True concerns about the future

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Thorgred, Apr 16, 2018.

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  1. Andrew Silverston

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    You will never see traditional MMORPGs again. Greed and "business" like approach to games have destroyed whatever innocence of thought was ever in games before. Gamers changed, developers changed, the market changed and the world has changed too.
     
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  2. SmokerKGB

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    Yes, that's right... So, please stop speculating and thinking the worst, it does no one any good, spreading pain and discontent... Steam is a very small portion of this community, many plat offline/private, so you never see them... So what?

    We are enjoying the game, I suggest you do the same....
     
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  3. SmokerKGB

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    The monthly live stream generates more than that, so, I suggest to every player "Buy $5 to $10 in cotos" and subscribe by doing that every month...
     
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  4. Cymek

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    I'm sorry, but the second part of your statement simply isn't true.

    Here is a screen grab filtered by release date.

    [​IMG]
    If anything, it got a small bump at release and has been flat since.
     
  5. Andrew Silverston

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    Majoria, that's probably one of the biggest thing with you guys in this game's development and why SoTA backers like you don't understand newcomers, who rant on forums about SoTA. It is easy to explain why. You have half of your heart in this game, or maybe all of it? you invested heavily not only financially, but also your heart, emotions, part of your soul... This game is like your other baby, you've seen it's first steps, you've seen it's first creation, you've seen rivers flow, grass grow, stars created, broken moon created etc etc. Even though figuratively, part of you is INSIDE this game, literally and figuratively.

    Newcomers, they have almost nothing invested into this game. They come here to enjoy the ride and what they see, is completely different from what you and many like you, who heavily invested into SoTA financially and emotionally, see. You won't like the description, but you guys are blinded with love, or call it whatever you want. Your mental approach to the things of this game is completely different from the mental approach of gamers, who see a potential, but when they get in game, their hopes pretty much come crushing down.

    So when someone says "This game is lame", or "It sucks and is unpolished piece of metal", or brings whatever else criticism, you can't see this criticism the same way, even if it is structured. This game has potential, but the development cycle was, is and will continue to be very slow (you admitted it yourself), the amount of things released through the updates is not enough to keep the interest anyone, but people who's been here from the beginning. Trust me, nothing had skyrocketed. I've been here from the beginning as well, and even though I am still here and keep coming back, I am GLAD I was able to get over my investments and found some willpower to sell everything that I invested money in and got pretty much all of it back. Best decision I've ever made.

    And now looking back, I would do it all over again because nothing changed. SoTA will always be a niche game, development cycle will always be as slow as it's been these 5 years, Richard will never care about this game more than a way of income, or reinforcing his name's dwindling reputation in gaming market, it will just continue crawling forward until it finally runs out of breath and dries out. it was nice to see them a bit excited, but they ran out of motivation long time ago. And all that motivation is left right now, is to raise some more money every telethon to keep this project from toppling over.

    Yes SoTA has a potential, yes, I love it too, and keep coming back, but the way things been during these years of development completely lost my trust in Port and what they can do with SoTA. I wish Port the best, but unless they find some good investors and are able to prove that they can build something that will bring major profit, I don't see the light in the end of the tunnel for this. No matter how much you love this game, you have to be realistic. Being excited about future Episodes that will bring mounts and boats and blah blah is one thing, but do you really believe they will raise several millions again to have enough money for another 5 years of development cycle? Let them start the Kickstarter for Episode 2 and you will see the reality.

    They need better funding for this game, bigger team of devs. If they won't find a way - there is no future for SoTA. I hate to sound like a troll, but it is just a reality. I saw a video today, of some idiots caught on camera, dropping off their 4 awesome dogs in the end of some neighborhood on the edge of the overgrown field, LEAVING THEM THERE AND DRIVING AWAY. And the woman who was filming kept pleading to that woman, the shelter is only two blocks away, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? Dogs kept crying, scared, didn't understand what the hell their owners were doing with them. She just got in the car and her husband, I guess, just drove off. That sucks big time, but we can't change what the reality is. Maybe an out of place comparison, but it only stresses that reality is often not what we want it to be.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2018
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  6. Vladamir Begemot

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    Your chart is showing maximum (peak) players. I said "In Steamcharts we now have almost as many players on on average as we had at the maximum day on February, and it keeps going up daily."

    So your chart doesn't have any bearing on what I was talking about.

    Look 2 inches lower and take a look at the actual numbers.

    Month Avg. Players Gain % Gain Peak Players
    Last 30 Days 302.6 +95.6 +46.18% 582
    March 2018 207.0 +57.9 +38.82% 562
    February 2018 149.1 +13.1 +9.60% 306

    We broke 300 average number of Steam players today, for the last month.

    Yesterday, that number was lower.

    It keeps going up. Daily. As I said in the second part of my statement. Daily, it keeps going up. It goes up daily.

    The first part was true too. We have almost as many players now, on average (302.6), as we had on the peak moment in February (306). Maybe we'll hit it tomorrow.

    Now to move on with the conversation, 300 players on average at any moment through Steam indicates somewhere more than 1,000 players on at any average moment.

    Almost 600 peak puts us well over 1,500 during peak times.

    Earlier Darkstarr had said we need 50,000 active players. So the only question left is, what does that mean compared to average? Obviously 50,000 active isn't 50,000 average, or even peak. So how many players on average need to be on to indicate we have 50,000 total?
     
  7. Cymek

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    I literally pulled the chart off your Steamcharts link in your post. Steamcharts, the service you cited was the source of your claim that the numbers are going up daily.

    I'm not looking at pre-release numbers there. I am simply looking at the players since launch.

    Steam Charts doesn't just log peak players per 24 hours. It logs much much more often than that. You can play with the filter and resolve the resolution to hours.

    **Edit**

    I'm not contesting your assertion the average month to month number is going up. It got a small bump at launch, so the last 30 day calculation is going up.

    I'm saying the player count is not going up since launch.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2018
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  8. Elwyn

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    It has literally been only three weeks. I know because you can still see the pre-launch numbers on the steamcharts graph, and all three weeks have been higher than pre-launch. Only the first 2-3 months of persistence were better. And those three weeks have had roughly the same numbers on the graph, so it doesn't seem like anybody is going away yet.

    That's three weeks without any sign of any ad campaign (which I'm fine with if they think it's still not quite ready yet), so where are these new players supposed to be coming from if they haven't heard of it yet? That's the problem with society today, if something doesn't happen within a few hours or days, people act like it's the end of the world, because they've been spoiled by constant instant news.
     
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  9. Preachyr

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    What source do you have to make you think that? Considering how many alts have been self admitted on these forums usually up to this point the steam numbers have been a pretty good indication of actual players in game.
     
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  10. Thorgred

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    Who says that? Any proof or just speculating?

    August 2016 356.9 +277.7 +350.67% 603

    I cant take people serious who still say the game is doing fine and everything is great. The game has alot of problems and is not in the best state, closing your eyes and deny the fact doesnt help. Also calling other people out to have concerns
    is just ignorant. Yes they work on it and yes it get better every month, but that doesnt change the fact that the release numbers were rather disappointing then good.
    And as i mentioned, Portalarium expected much more! (RG: heading for 100k players. Maybe at least 400k players could be possible.) They need 50k but they only have less then 5k, doesnt sound good to me.
     
  11. majoria70

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    Yes and I don't disagree with everything you say. Lots of work still to do on this game. I hate to be in conversations like so it is my own bad. This game deserved to not be made on a budget, that has always been my greatest disappointment, but it was. Many of us who came here to support this game were really really waiting for it and had so many expectations from it and while I am happy if you are happy about the choices you made because we all need to do what we need to do, I have to also say that not everyone sees it as you do or even as I do of course. I see new people all the time thrilled with this game and I do see a lot of them. Some are thrilled and some are not. Imagine if we the supporters of this game give up on it and all that is ever heard is this game is just not going to ever be anything special then that is what it will become in the minds of the public, but is that true? To that is a shame to not let it develop and backlash it. It is such a waste because there are very special things about it that I do love and believe it or not I don't want my money back. I contributed it, it is gone years ago and the experiences I've had here I would not give back.

    So for me I carry on without giving up on this game and will continue watching it grow and develop however it does and this is also from our feedback that does help the devs a lot, I will be here. For me I'm going back in to play the game. I am trying to create a workable concert hall that will be easy to pass out players their parts of the song. Last time we played it was a bit nerve wracking trying to get everyone their parts for each song and I did want them back to put in my little labeled bags for the next sync session. I did not know that we had dancing bears that danced while we played. That was really awesome to see. Here is one of the songs I wanted to play so badly since I finally found the code for it but never got a big enough group together to hear all the parts. These are some of the special moments to me.

    Sorry for the commercial on twitch but it is short and the bear is not dancing in this song and listen for drummer to come in later, that was awesome. That was amazing to hear the different parts come in. *sighs*
    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/250106746
     
    Last edited: Apr 18, 2018
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  12. Albreuin Meysinger

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    Project Gorgon = best MMORPG in years. Traditional but at the same time innovative.

    NPCs that are just not questgivers, every activity rewards you someway. Multiple choices how and what to progress.

    Extremly passionate small team that loves their game (and it shows).

    Not talking down SOTA. Just answering your statement that all MMOs are funded and built on greed.
     
    Last edited: Apr 18, 2018
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  13. Nelzie

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    Steam only counts players who log into the game via steam. I never do that, myself.

    There are thousands upon thousands of non-Steam players who log in via the direct client.

    I wouldn't be so concerned.

    All of this doom and gloom, for what reason? If you like the game, playing the game. You're not investing a penny, you're spending money on entertainment, unless you're like me and you plinked down money for Portalarium Shares... I'm not worried.

    Just play the game, enjoy it while you find it enjoyable. If others join in massive numbers, great! If they don't, so what? If you're having fun and they keep having money to add new things to the game (stories, quests, expanded features), that should be good enough.
     
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  14. Corv

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    Hi Cymek!

    I will try to clarify some confusion between you two. Not judging if the numbers are enough or not, I have no idea about that. Just simple facts:

    He was saying that the AVERAGE in the last 30 days is as high or higher than the PEAKs of the months before, which is true.

    Let's take the month before launch and the last 30 days:

    February 2018: average: 149, peak: 306
    last 30 days: average: 301, peak: 582

    So
    - yes Vladamir is right, the average and the peak almost doubled compared to the months before launch.
    - yes, the player count obviously went up (doubled)
    - yes you are right, the player count SINCE launch stayed about the same so far.

    Those are 3 simple facts in 4 simple numbers.

    As for the question about why people think that steam is only a small part of the playerbase: Portalarium, Berek, said that Steam is about 30% of the whole playerbase.

    Again, just facts in numbers. I have no idea if this is enough for SotA or not.

    source of chart https://steamdb.info/app/326160/graphs/ :

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Apr 18, 2018
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  15. MrBlight

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    Ah good.
    30% Steam represents. So can we agree acting like its an insignificant or bad way to judge growth is simply false now?

    So many claims of all these thousands of hidden players, and how steam is small portion. When literally confirmed, the opposite.
    Solves that dispute.
    Now maybe lets focuse on WHY thst is instead, like people have beem saying for last year.
     
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  16. 2112Starman

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    Also something for you to understand. This game has had a handful of loud negative social engineers attacking the game for years. They comment on every negative review I have seen on any site, the same few people. Their loudest mantra over the past 3 years has been around is that the game is at any second going to fold up and fail. Yet 3 years later... here we are.

    So the community here has a bit of a "cry wolf" attitude for people who with only a few posts on their avatar claiming there are issues and by the extremity of the social engineers out there, the community has the right to. Especially to people with only a few posts, our assumption with the "cry wolf" is that there is a high chance the person is one of those social engineers on another alt.
     
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  17. Thorgred

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    Again, this are only speculations

    Do you rly think the player numbers are that low because people do post negative stuff about the game?
     
    Last edited: Apr 18, 2018
  18. Hurricane

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    ugh... Steam charts are a great indicator of the games health.

    It tells us how many young players are interested in the game however I'm sure we are all aware this does not tell the entire story with player numbers.

    A few factors to consider:
    1. How many Players does SOTA need for it to continue.
    2. Old farts like myself signed up via the site and not steam however the young use steam exclusively with the occasional exception.
    3. The steam chart number that means everything is all time player count which at last check was 603. (if this number doesn't budge It can and will be used as a game health indicator).
    4. This game type is not on the popular list. competition games are all the rage right now like, PUBG & fortnight.
    5. If this game is not financially sound just remember the financial structure can change.
    6. Older Ultima Online player like myself cannot look at SOTA with rose colored glasses, I assume that the older UO player enjoy a rough game that requires a second life initiative for a game like this but keep in mind we need the young players and unfortunately the majority enjoy instant gratification and reward when playing online games today and SOTA is not that.

    So the big question we are all speculating on is will SOTA survive well, maybe. A tweak here, a tweak there it may or maybe not.

    In my opinion IF the game gets in trouble it should go free to play w/ limits of coarse with the option to buy. Allowing more people to fart around with the game freely may get some to stay.
     
  19. Cymek

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    I'll make this last post and crawl back into the shadows.

    We do have an idea on that. It is well known that a developer stated they needed around 50K active players to sustain the game (that number is reasonable and not suprising). We also know from a developer that the steam numbers are around 30% of the total. Let's take the all-time high number of 603. If that's around 30% of the pop, that means the peak has been around 1,809. Far far below 50K. 3 weeks into launch, peak numbers have not matched the land rush.

    Point was conceded in my second post.

    Agreed. You went from 149 average to 300. In this case, doubling doesn't amount to much since the base number was low. It was a small bump.

    Yep.

    From everything we know, and even just some common sense given the burn rate of the team, we know it's not enough for SOTA to continue to exist in its current state of development unless some other source of capital materializes.

    Announcements were made at several major outlets, MassivelyOP, MMORPG, PCGamer. I've seen SOTA ads daily on my Facebook feed. Over 60K backers were getting emails. Yet, it looks like around 450 additional people showed up for launch. I don't know how anybody can look at all of the facts that you and I agree on and make an argument that everything is fine.

    I'm not a hater who takes joy in the fact that this launch was more or less a non-event. I genuinely hope those 50K show up, and those who have invested time and money into SOTA can call the game home for years to come. I hope you all get the additional 4 episodes.

    That's all I have to say. Good luck everyone.
     
  20. Nelzie

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    There are so many more people in the game, not just in starting zones, than there were a few weeks before the game was launched. Let Portalarium worry about how many people are playing the game. If you like it, play it.

    If you are afraid of making a big money buy in... Fine. Wait it out, longer and longer and longer until you feel like a big money buy in, is something you want to do.

    It's better to focus on literally constructive criticism, this whole thread is a big pile of unverifiable speculation and is a waste of time.
     
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