Knights in shining armor

[Heroette]

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

[Triplash]

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.

[JaguarX]

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.

[Triplash]

This is a residential address.

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"?

[Ironwolf]

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.

[Taceus Jiwede]

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.

[JaguarX]

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.

[Victoria Victrix]

Desperate does not equal gullible.

[no hero]

Desperate does not equal gullible.

True, but I'll take both, and raise you a fist full of disposable cash.
Point my wallet at something City-ish and watch those dollars fly!
All propelled by desperation and gullibility.

[Xieveral]

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?

[Nightmarer]

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.

[SARobb]

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.

[Ironwolf]

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

[HEATSTROKE]

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.

[Nightmarer]

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.-

[JaguarX]

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.

[Thunder Glove]

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:

Also, 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.

[Nebularian]

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."

[downix]

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.

[TonyV]

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.