I don't give a fuck about you ! I have housing ! hahahah

More people needed to speak out sooner as I did in 2013. My fears come to pass and every day it seems that Shroud of the Avatar gets more irredeemable and the divide grows greater. Immersion is great, when you can get some of the 99% to feel like they are 1% in the game itself. Well fucking done Dallas, you are the MAN bro, YEAHH.

Guise, cmon now. It's still per-lapha after all.

I wouldn't expect anything less from a hairy 300 pound cross-dressing guy who roles plays a lolita called Lollie.

If I still had my mega pledge, the only thing I would be concerned with are the number of low level backers ($40) that are still interested in playing after release and attracting new people at that level.

If ou don't have people = no mmo = my house and pledge are worthless.

Let me put it another way.  As of Now, I Gunga Din have ZERO desire to even play the game.  If I, without housing, have no interest, then what do you think other knowledgeable gamers/backers will do?  

The world is just gonna be occupied by those that have housing, so your player base will be so tiny, it won't be able to sustain SotA past 6 months.  Episodes 2,3,4,5?  Are u joking ?  

Now that the updated (non-Steam) data was shared in one of the recent updates, I think I can point out something that other people in Dev+ noticed.

This is condensed and paraphrased (smack is who posted this stuff originally). I might get banned for sharing this, but whatever... it's something anybody could conclude from the data they've publicly shared:

1. 9% of those who own homes have provided 61% of the total funds.
2. 18% of new/upgraded backers (or 3% of total backers) provided 77% of additional funds since last year.
3. ^This was similar to the numbers shared last time, when 11% of new/upgraded (or 4% of total backers) provided 62% of the additional funds since the KS ended.
4. The tiny minority of home owners is still the largest majority source of ongoing funding for this game.

So, a big question is just how many of these backers are "new" and how many are current backers who are upgrading pledges... I would guess most of the funding boost is coming from existing backers (with a few latecomers possibly pledging large pledges as well).

The fact that the few who own housing are the ones bankrolling everything probably has a lot to do with how the game continues to really push MMO side of thing and cater to a more... "The Sims"/Second Life kind of crowd (I say that despite the fact that I probably fall into this "carebear" kind of crowd)...

What amazed me was how many people on the forums seemed happy that so few people accounted for so much of the funding, but I found it just indicates what most of us already know: this game caters to whales and there is no incentive for it to change the path it is on (because every measure they make seems to be pointing to this cash shop nonsense being financially viable).


Of course, in SotA's case, it's not even F2P... so, you can spend $45 to enjoy both the honor of being nickel and dimed by Port and the privilege of being lorded over by sycophantic fanboys. Fee-to-Pay, indeed! (props to the poster who posted all of these Jim Sterling videos in some SotA thread... might've been Asguard, or even Joviex... sry can't remember for sure).

It is. The only thing that would save this game from F2P with enless "new lands" with flat open housing is a man-like PvP system, open world, and good combat. So we can say goodbye to that almost two years ago now. If it had a few of those, I would buy my own player own town and lay waste to every hat collector in the game, their friends, houses, and PoTs also

Even though I think the row lots and houses were a good idea, I found it extremely odd that they just threw them in months after people have already been pledging. When coming into this game at first most people were trying to hit citizen or higher just to get a house. I was one of those people but I would of gladly took a row lot and house over pledging all the way up to citizen. So they basically just rubbed this bad decision in everyone that already pledged for a house's face, obviously didn't even give a shit or think that some people might get pissed. Some top notch business ethics right there.

Something I want to know is what are the people that have low pledges, 20 bank slots suppose to do with all these hats as we continue to earn them each release? they sure would take up a lot of room in the bank when only having 20 slots and judging by how slow this game is being developed, we could easily obtain 20 hats. Are these people expected to carry around all these hats in their backpack?

The Dev+∞ forum, Dirk "in the back" Starr referred to the in-game bank upgrades as "INSANE". He left out such adjective in the General forum thread. What a Dip-lomat and all around nice guy.

That's why I bolded the last part of the Raph Koster stuff on whales. It's obvious they are going to bend everything they can to where not having a house and limited bank space is going to be so much "less attractive" than pledging enough to secure those kinds of "perks" that people will be compelled to take these "affordable" (and not-so affordable) shortcuts.... Port is banking on this and the game is clearly going to funnel people toward pledging/buying a house and/or expanded bank slots via cash shop at every fucking turn. You guys are right to point out the "rare" hats could easily take up these 20 starting inventory spaces that the lowest pledge levels would start the game with (if Port sticks with their initial plans).



The part Port ignores is where Koster mentions that "since a free-to-play player makes the purchase decision one purchase at a time, the base experience has to be good enough for them to consider paying at all"

There are real doubts about whether SotA's base experience will be "good enough" for many segments of its playerbase, especially its lower dollar backers. After all, what fucking incentive is there to buy these cash shop trinkets and pay for the "advantage" of housing, expanded bank slots, etc. if it's only going to support a game that is stacked against you to the point that you are fucked if you refuse to cough up more and more cash after already spending your initial $45? Many people don't trust that the game will be successful because they fear shit like punitively limited banking will create a "king of an empty world" scenario that Gunga Din mentions. And, don't forget, Koster is talking about a well-made, popular, and fun free-to-play game, not some $45, buy-to-pay, perpetually "pre-alpha" Barbie Dreamhouse clusterfuck of a mess aka: Forsaken Virtues (because there has never been a more accurate title in the history of gaming)... So, it's even worse and more audacious that SotA asks for what it does up front, because you're promised your $45 buys you a complete gaming experience (and that you wont' be nickel and dimed), but then they still upsell the shit out of everybody and sells advantage so unabashedly that you are branded some kind of heretic to their cause if you even question their penny-wise, pound-foolish nonsense.



They also are totally oblivious and clueless when it comes to the ability of people to stomach this "pay for an advantage" sleaze....
"The moment the operator is perceived as overly grasping, the player can simply walk away or refuse to pay."

How many fucking posts and complaints have people made where they talk about "pay 2 win"/"pay for an advantage"/"cash shop" madness? What is Port's response to these criticisms and concerns? They double-down on the bullshit and carve up their game even more, selling us limited bank slots "because every other game does it" (and, as you know, they'll probably sell us the ability to move forward next)...

"Maybe by the end of this generation, we'll be able to spend another $60 and we won't even have to install the fucking game to beat it! GODDAMNIT!!! FUCK!!!!!1111!!1!11"



"That means you re-convert customers at every upsell, which is an inherent safety valve against abusive practices." <---What Port totally ignores about this kind of market is that with every upsell, customer have a choice to buck the system and tell them to go get fucked. They are way too brazen and cavalier with how they ram stuff through that is detrimental to the game and its community. Instead, they only see what is immediately in front of them and they don't see the bigger, long-term picture. They see only where their money flows from and they cater to that crowd, but that funding source is the golden goose and their current greed and lack of foresight is killing it day after day. People won't stick with this game if it's a ghost town because nobody wants to reside in a world that's empty except for pricks who want to "lord" it up over the peasants from within the comfort of their tacky looking housing.



The final nail in their coffin, and what will ultimately doom this project to one episode (if even that) is this little nugget:

"Only happy customers are willing to pull out their wallets."

Great breakdown !  Well written.