Trials of Ascension, Shady Practices and the Big Crowdfunding Debate

[lawow74]

Hee hee hee. Terrible FPS due to the power supply. Ah, this thread never fails to deliver. /popcorn

[NotADevAlt]

Joel... you've already said you're bowing out of this thread multiple times now, but your persistence in still showing up and debating every little point mentioned here does in fact speak to your professionalism, as Myobi said.

Trying to be a forum warrior and winning the internetz is not going to get your game made, nor is it helping your PR/branding efforts. People are going to remain skeptical. If you in fact know better than us, then just make your game and prove us wrong later.

Stop trying to refute/discredit every single thing said here, be a bigger man, and just ignore it. We're not going to stop talking about it. Accept it.

[dextersmith]

The NDAs I were referring to aren't from us...they were from the freelance work. It was work-for-hire under NDA, and I'm sure not all of it was, but I didn't exactly compile a list, so my mistake. So yeah, your argument falls flat. As for the other stuff - I'm not sure what you want at this point. I've bowed out, and am taking the actions necessary. There's nothing more to say. I couldn't care less what ToA has done (comparatively); I'm not ToA. GM is not ToA. If anything, it'll serve as an example of what NOT to do, and I'll do everything in my power to make that so.

Let's just be honest here:

There's nothing I can say to change your mind. In this sense, we're just spinning our wheels. You want progress? Ok - I'll be sure to post some when it happens (in the tangible sense). Until then, this doesn't really help anything, as I'm sure you can agree. It is funny watching you try to use these 'Gotcha!' arguments. You're onto something big, I'm sure... Danger lurks in the shadows of MMOI... <rolls eyes>

You said it in this very thread - We're a 'nobody' company full of 'nobodies.' In the spirit of that - Why bother? I could understand if we tried to launch another KS campaign, or solicit money in some way, but that's just not so. So my question is - Why? I suppose there's no real answer to that. You also claim how easy it is to dig up this 'dirt' on MMOI/GM/James/Jason/me/etc. If so, then surely the community will know what we're up to, yourselves included. Something about a company... I can't remember the name of it -- Gaggle? Gooble? One of those G-companies that lets people search for information.

I hate to disappoint you guys, but you're digging for a 'scoop' that just isn't there. Time will tell, and you'll slowly start to realize that the 'skepticism' in your mind was actually paranoia in a lot of ways. In my humble opinion, of course.

You keep mentioning licenses. What licenses? Unity 5? Free. Atavism? 270 dollars. AtVoxel? 300 bucks... Really? I've taken on this MASSIVELY negative project to scam <1000 dollars worth of licenses that I could just by right now without the headache? Ok, we also have 4500 dollars (was told by a certain person that we paid 20,000 for them HA!) worth of custom housing assets that will NOT be used in another game, as they're custom for this game. I'm literally opening up all of the books on resources, and contacting them to see where the 'discrepancies' are. I can assure you that James nor I have them.

Also - You keep saying James scammed people out of tons of money in licenses. We have literally maybe 800 dollars in licenses out of 100,000 dollars... I'm going to spend WAY more than that on this game from now forward. I've spent half of that already getting things transferred, server costs, business startup costs, etc.

I really think you don't understand how the hierarchy was with ECG and GM. James had ZERO power. Literally.

What does bow out mean to you? You've bowed out 4 times and still spouting grandiloquence.

Licenses? He needed 3 or 4 of every unnecessary license he acquired. Examine the chat log.

There's so much double talk from you. You're not soliciting money but seek investors. James was never paid with ks money but he was. He never wasted ks money but -licenses- and had Jason hire someone who procured WoW icons, had Jason buy a new computer for him and walked away with no accountability, simultaneously built 3 versions with intent to discard 2. You guys did not benefit from ks money but took all gm assets it bought. You're gonna make a great game but who cares if it sucks so much it's unplayable. You were a power at MMOI for ages but it never existed until a few days ago. You make Jason and FC look good!

There's nothing I can say to change your mind. In this sense, we're just spinning our wheels.

So why exert your PR powers here? MMOI's PR guy is detrimental to its reputation.

- - - Updated - - -

Where did I lie?

You forget so soon! Start here:

We have not received one red cent from KS funding,

Caught you in an egregious lie! Chat log shows Jason paid James' mom's paypal cause James had no ID. He got the stuff ks paid for too.

Fair enough. Maybe I should be more clear - MMOI has received ZERO compensation for anything in regards to GM. All we received are the licenses and assets needed to finish the game. No monetary compensation has happened.

Read this:

There's so much double talk from you. You're not soliciting money but seek investors. James was never paid with ks money but he was. He never wasted ks money but -licenses- and had Jason hire someone who procured WoW icons, had Jason buy a new computer for him and walked away with no accountability, simultaneously built 3 versions with intent to discard 2. You guys did not benefit from ks money but took all gm assets it bought. You're gonna make a great game but who cares if it sucks so much it's unplayable. You were a power at MMOI for ages but it never existed until a few days ago. You make Jason and FC look good!

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Yeah, you have to put this in chronological order.

James lied to people for 3 years about the great progress he was making, making horrible excuses for delays, but always with bright promises.
Fans finally had enough and demanded James show them something, he put up the January video
Fans turned on him, demanding to know why the screenshots were so much better from 3 years ago.
James crashes and panics
James locked Jason out of the website, made a speech and quit and walked way.
Jason then called James out and demanded the software and licenses.
Suddenly James is interested in making the game again, and Joel here volunteers to mail out the t-shirts in exchange for James keeping the software.

That is all this is. Joel is helping James keep the software and his computer. He will deny it of course, but Joel saw the lack of progress... 3 years, an open wallet and James produced literally nothing. In this thread, we have been highlighting 1-person dev teams all along and again, these guys who got fan money produced a fraction in 3 years of what a single person can do in a few months with no money. But he ´believes´in James.. he believes in him because James was shitting his pants for having to returning $20,000 of software.

We are still waiting for the legal paperwork to be done on MMOI.... so far.. nada.

Unlike Jason, James would never lock out Joel! They're BFFs!

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The computer he got has a 280W PSU, and is VERY under-powered (hence the crappy FPS).

ECG's commitment with cutting edge technology! lol. James should be taken as a serious professional for building tomorrow's game for thousands with junk?

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I completely agree with you on the last point. This is why I'm bowing out, unless specifically spoken to...

He asked for the hardware, as well as other things. It didn't happen for whatever reason. Again - The story that has been told is not necessarily the truth, but I cannot go into the details...

So you defend and clarify without knowledge. What are you defending and clarifying? Like your apology at mmorpg, it's all empty lip service.

[Kyanion]

You fail miserably at reading comprehension, I'm afraid. Let me quote what I said, one more time for you:



Yes, the numbers *do* add up -- To the figure I provided.

Also - Unity was *not* the first engine. It was Hero Engine, which *was* free. The 1500 dollar U4 license *is* in that 20k figure I provided, as is the 4500 in custom housing assets that are exclusive to the GM title, and can't be used anywhere else. To borrow from your own terminology: Derp.

- - - Updated - - -

It's also funny that you imagine that there's a cost, because you think it recently went free. Wow - Can you be any more nebulous? Yet, you pound me relentlessly for saying something that isn't so air-tight that you can manipulate it into whatever you want. Interestingly ironic, and consequently hypocritical. Just an observation.

Heh love how you ignore the 2 main points about the NDA BS and the PSU crap. Only answer a few things and ignore everything else, typical.

[Kotori125]

Heh love how you ignore the 2 main points about the NDA BS and the PSU crap. Only answer a few things and ignore everything else, typical.

Yeah. First post I made he responded to 'claims' he made, despite the fact that I was referring to FC's claims, and how MMOI appears to be making parallels with FC, ignoring everything else. Next post he ignores everything except where I mention slander/libel (as it pertains to FC). Third post completely ignored. Not that I really care in the long run. But if you will quote someone's post, don't nitpick one thing of an 'argument' when there are multiple points, else it doesn't look like you would even want to discuss, but rather argue (and not in a discussion-type way). Especially when that nitpicky-ness is taking the point out of context, or not on-point to the 'argument'/discussion the person has.

And I believe that I was taking a stance as to why people are skeptical of his (new) company's actions, rather than 'attacking him', as he puts it.

Although, it is funny. This is hitting me harder than what FC was doing. FC was...laughable entertainment, not just from their ignorance of MMORPG development, but of all their past experiences being revealed as to what they were actually (appear) to be doing. MMOI is just ignorant in general it seems, from adopting negative elements for the creation of their company to the point that it doesn't even sound like success is the goal...? To just completely weird word-choice from the persons-in-power (bow-out of a discussion means 'nothing else to add/don't have information to refute', rather than, you know, taking your leave and bowing-out of the discussion; among other examples).

Again, it doesn't scream 'intelligent business practices' to me; it doesn't even scream 'successful business practices' to me either, nor 'professional business practices'. In my opinion, at least FC attempted to do so (regardless if what they were doing was mostly lies or not), while MMOI appears to not care about it (even if everything they state is truth). Image is important, and they don't appear to be portraying their image in a good light. Even 'bad' or 'scammy' companies can (attempt to) portray a good image (FC, my previous employer).

[Deleted]

Damn, why is this thread still so entertaining.

Explain to me this one thing please... If you're an indie company, or just a solo developer and are making a game that isn't widely known yet, why hide all the stuff behind a stupid NDA? Doesn't that prevent more acknowledgement accross the globe? Is this NDA bullshit done more often by indie devs? I know companies like Blizzard do them, and I get the point behind that. Small time devs, I don't get it. Someone enlighten this particular point please?

[jrhager84]

Since any remaining civility has gone, and apparently my clarification of what I meant by 'bowing out' is still being disputed, I'll leave you with this:

Your constructive feedback has been noted, and appreciated. Your attacks haven't. I don't care what you think of me, or my company. That's not why I came here. I came here because I'm not afraid of you, or the negativity. You can say whatever you want, and we're *still* going to push forward. I came here to listen to constructive feedback, and I think that I have. It seems rather presumptuous of you guys to assume to know what I do all day, or how I structure my time. Again -- and I mean no offense by this -- I did *NOT* ask you how to run a company. I asked what peoples' concerns were regarding the game and/or communication. I couldn't care less what you think I should do, as -- let's face it -- you guys don't exactly own Fortune 500 companies either. In fact, at least my time on this thread serves a purpose for me. You guys have wasted pages and pages of your time for what exactly? You spout off the same non-points again and again, hoping that you'll 'get me.' I also don't care what a handful of peoples' opinions are regarding my professionalism. Do you really think I'll kowtow to every opinion you guys have? Is that how you think feedback works?

I wanted player feedback; Not business executive feedback. You're welcome to say whatever you want, just as I'm free to choose to ignore the bits that are silly and/or punitive.

Your best arguments are parallels of other companies. Really? I've said 'time will tell' about a thousand times, and it still rings true. Time will tell. Until then, don't waste your breath pontificating.

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Damn, why is this thread still so entertaining.

Explain to me this one thing please... If you're an indie company, or just a solo developer and are making a game that isn't widely known yet, why hide all the stuff behind a stupid NDA? Doesn't that prevent more acknowledgement accross the globe? Is this NDA bullshit done more often by indie devs? I know companies like Blizzard do them, and I get the point behind that. Small time devs, I don't get it. Someone enlighten this particular point please?

The NDAs weren't by us, for the thousandth time. It was from the work our team members did freelance. I can't repeat this enough.

[Deleted]

I didn't mean by you specifically, just in general. Why have a NDA? To me it feels like these 'devs' want to hide how shitty their game is, like FC did.

So again, if I'm wrong on that, please tell me.


And we're not wasting our time by 'repeating' our crap. People like you who come to this thread just keep adding more entertainment. We love all this drama and devs coming in here telling how great their game is going to be. You really aren't the first :P We've had multiple people come in here and defend their shitty games.

[dextersmith]

I'll leave you with this:

He's bowing out again?

New forum game! Everyone takes a drink every time he bows out! Cheers!

Your constructive feedback has been noted, and appreciated. Your attacks haven't. I don't care what you think of me, or my company. That's not why I came here. I came here because I'm not afraid of you, or the negativity. You can say whatever you want, and we're *still* going to push forward. I came here to listen to constructive feedback, and I think that I have. It seems rather presumptuous of you guys to assume to know what I do all day, or how I structure my time. Again -- and I mean no offense by this -- I did *NOT* ask you how to run a company. I asked what peoples' concerns were regarding the game and/or communication. I couldn't care less what you think I should do, as -- let's face it -- you guys don't exactly own Fortune 500 companies either. In fact, at least my time on this thread serves a purpose for me. You guys have wasted pages and pages of your time for what exactly? You spout off the same non-points again and again, hoping that you'll 'get me.' I also don't care what a handful of peoples' opinions are regarding my professionalism. Do you really think I'll kowtow to every opinion you guys have? Is that how you think feedback works?

Feedback makes him emo-rage and he doesn't care what we think he should do. Doesn't he get enough feedback from gm.com? It's a forum dedicated to gm. What he wants are ass kissers.

This is hardcore solipsism. He thinks the world is lining up to give feedback because they give a shit about gm and what he does all day. On that note, that forum warrior posts here all day.

[Azrile]

I completely agree with you on the last point. This is why I'm bowing out, unless specifically spoken to...

He asked for the hardware, as well as other things. It didn't happen for whatever reason. Again - The story that has been told is not necessarily the truth, but I cannot go into the details...

Dude, there is no story... all of the details are in the chat logs that JAMES provided himself. I know I keep talking about mental illness, but there has to be a ton of it involved in this.. I was almost completely on James´s side in this debate. Read early in this thread, I defended James a lot. But that chat log that HE produced just totally changed my mind because it showed that Jason was not hamstringing James at all. Jason was giving James everything he asked for to the point that real devs were, if anything, thinking Jason was too generous and naive.

Also, you are falling into the ToA trap of talking about technical stuff. On your own forums you talk about the servers, here you are talking about different technical things and you think you are trying to convince people.. but it is obvious, that similar to the ToA devs, you really have no technical knowledge at all, you just keep saying these really clueless things, and for some reason you think people won´t notice that you are trying to fake it.

Also, you keep glossing over the fact that it was JAMES who was lying to his backers the whole time. James is the one who was posting on the forums about alpha being ready in 3 weeks ( back in 2012). James is the won who non-stop for 3 years kept saying that major progress was being made. There never was progress, that video in January was nothing. It was the result of a mentally ill person thinking that they could buy something from the asset store that would change everything.

[Maddoc]

I went out of this thread for a while after our last retort to see how you would continue to answer in this thread and if you would present us with any evidence. Alas, I was right, and you keep spewing out the same bullshit over and over again.

You see, when you adressed me the last time, you were in the middle of a process of transitioning the game to your new servers. I'll admit I don't have the knowledge about how long that will take, maybe you can then? What is the estimated time of this transition?

To continue, you keep drilling on about the same things this thread has heard since it was started. "I'm doing the big lifting by managing, coordinating, setting up people and stuff!" So does Brax. You've also been called out on numerous concerns in this thread, yet you cherry-pick what to answer, even tho you claim not to do this.

And you also fail to see the difference in our reasons for posting in this thread. I called it a waste of time, because you are doing it as a part of your job. You call it damage control, to seek input and constructive critic. That means you are spending your WORK HOURS here and posting, when I bet there are plenty of things that should need your attention. I can not speak for the rest of us, but when i post here, it is because I find this thread entertaining and I do it in my leisure time. So yeah, there might be a thousand things I could do instead as you said, like watch TV, play a game, pick my nose and fart. The difference is that YOU are spending YOUR WORK TIME being a keyboard warrior hero for your company, trying to save your "company". I spend my free time watching you crash and burn, hard.

[Azrile]

I don't care what you think of me, or my company.

Dude, it is not even your company. You are forgetting already that James owns half of it? Seriously, did you read the chat logs, did you read how James reacted to employees? The only person he defended were the two guys he brought in, who... happened to be the two guys who ripped off Jason. One guy stole spell icons from WOW and was paid for them, and James just glossed it over as no big deal, another guy did very few animations despite being paid for about 5xs as much, and then demanded payment to finish what he had already been paid for.. When Jason got upset, James defended the his friend. Everyone else, James chased away as being incompetent.. yeah... meanwhile, we have the January video that really speaks of incompetence.

But James owns half the company... and you are talking about ´well, if James can´t get the job done...´ Dude, he had 3 years, he got nothing done. Yet you gave him half the company and expect, after reading the chat logs that he will just take a backseat because he is incompetent.

I would love to know the relationship between you guys. I am thinking the mental illness is a big part of it. You talk way too much like James, you defend the guy way to much using his own words and excuses.

[dextersmith]

As I said, it’s not us who should be developing an MMORPG right now mate ~ for how much longer are you going to keep up that “time will tell” bullshit?

Toa did it for 13 years so...

[Azrile]

I didn't mean by you specifically, just in general. Why have a NDA? To me it feels like these 'devs' want to hide how shitty their game is, like FC did.

This is a huge myth, and something I laughed at Forged Chaos about. FC tried to pretend to be all professional and make everyone sign NDAs for little crap.. they asked people to sign NDAs before they even would tell them the details of what they wanted done. I am sure major dev houses do that all the time, but indie companies, nobody really uses NDAs like that.

Look at the Unity asset store and places like OpenGameArt.com There are a ton of assets listed there that the author says were used in other games. There are cases where a studio will contract out work to you, and then after you complete your work, allow you to resell or give away your work. On opengameart.com you will see an artist giving away stuff for free, and then saying ´given to you because of a commission by X´.

Here is a perfect example on Unity. Programmer did a patching system for Gloria Victis. Not only where they allowed to say that Gloria Victis bought and is using the product. Gloria Victis devs even provided a quote to help the programmer market the product.

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/19457

I talked about this early in the thread. Most ´real´ indy companies are very helpful with each other and especially with contractors. The groups that are using Hero Engine are constantly jumping into each others worlds to help fix specific problems. It is only these fake game companies that are nothing but PR machines that talk about stuff like NDAs and try to sound like they are Blizzard.

When you see a company that is 1 week old, that owns nothing except stuff they bought from the Unity Asset store talking about NDA... yeah.. BS.

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As I said, it’s not us who should be developing an MMORPG right now mate ~ for how much longer are you going to keep up that “time will tell” bullshit?

Joel is already doing the same thing James has done for the past 3 years. It is like they are the same person. * nothing that happened in the past is my fault or James´fault, we have some amazing tech coming in the next few weeks that will change everything, what you have seen of the game is the ´old´version, the new stuff is running much better but we just haven´t released it yet for you to see´.

James literally gave that quote every few weeks for 3 years. And it shows. This thread has more participants in the last week than the Greedmonger forums.

[lawow74]

James literally gave that quote every few weeks for 3 years. And it shows. This thread has more participants in the last week than the Greedmonger forums.

Because we don't care if the game is real or not, we just like watching morons botch trying to make games and laughing at them as they flail and blunder and talk a bunch of shit about how it's really for reals gonna happen, just watch and see, etc. etc. etc.

[MMOIJamesPro]

I'm not going to stay here and argue... Just going to give some updates and be gone.

First: We have purchased our Server and we are waiting for it to come online. It takes a couple days for the order to go through and the server to be setup. By Monday or Tuesday it will be online and I will be setting up Atavism on it so we can continue.

Next: Once the Server is online and we get everything set up we will be doing a large scale Public Stress test. ALL is welcome to download the client and login. Our Goal is to get as many people online as our Server will handle. Our Projection is that our current Server will be able to handle a couple hundred people. We will see if that Projection stands up to reality though. At this time I am going to say that the stress test will take place Saturday April 25th Time to be announced.

3rd: The Chat Logs I released were just a very small amount of the whole picture. Jason claims I chased off our team members... That simply is NOT the case. The people that Jason and I fired were fired for a number of reasons... Some were going behind our backs and blasting the team... Some were wanting to do things in a way that would have opened our Client up to hacking... Others were just simply missing deadlines and after chance after chance after chance Jason and I discussed things and let them go. We were looking for people who fit in with our team and if a person did not fit in then we let them go. I am more then happy to work with people but if your just going to cause problems with in the team then I will NOT allow problems to continue because it slows everyone down and makes for a tough working environment. Other people who Jason claims left as a result of me have told me personally that that's simply not the case. They left because of Jason. I LOVE working in teams I love the interaction. I love managing teams, and I look forward to continuing to grow MMOI's team and working with them to get GM to launch.

[dextersmith]

I'm not going to stay here and argue... Just going to give some updates and be gone.

You made an account just to shamelessly spam gm ads? I'm not interested in gm or its updates; why would you even...? Progress reports should be left on gm.com imo.

Chat Logs: So you only show what's convenient. Care to tell people why you locked Jason from his own forums?

Damn, all mmoi people are gonna start spamming for gm here.

[MMOIJamesPro]

The Chat Logs I showed were the logs from December 2012 to January 14th 2013. I was having to go through all of the logs and remove usernames and passwords of our accounts. Before I had a chance to go through and remove anymore Jason made the announcement that he was going to hold off on posting the chat logs until he saw what my next move was going to be and so I made the same announcement. No further logs were posted because Jason never posted any logs.

[dextersmith]

The Chat Logs I showed were the logs from December 2012 to January 14th 2013. I was having to go through all of the logs and remove usernames and passwords of our accounts. Before I had a chance to go through and remove anymore Jason made the announcement that he was going to hold off on posting the chat logs until he saw what my next move was going to be and so I made the same announcement. No further logs were posted because Jason never posted any logs.

You didn't answer my question. And why spam every forum on the web (eg. rpgcodex, mmorpg) that you left gm? Some with multiple threads. It's not big news, no one knows you or gm. Isn't gm.com enough?

[Azrile]

First: We have purchased our Server and we are waiting for it to come online. It takes a couple days for the order to go through and the server to be setup. By Monday or Tuesday it will be online and I will be setting up Atavism on it so we can continue.

Next: Once the Server is online and we get everything set up we will be doing a large scale Public Stress test. ALL is welcome to download the client and login. Our Goal is to get as many people online as our Server will handle. Our Projection is that our current Server will be able to handle a couple hundred people. We will see if that Projection stands up to reality though. At this time I am going to say that the stress test will take place Saturday April 25th Time to be announced.

.. wow, imagine that.. nothing is his fault and in a few weeks everything will be working great. Where did I hear that before... oh yeah.. in every post you made for 3 years.

I have to ask about the computer you are using. Joel here informed us that the computer Jason bought you three years ago was not even a good computer back then ( since it has a lousy power supply apparently).. and that is the reason your January video looks so bad. So that begs the question.. before Jason bought you that computer, what total piece of garbage must you have been using to build your other 20 half-done projects. Just from your own words in your log, it seems pretty obvious that the computer Jason bought you was a huge upgrade for you.

What are your plans going forward to fix that? I mean you can´t keep making those videos on a garbage computer.. Just curious the plan. Are you waiting for your next disability check to buy a new computer to continue your work as lead developer of an MMORPG.. or are you maybe going to wait for your mother to buy you one for Christmas if you are a good boy?

It is insane (pun intended) that someone who was lead developer of a MMORPG that raised $100k of KS money was given a garbage computer to start building the MMORPG because his own computer was even more garbage than that. Dude is trying to sound like a professional game developer and at the same time can´t even buy himself a decent computer. Fuck the US gov´t, they obviously are underpaying people on disability.. how is this man supposed to build a MMORPG if fuckin Obama can´t even buy him a computer.


Edit-

MMO-C is not allowing me to change the title of the thread. I don´t mean the mods or anything, just the system.

Someone should post about this thread on RPGCodex. This is by far the best forum out there in regards to moderators and allowing fun debates. I think all the threads on MMORPG.com have been locked already.