This looks like a scam. Read and decide for yourself.

Vesavius

Originally posted by Jayaris

Why does it matter who taus is? The questions he asked Appleton are simple and were not answered.

 

Because I am personally interested in the background of *any* opinion I read... what it's motives are and what it's agenda is, especially when it is as 'dedicated' as this one is. It starts to look like there is a questional background behind the attack, *especially* when the poster attempts to give himself extra credibility by claims of being an investor in the industry etc.

If you are going to use your personal background to give your opinions weight then be prepared to show evidence for that background.

Just like Jason actually did in this thread tbh (I assume that you have read the thread and not just the OP and come here to post?)

Rednecksith

Originally posted by Jayaris

Why does it matter who taus is? The questions he asked Appleton are simple and were not answered.

Exactly. His replies remind me of a conversation which I had with one of my state representatives. The guy just would not answer a straight yes or no question as such, and instead kept dodging the issue and using vague generalizations. Needless to say, he did not get my vote at election time.

In other words, Mr. Appleton gave a politician's answer. For me that doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the guy.

Also, Taus doesn't have to back himself up. He's not the one begging for money over the internet. He's not the one making one of the most complex game types possible with little to no experience. He's not the one threatening to sue people with his Kickstarter money. He's not the one indulging in shady business practices. Mr. Appleton is.

Mogus

[mod edit]

Look, as far as the 2nd Kickstarter, I will answer this one final time, knowing full well it will be asked many more times and rather than people simply link the answer (like they do everything else but anything productive) when it comes up again, I'm sure we will repeat this over and over.

I have had well over $20,000 worth of additional pledges offered to me from people who missed the campaign. I have turned them all down because I want to have a playable Alpha test ready before accepting any further funds from people. If I were scamming people, I'd simply take the money now and not even tell anyone about it. However, I feel it would be best to simply offer a follow up campaign for those who missed out the first round that would work alongside our alpha test phase. This would #1. Bring in additional revenue to help with any finishing touches, additional content not currently planned, etc. #2. Act as a marketing tool to help bring attention to the Alpha test that is not only free, but help brings in revenue AND draws a lot of attention. So, to answer your question, yes, I would like to have a follow up KS campaign later on.

Will the game get finished without the 2nd campaign?

Well, yes, that is what I'm trying to say. When I think of Alpha, I think of a game near completed with bugs and such that will need to be ironed out. I'd like to have the game as close to ready as possible by Alpha, BEFORE any additional funds are brought in.

You said no more land! Now your "scamming us!"

Initially, our plan early on was to take whatever we had pledged in the first KS campaign and then double it for launch figuring we would only "sell" 1,500 parcels at maximum from KS. Well, we had over 3,000 parcels spoken for. That's 3,000 parcels of land spoken for in a 30 day period for a game that was very early in its development with very little to show. So, I felt it very safe to assume, if we double that number, as originally planned from day one, though a much larger number, they will either be pledged in a follow up KS/marketing campaign to promote the Alpha, or they will be gone on day one of launch. Then, it's safe to say that at that point, the world is done, no further land will be added and we will be letting the parcel values rise as we continue adding other content and such to the game. Thats only a total of 6,000 parcels for what will most likely be at least 20,000 players on the low end.

You are adding a subscription now! You lied! Scammer!!!

We have not confirmed 100% if we are going to add a subscription. We are still working things out with Hero, but we would like to get our game further in development so we have more to show their business development people what exactly we are doing and why it would work without a sub. Right now, to use Hero for less than the $75,000 license fee and 7% of revenue, they instead take 30% of revenue. Well, they want to see a steady stream of revenue to support their end of things due to them supplying the servers, the engine and support as well as many other things they offer. So, it's very fair for them, however, we need to figure out how to show them that our model will be just as lucrative which will be easier to do once we have more completed.

Hopefully, that will make more sense.

 

JamesP

Originally posted by Rednecksith

Originally posted by Jayaris

Why does it matter who taus is? The questions he asked Appleton are simple and were not answered.

Exactly. His replies remind me of a conversation which I had with one of my state representatives. The guy just would not answer a straight yes or no question as such, and instead kept dodging the issue and using vague generalizations. Needless to say, he did not get my vote at election time.

In other words, Mr. Appleton gave a politician's answer. For me that doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the guy.

Also, Taus doesn't have to back himself up. He's not the one begging for money over the internet. He's not the one making one of the most complex game types possible with little to no experience. He's not the one threatening to sue people with his Kickstarter money. He's not the one indulging in shady business practices. Mr. Appleton is.

We are still early in development alot of the questions that have been asked just simply can't be answered at this point. Would you rather we gave an answer now just to make a few people happy and then a few months from now turn around and say those answers were wrong? 

One thing I can answer is that NO we do NOT NEED another KickStarter Campaign to see this game through to Launch. Yes it would always be nice to have some extra funding to polish things a little more but it's not NEEDED. We have had alot of people wanting to get in on being able to buy larger amounts of parcels so if we were to have the 2nd kickstarter campaign it would be to give those folks a chance to get their parcels as well as to use the Campaign for a final media blitz prior to our Beta. We haven't discussed any potential 2nd KickStarter other then in passing and we have no set date for it were we to have one. 

taus01

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by Jayaris

Why does it matter who taus is? The questions he asked Appleton are simple and were not answered.

Because I am personally interested in the background of *any* opinion I read... what it's motives are and what it's agenda is, especially when it is as 'dedicated' as this one is. It starts to look like there is a questional background behind the attack, *especially* when the poster attempts to give himself extra credibility by claims of being an investor in the industry etc.

If you are going to use your personal background to give your opinions weight then be prepared to show evidence for that background.

Mr. Appleton tried to attack me by saying i am one of the people who did not get on his team or has a grudge against him.

"But if you are pissed about something, be it, you weren't hired onto the team, you were banned from the forums by a mod, or whatever, then it's easier to simply link to old threads created based on unsupported assumptions and accusations as if to add some kind of crediability to your bogus and unsupported claims." - Mr. Appleton

I made clear that i have nothing to do with his project and development. I never tried to make any deals with him or tried to be on his team. I can see how this might have confused some people. The intend was to make clear that i am not invested or at all interested in investing in this game or have any ties to it. All i do is invest in various projects incl. some games, indie developers and hardware, one which i have linked and i think deserves some attention. 

Just like Jason actually did in this thread tbh (I assume that you have read the thread and not just the OP and come here to post?)

Originally posted by Rednecksith

Originally posted by Jayaris

Why does it matter who taus is? The questions he asked Appleton are simple and were not answered.

Exactly. His replies remind me of a conversation which I had with one of my state representatives. The guy just would not answer a straight yes or no question as such, and instead kept dodging the issue and using vague generalizations. Needless to say, he did not get my vote at election time.

In other words, Mr. Appleton gave a politician's answer. For me that doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the guy.

Also, Taus doesn't have to back himself up. He's not the one begging for money over the internet. He's not the one making one of the most complex game types possible with little to no experience. He's not the one threatening to sue people with his Kickstarter money. He's not the one indulging in shady business practices. Mr. Appleton is.

Thank you.

 

Originally posted by risenbones

OP if you work in the development field you've missed your calling.  They way you play with words and sumasault around sometimes calling it a scam them backtracking to say well ok maybe it's just someone who doesn't know any better you should of been a polition or a speech writer for one.

I never said i work in development. I said i worked in Management.

I am just a human beeing and i have the right to change my mind as much as anyone. I did think this was a scam but since then learned much more details and insight due to the contribution by Mr. Appleton himself that makes me think that this indeed could be a person that is simply in over his head with no malicious intend.

On the other hand Mr. Apleton does not make it easier by not answering 2 simple questions.

Alorse89

If the game does turn to a sub since it's still on board, will people such as me be able to get a chance to sell the land without purchasing a sub?

adam_nox

Originally posted by Mogus

Not all of my efforts have been successful, but I have found success in most, but lets put a lot of this to rest in one post, shall we?

Well, my magazine was founded in 2001 and after 2 issues, we had the Cincinnati Riots. A lot of businesses folded and nobody could afford advertising. It was an 8.5 x5 in entertainment rag back when there was only city beat. I decided to pull out and not continue at that time.

The record label was Opulent Records. I started in band booking for many bands, then moved into management and ended up forming Opulent Records. My first signing was Extra Blue Kind. We released their debut album The Tide And The Undertow with some decent success. I got them on MTV2, Much Music and 35 other Video Networks. We did two music videos, one for my favorite song on the album, Pinch Blink, Stay Alive and another for Make Yourself Useless.  We charted them on the Top 20 Add Charts on College Radio, Top 200 Rotation and some Commercial Air (if any of you have any experience in the music industry you'll know getting commercial spins is very expensive). EBK opened for bands like Creed, Stone Temple Pilots and others. We then began working on their follow up album where we recorded 3 songs with two of the countries top producer Ray Martin and Junior Sanchez.  We never Officially released these 3 songs because the band struggled with keep a guitar player while on the road full time touring to build up their fan base as I was working with several major labels to pick up from where we were. Due to the conflicts within the band, after all that we had accomplished, the band decided to go different ways and I didn't hold them to their contract. So I released the 3 songs we did in New York along with some live tracks online only under my other company which can be found here.

After all of this, I decided to get out of the music business because it was just too risky as anything could happen and the longer you work with a band, the higher the liklihood of something going wrong and sending everything into the crapper.

At that time I was 305lbs at 7ft tall and borderline Diabetic and needed to lose weight. So I joined an MMA fight team. I trained in BJJ, Boxing, Muay Thai and Wrestling for about 6 months and dropped to 270lbs. Well, in the course of training the team went to a couple of MMA events in other cities and I realized there was nothing like it in Cincinnati. So I began the MMA Big Show. The first Pro/Am promotion in the region. Promoters were only promoting amateur fights at the time as Pro fights were too expensive. My first event was MMA Big Show: RESPECT November of 2006.

Since then, I promoted the top Pro/Am events in the region and am to this day the only Pro/Am Fight Promoter to broadcast a live 2 hour special on national television. MMA Big Show: ALL OR NOTHING

I have developed the careers of many fighters from amateur up to UFC such as Roger Bowling, Mojo Horne etc.

I took a break from MMA altogether after so many promoters began to flood the market and spread the fan base thin which caused me to have to cut down in production. I felt, if you can't do it right, don't do it. But, we are looking at potentially getting another 4 shows a year scheduled this year for old times sake now that things have died down a bit. I did finally fight myself before going on break and won my fight in 35 seconds by TKO.

 

 

 

I'm not sure I would consider any of your ventures a success.  Maybe other people have vastly different standards for such a word.  I'm a big mma fan (even watch crappy promos on AXS TV) and even I have never heard of Roger Bowling, lucky him belonging to an organization bought by zuffa and getting a chance at the big show though.

 

In my opinion you've put capital into a lot of failures, and can drop a lot of names no one has ever heard of, and this is why I and others were curious.  I think it would have been smarter to not try to prop yourself up as a jack of all trades.  I mean look at what a distraction, and now somewhat awkwardness, it has become. 

Mogus

Adam, if you are a big MMA fan, I'm truly surprised you aren't familiar with Roger.

Maybe you just aren't a Strikeforce fan?

 

Dreamo84

How is this anything like Ultima Online if all the land is pre-purchased with real world money. Sounds awful to me. If I play the game after it launches, will I just be joining a world full of land owners then?

Also, Tauso's "I am not allowed to divulge my name" thing is kind of rediculous. What are you James Bond? Secret missions?! Its your name for goodness sake, not your SS#.

sevae

I'm not trying to tear apart this guy, but it's safe to say that nobody in their right mind would hire him to make a game, or manage a team of game developers.

---

"There's an important phrase that we use here, and think it's time that you all learned it. Act as if..."

---

Not really a scam, more like a snow-job. Whatever... good for him. People over at Kickstarter love throwing money at anyone with an idea that they like. These backers deserve what they get for doing just that, good or bad.

Will this be a great game? Who cares. I sure as hell didn't put my money into it. 

 

 

Psychow

Why is this thread allowed to continue?

 

Example:

"GW2 is bad!" - lock

 

"Greed Monger is a scam!" - 7 pages of arguing and conjecture and no mod in sight...

Loktofeit

Originally posted by taus01

Originally posted by Mogus
[mod edit]

[mod edit]

He's referring to that other line that you keep quoting as a personal attack.

It's not all about you, bro.

Stabba

Originally posted by Mogus

 Since then, we got a general approval from the backers that a $10 sub would be ok, which re-opened the doors to Hero

 

 

So this is the final word.. All this talk of no decision has been made on a sub is over..  70 Votes of a Greed Monger Forum Post over about 2 days, then the post was locked,  made that decision I guess.

taus01

Originally posted by Psychow

Why is this thread allowed to continue?

 Example: "GW2 is bad!" - lock

 "Greed Monger is a scam!" - 7 pages of arguing and conjecture and no mod in sight...

Maybe because this thread has real information and the owner cared enough to participate and post valuable information too.

You know, instead of just the usual: "This game sucks and it will FAIL" troll post.

rmk70

Originally posted by Psychow

Why is this thread allowed to continue?

 

Example:

"GW2 is bad!" - lock

 

"Greed Monger is a scam!" - 7 pages of arguing and conjecture and no mod in sight...

Seriously... This thread should be locked and deleted. The discussion has been reduced to petty squabbling and semantics on all sides. 

taus01

Originally posted by Stabba

Originally posted by Mogus

 Since then, we got a general approval from the backers that a $10 sub would be ok, which re-opened the doors to Hero

So this is the final word.. All this talk of no decision has been made on a sub is over..  70 Votes of a Greed Monger Forum Post over about 2 days, then the post was locked,  made that decision I guess.

Wow, i was not aware of that. thanks for bringing this up! Maybe Mr. Appleton can go a bit more into detail how this decision was made with only 70 votes when there where 667 Kickstarter Backers.

Does not seem to me like a "general approval" at all. Would you mind linking the forum post for me, i do not frequent the games forums and have no account there.

PS: Updated Front Page to reflect this.

Alorse89

Originally posted by Stabba

Originally posted by Mogus

 Since then, we got a general approval from the backers that a $10 sub would be ok, which re-opened the doors to Hero

 

 

So this is the final word.. All this talk of no decision has been made on a sub is over..  70 Votes of a Greed Monger Forum Post over about 2 days, then the post was locked,  made that decision I guess.

I wonder why he just didn't send a Kickstarter e-mail to everyone.

vgamer

Originally posted by rmk70

Originally posted by Psychow

Why is this thread allowed to continue?

 

Example:

"GW2 is bad!" - lock

 

"Greed Monger is a scam!" - 7 pages of arguing and conjecture and no mod in sight...

Seriously... This thread should be locked and deleted. The discussion has been reduced to petty squabbling and semantics on all sides. 

Still got some good info on the game and insight on the maker.

 

Like they say, every minute a sucker. Just treat this game as advanced Darwinism lol

Stabba

Originally posted by Alorse89

Originally posted by Stabba

Originally posted by Mogus

 Since then, we got a general approval from the backers that a $10 sub would be ok, which re-opened the doors to Hero

 

 

So this is the final word.. All this talk of no decision has been made on a sub is over..  70 Votes of a Greed Monger Forum Post over about 2 days, then the post was locked,  made that decision I guess.

I wonder why he just didn't send a Kickstarter e-mail to everyone.

wonderful point.  If i was getting "General Approval" for something.  I would want to get the largest sample possible

Alorse89

View Poll Results: Would $10 per month hurt you?

Go with HERO, $10 is nothing.

50 - 73.53%

Gamble with Unity, $10 is too much!

18-26.47%

Just the way he phrases it makes you seem cheap for not wanting to pay $10 for a FREE TO PLAY game.

taus01

 

Originally posted by Alorse89

View Poll Results: Would $10 per month hurt you?

Go with HERO, $10 is nothing.

50 - 73.53%

Gamble with Unity, $10 is too much!

18-26.47%

Just the way he phrases it makes you seem cheap for not wanting to pay $10 for a FREE TO PLAY game.

He is using what is called "loaded language". The phrase "Gamble with Unity" carries the notion of failure of the project.

An example for loaded language used every day:

Terrorists: The bad guys, we do not want the public to support them.

Freedom Fighters: These are the good guys we support their terrorist activities.

JamesP

Originally posted by taus01

 

Originally posted by Alorse89

View Poll Results: Would $10 per month hurt you?

Go with HERO, $10 is nothing.

50 - 73.53%

Gamble with Unity, $10 is too much!

18-26.47%

Just the way he phrases it makes you seem cheap for not wanting to pay $10 for a FREE TO PLAY game.

He is using what is called "loaded language". The phrase "Gamble with Unity" carries the notion of failure of the project.

An example for loaded language used every day:

Terrorists: The bad guys, we do not want the public to support them.

Freedom Fighters: These are the good guys we support their terrorist activities.

Using Unity WOULD result in us only being able to provide you guys with a watered down zone based version of our vision. Unity as a result of it not being designed for Seamless MMO Worlds is unable to do Server Side Seamless/Zoned Hybrid setups like our design calls for and with the Network Engine we had choosing with out waiting for who knows how long until the uPikko server was available plus having a rev. share on a single peice of technology. 

 

Yes with Hero we are still forced into a Rev. Share but we also get 10s of thousands of dollars worth of Middleware along with the HeroEngine. Everything considered Hero was hands down the best option for our present and future goals.

Stabba

     In todays MMO market, even major studios are switching to the F2P model so there paying subscribers can have some people to play with.   I cant understand why locking into a sub only game has so much appeal to Mr Appleton.   Now an "OPTIONAL SUB" with benefits would be a simple comprimise.   Let those that will pay $10 each month have the benefits, plus have the f2p croud there so the game accually has some population.  

 

     I can already see this.   $10 manditory sub.  Game will be a ghost town within months.   

Alorse89

Originally posted by JamesP

Originally posted by taus01

 

Originally posted by Alorse89

View Poll Results: Would $10 per month hurt you?

Go with HERO, $10 is nothing.

50 - 73.53%

Gamble with Unity, $10 is too much!

18-26.47%

Just the way he phrases it makes you seem cheap for not wanting to pay $10 for a FREE TO PLAY game.

He is using what is called "loaded language". The phrase "Gamble with Unity" carries the notion of failure of the project.

An example for loaded language used every day:

Terrorists: The bad guys, we do not want the public to support them.

Freedom Fighters: These are the good guys we support their terrorist activities.

Using Unity WOULD result in us only being able to provide you guys with a watered down zone based version of our vision. Unity as a result of it not being designed for Seamless MMO Worlds is unable to do Server Side Seamless/Zoned Hybrid setups like our design calls for and with the Network Engine we had choosing with out waiting for who knows how long until the uPikko server was available plus having a rev. share on a single peice of technology. 

 

Yes with Hero we are still forced into a Rev. Share but we also get 10s of thousands of dollars worth of Middleware along with the HeroEngine. Everything considered Hero was hands down the best option for our present and future goals.

I understand why you guys want to change but why is the survey set up such as it is? Also what happened with the talk of the sub for the extra parcels before talk of the mandatory sub came up? We donated to kickstarter for a game with certain  qualities such as FREE TO PLAY. You said yourself James "Yes the $75k would include full Source Code to Servers, Client, Tools, ect. as well as would come with the requirement that we hosted our game on our own servers." Woudn't it be better to stick to the kickstart which we donated to?

JamesP

Originally posted by Alorse89

Originally posted by JamesP

Originally posted by taus01

 

Originally posted by Alorse89

View Poll Results: Would $10 per month hurt you?

Go with HERO, $10 is nothing.

50 - 73.53%

Gamble with Unity, $10 is too much!

18-26.47%

Just the way he phrases it makes you seem cheap for not wanting to pay $10 for a FREE TO PLAY game.

He is using what is called "loaded language". The phrase "Gamble with Unity" carries the notion of failure of the project.

An example for loaded language used every day:

Terrorists: The bad guys, we do not want the public to support them.

Freedom Fighters: These are the good guys we support their terrorist activities.

Using Unity WOULD result in us only being able to provide you guys with a watered down zone based version of our vision. Unity as a result of it not being designed for Seamless MMO Worlds is unable to do Server Side Seamless/Zoned Hybrid setups like our design calls for and with the Network Engine we had choosing with out waiting for who knows how long until the uPikko server was available plus having a rev. share on a single peice of technology. 

 

Yes with Hero we are still forced into a Rev. Share but we also get 10s of thousands of dollars worth of Middleware along with the HeroEngine. Everything considered Hero was hands down the best option for our present and future goals.

I understand why you guys want to change but why is the survey set up such as it is? Also what happened with the talk of the sub for the extra parcels before talk of the mandatory sub came up? We donated to kickstarter for a game with certain  qualities such as FREE TO PLAY. You said yourself James "Yes the $75k would include full Source Code to Servers, Client, Tools, ect. as well as would come with the requirement that we hosted our game on our own servers." Woudn't it be better to stick to the kickstart which we donated to?

We aren't ruling anything out at this time. We are focused on getting the game made right now. We would still like to be able to have our Alpha in April. Once we are closer to launch and have a product to show we will sit down with the Developers of Hero and discuss what our options are. Once we do that we will then discuss our options with you guys (The Community) and see where we go from there.