Trials of Ascension, Shady Practices and the Big Crowdfunding Debate

[Azrile]

Yeah this is so weird seeing the ToA thread turn into GM/ToA lol

Titled changed to Failed MMORPGs that changed engines 3 times while never accomplishing anything and overpayed and were ripped off by contractors because nobody knew the value of anything they were buying.

[lawow74]

I'm glad it'll keep going as a discussion ground for other examples of this kind of Kickstarter abuse by incompetent and/or shady would-be game developers.

[derium]

Derium, I am sorry, but you don´t have too much credibility in my book simple because you are friends with James and dislike Jason.

I actually knew Jason first, and was actually hooking him up with from my business. Feel free to scour our Facebooks from a few years ago to see the interactions. I only know James and Jason from talking to them as the Community Manager. I didn't speak to either of them for years after I left. Also, did you miss the part where I said all responsibility falls onto Jason, because he took on the responsibility as the owner? James is not the person who is legally bound (well, he is now after signing an indemnify and hold harmless contract). Jason was the legally bound one. Why would I make demands for the money back to a person who couldn't make that choice? If one of my employees attempted to refund a customer that I made a legal agreement with, they would get directed right to me.

Also, I didn't say he fled with the money. I said he failed to deliver any of what he needed to. When he was being public, it was only to blame James. Fine, that's between them and it might be a reason why, but not an answer on how.

It's the same reasoning on why I gave up digging around on Interdiction Studios. I dug up all of their legal paperwork and started drawing up connections, then stopped, why? Because if they are not going to be the ones in charge, why aim my cross hairs at them? As I also stated this is why I'm now looking at James (indemnification). My eyes are going wherever the responsible party is. Sure, James might have squandered the money, but how would me applying pressure to him, make anything happen? Hell, I'm being told from very reliable sources that I'm the reason Interdiction Studios withdrew. Sorry, but I'll hold the blame onto the person that can get shit done. It's more than just drama, it's about a $100,000 legal binding.

[dextersmith]

What would Brax and toa fans say about GM's situation as outsiders? About Jason's conduct? His mantra "Fake it 'til you make it"? Would they deny toa taking similar actions and condemn Jason or blame donors' idiocy? He sold unmade virtual real estate from GM (then leaves project).

News Flash: Quitter Jason quits GM in addition to quitting peddling penis pills!
Jason officially abandons GM. No mention of remainder of 90k given with assets. I doubt it was all spent. How can James, someone with such severe mental illness sign legal papers with no ID and sound mind?

It must be impossible to find work having countless whimsical jobs on your resume and dropping them all.

Would it be misappropriation to spend ks development money to sue mmorpg posters?? What are GM backers' opinions?

[Taojnhy]

News Flash: Quitter Jason quits GM in addition to quitting peddling penis pills!
Jason officially abandons GM. No mention of remainder of 90k given with assets. I doubt it was all spent. How can James, someone with such severe mental illness sign legal papers with no ID and sound mind?

Incredible. Despite making good an escape, Proctor turns around and not only walks back into development hell, but agrees to take over and be legally responsible with little, if any, current funding. He's got his old partner Joel Hagel on board; good for him, it's good to have someone to oversee the business side of things.

The thing is, they've paired up before...and has anything substantial come of it? The one project Proctor seems to hold especially dear, even going so far as to sometimes include the acronym (RoH) in his various user IDs is Rise of Heroes, whose last update appears to be almost four years ago and hadn't even reached a working prototype. Hagel was working with him on that, both of them holding the Executive Director titles.

Honestly, Jason did the best thing possible for himself (not necessarily for the KS backers, but we'll see) in just completely giving the entire enchilada up.

So, Derium if you would clarify, who is Proctor holding himself financially responsible to/for in terms of indemnification? Appleton or the KS backers?

Meanwhile a single person ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7t0rO5U90uY

Looks neat, but those colors (even at night)...like the creator took the Skittles ad slogan a bit too far. Still, looks promising and impressive that it's just one person doing it.

[dextersmith]

The thing is, they've paired up before...and has anything substantial come of it? The one project Proctor seems to hold especially dear, even going so far as to sometimes include the acronym (RoH) in his various user IDs is Rise of Heroes, whose last update appears to be almost four years ago and hadn't even reached a working prototype. Hagel was working with him on that, both of them holding the Executive Director titles.

Pure ignorance; it took 3 tries for GM's current state and while it's incomplete, he's doing other projects.

So, Derium if you would clarify, who is Proctor holding himself financially responsible to/for in terms of indemnification? Appleton or the KS backers?

Jason:

I'm not selling Greed Monger to them. I'm giving it to them to finish. They are paying me nothing now, nor in the future.

Source: http://www.greedmonger.com/forum/sho...9935#post29935

Is there a catch? "I'm giving it to them to finish."

[Azrile]

I actually knew Jason first, and was actually hooking him up with from my business. Feel free to scour our Facebooks from a few years ago to see the interactions.

Sorry, I was a bit off. I watched your videos again. The thing that is annoying me about some of the threads I´ve been seeing ( RPG codex, and a bit in your videos), is that James is being given a free pass simply because he has been the one posting on forums a lot over the past years and seems like a nice guy. The fact is if you read those chat logs, it is easy to see that Jason was doing his part and providing the funds to build the game, it was only James´s incompetence that kept the game from actually making progress. Jason hired some people, and James chased them away for no real reasons and couldn´t even explain his reasons.. and at the same time, the people James brought in and vouched for were the ones that were taking paychecks and not producing what they said they would. Again, this is all shown in the logs that JAMES provided.

Jason is a liar, an idiot, egomanica and scammer, but the reason GreedMonger did not get made in 3 years was mostly James´s fault. Even in the end, he was talking about SpeedTree saving the game, and all they needed was SpeedTree to fix a lot of the problems, which is nonsense. SpeedTree stuff is very beautiful, but it isn´t going to allow anything that normal trees would not, in fact, Speedtrees are generally more demanding. Yes, they have built in LOD, but doing LOD for non-speedtree meshes is trivial. This is the biggest example of why GM failed, James was constantly looking for the next thing to buy that would fix all the problems. And I really can´t argue with Jason´s assertion that most of the stuff James was buying was for his other projects. Up until the end, James was making a case for the next thing he needed to buy, which would have done little to progress GM.

I see your point about the KS rewards, and if that is what you are concerned about, then you are doing a good thing. But honestly, are there people out there that are really outraged about not getting a t-shirt they were promised? Everything else is very similar to ToA, where they were selling ingame items for a game that wasn´t even in alpha yet. One thing we did in this thread was highlighted some hidden legal text on the ToA website where they said that things you bought in their cash-shop were donations, and they had no obligation to deliver the items.

And as far as pushing Jason about the t-shirts... this is not a poor guy, if you push him, what is going to happen is he is going to spend a hundred dollars, buy the absolute cheapest t-shirts he can find, pay some kids to write GreedMonger in magic marker, and send them out to fulfill his ´legal KS obligation´. And again, this 100k legal binding you are talking about. Yes, he needs to send out some crappy t-shirts, but I don´t think you have any grounds as far as the 100k...Jason clearly spent a lot of it trying to make the game.

I think this thread, and your goal are not the same thing. You are trying to get Jason to fulfill his obligation and send out the t-shirts... mostly what we have been talking about in here is these groups that are lead by nobodies with no development experience doing kickstarters with nothing more than a handful of dev notes. For the purposes of this thread, it is more about why very little progress was made with GM and ToA despite receiving 90k and 60k from their fans. And in that regard, James is the reason that January video looks so horrible after 90k and 3 years, not Jason... and you know, it sucks being the one defending a person who is clearly a classless asshole.

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Pure ignorance; it took 3 tries for GM's current state and while it's incomplete, he's doing other projects.

My brain just can´t understand this. It is the same with the whackos on ToA forums. Do people not realize that James is a mentally disabled kid who lives with his mother? Seriously, it is like some kinda gameshow.. ´ let´s see how absolutely low we can go and still have people believe the person can develop an MMORPG. On one hand, you have 3 guys who in 12 years can´t even turn on their own server... on the other hand, you have someone who has never completed any game, has mental disabilities, lives with his mother.

But please please, let´s all remain optimistic that both games will be made.

Do people not realize that Indy MMORPGs that ARE being made like Gloria Victus and Repopulation are being made by teams of dozens of people who have experience and have created games before? And they are still struggling to finish their games.

But no no.. James is a nice guy who posted a lot on the forums, we have faith.....

[dextersmith]

Toa is so original............nope! GM wanted to cut trees too!

October 14, 2012:

Jason Appleton types up a REAL PRESS RELEASE announcing his new Kickstarter promotion for his new groundbreaking online MMORPG! It will be JUST LIKE Ultima Online! (Except that was of course designed by real game developers). He sidesteps questions from more experienced Unity developers, on whether he's actually found a way to cut down trees (apparently Unity isn't very friendly about stuff like that.)

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cf.../381071/page/1

[Azrile]

Derium,

I guess we are going to see if what you were saying is true. James has now taken full legal responsibility for the KS rewards. I am guessing the tone of your videos will change

[dextersmith]

Derium,

I guess we are going to see if what you were saying is true. James has now taken full legal responsibility for the KS rewards. I am guessing the tone of your videos will change

How can he make legal decisions with no sound mind and ID?

[Azrile]

Toa is so original............nope! GM wanted to cut trees too!

October 14, 2012:

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cf.../381071/page/1

The actual process of replacing a tree with a pile of wood after the health of the tree has reached 0 is easy. The problem is how are you putting those trees on the map. If you hand-place a few trees here and there it is fine, but if most of your trees are choppable, it is going to crush the players computer... it greatly impedes your ability to optimize those trees.

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How can he make legal decisions with no sound mind and ID?

Someone is going to get pissed at him and report him for social security fraud. How can you be the owner and lead developer of a MMORPG and at the same time tell the gov´t you are too disabled to work.

[Taojnhy]

Someone is going to get pissed at him and report him for social security fraud. How can you be the owner and lead developer of a MMORPG and at the same time tell the gov´t you are too disabled to work.

"Someone", eh? Hm...do we know of anyone who very recently has reason to be quite upset with Proctor? Someone who is/was in a position to put Proctor in an awkward spot of potentially having to explain how he's too disabled to work, yet has his own game company and has recently taken on legal and financial obligations to donators to not only produce physical merchandise, but also a video game?

[Azrile]

"Someone", eh? Hm...do we know of anyone who very recently has reason to be quite upset with Proctor? Someone who is/was in a position to put Proctor in an awkward spot of potentially having to explain how he's too disabled to work, yet has his own game company and has recently taken on legal and financial obligations to donators to not only produce physical merchandise, but also a video game?

Honestly, someone should do a mental eval on this Joel character.. WTF is his story, he has known James for years, and is again stepping in to financially support the new GM. Next thing you know, Talon will decide to self-fund ToA and put Brax in charge....

Reading that old thread on MMORPG was like reading Brax´s comments from 2002. More than two years ago, James was talking about ´will be done this week´ for stuff that still isn´t done. He talked about how close they were to Alpha ( within weeks), and yet the didn´t actually get there for over 2 years.

This whole thing is just so eerily similar to ToA.. I guess if ToA is following GM, then what will happen next is Brax gives everything to Teddy.

[dextersmith]

He admits alarming guilt in his blog!

http://web.archive.org/web/201004300...n.com/?paged=2

From his blog "I just have hobbies…"

What’s funny is, I was working as a computer repair consultant for a company and I traveled all over setting up networks and repairing computers and I had never even owned one myself. I was a kid though and while on the road I bought a Playstation One with the company credit card to play for a weekend of which I returned before I left that city. The company still didn’t like that and I ended up getting fired.

Backers trust him with finances?

[Johnkie]

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.

What you said... Do research before dropping $$$?

[Deleted]

I wish I was capable of earning 100k Dollars like that. But I am no asshole so it's just dreams for me.

[Taojnhy]

Honestly, someone should do a mental eval on this Joel character.. WTF is his story, he has known James for years, and is again stepping in to financially support the new GM. Next thing you know, Talon will decide to self-fund ToA and put Brax in charge....

Mr. Joel Hager's debut post on RPG Codex.

And now we wait.

[Sunaka]

The title of this thread really needs changing, it seems lol

Neh, even if it's branching out from ToA (hey, this thread can't hit a million views on ToA alone!), the title still technically applies. If it was still the original title, though... nah.

[Azrile]

The title of this thread really needs changing, it seems lol

ah, we had momentary derailments in the past, this GM stuff will die down soon... and Brax will unveil his grand plan..

[Taojnhy]

The title of this thread really needs changing, it seems lol

Let's not forget the freaking out that occurred when the original title of this thread was altered.

Personally, I see the GM issues as falling under the purview of the current title, even if it isn't directly about ToA (shady practices and crowdfunding debate). We've even drawn some comparisons between the two to underscore this.