for trainwreck fans...

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/97610/page/3

has any game so good been so badly mismanaged?

 

---

Originally posted by Zorvan

 WHAT advertising revenue?!? Do you see one single ad from SOE here? If you do, please point it out.

---

There was an ad for EQ recently, and there was one before for an EQ2 expansion i beleive.

 

---

Originally posted by Gonodil

---

Originally posted by Zorvan

 WHAT advertising revenue?!? Do you see one single ad from SOE here? If you do, please point it out.

---

There was an ad for EQ recently, and there was one before for an EQ2 expansion i beleive.
 

---

Ok, I'll grant you that. But compared to games that are advertised here for months at a time? The fact is SOE doesn't advertise here even a third as much as the rest of the games with ads here. And I doubt SOE pays more for their ads than anyone else. So the idea that MMORPG.COM is afraid of losing ad revenue still fails.

 

Bravo! True form of the David Bowman devotee, blame the fans and deny existence of any employee that speaks out against you. And please if you wish to bring legal action against me I welcome it, personally I hope to be in the courtroom the Day the indict Bowman for fraud.

You may return to your sycophantic adulation of a liar and criminal now.

---

Originally posted by Orlena

---

Umm... Glenn Parker and David Spradling?  Who the HECK are they?  Sure as heck not former Tulga employees that worked at Tulga until 2 weeks before EII bought out the game.  I was THERE 2 weeks (about) before the buyout, and there were no people there by those names.

And to set the record straight, Mr. Bowman had nothing to do with the sale of the game until he was told by his boss, the owner, to work with the people at EII to support the transition.  I believe if you look around on this forum and the Gamersinfo.net one, you'll see exactly how much Mr. Bowman knew about the sale and when.  He made an offer to purchase the game himself which was turned down, in fact.  That is how little control he had over the sale to EII.  Sadly it is people such as yourself, martinj63, who are making this messy and should have a  lawsuit brought against them for spreading... well... bullcrap.

---

A big THANK YOU to MMORPG.COM for calling it like it is.  I wrote an email to the fine folks here after I was scammed by EI and asked them to protect fellow gamers from this shady company and today they responded with this excellent report. 

I loved the part where Ed Andercheck gets caught in a huge lie about not having secured the data and how he tried to fishtail his way out of it when they called him on the obvious lie.  He goes on to spin the huge conspiracy theory that there is this big group of liars that are trying to discredit the game.  Well he is partially right in saying that... the group is called EI.

 

Can't wait for part 2... go get 'em.

[quote]Originally posted by martinj63
[b][quote]
 
Bravo! True form of the David Bowman devotee, blame the fans and deny existence of any employee that speaks out against you. [/b][/quote]

Actually, I was in the Tulga offices as well, this past April. I don't recall meeting either of the people you mentioned. The former Tulga employees I spoke with didn't recognize the names, either. Is it possible these people worked for Artifact back in the David Allen era - like five or six years ago?

---

Originally posted by Zorvan

---

Originally posted by Gonodil

---

Originally posted by Zorvan

 WHAT advertising revenue?!? Do you see one single ad from SOE here? If you do, please point it out.

---

There was an ad for EQ recently, and there was one before for an EQ2 expansion i beleive.
 

---

Ok, I'll grant you that. But compared to games that are advertised here for months at a time? The fact is SOE doesn't advertise here even a third as much as the rest of the games with ads here. And I doubt SOE pays more for their ads than anyone else. So the idea that MMORPG.COM is afraid of losing ad revenue still fails.

---

   Thats why majority of mmorpg.com praise goes to the constant avdertisers like EvE and Guild Wars.

In continuation of this Public Relations nightmare, Dr. Raymond C. Rask, President & CTO of EI Interactive responded on August 10th in a forum post that was subsequently deleted but copied and pasted in other forums, informing players that the former method of accepting payments would once again enabled and alleged that uncooperative Tulga employees were delaying the process. 


I was actually the person that posted the post in question. 

I had called Pay-By-Touch after the public announcement was made by EI after the unsecured billing server was taken offline (The one where they stated they were rolling out "Phase 1" of their new billing system..  as if the unsecured server was never brought online).  Anyway, Pay-By-Touch explained that the "Horizons Merchant Account" was closed.. and apparently there was a memo sent to the CSRs there to give a very basic response stating they had nothing to do with EI or Horizons.

I posted about this to the community site, and asked what was going on.  Dr. Rask responded, blaming a lot of things on Tulga. 

The reason why the post was deleted without any notice was that Dr. Rask made very libelous statements regarding Tulga and their involvement in the sale.  When I brought up the issue that the unsecured billing servers violated several state commerce laws protecting consumer financial data, and prevent identity theft.. Dr. Rask consulted legal counsel.  The lawyer on retainer for EI looked over the thread, and explained to Dr. Rask that his post was indeed -very- libelous, and recommended he post an apology and a "retraction" of his earlier comments.

Dr. Rask deleted the post instead.



Also, the date that Nagafen was introduced to the community and communication improved..  a lot happened that day.  They also posted the email addresses for people to email to cancel their subscriptions..  they also announced Dyn and Amadan joining the EI team to work on Horizons.

It just happened that that was the day EI received a certified letter, from the Montana Attorney Generals Office..  Very formal, but very blunt and to the point..   Shape up or ship out.

That is the -ONLY- reason EI decided to get their rears in gear, and why everything all seemed to happen that day.

Coincidentially, myself and several others were banned from the community site..  I was, mainly because I was the first person to bring it to the attention of the AG office, and had been keeping them informed about EI.  I was also very vocal on other sites and forums, informing other players who were being billed without consent, and no way to cancel, who to get a hold of at the AG offices.  And also, my private inbox on the community site had several PMs from Dr Rask and others, including a copy of the "libelous" post  (Dr. Rask CCed me the post to my private message inbox).  So by banning my account, they effectively removed any access I had to those PMs  (It did NOT prevent me from saving them, and print out hardcopies)



Overall, it was not something I -wanted- to do.  I don't like drama..  but I could not sit around and watch people get financially hurt because of the ineptitude and incompetence of a few 'wannabe game developers'.  One person, who lives in Australia.. was billed 14 times, for 1 account.. in under 2 weeks time.  He was hit with overdraft fees for a good 10 of those, and had to close his account to get them to stop.  EI refunded him the money they took, but not the overdraft fees.

So.. I did the morally right thing and alerted the authorities, and in turn EI started to improve.  There is at least somebody from EI now talking to the community, and now that the billing is being handled again by PBT, customers now have a 1-800 number they can call to cancel.

All that comes at a cost.  I am not able to get in contact with any of my friends, or be a part of the community that I once called 'home' for over 2 1/2 years.  I've lost a lot of friends - not cause they don't like me for what I did, but because they don't know what happened or how to get ahold of me, and I can't get a hold of them.

It's sad that you can still be punished for doing the right thing...


I am very glad for this article..  Very concise, and true to the history of the last couple of months since the sale.  There are a few minor things, such as the unsecure data being 'legal'..  which is not so in 14 states, including Montana and California, which have very strict "Identity Theft Prevention" laws on the books.  But since that entails pretty deep knowledge about commerce laws to know what is considered legal and what isn't by the states, it's perfectly understandable for that to be an oversight.

People have made claims that EI has been trying to cover up their mistakes by rewriting history.  The blantant denial by Mr. Andercheck that the unsecured billing server didn't put anyone's financial or personal data at risk, gives quite a bit of credence to such claims.

It is my hope, that with articles like this, future and prospective players will not get double and triple billed like others have before.  Hopefully, the information in an article like this may help them get their issues resolved in their favor..

And also, I hope the rest of the MMO community is watching this..  ESPECIALLY developers and would-be developers.  EI has, the past 3 months, been a SHINING EXAMPLE of what -NOT- to do, when dealing with a community, such as the one that once played Horizons.

-Menkure

---

Originally posted by Menkure


People have made claims that EI has been trying to cover up their mistakes by rewriting history.  The blantant denial by Mr. Andercheck that the unsecured billing server didn't put anyone's financial or personal data at risk, gives quite a bit of credence to such claims.

-Menkure

---

Exactly and right now we have a couple Bowmanites and EI employees, doing damage control wherever they see this story being reported. Their pattern is a simple one. It is the same tactics Bowman used five months after the launch of Horizons when he finally crawled out from hiding under his desk after the single worst launch in MMORPG history.

• Deny the existence of employees that speaks out against them
• Blame the Fans
• Claim that Bowman had no knowledge until it was 'too late"
• Tell people that “its complicated” and they wouldn’t understand.

I'm sorry they dealt you such a crappy hand Mekure, but I am glad that you helped to get the Attorney General involved, because what has transpired is criminal.

 What needs to happen here is the indictment of Rask, Andercheck and Bowman they are equally as guilty and the have cost fans thousands of dollars.  Just look at one example; one fan had 14 non -reimbursed overdraft fees 14 x over draft fees of 25 dollars is 350.00, 350.00 for a lame ass game that has never been functional  and has amounted to a paid Alpha test. An example needs to be made here so other game developers stop and take notice of the consequences of lying and over hyping your product, the example must be a swift, and harsh action that ends with three con-men sitting in a prison cell.

You know...

This is one situation where, I think, SOE taking over could actually be an *improvement* to a game.

Though if they did, the first things they'd do:

- redo the entire battle system (it seems to be their favorite thing to do)
- Making leveling faster
- Removing the sub-classing and class-changing
- Making finding and completing quests trivial
- Dumb down the crafting
- Do whatever else they could to make it more like WoW

Oh wait.. actually I'm describing what they did to EQ2... My bad.

Seriously though...  I think even SOE would be smart enough to stay the hell away from that rolling trainwreck.

I think Horizons needs to just... die. Seriously. Hasn't it been through enough? Just let it go... let it fade into history. I don't say this as a knock against Horizons because I actually played it for a time and thought it had alot of potential; I loved the crafting system. But seriously, this game has been on failing life-support for some time now, and people just don't want to pull the plug.

---

Originally posted by Gorukha

 

   Thats why majority of mmorpg.com praise goes to the constant avdertisers like EvE and Guild Wars.

---

 

Yeah..it has nothing to do with the fact that both games has thousands of fans and a continually growing fan base. If GW continues to grow at its current rate it will catch up with the beloved WoW estimated 1.5-million subscriber base by Next summer.(1.5 million American subs that as been confirmed.... The nebulouse 7 mil Blizzard touts is Worldwide..... and has never once been confirmed by an impartial third party)  Over half a million people currently play GW, and Nightfall was the most pre ordered game at gamestop in Sept  (BC was a distant fourth) 

 EvE  has been bringing in so many new players that CCP is having to deal with issues of how many people can one system hold?  Given the size of a single system that is an enviable problem to have.

One would think that those are as valid reasons for praise than the pittance of revenue this sight might receive.

Yeah..it has nothing to do with the fact that both games has thousands of fans and a continually growing fan base. If

Rarely have I seen a change of ownership in a game accompanied by so much emotion.

There were mistakes that TULGA made and there were mistakes that EII already has made. Of course.

But where is this game now? It is still alive. It is still fun to play. The European players who have had a rough deal with GN shall get a chance to move to a new US shard that will be created for them. This game might just have a future after all.

Unless enough people shall be convinced otherwise thus leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I cannot help but wonder at the motivation behind some of the hate-posts about the new owners -- to me it seems like the reaction of a rejected lover who wishes to destroy what he cannot have.

Oh please, Emo much?

People were lied to and  they were defrauded, and neither Tulga nor EI has made compensation. That my friend is illegal it is unethical and those that perpetrated it should pay with their money and freedom. And from the looks of things they will.

---

Originally posted by snickel
Rarely have I seen a change of ownership in a game accompanied by so much emotion.

There were mistakes that TULGA made and there were mistakes that EII already has made. Of course.

But where is this game now? It is still alive. It is still fun to play. The European players who have had a rough deal with GN shall get a chance to move to a new US shard that will be created for them. This game might just have a future after all.

Unless enough people shall be convinced otherwise thus leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I cannot help but wonder at the motivation behind some of the hate-posts about the new owners -- to me it seems like the reaction of a rejected lover who wishes to destroy what he cannot have.

---

Lmao, so all 15 subscribers got a messed up billing system?

Big whoop, thats what you get for playing this crap game.

---

Originally posted by martinj63

---

Originally posted by Gorukha

 

   Thats why majority of mmorpg.com praise goes to the constant avdertisers like EvE and Guild Wars.

---

 

Yeah..it has nothing to do with the fact that both games has thousands of fans and a continually growing fan base. If GW continues to grow at its current rate it will catch up with the beloved WoW estimated 1.5-million subscriber base by Next summer.(1.5 million American subs that as been confirmed.... The nebulouse 7 mil Blizzard touts is Worldwide..... and has never once been confirmed by an impartial third party)  Over half a million people currently play GW, and Nightfall was the most pre ordered game at gamestop in Sept  (BC was a distant fourth) 

 EvE  has been bringing in so many new players that CCP is having to deal with issues of how many people can one system hold?  Given the size of a single system that is an enviable problem to have.

One would think that those are as valid reasons for praise than the pittance of revenue this sight might receive.

Yeah..it has nothing to do with the fact that both games has thousands of fans and a continually growing fan base. If

---

   GW is growing ? What is your proof ?

   Since when are sales figures supposed to mirror game reviews ? Get high much ?  Any game could hold 30 thousand players in a world thats 99.99 % empty space.  Any game could do it if they wanted to. Let's give a medal for cramming people in a booth.

  

Excellent article, and quite scary to be honest. 

Roll on part two

---

Originally posted by Gorukha

 

   GW is growing ? What is your proof ?

   Since when are sales figures supposed to mirror game reviews ? Get high much ?  Any game could hold 30 thousand players in a world thats 99.99 % empty space.  Any game could do it if they wanted to. Let's give a medal for cramming people in a booth.

  

---

Wow you are completely clueless aren't you?     Can you prove to me they're not? No you can’t, but since you insist on being an Asshat here are some facts;  GW has had to expand its district base four times since factions launched , the sales demand is still such that Arena can still charge initial  SMRP, and both prophecies and Factions is on the auto restock list of EB, and Gamestop. The only other MMORPG that is happening with that isn't an initial release is WoW. 

 

But beyond that; drop in to GW on any night and you will see 70 to 80 active districts each district holds about as many as a WoW server, and unlike WoW you won't log in to find  the server that just opened  is now deserted because The developer is doing anything to cater to the ever dwindling  user base.

 

Now, I am no GW fan fantasy MMOs aren’t my cup of tea, I play because a couple members of my family is into it, anywho  GW is doing way better than most folks think, if not Arena would have dropped the Twice a year expansion scenario.

 

Now on to EvE little man..  I would suggest that you buy a clue about game design and server load management before talking out of your ass.  EvE Client server architecture is far from a phone booth, making that correlation is akin to calling deep blue a calculator; and once again shows that you have zero clue about game design in general and MMORPG design in particular, in fact a game like EvE takes way more resources and cohesive topology than a game like EQ or yes even WoW simply because you are dealing with  a 3d Environment that doesn’t  have the limitations of Newtonian physics, further at any given time there are over 300k call commands from various databases per ship, that’s per ship Skippy, the average MMO might have 350 per toon. Of course I don’t expect you to grock that, just stick with the phone booth theory….that way your brain won’t hurt.

  Yeah you might be right about GW, although I'm not entirely sold on their stellar sucess yet, since I can't find much
info on their running costs and developing budget, casue as you said I'm a little man with little brain.

   As far as the technological side of EvE, I made the comparison because as you see in the reviews, technology isn't exactly one of the criteria .  Games fun and playability isnt judged on how many people can play on one server.  That's something for tech-geeks to drool over not the average gamer sorry.

   EvE has many fans, and I could understand why someone would give it an OK score. However the scores it recieves in many instances, as on this website, really go against reason. Game is hard to get into, it is very slow paced, alot of downtime, months to become competetive in the pvp aspect of it.  These are all arguemnts against the good scores this game recieves.  One more reason not to trust reviews of this site and many others.  EvE constantly advertising on this site and the unimaginably good scores ti recieves doesnt exactly fill me with trust.

 

---

Originally posted by Gorukha
  Yeah you might be right about GW, although I'm not entirely sold on their stellar sucess yet, since I can't find much
info on their running costs and developing budget, casue as you said I'm a little man with little brain.

   As far as the technological side of EvE, I made the comparison because as you see in the reviews, technology isn't exactly one of the criteria .  Games fun and playability isnt judged on how many people can play on one server.  That's something for tech-geeks to drool over not the average gamer sorry.

   EvE has many fans, and I could understand why someone would give it an OK score. However the scores it recieves in many instances, as on this website, really go against reason. Game is hard to get into, it is very slow paced, alot of downtime, months to become competetive in the pvp aspect of it.  These are all arguemnts against the good scores this game recieves.  One more reason not to trust reviews of this site and many others.  EvE constantly advertising on this site and the unimaginably good scores ti recieves doesnt exactly fill me with trust.

 

---

sorry... but EvE is a great game.. one of the best space games i've played.. and an awesome MMO..

Game isn't really all that hard to get into... plus i think the learning curve is one of the good ways to smooth out the player base.. anyways.. I never see large amount of downtime.. but i don't try to play 24/7. Also any good MMO should takes months to become competetive in PvP. Thats one of the strong points. And as for as being slow paced not really... you can get out there and go pirate hunting and PVE the hell outa that game from start..

now i do have to say that some the jumps take forever.. but thats just managment.. i've been able to keep my jumps to just a few hops..

I beleave that all the stuff you talkeb about is what people like about EVE..

The fact that it takes a little learning to get into it.. (not a WoW system where even the brain dead can play)

shit and it has some of the best player run owned and controled game space in any MMO. as a player corp (aka guild) you can take over intired sectors of space.

and many other things.. i can go one for hours about this.. hell just the tweaking of ships and how you combat things.. i myself like the stealth and distroy way...

 

as for as server issues and expanding them.. Hell you tell me any other MMO that supports 100's if not a 1000 people fighting in large battles.. i've been in space battles that have had 100's of people going at it for control over a sector that has great resources.. sorry but no other MMo offers this type of gameplay.. and that right there is what gives EVE it's high scores..

 

anyway thats my rant.

---

Originally posted by CracMonki

---

Originally posted by Gorukha
  Yeah you might be right about GW, although I'm not entirely sold on their stellar sucess yet, since I can't find much
info on their running costs and developing budget, casue as you said I'm a little man with little brain.

   As far as the technological side of EvE, I made the comparison because as you see in the reviews, technology isn't exactly one of the criteria .  Games fun and playability isnt judged on how many people can play on one server.  That's something for tech-geeks to drool over not the average gamer sorry.

   EvE has many fans, and I could understand why someone would give it an OK score. However the scores it recieves in many instances, as on this website, really go against reason. Game is hard to get into, it is very slow paced, alot of downtime, months to become competetive in the pvp aspect of it.  These are all arguemnts against the good scores this game recieves.  One more reason not to trust reviews of this site and many others.  EvE constantly advertising on this site and the unimaginably good scores ti recieves doesnt exactly fill me with trust.

 

---

sorry... but EvE is a great game.. one of the best space games i've played.. and an awesome MMO..

Game isn't really all that hard to get into... plus i think the learning curve is one of the good ways to smooth out the player base.. anyways.. I never see large amount of downtime.. but i don't try to play 24/7. Also any good MMO should takes months to become competetive in PvP. Thats one of the strong points. And as for as being slow paced not really... you can get out there and go pirate hunting and PVE the hell outa that game from start..

now i do have to say that some the jumps take forever.. but thats just managment.. i've been able to keep my jumps to just a few hops..

I beleave that all the stuff you talkeb about is what people like about EVE..

The fact that it takes a little learning to get into it.. (not a WoW system where even the brain dead can play)

shit and it has some of the best player run owned and controled game space in any MMO. as a player corp (aka guild) you can take over intired sectors of space.

and many other things.. i can go one for hours about this.. hell just the tweaking of ships and how you combat things.. i myself like the stealth and distroy way...

 

as for as server issues and expanding them.. Hell you tell me any other MMO that supports 100's if not a 1000 people fighting in large battles.. i've been in space battles that have had 100's of people going at it for control over a sector that has great resources.. sorry but no other MMo offers this type of gameplay.. and that right there is what gives EVE it's high scores..

 

anyway thats my rant.

---

   Yah, I like when people are unable to even say anything bad about their game. Fanbois ftl.  No game is perfect and Eve definetly isnt as good as the ratings it gets/reviews.  Maybe its because many reviews are done by people who are addicted to that particualr game and cant form a balanced review, which I have seen forever in many publications and online magazines.  Not a good idea to let a crack-head do a balanced review on drugs.