Dissapointed in the vibe of the promotion

I've been away for sometime from the forums but still keep up to date what's happening in Sota and i have to say that i really dislike the cash shop items advertised in every email and i really dislike the whole idea of selling in game items/houses etc. Now before somebody says, why should that be away from your gaming experience or the items don't make that much difference, i think the vibe is overall negative around the concept.

I hear a lot of smack from my friends and almost everything is about how greedy the company is. Now i'm sure thats not the case but a lof of people perceive it that way. Ok, they have been able to raise some money through that but looking at the figures on the front page, it does not seem that substantial increase.

The game needs to attach new backers, not exploiting the wallets of existing ones to make a difference in the funding. What happened to double down? We wanted to double the amount of backers a while back.. the amount has incresed with a few thousand at best. It's the lower tier backers that make a difference and if you cannot attract them, there is no chance to make a big difference in the financial figures. As i mentioned months ago, Sota backers are pledging on average wayyy more that almost any other KS backed game supporters. And with people upgading their pledges and buying additional content, the ratio is prolly also increasing.

 

I understand what you are saying. I pledged Elderman in KS and am slightly dissapointed to see that for my 550 bucks I get a one room shack however, I can upgrade for even more money to a larger dwelling or add on a basement for, you guessed it, even more money.

Oh well, I am not going to focus on that, just going to focus on the fact I helped get the game moving and enjoy the play. Hopefully it doesn't dissapoint like the other so called "games" that are being released lately.

 

On the plus side, your village lot is tax free forever (so all houses on that lot are tax free, AFAIK). So there is also the chance that you can upgrade your house with in-game money, and perhaps this means it can have more than one room.

 

While you do have a very valid point I think the backer issue is a presentation problem.

Everything they have done so far has been badly timed, you don't go begging for money with nothing to show for it. They shouldn't have started KS until they had a positive presentation. Look at star citizen, they didn't have a big name like RG and still came away with many times the pledge level. Why? Because they had a good concept and an excellent presentation. Heck I almost pledged and I don't particularly like sci-fi games.

But it goes one step beyond that. Portalarium is going for a very specific group here, the Ultima crowd and thats a very small group (and yes 25K in game space is a very small crowd). So less people are willing to give money for various reasons. And then you add to that certain games are coming out parallel to this with huge budgets and some of the same features and a lot more and SOTA ends up looking like the poor cousin. My suggestion has always been that they re-think some of what they are doing. RG is suppose to be cutting edge but all I've seen is old school which by definition is not cutting edge.

 

@stvnkrs10

I'm happy to support the project also but right now it feels more like paying to "keeping up with the Joneses" than actually supporting the development. Some are even buying more deeds solely for investment purposes.

@Death-Knell

I do agree that their timing or execution of the campaign has not been the best. Then again, they have put out some decent demos of the game and i'm quite pleased with the info flowing out. It just seems that's not nearly enough or (presented wrong) to attract more people. The game is indeed aimed to please the Ultima community and that's great since i'm one of them... now i know we all want the perfect game that will remind us of the glory days but is this then commercially viable anymore? There is just so much you can squeeze out of the existing 25k. If you calculate the average, it is over $100 per backer and that's a darn big number.

You either make a good niche game with less fluff using what you have or then the concept has to change to cater wider audience. Selling addons for the community will not make a huge financial difference and we have seen it create a lot of controversy and possibly scaring new customers away.

 

@Sanctius- Except the Ultima crowd is a small group. Niche games aren't that great. I belong to one, Horizons. I adore that game but it turned into a ghost town which ends up not being much fun. Game is still going supported by 3 devs but with a niche community it's really hard to find help on quests when needed.

I will give them props on info dissemination. I've been impressed with the quality and quanity of announcements.

But that doesn't change the fact that there aren't many people interested in this game and you won't find many new folks as the "old school" things they are implementing went away for a very good reason. And the one innovative thing about this game is being addressed by another title with a much bigger budget and more bang for the "founder" buck.

 

At this point, some of the old school stuff just may feel cutting edge. So I look forward to that. I think it is about differentiation more than anything. If SotA can differentiate itself then it succeeds despite its size. If it does 'more of the same' that some others are doing at a larger scale, then its harder.

 

At this point, some of the old school stuff just may feel cutting edge. So I look forward to that. I think it is about differentiation more than anything. If SotA can differentiate itself then it succeeds despite its size. If it does 'more of the same' that some others are doing at a larger scale, then its harder.

I'm sorry, but a moral victory is still a loss.

 

The game has not raised a whole lot of money considering how much it costs to make something we'd all consider good. Have you seen what people are imagining they'll be able to do on these forums ? There's no way, no way that will ever be close to being achieved unless they raise more money than 2.5 mil.

I'm fine with there being a shop and optional extra stuff you can get - it's better than microtransactions IN THE GAME anyway.

I just kind of hope it doesn't pervade the game. There's nothing worse than playing a game where you constantly need to dump cash into it to play.

 

All I got to say is...

 

reality hits ya hard bro

 

Given this:

"
On the subject of Shroud of the Avatar's business model, Garriott said that he's looking to take a hybrid approach with the game. "The game will have a retail price, plus some in-game transactions...So we're going to charge $40ish to play the game...There will be a demo space that's available for free, as well. While we're giving some [in-game property] plots to backers for helping to game to get going, for everyone else who comes in later, there will be a load on that, $5 per month, or something like that." Garriott doesn't feel that the charge on property will be a detriment to the game, however. "We're going to try and avoid the issue of selling power, but we do want to say that if you want to be a player in the world, you need to be supporting us...We're going to have some caps on things such as inventory, but if you don't want that, you can just pay us $5-10 per month and just forget about it. And in fact, we're also making it so that players can pay their rent with in-game currency too."
"

It would seem you may have something to worry about.

Unfortunately, there has been no confirmation or denial from Portalarium that in-game currency can be used to permanently expand your "inventory" cap (instead of RL cash) nor what "inventory" actually means in this context.

 

The alternative to us paying these fellows direct for their hard work is them taking loans from some source which will impose profit expectations, forcing the development of the game to be profit driven in a negative way and thus turning it into another cookie cutter garbage game. Lord British is not in the business of garbage games and this approach both retains his freedom of action and pays for the realities of game development.

 

Regarding the statement that increased inventory will be a monthly charge this has been corrected by Starr Long. IF they charge for increased inventory it will be a one-time charge.

 

@Tradyblix

From my point of view we already have an in-game microtransactions cash shop (and as vjek pointed out there will most likely be an official in-game shop). It's just launched before the game itself...and this cash shop is not even selling just cosmetic items!

@Favonius Cornelius

Portalarium already has investors (KS backers not included) even though it's not the same thing as going to a big published but RG did not build the company just with his own money.

Now i think we all agree and atleast suspect that the game will not be built solely with the money raised by the backers (atleast the good polished game we all want) so the question remains - will the cash shop actually even make a difference? More money is always good and welcome but will the extra $200-500k make a crucial difference? Personally, i don't think so.

EDIT: just for the record, i'm a fan of sub-based business model in general. I'd even pay for conveniance (bank slots inventory etc as long as it's not too annoying) rather than pay for usable items. Every item should be obtainable in game and transferable.

 

I've heard of very few development teams in game design or really just about any trade that was not cutting the budget to the edge, and did not pine for just one more hand on the team if it could only afford it. Probably all failed launches of games are a result of pinchimg the penny too hard in the name of our masters the glorious investers. I would indeed think half a million would account for a lot.

 

Also for not too much you can add one of the basements. They look really nice. Plus there is more land for your garden or something else.

 

@Favonius Cornelius

Yeah, i might be wrong here but I still stand behind my statement.

The way i understand is, Portalarium raised around $3.6M + $7M even before SotA to develop their infrastructure and launch Ultimate collector. I'm not sure what amount of that was allocated to ultima collector itself but i'd like to consider SotA more expensive and better quality product that UC.

Second, the game was being developed if we meet 1M goal. That should be in theory the amount to finish the game. We got double that amount. Now if the development of the product depends on the extra 0.5M we MIGHT raise with the cash shop, i say we are walking on a veeeery thin ice here.

And if i'm not mistaken, i remember RG saying they have the funding needed to finish chapter1. If somebody can concur that, please do.

 

Actually I believe it was Darkstar who said what was quoted was not entirely accurate and that in game currency could be used.

 

EQN