Originally posted by Toferio
Shrug, her job was to pose a question to the community, not to pitch MOs' donation system. She mentioned what is relevant (i.e. Aralis getting the interview for being top donator). Plain and simple. 

If that were the case then she could just have said "Would you pay to get a interview with one of your favorite developers, and if so, how much would you pay to do so?".

But here she insinuates that he had to pay 1000 dollars to get the interview, and also puts in her opinion that Henrik dodges the questions that is asked. And says "which'd probably annoy me if I had just effectively spent $1000 for the privilege of emailing a few questions off to a dev I admired", making it sound like he only got the interview for the money he donated.

I understand that the hate here from people against SV makes this article seem legit and accurate, and brings up all the facts. But it doesn't. Why did she leave out how the donation system acctually works in MO if she wanna take the interview with Henrik and SV as a example? And make it right instead of leaving out how it goes down? You go ahead and think this is good journalism, and thank you for reminding me why I shouldn't visit the MO forums here.

Originally posted by TruthXHurts
Plain and simple she misled her readers into believing that this man paid 1000 dollars for an interview. When in fact that was one of many perks he got for loving and supporting the game he chooses to play.

^ This...

Originally posted by TruthXHurts
There has been a large influx of new players to MO lately and this feels like a paid smear job by someone who doesn't want them to grow.

Seriously.. you think someone is that worried about small indie company with few thousand players?

Originally posted by Toferio

Originally posted by TruthXHurts
There has been a large influx of new players to MO lately and this feels like a paid smear job by someone who doesn't want them to grow.

Seriously.. you think someone is that worried about small indie company with few thousand players?

 Yes.  In their minds it's always a conspiracy.  Usually by "a small group of former players that couldn't handle the game".  It is so consistent that the community has literally provided years of fun just watching it.  it's always someone elses fault... EPIC games.. EPIC China.. a volcano.. their ISP... their billing company.. World of Warcraft... and biased websites (which apparently include ALL websites outside of the official forum).

99.9% of the people that read the article understood the article and appreciated it's point.  The 20-30 people from the official forum thread are the only ones who actually believe that this is a conspiracy by a former player to try and discredit the upstanding Starvault.  Yes, that aspersion was made on the official forum, not refuted by the Dev that posted there, and then carried here by another poster.  All you really need to know about the community can be found in the original post on the official forums.  The poster blatantly states "They should apologize and suck his ballz".  No moderation done to the post.  As a matter of fact that kind of behavior seems to be encouraged because a developer posted in the thread and did nothing but encourage their ridiculous ranting.

Apparently the only reviews or articles which are "fair" are those which are posted by their self-acknowledged hardcore fans and/or those that are publicly posted on those forums to allow the community to critique prior to showing the outside world. 

There are real world analogies here to other groups that do this... and they aren't pretty.

Originally posted by Slapshot1188

Originally posted by Toferio

Originally posted by TruthXHurts
There has been a large influx of new players to MO lately and this feels like a paid smear job by someone who doesn't want them to grow.

Seriously.. you think someone is that worried about small indie company with few thousand players?

 Yes.  In their minds it's always a conspiracy.  Usually by "a small group of former players that couldn't handle the game".  It is so consistent that the community has literally provided years of fun just watching it.  it's always someone elses fault... EPIC games.. EPIC China.. a volcano.. their ISP... their billing company.. World of Warcraft... and biased websites (which apparently include ALL websites outside of the official forum).

 

99.9% of the people that read the article understood the article and appreciated it's point.  The 20-30 people from the official forum thread are the only ones who actually believe that this is a conspiracy by a former player to try and discredit the upstanding Starvault.  Yes, that aspersion was made on the official forum, not refuted by the Dev that posted there, and then carried here by another poster.  All you really need to know about the community can be found in the original post on the official forums.  The poster blatantly states "They should apologize and suck his ballz".  No moderation done to the post.  As a matter of fact that kind of behavior seems to be encouraged because a developer posted in the thread and did nothing but encourage their ridiculous ranting.

 

Apparently the only reviews or articles which are "fair" are those which are posted by their self-acknowledged hardcore fans and/or those that are publicly posted on those forums to allow the community to critique prior to showing the outside world. 

 

There are real world analogies here to other groups that do this... and they aren't pretty.

strangely enough most of you are former players is that a conspiracy

While it may be crude, there is nothing unethical about what Starvault did.  They very clearly classify these as donations and clearly delineate the cosmetic items etc that people will get at each donation level. No one donating has any guarantee that they will get the interview.

The article was a little misleading in the title "Would you pay to interview a developer?" The real question should be "Would you donate $1000 for the development of an MMO with some rewards that have trivial value compared to the donation ?"

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/382040989/xsyon-apocalypse/?ref=kicktraq

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/forsakenstudios/embers-of-caerus-investor-prototype/?ref=kicktraq

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1675907842/pathfinder-online-a-fantasy-sandbox-mmo/?ref=kicktraq

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/appleton/greed-monger-a-crafting-focused-sandbox-mmorpg/?ref=kicktraq

Originally posted by osmunda

The article was a little misleading in the title "Would you pay to interview a developer?" The real question should be "Would you donate $1000 for the development of an MMO with some rewards that have trivial value compared to the donation ?"

I believe that the title is actually correct. The question was not about MOs case of interview as a reward for the donation, they merely used it as an excuse to start a similar discussion.

Originally posted by Toferio

\I believe that the title is actually correct. The question was not about MOs case of interview as a reward for the donation, they merely used it as an excuse to start a similar discussion.

I didn't say that it was incorrect or intentionally deceptive.  

Clearly several games are making a formal request for donations. Whether people would donate and what they consider appropriate recognition for donating is certainly a worthwhile topic of discussion. What is appropriate recognition for a $1000 donation: a portrait of your character and lifetime subscription;  An in-game title, invitation to the launch party, signed sheet music, the opportunity to assist in designing a weapon, and recognition in the credits; Early beta access, in-game consumables, and 3 month subscription; Beta access, in game territory, a T-shirt and access to a rare spawn.

If you think the Massively article was "an excuse to start a discussion" does that mean you disagree with the sentiment that  "the mainstream gaming press is finally calling SV out on some of their questionable tactics. "

Originally posted by osmunda

If you think the Massively article was "an excuse to start a discussion" does that mean you disagree with the sentiment that  "the mainstream gaming press is finally calling SV out on some of their questionable tactics. "

 That would be DIRECTLY related to the "The interview is fraught with a few other issues, such as the fact that Nystrom dodges some of the player's questions and smooths over others".

And (that top quote by you) was typed by ME and is MY opinion and has zero to do with the claim of a supposed conspiracy from the Massively author because she used to play Mortal Online and has a grudge.  That entire line of thinking is laughable.

Those interviews are themselves the questionable tactics because they either contain non-answers or sky high promises that are rarely (if ever) fulfuilled.   Just look at the last interview (which I believe also cost $1000).  The guy asked what Henrik thought was the favorite play style of Mortal Online and the response (which made up nearly 50% of the interview if I recall) talked about how great a game Ultima Online was.  See below:

What is your favorite play style in Mortal Online? Do you personally play? Are you a great warrior, a cunning mage, or a dastardly sexy thief?

I use to play both a murderer and a neutral in the old days of UO. But over the years I find it more and more sad for the victims I jump. Strange that is, something I used to enjoy being a thief in UO.
First I stole from them, could be a mages black pearls or something like that, I was one of the few skilled thieves to know how to get under stacks of bags and clothes in UO. So when they stood still laughing at me for being safe with stacks on their precious pearls I just needed 5 seconds close to them and then bam I got their pearls and ran away from the mob.

When they were separated and the mage was still on me, he couldn’t cast some important spells due to the lack of the pearls which forced him to cast some crappy spells on me. He thought I would be a weak thief with only pure thievery skills and nothing else. It usually ended up that I’ve killed him in self-defense and got all his stuff. Then I went to the bank and used a disguise kit to change my name and appearance, went back to the grave yard and found a new victim

This time a warrior with an axe in his hand. Perfect for me, and even more rare for players to see that it would be my best target. So I first disarmed him from his axe, since I moved around him alot in a direction where he can’t see what he is holding he didn’t even notice his axe was disarmed into his inventory instead of his hands. I quickly then stole his axe. He started to hit at me with his bare hands since he now was lacking the axe. It usually took some seconds before they noticing that and then they'd panic. I was a lumber thief, which meant I was very deadly with axes. I put HIS axe in my hands and then I killed him in 2 quick strikes and again got all his loot.

Now this sounds terrible, and I always felt a bit sad for them afterwards, but hey they could afford it. They were not new players and it sure gave us all some nice action. I always enjoyed fighting with my tank mage as well; pure pvp duel training events, and of course chaos/order and faction wars. Of course before that, I explored pretty much everything in this great game, and learned most profession to craft things. I built my keep and crafted us some nice furniture. I also had a dragon tamer which could be fun to pvp with, but used him mostly to pve for gold.

The interesting thing in game like UO and MO is that you never know who you run into. I remember I was running a Swedish guild in UO back in the days when the game was still pretty new. I recruited a Swedish guy that had a very bad computer and internet connection compared to the rest of us. We all went to the skeleton mage rooms in, hmm... darn I'm starting to forget the names of the dungeons in UO.

Well, the lich lord dungeon room, one level above had skeleton warriors and a room with skeletal mages. It was easy to kill them with a silver sword and you got nice cash in there.
I felt poor for this new guy because whenever he managed to open the loot bag from the mobs it was always looted by someone else so he never got anything. When my inventory was filled since I was a pro looter, I gave the rest to this guy till he was overloaded as well. Then we headed home to fill the bank with gold, and so we continued for many days when we all needed gold.

A year after this guy got a new computer and internet connection and started to pvp a lot. The time passed and we all got split up from the old team we once used to be and another year went by. One day in the grave yard I saw a familiar face; it was the Swedish guy with that poor connection, but today he was one of the best pvpers of all time in UO.

He said he wanted to give me something back as a thank for the old runs we had, and he gave me a large brick house which was awesome at that time. We started to PvP a lot again and I wouldn't stand a chance against this guy. Even if we were 2 against him he still beat us. Magic duels in that time was something epic. It was so filled with player skills and when you thought you had a pro they just laughed with 10hp left with full control that it was all that was needed to interrupt my death spell which I thought, and then to turn it around to kill me.

We wanted to recreate this system in MO, but some things made it pretty hard. Now first, we also lacked the skills in that area when we developed magic, and the technology and first person setting made things very different. However, Sebastian managed to recreate an exact copy of the old UO magic system locally which was just awesome. We could PvP just like in the old days of UO.
We didn’t spend the time to try to put it into MO on the server side since other things were requiring the attention. Now, I bet UO vets would just love to be able to pvp the exact same way they could in UO because it was filled with player skill and reaction. The question is, does that still work in todays MMO and will the majority enjoy it? We did want to try one school dedicated for this play style, and the rest will go their own routes.

Umm... that's great.  I liked UO as well... so I take it that he doesn't play Mortal Online?  Cause, that was kind of the question!

MO fans have always been a rabid bunch. Their response to any critical coverage is always the same: a conspiracy of hateful WoW players who troll on indie sandbox games, butthurt ex MO players who couldn't handle its awesome hardcoresness, and some paid employees of Aventurine who don't want competitors - all working together 24/7 to bring down this heroic attempt at making The Ultimate Sandbox Game Evah Made.

I mean, the bad press and "hate" could certainly not have anything to do with SV being a clown company and MO a bad joke of a game, right?

The Massively article sure comes off as an opinion piece, but so does all game journalism. It does not spread any lies and it doesn't bash MO as a game. It just describes the fact that one guy paid 1000 dollars and received an interview with Henrik, who then dodged some questions.

Anyone who have followed MO knows that Henrik is a master at not answering straight-up questions in a meaningful way, but I guess that doesn't matter to the zealots. He's their Dear Leader and anyone implying that his Words are not Teh Law must be an ignorant b*tch who needs to be punished.

Originally posted by Biskop

MO fans have always been a rabid bunch. Their response to any critical coverage is always the same: a conspiracy of hateful WoW players who troll on indie sandbox games, butthurt ex MO players who couldn't handle its awesome hardcoresness, and some paid employees of Aventurine who don't want competitors - all working together 24/7 to bring down this heroic attempt at making The Ultimate Sandbox Game Evah Made.

I mean, the bad press and "hate" could certainly not have anything to do with SV being a clown company and MO a bad joke of a game, right?

The Massively article sure comes off as an opinion piece, but so does all game journalism. It does not spread any lies and it doesn't bash MO as a game. It just describes the fact that one guy paid 1000 dollars and received an interview with Henrik, who then dodged some questions.

Anyone who have followed MO knows that Henrik is a master at not answering straight-up questions in a meaningful way, but I guess that doesn't matter to the zealots. He's their Dear Leader and anyone implying that his Words are not Teh Law must be an ignorant b*tch who needs to be punished.

i think its just common sense to assume a CEO of an mmorpg who has had a bad reputation with not delivering on promises, isnt going to give anything away he isnt sure on. Honestly it was kind of out of character imo. Usually he just goes straight in making spectacular claims that are borderline fabrications/dreams. Least he kept his composure and only answered what he knew for sure which in the end makes it all go in circles and dodge questions/ misunderstand them.

Read the official MO forums responding to that article expecting many lulz.  Left satisfied. 

I <3 internet lawyers and rage threads.

The author has responded to the "rabid fanboys" (her words, not mine):

Other amusing responses follow.   Makes for fun reading.

Originally posted by Biskop

MO fans have always been a rabid bunch.

I guess they just wanted to hold on to the fact that they don't want to admit they made the wrong decision and wasted several years of their life, lol :P

That's why both the fanbois and the haters are rabid when it comes to MO :P

Also, love the entertainment value of the thread, and I wanted to say one thing:

Oprah doesn't pay for interviews... lol :P

Originally posted by Slapshot1188

The author has responded to the "rabid fanboys" (her words, not mine):

 

 

breetoplay moderator5pts 1 day ago

@Avaera Yeah, this happens every once in a while -- rabid fanboys parachute in to start harassing us for negative coverage. It's happened several times from Mortal Online's playerbase. Usually it's EVE's, though. I've just read the thread you're talking about (honestly, the death threat thing looked like a joke to me, but some of the other comments were crass or just brainless), but it seems as though people just aren't reading the post. It doesn't say he paid outright for an interview. It says he got the interview only because he was the top donator, and he was the top donator by paying $1000, which is utterly true. He effectively paid money for perks including an interview. That's the novel part, and that's what inspired the question that made up our Daily Grind on Friday. The reference article had already discussed the full extent of the "donation gifts."

 

breetoplay moderator5pts

6 hours ago

 

@Lahuzer The fact that some of the readers misunderstood is not proof of insinuation of anything. It's just proof that some of the readers misunderstood. Some of them also thought I'm a guy because they didn't bother to read.

 

Other amusing responses follow.   Makes for fun reading.

he got the interview because he was the top donator and not because he paid 1000, if he had been the top donator with 5.00 he still would have gotten it. He gets another interview for the 1000 at a later date.

So her whole article wasnt exactly accurate. Its obvious this was a dig at MO, had she covered the whole truth as opposed to a partial one then their wouldnt have been a problem. Its obvious she dislikes the game and is biased in her opinions.

i stopped playing mo, but in no way do i feel i wasted my life. infact some of MOs memories are the best i have had in an mmorpg and i have played quite a few.

Originally posted by deathshroud

 

he got the interview because he was the top donator and not because he paid 1000, if he had been the top donator with 5.00 he still would have gotten it. He gets another interview for the 1000 at a later date.

While there are some good arguments against the article, like the fact that she didn't mention other perks, this is the worst one, imo. She mentions he got the interview because he was top donator, meaning anyone who is top donator, for any sum would get it.  And well, currently he DID get the interview because he donated 1000$, so you are arguing semantics. It was not the point of the article to advertise MOs donation system and go indepth on it.