unforum

[Shaun]

Wasn't the storyline actually going somewhere though. this makes it REALLY hard to get into with all this start stop crap.
Let them run the freakin arg, and while they are at it, help them. As far as I'm concerned with how the ending to your arg made everyone mad, and curse your products, you needed all the leverage you could get, to get back up.

you may have ruined your only chance to get that, just now.

[stacey]

I feel like I'm partly to blame for the "gamejack" label. However, I've held positive sentiments about the Nereid site regardless of its origin and tried to relay that in my posts. In retrospect, I can't fault those who had negative concerns about what could occur if the content wasn't condoned.

Unfortunately, the decision on whether to continue with the content isn't up to a democratic process. Copyright holder(s) have considerable discretion to prosecute regardless of public opinion. The only practical hope for continuation of the content comes from persuading MSL that allowing for the fan site is in their own best financial interests.

Personally, I believe a bit of public pressure is good regardless of the outcome. AO's description is read by some as a prescription for more player input than is traditional for tabletop RPGs. For others, it's just marketing language that differentiates AO from an MMORPG. Clarification will tell us where we really stand, which would arguably benefit us all.

Meanwhile, I appreciate the Nereid puppetmasters for breaking the wall to shed some light. I know it's against the typical terms and conditions for the Unfiction forums. But then, this whole business has been messy from the beginning. At least this way I'm not left in the dark waiting for new clues that may never come.

[waitress#2]

I hope Nercomm.net is allowed to continue. I like the additional content and I have very low hopes that MSL could pull off anything as elaborate.
If they aren't able to, I will understand, but I'm through with AO if that's the case.

Does anyone know a good contact email address for MSL? (that we know they'll actually read) Should a thread be started on the AO forums for those of us that support Nercom.net?

[stacey]

I wrote up a rather extensive summary of Nercomm from a player's perspective, including the probable reasons for it in the first place.

It's over at the Alpha Omega site:
http://www.alphaomegathegame.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=81&p=578#p578

I figure this at least lays some groundwork for discussing opinions.

[waitress#2]

Thank you for doing that. I posted a reply, I'm afraid it wasn't very nice, but I'm angry that MSL would treat our new puppetmasters that way. The way I interpret this is that they couldn't care less about the ARG part of it and the ARG fans can take a hike.

I think that a lot of people have been very lenient and forgiving of MSL's bluners up to this point, but for me this is the final straw.

[kolixela]

All right All right.. let's stop here.

You folks don't seem to understand what has happened here.

It's not that MSL has abandoned the players here, it's a major convention time, they have a lot going on right now with the conventions and the finalization of the book.

The author of necromm.net contacted MSL about picking up and continuing the game that was effectively shut down on aug 2. The author asked MSL to turn over the ARG to his control, effectivly giving him creative control of the history of the game, obviously this was denied. The author released his site anyway, MSL has refused to give him sanctioning as legal and has exercised it's rights to request he not use the intellectual property of the company, that's all that has been done.

Don't get mad and mind storm labs for protecting it's intellectual property against misuse of a person who repeatedly failed to respect the companies decisions and tried to take control of a game which includes many aspects they have no knowledge of.

As stated previously there is still in game material missing from our information; MSL verified that we have missed updated content on a previously discovered site as well as a few sites that have never been located from the game in the first place.. The makers are not ARG people, the traditional rules for ARG site relations are not in effect here, lets find that information and show MSL some respect for what they have made for us and give them the time to show more, don't attack a company for defending themselves, it's really silly to do so.

[waitress#2]

kolixela, I disagree. They have been given every opportunity to do things right. They are the ones that chose the Aug. 1st date and blew it, the email was finally sent on Aug. 18th! I felt like giving them the benefit of the doubt at first and see if they could get it together, but I don't think they ever will.

The people that made the Nercomm site asked for some additional info so that the story could follow what Mind Storm envisioned. They couldn't type up a brief email giving them the info. I wouldn't call that being busy so much as being incompetent.

As for their additional info that we didn't find, I don't believe there is any. If they had any they would show it at this point. They just throw that out there to try to get people to believe it's the truth but I'm not that gullible.

The people that made Nercomm are fans and MSL has very few fans left. I read in the AO forum where someone said they didn't want to send in any money for a book and then have a computer glitch make it so they never get the book. I would be more worried about all of the downtime that might be experienced and all of the data lost if people actually tried to play their game.

If you are still a fan of AO....good luck.

[kolixela]

The reason the emails were not sent out was the initial plan had been to have the store active to sell on Aug. 1 and they didn't want to be bringing a ton of people to the site that was available at that time as it wasn't complete.

Mind Storm Labs was not responsible for the delay in the site activation, it was contracted to be online from the site manager on that day (which technically it was, uploaded just before midnight Hawaii time) There was a lot of effort put into making the deadline and the site managers delayed the updates.

The maker of the gamejack site contacted MSLl with a request to take over the AR story that was, at that moment, stalled. They invited him to come in office and speak with a MSL rep (being in the same state) so they could talk it over in person; he declined. They informed him at that point they would not back his site or turn over control of the AR story to him, that sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

As for very few fans left I'm not sure where your pulling your information from but I know that the guys at MSL got more orders this weekend than they had expected.

The emails were not mass mailed, they were customized based on your contract trail to MSL and mailed out personally. The person who recieved a physical letter from Van was legit, they want to get in touch with the players.


The game is due out very soon, judge the game then, watch for new information then, don't trash on MSL for things you don't fully understand.

[stacey]

It seems to me both MSL and the Nercomm folks could have done a better job of communicating. The upshot is that fans (once again) had no idea what was going on until things ground to a sudden halt.

AO was bound to sell more copies than otherwise based simply on the number of eyeballs. Assuming even 1% of the original audience orders a book, this is a far greater number than MSL could expect otherwise. If they had payed their cards correctly, I'd estimate sales in the hundreds of thousands. My suspicion is that they didn't do quite that well.

For what it's worth, I did go back to do a cursory check of the original AO prequel ARG pages. I didn't see anything different. If there's stuff we missed, we probably need a subtle point in the right direction.

[Zaecus]

kolixela, I'm going to quote you out of order. Hope you don't mind.

[kolixela]

I don't work for MSL, I got a chance to speak with them at length at the convention and air some of the grievances the players had. I recieved many responses on those concerns and I have provided the responses I recieved from them for the players benefit. Some of the information I was given while at the Con is stuff I was asked not to express to the community as a whole, and with respect for the people who shared that minor information with me I have not given that information out (nothing that is related to the ARG or to the main game release).

Obviously the emails that were sent from the auto replys were bulk, that's not what I was referencing. There were several times where a few hundred players recieved specific emails in response to questions mailed to the auto reply addresses as well as the update emails. The company did not employ a mass mailing program to send out the notice email as they wanted to be a little more player oriented; the players main contact was the one who sent out the email that was recieved on saturday, all of the messages were from a set of forms but they were mailed out to each player manually. That's all I was referencing.


I am not a spokesman for MSL, I am not an employee, I am just a gamer like everyone else here who happened to attend Gencon. I spoke with the leads at the Alpha Omega booth, I voiced concerns, I questioned items we had been curious about and I posted the responses I recieved. I AM asking people to not judge the company harshly for the lack of information right now, during one of the busiest times for gaming companies the nation over. I am asking simply because I see what they are trying to do and I see where some of the problems come from, and I understand from a business aspect right now that anything that takes away from completion of the main rulebook and getting it to press adds ANOTHER delay and ANOTHER day of people attacking the company for not being ready.

Your right, the information I have been told COULD be lies, it COULD also be truth, I have no way of knowing. As to necromm I see what you mean but you need to look at it for what it is. I want a job, I want to take over something in your company that is on the back burner, I want you to give me complete control of it, I want you to give me confidential information so I can do it. AND I want you to do it WITHOUT EVER MEETING ME.

Nothing you can say would ever make that a sound idea. Tell me a job you can get without ever speaking to a rep at the company.

In any event that's what I can say, you can do with it as you will.

[Zaecus]

[Shaun]

That sounds kinda back washy to me. If you played this game anything like me, you checked, and rechecked the pages, source codes, forums, and any other links, on a daily basis.

When you screw something up, isnt the easiest thing to get out of it to say something like "It was your fault, you missed something"

And why would they have data pages about the missing sites at Gencon, when they weren't running the site from Gencon, especially if they had hired some other company to do the site. Wouldn't that company have all the site content and data pages? And why would you have those pages with you, at a place that wasn't associated, does someone just walk around with all the past information on everything MSL has done as far as websites posted and their content. And how could you "accidently" see something like that, unless you were going threw their file cabnet they just HAPPENED to bring to gencon with them in their Key pockets on their Old navy straight boot cut leg jeans with the pre stressed holes and stress marks in the right leg.

I smell bullshit in almost everything you said.

[kolixela]

Well lets see how I can answer this..

The file in question I did not get to see, it was not a physical item but literally a file on the computer of one of the game makers. I noticed a file named Haas Journal 5 and... and commented on seeing it, I jokingly asked to see the file and he smiled and told me no. He was showing me some of the designs for weaponry that are going into the book since we had been discussing weapon specifics and the combat demo.

So why would the game maker have files related to the game on his work computer that stored all the pertinent information on the game? Hmm.. not sure..


Once again as to the updates that were missed I can say nothing, They told me that I told you that. I have no idea what site or what update only that 2 of the MSL people said we had missed something. Do with it what you will.

If you have a question about anything feel free to ask me and if I was privy to any information about it I will be happy to share, mind you I wasn't privy to a whole lot; they seem to enjoy keeping this game very hush hush where the details are concerned.

[stacey]

There's an update at:
http://oog.nercomm.net/oog/

They're officially calling it quits. They received an overall positive response from the fans. But they won't continue now that it appears Mind Storm Labs has sent out their own update to the "official" ARG.

I'd like to publicly thank the Nercomm authors for their work. They kept me entertained and engaged for a good while. I'm very sorry they weren't able to work out a more mutually beneficial relationship with MSL.

My thanks also go to kolixela for passing along what she was told at the IndyCon convention. It's never pleasant being the bearer of bad news. And this is how it was taken, whether intended as such or not. In my opinion, any information beats no information at all.