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Derek Smart Bans Journalist of Biggest German PC Games Print Magazine for Testing/Reporting Crashes+
JonBonJawa
Member UncommonPosts: 489
This is an interesting story.
Apparently the biggest German PC gaming print+online magazine Gamestar did a preview of Line of Defense since Mr Smart made numerous claims how his own game Line of Defense is no vaporware and playable, offering closed beta keys in his Star Citizen bashing articles, since Star Citizen is obviously vaporware according to his opinion.
So GAMESTAR went ahead doing exactly this, checking out his game and doing extensive research for a preview and article about Line of Defense:
some bullet points of the outcome:
- Benjamin Danneberg the journalist was banned for asking questions and reporting bugs, got accused of "trolling" by dsmart
- dsmart claimed BD only played 23 minutes although they have approximately 12 hours clocked on Steam, hours of recorded footage and suffered dozens of game crashes
- dsmart blamed "GERMAN PC DRIVERS" for problems they have never heard of, etc.
full preview video here, english subs can be turned on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7n29gEV18w
Article in german using google translate for english version:
Second article on DS banning Gamestar, players and general quality of Steam Early Access
(another shabby google translation, but you get the point)
Comments
Your sensationalist title is similar to why that clown got banned. By posting this tripe, you're just contributing to the effectiveness of crappy journalism. He had an agenda, thought he was going to play Derek for clicks, and instead got called out for it.
related link: http://steamcommunity.com/app/266620/discussions/0/535151589904350568/#c535151589904001093
Look, I have no personal attachment here, and it's not like Derek has said anything nice about my game, but this outraged witchhunt crap has got to stop because its' hurting devs, hurting players, hurting actual game journalism and, well... the only people benefiting are the parasites trolling the whole lot of us for clicks and views.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
[Megathread] Gamestar-Review zu Line of Defense MMO
http://steamcommunity.com/app/266620/discussions/0/535151589904350568/
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
the title says exactly what happened.
An agenda to preview a PC game? Yeah, I´ve heard that´s the job of PC gaming magazines. Quite an agenda they have there.
Other than that not being what he was banned for.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
so what was he banned for and how do you know? You seem to be quite motivated to defend Line of Defence, are you playing it? Is it awesome and we´re all just missing out and the journalist is a noob using german drivers although nvidia called BS on "german drivers" since NOTHING is localized apart from the control panel? Tell us more, share your insight, genuinely curious.
Maybe mmorpg.com could do a preview video sometime this week, with english drivers? Pretty sure that would be interesting.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
He was banned for trolling. Although you will now notice that Mr Smart has edited his posts concerning the topic.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/266620/discussions/0/535151589904350568/
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
The "journalist's" video even opens by saying everything just short of it being a revenge piece for Derek attacking Star Citizen. Cult is the perfect word for it.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
well guess what, they had a prior article reporting on his claims about SC and even agreed on general scepticism if SC is doable or not.
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamestar.de%2Fspiele%2Fstar-citizen%2Fnews%2Fstar_citizen%2C48820%2C3233159.html
The Line of Defense preview was nothing but a FOLLOW UP, but hey - looking into DS credibility by actually daring to check out HIS GAME he keeps referring to as comparison is a big no-no? So much about "cult", eh?
So since you´re obviously on the Smart side, are you working on the game or actually playing it? When will it be finished? Do you think this is quality product and banning people who are reporting crashes and bugs and asking questions should be banned? Tell us more.
It's not sensationalism if it's accurate.
Derek Smart banned said journalist because he showed how bad the game is. It's no different from what Digital Homicide has done, especially when they responded to Jim Sterling's videos.
Trolling...as defined by Derek Smart. When people on the internet make a ridiculous claim and someone else calls them out on it/proves the claim wrong, the person who made the initial claim tend to call the person who proved them wrong a "troll" because they can't debunk the person who proved them wrong. That's kinda what happened here; Derek Smart made bold claims about Line of Defense, a journalist went all Jim Sterling on him, and Derek Smart banned him and called him a troll because he showed the world that Line of Defense is a buggy unplayable mess.
Since when is Tuesday a direction?
please do tell why that is bad for serious devs and journalists and players?
only thing i'm seeing here is derek getting played, and SC, I don't care about the 2 and for me they don't exist (like sc and anything derek put his hands on), and there is not enough popcorn for this whole drama, its tiresome, but tiresome for only the invested parts, with again no serious devs or journalist or players have a hand on.
and btw you should know by now every damn news is byased in some way, be it to they keep receiving likes and support from devs or by being paid to do so
Technically nothing's stopping them. They probably just chose not to because there are, well, much bigger and better games to cover. Like Skyforge, WoW, Wildstar, Blade and Soul, EoS, ESO, etc.
Still, kinda hoping for a Jim Sterling Squirty Play (eventually).
Since when is Tuesday a direction?
Tripe? Sensationalist? I don't know. He may very well have had an agenda going into it but, in all fairness, Derek Smart has his own agenda for attacking whatever game he's white knighting about today. The fact of the matter is that he has YET to deliver a product which amounts to more than streaks in your underpants. His sole interest is drumming up interest for a game for which there isn't any. On top of that, the game he's trying to drum up players for is so horrible that the average playtime on steamspy is around the same time I spend per sitting in the washroom (No, really, it is!).
You SHOULD have a personal attachment because HE is hurting devs, not the other way around. As far as I'm concerned, Derek Smart needs to leave the industry and not return. He provides ZERO value to the industry and his actions are negatively impacting not only SC, but a loooooooooooong line of indie game devs who are actually TRYING to do something innovative. He says that he's invested $15 million of his own money in LoD (which I find highly unlikely), but if that's the case, I hope LoD bankrupts him so I don't have to hear from him again. There were much better dev houses which suffered much worse fates than what Derek Smart has up until now. Unfortunately he seems to think that attacking people and being, generally, scummy is an acceptable way to do business. He's hypocritical, lacks accountability to his OWN community, does not take responsibility for his own actions, and lacks the common decency to admit when he has wronged. I'm still not sure why some people are even defending this guy. He's pretty much everything that's wrong with the Internet rolled into one.
Crazkanuk
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Tell you why devisive articles created solely to stir the pot and attack others is bad? This really needs to be explained to you?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
This, right here, is why civility is dead on these boards.
You don't agree with him, dandy. You aren't doing yourself, or your argument any favors by throwing the shill card out after two or three back and forth responses. If the guy does nothing but hang around the Line of Defense forum and batter away all criticism, then fine - call it like you see it. But this just looks like you're unwilling to accept points of view other than your own, and it weakens your entire argument to onlookers by resorting to base logical fallacies.
Knowing that I am still going to get attacked, regardless, let me just post the sequence of events, and let you - the sane ones - mull it over and draw your own conclusions.
And through the attacks from Germans (all of them who read the article), I made two posts (1, 2) regarding the game.
Basically, the magazine ran a "review" story, about and Early Access game - without stating it as such. Then, the very next day, ran another click-bait story with the byline that "Derek Smart hates Gamestar" or something like that.
Below is how it all started. I am going to mangle two Steam forum threads together, in order to provide the full picture in one place.
#1
Ben Danneberg, the editor of the magazine, created a tech support report in order to boost his story.
In fact, we treated it like any other report because we immediately pulled the patch while we investigated because we thought the report was genuine.
After we ran some tests, and discovered that we were just being trolled. Especially by someone with a free Starter Kit account, who, even though said he was never able to get into the game, somehow managed to write a lengthy missive about it.
So we restored the patch since it was working just fine, and nobody reported any of those problems with it.
And from his other comments, asking for completion (!), items etc, it was clear that he was trolling us. And he didn't even own the game.
Next thing we know, an article goes up today about precisely that.
That's the media for you.
Yes, we know that they are big Star Citizen fans over there, so this is just another of those things where they're directing attacks toward us in retaliation because of my Star Citizen blog posts.
None of this matters. The game is in Early Access (since Sept 2014) and the extensive changelog[lodmmo.com], as well as the bug reports, already show our regular updates, fixes, tweaks etc.
They want to compare an indie game, made by less than a dozen people, for less than $12m, over a span of five years, to an $85m crowd-funded, train-wreck by 500+ people who, after four years, don't have a "game", but two stand-alone modules (Hangar, Arena Commander) which are buggy as hell.
#2
We didn't receive any data. They go directly to a server and are sent from the game.
I explained over here why we figured that we were being trolled.
Until today, I had no idea who "Ben" was. I don't read German, nor have any interest in German magazines.
The simple matter is that what he posted was unique to him. We have never - ever - had such a report since this game hit EA back on Sept 2014.
So even though someone can say that he's a reviewer, so he must know better, just doesn't take away from the fact that this was b*llshit.
Also, he is a "reviewing games every day", but yet, wrote an entire missive about a) an Early Access game b) which he spent less than 23 mins (yes, I checked) in?
How can you do any sort of objective review (forget about the fact that it is an Early Access game) based on this?
I'd like someone to explain this logic to me.
Aside from that, the game is released for English language only. It's not localized, will NEVER be localized, and have no interest in supporting ANY other language other than English.
So considering the fact that ALL drivers (audio, video etc) are different from English versions, how are we to know wtf his problem is, if we've never tested on a German machine, let alone claimed ANY localized support for that language and platform?
And that same day, we got other different bug reports.
One person reported an instance where he ended up under the terrain (with screen shots). We looked into it, logged it, added it to our changelog list of known issues. Along with another crash bug.
Another person reported a fatal crash regarding the HAIS-MK2 device through an airlock.
And these are logged in the Known Issues[lodmmo.com] section of our online changelog so that people know that we know about them.
What makes the reports from these two people, different from Ben?
The simple fact is that "Ben" was being disingenuous. And writing a "review" based on an Early Access game that's months from completion, is pure ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. And the fact that, mere days later, we find out who "Ben" is, confirms my initial suspicion that his intentions were not designed to seek help or assistance. They were designed to be an attack on us, and the game, for page hits.
#3
Here is what we DO know:
Game developers are just human beings who happen to make games for a living.
If you want to hold us up to higher standards of conduct, then go ahead
...but don't be surprised if we don't uphold them.
DS kicked another hornets nest again, and now the hornets are swarming and stinging again.
He keeps doing this you know, this is no where near the first time. He has a huge history (easily researched if someone cares to google it) of attacking critics and pretty much anyone that doesn't kowtow to him and his supposed greatness.
It seems that he replies to so many criticisms or complaints with such venom and so quickly one has to wonder if he actually sleeps, or possibly if he might be a script bot designed to troll the net and make vicious replies.
Any problem with any project he's on, and he always blames everyone else. (Or at least I've never seen a post where he did admit to goofing up, and unfortunately I've seen WAY too many of his posts.)
So it boils down to DS trying to start another shitstorm, only too many people are wise to his antics and are redirecting the fan towards him this time. Nobody likes to be attacked, especially by someone like him.
Lost my mind, now trying to lose yours...
Totally this 100 %
Nothing worse than a bunch freaking fanboys.
Unlike the "journalist" that's being discussed here, they don't review EA games. Bill has said so before.
PFO only got a review because of the CEO claiming here on the forums that it's pretty much a full game and deserving of a subscription fee. (Which was just asking to get smacked with a negative review)
Edit: Misread your post. They could preview it, yeah. Of course if they say anything positive about it people on these boards will just claim that they were "bought" anyway. (Pretty much same deal as when they say anything positive about other MMOs
)
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
Where can we get a key to freely test the game?
New players can get a welcome package and old/returning players can also get a welcome back package and 7 days free subscription time! Just click here to use my referral invitation
I think we're on the same page here. I'm not defending anything Derek has said or done. My issue is with the less than ethical approach this journalist took to creating his piece and the reason for his piece, which Derek explains with supporting links/info here. Someone beautifully presented the secondary issue here, which is the toxic community we're in right now:
"He may very well have had an agenda going into it but, in all fairness, Derek Smart has his own agenda for attacking whatever game he's white knighting about today." - CrazKanuk
Really? That's how low we have sunk that two wrongs make a right if we don't like the first guy? The article is retaliatory and devisive. They are playing on the dislike for Derek to drive clicks and views. This negatively impacts everyone... except the people making money off the site traffic, of course.
If this was a genuine review or some expose of an issue that would be a different story. It reads as retaliation and the author damn near states that himself at the beginning of his video.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I know all about DS's history and the infamous usenet flamewars. I've been following his ideas (not so much the outcomes lol) since he first talked about BC3000 way, way back. I need neither history lessons nor education about him. And I have also followed Chris Roberts for many many years and played his old games.
And all of the above means nothing in the context of DS raising valid concerns about SC nearly a month ago and the fanboys ignoring the concerns and starting a new campaign to go after DS instead as if destroying him would in any way make the SC concerns go away.. and the attack DS campaign just carries on and we're supposed to not identify it for what it is?
The cultists should take a page out of the cult leader's manual and do what he does: ignores DS. He doesn't even mention his name while doing damage control by addressing the concerns with new announcements, new schedules and reviving the FPS module from delayed "because we have standards and don't want to show you inferior modules" (and yes, I'm paraphrasing) to "we changed our minds, we're going to show it to you soon."
Those are the real SC issues, not all of these peripheral reports about DS's game by people who have absolutely no interest in that game but are well-known SC fans. It's just more "ignore what DS said...look at him instead!" misdirection BS.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED