Trials of Ascension, Shady Practices and the Big Crowdfunding Debate

[Kelimbror]

Altar put the final touches on the evisceraptor and it looks amazing! Unfortunately I’ve been over-ridden by Brax and cannot share it with you, yet. He wants our fans first sightings of this creature to be when it’s breathing down their necks in-game. But as our first mob model ever produced by the team, I think we would be allowed to brag just a tiny bit about how great it looks.

Hey we totally made a model, but the guy in charge of this game won't allow us to show it to you...you'll just have to see it in game. But hey, I'm publicly bashing my boss so clearly this is just a big *wink, nod* to the fact that we haven't actually finished anything so we have no good looking monster to show you.

[Kyanion]

Hey we totally made a model, but the guy in charge of this game won't allow us to show it to you...you'll just have to see it in game. But hey, I'm publicly bashing my boss so clearly this is just a big *wink, nod* to the fact that we haven't actually finished anything so we have no good looking monster to show you.

Lol here is a picture of an ax, we'd love to show off some monster we made but *reasons* so we can't! We totally made it, I swear! It is behind that curtain! Just wait! *cough*

Good lord they spend more time detailing what they have 'done' than actually working on the 'game'. Typical ToA.

[Deleted]

Lol here is a picture of an ax, we'd love to show off some monster we made but *reasons* so we can't! We totally made it, I swear! It is behind that curtain! Just wait! *cough*

Good lord they spend more time detailing what they have 'done' than actually working on the 'game'. Typical ToA.

Hey yo... It's one of TWO axes that will make it into the game man! The steel axe is totally end-game!

Sheesh you people are never pleased!

[lawow74]

Not about a game, but an example of KS fraud: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36271249

[Edge-]

Fancy sounding tech projects are prime ground for crowdfunding scams given the average persons lack of technical knowledge/expertise. The worst part is that the kind of science/tech media that should be quickly debunking most of those nonsense scam projects are instead buying into them without any critical investigation because they sound so fantastic and drive web traffic/page clicks.

[lawow74]

Fancy sounding tech projects are prime ground for crowdfunding scams given the average persons lack of technical knowledge/expertise. The worst part is that the kind of science/tech media that should be quickly debunking most of those nonsense scam projects are instead buying into them without any critical investigation because they sound so fantastic and drive web traffic/page clicks.

Makes me think of a scientific article I saw yesterday about a teenager who supposedly found an ancient Mayan city using Google Earth and study of Mayan constellations. In-depth examination showed it was probably a fallow cornfield of some kind. But like you say, that doesn't sound sexy and drive web traffic; so most people will think he really found a lost Mayan city. Doesn't matter that it's not true, all that matters is it sounds good.

[Edge-]

It's getting quite a bit of MMO press hype (like, a lot), but it at least seems to have some talent behind it. I'm skeptical about the game, but haven't looked too closely into it.

[Kyanion]

Anyone ever heard about Chronicles of Elyria? Seems to be another "innovating MMO" at Kickstarter from a company that I never heard about =X

There was some thread formed about it a while ago and it had some sketchy people posting hype for it like ToA would have done. But it seems like this game has at least people that have made a game before behind it. I wouldn't be shocked if the game never gets made because you know how Kickstarter and MMOs can be. But it seems a lot more likely to ever come out than GM/ToA would have been.

[Kelimbror]

I mean, whether this is filled with prebought assets or not, they at least know how to put things together and make it look nice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb1JcO645BA

ToA has spent a decade and can't even model more than 2 weapons at a time, let alone put something together like this. I don't think they are comparable. They may both fail miserably, but at least this one has a chance at being real. It also raised like a million dollars on kickstarter. Not a usual MMO budget even remotely, but still a lot of money.

[Kyanion]

I mean, whether this is filled with prebought assets or not, they at least know how to put things together and make it look nice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb1JcO645BA

ToA has spent a decade and can't even model more than 2 weapons at a time, let alone put something together like this. I don't think they are comparable. They may both fail miserably, but at least this one has a chance at being real. It also raised like a million dollars on kickstarter. Not a usual MMO budget even remotely, but still a lot of money.

Yeah it has more of a chance than GM and Toad did that is for sure. But there are some other large funded MMOs out there from Kickstarter I'm still waiting to see actually release. So far I don't think any of the MMOs which got funded via KS have actually released yet. I understand that it can take years for a project of that scale so we'll see what happens.

[Kyanion]

Supposedly...one day...there might actually be some testing going on with this game.

Of course the dev-blogs are still just very wordy with nothing of substance and pictures here and there.

[lawow74]

Lots of talk surrounding very little visible progress. But I suppose they'll eventually have something to show for testing. I have to smile, though, seeing them include no permadeath as a possibility in setting up your island server. Ah, if only they'd been willing to have that work back when that for really reals game company was gonna fund their project provided they changed a few things...

[Kyanion]

Lots of talk surrounding very little visible progress. But I suppose they'll eventually have something to show for testing. I have to smile, though, seeing them include no permadeath as a possibility in setting up your island server. Ah, if only they'd been willing to have that work back when that for really reals game company was gonna fund their project provided they changed a few things...

Yeah *wink wink* you know when they were working in a company together and doing all this 'work' making a game. The guys coding from the school of hard knocks and life who admit 10+ years later they never knew how to code haha. Man that mystery company really missed out on a great game!

[Fornax-]

I got one of the surveys. It was basically about my computer. It did say something about those who have posted a lot will be chosen more readily, or something like that. I pop in over there every few months and it just feels like a graveyard with people in it that think the dead are alive.

My avatar over there should say, "member since Sep 25, 2002" But they fix those things so as to not look so old, and at it so long.

It was fun to talk about, but that is basically all anyone ever did. Sure, they are trying now...and maybe they will get something going, but those of us from way back are basically all gone.

[lawow74]

Hoy Fornax, good to see you around again, thanks for letting us know about the survey.

Teddy managed to show more in less time, all by himself than this team with over 10 people :3

Ah, but Teddy was this rare and special thing called a 'paid employee'. All the others are glorified volunteers.

[Azrile]

I have updated the OP with a few paragraphs. Their next scam is about to begin ( Steam Early Access). What they are talking about is impossible to do. it is a bit technical. But I will say this. Using Unity and the best tool that is available now ( Gaia), even if you are talking about doing it on a developers computer during design, it is impossible to do what Trials of Ascension says they are going to do, and they say they are going to do it at runtime ( on the players computer). It is impossible x 2.

On a developers computer, you can procedurally generate a terrain, you can texture the terrain and place trees, rocks and plants and stuff like that. Tools like World Composer and Gaia can mostly do that. But you still have to go in and tweek stuff, and you would have to add sounds, spawns and basically everything you interact with by hand. And that is done on the devs computer, and then he packages that terrain with the game and all the players would have that same terrain.

You can procedurally generate worlds at runtime on your players computer, but they are for simple games like an endless runner or minecraft type game where you have very simple algorithms and each ´piece´ is rather simple.

and damn.. caves? forget about it. Caves are a bitch in Unity. Even on a developer´s computer making caves is tedius and a lot of work by hand. The idea that they are saying they are going to have caves on a procedurally generated terrain, done on the players computer... impossible x 2

[lawow74]

Is it Steam Early Access they're going on? I don't see that explicitly stated on their site, but I didn't delve too deeply on the matter. They just say 'Early Access version' from what I can see.

[Azrile]

Is it Steam Early Access they're going on? I don't see that explicitly stated on their site, but I didn't delve too deeply on the matter. They just say 'Early Access version' from what I can see.

They are 1% done with their game in 18 months. There is no way they are doing Greenlight unless it will be followed up immediately with early access. And their terminology.. forum testers and then ´Early Access version´.. If they weren´t going to use Steam Early Access, they would have just kept the terminology as alpha testers or forum testers.

As before, I can predict exactly what they will do. They will get the login server working ( good god, a 5 hr job is taking their guy months to do), so they will get the login server working, then they will have the players run around the same map they had up before. And that will be where the ´Steam Early Access´starts. It will have significantly less functionality than what Teddy had done.

[axell]

I have updated the OP with a few paragraphs. Their next scam is about to begin ( Steam Early Access). What they are talking about is impossible to do. it is a bit technical. But I will say this. Using Unity and the best tool that is available now ( Gaia), even if you are talking about doing it on a developers computer during design, it is impossible to do what Trials of Ascension says they are going to do, and they say they are going to do it at runtime ( on the players computer). It is impossible x 2.

On a developers computer, you can procedurally generate a terrain, you can texture the terrain and place trees, rocks and plants and stuff like that. Tools like World Composer and Gaia can mostly do that. But you still have to go in and tweek stuff, and you would have to add sounds, spawns and basically everything you interact with by hand. And that is done on the devs computer, and then he packages that terrain with the game and all the players would have that same terrain.

You can procedurally generate worlds at runtime on your players computer, but they are for simple games like an endless runner or minecraft type game where you have very simple algorithms and each ´piece´ is rather simple.

and damn.. caves? forget about it. Caves are a bitch in Unity. Even on a developer´s computer making caves is tedius and a lot of work by hand. The idea that they are saying they are going to have caves on a procedurally generated terrain, done on the players computer... impossible x 2

Well let me just preface that i don;t believe they can do it , what they described is actually doable and has been done in a few games. You initially generate the terrain then based on the heightmap and slopemap and texture map you can generate the vegetation and rocks and other misc natural decor.THen you generate a navmesh and you can generate the monsters using similar techniques. Caves are a bit more tricky as well but they can be done if you use meshes for the cave entrance and make it act as a portal to the cave interior. THe caves cannot be part of the terrain and will need to have a mesh for the entrance and one for the interior but it can be done.
It's not easy by any stretch of the imagination but a team of experienced developers can do this.

[Kuntantee]

These guys are still going?

- - - Updated - - -

Caves are a bit more tricky as well but they can be done if you use meshes for the cave entrance and make it act as a portal to the cave interior.

This is the easier way to do it. Generate cave entrances randomly, and then upon entering the cave, generate the cave as well or at some prior point. You can probably tie generated maps on the actual terrain, but that would be technically difficulty and probably pointless since teleporting works just fine.