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So, now we're removing entire threads because Smart can't handle the truth?
eyeswideopen
Member Posts: 2,414
in Alganon
How about it, DLangley? Wanna tell us why you removed the "Finally F2P - too little too late" thread? Or why you're suddenly locking threads that haven't been posted in in over a month? If Smart can start having shit removed from here simply because he doesn't like the truth being told, then let us all know now how it works.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
In before feelings get hurt.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
And I'm going to assume that if this thread is deleted rather than replied to, we all have our answer.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Derek Smart is notorious for attacking reviewers who don't like his products. I use to write for an online publication and he went ape **** over a review. it was comedy! He resorts to name calling, personal attacks, phone call harassment - you name it - he's done it.
He is the only reason I won't give this game a shot. True story. Wanted to get it in before this gets closed! haha - derek smart is a joke.
The Adventures of Fat Gamer - http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/FatGamer
I was talking about you, after this thread gets closed and you get a warning that will merit a new thread.
I'll prolly get one too, but I'm used to it.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
My feelings won't be hurt. I'm no stranger to bans here. But as far as I can see, there was no reason to delete the other thread other than bowing down to Smart.
And if he didn't like me quoting his blog, he can try to sue me. I'd enjoy making money off him.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
I started the thread that got deleted and have no messages in my inbox. Which means they didn't delete the thread due to the first post? If that's the case, why not just delete the offending posts?
Exactly my point.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
MikeB and the others are usually pretty even handed and fair. Perhaps what happened is that one of the various sock puppets posted something really off base, and one of the mods deleted the thread in a knee jerk reaction? Thats an OLD tactic to get threads deleted. Lets give them the benefit of the doubt until we have more evidence.
Even though Alganon is a game I've never played nor really care to, this forum has been one of the most entertaining on the entire site. I can't imagine this trainwreck can go on for much longer, hoping the final chapter doesn't disappoint.
For the record, I did download and install Alganon when they first offered the trial just to see what all the fuss was about, game wouldn't launch properly though.
Well, I am giving them the benefit of the doubt. I'm giving the mod responsible a chance to clear the issue up.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
I would love to know also. They had already deleted parts of the thread to clean it up. I'd really hate to think Smart is controlling these forums!
Alright, I know this thread is a no-no thread but I think I get it but I don't.
Lemme 'splain.
DLangley, you don't want these threads discussing Mr. Smart and his behavior because he happens to be a member here and, as such, us discussing him is potentially offensive behavior towards a fellow forum member. I get that, but, shouldn't we be allowed to discuss the actions of the people making MMOs on MMORPG.com even if they have an account? I mean, Mr. Smart IS the major point of information for Alganon. Any other game, we can call a spade a spade when a dev does something stupid, but not this one?
Edit: For perspective: If John Smedley joined the site and started posting; would all the Smedley hate posts be deleted and a new rule would be in place that we could never question his actions?
Yeah, I kinda got that hint from seeing DLangley's post before locking the other thread. What DLangley needs to realize is there is a difference between just attacking other members and posting truthful yet damaging material about a shady and obnoxious dev who ATTACKS OTHER MEMBERS FREQUENTLY HIMSELF who just happens to have an account.
Edit: And to Mike Bitton, I apologize for not simply PMing you in this case, but this is something that affects every member here who tries to counter fallacies posted by less than reputable developers ( not just one dev in particular ), and as well could have an adverse effect on this sites reputation as well. So this is something we all need to be informed about.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Hahaha. The same MikeB that temp bans people for speaking ill of games he likes? Same mod crew that issues warnings/bans for any negative comment posted? Same one that squelches any community feedback regarding the ridiculous moderation that squelches legitimate posts and lets complete bullshit still run rampant? Oh yeah, totally even handed and fair...
Being a poster who on occassion has been inappropriate and banned in the past, I am very familiar with MikeB. He has been nothing but professional and fair in my dealings with him. I have even been wrongly banned by a mod, and guess who was there to quickly correct the situation?
Sounds to me like your butt is still a tad bit tender from a recent ban.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Well, i dont know if Mr Smart can handle the truth, i only know that truth hurts the most times and thus most people will avoid it at all cost.
So in real, a fanbase, a playerbase does not want to hear the truth what is leading to silver-tongued press releases and game director letters that speak nothing at all bcs even if they would tell the truth someone would be hurt and start a forumwar and the game would suffer from that.
Mr Smart, while a silver tongue himself, doesnt use his ability to speak around the things but adresses them from his very own point of view - remind he is an indie for a reason.
As well he defends his very own point of view and has the ability to argue in an andvanced manner and uses any else weapon he is given.
This has lead to one of the most refreshing forum activitys in this mmorpg site since i joined - i am highly entertained !
For the move to the fully partial F2P client offer it is oviously he is doing his duty to undertake efforts to keep this game alive.
The decision, to join a game like this, that is suspected to shut down anytime soon, is not only fun but also a predictable amount of time it will stay online.
Yet in my case, i am looking for a simple f2p game i can play with my old dad of 75 years who is slow and more ill every day, but still able to play mmos and have fun with them.
He has a attention span of lets say 6 months to an mmo till he wants to move on, at that time SWTOR will be out soon and for sure we move to it, but in the meantime is a gap to be filled.
Is there ANY GUARANTEE that Alganon will stay open for at least half a year and if yes how is it backed?
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
MWO Music Video - What does the Mech say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF6HYNqCDLI
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0x2iwK0BKM
Yeah, I've had a few of those questionable bans and infractions from posts wrongly moderated. And I have to say, even though my response when informing Mike of what I think of the moderator's actions is usually less than cordial, Mike has always responded in a professional manner and has overturned a few. Of course, he's also upheld a few that I rightly deserved. lol
We've bumped heads once or twice over the few years he's been here, but all in all I like the guy. I don't think I'd ever classify MikeB as being unfair. Now if he could just figure out a way to change my forum handle back to "Zorvan", I'd absolutely love him.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
OK, I'll bite.
MOST of those complaining about being banned, censored, warned etc are the same ones who tend to think that they are above the rules. And so just keep breaking them with impunity.
I've been warned, flagged etc on these forums, but you don't see me complaining about it. Why? Well because people ALL perceive things differently. What one mod may see as passable commentary another may view as trolling etc.
For the most part, these forums have the worst rep of any MMO base forum on the Net. Period. There is a reason for that: popularity being the primary one.
If you're going to setup a forum, you should be prepared to police it otherwise you end up with the likes of NeoGaf, SA and their ilk which are pretty much the lawless frontiers of web forum chats.
There is a reason that here, when you go to report a post, there are numerous choices. That alone is clear indication that the mod who gets to read the report needs to have some moral fortitude in order to make the right call. Most of mods on the Net completely fail the moral fortitude test. How so? Well because, like all of us, they're only human. As such they too tend to fall victim to mistakes, favoritism, opinions, different values etc.
For e.g. the majority of the angst ridden posters here won't last a day anywhere else where second chances are as good a club to the head. But they get to repeat their actions with impunity because, lets face it, anonymity is pretty much a passport to bad behavior for anyone who is intent on harrassment, trolling, hate filled rhetoric etc.
I tend to treat forums like I treat the public. If I don't know you, there is a good chance that I don't want to or need to. So, unless you have something worthy of my attention, you don't exist. But if you try to force your existence on me - and in a hostile manner - don't be surprised if I reach into my pocket for my taser. Or at the very least, my writing and/or verbal skills.
As humans, the sociological implications of discourse on the net is no different from any bar room or school yard brawl. You can walk away or deal with it. Except that unless you buy into the whole premise that words have power, you're probably going to end up dealing with it nontheless.
Which brings me to this.
If someone trolls you, posts disparaging, inflammatory or otherwise libelous material, the first impulse is to engage - and usually in kind. That usually devolves into a flamewar and on moderated forums, someone is bound to get banned and a thread locked or deleted. By the time the dust settles, the energy expended on the pointless excercise of engaging some unknown alias becomes just another period of wasted time on the already limited time you have here on Earth.
As an example, this Erstok person who seems to be fixated on me, decided to post some rubbish on the news thread about me, among other things, hiring my cousin to work at QOL. For one thing, coming from a small family, not only do I not have very many cousins, but I am also the only person in my family tree that works in the industry, let alone in the computer field. So, he basically decided to make shit up just because it fits his agenda and because he can. Thats called libel. And yes, it is legally actionable.
Here, to save you the click, let me post his missive verbatim :
Tell me thats not trolling. It is. And what is the relevance of that missive to the news bit in question? None.
Not to mention that the very mention of something that is not true is not only legally actionable (it is called libel and I've written extensively about it and sued people for it - and won).
Now if any of you - or even me - had posted that, it would have been removed by now because not only does it break at least NINE of the reasons for reporting a post (you can't report a post in a news item it seems) here, but also it would have devolved to a pointless flamewar if I even responded to it. So, I didn't.
More often than not, you can just ignore it and move on. But you see, thats why the law exists. Even though the owners of the forums - by law - are not responsible for content posted by others - just the very act of pointing that out to an attorney, costs money. So, just because you're not legally liable, is that stupid troll worth the time and money or do you just want to do the best that you can to police your forums to the best of your ability and resources?
It is the same thing with lawsuit threats, regardless of whether you are in the right or wrong, you still spend money either way. Case in point, Allen's attorneys were sending letters out last week to sites asking them to remove interviews in which I outlined Allen's actions that saw him being fired from the company. Most of the sites contacted us and as I suspected, they just ignored the letters. Others, such as MMMOFallout, decided to play it safe rather than have to spend money pointing out that there is NO legal precedent that requires them to pull the materials, decided to comply.
When someone that you're going to insult and attack decides to fight back, the general consensus is that all the friends of the perpetrator (I will leave the discussions about sociological group behavior for another time) will join in. Why? Because thats the nature of castes of a feather. So what you end up with is a lopsided discource in which a bunch of people - in a bid to back up their "buddy" - engages in pointless rhetoric that goes nowhere. By the time the dust settles, the result is either a locked thread or several bannings (or warnings). Nobody wins.
Yes, people have been sued, fired and even killed over online behavior like that. And there is a reason for that.
There is a big difference between stating an opinion and harrassing someone. Then there's that fine line between flat out lying and outright libel. At the end of the day, your opinions are only important to you and trying to force them on someone - through a forum post - is nothing short of anti-social behavior that borders on narcissistic behavioral traits.
Another example is Wraith. He was baneed from the Alganon forums. Of course it had nothing to do with me, but he - like most - is comfortable in the thought that he has the right to state his opinions (however unwanted and/or unwarranted) on a forum which has clear rules of engagement and moderation. He is also of the opinion that the world - as he sees it - is just fine; in which case, he was wrongly banned and thus the mod who banned him (like the mods who ban people here) must be idiots because he's right and they are ALL wrong. THEN to pour gas on an already burning flame, he decides to take it one step further with flat our libel (or lying depending on your perspective) that he was banned because of me. Nothing could be farther from the truth. And yes, posts on our Alganon forums are not deleted, they are saved so we can refer back to them.
So, in closing, yet another set of threads created for the sole purpose of attacking someone (yours truly) was deleted/closed by the mods and what do the perpertrators do? Take a wild guess. Yes, you got it. They go and create an all new thread and this time - once again - call the mods idiots (remember all mods are wrong and evil) while resuming the same discource that got the previous threads locked/deleted in the first place.
As you were.
Game developers are just human beings who happen to make games for a living.
If you want to hold us up to higher standards of conduct, then go ahead
...but don't be surprised if we don't uphold them.
I'm not really involved with whatever's going on in this thread, but I'd like to mention that I enjoy these forums the way they are: that is, a lawless frontier. I'd even venture further, to say that most of the members who actively post here are drawn to that more than it being a place to discuss MMO's (and sure, some of them are trolls). It might be a niche audience, like some games we've talked about here before, but it's a passionate, albeit vocal, community.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
I've heard about Derek Smart, read about Derek Smart and have now just experienced Derek Smart in action.
Interesting.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
So how did you get your Ph.D.?
http://follies.werewolves.org/archives/1NotSmart/1Anth2/AdmitsNotAccredited.txt .
How'd that lawsuit work out for ya?
Are you going to sit and tell us haven't argued all over the internet about the whole David Allen thing any chance you've gotten and put the blame on him or other developers whenever possible even in relation to the state of the game AFTER you were well and fully in charge? Your own blog is like a shrine to "Smart vs. Allen". How long are you going to be able to continue to blame Allen for Alganon's current state?
And while we're at it, do you deny thinking that you are some sort of "elite" person sitting on a pedestal above the poor mortals who supply the cash for your game? And respond carefully, as the internet is full of accurate statements from yourself that show this attitude of yours.
As far as him mentioning you hiring your cousin, I believe that's been pretty much in the public for a while now? Have you shown this accusation to be incorrect?
And the fact is the things I posted in that deleted thread which this thread is discussing, all statements were true and factual, even taken from your own blog. And they have everything to do with Alganon, because people have the right to know what sort of person they're going to be dealing with if they play that persons game.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
In this case I don't think it is that. The only post I've ever had deleted without a warning (yes I've had a couple that they felt was attacking which weren't but that is a different topic) was about Alganon. When they posted their review however long ago that was, I was the first person to post about it. I made a post about how uninteresting the game seemed and all the stuff that seemed wrong with it. There was no inappropriate words or name calling of any kind. But my post was removed within about 5 minutes with no message to me as to why.
There is some connection to saying bad things about Alganon and threads/post disappearing. Which is strange for two reasons. First is that it doesn't happen with any other game. Second the game is tiny and has no real influence on the MMO market so why the extra buffer for it?
I'm sure the other thread disappeared because it was sooo informative that it became too much to handle. Really it was spot on on what mmorpg.com is about.
In a completely unrelated topic, I wish there was a function to filter what's popping in the 'latest forum activity' feed.
If you have a concern regarding moderator actions, feel free to send in your concerns through the Contact Us feature, under Community Concerns.
Thanks.
Closing this up.
Fortune favours the bold.