Do I dare disturb the universe?

With a small team like this how do you get a dedicated PR person. Are they going to hire some guy or gal with a Masters in Communications, and have that person do what? That sounds very expensive do do that right now.

Imagine how much RA RA RA this person will have to do between now and the release date? If they had the funds for it I can see the value of having a person like this. It would be better if somebody just poped up that would donate their time to give them professional PR advice, and plan out promotions and develop advertizements etc.

REOPEN OLD RELEASES:

Another thing to consider is that having a playable game up and running seems to keep some of the idle busybodies busy. Depending upon how much trouble or expensive it is to keep the releases active more often, maybe that might satisfy some people more than paying a PR person.

Set goals like, who can get the most gold this weekend... bang they reopen the last release over the weekend and let people try to gather the hell out of gold. Change it up see who can craft the most stuff or find the hidden recepies.

Or they create a purple llama and set it loose some place, and people need to find which hex it is in.


so maybe they can just open up a few more sessions. We don't want to bombard them with too many bug reports, and problems. They should close the bug reports after the ACTUAL release window is closed, and let everybody know that they are playing on an old release version, and new patched versions exist in house. Wait till the next release and if the bug still shows up report it after that.

Just a thought... but it might keep the busy bodies off everybody's backs. Also since basic PvP will be open, players can just screw around.

 

That's actually a very interesting idea, especially for people who love statistics such as myself (and it seems Chris ), since it grants at least a slight estimate on what to expect and thus some paramaters can be adjusted early on.

 

Did Rustic have a "masters in communications"? Because he sure enriched the community as a whole with his contribution to it. I doubt he did, and I don't think he needed one to do what he was doing and more importantly to do what he 'could' have done for the community had he been left in place.

Our company just hired a seriously under qualified high school graduate to take over our online community and personal exposure to all aspects of it and social media. She is doing much much better than the "professional" we had in there before her. It isn't costing us an arm and a leg, she loves doing the job and we've seen quite a good impact from engagements with clients.

It is all about people, this is one area you don't necessarily get what you pay for. Though if you find someone great, you should reward them!

 

The SOTA community is what drew me ( & many others) here. Sure, it was the SC-SOTA crossbow promotion that got me involved initially but it was the sheer diversity, intelligence and eclectic nature of the SOTA crowd that made me stay. In many ways the SOTA forums makes the SC forums seem like a barren wasteland in comparison.

So I really hope that your apprehensions & fears for this game /community prove unfounded or unrealized in the end and that your RL luck turns massively in your favor very soon.

 

Yeah, but I thought Rustic urged his friends, and the community to not get upset because it wasn't a problem between him and Portalarium that caused the break.

So arguing about it is going against the kind wishes of Rustic Dragon.

 

He did because Rustic is an awesome dude. I'm pretty confident he would say the same kinds of things even if he was outright fired with extreme prejudice. I doubt things were that dire, but the aspects of that whole situation that have been revealed by either Rustic or Portalarium leave lots of room for speculation. From what I've heard from community members, that speculation overwhelmingly favors Rustic and faults Portalarium. I won't openly repeat some of the rumors that have come out of that because they are just speculative, but it is worth noting that, whether Rustic wants people to be mad at Portalarium or not, his leaving has hurt the impression many people have of Portalarium, even if they don't commonly share those impressions out of respect for Joseph. The ironic part is that it doesn't really matter if he left by choice or if he was fired / laid off / call-it-whatever-you-want; people would be upset either way, though for different reasons.

But no one in all the history of ever has been able to get people to play nice just by asking politely. People are apt to dole out fault where they feel it is due, and the only way to stop idle tongues from wagging is by putting the whole story out there for everyone to see. If you don't do that and people are emotionally affected for the worse by the ambiguity, they will assume the worst. This is nothing new, and no one should be surprised that Joseph's leaving the company is still an issue.

That left a deep wound on some people, and it always will be an issue.

 

LT, can I have your stuff ?

 

I'm sure they had a good reason to let him go. Whatever that reason was, I'm also sure that its none of your (or my) business.

 

Captain Jack think you have missed the point. Captain Jack tries again.

You don't need to throw an obscene amount of money at the problem which needs to be addressed here in regards to the communication and community outreach. Captain Jack used Rustic's great work as an example of not needing someone who has attended University for 6 years and is an 'industry professional' in the field. If you are Rustic, then Captain Jack is sorry and didn't know!

Captain Jack argues nothing! Details on his departure are not relevant to the discussion, Captain Jack only referenced that in passing as he thought Rustic could have done much more to prove his point if he was to be around longer.

 

Sorry mate. I don't have any stuff. And if I did, no, you couldn't have it.

We are all backers or potential backers of this project. Its progression does concern us, for better or for worse, and our feedback should concern Portalarium, as we aren't just backers--we're customers--the sort of which is especially loyal and forgiving, despite our tendency to criticize. If we are upset or offended by Portalarium's actions, what sort of impression should we expect to leave people who are hesitant to pay even $25 to buy the game?

And anyway, you really shouldn't ask people to invest in your business and then, when those people criticize your staff management practices, tell them it's none of their business, just the same way you shouldn't ask for charity and then tell the person who offered it to you it's not their business how the money is spent. People care both about Joseph and about the success of this project, so no one should be surprised that people are upset over his leaving. Like I said, people would be negatively impacted no matter whether it was entirely Joseph's decision to leave or not--but the present reality, which rather strongly suggests it was not, is troubling in all the ways no one will talk about in public because they feel it's inappropriate or that they'll be sent to the corner by the mods.

You can't stop whispers, so you might as well give people something good to say and let them yell.

 

Oh. That might works for our community sorry, but I was thinking you were referring to real promotions, and advertizing plans to reach people outside the community. My mistake.

 

O'Sullivan thinks talking in the third person is strange.

 

Could you please cite your references? When did they tell you that something was none of your business?

You keep using speculation between you and other members as facts as far as I can tell and I feel it is giving off the wrong image to new members who may be coming here for the first time. Maybe it would be more helpful to preface your comments as **This is my pure speculation** before you mention things that aren't fact based?

 

I was directly responding to the person I quoted.

And about my being speculative, I pinky promise I'm not. I don't care if you believe me. If Port doesn't, they might soon see the concerns I describe brought forward by the people concerned. It's just not my place to name those people.

 

word up

 

Hey Trenyce ,,,,,, its completely evolving . just give me some time bro.

 

This isn't even it's final form!

 

Honestly , many things so far have made me say ,,,,, hmm wtf , only later to say either ooooohh ok I get it now , or ... Hmm ok that corrects my limited understanding of the whole picture .

 

Kuno, That was probably the best video I've seen in a long time. So informative and it makes me think about games, and well me personally, and how I've been sucked into multiple games. Additionally, I thought your post well written and it was a good read.

 

Dear Lord Trenyc. I have a bit of a problem with this thread. It does not set well with me for a couple of reasons, but first let me say I truly am sorry for the circumstances being such that you had to sell off your pledge tier, and also I am truly sorry for whatever you are going through in these times. I do wish you many, many better days ahead in your journey in life. I have always appreciated the discussions I've been involved with on the forums with you, even when we didn't quite agree. You were always very kind and diplomatic with me in voicing the reasons you didn't agree with me. I very much appreciated that so thank you for doing that.

So for what bothers me about this thread and also another thread where people are voicing their disapproval of some of the things that portalarium has said, done, or inferred, not done etc, is that it is not getting us anywhere fast. I once took a course, well or two lol, where one of the rules was telling us to always take the problem to someone who could do something about it. So in this case and any other where dissing Portalarium means go to Portalarium. You may not agree and may think the community needs to be involved for some reason, morale support, or just to vent, venting is one thing not my big concern, which as we can all see what happens when we get that kind of time bomb ticking. This may not be a popular idea but I would just love another rule to added to the forum rules. ******see below******And of course it's just my idea no one else's. My thinking on this is because of the rule we can enjoy our bantering back and fourth and having fun on the forums and sometimes not agreeing with features in or not in or how they are in again. This is disturbing to many. I don't want to be disturbed in this, It changes nothing for me. I am here for the whatever. I want to get back to my new character model battles. and also female armor, you know me.

Again this is just my take on these topics. I am not here for this. I am not here to discuss people/developers perceived short comings. I am here for the game, and I do understand and sympathize with you in what all you are dealing with, but I do also sympathize with the struggles that Portalarium has in working so hard to get this game made, and then having to read about posts dissing them. Now that really would make you want to come to work the next day. I do understand that not all of your post is negative Lord Trenyc, and do apologize if it comes across like I didn't catch all of what your were saying but believe me I hear you. I did say this is about my problems with this post.

******Just an example of quick thoughts of a rule. It is not the truth. I made it up as an example and personal opinion***************
Forum Rule#? Anyone who has complaints about the developers, Portalarium, and our business practices, please direct all complaints directly to Portalarium. Any posts with topics involved in these types of discussions will be removed. They are non productive and disruptive to the community. We are happy to answer, clarify, and resolve issues and concerns in the best way we can. Please submit all concerns directly to support@portalarium.com or feel free to message individually any of the team.