Do I dare disturb the universe?

It got unmerged. This is all terribly confusing.

 

You're telling me.

 

Lord Trenyc I will miss you! I'm so sad about all this.. but I understand completely.

 

If you're gonna sell your account and be negative on Portaltarium though, you should probably take a break from the forums for a while.

It's a little unseemly otherwise.

 

Lord Trenyc: I'm really sorry to hear this! You are awesome and I don't want to see you go! Let me know if there is anything I can do!

 

Not trying to rain on the parade but are you leaving or not? Seems like you jumped to a conclusion that you were then have been asking for this thread to be unmerged so you can back pedal a bit, don't really care either way just trying to under stand what is going on in this thread now.

 

People are too used to blacks and whites in this industry. This isn't just another kind of "LOL ragequit". The OP explains why I had to sell my pledge--a reality that ultimately can be completely separated from Portalarium--and why I'm feeling reserved about buying back in. That feedback is (or should be) important to Portalarium, and it's definitely valued by many members of the community. Call it unseemly if you like.

Read the OP.

As to why I wanted this thread unmerged, it's because (as I explain in the OP) I want the message to be seen for what it is. As it happens, your own thread about how we should like your post to show thanks to Portalarium played something of a role in me deciding to post this at all. Lots of people in this community have some very big problems with the way things are going right now, and those need to be brought into the open and seen for what they are, not stuffed in the closet in an attempt to hide their ugly faces from visitors.

This isn't a goodbye post. It's a post meant to explain some of the big things Portalarium is doing wrong and what it needs to focus on to do things better, though even in that sense it is regrettably less than comprehensive.

 

I did read the OP.

And as to the second paragraph that's what I don't get. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth but are you saying my post had something to do with you quitting (I thought you mentioned in OP this was strictly financial?) or that you decided you needed to air out grievances and say that they are why you are quitting or which is it? It really doesn't matter to me either way it's just a bit confusing the direction that you are taking, if you are quitting for financial reasons that just so happened to coincide with the timing of some questions being raised in regards to pledging and lots thats one thing, but if you are quitting over the lots stuff and it just so happened you needed money that's another, IMHO.

There seem to be a lot of people saying 'What can I do to help' or 'This really sucks please reconsider' because I think they feel you are quitting because you are disillusioned with Portalarium, but if the true reason is financial than it seems you should reiterate that point so people understand it's not a ragequit like you mentioned.

 

It's July. The game isn't due for release until probably February of next year at the earliest. It makes no sense at all to "quit" at this point because there's nothing to quit. There is no game.

I do feel the need to air these grievances, and the consequences of those grievances are different from your normal sort of goodbye thread because it's not goodbye--it's the airing of grievances. People might have gotten the impression that I'm just outright quitting because there has been some of that lately with some very prominent personalities, but I was very clear in my OP that that's not what's happening here, even if it might be something that happens later. I do suspect that some--probably a lot--of people understand what I mean perfectly well, though, especially if they share my concerns. There is a very real possibility that I won't play this game at all if things keep on the way they are, as my faith in Portalarium's business model is hurting badly. But there's no possible way for me to actually make that decision until the game comes out, and I won't pretend to have my mind set on some dire outcome just for drama's sake. I've made some wonderful friends in this community, and I'm not keen on abandoning them. I'll hold on to some hope, but I'll also hold on to my cash unless I get a little faith back.

And look, especially at this point of the development effort, I can keep doing what I've been doing just fine without a pledge. My involvement with the community to date really has very little or nothing at all to do with actually playing the game. Like I said in my OP, my issues and related decisions (when they come, no matter which way they go) are reflections of Portalarium as a company and SotA as a product, not of how I feel about the players. The truth about this community is the people are one of the strongest things Portalarium has going for them, which is itself a minor tragedy because there is a very popular opinion floating around right now that Portalarium doesn't adequately value that resource. But that's a discussion for another time. Fact is this only has a few meaningful consequences for anyone impacted, such as my withdrawal of my plot application from the player town where I planned to live (because even if I do buy back in, I won't have a house at launch). But I'm not looking to burn any bridges here. Just telling it like it is.

 

Please do not get me wrong, I know the dilema only too well, it's the same reason I no longer enjoy open world full drop PvP (if others buy their equipment/character with RL money, or simply macro/bot them up and leave me with zero chance of being competitive, I'd rather not be a dumb cheater's easy prey, simply because I want to play a game and not buy/cheat my way in). On the other hand, I am convinced you'd find more customers than you can handle regardless of the worse odds if you stay dedicated right from the beginning. Which gets me to the other side to look at, the benefit and yes, there is a benefit, even though you m ight not have realised it yet! These people effectively betray themselves of some of the great experience the game has to offer by taking a shortcut. When you never have to repair anything, you skip on a potentially amusing experience. When you are never forced to sell anything by yourself, but rather have your NPC vendor handle everything for you, you are going to miss out on talking to a lot of (potenially ) nice people. When you are sitting at your own house with your own crafting station, you miss out sharing with the community, maybe taking turns, negotiating, exhanging, laughing, inviting each other to a beer while waiting!
All these "extra items/benefits" are somewhat like watching a movie and having a remote control to fast forward. Yes, you're going to know the end faster than your friends, on the other hand, they are going to have enjoyed (more of) the movie they paid for.

Would I skip all the extra Items if it wouldn't mean financial suicide? Sure! On the other hand, the sad reality is likely that lots of people pledged (higher) for exactly that reason, so I'd rather bite the sour apple and have the chance at seeing a great game with a little bit of a bad taste to it, than not seeing the game become reality at all. Compared to a large publisher financing the game, this is still so much of the lesser evil,...

Just my two cents and while I'd love to offer you a place in my house, I won't have one for a very long time (since I'm going to try and purchase one with in game curency and feel every bit of pride having truely earned my home ) I could offer to help you gather a few materials right in the beginning, even the ones in "PvP zones" free of charge. If you get only a dozen people to support you that way, you should already be capable of competing again!

 

I feel like I understand the words you are saying but it still doesn't change the confusion on why you are getting rid of your pledge. In your original post you mention that there are financial issues you are going through but you still maintain in your last reply that it is because of Portalarium, not because of financial reasons. Like I said to me I honestly don't care either way I am just trying to understand if you as a respected member of the community are quitting because of

A: Financial reasons

or

B: Portalarium's choices

 

I simply have to comment on that one with a short response, so please forgive me!
Actually, in my humble, biased opinion, Portalarium tries just about everything to value that resource. It is part of the early stage of game development that makes people feel otherwise though. If you change concepts of the game to appease one side of your community, you likely hurt the other, especially wish such strong topics as PvP. When you say everything's on the table (e.g. if "card combat" turns out to be no fun, it's going to be skipped) it means there is always going to be unhappy, dissapointed customers, no matter what you try.
It doesn't mean that everything they do is going well and is good, but if we can say that it's the intention to count, then, yes, they do care.

 

/Thread

 

I got rid of my LM pledge for financial reasons. I'm presently not interested in buying a less expensive pledge because of Portalarium's choices. It's a little of both, but the latter is subject to change if Port makes better choices going forward. This isn't as complicated a position as you're making it out to be.

 

This isn't worth arguing because it's very much a matter of opinion and because opinions on the topic are quite varied. I understand both perspectives on that issue. Portalarium is definitely doing better than big publishers do where it comes to engaging the community, but there is so much more that could be done--and should be done, as buyers of big box games aren't pouring hundreds to thousands of dollars into those games, generally speaking.

 

he didn't say they don't care. He said they don't value the community as a resource.

that is absolute truth and is something I repeated since june of 2013.

There are many more ways to engage and get engaged with the community than the infrequent announcements or head popping into a forum to re re re clarify statements.

They need to really evaluate PR and community especially given they are all about spouting that as a corner stone for this project.

 

Better crowd-sourcing mechanisms come to mind as one way to make better use of the community as a resource. Granted, they're covering new ground, so it won't be easy, but like Joviex said,

 

I would say that's half-true. But I do agree with the sentiment that you don't sign up for a community-driven, crowd-sourced, crowd-funded development process and not dedicate a portion of your staff 100% to do community management and more importantly, community engagement to disseminate internally developed content and review community created UGC. The "many hats" model may work for them, but not for a portion of the community. Some successes: CoA, Poet's Circle, with some failures: Dev+ assets, design docs.

 

It would mean the world to a whole lot of people if they put one staff member in charge of a program similar to UO's Seer program, so volunteers can create and execute in-game content using a generic toolkit created by Portalarium. That same person who is in charge of the program could also be tasked with interacting with the community and acting as a sort of liaison between that community and Portalarium staff. And if they're feeling awfully generous, they can actually call it PR.

 

Well, that's essentially what we have with CoA, but the community developed that toolkit. And I thought we've made some progress, however small / slow, with the dungeon cartography guild thingy and other UGC asset review. But you're right, dedicated staff will move things along quicker.