My journey with CoE - and some thoughts about the lost money.

Costanius · April 2020

Hi guys,

I have played and betatested MMOs since the year 2000. In this post I would like to write about my journey with CoE and explain why I got lured into it backing it with a mayor pledge in 2017.

I observed the original kickstarter being successful and read many articles and interviews about CoE in 2016. Then in 2017 I pledged for a mayor title to support this project and joined one of the virtual kingdoms.

So why did I pledge in 2017 and why didn't potential flaws and problems concern me too much back then?

1. I like small innovative indie MMOs and played and betatested many of them during the years. Games like World War II Online (still running after 19 years!), A Tale in the Desert, Gloria Victis, Dual Universe and many others show that there are niche markets for games like this and that indie studios on a small budget CAN make playable MMOs which can also last many years. Life is Feudal and Gloria Victis were able to make "minimal viable playable products / MMOs" on very low budgets. So no red flag here.

2. The hunger for new innovative MMO concepts. The features and design of CoE got me. A low fantasy medieval MMO with a player-run economy and political system, where player actions and interactions count and have impact on the game was something I was looking for for a long time already. I also liked the idea of player character life cycles and family dynasties and the payment model being tied into the character lifespan (sparks of life). I still think its a cool and innovative idea. And I was not alone. Apparently many other were thinking the same and supporting the kickstarter. So I thought this game and concept has enough potential and community support for being successful. And for atrracting additional investors! The game hit a sweet spot within me so my critical judgement was lowered.

3. SpatialOS was a new big thing in the MMO engine world back then and Improbable got huge and serious funding from investors. They offered support for new and indie MMO projects promising to help them build huge MMO worlds with thousands of players in huge gameworlds. CoE going for SpatialOS made sense to me and it looked promising. No red flag here.

4. Getting seed money from kickstarter to make a "minimal viable playable product" to show to investors for additional money was something I got mixed feelings about, but it didn't concern me too much back then because other projects did the same and were successful with it! Dual Universe did exactly the same! They explicitely stated that their kickstarter was just the beginning to show outside investors that there is enough support from players to make such a MMO and that players are willing to support it. So after the kickstarter of Dual Universe was successful Novaquark got many millions of private investor money. In 2019 they got another round of investor money, they are will 11+ million $s now and opened a second studio in Montreal and hired additional 30+ staff. That project is well on track...

So no redf flag here. It sounded plausible to me. If Novaquark can do it with Dual Universe, why not Sbs with CoE? And the community supporting CoE was even bigger than the community around DU at that time. In my opinion it shouldn't be a problem finding investors. And in the US there is this start-up culture with angel investors and investors supporting all kind of innovative projects, isn't it? More than in most countries in the world.

So I backed and supported CoE shortly after their successful kickstarter and pledged for a mayor package. It was my first crowdfunding pledge at all.

But after a while some questions arised. Why did european developer Novaquark got 11 mill $ private investor money for Dual Universe and us-based Sbs didn't?

The answer: NQ already had a working and playable game prototype for Dual Universe up and running with core features already in place. They had that developed before going for kickstarter and investors!

And i wrongly assumed CoE had the same! That was my big mistake!

I ASSUMED You normally have a working prototype of the game BEFORE going to kickstarter and that there is one for CoE as well. Probably I got also deceived by screenshots and videos on the CoE website.

The first red flag arised when they just started moving into a new office and hiring staff AFTER the kickstarter. Don't You do this before that? Didn't they show a staffed studio and gameplay footage in the kickstarter videos? Isn't there a game prototype already?

When they went to PAX East to show their game to investors and there was no result out if it and no investor showed up afterwards I got even more concerned. Because everybody knew they wouldn't be able to make CoE with the crowdfunded money.

Another red flag was feature creep and they talking about very detailled features in videos and dev blog posts. It was obvious that it all was way too ambitious for the studio, size of staff and funding they had.

And the biggest red flag for me finally was when they dropped SpatialOS. SpatialOS was supposed to make the MMO world possible. At that point and without having any additional investors or way more new staff I knew this project wasn't going anywhere.

So why did so many people back this project, me included? It was because we all want a new innovative MMO like CoE was offered in its initial game concept. A low fantasy medieval MMO with player-run economy, player dynasties, a player-run political system and land management. It was too ambitious, yes, but Gloria Victis and Life is Feudal managed to get a "minimal viable playable product" out the door on a very low budget, so I thought it was possible for CoE as well.

So You see why I backed it. Partly based on information available and visible at that time. And partly because on wrong assumptions and overlooking some early flaws and signs.

The question is: Is my pledged money completely lost? In the literal sense it is lost, obviously: There is no playable game and that money is gone. I can't buy anything else with it.
But on the other hand my pledge and the 8 million $s raised by backers are a clear sign and indication that there is a market for a game like CoE, that people want a MMO like CoE and are willing to support it with money and with their time building communities.

So if another developer will realize this, will pick up the idea and concept of CoE and will make a MMO with features similiar to CoE someday in the future, I won't consider my money being completely lost.
If done right by trimming the overloaded features and ironing out the flaws, a MMO based on CoE could be a huge success. The community and the hunger for new innovative MMOs like CoE is there and waiting for it!

Sovrath · April 2020

Yes it is.

Scorchien · April 2020

Your money was lost the very moment you handed it to Caspien

crankked · April 2020

Made a bunch of bad assumptions.

Threw money directly into the toilet and flushed.

Lesson learned?

We shall see.

Slapshot1188 · April 2020

You wrongly assume that this was some kind of demonstration of a large community. As I said in the other thread, I would estimate the community to be 12-15k players. Of those 12-15k there were factions that were there because of various promises in the design, many of which were in conflict with each other and thus were doomed for eventual disappointment.

The CoE fanbase was dedicated and had deep pockets, but do not confuse that for size. It was a niche of a niche. When they opened up the Settlers of Elyria event, the new players joining were just a trickle.

Kyleran · April 2020

Let me the first person to reply who actually read your OP, since clearly none managed to reach the bottom and are just responding to your title.

While COE might have proved there is some interest in the features and designs which has been promised, realize even armchair developers understand the amount of money required to attempt to deliver such far exceeds the target niche market.

I recall back in 2002 when I first played Lineage 1, the Bloodpledge and discovered the “wonder” of online virtual worlds, being totally enthralled by the opportunities they presented.

So I showed it to several gaming friends, excitedly telling them how great this was going to be, however to my surprise, their reaction was largely summed up as, “Why would I want to live in a virtual world?”

They had no interest, they just wanted to “play games”, when the mood suited them, and you know what, that describes pretty much the majority of the market then and especially today.

You mentioned several smaller indie efforts in the OP, but realize almost all are focusing on delivery a much smaller feature set, targeted at a specific niche, and not trying to deliver all things to everyone.

It isn’t just a matter of money, look at Star Citizen, despite having a near endless supply of funds, their extremely ambitious development effort continues to roll on and on with no release date in sight.........

Costanius · April 2020

crankked said:

<Made a bunch of bad assumptions.

Yes I did. Based on the information available in 2016/2017. At the end of 2017 the red flags became obvious and I stopped supporting it.

<Threw money directly into the toilet and flushed.
Probably. Did You read the last part of my article?

<Lesson learned?
The lesson learned many years ago is that small indie MMO projects and dev studios can't exist without the backing of the community. If You are satisfied with WoW and its clones, ok! Without community backing and /or crowdfunding there won't be a WWII Online (which is still active and running 19 years !! later) a Tale in the Desert, Gloria Victis, Life is Feudal, Dual Universe or Star Citizen. Without a successful kickstarter there won't be Dual Universe. I backed and enjoy every Alpha test session. After observing SC for 5 years I finally got in with a small pledge and enjoy playing SC Alpha. So out of several indie MMO projects I supported over the years one has failed now. Even Star Wars Galaxies failed and they had a big company behind it. The lesson to be learned here is MMOs developed by big companies lack innovation and can fail if they ignore the community. And that innovative and community-focused MMOs are developed by smaller and more indie dev studios mainly.

@Sovrath

@Sorchien

You did only read the headline, did You?

Scorchien · April 2020

Costanius said:

crankked said:

<Made a bunch of bad assumptions.

Yes I did. Based on the information available in 2016/2017. At the end of 2017 the red flags became obvious and I stopped supporting it.

<Threw money directly into the toilet and flushed.
Probably. Did You read the last part of my article?

<Lesson learned?
The lesson learned many years ago is that small indie MMO projects and dev studios can't exist without the backing of the community. If You are satisfied with WoW and its clones, ok! Without community backing and /or crowdfunding there won't be a WWII Online (which is still active and running 19 years !! later) a Tale in the Desert, Gloria Victis, Life is Feudal, Dual Universe or Star Citizen. Without a successful kickstarter there won't be Dual Universe. I backed and enjoy every Alpha test session. After observing SC for 5 years I finally got in with a small pledge and enjoy playing SC Alpha. So out of several indie MMO projects I supported over the years one has failed now. Even Star Wars Galaxies failed and they had a big company behind it. The lesson to be learned here is MMOs developed by big companies lack innovation and can fail if they ignore the community. And that innovative and community-focused MMOs are developed by smaller and more indie dev studios mainly.

@Sovrath
@Sorchien
You did only read the headline, did You?

Read it all , does not change my response

Costanius · April 2020

Slapshot1188 said:

You wrongly assume that this was some kind of demonstration of a large community. As I said in the other thread, I would estimate the community to be 12-15k players. Of those 12-15k there were factions that were there because of various promises in the design, many of which were in conflict with each other and thus were doomed for eventual disappointment.

The CoE fanbase was dedicated and had deep pockets, but do not confuse that for size. It was a niche of a niche. When they opened up the Settlers of Elyria event, the new players joining were just a trickle.

Depends on what You compare it with. With WoW or Star Citizen, sure. In comparision to other smaller indie MMOs like Gloria Victis etc the playerbase of CoE was quite significant in my opinion. And on kickstarter it was one of the bigger successfully funded gaming projects compared to most others!

The community that pledged for titles and was active on the forums and in the virtual kingdoms were the diehard fans and backers, I agree. But I still think it had many more lurkers checking in on the progress from time to time and it had the potential to attract even many more people if they had a playable game prototype and some progress to show. We had about 400+ members in our kindom discord but only about 20-30 or so being active on a regular basis.

Settlers of Elyria was way too late in this context and many had left the project and lost interest already. And at that time also some warned new people already about CoE going nowhere. And there was no progress so even new people were more cautious and less hyped then.

So my point is: If even smaller indie MMOs with a smaller playerbase can exist for many years and find their niche why not CoE with a bigger supporter base and the potential for many more? In comparision with the many other problems and flaws of CoE I don't see this as a problem.

Slapshot1188 · April 2020

Costanius said:

Slapshot1188 said:

You wrongly assume that this was some kind of demonstration of a large community. As I said in the other thread, I would estimate the community to be 12-15k players. Of those 12-15k there were factions that were there because of various promises in the design, many of which were in conflict with each other and thus were doomed for eventual disappointment.

The CoE fanbase was dedicated and had deep pockets, but do not confuse that for size. It was a niche of a niche. When they opened up the Settlers of Elyria event, the new players joining were just a trickle.

Depends on what You compare it with. With WoW or Star Citizen, sure. In comparision to other smaller indie MMOs like Gloria Victis etc the playerbase of CoE was quite significant in my opinion. And on kickstarter it was one of the bigger successfully funded gaming projects compared to most others!

The community that pledged for titles and was active on the forums and in the virtual kingdoms were the diehard fans and backers, I agree. But I still think it had many more lurkers checking in on the progress from time to time and it had the potential to attract even many more people if they had a playable game prototype and some progress to show. We had about 400+ members in our kindom discord but only about 20-30 or so being active on a regular basis.
Settlers of Elyria was way too late in this context and many had left the project and lost interest already. And at that time also some warned new people already about CoE going nowhere. And there was no progress so even new people were more cautious and less hyped then.

So my point is: If even smaller indie MMOs with a smaller playerbase can exist for many years and find their niche why not CoE with a bigger supporter base and the potential for many more? In comparision with the many other problems and flaws of CoE I don't see this as a problem.

They exist because their scope was far less and thus their need for revenue was far less.

Also, CoE took in FAR more money per player than those other examples you gave. But again, do not confuse dedication with breadth.

Finally, as I stated... CoE promised to be all things to all people. That was fine while the game was in fantasyland theoretical stage. Once the mechanics were actually instituted you would have had sections of that niche of a niche that were diametrically opposite and thus frustrated that "their" vision was not delivered.

@kyleran I read it entirely and responded. Why so snarky?

TEKK3N · April 2020

CoE was a scam, I keep saying that because people are still discussing on the whys the game failed.

It failed because there was never the intention to make an actual game.

They stole art from the net to make their own artwork and the only playable thing they had was a Unreal Mod bought on the marketplace.

They wrote zero code for this game, which was obvious considering that in 5 years they had no gameplay to show.

Unfortunately for some people even a red flag the size of Africa wouldn't be enough.

ayndre · April 2020

TEKK3N said:

CoE was a scam, I keep saying that because people are still discussing on the whys the game failed.

It failed because there was never the intention to make an actual game.

They stole art from the net to make their own artwork and the only playable thing they had was a Unreal Mod bought on the marketplace.

They wrote zero code for this game, which was obvious considering that in 5 years they had no gameplay to show.

Unfortunately for some people even a red flag the size of Africa wouldn't be enough.

Amen.

It seemed too good to be true from the very beginning.

crankked · April 2020

Costanius said:

crankked said:

<Made a bunch of bad assumptions.

Yes I did. Based on the information available in 2016/2017. At the end of 2017 the red flags became obvious and I stopped supporting it.

<Threw money directly into the toilet and flushed.
Probably. Did You read the last part of my article?

<Lesson learned?
The lesson learned many years ago is that small indie MMO projects and dev studios can't exist without the backing of the community. If You are satisfied with WoW and its clones, ok! Without community backing and /or crowdfunding there won't be a WWII Online (which is still active and running 19 years !! later) a Tale in the Desert, Gloria Victis, Life is Feudal, Dual Universe or Star Citizen. Without a successful kickstarter there won't be Dual Universe. I backed and enjoy every Alpha test session. After observing SC for 5 years I finally got in with a small pledge and enjoy playing SC Alpha. So out of several indie MMO projects I supported over the years one has failed now. Even Star Wars Galaxies failed and they had a big company behind it. The lesson to be learned here is MMOs developed by big companies lack innovation and can fail if they ignore the community. And that innovative and community-focused MMOs are developed by smaller and more indie dev studios mainly.

@Sovrath
@Sorchien
You did only read the headline, did You?

Honestly, no. I read most of it, but I began to get bored and realized you were in essence trying to use mental gymnastics to feel better about being duped.

My response still stands.

Iselin · April 2020

We all want new, innovative MMOs with cool features. It's why we;re here. Most of us however are perfectly fine waiting for such a thing to be delivered, if it ever is, without feeling a need to try to make it happen by throwing money at any Tom, Dick or Harry who say they can do it.

The crazy money raised for extremely iffy KS projects is really all about trying to make you feel responsible for the state of the MMORPG genre and counting on the fact that you're not just an MMO consumer who consumes finished products but someone who has taken the next step into super fandom with dreams of influence.

There's a lot of foolishly misguided pride in that as evidenced by the many passionate supporter posts and contorted, post-mortem rationalizations like yours.

Sorry you and others lost your money. If anything positive comes out of this for you is that you hopeful;y learned to keep your dreams about future MMOs in your imagination where they belong and zipper your money hole when the next guy with a great idea comes along and wants your money 7 years ahead of time.

ChildoftheShadows · April 2020

The blame is all on Caspien and his family/friends/whoever was in on it. Period.

Kyleran · April 2020

Slapshot1188 said:

Costanius said:

Slapshot1188 said:

You wrongly assume that this was some kind of demonstration of a large community. As I said in the other thread, I would estimate the community to be 12-15k players. Of those 12-15k there were factions that were there because of various promises in the design, many of which were in conflict with each other and thus were doomed for eventual disappointment.

The CoE fanbase was dedicated and had deep pockets, but do not confuse that for size. It was a niche of a niche. When they opened up the Settlers of Elyria event, the new players joining were just a trickle.

Depends on what You compare it with. With WoW or Star Citizen, sure. In comparision to other smaller indie MMOs like Gloria Victis etc the playerbase of CoE was quite significant in my opinion. And on kickstarter it was one of the bigger successfully funded gaming projects compared to most others!

The community that pledged for titles and was active on the forums and in the virtual kingdoms were the diehard fans and backers, I agree. But I still think it had many more lurkers checking in on the progress from time to time and it had the potential to attract even many more people if they had a playable game prototype and some progress to show. We had about 400+ members in our kindom discord but only about 20-30 or so being active on a regular basis.
Settlers of Elyria was way too late in this context and many had left the project and lost interest already. And at that time also some warned new people already about CoE going nowhere. And there was no progress so even new people were more cautious and less hyped then.

So my point is: If even smaller indie MMOs with a smaller playerbase can exist for many years and find their niche why not CoE with a bigger supporter base and the potential for many more? In comparision with the many other problems and flaws of CoE I don't see this as a problem.

They exist because their scope was far less and thus their need for revenue was far less.

Also, CoE took in FAR more money per player than those other examples you gave. But again, do not confuse dedication with breadth.

Finally, as I stated... CoE promised to be all things to all people. That was fine while the game was in fantasyland theoretical stage. Once the mechanics were actually instituted you would have had sections of that niche of a niche that were diametrically opposite and thus frustrated that "their" vision was not delivered.

@kyleran I read it entirely and responded. Why so snarky?

Your post wasn't yet there when I started crafting mine.

OrangeBoy · April 2020

Don't worry, there might be a silver lining for the money.

ChildoftheShadows · April 2020

OrangeBoy said:

Don't worry, there might be a silver lining for the money.

No.

Nilden · April 2020

ChildoftheShadows said:

The blame is all on Caspien and his family/friends/whoever was in on it. Period.

I dunno it's a two way street to make that money change hands.

If you thought they could make a fully functional MMORPG with the features they promised for 900k in a year...

If you thought paying 10k to be a king in a MMORPG about territory control, pvp, and titles was a good idea, saw the cash shop life spark idea, and still wanted to give them money...

Obviously these people were lied to and taken advantage of.

I just think with a bit of common sense this never would have made it off the ground. I guess there is a market for people who are willing to pay to have a game like this that doesn't even exist. To the tune of 8 million.

Maybe it's just me but if you want my money I need an actual game to play.

ChildoftheShadows · April 2020

Nilden said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

The blame is all on Caspien and his family/friends/whoever was in on it. Period.

I dunno it's a two way street to make that money change hands.

If you thought they could make a fully functional MMORPG with the features they promised for 900k in a year...

If you thought paying 10k to be a king in a MMORPG about territory control, pvp, and titles was a good idea, saw the cash shop life spark idea, and still wanted to give them money...

Obviously these people were lied to and taken advantage of.

I just think with a bit of common sense this never would have made it off the ground. I guess there is a market for people who are willing to pay to have a game like this that doesn't even exist. To the tune of 8 million.

Maybe it's just me but if you want my money I need an actual game to play.

Being naïve or gullible doesn’t make someone guilty. There is only one side to blame here.

Slapshot1188 · April 2020

ChildoftheShadows said:

Nilden said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

The blame is all on Caspien and his family/friends/whoever was in on it. Period.

I dunno it's a two way street to make that money change hands.

If you thought they could make a fully functional MMORPG with the features they promised for 900k in a year...

If you thought paying 10k to be a king in a MMORPG about territory control, pvp, and titles was a good idea, saw the cash shop life spark idea, and still wanted to give them money...

Obviously these people were lied to and taken advantage of.

I just think with a bit of common sense this never would have made it off the ground. I guess there is a market for people who are willing to pay to have a game like this that doesn't even exist. To the tune of 8 million.

Maybe it's just me but if you want my money I need an actual game to play.

Being naïve or gullible doesn’t make someone guilty. There is only one side to blame here.

I disagree. Walsh certainly deserves the lion's share of the blame but there were plenty of folks that assisted him. If you played the role of "useful idiot" and helped sucker other people into this then yeah, you own some of that.

Nilden · April 2020

Slapshot1188 said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

Nilden said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

The blame is all on Caspien and his family/friends/whoever was in on it. Period.

I dunno it's a two way street to make that money change hands.

If you thought they could make a fully functional MMORPG with the features they promised for 900k in a year...

If you thought paying 10k to be a king in a MMORPG about territory control, pvp, and titles was a good idea, saw the cash shop life spark idea, and still wanted to give them money...

Obviously these people were lied to and taken advantage of.

I just think with a bit of common sense this never would have made it off the ground. I guess there is a market for people who are willing to pay to have a game like this that doesn't even exist. To the tune of 8 million.

Maybe it's just me but if you want my money I need an actual game to play.

Being naïve or gullible doesn’t make someone guilty. There is only one side to blame here.

I disagree. Walsh certainly deserves the lion's share of the blame but there were plenty of folks that assisted him. If you played the role of "useful idiot" and helped sucker other people into this then yeah, you own some of that.

You mean like the MMORPG sites that helped spread the news and were just free PR for this scam?

This is where I am most inclined to hand wave away the naive and gullible defense.

The industry insiders should have known how much money and time it takes to make an MMORPG or at the very least ballpark it or google it. There was very little actual journalism done here and they pretty much just posted whatever they got from them.

Was what 3 years in or so before we saw a mildly critical article here and Caspian had a tantrum and wouldn't give MMORPG.com any more exclusives, lol.

After how many years of puff pieces?

He didn't take 8 million dollars from people by himself he had help. Might not have been intended to help sucker people but ended up being "useful idiots" and did.

ChildoftheShadows · April 2020

Slapshot1188 said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

Nilden said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

The blame is all on Caspien and his family/friends/whoever was in on it. Period.

I dunno it's a two way street to make that money change hands.

If you thought they could make a fully functional MMORPG with the features they promised for 900k in a year...

If you thought paying 10k to be a king in a MMORPG about territory control, pvp, and titles was a good idea, saw the cash shop life spark idea, and still wanted to give them money...

Obviously these people were lied to and taken advantage of.

I just think with a bit of common sense this never would have made it off the ground. I guess there is a market for people who are willing to pay to have a game like this that doesn't even exist. To the tune of 8 million.

Maybe it's just me but if you want my money I need an actual game to play.

Being naïve or gullible doesn’t make someone guilty. There is only one side to blame here.

I disagree. Walsh certainly deserves the lion's share of the blame but there were plenty of folks that assisted him. If you played the role of "useful idiot" and helped sucker other people into this then yeah, you own some of that.

Assisting and getting scammed are not the same thing. I said one side is to blame and that’s his side. The people who got scammed are not to blame. Period. It’s fucking shameful anyone would think otherwise.

Nilden said:

Slapshot1188 said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

Nilden said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

The blame is all on Caspien and his family/friends/whoever was in on it. Period.

I dunno it's a two way street to make that money change hands.

If you thought they could make a fully functional MMORPG with the features they promised for 900k in a year...

If you thought paying 10k to be a king in a MMORPG about territory control, pvp, and titles was a good idea, saw the cash shop life spark idea, and still wanted to give them money...

Obviously these people were lied to and taken advantage of.

I just think with a bit of common sense this never would have made it off the ground. I guess there is a market for people who are willing to pay to have a game like this that doesn't even exist. To the tune of 8 million.

Maybe it's just me but if you want my money I need an actual game to play.

Being naïve or gullible doesn’t make someone guilty. There is only one side to blame here.

I disagree. Walsh certainly deserves the lion's share of the blame but there were plenty of folks that assisted him. If you played the role of "useful idiot" and helped sucker other people into this then yeah, you own some of that.

You mean like the MMORPG sites that helped spread the news and were just free PR for this scam?

This is where I am most inclined to hand wave away the naive and gullible defense.

The industry insiders should have known how much money and time it takes to make an MMORPG or at the very least ballpark it or google it. There was very little actual journalism done here and they pretty much just posted whatever they got from them.

Was what 3 years in or so before we saw a mildly critical article here and Caspian had a tantrum and wouldn't give MMORPG.com any more exclusives, lol.

After how many years of puff pieces?

He didn't take 8 million dollars from people by himself he had help. Might not have been intended to help sucker people but ended up being "useful idiots" and did.

News sites are suppose to report news. That’s their job.

AnOldFart · April 2020

Slapshot1188 said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

Nilden said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

The blame is all on Caspien and his family/friends/whoever was in on it. Period.

I dunno it's a two way street to make that money change hands.

If you thought they could make a fully functional MMORPG with the features they promised for 900k in a year...

If you thought paying 10k to be a king in a MMORPG about territory control, pvp, and titles was a good idea, saw the cash shop life spark idea, and still wanted to give them money...

Obviously these people were lied to and taken advantage of.

I just think with a bit of common sense this never would have made it off the ground. I guess there is a market for people who are willing to pay to have a game like this that doesn't even exist. To the tune of 8 million.

Maybe it's just me but if you want my money I need an actual game to play.

Being naïve or gullible doesn’t make someone guilty. There is only one side to blame here.

I disagree. Walsh certainly deserves the lion's share of the blame but there were plenty of folks that assisted him. If you played the role of "useful idiot" and helped sucker other people into this then yeah, you own some of that.

I am just glad that although I pledged and lost in the region of £250 (money I was willing to write off and a drop in the ocean), I did not convince any of my mates to also pledge.

I told them about the game, said it sounded awesome, but also told them it's a game in early development, save your money and wait for release

Wizardry · April 2020

You can have or want lot's of things out of life ,heck grasp for hundreds of things,ideas,it doesn't mean you just throw money at everyone you see.
I want healthier fast food,maybe we should throw money at all the fast food joints.

Economics class 101..You are NOT investing,you are giving FREE money to someone you don't even know.If someone walked up to you on the street with a promise that sounded amazing,would you give them money?Nope you would likely not even stop to listen.

Stick the internet between two faces and all of a sudden people become a lot dumber,oh sure i'll give you some money,here how much you want !!.

Kyleran · April 2020

Assisting and getting scammed are not the same thing. I said one side is to blame and that’s his side. The people who got scammed are not to blame. Period. It’s fucking shameful anyone would think otherwise.

Nilden said:

Slapshot1188 said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

Nilden said:

ChildoftheShadows said:

The blame is all on Caspien and his family/friends/whoever was in on it. Period.

I dunno it's a two way street to make that money change hands.

Was what 3 years in or so before we saw a mildly critical article here and Caspian had a tantrum and wouldn't give MMORPG.com any more exclusives, lol.

After how many years of puff pieces?

He didn't take 8 million dollars from people by himself he had help. Might not have been intended to help sucker people but ended up being "useful idiots" and did.

News sites are suppose to report news. That’s their job.

I believe you are thinking of a wire services not a news site.

Its almost as if no one remembers when "news" media used to do investigative reporting....

Trouble is, you can't really be too critical of the very people who pay for the advertising, providing the actual games to be reviewed to keep the lights on.......

Its not like they are Consumer Reports or something.....

Howdy, Stranger!

My journey with CoE - and some thoughts about the lost money.

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Howdy, Stranger!

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My journey with CoE - and some thoughts about the lost money.

Comments

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV