Trials of Ascension, Shady Practices and the Big Crowdfunding Debate

[Taojnhy]

Well, at least "Lord (have mercy!) Brax" has finally come to accept that a MMO just isn't going to happen; sure there's mention of working on it later, but that'll probably be when Atavism 96.0 is released.

So, FC has gone from "putting the RPG back in MMORPG" to "aiming much lower and more realistically".

[Paperfox]

i thought he was gonna say that bug are still bugging and that progress was progressing. Are they trying to outlast Duke Nukem: For Never?

[Deleted]

Well, at least "Lord (have mercy!) Brax" has finally come to accept that a MMO just isn't going to happen; sure there's mention of working on it later, but that'll probably be when Atavism 96.0 is released.

So, FC has gone from "putting the RPG back in MMORPG" to "aiming much lower and more realistically".

They've gone to ''Removing the M from MMORPG''

[Bodoh]

The ToA game is total nonsense.

There is not enough concept art for modelling any 3D characters.

The 3D models looks store-brought and re-fashioned, or camera is at a distance so nobody suspects anything.

[Maddoc]

Haha, the store is gonna come back soon I guess, the suckers are just begging for it!

The new Host your own system sounds really great! But.. A bunch of my friends have long been interested in ToA but they couldnt justify donating. The introduction of this new system however has made them overjoyed and we really want to play together with it when possible. However since they havent donated they will not have access to it no? So im wondering if you plan on opening the store up or allowing donaters to invite their non-donating friends to try out ToA.

[Deleted]

Please correct me if I'm totally wrong, I'm not very familiar with all the HTML stuff but I checked their website elements and noticed a link to "addthis.com". Upon further checking that addthis website (blog and dashboard) it looks like they haven't done all the new website coding themselves...? I mean, is that how you do "your own" websites nowadays? No more selfcoding? Just using tools?

Pretty much. Hand coding HTML / CSS is going the way of the dodo for smaller scale work, there's not really much need for it when there are such extensive and useful tools and frameworks to do it. Coding HTML / CSS is incredibly easy but it's just a way to speed up the development process by using a tool or framework.

Addthis doesn't look like a customisation tool as far as I can see though? http://www.addthis.com/ it's just marketing analytics.

Assuming you mean the following piece of code:

  <!-- Go to www.addthis.com/dashboard to customize your tools -->
    <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=ra-503f1fa30096d24a" async="async"></script>

Line #1 is a comment
Line #2 is linking to the tools script, think of it like linking to an advertisement.

I am wondering why they have commented out the form for newsletter join though:

<!--
                <div class="form-group">
                  <input type="email" class="form-control" id="exampleInputEmail1" placeholder="Enter email">
                </div>
                -->

They've used bootstrap as their framework - http://getbootstrap.com/

[code]

It's used for almost everything these days and is incredibly user friendly. If you fancy making a personal website grab that, spend 2 hours doing HTML / CSS tutorials and you'll be able to get a pretty good quality site up and running within a weekend.

[Deleted]

https://www.trialsofascension.com/forum/search/1864374/

Sucks that they deleted most of my posts, because I had made one suggesting them most of these changes they are doing now, I also warned them that even with all of these changes, they wouldn't make it.

Even a troll like you gets 83 likes.

[Fornax-]

When I saw the Exile words in my inbox note they sent, I thought it was a play on words....that they were going into exile for all the mistakes and false starts.

Turns out they are going to try put a trial island on Steam Greenlight. Oohf...you can run around in bs world with two extra races that will ruin your fun. You can't build anything, so why go? Jesus.

I downloaded and played Life is Fuedal: Your Own. Played maybe 3 to 5 hours. There are a number of well established servers with devoted players. Ironically, despite the fact that it had so much of exactly what I was looking for in the ideas of the old ToA, I was just too singed from the earlier fuck up in ToA to appreciate the game. It did have a lot to do with the fact that it was unfinished and in constant beta. The guys at SP..sorry, FC, will not have near a professional presence as LiF:YO. No one I know is currently in LiF though. We talked about going over there, but there was no ToA there. Just a mass exodus from the forums.

Sigh.

You have to give Don credit for trying, I guess, but they are always trying to sell something years after everyone else has done so. With a far more inferior product, and entirely too much baggage to be successful. And now? Well, their plans have shifted so much, it almost looks like they are trying to finish something so they can say they finished something. I won't be playing. I honestly don't think anyone else will either.

Oh well. I am trying to stayi away from posting any, much less negative comments over there. I do notice my Hero status is gone. I'm totally heartbroken.

Not.

[Kyanion]

When I saw the Exile words in my inbox note they sent, I thought it was a play on words....that they were going into exile for all the mistakes and false starts.

Turns out they are going to try put a trial island on Steam Greenlight. Oohf...you can run around in bs world with two extra races that will ruin your fun. You can't build anything, so why go? Jesus.

I downloaded and played Life is Fuedal: Your Own. Played maybe 3 to 5 hours. There are a number of well established servers with devoted players. Ironically, despite the fact that it had so much of exactly what I was looking for in the ideas of the old ToA, I was just too singed from the earlier fuck up in ToA to appreciate the game. It did have a lot to do with the fact that it was unfinished and in constant beta. The guys at SP..sorry, FC, will not have near a professional presence as LiF:YO. No one I know is currently in LiF though. We talked about going over there, but there was no ToA there. Just a mass exodus from the forums.

Sigh.

You have to give Don credit for trying, I guess, but they are always trying to sell something years after everyone else has done so. With a far more inferior product, and entirely too much baggage to be successful. And now? Well, their plans have shifted so much, it almost looks like they are trying to finish something so they can say they finished something. I won't be playing. I honestly don't think anyone else will either.

Oh well. I am trying to stayi away from posting any, much less negative comments over there. I do notice my Hero status is gone. I'm totally heartbroken.

Not.

Heh yeah think they said they were going to lump all past donators in the same vein, so a 5 dollar donator is as important as someone that plunked down 2,500! Totally! Yeah this new plan is silly a super watered down version of the previous plan that was already super watered down.

So they are killing off so many aspects that was draws for the fans they had, a huge economy driven system due to the amount of players. As we all know 64 people isn't enough to 'create an economy'. Removal of many skills/abilities so its mostly just mindless combat and tree chopping.

What really surprises me (well not really) is the fanboys don't care how they change things they just drink it up in large quantities. They already chased off most of the negative people so now all is left is new 'fans' that post and some of the few older posters that will eat up anything ToA puts out.

[zorkuus]

So it's not an MMO... ROFL ahahaha

[Azrile]

They realize that they do not get any money until after the game is greenlit? I still think they don´t understand the process.

They continue to have a really big problem.. and that is that Brax does not know how to make a game, but it making all the decisions. He makes it sound like they cut a lot of stuff, but most of the stuff they cut is tivial to do, meanwhile they are glossing over all the really difficult stuff and it isn´t even mentioned in their roadmap. Brax just doesn´t know enough to know how to organize the game. Spells, breath weapons, a second dragon race ( after you have the first) is all just really easy stuff. Meanwhile he adds ´ move the character´ as an accomplishment.. again.. 2 minutes after installing Unity you have that.

The other funny part is the tiny world, and yet it is procedurally created. Like I guessed last time, demo island was not created by them, they used the island that is included as a demo when you buy someone´s art pack from the unity store. The islands are going to be tiny, to walk from SW corner to NE corner will be about 10-12 minutes.... and if it is procedurally generate, why bother.. the next 100 meters is going to look exactly like the last 100 meters. No cool natural attractions, no nooks and crannies to explore, nothing ´different´ just boring, repetitive landscapes with no character. For those that played Skyrim, a ToA island will be 3% of the overland landmass.

One thing is for sure, Brax is able to con these people into working for nothing. Do they not realize that he has now done this twice already. in 2005, and again with Teddy and Xanword... you promise them a big cut of the revenues for a game that will never be completed. This thing is going to sit on Steam for years before it gets enough support... and then, you still have to hope people buy it..

It is like he thinks KS and Steam are just money faucets and nobody is going to see the fact that they have no game, but pre-order it anyway.

[khalltusk]

wow, well we sure didn't see this coming /sarcasm XD

OH well XD.

On another note, anyone had a dabble on Ark SE yet?

[Fornax-]

I know you guys love the drama side of this, as it's probably like a reality show that keeps giving sad, embarrassing moments to viewers, but I hope this is their LAST attempt at anything.

You would fucking think that after so many started and failed attempts (like this one will be) that they will see the truth. Gods, I hope so. It's just sad.

[Kyanion]

Oh shit, I just noticed:

http://www.trialsofascension.com/for...to-start.4760/

http://www.trialsofascension.com/for...canceled.4747/

They deleted EVERYONE comments from those threads... "transparency".

Lol secretive editing of forums!? Gasp! TRANSPARENCY!!!!!

- - - Updated - - -

I know you guys love the drama side of this, as it's probably like a reality show that keeps giving sad, embarrassing moments to viewers, but I hope this is their LAST attempt at anything.

You would fucking think that after so many started and failed attempts (like this one will be) that they will see the truth. Gods, I hope so. It's just sad.

You think they are going to see the light after X amount of years of failures? I mean look at the lead trio. They don't actually DO anything. They just sit back and let others do shit for them, so they have no investment in this project except trying to demand respect on forums and have people bow and scrape to them. I'm more surprised at the stupid people that joined the 'team' to take shares in profits for a game that is not likely to see release based on the track record of this 'company'.

- - - Updated - - -

They have no clue what they are getting themselves into… Steam Greenlight unlike Kickstarter won’t allow them to forbid non supporters from having a say and they won’t be able to delete it or edit it like they do in their own forums.

Yup the moment that game ever gets to the point where feedback can be put down it will show up in droves to highlight just what type of 'company' is creating this 'game', And the best part is that it'll be there for everyone to see. No secretive editing for TRANSPARENCY sake.

[glo]

Thanks for clarification, guess I'm just too oldschooled about it. I was always told to make it myself (+learning) to stand out from the crowd ^^

Yes I thats the piece of code I noticed. And thats http://www.addthis.com/blog/category/product-updates/ what I saw in the blog. No account over there to get more information about it. But I guess it's nothing bad anyway. I was just tainted by my oldschoolness xD

With readily available CMS solutions like Drupal, coding your own, likely less secure site is inefficient and a huge waste of money for the vast majority of businesses.

[ThePotato]

So according to Brax on that wall of text he calls Azrile out for not sharing the information he has regarding the money and details relating to site traffic and such. A bit of a pot calling the kettle black.

[Bodoh]

It's a Xenforo Website.

I would like to call Brax out for a validation token for his Xenforo website.
xenforo.com/api/


Anyone want to take bets his Xenforo license is not licensed?

[Bodoh]

So according to Brax on that wall of text he calls Azrile out for not sharing the information he has regarding the money and details relating to site traffic and such. A bit of a pot calling the kettle black.

URL or link please?

- - - Updated - - -

Brax sounds like an idea guy who does nothing.

[Azrile]

Addthis.com is not a website creator, they provide some code you can paste into your HTML to allow your readers to share the page to facebook,Twitter etc. You have probably seen it on hundreds of websites and not realized it. If you want, you can do the same thing yourself using the code from the different social sites yourself, but addthis just allows you to do it quicker and they also give you some combined stats. I don´t use it anymore since it is slow to load and Google penalizes sites that are slow, especially if the searcher is using a mobile device ( see mobilegeddon from April).

Still, just can´t get over the fact that Brax is the one who did the ´trimming´... the guy who could not turn on the server 5 months ago is now the one deciding that he can install 64 man servers on other people´s computers. Despite the fact that on a stripped down world running no code, they couldn´t get over 20 people.

Edit, like predicted they removed all reference to the KSers and Cash-shop... transparency.....

[lawow74]

Make sure you have links updated to show all the references to their past KSers and the cash/donation shop so people know what they did, even if they've tried to whitewash their site.