Trials of Ascension, Shady Practices and the Big Crowdfunding Debate

[Azrile]

That video was horrible - nothing especially interesting, just a buggy mess as expected, and nothing really being shown off other than pre-set tiled building and some horrible character models. Although not gonna lie, I love games where night-time is a legitimate game-changer (or at least really looks like night) so I think the idea of that is cool, but this game will obviously never be made so all those ideas aint worth shit. Night time was great in Day Z for the way it changed how you played.

I am a big fan of ´darkness´ also. but as a developer you have to be careful of a few things. The first is that your game cycle does not line up with the real world. You don´t want some guy logging in at 10pm every night after the kids finally go to bed to ALWAYS have to play nighttime. The other thing I like is if the day/night cycle is fairly short, so you can see the transition in one long game session.

The game I am working on, we are going for a 5 hour day, with 1 hour of that as nighttime. Having 5 not divide evenly into 24 means the ´night´ will drift compared to realtime and one hour of full night-time is enough to really appreciate it, and also appreciate that it is coming ( prepare) and also be relieved when the sun finally does come up. We were debating 7 hr days with 2 hrs darkness... but depending on how casual you want your playerbase to be, having someone log in who can only play for 2 hours ( which is fairly long) and have them in darkness the whole time isn´t good IMHO.

It is the reason WOW got rid of dark nights.. because they have their gameworld lined up with realtime and it forces casual players to always play nighttime.

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Quoting the article:


Now correct me if I'm wrong, but that makes it sound like the author was actually participating in the so-called demo. Which makes me wonder what is more likely:

A)FC managed to build something that someone could actually login to and play alongside them,

or

B)There was no playable demo and the article is some paid-for bullshit/handed-over copypasta FC wrote and TTH has just published as theirs?

I'm inclined to think B.

I pointed this out earlier in the thread, and FC even ´thanked´ me in one of the articles. For a few of the gaming sites, you can write your own article and they will submit it directly. In many cases they don´t even proof-read what the developers send them. But as you pointed out, FC is just very very stupid and doesn´t even try to make it look like someone actually wrote the article from TTH

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If they can ever rig up a 'good enough' demo that people can log into and fool around with, they'll probably excuse their technical limitations borne of the underlying software as 'this is still an alpha version, people, give us the money we need and we'll make it the real deal!' And eventually they'll pull a disappearing act with whatever money their floundering featherless gooney-bird of a not-MMO can garner.

They will never be able to release a demo that is playable outside their little forum-friends. Atavism and the networking part of it is falling apart. Even if they told everyone to stand still and not try to do anything in the game, you still would not be able to get 50 people connected at the same time in a real gameworld.

[Deleted]

Azrile, when can we get a glimpse of that game anyway?

And is that also a real proper game or are we still talking about your troll game?

[Deleted]

From what I understood so far, Trials of a Scammer is just a little thing that he spends a couple of hours working on to mock ToA updates (a parody), meanwhile he is working on a real(?) game with a couple of friends to show what can be done with Unity it a couple of months without funding to compare it with Trials of Ascension.

Ah, can't remember reading about the real game. Will be interesting then.

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World is at 100% now apparently. Just a pre-made terrain and trees! Yeah!

[Kyanion]

That world is so DONE! You don't even know!

[lawow74]

World is at 100% now apparently. Just a pre-made terrain and trees! Yeah!

Only a hater and a troll who doesn't love their concepts would fail to mention they're PHYSICALLY-BASED RENDERED pre-made terrain and trees!

[Coronius]

wow this game looks great guys where do i preorder?

[lawow74]

wow this game looks great guys where do i preorder?

For only $500 you can play the demo!

[Deleted]

For only $500 you can play the demo!

And 1000$ backers at the next kickstarter will guarantee you with pre-pre-pre-beta access.

[lawow74]

Are they still selling lifetime subs, or did that fall away with the candles and eyepatches and dance animations?

[Azrile]

From what I understood so far, Trials of a Scammer is just a little thing that he spends a couple of hours working on to mock ToA updates (a parody), meanwhile he is working on a real(?) game with a couple of friends to show what can be done with Unity it a couple of months without funding to compare it with Trials of Ascension.

haha, I guess it is a little confusing. Three things going on

First is just the silly parody site, which is just me goofing around.

Second will be the ToA re-creation demo video that we will make as soon as they release their demo video. This is where we will show you just how easy it is to do the things they show in their video. It will basically be ´ My God, Unity does all of this for you´ type thing

Finally, the real game is a real game and really isn´t related to anything having to do with ToA and it isn´t an MMORPG. I just happen to use some of my work from the real game on the ToA parody site. MMO-C frowns upon self-promotion, so I am not going to link to anything here.. but certainly some of the more active posters in this thread I can send a link to once we are ready. I´ve worked on about a dozen games over the past few years, but all were just bits and pieces, this is basically my first attempt with the same team going from beginning to end. I´ve actually been playing WOW for the past month just to see how they did garrisons because our game has a little of that type of gameplay, but luckily it is very different. We are going for closer to a merge between Skryim and WC3

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That world is so DONE! You don't even know!

I don´t think the world is done, their ´roadmap´ is only for doing things needed for the demo, which I think it just a few terrains. But seriously.. that beach.... please God, let them include the beach in their demo video...

[Chrysia]

I don´t think the world is done, their ´roadmap´ is only for doing things needed for the demo, which I think it just a few terrains. But seriously.. that beach.... please God, let them include the beach in their demo video...

The horrible, horrible noodle beach?

[Deleted]

So Nigerian prince scam got too mainstream eh?

[lokinrond713]

Thats a fuckload more then ur 2 cents

[Kyanion]

Oh I know, I want that beach in the game so bad haha. I love the roadmap though, it has been so interesting to watch it just randomly get progress when you see the AMA and realize they've made very little progress in the last few months.

[Deleted]

Are they still selling lifetime subs, or did that fall away with the candles and eyepatches and dance animations?

That lifetime sub will re-appear as a KS stretch goal I am sure.

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Oh I know, I want that beach in the game so bad haha. I love the roadmap though, it has been so interesting to watch it just randomly get progress when you see the AMA and realize they've made very little progress in the last few months.

Where did they take the screenshots of that swamp though? All I've seen is that beach and all the floating trees on the green hills. Since the world is done (Yay) I want to see the swamp and the Argonians that dwell within.

I'm also curious if they add the Raknars in. Their animation is going to be amazing.

[Azrile]

Oh I know, I want that beach in the game so bad haha. I love the roadmap though, it has been so interesting to watch it just randomly get progress when you see the AMA and realize they've made very little progress in the last few months.

Spells - cast a single spell... That one, it just kills me. It is like they think it is some huge technological hurdle. Adding a fireball type spell, or an aoe spell to the game is a one day job. We laugh about that one all the time. It sucks, because we are just dying to know what part is giving them so much trouble. If they did a podcast as they were developing the game they would be millionares because everyone who ever used Unity would be tuning in for the show. It would be like when the 3 stoogies pretend to be doctors.

[Deleted]

The horrible, horrible noodle beach?

That is the best description I have heard so far by a long shot.

[Deleted]

Hope you guys still have all your eyes and fingers after the new year's eve

Not much happening with ToA right now. 250$ donators are getting a demo pass in preparation for the Kickstarter video, which ofcourse they have to sign the NDA. There's going to be a grand scale epic fight going on between a lot of people! I'm so damn excited for that 10v10 battlefield.

Also apparently players can now wield different shields and swords and carry axes, such amazing, many wows.

Roadmap hasn't been updated yet, maybe soon.

[Deleted]

It has taken them months to perfect the island. But it looked exactly the same since they showcased their combat like half a year ago, lol. Last video during the AMA I only saw floating trees.

[zorkuus]

roflmao xD

A dagger? Where do I sign up?