Shroud Civil War

Hello Everyone,

We have been witness to the ever escalating war of words between the Founders and the Benefactors and all of us on the SotA development team are very saddened by it. We completely understand the issues both sides have, and how these issues are stirring up passionate emotions...emotions that are driving some very unfortunate behavior in our forums. It is quite saddening to all of us to witness the battling between two sides when we are actually all on the same side! We all want the same thing which is for Shroud to be the greatest RPG we can make. We can only do that if we work together, not apart.

Founders (those who pledged before 5/20/13) do deserve the rewards they were promised as exclusive to them. Without the early backing by the Founders none of this would be possible. There would be no Shroud, nor would there be forums where we can discuss these matters. Just as important is that we made a very specific commitment to them and we want to honor that commitment. All of you should expect that of us.

While Founders allowed us to start this race, it is the Benefactors who are helping us to cross the finish line. Their contributions and opinions have as much value as the Founders, even if they come at a later date. Their support for this project should be judged equally and fairly as with any other contributing member, not based on when they entered the community.

Unfortunately, a very vocal minority from both groups is actively pitting us against each other through a series of insensitive comments and unwarranted entitlement. This behavior is making it difficult for us to attract more backers because they are disturbed by the toxic atmosphere. With no new backers, we cannot expand our staff (like hiring QA so I can get back to leading the project), and in the end, we all lose.

We ask that Founders (or anyone else) stop dismissing Benefactors’ opinions and treating them like second class citizens. We ask Founders to empathize with the Benefactors who are pining for rewards that they cannot get. We also ask that you refrain from boasting about your status to Benefactors. Things like the misplaced outrage over the 15% bonus promotion when Founders already get a 10% discount on average and get more than double the rewards of Benefactors come across to the Benefactors as incredibly insensitive and ungrateful. Demands that the Knight Founder house be exchanged for the Knight Benefactor house so the Benefactors get the “uglier” one when Founders actually get both is another example where Benefactors are made to feel second class. What has been much more constructive is suggestions on how to improve the Knight Founder house (which we are working on this very week). It is especially exacerbated when Founders use our own descriptors, including words like “envy” and “upscale”, to justify their opinions. With 20/20 hindsight, we realize using one of the seven deadly sins as a descriptor might not have been the best idea.

We ask that Benefactors stop demanding they deserve the same rewards that Founders get. That cannot happen. We completely understand how this would be frustrating for Benefactors, however raging at Founders about it when they can do nothing about it helps no one. We also ask that Benefactors stop broadcasting publicly the actions they want to take such as litigation, quitting, charge-backs, taking others with them, etc. as they only further inflame the conversation. If you are considering these actions please submit that information to support@portalarium.com so we can work with you on possible solutions.

In order to help heal the disrespectful atmosphere of our forums, we will remove any conversations or posts that rekindle this unhealthy debate. If it is an entire thread we will first lock and then likely delete it. If we see repeated posts from individuals on these topics we will take immediate action up to and including a complete ban. In general, we do not support censorship, but we are even less supportive of disrespectful behavior.

Remember we are all together on this journey. We want to make something great. We want to rekindle the amazing experiences of our past gaming and infuse them with the light of the new and the different. Help us do that, we know that you can.

Sincerely,
Starr Long

PS: On rare occasions when we perceive a compelling inequity we may come to a compromise that we feel puts everyone in a more equitable balance. One such was the order of lot placement which we revised to be by tier. We are very sorry that we had to change that particular promise and we abhor having to go back on our word. While we understand that this has frustrated some of our Founders we felt this particular issue had to change. I hope both sides of this conversation appreciate the difficult stand we had to take.

PPS: There have been a few suggestions about changing the rewards on Kickstarter. Kickstarter does not allow us to make ANY edits to the Kickstarter pages. We will research some wording changes on our current website to emphasize the differences.