Trials of Ascension, Shady Practices and the Big Crowdfunding Debate

[Taojnhy]

Wow, Jog from Gloria Victis seems like a class act:

"Meanwhile, if there are any Greed Monger, Embers of Caerus or another MMORPG Kickstarters backers who were not delivered yet what they paid for please contact me via support@gloriavictisgame.com with showing some proof of your donation for those projects. I will gladly send you invitation into the Gloria Victis hoping that you won't loose believe in Indie Developers."

That alone gives me reason to toss some money their way; that's a really generous thing to offer the MMO community who've been burned by various KS campaigns.

[Kyanion]

Yeah that is a really nice thing to do and a sweet PR move for their game. Pretty damn smart imo.

[dextersmith]

Looks like the Greedmonger drama is about to heat up again:

http://www.greedmonger.com/forum/sho...g-Greed-Monger

I swear, reading over the last few years of history surrounding Greedmonger, and it is almost word for word and plot-for-plot identical to ToA's history.

Both "games" place blame but this is even more histrionic! Does Jason threaten to sue everywhere he goes?

James Proctor: http://www.greedmonger.com/forum/sho...ll=1#post29904

mmorpg.com, their posters, and WURM online forum: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index...-inside.98177/

[Azrile]

*cough cough*Azrileisashillgettingakickbackforthat*cough cough*

haha, nope, but we did buy the same horses this week. A great horse model, 3 skins and 20ish animations for $7.50

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/3203

I don´t buy humans, especially ones that are so distinct, but animals and stuff that are generic, there is no reason not to use them. We aren´t using the horse armor though, just the plain horse models. To model an animal, texture it, and animate it with the basic 15 or so animations would take about 2 weeks... or buy it for $7.50 hmm?

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Wow, Jog from Gloria Victis seems like a class act:

"Meanwhile, if there are any Greed Monger, Embers of Caerus or another MMORPG Kickstarters backers who were not delivered yet what they paid for please contact me via support@gloriavictisgame.com with showing some proof of your donation for those projects. I will gladly send you invitation into the Gloria Victis hoping that you won't loose believe in Indie Developers."

That alone gives me reason to toss some money their way; that's a really generous thing to offer the MMO community who've been burned by various KS campaigns.

The teams from Gloria Victis and Repopulation are both really good people. You can say it is PR, but the reason he stated is the bigger point. There are a lot of good indie developers that put years of hard work into their projects and most of them don´t want to get crushed because ´oh,another indie developer doing a KS like Greedmonger and Trials of Ascension´.. It was also the reason I started this thread.

[Fallen Angel]

Who would even see it? The ToA forum seems kinda dead to me right now.

Devalts 1-50 and Legitposter 1-2.

[Deleted]

I think its at the stage where it'll die on its own now ^^

[lawow74]

I think the ones who would need to see it would likely hear about it in this thread and spread it to the others. It seemed to me the ones interested in community with each other were going to keep in touch.

[dextersmith]

Free programmers? Only delusional idiots can actually believe this… programming can be stressing as fuck, especially when you are doing it for someone else, if the owners couldn’t be arced learning it, why would someone who learned it be arced to do it for free, especially for people like the ones behind Forged Chaos with unrealistic goals… oh yes, there are people in ToA community who keep claimed they would do it for free, yet are they bothering spending time learning how to do it to actually do it? Fuck no! It’s much easier to just stand in a forum and boast how “nice” (or stupid?) you can be.

Right, who would take the second full time job that is toa, for free, for someone else to profit? That's why people say for years they'd volunteer but never raise a finger. I hate inactive jerks who say you should volunteer. GFY! You do it!

[Azrile]

I already know what Brax´s comments would be regarding GreedMonger, they would be the same crap as Xansword tried to pull in this thread the first week ´ Our kickstarter failed, not because of us, but because there were so many scam MMORPGs on KS already that tainted people´s views´..

This was Xanswords ( a ToA Developer yep yep) comments in this thread
I agree that with the way Kickstarter has gone now, it is doing quite a bit of harm to genuine developers. There are many crowdfunding campaigns started which virtually only contain design notes and a bit of art, and they take away funds from developers who will actually develop a product.

There is no doubt Brax would use GM as an excuse, in case you haven´t noticed in his ´I am not going to blame anyone but myself´ thread he has no problem blaming anyone but himself.

[dextersmith]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpNjOG0dF-I

This shows the garbage Jason's been up to (aside from peddling penis pills, and the governor thing). It seems none were profitable or he'd stick with it and fund GM. Has anyone told him to get a fuckin' job?

[Azrile]

WOW, I just read the thread on MMORPG. Sorry about my previous comments, but James is as full of shit as Jason. Just a week ago James was talking all flowers and sunshine about Jason, how Jason was funding things the way they need to be funded, and how James and his ´team´ are doing just fine and everything is roses. A week later, and suddenly there was no ´team´ and now Jason is to blame for it all.

And wow, that video GM released in January... that makes noodle beach look like a movie set. Not sure if James has issues, but his constant need to start over, and say ´when we have this.. things will be perfect´.. there always seems to be something coming that will fix all the problems.

and yeah.. Atavism... you know the MMORPG kit that has been on the asset store for a year, but still has a roadmap of when/if certain features will be implemented that are absolutely vital... but ... coming soon!!

[dextersmith]

Who do you think is worse? Brax, Jason or James? Imo Jason. James has pm-ed me on mmorpg and seems suspect.

[Deleted]

I think ToA is probably worse for me as I was personally vested, but I think this other game has much more of a shitstorm going on; much more conflict, it would seem.

[dextersmith]

http://www.greedmonger.com/forum/sho...h-James-and-GM

Both Brax and Jason say the same thing:

"I admit that I haven't handled the development of GM [or toa] the way I probably should have."
I was naive.
"I was arrogant and thought we had it all figured out."
"I was foolish."
"I trusted a lot of people I shouldn't have."
I learned from my mistakes.
It's someone else's fault.
...

Is there a book called Scamming For Dummies?

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http://www.greedmonger.com/forum/sho...ll=1#post29926

How do you give a game and its assets to X, then give it to someone else there after?

[Runeshear]

http://www.greedmonger.com/forum/sho...h-James-and-GM

Both Brax and Jason say the same thing:

"I admit that I haven't handled the development of GM [or toa] the way I probably should have."
I was naive.
"I was arrogant and thought we had it all figured out."
"I was foolish."
"I trusted a lot of people I shouldn't have."
I learned from my mistakes.
It's someone else's fault.
...

Is there a book called Scamming For Dummies?

I wanted to be funny, but this was all i found

[Taojnhy]

WOW, I just read the thread on MMORPG. Sorry about my previous comments, but James is as full of shit as Jason. Just a week ago James was talking all flowers and sunshine about Jason, how Jason was funding things the way they need to be funded, and how James and his ´team´ are doing just fine and everything is roses. A week later, and suddenly there was no ´team´ and now Jason is to blame for it all.

And wow, that video GM released in January... that makes noodle beach look like a movie set. Not sure if James has issues, but his constant need to start over, and say ´when we have this.. things will be perfect´.. there always seems to be something coming that will fix all the problems.

and yeah.. Atavism... you know the MMORPG kit that has been on the asset store for a year, but still has a roadmap of when/if certain features will be implemented that are absolutely vital... but ... coming soon!!

Yeah, found James' profile on the Atavism site: this one got banned and this is his current one.

Read through the chat log that James posted (warning, HUGE wall of text), and yeah, not terribly impressed with James and his conduct either. It honestly feels to me like he and Appleton deserved each other.

[Azrile]

Who do you think is worse? Brax, Jason or James? Imo Jason. James has pm-ed me on mmorpg and seems suspect.

This whole thing is just bizarre.

More information, and this is directly from James. James is mentally ill, has all kinda personality and mental issues and is on disability. So you think.. WTF were you thinking Jason.. you hired a lead developer who is mentally ill and who has never made a game before as your lead developer. But it is freakin genius... James CANNOT accept a salary, or he loses his disability. So all this martyr talk from James about working for 3 years without a salary.. is BS... he was collecting a salary, from taxpayers. So not only does Jason now have a lead developer who cannot accept a salary, but because of the mental health issues, he also has a full ´out´ when things fall apart. James is already flaking out the last few days.. he contradicts himself constantly in the same thread.

to me, James and Brax are basically the same, except James does have some tech skills. They are just people who cannot see reality and severely underestimate the amount of work needed to make an MMORPG. I think both of them initially thought they could do what they were thinking of doing, but then both gradually faded to where they were just faking shit to keep their ´dream´going as long as possible. Both of them believe they are something special and if everyone around them would just do as they want, then they will ´make it´. You will never convince either of them that they can´t do what they want to do. If Brax spent a year learning to program, he would be James.

Jason is just a shiester. He wakes up with an idea and that is his new business of the day. He is throwing darts at a dartboard, and hopes one of them will hit the bullseye. The chat logs they posted showed something similar to Brax though.. Because he is so stupid and lazy, he is also prone to getting scammed by people he tries to hire to carry out the ´real´work. Greedmonger raised $100k, as much as people are saying he stole it, my guess is that James wasted a big chunk of it buying stupid stuff and getting ripped off by contract workers. Jason was paying a guy hundreds of dollars to import animations.... James was buying all type of engines and licenses...

Said it before.. but now it applies to James and Jason along wit Brax. You can give these idiots millions of dollars, and they still wouldn´t be able to make an MMORPG, all they would make is a lot of happy contractors. It is hard to rate them in order if James is being honest about his mental illness.

[lawow74]

But it doesn't have anything to do with Kickstarter or the game devs, guise! As the wisest of wise and all-knowing game experts posted on the ToA forums, 'because there are companies who hire people to troll and say bad thibgs about the game.' Oh, thibgs! Why must you be so cruel?!?!?

[Azrile]

Yeah, found James' profile on the Atavism site: this one got banned and this is his current one.

Read through the chat log that James posted (warning, HUGE wall of text), and yeah, not terribly impressed with James and his conduct either. It honestly feels to me like he and Appleton deserved each other.

Honestly, one of the reasons I originally believed in James is because he was one of the first people to really call out Atavism on their BS, which resulted in his banned account. Back then, a huge portion of what you need to make a MMORPG wasn´t in Atavism, and wasn´t even on their roadmap, meanwhile they were creating little petty things that nobody really needed except well, the owners of Atavism who were making their own MMORPG. I had no idea he actually went back to Atavism...

[dextersmith]

It is hard to rate them in order if James is being honest about his mental illness.

It seems authentic.


Found here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index...-inside.98177/

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Apparently, someone else shared my suspicion.

To be completely honest, I think 'ol JP here was duped into total culpability for this project failure and jason Appleton pocketed the money and used this guy as the fall guy for what looks to have been a pretty well orchestrated scam on the part of jason Apppleton who disappeared after getting the Kickstart money and then starting direct funding at his website.

from DarKPenguiN: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.../#post-3833707