According to the current page, the number of spots available that are at the $400 or above is about 2,500 (there's one category that's All Gone, so I'm unsure how many where there, but judging by the other categories its probably 100 or so)

So, it does seem unlikely that they'll let 2500 people play designer in any more meaningful way than simply giving community feedback. Having 2500 people be designers of a game seems like a bad idea anyway, so I agree with the people above who say it'll be just like community feedback.

Which makes me wonder to what degree are the opinions of those 2500 people going to be more important than general community feedback? And if 2500 is not too small of a number, if they're the only ones they'll be accepting major feedback from.

But if this level of access as suggested/implied is sufficient to a person's wants then by all means invest. But I will be honest, I would personally prefer $400 to go into helping one of the indie game's being developed by one of our members for example gnoblins or ruinvalor (examples used without permission ) where such an amount while still small would be a hell of a lot more helpful, as well probably depending on the project give you access to an alpha/beta and the chance to make a suggestion that is more likely to be heeded.

Good points, thanks for the suggestions!

One benefit I do see from this general approach, at least from the company's point of view, is they presumably will find it easier getting player feedback than sifting through the typical "nerf class X" rants you see.

Then again, I guess game companies already are doing this to various degrees by asking for private input from Guild Leaders and other key community members. Maybe the overall problem of effectively processing player feedback is more manageable than I am expecting.

Any sensible indie developer will listen with attention to any reasoned feedback from their fans - and won't charge $400 for the privilige.

And seriously - an exclusive group of 2000+ is not exclusive.

But this isn't just a small indie team, and their forum will probably be littered.

Also, any of the none "developer" ranks might not be interested in this "feature"... So it's still a maximum of ~2500.

So they just listen to the careless rich people then although there is most likely no correlation between not minding to pay $400 for the tiny chance of people listening to you in a mass of 2500 and being able to provide thoughtful contributions?

What impresses me the least is the fact that the presentation makes great promises about a lot of great details (though without being too concrete), and some screenshots/movies rather concretely suggest how some mechanics will work and things will look like, but on the other hand it states that no design document exists yet, as this will be created after input from the "developer backers".

The way these "be a developer" spots are marketed is most deceptive too, in my opinion. What you'll get is certainly is not what you think when you read the description.

Somehow, all of that gives me a bit of an impression of vaporware (or even worse, fraud), which is not something I'd expect from someone like Richard Garriott.

Also, some of the details (such as housing limited to a few dozen city spots) appear to be very much oblivious of real world problems that someone like Richard Garriott would obviously be aware of. Did they really say MMO and few dozen in one sentence? You're kidding me.

Having very limited housing is a direct invitation to gold farmers, unless houses are totally useless. If you can only get hold of a handful of these, you can easily sell them for several thousand dollars each. Who wouldn't go for that?

I remember LOTRO had a big deal of trouble with that right after launch, although they tried very hard to make house squatting as hard as possible -- and there were many hundreds of houses, which were pretty useless apart from "prestige" and "decorating fun" and having a chest with a dozen extra storage slots.

Now, in contrast to that, consider few dozen houses that are very useful.

This makes me wonder if it's really Richard Garriott behind that project. It's hard to imagine someone with 3 decades of experience would make such obvious design mistakes. Maybe it's some guys at Portalarium making the game, and RG isn't involved at all (apart from lending his name), or maybe it's some entirely unrelated impersonator, who knows. In any case, it gives me a weird feeling.

One of their team admitted on Twitter that the Kickstarter is more of a focus group than a fundraising campaign. They want to get an idea of what paying customers want from the game, and to have people hand over money in advance for the privilege. Cunning really.

One of their team admitted on Twitter that the Kickstarter is more of a focus group than a fundraising campaign.

That would explain why the amount being asked for is so low. I had been wondering about that given the real costs of doing an mmo on the scale they are advertising would be an awful lot more.

Further updates:

Lori Treleaven about 4 hours ago

It's my understanding that the developer package is like a more exclusive forum where the developers can discuss ideas and get input from the fans... without the flooding of a free public forum. Not that people paying $400 are any more important than those that can't spend that, but there's more chance that those people will want to help the game rather than troll/hinder it. In turn, those people get sneak peeks into whats being worked on, and can feel like their opinions are heard because there aren't as many voices in the mix. It sounds like helping with an NPC is the only semi-direct impact on the game that tier grants you, and the rest will be general discussion where they may or may not decide to implement your ideas.

I wouldn't expect any further direct involvement than that, but if there is, they should definitely make that clear as that would be a bonus.

Creator Portalarium, Inc. about 4 hours ago

@Lori ~ You are correct, the Developer package includes access to a private, Developer Only forum where Developer level Backers will be able to interact directly with the Developers. Not that our Developers don't also participate on our official forums (https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/…), but the more detailed, behind-the-scenes discussions will take place in the members only Developer forum.