Titan Network

Well after looking through the Valiance website and the hopes of rescue that have been offered, I see that the hopes may have been raised too quickly.

I see a serious opportunity for our folks to be taken advantage of. I don't see a single project worked through to completion just a few screenshots. I know this has fired off red flags in my head that as a man once said - a fool and his money is soon parted. I see a barebones website that could have been thrown up in a weekend that has an empty forum for existing games and a pay me here button at the top.

I then see that the person doesn't want to use any of the existing crowd financing sources.

Sorry folks, unless I see a LOT more from this group - I am not buying the hype.

This is a residential address.

I call bullshit.

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, LLC (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: SHOGN.NET
Created on: 23-Apr-12
Expires on: 23-Apr-13
Last Updated on: 23-Apr-12

Registrant:
SilverHelm Studios LLC.

Domain servers in listed order:
NS23.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
NS24.DOMAINCONTROL.COM

Edit: removed addresses. --TV

yeah the more i dig, the more fishier it looks. I think you have called this one exactly right this time.

And yeah that address is a house, that recently sold for about 385,000 Sept 2012 (although I wouldnt pay that kind of money for that sqft but then again that is Cali and I'm used to Southern belt prices where 385,000 can get ya into a near mansion with a yard).

Dont look a studio to me.

Quote from: Ironwolf on February 12, 2013, 05:53:58 PM
I call bullshit.

Based on what?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but you'll need to explain why I should believe you saying "he's lying" any more than I should believe him saying "I'm honest".

Have you been to the website?

4 projects listed with zero to show for them.

Now another one added all crowd funded. You may believe what you like, I believe what I see - or don't see in this case.

Quote from: Ironwolf on February 12, 2013, 06:42:01 PM
Have you been to the website?

4 projects listed with zero to show for them.

Now another one added all crowd funded. You may believe what you like, I believe what I see - or don't see in this case.

Ahhh. No, I've only been to the forums so far. There were only a couple posts so I figured I'd come back later for a better look.

Well he certainly does seem to be having credibility issues, doesn't he? I'd suggest to him that if he is legit, and he really would like our input and cooperation, he'll be wanting to ease those concerns by providing something a little more substantial for us to look over. You can't blame us for being careful when it comes to our limited investment ability.

And if he's not legit, well... in that case I'd suggest he not pursue this further. Too many of us are capable of finding the kind of details that can sort truths from lies. Right now those people are logged in as their Defenders. You don't want to give them reason to alt over to their Brutes.

What I find most ... well, "suspicious" seems like a strong word, so let's say "wary"... is the huge list of fifteen "currently implemented" items they somehow put together in only four days.  Even using an existing engine to start with, it seems like it's quite a lot.

I'll happily subscribe to the game once there's a game to play (and, as I said before, it must be playable on my old Mac laptop), but I'm not throwing any money at them for a pre-alpha (especially one with no listed system specs).

I am just running a few things through to determine who this person is and is not.

Chad or Aaron please if you are reading this tell us what characters you played on CoH and which servers.

https://twitter.com/chad_dulac

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1190681983/outlasting-the-dead/posts/225032
2 drawings no gameplay.

http://comicsfairplay.blogspot.com/2006/11/creator-interview-chad-du-lac-of.html
He is a comic artist.

http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Chad-Dulac/1259513943
More artistic chops.

Many other links showing Chad to be a real person. Not one single link to Aaron Victoria showing he even exists.

For the record, I am still cautiously optimistic. The video demos of the fantasy game on YouTube are promising, if primitive, but it's a completely home-spun effort. Anyone going into this at face value clearly isn't doing the research, but I'm not throwing any bullshit flags, yet.

Also, I served with a couple of guys who made freeware games in their spare time. For being circa Windows 95, it wasn't bad stuff. Also, we were on a submarine, not a cruise ship with a flight deck, like the Stennis.

I believe in the innate goodness as well but I still trust, but verify.

Forgive me for pointing out the immediate entry by Mr. Victoria was as if he had an existing studio that he would quickly swing to action and we would have a game asap.

Well they have never produced a product yet - whether for good or ill. I have no issue with Indie developers, but show us a product. The details are all in the database.

Quote from: Ironwolf on February 13, 2013, 02:34:33 PM
I believe in the innate goodness as well but I still trust, but verify.

Forgive me for pointing out the immediate entry by Mr. Victoria was as if he had an existing studio that he would quickly swing to action and we would have a game asap.

Well they have never produced a product yet - whether for good or ill. I have no issue with Indie developers, but show us a product. The details are all in the database.

A smart group would reach out to established players in the field first. Admittedly they did this and we are talking. They are over eager and jumped the gun here it seems. Still am taking a look at what they have to offer. Worst case it tells us we made the right choice. So far I have seen enough to want to know more.
One benefit to this was finding out that Unity had addressed the issues which originally took it out of contention in the first place.

Ironwolf, thank you for doing all that research.  I noticed that on the other thread that they started, that as soon as doubts came up, the OP of the thread hadn't posted anything since then even though he was very active before that.  And someone there asked a specific question about COH that I think he avoided so we wouldn't find out he really didn't play it from launch.  I am regularly a very trusting person but it does seem too good to be true.  If I am wrong, great but I don't think so.  I don't think we will see anything from them (again, I may be wrong).

I thought they were fake in the first place. Truly if they were interested, wouldn't they have just emailed Tony V or one of the Plan Z devs?

I can wait for City of Heroes. Yes I played it since issue 7. Yes I loved the hell out of it. But that's NOT going to get me to degrade it by giving money to some person who has no credentials whatsoever. That or fishy credentials.

I'm waiting for our official reply from Disney (if any), then Google, then Valve before I ever make a move to other teams.

I want the best damn choice of team or publisher for our game to come back.

I think they honestly hadn't heard of either of the Plan Z projects when they first posted here.

Which is a bit dubious if you were a regular player. I mean it was not kept a secret this was the place to go for efforts to save or reverse engineer the game.

Quote from: Ironwolf on February 14, 2013, 09:48:42 PM
Which is a bit dubious if you were a regular player. I mean it was not kept a secret this was the place to go for efforts to save or reverse engineer the game.

Well to tell you the truth, it can happen. I wasa regular player since 2005 but...I havent heard about Plan Z until I came here to this forum in recent times. Even then, I didnt know what it was until pointed in the direction of their forum section (didnt know how to get aroudn this forum when I first arrived.) So basically I had no idea of the existance of plan Z until October and didnt know what it consisted of until about later October -Nov time period. Thus if their path was anything like mine, not knowing about plan z unti lthey arrived, then it is possible they didnt know about it until they posted here. And I had the upper hand when plan z was very active within this forum before they got their own website and talks about it slowed down compared to when it was solely here on this forum. While I did poke my head in the old forum in Aug. 2012, coherent things like Plan Z was buried beneath the hate anger, fire flaming of other members, and general unicorns running rampant swamping poor ol' Hitstreak.

come to think of it it wasnt even clear of what plan z was trying to achieve, IP copy, new game, succesor, new super mmo, etc until very recent and even now I'm not 100% sure.

Well, its been 3 days since we have heard anything from Silverhelm Studios (or whatever name it is).  I don't think we will hear from them again.

Quote from: scalebeast on February 15, 2013, 06:40:54 PM
Well, its been 3 days since we have heard anything from Silverhelm Studios (or whatever name it is).  I don't think we will hear from them again.

Aviticus did post in the "Community-Built" thread earlier today (http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,7902.msg106253.html#msg106253). It appears to have gone completely unnoticed or ignored so far though.

Hmm, I've found a different address for SilverHel Studios LLC, they seem to be based in Idaho:

They also seemed to be looking for people as per this website http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=91318 (http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=91318)

Found also this, which I don't know which kind of website it is exactly http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/165041-A-Community-Driven-Independent-Developer-Network (http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/165041-A-Community-Driven-Independent-Developer-Network)   

Edit

Another website places the company in Idaho although they appear here under the cathegory "bankruptcies" which is not too encouraging

Moderator's edit: Removed addresses. --TV

Ahh, I stand corrected about them not posting recently.  I didn't look far enough on the thread to see it.

I'm still looking forward to seeing the current state of their project, myself. When others stepped forward with their doubts I had to admit I wasn't considering that it might be fake. And it's good to be cautious, no argument there. However it's been several days now and I'm still not seeing what they're seeing to make them think it is fake. So personally, I'm going to give his team the chance to show something before I believe they've got nothing to show.

Although the addresses, both that have been supplied, are both houses, can a game studio be ran out of a house? That is what I found to be a bit fishy.
then I thought about it and realized that probably neither group working on the projects have an actual studio themselves so I started to think it would be unfair to be suspicious of one that is ran out of a non-commercial while overlooking the rest.

Quote from: Ironwolf on February 12, 2013, 05:53:58 PM
This is a residential address.

Quote from: Aggelakis on February 15, 2013, 07:56:54 PM
This is a house.

I think that's my sticking point. The company being registered to a residential address seems to have played a major part in the non-confidence motion against their project. I guess what I don't understand is, is that enough, by itself, to qualify this operation as "shady"?

My issue is they have never completed a single project. They list 4 games and have never brought one to Alpha state yet.

Now we add a 5th, this seems to me to be more of a hobby effort and not a studio. Don't get me wrong - I have great respect for hobbiests - Counterstrike - for one such effort. I am looking for results and see very little.

Let's look at Nemerle's efforts - he has produced a game launcher. Now all you need is the data captures and you have a rough game. Some of our folks may be able to work with Nemerle and get the issue 4 launcher updated to i23 Beta and apply the data and voila!

I saw a few 2d stills and a few short animations - nothing like the huge databases and other things a game as complex as CoH has. Count me as an obvious doubter. I could not find a single hit on Aaron Victoria. I found a lot on Chad and he appears to be the COO of a studio that went bust in Idaho - yet is still on the books in another state. I want nothing more than to see us back in Paragon City - however I am tempering it with caution. Seeing our members waste money and energy could drive them away.

Really the best thing to do is support them but not finicially or in ways that will take advantage of you.  Hope for the best and prepare for the worst, so don't give them money, don't give them your skills/knowledge in certain areas that you would normally get paid for, and don't give them personal information.  Not until we know if they are legit or not.  Other then that there is no harm in spiritually and verbally supporting them.  If it is fake you won't have lost anything and you will have been doing the right thing even when someone else was doing the wrong.

Quote from: Taceus Jiwede on February 16, 2013, 01:18:57 AM
Really the best thing to do is support them but not finicially or in ways that will take advantage of you.  Hope for the best and prepare for the worst, so don't give them money, don't give them your skills/knowledge in certain areas that you would normally get paid for, and don't give them personal information.  Not until we know if they are legit or not.  Other then that there is no harm in spiritually and verbally supporting them.  If it is fake you won't have lost anything and you will have been doing the right thing even when someone else was doing the wrong.

I'm going to do this.

Desperate does not equal gullible.

Even if this is a scam, should you really be putting up the guy's address, contact information and employment? Sharing the email addresses of the head goons at NCSoft was considered poor judgement by some, wouldn't this be just as bad if not worse?

Just had to write "SilverHelm Studios LLC" on Google for all that to show up so I don't think it's an issue tbh.

Quote from: Xieveral on February 16, 2013, 06:43:28 AM
Even if this is a scam, should you really be putting up the guy's address, contact information and employment? Sharing the email addresses of the head goons at NCSoft was considered poor judgement by some, wouldn't this be just as bad if not worse?

I know I mostly lurk, but I have to agree with Xieveral. I'm not sure posting that info is such a great idea.

If you take 5 seconds to research the company you get the information. None of it is private, none of it is hacked stuff.

Ill just watch and see what transpires. No one has asked me for money and they wont get any until I see something worth investing in.

To be fair, the address being a private home does not strike me as odd. It's common practice, I mean, I set up a business so I need an office but before hiring an office I'll need a company already set up to hire it and to have a company I'll need an address so I give my home address, set up the company then hire offices/headquarters. Not uncommon not to change the company setup address so it is not too unusual, seen it before plenty of times.

He also has not asked for money, at least not yet, so I'm going to give him that.

The most worrying point for me is the tune change from how he entered these forums compared to the Valiance forums (from which I've been told to leave by the way). See, here he came saying he was a long term CoH player and wanted to make a game recreating CoH only changing the unavoidable things to avoid being sued (or something close enough) while on the Valiance forums he keeps asking weird questions like if walking back to the tomb where the char died is an ok death penalty or if we prefer manual or auto blocking/evasion mechanism or even about the having a gear based game system. Of course, those are real weird questions for someone claiming to be a long term CoH player who wants to recreate CoH as close to the original as possible.

My conclussion is that, after being unable to get any games going, he approached an existing community in need of a game, which is a smart move, although there are ways and ways of doing so. In any case, he's got what he was here for, which is TPP's attention: By merging with them (if they finally do so) not only he gets a significant part tof the job advanced, he also gets an important percenteage of the CoH community eager on TPP progress so he already has a starting playerbase without having spent a single dime advertising.

In any case, as I said many times before, whether TPP and Mr. Victoria join forces or not, whether Mr. Victoria is a long term CoH player or never played it before, such things are unimportant to me, I'm going to keep my wallet tightly shut (and my mouth wide open) until I get a game, or two, or three, or... ah well, let's hope the reverse engineering projects are progressing way faster than they ever imagined even in their wildest dreams.-

Quote from: Nightmarer on February 16, 2013, 02:42:15 PM
To be fair, the address being a private home does not strike me as odd. It's common practice, I mean, I set up a business so I need an office but before hiring an office I'll need a company already set up to hire it and to have a company I'll need an address so I give my home address, set up the company then hire offices/headquarters. Not uncommon not to change the company setup address so it is not too unusual, seen it before plenty of times.

Yeah, I didnt think of they just didnt move into a real office space originally and usually when someone presents themselves as a business, that means they have office of some sort already. Like a lawyer giving you a card saying he runs a lawfirm and you go to the address and find out he's running his law office out of his apartment. Many people would get uneasy. I would at least, but probably will still check em out. Might just be starting up and office space is expensive these days. I'll see what happens from here. I know he's here, he said he is trying to recreate a true clone, and see what happens. In this case I'm not worried much about the journey, but results.  Only journey that matters to me is real life, leveling up in games, or destroying a city systematic in other games. Besides that I dont give a crap how things get done. Results.

Yeah, there's some weird questions over there.  He apparently believes that all CoH characters have Evade, Dodge, and Resist stats inherent (and non-zero at base), and that Super Reflexes was just a Power Pool that anyone could take to improve those Evade, Resist, and Dodge stats.  In fact, I'll just quote the original topic (http://valiance.shogn.net/index.php/forum/5-improving-the-experience/43-auto-blocking-or-manual-blocking):

QuoteAlso, you didn't "HAVE" to have a power from the Super Reflexes power pool to dodge/evade or resist DMG. Players were able to do these at Level 1 during combat from beta until it ended; feel free to research. Super Reflexes was simply a power pool with various buffs that allowed the hero to increase the potential success of dodging, evasion, and resistance.

If he was a long-time CoH player, it doesn't sound like he really learned even the basic game mechanics in all that time.  (Granted, he may have confused Super Reflexes with the Fighting pool, but still... at best, it suggests he's not very detail-oriented)

Edit: Yeah, since I posted this, he posted again, and it's clear he doesn't know basic CoH terminology. He was, in fact, talking about the Super Reflexes powerset, which he still calls a "pool".  He calls Defense "Dodge", he calls Resistance "Block", and he thinks Evasion is a stat because it's the name of one power in the Super Reflexes "pool".  (He also uses the CoH Wikia rather than the Titan Wiki for his links)  And he gets very defensive (read: banning people from the forums) when defending his usage of those terms.

It's worrying.  It may not be a scam, but I don't know if this is going to lead to an actual game, let alone one that's a "spiritual successor" to CoH.

Quote from: HEATSTROKE on February 16, 2013, 01:51:43 PM
Ill just watch and see what transpires. No one has asked me for money and they wont get any until I see something worth investing in.

This is, perhaps the best approach. And should apply to any such venture. 

I think I would also caution members of either TPP or HaV against getting too involved in the bashing (justified or not).  Such actions on their part may give the appearance (whether true or not) of a conflict of interest. (ie trying to get rid of any more competition).

Not saying this is the case and do not believe it is, but it CAN give that "appearance."

Quote from: Dylan Clearbrook on February 16, 2013, 05:11:52 PM
This is, perhaps the best approach. And should apply to any such venture. 

I think I would also caution members of either TPP or HaV against getting too involved in the bashing (justified or not).  Such actions on their part may give the appearance (whether true or not) of a conflict of interest. (ie trying to get rid of any more competition).

Not saying this is the case and do not believe it is, but it CAN give that "appearance."

To me, there's nothing to bash, and in fact we are in discussions with Aaron here. Why compete when we can cooperate after all?

Any mis-steps I chalk up to being ignorant of the situation, not anything malicious. As for product release, as I said in the other thread, I actually was aware of two of the projects under his groups umbrella beforehand. The group is a blending together of projects, where four different projects decided on teaming up on the back-end, to help each one get ahead. So you had one group with top notch artists, but not enough coders. You had another with a solid client design, but not much in the way of server technology or art talent. A third with a well crafted server solution.... Based on the timeline, it looks like they've organized as a single unit only a few months ago.

They're ambitious, eager, and if what I've seen so far holds up, talented. They've each had holes which needed filling, and they began cooperating in order to do this. That is a perfectly solid idea. We'll see how things go from here.

Quote from: Ironwolf on February 16, 2013, 01:49:28 PM
If you take 5 seconds to research the company you get the information. None of it is private, none of it is hacked stuff.

I tend to agree that it shouldn't be posted.  It just strikes me as a bit too stalkerish.  If folks want to take the five seconds to look it up, have at it.  If anything, that's a nice argument that it doesn't really need to be posted here.  I think the point is made without giving out people's personal information.

Until I see that this Gorgon Engine can outperform CryEngine I am holding judgment. I don't want a game with graphical quality inferior to CoH and that pig vid was definitely inferior.

Quote from: pewlagon on February 17, 2013, 11:23:07 AM
Until I see that this Gorgon Engine can outperform CryEngine I am holding judgment. I don't want a game with graphical quality inferior to CoH and that pig vid was definitely inferior.

Gorgon is a server, they have it against Unity. Being a server, you can with effort hook other clients up to it. Even TPP's plan was to hook CryENGINE against an existing server design.

based on what ive read, it definitely sounds like someone who is desperately trying to get into the gaming business and looking for anything really to get started

as poeple have mentioned hes up to 4 or 5 games that he says hes doing but none are even in alpha, hes possibly still working out of his house and by himself or with a very small group of people, and by the posts on the other forums he has no idea what the heck coh even is even though he says hes a long time player here

has he even actually posted on these forums at all? or was he the guy who started the community driven game development thread here that was moved recently?

Quote from: NecrotechMaster on February 18, 2013, 08:43:45 AM
based on what ive read, it definitely sounds like someone who is desperately trying to get into the gaming business and looking for anything really to get started

as poeple have mentioned hes up to 4 or 5 games that he says hes doing but none are even in alpha, hes possibly still working out of his house and by himself or with a very small group of people, and by the posts on the other forums he has no idea what the heck coh even is even though he says hes a long time player here

has he even actually posted on these forums at all? or was he the guy who started the community driven game development thread here that was moved recently?

Bingo

That was my entire point is don't get caught up in the desperation of our plight to fall for a misrepresentation of someone's actual ability.

You have someone who is a decent artist and apparently he has some friends who are Indie/hobbiest game developers. This doesn't mean we will get our game or one like it more quickly. It appears they latched onto us as we have a crew of similar people. I don't dismiss what could be done, I am just pointing out what has been done so far.

Be careful out there people.

i think a similar thread was started by VV about "millionaire friends"

the point your making still stands though, while we may be desperate to get coh back, that doesnt mean we shouldnt do our background research before pursuing a lead