Trials of Ascension, Shady Practices and the Big Crowdfunding Debate

[jrhager84]

I just don't get it, jrhager, if I may ask, why did u come here?

To acknowledge our mistakes in the past, and move forward with all the constructive feedback we could get. I've been VERY civil in accepting feedback, but certainly don't take kindly to being told to 'shut the fuck up.'

If *I* may ask: Is there a point you're getting at?

[dextersmith]

If I decide that something's not working, then we're going to change it. It's really that simple.

Based on your lack of technical knowledge and experience? You're echoing Brax and Jason.

Now, from a business perspective, I get assets. Assets that are of value. Assets that can be used to produce *other* projects [...] It will succeed or fail, and then we'll move on. There are other projects that are shelved that can be developed the moment that GM concludes.

You're transparent and fool no one. You're fulfilling minimal requirements to keep licenses; you don't care about backers, gm, or James, you want gm over with to exploit "Assets that are of value".

Positioning is key. Honesty is paramount. I'm certainly not a saint, and I certainly don't run a charity. What I do espouse, are principles.

Is this a presidential speech? I can employ buzzwords too; your endeavor is quixotic.

[Kyanion]

I said it could have been a different engine. I love how you turn so quickly. It's like we have an understanding, and then BAM.

Yeah then what engine was it where GM was getting 180 FPS? Some sort of 8 bit thing?

[jrhager84]

Based on your lack of technical knowledge and experience? You're echoing Brax and Jason.



You're transparent and fool no one. You're fulfilling minimal requirements to keep licenses; you don't care about backers, gm, or James, you want gm over with to exploit "Assets that are of value".



Is this a presidential speech? I can employ buzzwords too; your endeavor is quixotic.

I don't need you to believe me. It's really that simple. Also - Who said it would just be me? I'm smart enough to know that I don't know enough by myself to get this thing moving. Maybe that's where others failed?

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Yeah then what engine was it where GM was getting 180 FPS? Some sort of 8 bit thing?

Now that I look back and think, I believe that was a Hero Engine build.

[dextersmith]

Honestly, you are falling into the same mistakes as Jason. You don´t have the tech background to understand this stuff, so you are just listening to James talk about some magic stuff that is going to fix it all.

Azrile, do you mind? I was looking forward to Joel reliving Jason's epic fails.
/popcorn

[jrhager84]

Azrile, do you mind? I was looking forward to Joel reliving Jason's epic fails.
/popcorn

I suppose time will tell. ;-)

[draykorinee]

Make it stop.

[Kyanion]

Don't worry: Time will tell. You know when GM turns into ToA v2. GM is even worse because they got 100k from a Kickstarter and failed that hard. We don't know if ToA REALLY got 67k to fail that hard making a demo. Either way neither of these games will ever release. But don't worry we have a lot of squawking and crap about the 'brand' that these 'companies' are putting forth. Another clueless CEO thinking their game is going to happen.

You really do not understand how much money it takes to make a MMO and how many people it takes. You have one terrible coder that has been failing for 3 years on this project and instead of replacing him you kept him around.

[jrhager84]

At this point, and I agree, talk is cheap. I'll bow out of this conversation, as it seems I'm going nowhere, and only wasting peoples' time. Just know that your criticism - no matter how inflammatory - has been noted. I'd like to thank ALL of you for your feedback, as it shows me where our weaknesses are. I can't ask that you trust me, as GM has done nothing to warrant it. All I can do is say that I'm working on it. If you look at it this way:

If I hadn't taken on GM, there would DEFINITELY be no game. Done.

Now that I have, no matter how remote (in your eyes), there's still a chance. As long as there still is, I'm going to push forward.

Also, just a little number-crunching for you guys. The amount of money it will take to get things going will be EXPONENTIALLY more than the cost of the license and assets. So, as a businessman, if acquiring the licenses and assets for another game, why on EARTH would I waste the money, time, and negative backlash if I were only in it for the assets? Makes ZERO sense.

Either way, your feedback is appreciated.

[Azrile]

Yeah, no way HE was getting 180 FPS either, not even in an empty world, the graphics engine behind HE is way old and hasn´t been updated in years. I can believe you had 10 people in an empty world though because we had more than 10 in ToA´s world. I am going to have to find it now, but while ToA did actually work in Hero Engine for the full year they had a license, I seem to remember that James abandoned Hero Engine after only a month or two... , which I never understood. Hero Engine handles all the servers and networking for you, but you have to pay them a percent of your sales.

As I said earlier in this thread, the fact that Hero Engine comes pre-configured with servers and networking the same day you sign up, means that you can.. wait for it.... have 10 people log in on day one without doing any work. That is exactly the reason I never understood ToA and Greedmonger switching away from HE to go to Unity, where instead of it working out of the box, you are waiting for Atavism to *soon* release updates. I am not sure HE will be doing updates either, but what they already have, you can make a full MMORPG like Repopulation did with all the server-side authority already in place.

[jrhager84]

Yeah, no way HE was getting 180 FPS either, not even in an empty world, the graphics engine behind HE is way old and hasn´t been updated in years. I can believe you had 10 people in an empty world though because we had more than 10 in ToA´s world. I am going to have to find it now, but while ToA did actually work in Hero Engine for the full year they had a license, I seem to remember that James abandoned Hero Engine after only a month or two... , which I never understood. Hero Engine handles all the servers and networking for you, but you have to pay them a percent of your sales.

As I said earlier in this thread, the fact that Hero Engine comes pre-configured with servers and networking the same day you sign up, means that you can.. wait for it.... have 10 people log in on day one without doing any work. That is exactly the reason I never understood ToA and Greedmonger switching away from HE to go to Unity, where instead of it working out of the box, you are waiting for Atavism to *soon* release updates. I am not sure HE will be doing updates either, but what they already have, you can make a full MMORPG like Repopulation did with all the server-side authority already in place.

Certainly a fair point, and one that is being weighed heavily.

[Azrile]

You see, this is where I become a prick and asshole, because I like calling people out on their BS, and at least make them explain some horrible horrible logic

James moved away from Hero Engine because of the licensing arrangement. Something that would not even kick in until after the game is released and they started earning revenues. And really, 25% of revenues is NOTHING considering they are not only providing the engine, but also hosting your servers and providing bandwidth for all your players and have the networking all set up to handle thousands of concurrent users. So at that point, he was thinking ahead, thinking long term huge success for GM and didn´t want to lose 25% of revenues.

Then he switches to Unity/Atavism... a MMORPG kit that had barely launched, and had very little actually in it and James quickly blows up at the Atavism devs to the point where he gets banned from their forums. Pointing out correctly, that none of the stuff needed to actually make a MMORPG are in Atavism. James is supposedly the network guru... I am not. But it took me about 2 hours of looking over Atavism ( at the same time James first started using it) to realize it was never going to make a MMORPG. I never bought it, I just read what features were included, and there was a huge list of vital stuff that was never mentioned ( and 1.5 years later are still at the end of the roadmap).

So in your own words, James in 1.5 years has taken you from a game where YOU said you were playing with 10 other people at 180FPS, to a single player game in that video where James is getting 15FPS and everything, including the skybox, is broken. And you ´believe´ in him?

You see, I described this very early in this thread as the ´death cycle´. ToA and Greedmonger are not the only developers that went from Unity, to Hero Engine, back to Unity. Unity is absurdly easy to use to make a single player game so you jump in there, paint some terrain, plop down some creatures you bought from the asset store and think you are halfway to making a MMORPG... just need the networking part.. Then you realize, it isn´t there, there is no network solution. So you go to Hero Engine and can immediately get 10 or 100 or 1000 people getting 180 FPS (LOL).. but then, guess what.. everything else is hard to do because creating a MMORPG is much harder than just dropping in creatures from the asset store and the fact that HE only makes MMORPGs means you can´t create your single player game easily like you did in Unity. You have the network stuff in place, but doing anything else is much more difficult than in Unity. And this really really sucks because now you can´t show your fans anything.. at least in the single player Unity game you could take screenshots of your dragon in the field and stuff like that. So the pressure from fans is on... and you go back to Unity, creating a single player game and faking your fans while desperately trying to piece together any networking plan that will get you over 30 concurrents. Many many many companies have done this exact cycle before.

The best part is, because James bought all those Unity assets.. you really can´t go back to Hero Engine or you are going to have to spend a lot of money having people import them into Hero Engine.. All those Mecinim animation systems that are sooo nicely set up in Unity.. worthless in Hero Engine. You can literally drag-drop that stuff into unity and you have a fully rigged and animated creature.

But none of that tech stuff matters because you have superior team-building and branding skills. This is the part you, Jason and Brax just don´t seem to get. This is not about hype, PR, branding.. there are technical limits, very harsh technical limits on what you can do. This is not just pixie dust that you can sprinkle on shit to make it suddenly work. Gloria Victus had like 5 people working a year just doing the network stuff to get Unity to work. You aren´t just going to call the guy who installed your anti-virus software and ask him how to do a Unity MMORPG. This is the problem both you and Jason had.. you don´t know enough to realize that people like James are bottom rung developers who of course are more than happy to be ´lead dev´ by feeding you crap you want to hear. Go on Unity and start a thread asking how to network a MMORPG using Unity and you will get 100s of pages of responses, and YOU will not be able to tell who are the 12 year olds and who are the guys from Gloria Victis because you don´t know enough to tell the difference. You have been fed shit from James for 3 years, and you still think it is accurate.

[Kyanion]

MrTophat you must have missed the part where GM got 100k in KS funding and in 3 years produced a terrible shitty video in January.

Also, if I want to throw rocks at a corpse that is my choice. You may be super nice or whatever but I'm not.

[Azrile]

I agree with you. But really, what is the entire point of posting on a 3rd party website about a game? We are here to entertain ourselves. I didn´t join MMO-C years ago to try to convince the WOW devs to change anything. I come here to banter, argue, debate, laugh.. there is no purpose other than that. This thread, no matter how civil we had made it, would never happen on ToA or GreedMonger forums... and so yeah, here it is 50% information and 50% entertainment. And yes, I found this fun as hell. Xanword acknowleded in one of his final posts that the ToA devs did actually react and develop their game based on this thread. When I pointed something out, they scurried like little rats to try to cover it up. Joel here is going to do the same thing, and I purposefully baited him for just that reason. What real dev team is going to change their course of action based on a nobody(me) on some third part website.

[Taojnhy]

Also, just a little number-crunching for you guys. The amount of money it will take to get things going will be EXPONENTIALLY more than the cost of the license and assets. So, as a businessman, if acquiring the licenses and assets for another game, why on EARTH would I waste the money, time, and negative backlash if I were only in it for the assets? Makes ZERO sense.

Well, that's what some of us have been saying Joel: if you honestly are going to raise the funds, hire the help, rent the servers, do the marketing, etc, then you're correct in the it makes zero sense that your goal is just the assets. It's noble that you've stated that you're doing this for the backers and fans, but that's not the entire picture; you're really doing it for the nebulous future fans who can buy into your IP if/when it's finished, because those folks are the only way MMO Interactive will ever see a dime from the gaming community. You're definitely not getting an RoI from the KS backers aside from possible banner-carrying actions such as word of mouth.

If, on the other hand, despite what amounts to your PR campaign when all is said and done, you really have no intention of doing any of that, then acquisition of the assets makes a lot more sense. And why wouldn't you, ethical issues aside? As you've pointed out a few times, you're indemnified; aside from getting the physical merchandise to the backers, you have no further legal obligation. It's not like you couldn't -easily- cut Proctor loose and let him bear the brunt of blame for GM's failure if you went this route. Considering that it took Proctor three years and $100k to produce crap (it doesn't really matter that his computer, meager salary and digital assets didn't cost $100k - the funds are gone with very little to show for it), how is it that you are confident that you can raise enough funds to hire more people, pray that Proctor doesn't run them off, pay for everything else needed to make GM a playable reality? If you have the wherewithal to accomplish this, then why are you so invested in the GM brand itself? Why not just make a new IP and a clean slate? Why continue working with a demonstrable liability in the form of Proctor; seriously, when the guy isn't generating half-finished code and terrible looking game footage, he's a PR nightmare.

There are way too many questions and things we are being told that don't make a lot of sense about GM for us to suddenly be excited or anything besides extremely skeptical. The things you've said to us so far Joel inevitably lead to one of two main conclusions: you're lying to us about your true intentions and we shouldn't trust you, or you're telling the truth and are incompetent and we shouldn't trust you.

Of the titles you listed earlier as having been involved with, two of them have been in "concept phase" for years. Valiance Online has been Greenlit (grats on that, by the way) with a Winter 2016 release (currently doing open testing). As far as I can tell Joel, you've been involved in many projects with only one that looks like it might actually be released, but how much of this was because of your role? Did you do sound work for VO or were you handling the business side of things?

Do you see what I'm getting at? How can you honestly expect us to trust what you say about GM when we have -nothing- to use as a reference point with regard to your capabilities. There is not one person in this thread who wouldn't love to be proven wrong about ToA and GM seeing the light of day to general acclaim, but until that happens I don't think you're going to convince many people with words alone.

[Fallen Angel]

Didn't miss that part. I just don't think being little dick is the right response, especially when you're not even talking to James or Jason.

I mean, did you even back the project? Did you lose any money? Because you can conjuror all the outrage you want but as long as they don't ask for more crowdfunding money why stop them from trying to make the game? It's a slim, borderline non-existent shot in the dark but it's at least better than sitting on a forum and throwing insults around like a bunch of 6th graders.

The point is not in personally losing money on a project. The point is trying to have other people avoid losing money on a project.

[Azrile]

Also, just a little number-crunching for you guys. The amount of money it will take to get things going will be EXPONENTIALLY more than the cost of the license and assets. So, as a businessman, if acquiring the licenses and assets for another game, why on EARTH would I waste the money, time, and negative backlash if I were only in it for the assets? Makes ZERO sense.

um... because you haven´t actually spent any money yet? If there are any signs that you have spent more than about $20k, then yes, what you are saying is true. But at this point, I think the only money you have spent is $35 to register the new company... so yeah, at this point, all that software that James now has that he didn´t have to give back to Jason is worth way more than you have spent.

And come on.. all your time and backlash? again, you are a nobody who has never made a game, why would you care if your name gets ruined in the gaming industry since you are not actually in the gaming industry.. If we completely ruin your name, the total number of games you will make in the future is 0... which is exactly the number of games you have produced in the past.

You talked about moving a server? Moving? Let me guess, you bought James a new computer that he will keep in his mom´s house.

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By doing what? Telling the crew they are nobodies

They ARE nobodies. Joel woke up one day, paid $35, and is now the CEO of a gaming company and posting all over the internet like he is going to salvage this game. James has like 5 half-done projects sitting rotting and his most notable accomplishment was getting banned from Atavism.

So these are the two people who are going to make a MMORPG. Would it make you feel better if I said ´nobodies in the game industry´ every time. Although to be fair, calling James a nobody is pretty accurate in every sense of the word. 30 years old, living with mom, collecting disability and not having a real job. Have you seen his video about Fergeson?

[Fallen Angel]

By doing what? Telling the crew they are nobodies or that they are stupid? Yeah, totally just being a selfless hero looking out for the common man and his wallet.

ToA was one thing with it's devout 'fanbase' and ambitions for another KS. GM is, from what they have said, not looking to get more money from crowdfunding. If they open a cash shop or work towards a new kickstarter? By all means, put on your ass hat, but currently it's just taking immature pot-shots at someone trying to salvage a trainwreck. Will they salvage anything useful? Probably not. But don't pretend you're just trying to protect the passengers who are long gone by now.

Yes. Maybe you missed where he said GM is looking for funding.

[jrhager84]

Yes. Maybe you missed where he said GM is looking for funding.

NOT public funding. I was very clear on that.

[Kyanion]

Didn't miss that part. I just don't think being little dick is the right response, especially when you're not even talking to James or Jason.

I mean, did you even back the project? Did you lose any money? Because you can conjuror all the outrage you want but as long as they don't ask for more crowdfunding money why stop them from trying to make the game? It's a slim, borderline non-existent shot in the dark but it's at least better than sitting on a forum and throwing insults around like a bunch of 6th graders.

You speak of people throwing insults then use the old tried and true 'acting like schoolchildren' line. Classy!

And me backing the project has NOTHING to do with pointing out yet another company that is trying to fail at making a MMO. And for the record haha hell no did I back such a project. I research things I'd back. These people already GOT funding and they will need more funding, just watch. They may not go for the general public again but they'll try and get it. They can try and make it all they want and we can point out how much of a pile of shit it is as well.

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NOT public funding. I was very clear on that.

For a project that was already given 100k and 3 years to work on it...I think they've had enough of a chance.