POLL: 6-month demo reveal

This has been a pretty revealing poll though. Though it is a pretty small sample and I'll bet many didn't vote at all, the strongest No value nearly out polls both Yes value. The No values together, destroy the Yes values.

Next.

 

Sure you can.

There's no need to fear the slings and arrows of self-righteous indignation...not from forum posters...they are forum posters...
If you are afraid to state your oppinion around your "friends" because they might get all mad and stuff, then they aren't really that good of friends...

 

It's more revealing that there are a good number of yes votes on pollcode (20 yes and 2 no). That means a total 47 yes and 37 no from both polls.

I could have framed this survey differently but decided against it and went for an all or nothing approach to see how people felt or commented on. I intentionally did not bring up all of the various complaints that were brought up in my initial post so as not ot steer votes one way or the other.

But Joviex brought up a very good point about backer feedback. Why do a Kickstarter if you're not going to listen to your backers or worse still not even ask the people who funded your game for feedback prior to such a public reveal? And the backers did not see everything in that video despite claims that they had. That combat UI was new and that is the most debated topic in the forums that the backers seem so up in arms about getting right.

But there is one thing other possibility. Maybe Portalarium were up against a deadline and rushed this thing out. Lum the Mad said in the forums that they did this video at 2:35am, perhaps on the morning of the reveal. Maybe the Devs had to make a bad decision and went out the door anyways due to not having time to show it to their backers first. But that does not excuse them of not telling their backers about it *after* it was revealed on IGN.

A backer named Lord Jouten posted it at 10:24am that day. The official FB, Twitter, and G+ accounts did not mention it until the following day. And official Update was not sent until the following evening. It's possible that Portalarium were forbidden from reposting the video on their own site, but that would not have stopped them from even linking to IGN's site or telling their backers about it afterwards.

This is not the first time or the 10th time and possibly not the last time that they failed to tell their backers about reveals. Instead their backers have to hunt down this information and tell each other about it. It's not a surprise that a subset of the backers feel ignored.

The poll responses so far are essentially lumping the backers into a couple categories:
- Backers with a vested interested in the game but who feel they are not being engaged with enough (the purpose of the Kickstarter) or their feedback is ignored or unwanted or not necessary
- Backers who really treated this as a pre-order, or don't care about engagement (let alone Dev+ engeagement) and are fine with getting informatoin or access at the same time as thte public, or even afterwards

 

If you go to the Shroud of the Avatar website, there is a sidebar stretching the whole right side of the site. It states all of the various benefits and rewards you get for various levels of backing. Getting all information as it leaves Portalarium's mouth before anyone else is not listed on any level.

 

Well said; my frustration as a Dev+ backer is that I want to do everything I can to help this project be a success. To date being Dev+ has honestly meant nothing (well, we did get a few extra Unity assets, but that's about it). There has been no engagement with the Dev+ crowd and when we ask, all we get is "making sausage" and "later". It's not about vanity, it's about wanting to be engaged to make this the best it can be. We have seen that there is so much talent in the community, and so far, only one aspect has been picked up and even then it's not clear what role they will play.

We just want to help, we were promised interaction and engagement, it's not happened yet. *starts to turn a bit blue holding his breath*

 

I think you are going to get the opportunity to help, it's just going to be less in the pre alpha stage. I would imagine that once players have the game in their hands, they are going to act on the praise and criticism of the backers because they have more vested interest than a random visitor to these forums. I think right now they are rushing to get something playable to us, and releasing a video to IGN a little early was more likely an oversight than a planned maneuver.

Would it be nice if they kept the Dev+ crowd in the loop every step of the way? Sure, but it's a long way until release and I think your investent will bear fruit in that timespan.

 

Leverage Your Community (not a trademark yo!)

For Example:

"Hey Everyone!
This week we are sending out a video of the current state of the game as we continue to develop it.
This is extremely early in the development of some systems, so please feel free to let anyone who has a question to come visit our awesome community!"

No reveal where, when, etc... You could even take out the abstract this week, and say soon.

Then in the video, make 100% sure to echo the same sentiments. Early, strong development cycle, come help us build it...

None of that was conveyed, in anyway beyond the title (6-months ....) which a lot of people are not going to understand, they are not developers.

If you are going to self-publish, you have to take on the role they provide.

Then we get some dev response on a thread that amounts to being a snarky "just wait for it".

You shouldnt be telling us to wait for it. We should already feel very confident it is getting done well.

When you have to jump in after a marketing push to explain the marketing push, marketing fail.

 

Everyone is now talking about SOTA, MMORPG also. The usual "CoolAid"® Posts are meaningless

The millions of gamers that visit the site will just click , watch and listen.

The good, bad & ugly of it, is also meaningless. Any & all EXPOSURE is all #Win™

There is a pattern here, so get ready for the next surprise.

Since you feel it's a fail. Burn your bridge with the Devs and not mine. Go buy an envelope and a stamp.

 

All in all, I can appreciate the sentiments of everyone here. I too would love more involvement but I think there are two things we need to keep in mind:

1) HUMILITY: My involvement is not necessarily going to make the game better, and in some cases might actually make it worse - even according to what I want most out of this game!
2) HONESTY: As much as I might create expectation for certain things from Portalarium, I find almost no instance where they haven't given me what was promised according to the letter of my KS pledge. Our assumptions can make us think we were promised more, but such arguments rarely find evidence in what was actually said.

This may anger some because it seems like a defense, but my point is that the interaction here goes both ways and always must take into account that we are not perfect.

 

I chose not to vote because the option "Money Talks!" wasn't available.
I have learned right here that money is a virtue, and I can only suppose that IGN payed for the exclusive or in some other way allowing IGN first dibs was a lucrative decision. I mean, after all, Portalarium already has your money!

What I don't understand is why that cheap cuss, Miguelito, over at I HATE MMORPG's couldn't shell out some gold for an exclusive video on how laundry will be conducted by the players in SotA!?

So it's meh for me. You guys can whine and feel chided and cheated all you want, I just want a great and challenging multiplayer open PvP online game that is something more and better than anything else available, either now or in the near future, and what happens between now and release is of little consequence.

 

Well I use my real account and make many of the faithful quite angry. So, if that person can't take the heat........

 

Now without appropriate Trademark acknowledgements you couldn't.