Open interview about SotA

The character portraits and backstory for all of the NPCs in both U7 and Serpent Isle remain some of my favorite memories of the Ultima series. It seriously immersed you into that world, and made you feel like you were talking to someone, not just a random stranger. I loved it so much I did Who's Whos on both games back in the day
http://houstondragon.org/u7whowho.html
http://houstondragon.org/serpent.html

 

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...dback-narrative-text-and-storytelling.111503/

 

@Lord_Darkmoon You bring up a lot of fair questions here, and elsewhere in the forum. I sincerely hope they get answered to your satisfaction. However, I must tell you that I have seen several of your questions get answered repeatedly, and yet you continue to ask them both in threads that you start, and in other threads that other people start for different purposes.

I'm happy to see you have collected all your thoughts here in this thread, and again hope that Portalarium gives you responses that you find satisfying. However, if they choose not to respond here or elsewhere, I also hope you will consider no longer interjecting these same questions over and over again in numerous other threads. It's all right here. It's very clear. There is no need to continue repeating these questions over again moving forward.

For what it's worth, I never have suspected you of being part of an organized hate group attacking SotA. However I do believe that one exists, and there is evidence to find to substantiate such a claim, if one bothers to look. If you have been accused of being a troll, it might have something to do with repeatedly interjecting your personal agenda into other people's threads and contributing to their derailment.

Again, some great questions here that I think should be answered once and for all. Especially with Launch on the horizon. I'm sorry you aren't feeling heard by the dev team, but please don't hold the rest of the forum users responsible for that.

That being said, I am somewhat confused by this:

Well do you care or don't you care?

If you don't care, then why are you asking?

 

I think he cares because he was accused of being like that and he might agree with the organized haters (the mental image that invokes is funny to me) but may not participate in any hateful activities. I know that when I get in my feelings about things that DarkStarr does and the community kicks his butt for it and he gets all extra defensive about things I find myself thinking "That's what you get..." It's natural to have schadenfreud when you feel that someone screwed up something that is important to you and you see them getting dinged on the very thing you are mad about. I didn't say it was nice or healthy but is natural.

 

This is something I think they can address to some extent if they focus on it. In order for RMT to thrive, substantial content must exist in the game that has the following qualities:
It is excessively time consuming and not fun to do; or
It is exclusively accessible by a real money store purchase.

Because:
If game content is excessively time consuming, but very fun to do, most people will not pay to have it done for them;
If game content is quick to do, but not very fun to do, most people will not pay to have it done for them;
If game content is quick to do and very fun to do, most people will not pay to have it done for them;
If game content has any of the above qualities and there is an alternative to purchasing with real money from the store, most people will not pay for it.

If the journey to obtain items and power in the game is a fun journey, not many people will use RMT. As long as that journey includes repetitively killing the same mob for 100's of hours or mining the same nodes for hundreds of hours, RMT will thrive.

 

I think eBay's policies are kinda, slightly outside the scope of even @Lord British's extensive purview.

I haven't seen anything stating that selling on 3rd party websites is against the rules of the game. The community rules limit where you can discuss such things within this community but, by definition, they don't apply outside of this community. There is no difference for transaction on any third-party site such as eBay (or even this site): Portalarium is not responsible for transactions. As they say, "cavaet emptor."

As far as telethons and the cash shop goes, what did you expect? Someone has to pay to keep the servers running. They aren't charging a subscription, so cosmetics are the only practical way to ensure that happens.

RMT isn't a focus of the game, it's something the players do. There has to be a policy for it, and they've chosen a liberal one. I like to call it "The Allenby approach:"

At any rate, to say that's highly speculative would do a disservice to the highly speculative.


@Lord British, there are two things I want to comment on from your post:

We are getting (in my opinion allarmingly) close to release, do you think, as presented in the game, the story really is deep? Frankly, I found the mainline quest rather shallow. Maybe it's gotten better since I wrote this but I think, for the most part, my
concerns still stand (if you think that isn't the case, I will immediately reset my quests and run it again):

Spoiler: Links to spoiler-filled posts

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/spoilers-observations-on-truth.97952/

I've never understood this argument, if an MMO can't deal with people at differing levels, it's going to fail. If there's ever a major derth of players coming in, that's going to spell doom for the game.

 

I totally agree with what you wrote. I have read Darkmoons post for a very long time now, and it has always been negative. I have never seen him be neutral as he says he was supposedly trained to be. I have always thought of him to be more of a troll. However. I do agree with some of his complaints from time to time. I do not follow nor do I care about the single player aspect of this game, but I do agree the Devs have dropped the ball on both sides of game play. I am sure I have many who have added me to ignore as I also am passionate about my posts. So me saying I think Darkmoon is a troll is not a slap in his face, as I too have been called a troll for speaking my mind on what I feel about this game, to the point where now a days I could care less how this game does.
I think had I stayed away from the forums I might have had a different thought on the game and how it has developed over the years. To be fair though the game is and has been a shell of a game for a long time now, and unless they pull a rabbit out of their hat in the last release on launch I do not see that much of a difference nor do I see a huge influx of new players sticking to the game.

 

He brought up eBay, even though they forbid digital sales for 11 years now. If it's outside the scope and eBay is bad (but other third party websites are good somehow?) why did he even bring it up?

You are right that it could read that only in game official places you can only advertise in the Player Marketplace. But then how about those third party sites making sales, that are included in sigs, that are on posts outside the Player Marketplace?

Then maybe they should have thought about server costs and been more upfront, instead of saying whatever to get funded today, and deal with things tomorrow? These are industry veterans and supposedly have had a lot of experience with online server costs before. Did it just sneak up on them? And certainly those that bought into a good single player game don't care about the server costs. Maybe those KS stretch goals, instead of adding more feature creep to the game, should have been instead "We will delay cash shop work and telethons for XX months" per goal.

 

Maybe because digital sales still exist on ebay ? Like here ? It's as simple as selling the game with the digital thing. Or in a physical package. And that's not only about early access games. It's even possible with Blizzard titles. I understand your skepticism but the fact is that you can buy digital things on ebay. And he didn't say that ebay is bad. He said that people were using it in such a way that would completely neutralize any attempt to forbid player transactions. And he is right, very obviously.

 

Nothing @Lord British said indicates that ebay (or any other third party site) isn't permitted. If ebay has a rule against it that's an EBAY rule. Noone at Portalarium, not even @Lord British himself, can affect it. You seem to expect him to go an MAKE ebay change their rules. He can't; it has nothing to do with him.

That said, AFAICT there isn't ACTUALLY an ebay policy about it. The link you gave isn't an official opinion of anyone associated with ebay, it's a ebay member's opinion (and one who's no longer an ebay member, at that).

The messages are not about sales, only the sigs are. Even that's arguable, the sigs usually aren't mentioning any specific sales, just inviting you to their site.

There's no great evil deception here. It didn't sneak up on them, it has always been a known cost, and one there is a plan to deal with: continuing sales of optional items. AFAICT they've never said that wouldn't be the case. I'll admit, it's possible I've missed it somewhere, but they seem fairly consistent on that. It certainly wasn't excluded on the KS, which lead me to the obvious conclusion it was likely a montization stream.

In fact, all the way back during the KS on March 11, 2013, they wrote:

That implies that, even then, microtransactions where planned for online. Unfortunately I can't find the actual video they are referencing (maybe someone else knows where it is). Given that microtransaction were known to be part of the design at least as far back as the third day of the KS, it shouldn't have been a shock to you.

 

There was actually a small exodus of backers who left before Persistence because they believed that $2M raised in KS was supposed to be enough to fund the entire game. Though to be fair Port originally predicted 18 months development and delivery of Episode 1 in Oct 2014.

Still... I don't know what kind of dolt it takes to not be able to comprehend that the employees of Portalarium need to pay mortgage/rent and feed their family just like anybody else. These are recurring expenses, which go on forever.

IMO- The whole "money grab" narrative was launched as an attack on Portalarium in response to this false expectation that $2M (the original goal was only $1M) was going to produce a commercially viable game of the scope that was described in the Kickstarter.

Some will probably take it to their grave that Portalarium broke all these promises, but I say the benefit of the doubt falls to the online gaming industry veterans with actual knowledge and experience regarding what it costs to develop a game.

Richard obviously knows, and has several millions of his own money into Portalarium since the beginning.

This is a huge part of what some people don't seem to understand. Those multimillions were not enough *to begin with* which is why they went to KS.

It is all right here in this interview:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/13/garriott-on-shroud-of-the-avatar-why-he-needs-ks/

UO cost $5M in 1995. That's $8M in 2018 dollars. Yet somehow Port was supposed to have promised to build Shroud on $2M and this why you still have some people raging against them to this day, another 3 years on, about their supposed "money grab."

Don't you people understand...? The money that goes "into the game" is really going into the paychecks of Portalarium employees, so they can afford to sit there and write code for your enjoyment. Or nonenjoyment as the case may be.

That's what they've been telling us since the beginning, and that's what they're telling us now. They need X million of dollars annually to make payroll and operating expenses. Why this is a surprise to anybody is utterly beyond my comprehension.

 

Well said on all counts.

 

Ok so let's give these veterans the benefit of the doubt. If they knew it would take more money, why did they only ask for $1 million? Why when given twice that, wasn't it enough? Where did they think the money would come from? We just had what they told us.

Publishing partnership, OR crowdfunding. They've done both, and more. You are right, it is all there in the interview. He went to Kickstarter instead of publishing partnerships. But, wait, we still have publishers, too many of them?

They said no microtransactions for offline mode. Where before the KS ended did they go into detail how much, how big the priority was, or how much they would spam the cash shop in their e-mails (thankfully done away with that heavy emphasis in the letters)? Even back then gamers have already seen and used to cash shops. But we (okay, me at least) never expected the heavy emphasis, the high dollar amount, the asset flips, premium currency, or telethon stretch goals being used to sell reskinned versions on the cash shop.

 

I think this community abuses the term " Troll " .

 

Hmmm and what forced anyone to use the "cash shop" if they didn't want to or were so against it? If I were so set that I had spent enough I would never have done so and would not have paid any attention to it. It's called self control and my opinion a BS argument/statement. Hmm and let's see everything, everything ever sold in ANY pledge is available to buy for gold in the offline mode to ANYONE buying a basic $40 account. I don't see a problem at all.

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter basics

"...What are the basics?
A project is a finite work with a clear goal that you’d like to bring to life. Think albums, books, or films.
The funding goal is the amount of money that a creator needs to complete their project..."

 

You've gone from saying they should have planned for keeping the servers up rather then not talking about it until later and blindsiding you with microtransaction to (when I pointed out they've said microtransaction are going to be in the game from the beginning) you didn't expect the heavy emphasis. What did you expect? Them to toil away on the project for a loss? Them not to advertise the things that make them money?

I mean really, just fess up. You didn't know there would be microtransactions because you failed to do due diligence. That's not Portalarium's fault, they put the information out there. Now if you want to get mad about one of the things they've said they would do, that hasn't worked out, that's fair, but to get upset because they did do what they said they would do... that's just unreasonable.

Furthermore, using purchased assets is not the same as an asset flip. It's completely disingenuous for you to conflate the two.

 

You guys are right, the continued funding of the servers should have been mentioned in the "challenges and risks" section, and very clearly, even amateur projects find the heart to be honest there. I didn't feel "warned" enough about many things even at the core of the project. For that statement I put myself in the skin of an investor... which I am not, my pledge is my thank you for Ultimas, it is unconditional.

However, I think some people that pull the strings from behind the scenes should come into the spotlight and explain why the game became so big so fast and how relevant seedinvest is/was to this sudden feature creep.

It might sound strange to you guys, but I don't think Portalarium should do the explaining here, they are surfing the wave like any other studio would and have had clockwork official communications about changes, allowing people to get back most of their investment (or more in many cases)... if it happened that they do not agree anymore with the direction the game is taking. When you chose to stay when you don't agree, you take the tolerance on you, you can say whats on your mind but you can sense the limits and fragility of an online community.

I'm sure portalarium was looking to make a ultima 6-7 successor with 2 millions, but then money started pouring in along with very specific demands from a very specific group of people... and as any human would react, they hired people and then paid attorneys to create this seedinvest thing... bills seem to multiply when you start to do that... and I remember @DarkStarr writing many times in official release notes very early on warnings about people asking for such feature creep. Then servers were bought, that still cost maintenance (sometimes random and very bad timing) and electricity, then you say ok with reflective lighting the game will look better, then you realize you need to hire someone to build customized shaders, oh right... we didn't expect to have to do so much spriting!

OH YES WE HAVE PERSISTENCE WE MUST FIX BUG #2445 within 12 hours, WHAT ?! Noone is available to handle that bug, lemme get a unity freelance...

Everything is shining on the surface, "we're going to get bigger than we expected..." then before you know it, you're blinded by the light and surprises unfathomed appear. Every single studio in the world have the same vulnerability...

I think all of us who are frustrated that it isn't so much what we paid for should find it in their heart to forgive portalarium the surfer and look for the owner of the wave machine that is pushing buttons randomly just for the kicks of seeing the surfer crash into the crowd.

Just sayin.

Then we can start back the argument from a gamer perspective, and stop using oblivion as a vector for emotional gripes.

 

Feature creep start in R2, I believe, when they added jumping and I believe swimming. They had stated back then, they never intended those to be in the original game. This is just a point of reference for feature creep.

Seedinvest came way later. Can't speak if that was an early planned thing or a result of the scope of developement

 

I make a peculiar specification to this nuance : technically the ethical way to proceed is to keep your engagement for the first "release" of the game which is technically persistence then depending on the interest on that plateau you scale up or down your servers and tell people the end goal.

If you sell a pledge that says you will have access to 5 episodes, and the bank needs extra funding before the first episode that is bound to make some people snap. That also seems to be a surprise that is utterly beyond any comprehension...

But does any of this really matter ?

I think it would if we didn't get informed at a steady pace of the changes and their possible costs, like PoTs.

We did get the information step by step, and technically, its a kickstarter where you pledge("risk") money by encouraging young *cough* entrepreneurs to make a game...

We're here because each of us has a vision, and the vision comes for each of us.