Release 34 Lot Deed Raffle Winners

Didn't buy in this time, they broke my spirit last time with the ability for 1 player to win dozens of lots.

 

We scan the market places and some vendors very closely. I wouldn't say it is impossible but that's a very rare event. Right now - here at the board - pot city rows are sold 200.000+ - when they are sold for gold and not at paypal. That's a big sum for solo-players. And it's rising ...

Nobody runs all these houses on his own - they sell it for RL-money.

It is not YOUR value. It is the value of Portalarium. They run the servers and can close it down every minute. I'm not sure if they already know that in some countries it is even forbidden to do ingametrade (e.g. Germany) for RL-money without paying the RL-taxes.

A personal lot is by no means an instant win. Or did you win anything with your lot? If so - why shouldn't all players have that win? And on a sidenote: "absolute obbssesion"? Do you even know the meaning of your writing? If I'm obsessed then with the idea to make this game playable for all players. Not for some guys who try to fool others with "everything ok - everybody can - not that difficult - *rabääh* we are losing value of our property".

There is a handful of people here who talk about that and fear for losing "their value". If the number at the page is true there are soo many people who don't say anything - they just don't participate or enter the game. It was fun the last years to dream of a personal mmorpg but now Portalarium should think of a way out of the desaster. This game has to be opened for a bigger group - and housing for everyone is one of the necessary milestones.

 

You can always place it on a row lot and pay the 500/day taxes until you can afford more. Taxes are based on the size of the claimed lot, not the deed.

 

Yep, thats a good idea until I get a good deal for it and then I'll look for a village/town (I don't need anything bigger for myself).

 

Anyone reading this thread it would be interesting if you were to vote here:

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/poll-do-you-own-a-deed.69320/#post-691849

I'm particularly interested in the thoughts of those without a deed

 

Why give away only 675 deeds when you could go Full Monty and give away like half of million of them? I mean, if you want to destroy the value of housing established by your loyal backers, let's go whole hog. Let's get deeds down to pennies instead of dollars. Older backers are yesterday's revenue, screw 'em, right?

 

Just a little reminder: You backed a computergame. Period. Not a gamestyle, not some goodies, not housing, ... you backed an idea of Richard Garriott. The talking about destroying of value is capitalistic nonsense of the RL-world. There is no place for it in a computergame for entertainment. If there is a bunch of guys who try to establish a little virtual kingdom to look down at other people and be happy for having got something others haven't or don't have the chance (pledges are closed now) then maybe that type of old backers should get screwed. Yes.

 

The value is not "destroyed". It may be diluted, but it will come back as the population increases after the official release and start of advertising. At some point the raffles are going to end, stopping the supply, and population will increase the demand. At that point we will be back to store bundle or store lot deed as the only way to acquire a new lot deed. (as opposed to an existing one in the player economy)

I suppose my question is how many more of these raffles do they plan to do? So far it has been in large part a reward for participating in the early access period, but it might be nice to see a few raffles happen after official release. Should they maybe start doing them every other month?

Anyhow, the R34 raffle has shown that you should not base expectations on the R33 raffle. R33 had a lot less participation partly because the economy was still flat and not a lot of people had much gold. In R33 I won a PAD Village with 4 tickets, because that was all the cash I had on the first day of R33. (I had been putting most of my gold into buying a lot of COTOs as a future investment.) By the end of R34, I had accumulated 400K, so I spent half of that. 20 tickets got me another PAD village deed.

I could say that I got a village deed for 40K in R33 and 200K in R34, but the deed type is still random at that "price". Then again, half the deeds are village or larger, so I guess you could think of it as a 50/50 change of a row deed vs larger deed. The deed sizes are still going to be distributed more randomly than if they simply put deeds on vendors and let people choose.

 

I'll take a deed if u all don't know what to do with them extras lol been looking and waiting

 

Might want to take note that although you might not care for larger backers getting screwed over and might see it as a good thing.......if they do it is then unlikely they will help fund the game further.

Also worth noting that the sale price of lot deeds is now half the price of the store value.......so Port actually have screwed themselves on this as well.

Edit: If Port get screwed even if it is self inflicted ultimately means every single backer (regardless of pledge value) gets screwed.

 

Doesn't effect pledge deeds, since those are tax-free.

We're talking about add-on store bought deeds; and Port has a prerogative to preserve the value of those deeds, though it has to be balanced with the goal of making the deeds available for anyone who wants to work for them in-game. Though, to be honest, I always considered part of the value of the add-on deeds to be that you were getting them right away instead of having to work for them. The value of buying them from add-on isn't necessarily in re-selling them to other players.

 

Right, so let's not consider either ethically or business-wise the value contributed by early backers. It's not about ego, genius. It's a business decision affecting future funding and therefore the longevity of the game as a whole. And a very poor one at that. This is just the first release. If Port can't be relied upon to support early backers in R1, good luck in R2 and thereafter. I'll not starve from backing this game and buying a couple of deeds. But 675 deeds in this release alone? Seriously? Completely undermines people who were here and supported the game from the beginning. Slap in the face, economically speaking, IMO. Shocking because it's SO unnecessarily excessive.

 

The raffle system is screwed. I won 7 deeds including a POT City deed... I'm not even gonna say how much I spent to get it but was a steal

 

I still fail to see how giving away _taxed_ deeds is devaluing the tax-free deeds and screwing over backers. Someone elaborate?

 

Because apparently even with knowing that there was going to be a way to get deeds in game without spending rl money on them people thought that buying deeds would be a good investment opportunity that would never ever decrease in value.

 

And good luck in recruting new people to the game. It will be already a tough job for Portalarium to attract new, casual gamer and keep them ingame if they find out they have to buy the game, pay a monthly fee (i guess) and on top to pay hundreds of real dollars just to own a house.
From my point of view i think the people who are willing to pay that amounts of money are already ingame and the add-on shop prices for housing are already way to high.

 

I'm sure you're right and many people thought that, but I'm sure that just as many backers didn't back the game as an investment. I personally think that the more accessible housing is to the general in-game population, the more successful the game will be.

I don't like the way the raffle is working. It is making the rich land-owners even richer and I think that makes the game even less attractive for new players.

 

Wasnt this economic system built on a capitalism model? I think it was, and that means that there will ALWAYS be the accumulation of wealth in the top 1% and a disparaging economic gulf between the rest, and then 1/5th of the population, the bottom 1/5th, will have nothing. Ever. No matter what they try, no matter the 'welfare' program, there will never be enough left over for them.

http://www.agjohnson.us/essays/poverty/

THE HENDOMAN

 

Yes, but other than in real life people can freely choose to join SotA or not. And thats the point... Portalarium always needs new players for a constant income.
Its business for Portalarium and it should be fun for the players.

 

I'm sorry if my post came off like I thought all backers did so as an investment. I am sure there are plenty who didn't other then me, I just feel that most of the very vocal ones complaining about the lottery did. I'll agree that the current system favors the rich but I'm not sure that there's a viable alternative option.