Trials of Ascension, Shady Practices and the Big Crowdfunding Debate

[smackyslap]

Would be nice if they could be liable for fraud but you know scumbags exploiting a the system.

[XanwardSongsteel]

Hey, everyone! Xanward Songsteel with Forged Chaos here. I just wanted to pop in here. OP posted a similar thread on mmorpg.com, which can be found by googling "trials of ascension mmorpg Azrile" (I don't have enough posts to post a link here.)

Many of his points were addressed within that thread, and I would request that you guys have a look

Some of the points highlighted therein include:

-The spawning demo/unity base tool for trees
-Development for 10 years
-Demo access
-Where donations go/why are we not actively soliciting donations from outside our community

I'm going to bookmark this thread, and if you guys have any questions that you don't feel were addressed, please feel free to ask.

[Polybius]

... How did you find this thread?

[Tech614]

tbh there are plenty of indy games well done out there that didn't need any kickstarters to get them off the ground.

Kickstarters, early access, and day 1 dlc. The 3 most shady things in the game industry atm, funnily enough AAA games are only guilty of one of them(unless we're talking EA who releases BF games and "done" when they are clearly "early access" lmao.

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Hey, everyone! Xanward Songsteel with Forged Chaos here. I just wanted to pop in here. OP posted a similar thread on mmorpg.com, which can be found by googling "trials of ascension mmorpg Azrile" (I don't have enough posts to post a link here.)

Many of his points were addressed within that thread, and I would request that you guys have a look

Some of the points highlighted therein include:

-The spawning demo/unity base tool for trees
-Development for 10 years
-Demo access
-Where donations go/why are we not actively soliciting donations from outside our community

I'm going to bookmark this thread, and if you guys have any questions that you don't feel were addressed, please feel free to ask.

lmfao.

This is an advertising scam 100% guaranteed and the OP is involved in it.

[XanwardSongsteel]

I have a Google Alert set for the term Trials of Ascension. If you're not familiar, basically it sends you an email every time (or day) that someone uses a term that you've dictated.

tbh there are plenty of indy games well done out there that didn't need any kickstarters to get them off the ground.

Kickstarters, early access, and day 1 dlc. The 3 most shady things in the game industry atm, funnily enough AAA games are only guilty of one of them(unless we're talking EA who releases BF games and "done" when they are clearly "early access" lmao.

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lmfao.

This is an advertising scam 100% guaranteed and the OP is involved in it.

I can assure you that the OP is not in anyway affiliated with Forged Chaos LLC or Trials of Ascension. Bashing of your own title is a rather poor strategy, in my opinion

[Kneepel]

I have a Google Alert set for the term Trials of Ascension. If you're not familiar, basically it sends you an email every time (or day) that someone uses a term that you've dictated.



I can assure you that the OP is not in anyway affiliated with Forged Chaos LLC or Trials of Ascension. Bashing of your own title is a rather poor strategy, in my opinion

You've addressed basically nothing in his posts, and you've created multiple accounts on MMORPG fansites to argue against people bashing your game.


Why wont you disappear again?

[XanwardSongsteel]

You've addressed basically nothing in his posts, and you've created multiple accounts on MMORPG fansites to argue against people bashing your game.


Why wont you disappear again?

On the contrary, I have no desire to argue. I merely wish to have a constructive discussion about the various points brought up. Which point do you feel wasn't addressed? I would be happy to discuss it.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

Kickstarter is old news. Steam is the new utopia where you can actually put a price tag on something that's a fraction done, loaded with bugs, and not even be guaranteed that it will release. If you have enough 'friends' you can even get it greenlit without raising an eyebrow and continue to roll in that early access money while searching Google images for concept art!

[Azrile]

so explain to use why you have a ´name a landmark´ for $200 on your website when you do not have a single piece of artwork in your game? No UI, No combat, no inventory system, you don´t even have your own player character able to run around. How in the world do you think it is reasonable to sell ´dance animations´..

Not to mention he lied to his followers. They raised $40,000 and then told their backers that a good ´chunk´ of that went to Unity. Even if you were absolutely stupid and bought the pro version on day1, it is only $1500. But almost everyone builds their games with free Unity which does everything he or most people need.

On top of it, none of the 3 devs have any type of skills (scripting, modelling, animation) .. how can 3 people get together, with no game development skills or experience and have the nerve to set up a cash shop before they can even add anything to their game.

And you are also lying about the 10 years. In 2004, these same 3 devs did the exact same thing. They created hype for a game for 2 years, collected a lot of donations, and then in 2006 they posted a quick message on their forums saying they could not finish the game unless someone was willing to make an investment ´of 6 or 7 figures´

Here is the message

It is my unfortunate duty to inform all of you that we are momentarily freezing all development of ToA. You see, weve come to the end of our financial means and without an injection of capital ToA will not make it to market. We are putting all efforts into finding the required capital so you should expect to see even less of me/us around (if thats possible, right?! ) for the foreseeable future.

In closing, I´ll shamelessly plug our own need for capital. Should you or someone you know might be interested in investing in the competitive yet highly profitable video game industry, please contact us. Interested parties may contact me directly at don@shadowpool.com for a complete business plan, proformas, and multimedia presentation, including in-game video footage. Please note that our required investment is in the six to seven figure range.

Best,
Don Danielson
Brax

that was the message they dropped on their follower back in 2006 after two years of hype and collecting donations. Then they come back last year with a 800,000 kickstarter attempt.

Unbelievable.

[XanwardSongsteel]

so explain to use why you have a ´name a landmark´ for $200 on your website when you do not have a single piece of artwork in your game? No UI, No combat, no inventory system, you don´t even have your own player character able to run around. How in the world do you think it is reasonable to sell ´dance animations´..

Not to mention he lied to his followers. They raised $40,000 and then told their backers that a good ´chunk´ of that went to Unity. Even if you were absolutely stupid and bought the pro version on day1, it is only $1500. But almost everyone builds their games with free Unity which does everything he or most people need.

On top of it, none of the 3 devs have any type of skills (scripting, modelling, animation) .. how can 3 people get together, with no game development skills or experience and have the nerve to set up a cash shop before they can even add anything to their game.

And you are also lying about the 10 years. In 2004, these same 3 devs did the exact same thing. They created hype for a game for 2 years, collected a lot of donations, and then in 2006 they posted a quick message on their forums saying they could not finish the game unless someone was willing to make an investment ´of 6 or 7 figures´

Here is the message

It is my unfortunate duty to inform all of you that we are momentarily freezing all development of ToA. You see, weve come to the end of our financial means and without an injection of capital ToA will not make it to market. We are putting all efforts into finding the required capital so you should expect to see even less of me/us around (if thats possible, right?! ) for the foreseeable future.

In closing, I´ll shamelessly plug our own need for capital. Should you or someone you know might be interested in investing in the competitive yet highly profitable video game industry, please contact us. Interested parties may contact me directly at for a complete business plan, proformas, and multimedia presentation, including in-game video footage. Please note that our required investment is in the six to seven figure range.

Best,
Don Danielson
Brax

that was the message they dropped on their follower back in 2006 after two years of hype and collecting donations. Then they come back last year with a 800,000 kickstarter attempt.

Unbelievable.

I can assure you that we currently have artwork in the in-development demo, rough combat, as well as an inventory system, but that currently hasn't been showcased outside of our backer's forum. A mockup of the inventory system was released, which is now somewhat outdated, but it is implemented: (Can be found on the ToA website under guide -> Inventory)

The 2006 message is when the title was held by Shadowpool studios. While some of our members originate from Shadowpool, the title then is somewhat different from the title now. The developers that migrated over also took a four year break between Shadowpool and Forged Chaos.

"The game hasn't been in development for 10 years. We took a four year break between Shadowpool Studios and Forged Chaos. Even during the Shadowpool days, we launched our website that was full of ideas and concepts way too early. A mistake for sure, but one we learned from.

We received multiple funding offers during Shadowpool but they all came with the same strings attached -- drop our core features and be more like WoW. We had a choice to make - make a clone or make nothing. We chose the latter because we promised ourselves and the thousands that followed ToA we would be true to our design.

If you have doubts about us, we're perfectly ok with that! All we ask is that you do your own due diligence on our game before passing judgement, including stopping by our super friendly forums to ask your questions or voice your concerns. I promise you, you'll be hard pressed to find a friendlier community, even to the most critical cynic. Positive or negative, we listen to everyone. It keep us grounded in reality and opens our eyes to what otherwise might be missed."

Our team also includes more than three developers, but within that skillset we have modeling, scripting, and server architecture covered, as well as other items. I am uncertain where you are finding the reference that the three developers are only game designers.

On a sidenote, I cannot find the reference to out of the $40,000 the majority went towards purchasing Unity. Could you please link me, so that I may see in what context it was made?

[corebit]

Kickstarter is old news. Steam is the new utopia where you can actually put a price tag on something that's a fraction done, loaded with bugs, and not even be guaranteed that it will release. If you have enough 'friends' you can even get it greenlit without raising an eyebrow and continue to roll in that early access money while searching Google images for concept art!

So true. At least with KS you don't lose your pledge money if it fails.

[Duronos]

Guy guys guys, a thread where the actual person involved with said thing posts in the thread.

I need a drink of something strong and some popcorn, best thread 2014.

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On a somewhat serious note, $500 for a demo. You can't do that and make people think it's not a scam, $500 is a blatant scam whether you're making an actual game or not. Nobody should pay that regardless of whether you even have an actual game or not, you could a legitimate developer and if you charge $500 for a demo you're still scamming. Get the fuck out with that shit, brb going to save Cyrodiil.

[Azrile]

You had a kickstarter last fall. 8 months later you have artwork ´in the pipeline´?

Sorry, but you guys have been ´back´ for a year. you have a modeler and scripter on your team and yet your two videos made last month show nothing but unity art assets and the only scripting you were able to do was to break the default Unity camera and not be able to get it to work again. The only artwork I have seen is a very plain house that you said yourself you ´contracted´ out and had problems with him. So tell me, you have a modeler on your staff and the one piece of artwork you show was made by someone else, what exactly did your modeler do for the past year? let me guess, worked on the cash shop.

You guys have done nothing with the game in a year. But let´s list what you have done

1. A kickstarter campaign
2. Created more artwork for your cash-shop than you created for your game
3. Sent out press releases about every 2 weeks talking about fundraising.
4. Added the ability for people who donate to have a special icon on the forums.

Amazing to me that you can be so efficient at fundraising, but that first piece of art has been stuck in the pipeline for 12 months to actually add to the game. Amazing to me that after 12 months, you can´t even pull up the default Unity user interface.

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Guy guys guys, a thread where the actual person involved with said thing posts in the thread.

I need a drink of something strong and some popcorn, best thread 2014.

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On a somewhat serious note, $500 for a demo. You can't do that and make people think it's not a scam, $500 is a blatant scam whether you're making an actual game or not. Nobody should pay that regardless of whether you even have an actual game or not, you could a legitimate developer and if you charge $500 for a demo you're still scamming. Get the fuck out with that shit, brb going to save Cyrodiil.

They don´t even have their character model in the game yet and they are already selling dances and an eye patch for it. They do not have NPCs in their game yet, but if you pay $8, you can name one.

To be fair, I think I explained the $500 badly. You don´t need to pay $500 to get the demo... you need to spend $500 in the cashshop on dances and vanity pets to get the demo. So basically, the demo is free if you buy all 15 vanity pets in their cash-shop along with paying to name a landmark for $200.

[chazus]

PRetty much Buyer Beware.

My studio is doing a Kickstarter very soon (This month) but before we would even consider that, we already have playable stuff, maps, music, on top of several smaller games we've already produced to show that there is actually some development power behind it.

Part of making a successful kickstarter is having credibility. These peopel had none, and it blows my mind that people donated more than a few bucks.

[Tech614]

I have a Google Alert set for the term Trials of Ascension. If you're not familiar, basically it sends you an email every time (or day) that someone uses a term that you've dictated.

And if you where a legit game developer of a legit company you wouldn't care what some random on mmo sites is spewing about your game that 99% of people here never heard of.

Never in my life have I seen a legit game developer register on a random site to defend his product.

To put it simple, nobody here even cares if your crap is a scam or not. You are clearly not a professional, that much is obvious.

[Edge-]

I can assure you that we currently have artwork in the in-development demo, rough combat, as well as an inventory system, but that currently hasn't been showcased outside of our backer's forum. A mockup of the inventory system was released, which is now somewhat outdated, but it is implemented: (Can be found on the ToA website under guide -> Inventory)

Erm, I'm pretty ignorant overall of this game but...how long did it take you to create that?

I mean...there are games with zero budget and folks working on them in their spare time without a budget that can create those assets in a matter of months...that's not necessarily very compelling for a game that's supposedly been in the works for roughly a decade...

[Azrile]

PRetty much Buyer Beware.

My studio is doing a Kickstarter very soon (This month) but before we would even consider that, we already have playable stuff, maps, music, on top of several smaller games we've already produced to show that there is actually some development power behind it.

Part of making a successful kickstarter is having credibility. These peopel had none, and it blows my mind that people donated more than a few bucks.

Man, that is what had me so angry this afternoon. Shards Online, maybe you don´t like the gameplay, maybe you don´t like the art.. but it is a real, honest to goodness game that people were playing and a lot of people were having fun playing.

Games like that are failing kickstarters because we have games like Trials of Ascension that put up a kickstarter with absolutely no gameplay at all... just a video ofa dev sitting on a couch talking about his dreams and asking for $800,000.

Even 8 months after their kickstarter, the only thing they can show is something anyone can make with free Unity in a couple hours.

It is just annoying that games like Shards Online and ToA get lumped together as ´crowdfunding´ games.

[XanwardSongsteel]

You had a kickstarter last fall. 8 months later you have artwork ´in the pipeline´?

Sorry, but you guys have been ´back´ for a year. you have a modeler and scripter on your team and yet your two videos made last month show nothing but unity art assets and the only scripting you were able to do was to break the default Unity camera and not be able to get it to work again. The only artwork I have seen is a very plain house that you said yourself you ´contracted´ out and had problems with him. So tell me, you have a modeler on your staff and the one piece of artwork you show was made by someone else, what exactly did your modeler do for the past year? let me guess, worked on the cash shop.

You guys have done nothing with the game in a year. But let´s list what you have done

1. A kickstarter campaign
2. Created more artwork for your cash-shop than you created for your game
3. Sent out press releases about every 2 weeks talking about fundraising.
4. Added the ability for people who donate to have a special icon on the forums.

Amazing to me that you can be so efficient at fundraising, but that first piece of art has been stuck in the pipeline for 12 months to actually add to the game. Amazing to me that after 12 months, you can´t even pull up the default Unity user interface.

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They don´t even have their character model in the game yet and they are already selling dances and an eye patch for it. They do not have NPCs in their game yet, but if you pay $8, you can name one..

The artwork isn't stuck in the pipeline. As the team leader, I can't give official comment on this, but I strongly believe that gameplay and functionality is more important than sticking our finished art assets into the demo videos for showing off the implemented systems. When something is realized, it must be representative of ToA. While a default asset is perfectly alright in our spawning video, because the focus is on spawning, the default unity UI has no place in it, as it isn't even close to representative of what will be within the demo will be, and it would be misleading towards our audience. You can see some of our assets within our screenshots gallary, which is available to the public (although it should be noted that this included below the engine switch, if you look at the photo titles.) http://trialsofascension.com/media/screenshots/

During our last Kickstarter we realized that video from an alpha and description isn't enough to be successful in the current crowdfunding market, because there is so much oversaturation. The demo is virtually a limited pre-alpha with the various systems noted in the roadmap finished (the roadmap percentages based off of completion of the task in the design document), which will then be distributed to our strongest supporters, various press outlets, as well as backers of the Kickstarter so that they don't need to wait two years for a playable game - which is a trend I have noticed (and experienced personally) in the crowdfunding community. So, in a nutshell, the demo is a "fully fleshout" version of various systems of ToA, so that players can make a better judgement about the title. The work in the demo directly translates to alpha, so I have a habit of calling it pre-alpha, as it comes before the alpha is released to our supporters

I agree that with the way Kickstarter has gone now, it is doing quite a bit of harm to genuine developers. There are many crowdfunding campaigns started which virtually only contain design notes and a bit of art, and they take away funds from developers who will actually develop a product. (Ironically, the first title I personally backed on Kickstarter ended up being this. Very disappointing, but you learn crowdfunding quickly.) We're developing the demo with the funds currently collected so that we are not one of those campaigns, and I thank our very supportive community for allowing us to do so.

I strongly agree with you that if someone isn't comfortable donating towards the demo of ToA, they shouldn't. Instead sign up for our newsletter or our forums. We appreciate every donation that we receive, but I don't want to give the impression that we all we are doing is distributing press to collect money - that isn't the case at all. In our actual press, you will note that we never are actually asking for donations. Our press serves as a way to update those who are curious about title, as well as those outside our community who are interested in the development. If they wish to donate, that's awesome, and I love them for it, but I'm not going to be cross with someone who doesn't support ToA or wish to donate. Everyone has their reasons, and there are some valid concerns. In time, I hope that we address the concerns with our demo, alpha, and onwards, but until then, one must make their own judgements

[Boogums]

Um, technically crowdfunding is donations. And thus far, the vast majority of crowd funded games I can think of are either well on their way to being released, or were released at, or close to, the promised full features.

I mean, it's about as risky as picking up a AAA game and thinking it's good based off of hype and marketing. That's to say you have to make a value/judgement call on it based on what you know, or do some more research.

Except when you buy a game, you pay for the game. When you donate to a dev, you could not get anything. All regardless of quality.

[Tech614]

It is just annoying that games like Shards Online and ToA get lumped together as ´crowdfunding´ games.

Because it's a bullshit pyramid scheme whether you make a legit/fun product out of it or not. Kickstarter at least refunds your money if the goal isn't met but your customers paying you for something you haven't made yet is a bullshit scheme anyway you want to slice it. Steam early access bullshit is even worse.

If you can't find funding for your game, then maybe you should have kept your day job.