Cheyenne Mountain Death Watch

[Stormwaltz]

You're just not thinking big enough. Here's what they are going out and selling...

"The conservative figures are 150,000,000 - 200,000,000 people will be a part of MMOGULS."

And remember, that 150 million is the conservative figure! The best-case is measured in jillions.

[justdave]

Things I love about that FAQ:

1. A complete description of how pyramid schemes work, even down to the 'What if it tanks? Well, the early birds won't be fucked!' You have to admire honesty in a gyp.
2. A complete dismissal of Conan as 'Who the fuck knows who that is? And that shit got a mil and a half!'.
3. Repeated mentions of 'genealogy trees' and 'The Computer' brought this momentary image of a fusion of Paranoia and mormonism, which might be a more interesting MMO than half the shit that's come out.

You must be lost, lemme help.

I think I'ma grab "would say one most of the worst at launch of a game ever" (for drunken rants where I can't string two words together) before he hits the bin.

[UnSub]

You must be lost, lemme help.

You should have redirected him to the subscription page.

[Zhiroc]

Well, this is more MMOGULS news, but since CME and it are tied at the hip...

The former CEO of MMOGULS, Brent Barton, has gone and formed a new MLM, named "Mondelis"  to compete with MMOGULS. In his first conference call, he alleges that funds went missing from MMOGULS, supposedly corroborated by the credit card processor, and that the "ownership" declined to return it. I'm presuming this was probably money that funded CME, but that's just a guess.

I smell nasty lawsuits from many directions. MMOGULS affiliates vs. management, MMOGULS vs. Mondelis....

[IainC]

Support via a gmail address is the hallmark of a legitimate organisation. Doubly so when you aren't sure what the support guy's actual name is.

[Yegolev]

A Gmail account doesn't raise my eyebrows like this:

the top 5 recruiters from today thru end of March will win a trip to spend a day with Frankie Muniz. Frankie is/was an actor and starred in the sitcom 'Malcolm in the Middle'. He has since left acting and has become a professional race car driver. He is now the face of MMOGULS!

Before I read the part that told me who Frankie Muniz was, I was thinking "that kid from the Munsters is still alive?"

[raydeen]

Sigh. Life is unfair.

[Segoris]

Sigh. Life is unfair.

Not if you're one of the top five recruits it's not

[FatuousTwat]

Does the word "Thru" bother anyone else?

IT'S THROUGH, OK?

[Venkman]

That's a legit word though. Isn't "thru" just the wrong way of saying "thruway"?

[jayfyve]

I hope this game gets 2 to the head soon, I'm a big fan of all the Stargate shows and it would be nice if the IP was done properly by a new developer.

MMORPG.com says this:

The next week and a half may finally bring resolution to the curious case of Stargate Worlds. According to a former employee who has recently left the company, Firesky has until August 1st to raise capital or MGM will pull the license.

At this time, the company’s last hope appears to be a group of doctors who are considering an $8 million investment into the company. This cash infusion would keep the company alive, allow it to pay off back wages and launch Stargate Worlds. However, our anonymous source does not believe that the deal will get done.

[schild]

Their anonymous source probably couldn't even tell you who the doctors are.

As to why a group of doctors would invest is beyond me. That said, they did get Coldstone Creamery to invest, so who knows.

[Stormwaltz]

They're not Ray and Greg, I can tell you that.

[Ghambit]

Did you know that the fat content of one serving of ColdStone Creamery is the same as eating a bucket of chicken wings?

[Rasix]

This whole thing makes me feel less guilty we never published our horrible interview with their tools programmers.  That bald irishman was going to kill Cristo.

[schild]

This whole thing makes me feel less guilty we never published our horrible interview with their tools programmers.  That bald irishman was going to kill Cristo.

I was so hungover.

Edit: Errrr, no, we redid the interview and never published the SECOND ONE. Not kidding. I was just wrecked.

[schild]

Did you know that the fat content of one serving of ColdStone Creamery is the same as eating a bucket of chicken wings?

This sounds about right.

[Shatter]

I love the Stargate series as well and have followed this game since 2006.  I have doubts it will launch also considering the issues the last 7 months

1)  Media blackout including no show at any gaming shows to advertise their product
2)  Beta stopped completely
3)  Multiple designers leaving company and posting blogs about the bad situation they are in
4)  Couldnt afford to pay their employees
5)  Lawsuits for payments not made including their building, servers and other
6)  Third time the launch date is pushed back(last one was early 2009) and now no indication of a new date, if it will launch at all

Overall, does not look at all good for them.  Almost expecting SOE to pick this up, poop in the code and launch the sucker

[Yegolev]

I do not love the Stargate series.

[Ghambit]

They'd be better off converting it into a "Planescape" MMO.

[Yoru]

This whole thing makes me feel less guilty we never published our horrible interview with their tools programmers.  That bald irishman was going to kill Cristo.

I was so hungover.

Edit: Errrr, no, we redid the interview and never published the SECOND ONE. Not kidding. I was just wrecked.

Those were some fucking terrible interviews, let me tell you what.

[Jerrith]

Well, August 1 is nice and close.  Hopefully we'll hear something officially, one way or another, around then.  I've heard that even some of the hold outs (people who really didn't want to leave the area and stayed, for various reasons) are looking for new positions now, which doesn't bode well...  In the end, it's the high level CME management that killed this game.  They had offers to fund just SGW that they refused to accept, because they wanted to fund the entire company.

Oh well...  Stargate is a neat license for an MMO.  Perhaps someone else will try it? :)

[schild]

This whole thing makes me feel less guilty we never published our horrible interview with their tools programmers.  That bald irishman was going to kill Cristo.

I was so hungover.

Edit: Errrr, no, we redid the interview and never published the SECOND ONE. Not kidding. I was just wrecked.

Those were some fucking terrible interviews, let me tell you what.

Not my high point. But honestly, feigning interest in Stargate is hard.

[Senses]

It can't help that all of the Stargate series are off the air.  It seems I did hear something about a new Stargate concept coming to SciFi...oops, Syfy (horrible right?) in the near future, but I havent heard anything about it since months ago.  The concept is really tailor made for a pretty good game but it could just as easily be a console FPS.

[Ghambit]

All the moves SyFy has made in the past few years have been absolutely ludicrous.  It'd be equally ludicrous if they renewed Stargate in anywhere near a similar concept as they had before.  It's just a crappy show.

As for the game, the design was horribly flawed from the get-go and the engine equally uninspiring.  It seemed to amount to nothing more than a promo. game for the show.

[Senses]

SyFy just isn't hardcore enough for you, its a niche channel :P

[UnSub]

Part of me hopes SGW gets launched, at least so everyone can see the design and look at its mistakes.

However, what's more likely is that if CME fails - and it is management's fault - that no-one will learn anything from what went on.

... and the Deadlands MMO will go on development hiatus again.

[Senses]

Are there really any lessons left to teach in the MMO industry?  If this were a college course you'd already have 10 textbooks of failures and a single notecard of successes.

[UnSub]

Part of me wants to see the "if only this game had launched everyone would have seen how awesome it was going to be!" thing that follows around aborted MMOs not happen for SGW.

And yeah, I think there are some lessons to be learned, like focus on one title and don't grow your studio too fast or convert it into a dev & publisher on your first attempt. Gazillion appears to be walking the same path.

There have also been a good number of successes, but people appear to learn the wrong lessons from them too.

[FatuousTwat]

SyFy just isn't hardcore enough for you, its a niche channel :P

That's just the problem. It USED to be a niche channel, now all they play is RASLIN' and horrible shit shit shit B horror movies. I foresee them going down the G4 path. First they rename the channel, then they slowly start removing the shows that made the network sci-fi. In a year or so, your gonna be seeing cops, cheaters, and some rendition of attack of the show.

[gryeyes]

I think they have run out of every variation of giant insects,reptiles and natural disasters at least.

[Bzalthek]

Nah, they'll just start overdramatizing mundane shit.

LIGHT SNOW!
DUST DEVILS!
ATTACK OF THE LADYBUGS!
CHANCE OF RAIN!

[Zhiroc]

Oh well...  Stargate is a neat license for an MMO.  Perhaps someone else will try it? :)

The problem as I see it is that seems to be... but really, I don't think it is, if you want to keep true to the show.

Personally, what I think made the show great was the cast and characters, not the premise. But even if you like the premise, the one in the heyday of the show is more about a small number of small units doing guerilla and exploratory missions. For me, the premise started getting tired when earth started getting enough technology to travel around with impunity, and fight all-out wars.

Nevertheless, translating it to an MMO means you have thousands of humans using gates, and then you have to try to justify the usual MMO tactics of an economy (SGC members "looting" and selling it for Naquada, to "buy" upgrades?), and player independence (i.e., going through the gate on what amounts to private trips).

To me, this is what made MxO something that only superficially felt like the movies.

[UnSub]

One of the huge immersion breaking things for me about Tabula Rasa was having to buy your own weapons and ammo. Here I am, fighting as the last line of defence for humanity and I've got to BUY my bullets? WTF?

It wouldn't have even been that hard to create a system that served the same purpose - call it Scavenged Items, or Battlefield Loot or whatever - and make the lore reason that humankind is so pushed for resources that the army can only convert what you bring back for your use. They can't afford to give the good weapons and armour to soldiers who aren't doing their share.

SGW could do something similar by having stolen tech items unlock research upgrades for your team - there would only be so many to go around based on alien tech after all so you get rewarded for bringing them back. Or, it could, if it was ever going to launch.

[Shatter]

I pretty much new the sci-fi channel was going down the tubes when they cancelled Stargate Atlantis to make this new shit SGU show, combined with their amzingly graphic sci-fi movies along with wrestlers showing up on shows like Ghosthunters :P  SyFy will soon be DyFy...see what I did there