Pledge Expiration - I'm Sorry, But It Has To Be Said

When you get that 13,785th signed item that sig will just look like a squiggly line, and it may have blood or tears on it.

 

There was a forum vote and you won! Congrats! (don't forget to thank the community )

 

I think this was an overly complex method of expiring pledges/rewards, and it's creating yet more "eras" of backers without explicitly stating it.

Keep it simple: announce a date for when all the pledge tiers will be removed simultaneously so you can no longer purchase or upgrade to them.

But if you must do this in phases, then remove whatever pledges but add their rewards to the higher tiers that would have inherited them (maintaining any duplicate / stacking rules we already have now).

Either method above would have created the same sense of urgency / scarcity and achieve similar results in terms of funding push as backers would need to purchase / upgrade or lose the tier they want, or have a higher jump to go if they want the rewards in those tiers. And in doing it this way, it would go a long way to maintaining goodwill. As it is, this seems to create yet more inequity and segregation.

I remember this post back in Nov 2013:

I believe in the spirit of that statement. But I think it should be to continually give more rewards to existing backers than to take them away from new backers and worse, newly upgraded existing backers, who are also and have been your pre-launch supporters that are still helping to fund the game. If the funding campaign is winding to a close, keep it simple without continuing the tiers in this manner and simply move to a pre-order.

 

Greetings Avatars,

I see this thread is starting to drift off topic, again. I'm posting in an attempt to keep this thread from being locked. You are welcome to discuss and comment on pledge expirations but please keep it on topic. If this thread requires more attention, it will be locked.

Insulting other posters will result in a warning and your post will be removed. Further moderation may be required if you quote a moderated post. You are welcome to PM me if you have any questions about our policy, although I'm likely to direct you to the Forum Rules if you PM me - so be sure to read those first.

Keep calm and journey on!

 

from what i've been told, this will BE available by the time i'm contacted by dev to get my pot implemented. they let the cat out of the bag during the last postmortem..well, technically the day before with that interview. chris, was it?

 

Actually it's two different things. What Chris was talking about was the ability of a POT owner to move his lots within that POT.

The stretch goal is about the ability to move one's house around his lot. It currently snaps to center.

Now perhaps the same design can be brought from moving lots in a template to moving houses on a lot.

 

Nemo's OP says, "...The problem is that they're specifically disqualifying people in the future, even against the prior less generous Benefactor standards, to make the disparity of wealth more attractive to the Whales now. They're Benefactor Betas.

This isn't theory crafting either; Portalarium have stated time and again their take from the funding graphs is that the spenders at property level and above is their core market. I've tried to point out time and again in return the framing error this includes; they're the ones who set the attractiveness and affordability graphs in the first place, so it's not surprising the resulting spending matches their later conclusions. But there are other models, of which Steam is the most obvious raging success story; of low cost entry and wide consumer base. This latest example of trying to narrow the base and squeeze it even harder really crosses a moral line though; Again to repeat, the pledges that do remain are being deliberately devalued in order to scare people into moving themselves into the Whale category. It's both discriminatory against those who fund after an arbitrary cut off point, and psychologically manipulative to those who do push themselves to get over the safety line of prior financial value before it..."

First of all, whale really just means: big spender. But I agree that categorizing people and putting a label with a price tag isn't socially appropriate. I disagree with most of this, because I took marketing class, and 'psychologically manipulative' is the name of the game. Marketing is never 'moral', it's just business. SotA is a niche game, and doesn't have a broad player-base, so the low-cost strategy doesn't make sense. Providing a specific, high-quality experience to a niche of the market is the proper strategy.

The fact is, decreasing pledge values not only makes sense, but it must be done given the way this game is crowd funded, and the fact we're steadily approaching release. Taking away the pledges is imperative to wind things down so they can prepare for launch. No one has to buy/upgrade anything! But if you're interested, 'wanna buy a duck?'

Nemo appears to be using the term 'whale' here, to refer to anyone who paid 'property levels and above' to this game early on, saying that taking away the 'advantages' like stacked houses and extra lots for those who pay later, and/or raising the price for those who pay later, is giving a perceptive advantage to those who paid earlier. Which is why Caliya agreed, saying the 'whales' are controlling the show. This wording can be easily misinterpreted, but I believe it means NOT that 'the whales' have direct influence over the Devs, but that the changes to the pledge structure are naturally giving the highest perceived advantage to those who pledged highest, and earliest.

I can't see why someone who's willing to pay more, earlier, shouldn't have more to show for it. But I do understand the fear that newcomers will check out the game and say, 'Huh, looks like I missed out, even if I wanted to pay a bunch, I wouldn't get all I could have gotten. That's not worth it to me, what's the point.'

And this appears to be a valid concern. Cutting out the pledges quickly and quietly might prevent newcomers from seeing 'how it used to be', and provide a more acceptable first impression for them. That's a perspective I can listen to with a reasonable ear. I disagree to that tactic, and hope there can be other ways to keep the game from being perceived as a "rich-person's game".

Maybe the store could be reworded/ to reflect how the money spent is going into further development of the game. That is what 'stretch-goal' stores are for. Perhaps the 'pledge system' does need to migrate over to the 'stretch-goal' system, to emphasize the reason behind needing the money?

I don't like the 'personal attacks' during this argument. We're all here for a great game, including the Devs. No one is trying to take advantage of anybody. So lets just sit down and figure out how to change the perception of SotA so that everyone can see it for what it is. A great, crowd-funded game, relying on backers to fund development, and rewarding players by allowing them to help make the game something they want to play.

 

thanks for the clarification - i mistakenly thought he was speaking about the one thing, when it was the other. - goes to show you how much one can focus when they're busy as heck. *grin*

and yes, it woudl be neat to have that one day. according to my information on stretch goals, if they aren't met, that means they aren't going to be on the shortlist for release day. doesn't mean they aren't on the long list..and i can live with that. as long as they don't pull a ZOS and promise things that 2 years after release haven't been provided.. its very disheartening to see that. fortunately, i don't think that is the case with this group.

 

Chris words regards flexible Placement: ".. more likely .." because of dynamically town template.

At 1:29:15

 

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/

@Miracle Dragon....Thanks for your post. I really appreciated some points you brought up too. I thought from other games Ive seen that eventually the kickstarter page goes away and then you are left with the game page like the above link. So hopefully one day we will move to this and then we'll just have a market place, forum, game news etc. The link is for FFXIV (Final Fantasy 14 fo those who don't know the abbreviation). They are a subscription based game and buy to play also. I have bought the game, but I don't play it anymore. Perhaps I would check it out here and there but I'm not intererested enough to want to subscribe again to it at the moment The difference is when you buy SOTA you always get to play. The market place will be furthering development of the game, but then the market place will sustain it for further updates and content to be added since there is no subscription. Things will then need to be created for the market place that are attractive enough to keep the game alive, well of course and great reviews on how fun the game is will help.

 

I've always just thought of the pledges and the items within them as Pre-Release prices. They're perks for buying the game before it's released. Once the game is released those Pre-Release pledges (and the items within them) prices are no longer available. To me it makes sense to start phasing out pledges and items within them as they move toward a release, but that's just how I've always assumed they would do it from the start, seeing as the pledges were Pre-release and Kickstarter related. Also, they probably need time to start getting all the physical items count and signed for shipping later.

 

Hello all;

I've been away from the forums since my last post, and I am sorry if it seemed like I was dropping a drama bomb and just walking away. Although this is somewhat true, because I didn't have the heart to come back: within a few hours of my last post, I was getting email notifications of people PMing me to apologise for being out of line and being abusive. That comes with a public identity, it's to be expected, especially where computer games and the passions they inflame are involved; to be totally frank, I was an EM for Ultima Online at one point, some of you have probably been buggers to me in a professional capacity before too. It hurts, but you have to just take a break, then take a deep breath come back and get on with the job. But a couple of days later I got the next newsletter which just made me despair again. It included;

* Highly desirable decoration (trees) that were Cash Store only, with no indication whether the average player would ever be able to buy them in game.
* Changing the terms and conditions on Player Owned Towns to remove the most desirable part of them, being visibly part of the game world. And this because the funding had gone way beyond what the world map could bear, and thus opening a huge moral question over who will get the favourable visibility, after selling them for so long based upon this.
* And worst of all, in response to the incredibly complicated, and I still insist, utterly unfair fragmentation of pledge worth, instead of equalising and simplifying them, the response was instead to lock out the ability to adjust them even earlier and harder. Whilst looking online to see if anyone else understood what this meant, or if I was just wrong, I found Forums Who Shan't Be Named where people were commenting this thread had deleted posts asking for my stuff. Well, soon I won't even be able to sell you my stuff if I did walk away.

So... I've not read this thread as it currently stands. I don't want to get involved in personal debates with people here. But let me restate what my issue is; It's possible for good people, for good reasons, to still do terrible things. Especially when they become institutionalised and the framework they act within becomes toxic; And the gaming industry, full as it is with creative people clawing for creative control whilst millions line up behind them desperate for their chance in the industry too, institutionalises abusive relationships shockingly easy. I don't claim to know what is going on behind the scenes at Portalarium; My only connection to them is simply roleplaying in the background of Lord British when he came to visit UO, and that I spent some of that EM paycheck on my Kickstarter pledge. But whatever is driving the funding here is becoming seriously abusive.

But you, and I, got into the gaming industry because we wanted to make lots of people very happy. This funding model absolutely doesn't do that.

I'm not sure when, or if I'll return to the forums yet. Please don't think I'm being rude to anyone here; but be honest, how many of you are really open minded to the fact that a change of course might really be needed? My problem is I can see that it is, but I don't get any sense that it can be taken.

 

What I don't understand is how many people who claim to have a ton of experience in the gaming industry and on fora still don't know how to present ideas and foster healthy debate. Here are some points again:

1) Claiming that others are not open minded is the classic way to insult people who disagree with you. And this is what it usually means when people say it: anyone who doesn't agree with me is close minded. It's an unfair debating tactic for a whole host or reasons. What helps is when people respect others who have differences of opinion, try to understand them and then work through what each other believes. I don't know why it is so surprising around complex issues like this that others would have different opinions.

2) Also, you ARE dropping a drama bomb and just walking away... again by your own admission. In my mind, that is not appropriate for someone who wants their ideas to gain a hearing.

So my point still stands... can we just present your ideas and then discuss those without all this other unfair and highly toxic stuff clogging it up?

I for one like to have discussions about funding models and what's appropriate for game development. But since you are the OP, and didn't respond to what I wrote, I really can't have a discussion with you.

I understand how you would have a lot of problems with the last update. If you had taken the opportunity to look around the forum, you would see much discussion along the lines of your ideas:

About the POT issues:

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...f-player-owned-towns.33853/page-6#post-394067
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...atest-update-on-pots.33850/page-2#post-393614

About the pay decoration items:

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...houghts-on-pay-to-decorate.33904/#post-394352

And there are more I can point you to if you like.

Can I suggest that you change your tactics and join in the discussion in a respectful and productive way?

 

Nemo isn't being toxic, he just doesn't agree with (or perhaps understand) crowd funded games.

 

Well there is room to discuss his ideas around crowd funded games.... I really believe that. But it is toxic to use unfair discussion tactics (as I've listed a few times here) and then not even participate in the discussion of the ideas he wants to be heard!

That's why I think real discussion around these issue is happening in other places on the forum, and maybe this thread should just be locked, but that is not my call to make.

 

Well welcome back Nemo, but really you make a thread and you don't read the comments. There are many people here who care for each other as we've grown to know each other. We all wish this game to be the best that it can be. You have a point of view which I don't share, but I know your point of view is true in your mind, thus you are just speaking your mind. I wish you would read our posts that commented back to you. I as always wish you the best.

 

It's such a simple thing they could have done and add "similar trees can be obtained in-game" to the Store descriptions. Portalarium continues to falter on the communication front. They are improving, such as adding when digital items will be available in-game directly to their Add-On Store descriptions, but continue to drop the ball in some cases such as this one.

I am disappointed that they are creating endless neighborhoods because they need / want money. We saw this coming though, when they announced the POT map icon logic back in March. Except, nobody made the connection and still felt there was going to be a hard cap on POT purchases.

They really should have made the pledge/reward expiration logic simpler but instead even admitted to how overly complicated the mess they created was and now have to drop pledge merges/splits. The latter I don't care for really (never used it), but instead of taking the easier route, they will let their existing expiration model stand, which I also believe creates undue, unnecessary inequity and segregation.

If you've given up, fine...but at least read other perspectives here, on a thread you started, even if you don't debate them.

 

I'm with @smack here.

If the communication had gone through the dev+ first process a lot of issues with these statements and offers wouldn't exist.
Just such a simple thing as splitting the addon store into two parts one for housing+decoration and one for the rest would mitigate a lot of bad flack. This because people who feel like the OP wouldn't get the same "they are rubbing me in the face with this" impression that they get now.

The pledges, tiers and naming thereof could have used some vetting as well...

 

The pledge levels that are being phased out include physical items they need to autograph. At some point they need a final count to produce those items, sign THOUSANDS of items while still trying to finish the game, and then ship all those items.

It isn't greedy or evil to phase out those tiers. It is an absolute necessity to do it at a certain point of time.

Likewise, they need a final count of lots at some point so they know how many towns and lots need to be in game. If you're upset that after a certain point a few tiers will no longer get a second deed, I don't know to say. The deed itself can be purchased in the add-on store. When SotA launched their Kickstarter, those tiers didn't get second deeds. After people bought those tiers, Portalarium suddenly delivered MORE than promised and added tons of new free goods to all the existing tiers.

If you're getting more than what was promised, then I don't know why one should accuse Portalarium of not being virtuous.

 

i'd be OK if they send the physical items AFTER the release date. yes, i'm itching for them, but finishing the game is much more important, than a little swag. - they still need a hard/final number, as you said though.