Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Some friendly questions to Intrepid Studios and Steven from a $400 backer! :)
Dear friends at Intrepid Studios and Steven Sharif,
I congratulate you to successfully funding your game in this impressively short time frame! This is a huge achievement and probably something you are all very proud of! I must say, I am a passionate MMO gamer myself and I can assure you, that I truly believe that your ideas could revolutionize the whole genre. That's why, as I already mentioned in the thread title, I immediately backed your game with $400 and I am sharing this amount with you not to show off, but because I hope this should give me the right to be read, answered and not deleted. Because this post will be without a doubt a huge amount of text, I will mark the questions I'd like to be answered with numbers. After the question I will summarize my thoughts on why I consider this as valuable information.
To be honest with you Steven, although I have backed your game moderately high, I have some doubts about your project now. Since I absolutely want this game to be great and succeed, I am hoping that you can bring my mind to easy by answering some questions. But before I get to these, I'd like to share some things about myself with you and the community. I have degrees both in computer science and animation and I earn my rent by working as a 3D artist with over ten years experience in the film and game industry. I don't have my own studio like you do, but actually working in the field for quite some time gives me a rough idea about projects like this one.
After reading this comment on the Kickstarter page...
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1791529601/ashes-of-creation-new-mmorpg-by-intrepid-studios/comments?cursor=16625986#comment-16625985
...I followed the links to this reddit thread here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/68n6rt/ashes_of_creation_a_sandbox_mmo_which_focuses_on/
I personally have some interest in not being deleted here, so I avoid sharing all of the details. Please feel free to follow the links, read through the points and make your own conclusion after reading my reaction and Steven's possible answers. For people that still don't feel visiting reddit, it's basically some information about how Steven Sharif came into the position to be able to fund his own game. While I personally do not care what anybody on the team exactly did to earn his or her money before Ashes, the provided information does raise some red flags now.
1. How many people are working at Intrepid Studios at the moment and how long have they been working on Ashes already?
If you do a google search on Intrepid Studios you find the Ashes of Creation page (which shows 12 people in the team section), a link to their company website (https://www.intrepidstudios.com/) which is down at the moment and a linked in profile (https://www.linkedin.com/company/intrepid-studios-inc), which says 11-50.
If you do a search on the team size for Guild Wars 2 for example you can find this thread on their forums:
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/how-big-is-the-development-team
While this is not an official list, it gives you a rough idea how many people are involved in creating an MMO in the end. While this is not an issue per se, a small company consisting of only 12 people are perfectly common for startups, the media you publish however suggests that you have already a rough sketch of a game with an open world, a basic combat system and lots of your game mechanics in place. To actually have achieved this, you already should be scratching the 100 people mark for quite some time.
If you follow some coverage on YouTube you probably know a guy called DeathsProxy. In this video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvYE4-C7Izc&list=PLJvvIDgksu7OluQF-IeSzwh_AlEMe8m7s&index=2
he mentions that Steven hired a team of 30 people working for three months already on Ashes (video upload date 12/12/16). Assuming this is accurate, this would mean 30 to 50 people at best worked for nine month on this game so far.
2. When are you planning to start your hiring process and how many people are you intending to hire for this project?
This is all legit for starting to develop a game, building a first prototype, doing several proofs of concepts, seeing how the Kickstarter goes and then hiring to full capacity. However, Steven claims that the project is already fully funded (apparently by himself), so this makes me wonder, why isn't Intrepid hiring already? If the Kickstarter is only to give the community a way to contribute as he says, so why doesn't Intrepid Studios have a working website with tons of job offers since they need a team of 100+ people? Usually, an MMO is in development for about 4-5 years and a time size of 200-300 is not even over exaggerated for the amount of content Ashes promises. Their website not just temporarily down, I googled them when I found out about the game a couple of months ago. They don't even have a Facebook page.
3. Would you consider getting rid of the referral system if the community asked you to?
Without going into the details about Steven's past, the referral system is pyramidal by design. While I personally can relate to the explanation Steven gave for this in the FAQ (to lower advertising costs and giving this back to the players), reading through the reddit thread I mentioned above, it makes me wonder: Let's assume for the sake of the argument that everyone backing this game knew about Steven's experience with pyramidal systems and would come to the conclusion that Ashes might do better without it, would you consider leaving it behind or is this an integral part of your business model?
4. How many people have participated in your biggest performance test so far?
The UE4 Engine does have some issues with many players on screen at the same time if not properly optimized and customized. All your videos show only a couple of players playing together in the same small environment. However you are developing this game for large scale battles, you even demonstrate a siege situation in your Kickstarter video. I wonder if you have ever tested large scale battles and if not, what makes you think you can even deliver that promise? Camelot Unchained for example had a simulated scene setup in their engine very early on with hundreds of bots fighting each other as a proof of concept. Have you ever done such a test with bots or even actual people you can share?
5. How big is the playable world right now and can you show us something in game to display the actual size?
This is probably what interests me the most. All your videos suggest that you already completed large portions of the game world. You display several different environments, a siege situation, a party fighting their way through a dungeon and much more. You even had time to render a cut scene with a rogue fighting on the rooftops of that cool city. When did you even have time to animate and render a cut scene? Shouldn't you working purely on the game mechanics right now considering that your company is not operating at full force yet? Usually cinematics are even outsourced because the people that actually make the game don't have time for those. Anyway. But that makes me wonder where all these amazing places are in relation to each other. Can you actually turn around the camera in that tropic city at 0:11 in your Kickstarter video and have a walk to the medieval style one at 0:20? If you watch closely the gameplay videos that they have published again, namely the mage gameplay and the dungeon preview you might notice that everything looks pretty much like the same town, the same path over to the same lake and the same dungeon entrance. Some conveniently placed edits suggest a larger area that I suspect even exists. Even the seasons video somehow seems to be recorded in the same proximity. So, can you make a quick flyover the world geometry you have constructed already?
6. Your Kickstarter gives a full refund guarantee in case the game doesn't launch, can you elaborate what you consider as launched?
While I absolutely appreciate a full refund guarantee, you are only mentioning this in one single sentence. Also, of course you state that every system in the game can change on the way, so what does it mean exactly? Should Ashes launch with one playable class, none of the promised features and contaminated with bugs, is that still considered as a launch? I personally think that if some people had some concerns by now, this needs a little more clarification if it is actually a real guarantee or more of an empty phrase with no meaning.
7. How do I think this all connects?
This is actually a question for me, so let me please elaborate. Assuming that Intrepid Studios had around 30 people working for nine months on this game, they started from scratch, did not use any stock models and they are customizing the Unreal Engine for their purposes, and they ARE STILL NOT HIRING, they already SEEM to have made an incredible progress. Yet they are not actually showing anything, really. My point is that if the numbers above are correct I suspect from my experience that what Steven is showing, is pretty much all that he has got, because that's pretty much all you can cook up in that time with that manpower. I assume that they worked hard for nine months to create more or less stunning visuals and that's all they got (come on, they even have RENDERED CINEMATICS). Plus some amazing ideas that everyone (or at least enough trusting people) wants to see in an MMO. I am not even saying that this game can never happen. Apparently Steven has enough money to pay for it, at least in theory. But if I am correct, then they have only glorified concept arts and basically nothing else. This, combined with the facts from reddit, is a little worrying I must say. Because if this is all they got, the whole campaign is pretty misleading and also, the game will in no way be delivered December 2018. I personally would be totally fine, IF they only had stunning visuals and a great concept. But since they are not exactly saying so, some doubts if they are actually able to deliver AT ALL are coming to mind now.
So please Steven, regain my trust in this game by answering these questions. I truly hope that Ashes is not only what it seems to me right now, just too be good to be true.
I congratulate you to successfully funding your game in this impressively short time frame! This is a huge achievement and probably something you are all very proud of! I must say, I am a passionate MMO gamer myself and I can assure you, that I truly believe that your ideas could revolutionize the whole genre. That's why, as I already mentioned in the thread title, I immediately backed your game with $400 and I am sharing this amount with you not to show off, but because I hope this should give me the right to be read, answered and not deleted. Because this post will be without a doubt a huge amount of text, I will mark the questions I'd like to be answered with numbers. After the question I will summarize my thoughts on why I consider this as valuable information.
To be honest with you Steven, although I have backed your game moderately high, I have some doubts about your project now. Since I absolutely want this game to be great and succeed, I am hoping that you can bring my mind to easy by answering some questions. But before I get to these, I'd like to share some things about myself with you and the community. I have degrees both in computer science and animation and I earn my rent by working as a 3D artist with over ten years experience in the film and game industry. I don't have my own studio like you do, but actually working in the field for quite some time gives me a rough idea about projects like this one.
After reading this comment on the Kickstarter page...
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1791529601/ashes-of-creation-new-mmorpg-by-intrepid-studios/comments?cursor=16625986#comment-16625985
...I followed the links to this reddit thread here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/68n6rt/ashes_of_creation_a_sandbox_mmo_which_focuses_on/
I personally have some interest in not being deleted here, so I avoid sharing all of the details. Please feel free to follow the links, read through the points and make your own conclusion after reading my reaction and Steven's possible answers. For people that still don't feel visiting reddit, it's basically some information about how Steven Sharif came into the position to be able to fund his own game. While I personally do not care what anybody on the team exactly did to earn his or her money before Ashes, the provided information does raise some red flags now.
1. How many people are working at Intrepid Studios at the moment and how long have they been working on Ashes already?
If you do a google search on Intrepid Studios you find the Ashes of Creation page (which shows 12 people in the team section), a link to their company website (https://www.intrepidstudios.com/) which is down at the moment and a linked in profile (https://www.linkedin.com/company/intrepid-studios-inc), which says 11-50.
If you do a search on the team size for Guild Wars 2 for example you can find this thread on their forums:
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/how-big-is-the-development-team
While this is not an official list, it gives you a rough idea how many people are involved in creating an MMO in the end. While this is not an issue per se, a small company consisting of only 12 people are perfectly common for startups, the media you publish however suggests that you have already a rough sketch of a game with an open world, a basic combat system and lots of your game mechanics in place. To actually have achieved this, you already should be scratching the 100 people mark for quite some time.
If you follow some coverage on YouTube you probably know a guy called DeathsProxy. In this video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvYE4-C7Izc&list=PLJvvIDgksu7OluQF-IeSzwh_AlEMe8m7s&index=2
he mentions that Steven hired a team of 30 people working for three months already on Ashes (video upload date 12/12/16). Assuming this is accurate, this would mean 30 to 50 people at best worked for nine month on this game so far.
2. When are you planning to start your hiring process and how many people are you intending to hire for this project?
This is all legit for starting to develop a game, building a first prototype, doing several proofs of concepts, seeing how the Kickstarter goes and then hiring to full capacity. However, Steven claims that the project is already fully funded (apparently by himself), so this makes me wonder, why isn't Intrepid hiring already? If the Kickstarter is only to give the community a way to contribute as he says, so why doesn't Intrepid Studios have a working website with tons of job offers since they need a team of 100+ people? Usually, an MMO is in development for about 4-5 years and a time size of 200-300 is not even over exaggerated for the amount of content Ashes promises. Their website not just temporarily down, I googled them when I found out about the game a couple of months ago. They don't even have a Facebook page.
3. Would you consider getting rid of the referral system if the community asked you to?
Without going into the details about Steven's past, the referral system is pyramidal by design. While I personally can relate to the explanation Steven gave for this in the FAQ (to lower advertising costs and giving this back to the players), reading through the reddit thread I mentioned above, it makes me wonder: Let's assume for the sake of the argument that everyone backing this game knew about Steven's experience with pyramidal systems and would come to the conclusion that Ashes might do better without it, would you consider leaving it behind or is this an integral part of your business model?
4. How many people have participated in your biggest performance test so far?
The UE4 Engine does have some issues with many players on screen at the same time if not properly optimized and customized. All your videos show only a couple of players playing together in the same small environment. However you are developing this game for large scale battles, you even demonstrate a siege situation in your Kickstarter video. I wonder if you have ever tested large scale battles and if not, what makes you think you can even deliver that promise? Camelot Unchained for example had a simulated scene setup in their engine very early on with hundreds of bots fighting each other as a proof of concept. Have you ever done such a test with bots or even actual people you can share?
5. How big is the playable world right now and can you show us something in game to display the actual size?
This is probably what interests me the most. All your videos suggest that you already completed large portions of the game world. You display several different environments, a siege situation, a party fighting their way through a dungeon and much more. You even had time to render a cut scene with a rogue fighting on the rooftops of that cool city. When did you even have time to animate and render a cut scene? Shouldn't you working purely on the game mechanics right now considering that your company is not operating at full force yet? Usually cinematics are even outsourced because the people that actually make the game don't have time for those. Anyway. But that makes me wonder where all these amazing places are in relation to each other. Can you actually turn around the camera in that tropic city at 0:11 in your Kickstarter video and have a walk to the medieval style one at 0:20? If you watch closely the gameplay videos that they have published again, namely the mage gameplay and the dungeon preview you might notice that everything looks pretty much like the same town, the same path over to the same lake and the same dungeon entrance. Some conveniently placed edits suggest a larger area that I suspect even exists. Even the seasons video somehow seems to be recorded in the same proximity. So, can you make a quick flyover the world geometry you have constructed already?
6. Your Kickstarter gives a full refund guarantee in case the game doesn't launch, can you elaborate what you consider as launched?
While I absolutely appreciate a full refund guarantee, you are only mentioning this in one single sentence. Also, of course you state that every system in the game can change on the way, so what does it mean exactly? Should Ashes launch with one playable class, none of the promised features and contaminated with bugs, is that still considered as a launch? I personally think that if some people had some concerns by now, this needs a little more clarification if it is actually a real guarantee or more of an empty phrase with no meaning.
7. How do I think this all connects?
This is actually a question for me, so let me please elaborate. Assuming that Intrepid Studios had around 30 people working for nine months on this game, they started from scratch, did not use any stock models and they are customizing the Unreal Engine for their purposes, and they ARE STILL NOT HIRING, they already SEEM to have made an incredible progress. Yet they are not actually showing anything, really. My point is that if the numbers above are correct I suspect from my experience that what Steven is showing, is pretty much all that he has got, because that's pretty much all you can cook up in that time with that manpower. I assume that they worked hard for nine months to create more or less stunning visuals and that's all they got (come on, they even have RENDERED CINEMATICS). Plus some amazing ideas that everyone (or at least enough trusting people) wants to see in an MMO. I am not even saying that this game can never happen. Apparently Steven has enough money to pay for it, at least in theory. But if I am correct, then they have only glorified concept arts and basically nothing else. This, combined with the facts from reddit, is a little worrying I must say. Because if this is all they got, the whole campaign is pretty misleading and also, the game will in no way be delivered December 2018. I personally would be totally fine, IF they only had stunning visuals and a great concept. But since they are not exactly saying so, some doubts if they are actually able to deliver AT ALL are coming to mind now.
So please Steven, regain my trust in this game by answering these questions. I truly hope that Ashes is not only what it seems to me right now, just too be good to be true.
0
Comments
Without going into the details about Steven’s past, the referral system is pyramidal by design. While I personally can relate to the explanation Steven gave for this in the FAQ (to lower advertising costs and giving this back to the players), reading through the reddit thread I mentioned above, it makes me wonder: Let’s assume for the sake of the argument that everyone backing this game knew about Steven’s experience with pyramidal systems and would come to the conclusion that Ashes might do better without it, would you consider leaving it behind or is this an integral part of your business model?[/quote]
I personally been a part of a Pyramid marketing system with Melaluca. It is a really crappy system because people try to make money on it and it always falls apart. But in an MMORPG where people tend to drag friends from MMORPG to MMORPG a referal system that allows me to reduce my sub and gain some perks. This is not a bad system for MMORPGs. Though I do not agree with people earning money back over lets say X amount of cash shop credit.
I mean, I threw some $ at this too, but some of these questions are more 'personal' than I'd feel entitled to ask.
Basically I am curious about the answer they give, if at all. This is also a TLDR; after reading the reddit what I suspect they are doing is generating a lot of money in the Kickstarter by snowballing with the referral system and then either under deliver or even don't deliver at all. I am basing that on the assumption that they used there time and manpower so far to produce misleading videos that suggest a huge progress where in reality, is nearly none for the actual game. I am also hoping this to be wrong, that's why I want to see how their reaction is.
I mean, I threw some $ at this too, but some of these questions are more ‘personal’ than I’d feel entitled to ask.[/quote]
It's not like that. I just feel that this whole project is just a little sketchy now and I want to put my mind at ease about that. Backing a project usually does give people the right to ask questions like this. They can refuse to answer them and in fact, that's also an answer. Whatever happens, I encourage everybody to draw their own conclusion.
Ah, so you think the whole thing is a scam then.
Not that that's impossible, buuuuut, try adjusting your tinfoil hat and see if that makes you feel better about it :)
<div class="d4p-bbt-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/some-friendly-questions-to-intrepid-studios-and-steven-from-a-400-backer/#post-14284" rel="nofollow">tinukeda wrote:</a></div>
Some interesting questions in there, but damn, do people these days feel like they have the right to micro-manage how a company runs and does its work? Sheesh.
I mean, I threw some $ at this too, but some of these questions are more ‘personal’ than I’d feel entitled to ask.
</blockquote>
It’s not like that. I just feel that this whole project is just a little sketchy now and I want to put my mind at ease about that. Backing a project usually does give people the right to ask questions like this. They can refuse to answer them and in fact, that’s also an answer. Whatever happens, I encourage everybody to draw their own conclusion.
[/quote]
Let me put your mind at ease. They are farther along in their development than other MMORPGs. They are aimming for the older school market but will have some newer MMORPG things in the game. Add to that Steve want people to refer others to play their game. That is how WOW became so popular, not because it had real good marketing but because people like me dragged friends into the game who also dragged friends to the game. Its a good idea to give some benefit for referring players.
That's what I am saying, it does look that way! I must say I have my reasonable doubts that it is actually the case as I tried to elaborate. Again, I want to be incorrect. So let's see what Steven has to say!
I too share some of your concerns. To answer your #6 question, they are slinging the term "minimum viable product" which is the latest fad in crowd-funding meaning "whatever we can get to work" since there is no true definition of the term. It is a term being used by multiple crowd-funders now to skirt tightening crowd-funding policies.
I fail to see how bringing up pyramid schemes, and history with them has any gravity on the game. It comes off as more of a personal attack than "LOOK AT ME I'M AN ADVOCATE FOR YOU ALL." Good job there Google detective.
Your MMO experience since 98' doesn't necessarily mean you know what "success" is. You've seen games that have been successful, you've seen games that have failed. For the rest it's pretty damn subjective. You might as well be saying MMOs should be made for me. Get off my lawn. I've been playing since Everquest was teaching snakes to kick.
A scam? Not necessarily. What I do believe at least at the moment though, is that they deliberately try to make their game look way more progressed than it actually is. And if that's the case I personally would classify the Kickstarter campaign to be misleading at best. Feel free to make your own conclusions.
As far as the kickstarter, no one is forcing anyone to offer monetary support. The money I personally spent on it can't possibly cause me any more regret than the same amount I've spent on nights out, of which I have spotty to no recollection. ;)
They've said they're going to stream progress a few times a week or at least that's my understanding. I'm looking forward to watching the game develop. If we get burned, then we'll have the same conversation when we all meet again for the next big thing. Remember though, you're never going to have the same experience as "your first love", no matter how badly you want it. It's just not going to happen.
Maybe we're investing in the next best thing. Please make it happen @IntrepidStudios. :D
Edit: Forum ate my post :(
[/quote]
Agreed, I think it was a respectful way to ask some tough, but relevant questions. I don't believe there is anything wrong with raising concerns, at this point. The answers to these questions could well ease the concerns of many more potential backers.
Please believe me, I also sincerely hope we do.
As far as the kickstarter, no one is forcing anyone to offer monetary support. The money I personally spent on it can't possibly cause me any more regret than the same amount I've spent on nights out, of which I have spotty to no recollection. ;)
They've said they're going to stream progress a few times a week or at least that's my understanding. I'm looking forward to watching the game develop. If we get burned, then we'll have the same conversation when we all meet again for the next big thing. Remember though, you're never going to have the same experience as "your first love", no matter how badly you want it. It's just not going to happen.
Maybe we're investing in the next best thing. Please make it happen @IntrepidStudios. :D
Edit: Forum ate my original post :(
https://www.reddit.com/r/AshesofCreation/comments/68tk1l/why_the_ashes_of_creation_referral_program_is_not/dh1912j/
I mean, I threw some $ at this too, but some of these questions are more ‘personal’ than I’d feel entitled to ask.[/quote]
Well said my man!
While I see all your facts, I still believe this is the real deal
I actually adjusted my tinfoil hat and stumbled over this thread here:
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/from-these-tech-demos-to-an-actual-mmo-technicalserver-side/
Here one comment especially raised my interest:
[quote quote=14224]”However at this stage everything is certainly offline”
there are clips where they play online , they talk about other guilds being active on other node’s etc. but yeah not 10000 people tho ????[/quote]
Probably this is referring to this video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVVgjQM0z3Q
Please skip to 6:15 to get to the interesting part. Here is a little conversation Steven and Jeffrey are having during their test:
<...>
Jeffrey: "That is correct! This village has been level three for a little while now, so mostly everything they have been trying to build has been unlocked. It is an economic node, so you can see a bunch of different kiosks here that you wouldn't necessarily see in other types of nodes."
Steven: "Oh yeah, I see that..."
<Steven and Jeffrey talking a little bit about player driven economy>
Steven: "Cool, very cool. I see that there is a trebuchet over here as this node is preparing for war with some nearby node or something?"
Jeffrey: "Yeah, there is actually another node that hit level three about two miles east and things have not gone well with their diplomacy, so they made some threats, there have been some raids and these guys are getting ready for war."
Steven: "Is that a result of the player run government causing that strife between the nodes or...?"
Jeffrey: "That's a large part of it, there's actually two different guilds who are kind of... not running, but have big influences in these two nodes and they don't like each other, so that kind of filters down into the politics.
Steven: "Very cool. Ok. I see some caravans, had those negotiations or that relationship with that other node gone better, these caravans could have been used for the transit of goods? Perhaps like some region specific resources that could be found in this area?"
Jeffrey: "Yep! This node itself has a really, really high quality iron not too far out of town and there's actually no iron like that anywhere else on that server and so there is a lot of money to be had. But that money can't be had if <can't quite understand that part>, so... it's their loss!"
So what happens here is, Steven and Jeffrey walk around in a town and the very near proximity that for some reason has a striking resemblance to the area of the mage gameplay. They talk about two guilds that apparently were raiding each other over some iron. Yet, we only see four players, terribly lagging as soon as they share some screen space. We only HEAR about this ongoing conflict of these two other guilds.
After reading through all of this, doesn't this sound just a little bit staged to you? Do you honestly think there are actual guilds playing this game right now? Levelling their nodes, doing raids? If there are guilds playing this game right now, wouldn't we at least know which guilds that might be? If there aren't any, why would they have a conversation like that? Again, I am hoping I am wrong and I am encouraging everybody to draw their own conclusions, no matter what I think.
Don't get me wrong, I am NOT saying that the referral program is a scheme in itself. I am saying that they are utilizing a snowball system in a brillant way to generate interest and therefor money that they could not otherwise, without spending anything. This is not a bad thing per se, in fact it's quite genius. But... If all the visuals you have seen, were in fact everything that has been put into existence so far... And in addition, they staged a conversation about guilds that might not even be real... Wouldn't you find it just a little bit sketchy now that someone who, let's put it that way... has a huge experience in con men systems (in contrary to making games) is setting up a Kickstarter like that?
Without going into the details about Steven’s past,<em><strong> the referral system is pyramidal by design.</strong> </em>While I personally can relate to the explanation Steven gave for this in the FAQ (to lower advertising costs and giving this back to the players), reading through the reddit thread I mentioned above, it makes me wonder: Let’s assume for the sake of the argument that everyone backing this game knew about Steven’s experience with pyramidal systems and would come to the conclusion that Ashes might do better without it, would you consider leaving it behind or is this an integral part of your business model? </blockquote>
I have to take issue with this one statement specifically. To things make up a pyramid scheme and the referral system does not have either of them. First and most importantly the "pyramidal" nature of a pyramid scheme is literally from the shape suggested when you talk about one person bringing in many, and those many bringing in additionally many more specifically in the nature of how the initial person makes his profits. The initial person makes his profits from the buy in cost of the people he brings in as well as additionally making profit from the buy in cost of the people they also bring in. That's where the pyramid nature comes from. The second thing is the fact that the people down the tier are required to actually buy into the program just for sake of being in the program. This is how profits funnel up to the top.
The referral system does not do either of these things. Any person can refer any other person without ever having to have spent a dime themselves so there is no intrinsic buy in. And secondly and most importantly, no one gets anything from tiered referals. If I refer a guy named paul, and paul refers a guy named bill. and both paul and bill decide to spend 10 bucks each, I don't get anything from bill. No two people can earn any rewards from a single person spending money.
Unlike a pyramid scheme this doesn't even attempt to promise any kind of amazing profits. This system literally just incentivizes people to try to get other people interested in playing the game. Social networking is a very effective way of engaging people's interest. Giving a pretty small reward to encourage a person to actually use their social networking skills is a pretty smart move.
Your tinfoil hat definitely needs to be re-adjusted again.
You crazy dawg. Craaaaaaaazy.
Your tinfoil hat definitely needs to be re-adjusted again.
You crazy dawg. Craaaaaaaazy.[/quote]
I suggest researching Ockham's Razor before making those claims.
Of course it's staged. There aren't guilds playing the game right now. there are no players. it is pre-alpha. You talk about this like it's about to launch open beta next month or something.
No, I am not. I am asking, why would you stage a conversation like that and then let your LoL teammate upload the stream? Feel free to come to your own conclusions.
<div class="d4p-bbt-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/some-friendly-questions-to-intrepid-studios-and-steven-from-a-400-backer/page/2/#post-14424" rel="nofollow">tinukeda wrote:</a></div>
Oh for …
Your tinfoil hat definitely needs to be re-adjusted again.
You crazy dawg. Craaaaaaaazy.
</blockquote>
I suggest researching Ockham’s Razor before making those claims.
[/quote]
Already applied to my assessment :P
<div class="d4p-bbt-quote-title"><a href="https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/some-friendly-questions-to-intrepid-studios-and-steven-from-a-400-backer/page/2/#post-14428" rel="nofollow">Adlehyde wrote:</a></div>
Of course it’s staged. There aren’t guilds playing the game right now. there are no players. it is pre-alpha. You talk about this like it’s about to launch open beta next month or something.
</blockquote>
No, I am not. I am asking, why would you stage a conversation like that and then let your LoL teammate upload the stream? Feel free to come to your own conclusions.
[/quote]
I will answer them for you - it is staged to build hype and drive you away from the actual facts you mentioned in all your previous posts. Honestly, I totally understand you and I thank you for saving me some money. I also understand anyone who is hyped and backed this project, I really wish it succeeds. I am not a cosmetics fan, so there is nothing in the kickstarter I should spend my money for - if the game delivers one day and it is not p2w as they promise (and actually show in the kickstarter packages) there is no reason for me and people like me to spend money. I really hope Interpid join this thread because once you actually see things clear, even when people think you are making a conspiracy out of nothing, it gets sketchy