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

[Lum]

As someone who had the unique pleasure of watching 2 projects fail from a leadership role, I can sympathize.

Scope creep is constant (I wrote a bit about it) and there will always be pressures regarding scope creep. It's the role of the leads (and especially the producer) to fight against scope creep. Part of your job as lead designer is saying from the start, no, we can't have an eHarmony-for-guilds until we have a working quest system.

C++ is not a scripting language. (twitch) What kind of sandboxing did you do to keep rogue "scripts" from eating memory or other bad things? That alone makes AlganonTech or whatever it'll be called unsuitable as MMO middleware. There's a lot of people with experience in Lua (both in scripting it and in wrapping it in a sandbox to expose it to other systems) and reinventing the wheel isn't a good idea here.

Reading your post, the impression I get above all is that you were speaking WoW grammar. Everything you describe is in terms of World of Warcraft. If I read a design doc that has the words "...like in World of Warcraft" and isn't intended for an executive (who scans for the "like thing that makes lots of money" keywords) I want to throw it at someone. As long as you speak in WoW grammar you will develop a WoW clone and it will be a poor WoW clone because you dont' have WoW's budget. That's not saying that something has to be different from WoW for the sake of difference, but taking 4 or 5 steps back and looking at a system outside of the WoW continuum might give you some room to look at things with a new perspective, and introduce gameplay that differs from WoW in a good way (and systems are a very cost-effective way to differentiate yourself).

[Vaxhacker]

I have to say I have been immensely entertained by this whole affair.  And it's certainly far from over, I hope.

I had a thought, after reading the interview with DS where he claims that David Allen was responsible for bringing DS into the mix.  This may be too clever, but maybe, just maybe, DA was crazy...like a fox.  He saw the end of the line coming, and wanted out, but needed a distraction.  Someone else to take the fall.  Someone that everyone knows is totally insane and whose very presence will shift the blame (or at least, the attention) away from himself.  Let's face it, there isn't anyone else in this crazy industry that could have done that so well, and so predictably.

I know, it's extremely unlikely.  But...isn't it just a little plausible?

In any case there really needs to be a B-grade TV movie made about this.  Syfy, I'm looking at you!

[LK]

Uh oh.  

This.

[sam, an eggplant]

Forget "grammar", all that chatter about differentiating the game from WoW is rendered absurd by simply looking at a screenshot. Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt you guys talked about it very seriously over vanilla lattes and stayed up past Conan sketching pie in the sky design docs, but the fact of the matter is that you don't end up with a game so laughably rubber-stamp identical to WoW to every last superficial cosmetic degree without purposefully trying to clone it, and that's a silly idea that generates silly screenshots.

Also, please believe me when I say the tech quality is a non-issue. Nobody cares. To be blunt, nobody cares about Alganon either. We're just tickled pink by the ongoing antics of Dr. Smart.

Please don't let yourself get pulled deeper into his black hole of internet jibber-jabber. Don't respond to him in any public forum. It's unprofessional. Just move on with your life and focus on continuing to pay your rent.

I sincerely hope the powers that be block him from posting here, as he's sure to attempt to do so now.

[rattran]

Also, a hell of a username there, Hyuu. 

[CmdrSlack]

Also, a hell of a username there, Hyuu. 

Heh, that was my exact thought when I saw the poster name as well.

[hyuu]

Also, a hell of a username there, Hyuu. 

Oh crap. Someone explain why to me, please. I've used it since opening day of Star Wars Galaxies when I wanted my name (Hue Henry) to look "Star-Warsy" (Hyuu Hyenrii). If I've been using something horrible for this long, and no one has told me...

Oh god, I'm even afraid to google it now.

[CmdrSlack]

Also, a hell of a username there, Hyuu. 

Oh crap. Someone explain why to me, please. I've used it since opening day of Star Wars Galaxies when I wanted my name (Hue Henry) to look "Star-Warsy" (Hyuu Hyenrii). If I've been using something horrible for this long, and no one has told me...

Oh god, I'm even afraid to google it now.

Hyu was one of the more famously idiotic posters in this community. As f13 has aged, there are surely more posters who have no clue who the guy is, but the people dating back to LtM, et. al. know all about him. I'm pretty sure he's just instantly banned whenever one "diaspora" forum closes and a new one opens.

[Mrbloodworth]

Its already making history!

[schild]

Also, a hell of a username there, Hyuu.  

Oh crap. Someone explain why to me, please. I've used it since opening day of Star Wars Galaxies when I wanted my name (Hue Henry) to look "Star-Warsy" (Hyuu Hyenrii). If I've been using something horrible for this long, and no one has told me...

Oh god, I'm even afraid to google it now.

Welcome to f13. Enjoy your stay. Here's to hoping Mr. Dmart doesn't show up in tow.

I'm pretty sure he's just instantly banned whenever one "diaspora" forum closes and a new one opens.

He was not instantly banned here. He earned that, like everyone. Also, the words "just" and "whenever" imply it could happen again. Nay, says the not-broken-person-who-happens-to-own-the-place.

[CmdrSlack]

I'm pretty sure he's just instantly banned whenever one "diaspora" forum closes and a new one opens.

He was not instantly banned here. He earned that, like everyone. Also, the words "just" and "whenever" imply it could happen again. Nay, says the not-broken-person-who-happens-to-own-the-place.

Oh I know. I guess I was speaking in more of a past-present tense or somesuch. Let's put it this way, if someone else started anything resembling a decent online community, he'd be found and banned in short form. That's more due to Huy being Huy than anything else.

I'm not doomcasting, nor harshing your marshmallow or whatever, brocephus.

Besides, that silly line aside, I'm a lot less broken than most.

[schild]

Is Brocephus the lesser god of Bros?

[Musashi]

Your game might suck ass, and the tools may be worthless, but look yourself up on Encyclopedia Dramatica.  You can comfort yourself knowing, hey, at least you're not that guy.  Also, I haven't seen you try to use 'missive,' or misuse the word 'simply.'  So you get points for that.

[CmdrSlack]

Is Brocephus the lesser god of Bros?

I was going for a Hank Williams, Jr. reference, but I like yours better.

After working in a hippie grocery retailer for two years, I find it amusing to find new and stupider ways to say "bro." Now that I'm back in the legal arena it's my version of counting prime numbers while I wait for my line number to be called.

[hyuu]

Your game might suck ass, and the tools may be worthless, but look yourself up on Encyclopedia Dramatica.  You can comfort yourself knowing, hey, at least you're not that guy.  Also, I haven't seen you try to use 'missive,' or misuse the word 'simply.'  So you get points for that.

Well formed. Well played. A small slash to the face, which I probably deserve (about the game)... followed by a thrust deep into my heart (about the tools).... followed by kind words over the body. The Samurai lives up to his forum avatar.

I tell you, this board here... THIS is how forums are meant to be played. Not a circus of clowns and flames, but a mighty battle between heroic titans.... with the occasional penis joke.




... and you made me post again.... son-of-a... I am so bad at this game.

Is there an easy mode somewhere I can cut my chops on? Like a forum where mentally retarded sex offenders argue over what to do with their spare time... Oh wait... THIS IS THAT FORUM! Zing! (Right? Can I say Zing? Does someone have to say zing for me? When do I start insulting Lum? Now? Or in my next post? If I say that my favorite penis joke here is Curt Shilling, will he go all crazy on me or will he understand that I joke because I'm jealous of their budget and talent over there? Or maybe both? I'll get it figured out eventually... give me some time. You'd think by now someone would make a forum with a tutorial for new players, f**king lazy forum designers.)

[Soln]

we need a new emoticon for this.  "epic"

[Ingmar]

Curt only reads his own thread, so you're safe on that count. 

[Lantyssa]

Dammit, beaten to it by Ingmar. 

[Musashi]

Your game might suck ass, and the tools may be worthless, but look yourself up on Encyclopedia Dramatica.  You can comfort yourself knowing, hey, at least you're not that guy.  Also, I haven't seen you try to use 'missive,' or misuse the word 'simply.'  So you get points for that.

Well formed. Well played. A small slash to the face, which I probably deserve (about the game)... followed by a thrust deep into my heart (about the tools).... followed by kind words over the body. The Samurai lives up to his forum avatar.

Dude.  Take a deep breath.  I don't think anyone actually believes the embezzlement story.  Plus, you've already beaten Schilling at forums by posting in two threads, and you so far haven't made an ass of yourself.  Although your post in the other thread was kind of long.  I'm a gamer.  Don't you know about my attention span?

Anyway.  It looks like you could use some space between you and this mess.  You would probably be well served by extricating yourself from this thread.  Not trying to chase you off.  There's plenty of other shit on this forum to talk about, and I'm sure you're welcome.  But we already know the dude is a first class fuck face.  And if we didn't know, we do now.  You don't have to defend yourself to us.  Like you're the only guy to flop an MMO in the past ten years, right?  It's cool, bro.

[schild]

If it's any consolation, you're now on a list of 3 people who have admitted to flopping an MMOG and at least recognizing why (which is a list of two people, one of the others got it totally wrong).

[Goreschach]

Look on the bright side, at least we don't have to worry about him causing a zerg swarm due to posting here.

[Pezzle]

I keep thinking about wormsign.

[taolurker]

Wasn't sure if anyone did notice, but the original Gamasutra posts of Dmart are now *gone*... good thing we were diligent in archiving them.

I could almost envision the drama amplifying over this, and the possibility of him eating those words or them being his undoing is making me grin wickedly.

[Musashi]

Aww.  Who told the lawyers?

[HaemishM]

WORDS

Please, shut the fuck up. No one wants to hear about your super hot game design. I played your game. It sucked. I'd rather play Warhammer again, and I'll never do that. Go back to trolling the Insane Doctor, it's much more entertaining.

[Morfiend]

Hyuu
Hyu
HYU

*Twitch*

[Lum]

Come on, how could you think it was the same guy? He didn't mention AC Darktide once.

[Morfiend]

Come on, how could you think it was the same guy? He didn't mention AC Darktide once.

I saw the name and almost fell out of my chair before reading a single word. After reading the post I realized it wasnt him. Besides no mention of AC, there was also no mention of asian women.

[Ollie]

If it's any consolation, you're now on a list of 3 people who have admitted to flopping an MMOG and at least recognizing why (which is a list of two people, one of the others got it totally wrong).

As gamers we love public admissions of guilt; if for no other reason than to vindicate our bitching on internet forums. As professionals we realise the futility of holding our breath while waiting for public pillories. Most companies with even a modicum of professionalism wash their linen in-house.

MMO developers are a bit of a special case, though, in that they spare no effort in hoisting their special needs flags. Even the experienced houses seem remarkably reluctant to learn from past mistakes. We have companies like Funcom (Godager) launching one title after another in an abject technical state. We have Mythic (Jacobs) pioneering RvR in an MMO space, then releasing a similar title and completely failing to grasp what made the first game good to begin with. We have the wonderful folks at NCsoft Korea releasing soulless DikuMUDs with shiny new graphics, tempting us with the enticing thought of grinding yet another metric fuckton of the same rat tails we didn't want to be bothered with ten years ago.

Some companies (I'm looking at you, Cryptic) have dispensed all pretence of designing triple-A titles with any semblance of depth, and moved to a business model where they release a "new" game every year, betting on first week box sales while laughing all the way to the bank.

No wonder some of the old guard are ready to slit their wrists and give up on virtual game worlds altogether. Just read Koster's blog. If poor Raph is to be believed, all core gamers should just give up right now, lie down and let Zynga pour its special brand of FarmVille-manure all over us.

Which brings me to my point, finally: As entertaining as this whole Alganon debacle continues to be, as a gamer and a fan of virtual worlds I'm crying bittersweet tears. If ever there was an industry in desperate need of new start-ups and innovative ideas, it's this one. Granted, Alganon isn't good enough to stand on its own and fully deserves to go the way of the dodo. But somewhere amidst all this mess there just might be people who could go on to make good games down the line. From where I'm standing (as a consumer choking on derivative Dikus) the MMO industry can't afford to alienate any talent with the kind of douchebaggy PR shenanigans Dmart so dearly loves.

Or maybe I'm just a big softie.

[Stabs]

What I'd like to see next is for QOL to explore the one design feature that is both excellent and unusual: game master run events.

I remember hearing of an absolutely awesome event in SWG where Boba Fett showed up in town. Some player tried to push him and Boba shot him and killed him instantly (back in the days when death was kind of a big deal).

I didn't encounter an event in Alganon when I tried it but I did play one in Horizons which was basically an escort quest with half the server turning out to bodyguard a demigod GM on a pilgrimage somewhere. It was quite interesting to participate in but lacked drama.

Now suppose a bunch of GMs appear in Alganon trying to get help to perform a ritual to protect the world from the Ultimate Evil. Another person at QOL (I think Derek would be ideal) plays said Evil, a being who's only actual power is to whisper players. He whispers people trying to persuade them to sabotage the ritual while the other QOL staff ham it up with "oh noes, the main power crystals been sabotaged" virtual drama.

Time that to coincide with Steam and D2D offering a discount on box sales and Alganon should shift some copies. Some people would probably buy it just for the chance to argue with Derek in game for one afternoon which suits the Subscription Free business model perfectly.

Afterwards various blogs would post outrageous instances of chatlogs, some faked with photoshop and the game would stay on everyone's radar but this time with people actually playing it.

Also it would change the perception of the game from "bad wow-clone" to "the game with you interact with maniac GMs in" which is perhaps a much more saleable commodity.

Alternatively they could just borrow yet another idea from Blizzard and add a Secret Beaver Level in which masked beaver bandits pose word-games of great lexical sophistication which can only be defeated by the most cunning of linguists.

[Merusk]

I wish I had a link handy re: GM events for you to read but I don't.  Do a search it has been discussed several times in the past and the trouble is they don't work for what they cost.  You piss off people, or you crash the server or you spend way too much money on the staff who, although they're doing 2-3 events a day, gets nothing but complaints from players about how there's never any events when THEY play.

Smaller games can do it without as many problems but how many devs are going for smaller?

[tmp]

Wasn't sure if anyone did notice, but the original Gamasutra posts of Dmart are now *gone*... good thing we were diligent in archiving them.

The spice must flow. (a three-page "in-depth interview with Serek Dmart")

[Ixxit]

Wasn't sure if anyone did notice, but the original Gamasutra posts of Dmart are now *gone*... good thing we were diligent in archiving them.

I could almost envision the drama amplifying over this, and the possibility of him eating those words or them being his undoing is making me grin wickedly.

And now he's put the posts back again.  
Anyone care to check if he's edited them? I just don't have the strength.

[tmp]

They looked about the same at a glance. There may be one or two posts missing but not sure it it's just my memory being fuzzy.

[Kovacs]

The spice must flow. (a three-page "in-depth interview with Serek Dmart")

From the Alganon Forums. 

 If you noticed, I'm not doing interviews, making a big deal about this, posting on my blog etc. I am posting to the community because these are the people I care about

Stunned by his lack of conviction in avoiding further public idiocy.