OMFG! (heritage items)

ummm, yeah, he's gonna have to back that with some evidence before i believe him. The total players logging in each day are 600-800, including alts, so, obviously 'active' is a relative term in his book.

 

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Nothing in the store is being resold for a profit at this point. No one here is campaigning to profit. The days fo bundles and pledge items are over. You will NEVER buy something from the store and resell it for more from now on.

And telling people to quit playing is probably not the best thing to do right now.

 

Go easy on them Vlad, remember, no one ever quits, they just say they quit, but they all came back.

Actually, this thread has greatly encouraged me, thanks to Oakenhammer, I now know that we have somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 active players.

 

He said it was monthly, so it was probably a count of accounts that logged in anytime during the month--it is a pretty standard usage metric. Not everyone plays everyday or even every week. Additionally, not everyone plays online either. I have no reason to distrust the numbers he shared as he has always been brutally honest.

 

Not to worry, other will only hear what they want. No matter what source they get it from, as long as it plays into their narrative that people are leaving the game in droves. All because there are items they can't trade.

 

And that may be true, i'm not necessarily calling him a liar, my problem with chris is not his honesty or his effort, but his lack of understanding of what adult game players find enjoyable in a game.

But if it is an accurate number, I daresay 'active' is being used very loosely.

Whatever the number and however you define it, the in-game population and economy is clearly not at the amount needed to make this a vibrant, exciting, or growing game.

The data that is available clearly points to a declining playerbase and the decision on Heritage Items doesn't help in the minds of some players.

 

Sounds like you are primarily describing yourself. At least the 'others' have actual data numbers pulled from the Portalarium API data that back up what they say in regards to trends.

It's not 'All because there items they can't trade', that's just one more item in the list buddy, for some people, that's the straw that broke the camel's back, for others, it's not, no big deal, play and have fun, no need to disparage the opinion of others just because you don't like their evidence.

 

And you are correct, (as i have been nice enough to point out several time when you were), people aren't leaving the games in droves . . . . . there aren't enough people here for people to leave in 'droves'. We're down to a trickle now, droves happened before you got here.

 

There's also the problem that it isn't accurate or useful, whether they're lying or not.

He gave a value of 10k players. No, it's accounts. They don't know which account are linked. That's a loophole they've wanted to close. So right off the bat, the 10k is actually only some fraction of 10k.

Secondly, the metric is whether people log in for more than a minute or so. That's not "active" by any definition that has value. Hell, I logged in after 2 months and then left again after 15 minutes and haven't been back since. I'm not "active", let alone a paying customer.

 

I have softened my stance on this and I'm now much more willing to purchase no-trade items.

After some additional explanation from the dev team in the general channel in discord, it is clear to me that they feel allowing "high value" items to be traded has been detriment to the game as a whole.

I do feel they could have handled the communication about this more clearly, and simplified the implementation by combining vault and heritage items. This would make it much clearer to existing players as to what can be traded. I do sincerely hope that not all items in the store will become no-trade. However, I do think going that route would make somethings simpler. They do need to also have some solution for players to fix mistaken purchases.

 

Archeage did (Don't know if it does now).

 

A key word may have been omitted here - "detriment to the game as a whole...now". The game doesn't get made without high value, fully tradeable items. No one is buying $1,000, $5,000, $10,000+ plus pledges if the items were bound on account.

The rules are being changed to shut off competition from resellers (why would anyone buy items from the Port store when you can find most things on vendors on the trading forums for a huge discount these days?) and to maybe, hopefully, sell items for $.99, $1.99, etc. to try to show whatever future players come along that the game is supported by MICRO transactions, not the macro ones we have had for the past six years. I personally think that ship has sailed, but good luck if they really try this.

IF Port makes the shift to most/all future items Heritage, but makes the items sell for a true micro price, this has a shot. Ain't no new players buying hats, lights, deco, etc. for what they have and are sold for, especially if they go Heritage without a massive price reduction.

 

Which is why it is ridiculous that they want to change streams now. The whole game was built by selling items to players and now they want to go back and change that, basically for no other reason than the fact that they are starving for cash and have basically no other options (other than the obvious: make a game that actually draws and keeps players at a volume that the in game and out of game economy actually worked as intended)

If this game had a solid player base, none of this would even be a factor. RMT isn't hurting this game, the fact that it simply has mostly been a boring grindfest with little to no reward or fun, is what has hurt this game. Combine that with all the unfixed bugs, slow development, and character nerfs and boom!, hardly no one plays, so they are starved for cash because most players like myself who used to spend quite liberally in the store, have simply stopped, because we refuse to spend more money as long as they continue to make bad business decisions. I've never seen a company run so far, so hard and fast, away from what their customers tell them that they want.

Not only is this a bad decision, it's a bad decision forced onto them by consequences of other bad decisions. Don't look for it to end well.

If the game was fun and rewarding and exciting to play, plenty of people would be here no matter if there was a cash shop or not, no matter if there were high level/value items and pledges or not. People need to stop pretending like RMT is or has been the problem. The direction of the game's development is what keeps players away.

50,000 + backers signed up knowing full well that RMT was funding this game, so suddenly they all had a problem with RMT and left?

Funny thing, in another thread or in a discord channel Chris and someone were talking and the other person mentioned WoW and Chris chided them for complaining about SotA and using 'only the most popular game ever made' as an example. We aren't competing with WoW, we don't have to be the most popular game ever made, but dammit, we shouldn't be in the freaking cellar for 6+ years either. Evidently, plenty of people can't see the forest for the trees.


I've been a business owner for 30 years. It's not that hard people, it's really not, especially when you start with 20 million and only 2 of the biggest names in online gaming. (no, that's not you chris)

 

That's where they are headed with these recent changes. And guess what? That's a brutal market.

Rather than being the big fish in a small pond, it appears the new plan is small fish in the ocean.

 

It's sad and ridiculous at the same time. What's the next decision that will have to be made in 3 months when the revenue still isn't there?

I could turn this ship around in 3 months and triple our players just as a starting point in 10 or less decisions. They don't seem to even consider the numbers while they are hellbent on developing the game that THEY want to build, that THEY don't even play. Just once i'd like to see them make some changes based upon the idea of reaching a wider audience in a sincere way.

 

The latest change is a race to the bottom. Unfortunately when you are already in the basement, the next stop is underground. I agree with you about ten changes to the current Portalarium death march would make this game thrive.

Main change, property has innate value and generates in game resources proportionate to the property size. Plant a field of trees or farm items on property, pay an NPC to harvest and transport the resources to your storage. Any resource used in crafting can be automated and farmed on player owned property, except for some rare drops which only come from bosses.

 

Change #2:
A real, comprehensive character sheet, like has been BEGGED for, for years, and even 3-5 months ago 'supposedly' Chris finally got the ok from the almighty to give it to us . . . . . .. .. *crickets*

 

Is anyone going to bother? I was planning on mustering support for something to make the vendor UI functional, but that's not happening now. I was getting ready to write up a list of improvements I'd personally like to have, but that's not happening now.

 

Yes, you are quite correct. Who really even gives a **** at this point and would believe them anyway?

but just for laughs:

Change #3:

long promised . . . . . . . PVP CONTENT!!........ROFLMAO hahahahahahahahahahahahhahaha

as if they even understood the concept.

 

I've been accused of being entirely negative, with nothing constructive to say. I have plenty in the past. Heck, I have topics I keep wanting to do write-ups now. But each time I think about spending an hour writing them, I have to remind myself, "Why bother?" I'm just wasting my breath. They only respond to negativity, so negativity is what they get. They're going to do what they're going to do, and I can only say "No don't"