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Greed Monger switches back to Unity and Forums get Removed!
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The best part is, that if he actually did sue his posts would be used against him. How is it going to look to a jury if he cries about forum trolls, and the defense offers posts of him trolling. So funny, if it weren't so pathetic.
Did you miss the " I also have a day job in finance" part? So it is enough that it hurts the income from that job.
I disagree. And the individuals in question are not teenagers.
I understand that being held accountable for something enjoyed for so long is difficult to cope with for some and I'm the grinch that stole Christmas. I'm ok with that. When GM launches, everyone is welcome to bash the game as they wish regardless of actual quality as I'm sure many here will. Your dictionary definitions of slander and defamation didn't help those who lost the cases listed and there are countless more such cases available online.
In any case, I wish you all a good afternoon. Back to work for me!
www.greedmonger.com
Did you like Ultima Online? Then you'll LOVE Greed Monger!
How would forum trolls hurt his day job's income? They aren't attack his ability to do that job, they are attacking the credibility of his game.
You must know this guy, or be a troll.
This is so true. If you really want all of this to stop you need to stop posting. I understand that you want to try and prove your point and defend yourself. However, you are not helping this to go away.
This thread has like 16 pages and has been going on for days. It is a game I had never heard of. So if you are looking for publicity you have gotten it. If you are looking to bring the situation to an end you have failed. You seriously need to hire some professional PR people instead of lawyers.
Accept for all of the damage caused to his personal life is because of his own participation on this forum.
Go figure.
Hi
Exactly, this thread was stagnating before Bill's statement. And was beginning to slow down again, then Mogus comes in here and takes it into overdrive.
Hi
I feel sorry for you. Those cases you listed are light years away from your supposed gripes. You are destroying any chance your game had at success by alienating us, you know, the people who pay for the god damn thing.
I suspected you thought a lot of yourself, but if you believe YOU are going to stop forum trolling as we know it, then I cannot begin to comprehend such an ego.
Have a good day at work. I really do hope you change your tune, and try to endear yourself to the community in the future.
A woman who did not appear for a case because her house was flooded. Unless you are hoping for a natural disaster to happen around where MMORPG.com is HQed I do not think things will be so easy for you. Also t
Also MMorpg.com is concidered a distributer of information not a publisher in the case of forums.
http://www.webmaster-talk.com/liability-and-legality/214498-how-avoid-liability-libelous-comments-my.html
Basically this is like you sueing the newspaper boy because you do not like an artcile in the paper he delivers.
Because finance requires trust and people know how to google. Which is one of the reasons why I would never ever let my real name get out in the internet in connection to any game forum whatsoever. Because people can troll all day long and attempt to hide behind the anonymity.
I've trolled too sometimes XD, but not in this thread.
Well my nickle law degree tells me that a person who makes themselves a public figure is going to have a hard time suing people who question the credibility of a project that was also made public.
I'm so sure that John Riccitiello, John Smedley, Richard Garriot or any other game publisher/developer consults their lawyer every time some random guy on the Internet claims they eat babies. The fact of the matter is that he's giving a lot more weight to what random faceless forum posters think than is warrented. No one in the professional world is going to really care what "Random Forum Poster #3572" thinks of Jason Appleton or Greed Monger. This whole fiasco could have been avoided if Mr. Appleton did what every other developer does when this kind of stuff happens... Ignore it and move on.
Jason - I know it's really hard to take when people are making claims about you or your project that may or may not be true. The truth of the matter is that there is nothing you can really do about it as if you do their voices are just going to get louder as has happened here. If you had of just ignored it and pressed on with the development of your game it would have died down eventually as you released more information in the future. The only thing you can do is press on with your development and prove them wrong. You created this current situation by trying to silence your critics. This was a huge blunder on your part.
You've put yourself in the game development spotlight which means you are going to have supporters and critics... There is no middle ground. People are either going to love you or hate you... again there is no middle ground. You've got to develop some pretty thick skin and take the bad with the good. Does it really matter what some random guy on the Internet thinks of you or your game? No, all that matters is what you know to be true. Does it really matter that random faceless forum poster #23856 thinks you are a scammer? No, it doesn't. You need to let people say whatever they want and prove them wrong through your actions like every other developer does. If you want to be a game developer it's not an easy profession as you will have people claiming all kinds of crap about you. It goes with the job and you need to learn to take it and move on. This is what every other developer does.
Do you think you or your game is unique? Ask Tasos Flambouras the lead developer for Darkfall what was being said about him or his game while it was in development. Ask John Smedley what was being said about him personally during the Star Wars Galaxies NGE fiasco. Ask Richard Garriot what was being said about him when he left NCSoft and TR got canned. I could site about a hundred more examples. Better yet... Go to any game in development on this forum right now and see what is being said about it. The point is you are not unique and this happens quite regularly.
The only way out for you at this point is to develop your game and release it. If it's any good at all none of this will matter or be remembered by anyone. This should be your main focus at this point and not what some random forum posters are saying about you or your game.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
That depends on how one questions it, now does it? In theory, not every method is acceptable.
Did you win?
While he might have cases against some posters, he does not have a case against MMORPG.com.
Is this the new form of crowdfunding?
SUEFUNDING!
Have a game you want to create? Make a bunch of erratic posts and when the gaming community lashes out at you SUE THEM! You'll be funded in no time!
Seriously... One of the biggest "bad boy" developers out there Derrick Smart had a lot more class defending Alganon.
This guy (JA) even makes Tasos Flambouras look like a pail of kittens.
I would think that all of these actions and poor tact, letting a bunch of forum posters get under your skin then threatening legal action is a sure fire way to have teh entire gaming community black list any project you or your company is associated with. But thats just my speculation.
What are your other Hobbies?
Gaming is Dirt Cheap compared to this...
Some unwanted advice that you probably won't follow:
1) Don't sue if you can't get much money from it. Even if you could prove that some forum trolls did harm your reputation and that that harmed your game, what sort of damages would you expect from it? Tens of dollars? Hundreds? Surely not more than a tiny fraction of your $90k game. And surely not enough to cover your own lawyer fees. Furthermore, don't sue someone who doesn't have the money to pay. Forum trolls tend not to have much money.
2) If you're not going to sue, then don't dance around the issue and claim that you could sue and win and try to give the impression that you might, while stopping just short of explicitly threatening a lawsuit.
3) If you do try to give the impression that you might sue for defamation, don't then immediately come out and deny that you ever threatened a lawsuit, even as you threaten to threaten a lawsuit in the same forum post. That only makes it look like you're a liar, confused, thin-skinned, and/or incompetent.
4) If you can't deal with forum trolls, then you picked the wrong industry to work in. Forum trolls saying unjustifiably nasty things about your game is one of the occupational hazards of being a game developer. Either learn how to handle it without making yourself look bad (JamesP could offer you some advice here), or get out of the industry.
Defamation lawsuits can seriously backfire. Ask Oscar Wilde about that.
I think you have made some very valid points and I agree with them completely. However, in #4 of your statement you are referring to people saying things about the game. That is not at all what I'm concerned with. My issues are with the regular stream of accusations of me, me personally, being a scam artist, a con man, a liar, a crook etc. Simply for getting a game funded on Kickstarter. This is where I have to draw the line. As I've said, I'm in the finance industry and am licensed in my industry in multiple states. You have to go through significant background checks and the like just to get your licenses. If I'm working on a loan for someone in their 70's and they decide to google me out of curiosity and find some forum thread accusing me of being a scam artist, that person may not understand that it's a typical forum troll or that it's a post about a game etc. Then I lose thousands in revenue every time that happens.
My point in all of this, is that the flaming and trolling has simply gone too far here and it's time for it to stop. I feel I did my part to protect mmorpg by sending them the email requesting these threads be pulled from the site, not because I wanted to take legal action against the site, but because if I do take legal action against some of the members and the site is the vehicle with the means of getting rid of such material and chose not to, then it just wouldn't be a good thing for anyone. I'm not trying to make a profit from this situation. As I said, I simply want the falsehoods to stop. I've sent notices to some of those involved to refrain from their activies with a final and fair warning, in private. Its up to them if they want to roll the dice and carry on. They know what they are doing. They aren't children.
I've supported mmorpg financially in the past, I've been a member here for years (mostly a lurker admittedly) and things its a great resource for mmorpg gaming. However, these forums have devolved a great deal over the years because of a lack of control over and community standards. I just recieved a private message from someone who is considering deleting their account entirely because of how bad things have gotten and they feel they can no longer enjoy the community. It's just become so negative around here. This community isn't a community anymore. It's a gathering of people always seeking something else to vent their frustrations on.
In summary, I'm responding to you because I respect your post for what it is. I've been dancing around this for a while, I've stayed away from the site for the most part, but now the same people in question have begun posting links to these threads all over the place. It's not a matter of ignoring these people anymore. It's the principle of right and wrong. And don't worry about my legal fees, my lawyer is a member of my Lodge and a close brother.
www.greedmonger.com
Did you like Ultima Online? Then you'll LOVE Greed Monger!
If this is true than you need to get out of game development as it's going to happen no matter what you do or no matter how many people you try to sue. It seems to me you need to make a choice... Game development or your day job. Being a developer means you are going to have people making claims about you whether they are true or not. If you start to sue people for it you are going to be the talk of the internet and both your game development career and your day job are going to be over in no time. Look at what just threatening to sue has done for you so far... The claims have ramped up ten fold. If you actually start sueing over this those claims are going to bury you because every site on the internet is going to be a buzz with this. Those claims are going to be a hundred fold and what are you going to do then? Sue everybody on the Internet? I think you need to take Quiz's advice and rethink this. Your current path will only lead to one outcome... Destruction for Greed Monger and for you personally.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
So, now you're going to gossip and start badmouthing MMORPG.com.
I don't think I've ever seen someone so shameless in my entire life. Ever. You have no clue when to stop, you just can't. Just keep diggin' though... and diggin' and diggin'...
Incompetent isn't a strong enough word for you. Amazing really.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
you are never right against masses, so, he should stop it already. thats not smart of him still answering.
one thing a lot of users here simply dont want to understand is, that he isnt saying he wants to sue everybody telling bad things about him or the game BUT that one or two persons who are crusading against him. they take it far too far and i understand mr. appleton, who uses real name, real face and real background info, against a army of anonym people, that he want to sue that one person.
i think its not the best way to handle this situation, but i can understand him...
the best way would be, to deliver a good game, or even an average but playable game. thats the only way. and make the second game better, and dont start a new career as a governour or private detective