Originally posted by Punisher

Starvault was suppose to have shipped the game boxes on September 1st 2009. As the weeks went by people started to wonder wtf was up with the boxes since nobody was receiving one and come October it started to draw a lot of attention on the forums. There was absolute dead silence from Starvault about the issue until October 23rd when the CEO randomly decides to update the community via the following post on the forums.

Quote:
Dear community.

Due to some delay on our box printings we have not been able to deliver the boxed versions on expected period, “previously around September”

We are now shipping the “loot bags” to the box company and as soon as they are finished with the steel boxes they will be shipped out worldwide. I must say the loot bags looks really nice
We will give you an update as soon as we have a confirmed date on when the boxes are being shipped from Sweden.

Don't forget you are allways able to download the client via our website.
Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Thank you for your patience.

So then the people began to rejoice and think, ok cool shouldn't be long now!(soonTM) But then the weeks went by and the clamor could once again be seen on the forums. But lo and behold, the CEO decides to update the people via...a ninja edit to the delay post from the month before.

Quote:
Latest update: 11/23/09
As we told you three weeks ago the shipping of the boxes had to be delayed due to logistic problems. As things look now we will have everything together in the first week of December.
The boxes will contain the current client, meaning it will be outdated a bit when you get it. As we announced on the shop website we offer to send you the release client with a separate shipment come release. We will of course honour that agreement. Seeing as the shipment of the boxes is now a lot closer to release than we intended, sending out the release client doesn't make that much sense anymore. What we're going to do is setting up a form on the website shortly before release where you can leave us a note if you want the release client delivered to you anyway.
We're sorry that things turned out a bit bumpy.

Again the people rejoiced thinking, ok sweet it should be here "soon"tm. Weeks pass by again and still no word of anyone receiving a box...anywhere. Now the mods are just straight up deleting posts with even an inkling of negativity towards the shady practices of the company. The whole month of December goes by and no boxes to be seen nor any update from Starvault. Finally on January 6th one of the community mods decides to inform the community about the status of the boxes.

Quote:
It seems there is still some confusion as to whether we started shipping or not.

We did.
Countries furthest off in relation to Sweden are being shipped first of course in oder to have the product arrive more or less at the same time to most customers.

Keep in mind that customers that bought a Full Loot Bag will receive those later (approx. around late January) due to the problem with the artwork book.
As you know, you are being compensated with additional free game time for that inconvenience.

Cheers,
Maerlyn

Gee I wonder why the fuck theres still some confusion, I mean its not like its January and the boxes were suppose to have shipped in September.......oh wait...

Finally...after several months of struggle and patience, the first of many packages are starting to appear in mailboxes around the world. However, all was still not well.

Why, you ask?

Well because they literally shipped out a bunch of game boxes WITH NOTHING FUCKING IN THEM. You received a Mortal Online game box which contained absolutely no manual or anything at all other than a blank cd with the words Mortal Online on it. Actually I take that part about the blank cd back, because at least a blank cd could be used to burn something and thus would be SOMETHING useful. Whereas the piece of shit cd that was actually sent contained an out of date version of MO and to make things even better...NO MOTHER FUCKING PATCHER FOR YOU TO UPDATE TO THE CURRENT VERSION.

You just can't make this shit up really. I seriously can't wait to see the abomination of a launch this game is going to have, which is supposedly in February. Be sure to bring lots of marsh mellows for this sure to be train wreck which I hope ends up with the CEO being thrown in jail.

You should go back and research what happened with PotBS boxes and distribution by SOE.
 

Big company doesn't always mean great distribution.

Also, GA is primarily Digital Download. They offer the CE through Amazon but didn't ditribute to stores.

Originally posted by NightCloak

You should go back and research what happened with PotBS boxes and distribution by SOE.
 

Big company doesn't always mean great distribution.

 

Also, GA is primarily Digital Download. They offer the CE through Amazon but didn't ditribute to stores.

 

Im just talking about MO here and their shady business practice and how they screwed everyone that tried supporting them. Sorry but isnt everyone tired of seeing imcomplete games from lieing developers? Its practices like this that will drive the MMO trend downward.

Global Agenda is a fairly decent game from an indie company

Mortal Online is crippleware intended to be a scam, they should work on it for at least 7 years more before they could claim its close to be a "game".  Right now is like paying $75 for a bag full of air...and you have to return the bag.

apples and oranges

 The Mourning/Realms of Torment devs only sent people a re-writable cd with an alpha client on it.

The Mortal Online devs sent a cheaply made DVD with a broken, useless alpha client that can't even be fired up on it. But they did at least put it in a box. Kudos for that.

Originally posted by WisebutCruel

 The Mourning/Realms of Torment devs only sent people a re-writable cd with an alpha client on it.

The Mortal Online devs sent a cheaply made DVD with a broken, useless alpha client that can't even be fired up on it. But they did at least put it in a box. Kudos for that.

Could you re-write on the cd-rw to put the new client on?

Originally posted by rlmccoy1987

Originally posted by WisebutCruel

 The Mourning/Realms of Torment devs only sent people a re-writable cd with an alpha client on it.

The Mortal Online devs sent a cheaply made DVD with a broken, useless alpha client that can't even be fired up on it. But they did at least put it in a box. Kudos for that.

 

Could you re-write on the cd-rw to put the new client on?

What the Mourning CDRW? There wasn't a new client to put on it. Mourning was a total and complete scam, it had even less going for it then MO has.

Originally posted by phrank

Originally posted by rlmccoy1987

Originally posted by WisebutCruel

 The Mourning/Realms of Torment devs only sent people a re-writable cd with an alpha client on it.

The Mortal Online devs sent a cheaply made DVD with a broken, useless alpha client that can't even be fired up on it. But they did at least put it in a box. Kudos for that.

 

Could you re-write on the cd-rw to put the new client on?

 

What the Mourning CDRW? There wasn't a new client to put on it. Mourning was a total and complete scam, it had even less going for it then MO has.

And with the insulting devs and "forum administrators" along with the shady sales tactics ( oh, we know we promised everyone a release client but now it's only if you fill out a form and ask for it in triplicate while under a full moon in August ) and the dvd fiasco, it looks like Mourning: The Sequel is about to commence.

Figured this is a decent place to post this:

Fully Loot bags are starting to be received.

http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/34190-look-my-loot-my-loot-amazing.html#post723064

Originally posted by Punisher

Starvault was suppose to have shipped the game boxes on September 1st 2009. As the weeks went by people started to wonder wtf was up with the boxes since nobody was receiving one and come October it started to draw a lot of attention on the forums. There was absolute dead silence from Starvault about the issue until October 23rd when the CEO randomly decides to update the community via the following post on the forums.

Quote:
Dear community.

Due to some delay on our box printings we have not been able to deliver the boxed versions on expected period, “previously around September”

We are now shipping the “loot bags” to the box company and as soon as they are finished with the steel boxes they will be shipped out worldwide. I must say the loot bags looks really nice
We will give you an update as soon as we have a confirmed date on when the boxes are being shipped from Sweden.

Don't forget you are allways able to download the client via our website.
Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Thank you for your patience.

So then the people began to rejoice and think, ok cool shouldn't be long now!(soonTM) But then the weeks went by and the clamor could once again be seen on the forums. But lo and behold, the CEO decides to update the people via...a ninja edit to the delay post from the month before.

Quote:
Latest update: 11/23/09
As we told you three weeks ago the shipping of the boxes had to be delayed due to logistic problems. As things look now we will have everything together in the first week of December.
The boxes will contain the current client, meaning it will be outdated a bit when you get it. As we announced on the shop website we offer to send you the release client with a separate shipment come release. We will of course honour that agreement. Seeing as the shipment of the boxes is now a lot closer to release than we intended, sending out the release client doesn't make that much sense anymore. What we're going to do is setting up a form on the website shortly before release where you can leave us a note if you want the release client delivered to you anyway.
We're sorry that things turned out a bit bumpy.

Again the people rejoiced thinking, ok sweet it should be here "soon"tm. Weeks pass by again and still no word of anyone receiving a box...anywhere. Now the mods are just straight up deleting posts with even an inkling of negativity towards the shady practices of the company. The whole month of December goes by and no boxes to be seen nor any update from Starvault. Finally on January 6th one of the community mods decides to inform the community about the status of the boxes.

Quote:
It seems there is still some confusion as to whether we started shipping or not.

We did.
Countries furthest off in relation to Sweden are being shipped first of course in oder to have the product arrive more or less at the same time to most customers.

Keep in mind that customers that bought a Full Loot Bag will receive those later (approx. around late January) due to the problem with the artwork book.
As you know, you are being compensated with additional free game time for that inconvenience.

Cheers,
Maerlyn

Gee I wonder why the fuck theres still some confusion, I mean its not like its January and the boxes were suppose to have shipped in September.......oh wait...

Finally...after several months of struggle and patience, the first of many packages are starting to appear in mailboxes around the world. However, all was still not well.

Why, you ask?

Well because they literally shipped out a bunch of game boxes WITH NOTHING FUCKING IN THEM. You received a Mortal Online game box which contained absolutely no manual or anything at all other than a blank cd with the words Mortal Online on it. Actually I take that part about the blank cd back, because at least a blank cd could be used to burn something and thus would be SOMETHING useful. Whereas the piece of shit cd that was actually sent contained an out of date version of MO and to make things even better...NO MOTHER FUCKING PATCHER FOR YOU TO UPDATE TO THE CURRENT VERSION.

You just can't make this shit up really. I seriously can't wait to see the abomination of a launch this game is going to have, which is supposedly in February. Be sure to bring lots of marsh mellows for this sure to be train wreck which I hope ends up with the CEO being thrown in jail.

The devs have been honest about it the whole time.....just look at your own quotes for Christs sake. Don't act surprised, they said it would be a outdated client, and they would be shipping new ones....

How could they be such liars and cheats if they talk directly to the community in advance about their decisions?

Also in regards to this post -

As someone already stated. Global Agenda is far from "indie" budgeting.

Originally posted by Player_420

Also in regards to this post -

As someone already stated. Global Agenda is far from "indie" budgeting.

I'm still trying to figure that out... old reviews often have "Microsoft Game Studios" tagged as a publisher, and even wikipedia had it listed at one point...

But from what I can tell, they are a private company that seems to be doing it all themselves.

I'd call it Indie... it fits the description... but it feels... off. Why? They have a freaking full sized gym in their building and it's obviously for more than 10/20 people.

http://www.hirezstudios.com/hi-rez_culture.html

Maybe they rent, and that room is included in their contract...

Hi-Rez Studios is the largest independent video game development studio in Georgia.

Privately owned from what I can tell, so no public records seem to be available.