DOOM? I Think Not.

I meant no disrespect at all. In fact, I sympathize with Portalarium’s predicament.

Here we are, basically everyone playing backseat quarterbacks, espousing how the game should be, all the while Portalarium has to figure out how to actually do it in the real world with real constraints.

 

If only all companies were cursed with a flock of followers willing to provided a seemingly endless stream of funds for flipped assets and the promises of future features.

That said, good to see Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf land a new job in PR.

 

Nice first post from me but it has to be said...

Doesn't ANYONE remember the '50,000 active member' quote from the devs around here? Words like 'Fine' and 'Dont Worry' are not words to describe SOTA's situation. Hey, I like the game. I enjoy it and want it to succeed. But writing about how SOTA is doing amazing and will only get better etc all day does nothing to help the financial reality that SOTA is going through. If something is not done quickly, we're going to be seeing alot of "I don't understand how this could have happened" threads in our forum future.

Doom is much closer than people think... We cannot afford to kid ourselves and by not understanding this you are doing yourself and the community a disservice.

 

I never said it was ideal, but people shouldn't be so quick to jump to conclusions and make unfounded statements like they so frequently do.

 

There must be a LOT of people around here with inside information on Portalarium's finances that the few of us don't have.

 

LB touched on this:

we are still ironing out details, but broadly, of course we have taken a hit, but we have taken many through the years, and as before, we will work through this one as well!

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/lord-british-where-are-you.130976/page-2

Not quite as rosy as some may think.

 

Nobody ever said it was rosy.. just that it's not all doom and gloom like so many people seem to want make out.

 

I used the term "rosy", at the same time I never said "doom and gloom".

LB's comments on the subject speak for themselves.

 

How can anyone say "it's fine"?

I realise, particularly the long standing cheerleaders are (just Lolz silly sausages), but even Ports state should be obvious to all at this point.

 

Yes they do.. and yet there is no end to people who seem to want to interpret the worst possible scenario and regurgitate it as obvious fact. I can't help but feel like this is the latest in a long line of excuses to be pessimistic. People have been declaring the end times for Portalarium if they don't do this or that for years. Yet, we're still here. Which is odd because someone earlier stated that the community doesn't exist anymore. Even the nay sayers are sticking around for who knows why.. Now if they actually left.. and people stopped complaining then I might start getting worried.

 

No one is saying that SotA is sitting at the tops of the charts, or that things could not be any better than they are now.

There is also no reason to be wearing the End of the World placards while you run for the exits either.

 

The problem is you have a lot of people who have spent insane amounts of money on a "hope" that this will succeed. This is not a triple A game, not even close. They priced themselves out of a lot of peoples budget for a game, and a niche game at that.
So now you have the folks who spent all this money on a failing game posting how it is not the end of this game. Blind leading the blind. I am not that Ah Ha guy, but I will say that I am glad I pulled my money out of this game a while back. I honestly doubt that they will make it through another kick starter. If they do it will be packed with promises that I doubt they can keep. Kinda like the first one. There were way to many bad business decisions made to be honest.
And not enough game features. And no offense but you have or had Chris always screwing with stuff making it not worth the effort to play as the grind was insane for no real benefit. And here is one for you, why have we not heard of any of the big dogs getting the boot? I mean cmon folks that is where most of the money is spent on their salaries I am sure. Again bad business management. To much of the good ole boys society going on.
I don't care if people like what I said here, it is a bitter pill to swallow, but this game is on it's last legs. Agree or not time will soon tell the tale.

 

I remember these threads back 20+ years ago in a little "failure" of a game called Ultima Online.

Just sayin'

 

Hmm.. I remember the problems Ultima Online was having at launch was infrastructure because the player base was too high for the servers, which deemed it a "failure". It seems to me that SOTA has the complete opposite problem

 

They were counting on people spending money on add-on stores and bundles in order to keep the art team on payroll and continue adding more contents.

There were folks who complained that there were too many new stuff introducing into the game and that should be stopped to focus on polishing what already in game.

So now here we are...some folks just can't comprehend that things can be done in paralellby different people.

 

Indeed it will.. but will those who think the game will die sooner than later ever acknowledge if it doesn't? People have been making the same proclamations, speculations and conjectures for a long time now and they will probably continue to do so for the life of the game even if it takes 10+ years. One should not read too much into events one way or the other.

Ok I will acknowledge we've hit a bump in the road. Stuff happens but you know what? When things get rough, nothing gets better by throwing up your hands, giving up and complaining about how bad things are regardless of how accurate those complaints are or are not.

And for this backer I am getting a little annoyed about people thinking it's all about the money. Just speaking for myself, I don't give a rip. That money is gone. I never expected to get anything back in the first place except for an honest effort.

 

@Bowen Bloodgood

Yes, some people have seemed very much invested in the idea that the game will fail. Emotionally, if not monetarily.

Seriously, I think the game will continue to have legs as long as the devs care about it, and as long as there are players that care about it. If need be, it needs to bake in the oven some more, but if there's nurturing, love and time, and support from backers, it can get anywhere the devs need it to get. Both the backers and the devs, too, should understand that. Some like @Gravecaller seem to think everyone who backed the game thought of it as a monetary investment, and that we care about losing what we put in. But a lot of us just wanted to support LB in creating a new game; and if we're hanging on, its not because we want some ROI, but because we still want to see LB bring the Kickstarter vision to completion.

 

Which this has been their SOLE post on this forum if that says anything.

 

And now I get the feeling they have moved into Plan B. But they are still within the plans.

The thing I've been worried about most is where is the advertising? I'll leave that to another thread, but I had simply assumed they were keeping the cover over the switch until a few more things got fixed. In the stream yesterday, they said that Travian was supposed to be handling advertising, and Starr seemed a bit unhappy about the advertising he hadn't been seeing. But he also said the attach rate was good of those that came for the free trial.

People can't leave your game in disgust because they don't like some thing or another about it if they never heard about it in the first place. No amount of deck chair rearrangement will put more people on your cruise ship, whether the QE2 or the Titanic, if they don't even know it's there.