attrib
Insane Carebear
Posts: 10
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Post by attrib on Feb 14, 2015 23:06:39 GMT
InsaneMembrane, I (still) read your blog posts with a lot of interest. Keep up the good work! Anyway, I hope you will write something about Portalarium's attempt to manipulate the Steam review score by asking the community to get their asses on Steam and vote positive. Because if they won't, according to Portalarium: they can't make the game how they want it to be: "... The not so good news is that some of them are giving us bad reviews. Just recently we dropped from Very Positive to Mostly Positive. Long term this will decrease the number of people who purchase our product on Steam and therefore will mean we will have less money to build this world we all want."Source: Update of the Avatar #112 - www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=48265For me this sounds like they FORCE their fanbase to vote positively. Even if their community has serious concerns about the game. Because yeah, you know, otherwise the community will not get the world they had planned. I find this terrible to read, just ridiculous. Other people (non-SotA backers) have the chance to buy and play the game through Steam (which is great). They buy the game and then play it. They can write a review about it or they won't. But if they decide to write a review it's still their honest opinion right? This is how reviews work, if you're looking for a great game, you want to find some info first. You want to read user experiences etc before you buy. But now you have some freakin' fanboys spam the review section with positive reviews because their overlords at Portalarium said them to do so. This is a fucking scam. This is just tricking people.
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attrib
Insane Carebear
Posts: 10
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Post by attrib on Feb 14, 2015 23:41:01 GMT
Yeah, while I can see their point of view, what they are asking people to do is potentially lie... and when a company has to do that, what does it say about them?!? Wow, didn't expect a reply on this board so fast. But yes, you're right. I think Portalarium is shitting their pants since they're on Steam. Something like a review section on Steam gives an overall idea of how your customers think about your product. Now that the review score of Shroud of the Avatar drops, it's hard for them to walk away from it. This is their attempt to fix the damage by asking the community for a (BIG) favour but I wonder if it will work out in the end. I think this is just the beginning of what will come. I think a shitstorm will hit Portalarium hard. And why they're on Steam you may ask? Their community is dedicated but too small to make big bucks of. They need Steam to distribute their game to a bigger (MMO/RPG) crowd. But the funny thing is: they CAN control their forum with their abusive mods, but they CAN'T control Steam. I think this is what they fear most.
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Post by Housewife Brittish on Feb 15, 2015 0:41:49 GMT
The only reason the game even has a higher rating like that in the first place is because of the developers suggestions to go give the game a positive review, just like they are doing now. The fanboys do as they are told and I know a lot of the fanboys have multiple alt accounts, so they can give multiple reviews. I wouldn't doubt if the team was exploiting the review system themselves by posting their own reviews. In the past on irc I caught onto fanboy players arranging to all give good reviews, recommending to others that they should too. Also think about all the reviews that got deleted, I'm sure that plays into the rating, I don't even know why steam would allow a company to take control of manipulating reviews, seems like a system just waiting to be abused like this.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Feb 15, 2015 0:44:56 GMT
I hear ya guys, I believe you shall see an article soon. Sometimes I like to let things stew in their own juices before posting, I'm just itching to watch that fucking thread get locked and or killed
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Post by Housewife Brittish on Feb 15, 2015 0:52:18 GMT
I also know that months ago someone that works at steam joined the community moderation team, or whatever they call themselves. I'm not sure if that person plays a part in what' going on with steam but when the person first joined up they seemed quite fanboyish, even though they aren't a boy, showing a lot of interest in helping the company.
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Post by Housewife Brittish on Feb 15, 2015 0:58:23 GMT
Just to make things a little more clear, I'm not sure if that person works for steam themselves, or is on a community manager role for a game on steam. I just remember the conversation about them saying they work on steam.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Feb 15, 2015 1:01:15 GMT
It makes sense for them to pull a unit out of steam in order to help them navigate and get all their shit straight.
Wait a second, did Portalarium just have some insight and take action before they made a move? Hmmm. Yeah probably did because it involved another 10% increase in pledges. I certainly don't like to think I had to pay for it as a pledger myself though. That isn't why I pledged.
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attrib
Insane Carebear
Posts: 10
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Post by attrib on Feb 15, 2015 1:53:59 GMT
I hear ya guys, I believe you shall see an article soon. Sometimes I like to let things stew in their own juices before posting, I'm just itching to watch that fucking thread get locked and or killed Yeh, I'm already screenshotting most of the thread. You'll never know. Some interesting posts: LAWL I also checked the Steam review section if people already got tricked by the overwhelming (fake) positive reviews. And yes, I was right, I found one: "At its current state i could not reccomend this game to anyone. The lack of any voice dialog in 2015 is just stupid. The game has a terrible interface and just irretating textbox tool tips like it was the 90´s. I regret buying this based on review, I really dont know what game they are playing. Animations are also some of the worst i have ever seen."
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Feb 15, 2015 2:03:34 GMT
What do you think would happen at this point if they provided an Offline demo to mess with before playing or buying
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Post by Housewife Brittish on Feb 15, 2015 2:13:32 GMT
The person I was speaking of conveniently came into the scene a little before they decided to launch onto steam. It's hard not to maybe get the thought that they had something to do with the decision.
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Post by Mordecai on Feb 15, 2015 15:56:29 GMT
Kudos to Kuno for an excellent post.
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Post by kb on Feb 15, 2015 17:35:41 GMT
Kudos to Kuno for an excellent post. Thanks, but at this point I'm just a fool who is pissing in the wind. I've made all kinds of stupid choices in the past, probably many of which IM and others here would rightly crucify me for, and I stupidly cling to the belief that Port can be reasoned with and brought to see the error of their ways. I have this crazy notion that tough love is better than endless praises about how they can do no wrong too. Guess I'm just some self-righteous, Bible-thumping activist (inferred from Isaiah's posts), so wtf do I know anyway? Still, what I'm "ranting" about in that thread isn't even that serious, but I'm just sickened by people's reaction to the request and how they are falling all over themselves to worship at an altar of a stagnant pool... I really take exception to Starr requesting positive reviews from LOYAL backers and that shit rubs me the wrong way. The sycophancy (and way it is encouraged over there) makes me want to hurl. I guess if someone isn't "Loyal" (whatever the fuck that *REALLY* means), and/or has a "negative" review to post, then fuck them...
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Feb 16, 2015 0:34:17 GMT
Kudos to Kuno for an excellent post. Thanks, but at this point I'm just a fool who is pissing in the wind. I've made all kinds of stupid choices in the past, probably many of which IM and others here would rightly crucify me for, and I stupidly cling to the belief that Port can be reasoned with and brought to see the error of their ways. I have this crazy notion that tough love is better than endless praises about how they can do no wrong too. Guess I'm just some self-righteous, Bible-thumping activist (inferred from Isaiah's posts), so wtf do I know anyway? Still, what I'm "ranting" about in that thread isn't even that serious, but I'm just sickened by people's reaction to the request and how they are falling all over themselves to worship at an altar of a stagnant pool... I really take exception to Starr requesting positive reviews from LOYAL backers and that shit rubs me the wrong way. The sycophancy (and way it is encouraged over there) makes me want to hurl. I guess if someone isn't "Loyal" (whatever the fuck that *REALLY* means), and/or has a "negative" review to post, then fuck them...
Hehe, I don't think you are a fool but we are all pissing in the wind at this point. NOT IN THE FACE!! If I would have seen too much from you, I would have mentioned you by now It is more the power mungers and people who feel as if they are outright better than everyone else or their opinion carries more weight because of whatever reason. I thought the same thing for a while about saving SotA, that reason could be reached on some issues which is why I was trying to do what I was and am doing. Pretty clear how this is all going to go at this point though!
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Post by kb on Feb 16, 2015 2:14:22 GMT
Hehe, I don't think you are a fool but we are all pissing in the wind at this point. NOT IN THE FACE!! If I would have seen too much from you, I would have mentioned you by now It is more the power mungers and people who feel as if they are outright better than everyone else or their opinion carries more weight because of whatever reason. I thought the same thing for a while about saving SotA, that reason could be reached on some issues which is why I was trying to do what I was and am doing. Pretty clear how this is all going to go at this point though! Meh, I've done plenty of stupid shit that makes me pretty uncomfortable calling them out (or anybody else) because I realize what a derpy fuck-up I can be at times. But yeah, I'm pretty much at the "abandoning all hope ye who enter here" stage of things by now after seeing the Steam Review and bank slot shit. I will admit, though, that it warmed my old stoneheart to see who it was who looked into my dangerously profane and aggressive content and laid some smack down on me Mystic started a conversation with you: "Inappropriate Behavior"
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Feb 16, 2015 2:31:19 GMT
Hehehe, I thought Mystic was keeping a low profile. But I've seen him posting again in increasing numbers. Looks like he rez'd, time for me to put on my Haly of Vanquishing and go PK the little nub again sometime soon.
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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Feb 17, 2015 4:32:22 GMT
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Post by Gunga_Din on Feb 17, 2015 4:42:00 GMT
Eye opener for many there. Chris should just keep his mouth shut, to be honest. He does no good commenting on anything.
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Post by kb on Feb 17, 2015 20:27:00 GMT
Eye opener for many there. Chris should just keep his mouth shut, to be honest. He does no good commenting on anything. I understand why he's disappointed, I'd be disappointed too... But, they clearly don't understand why we are disappointed and it's sadly hilarious to watch a lot of people railing against this Steam Review request and Port acting like they weren't warned ahead of time by the few of us who immediately cried foul. The negative reaction of some backers, and sycophantic reaction of others, was extremely predictable (hence why I originally wrote a big FU to them all in that thread), but they want to live in fantasy land and not give one shit about the tone or word choice of these types of requests, so dealing with the fallout is on them...... It's clear that they just don't get how to do something like this with any tact.... If they are having trouble with Steam reviews, and if they want to bump the rating back up to keep sales good, then Starr should have got on the forums, identified the problem, and then ASKED the community what WE think should be done about it. Put solving issues like this in our hands!! After all, having some ownership in the process is what many people were interested in when backing this game (i.e., having an influence and hand in making the game -- I guess even including dealing with stupid shit like reviews on Steam). A post like this would be many times better than what was posted (and included in the update): Of course, plenty of snarky people will respond with comments like "fix combat, more SP info, stop with the microtransactions you greedy bastards!" (all fine suggestions, in fact), but plenty of "loyal" water carriers will step up on their own accord and suggest leaving positive reviews on Steam to counteract the negative reviews. It will feel more organic and a lot less solicited, and it lets everybody walk away feeling like a shred of their dignity is still intact. Instead, we get all these posts about how if you really care about the game succeeding, writing a positive review is almost like your patriotic duty or some bullshit. After this suggestion that people leave positive reviews emerges from the community (not directly from a dev), THEN and only then could Starr quote one of those replies and say It would still be kinda shady, kinda scummy, but it would have allowed people to express their initial thoughts on an idea like that without the pressure of it coming from a dev. Allowing an idea to emerge organically and to let the COMMUNITY propose a solution (or not) is the way to go. That's why I never said or had any problems with Myrcello's similar request/reasoning, because he was a backer (and it was up to people to agree or disagree without overt pressure from the official channels). If people left reviews because of that, fine. If they didn't, oh well. But at least it wasn't a dev making a distinction between backers by addressing "our LOYAL backers" (vs. what... your disloyal backers/the "trolls" maybe???), and then coaching them to write POSITIVE reviews based on explicit details about how reviews work on steam (and how there was a need to improve the game's slipping rating). It's frustrating that Port is really good at identifying potential problems like bad reviews on Steam leading to lower sales (and less funding), but they SUCK at knowing how to correctly utilize the "crowd-sourced" part of their precious ecosystem in a way that leaves people's integrity intact and doesn't come across as overt coaching to subvert an algorithm on Steam. I also think they spend too much time encouraging stuff like these positive steam reviews, or participation in stupid polls on "industry" websites (though I imagine the little award bylines on their page sells the game better), all which is time they could spend actually INTERFACING with the community, releasing asset packs, bringing back Q+A, actually releasing short, interesting videos every once and awhile about new content, "meet the dev", new systems or whatever.
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Joviex
Strong in the Force
PERMABANNED
Posts: 123
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Post by Joviex on Feb 18, 2015 1:05:10 GMT
Eye opener for many there. Chris should just keep his mouth shut, to be honest. He does no good commenting on anything. then Starr should have got on the forums, identified the problem, and then ASKED the community what WE think should be done about it. Put solving issues like this in our hands!! After all, having some ownership in the process is what many people were interested in when backing this game (i.e., having an influence and hand in making the game -- I guess even including dealing with stupid shit like reviews on Steam). That is the exactly level of involvement I thought would be present in DEV+ since the start. I never expected to design entire sub-systems from the forums, but I did expect inclusion in the process of deciding. They don't even come close to leveraging anything along those lines, hence, 2 years in, it feels like an utter waste of time, and, especially money now, for a lot of those that wanted participation. Now, throw all that to the side, because they never promised "participation" per se, its just something they could do to heal major parts of this "community". They did promise a look at the development process. I dont consider sitting along the side of the road, waiting for the next monthly water truck to roll by and drop off a new build much looking at the process. That is simply paying for beta (whoops that is from 2000), alpha (whoops, that is so 2007), pre-alpha bandwagon, welcome to STEAM and 2014.
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Post by kb on Feb 18, 2015 21:01:12 GMT
Yep. While it's development is hardly perfect, I was expecting something more like Star Citizen's " The Next Great Starship" contest, or its polls that decide stuff like common questions about player names... There's the stretch goals that allow for unlocking of new star systems where players normally have some influence over choosing the new system's name too, if I'm not mistaken.... I realize some of that stuff wouldn't work for SotA (with its SP emphasis), but we still could have a lot more input about things than we currently do.
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Post by kb on Feb 21, 2015 0:30:56 GMT
This was posted by Dallas on the forums in the (now) locked thread.... (and he also left a link on the steam review that I posted): We obviously kicked a hornets nest when we asked our backers to help us out with a positive review on Steam. Some of the posters on this thread feel that we are trying to deceptively manipulate the Steam review system. That we are purposely trying to present false information in order to trick Steam members into backing the development of SotA with their purchase. Your indignation is completely understandable. I'm sure I would feel the same way if I had those same beliefs. But nothing could be further from the truth. A crowdfunded game lives or dies by word-of-mouth. Without a marketing budget, our only source of marketing is our community. It is our job to rally our community in any way we can to help us market the game, to get the word out there. We are committed to making SotA the best game we possibly can, and raising money for development is essential to this goal. With every extra nickle that we raise, we increase the quality and content of the game, so rest assured that we will never stop trying to raise more money. And we will never, ever, stop asking our community of backers to help us evangelize the game that we believe so passionately in. Some of you may feel we are being deceptive and disingenuous by asking our community to put in a good word for the game. Although I can understand why you might feel this way, and we respect your right to feel that way, we completely disagree with that assessment. We are not selling a finished game. We are selling pledges toward the development costs of an unfinished game. We have attempted to make that as clear as possible on our website and on Steam. Although Steam doesn't use the terminology "pledges" as we do on the SotA website, it is clearly defined by Steam's own words on our Store Page that this is not a finished game and should not be judged or evaluated as a finished game: We further tried to drive that point home with the description we wrote for our Steam Store Page: Some of you have posted that you feel you were deceived into buying SotA on Steam because you were tricked into it by all the deceptively positive reviews that you believe we asked our backers to write for the game. I can see how you might feel that way given your understanding of the situation. But the truth of the matter is, we already had 216 positive reviews and 54 negative reviews before we ever asked our backers to put in a good word for the game on Steam. We never asked for those 216 positive reviews. They were freely given by people that are knowledgeable of the Steam review process and participate in it of their own accord. So 80% of our reviews were already positive, and completely unsolicited, and cannot be construed as the result of any deceptive requests by this dev team. It is unfortunate that any of you may feel deceived by these genuine and unsolicited reviews. It is important to understand that we had over 40,000 backers before we ever launched on Steam, and a great many of those backers are not Steam users and don't even know that there is such a thing as a Steam review process, much less how to even do it. And most of these backers feel positively about SotA, either in it's current state or what they expect it to become (or both). Because we live or die by our word-of-mouth marketing, it is essential that we educate our non-Steam community about how they can help spread the good word about SotA by sharing their thoughts and feelings with a Steam review. And if they are Steam users and already familiar with the Steam review process, then we needed to remind them that we need their help in championing and evangelizing this game that we are working very diligently to build. If anyone thinks, that in order to be "fair" or "ethical" that we should also ask backers that don't like the game to go give us a negative review on Steam, then we will just have to politely and respectfully disagree. Why in the world would we want to have backers go give our unfinished, pre-Alpha game a negative review? That would just be suicidal, and against the best interests of this game and against the best interests of everyone that helped fund the development of this game. We have no problems with backers giving us a negative review, but we are not going to ask them to go do it. Instead, we are going to educate those backers that feel positively about the game about how they can help grow the game with their positive word-of-mouth marketing with tools such as the Steam review process. We never have, and never will, ask any of our backers to be deceptive, to lie for this game, to misrepresent this game, or to share feelings that they don't actually feel. Starr pointed out in this thread that you are free to express your concern in your review or just not review us. And as I wrote in last week's Update of the Avatar: ...if you feel positive about SotA, or feel positive about what SotA may become, even if you have concerns and issues, then please jump over to our Steam Store Page and give us a positive review (and feel free to include your concerns and issues in that review as well)! Our position is that if you feel positive about what SotA is or may become, then please give us a positive review. We didn't say give us a positive review even if you don't like the game. Our job is to rally our supporters to champion the game, that is one of our primary responsibilities to this game and to our backers, and rest assured, that we will continue in our efforts to promote genuine and authentic positive word-of-mouth marketing, through every mechanism available to us.
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Post by ChodeKillers on Feb 21, 2015 2:33:00 GMT
dallas is the same lying dipshit who lawyered his way around the meaning of "exclusive" when it came to the exclusive kickstarter only rewards that were sold for an entire year. fuck him!
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Post by Mordecai on Feb 21, 2015 7:04:48 GMT
Heehee... Dallas... "You thought we were trying to bork Steam reviews... and you'd be right to think that... because, basically, we were...!" To be fair, the exact quote is, "That we are purposely trying to present false information in order to trick Steam members into backing the development of SotA with their purchase. Your indignation is completely understandable." In the same words, but with the word "indignation" expanded to its definition, "That we are purposely trying to present false information in order to trick Steam members into backing the development of SotA with their purchase. Your 'anger caused by something that is unfair or wrong' is completely understandable." Alright stranger, you got me (Nobark Noonan FONV!1!)- I guess that is the same thing more or less, but he goes on to disagree with that- even though... he said it.. *sigh* you know what? Never mind.
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