Trials of Ascension, Shady Practices and the Big Crowdfunding Debate

[Kyanion]

I'll bet those Ferraris cost a mint in the cash shop.

Oh yeah I have that VR setup where it siphons blood out every now and then so it is a constant donation stream for ToA.

[Projectmars]

What you don't have one of those ferraris yet? I have four. I'm also playing ToA in full immersive VR. The year is 2043 and the ferraris are VR as well.

Look again, the ferraris are now Diamonds. Anything is possible when you visit Zombo.com. Anything at all. Welcome.

Edit: @Raksasha: make sure to study math, that's what kicked my ass when i tried learning game programming in school. >_>

[lawow74]

What you don't have one of those ferraris yet? I have four. I'm also playing ToA in full immersive VR. The year is 2043 and the ferraris are VR as well.

Oh hush, you're just one of Myobi's alts anyways.

[Kyanion]

Oh hush, you're just one of Myobi's alts anyways.

No I'm one of Azrile's alts! Myobi runs most of the others during the day!

[Post]

Hello there! It's me, Raksasha from the ToA site....

Wait how did you find this thread again?

[Deleted]

Wait how did you find this thread again?

Indeed, still dodgy as fuck. I can't imagine anyone pointing it to her that she was being talked about just once, and not even her name was used.

Were you already following this thread?

[lawow74]

plot twist, lawow is also my alt.

I admitted as much several pages back. Also, we need to pick up milk, we're almost out.

[Kelimbror]

roflmao xD

I can't comment on whether this is a delusional person or a bored devalt, but check out this gem from them re Greenlight:

Definitely looks like the superior alternative.

Word travels pretty fast through steam, and the Store is visited a lot more often than the average MMO site.
If those typical indie "clones of clones" manage to sell, no doubt something unique like this can manage to attract attention.


Greenlight groups are always looking for new things & have big followings that do a lot better job of getting games noticed than a few people with Google

[Sunaka]

roflmao xD

By sheer virtue of being a fantasy MMO, it's targeting the same crowd. It has a different niche within that crowd, but that doesn't mean it's targeting a completely different group.

Doesn't matter if it's a fan, shill, or employee...that statement and its line of thinking are horribly misaligned with the truth.

[lawow74]

Doesn't matter if it's a fan, shill, or employee...that statement and its line of thinking are horribly misaligned with the truth.

That's okay, cos you're just a hater and a troll from that website working for the competition trying to kill ToA and spread lies and misinformation, cos money doesn't matter, just seeing a real true game made and all it takes is people believing it can be done, cos the developers are like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, you'll see!

Excuse me, I need to get some more Kool-Aid... *glug glug glug glug*

[Kelimbror]

Excuse me, I need to get some more Kool-Aid... *glug glug glug glug*

Here are your new Nikes. Meet me at this address, 8 PM Saturday...

[lawow74]

Saw this article earlier about professional Russian trolls working for the government to post pro-Kremlin discussions on the municipal discussion forums across the country. Just think what ToA could do if they had money to pay a team like this.

[Sunaka]

I was looking back at CGP Grey's YouTube channel last night and happened upon this video and thought about how often it's applied to this thread (and the ToA forums, as well). I chuckled a little about it.

[Azrile]

ah, i MIGHT have just wasted my time... but maybe i didn't. ooohhhhh :P
that was close to the only reason, true enough, but this IS an interesting discussion. and i can't stand being thought of as anyone other than me, or being made fun of because someone else's reputation is tainting my own, however sensitive or idiotic that may make me.

Raksasha, maybe it was just bad timing. I would never ask you to read this entire thread. But let us just say that there is a reason some of us a skeptical of anyone who posts ´wow, amazing game´ on their forums and then shows up here. I will just offer this to dissuade you from donating money in advance or buying anything in advance from them.

2002 - ToA website began
2006 - Brax asks on his forums for $1,000,000. Closes forums when nobody gives it to him. Never shows that any game exists
2012- Brax returns and changes name of company, announces pending KS
2013- First KS launches and fails. Devs provide no evidence a game exists at all, just basic Hero Engine stuff. Brax says he learned his lesson
2014 January - Brax opens Cash Shop selling ingame items for hundreds of dollars... despite the fact that there is no game that anyone has seen
2014 February - Brax hires Teddy using cash-shop money. Teddy announces he has written the first line of code
2014 June - This thread started, pointing out the absurd ´community´ on the ToA forums as well as their comments to their youtube videos. Hundreds of posts per week on the forums and hundreds of instant-comments on their youtube videos as soon as they are released ( despite being horrible). Most posts and comments consist of ´omg, most amazing game every, take my money´.. ( you can read the OP of this thread for all the information)
2015 February - New Kickstarter fails, Teddy quits and announces that Brax didn´t even know how to turn on the server. Social Media team quits and basically slams Brax for totally screwing up the KS and all the publicity leading up to it. Brax announces that he spent all the money on the video, just like he promised and makes it sound like it went to Teddy.. Teddy comes back and informs us that he received less than half the $67,000. Nobody is sure where the other $37,000 disappeared to.
2015 March - People start getting banned from the ToA forums, and a new crop of ´omg, best game ever´ posts start filtering in.. despite the fact that there is no game, they have failed 2 kickstarters and they wasted $67,000 to build a demo video that was of lower quality than most basement developers could do for free. But don´t worry, because Brax has announced that he has a new plan..

it is cool that you want to play a dragon. I get the appeal. But as someone who does a lot with animations ( and cameras).. it is very difficult, and I would say not financially feasible, to have a game where you can play humans, and play dragons in the same game. I give you the benefit of the doubt, but you showed up exactly at the same time as they have started banning people from their forums and ´other´ new people have showed up to say how great the game is and are willing to throw money at it.

The fact is that right now they have no programmers, and have a lead dev who only learned how to turn on the server because Teddy was kind enough to come back after he quit to teach them. The 3 CEOs and ´developers´ have no game-making skills.. so at this point, if you are counting on ToA ever being made, you are counting on volunteers to build a type of game that companies with teams of experienced experts take years to build.

If people want a game with playable dragons, you should start a thread on some popular gaming site and get some huge interest going and hope a team of real developers notices it. But to be honest, anyone with real experience is going to pass on a game like that because they understand the huge difficulties of putting dragons and humans in the same game. A MMORPG where the only playable class is dragons is doable, but even still way more expensive than a game with humanoid player characters.

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What you don't have one of those ferraris yet? I have four. I'm also playing ToA in full immersive VR. The year is 2043 and the ferraris are VR as well.

I have just been to the year 2043.. the biggest thread on this website is ´omg, when are developers going to stop making every new MMORPG a ToA-clone´

people are fondly remembering the old days when the MMORPG scene was shared by small games like WOW, SWTOR, Wildstar and TESO and those games made each other better because of competition. Now, everyone just makes a ToA-clone.

Also, Brax made an announcement that he will be releasing a new eye-patch video to coincide with Kickstarter #37

[Sunaka]

2006 - Brax asks on his forums for $1,000,000. Closes forums when nobody gives it to him. Never shows that any game exists

Serious question here: Was any such statement ever found? There was the page that got plastered at the old URL, and there was probably a similar post put on the forums, but I don't remember him ever explicitly asking for a million dollars. It was implied by his (paraphrase) 'now, if someone can give us a six-figure amount, we could probably keep going', but that's still not exactly asking for it. Kind of a small semantic detail, but I figure keeping those semantic details covered helps keep things clear.

[Azrile]

OMG.. I just hit GOLD.... I was actually searching for the Brax post from 2006 when he asked for money...

http://llx.talonthorn.com/history_toa.shtml

Like this gem Brax posted in 2004

1 - We've recently completely turned things upside down with the switching of the engine. As I've already reported, this has pushed us back a bit but that was to be expected.

We’ve suffered some pretty heavy setbacks. Don’t you love how I beat around the bush? The first of the two major setbacks that we suffered was in personnel. Basically, we’ve replaced the entire Shadowpool team with the exception of a core group. ( sound familiar, like he tried to blame Teddy for the setback of failing the KS.. This comment was made in 2004-2005 around the time everyone was calling it vaporware.. and this was Brax´s excuse for lack of screenshot).

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Serious question here: Was any such statement ever found? There was the page that got plastered at the old URL, and there was probably a similar post put on the forums, but I don't remember him ever explicitly asking for a million dollars. It was implied by his (paraphrase) 'now, if someone can give us a six-figure amount, we could probably keep going', but that's still not exactly asking for it. Kind of a small semantic detail, but I figure keeping those semantic details covered helps keep things clear.

now back to your question. Here is the last paragraph from the post Brax made

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.

I guess there are some semantics, but for a reasonable person, he is asking directly for money. (bolded is my emphasis, not his)

[Sunaka]

http://llx.talonthorn.com/history_toa.shtml

I'm sure it's not just me, but it's astounding how similar many of those comments are to the ones made since they put up the FC site. None of this is necessarily damning since it's on what I'm under the impression is a fansite, so there's not a lot of proof any of it is real or links back to them. Having said that, it could use some exploration by FC should they start whining about how they're being unfairly slandered or osmethne.

The massive delays between some of the dates is both amusing and apalling. But it's par for the course with FC, as well.

I'm curious though why the last (red) post is dated before the one preceding it.

I guess there are some semantics, but for a reasonable person, he is asking directly for money.

I don't disagree in any way, it's just that they can easily look at stuff like that and say 'Well, we didn't actually ask, we just left it open to people!'

[Azrile]

I'm sure it's not just me, but it's astounding how similar many of those comments are to the ones made since they put up the FC site. None of this is necessarily damning since it's on what I'm under the impression is a fansite, so there's not a lot of proof any of it is real or links back to them. Having said that, it could use some exploration by FC should they start whining about how they're being unfairly slandered or osmethne.

The massive delays between some of the dates is both amusing and apalling. But it's par for the course with FC, as well.

I'm curious though why the last (red) post is dated before the one preceding it.

I have no idea, I just found that page a few minutes ago myself. The part you missed is that this page is from a fansite of the game from back then trying to explain why the game is NOT vaporware. The person who created the page was ( maybe still is) a fan.

As far as the last post.. it has me a bit confused because we didn´t see the lead-in information. But the way I read it is that someone posted information regarding Shadowpools legal status ( LLC ), and Brax started his response with a joke, pretending that Shadowpool had been disbanded. But then the second paragraph he said he was only joking and that Shadowpool was fine and it was just a paperwork issue.

Just a hunch... He mentioned earlier that they had lost almost all of their development team. It is possible that some of the people who left had legal connnections to the game throught he LLC, so there was some paperwork shuffle that happened, and someone on the forums caught it....so Brax said a joke, then re-assured them that Shadowpool was fine.

But in the end, Shadowpool was NOT fine and did have to be dissolved, probably because of one of the people who left and had his name on the legal paperwork did not want to be associated with it anymore. Or possible if Brax had been able to find an investor, that person would have had to be given a portion, since he was probably a ´CEO´ also.

[Sunaka]

I have no idea, I just found that page a few minutes ago myself. The part you missed is that this page is from a fansite of the game from back then trying to explain why the game is NOT vaporware. The person who created the page was ( maybe still is) a fan.

Nah, I caught that. In fact, on the home page there's a link to a newer such site, which also says it's outdated and archived. I saw the site before, I just missed this page (since I wasn't giving the game much real credence anyway).

[Taojnhy]

The person who created the page was ( maybe still is) a fan.

Well...I know I'm making an assumptive leap here, but did you happen to notice the domain name?

It's this guy, who has been one of FC's biggest cheerleaders.

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Oh, all kinds of good stuff from ToA's troubled past:

http://toa.talonthorn.com/toa_archives.html