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

[KallDrexx]

A two way streak.  Oh,  !

But don't you understand?!?  A COMPANY IS AT STEAK HERE!

[Lum]

I know a few of you guys also use the SA forums. Apparently DSmart is poised to make an appearance "in a couple of hours" if any of you care to ruin your day that way. Games subforum

Oh, my, that WILL be amusing. Link to thread?

[HaemishM]

PR Flack stuff

Jesus Christ Jumped Up On A Stick. I hope Alganon is her only client because she quite clearly does not know how to fucking write. Or spell. Or do PR.

But then she actually took on the good Doctor as a client, so she quite clearly needs medication.

[Raegar]

As for PR, it did the game justice. The press release did the game justice.

Ahahaha, you ain't fucking kidding sweetheart.

I LOL'd HARD ^^^^

[fuser]

Oh, my, that WILL be amusing. Link to thread?

Alganon thread

[RhyssaFireheart]

Amusingly the tag-line on the PR Sirens site is 'When YOUR reputation matters...'

Oh good lords, that website is a fucking disaster.  Honestly, if you're going to just use a text logo for your company (nothing wrong with that) why not pick a font that isn't freeware and cheesy looking to boot.

There are so many stylistic things wrong with that site (not to mention the lack of custom URL, considering how cheap those are these days) that it would take ages to list them all.  Bland, bland, and an overuse of flash, IMO.

OH my.. Bwahahahahaha!  It's a freebie created website! It's not even.. oh this is just priceless... And someone actually paid her to do their PR? 

[Nebu]

I fear going there would be like looking at the sun.  Once you've looked at the sun, the damage is done.  You can never un-look.  

[Stabs]

It seems there are even more worms under this rock we've turned over. Later in the MMORPG.com thread poster Biogerm noticed this:

From World of Warcraft’s listed features, copied off of Direct2Drive:

    World of Warcraft Download Features

        * Adventure together with thousands of other players simultaneously.
        * Explore an expansive world with miles of forests, deserts, snow-blown mountains, and other exotic lands.
        * Choose from four realm types and find the one best suited for your own playing style: Normal, Player versus Player, Role-playing, and Role-playing Player versus Player.
        * Join the Horde or the Alliance as one of 8 playable races.
        * Select from 9 classes, including holy Paladins, shape-shifting Druids, powerful Warriors and Mages, demon-summoning Warlocks, and more.
        * Encounter many familiar and new Warcraft characters and monsters.
        * Learn the continuing story of Azeroth by completing a wide variety of challenging quests.
        * Journey through an epic world filled with dungeons of different styles and depths.
        * Explore 6 huge capital cities, which serve as major hubs for the races inhabiting them.
        * Practice various professions to help locate reagents, make and enhance custom items, acquire wealth through trade with other players, and more.
        * Purchase tickets for travel along a number of air routes flown by creatures such as Gryphons and Wyverns. For global transportation, travel by Boat or Goblin Zeppelin.
        * Once a certain level has been achieved, players can choose to purchase permanent personal mounts.
        * Establish a guild, purchase a custom guild tabard, and promote or demote recruits to different ranks within the guild.
        * Mail gold, items, or messages to other players, or send them to your own characters for easy muling.
        * Sell your items or search for items for sale via the automated auction house.
        * Locate and engage other players with easy-to-use features and tools, including chat channels, friends lists, and animated and audible character expressions.
        * Customize the game’s interface via XML.

From Alganon’s April 28th press release  (italics for suspiciously-similar claims):

    Game Features:

        * Adventure together with thousands of other players simultaneously.
        * Journey through an epic world filled with dungeons of different styles and depths.
        * Explore two massive continents and their huge capital cities, which serve as major hubs for the races inhabiting them.
        * Choose from two races and several classes – with more to come.
        * Encounter hundreds of interactive characters and monsters.
        * Learn the continuing story of Alganon by completing a wide variety of challenging quests.
        * Practice various trade skills to help locate reagents, make and enhance custom items, acquire wealth through trade with other players, and more.
        * A robust guild system with extensive management ability for community managers to establish rewards and ranks to suit their own tastes.
        * Enjoy hundreds of hours of gameplay with new quests, items, and adventures in static and instance areas.
        * Buy items, beef up your character etc using the Tribute micro-transaction system.
        * Enjoy hundreds of hours of gameplay with new quests, items, and adventures every month.

My source is http://warpcorebreach.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/where-theres-one-plagiarised-source/ via http://arewenewatthis.wordpress.com/

[Segoris]

I fear going there would be like looking at the sun.  Once you've looked at the sun, the damage is done.  You can never un-look.  

Very wise. I went there, and it can not be unseen. Though on one of the links she refers to herself as a "PR Guru in High Tech space."

So a self proclaimed PR Guru is representing a self proclaimed Doctor? Match made in heaven.

[Lantyssa]

Amusingly the tag-line on the PR Sirens site is 'When YOUR reputation matters...'

To be fair, there isn't much the best PR firm in the business could do for this mess.  Maybe if they have a hitman on the payroll, but I'm not sure even that could shut the guy up.

[Murgos]

To be fair, there isn't much the best PR firm in the business could do for this mess.

Yeah, but there is a lot they could not do that would probably help.  Like making press releases.

[Dtrain]

I'm starting to think this is a marketing strategy.

[schild]

This PR "group" probably didn't exist until Derek needed a fallguy. Chances are this person is someone Derek knew and is too stupid to tell him to DIAF.

[IainC]

This PR "group" probably didn't exist until Derek needed a fallguy. Chances are this person is someone Derek knew and is too stupid to tell him to DIAF.

The evidence doesn't really support that. This person does appear to have been running a PR firm for some time and while the PR hackette is unbelievably naive and not very good at her job, there's some evidence that she's been doing it for a while including some work for the good doctor prior to this.

[Nebu]

The evidence doesn't really support that. This person does appear to have been running a PR firm for some time and while the PR hackette is unbelievably naive and not very good at her job, there's some evidence that she's been doing it for a while including some work for the good doctor prior to this.

Proof positive that some people will kiss unbelievable amounts of ass if the price is right. 

[HaemishM]

Based on her web site, the price must have been a barrel full of hallucinogenics.

[IainC]

Based on her web site, the price must have been a barrel full of hallucinogenics.

You should read the 'creative' writing.

[Nebu]

Based on her web site, the price must have been a barrel full of hallucinogenics.

Considering who she has to do PR for, I'd say that's appropriate payment. 

[Draegan]

Well that press release couldn't of taken more than 20 minutes to write up.  Any payment is better than nothing I suppose.

[Sky]

couldn't of

[sam, an eggplant]

Awwww little emoticons with pitchforks and torches. So adorable!

[Draegan]

Maybe I could of typed couldn't have but I didn't feel like it.

[Signe]

I met him at a party once.  He told me he was Sidney Poitier's son.

[Musashi]

Those schoolgirl days...

[palmer_eldritch]

Oh, my, that WILL be amusing. Link to thread?

Alganon thread

No Smart in that thread yet, but they are deliberately trying to summon him. Like teenagers playing with a Ouija board in the first act.

[01101010]

I met him at a party once.  He told me he was Sidney Poitier's son.

No no, that's Vic Damone's kid...

[Sjofn]

couldn't of

[Jamiko]

So quote DS:

John Smedley of SOE, actually uttered those same words in his New Orleans Fan Fair 2004 keynote speech which predates Ray Muzyka's own commentary in the 2008 press release for Bioware's upcoming Star Wars : The Old Republic MMO. John said "Traditionally, massively multiplier online games have been about three basic gameplay elements - combat, exploration and character progression. In Everquest 2, we've added a fourth element to the equation; a story"

Smed says he wasn't there that year.

[Mrbloodworth]

Further, the quote came from F13, it just so happens that the folks who are linking to the story, are [incorrectly] sourcing it to KTR.

Both F13 and KTR are little read blogs. They are not mainstream media. Hence the distinction. Just because a bunch of fanboys get together to scratch each other’s backs while poking fun at the flavor du jour doesn’t qualify them as a credible source.

I stand by my previous statements. If you want to cry foul, go over to Massively and ask them why Jef is running headlines like “Alganon steals press release from BioWare” if it’s not for *hits and giggles.

Give me a break. Some of you guys hiding behind the safe confines of anonymity have nothing short of a God complex gone awry. When you live a life less ordinary, I guess you should take what you can get if it brings you moments of joy and jubilation.

Apparently we started it.

[Stabs]

Timeline:

30th April: QOL sends out Alganon email.
Blazinglynx at MMORPG.com immediately points out that it uses the exact same words that Bioware used to publicise SWTOR.

5th May: I read my email from Alganon and am amused by the fourth pillar stuff. I post about it on F13.
People mention they thought of story in games first.
I clarify how close it is to the original by posting from SWTOR's faq. People express astonishment.
Ethic over at Kill Ten Rats independently sees the resemblance and posts about it.

7th May: Grumblesmurph points out that there's actually a press release which is even closer in wording and almost certainly the original source. Stormwaltz explains that the four pillars concept was being used internally in Bioware since at least 2004.
Ethic, after reading us, realises how extreme this is and posts about it again on KTR this time using a much stronger title and crediting F13 (Alganon: Blatant plagiarism)

8th May Massively picks up the story from KTR. Usually a neutral, or even pro-developer, site they run with the title Alganon steals press release from Bioware.

9th May Serek Dmart is made aware of the Massively article.

[Abagadro]

Gotta love how he just grasps onto the Smedley concept and authoritatively asserts it a few times based upon nothing other than it somehow (in an unclear way) absolves him and someone on a blog said it (funny how the cheeto-stained fingers of blog denizens are such losers when they point out what a twat he is but are rock solid gold when they say something useful). Never mind whether it has any basis in fact. What a tool.

[Stabs]

At a guess he went to New Orleans in 2004, got blasted, talked to someone equally drunk from Bioware who mentioned the fourth pillar stuff to him way back then. Then couldn't remember who told him. Then when pushed figured it would be some industry bigwig and picked Smed at random.

Of course that doesn't gel with the idea that his PR person copied Bioware's idea very obviously, so obviously that just about anyone who follows the industry would recognise the phrase (it was in SWTOR's first hype video that wasn't just cgi of sith killing jedi) and gave it to Derek to approve and he ok-ed it without a qualm.

Of course maybe he rubber stamps stuff without reading it but he doesn't seem like the sort of person who doesn't care about his public image.

[Velorath]

At a guess he went to New Orleans in 2004, got blasted, talked to someone equally drunk from Bioware who mentioned the fourth pillar stuff to him way back then. Then couldn't remember who told him. Then when pushed figured it would be some industry bigwig and picked Smed at random.

If I'm not mistaken, Memmio is the first one to bring up the Smedley thing over in the comments on KTR  (Warrior also mentions it on Massively later that day but it might have just read that on KTR and repeated it).  Throughout that thread he also seems to be White Knighting Smart quite a bit.  His blog also mentions that he's "been employed as a programmer (who has dabbled in design) in MMOs."

Also I'd find it hard to believe that this is just some honest mistake on Memmio's part since he was very specific about the wording and when Smedley said it.  It wasn't like "oh, I think I remember Smedley saying something similar about EQ2 in the past".  My best guess is that Memmio either is Smart, works for Smart, or is just brown-nosing in hopes of getting a job or something.

[Stabs]

Good spot.

[Murgos]

I met him at a party once.  He told me he was Sidney Poitier's son.

He looked a lot like Will Smith too I bet.