Let it Raine!

If you'll notice, I think the following post, the original poster almost apologizes for the response AR gave. You are 100% right, almost all critiques are accompanied by a preemptive apology or also mentioning a positive of some sort, however small. 'Sure, you're selling items we thought we'd be able to craft, and that's got us in a tizzy. The crafting tables sure do look like wood though hoo boy, great job team!'

The apologetic behavior you're seeing is typical of victims of abusive relationships. I think that's really what we have going on here.

Yup. I've mentioned it before as Stockholm Syndrome. So has kb:
shroudunlimited.boards.net/thread/94/player-owned-exclusive-design-proposal

Here is my take on that kind of behavior. These are people, who generally speaking, were raised in authoritarian homes that were probably also religious, and if they ever brought up anything negative to their parents, they'd get smacked hard. So they learned to cushion their words. And now they look to Portalarium as the all-knowing and powerful parent. But the thing is, it's a bunch of guys that have their own personal issues, and want to be spoken to in the same ways as an authoritarian parent. Otherwise guess what? You get kicked out of the house suckers.

Ok, enough psychobabble.

I love the concept of a player being able to operate their own town and design it. I have no idea how its feasible in a game without driving the playerbase further and further apart. There are 264+(?) total towns now, between PoTs and the NPC towns. Its really spreading your playerbase thin. I wanted cities to feel like bustling little towns with activity, much like UO did. Lots of people surrounding important buildings gave those cities and towns a remarkable sense of life. From my experience in UO, I didn't even visit a lot of the few cities that were in that game. I found my few favorites and those are basically where I stayed the vast majority of the time.

My guess is they came up with an idea to earn a lot more cash because they, in fact, needed a lot more cash. It wasn't thought out well in advance because nothing they do feels like its thought out well in advance. I think there was, at some point, an 'oh shit, this is actually going to be a lot of work!' moment, and they had to start reeling in expectations and dragging out he entire PoT creation process.

Thanks for your post. I figured it was something along these lines (especially given Envy's posts and some of the others that showed Port had been taking their sweet time giving you any info or a feasible ETA for the things you were expecting).

I just hope you can better understand why I reacted the way I did all those months ago when Starr was "pleased to announce" that Port would be offering custom POTs.

When they first announced POTs, people were psyched and let their imaginations run wild. People took note of the "consult with a dev" promise and after a long time passed without any sign of how this would work, or how POTs would work, people started posting questions on the forum and even basic sketches (and sometimes very elaborate sketches) of what they wanted their POTs to look like.

I recall people like Lord Baldrith drawing up a nice layout and dreaming up an "ice/magical" themed village (or maybe it was a hamlet). I recall Rufus D'Aspardi (or however it's spelled) asking time and time again for more info about buildings, NPCs, ANYTHING to do with POTs (and he frequently grumbled about how the devs just refused to give any details or clarifications about POTs despite repeated questions). Then, I remember Port changing the "consult with a dev" feature to include an * that explained the POT customization would amount to little more than selecting features from a template (essentially picking from drop down menus on a web form). And yet, STILL, there was no clarification or answer for people who wondered very simple and specific things about how their POTs would work. Worse yet, they told all the people who had been making forum posts, drawing up layout plans, and asking questions to please stop posting that kind of stuff and asking them questions about POTs, and promised that Port would contact them when they had more details.

So, when it was announced in Dev+ that they would start rolling out custom POTs for $10k-$15k and I saw that it was the result of a high dollar backer using facetime with Starr, I blew a gasket... because, just as you have identified with various features like cross-promotional pledge rewards, or 25 more add-on items getting added despite other long ago made promises remaining outstanding, it was just another example in my eyes of Port promising something to one group, then just losing focus and ignoring that group and jumping at the next big money opportunity that came along....

I hope you understand that despite the vitriol I have hurled at you, and despite my misgivings about how exactly you went about working to have your custom POT included in the game, I do not hate you and I actually admire the creativity and vision it took to come up with such an idea. It's just that you associated yourself with a bigger problem (i.e., feature creep) and your case seemed to epitomize just how easily Port forgoes their earlier promises and commitments to spear the next big whale.

I hope now you can understand how it was unfair to all the POT owners who had sat for MONTHS in the dark, wondering and waiting for some clarification (and seeing the promise of "consult with a dev" changed to "fill out a web form and select from a template"), that somebody who paid more than them would get more specifics and dev attention than they had received after months of waiting patiently.

And yes, most of the people here are not fans of how POTs have taken time away from core features that were promised in the KS, and a few even think that what happened to POT owners was comeuppance, but I don't. I think it was just another example of b.s. on a long list of shady business by Port. POT owners deserved better, backers in general deserved better (SP fans, crafters, pvp players, etc.). And those of us who didn't agree with Starr's "Steam Review Request" deserved better (a big part of the negative reviews at that time were complaining about feature creep and how the game was stagnating, but Port was still pumping out items for the add-on store like there was no tomorrow).

IDK where I am going with this, but I do hope you recoup your money and I applaud your choice to refund people beyond their initial purchase price. I also hope you can understand better now why some of us here are so bitter and disappointed. We ALL have our unique causes and sources of disappointment. The worst part about it is that when we tried to bring these items up in a civil manner, they were wholly ignored (or marginalized), up to the point that some of us finally exploded and earned ourselves a kick in the ass out the door.

Anyway, I am glad you saw reason before sinking even more money and time into this Titanic. Who knows, maybe the game will still be successful in spite of so many of these issues, but Port has squandered most of the goodwill many of its most ardent supporters brought to this project. People like Joviex (with tangible skills they did and were willing to lend the project) were banned for calling Starr on his B.S., people like Caliya have been raising important points from the beginning (despite being outnumbered and singled out by the "pod") and were banned as well. I started grumbling in a more civil manner, but I am not one to brook bullshit for long, and when I earned my ban I was more proud of it than anything I ever could have contributed to the game, because I felt at least I was leaving this mess with my head held high (and I had said my piece and they could take it or leave it).

Like you said before though, they simply don't care. As Argyle mentioned before (talking about RG exit interviewing people who leave the game), if Port even offered the smallest of olive branches to many of us at various points during our path toward the darkside, things might have turned out much differently. But instead, they just ignored the problem and hoped it would go away (leaving the wounds to fester), and then when the issue boiled over, they just kicked us to the curb and in my cases (like mine), left me "temporarily" forum banned for 3-4 weeks until I finally got so fed up with things that I earned my permanent forum ban there and on the Steam forums (again, simply for being honest and calling it like I saw it when I called out Katrina for being a right said elitist bastard toward some random poster on Steam).

Oh well. Sorry things did not work out for you, Blake. But, in my eyes, you are better off now than you would have been if you stuck with that confidence game and kept deluding yourself that their shit really smelled like roses. Good on your for having integrity beyond what most do and I admire how you didn't allow "sunk cost fallacy" and Port's manufactured sense of "urgency" to manipulate your emotions into supporting something that doesn't deserve your talent or vision.

FWIW, sorry for the insults and anger I have hurled at you. It is just my way to be very "black" or "white" and at this point (I can almost hear Mordecai talking about Siths and absolutes right about now), but I view nearly everybody who still carries water for Port as little more than sycophantic, servile toadies who are too cowardly to do the right thing and grow a spine and speak truth to power. Puppets on a string, every last one of 'em. Glad to see you weren't one. Good on you.

...

I completely understand wanting to cover yourself. I do feel though, as people are sinking thousands of dollars into the project, that it is important to be as open and honest as possible, even if its not done publicly. You seem to be a level headed guy though, so I'm sure you will make the decision that's both right for you and right for members of the community.

I also hope your posting here and your exit doesn't brand you as it has many of the others here. The opinions expressed here are often labeled invalid solely because they've been expressed here and not on merit.

In regards to the amount you invested in relation to the lack of progress made with it, I think it's sadly evidence of the poor project management taking place. I don't think they are crooks and I don't think this is a scam. I think it's painfully obvious backer dollars are not being used efficiently and the worst part is it is defended in the community. PR gestures like publicly stating they were moving offices themselves to make the best use of backer dollars help mask all of this and people eat it up.

I thought Ashlynn was a devout supporter of Port before (maybe my memory is wrong), but it appears she is dissatisfied about some aspects as well


She also posted this in another one of those 'Hey, here's some more shit you should sell us!' feedback threads

and this nice little exchange:

I don't think she was. If I remember correctly, she was pretty supportive of a lot of my criticisms (which were many of yours, too, back when we had that massive PM going lol).

Funny thing was, the whole intent of that PM (there were 5 or 6 of us, dewd recruited me in) was to try to influence the game in a positive way. We disagreed with the way combat worked and wanted to come up with a constructive way to be critical of the system in an honest way. I eventually left the group, only because my distaste for the game as a whole had already driven me to sell off my account and dewd and the others in the group were genuinely trying to address ways to make the game better.

They did address combat around then, only after they had the hangout where they said 'oh, that old thing, we haven't worked on that in 6 months'. The changes, as I see them in streams, are useless. Card combat, as it is applied to this game, is a monstrosity.

I was looking up what ever happened to Ask Jeeves/Ask.com earlier, out of curiosity. There was this line from it, criticizing what they did to utterly lose their place as a popular search engine, and it reminded me fully of the shit with SotA:
Sound familiar?

I always remembered Ashlynn as level headed and never being forceful or confrontational. She "liked" many of my posts over the 2 years I was there. I don't think she was posting a lot though.

I got PM'd a lot with people saying they supported what I said(Calico was not my name on there, shocking I know) and how they wondered why the whales got away with things.

Joviex leaving really messed with my ability to deal with the overall development of the game.

The sad thing is I think PoT's is where the illusions really started to fail...they stated they made PoT's because we all demanded them. I never once asked for them and I sure as hell did not say make them with no rules and let there be mini kingdoms throughout the game that I can play slave too.

Bah, this just pisses me off.