Mourning- Unethical Business and Horrid Game

DJ_Mongral

Just going back to what Egomancer said a couple of pages ago

---

Originally posted by Egomancer
The causes they got in this position are multiple. First and foremost come from the people. Being located on a remote island means that your recuiting capabilities are rather limited. To develop such a complex product you need only people that know what do because the unexperienced ones make more damage than they help.
Second is the money. If you do not have a clear budget you can not make plans and more you can not hire top of the line people. The myth of the great games made in the basement is gone, This is no longer possible witht he current industry development. It owuld be as you would want to make Gladiator with a 1k camera and 10 actors.So the problem is that they do not have the team now to finish the game and make it succesfull. It is as simple as that. During my career I have been fortunate to work with some big companies and I know what bug fixing and olishing of a game means. And they are far away from getting at that point.

---

What about CCP games (Makers of EVE online) then? They come from Iceland which is an island with 1/3 of the population of Reunion and no history what so ever in computer games development. In addition, up to release their development team was around 20 people (its quite a lot more now though).

Coming from a small island has its advantages as it allows you to cherry pick the most talented people from the population without having to battle with thousands of other companies. There are dozens (perhaps even hundreds) of computer game companies in the UK all competing to recruit the most talented people; In Iceland there is one company. I'm sure the situation is the same on Reunion Island.

Large multinationals do have the advantage of money but their motives are to make a profit rather than make the best game possible. Naturally as they are in charge of the purse strings they get to put conditions on developers with the intention of maximizing profits. This often leads to the publishers imposing very conservative conditions on the developers.

(The fact that every game EA has released this year has been a sequel proves this. In addition the only truly original game they have in development is Spore and its only getting made because Will Wright championed the idea)

In short, underestimating what groups of highly motivated and talented people can achieve is dangerous.

(And before you ask, yes I do work in the software industry but I don’t work for CCP or Dark and Light)

Bitey

http://krelslibrary.org/interview.html

Q: So what did you hear Dave's business was before Mourning?

A: See, I don't know exactly. I heard something of adult sites, but nothing more specific.

Q: So what you're saying is that Dave was involved in the pornography business.

A: Well, I'm not certain, as in I cannot prove it. Maybe it was only managing adult sites, among others.

Q: Well, the use of CCBill would indeed suggest that. But anyway, let's move on.

LMAO

skullbreaker

We seriously do appreciate them not using our writing anymore, regardless of their reasons. In this case it certainly wasn't because we asked, or it was the right and legal thing to do... but regardless, the fiction we created will no longer be associated with the Mourning project. And that is a weight off our minds.

But seriously, to go around saying we asked for money is absolutely ridiculous. Go re-read the emails we sent you, and try to pay attention this time. We never asked for a dime...

htp://www.krelslibrary.org

-Jdodger

PS. Banning me from a forum I don't post on doesn't do much, have fun with your last remaining fanboys...

Egomancer

I do not exactly who asked for money but I think it was Pajari. Dan has some emails with this.

Also if I remember right, you (JDodger) have been removed from the loreteam at the express request of the other people in the team. I do not know the reasons but the current community manager (Draakan) knows more. Also when you have been removed we agreed not to use the quests you made. Basically we argue here for nothing since we will not use that and as I showed the whole idea was wrong...

Egomancer

Tarl

Ego... posting on a site that removed your game seems shortsighted.... obviously your game has no fans here, and your constant posting only further cements the general publics opinion of your game and how it is run, by yourself, Dan, and Porno Dave. Wasnt it nigh on a year ago you were to release this game? The game regressed in each stage of beta, and would not compare favorably to Rubies of Eventide at the latest stage of your games development...

Keep responding to these posts please, it does add to the entertainment value.... You only have Snert and Shintuk to ban from the original crew that followed this game from the beginning, you had a great community, once, bout three years ago...

Scaris

---

Originally posted by Tarl
Ego... posting on a site that removed your game seems shortsighted.... obviously your game has no fans here, and your constant posting only further cements the general publics opinion of your game and how it is run, by yourself, Dan, and Porno Dave. Wasnt it nigh on a year ago you were to release this game? The game regressed in each stage of beta, and would not compare favorably to Rubies of Eventide at the latest stage of your games development...Keep responding to these posts please, it does add to the entertainment value.... You only have Snert and Shintuk to ban from the original crew that followed this game from the beginning, you had a great community, once, bout three years ago...

---

Porno Dave, I love it!!!!

BobCrazyton

---

Originally posted by Fadeus




Originally posted by Tarl
Ego... posting on a site that removed your game seems shortsighted.... obviously your game has no fans here, and your constant posting only further cements the general publics opinion of your game and how it is run, by yourself, Dan, and Porno Dave. Wasnt it nigh on a year ago you were to release this game? The game regressed in each stage of beta, and would not compare favorably to Rubies of Eventide at the latest stage of your games development...

Keep responding to these posts please, it does add to the entertainment value.... You only have Snert and Shintuk to ban from the original crew that followed this game from the beginning, you had a great community, once, bout three years ago...

Porno Dave, I love it!!!!

---

Wait so is ego part of the mourning team??? One of those scamming bastards?

Tarl

He, Porno Dave, and Adonys (Tiamat) are the trio of scamming bastards... a triple headed monster... money scamming, bad cd sending, poor english using, post deleting, good community banning, bad game making, trio.... other than that... They're great!!!

Scaris

---

Originally posted by BobCrazyton

Porno Dave, I love it!!!! Wait so is ego part of the mourning team??? One of those scamming bastards?

---

Ego is the lead developer of "Age of Mourning".

Zerocool032

Nvm

Grr....

Pajari

---

Originally posted by Egomancer
A few key things:1. The lore team consumed 50% from Dan's time for like 6 months to set it up and run it
2. The result of the lore team was 40 quests and like 30 pages of other text
3. Tons of harrasement regarding the fact that some former lore team members decided that they want to be payed for the volunteer work.This is why I decided back in May 2005 to close the lore-team and give the full rights to the lore that was created by the members back to the ones that asked for it since none fo the lore actually got into the game. So enjoy...EgomancerP.S. Regarding the interview all I can say is that if the reader does not see that it is biased to the extreme then I am writing here for nothing. I mean to ask: "Is it true that he forbid you to read the forums?" and the guy answers : "No, it is not true but...". Then the interviewer: "Moving back to the fact that it was forbid to read the forums" ...
Or things like this: "At work we had to work, damn!!!"P.P.S. I agreed with the ban of the people that asked for money for volunteer work and created a supposedly fake interview that is bashing the team that worked on the game.

---

I'm calling bullshit on #1. Ado barely ever talked to us, we would go weeks waiting for him to approve things. He did not devote a lot of time to the lore team, and at the time I was glad he didn't, because when he did interfere things went haywire.

2: The result of the lore team was nothing less than nearly the entire backstory for the game along with ALL OF THE QUESTS for the ENTIRE GAME. None of it got into the game because you had a single programmer for a couple months after the release and could implement virtually nothing because of it. It wasn't like we were asking for a lot either- a couple of dungeons and maybe a river or something is all that we needed. But you were too busy cutting features to take notice. That's entirely your fault.

3: Harrasment? When we quit and you guys refused to take our work down, we came up with payment as an alternative solution, then quickly dropped it when we realized nothing was going to happen.

We sent you the interview months before we posted it, and if you can disprove a single word of it (with more than "it's lying lol"), I invite you to. All I'm in search of is the truth.

I also find it interesting that you approve of my banning. Do you realize that I wrote all that lore, helped out with beta testing, defended your game on other sites (including this one), and created one of the two fansites ever created for the game? You're saying that all that is worthless because I posted an interview saying that the game was mismanaged, a fact that everyone on the Internet had concluded long before?

Sweet chocolate Christ, ego.

darktravesty

It's amazing this topic is still going, and how many replies there are.

pirrg

---

Originally posted by darktravesty
It's amazing this topic is still going, and how many replies there are.

---

Isnt it hilarious though? The perfect example of how blind faith and fanatic devotion will bite in the arse sooner or later. I hope you mourning fanboys learned something from this experience.

royals

Um, I don't really want to read this entire thread so... can someone tell me is this game still being develped, or have they dropped it?

Spoonbender

---

Originally posted by royals
Um, I don't really want to read this entire thread so... can someone tell me is this game still being develped, or have they dropped it?

---

Here's the short story:
The first 110 pages are from 6 months ago. You can skip those.
Back then, they screwed up big time, ended up taking down servers and website, along with some vague announcement that "We'll be back. And those people who were ripped off with our preorders will still get something to play..... At some point in the future"

A week or so ago, they suddenly put the website back up, without a word of explanation, barely even mentioning the fact that it'd been down.

I and a few others decided to finally put online an interview we conducted with an ex-developer. The interview is from this summer, but as the site was down, we weren't in a hurry with putting it online.

You can read it at www.krelslibrary.org

And since then, they've been banning, deleting and censoring randomly on their forums, while Egomancer, the big boss on the dev team, has spent 50% of his time arguing here.

Scaris

---

Originally posted by Spoonbender
And since then, they've been banning, deleting and censoring randomly on their forums, while Egomancer, the big boss on the dev team, has spent 50% of his time arguing here.

---

A man has to have his priorities...

Actually I wouldn't put it past Ego to be trying to use this negative publicity here to draw people to his little known website because he needs testers.

Dinivan

Egomancer, trying to bash DnL so you can save Mourning's ass, as you could say you were not the only one to be a bastard, is rather infantile and despicable, considering you are a developer. Apart from that, DnL developers promised customers would get a game in april, and meanwhile they would finish the game (which they openly admitted was still unfinished) while giving a server for the customers (and non-customers with free keys) to play with what was already done. Everyone knew at which stage the game was and what was buying. You can't compare that with your swindle.

theanimedude

I, for one, find it amusing that he finally put his website back online...

Personally, all else aside... I would never pay a cent to someone who couldnt even spell "you're" correctly. Sounds like just another immature developer trying to make a buck to me

Jackdog

Why have a you are a bigger rip off than I am S*** slinging contest here. Neither game will sell another copy until it's respective Devs prove they have something worth buying. Like I posted earlier in this thread insttead of wasting your time insulting eacvh other just go do some programming. I think we the community are sufficiently jaded and wary of the BS and hype by now. I know I would not pre order a game right now if SoE and Blizzard were doing one co op and hired Jesus Christ as the lead Dev and all twelve apostles wrote a glowing preview of the game.

Kilim

Posted at: http://www.realmsoftorment.net/forums/showthread.php3?s=&threadid=21036

---

egomancer
Administrator

Registered: Feb 2002
Location:
Posts: 4
State of the Game and some other updates

Greetings!

This letter is being sent to provide you with updated news and information regarding the status of Age of Mourning , previously known as "Mourning".

Previously the project had been developed by three companies: Limitless Horizons Entertainment LLC, Quad Software and Newrosoft R&D. Currently only Newrosoft R&D will be involved in the development of the game with a discrete presence from Limitless Horizons Entertainment LLC. There is also currently talks underway with many interested additional outside investors for Age of Mourning.

We plan to start full development once again sometime in February/March 2006.

Since May/June Newrosoft R&D has been working with Sony Pictures developing a casual game called Bewitched ( www.sonypictures.com/games/bewitched/ ) that has been nominated for the casual game of the year. We are currently working on a new project for Sony Pictures that will be released by the end of March 2006. More details about that...soon!

We also have a new web based MMO that we may launch sometime in February/March 2006. The web-based MMO will use the Age of Mourning license and will be free to play. More news about this will come at later date.

All previous orders to "Mourning" which were taken earlier this year will be receiving first access to beta as well as 6 months free play time for the North American version upon commercial launch of the product. The individuals will be contacted via information on file associated with their past orders.

We understand some of this contact information may be out of date when this happens and will work with the individual people to verify their past order.

This does not include orders which were successfully refunded.

Best Regards,
Andrei Gireada
Producer
Age of Mourning
http://www.ageofmourning.com

---

Scaris

Tiamat speaks up:

the original post is here: http://www.realmsoftorment.net/forums/showthread.php3?s=&threadid=21007

and here is a copy of the post:

---

Time for a little winter holidays clean up..

I'm sorry I have to do this, but it sems to be the only way remaining to stop the things some people are doing.

Spoonbender, Jdodger and Pajari will get their permanent diploma, on forums and on our chatrooms too.

You conducted and put online a certain "interview" claiming that you did it in search of the truth regarding Mourning. We received it sometime during the summer, and we replied that we will not comment on it until it will be put online, yet at the time, you all failed to mention that you were the ones behind it, you just presented it to us "under cover". That again says enough about it's validity.

The second thing people should know about you, is that all three of you were accepted as volunteers for our game (as mods or loreteam members), and you accepted our volunteer agreement, yet you all broke it, had conflicts with us and were removed from the volunteer position you had at that time. Moreover, two of you even dared to ask us for money regarding the lore "you" created during your volunteer time, even if you knew very well that all your work as volunteers was based on our concepts and on the work of all the previous lore team members combined.
Not to mention the fact that you know at the time you joined our volunteer teams that our volunteer agrement stipulated that all the work done under that agreement would be our property. This is a good example of what kind of people you are!

The third thing is regarding that little "interview" you're hosting and spreading around the net in the your "pursuit of truth about Mourning" quest. I'd say I think of myself as a better person than to answer to this lame concocted fantasy story and defend myself at the cost of bringing myself down to the level of the people behind that, and I guess the "interviewed" person knew this, and took advantage of it when he created his "honest" view abut what happened.

Still, there are a few things I'd want to say about it.

Firstly, whoever the person was which was interviewed wished to keep himself anonymous. Well, that in itself says a lot about the integrity of this person (not to mention commenting on some private things for a business he worked for) who did it, he names a lot of people there, but he's not forthright enough to mention himself.

Secondly, the "interview" is full of biased views, half truths and even pure lies, with the obvious goal of making some people look bad and guilty for everything what has happened. Also, he failed to mention that a large part of what he presents there as "personal" experiences are in fact things he heard from some other people, as there are VERY FEW people who worked on the project from the very beginning until the very end of it. If he would have had some decency and morality, he would have presented the truth as he experienced it and as it was (including the bad things and mistakes he, as we all, made), but I guess some people just can not be objective.

And lastly, many of you worked personally with me during all these years, and know me as a developer, community manager and even as private person, and I guess you should know me pretty well, not to mention that you also do know a lot of things that happened with the game during this period. So many of you can judge this "interview" for yourself, regardless of what it is said in it.

Why are you doing this? I guess it's simply a form of freeing your frustations and revenge upon us or perhaps you simply have nothing better to do with your lives. Well, please feel free to go and continue your anti-Mourning campaign in some other place, we have had enough of your nonsense here.

---

Signe

I swear, I've already posted that letter! I think there must be other Mourning threads popping up and I've not noticed! They all look the same to me, anyway. Mourning does something daft. People are shocked and complain. EgoMonster comes here and says, "It wasn't us! It must have been them!" What's changed? I TOLD Spoonbender he wasn't banned by accident the first time... but then, he knew that, didn't he?

I think it's a very good thing that the Mourning devs do not take their product to the American game conferences... people would probably be unkind.

I STILL think Dan Tufy is a sweetheart.

Scaris

I thought I should chuck it up in here since Tiamat states they were informed about the interview during the summer. I probably missed your seperate thread about this, sorry Signe!

Signe

No worries... I don't care how many times these things are posted. I am absolutely amazed, however, that these guys have come back in any form, as if they've done nothing wrong, to stick it to whoever they haven't stuck it to before... umm... you know what I mean. It's the height of arrogance. Are they daft? Can it work again? People fall for all sorts of things, so you never know. It's like an MMO soap opera, innit?

Scaris

Well considering there is about ohhhhhh, 5 whole people over in their forums, I don't think it will sail again.