Trials of Ascension, Shady Practices and the Big Crowdfunding Debate

[Azrile]

Well...I know I'm making an assumptive leap here, but did you happen to notice the domain name?

It's this guy, who has been one of FC's biggest cheerleaders.

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Oh, all kinds of good stuff from ToA's troubled past:

http://toa.talonthorn.com/toa_archives.html

yeah, that isn´t surprising. one of the biggest nutjobs over there. How´s it feel to run a fansite for 14 years for a game that never existed.

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Well...I know I'm making an assumptive leap here, but did you happen to notice the domain name?

It's this guy, who has been one of FC's biggest cheerleaders.

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Oh, all kinds of good stuff from ToA's troubled past:

http://toa.talonthorn.com/toa_archives.html

Wow, this is like finding a buried treasure. You realize some of the dev quotes are coming from before WOW was even announced.

April 2002 - We are currently independently funding the development of TOA, but would of course always be open to discussions with the right people that shows a true love of the design and respect for us as designers to stay true to the design of the game. Brax

Any comment on which engine this would be? That one is a closely guarded secret at the moment. *runs to the safe to make sure the secret is still safe* Phew! Still safe!
Developer: Brax
Date: 18-Apr-2002

[Taojnhy]

Oh man, this should be good for a chuckle:

Quote: Eidalac: I wouldn't mind seeing something like a 'shaken' state that gives some penalties that fade over time and are partly depenent on past experiences; ie after fighting a dozen dragons, you aren't going to be affected negativly by another (unless it's a vastly older and bigger one).

However, that idea will probably be to much trouble to code in well, so I'd just a soon as leave fear up to the player's reaction.

Brax: Nah, it wouldn't be too much trouble to code in. Now adding a "pee pants" animation to all the races, that could take some time.
Developer: Brax
Date: 27-Jun-2006

Fast forward to current day:

OUR EXPERIENCE

The three original founders are not qualified to build ToA by ourselves. How's that for a clear, blunt, and candid statement?

-Brax, 24-Feb-2015

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Wow, this is like finding a buried treasure. You realize some of the dev quotes are coming from before WOW was even announced.

I know! I'm kicking myself thinking that all this time, this was just a link away on Talon-Thorn's ToA profile page.

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Came across this exchange between Fornax and Brax, and it made me kind of sad:

Fornax: I have a question for feedback: I was wondering what the source was for this feedback. I can imagine you guys thinking after someone runs the numbers: "Why are we making ALL this art for ALL these races, when the current numbers tell us that VERY few people are actually INTERESTED in at least 4 or 5 of them?"

I would be VERY pleased if you cut 5-6 more races and the game actually came out, instead of you guys telling us a year from now that you are cancelling production for whatever reason. Know what I mean?

Brax:Great question Fornax. The simple answer is that we are building things in an order of priority as directed by myself. That in turn is influenced greatly by what we read on these forums. For example, since humans have always been popular with you all, even before we had the profile stats, we made sure to put them towards the top of the race list to be implemented. Now this isn't a black and white stance either. The dragons are a very complex race to implement due to a lot of their differences from the other races (aging and different faith setup for example) so even though they are the most popular, they weren't the first race to lay eyes on TerVarus.
- 01-Dec-2005

Over 9 years ago...no one can say you didn't try Fornax.

[lawow74]

You heard it here, folks. Dragon religion is hard.

[Taojnhy]

Back in 22-Apr-2002:

DaemonROK: ummm CEO's are never dev's.

Brax-SP: Oh and DaemonROK, this CEO IS a dev and designer.

Brax-SP:

[Kyanion]

Hahaha holy freaking crap this is so funny to read through. Those archived sites are a gold mine. Make sure to get plenty of screenshots

Though my fav quote so far is "3 - I am not into spending years pretending/lying about making a game. I would have much more interesting things to do over the course of years than to play a hoax on people."

[Azrile]

Hahaha holy freaking crap this is so funny to read through. Those archived sites are a gold mine. Make sure to get plenty of screenshots

Though my fav quote so far is "3 - I am not into spending years pretending/lying about making a game. I would have much more interesting things to do over the course of years than to play a hoax on people."

And again.. said before WOW was even announced as a game.

and yeah, I already grabbed the html.

[Kyanion]

Reading that exchange between Fornax and Brax 9 years ago makes me really sad for Fornax.

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And again.. said before WOW was even announced as a game.

and yeah, I already grabbed the html.

Yeah they spend time bashing Everquest and DaoC in some of those exchanges. Pretty funny stuff so far! I am reading through all I can find for my own amusement.

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This Talon-thorn guy really scares me. Here is some old fan-fic he made on Brax as a figure in ToA.

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Heh in response to a question asking if it was vaporware back in 2002, Brax says "I will start off by saying that the entire SP team has been instilled with the mind set that we will live up to what we say. We have made very large promises with the features that you have all read about and it is our goal to continue development until each and every one of those features are in the game. If for reasons beyond our control we must drop features, then we will make a point to let the community know as soon as possible. How does that saying go - The truth shall set you free."

He loves those truth things.

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Heh so far it seems like at points they had a 20+ man team working on this game, it was TOTALLY getting made in the alpha stage and the CEOs were designers as well. Damn how did this game never happen!?

[lawow74]

Heh so far it seems like at points they had a 20+ man team working on this game, it was TOTALLY getting made in the alpha stage and the CEOs were designers as well. Damn how did this game never happen!?

Azrile is a time-traveller who went back and sabotaged them, it's all a conspiracy plotted by Blizzard to control the universe with their secret mind-control subliminals in WoW and ToA is the only game that can save us all with their physically-based rendered justice!

[Kyanion]

Azrile is a time-traveller who went back and sabotaged them, it's all a conspiracy plotted by Blizzard to control the universe with their secret mind-control subliminals in WoW and ToA is the only game that can save us all with their physically-based rendered justice!

*said in a monotone voice* Must play more WoW....

[Azrile]

Heh so far it seems like at points they had a 20+ man team working on this game, it was TOTALLY getting made in the alpha stage and the CEOs were designers as well. Damn how did this game never happen!?

You are forgetting that everyone who has ever posted about their game on another website is a social media dev...

[Osoroshii]

Hahaha holy freaking crap this is so funny to read through. Those archived sites are a gold mine. Make sure to get plenty of screenshots

Though my fav quote so far is "3 - I am not into spending years pretending/lying about making a game. I would have much more interesting things to do over the course of years than to play a hoax on people."

Start posting some of these gems on their forums, asking "Hey Brax, remember when you said this 12+ years ago?"

I'm curious to see what kind of excuses get thrown out as to why things changed.

[lawow74]

You are forgetting that everyone who has ever posted about their game on another website is a social media dev...

Unless denounced by Brax & Co. as not being representative of ToA, that is.

[Deleted]

Until denounced by Brax & Co. as not being representative of ToA, that is.

Fixed. /10scams

Also I want to use this opportunity to say hello to my main Myobi and my fellow alts. It's been a long time.

[Azrile]

The really sad part.. read all those posts on 3 pages, then look at the freakin mountain of IRC chats they had... from 2002-2006...... and at best, in all that time, and all the crap they are talking.. they released MAYBE 3 screenshots ( I´ve only ever seen the one of the pixie that is cut-n-pasted over some trees). they actually had people going for FOUR years without showing anything.

[Sunaka]

The really sad part.. read all those posts on 3 pages, then look at the freakin mountain of IRC chats they had... from 2002-2006...... and at best, in all that time, and all the crap they are talking.. they released MAYBE 3 screenshots ( I´ve only ever seen the one of the pixie that is cut-n-pasted over some trees). they actually had people going for FOUR years without showing anything.

And then you look at the message where he specifically says it's not vaporware and they'd be honest if there was no progress...yet that barren wasteland that is proof says mountains.

Based on their listing at various times, it's definitely plausible that they actually had 20 people, but with no actual proof that they ever did anything you'd wonder if they weren't just pseudonyms or something.

[Kyanion]

The really sad part.. read all those posts on 3 pages, then look at the freakin mountain of IRC chats they had... from 2002-2006...... and at best, in all that time, and all the crap they are talking.. they released MAYBE 3 screenshots ( I´ve only ever seen the one of the pixie that is cut-n-pasted over some trees). they actually had people going for FOUR years without showing anything.

Nope. That isn't the REALLY sad part. That is those fanboys that stuck with them after the 'company' folded after releasing 3 screenshots in 4 years. They were happy ToA was back. So happy they donated money to these clueless CEO/Devs/conartists. THAT is the REALLY sad part.

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And then you look at the message where he specifically says it's not vaporware and they'd be honest if there was no progress...yet that barren wasteland that is proof says mountains.

Based on their listing at various times, it's definitely plausible that they actually had 20 people, but with no actual proof that they ever did anything you'd wonder if they weren't just pseudonyms or something.

I think at some points they mention funding as far as being used to create the game so I assume that is 'paying' for those 20+ people. So I doubt most of those people even existed at any point outside of devalts. Yeah only quote on funding is something in 2002 from brax talking about "We are currently independently funding the development of TOA, but would of course always be open to discussions with the right people that shows a true love of the design and respect for us as designers to stay true to the design of the game."

Heh they were even more committed to the lies back then, talking about Customer service departments and training CSRs and other random shit, acting like they were a real fully functioning company that was making a game. Totally.

[Azrile]

And then you look at the message where he specifically says it's not vaporware and they'd be honest if there was no progress...yet that barren wasteland that is proof says mountains.

Based on their listing at various times, it's definitely plausible that they actually had 20 people, but with no actual proof that they ever did anything you'd wonder if they weren't just pseudonyms or something.

Brax will just say that they have been making progress because once a week he and the 2 other stoogies had an irc chat about how they can make money for doing nothing. That is progress.

[Harris34]

Brax: Yes, TerVarus exists and we're running around in it quite a bit. Not all things are done (duh!) but it's coming together quite nicely.
Developer: Brax
Date: 13-Feb-2006

That archive.........so embarrassing. Dude was such a fraud. He sold it well at times though. Lied with such confidence. I drank the kool aid for awhile back in those days.

[Harris34]

Reading some of those quotes where he's talking about technical updates and whatnot is like watching someone "hacking" on a tv show or movie. Like, just mashing on the keyboard and using super broad and whiz bang sounding jargon. Seeing as how creating a game back in those days was infinitely harder than it is now (I think that island survival tutorial Azrile posted is pretty damning to A LOT of survival games on early access right now), it makes the contrast of all his quotes then, and what he says now that much more insane.

[Sunaka]

You mean that Brax reminds you of something like this?

I'm confused. Why aren't the cops arresting this clearly dangerous cybercriminal? And by your suggestion, it looks like Brax is a similarly-dangerous cybercriminal, and must be brought to swift justice by the crack team at CSI: Cyber.