2D is more expensive than 3D these days, with unity and the unity store. You need to animate sprites for every frame.
Soooo… I guess I’m not seeing my physical rewards from this KS? Not holding out much hope. =/
The good news is that if you get enough people to buy $300 in-game moondials or $1575 in-game property deeds, you could fund development for at least another couple of months.
Sucks to see it dying with a whimper like this. They created tons of content for the game, but they need to get the systems right and the core gameplay fun. Hopefully some publisher swoops in and saves them, appointing a producer who beats them down with an iron whip to stop the scope creep and gets the game completed.
Yeah, that’s crazy. I’m always amazed at the buy-in of virtual goods that some games get. I pledged for box + manual + map + trinket and stopped there. At least I did get a nifty SotA coin when I went to Dragon*Con a few years back.
So…
[quote]Portalarium Announces Equity Crowdfunding Campaign as Commercial Launch of Shroud of the Avatar Nears
Funding will help in transition to game publisher as Richard Garriott fantasy role-playing game rounds into shape
AUSTIN, Texas, June 2, 2017 – Portalarium®, an Austin-based game developer, just announced an equity crowdfunding campaign to assist the company as it begins the process of taking on the additional role of game publisher. The company’s flagship product, Shroud of the Avatar™: Forsaken Virtues is nearing completion and will be available for commercial release in the coming months.
“We are forever grateful to our backers under our current funding campaign who have helped us reach levels of support that we never dreamed of having,” said Portalarium CEO Richard Garriott de Cayeux. “That support has helped us develop Shroud of the Avatar to where it is today. And with a commercial launch now in sight, it’s time to focus more on marketing and user acquisition as we scale up our player base and the service. It’s also a chance for our supporters to invest in our company as we take this next critical step with equity crowdfunding.”
Shroud of the Avatar combines a single-player narrative story with a sandbox massively multiplayer online (MMO) experience. The production team includes Executive Producer Starr Long, who along with Garriott helped produce the groundbreaking Ultima Online MMO and New York Times bestselling author Tracy Hickman, who wrote the popular Dragonlance fantasy novels.
Shroud of the Avatar’s crowdfunded campaign began in 2013. It remains in early access but it continues to generate monthly content updates to its backers. The game has now reached 41 straight months of continuous play without a single server software crash. Currently with more than $11.6 million in crowd funding, Shroud is the second highest fully crowdfunded game ever.
To learn more about the Portalarium equity crowdfunding campaign (also known as regulation crowdfunding), please visit the SeedInvest website.[/quote]
It’s super sad that this is the best factoid they could pull.
“Our toasters have a flawless track record of not murdering the children and housewives that have used it”
That’s not even the best toaster-related factoid!
Haha! I spend quite a bit of time on /r/nba, the toaster saga has been epic.
I’m a total fucking Warriors bandwagon fan, but my favorite part of sports (actually the only part of sports I like) is watching the meteoric ascent of peak-performance human beings doing shit no one has ever seen before. Curry is a little less Holy Fuck What the What this year, but it’s still cool as shit to watch records fall over and over again in the face of giants like him, Westbrook, and James.
Richard Garriott responds to Kotaku’s questions about the SeedInvest campaign:
Garriott, speaking with Kotaku over the phone today, said that those numbers don’t tell the full story.While the project hit the ground running with nearly $2 million, Portalarium has generally had around the same amount it has in the bank right now at any given moment, he said.
“We earn about the same amount as we spend every month,” Garriott said, “and that has been true for the majority of the existence of this company.”
“Our company has about 30 people in it, some full-time, some contractors,” he said. “We size our company based on the trend lines we see in our revenue growth. We have a great deal of comfort in saying we could continue to develop the game as a small company with a relatively small player base.”
Garriott says the point of this round of funding is not an attempt to save the company from going broke, but to scale Portalarium up to allow it to do marketing and perform the other functions of a publisher—first for the PC version of Shroud of the Avatar, and then perhaps someday, for versions of the game on other platforms.
He also gives a confusing answer about the features touted in the product description, some of which were viewed as misleading by players. To quote the SeedInvest page, “The player-first mindset gives Avatars the freedom to explore the world as they choose: slay a dragon, establish trade routes, craft weapons and armor, or conquer a town.”
Garriott said that most of those things are indeed in the game in some form, and Portalarium regularly keeps backers abreast of which features are incoming and how and why they’re being implemented. “There was never a plan to ‘conquer a town,’” he says. But he went on to explain that the game’s villain faction, the Obsidian Cabalists, can lay siege to towns, and players can lift those sieges by defeating them.
“The other thing [‘conquer a town’] could be construed with,” he said, “is ownership of a control point. To pass through them, you’ve gotta fight your way through. They can also be cleared.”
It’s definitely a little strange that Garriott himself wasn’t quite sure to what the text on his own game’s funding page is referring. Even if, in the grand scheme of things, a small detail like that isn’t a deal-breaker, it’s easy to see why fans find the game’s messaging to be sloppy.
There have been several Ultima-likes released in the intervening years, such as Teudogar.
Maybe you guys should go play those?
As for Garriott, lately he has a talent for spending money and going on rides into Space. But that’s about it.
How finished was Tabula Rasa when it was canned?
Tabula Rasa’s core gameplay was actually great. The combat worked. But it was buggy as hell and generally released unfinished. I’d say it was released around 80% done, and canceled at 90% done.
Of course that last 10% is a real bastard, tons of work to polish.
It kinda sounds less like they are going under and more like they are seeking an additional $2 million to fund self-publishing. Given the costs of marketing, that number seems pretty low, especially if they’re going to need to add or contract staff to handle said marketing/publishing.
I’m surprised they are even trying to do this themselves instead of contracting with a company like Daybreak who already publishes several MMOs.
Looks like both Steam and Reddit have flamed out on the game.
I had to chuckle at this review on Steam.
The man who spent 30 mill to go to space, is asking for another 2 million for his game?
I am also amazed the number of ALL CAPS warnings on their storefront talking about Early Access. I think they are fighting a losing battle.
For those interested, LB is going to have an AMA and a Webinar about the Seedinvest Campaign in the following days:
Dear Avatars,
As you saw last week, we announced a unique way for you to become a part of the Portalarium team by investing in the company through our equity campaign at SeedInvest. This campaign has since gone from reservation status to investment status.
If you have contributed but have not logged into and updated your SeedInvest account since Wednesday, June 7th to make the switch to investment status, please do so now!
We continue to see a ton of great questions around the campaign with many community members hoping to participate but are unsure how it works. Today we announced two Q&A sessions with investors and those interested in becoming an investor:
Webinar This Week
On Wednesday, June 14th at 5pm Eastern Time, we will be hosting a Webinar with SeedInvest and Lord British to walk you through the campaign details, and then you will have a chance to ask questions!
To join the Webinar, please use the following link at the designated time above: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/2735149906524740355
Reddit AMA Next Week
Next week on Tuesday, June 20th from 11am to 2pm Eastern Time, we will be conducting a Reddit AMA on the www.reddit.com/r/SotA_Official/ subreddit. Details and a direct link to this AMA will follow on the official Shroud of the Avatar website and on social in the coming days. Lord British will also be in the Reddit chat to answer community questions.
We hope you can join us for these exciting Q&A events!
Meanwhile, if someone you know may be interested in investing in Portalarium, please have them visit the official SeedInvest webpage.
Sincerely,
Lord British and the Portalarium Team
*Disclaimer: Portalarium is offering securities under Regulation CF and Rule 506(c) of Regulation D through SI Securities, LLC (“SI Securities”). The Company has filed a Form C with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with its offering, a copy of which may be obtained here: https://www.seedinvest.com/portalarium/series.b
I’d “invest” a good amount if I could pry the original cover art for Ultima IV from Portalarium’s walls. =)
According to a post made by Portalarium on the official subreddit:
About the AMA, we only intend to use this subreddit to announce it. The actual AMA subreddit location is yet to be determined! (will likely be either /r/shroudoftheavatar, or /r/IAmA, or…?)
What’s interesting is that /r/shroudoftheavatar has an overt anti-Portalarium, negative bent to it, which is unusual for a game’s main subreddit.