Trials of Ascension, Shady Practices and the Big Crowdfunding Debate

[khalltusk]

It really doesn´t matter, same with Greedmonger. Even if they were totally legit and had all the pieces in place like games like Repopulation, GV, Shrouds, Shards etc.... The name of their game and their developers are so tainted at this point, they will never be able to get any marketing or hype going.

This is one thing Proctor and Brax don´t understand. Just because you have a few people ( and I mean a very few) who really support you and tell you to keep pushing, the 99% of players who disappeared into the night are gone. Most fans of a game are just that, fans.. they are not some ultra obedient cult-like following.. those fans saw what they saw and are not coming back. You aren´t going to win back fans a year or two from now, and any new people who discover your game are going to get overwhelmed by the negativity about your title and devs. less than zero... both games.

Oh indeed. What GM tried to do is change company name present it as a new company taking over the reigns. Probably thinking they can do a Duke Nukem passing over to gearbox (that turned out well didnt it....)

The silent majority are gone and probably won't come back. The plan should be to go away learn how to make a game and then come up with a new IP and an actual game thats a rough finish to present to people for crowd funding etc.

I could go over and over about the gigantic hurdles they will have to climb but lets face it, neither "company" going off their track record is really going to deliver. Pure opinion of course but I dare them to prove me wrong.

If I was making a game, i'd, be damn sure I have a robust working game and concept with fleshed out details and a business model that holds up to scrutiny before going for a KS. Certainly would not be asking for over half a million when all I have is a few doodles some bad fan fiction and some bought assets to call my own.

[Maddoc]

If I was making a game, i'd, be damn sure I have a robust working game and concept with fleshed out details and a business model that holds up to scrutiny before going for a KS. Certainly would not be asking for over half a million when all I have is a few doodles some bad fan fiction and some bought assets to call my own.

Pff, that's not how you make a game! You accept donations and hide a demo behind a huge paywall that people should be HAPPY to pay for in order to get to play. Gawd, some people are so entitled, thinking they get to play a demo before paying anything. NO GAMES HAS EVER BEEN MADE THAT WAY

(Did I sound enough like a Kool-Aid chugger?)

[NotADevAlt]

What I still don't get is why these guys stubbornly want to hold onto the existing TOA and GM IPs rather than do what Azrile suggests (which I agree with) and just go away and come with something fresh/new. The market has clearly told them that it doesn't value these IPs very highly.

But Brax and co have a "plan" as summarized below.

Brax: I have a plan.
Azrile: .... I don't think you even have a plan.
Brax: …. I have part of a plan.
Myobi: What percentage of a plan do you have?
Azrile: Yeah... What percentage?
Brax: I dunno... Twelve percent?
Azrile: Twelve percent?
[starts laughing]
Brax: That's a fake laugh.
Azrile: It's real!
Brax: Totally fake!
Azrile: That is the most real, authentic, hysterical laugh of my entire life because THAT IS NOT A PLAN!
Myobi: It's barely a concept.
Talon Thorn: I am Talon.
Azrile: So what, "It's better than eleven percent!" What the hell does that have to do with anything?
Brax: Thank you Talon, thank you. See? Talon’s the only one of you who has a clue.
Talon Thorn: I am Talon.

[khalltusk]

Pff, that's not how you make a game! You accept donations and hide a demo behind a huge paywall that people should be HAPPY to pay for in order to get to play. Gawd, some people are so entitled, thinking they get to play a demo before paying anything. NO GAMES HAS EVER BEEN MADE THAT WAY

(Did I sound enough like a Kool-Aid chugger?)

You forgot to tell me to drink said kool aid. Minus DKP for you.

[Azrile]

I could go over and over about the gigantic hurdles they will have to climb but lets face it, neither "company" going off their track record is really going to deliver. Pure opinion of course but I dare them to prove me wrong.

They don´t know reality. They have both been living in their own delusional version of reality that they probably think they are right about everything. I also think Brax and definitely Proctor are not the brightest bulbs out there. I know there are bumper stickers out there about pushing through adversity and never giving up on a dream.. but I think that process actually involves learning and work. It isn´t just waking up every day and saying ´ok, I am still a MMORPG developer´..

[lawow74]

Just made me think of this:

[Azrile]

By the way, Atavism is now for sale on Steam. I saw it last night when browsing the Game Design Software to see what version of UE they had.

"BUILD YOUR OWN MMO!" It says in great big font over a poor background texture. They even had super legit quotes and player testimonials about all the great "MMO" games people are going to be making. I didnt actually read past the first page, but i couldnt help wondering if Brax and or the Greedmonger guys are quoted anywhere.

Anyways, given Azrile's critique of the package and its involvement with this thread, i got a chuckle out of seeing it listed. It seems to fall quite squarely into the "Shady Practices" part of this discussion.

Atavism meh.. just no business sense. Forget the fact that there are no MMORPGs out there using their kit ( not even their inhouse MMORPG).. but it is just a REALLY stupid business model. They are selling the kit for like $75.. one time... But what they are getting is a lot of inexperienced and naive customers who need a ton of tech support. Even if the customers only stick around for a few months before they realize they can´t actually make a MMORPG using Atavism, in those few months they are going to chew up that $75 in customer support time. You can´t sell a highly technical system that cheap that requires tech support and target idiots. Ironically, they already had to deal with Proctor as a customer last year. In the time they spent with him doing tech support, it probably brought them down to minimum wage employees for that $75.

[Osoroshii]

Just made me think of this:

Unless, of course, you run a cash shop selling items that don't exist for a game that doesn't exist.

[Azrile]

What I still don't get is why these guys stubbornly want to hold onto the existing TOA and GM IPs rather than do what Azrile suggests (which I agree with) and just go away and come with something fresh/new. The market has clearly told them that it doesn't value these IPs very highly.

I disagree with this. I would bet that 3 developers with actual skills could make a permadeath (100 lives) pvp game and it would be profitable as a B2P game. It couldn´t have dragons, and would have to be limited in size. If you assume some growth in the progress of Unity multiplayer, a game with 100 concurrents and 1000 boxes sold would be a fun project and would be worth making if it was something the devs could do themselves. This would also be a very easy game for someone to make, there was nothing even remotely technically challenging about ToA except for the camera/controls of the dragon.

And with Greedmonger, I actually like Appleton´s original idea. Make the game free and completely playable, but require land to be bought with real money, and then traded ingame for real money and the company takes a cut. Land owners would be the whales who supported the development of the game, and the f2p people would be the serfs. If you had experience with UO before Trammel, it is pretty easy to see that idea would work as far as generating enough revenues to support development. It would be much more difficult to create though and you would have to balance the land ownership aspect.

I don´t think either game is horrible in itself, but in both cases you had nobody developers with no experience asking for money right out of the gate. If you are a nobody developer, you shouldn´t even be talking about your game until you need beta testers.

[dextersmith]

EDIT: I finally realized that my reading comprehension skills aren't so hot around 3am; the whole "take the money and run" was talking about the supposed offers they turned down for ToA, not possibly donated funds.



In a plot twist worthy of a facepalm, it emerges that their 2005 prototype looked like this:

You stand in a large empty meadow bordered on the south by heavy forest with a river to the west. To the east you can see smoke drifting into the cloudless sunny sky. Thick overgrowth hinders passage to the north.

In the middle of this field are the skeletal remains of a dragon and inside the skeleton is a smaller skeleton of what appears to be a raknar. Inside the raknar's skeleton is a human skeleton.

Possible exits: W S E

Command?>

I thought raknars were announced only last year? Hence the explosion of spider hype. How is its skeleton in a 2005 demo? Raknars are big enough to swallow humans whole?

Don't the 3 blind mice know spiders externally digest their prey and drink their liquified remains? http://www.burkemuseum.org/spidermyt...uckjuices.html Warning! Gross Images

They announced raknars were a playable race of spiders (lol they were "playable" but the game didn't even have a demo yet). The 3 little pigs need to be accurate if they are going to blog about "realistic" issues like how many cows can a dragon eat?

- - - Updated - - -

GreedMonger has now gone more than two days without a single person posting on their forums. yeah guys.. good luck with that ´stress test´...

Tell Gassy to get that dragon down to under 20k tris and put it on the Asset store for $10 if he has 10-15 animations done for it. The secret to the asset store is to dumbify your stuff as much as possible. Include a prefab with the animator controller already done and the wanna-be´s will eat it up, people like the ToA devs can´t figure that shit out, so the more you can set up the prefab, the more it will sell.

Now this is funny.. someone at Speedtree has a sense of humor. Speedtree is selling ´speedweed´which I thought was just a pack of some plant models, but it is actually ´weed´....and the best part.. the price is $4.20

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/

I'd laugh really hard if they unknowingly paid Gassy for his work, or worse sue him for selling "toa assets".

- - - Updated - - -

The silent majority are gone and probably won't come back. The plan should be to go away learn how to make a game and then come up with a new IP and an actual game thats a rough finish to present to people for crowd funding etc.

Suppose they do this, I'd still boycott anything with their involvement given their history.

[lawow74]

Unless, of course, you run a cash shop selling items that don't exist for a game that doesn't exist.

Just my point. All they've done with what they've been paid is sit around and talk shit about how awesome their game is going to be.

Suppose they do this, I'd still boycott anything with their involvement given their history.

Like has been said before, the only way these fools could even begin to hope for funding again would be to wipe their IP and company, found a new company(preferably with another titular head to keep their RL name-stink off it)and create a new IP to develop. And even then, they'd still have to have a real plan and produce something able to attract investment.

[Taojnhy]

I thought raknars were announced only last year? Hence the explosion of spider hype. How is its skeleton in a 2005 demo? Raknars are big enough to swallow humans whole?

Don't the 3 blind mice know spiders externally digest their prey and drink their liquified remains? http://www.burkemuseum.org/spidermyt...uckjuices.html Warning! Gross Images

They announced raknars were a playable race of spiders (lol they were "playable" but the game didn't even have a demo yet). The 3 little pigs need to be accurate if they are going to blog about "realistic" issues like how many cows can a dragon eat?

Well, that's the thing Dextersmith; in 2005 Raknars were originally envisioned to be carnivorous cows. With big sharp pointy teeth.

[Korlok]

What I still don't get is why these guys stubbornly want to hold onto the existing TOA and GM IPs rather than do what Azrile suggests (which I agree with) and just go away and come with something fresh/new. The market has clearly told them that it doesn't value these IPs very highly.

But Brax and co have a "plan" as summarized below.

Brax: I have a plan.
Azrile: .... I don't think you even have a plan.
Brax: …. I have part of a plan.
Myobi: What percentage of a plan do you have?
Azrile: Yeah... What percentage?
Brax: I dunno... Twelve percent?
Azrile: Twelve percent?
[starts laughing]
Brax: That's a fake laugh.
Azrile: It's real!
Brax: Totally fake!
Azrile: That is the most real, authentic, hysterical laugh of my entire life because THAT IS NOT A PLAN!
Myobi: It's barely a concept.
Talon Thorn: I am Talon.
Azrile: So what, "It's better than eleven percent!" What the hell does that have to do with anything?
Brax: Thank you Talon, thank you. See? Talon’s the only one of you who has a clue.
Talon Thorn: I am Talon.

Wow. This, this just.... I can't...... stop laughing.....

[Nihilan]

When i read Talon's lines, i saw it in my head as the "MATT DAMON" scene in Team America: World Police.

[Kyanion]

When i read Talon's lines, i saw it in my head as the "MATT DAMON" scene in Team America: World Police.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUa5oHgYV2k this MATT DAMON!? heh

[Korlok]

ERMAGERD!!! It's so perfect it hurts!!!

Talon thorn....

Okay, yes, we get it you're Talon Thorn. How exactly do you help in creating this 'game' again?

Talon thorn....

[Shriek]

All hate aside, do you guys have a clan/guild/whatever that you regularly run under?

I'd love to play with some people that know the pains of ToA that play GTA5 or Dragonball on PS4.

[Yunru]

Randomly found this on youtube:


That guy did more than whole toa team . (still it looks totaly unfinished)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...st-3d/comments

(but at least he didnt ask for insane ammount of money)

[Shriek]

Le Sigh

[Edge-]

Are you surprised that got you banned or something? Because that type of posting would earn you infractions here, and eventually a ban, as well.