Shroud of the Avatar – Update of the Avatar #327 and #328
Good Morning Friends! Not much in terms of news for Shroud of the Avatar. We have the following updates though:
- Richard Garriott Signed Book Tweets
- Decoration Contest
- Release 65 coming up – April 25th
Richard Garriott Signed Book Tweets
So the inquiring continues from fans on the Tracy Hickman and Richard Garriott signed copy of Blade of the Avatar that is still due to every KS and Pledge/Backer level that is eligible for it. Recently on Twitter, one Ultima Dragon reached out to Richard who appears to state that the signed book already went out. We know from Starr Long and Chris Spears that this isn’t the case, and as you can see Richard quickly back tracks to “I’ll have to check on that.” I would go so far as to say he is out of touch with what it going on with Shroud of the Avatar. Hopefully we get an update soon though on this. While I don’t care if I get my book or not, I know from some backers have vocalized how frustrated they are and even future plans should this not be fulfilled in a timely manner.
Decoration Contest
Greetings avatars! I am happy to officially announce a new deco contest, the 2019 Shroud Deco Challenge! Due to the significant prizes involved and our desire to keep the entries to a modest level, there is an entry fee of 100,000 gold or 1000 crowns. You can enter by either contacting Atos during one of his live streams or simply sending an in game mail with the gold or crowns. Players have until Sunday, April the 27th at midnight to enter.
Players who enter will be assigned a village plot in the dev town of Mount Midir. You must provide your own village deed. They will have roughly 3 weeks to deco the lot to their liking. Atos will be stopping by the town several days a week to check out the progress people are making on his live stream.
The contest starts immediately and runs until Saturday, May the 4th, when Atos and others will do a special 4 hour stream to inspect the player’s work! For each house, Atos will do a fly through showing off the house and decorations and players can vote. These will last roughly 1 to 2 minutes each so voters will need to be on their toes!The tentative plan for voting is that all viewers will be allowed to vote once per house. They can give it a 1 to 10 rating. To reduce groups artificially up/down voting, the top 25% and bottom 25% of the votes will be thrown out and the average of the middle 50% will be used for the final score. This will be handled by a streambot and results will be displayed in real time.After the quick initial pass on the houses, the top 10 scoring homes will get a second, longer fly through and a second round of voting. If the homeowner is present and wishes to, they can join Atos on Skype to briefly describe their home themselves! The winners of this second round of voting will determine the official winners!
The prizes will be as follows:
First place will win their very own overworld player owned town and a tax free town deed! Sannio will work with them to choose a location that is acceptable to them.
Second place will receive a tax free town deed.
Third place will receive a tax free village deed
All entries that make it to the top 10 will receive a large unique decoration celebrating their accomplishment!
All players who enter the contest will receive a small unique decoration.
Additionally, the devs present on the stream will choose and award prizes for the following categories:
- Most chaotic decoration themed – Think, where would Darkstarr want to live?
- Most nostalgic decoration themed – Think, where would Lord British want to live? *cough*make it feel like Ultima/UO*cough*
- Most whimsical – Think, where would my 5 year old daughter want to live?
These will each receive a special prize (2500+ crown value) appropriate to their theme and the same unique decoration given to the top 10 scoring homes.
Finally, there will be a prize for the highest rated lot that uses only crafted, collected, or purchased with gold items from merchants items. No crown or cash shot items allowed. The prize for this category will be 5000 crowns.
To prevent players from doing all their decoration in secret and then moving their house in at the very last minute, starting in Release 65, Mount Midir will be flagged to not allow the use of the magical movers. Part of the reason for this contest is to help show off what amazing things are possible during video streams and we won’t be able to do that if everything happens in secret!
Also, should Mount Midir fill up, we will add an additional nested POT to handle the overflow.
Thanks again and we look forward to seeing the town quickly grow into an amazing showcase!
The giving away of a player owned town for first place instantly tells me that they are pushing hard to drive traffic to the game and contest, however the higher entry fee will keep some ppl from taking part. What I found most interesting was how the contest was already being discussed on April 5th, 10 days before the forum post by the devs on the contest. As well as 2 weeks before an email out to backers via their weekly friday emails, which by the way need changing to be better communicators of important info. How many times have you seen players go into the forums complaining about something they didn’t know was changing, had changed, or has seemingly had zero update on all because of how the email newsletter is done? A more detailed rubric or guideline on how the judging will be handled.
Release 65 coming up – April 25th
An early version of R65 is on the QA server. An early version of the R65 Instructions is also available for review. Devs due to lack of “bandwidth” have always said they appreciate those who test all the updates on the QA server before it goes live. Release 65 is schedule to go live Thursday April 25!
- Decoration Scaling
- Decoration Flipping
- Female Peasant Wearables
- New Rare Random Encounter Merchants
- The Vault
- Tamed Pet Balance
- More Young Dragons
- Wave Battle Improvements
- and more!
The Richard Garriott that all keep talking about was a young and creative man that was quite an accomplished till his final years under the command of EA. Today´s man is an oil snake, a rich liberal who learned how easy to lie and bribe his way, a man who talks space tourism as if he was the same level of science and work like his dad have made, and worse, that no longer care about quality games to literally apply his hunger over a loyal band of fans, part of his most competent life achievement in the game sphere, the Ultima brand. Lord British really died years ago, what we have here is just a lesser spirit, feeding on memories, your memories.
Thanks again for a great update Golem Dragon. I was out of the loop on that tweet by Richard and it simply makes me shake my head. If anyone had any doubt that he has checked out from Shroud, need simply look there. This just reaffirms that he clearly has no idea what is going on and is simply “rolled out” for the telethons that he has time to attend. Even when he is there, it’s evident that he isn’t paying any attention and it’s embarrassing really. I never thought that I would receive a copy of this book anyway, but this just further confirms that.
It also makes me wonder, WTF is going on with Starr? He has also clearly moved on to other projects, but his presence has become like Richard’s, where you only see him during telethons. Is he even doing anything with the game anymore or is it just the Chris Spears show? I wish during one of these “Ask Us Anything” telethons they would answer some of these questions because I feel the players have a right to know! Not that it really matters anyway, we’ll see how much worse things have gotten with the release of their Form C Annual Report at the end of this month!
” I wish during one of these “Ask Us Anything” telethons they would answer some of these questions because I feel the players have a right to know! ”
I’ve submitted some of what I’ve been told behind the scenes to Ultima Codex, and if it was true Richard Garriott checked out long, long ago. I’ve fought long and hard to get the information out to people, but there’s only so much I can do. And honestly, it’s pretty depressing how you have to fight even the community you’re wanting to help every step of the way…
Did anyone see the brief resurgence of City of Heroes over the weekend? It turns out that not only were people raising money for successors or emulation of the game sitting on a private server for more than 6 years, but it seems some in the media, in particular Bree Royce of MassivelyOP knew about it; this would be the same Bree who censored any attempt of mine to get the truth of Shroud out, and STILL rages at me when I try to post the facts… even though MOP has turned on Spears specifically since they’ve seen what he’s really like. Meanwhile they only released the CoH server to the public to gain some goodwill I suspect, but NCSoft’s lawyers have already shut it down.
God, what has gaming become? I regret ever giving so much of my time and professional life to the industry some days.
That’s the problem though. I’m not saying your information isn’t correct, but without folks going on the record I cannot blame some of these “media outlets” for not reporting on that intel. I have talked with a dev via FB, who raged over how mismanaged the game was and that Richard was not involved to the levels being purported to the players. They were still very bitter over being let go (it seemed to have come out of left field for this individual), so who knows if what they said wasn’t just “sour grapes”. I believe it wasn’t, just given Portalarium’s track record on this stuff, but again it’s all hearsay.
Sadly the industry has become “Gaming As A Service” and it totally sucks.
Here’s the thing, without journalistic engagement, I can’t prove the Dev comments I’ve received are valid either. Especially as my lunatic stalker has spent 3 years trying to deliberately gaslight me; he’s even gone as far as making fake profiles as either a girl to try and seduce me, or as a friend who tried to forge me “hacking” his Reddit by sending me his password, and when that didn’t work, videos pretending he controlled me; I see through it every time, but to get a VALID, public interest story out there, I need someone independent to cross check the facts I submit.
Journalists can also provide anonymity (see the recent Anthem story, for instance) to the claims made. I can’t offer that to any sources I have, at least not that they can hold me to account for. I can provide the proof for my own facts, but not yours.
But how do I know if they’re not seeing attachments because spam filters are eating them? How can I provide proof if they don’t respond and let me know I’m whitelisted to get the information out there? What’s the point when much of the community is so literally stupid or addicted to drama that they don’t even read, let alone understand the information given? Over at MMORPG.com I got temporary banned for my first video, even though it had proof and my stalker appeared (using the profile of a Canadian serial killer no less) to gloat he’d indeed got my Shroud account removed… and then banned again when I posted the result of Arbitration, and I didn’t cheer people on the forums who claimed to have watched the video but hadn’t even seen the timeline under it where I linked to the parts they claimed I hadn’t done…
What makes that so especially self defeating is that now they’re all getting banned as well, what defence do they have either? Because they were so easily distracted by trolling and their own toxicity that it’s now impossible to defend themselves, because they wanted to discredit the people who fought for the truth so much better than them.
So yes, what you say about the staff sackings agrees with the information I’ve been given of what happened. Out of left field is an understatement. And UltimaCodex has that in text form only, so it would get past any filters. I’ll quite gladly take any legal hit personally; I’ll state publicly this is what I’ve been told, either as an actual staff leak, or part of an even more obsessive attempt to discredit me, under my own accreditation. UC can provide my real name and address for Portalarium’s lawyers to come and try and sue me personally after publication; Portalarium’ll have a wonderful time trying to defend it in a UK court, because I’ve got the entire papertrail of trying to address the support for harassment, and I can state I did what I could to cross check my sources.
So sorry to you personally if I sound arrogant, but I’ve actually had the balls to FIGHT. And my stalker has desperately tried to dent my self confidence, indeed he even bragged to Portalarium they had to ban me to save me from his attempts to harass me until I went insane. And I’ve got an archive of THAT too. So also not sorry in general to be arrogant. You have to be, to keep fighting. But unless someone with REACH picks up the story, it’s pointless.
Here’s the truth, Kotaku, Eurogamer, another website my stalker doesn’t know I’m on, and a medium level YouTuber were looking at publishing the story, but the communication just trailed off for unknown reasons. You guys have leaks? You guys have an interest in the story? WRITE TO THEM YOURSELVES WITH WHAT YOU KNOW AND ASK THEM TO COVER IT. Tell them you know Titler, I’ll do the hard work on the behind the scenes stuff again, oh yes I’d be glad too. But right now the entire Shroud community looks like single figure numbers, that the media can’t be bothered to work out who is closest to speaking truth or where the story is.
You say a Dev has talked to you? Tell them what you have, give them the name, and ask them to get in touch to cross check it. They’ve all had mine. But I’m just one person. Two or more might have the actual truth though. Give it to them.
One note:
As charitable an offer as this is, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work this way in court. If something goes up on the site that Portalarium deems a matter worth pursuing legally, then as the site owner/operator, I’m going to be in the crosshairs of that. Which is why I try not to publish anything that I can’t corroborate. So while both I and Golem have looked at what you’ve sent our way, our attempts to corroborate it independently have thus far not borne fruit. And neither of us will take the risk of publishing something this potentially explosive without that corroboration.
So while I appreciate the offer you’re making here, I’m pretty sure that if I did publish something and a lawyer did show up on my front door step, he’s not going to just cheerfully walk off when I hand him your card and say “this guy said he’d handle it”.
” If something goes up on the site that Portalarium deems a matter worth pursuing legally, then as the site owner/operator, I’m going to be in the crosshairs of that.”
As long as you have done due diligence on the story, you as publisher cannot be held to account. It would depend then upon whose name was on the byline of the reporting; which is why I offered to do it under my own identity. It would then fall onto me to prove I had cross checked my sources to verify the claims made, as being convincingly lied too is a cast iron defence in law. If I was unable to get anyone from within the staff to confirm what was passed on to me, I would continue to not use it publicly, because total honesty and integrity is currently the hardest line of defence I have. Unfortunately this cycles back into the problem we’re discussing, someone has to take a stand and speak out to do that.
I understand why they don’t; when I worked on Ultima Online, my contract with Electronic Arts forbade me to even mention they’d ever employed me until 3 years after I left the business. The gaming industry is also incredibly tight nit and burning one bridge brings the whole down upon your head.
I however can provide all the documents for my own case at the American Arbitration Association, but I need a secure line of communication to get them to you, and thus discount any attempts of forgery etc. Actually thinking about it, there is one thing I can do to start proving that with just text, as the value of hiding that has been compromised already. I’ll send it in now.
The problem I’m having is as mentioned above; people are too scared to take the risk publishing, or the player numbers are now so small it’s not going to be a big enough story to bother risking.
This:
…is precisely why I haven’t published anything based on what information you have sent, and why I haven’t followed up to obtain the rest. Golem tried to do some independent verification of the information you did share, and it turned up nothing; this was discussed in another comment thread a few weeks ago, if memory serves.
I’ll watch for your email and see if there’s something we can do to corroborate whatever it is you’ intend to pass along thereby. But due diligence in this matter requires that we are able to verify things without just resorting to the supply of information you present us with.
Which is WHY I’ve kept saying you need to email me, which I said in the thread you refer too, but you never do. You don’t have an email address on your own contact page or I’d have started communication directly myself already. I can’t get links through your spam filter apparently, but I can email the legal documents in, once you white list it as a secure communication path.
You have a way of independently checking part of it now, but frankly it’s frustrating because EVERYONE online expects you to take all the risks; even some of those who have had family members directly threatened (no names but they know who they are) wouldn’t sign up to prosecuting the person who did it… Most of my critics online either don’t read or are incapable of understanding what I do put out, and prefer internet drama which becomes self-defeating as they get abused or banned too. The posters here ask that someone fights for them, but all I ever get are excuses why people DONT do something themselves.
I’ve just finished a pitch to RockPaperShotgun.com on the story; it’ll probably not get picked up, no one in the media has so far. Still I try and get the facts out there for you all. But you have to work with me. Meanwhile, you see my email on these comments, and the Contact submissions. SEND ME A SECURE LINE TO GET IN WHAT I HAVE PROOF OF.
Has it occurred to you that, in addition to my skepticism, I find the need for all these cloak and dagger dramatics to be both a) tiresome and b) more of a burden than I’m willing to pick up and engage with on an unsubstantiated whim? It’s just not something I’ve any desire to spend my increasingly limited time on.
My email addresses – my personal one, and the one tied to the Codex – are out there and known. If you want added security, I’ll reactivate my ProtonMail address (kenneth.kully) and you can send me things thereat.
But I barely have time to write articles about stuff that I normally cover on the site here. If you want me to consider writing some big exposé, don’t make me jump through extra hoops.
Yes, I’m fully aware you’re finding it tiresome; which is why I’ve been so, so critical of the community response that whilst everyone claims they wish someone would do all the work for them, they don’t understand even something as basic as protecting the evidence chain to help others do the work they don’t have the time or energy to do… Meanwhile I’ve DONE the work, and yet I have people who won’t even engage wondering if it’s valid. Even though the edited documents (which remove only the details that would lead someone who has threatened to kill me right to my door) are already out there. I’ve even linked to the video here.
Meanwhile I’m also aware the only contact you’ll name for yourself is a currently dead email. You however have had my direct one for months, but haven’t used it. You complain about “cloak and dagger dramatics” but even that offer of yours involves me having to go and check what the actual address would resolve too at the domain you list. Cloaks for thee, not for me?
However I have explained time and time again my stalker has gone as far as trying to befriend me on false accounts in order to try and gaslight me. I need to be certain I’m communicating with someone honest. I have no guarantee that the “kully” I’d find online would be you. I don’t think people have grasped just how sick he is; first thing I’d expect is for him to have done after your response is go and check if your user name has expired and if he can cyber-squat it. And considering how many police reports are waiting, you should be grateful for that carefulness because I’m not just going to rope your name into any resulting behaviour from that email address unless I’m SURE it’s you.
This is the point at which for most people cognitive dissonance kicks in, and to defend themselves from increasing awareness of just how indefensible their position is, they get angry with me for supposed “arrogance” etc because I’m fully aware they’re doing it, on top of the fact I’m sitting on the proof they resist being given because then they’d have to be admit their skepticism was unfounded at the very least.
But because I genuinely want to get the truth out there to protect or just warn all the decent people out there, I’m going to try and find that email all the same.
There will be “cloak and dagger” in the first message though; not because I want to make you “jump through hoops”, but because I’m trying to protect you as well as me. I’m just not very good at hiding the fact that I’m staggered this needs to be explained.
I wonder how far we’d have got in Ultima IV way back in the day, if the people you tried to help in virtuous ways were so resistant to that help and even doubted you were who you said you were…
I’d be curious to know which dead email you have for me; both my main public address at Gmail and the Ultima Codex Gmail address are, as noted, fairly public. Indeed, I say the latter aloud in most SSSH episodes.
I did get your email, though. And I have to ask: are you really, actually worried that Jamma is on the other end of the Codex contact form?
Titler, if you have some big expose or insider information just post it yourself on reddit, twitter, facebook, or one of the millions of forums on the internet. Why are you bothering with getting Ultima Codex or some other games website to publish it for you?
Been busy the last few days, just checked to see if there’s any movement, but alas no; To answer the questions.
1.) “reddit, twitter, facebook, or one of the millions of forums on the internet”
Already done. Including here. Not only are people not aware of it, few of those who have seen it have the sense or attention span to follow what I show, or are so corrupted by gaslighting and hate they look for excuses to ignore the evidence put up. MassivelyOP and MMOrpg.com both delete or ban on any attempt to release it because they’re too close to the Devs. Every where else it’s just largely ignored.
Here it is again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfzXS-H5SzM
Note that despite writing time stamps below the video, people at MMORPG.com tried to claim I hadn’t offered any proof 10 minutes in, and yet I show redacted versions of the documents at 2 minutes and listed below when I did it, so they hadn’t even clicked the link. This is the kind of mindset anyone trying to release anti-industry information faces.
Needless to say “jamma” has already revealed he’s stalking me here now. How many of you remember where he showed that? And it’s easy to forge identity here.
2.) ” Why are you bothering with getting Ultima Codex or some other games website to publish it for you?”
Frankly, until it’s someone you follow or trust who publishes, the story isn’t going to start rolling. I’ve been fighting for you for YEARS now, but I’m fully aware of how apathetic and self-defeating the public is. Trump and Brexit are just what happens when the modern internet age votes on the large scale too. But the media are just as bad. Only a few websites have discussed the story with me directly, and one admitted they would only let me do it under my own name to avoid any chance of Portalarium suing them. And then went silent. (Which is why I know more about publishing such material than first assumed, and made the offer of doing it under my own name…)
I hammer away because I can prove how corrupt Portalarium is, and you the public need to be protected even if you desperately fight anyone who tries. But I mostly do it because I’ll know I’ve done all that was possible when they finally shut their doors; I do it for myself even if no one wants to help.
But even the Codex publishing will start to get the word out via sources not compromised by hate and stupidity. I’m not going to pushing for the right thing just because it’s hard and many of you don’t know you need it.
3.) “I’d be curious to know which dead email you have for me; both my main public address at Gmail and the Ultima Codex Gmail address are, as noted, fairly public. Indeed, I say the latter aloud in most SSSH episodes. ”
And yet you still won’t state them here? Once more I repeat, your contact details may be widely known, BUT NOT TO ME. They cannot be found from clicking the contact here at UC. I do not listen to your episodes (I don’t listen to podcasts in general) but if need be I can try to do so… and yet if it’s so easy to publish in those, why won’t you say so here?
Do you not see how you expect me to violate every tenet of internet security whilst reserving the right to be reticent about yourself about something you claim is ALREADY published?
4.) “did get your email, though. And I have to ask: are you really, actually worried that Jamma is on the other end of the Codex contact form?”
No, as I said in the reply, not the contact form, the email address you stated IN THIS THREAD you would need to resurrect. Which indicates you don’t currently control it, and thus it could possibly be re-registered before you get around to it.
I asked you to quote the contact forms submissions to prove the person controlling UC controls that account. Because I DONT believe jamma controls UC.
Honestly, this is why I despair of trying to help the public sometimes; a simple logic train like the above is often beyond them. This is why gaslighting works, not because “jamma” is smart, he’s not he’s just obsessed, but because people don’t put in the slightest thought to think through why people might be acting the way they do. Why would I contact a website I think he controls? How does that even make any sense? Even if you think I’m mad, how would I possibly hold two directly contradictory beliefs like that?
So to repeat publicly what I said in the email you didn’t respond too; I have court cases waiting in the US, the UK, potentially a third country, and reports to pass on to his local authority if he turns out to be in any other country; any evidence I include about Portalarium or him has to be able to stand up too court level scrutiny. It’s not enough to just say “I trust”. I HAVE to be able to say I did due diligence and CHECKED.
Which you above actually stated you wanted me to do.
Then called it “jumping through hoops” when I do.
Do you honestly not get how irrational and self destructive that is? You would rather try and publicly justify your “skepticism” and half-honestly report what I wrote, than actually admit I included a bit more evidence in the form of the tracking of the recorded delivery from my area to Portalarium’s offices of the notification of arbitration as well as stating I didn’t think he controlled UC in said reply…
But yet again… I’m at work right now, but when I get home late tonight, I’ll send the full proof.
Not because I expect you to publish. But because I’ve used every possible mechanism to prove my own perception about Portalarium, the industry as a whole, and all of those around it who won’t read or are too scared to deal with the actual facts.
You can, even at this late date, do the right thing and publish and protect your fellow backers; or you can put your own “skepticism” first and leave them unaware the EULA they signed is illegal because I actually have the documents proving they’ve been told to pull arbitration accreditation.
But I’m not going to think anything anyone says about me here is relevant if you don’t publish, yet I’m holding all the evidence and Portalarium don’t even have offices any more. I have and always will be playing the long term game of Truth.
Documents this evening then.
This made me laugh a little
Tenets like…don’t drop email addresses in comment forms?
Oh, I control it. It’s just dormant…or, it was. I only used that address for my moderation-specific account on the SotA forums, and it was literally full of nothing else than a few system messages and years worth of SotA emails. Which should give you some idea of how little I have bothered to check it over the years.
But given how ProtonMail works, it’s unlikely in the extreme that someone else could wrest control of it away from me; even if they could get my account password, the mailbox proper is protected by a separate, second password. I don’t re-use passwords, and I use long, random passwords pretty much everywhere.
This language seems a bit manipulative. You’ll find that trying to put even a modicum of pressure on me to act in a particular way will usually end in my ignoring you, unless you’ve got a court order or my paycheque in hand.
“Tenets like…don’t drop email addresses in comment forms?”
And yet you expect me to drop COURT DOCUMENTS in them…?
Or just blindly email them out to anyone who is asking, even though you should have noticed already my stalker is now here?
“This language seems a bit manipulative. You’ll find that trying to put even a modicum of pressure on me to act in a particular way will usually end in my ignoring you, unless you’ve got a court order or my paycheque in hand.”
Which just proves my point; you should do something because it’s RIGHT, not just because of childish pique over how someone else said you should act. All that you’ve really just stated is that if someone is smart enough to phrase what they say in the OPPOSITE direction to how they really want you to act, they can get you to do what they want by manipulating your contrarianism.
And Im fully aware of that, but prefer to be honest even if it turns people against me because I’m not concerned with what people who are reactive rather than moral think; So to repeat again; unfortunately something came up last night which meant I wasn’t able to sit down and start putting documents into an email. However I’ve been sitting on some of them for THREE YEARS. Whilst people spin all kinds of weird fantasies and deliberate gaslighting attempts around me about facts I have the documents for right here physically in my hand.
And I’ve “Jumped through hoops” to try and at least start getting those facts out. Because it protects all of you, even though I don’t have a very high opinion of most. Why would I? But why would I not do the right thing all the same because that’s what a good person SHOULD do?
So I will.
Documents coming within the next 30 mins or so.
Right, then.
I don’t believe I’ve ever asked for that.
As I recall, you approached me; I certainly didn’t come seeking you out, asking for a big story from you. As noted previously, I barely have time to post articles to this site that align with its main purpose and existing content; I’m certainly not going to set out on some grand crusade to publish a massive expose on any company, or the people thereat.
So when someone approaches me — demanding, insisting, and cajoling — to write a story, the bar they have to get over is really high. Because I don’t have the time; really, I don’t. And so if I’m going to divert time from other things, things that I view as more important or more enjoyable, then either the person asking me to do so had better be paying me for that time, or else they’d better have something that I view as being worth investing the time in for free.
And, yes, you supply information to support your case in a way that doesn’t make the person you’re approaching jump through too many hoops. Feed your need for dramatics and secrecy elsewhere; I do not have the time or the inclination to go chasing after things I’d just as soon not have to deal with.
Not really, no.
But when someone comes to me and uses this sort of language in an attempt to, again, demand and cajole me into writing an article, guess what? I’ve long conditioned myself to place much, much less urgency on whatever content they’re trying to push. The more you try and create a sense of urgency — temporal or moral — the more I’m going to pump the brakes.
Having said this, it doesn’t then follow that if your approach is laid back and sanguine that I’ll jump to publish what you’re bringing to me. I might be less annoyed by this approach, but again: I don’t have the time. If I write something at all, it will be because I see the merit in it for myself, not because some online rando tells me it’s the right thing to do.
You’ll find that characterizing me in this way will not help your case. Not because I’m reactive, but because you’re some online rando who has been insisting for quite a while that I simply must publish the story he’s pushing, because it is — to his mind — the right thing to do. And you’ll find that I don’t rely on the moral reasoning of online randos when evaluating the rightness or wrongness of a particular pursuit…especially when said randos can’t bother to be particularly polite, which is not something you’ve ever really been whilst here.
Govern yourself accordingly.
Which is where such materials should be, if in fact you’re actively pursuing court cases.
I’ll evaluate anything you send my way, and I’ll enlist Golem Dragon’s assistance to do so as well. If, by some chance, we decide that there is sufficient merit to what you provide to warrant a post being put up, we’ll include whichever of these materials you send our way that we need to.
Which, then, is a caution to you: don’t send anything you wouldn’t want made public. We’ll redact PII, of course, but will necessarily retain any pertinent information relevant to the content of whatever article ultimately gets published, if any such article gets published.
Have folks here seen this MO article? I cannot believe these guys didn’t file their annual report! More of the same with Portalarium…
https://massivelyop.com/2019/05/01/shroud-of-the-avatar-developers-address-kickstarter-reward-novel-fulfillment-sec-filings/
We’ve been discussing it all day in the UDIC Discord.
I didn’t know we had a Discord chat! Can you send me the info so I can join in the discussion?
C’mon in: https://discord.gg/010CHuLEBKTedbWeH
I have seen it yes. It was posted on the Reddit Raw as soon as it went live. We have been tracking details about their financials for years at Raw, and were waiting for this years SEC documents, as last years showed they were carrying $13 million in debt they couldn’t cover even if they liquidated their entire assets.
The story probably been picked up in part because of the timer above this webpage. There have been complaints about not receiving goods on the Kickstarter comments for years too, but until someone the media WANTS to pay attention too says something, there isn’t a story at all.
But now someone with reach, no matter how small has complained, suddenly they’ve noticed. And now Chris Spears massively offended the editor at MassivelyOP.com, suddenly they’re not as sympathetic.
The double standards have not been lost on me, but better late than never.