Developing Portalarium Virtual Assets & Sales

Im more concerned with how the MMO community as a whole view threads like this. This is one of the reasons why the games get hammered. The complaint about "rare" pixels in a game. Yes, there have been a few items released... a very small set of items which they have used the same pixles (although the name is clearly different). In fact, most the items the OP posted are different enough that Im surprised there is a complaint. I personally think this kind of discussion falls under the core issue that people bought into this game early thinking it was an investment of some type and down the road they would make money selling or trading assets. This is insanity.

 

I think the average player thinks 'rares' are something you earn in game and not buy in a store. One of the first things my gamer friends ask me about this game is how I can enjoy the game with (their perception of) a huge, inescapable real money trade market, from both the addon store and players.

I think it is harmful to the image of the game that people came here with the explicit intention of monetary gain from buying rare virtual assets or by selling things earned in game.

I think it is harmful to the image of the game that people thought they would buy limited items that would provide a perpetual advantage in the game not accessible to new players.


But, I also think Port heavily implied that these items would be limited and rare. Since kickstarter, there have been an abundance of compromises made in this game's development, funding, and goals. It is surely not over yet. A lot of the recent interviews have spoken to the point of differences between player's expectations and developer's expectations. There will likely always be some divide there.

 

My question and thought process is, before the lottery someone paid full price for the addon lot deeds and now the value has dramatically been reduced because they added a lottery by means of gold which we all know much of the gold used in the lottery was likely gotten by means I am not going to bring up in this topic.

Funny though the price of the addon deeds have not changed any nor are they selling them because the lotto system killed the value of them. Portalarium hurt themselves if they thought they were going to sell a $450 town lot deed worth less then $300 from many sellers out there w the deeds

 

I sold my original Duke level account because my investment was becoming too watered down. I was lucky enough at the time to only take 15% loss on it. I would image it would be a 25-40% loss in today's market.

 

But if you bought a bunch of Ancestor pledges (especially Royal Founder pledges, you could see something nice for the cash you initially spent.) It's unfortunate for those of you who spent so much more. At least you didn't do what I did. I ragequit then wished I hadn't sold my RF knight pledge some time later. I ended up buying someone's founder knight pledge but really missed being a royal founder so I ended up buying the RF lord pledge with the intention of selling my founder knight pledge just before the land rush. I ended up not doing that. It worked out though. It allowed me to give the town lot to folks that are really awesome. Having great people to enjoy the game with is worth so much more to me. I hope you still have some sort of pledge where you could still play with us!

 

Which is exactly why re-releasing assets is so tempting, it's an easy way to generate some quick cash in the short term at the expense of depreciating trust in Portalarium and all assets in the long-term.

 

I don't think you're recognizing that Portalarium makes money through selling virtual assets. If selling virtual assets is their source of revenue then wouldn't you say that developing the perceived value of their assets is a good idea and will result in increased sales and money to develop the game? Nobody likes to lose money on any purchase, it sounds like you're hung up on the word, "investment."

 

Im not sure what leads you to believe that I am "hung" on the word investment?

But I will again say that it is insane to say "nobody likes to lose money on any purchase" when it comes to buying digital pixels.

Im fully aware that I have put $10,000 into this game. That's insane on its own. I fully expect that the money was gone when I gave it. If I wanted an "investment" I would have put it in Silver right now....

 

Spending on a game is one thing I also have spent a lot, but I did not do it as an Investment (that tends to lead to return on money spent) I bought into the game to support it, not to garner an edge just decorate. But I do take very negatively to soothing that was SOLD AND ADVERTISED as something rare and special (i.e. Tax free Lot Deeds - Water Houses / lots, A bunch of the Houses . . . .) and later on are sold again in a similar style circumventing things I was forced (yes forced) to purchase to do what I could have just sat around and waited for 6 months and gotten EXACTLY what I asked for even cheaper.

That is exactly what he is hinting at, they have presented items to be "special" and at a later time take the "special" part and just shoved it down our throats (had a more picturesque picture stated) and even did it cheaper.

 

You spent $10,000 on this game fully expecting it to be gone or worthless when you gave it? That truly is an odd perspective, which I cannot believe.

 

Ok, so here's what I really think, just my opinion. I mean no offense, but this is how I see it.

I'm not concerned about this; we had a kickstarter where they told us how much money they needed to produce those core features. It was funded, so the store should be irrelevant.

Good point. The store also makes no promise to make any effort to protect any value outside of having those items be made available in game, and that they be 'limited' or 'rare'. Though similar to other items, they meet this criteria. I have several of the early release hats. Their value to me is the same as before the release of similar items.

This is the only legitimate interpretation of spending money on a game, even a crowdfunded game. The resell value of everyone's account should be zero. Port ultimately owns all game assets. They can ban your account at any time. The RMT that occurs here is far more fragile than anyone would like to admit. Those that come here expecting to profit on virtual assets are essentially leeching off developer efforts, limit the developers ability to sell the game to a new audience, and force a revenue model of supporting a small number of whales rather than a larger number of continuous new players.

No one should come here with the expectation that any value exits the game; all value should be confined exclusively to in game world. So, not worthless, but not a liquidateable asset either.

Protecting real world value for resale of in game assets should be among the lowest priorities the developers have for the game. Expecting the same people to come back time after time to make high dollar purchases of vanity items is an unsustainable model, not worth protecting. If they want to sell assets for money to produce revenue, their focus should be on providing the highest in game value to new players. This means taking a very limited view on rares and limited items.

As I said, just my opinion.

 

Though I seldomly agree with Weins201 he has got a point there and some striking examples. The most striking for me are the water lots.
At some point the whole store had the rare aura. The differentiation what really was rare, what seasonal and what wasn't rare at all came at a later point and as a surprise to a lot of us. And not a good one as you can imagine.
But than again @mass is correct. It was all speculation from our side.

 

As for the water lots I can say it is not speculation at all, I have emails asking for abilities to change / modify some of the lots I had to "create" my town to a water type and was told equivocally "No" so I purchase more accounts and upgraded them to achieve what I wanted. Now for about 1/4 of what I spent I could have built "designed" my town and not had to have more than one account.

 

Dont know what to tell you, I cant make you believe anything. This isn't the first game I have put that much into and I didn't get anything out of the other. In fact, I allowed to people in the previous game to fully use the account as they please.... They still do to this day... for years now... But that game is on the verge of shut down now and my money will go down with it. Do I care... not really... I played the game for YEARS and had a great time. I pay 7x more then that for a car that I spend FAR less time in.

 

We understand that there are a handful of items that look similar to previous exclusive rewards. The first and most important point to make here is that we recognize exquisitely well that Shroud of the Avatar is a crowd-funded project. We take great care on how much time (and thus money) we spend developing the game. We carefully balance design detail vs practical value in order to ensure players actually have a game to play at launch.

The second point to make is that game development is a constant balance of resources. Would the community like us to spend twice as much time creating more items that most of the community wouldn't want, simply for the sake of extra differences, vs developing still relatively unique items that keep the project moving forward? We've already been down the road of creating wildly different items in the past and came to realize time was wasted because we focused too much on originality. We are focusing more on choosing the middle-ground for these few items because we learned from past development, and out of sheer practicality and necessity.

Maybe the unique items are too close in visuals as described above, but I would also point out that they are still unique, even if some appear 'better' than the original items. We can't alter the originals precisely because they are unique, otherwise we might think about offering players a new tuned unique reward item and providing the "now near-identical o' so old and plain ones that were once unique" as store items instead. Collectors don't scoff at a beloved antique cabinet when a newer but nearly identical style shows up in stores. And entertainment enthusiasts don't scoff at a special edition TV when a nearly identical new version comes out that just ups the refresh rate from 60hz to 120hz. etc...

I hope this helps show that we're looking at the big picture of the game's development, for all of you, the project's backers. I encourage everyone to think about the complexity of developing a crowd-funded game before assuming we're just trying to grab 'easy' cash for some reason.

While that's all digested, I suggest we please take the existing side arguments and move it to PMs. We won't see them continue after my response here. Thank you all for your open understanding. If you have continued questions or concerns on this topic, please feel free to always reach out to us. You can always send me a PM as well!

 

Whatever you guys decide to do... please don't reuse the Obsidian City Home for an Obsidian Water City Home. Other than that - everything seems cool. Carry on!

 

I was not happy at all about the battle banner "re-release"......

 

Ahh Town lots. Now that's one that got *my* goat. A while back the Town lot (taxable) was still available at the bargain "intro" offer of $450 which was advertised as being 50% off the regular price of $900. After some back and forth with myself I decided I'd kick my own ass if I would up having to pay $900 cause in my gut I knew I really wanted at least that much space and 2 village lots aren't quite the same thing (house placement etc). So I bought one just before the price change.
Looking at that lot in the store for $900 made me feel fairly decent about my purchase... until they suddenly (likely because they sold none) dropped the price back down to $450 never t rise again. That just peeved me for quite some time. I rage melted a bunch of stuff after that because my faith/trust had been pretty negatively impacted. While I later repurchased some items it bugs me to this day. Then along came the lotto. :-(
Now as has been mentioned the word (as far as *I* knew) had always been that there would eventually be a path to land ownership in game but it was really disappointing to see it happen so soon. If they'd held off till. oh idk.. maybe 3-6 months after the "real" launch it would have been an entirely different thing. With the way they handled it however it not only devalued the assets many owned it gave an unfair advantage to a subset of the population that had way too much $ too early that.. in truth, they never should have had. I still shake my head over the lotto.. I mean what was/is the big rush anyway? Trust is funny stuff.. it can take a lifetime to build/earn trust but you can wipe out that trust in a heartbeat. While I remain bullish on the game, I will never again have the trust I once had. Whenever I see an addon store price that indicates something is offered at the "buy it now cuz the price is gonna double" rate...I think back on that town lot deed.

 

Makes me think of their use of Pre-Alpha.

That being said, i actually understand why they are doing it the way they are.
How much time should they pull away from game development, in order for limited items?

Thats probly the most detailed answer i've seen @Berek give up to this point.
Wish he answered everything that solidly!

None the less, interesting read. Valid points on both sides.

 

Given it took minimal effort to earn the grand tour hats, I'm not too bent out of shape that similar stuff became available later. I think most of us knew that was always going to be on the cards.

ie: The company's not going to make an asset that people can earn super easily for 10 minutes work, and then never ever have that asset available again, albeit in different colours, no badge, etc.

I feel a little differently about the stuff people have bought thinking it was quite rare. I don't actually have a dog in the race as I don't get sucked into buying that stuff at all, but I can see the point.