Life is Feudal Official Forum

[Lee]

Beta access is one of the only reasons I donate to a game that I am interested in, why? because I want to see if A) the game actually progresses and is something I enjoy and B) if it is I will be happy to help with as much input as possible to improve it.

I don't donate to games that offer me no beta access UNLESS they are remakes of awesome games I loved before OR I know they WILL succeed. I also don't donate for beta access when the prices are way too high, like 80 euros.

On multiple forums now I have seen many people like myself who simply aren't donating because the prices are way too high for anything in return.

Why should we have anything in return? because WE are funding YOUR game, WE are putting a load on YOUR server and resources because YOU need us. We like to get beta access to the games we are funding because we would like to be apart of it.

Right now donating to this game for anything less than beta access seems more like an act of charity than "donating to make the game succeed", because with these prices the game will not reach the goal.

It's sad that you seem to think that us expecting a realistic beta price is "selfish", it seems like you think your game is already a success, whilst it's really just still a fart in the wind and in the hands of the donators/

Good luck reaching the 200,000 goal, but I won't be donating, I'll happily just wait until the game is released, if ever.

[Torb]

Dear devs,
please try to understand Norman's post, and the posts of others to whom I count myself, as positive criticism.

your game has caught the eye of many potential supporters, however your marketing is less then optimal. this ofc worries people that want your game to be successful.
hence the feedback we are giving you.

try to embrace the information you get from us (how people perceive your endeavor) and act accordingly.

good luck,

Torben

[finalreview]

A) I can't care about a game that I've never played. And I don't pre-order games very often, and when I do it's from a developer with previous games that I've enjoyed and played.
B) Clearly you and I have very different experience when playing Alphas, and I'm not sure how you can consider it a chore.

You are either clearly lying, or you "played" very late alphas. If you somehow played alphas with enough functionality that you enjoyed playing them as much as a released game, you were just wasting the developers time. Just sounds like you are lazy and want to play games early with no intention to actually help the developers make their game better.

However I do agree with pricing problems, and the fear of a failed campaign.

[Bobik]

Thank you Torben for your post. In that case i can really see that you care for game and wish it best. Anyway, we can't change claimed perks description and overall goals.
Those perks the are not claimed yet, well ,we had changed them already like twice (lowered overall price and added additional alpha keys in them). So right now we have an only option - push to the limits, provide with you with a weekly updates. Scratch, bite and kick on our way.
Your complains have been heard and if we gonna go for another campaign someday - we will take them into account, trust me.

[Kuroi]

Right now donating to this game for anything less than beta access seems more like an act of charity than "donating to make the game succeed", because with these prices the game will not reach the goal.

22 people out of 35 total (currently) didn't donate for beta, they probably just care for the game itself to succeed cause it's probably their dreaming game, if the campaign fails is not just for the prices but for people like you, too.

i'll pick one as example:

You’re developing my dream game. ... now I have the chance to help your campaign and your development.

read carefully what i underlined. that's the purpose of crowdfunding campaigns, not your profit by donating. this kind guy gave 30 euros. he wants the game, not the benefit to """play""" it first.

[Nessaj]

So right now we have an only option - push to the limits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8g__x6ExM8

[Lee]

22 people out of 35 total (currently) didn't donate for beta, they probably just care for the game itself to succeed cause it's probably their dreaming game, if the campaign fails is not just for the prices but for people like you, too.

i'll pick one as example:

You’re developing my dream game. ... now I have the chance to help your campaign and your development.

read carefully what i underlined. that's the purpose of crowdfunding campaigns, not your profit by donating. this kind guy gave 30 euros. he wants the game, not the benefit to """play""" it first.

22 people out of how many that have read the funding page and decided not to donate because of the prices? yeah that proves my point already.

How am I profiting by donating for a beta? I am PAYING, my hard earned money, for THEIR game, a game that I don't even know will be good yet. I'm not throwing money at a game that I can't even try out and THEN have to buy it later to find out whether it's good or not, no thanks. 80 euros? no thanks, you and the handful of people are welcome to do so, but this is the reason why this game will not even reach 100k let alone 200k.

[Kuroi]

22 people out of 35 total (currently) didn't donate for beta, they probably just care for the game itself to succeed cause it's probably their dreaming game, if the campaign fails is not just for the prices but for people like you, too.

i'll pick one as example:

You’re developing my dream game. ... now I have the chance to help your campaign and your development.

read carefully what i underlined. that's the purpose of crowdfunding campaigns, not your profit by donating. this kind guy gave 30 euros. he wants the game, not the benefit to """play""" it first.

22 people out of how many that have read the funding page and decided not to donate because of the prices? yeah that proves my point already.

How am I profiting by donating for a beta? I am PAYING, my hard earned money, for THEIR game, a game that I don't even know will be good yet. I'm not throwing money at a game that I can't even try out and THEN have to buy it later to find out whether it's good or not, no thanks. 80 euros? no thanks, you and the handful of people are welcome to do so, but this is the reason why this game will not even reach 100k let alone 200k.

maybe you didn't get my point, those 22 people donated for 30-80€ and you get no beta/alpha with that, still they donated cause they want the campaign to succeed and not cause they want to freaking login early. understood? if they were thinking like you, "paying, earned money, their game, blabla", they would be here just like you complaining about prices and their will to be in beta/alpha. what happened instead? they gave what they could. weird, uh?

if you can't throw your hard earned money, then don't. "you didn't try the game", like if you try games you pre-order, like if you once login into an ALPHA state it's like trying the game as if it was release.
i bought like 4-5 games this year by pre-order, that means i didn't try them, still i loved them once i got them.

if you care about the game you think about the campaign being successfull as #1 priority, not the freakin beta. it's an investment, you donate money for them to make your dream game, if you don't then you don't care at all, so don't complain. if they put such prices it means they know their limits, if 5000+ people bought the alpha thing maybe the servers would just die since IT'S A FREAKIN ALPHA.

[Kerbox]

I am one of those who donated 30e. Had the beta been 50e I probably would have donated 50e because it would have been a nice perk, but never the less I wanted to donate something instead of nothing because the concept of this game looks promising and I do wish to make some kind of a contribution to see this game come to light.

[Lee]

22 people out of 35 total (currently) didn't donate for beta, they probably just care for the game itself to succeed cause it's probably their dreaming game, if the campaign fails is not just for the prices but for people like you, too.

i'll pick one as example:

You’re developing my dream game. ... now I have the chance to help your campaign and your development.

read carefully what i underlined. that's the purpose of crowdfunding campaigns, not your profit by donating. this kind guy gave 30 euros. he wants the game, not the benefit to """play""" it first.

maybe you didn't get my point, those 22 people donated for 30-80€ and you get no beta/alpha with that, still they donated cause they want the campaign to succeed and not cause they want to freaking login early. understood? if they were thinking like you, "paying, earned money, their game, blabla", they would be here just like you complaining about prices and their will to be in beta/alpha. what happened instead? they gave what they could. weird, uh?

if you can't throw your hard earned money, then don't. "you didn't try the game", like if you try games you pre-order, like if you once login into an ALPHA state it's like trying the game as if it was release.
i bought like 4-5 games this year by pre-order, that means i didn't try them, still i loved them once i got them.

if you care about the game you think about the campaign being successfull as #1 priority, not the freakin beta. it's an investment, you donate money for them to make your dream game, if you don't then you don't care at all, so don't complain. if they put such prices it means they know their limits, if 5000+ people bought the alpha thing maybe the servers would just die since IT'S A FREAKIN ALPHA.

I have not mentioned ALPHA once, I am talking about BETA, at which point the game should be taking on large loads of players to see what the game and the servers can even handle. And lol at "If you don't donate it means you don't care at all".

Being apart of a beta IS a massive seller, it's been proved countless times, people will donate if they can play the beta and if the price isn't too high. The people only donating simply because they "want the game to succeed" are just a handful of people and I doubt they will generate even 10% of the required funds.

This is a business, a business that needs to generate 200,000 euros in 6 weeks, it isn't going to do so by offering only "thanks" and some meaningless perks for up to 70 euros. "Consider you have our bought our game", final release could be years away, people don't often pre-order a game for 30 euros that could be years away from final release, if ever released.

Again, this isn't about flowers and fluffy stuff, people donating for the love of the game, because those people are few and the majority, like myself, want a piece of the cake.

Why am I writing this? because I DO want the game to succeed and I DO care, if I didn't I wouldn't be writing here. It's obvious to me that the goal, the presentation and the pricing have not been thought through realistically, ultimately spelling out the demise of this game before it has even been given life.

You're welcome to continue dreaming about the game bringing in 200,000 euros out of "love for the game", but that's all it'll ever be, a dream, or you could accept the fact that this isn't going to work and they need to take a different approach.

[Bobik]

Well, I suggest we should stop that arguments. As i've stated earlier, i do understand a position of Torb, Lee and others same minded players and they are right in those parts that it might not work out.
But as i've stated ago, we can not change current campaign rewards and goals, so we got only option - is to push to the limits.
In any way we will get more attention and hype i hope, that should help us to stay afloat later on at least somehow.

To Lee, Torb, Norman and other same minded guys. Your voice have been heard and we will adopt our next campaign, if there will be any. But so far, could you please stop sticking your opinion in other player's throats and just wish us luck?

[Norman]

I haven't shoved my opinion down anyone's throat. This has been a pretty tame debate, actually. And I'm glad that you've considered our advice for the next campaign.

If we didn't care we would've just said "those prices aren't reasonable" and moved on. But we came here to help you make more money instead.

[Waylander]

Even if I think these prices a little high, especially late beta, there is something worse to my eyes: rewards between 30€ and the 100€ one doesn't looks really interesting.
I think there are many way you can get peoples to pledge a few more euros without going to the hundred.

It can be physical goods, but it has a cost for you. Or it can some digital items, like pdf guides, artwork downloads and so on.

I'm backing star citizen, I think there are a few tips to learn from them as they manage to get a $80 medium pledge while offering alpha access for $30.

Even if it's too late for the campaign, this is my opinion on this subject. To the top !!!

[En_Dotter]

I have already given a suggestion about rewards on the other thread and after reading all those posts i can, in a way suggest an alternative alpha access for next campaign (if this one fails).

WALL OF TEXT INCOMING!

A lot of people are complaining about too high price to participate in the alpha, so there could be a way to accept people to alpha with lower donations and still keep the servers running with expected amount of alpha testers. This suggestion goes with my previous that could be found here.
Ok now to my "merged" suggestion.
According to indiegogo you have planned 1000 early alpha testers from donations, 1000 alpha 2, 2000 alpha 3, 2000 beta 1 and 2000 beta 2. Now what you could do i actually make it a bit differently.
Instead of getting 1000 instant alpha testers for 150e donations make it 300. And the rest of 700 slots you planned go to other perks, but in a special way. Lets say like this:
For 35e pledge you reserve 40 instant alpha access keys but 1st 15 donations gain instant alpha 1 access, and the the rest who pledged that much will be randomly drawn from the remaining pool* 25 keys (*read alpha 2, 3, beta 1, 2 for complete understanding of the system).
For 50e you reserve 60 keys where 1st 25 get instant access and remaining 35 get randomly drawn.
For 75e you reserve 80 early alpha keys with 35 earliest pledges getting the keys and remaining get random 45 keys.
And so on until you reach 150e which gives 300 instant alpha keys.

Now to alpha 2 access. Same deal with a little change. Again we start with 35e donation. After 1st 15 donations are done (instant alpha 1 access) next 15 give you instant alpha 2 access and remaining 25 are drawn randomly. And for higher pledges follow the similar pattern.

Alpha 3 access (this time 2000 keys are planned) would kick in at 35e donations as well with double the amount, so instead of 15 you would give 30 instantly and 50 would be random. So 1st 15 are instant alpha 1, then 2nd 15 are instant alpha 2 and 3rd 30 pledges are instant alpha 3 access and remaining pledges would give you a chance to enter any of those 3 testing stages.

Same goes for beta. Beta 1 access has 2000 planned so we have the same pattern and that makes it 30 instant beta 1 access keys for 30 pledges after the alpha 1, 2 and 3 are done (after 60 donations) and then again 50 are in the random pool.

For beta 2 access again 2000 keys. Same stuff. 30 keys for the final 30 pledges and 50 are gonna be randomized.

Now to sum it up. This would mean that 35e pledges would give you total of 120 instant access keys to various development stages and 200 keys that would be randomly given. That would possibly mean 120 players would donate 35e to get to some level of development testing (be it alpha 1, 2, 3, beta 1 or 2). That equals 4200e. And given the fact that total of 320 people will get some kind of access we could assume that at least 320 pledges worth 35e would be there giving you total of 11,200e.

With proposed numbers the next pledge would allow total of 50% more early access keys that means 480 and total amount of potential donations before the chance of getting a key goes below 100% is 480*50 and that is 24,000e.

Next one would yield 640 total keys and only for those pledges you would get 640*75=48,000e

So far this is total of 83,200e (and i didnt go up to 150e pledges so i dont repeat myself, but it goes all the way to 150e). Think about this.
My math might be a bit screwed since i got a slight headache and this is made assuming people would buy the access in this way.

One more benefit from this kind of reward system - your project would quickly raise the funds and people who are unsure if they want to pledge or not will have more courage to do so - "The funds are growing! I will invest!" (its pretty much stagnant now... a bit discouraging).

I hope i made sense. And im sure this methodology could be implemented into my "clan funding" idea for some additional benefits for clans.

[Waylander]

Not sure if it's a good idea to put so much random on reward, but it'll indeed offer a great boost for the start.

[En_Dotter]

Not sure if it's a good idea to put so much random on reward, but it'll indeed offer a great boost for the start.

Its not totally random. As you can see 1st 120 pledges (35e donations) would get access and after that its randomized, and if max of 320 donate the only random thing after 1s 120 pledges is what access you get.
That makes donating a bit fun: Should i donate only 35 and get random access (or none) or i will gonna donate 50 and be sure to get at least beta 2.
Its something that might make donating a mini game of a sort
In the end we dont lose anything - we only gain a complete game

[Waylander]

That's why it will boost the sales, at least for the beginning, But peoples can not be fond of such a random reward when it comes to money.
Or they will love, don't know, but I usually want to know what I get when I spend 30€ or so.

[En_Dotter]

That's why it will boost the sales, at least for the beginning, But peoples can not be fond of such a random reward when it comes to money.
Or they will love, don't know, but I usually want to know what I get when I spend 30€ or so.

Why dont you people read?
The choice of being randomly drawn depends on you. YOU DECIDE if you want to be in the random pool or not. If you dont want to be in the random pool give a bit more euro if the previous perk has become random pool when you want to donate and secure your early access to one of the testing phases.

(i hope all of you see and understand that i am constantly saying TESTING and not playing)

[Waylander]

Can't get you wrong on this, but it's still less money for the same amount of alpha and beta slot, which seems not to be an option (if I understand your idea correctly and what I've read elsewhere)

[Dailato]

I agree that putting beta/alpha on lower amount of money (45E max) would create a far greater inflow of money (and more people in alpha/beta means more people that want to play with their friends/guild in alpha/beta who they convince to donate as well, some of which may donate alot more than that).

But as they've said, there is no changing it now, so let's think of ways to help out.

I have to wonder, have the developers considered giving alpha/beta access to some youtubers? like totalbiscuit, yogscast, jesse cox? They can provide ALOT of publicity for the game simply for granting them access to it (and I know some of them will love the game's concept if nothing else)

I may or may not have allready sent some of these an e-mail suggesting they take a look at the game and kickstarter, but I'm just a random guy with no actual connection to the game the developers themselves tend to have a better impact in this regard.

Maybe you could even convince some of them to mention your kickstarter in a video? I know the businessmodel will still turn off alot of people, but... it's still publicity, could be enough to "push it to the limit".

[Kuroi]

I agree that putting beta/alpha on lower amount of money (45E max) would create a far greater inflow of money (and more people in alpha/beta means more people that want to play with their friends/guild in alpha/beta who they convince to donate as well, some of which may donate alot more than that)

1) you don't PLAY an alpha, you have to test, it's gonna be filled by bugs and probably not nice to enjoy, many people may even get the wrong idea and quit it, spreading bad words as well. Cause they think alpha is an early access to try abd play the game or first. NOT.

2) 45 euros for alpha? So just 45.000 euros since alpha 1 had 1.000 ad limit? What about the resting 155.000 they would need? Lol.

[finalreview]

Only comprise would be to reduce the price to 45 or whatever low price, then put a player cap on the server. Then we would get to read a long thread about paying for alpha but the server being full and not getting to play.

[Dailato]

I agree that putting beta/alpha on lower amount of money (45E max) would create a far greater inflow of money (and more people in alpha/beta means more people that want to play with their friends/guild in alpha/beta who they convince to donate as well, some of which may donate alot more than that)

1) you don't PLAY an alpha, you have to test, it's gonna be filled by bugs and probably not nice to enjoy, many people may even get the wrong idea and quit it, spreading bad words as well. Cause they think alpha is an early access to try abd play the game or first. NOT.

2) 45 euros for alpha? So just 45.000 euros since alpha 1 had 1.000 ad limit? What about the resting 155.000 they would need? Lol.

45 euros would be max for beta, my bad. Alpha could be a bit higher, up to about 80/100E. Please note that the point is to get many people to donate, not just those hardcore few willing to shell out 100+E. Those guys will donate anyway, and depending on the perks way more than it takes just to get into alpha. Besides, if you run out of spots for the Alpha, just put up a reward with just the title or some such associated with it for the same price, or even add an additional alpha testing stage.

Your sentiment that an alpha is "not enjoyable" isn't shared by the general public. Simply getting in and getting an idea of what the game will be like, getting a taste so to speak, is hugely enjoyable for alot of people. That is why they are willing to pay for the privilige.

The idea that "those kind" of people (which I guarantee will be the vast majority of any beta/alpha) can't or won't provide good feedback is frankly pure BS. They know it's an alpha and they expect it will be improved upon greatly before release. Getting the chance to give feedback on systems and how they can be improved (or how they aren't working) gives people a sense of fullfillment in helping shape the game that they rarely get during regular play.

I also seriously doubt that people who are willing to pay to play a version of the game they know is unfinished, and probably broken, are going to complain about what state the game is in and slander it. These people WANT to help improve the game and get it to succeed, not find problems they can use to drag it through the mud. Some might find out the game isn't what they thought it would be (not because of "unfinished/broken" but because they had differing expectations from the game than the developers) and they will possibly complain about it. Unless you're going to pay THEM to test your game, a few of these people will always exist.

And yes you "Play" an alpha, because broken and unfinished, it is still a game. Even when developers ask you to specifically test certain areas or types of gameplay (see that word? yeh.) it is still a game. If you want someone to spend 8 hours singlehandedly and mindnumbingly test every single tree in the forest for cuttability, and note every single tree that makes the server crash then (besides a few specific volunteers who will do anything) you have internal testers for that. People you pay to do it. Most people don't come home from work, sit down behind the computer, relax, and decide it's time for some more work, let's do the alpha! That's not how they view the Alpha and for good reason. Alpha means broken, unfinished, untested, and not ready for the public. It does not mean "not a game". It is not just a bunch of spreadsheets unless it's eve-online, but then that's that games general gameplay so I digress.

So as to your point 1. That is your view and your view alone, it is not how the people willing to pay up to a certain amount for an alpha view it, and all of them combined is alot of money.

point 2: well, I dno, how about if the alpha is 45 euro you make the beta 30 euro and give it a 5000 limit? thats 150.000 of your lingering 155.000. the last 5000 can be easily reached with extra perks and such for higher reward levels, or say maybe... 25 euros for the game on launch? that can be unlimited after all.

this is what indiegames are all about tbh, you can't afford to ask for more because you don't have the guaranteed pickups. Quantity over quality if you want to make money. Just think if minecraft or terrarria were 50 euros instead of 15-20. think they would've made anywhere near the amount of money they have now?

[Kuroi]

Your sentiment that an alpha is "not enjoyable" isn't shared by the general public. Simply getting in and getting an idea of what the game will be like, getting a taste so to speak, is hugely enjoyable for alot of people. That is why they are willing to pay for the privilige.

it's not a taste, a real demo is what you can define a taste, not a pre-alpha/prototype, seriously.

if someone thinks he may "enjoy" an alpha probably never tried one or he tried a late closed beta game thinking it's gonna be the same for alphas. NOT.

The idea that "those kind" of people (which I guarantee will be the vast majority of any beta/alpha) can't or won't provide good feedback is frankly pure BS. They know it's an alpha and they expect it will be improved upon greatly before release.

i played plenty of alphas, more betas than alphas, and the most people were there just to check if the game was good for them, if it was filled by bugs they would just quit and shit-talk about it, with a minority submitting them for fix. you can guarantee it's not like this, how?

I also seriously doubt that people who are willing to pay to play a version of the game they know is unfinished, and probably broken, are going to complain about what state the game is in and slander it. These people WANT to help improve the game and get it to succeed, not find problems they can use to drag it through the mud.

that happens if the price is not that high, if it's good for everyone's pockets it means that ever trolls/douchebags are gonna buy it cause they have nothing to do, thus complain and slander it. you know Mortal online i guess, its closed beta started in 2009, today in 2013 there are STILL the same persons who talk shit about it for what they saw in beta those times.

you really underestimate what people can do, lol.

And yes you "Play" an alpha, because broken and unfinished, it is still a game. Even when developers ask you to specifically test certain areas or types of gameplay (see that word? yeh.) it is still a game.

alphas rarely are up all the time, and once up they need precise tests, that's not playing. i play when i start to shape my very avatar, not using a very temporary one for tests.

how about if the alpha is 45 euro you make the beta 30 euro and give it a 5000 limit?

how about they made those limits cause they probably can only hold such numbers? a really early alpha with 5000 people, lol... servers would explode, nobody's gonna test and shit-talking will surely spread. trust me.

[Dailato]

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree here, since you've clearly had a very different experience with alpha's, kickstarters, and the people participating in them than I have.

I'm asuming you made something of a typo here when you said:

it's not a taste, a real demo is what you can define a taste, not a pre-alpha/prototype, seriously.

if someone thinks he may "enjoy" an alpha probably never tried one or he tried a late closed beta game thinking it's gonna be the same for alphas. NOT.

since we're talking about alpha's not pre-alpha or prototype.

Personally I find this

alphas rarely are up all the time, and once up they need precise tests, that's not playing. i play when i start to shape my very avatar, not using a very temporary one for tests.

is a rather narrow definition of play, but if that's the one you're using then I can't really argue with it.

And I'm gonna asume you misread what I said here as it being a 5000 people alpha, rather than the intended 5000 people beta.

how about if the alpha is 45 euro you make the beta 30 euro and give it a 5000 limit?

how about they made those limits cause they probably can only hold such numbers? a really early alpha with 5000 people, lol... servers would explode, nobody's gonna test and shit-talking will surely spread. trust me.

Since if the alpha can hold a 1000 people and they're planning on making it a single-server MMO, the beta should be able to handle 5000 people, of whom not all are even going to be online at the same time. If they can't handle those numbers during beta then they've got a problem with the servers that shouldn't really be around at that stage of development.