Greetings Friends! We have a couple of interesting updates for you in regards to news on Shroud of the Avatar.  We have the following news:

• Update on Blast Emails
• Construction Set
• Portalarium CEO

Update on Blast Email

In a previous post I talked about the recent blast emails that appear to be going to only some individuals and not others.  Chris Spears made a post that helps clarify things a bit.  I wish Starr had simply shared this in his two extremely brief correspondences with me. I am glad Chris has helped clarify things more though.

Again, I wish Portalarium would simply communicate things better. Especially since most people I spoke to never even heard of these emails going out.  The buzz about a rumor about free stuff for the game thankfully spread via social media and probably helped bolster logins for a few days this month.  I will reiterate that I find flaws in the execution of this email blast, but I think this mostly is again due to the reason many things aren’t being updated/worked on/etc… “bandwidth”. They simply do not have the manpower or the money.

Construction Set

Scott Jones has put together a construction set of decorative items that were promised back during the Release 60 livestream. He has posted a forum thread to talk about these items, but to talk about how he planned putting them together into a coherent set and have some fun talking about it.  I will put some images below, but I would recommend reading his post. These are definitely some nice items in general though for those who are still playing the game.

Portalarium CEO

Back in October, when Richard Garriott clarified why he was no longer listed as CEO, we learned that Portalarium had eliminated titles that contained “officer” in it.  Thus Richard’s CEO position was removed.  Since Dallas Snell had retired (Confirmed by Chris Spears on his twitch stream May 16th) his COO position was left unfilled and then eliminated as well.  This made sense to alot to some that Portalarium would eliminate positions that a small company doesn’t really need. Portalarium had a board of directors and the SotA team still had leads like Starr Long and Chris Spears.  The thought was going forward that these positions were fully eliminated.

It was recently brought up to me in a direct message that I should look at the public records for Portalarium in regards to Texas filings.  In looking at them, I noticed Chris Spears was added as CEO.  in digging more, I was able to see the 2017 tax year, where Dallas Snell was listed as CEO and Richard as CEO, per Dallas’s “digital signature” from 11/15/2017 on the 2017 form.  Chris Spear’s “digital signature” was certifying the info was correct though on the 2018 form. (I will not reprint this cause of Texas rules about accessing and using the info via and from the SOSDIRECT system they have).

This confused me cause Chris stated in his stream and on the forum that this was a surprise to him.  Now with his “digital signature” on there, dated November 15th, 2018.  not long after Richard’s statements about “officer” positions being ended at Portalarium.  Most likely, I assume their accountant signed the documentation with Chris’s name without his knowledge.

Below are the forum statements from Chris.

I would say, this initial reaction from Chris certainly supports the theory that this whole situation was done without his knowledge. Chris’ distaste for many on reddit is well known, however his second statement certainly makes it seem like he was surprised after learning that the documentation found was real.  Now Chris states at around 3:50 mentions Dallas was CEO, however all public documentation I can find only ever listed Dallas Snell as COO.  So this is probably a misstatement on his part.  Chris does make statements that this isn’t really big news.  Certainly this isn’t a huge scandal from my perspective, however the important reasons why this is news is because:

1) the conflict with what Richard stated in regards to officer positions being terminated/ended.
2) if these positions were ended, this would be incorrect information on tax documentation, plus with Chris’s digital signature being used, this could assign some level of liability.
3) If this was done without Chris’ knowledge, that certainly continues to support the issue of communication Portalarium has had for a long time.

One interesting thing to note is this report submitted to Texas, that has Chris’s signature is supposed to have been mailed to not just him, but also any other directors, etc named in the report. So he should have had a copy of this since Late November/December.  Also, while Portalarium is such a small company now and officer roles really are meaningless at that level, it certainly seems suspect that the person who did the paperwork didn’t know about the changes that were announced publicly by Richard who is also one of the board members. As someone who has had their info on public documents like these, I still remain cynical. I would expect most individuals to know or have seen & confirmed for his/herself what is on legal and tax related documents that have their signature or digital/electronic signature.

As always, make your own judgement based on the information.