it locks us even further into disastrous real world driven inflation.

Is this post already too long for you, the reader? Yet this is the reality when money remains an object, especially these sort of sums. This is the kind of long, tortured thinking and self analysis is the path someone who isn't rolling with money ends up doing every time, just to see if they can afford to stand on a ship, look nautical and go Yaaargh to passers by. To get to my current understanding of "Buy a Frigate, if you can, sell 100 socketted swords on the player market and hope a waterfront is free somewhere" I've had to do all these calculations, feeling more with every hour doing the efficiency math like I'm thinking of spending way too much on what feels an unhealthy lack of return. And it's honestly heartbreaking... because I want the game to do well. And I want to be able to do more than the game currently has in it, or is likely to with current funding; and I've not even touched on that the only character themed art for clothing is in the Stretch goal store!

And it's all such, such a long way from that date in 1989 where I discovered Magincia a devastated swamp, and Katrina was there to give a lecture on the value of Humility.

Now you could say "You don't HAVE to spend that money though. Why worry?" And thus we get to the crux of the matter. You're right. People will comparison shop, that's natural. And they'll naturally burn out when they see the huge leaps for tiny gain, and get to the point where they agree, they don't have to spend this kind of money. So I look back to the pledge level, and I tell myself "Well having my name in the credits at Developer might be nice, as would my own talking NPC be, especially if it were a talking cow but... sigh... I don't have to spend that money though. And I really don't want too, if I'm honest."

I love the game. But it's exhausting to love it these days. I almost dread the next newsletter because there'll likely be something in there that pierces my enthusiasm and makes me feel dead and financially drained again. Think of it like an advert on a television, or that catchy pop song on the radio channel that you can't change; sure it might be fascinating, and exciting at first... but on the 100th repeat it becomes a form of Chinese water torture... that's what new store items feel like to me now, slow dripping that I just can't escape focusing on even as I hate that I do.

I mentioned earlier the idea of $1/£1 items; if nothing else it would give people a bit of released spending catharsis to know that they didn't have to miss out on the latest round of items. But as it currently stands, if I were to fund to Edelmann, I would end up hating myself for doing so. And there's enough to deal with in the real world to add that kind of self loathing to the pile. So, I really can't see myself doing so.

Sorry British, Darkstarr, Chris et all... I love you, but the store is suffocating me. And many others it seems; we need a bit of space.

Not sure the point comes across, but it's a good capture perhaps of what funding feels like these days.

 

It took me months after (fully)backing this game to figure out what it was, or at least what I think it is supposed to be.

I view it as an experiment to show others how they can develop their game using kick starter. All of the KS/in development games that you see come across your steam were pretty much born out of SotA. I havent seen a single crowd funded game be released yet(I could be wrong, don't shoot) so in my opinion we are still figuring things out.

There are two parts to this game:

Helping in the development & actually playing at release. Those that want to play at release are having a difficult time either because they are not interested in this aspect of the game or do not know how to actually become a part of the input process.

At some point of the development, I'd like to see Portalarium brainstorm some ideas to incorporate all backers into the input of the game. I know this can be a slippery slope because it is a balancing act of getting the game developed and managing the community. A major problem I see is that there have been gates set up, in order to get your ideas out there. Some people hold the keys and their guilds grow larger and larger and more and more important. This doesn't set well with the type of independent player base that this type of game draws.

I see this as the most important factor as to whether the entire community comes together and can help create a really good game with a sustainable population. We have to always be as proactive in this regard as we can possibly be and figure out how to engage the overall community.

I still stick with the polls as the easiest first step in accomplishing this.

*Edit- Im only one person and this is my opinion. I would like to hear from others what they think could help incorporate more community involvement.

 

I prefer the microtransaction system over subscription. Nothing you can purchase so far, in my eyes, is pay to win. The armor and weaposn are weaker than what can be crafted, theres houses and decoratiosn available for gold or craftable in game, the tools that don't break are less efficient than tools you will be able to craft that do break, etc.

As far as pushing the release date back, keep pushign it. If the game isnt done, push it back further. MUCH rather have the date pushed back in favor of adding more to thegame and polishing it up than for a deadline to be strictly met. There's not much in this game that isnt a placeholder or subject to drastic change yet, and the devs are working with the community (and not JUST the high end backers, plenty of input is taken and implimented from the masses and low-end backers as well) to make sure its something fun.

Also, some high-end backers BECAME high-end by being a low end backer that offered particularly needed and high quality assistance to the development.

 

Nitpicking: some kickstarter games were released. I won't shoot you, however, because we're still trying to figure out what this crowdfunding/sourcing thingie really is, and what can/cannot be done with it.

 

So far im getting that through crowdsoucring/funding a game may have more unexpected setbacks than soemthing pre-planned, but the trade off is becoming soemthign finely tuned to what the folks who are actually contributing and offering feedback want.

Which im liking better than spending sad ammounts of time browsing through games that are just competing with each other rather than lsitening to thier backers

 

That's subjective. There's a butt ton of people who don't feel like they got what they wanted at all or are getting what they wanted.

 

Hence my points on community involvement. Guess Im gonna have to start a thread on it and hope something good comes of it and I don't upset any of the powers that be.

 

And this is the proof we still don't know what this new business model is really about.

Is giving every player exactly what he/she wanted?
What he/she ever dreamt of about a specific legacy or product or "famous developer"?
What he/she could do if he/she was a venture capitalist or media mogul or corporate tycoon?
Is caving in to self-entitlement? Switch-and-bait? Cash grab? Democractic development? Socialist utopia in entertainment production?

The only real answer is that we don't really know (so far), and whoever pretends he got everything about crowdfunding is either monumentally delusional or a liar.

On one hand we have Elite: Dangerous. Great game, serious team, good success. But late, horribly out of budget, and multiplayer-only, while it was promised also single-player. A success? A failure? A commercial success? I don't know.

On the other hand, we have Godus. Need I say more?

The only objective fact is that to see how deep the rabbit hole goes, we need to drink this and eat that. The taste may be horrible, but that's the only way to see if the magic works or not.

 

Cant say Ive never drank anything that tastes horrible to see how deep the rabbit hole goes and how the magic works. lol.

 

It's a little bit of everything but in the same time it's nothing of what you mentioned.
And everybody has his own opinion about that.
There are those people (and yes, we have them here as well) that think they invested a lot of money and now they own a part of the game/the company.
Then there are those people that just do it out of charity and expect nothing in return.
And of course there are those people that just want the promised product.
And....so on ^^

 

*monument to delusion*

Himself, thank you. *bows*

I get many other points but I don't get all the fuss about pay to win... win what ? I don't get why people want to jump in such a skeleton of a game and say "finally I start with a competitive edge"

Competing for what ? the first to have high value items so they can sell it online for a profit ?

I was a beggar in UO for about a full year, because Lord British never came to the castle like he did during the alpha-beta and well I wanted to join the kings guard. I was forced to the streets and begging got me my first armor that I lost in 5 minutes to a PK.

Yes, one year that I lost in 5 minutes.

Well did that make me pay to lose ? I don't think so... I didn't feel like losing, I made another character, I was a more effiscient beggar after all, fresh start always helps you see the better perspectives

If that is the logic, that you need to come in at the right time to compete with the same advantages so you can sell high end items for a profit... that dosen't make it a game, that makes it an outlet for frustration.

That truth hits where it hurts the most... you can vent steam off by performing better in the game economy, makes you feel accomplished, you can be a great businessman...

meanwhile, back to real life... what does it create...

beggars get ignored, turn into thieves, thieves get laughed at, turn into pks, pks get ridiculed, and turn into social psychopaths...

GREAT GOING ?! It's past disingenuous, its the worst game model I've ever seen, its worse than EA, its basically trying to alienate people...

Thats what matters to me, how people will reach their motivation and definition of "winning".

 

I'm hoping it's a Lewis Carrol reference....otherwise...

 

Of course it is. What else would I be talking about? Stay on topic Spoon. lol

 

Bugs bunny ?

 

I want it now!

 

I started thinking anything that gave me the squirts, which would then bring new meaning to the concept of *butt ton*.

But back to the topic...oh yes...concerns about cash items. I would pay for an addon toilet that flushes...