DarkStarr please consider making a policy before/when launching "the Vault" 25APR

Stay Classy - I need to hop back into the browser-based game too I guess.

 

Nah. A few are but most are not.
Instead what most are complaining about is promises and trust.
(Where I argue that lower trust predicts churn of the higher stratas, which contradicts their choice of business model).

Me personally I'm complaining that most of the rares related dramas over the past and future years was and still is preventable through the requested policy and reserved list.

Information and spin is key to building trust and brand loyalty.

Correct.

Incorrect.
People worrying about the success of the game means they care - which is a good thing.
So people who loves the game would still get ulcers when worrying about the servers going down. Regardless of how much they have spent on it.

Uhm? Most F2P businesses? A 1to10 ratio of paying vs new isn’t much.

If they were on a fixed price model like subscriptions, then that wouldn't be hard math - correct.

However they are not. They are on a F2P/Freemium business model. Which dictates that the math is a bit more complex than that. Where two things are statistically typical -
1)
top 10% spenders normally constitutes >50% of revenue
2)
conversion from free-to-play to paying customer is usually around 1-2%

Now we don't know the conversion rate or stratas in SotA but back when Dallas gave business updates it was about ~5% of spenders was 45% of revenue, and the conversion rate was a good solid 3%.

Now we know they are not, but for the sake of argument lets say that still holds since it is the last datapoint we got. If so then for every single top strata spender you lose you'd need 1500 new players to cover that. (45*(1/0,03))
This is compounded with this feature only losing spending players, so if we assume that the Vault launch loses in the order you predict, ie hundreds, then those are solidly in that converted 3% and heavy on top strata. Then we'd need about ~60 000 new players per 100 lost. Lets say I'm off by 50% on the distribution within the stratas, then that would still be ~30 000 new players per 100 lost. (100 lost, 1/3 top strata 1/3 mid and 1/3 lower or roughly 30*1500, 30*500, 40*30) *EDIT* redid the math after looking up Dallas' data *EDIT*
So yea, not hard calculations but still people come to different conclusions.

Where I'd guesstimate that the conversion rate is inverse to the perceived massiveness of the store - so more items in store does not predict more paying customers. (Which is also what Portalarium mentioned as one of the reasons for moving to the crown store).

Against something which is preventable.

 

I watched that episode of the Laz & Jack show, just last week. Please don't tell me that Duke Ezekiel Cooper is the one who thought Shroud was a browser based game?

 

He was... LMAO!!!
But don't take it out of context... It's was a misunderstanding of tech language and a running joke...

 

Here is a simple fact. SOTA went Free To Play (FTP) and actually has a LOWER population then before going FTP.

Trust me on this cowboy, there are not thousands of cowboys and cowgirls hiding just over yonder waiting to play SOTA. What we see are the cards we got.

Virtual goods have no value outside perceived exclusivity. Once everyone has everything no one wants anything. Almost no one is going to pay $10 for a virtual item worth $1 a month later.

Portalarium might need to generate some extra funds to stay alive long enough to push out E2. Fair enough. If E2 is just a rehash of E1 its game over padre. Having followed this game for many years now, I know Portalarium isn't hiding some magical hidden content up their sleeves. What we see is what we get.

If Portalarium would give true value to all of the deeds and POTs they sold the game would very likely become a success. Virtual property can be very valuable as is the case in plenty of other games. If SOTA land is only used to host dance parties and decorate homes no one will visit. No one will buy the virtual property.

Portalarium is free to do as they choose. I just hope one day (before the lights are turned off) Portalarium realizes what they have been choosing isn't working.

Capitalism FTW.

• The easiest way to eat crow is while it's still warm.
  The colder it gets, the harder it is to swaller.

 

When I see this kind of thing happen once again, all I hear is Darth Vader saying, "Pray I don't alter the deal further."

I keep my mouth shut most of the time because I was raised with the concept, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it." As an adult I realize it's because harsh words can't be taken back.

So all I'll say is that this kind of "change" has happened too many times over the last 4+ years I have been a backer. I don't like it. Why? Promises kept = trust. Promises broken = trust evaporates. When trust evaporates you end up alienating the people who helped you get this far and when that happens, you may lose them for a while -OR- to a point where they are never coming back. Either way? Portalarium you are shooting yourselves in the foot yet again.

 

I empathize with everyone's reluctance of Port's decision... I do...
I'm just optimistic of the future... Who knows guys...
Maybe there's a whole new line of stuff coming out for E2.

I just refuse to call the company a liar, when they've been faithful in so many other areas of the game.

 

Personally, I think Vault items should have been opened up in the world as drops, perhaps to people who have a sub or something. I keep trying to remind folks that this is a game and the items are most valued when won. It would make endless house tours much more interesting.

 

I have craploads of purchased/telethon/pledge items yet my houses are decorated using only items that can be found in-game.

 

Thank you @Spoon for always being the voice of reason and for your well thought out words. I don’t know how you keep it up (but please leep it up :3)

 

I find myself sitting on a spikey fience, one side, its good to have an opportunity to get things you missed out on, for whatever reason, but when they were initially done as never to return exclusive stuff, it seems a slap in the face.

One of the more recent broken promises while in so many ways I would have wanted to come in, it seemed a shock they had, which was they removed some of the POT on the overworld that were empty. Now, got to remember, overworld POTs were given to x number of people who bought them first, they didnt have to pay more, so to that extent it doesnt seem so bad, but as someone with a nested pot that gets next to no visitors because no one goes to nested pots unless they have a good reason, it does make me angry to see POTs on the overworld where the owner hasnt been on in over a year and its basically empty (cough my old guild leader for one, I dont think hes logged in since I bought my pot and moved out!) but Ive spent plenty of $ decoing my town only to see that one still in an exceptionally prime spot.

Its weird, on one hand there seem to be plenty of people who have bought sota and a fair bunch who play, but I guess by an MMO standard numbers are low so they need todo what they must to get people to come, the problem is if you trample the loyal to get more who may not be.. are you really winning?

 

I don't think (or at least I hope) anyone here is calling the company or its employees liars. I guess I see it more that they consistently just shoot from the hip when hyping and selling things on the up front, which just causes the situation we see here and have seen many times over (CFVs, bundle items, tax free deeds, etc.).

In short, they are really, really bad at marketing accurately - very much sell first, ask questions later. And the problem Port runs into is at least a chunk of us do not like when they do what is being proposed under the claim of "we cannot remember every promise and thing we said originally, too bad so sad" or "we technically can do this by changing a tooltip or had weasel word language in the first place".

Again, Port can totally do this, it doesn't make them liars by any stretch, but time will tell if doing this again and again to long term backers is a net plus or a net drain. I sure hope their internal analytics sees some kind of huge, rather than marginal or flat, benefit by doing this again - something tells me though this an idea that wasn't analyzed all too much. I guess I am a "a bird (historically large, consistent spending backer) in the hand is worth more than two in the bush" kind of person.

 

It's literally the first and most basic concept they teach you in business school as well!

 

And today I finally learn what the hell that phrase ever meant.

I struggled for a long time with "having your cake and eating it too". I'm like, how can you eat a cake if you don't have it?

 

I thought it was PRT s they removed

 

Please read this with sarcasm.

Sell experience, levels and rare spells of obscene power that kill anything with one cast. And sell them for a lot of money. $5,000.00 for the Nuke spell. $100.00 for each level over level 100.

That will raise money. And it won’t hurt people who worked hard to get to high levels; they will still have that they earned, no?

 

FYI the bunny outfit is on the vault in QA for 2000 crowns right now. So that does seem like a premium price to me. I have no idea how much it was back then but I doubt it was twenty bucks.

 

@Vladamir Begemot having been on qa clearly Im stupid cos I stared at the store and never saw the vault.

 

So, where will this "Vault" be? Will it be part of the crown store? Will the items be sold on the web store?

 

it's part of the crown store, a subsection of 'featured'