The Sale of Shadow Era to the Players

**Gondorian** · 06-11-2017, 10:38 PM

Originally Posted by neratza713

When the thread opened, eth would cost ~150$.
Today's high ( 06/11/2017 ) is 351.05$.
Should we reconsider the whole cryptocurrency thing, or go to a more stable currency like bitcoins?
Thing is I do not want and do not have the will to become a stock market pioneer.

Kyle said a couple of posts above "To keep things simple, the tokens will likely have a fixed price in USD for the duration of the crowdsale and exchanged at the current rate of ETH or BTC or whatever at the time of purchase."

**WolfCyr** · 06-12-2017, 07:07 PM

And ? You think that ETH will grow eternaly ? Do you ever heard of correction, overbuy etc ... ?
Don't forget that the players that will buy the game are investors as well.

**TJ dubdub** · 06-12-2017, 07:32 PM

ETH should no longer be a problem here. He said that the price will be a set USD amount, so the price in ETH will fluctuate at the same rate as the value. Sounds fine to me.

**greasypig** · 06-12-2017, 09:06 PM

Originally Posted by Brady

ETH should no longer be a problem here. He said that the price will be a set USD amount, so the price in ETH will fluctuate at the same rate as the value. Sounds fine to me.

It won't be a problem when you buy, but selling will still be complicated. If you want to sell your shares, it sounds like:

1) You'd have to put your Shadow Tokens up for sale somehow, at a price you set (I'm assuming there'll be a marketplace for this)
2) Someone would have to want to buy your shares for that price.
3) The buyer would then have to have or buy ETH to pay you for your Shadow Tokens (unless the system allows you to do a private transaction in some other currency, and just transfer ownership of your ST to the buyer yourself)
4) You would then have to sell your ETH to an exchange online to convert to cash at whatever the going rate for ETH is. I looked it up, people seem to prefer to exchange ETH>BTC, and then BTC>Cash.

As far as I can tell there's no way to convert your Shadow Tokens to ETH or cash without there being someone willing to actually buy it from you, whether it's one of the other share holders or a new buyer, right? If activity is low it seems like you might have to be waiting a while to get your shares sold, during which the price of ETH could fluctuate a lot.

I mean, technically this is how the stock market works, but the system is pretty instantaneous when using an online brokerage, and it's usually in your preferred real currency. This seems like it will be far from instantaneous and definitely not one or two clicks of the mouse.

**Kylt** · 06-13-2017, 01:43 AM

Originally Posted by greasypig

It won't be a problem when you buy, but selling will still be complicated. If you want to sell your shares, it sounds like:

1) You'd have to put your Shadow Tokens up for sale somehow, at a price you set (I'm assuming there'll be a marketplace for this)
2) Someone would have to want to buy your shares for that price.
3) The buyer would then have to have or buy ETH to pay you for your Shadow Tokens (unless the system allows you to do a private transaction in some other currency, and just transfer ownership of your ST to the buyer yourself)
4) You would then have to sell your ETH to an exchange online to convert to cash at whatever the going rate for ETH is. I looked it up, people seem to prefer to exchange ETH>BTC, and then BTC>Cash.

As far as I can tell there's no way to convert your Shadow Tokens to ETH or cash without there being someone willing to actually buy it from you, whether it's one of the other share holders or a new buyer, right? If activity is low it seems like you might have to be waiting a while to get your shares sold, during which the price of ETH could fluctuate a lot.

I mean, technically this is how the stock market works, but the system is pretty instantaneous when using an online brokerage, and it's usually in your preferred real currency. This seems like it will be far from instantaneous and definitely not one or two clicks of the mouse.

I think Kyle said he (or wulven) will buy any shares you want to sell. In other words, he will be the buyer if there's no one willing to buy it (I assume that trade will be made at fair price). That way, liquidity of shadow token is ensured.

If my understanding is wrong, then yeah, no one will buy what seems to be an one-way ticket.

**Gondorian** · 06-13-2017, 05:23 AM

Originally Posted by Brady

ETH should no longer be a problem here. He said that the price will be a set USD amount, so the price in ETH will fluctuate at the same rate as the value. Sounds fine to me.

Yes. I've looked into buying some ETH myself and some ways to buy it involve first having BitCoin, which itself is volatile too. As far as I understand it, you simply buy the BitCoin and then instantaneously that can become ETH, so pretty much your $100 of BC becomes $100 of ETH (which could also become $100 of Shadow Tokens) almost immediately. Unless there is a "flash crash" at that precise moment, it is not going to change in those few milliseconds. Maybe Kyle can chime in on this?

Similarly, the Shadow Tokens will have their main value expressed in dollars, and you would just cash out however many dollars you want into whatever that is in ETH which you can then cash out to actual dollars or leave as ETH. As others have said, there will always be buyers there for the ST to keep the liquidity there. (Kyle will correct me if I'm wrong about this.)

If anyone is paranoid/concerned/skeptical about buying in or giving their time to a project that may yield nothing for themselves other than the satisfaction of helping something improve and joy of the process, then I reckon just don't play with too much money. Keep it small and consider it a hobby. Drop in $100, or put in a couple of hours per week. Whatever ETH or Shadow Tokens you get, forget about it and leave it and see where it goes. It might just turn into a huge amount or it may go nowhere.

That's just the little risk you take, in the same way you can back a kickstarter (some of which have never delivered on anything, and make our SF kickstarter look like it's already delivered and then some!) or even buy something that actually you may not end up using. (Hands up if you have a foot spa or ice cream maker or gym equipment that you took a risk on at the time and ended up barely using!) Or take a chance to ask out that guy or girl that you fancy. It's a risk with some cost, but the pay-off can be huge! (It's how I met my wife, taking a chance.)

Anyway, sorry for getting philosophical here. I'm just in that kind of mood due to a few things going on in my personal life. My point is that you get nothing if you don't do something and will it hurt more if you don't do anything and later regret that or hurt more if you take an educated risk and it doesn't pan out? (If you've seen Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David has "I took a risk!" as one of his catch-phrases which comes up when he tries a thing that doesn't pan out.)

For what it's worth, my three years working as a contractor on SE (before that, it was a hobby) have kinda been like this educated risk that could have gone either way when I started. I do not regret it for ONE SECOND! Even the pay cut compared to what I was doing before (working for "The Man", doing software development in a niche field in a depressing office environment where making money for my employer was the most important thing and so they had to pay staff highly to retain them) is a small price to pay for getting to have this kind of impact on something and work on my dream job!

I get to dream up my own card ideas, share them, tweak them, propose art for them (either existing or via description), code them up, playtest them with the fans, spoil them and then release them! And the fun doesn't stop there! There's all the balance discussion afterwards and (occasional) bugs to solve and rules clarifications to make. Those are the best part of all! (Oh, and I've been able to work from home all this time on flexible hours, so I can see so much more of my youngest daughter age 1-4 years than I did of my older two children! I think maybe that could explain how wacky she is. She's an absolute "hoot" as you might say somewhere in the world!)

If any of those things I just mentioned sound like your dream job, be sure to apply for a role in the new organisation (or have kids if you're referring to my delightful daughter). Whilst I love doing pretty much everything when it comes to bringing out new cards, I am happy to step aside and get more people on board. I'm not a power-mad dictator, despite what my children may tell you! For example, there have been times where PFG members have worked on card design with me and some of their ideas are already out there. I'm fine with not controlling and doing everything and am really looking forward to seeing what others come up with!

So, yes, this is a chance to get involved in these kinds of ways and more. And I can't be the only person who values enjoyment and contribution over boring money in a bank account! And here's the best part of this: You can choose to either give time to take part and get some ST or invest money and still take part but not necessarily give much time (or do a bit of both!). All these years, I would have liked to be able to get a financial share in the game, but we didn't operate on that model. I was just a contractor and I was paid to do the work. I did sometimes wonder about putting some money back in to help alleviate blockages (e.g. to get art so we can release some cards!) but Kyle and I could never work out how that would be tracked properly. The Shadow Tokens approach solves this, so I'm in!

In fact, before this was announced publicly, Kyle revealed to me that he wanted to give me a share in the game in recognition for what I've done in the past as a thank you. He doesn't need to do that and I never expected it. I didn't know exactly how it would work when I was first told, but this Shadow Tokens / ETH thing seems perfect. I can't wait for this sale to happen and see who else becomes a shareholder with us.

Now, I can understand if some people reading this think "That's a load of crap. He's biased and just wants us to buy into this game and will do anything he can to get us to do it!" Well, you would be right to consider that possibility. If you haven't then you you're a bit naive and you should question things more! WAKE UP!

However, I do hope that if you've got to know me from this game/community or on a more personal level through Telegram or Facebook or Skype or my YouTube videos, then you would hopefully believe I'm not that kind of person to take advantage and actually this isn't about trying to trick anyone into buying in so I can exploit you. (I save my jedi mind tricks for getting my kids to do their chores!) If I champion something, it is because I believe in it, and I am championing this now because it's a great opportunity that does not come along often - perhaps even once in a lifetime. (We all know how great this game is already and where it could get to with some financial investment and more people on board developing/promoting it.)

Still not convinced? That's fine. Don't put money in and don't volunteer to be involved in exchange for ST. Seriously, that is fine. I personally expect only 1% of the player-base to try to get on board this organisation anyway, due to either lack of money or lack of time or not willing to take a risk due to either some things that didn't work out in the past or just general risk aversion. So that's probably 1 out of 1000 views of this post that might go for it. So don't feel bad if you don't. However ...

What I really hope everyone can do though is stick around and keep playing and enjoy what comes out of this, and try to stay positive and keep your comments constructive. I think that really is the thing that will be the biggest help with taking SE to the next level and it's something that any player can do just be playing and staying engaged with the community.

If you're still with me, please continue to my next post below ...

**Gondorian** · 06-13-2017, 06:23 AM

As a little reward for reading all of the above (if not, why not!?!?!), I'd like to give a little development news based on how I think this could play out once the sale to the players has happened and we have a new development team assembled ...

There's obviously the single-player campaign and automated tournaments that Kyle has mentioned a lot and those will definitely be a priority. I don't expect to be involved in those very much, so I shouldn't speculate though. Let's instead turn to what might be considered my "bread and butter" in Shadow Era ...

No, not running World Championships! Designing and coding cards ...

In terms of when players might see new cards from this new chapter of Shadow Era's evolution, you've already seen some class cards shared without art for Warriors, Hunters and Mages, which are already coded and playtested.

If the money is raised for the art, then I believe they can be released on a small scale as opposed to waiting for more cards to be ready. This is obviously a departure from our old model of waiting until a whole set is ready, but it is one that players have requested a lot and I do think we would benefit from. If the board of directors and investors approve, it can happen!

In the case of those Warrior, Hunter and Mage cards, it will mean 20 heroes get new cards they can use, which should shake things up a lot. Especially as Warrior and Mage are arguably the classes that need the most help at the moment. Of course, this will be somewhat unfair to the other four classes that provide our other 12 heroes, but their new cards should not be too far behind: Rogues are also ready to go apart from the art; the candidate card designs for Priest/Wulven are there but just aren't coded; Elemental have loads of ideas in a big pool but have been left to the end to select because it's hard to know which ones might break the class! I wanted to see where they were at before I finalised things.

"What?!! They are not even fully designed and coded?!" you might be exclaiming now! Yes, I'm afraid so. But it might surprise you to know that about 7 cards can be coded per day on average (with enough coffee on hand and psytrance music blasting at me). In fact, it is not a stretch at all to think that 7 new cards could come straight out of a brain or three and be coded and tested and be ready for release over just one weekend. JUST ONE WEEKEND! The PFG will attest to this happening at times in the past! When I'm in the zone, I just get them done! And I really enjoy it too!

Not convinced? Well, the new campaign cards were designed and coded in a weekend ... and that's 15 cards! (We initially were not going to have new cards for the campaign, but I was finding it hard to construct varied decks just from CotC that would tell the story effectively from when each hero gets their shadow crystal, so I came up with the wild animals and humans of low moral fiber who are the first beings to be attracted to the shadow energy within Balor. I then pitched the idea of new cards to Kyle as a way of SAVING TIME, because the stories would then be easier to write. He said yes and I coded them up. It's why we seemingly were able to release them out of nowhere in the latest version of the game.

So I reckon a couple of weekends would be all that it takes to finalise and code the Priest, Wulven and Elemental cards for Lost Lands Part 2. The reason I have not done it yet is partly because I know it can just be done fast when the time is right and partly because there's no art yet so other things have been prioritised and I am somewhat lacking the motivation to rush through and then wait ages to get them in your hands. (I also have a very long todo list of other things to be doing. Don't we all!) But if you buy into this game, you have my commitment that I'll do the parts I can to get these new class cards released (everything but the art) in my free time once we have artists on standby to do the art!

To refer back to the idea of trying a new release model, I want to emphasise that, as part of this reorganisation, every decision made in the past will be up for discussion and potentially get changed. This means that some potentially beneficial things we have said we will never do (e.g. ban cards, errata cards, release in small batches) may well now become possible, because it will be the board of directors and investors calling the shots. If they think something will benefit the game, yet Kyle or I have said we won't do it, then it could happen. All I ask is that you don't come back after that and call me a liar - I aim to be as open and honest in all my communications, going based on what I believe to be true at the time, and get very upset if someone thinks I have lied to them!

Anyway, hopefully your imagination is now racing about the possibilities for cards and possible changes to how we run the game itself and you're really fired up to get on board now!

All we need now is for the sale to open!

Thanks for reading and best wishes to you!

**TJ dubdub** · 06-14-2017, 12:09 AM

So it seems that art is the bottle neck here. Why not release without art again? I know it isn't ideal but better than waiting around with playable cards not being implemented.

**seedog** · 06-14-2017, 02:57 AM

Thanks Gondo for your writeup. Really appreciate your passion and effort for the game.

Like everyone else, I love SE and would like to see it going. But what worries me is the owner does not want to take lead in the game anymore and want to throw it to uncertain future holders.

The other thing is whether SE is still financial sound, which we have not received anything practical from Kyle yet.