SeedInvest Campaign - Discussions with Richard Garriott / Lord British

"Gold stuff" is what I meant by "shareholder rewards"

It can't be more than the contortions I saw somebody go through to explain why issuing junk-bonds was a good sign for TSLA yesterday.

 

hopefully according to this (Seedinvest Selections Fund) it will be 904K

https://www.seedinvest.com/about

 

Isn't that an Oasis album?

 

A majority of the money was raised under Regulation CF, not Regulation D, so I highly doubt Portalarium would qualify for the additional 200k.

 

SeedInvest would invest under reg D. we can only wait and see

 

Portalarium got just over $100k under Reg D, and the rest through Reg CF. I don't think they'd qualify. Its also limited to 50 companies that SeedInvest is partnering with.

 

Has there been any indication on what happens next and at what cadence? how and when are investor perks delivered? Are all the pets created or is there still artwork to create?

 

I would assume @Lord British would post soon about the results and future plans. It's been in the standup notes, so it may just be getting finalized.

Patience, grasshoppers.

 

My question is: Can I place my Golden Pristine Gothic Mansion somewhere that I won't be harassed for being a so-called "whale"? Or should I rather keep it hidden in my bank in order to not offend certain members of the community?

*ponders*

I may also require a professional decorator.

 

you can lend it to me...

 

Pfft! Seems like almost every POT I go to has a lot you own. I guess even whales come in many different sizes!

(But if you want to rent all or part of it out... PM me.)

 

That is cool you have that house!!

I think it is a village size and Dara Brae would love to have you place it in our POT!

 

Why thank you for the kind invite, dear Governor! I do believe it is a town-sized home. Do you have space for bloated whales such as myself??

 

Yes, we have lots available at the town level too. I have more open space not allocated so if you want to hand pick a place for a town lot on a free area, please let me know.

 

Disliking whales in this game is a lot like disliking the air you breathe.

Without whales this game wouldn't even exist. There wouldn't have been a funded kickstarter. The game wouldn't have continued years of funding. I know you understand this Jaanelle, I'm just making general social commentary here.

There are some that believe that would've been a good thing, that because they don't enjoy the game themselves, it's impossible to understand why other people would. There are some that see this "gold stuff" and only see elitism, which is an understandable reaction on some level. After all, if it takes 30k to obtain a giant golden castle, that's fairly elite! But that doesn't tell the whole story, in fact it doesn't even tell part of the story because it doesn't cost 30k to buy a golden castle, it costs 30k to buy 30k worth of stock in Portalarium and oh yeah you get a golden castle while you're at it. (that's a meaningful and significant difference that can only be ignored if you're promoting a narrative that ignores reality).

It's a difference that unfortunately doesn't translate well to joe average gamer. Have a crowd funded game? Well that means the money has to come from, ya know, the crowd.

The truth is, I don't plan to use any of this golden stuff in-game because it doesn't fit my character backstory. I'm going to sell it off. I just wanted the stock. In part because I wanted to help fund the game and because I think the people behind Portalarium have a lot of experience with building up companies and then selling them for a profit down the road. It's a gamble, but it's one that I was willing to take. As for selling the gold stuff, I'll probably just make it available on my in-game vendor giving "whoever" a chance to get it using regular old gold. Of course you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. So people can say "pay2win!11!11!!" because I get gold in return for stuff I bought with real money. The alternative being that I could sell it for store credit (which is what I've done with most of the things I knew I wouldn't use), thus generating more funds for SOTA, which in turn helps keep development going (ya know, from the crowd) and also grants me the special benefit of being called a whale and spat upon from the peanut gallery. Awesome!

Again, I get it. Some people don't like this game, they wish it would've been something else. They wish it would've been what they thought it should've been. They wish it wasn't full of gold castles, it was focused more on their playingstyle (single player), and the words used in the kickstarter would've been as binding as their rigid interpretation of those words. But that's not where we are, and there are good reasons for that. Mainly because this is a crowd funded game, and the crowd, at least the one still here continuing to fund this game and support it as both playing and paying customers are generally patient and understanding of the realities of game development. It's a slow and sometimes frustrating process, but it sure beats having a publisher that insists on making yet another cookie cutter wow clone that will never have meaningful updates or take community feedback seriously.

Oh well. Have no fear Jaanelle. Not everyone will see your golden home and sneer. Whenever I see one, I'll just think that it belongs to someone that helped make this game possible. That's a big deal to me on a personal level, because sure I could put down $30 on a game that might entertain me for a few months until the next $30 game or expansion hit the virtual shelves. But I've been doing that for years and I've been unsatisfied for at least that long. Nothing here is perfect of course, but the one thing I can count on is that as long as the game exists it gets better month to month and the development is not geared solely towards making the most money, it's geared towards making the best game possible with the time and resources we have. I don't see that as elitism, I see it as a gift to anyone that would accept it for what it actually is. A crowd funded game.

 

I was initially worried about being misunderstood when I became LOTM, but after a while it just doesn't matter. Most people don't care what anyone else has in the game. The few that do will not like this game anyway. Virtually everyone I meet in the game is a big fish.

The only thing that concerns me now is if new players will accept that so many people got a lot stuff that is out of reach. That's another topic anyway.

Use your homes with pride, you actually deserve it.

 

Hear, hear! As a high level backer I have to agree. I sold off a sizable chunk of my retirement assets to help support Portalarium - and I would do it again and again to see this game thrive! To denounce the "whales" is simply laughable.

 

People tend to covet what they see. Like you said, you earned it so you should enjoy it. Pill on everyone that's negative.

 

In my younger, *never did anything like this before* days, oh how I took issue with being called a whale...lol.

Now??