Trials of Ascension, Shady Practices and the Big Crowdfunding Debate

[Kyanion]

Come now Azrile, I believe it's already been established that they were all developers, including whoever's job it was to make a fresh pot of coffee.

Yeah don't forget the social media team are also devs. Also it is hard to say Toa is based on fan-fic since that wasn't showing up til the KS was going. ToA is based on half baked ideas and '50 pages of lore' that was never seen.

[Kelimbror]

Come now Azrile, I believe it's already been established that they were all developers, including whoever's job it was to make a fresh pot of coffee.

Hey now. That guy developed the ever loving mess out of that coffee. (and probably did more work than any of the 'real' devs not named Teddy)

[Azrile]

Yeah don't forget the social media team are also devs. Also it is hard to say Toa is based on fan-fic since that wasn't showing up til the KS was going. ToA is based on half baked ideas and '50 pages of lore' that was never seen.

yeah, can´t forget the team of 5 social media experts... I wonder what happened to them suddenly in May...

[Kelimbror]

yeah, can´t forget the team of 5 social media experts... I wonder what happened to them suddenly in May...

They leveraged their amazing experience and now work at Myspace.

[dextersmith]

I thought the 3 backpedaling FC heads had pride in themselves and toa. In "good times" when community members called them devs, no corrections or objections were made. When questions were raised about progress being so slow, they distanced themselves from toa. "We're FC devs!....No wait, Teddy's the dev! We're 3 CEO's....No wait, we're 3 Co-Founders....No wait, we're 3 gamers with a vision.....No wait, we're 3 old school gamers with nostalgia......."

[lawow74]

Also, quite amusing to see someone sobbing because his post about self-policing PvP was ignored by everyone when the entire project might just go to fucking hell considering that no one who is actually “developing” it knows shit about game development =/

Sigh ~ Just to this kind of person actually dares to call others “dull witted”, god damnit.

Yeah, I saw that. Made me smile when people flat-out said 'dude, you realize there's a good chance this game's never gonna get made...right?' and he just plows on windblowing about game systems and decisions. Here's a decision: The 'devs' have taken your money and walked off with it, leaving you with NOTHING. I guess it's true, some people will do anything to avoid facing the truth.

[dextersmith]

This is not entirely correct, some member made posts about a couple of issues way before this, of course was a minority obfuscated by the kool-aid drinkers =/

I meant no corrections or objections were made by "the CEOs". I seem to remember him referring to himself as the lead dev at some point too.

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Also, quite amusing to see someone sobbing because his post about self-policing PvP was ignored by everyone when the entire project might just go to fucking hell considering that no one who is actually “developing” it knows shit about game development =/

Which thread? I couldn't find it.

[lawow74]

Which thread? I couldn't find it.

Starts right here.

[Azrile]

Yeah, I saw that. Made me smile when people flat-out said 'dude, you realize there's a good chance this game's never gonna get made...right?' and he just plows on windblowing about game systems and decisions. Here's a decision: The 'devs' have taken your money and walked off with it, leaving you with NOTHING. I guess it's true, some people will do anything to avoid facing the truth.

The irony is that if he started a website with his ´system´ he would be exactly what Brax was back in 2002. This entire fiasco started because Brax thought he had a game idea for an open world pvp system that was better than Trammel in UO and he was able to make a website.

I think a pvp-murder system would be almost impossible in a game like ToA for the same reason it never worked in UO. Without tab-targeting, people are just going to walk in front of you and then kill you after you have been declared the aggressor. The same sort-of stuff that was happening on Timeless Island is what plagued UO.. Very few people actually attacked you, instead they waited for you to use an ability, they stepped into it, got you flagged, and then killed you while the game thought you were the aggressor. Tab-targeting somewhat eliminates it because your main attacks will only hit what you have targeted, but in games like UO and ToA, all of your attacks are just frontal attacks, so at any time someone could just jump between you and the monster you are fighting and get you flagged.

It is what UO learned... it doesn´t matter how harshly you penalize murderers because nobody is actually getting penalized at all. The only people who got murder counts were the guys who killed the guy who jumped in front of them and got them flagged. And that just opened up another form of griefing.. take a low-health character, jump in front of someone else´s attack, the attack kllls you, you report them as a murderer.

UO played this game for 4-5 years where they tried everything to have a pvp-murder system and it never worked, players always found ways to abuse it to the point where the system did more harm then good. UO gave up and created Trammel.

[dextersmith]

Starts right here.

Thanks.

What a solipsist! "My ideas must be liked! Literally and figuratively!" His one line response to Varl's opinion exudes vituperation! I've never seen such a vehement reaction to getting just 1 like. Doesn't Gassy pass out obligatory likes like candy? Imagine penalties for pvping in a pvp game.

That guy's more concerned with prospects than realizing a game to play. The popularity contest that is their forum keep fanatics hooked on toa by having a like button to easily dispense devoir. Having a rough day? Make any arbitrary post for an instant ego boner!

[lawow74]

UO played this game for 4-5 years where they tried everything to have a pvp-murder system and it never worked, players always found ways to abuse it to the point where the system did more harm then good. UO gave up and created Trammel.

As the old saying goes, 'Rules were made to be broken.' Someone will discover a loophole, an exploit, and in this modern age of information technology, everyone and their grandma will know about it if they type a search into a web browser. And at the same time, games are business. No one is making a game for their health. People who talk a bunch of shit about 'giving to the gaming community' like as not are doing so cos nobody was gonna give them money for it.

It's much like how I felt when I read about their GM events plan to keep the game dynamic. Humans are fallible, vain, selfish creatures. You're just asking for scandal like EVE's t20 incident. It's not a question of if, but when.

[Ungeir]

People with big egos, big ideas and no artistic or technical skill are a dime a dozen. How anyone in their right mind would donate money to someone who wants to make a gaming start-up for more than a decade, yet does not manage to learn either a technical or artistic skill related to producing a game in all the years, is mind-boggling.

At least they didnt manage to trick any developers into working for free without any creative control - that's sadly the story at a lot of failed tech and gaming start-ups. Big ego people with no real skills manage to trick young, passionate artists and programmers into sacrificing weeks, months, even years, chasing an impossible dream - instead the project turns into using those people with actual skills to produce something, so the founders can bleed money from customers or investors, without ever producing anything worthwhile.

Crowdfunding is the new playground for these delusional, scamming and/or down-right sociopathic people. We saw the same thing back in the dot-com gold rush days.

[Azrile]

As the old saying goes, 'Rules were made to be broken.' Someone will discover a loophole, an exploit, and in this modern age of information technology, everyone and their grandma will know about it if they type a search into a web browser.

Yeah, I never really blamed the UO players. I was never a blue-pk.. I had 2 fully developed accounts, so it was no big deal for me to have a red character running around ( especially since I was a stealth character). But there were a lot of people who played a lot less than me and didn´t have many fully developed characters, so if you only have 1 main, and your main is red, it sucked hard... so I understood why they noto´d instead of going red.

but this whole conversation is laughable. You are talking about a lead developer who can´t turn on his own server, being able to implement a criminal system that fixed and issue really smart UO developers couldn´t solve in 5 years of actual trial and error. But hey, I am sure brax has some toilet paper notes somewhere that explains it all.. trust him.

And really the noto-pk system didn´t have to be spread on websites. You could figure it out really easy just hunting with a friend and accidentally stepping in in one of their AOEs. You would get a big message ´playerx is attacking you´ and they would turn grey, which meant you could kill them without getting a murder count.

[Kyanion]

I love that they keep having pointless discussions over there about game features for a game that has failed a second KS. Like who fucking cares how the 'justice' system will or will not work. They don't even have basic things down in stone yet as to how the game would work let alone anything that might be considered advanced. Clueless devs + clueless fans = clueless clusterfuck

[Fallen Angel]

I very curiously await when they decide to "hire" a new programmer and do a third KS! I just want this game to be a thing!!!!

Woops, wrong account

[Kyanion]

I very curiously await when they decide to "hire" a new programmer and do a third KS! I just want this game to be a thing!!!!

Woops, wrong account

Busted! I always knew you were one of them!

[Fallen Angel]

Busted! I always knew you were one of them!

But they needed my hype, my hype, my hype...

[Kyanion]

But they needed my hype, my hype, my hype...

and ur money...ur money...ur money!

[lawow74]

And ZOMG, the whole history of MMO PvP relied on doing just a few things to make it completely and totally different. My mind = totes blown.

[Azrile]

He is wrong about the blue healing. they fixed that really early... and it didn´t matter anyway because the majority of people who were PKing never went red to begin with.