I think I can explain what happened there.

As you probably know (if you listen to Q&A's, etc.), information is often first shared on IRC before it is shared for the entire world to see.

Around a week ago, Caspian shared these tiers with us on IRC, asking for feedback. This information was accompanied by a clear header that says "IRC only" and thus, should not be shared with the outside world as it was just them trying to see what we thought about the different tiers. This way, they can change stuff where they think it's necessary based on our feedback. I can tell you that I have seen some very nice changes for the community because of this feedback. And it might change more from what you can see on that tier list right now.

They were not supposed to be shared with the world, though. And that's for a simple reason. They are not set in stone yet. They might change.

Agree with Narendur. The subject line of the post even indicates they're from IRC.

In which case... not cool. Being given info like that for the purpose of comment, and then using it externally... not cool.

In the end it doesn't hurt a whole lot. It's just not cool to be betraying trust.

In terms of what's shown there, meanwhile... it's exciting stuff I think :)

I am not on IRC. Still I guessed that some information had been placed there and then later, improperly revealed outside of IRC. Thanks for clarifying!

[/drama]

On May 4th this will mean nothing. A year from now on May 4th 2017 there will more important and pressing things.

But at this point any news that is about CoE is good -- whatever the tone -- because Caspian and his team have every opportunity to present and refute the negative, and to "astonish" with exciting developements and advancements.

Shame on the source of the information.

I personally think MMORPG.com is a very reputable 'publication" and what it says to me is that they want to be seen as first with any news about CoE and are hungry for ANY and ALL information they can get. They must view there as being an appetite for material and they are in the business of giving their readers what they want.

They have the "hype" for CoE rated extremely high and in FIRST PLACE -- with clear and significant separation with a rating that is 5% greater than the second game on their watchlist!!!

Here is a link to their article from April 23 -

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/1308/feature/10783/Getting-Ready-for-KickStarter.html/page/1

So all in all -- let's promote the positive of CoE and encourage the responses to any articles to be the same.

It's not an article or publication though, it is a forum post by a random forum user that clearly wants to be the one who breaks the news.

In it they basically say that they are doing it because they are not happy about the tier prices (specifically listing the alpha/beta/etc costs) and they want the devs to make them cheaper and change them.

Personally i think it's clear that they don't want to pay for beta access or what they want is too expensive for them, so they are trying to drum up a negative thread filled with hate with the goal of pressuring the dev's into changing the KS tiers.

As Tyrus said, this will mean nothing come the start of the kickstarter. The dev's probably have already tweaked the list before this was posted and the tiers will be what they want them to be... people can bitch and moan about them all they like, but cold hard truth of the matter is this... the KS is a donation required for funding the game, without crowd funding there will be no game and so the end reward is the game, everything else that comes with the KS is icing on the cake.

To be honest I agree with the complaints about the lower tiers to an extent.

Pre-ordering a mmo has almost always guaranteed a head start or open beta invite. Putting that behind the Kickstarter wall will only hurt sales down the road as well as lower the number of people available during what would typically be a stress test prior to launch.

Now that the cat is out so to speak they can get honest feedback and adjust thugs accordingly. The last thing anyone here should want is people waiting till CoE goes up on steam to plop their money down. Enrich the lower tiers to pull people in now so when the next push hits people are already invested in CoEs future and you are more likely to have people buy up for the next round.

Old adage about sales. Do you go for the slow dime or quick nickel?

The person was also notorious for leaking game-related information, it just sucks that it wasn't just someone who was actually passionate about COE looking to promote the game, and instead leaking it in such a way that it seemed awfully negative. What's done is done and unfortunately it means that Soulbound will probably be a lot more cautious in what they choose to share and not share.

Ironically, i think it was a painful blessing that they WILL be more cautious in what they share, due to this event.

I've been worried about the lack of filter between SS and irc for a long time now.

KS tiers reveal is no big deal to me. What gets my goat is when in-game lore is revealed too soon, ruining my anticipation level for the discovery aspect of a game.

I enjoy story-driven games (single-player and MMO), and I find most of those games have little replay value to me after I have played the 'theme' quests the first time. It is unfortunate when I am in game forums before release and the devs and/or alpha/beta testers accidentally reveal in-game story content that should have been unknown to my character and to me.