So late last week, someone by the name of Xaeos put up a lengthy post over at Hardforum, in which he claimed to be able to provide “Special Founder Edition” pledges for Shroud of the Avatar “at cost”. Basically, he was offering to let people who hadn’t pledged to Shroud of the Avatar do so a) at Early Founder¹ prices, b) without attaching his own processing fee, to that c) these new backers might receive Early Founder rewards rather than Benefactor² rewards.

Let’s just clarify the terminology a bit:

1. Early Founders are those who pledged to Shroud of the Avatar prior to May 20th, 2013…basically, Kickstarter backers and the first group of people that backed the game through its website. Early Founders not only paid a bit less for their respective pledge levels than Benefactors (e.g. $40 for the basic “Adventurer” pledge level, instead of $45). Early Founders also get several exclusive items, some of which have Benefactor equivalents and some of which are exclusive. Founders also take priority over Benefactors in terms of e.g. in-game lot selection and house placement.
2. Benefactors are those who pledged to Shroud of the Avatar after May 20th, 2013. It was at this time that pledge level prices increased (in some cases by a bit, and in other cases by a significant amount), so in general Benefactors have paid more than Early Founders for…almost the same in-game rewards. I say “almost” there because Benefactor-specific reward items (and houses) often differ aesthetically from Early Founder reward items (and houses). Additionally, there are certain rewards that Benefactors simply do not receive.

Given the above, I’m sure you can all well imagine that there has been more than a little bit of “Founder vs. Benefactor” tension on the Shroud of the Avatar forums, as well as in its IRC chat. Especially because some people have sunk a considerable amount of money into their SotA pledge, the distinctions — little and large — between what an Early Founder gets at a particular reward tier and what a Benefactor gets at the same (or equivalent) tier have provoked numerous arguments, and more than a few feelings of bitterness.

But I digress. Let’s return to the matter of Xaeos and his post on Hardforum. Because you see…it wasn’t a scam. What he was offering was something he was — and still is, actually — legitimately able to do. As an Early Founder of the game himself, he could send Early Founder pledges (at Early Founder prices) to other people using the pledge gifting system that Portalarium had put in place. And so, if you sent him the money to do so, he would gladly set you up with an Early Founder pledge of your choosing. And the reason he wasn’t charging anything extra for doing so was because for each gift pledge he sent out, his own pledge to Shroud of the Avatar would receive a $25 bonus.

Sure, there’s plenty of room to dispute the ethicality of Xaeos’ methods. What he’s doing doesn’t really feel right somehow, even though there are no technical hurdles in place to prevent it, and even though the system in place at the Shroud of the Avatar website was actually designed to let him do what he is doing. Or, well…it sort of is designed for it. Here…let’s let Starr Long explain the intent of the system as it exists today:

During our Kickstarter campaign we got numerous requests from the community to allow the purchase of multiple pledges on a single account so they could purchase pledges for friends and family. We added that ability and included it in the one year grace period at the end of the Kickstarter campaign (https://www.kickstarter.com/project…of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues-0/posts/448973). The intent of this functionality was purely for that type of social philanthropy.

Recently, we fixed a bug where the purchase of additional Founder pledges was at Benefactor pricing and this raised this issue to a more public discussion. We do realize that there is potential for abuse in that system but we cannot go back on this promise we made to our 22K+ Founders. We can and will however police any abuse of this system that we see. Specifically, if you observe individuals charging other players a fee to receive a Founder pledge please send a ticket to support@portalarium.com and we will address the situation.

We realize that this can feel like it sets up an unfair situation where those of you who are Benefactors, and heavily invested, would see others receive Founder status when you cannot. However, we also hope you realize that you now have a tool that lets you network with the community to upgrade your pledge to Founder status by finding a willing Founder patron. That patron can gift / transfer you a Founder pledge before the cutoff date which you can then merge with your existing Benefactor pledge to turn it into a Founder pledge.

So, looking at what Xaeos is doing, there’s really no…room to complain about it, except (again) at some ethical level (perhaps). He’s operating within the limitations articulated by Starr Long, and would probably (given the above) defend his actions as a massive exercise in social philanthropy. Granted, he’s probably made a tidy sum off of the referral bonuses, and I think it’s this more than anything that gives rise to the ethical dubiousness of his actions…but even so, from a purely technical standpoint, what he’s doing is legitimate.

Moreover, note too the end of Starr’s post:

That patron can gift / transfer you a Founder pledge before the cutoff date which you can then merge with your existing Benefactor pledge to turn it into a Founder pledge.

Well, as you can well imagine, a market for Early Founder pledge upgrades sprang up on the Shroud of the Avatar forums within a couple of hours of Starr writing that. Some people are offering to do the same basic thing that Xaeos is (that is: set you up with an Early Founder pledge, for which you reimburse them the exact amount and not a cent more). Some are offering a bit of a cut rate on pledge gifting (e.g. an “Adventurer” pledge for $30 instead of $40). I suppose the theory there is that in the end, all they’re really doing is cutting their referral reward from $25 to $15, saving them some money versus increasing their pledge total entirely out of their own funds.

Either way…if you’re a Benefactor looking to upgrade to Early Founder status, there’s now a veritable marketplace full of people just waiting to help you out with that.

Unsurprisingly, not everyone is happy about this turn of events, although people can’t seem to agree whether it’s the extant Benefactors or those who actually pledged prior to May 20th, 2013 — the “true” Early Founders, I suppose one might say, for lack of a more descriptive term — who get the raw end of this deal.

Personally, I think this is a bit disappointing to see…and by that, I am mostly referring to the upgrade marketplace and the rapidity with which it sprang up. The idea of referral rewards, in the form of pledge upgrades, was arguably a good one…and I don’t think Portalarium could have done much to improve on their execution of that idea. But as with any human-facing system, people turned what could — should — have been an exercise in (as Starr Long puts it so well) social philanthropy into something…greedier. I suppose the prices of obtaining real estate and housing has something to do with that in turn, and indeed that’s a wholly different controversy that I’ll have to write a primer on at some point.

Fortunately, this whole controversy will go away in early April; come April 8th, all gifted pledges will have Benefactor status, and the list of who is and isn’t an Early Founder will be locked in and final. Until then…we can expect to see more of the above.

Which, admittedly, has had one positive outcome: Shroud of the Avatar had a couple of quite excellent days of fundraising over the weekend.