Trials of Ascension, Shady Practices and the Big Crowdfunding Debate

[Azrile]

Heh, FC would just deny, deny, deny.
They can't take criticism and they can't tell the truth.
I thought about posting the info over there but according to the person that told me this Teddy didn't want to get into a public argument of he said, she said.
It wouldn't surprise me if all the volunteers that were promised a piece of the company were actually given the same offer.
Why find a publisher or real investor when you can promise suckers a percentage of the game if they just give you a lot of money.

I don´t think they would deny it if someone said it. They are delusional and actually probably believe it is a fair and generous deal. I don´t doubt at all that guys like Xanword and Gassy are being promised pieces of the company when the games launch and were probably already offered a piece of the company for money.

Sorry, I am a bit skeptical of what you are saying though. The only thing worse than he said / she said is a friend of a friend of a friend said.. I also think Teddy made some pretty funny comments in his last posts ( about turning the server on), I think he easily could have mentioned that their ´offer´ was actually for him to buy in to FC.

Help Wanted - Unity programmer
Exciting offer to work with 3 stoogies on a game that doesn´t exist, do all of the work and pay us $50,000 in the process. Serious applicants only.

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Is there an objective tldr on all the storypoints about this games' development somewhere?

Yeah, it is sold in Barnes and Nobles along side of War and Peace.

Seriously, this company and all the crazy things around it could be a book. We are now up to 13 years, 2 kickstarters, a cash-shop, at least 1 round of seeking a millionaire investor. Two times they had a mass exodus of all the people actually working on the game. And of course, the 3 stoogies as CEOs.

If you want the actual facts of the GAME development. One guy worked for about 6 months, put up a small demo island where a dozen people could chop down trees. And that is really the biggest story about this ´game´ is that this story has been going on for 13 years and the only thing the three stoogies have done is talk on forums and tried to get money.

[Cracked]

Yeah, it is sold in Barnes and Nobles along side of War and Peace.

Seriously, this company and all the crazy things around it could be a book. We are now up to 13 years, 2 kickstarters, a cash-shop, at least 1 round of seeking a millionaire investor. Two times they had a mass exodus of all the people actually working on the game. And of course, the 3 stoogies as CEOs.

If you want the actual facts of the GAME development. One guy worked for about 6 months, put up a small demo island where a dozen people could chop down trees. And that is really the biggest story about this ´game´ is that this story has been going on for 13 years and the only thing the three stoogies have done is talk on forums and tried to get money.

Yeah I meant story development about the development, who is who, what happened, etc

[Azrile]

An interesting quote I just came upon from 2012

Brax

I do take exception to the idea that we have no experience or that someone would question our integrity with KS money. Maybe a bit of a history lesson is in order...

First, we have experience. No, we don't have a launched title under our belt (yet!) but we spent YEARS not just building a fully-functional prototype, but learning every angle of game development, from creating the pipelines and art/coding standards to proper testing methods (white, black, smoke, etc). We went to school, only it was at the school of hard knocks and I don't for one second regret going through that process -- as difficult and painful as it was at times -- because we learned things firsthand that game creation schools could NEVER teach you. In short, Shadowpool and it's failure to launch ToA prepared us for today.

lol. but now, he was never trying to convince people that he had game-making skills.. they were alwaaaaaays perfectly honest that they knew nothing.


So I have been reading one of their threads from just before their KS. Pretty funny. A guy gets on there and basically brings up the whole ´3 nobodies are doing a KS to make a game´.. and Fornax goes off on him for being a hater and then puts him on ignore. They guy wasn´t even that negative, just pointing out the facts that the 3 stoogies haven´t made any game, haven´t released any videos or content, and had a KS planned to launch in less than a month.

[dextersmith]

That is really a good deal. Think about it. They had people pay $70k just for the opportunity to play a demo video. For a mere $50k, Teddy could not only play the game, but get a percentage of the profits.

Would be nice if FC confirmed this ´generous´ offer they gave to Teddy. One of the Stoogies had mentioned they offered Teddy a part of the company.. funny that he left out the part that Teddy would have to actually buy that part of the company. The funny thing is, even if they were just giving Teddy 50% of the company to keep making the game for them, it still is a horrible offer since Teddy was never going to see any money. But if they were indeed going to make him pay $50k for a part of the company, then their fans should really see how delusional Brax is.... oh wait.. no they won´t. Ellysia will say it would be a small price to pay for a part of such a glorious company with unlimited potential.

This is probably the next part of their scam and the plan they are working on right now.. trying to find a ´developer´ who would be willing to buy a percentage of the company AND make the game for them. Hey, why not double-down on your insanity.

So Teddy didn't screw them, they screwed themselves.

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Heh, FC would just deny, deny, deny.

They can't take criticism and they can't tell the truth.

I thought about posting the info over there but according to the person that told me this Teddy didn't want to get into a public argument of he said, she said.

It wouldn't surprise me if all the volunteers that were promised a piece of the company were actually given the same offer.

Why find a publisher or real investor when you can promise suckers a percentage of the game if they just give you a lot of money.

It would make sense for Xanward leaving.

[srs]

An interesting quote I just came upon from 2012

Brax

I do take exception to the idea that we have no experience or that someone would question our integrity with KS money. Maybe a bit of a history lesson is in order...

First, we have experience. No, we don't have a launched title under our belt (yet!) but we spent YEARS not just building a fully-functional prototype, but learning every angle of game development, from creating the pipelines and art/coding standards to proper testing methods (white, black, smoke, etc). We went to school, only it was at the school of hard knocks and I don't for one second regret going through that process -- as difficult and painful as it was at times -- because we learned things firsthand that game creation schools could NEVER teach you. In short, Shadowpool and it's failure to launch ToA prepared us for today.

lol. but now, he was never trying to convince people that he had game-making skills.. they were alwaaaaaays perfectly honest that they knew nothing.

How to fail hard apparently.

A self taught coder could figure out how to make an mmorpg in the amount of time it took them to "learn" what they know now.

Azrile, I don't blame your skepticism but it's a pretty reliable piece of information and maybe Teddy was afraid of them trying to take him to court over whatever contracts he signed.

It took over a decade to learn what the publishers offered them, maybe in another decade we'll learn some more tidbits of these failed kickstarters.

I have to hand it to Brax, he's given us all more entertainment over the years than his shitty mmorpgfail ever could. The shelf life of an mmorpg is what, 5 years?

[dextersmith]

An interesting quote I just came upon from 2012

Brax

I do take exception to the idea that we have no experience or that someone would question our integrity with KS money. Maybe a bit of a history lesson is in order...

First, we have experience. No, we don't have a launched title under our belt (yet!) but we spent YEARS not just building a fully-functional prototype, but learning every angle of game development, from creating the pipelines and art/coding standards to proper testing methods (white, black, smoke, etc). We went to school, only it was at the school of hard knocks and I don't for one second regret going through that process -- as difficult and painful as it was at times -- because we learned things firsthand that game creation schools could NEVER teach you. In short, Shadowpool and it's failure to launch ToA prepared us for today.

lol. but now, he was never trying to convince people that he had game-making skills.. they were alwaaaaaays perfectly honest that they knew nothing.

Well done! You just proved the scam (again)! Do you have a link?

[Deleted]

There never were any publishers. It's just a bullshit excuse by Brax to pretend there was publisher interest, for the sole purpose of holding on to long-time fans that there's ''interest''. I have no proof of this, but my gut tells me it's all lies. Nobody gave a fuck.

[Cracked]

Thanks for the tldr, it's quite amusing.

[Azrile]

Another gem from their forums. Someone, in 2013 was curious why they had so many people registered on their forums, and almost nobody supporting the ks

Yeah, but do we know if these people even want to pledge. I mean it seems they may have lost interest in the game. But again I still wonder where are 2000+ members are.

pssst.. they never existed.

[Fallen Angel]

Azrile, please provide links aswell so I can take record of it =P

You should have the links since they're your alts.

[lawow74]

Saw on their forums Blakeg telling Brax that whatever his plan is for ToA, to show it to people who have no vested interest in the project and get their honest feedback. I can see it now...

Brax: Teh plans!

People:


Brax:...best plan EVER! *implements it right away*

[Azrile]

There never were any publishers. It's just a bullshit excuse by Brax to pretend there was publisher interest, for the sole purpose of holding on to long-time fans that there's ''interest''. I have no proof of this, but my gut tells me it's all lies. Nobody gave a fuck.

Hey Marweinius.

me - I want to make a game with exploding cloud whales, will you give me a million dollars
you - Exploding cloud whales is a stupid idea, nobody would play that game.

Me to everyone - I talked to an investor, but they wanted us to change some of the core features of our game, and I was not willing to compromise.

that is a joke, but more than likely what Brax did. Someone said no to him, gave some constructive feedback, and then Brax turned around and made it sound like the feedback was the reason for the ´no´ answer.

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Azrile, please provide links aswell so I can take record of it =P

I only grabbed it because someone asked me if I could show that they previously said they had experience before doing the cash-shop. There are a lot of them playing Life is Fuedal right now, I think they are talking about going to paypal to get their money back from the cash-shop.

Here is the thread, it is pretty interesting. They guy basically said the same thing I said last spring, but he said it before their first KS

http://trialsofascension.com/forum/t...bout-toa.1891/

[dextersmith]

I only grabbed it because someone asked me if I could show that they previously said they had experience before doing the cash-shop. There are a lot of them playing Life is Fuedal right now, I think they are talking about going to paypal to get their money back from the cash-shop.

I really hope they get it all back and file a report.

[Cracked]

Well.. Everything else aside, simply the fact that an investor or producer has demands that the developer simply refuses to meet is not unheard of. It happens more than you would think, for example, Warhorse (Kingdom Come: Deliverance) had talked to about a dozen producers and they all wanted to make the game a mobile phone game instead, because their analysts told them that was the trend and no other games can make comparable amounts of money.

So they went to kickstarter instead. But yeah, can't compare that to the fail ToA is.

[Maddoc]

I love their forums. But then again, I guess we all do, except their own "fans":

Members Online Now

Online now: 22 (members: 0, guests: 22)

Members: 2,835

[Azrile]

I love their forums. But then again, I guess we all do, except their own "fans":

Members Online Now

Online now: 22 (members: 0, guests: 22)

Members: 2,835

I saw a post from Elyssa, can´t find it again, but it was from 2013

Heavy paraphrase...

The plan of FC is very simple, they came back recently to start spreading the word of the game and get hype going, then they are going to do a kickstarter and then develop the game.

It just scares me how someone can say that without realizing how completely insane it is.

Said it before, 3 grown men with jobs who are actually devoted to the game should have been able to get it 80% done without using any significant amounts of money. You only need the money once you get to the point where you need 100´s or 1000´s of people testing.

[Orange Joe]

iseewhatyoudidtherememe.jpg ;3
Where is that other guy from the other day? Baar? Hey Baar look! You got someone else here saying he has info that he ain't sharing yet! We can crucify this one! Hold him there while I grab some nice rocks to throw! =P

Did he promise to release it yet? When he does let me know. I'll give him shit just like I do Azrile. :P

Although I'll give Azrile credit, he takes it better than people it's not even directed at.

[lawow74]

Noticed this taking a look to see what's happening on the Greedmonger front, from ole Doctor Proctor:

"We will be starting up public Stress Tests every so often. We will be posting information here regarding the stress tests!

Next Stress Test:
Date: April 25th 2015
Time: TBA"

I wonder how public?

[Deleted]

Reminds me of the ToA 'stress tests' when 10 people showed up.

[Maddoc]

Reminds me of the ToA 'stress tests' when 10 people showed up.

To be fair, that was stressing!!