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Post by Membrane_on_Vacation on Jan 11, 2016 6:57:29 GMT
Tell Portalarium why you come here. Why you read my blog, if you did.
Try to be as straight forward and non-confrontational as you can muster, I know it is hard not to want to bludgeon them with golf clubs and leave them out in the moonlight, but give it a shot. We're all here for a reason, be it for a common interest, a common goal, revenge, no other choice. I'd like to see your reasons myself from those of you whom I don't know quite as well as others, and perhaps Portalarium would be surprised also if they ever came across your words.
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Post by ihatemakingaccounts on Jan 11, 2016 12:21:47 GMT
For the record I probably have under 50 posts on the port forums and haven't posted since 2013. I'm not some guy with an axe to grind with Port or specific members of the community (because I barely know anybody personally, even here). I'm just a sap that believed in the dream once.
I read the blog because it offers a look at SotA that can't be found elsewhere. I would have been unaware of most of this stuff if Insane wasn't keeping up with it for us. I feel like a lot of this information is stuff that we as backers should be aware of. There are some pretty good lols peppered in too.
Most of us still care about the game on some level Port, otherwise we wouldn't be here. I just personally dislike the direction that development and the game is going, and feel unsafe discussing it on the official forums.
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Caliya
Strong in the Force
People fight to gain things they can't take with them in the end
Posts: 2,121 
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Post by Caliya on Jan 11, 2016 12:40:45 GMT
While I don't agree with everything IM writes, I agree with the majority of it. I like how he pokes fun at the game. It's entertaining and he doesn't hold back. The fact it's not politically correct is interesting too.
I did not ever come in the forums here until I was so harassed and threatened over at the SotA forum, I wanted an outlet. I'm not controlled or suppressed, though this is a tough community to deal with as a woman. You have to be strong otherwise these guys will put a nail in your coffin. And yet, even though this is a tough community, I can fight back and say what I want without being silenced.
The worst thing, other than the forum moderators allowing incredible aggression against objections to their pet projects, is being treated like a child and I better behave or papa Port is going to spank me hard. That's just BS this day and age.
I might get spanked over here, by vocal members, but they don't threaten me. It was someone over at the SotA forums who has threatened me in a very real way, by claiming they doxed me.
Think: where is it more toxic? You can fool yourself into thinking it's here, but it's over there.
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Post by khael on Jan 11, 2016 13:16:39 GMT
I came here because you can't point out the issues Sota has honestly and politely on the sota forums without high pledge backers letting you know this is their game and since they paid more than you did you have no voice and your opinions are just trolling. The developers (well chris) touts an article from years ago from Ten Ton Hammer saying "we must be doing something right" when they should be looking at the scrutiny they are getting on steam for what they are doing wrong. The inferior product they are creating could have been better and still could be if they would just listen. Alas it seems if you havent spent thousands of dollars on Sota you dont matter and neither do your opinions even if you really want the game to do good just as much as those high level backers do.
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Post by Mordecai on Jan 11, 2016 16:02:13 GMT
I'm here because since the KS, I've watched SotA develop, and I've watched events occur firsthand. Over the years, I've seen bans passed out with the "Reason Given" box left blank. IM himself was banned for the very crime he was reporting (and I know beyond a reasonable doubt that he had not committed that crime), and with the revealing of AA, he had once again been banned for a crime that he not only didn't commit, but had had committed against him (doxing). I've witnessed bugs discovered in the pledging system, ones that essentially erased the Founder stipulation that pushed so many of us to pledge before the cut-off date, and yet nobody would fix them because they were bringing in money. I saw the vaunted Ultima speeches by RG, only to later observe his UO speech on UOForever, and I realized that he was telling each audience what they wanted to hear, that he lacked integrity. I watched as crowd-sourcing was completely forgone, even the pledge reward to "build an NPC" replaced with "watch another player build most of the NPCs". And finally, I watched as $10,000, an amount that is almost always unjustifiable to ask of a player, was raised to tens of thousands with the introduction of POTs, a feature that is likely to detract from the overall game as well as the game development. I take these experiences, and weigh them against Port's history, a failing company that developed one game, Ultimate Collector, a cash-grab Zynga facebook game. From there, SotA was announced as a desperate last-ditch effort to save the company, and while we were sold the idea that they would build a game on $1,000,000, we were later told that that money was really just enough to recover from Ultimate Collector. Now, I look at the endlessly expanding add-on store and the gross lack of content, and I feel like too much inspiration has been drawn from Zynga and not enough from Ultima and UO.
I came to SotA with a dream, inspired by my memories of UO and by a similarly infatuated community. I came here because, although I once had a dream, that dream is now gone from me.
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jackjack
Strong in the Force
Playing Fallout 1
Posts: 102 
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Post by jackjack on Jan 11, 2016 16:50:16 GMT
I'll try to keep this short. As a young kid, I was lucky enough to receive a gift of Ultima VI from a surrogate older brother. I'm sure I don't need to detail why I was so hooked by it. VII upped the ante in so many ways, though VI will always be closest to my heart. I even understand the potential Pagan had. Like many of you, I was ecstatic upon hearing the news of a new RG game. I lurked for a long time on the SotA forums, and it became clear that this wasn't simply going in the wrong direction for my tastes, it was giving rise to a mini police state and looking scammier every day. And oh dear, the cash shop. What a goddamn letdown this is. Consider me burned.
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Post by myrcello on Jan 11, 2016 20:49:22 GMT
I come here because i think all opinions matter and are important to be able to get the best out of oneself and out of the feedback you are looking for.
I believe that every persons doing is never to be judged on a focus on one occasion or area. It is important to look deeper and further for motivations and reasoning.
Depending on culture, history and circumstances missunderstandings, wrong conclusions are made between us humans far to often about motivations of others.
I too had the feeling, that even so not bad intentions, but just out of blind love and fan of the Game the Community had become too one sided opinion resource providing feedback.
Community is supposed to be a wonderful thing, but a Community always is in danger to become very protective of itself not noticing that it excludes constructive negativity towards it.
This has nothing to do with a Game itself. It can happen to all communities, from Sports, to Hobbies and one and one to largest forms.
I know many see SU as something bad or IM as the evil itself for SotA.
But that is false. He focused on something, some might feel not important . It is just a Game afterall, nothing big political.
But everywhere where passion is, where pride is, where friendships , connections are made, where small people become part of someting they love and feel bigger there is this little danger of Communities not only being a place of good happenings, but also errors that are made.
Therefore it is good to stay on watch and look from all ancles.
That said - I feel like this site is just as a Fansite as all other Sites.
Haters are again one of the most loving FAns you have- they just express in a far more emotional way and often direct and uncomftable way what they think is wrong.
Sometimes i was suprised to see for example on Star Citicen same structures.
Or other Crowdsourced Forums.
Like there is everwhere those bad persons? Haters how you call them.
Star Citizen with Derek Smark for example vs the White Knights.
But at the end there is a reapearance of all opinions. From the Happy Dancers, to Superfans always down to the undecided to the ones who disagree and think there is a change need to passionate Haters.
But all ask yourself - have we not all been in one of these positions in our lifes all. Depending on what subject or happening we all have once been either a Insane Membrane or a ONBE Supporter.
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Post by Mordecai on Jan 11, 2016 22:37:21 GMT
If I could ask Port to read only one post in this thread, it would be yours Myrc.
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Post by nemolives on Jan 11, 2016 23:11:48 GMT
Portalarium; I'm not banned at your forums, but I also no longer post there. Likewise I'm not sitting in your telethon that I've just been told is active right now as I'm typing this, supposedly detailing exciting new crafting information... I'm not there even for the chance of winning free stuff. Instead my new home is here. Why, when I'd much sooner play in care bearish ways with the people there, than with, and like the ruffians here? It's because I simply can't have the kind of debate there that I feel the game needs to have if it's ever going to survive. I feel like the desire to be part of that community, and the desperate hoping the game succeeds has suffocated any honest appraisal of if it will on your forums, much less the more troubling question of whether Shroud deserves to survive with it's current financial modelling. It didn't help that when I tried to raise those questions, I was manhandled pretty badly by people on your forums, to the point that InsaneMembrane wrote a blog post about it. I wasn't active here on these forums before that, but I knew of them because as the doubts grew, but I couldn't really discuss them with the people who were supposedly the experts, indeed the people actually building the game, I'd taken to the google search equivalent of "Shroud Sucks" just to try and find out if I was alone with my worries. It turns out, I wasn't. And the scoundrels here had more sympathy for me than the people I supposedly shared a love with. I get why you, as software developers, don't have these hard debates about funding and drifting development publicly right now; After all, without a traditional publisher, you don't have a deadline for publishing, so the game isn't ever really "done" until you feel it is. It doesn't make sense to openly doubt a game you still think you have time to salvage. But your time is being bought with ever more of our money, we are in effect your publishers, and it's a horrendous misjudging of the real value of Crowdsourcing when you cherry pick which individual publishers to listen too. That so many are voting "no confidence" and trying to withdraw their money doesn't mean they aren't worth listening too; It means there's a genuine, serious problem with your product. I don't want you to fail, I wish oh how I wish you could turn the game around and live up to all it's potential. But to do that, you first have to be able to see you're on the wrong course. And it's only here I can talk about noticing that; I wonder if privately, any of you can accept we might be right too? Publicly you can't though, and rather than feel my sanity questioned there, I'd sooner make my home here with the "Insane". |
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dodgy
Strong in the Force
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Post by dodgy on Jan 11, 2016 23:46:48 GMT
Port are you happy with the current state of the game? Did you ever have a plan or did you make it up as you went? Are you aware of the scale of goodwill you have burnt?
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Joviex
Strong in the Force
PERMABANNED
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Post by Joviex on Jan 16, 2016 20:59:07 GMT
me? Why do I come here? cause there are great people in the world. Even if they dont all get to play in the same place they started.
Also, I come here for comedy, like the recent newsletter:
Now, I am cynical, of course, and sarcastic, and all the favorite modern, first world mind mental issues, but I read this and it says:
"Here is an announcement, ABOUT a future announcement, because we know people have asked, repeatedly, even some from say June 2014, for a legitimate schedule, or at least, expose a true schedule, not lip service because we finally bowed to pressure....."
That is just comedy to me -- now, not when I was invested.
It feels really bad, like, we have issues bad, on the heels of that poor performing telethon.
Perhaps we have finally witnessed the start of the rock not being able to bleed anymore, but not holding my breath
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Post by walkingdead on Jan 16, 2016 23:59:36 GMT
I came to this board after being repeatedly threatened by Whales that I would be banned, for Pking them, for questioning them for going to their role play events but having my own role play. The fact that devs. policed player events as if they were server sanctioned events. That when Kazyn, Winfield, Blake, Zeke and others show there very ugly side they are awarded ONBEs for bullying.
When I went on the port. boards my post were either deleted or I had issues. I stay anonymous here not because I fear that port. devs. and their cronies will retaliate but because I know they will.
I silently report all the stuff I see. I am one of the non voices now. I am the eyes and the ears and I report back to my investor friends because it is not will they loose all their money it is a matter of when.
So I go here to people who are friendly they do not ask my identity, and I have nothing to prove to them. However I have lots and lots of information that people wish I did not simply because I'm quiet.
I appreciate being here where I can be myself and share my fears, and information.
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Post by grimgryphon on Jan 17, 2016 2:26:45 GMT
When I first found this site, I was really angry with Portalarium and its community. Now I simply don't care. I haven't visited the SotA website in over 3 months. SotA rarely crosses my mind and I generally forget that even this site exists unless it happens to show up via auto-complete in my browser. It is still nice to know you all are here, fighting the good fight. ;-)
IM has a great site and it's sometimes nice to know you're not the only one "having" the issues the Port community tries to convince you don't exist.
The best thing I ever did was to walk away from that game and its passive-aggressive community.
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Post by dewderonomy on Jan 17, 2016 4:24:56 GMT
No matter the logic, the explanations, the community support or the outcry, ideas that could have curbed the game into something more productive, entertaining or at least balanced were ultimately ignored or actively cast aside. This wasn't just a disagreement of opinions, but a defense system that was urged and conditioned by Portalarium; the fans became the bulletstorm to riddle ideas and suggestions that would make a good game with so much hypocrisy and short-sightedness that the only thing left would be this 2012-era GUI to explore a virtual shopping cart.
SotA was not my dream game. It wasn't even the game I looked forward to most; by the time Ultimate RPG was rebranded as Shroud of the Avatar, I already knew it wasn't going to be anything significantly impressive. But it was going to be something other than WoW, and that always has my attention. Until last summer, Richard Garriott was a sort of hero to me, an idealist and a creator I could get behind; I loved Ultima, was raised on Ultima Online, and was blown away he was living his dream as a geek doing awesome things and making fascinating worlds. The reality was exposed as I tried to wrap my head around this game and how it could be so fundamentally flawed, and it was a hugely draining realization that left me bitter.
I got my money back, so funds aren't an issue. It's the principle of the matter, now. This game serves as a case study in everything that can go wrong with game development, kickstarting and marketing: terrible management; horrendous customer service; overpromising and underdelivering; trying to sell every demographic in a vain attempt to make as much money as possible; customer-facing unprofessionalism; and that no matter what you did in the past, you can never rest upon your laurels.
But worst of all, more than Portalarium or the game, is the community. I wish I could say I've never seen the like, but sadly it's a type of sinister stupidity that is rife among the backers at the official forums who also existed in similar cliques on UO. Corporate incompetence is one thing, but celebrating a group of people who are obsessed, inept and passive-aggressive to the point that the single constant among anyone who has put more than 5 hours into this game will review negatively upon is unacceptable, especially when the game is focused on that aspect. You all have created a monster, an ugly, self-serving, fractured and toxic environment to the point that your single player better sweep people away, because the multi-player will be an exercise in zen-like patience. Add to that catering and pandering to a select few and it's a surprise more haven't said something.
But then again, your game is hardly known at all. It's on nearly no one's radar, so you've got that going for you.
So that's why I came here, to a forum full of everyday gamers who were exasperated by the results but more importantly by the simple insanity of the community that is fostered and supported over there. We prefer a forum that allows ideas to flow, no matter if people agree with them or not, instead of an echo chamber that's suddenly and rapidly silenced at the first whisper of discontent.
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dodgy
Strong in the Force
Posts: 1,171
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Post by dodgy on Jan 17, 2016 5:33:38 GMT
When I first found this site, I was really angry with Portalarium and its community. Now I simply don't care. I haven't visited the SotA website in over 3 months. SotA rarely crosses my mind and I generally forget that even this site exists unless it happens to show up via auto-complete in my browser. It is still nice to know you all are here, fighting the good fight. ;-) IM has a great site and it's sometimes nice to know you're not the only one "having" the issues the Port community tries to convince you don't exist. The best thing I ever did was to walk away from that game and its passive-aggressive community. I keep missing you on Albion. ButI have kind of given up and now waiting for next update. I still think the game could be alot of fun. But I think its going to drag out dev now. I would love to make this community of misfits into something more and have gaming sessions together. |
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dodgy
Strong in the Force
Posts: 1,171
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Post by dodgy on Jan 17, 2016 5:35:45 GMT
I came to this board after being repeatedly threatened by Whales that I would be banned, for Pking them, for questioning them for going to their role play events but having my own role play. The fact that devs. policed player events as if they were server sanctioned events. That when Kazyn, Winfield, Blake, Zeke and others show there very ugly side they are awarded ONBEs for bullying. When I went on the port. boards my post were either deleted or I had issues. I stay anonymous here not because I fear that port. devs. and their cronies will retaliate but because I know they will. I silently report all the stuff I see. I am one of the non voices now. I am the eyes and the ears and I report back to my investor friends because it is not will they loose all their money it is a matter of when. So I go here to people who are friendly they do not ask my identity, and I have nothing to prove to them. However I have lots and lots of information that people wish I did not simply because I'm quiet. I appreciate being here where I can be myself and share my fears, and information. I would love to hear some of the stories if there is a way to regale us all without compromising your position I also noticed you referenced investors. Are you friends with people who gave venture capital? Or you referring to normal backers? I am not meaning to pry or find out info on you. Just some interesting things in your post |
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Post by fossil on Jan 17, 2016 11:08:08 GMT
im just drunk, im always drunk... its that the port telethon?
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Post by zincturtle on Jan 29, 2016 18:44:18 GMT
I'm here because "guiding the game" (from the Developer Pledge text on Kickstarter) turned into providing content rather than guiding the game in any meaningful way, and then even that stopped. So, from my perspective, there's nothing new or transparent or innovative about their approach. They're just wasting money and making it up as they go, as far as I can tell, now. In other words, they deceived all the early backers, if not intentionally, then through incompetence, and never once apologized, acknowledged, or attempted restitution for that deception/failure. It is unforgivable, imho, the way they have deliberately insulted those paying customers that supported them when they needed it most. Looking at it positively, I will _NEVER_ back another kickstarter game, ever, thanks to Portalarium. I have forever sworn off all forms of paying for a game before it's done, for the rest of time. So I've got that going for me.  |
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