Shroud of the Avatar strikes again!!

LeFantome

Now they're charging $50 for what they got for free in unity assets .
How greedy is that , huh?

Add-on store is really a joke.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/are-people-here-really-ok-with-this-sort-of-thing.81211/

Kyleran

They are in need of funds, if not this what then?

Maybe they could hold an online telathon? I know, multi level marketing, seems to be all the rage these days.

Aethaeryn

Yikes.  I could see giving it away as a reward or something but man.  I think they also plan to sell the assets they make themselves on the asset store. . or it was part of a pledge level.

Not loving it.  Not completely wrong. . sort of like getting something free off of kijiji or Craigs List and reposting it for profit.  There are scummier things but it still leaves a bad taste.

I just really hope the guy who made that statue doesn't play the game and would have to pay for it

beebop500

Maybe they could sell ships, lol. 

Katilla

Maybe i'll just buy a vial of his blood instead.....

Rawyn

Yah as usual they lock the thread to bury it, they don't like that stuff out there so people can see how slimey and greedy they are. If you look in there store you can see a ton of stuff they got from unity for free or nothin and sell it to people for stupid high prices.

 Did you see that dude Lord Andernut? He was basically telling the person that made the post that they should change their post so it don't look bad for any new people that might see the it. Good on the poster didn't let them intimidate them.

Look at the crap in their store, 25-50 dollars for statues, 3 Valentine's boxes yes I said boxes Lol 25 bucks, hey for 50 bucks you can get a huge tree they also bought from unity it'll cost u 50 bucks....Good knight there's dozens and dozens of crap they got from unity and sell them in there store.

Dagon13

Kyleran said:

They are in need of funds, if not this what then?

Maybe they could hold an online telathon? I know, multi level marketing, seems to be all the rage these days.

I would say that people wouldn't complain if it had been a unique in-house asset...

but we all know that isn't true.

BruceYee

They should just stop all this bottom scrapping and make a modern UO already even if it has pixel graphics. To make up for the error of SOTA give that game for free + extras and I'm sure a lot of players will be happy cause UO2 is what a lot of those people wanted in the first place.

Rawyn

BruceYee the devs can't even make a game with mostly buying cheap assets and 11 million dollars that I can't imagine 1/10 that even spent on the game doubt they could ever do  a UO2 justice. They got devs straight from college and others that never made much other than failed app games and console games no one's ever heard of. Can you imagine the poor artist working for Sota, " hey you won't be making much in this job but we'll get you to alter a bunch of cheap assets for us and keep you from creating anything that looks good".

cyxs

The other thing to say is that they have been working on this for over 4 years now. Yes 4 years the same amount of time a studio puts into a project, btw Witcher 3 took less then 3 years. This is very poor game play, story and world interaction its sad. The biggest and best thing is the housing. Yes they have worked on other parts but housing is their primary focus as it shows in how many item store items are housing items. Go look at videos from 2 years ago and today you will notice not a lot of things have changed in the housing system. It begs the question of what they are spending time on when they throw out ideas and patch systems into the live world without testing these things. Also they plan on launching this year but haven't finished adding in mobs/weapons/ammo/spells/skills? How do you plan on balancing the game in less then 6 months to be viable for people to play without ooo you need to download another patch each month for the single player side?

francis_baud

"Just to be clear, when we use store bought art it is so our artists can spend their time on other custom art for the game. Also, we are very public with our numbers and it should be clear that we are not raking in big pots of money. This isn’t some exploitive scam to try and milk money out of players by using free store art. 

We have to choose what art we create in-house and what art we purchase. Same goes for Audio and for scripting to a much lesser extent. But buying stuff doesn’t mean we aren’t making stuff, it means we’re making the important stuff that can’t be bought. Look at the new scene K’rul for example. 99% of the models in that scene were made in-house.

If it helps, imagine you were paying someone to build you a house. Would you go out on the worksite and be frustrated that the builder didn’t make his own tools? Would you go up to a guy framing out a wall with 2x4’s and suggest he was ripping you off because he didn’t cut the tree down and make the boards himself?

Bottom line is, we’re making the best game we can for the least money possible, we are trying not to sell power, and when we add something to the game we don’t factor in how much time it took us to make OR how much we paid for it. If you want us to then any items made in-house would cost 100 times as much as those we buy and then you would be posting about why item X cost $$$$$$ when item Y cost $."
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/are-people-here-really-ok-with-this-sort-of-thing.81211/page-7#post-765719

Rawyn

Typical dev post from them.  No explanation why these cheap assets are so expensive when they resell them to people in there store. That horse they got didn't cost them anything as far as I can see reading the exception from the artist. An hours worth
of work tops to get that ready for ingame and in store

LeFantome

Whatever the reasons, they should not sell a statue $50, when they got it for FREE.

The devs are greedy as hell and the game looks like garbage.

Shaigh

This is the kind of stuff you get when devs say they can build an mmorpg in less than two years if players would just give them $1M on kickstarter.

4 years later and its still stuck on steam early access.

Kyleran

Rawyn said:

Typical dev post from them.  No explanation why these cheap assets are so expensive when they resell them to people in there store. That horse they got didn't cost them anything as far as I can see reading the exception from the artist. An hours worth
of work tops to get that ready for ingame and in store

Actually the dev did explain why they sell it as they did, and how in house created assets would have to sell for more.

Thing is, in both cases they are pricing not on how to profit enough to cover over reasonable cost, but rather on how much money they need to make.

He makes a poor house building analogy in the process.  No, we don't expect the carpenter to create his own boards, but if he got them for free we would not expect to pay a large price for them just because the carpenter underestimated the price of the original job.

I suspect if they priced these at $5 each few would be upset, but SOA doesn't have enough potential customers to price this way.

Now you could say who would pay $50 for a horse statue....but then you look at SC ship sales and don't have to ask.

Rawyn

Kyleran said:

Rawyn said:

Typical dev post from them.  No explanation why these cheap assets are so expensive when they resell them to people in there store. That horse they got didn't cost them anything as far as I can see reading the exception from the artist. An hours worth
of work tops to get that ready for ingame and in store

Actually the dev did explain why they sell it as they did, and how in house created assets would have to sell for more.

Thing is, in both cases they are pricing not on how to profit enough to cover over reasonable cost, but rather on how much money they need to make.

He makes a poor house building analogy in the process.  No, we don't expect the carpenter to create his own boards, but if he got them for free we would not expect to pay a large price for them just because the carpenter underestimated the price of the original job.

I suspect if they priced these at $5 each few would be upset, but SOA doesn't have enough potential customers to price this way.

Now you could say who would pay $50 for a horse statue....but then you look at SC ship sales and don't have to ask.

So in the magic realm of the Portalarium studios everything they create (which looks like crap btw) costs more than Triple A game companies can create and put stuff in their store more reasonable?  Even cheap assets they don't even create? So they can't even alter some cheap assets in a timely manner and make them reasonably priced? If that's the case it's even worse than I thought over there and they should have hired people that knew what they were doing years ago, well they should have done that anyway years ago because the team they got from the management all the way down are amateurs and don't know how to make a game correctly. Other indie games seem to be able to do everything better with even less money. These devs are delusional. They do it because they're desperate for money with less than 200 people that will even play their game and their greedy. A begathon is coming up soon so they will be begging from the few peeps they got for even more money to keep doing very little less efficiently than the rest of the gaming world studios. The few whales they got supporting Sota can't hold it up forever. 

LeFantome

Rawyn said:

Kyleran said:

Rawyn said:

Typical dev post from them.  No explanation why these cheap assets are so expensive when they resell them to people in there store. That horse they got didn't cost them anything as far as I can see reading the exception from the artist. An hours worth
of work tops to get that ready for ingame and in store

Actually the dev did explain why they sell it as they did, and how in house created assets would have to sell for more.

Thing is, in both cases they are pricing not on how to profit enough to cover over reasonable cost, but rather on how much money they need to make.

He makes a poor house building analogy in the process.  No, we don't expect the carpenter to create his own boards, but if he got them for free we would not expect to pay a large price for them just because the carpenter underestimated the price of the original job.

I suspect if they priced these at $5 each few would be upset, but SOA doesn't have enough potential customers to price this way.

Now you could say who would pay $50 for a horse statue....but then you look at SC ship sales and don't have to ask.

So in the magic realm of the Portalarium studios everything they create (which looks like crap btw) costs more than Triple A game companies can create and put stuff in their store more reasonable?  Even cheap assets they don't even create? So they can't even alter some cheap assets in a timely manner and make them reasonably priced? If that's the case it's even worse than I thought over there and they should have hired people that knew what they were doing years ago, well they should have done that anyway years ago because the team they got from the management all the way down are amateurs and don't know how to make a game correctly. Other indie games seem to be able to do everything better with even less money. These devs are delusional. They do it because they're desperate for money with less than 200 people that will even play their game and their greedy. A begathon is coming up soon so they will be begging from the few peeps they got for even more money to keep doing very little less efficiently than the rest of the gaming world studios. The few whales they got supporting Sota can't hold it up forever. 

Agreed and it's to late to change directions.

This game will be dead after a year, after release. 

CrazKanuk

Rawyn said:

Kyleran said:

Rawyn said:

Typical dev post from them.  No explanation why these cheap assets are so expensive when they resell them to people in there store. That horse they got didn't cost them anything as far as I can see reading the exception from the artist. An hours worth
of work tops to get that ready for ingame and in store

Actually the dev did explain why they sell it as they did, and how in house created assets would have to sell for more.

Thing is, in both cases they are pricing not on how to profit enough to cover over reasonable cost, but rather on how much money they need to make.

He makes a poor house building analogy in the process.  No, we don't expect the carpenter to create his own boards, but if he got them for free we would not expect to pay a large price for them just because the carpenter underestimated the price of the original job.

I suspect if they priced these at $5 each few would be upset, but SOA doesn't have enough potential customers to price this way.

Now you could say who would pay $50 for a horse statue....but then you look at SC ship sales and don't have to ask.

So in the magic realm of the Portalarium studios everything they create (which looks like crap btw) costs more than Triple A game companies can create and put stuff in their store more reasonable?  Even cheap assets they don't even create? So they can't even alter some cheap assets in a timely manner and make them reasonably priced? If that's the case it's even worse than I thought over there and they should have hired people that knew what they were doing years ago, well they should have done that anyway years ago because the team they got from the management all the way down are amateurs and don't know how to make a game correctly. Other indie games seem to be able to do everything better with even less money. These devs are delusional. They do it because they're desperate for money with less than 200 people that will even play their game and their greedy. A begathon is coming up soon so they will be begging from the few peeps they got for even more money to keep doing very little less efficiently than the rest of the gaming world studios. The few whales they got supporting Sota can't hold it up forever. 

You can have this asset for free. Download Unity and download the asset. Then you can look at it all day long. Reality is that the number of people ACTUALLY buying a decoration for their in-game house for $50 is a number approaching zero. The number of people who would have bought this who are expressing extreme displeasure with selling something that they got for free is effectively zero. 

Honestly, I find it hilarious how people call this greedy. I sometimes question whether people even understand what greed means. There is some great differentiation between greed and survival. A homeless person who steals something to sell it to buy food isn't greedy, they're just surviving. If we're working in the context of video games, if you want to call someone greedy, then look to Star Citizen. I mean at least they've banked nearly $150 million and are still selling. What you're talking about here is a struggling company doing what they can to push out a product that they were convinced people wanted. I've said MANY times that people don't want a throwback game, but nobody seems to want to listen.

Either way, it's not greed, it's about surviving. You even said it yourself! You're saying that it's a dying game. What do you expect them to do? Put in the same situation you'd do the exact same thing. Actually, for that matter, even if you were in your same situation as you're in right now and someone game you a box full of free computer parts (say graphics cards), you'd sell them. Don't act like you wouldn't. High and mighty posters unite!!! 

Iselin

Now that's some real value there that will provide several seconds of game play goodness. If I were on the fence about playing this game a unity asset horse statue I could actually like, you know, look at, might just tip me over.

What else am I going to do with $50? Like buy another whole game? I think not.

CrazKanuk

Iselin said:

Now that's some real value there that will provide several seconds of game play goodness. If I were on the fence about playing this game a unity asset horse statue I could actually like, you know, look at, might just tip me over.

What else am I going to do with $50? Like buy another whole game? I think not.

Horse statue or feeding the children in Africa. I know it's a tough one  

Iselin

CrazKanuk said:

Iselin said:

Now that's some real value there that will provide several seconds of game play goodness. If I were on the fence about playing this game a unity asset horse statue I could actually like, you know, look at, might just tip me over.

What else am I going to do with $50? Like buy another whole game? I think not.

Horse statue or feeding the children in Africa. I know it's a tough one  

You forgot to say world peace.

Xiaoki

If they are so strapped for cash that they need to re-sell free Unity assets then maybe they should do what a lot of other studios do to make big bucks: make a better game.

Kyleran

Xiaoki said:

If they are so strapped for cash that they need to re-sell free Unity assets then maybe they should do what a lot of other studios do to make big bucks: make a better game.

Well yeah, but its an impossible situation they are in.  They lack the funding to build a better game which could bring in more funding.

Which is why I'm so skeptical of the many indie start ups who can't (or won't) provide a solid funding plan. 

As I've said elsewhere, these games may have magic in them but there is no magic in building them 

Hard numbers don't lie.

CrazKanuk

Xiaoki said:

If they are so strapped for cash that they need to re-sell free Unity assets then maybe they should do what a lot of other studios do to make big bucks: make a better game.

Define better. So you mean like make a MOBA or FPS? That's what studios do to make big bucks. Studios don't spend money on MMORPGs because they're vast nebulous voids that just suck every penny out of your bank account, not to mention your will to continue making games. If I had one piece of advice for game studios it would be to stop trying to remake old-timey MMORPGs because nobody wants to play them. There's actually great supporting evidence out there for that statement. I'd say that anytime you can fit your entire target audience into a hockey rink, you've probably got some issues once you try to sell it  

laserit

I have a very hard time listening to the cry of poorhouse, when they could afford a trip into space and was awarded a 32 million dollar ruling after said trip.

What I see, is a company who's owners are not willing to risk their own money for their endeavor. They take their customers and fans for idiots.

These new business models are bullshit.

Disgusting really

Wizardry

laserit said:

I have a very hard time listening to the cry of poorhouse, when they could afford a trip into space and was awarded a 32 million dollar ruling after said trip.

What I see, is a company who's owners are not willing to risk their own money for their endeavor. They take their customers and fans for idiots.

These new business models are bullshit.

Disgusting really

I agree with you sir but remember that court ruling was deserved as NCSoft negated on a contract.Even worse is that NCSoft was willing to kill the game just so they could attempt to rip off Lord British and that is also disgusting.
Roberts is doing the same thing,he said he had enough of his own money when media was questioning weather the money was going to his wife's Hollywood dream career.There is another guy advertising his game here that comes from the Wells Fargo family so yeah loads of money.