Stretch Goals: Why are you hiding them? (and) Why I likely won't pledge toward them.

I started looking at SotA a few months back. After reading more about the game and watching some videos, my wife and I decided to pledge our support almost two weeks ago.

However, I heard about SotA a long time ago; but only because I am a longtime Star Citizen supporter. Chris Roberts has been a long time champion of SotA. In fact he has probably done as much to nurture community awareness of SotA than anyone. Maybe even as much if not more than Portalarium themselves.

I really love some of the design decisions in SotA, and it has a unique old-school RPG feel to it. It won't be a "perfect game" from what I can see so far but it has the potential to be a very good game. If funding is the needed catalyst to ensure its success, then I beg Portalarium to consider hiring a marketing guru and talented web-design team to better promote the project.

1) The website is horrendous and looks like it was made in 1999 with MS Word. Yes it all works, but for the sake of marketing to a tech savvy public, please develop something a bit snappier soon.

2) Stretch-goals are designed to fail. Anyone that "eventually" finds the stretch goal page will be horrified by their metrics.

3) Stretch-goals should be a "part" of game development. They are either part of the developers vision or they aren't. Currently they're hidden away in an attic web-page, like some poor-orphaned bastard child.

4) Pledge tiers are mostly meaningless digital "fluff" items until you get to ~$300 and higher, where Portalarium are selling houses that will never have plots unless major design changes are addressed. This is an issue with the potential to cause a massive community backlash. The kind which no developer has ever seen before.

In my opinion these are glaring issues and are some of the biggest setbacks to funding development.

Portalarium, if you want horses, or ships or any other design concept added to the game through funding, make it known... Give the community a goal to shoot for. Encourage new players to sign up and pledge their support. The current marketing strategy is designed to fail from the perspective of an experienced consumer. Potentially, millions of RPG gamer's are looking for something interesting to throw their money at. Right now there isn't much pulling them here... most gamers have still never even heard of SotA.

My apologies if my opinions are viewed as negatives; they're rather intended as constructive criticisms.

Cheers!

 

+1 It works as is, but it could use some sexy and marketing focus.

 

Hm, where is the check box for: - I pledged for all Stretch Goal Complete Packages?

 

It's clear to me that the developers are not interested in meeting the stretch goals at this point in time. They have enough on their plates, they're short staffed, and underfunded (relative to the expectations of their customers). I'm sure they all want the stretch goals to be met SOMEDAY, but not right now.

If they wanted the stretch goals to be met, they could do it in short order. All they'd need to do is provide adequate incentives. As the stretch goals stand right now, there's literally no incentive to pledging towards them. This is something I've brought up on multiple occasions.

You can't expect people to pledge to something where they're not really getting anything of value in return. The problem that Portalarium has is that if they sell something of value, people cry "pay to win!" and that's not really the case but that doesn't stop people from doing that. It's frustrating because I've pledged to all the stretch goals, thinking that eventually they would reach their goals. But as of right now I think that's highly in doubt and I wish I could just get my money out of them and apply to something more useful (like add-on store items, or upgrading my pledge).

 

I'm pretty sure that this is addressed here:

Lot Selection Process

Everyone that owns a lot on day one, will be able to place.

Cypher Black

 

I'm not sure why you're assuming they would sell deeds and not have lots in game to use them. They've promised the world at launch will have more than enough deeds for whatever they sell. What you see in the pre-alpha is one small island, and not the mainland. The city of Ardoris has 100+ lots itself that we can see in game right now. And they've said there will be 80+ player owned towns with lots.

 

It's a catch-22. Better marketing could help fund the much needed growth; but apparently the light at the end of the tunnel is a loathsome one. Fear of success can be crippling indeed.

They're going to need a hell of a lot more land... I doubt the current design can efficiently support existing pledges let alone new ones or players that one day "just want to buy a house".

I understand that... but those numbers are still very small you see. What if word of SotA actually gets out?

 

Most copies of the game don't include land.

They've sold 80+ player towns already, 12 of which are Metropolises room for 139 Village lots each. That's 1668 Village lots just in those 12 player owned Metropolises, and that doesn't include the NPC towns or the other 68 player towns that aren't Metropolises.

In May we got a breakdown of how many people pledged at each tier. Don't worry, I'll do all the math for you. As of May, 2381 people had pledges that included a deed of some sort. As I mentioned, the 12 PoT Metropolises alone can handle 1668 of those. Let's say now in January we have 3,500 lots from pledges. So outside of the 12 Metropolises sold so far, we need to account for 1,800 lots. For that, we have 68 other player owned towns, and these NPC towns:

• Aerie
• Ardoris
• Bloodriver
• Braemar
• Brittany
• Brookside
• Celestis
• Desolis
• Dysborg
• Eastmarch
• Estgard
• Etceter
• Harvest
• Hilt
• Jaanaford
• Kiln
• Kingsport
• Libris
• Midras
• Opalis
• Owl's Head
• Port Graff
• Resolute
• Rhun
• Solania
• Spite
• Valhold
• Vertas
• Xenos

If for some reason the game sold 200,000 copies tomorrow (most copies of the game are at Adventurer level and don't include land) and they were hitting a point where there won't be enough land in Episode 1, then they just close off tiers from Ancestors and above.

 

I agree...It's pretty obvious meeting the stretch goals at this time would get in the way of what they are working on currently. Adding incentives to stretch goals would easily make them sell faster...how about pictures of every one of them? I won't buy an elven house without having seen it and explored it. I was already disappointed with the impossible to fit stable on any lot I own but bought it out of the assumption it would be usable to all.

I hope they plan to make these goals more exciting by adding some detail as to their function. I want them all met because I love them all and consider some of them CORE to my game.

Packhorses/Mounts/Boats are a MUST for my gameplay

 

Funnily enough, I made a very similar titled post last year on this subject; you can see I recorded the current financial standings there, and they've hardly shifted in the two months since, despite enderandrew's attempts to encourage donating to pack animals.

Whilst people currently get what will become true rares by funding now, you just can't avoid the fact that most people don't want to pay for the promise of something, or even as here, advanced down-payments on something with guaranteed utility of later (assuming Portalarium truly can guarantee Episodes 2-5 of course).

And remember, we've already technically "stretched" way beyond the original kickstarter goals, and these stretch goals were placed on top of those... and more importantly, after most people have probably reached their own financial limits. Ignore the huge spenders on the forums, the world isn't awash in disposable capital as it once was, and outside of Star Citizen, virtually no one is able to get the sort of figures Shroud already has achieved; Shroud in turn is competing in a much more saturated part of the gaming market (Tolkein-esque MMOs). In such a situation, you are more likely to get more funding from offering greater, not less utility. And directed towards people who haven't already spent on Shroud.

Now I'd personally love to support further, I really would. I wish, oh how I wish I could have a Frigate to live in. I'd have settled for that dragon boat to paddle about chasing fish in, but it'll just sit there as nothing more than decoration, and feel like it's mocking me for who knows how long before it can ever sail. And at $290 invested myself, I just can't justify constant spending for smaller and smaller utility on a game that I don't even know is going to survive yet. I don't mean to claim the game is doomed; but at the same time, I also can't get any of my friends in yet, as they can't even see what the basic game will offer them, so tangled in fund raising is the entire discussed feature set... Constant fundraising is great for the project, much less so for newcomers who increasingly feel they may have missed some vitally important boats. Except... even if you catch the boat, it's not going to be sailing either as the funds just aren't coming in from everyone else to bump sea travel up the development list.

So... I honestly wouldn't recommend supporting the current Stretch Goals unless you want the items as decoration.

 

I purchased all of the stretch goal packages. I realize that they my not be met by the first episode. I do think however that they will be met eventually. Maybe episode 2 or 3. By that time these decorations will grow in value and by the time they do get implemented they will be sought after. I understand that stretch goals are not for everyone, but I would sure not be discouraging them on the forums. The stretch goals are intended to speed up implementation, not to really fund it entirely.

 

At first I thought this whole "community funded Richard Garriott game" was an OK idea, but reading the forums, I get more and more WTF moments over time.

What the three headed headless' mother's lizardskin boots' saddened...
I thought funding a stretch goal means accumulating a sum of money that is enough to start and finish the development of that goal, meaning those stretch goal sums were decided upon how much money they require to develop from ground zero to final release.
As in: when goal A is met, the money is used to hire developers for feature A, get all the hardware and software required and pay the development fees and testers and everything, all from the stretch A income. Then when goal B is met, same happens with feature B.
But now you say the funds don't go to the feature requested by the community by paying for that goal, rather the money goes to central control in general, without new developers hired, without new hardware and software, so without the actual increased resources to support the immediate development of a new feature?
That's a serious rip-off, if not even an outright scam.
If I had the money to pledge for anything and chose one of the goals, I would have expected my money to go into that feature and upon the goal having been met, I would have been oh so happy that the feature would be on it's way, then upon learning that the devs actually don't even consider putting in that feature, instead just grabbing the money for general purposes, then I would feel just as scammed as I would.
This means there shouldn't even be separate stretch goals, just one "donate" button without even attempting to make people believe that sum x gives them this feature and sum x+y gives them that feature, too.

I feel this becoming another Ultima VIII or Ultima IX...

 

I found them just fine.. and.. bought everything. I guess they could have some women in bikinis leaning up against them or something though.

 

I wouldn't say it is as bad as you make out, likewise I wouldn't say that it is great. What I can say is that it is simple to use and functional........I have seen a lot worse (dont even get me started on the FFXIV site).

Best to respond to these two together. It was clear in my mind straight from the start of the appearance of Stretch Goals, that they are highly unlikely to be functional in Episode 1 as the goals would never be met in time. I see the Stretch Goals as more of funding towards Episode 2 and an innate item (that will eventually be functional) as a reward in Episode 1 as a thank you.

I believe that all of the stretch goals do form part of the developers vision and that they will eventually form part of the game regardless whether the goals are technically met. Once again, I view this as funding that is to go towards the next future Episode.

A few things to note here:

1. You are guaranteed a plot in-game if you have a plot deed via a pledge or add-on store (although your probably need to place within your placement window).
2. On top of the number of plots made available to backers (as described in 1), there will be an additional % added on for gold purchase in-game.
3. It has always been intended that housing will have a finite number and not every player will be able to own a plot at a given point in time.
4. The number of housing lots available will be expanded with each Episode.

So just to throw it out there, based upon all snippets of information available; my current guesstimate is circa of 12,500 - 17,500 lots with just under half coming from Player Owned Towns.

 

I think your understanding of the stretch goals is fine, and I think that's what the devs have done, created stretch goals for the sole purpose of funding individual features into the game that would otherwise be unattainable if they were not separately funded. I don't see where what I said before is inconsistent with that.

However, I'm not convinced that the developers have created stretch goals that were designed to attract enough support to get the funds they needed. Take pack pules for example. It's only 100k. I think most of the community probably wants pack mules in the game, I know I do. But it can't get funded because no one needs "rare" pack mules with blue eyes, when they can get free pack mules with brown eyes once the stretch goal is completed. This is exactly why the stretch goals should've properly incentivized stretch goal investors with UNIQUE and RARE items. For example, if you didn't pledge to the stretch goal you would NEVER get a llama or a pack mule. You could get other pack animals in the game, but not llams and pack mules.

To me, this is just common sense. But to people that don't want to pay any money it's "pay to win". The devs need to start making people pay or they're not going to win.

 

No need for pay to win, for many many games one thing consistently rings true... people will pay insane amounts of cash to look slightly different. I think reskins of existing items in an online store would raise substantial amounts of cash.

 

Agreed. The idea that the devs are throwing a wet blanket on funding a crowd-funded game is mind-boggling to say the least.

 

I will stop short of saying the stretch goals are designed to fail. I will say they didn't incentivize purchasing stretch goal items as much as they could have.

I proposed two ideas.

1. Allow people to melt the items if the goal isn't going to be met. Melting them just gives you credit to spend elsewhere. It isn't like you're taking money away from the devs.
2. Allow money spent in the stretch goal add-on store count towards your pledge level. If this were the case, I think a lot more people would open their wallets.

I know Starr isn't a huge fan of stretch goals because they're already trying to do so much with a small team. But if they had made stretch goals a bigger priority from the beginning the way Star Citizen did, it is entirely possibly that funding would have skyrocketed, allowing them to hire more staff and make a better game overall. I love this team of devs. I know they're working hard. I do think however there is a missed opportunity with how they handled stretch goals.

But at this point, rather than complain, I'd like to try and do something positive by encouraging everyone to working towards unlocking one.

 

I read this same comment before, but it was not from the development team and is pure hearsay. I think the official word is that most if not all the stretch goals are likely to become real goals to be met at a later date. Obviously that would imply that they are not being met now unless funded. Nothing strange about it.

 

Pretty sure some of them are already being implemented even though they are nowhere near reaching the funding goal.