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Release 44 Postmortem Mini-Telethon

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by Berek, Jul 26, 2017.

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  1. Berek

    Berek Portalarian Emeritus Dev Emeritus

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    Greetings Avatars,

    Traditionally our Telethons have been held quarterly and lasted 12 hours (and in some extreme cases 24 hours!). While these lengthy telethons allowed us to cover a very wide range of subjects, they also led to a bit of meandering at the end due to fatigue (and maybe a bit of overindulgence). Recently we had a much shorter telethon (6 hours) for Lord British’s birthday, discovering that we spent more time answering questions and remained much more focused and alert. Your response was also quite positive in both pledges and feedback after the telethon!

    So, starting with Release 44, we are going to experiment with extended Postmortems that are also Mini-Telethons. This will increase the frequency of our telethons to monthly but also keep them short (4 hours). We are confident that this will both allow us to focus more time on development while at the same time provide a higher frequency of direct interaction with you, our community.

    Since this is a shorter telethon we want to make sure as many people can participate in the stretch goals. We are going to extend the amount of time that your purchases can be eligible for the stretch goals to be 12 hours from 12:00 PM CDT to Midnight. NOTE: We will still stop tracking towards stretch goals at the end of the telethon at 7:00 PM CDT, but everyone will have another 5 hours to spend $5 to get the stretch goals.

    We hope you find this change an improvement! Now, onward to this telethon’s details!

    TELETHON SCHEDULE (Central Time Zone)

    Telethons are livestreamed on Twitch and include answers to your gameplay questions, world building tours, prize giveaways, sales on items, and more! See what we have planned below beginning at 3pm CT on August 7:

    • 3:00 PM: Introductions and R44 Postmortem Q&A
    • 4:30 PM: World Building Tour
    • 5:30 PM: Postmortem Q&A Continues
    • 7:00 PM: End of Mini-Telethon!
    Schedule is subject to change. Check back here before the livestream begins!

    EXPIRING ITEMS

    As part of the R44 Postmortem, at 7:00 PM CDT, August 7, 2017, we are expiring the following content from the Add On Store (and the in-game Crown Merchants). This means that these items will no longer be available in our store after this date.

    STRETCH GOALS

    As a special bonus, we are offering telethon funding rewards to any backer that pledges a minimum of $5 for twelve hours during the day of the telethon, from 12:00 PM CDT on August 7 (Spending Store Credit to make $5 minimum purchase does not apply) to 11:59 PM CDT. NOTE: We will still stop tracking towards stretch goals at the end of the telethon at 7:00 PM CDT but everyone will have another 5 hours to spend $5 to get the stretch goals.
    • $10,000: Oracle Eye Sparklers
    • $25,000: Oracle Eye Mirror: Home decoration with the Oracle Eye on top
    • $35,000: Oracle Eye Helmet: Fencing Mask with Oracle Eye painted on mesh like the Obsidian Cabalist masks
    • $50,000: Oracle Eye Throne
    • $65,000: Oracle Cable “Wings” + /juggleoracleeyes

    CHEER ON THE DEVS!

    For every $2,500 donated, all developers on camera have to either dance, sing, or drink a shot of alcohol.

    Additionally, we will be spinning the Wheel of Fortune! The wheel will have 12 different categories of sales plus the Lord British and Darkstarr wildcards where they get to choose any category! Each time a category comes up it will go on sale at approx. 20% off for 1 hour.


    WHEEL OF FORTUNE FLASH SALES:

    WIN THESE GREAT PRIZES!

    • All of the above Expiring Items
    • Bank Upgrades
    • COTOs
    • Store Credit
    • RelicsbyRild.com merchandise
    • and more!
    We will be giving prizes away on an hourly basis with many being given away multiple times. If you wish to win prizes during the Telethon event, be in Discord chat! We will be active on Twitch and YouTube chats as well, but they will not be our portal for prize giveaways.


    SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS!

    We will be answering questions throughout the telethon so submit them in the main announcement or on Discord chat during the Telethon. Please keep in mind that questions and feedback related to each segment will be given priority and really verbose questions may be skipped, as they can be a challenge to shorten and summarize live on the air. Please keep it to 3 total questions in the comments section below!

    Keep an eye on @ShroudofAvatar for updates before, during, and after the telethon. See you on Twitch at 3pm CT this coming August 7!
     
  2. craftymethod

    craftymethod Avatar

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    I think the dancing/singing/shots formula needs to be shaken up! What about something like monopoly "chance" cards? where questions are asked of people from a stack of questions dedicated to each staff member? random Trivia questions? normal dev questions etc?
     
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  3. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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    That's actually a nice idea!
    Why don't you just give us 24 Hrs?
    No stress, no TZ mistakes possible.
     
  4. oplek

    oplek Avatar

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    Argh. I had a question for the next telethon. I'm pretty sure it was the most amazing question of my life. And I can't remember it.
     
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  5. Tahru

    Tahru Avatar

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    @Berek It might be useful if the events like this came with "add to calendar" links. I like to add these to my Google calendar so I don't forget. I may not be alone in that.
     
  6. Solazur

    Solazur Avatar

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    I think the timing of this could not be worse. Sadly, recent events have really upset a lot of people. There are unanswered and half answered questions on the investment site. Totally unacceptable. but with not having 10 or 20 minutes to bother with that there is time to announce an increase in the asking for more $. As a matter of pure principle... I am sitting the telethon out
     
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  7. kl4nk

    kl4nk Avatar

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    Im i the only one seeing this as a potential recipes for disaster in fundraising. I can see why they would go that way. Having raised what?, a 100k the last mini telethon? ( I might be wrong on the amount) in 6h. Why wouldnt they try to do this every months. But danm i can see this going south fast. Contributing every 2-3 months seem to me like it was a good enough time in between telethon not to over ask your backer for money. Every months seem excessive. Im probably wrong tho. Hope you all the best.
     
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  8. Lazarus Long

    Lazarus Long Avatar

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    I gotta agree on this. Can I spend $5 a quarter Sure. $5 a month. not really. Might as well sell subscriptions.

    Laz
     
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  9. Selene

    Selene Avatar

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    It's kind of like an optional subscription model. $5 for (possibly)some cool items. The only negative I see with a monthly "telethon" model is people will tend to not buy new items at full price.. waiting for the monthly "sale".

    EDIT: Ninja'd by Laz!
     
  10. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

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    That's a fair question.

    To answer that question, you have to remember we are almost 100% crowd funded. Unlike other games we don't have a publisher with deep pockets, and that's why this game is so different, btw. That's why this game takes so many risks and changes things so frequently, because unlike what some people would like everyone to believe this is not a "cash grab". Portalarium is not "making money" on any of this, they're only funding the development of the game.

    So the question becomes, how best to do that?

    You can sell things in the add-on store. You can mark them down 20% on a periodic basis. You can have crowd funded telethons. You can offer up special deals (like the Star Citizen Air Ships). You can create stretch goal incentives like Mounts and Elves. You can move the game to a subscription model. You can make the game free to play and then sell premium services. I think it's all on the table...

    So why not create a subscription model now? Well maybe because we're still a very small population and a subscription model would not add up to 100k a month like they're getting during these telethons? Maybe giving people a "sense of urgency" where they have to spend $5 during a set time frame has generated more money than they would expect to see if we had a few thousand people signing up for subscriptions?

    I'm guessing the plan is to get more people first. Then cut out the telethons (or shrink them down even more if this one works) giving the team even more time to focus on development of the game. I then think that if we get enough people we might move to a voluntary subscription model, if we don't get enough people we might move to free to play and sell voluntary premium services that give out COTO's and other "stuff" on a periodic basis.
     
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  11. Drocis the Devious

    Drocis the Devious Avatar

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    Personally, I think instead of making random stuff 20% off, Portalarium should offer discounted pricing the first week they push out new stuff.

    Take the village inn home for example. Instead of $100, they should've offered it at $70 for that first weekend. It keeps everyone engaged, and historically it tells speculators that's the 'best' price anyone is likely to get, even during a telethon. Then during the telethon's you get creative and start selling special bundles of "stuff" that provide an even better discount overall, but something that you'll never be able to get any other time. Because this is more targeted (not 20% off everything!) you have to use previous sales data to figure out what people already want to buy. Don't just take the worst selling stuff and bundle it with other crap no one wants, bundle the good stuff! Then you can expire it later and make more money off it, rinse and repeat.

    Not trying to make this sound like it's super easy, just that there's room for Portalarium to get people to step up and buy stuff that I don't think we've fully explored yet.
     
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  12. Tahru

    Tahru Avatar

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    +1 I like this idea.
     
  13. Bow Vale

    Bow Vale Avatar

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    I give Star Citizen $10 a month for a potted plant(usually) a weekly show, and some bits like 10% coupon off once per year. Seems like a good deal to me for half the amount....33% more show, certainly with more fun, and likely 4-5 items which can be useful, unlike the potted plant over there.
     
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  14. redfish

    redfish Avatar

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    Maybe even a trial balloon for a subscription, to see if enough people will buy in?
     
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  15. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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    It's not like we are begging for a vanity subscription for uuhhh....years ^^
     
  16. Stryker Sparhawk

    Stryker Sparhawk Avatar

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    The problem with the subscription is, is there a mass appeal to make a critical mass for the program to pay for itself.

    Ok, we get 300 people to throw in $10/mo .. might = a part time position to care/feed the program. Do we even have that kind of stable population to do that for a year?

    As I stated to you in Discord, @Berek, doing this every month is a bit of a drain. Just projecting if release is before end of year = 6 months away, its possibly ok to do 3 more events of 4 to 6 hours in length.
     
  17. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    The "timing" could not be better, IMO, and answers to questions is a big part of the telethons in case you've not noticed.
    Good grief people. You don't have to spend a dime if you choose, and 5 bucks will get you the eye candy if you want it.

    Constantly bashing Port in countless ways is not conducive to good morale for our team of devs - or anyone for that matter.

    There are issues with SotA that make me scream from time to time, but chastising Port for the telethons where we DO get (some) questions answered is counterproductive at best.

    I want SotA to suceed, I give feedback and make bug reports.
    Am I always happy with everything ingame ? Of course not, but just bashing to be bashing helps nothing and no one.
    If there's something you don't like, then ask about it in a question that can be addressed in the telethon.

    We all can find something that we don't care for in SotA, but I firmly believe that everyone at Port is doing their level best to give us what we want - and that counts for a LOT in my eyes.
    Telling them that they're jerks for having more (shorter) telethons is helping nothing and no one.
     
  18. Solazur

    Solazur Avatar

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    I have a novel idea. If they made it more rewarding to Play the game....even at this stage they might increase the number of active players. If you double the number of people playing it would seem the revenue stream from things like the store would increase. Instead, they have admittedly devalued the holdings of those with the most invested and turned around and asked for more $ more frequently. Or am I crazy here?
     
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  19. Sargon

    Sargon Avatar

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    I definitely think this will happen. I buy a lot from the add-on store, but even with the quarterly telethons I have mostly changed my buying behavior to ONLY buy items when they are on sale. It doesn't make sense to ever pay "full" price for something when it will inevitably be discounted within a month.
     
  20. Sargon

    Sargon Avatar

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    To be fair, the original post was referencing unanswered questions about the SeedInvest campaign, which cannot be answered outside of SeedInvest and therefore won't be addressed in a telethon. Portalarium was initially rather responsive to questions on SeedInvest, but lately there has been a deafening silence.
     
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