Trust and Doing the Right Thing (regarding Early Founder Pledge Gifts/Transfers)

Please don't spread misinformation. Credit or real cash applied to your pledges cannot be spent in any way on the cash shop. You can however take items you bought at the cash shop and trade it in for credit twords your pledge. Never the other way around. So in all, no we are not making money.

 

Oh own it. You're playing the system and you know it just like the others on the marketplace forum. But it's not in breach of the established rules so you don't need to defend yourself.

Still, I'd rather only get referral credit for actually... referring people to the game. But we all draw our line in different places.

 

$25.00 is going towards your account. That's money.

 

Yes i do own it, not sure how i wasn't owning up to it, hell i even advertise for the service. If Portalarium wishes to give me a virtual bonus to my pledge for bringing in more money to the game then i will GLADLY accept it and have said it many times.

My problem is when people put down a system in place just because they have a misunderstanding of the system. i try to correct those misunderstandings especially when they refer to Portalarium in a negative manner.

 

It can't be used in the add-on store, it is only added to our current pledge. For me thus far it has done absolutely nothing to get me anywhere. I still need another $450 to get to the next tier. once April gets here, and it's fast approaching, I'll likely have to spend additional money I hadn't planned on. so they are making even more money that way. It doesn't cost them anything because everything is virtual for the next tier. It's a win for them. and I do get some new stuff for doing it too.

 

You also get placement within your tier for the land grab even if you don't reach your goal of moving to the next tier which in my opinion is fundamentally wrong on Portalarium's part because as soon as the floodgates opened with the revelation of how the referral system can grant Founder status, opportunists (not judging here) have been able to exploit that full hilt. (yeah, yeah, it's not an exploit; it's a feature)

That's been my beef towards this whole fiasco. It's not about Founder differentiation or Founder status addition or digital trinkets.

Also, this creation of the player marketplace for the purpose of selling referrals (even at a loss to sellers) is dubious, but if the marketplace must exist for these purposes, then Portalarium needs to sanction the sale of accounts and the tiers associated with them in favor of the sellers as well.

 

Good point.

 

No mater what you do, not everyone can be satisfied. I have a very strong moral compass and if I had felt that this was wrong then I wouldn't do it. I get a reward for bringing more money into the game, weather they see it as fair or not is up to them, weather they decide to jump in a reap the benefits is up to them.

My point is, we are using a system in a way it was meant. I am bringing in more money for SotA and spending a little myself. No matter how people look at it, that is what it is. And as if complaining about it on a forum is helping any.

 

I consider my moral pass strong also.
Strange that i do not agree with you.

Time to move on.

 

What is strange is how you disagree to the fact that I help bring more money to the game and get rewarded for it. But i guess you are right, it is time to move on.

 

I must... consider my sins.. (<3 UO)

 

This is an abuse of the system.
1. They have to be gifts. You don't ask for cash from someone to buy them a gift.
2. The referral $25 is for getting new backers. Not manipulating the system to allow existing backers to benefit.
3. Benefactors should not be allowed to merge their pledges into one Founder account.
New Tiers, Add-Ons, and the Layaway Plan!

We are currently designing the new tiers for brand new backers, and should have those available by end-of-day Sunday, April 14th, at the conclusion of our current one-week grace period. It is our intention for all Kickstarter backers to be able to purchase/upgrade to both the previous tiers (pending availability of limited tiers), and the new tiers, whereas new backers after April 14th will only have access to the new tiers.

It means if 10 backers with lots of spare $$ decide to gift each other pledges of $40 each for $400 they will get $650 added to their pledges.
It may emerge later that any money above one tier but below the next can be used through the conversion program they are working on, can be used in the add on shop.

 

Moral compass...what a coincidence. That's who contacted me after I indicated I didn't want to offer $15 SoTA pledges to resellers.

 

I would say this looks like a separate private campaign was running while the Original kickstarter campaign was still active, and making promises outside of the kickstarter rules.
I'm not concerned with what a few may or may not have wanted and neither should Portalarium have been, my pledge and thousands more were made because of the kickstarter promises anything that was stated outside of the campaign cannot be used to dilute the original Kickstarter promises to those backers that ended and locked on April 7th 2013.

 

We've had 4,000 new pledges since april 7th 2013. compared to around 23,000 on april 7th 2013. I don't feel like it's really diluting our value because a small number get the same rewards we did. Most of them would have pledged if they had known about it at the time of kickstarter.

I'm hoping that this new drive actually does bring more people in to back it early, I'm hoping now that they can get founder status they are going to throw more money at the game.

Would you have been upset if during kickstarter we had 50,000 backers diluting your value? Word has spread much further now about the game, and it would have been wonderful if their kickstarter got the attention the game is getting now. They have a couple more months to sign on and hopefully we'll have a whole new batch of backers to help fund the game.


You can keep saying but i was here first! I heard about it before they did! I made the deadline, they didn't! I think it's better to welcome our fellow backers and acknowledge that they are also taking a risk backing a game without knowing if the end product will be great or not. Just hoping that it will.

 

I am cured. After 15 minutes typing and deleting i was able not to respond to this.

Grin

 

People being made up to founder then going on a recruiting spree to rake in $25 credit for each benefactor plus
1 recruit = You and every backer you recruit will receive a unique, unteachable emote! Only recruiters and recruits will ever have this emote.

• 5 recruits = a special, unique, hunting dog pet. (Available only through recruiting!)
• 10 recruits = A Darkstarr Moondial

When to be an actual founder your first pledge needs to be in kickstarter campaign, not some gift 1 year later. They are not new recruits they are already backers.
How many have you recruited since being made up to a founder.

Any benefactor can now decide to use their new founder status to receive rewards that will become some of the fames rarest items.
I'd say that's an exploit that's needs stopping and all the new deals cancelled.

 

I think we can put this thread to rest now. Sleep well old boy.

 

Not discounting your frustrations about this issue, but even I'd have to say that's an unreasonable and extreme outcome. The amount of time and effort needed to backtrack every pledge to date, along with the logistical headaches and resulting drama from both sides would probably threaten to consume this game before it gets going. Continuing to move backwards only holds up the development team from spending valued time towards getting to release.

Royal Founders (which would be you, if you pledged pre-May 2013) are being rightfully recognized and honored with unique rewards as per Darkstarr's posting in the last Update #59. I can definitely understand this issue will continue to rankle some folks, regardless of efforts already made, but we're less than 2 months now from it becoming a closed moot point.

 

All I have to do is create a new user account, and I could ask someone else in the forums (who has already backed the game) to also start a new user account. We know for a fact this has happened, but not with just one user account, but with multiple. We could gift each other and get additional perks, that we could then use in various ways - either to make real money (because you know people will sell these things - people have already tried in the Marketplace. Just because those posts have been deleted does not mean this activity will stop). It's a ridiculously terrible idea to allow this to continue. All for the sake of earning game development dollars. A questionable practice at best.

The idea is not hammered to death. They need to know this gross abuse of "allowed" game strategies is corruption at its finest, and they should stop and think long & hard before doing this. It is ruining the game, and I believe it's ruining their chances of getting more real backers than they otherwise would have. There are other decisions they made that fall in the same category.

I would think they would've had double the number of real backers by now. I know that PvP and housing are the 2 main issues that have either drawn or kept people away. The fact they have not come back and stated they are or are not going to sell in-game gold for real dollars is a message all on its own. I'd say these issues have kept more people away than drawn them.

When you allow this kind of behavior, it only leads downhill. People say "move forward, don't look back," but they keep repeating the past mistakes. If you keep chasing people away, you simply can't move forward.

Edit: In the end, if all these extra user accounts inflate game backing, we may find the only people left are the ones who inflated it.