Founder/Benefactor Deed upgrades to Keep/Castle lots

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Mishikal, Feb 18, 2019.

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Should it be possible to upgrade Founder/Benefactor deeds to Keep and Castle lot sizes?

Poll closed Mar 4, 2019.
  1. Yes

    35 vote(s)
    53.0%
  2. No

    31 vote(s)
    47.0%
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  1. Greyfox

    Greyfox Avatar

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    @Mishikal You understand my point but fail to understand the solution. Portalarium doesn't have a pricing problem. Portalarium has a death spiral economics problem. Currently paying even $1600 to $2000 is too much for a Founder Castle deed. Large deeds (Keep/Castle) have no reason to be owned since their is no guarantee of exclusivity, they provide no/minimal economic incentive, they provide no/minimal entertainment value, they provide no/minimal prestige factor. They are not rare, exclusive, prestigious, have no ROI, or entertainment value. I primarily live in a village sized home.

    Portalarium doesn't have a Pay to Win problem. They have a Pay to meh problem.

    Outside a few wealthy business owners basically donating to Richard, why would anyone buy future large value items in SOTA?

    Everyone admits SOTA will never become a widely popular game. Even early best case estimates assumed we would have 60k active players. We do not.

    To survive Portalarium needs to provide a reason for us, their niche consumer base, to purchase expensive items. Create value and ROI in owning large properties. I have ideas but they are the creative guys. My only concern is the clock is running.

    My ego also gave me more credit than deserved. I'm far from the canary, that smart canary flew from the mine YEARS ago. I'm the Black Knight and only have my head remaining...

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Feb 21, 2019
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  2. Forum Name

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    There is a branching decision tree here - acknowledge that what we have now is really the all that is possible (a few hundred/up to a thousand dedicated players, a few thousand players overall, with a portion spending a decent chunk each month to support), or make another attempt at gaining more players, with all the risks and changes that entails.

    We are not in Port's head nor do we know the strategy, but at some point I have to think logically about all of this. If you were Richard and Starr, would you want to spend the next five years just scraping by as we are now, with a wonderful but super small player base (and small dev team)? I think the current players can keep things going as they are now, which means funding month to month and surviving as stated - the question one should ask is if that is actually interesting from a long term perspective for our leads.
     
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  3. Mishikal

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    I'll say this again: SOTA is not an assets investment strategy. If you're spending money, it's to support the game and the developers, but one should not expect any ROI on that money.

    There are certainly reasons to own larger lots, but they are few. If you like playing SIM HOUSE, as my wife does, then a large lot adds the ability to create much larger decoration spaces than a village, etc. So for her, having a variety of lot sizes is a lot of fun (She currently has TF PA keep, city (water lot), and village, plus TF POT village (as a row atm)).

    If you want to make in-game gold, then the larger lots are excellent for agriculture. See my keep lot in Brittany Estates as an example. My other lots are all essentially for my wife to play SIM HOUSE on. ;)

    Portalarium's made it quite clear there's generally no exclusivity in the game long term, so I would never rely on such a thing when deciding whether or not to purchase items. The only return is on whether or not you enjoy playing the game in the world they've created. If you can figure out ways to create in-game gold and/or COTO's out of that, great. If not, then that's simply the way it goes.

    Really the only thing Founder/Benefactor gets you at this point is the ability to PA. Excluding Benefactor/Founder deeds from the ability to go to keep/castle sizes simply reduces their value, as land is plentiful and cheap due to the 300+ POTs that exist in the game.

    I just went around to every NPC town yesterday, and well over half of all castle/keep lots are *unclaimed*.

    I'd note that personally, I've no desire to have a Castle lot because the *locations* are generally god awful (in the middle of nowhere, away from crafting etc vendors or anything else useful). Often keeps have good locations in regards to that as well as being good spots to put up a Player vendor.
     
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  4. Greyfox

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    Once again, not sure how CLEAR I can make this statement, I don't seek to make money playing SOTA. I do seek a return on investment for spending in game. Without a reason outside playing Barbie dolls virtually there is minimal reason to own large properties.

    If Portalarium is happy with current funding methods and population more power to them. I was in a guild with several Lord of the Manors and at one point we owned over 20 POTs combined. Our goal was to make IN GAME money to fund operations IN GAME. I asked the Developers before buying how I could spend money now to make passive in game income later. I was told POTs and large Deeds through rentals and future plans for implementation of farming, animal husbandry, etc.

    I envisioned being able to own large plots of land, making COTOs renting, farming, raising animals, and such. Using those funds to buy more stuff in game. These plans never became feasible, probably never will.

    My very valid concern is funding will absolutely slow as prices lower and more people buy deeds and the same reskinned items they will come to realize what I already know they serve no purpose. So eventually prices will be rock bottom, everyone in a very small player base will own everything, and it's game over.

    If Deeds had intrinsic value people would play hours to earn in game to buy those valuable deeds. People like myself with more money than time would buy COTO to expedite that process. Portalarium would make money, hire more Developers and fix the game to get more players, Richard could fly off to Mars and start a colony with all the money.

    I sincerely hope I'm wrong with my assessment and some huge genius plan is about to be dropped on us by Portalarium. I also hope to sprout wings and fly off to Mars to join RG's colony in a decade.
     
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  5. Mishikal

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    It's feasible now via agriculture, although it is time consuming and somewhat tedious. It just wont' be an extremely fast way to earn gold. I agree, I'd like to see the actual land have more value. However, none of that is here nor there in terms of being able (or not) to upgrade founder/benefactor deeds to keep/castle, since POT deeds can already be upgraded to the keep & castle sizes and that won't be changed. Really, you just backed up what I said before -- The inability to upgrade founder/benefactor deeds to castle or keep sizes makes them worth *less* than POT deeds.

    I would note that Chris has been very clear that it is Portalarium's goal to make it as difficult as possible to make gold (See the recent bits around nightshade/potions, etc). I.e., they keep a very close eye on how the economy is functioning, and immediately remove any ability to quickly accumulate gold. Same thing happened to brewing. So I don't see any world in which there will ever be a "quick" method of making gold. And yeah, renting is never going to be a gold mine either, just because of the massive availability of land. Especially now that it's trivially easy to get a POT row deed (which can be upgraded with little work).

    So generally, I would agree with your last statement. You're much more likely to sprout wings and fly off to Mars than to make massive amounts of gold in the game in a trivial fashion.
     
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  6. Floors

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    Maybe cuz not everyone has the same problems with the game you do.
     
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  7. Bom

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    This seems to be a simple solution for both sides of the argument that was ignored. It would both allow upgrades and largely maintain value. Although, it's certainly not the only solution, as there are no limits to the way similar "reissued" game assets can be modified to be different from originals, except for imagination.
     
  8. Beaumaris

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    Perhaps, but I wouldn't underestimate the value of that aspect of the game either. Instead of thinking of it as 'Barbie dolls', think of it as 'toy train set'. The ability to build, destroy, and rebuild in an online game allows for endless fun for some. And the value gained from just that alone is way more, at least for some of us, than any gold that could be earned from the property in game.
     
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  9. Jefe

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    Over time as people build up more of a base, they may just start saving up for one of those upgrades. When PA deeds were locked at City, that told me that PoTs will be the more desirable of the two in the long run since people will be able to expand there as much as they want/are able.
     
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  10. majoria70

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    Hello there. Well I do appreciate a lot of what you say but a couple of things were unclear from this last post you made. You say you didn't spend large amounts of cash on the game to make money off the game but to make it inside the game. Hmm OK of course. Also you stated there is nothing to do with these large properties if you can't make cotos or gold off them since you don't do dance parties well or someone said that lol. Also you said you are playing everquest and not Sota. So I'm not a dance-party or role-playing person either even though I respect and support those who are. Also sometimes I do attend events to support them even though it's not my thing to role-play and stay in character. I don't mind just being Majoria of course. I personally don't make money in or out of the game. *sighs*. My interest in doing projects in the game is about testing what the game can allow for. Like my amusement park jumping extravaganza and my concert hall full of fun facts on musicians, actors, and instruments. Dewey Finn lives there. You might be able to play Name that tune there, or jam some queen songs in group there. This is done on a city lot but imagine a castle lot.

    So my point is we all have our reasons to be here and until recently we had to get really creative to find those reasons imo to be here. Some won't find enough reasons and some will. I'm still hoping for many more reasons to come in game. Missing basics, more reasons to do things with better descriptions and completions. The recently spoke of spiel about how treasure hunting will be when implemented was really encouraging to me. I have been so tired of lack of details, lack of consequences or interesting outcomes, and most things just being grindfests that it was great to actually hear that plans for the future are to make it all more special. Now isn't that what we really want after all? Not criticizing here at all just commenting. Cheers.
     
    Last edited: Mar 18, 2019
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