Mr. Smart is the Best Forum Poster [INTERNET HISTORY ITT]

[tgr]

I admire what Derek is trying to do (up until it started going into legally ambiguous areas given what was described) but I view it as a futile effort given what limited knowledge I have about people.

Can we at least give the guy credit that he's able to produce games, get investors to give millions of dollars to people, and still do this despite having what appears to be a negative reputation by gamers? He's like a Renegade Shepard.

It's one thing being the guy that digs up shit and tries to fix it, but going public like this, in 3200 word posts, just to "win an internet argument" where you basically try to destroy someone's career? I'd be inclined to call that douchebaggery of epic proportions.

I'm not going to congratulate or respect him for that, no matter what. An asshole that might in some cases get things done, is still an asshole.

[NiX]

His last post is unbelievable.  We need to get this whole thing transcribed to the wiki somewhere before it gets evaporated.

Give me a list of links and I will start documenting it.

[Musashi]

Original thread, now closed.

Gamasutra article going bad places.

That's all I know of.

[Lantyssa]

He's added more.

[Ratman_tf]

Can we at least give the guy credit that he's able to produce games, get investors to give millions of dollars to people, and still do this despite having what appears to be a negative reputation by gamers? He's like a Renegade Shepard.

Other people seem to be able to accomplish those things without being a jet powered retard.

[Khaldun]

That is a serious OMG post, that last one.

[schild]

On cell phone. NiX, document the hell out of it. Ill need reading material in a few hours.

[schild]

Also, would you kindly grab the Firefox extension that grabs screenshots of entire pages and mail those to me.

[Fordel]

He's really living up to all his hype!   

[taolurker]

Anyone who buys this game because of this hype deserves the azz raping they receive, and I highly doubt this is likely to help investor confidence with selling a game.

PS Anyone who downloads this game after reading this mess, you are part of the problem.

edit to add Fireshots
edited again to fix upload
ok should work now, are really big and best saved and viewed so I don't know if these would help Schild mobile, viewing via my test they blurred zooming but when on PC are fine.
Gamesutra
Qol forums

[Malakili]

Oooh, f13 gets mentioned in the comments of the Gama Sutra article.

[schild]

If I were his community manager he wouldn't even remember what a keyboard looked like by now. He'd have to communicate via crayon and post-it.

[Hutch]

Before all of this drama flared up, I didn't even know that Alganon existed.

And there's a thread for it in this very forum, dating back to October, so I must at least have read the name in passing.

And I had no idea David Allen was involved. I thought he'd Peter-Principled out of the gaming industry after ... whatever the hell he tried to do after he got kicked off of Horizons.

All this time, I'd been under the impression that he was just another miserable failure as a MMOG creator, when it turns out that on top of that, he's also been soaking his ongoing parade of suckers investors.

Thank you, internet. Just when I start to doubt your existence, you perform another miracle.

[taolurker]

Anyone who buys this game after seeing this level of OMG deserve the azz raping they get giving DS money, and I really can't see any of this inspiring the investors that they will actually profit from this.

Also, anyone who reads this and is going to try this game (or has) you are part of the problem and shouldn't help pad the numbers for any crap the MMO Antichrist is involved with.

[squirrel]

This really is epic. Those gamasutra posts are awesome! 

[Tearofsoul]

These guys could turn it around for Vanguard, HIRE THEM NOW, Smedly.

[UnSub]

Now, if only QOL hires on McQuaid and Jacobs, maybe Barnett...

EDIT: Slightly more seriously, has anyone looked at all the legal documents that D-Sma is referencing? Or even to determine if they exist?

[squirrel]

That would create a cosmic singularity that I fear to behold.

[Koyasha]

While it sounds like the legal consequences for him and his company may be a problem, as long as what he's saying is true, I pretty much agree with what he's saying and heartily approve of such things being said.  Indeed, I wish it was more common for these sort of things to be said whenever people do these kinds of things.  This is all contingent of course on everything he's saying being entirely true.

[Rendakor]

 

taolurker your screenshots don't work for me, they're really small.

[schild]

Yea, they're compressed for whatever reason.

[schild]

Ok, so, I can't grab the Gamasutra article. Seems too big, Firefox is locking up. If someone else wants to try, by all means. I was using Screengrab 0.62.2.

As for QoL/Alganon:

• PR
• Thread - Page 1
• Thread - Page 2
• Thread - Page 3
• Thread - Page 4
• Thread - Page 5

[Mosesandstick]

They had to lock a thread because the CEO was being an ass on the forums? Why would anyone believe in this guy? Who in their right mind would hire him? 

[Sheepherder]

I pretty much agree with what he's saying and heartily approve of such things being said.

Yes.  We all like to be entertained.

[Stabs]

I pretty much agree with what he's saying and heartily approve of such things being said. 

At some point the venture capitalists will be asked by a senior to explain why the money invested in this game was wasted. If what Derek says is true then

- they incompetently appointed a guy who hired his mates and embezzled money while making a game that was almost a cut and paste of WoW and still couldn't meet deadlines.
- they failed to adequately supervise the company.
- they replaced the first guy with a guy notorious for flame wars who promptly and predictably spouted his mouth off possibly incurring liability for libel, constructive dismissal and other breaches of employment law. He also refunded money to customers who had previously been satisfied, money that on the face of it this product may be unlikely to earn back any time soon.

Do you not think this is extremely bad news for the games industry, an industry which needs venture capital? And that's in the best case scenario that everything alleged by Derek is completely and provably true.

Even if QOL turn this release around completely and it becomes a compelling MMO growing steadily by word of mouth the damage has still been done. The paymasters have very clearly failed to supervise their investment properly and thrown good money after bad. If they save their careers they will be investing in rivet manufacture and orange grove plantations in the future, not games.

[Koyasha]

Well, those are some good points.  My initial reaction simply tends to be, if people pull shit, they should get called on it.  I like things being public partly for the entertainment value, and this is quite entertaining, and because I generally prefer for things to be out in the open.

I suppose one can also hope that the lesson learned would be 'supervise your investments' and doubleplus especially, 'hire good management'.  Ok, a little hopeful perhaps, but those would be good lessons to take out of this, and lessons that numerous games in this industry seem to need to learn.

[tgr]

Let's not forget "Don't hire he who must not be named".

If what he's saying is true, then yes, shit did need to happen. However, there's the right way to do it (fire people, give no recommendation), and there's the shub-niggurath way to do it (i.e. tons of public flaming and sharing of dirty laundry). I tend to levitate towards the right way. You tend to be less likely to shoot your own fucking foot off.

[Hutch]

Do you not think this is extremely bad news for the games industry, an industry which needs venture capital? And that's in the best case scenario that everything alleged by Derek is completely and provably true.

How could this be bad news, regarding the need for VC? If I somehow came into a giant pile of money and decided to be an Angel investor for a MMO, I certainly would have avoided David Allen. I'd rather give money to someone I'd never heard of. And that was before DS made these public allegations about embezzlement.

If VC dries up, and games like Alganon don't get made, how is that bad for the industry? It's not like Alganon is going to provide competition for anyone. Or even recoup its investment money, DS or no DS.

I guess the indirect effect would be that all of the developers who work on Alganon don't gain experience, and are therefore less likely to get hired to work on a real game, later on down the road. I don't know if that justifies embezzlement on the part of the game's producers, however.

[01101010]

This should be a shining example of what the fuck not to do and bolster the argument that developers should have PR people to deal with the target public audience.

And I am correct in assuming this is the type of guy to refer to himself in third person when speaking? I get that vibe - even though his posts do indeed use first person pronouns, it feels like he HAD to go back and put them in.

[Mrbloodworth]

"EXPERIENCED developers don't go out and re-invent the wheel. They license middleware. "

That is fantastic, because I believe all of this games are home brew engines, they sure play like one. It also doesn't parse from his early post that there is no tech, its all middle ware.

"Heck, half the stuff in this "technology" is licensed middleware."

 

How do you spell tool?

[Stabs]

How could this be bad news, regarding the need for VC? If I somehow came into a giant pile of money and decided to be an Angel investor for a MMO

It's bad news because venture capital generally does not come from knowledgeable industry people deciding to be angels.

Venture capital is usually owned by people with pension funds or other savings and managed for them by financial organisations. The staff at these financial organisations will make decisions based on the following:

- will this make money?
- if it goes wrong will I look like an idiot?
- do other people doing my job do well investing in this area?

Using those criteria they then pick between, say, an orange grove planatation, a small manufacturer of rivets and a MMO game company. Traditionally venture capital is used for high risk high gain ventures like start-ups.

At some point in the past these guys decided that QOL was a better risk than other possible ventures.

This fiasco makes deciding in favour of the game company less likely next time these guys or other financial professionals who have followed this story make a decision.

If the fiasco deepens (for example QOL is sued for libel and for breaches of employment law and either loses or settles at significant cost while the game fails to make money) it's even more reason to not invest in games.

I liked Derek's first posts a lot - we all love straight talking - but I think he crossed the line when he said things that are very likely to get the company sued. He's backed Allen and co into a corner where they pretty much must take legal action if they ever want to work in the industry again. It's really not helpful to QOL if in addition to having a faltering game they then have to cope with substantial legal costs.

I also think that while this is generating substantial publicity very little of our fascinated interest will convert to revenue for QOL.

[Khaldun]

"EXPERIENCED developers don't go out and re-invent the wheel. They license middleware. "

That is fantastic, because I believe all of this games are home brew engines, they sure play like one. It also doesn't parse from his early post that there is no tech, its all middle ware.

"Heck, half the stuff in this "technology" is licensed middleware."

 

How do you spell tool?

Yes, this is one of the lollol moments (there are many) in the Gamasutra posts, because this is Serek Dmart resisted doing so fiercely in the development of Failboat 3000, if I remember right--that using middleware was for sissies and compromisers who lacked his mad skillz.

[Lum]

I am sure he is just so put on.

Mother of god, he posted again, with even more words.

My god, it's full of... something.

[kildorn]

Was one of the fired people either an HR standin or legal counsel? Because I'm a little surprised nobody's sad down with the good doctor and discussed why you don't slag on ex employees, even if you feel they richly deserve it.

[Hutch]

How could this be bad news, regarding the need for VC? If I somehow came into a giant pile of money and decided to be an Angel investor for a MMO

It's bad news because venture capital generally does not come from knowledgeable industry people deciding to be angels.

...

This fiasco makes deciding in favour of the game company less likely next time these guys or other financial professionals who have followed this story make a decision.

If the fiasco deepens (for example QOL is sued for libel and for breaches of employment law and either loses or settles at significant cost while the game fails to make money) it's even more reason to not invest in games.

...

If this fiasco causes MMO startups to be thought of as bad risks, because:
- the people begging for the money are just going to steal it, and fail to finish the game to boot
- the (snerk) high-profile "experienced" game dev that you hired to clean up the mess turned out to be a raging (potential) libel machine

Well, then, I don't know that the industry deserves to have more VC thrown at it, if this is going to be the result.

Would you rather that all of the criminal allegations be kept hush-hush, so that future VC prospects will approach without caution? Which is more important, that a crappy MMO gets started and the owner runs off with the bag of money, or that the VC people have some reasonable expectation that they're investing in an honest business, even one that fails?

I guess I don't know much about VC. Again, if I had the money, I'd want to watch out for fraud and embezzlement, whether I invested in a MMO or in an orange grove.