In my signature you'll find my steam acc with link to my Facebook with my real name, my address and my phone number.
I don't get it. Are you afraid of what specifically? Someone will risk to go to jail or something over nothing?
... Or they are messing with you because you let them do it?
Occam's razor, my friend.
I wish people would at least make the effort to read the copiously detailed links I put up; I archive this in order for people to actually understand the wider context, instead of throwing out wild guesses about what they'd do in situations that aren't relevant.
To repeat again, it wasn't just reading social media, it was getting into the accounts themselves, of myself and at least 2 other critics of the game. The details are all listed in the link to the SU forums.
In the case of my email address, someone apparently got the random 15ish character alphanumeric password in early December perhaps, and was able to successfully sync to my account for at least a month, until some sort of manual attempt to log in from a proxy IP address via the Outlook webpage triggered an automatic security lock down and alerted me of it being compromised.
Someone else who had foolishly used the same password in 3 places PM'd me at Reddit a few days later; they didn't know this had happened to me at that point, because I was waiting quietly to see if anyone tried to brag about it; and warned us all that their accounts had been compromised too, and if we got any strange or abusive messages they weren't from him, but someone trying to break their real life relationships.
And then a third person stated that at the same time, someone was trying to guess and reset their password at the Shroud forums.
It's all in the thread I linked too.
Take the time to read it.
I then proceeded to contact Berek via PM and said something along the lines of "You need to be aware of this; I've opened up a criminal report on one of your users. Here's the crime reference number, feel free to contact the UK authorities. At the same time this is happening, he's trying to vaguely suggest your company is personally helping him attack us. I doubt you are, but we are wondering if a database hack has allowed him to get potentially re-used passwords. If nothing else, he's dragging your name through the mud."
Nothing was done about it. Indeed the standards of community moderation have now sunk so low that when someone decided to have a complete fit and open a thread dedicated to abusing me on their own forums this week (which is what the timeline in the OP is setting the backgroud up for), the Developer Account took to many of the steam reviews and joined in with the slander.
Do you get it NOW?
I'm hardly "Letting them mess with me" What a patronizing and frankly ridiculous claim. They are merrily doing this all of their own accord... this is what they want to do, from sociopathic fan all the way up to the community moderation. And it serves my purpose to illustrate why my disgust with this project is so correct; because they do this without any encouragement from us. They're 4 years late, have spent over $18m on the project so far, have created a greed riddled RMT nightmare... which would be bad enough already, but they've added Cult like hatred of anyone who criticises them on top too. Shroud really deserves to fail, and thanks to the unchecked sociopathy and horrendous community management, they're ensuring they will.
Frankly, I'm hoping they continue because it's destroying their reputation, and in the case of the sociopath in question, I don't have children or other innocents to protect so I'm quite happy for him to keep obsessing about me.
But at least read the enormous amount of archiving I actually did to prove it all to you lot, instead of just assuming.
I noticed that they are locking threads on Steam too. I didn't know games had the power to do that cause I've never seen it done before. Even some of the trashiest games didn't/don't lock threads so these guys doing that speaks volumes about the way they deal with their critics.
The company controls the associated game forums; they can't touch the reviews or your steam account however, only Valve can influence those, or the owner of the review.
That's why many of us comment in the reviews, we can actually answer the lies and abuse there without Portalarium being able to ban us for it.
Do you want to know what's so funny about that? Again, I already archived this too, but it's provable that the only reason you're banned from the Shroud forums is if you're critical of the game. Because I include the archives of someone who admitted they were scamming users, and got his forum ban removed and his in game reduced by reminding Portalarium how much he'd spent... and someone who was part of a group organising harassment of critics, who was only banned when he switched his steam review to negative.
They banned me though for using the word "Liar" to someone who tried to claim an auction had items that the auction specifically stated you wouldn't get.
All archived. All the evidence there if people take the time to read it.
And then Portalarium wonder why we now hate this badly managed, incompetently programmed disaster of a project.
Yes and would such use of words fall into the category of non-toxic or toxic?
I find that declaring something cult like behaviour is meant to be abrasive, because that kind of behaviour is not good.
You however want to try and redefine such criticism as being toxic in of itself, because for what ever reason, you wish either to defend the game or the unbelievably toxic community that engages in these actions, and don't want them to be righteously called out for it... or because you see something in such criticism that you personally are uncomfortable with, and want to declare it out of bounds to protect yourself.
And your feelings are not the ultimate judgement, despite your signature, so I'm unconcerned with what definitions you are using. Indeed, I consider your desperate need to be the ultimate arbitrator of what
words mean to be a form of sad control freakishness, which I find
unbelievably toxic, because it hinders genuine debate by trying to hide your real opinions behind pettifoggery over definitions.
None of which changes the fact that Shroud of the Avatar's active community and moderation is bloody awful, and any kind of language that reflects that is going to be harsh. Improve the community if you want the words describing it to be what ever flowery la la language you insist it should be.
This game does, and always has, looked like complete trash.
The kind of game that has around 1k players after 3 months...and is shut down after its first year.
Move on to a real game....be upset over one that matters.
^ This
The game will be DOA on arrival. I don't get why anyone would hold on to hope this long. It's not going to change...EVER.
Markee Dragon and Anshe Chung are still buying SotA assets because...well...both are too stupid to realize the ship is half sunk. Sell off what you can to them. They'll never be able to resell it in return.
Our part now is to badmouth the game as much as possible to help hasten the process of death. WE are Portalarium's karma.
There's an internet saying that says, "A disgruntled customer with 500 Facebook friends is like a loaded gun."
In my signature you'll find my steam acc with link to my Facebook with my real name, my address and my phone number.
I don't get it. Are you afraid of what specifically? Someone will risk to go to jail or something over nothing?
... Or they are messing with you because you let them do it?
Occam's razor, my friend.
I wish people would at least make the effort to read the copiously detailed links I put up; I archive this in order for people to actually understand the wider context, instead of throwing out wild guesses about what they'd do in situations that aren't relevant.
To repeat again, it wasn't just reading social media, it was getting into the accounts themselves, of myself and at least 2 other critics of the game. The details are all listed in the link to the SU forums.
In the case of my email address, someone apparently got the random 15ish character alphanumeric password in early December perhaps, and was able to successfully sync to my account for at least a month, until some sort of manual attempt to log in from a proxy IP address via the Outlook webpage triggered an automatic security lock down and alerted me of it being compromised.
Someone else who had foolishly used the same password in 3 places PM'd me at Reddit a few days later; they didn't know this had happened to me at that point, because I was waiting quietly to see if anyone tried to brag about it; and warned us all that their accounts had been compromised too, and if we got any strange or abusive messages they weren't from him, but someone trying to break their real life relationships.
And then a third person stated that at the same time, someone was trying to guess and reset their password at the Shroud forums.
It's all in the thread I linked too.
Take the time to read it.
I then proceeded to contact Berek via PM and said something along the lines of "You need to be aware of this; I've opened up a criminal report on one of your users. Here's the crime reference number, feel free to contact the UK authorities. At the same time this is happening, he's trying to vaguely suggest your company is personally helping him attack us. I doubt you are, but we are wondering if a database hack has allowed him to get potentially re-used passwords. If nothing else, he's dragging your name through the mud."
Nothing was done about it. Indeed the standards of community moderation have now sunk so low that when someone decided to have a complete fit and open a thread dedicated to abusing me on their own forums this week (which is what the timeline in the OP is setting the backgroud up for), the Developer Account took to many of the steam reviews and joined in with the slander.
Do you get it NOW?
I'm hardly "Letting them mess with me" What a patronizing and frankly ridiculous claim. They are merrily doing this all of their own accord... this is what they want to do, from sociopathic fan all the way up to the community moderation. And it serves my purpose to illustrate why my disgust with this project is so correct; because they do this without any encouragement from us. They're 4 years late, have spent over $18m on the project so far, have created a greed riddled RMT nightmare... which would be bad enough already, but they've added Cult like hatred of anyone who criticises them on top too. Shroud really deserves to fail, and thanks to the unchecked sociopathy and horrendous community management, they're ensuring they will.
Frankly, I'm hoping they continue because it's destroying their reputation, and in the case of the sociopath in question, I don't have children or other innocents to protect so I'm quite happy for him to keep obsessing about me.
But at least read the enormous amount of archiving I actually did to prove it all to you lot, instead of just assuming.
This is what happens when people keep clinging to a game just because it has "potential". The game's been horrible for a long long loooong time but whales keep on investing in it (both financially and emotionally) in hopes it will magically become good even though it was pretty clear it was hopelessly terrible for a long long time.
I noticed that they are locking threads on Steam too. I didn't know games had the power to do that cause I've never seen it done before. Even some of the trashiest games didn't/don't lock threads so these guys doing that speaks volumes about the way they deal with their critics.
They're doing everything they can to keep people from letting others know what a sh#@ game this is. They will ban you from their forums and steam forums unless you're one of their kiss ass whales. Some of us they'd love to ban but their reach doesn't go farther than thier own forums and steam and we don't post there to get banned lol. They do this to silence and control. It's all about control with these guys to keep the suckers paying their bills each month, draining the people that's left for more money which is only a few hundred people left that plunked down 4 and 5 figures for big empty POTS. These people think they'll make a ton of money off players by renting them house spots charging RL money each week or month, on top of already paying the game with in game gold daily rent just to keep a house. It's nuts
They even tried to pressure the one reddit forums that people can speak freely on to make it nice for them. Thankfully, that didn't work and they can't keep us from telling people how awful their devs are to customers and how crap this game is on other forums. And funny enough one of their rudest devs comes here sometimes to insult customers and potential customers for all to see just how unprofessional these jokers are.
They don't like that potential customers get the truth. This game is doing so bad they have to do monthly begathon and Seedinvest to make ends meet. Personally I think the Seedinvest is for the delivery of physical goods they need to ship because their so bad with managing this Project they forgot or pissed away the money budgeted for it.
After following this game for a long time I can honestly say that The developers really tried to come up with something different and just plain missed the mark. Alot of people have paid alot of money and for a while I had an account and bought a package. i sold it for a modest profit since though because the game just turned out to be something different than I wanted.
I think there are alot of people like the OP that feel that everyone needs or wants to hear their dissenting opinion. Unless you've bought in, played it, became part of the community, watched the streams and spent real time all you are is an observer with an uneducated opinion. I know why I don't prefer this game, I've played it. having an uneducated opinion is like asking that guy who fell and survived without a parachute how it was and trying to explain to the world what he went through in your own personal perspective.
I'm sorry, if i was 'that' guy, i'd be pretty upset at you too. And what we are talking about is entertainment. Does anybody understand that its not a matter of life and death, socially or otherwise? 'OMG...they...they trashed my opinion! Oh how dare they!' Please get over yourselves m'kay? Give your 2c useful or not and be on your way to the next thing. Anymore then that makes it personal and it ALWAYS takes 2 people to make it personal. Ignore, is your absolute biggest buddy online.use it, live it, love it.
5a : great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (such as a film or book) criticizing how the media promotes the cult of celebrity; especially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad
There is a cult like group within the followers of SotA, most of them have invested a huge amount of money into the game.
Why they act like a cult? Afraid of a bad investment? Afraid developers listen to others that have a different opinion on how the game should proceed?
My guess is they binded together towards the one's that wanted a other game. Many features weren't decided after kickstarter and developers claimed they should listen to their community (was a lie)
Many early backer's believed in Garriott's word when he claimed this game will be a spiritual successor to Ultima Online, a UO2. Many oldschool UO PvP players were among the early founders of the game and they had a strong mind on where the game should go on the SotA forums.
This where developer's made the fundamental mistake, they rather listened to the very few funder's that had invested huge amounts of real life money. Administrators began to act differently towards the oldschool PvP players, more frequently ban them, closed their threads after the whales derailed them.
A very vocal part of the community over at SotA forums had both the developer's and moderators on their side. These were mainly the one's that were not specifically interested in PvP, full loot or a combat system that actually demanded some skills from the player - you know as UO did.
So from within they managed to get their type of game and same time managed to remove the majority of player's that wanted a UO2 game. They quit.
Since many features weren't decided after kickstarter (PvP and combat system among others) and Garriott and friends told they were listening to the majority of their community and the game were a spiritual successor to Ultima Online many oldschool UO players felt betrayed by the developers.
Garriott took their money and laughed all the way to the bank.
That is also why there are so many legit negative feedback towards this game. Developer's have treated alot of people bad and now they are paying the price.
Karma is a bitch wouldn't you agree?
no I am not satisfied.
does calling a group or a group within a group a cult either literally or figuratively promote toxicity or does it help to reduce the problem of toxicity.
I am not getting into a debate over if some group or group within a group meets the definition of a cult, the Calthoic Chruch meets that definition for fuck sake
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
5a : great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (such as a film or book) criticizing how the media promotes the cult of celebrity; especially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad
There is a cult like group within the followers of SotA, most of them have invested a huge amount of money into the game.
Why they act like a cult? Afraid of a bad investment? Afraid developers listen to others that have a different opinion on how the game should proceed?
My guess is they binded together towards the one's that wanted a other game. Many features weren't decided after kickstarter and developers claimed they should listen to their community (was a lie)
Many early backer's believed in Garriott's word when he claimed this game will be a spiritual successor to Ultima Online, a UO2. Many oldschool UO PvP players were among the early founders of the game and they had a strong mind on where the game should go on the SotA forums.
This where developer's made the fundamental mistake, they rather listened to the very few funder's that had invested huge amounts of real life money. Administrators began to act differently towards the oldschool PvP players, more frequently ban them, closed their threads after the whales derailed them.
A very vocal part of the community over at SotA forums had both the developer's and moderators on their side. These were mainly the one's that were not specifically interested in PvP, full loot or a combat system that actually demanded some skills from the player - you know as UO did.
So from within they managed to get their type of game and same time managed to remove the majority of player's that wanted a UO2 game. They quit.
Since many features weren't decided after kickstarter (PvP and combat system among others) and Garriott and friends told they were listening to the majority of their community and the game were a spiritual successor to Ultima Online many oldschool UO players felt betrayed by the developers.
Garriott took their money and laughed all the way to the bank.
That is also why there are so many legit negative feedback towards this game. Developer's have treated alot of people bad and now they are paying the price.
Karma is a bitch wouldn't you agree?
no I am not satisfied.
does calling a group or a group within a group a cult either literally or figuratively promote toxicity or does it help to reduce the problem of toxicity.
I am not getting into a debate over if some group or group within a group meets the definition of a cult, the Calthoic Chruch meets that definition for fuck sake
I don't think you will ever be satisfied nomatter how well i describe why i see a part of the SotA community, moderator's and developer's as a cult.
I see this cult as the toxic one's since they refuse to accept legit negative critcism. They're are allowed to derail opposing thread's with moderator's help, thread's are closed for no reason and player's that openly inform other's of their negative game experience are banned. Developer's mainly listen to the one's that made huge real life investment's into the game.
I see such behaviour as toxic.
And i agree with you there is no reason to discuss if they meet the definition of being a cult, we all have different view's on that depending on our experience and knowledge.
This is happening in real time right now. Here's one of the Portalarium Executives telling everyone to give more money during telethons... this is the message he sends after "cleaning up" the seedinvest thread of posts that had legitimate questions and concerns about the financial position of the company.
It's also kinda sketchy that one of the board members for Portalarium is also a board member for SeedInvest. And SeedInvest did the $25M valuation for Portalarium. Angel Investors aren't rushing to get in on the action here either... If you do your due diligence and review all of the companies publicly available financial documents you're going to find red flags and wtf? feelings. Which is also why they've only just limped over the 500k mark after 2 months of very active campaigning and there are still $1.5M in shares remaining to sell in the next 3 days.
People with real questions and real concerns are censored. Whales that spend money on rares for RMT are encouraged to keep spending. Their business model is sound... and 100% reprehensible.
note: Travaian is their new publisher, but two months ago when they launched the SeedInvest campaign they did so because THEY WANTED TO BE THEIR OWN PUBLISHER!
This is happening in real time right now. Here's one of the Portalarium Executives telling everyone to give more money during telethons... this is the message he sends after "cleaning up" the seedinvest thread of posts that had legitimate questions and concerns about the financial position of the company.
It's also kinda sketchy that one of the board members for Portalarium is also a board member for SeedInvest. And SeedInvest did the $25M valuation for Portalarium. Angel Investors aren't rushing to get in on the action here either... If you do your due diligence and review all of the companies publicly available financial documents you're going to find red flags and wtf? feelings. Which is also why they've only just limped over the 500k mark after 2 months of very active campaigning and there are still $1.5M in shares remaining to sell in the next 3 days.
People with real questions and real concerns are censored. Whales that spend money on rares for RMT are encouraged to keep spending. Their business model is sound... and 100% reprehensible.
note: Travaian is their new publisher, but two months ago when they launched the SeedInvest campaign they did so because THEY WANTED TO BE THEIR OWN PUBLISHER!
it doesnt matter if its real or not. Religion is a cult so that assertion is really unimpressive.
The question is, does is calling people a cult become part of the toxic behavior or is it part of the higher ground behavior?
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
This is happening in real time right now. Here's one of the Portalarium Executives telling everyone to give more money during telethons... this is the message he sends after "cleaning up" the seedinvest thread of posts that had legitimate questions and concerns about the financial position of the company.
It's also kinda sketchy that one of the board members for Portalarium is also a board member for SeedInvest. And SeedInvest did the $25M valuation for Portalarium. Angel Investors aren't rushing to get in on the action here either... If you do your due diligence and review all of the companies publicly available financial documents you're going to find red flags and wtf? feelings. Which is also why they've only just limped over the 500k mark after 2 months of very active campaigning and there are still $1.5M in shares remaining to sell in the next 3 days.
People with real questions and real concerns are censored. Whales that spend money on rares for RMT are encouraged to keep spending. Their business model is sound... and 100% reprehensible.
note: Travaian is their new publisher, but two months ago when they launched the SeedInvest campaign they did so because THEY WANTED TO BE THEIR OWN PUBLISHER!
it doesnt matter if its real or not. Religion is a cult so that assertion is really unimpressive.
The question is, does is calling people a cult become part of the toxic behavior or is it part of the higher ground behavior?
Religion is a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.
The SotA community is totally a cult.
one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us.... not one of us? censored! now, back to chanting.... one of us, one of us, one of us....
And the devs just keep giving them promises, RMT, and booze all followed by a thorough milking.
Religion is a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.
The SotA community is totally a cult.
one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us.... not one of us? censored! now, back to chanting.... one of us, one of us, one of us....
And the devs just keep giving them promises, RMT, and booze all followed by a thorough milking.
for the 3rd time
it doesnt matter if its a cult or not
there are tons of assholes in the world but me going around telling them that they are assholes is NOT taking the higher ground making a community less toxic.
jesus fucking h christ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
This is happening in real time right now. Here's one of the Portalarium Executives telling everyone to give more money during telethons... this is the message he sends after "cleaning up" the seedinvest thread of posts that had legitimate questions and concerns about the financial position of the company.
It's also kinda sketchy that one of the board members for Portalarium is also a board member for SeedInvest. And SeedInvest did the $25M valuation for Portalarium. Angel Investors aren't rushing to get in on the action here either... If you do your due diligence and review all of the companies publicly available financial documents you're going to find red flags and wtf? feelings. Which is also why they've only just limped over the 500k mark after 2 months of very active campaigning and there are still $1.5M in shares remaining to sell in the next 3 days.
People with real questions and real concerns are censored. Whales that spend money on rares for RMT are encouraged to keep spending. Their business model is sound... and 100% reprehensible.
note: Travaian is their new publisher, but two months ago when they launched the SeedInvest campaign they did so because THEY WANTED TO BE THEIR OWN PUBLISHER!
I like how he uses the word 'attack' as if they are at war.
Maybe they wouldn't need to fight a war if they didn't make so many enemies.
Religion is a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.
The SotA community is totally a cult.
one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us.... not one of us? censored! now, back to chanting.... one of us, one of us, one of us....
And the devs just keep giving them promises, RMT, and booze all followed by a thorough milking.
for the 3rd time
it doesnt matter if its a cult or not
there are tons of assholes in the world but me going around telling them that they are assholes is NOT taking the higher ground making a community less toxic.
jesus fucking h christ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's true Sean. You have your own way of going around making things toxic. This post, for example.
Religion is a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.
The SotA community is totally a cult.
one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us.... not one of us? censored! now, back to chanting.... one of us, one of us, one of us....
And the devs just keep giving them promises, RMT, and booze all followed by a thorough milking.
for the 3rd time
it doesnt matter if its a cult or not
there are tons of assholes in the world but me going around telling them that they are assholes is NOT taking the higher ground making a community less toxic.
jesus fucking h christ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's true Sean. You have your own way of going around making things toxic. This post, for example.
yes of course I am toxic we already know that (because you know best) but that is not the question.
If you walk into a room filled with assholes and call them assholes you are making the bad community worse not better. REGARDLESS of if I am toxic or not.
got it now?
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Religion is a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.
The SotA community is totally a cult.
one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us.... not one of us? censored! now, back to chanting.... one of us, one of us, one of us....
And the devs just keep giving them promises, RMT, and booze all followed by a thorough milking.
for the 3rd time
it doesnt matter if its a cult or not
there are tons of assholes in the world but me going around telling them that they are assholes is NOT taking the higher ground making a community less toxic.
jesus fucking h christ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's true Sean. You have your own way of going around making things toxic. This post, for example.
yes of course I am toxic we already know that (because you know best) but that is not the question.
If you walk into a room filled with assholes and call them assholes you are making the bad community worse not better. REGARDLESS of if I am toxic or not.
got it now?
If you walk into a room filled with assholes, they're still assholes. I don't know how you could possibly make it worse. However, if one person in that room realizes how they're acting and changes, then you're actually making it better.
Religion is a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.
The SotA community is totally a cult.
one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us.... not one of us? censored! now, back to chanting.... one of us, one of us, one of us....
And the devs just keep giving them promises, RMT, and booze all followed by a thorough milking.
for the 3rd time
it doesnt matter if its a cult or not
there are tons of assholes in the world but me going around telling them that they are assholes is NOT taking the higher ground making a community less toxic.
jesus fucking h christ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's true Sean. You have your own way of going around making things toxic. This post, for example.
yes of course I am toxic we already know that (because you know best) but that is not the question.
If you walk into a room filled with assholes and call them assholes you are making the bad community worse not better. REGARDLESS of if I am toxic or not.
got it now?
If you walk into a room filled with assholes, they're still assholes. I don't know how you could possibly make it worse. However, if one person in that room realizes how they're acting and changes, then you're actually making it better.
Sorry but I am not changing my view.
if you walk into a room filled with assholes and call them assholes that is being part of the problem, not the solution, when it comes to the question of a toxic community. PEROID end of story.
HOWEVER, if you and your buddies are the group that is trying to go around convincing people that there is a sub-culutre group of fans that are a cult and you feel going around saying that is somehow a way of improving a community then your delsional but have fun with that,let me know how that turns out for you
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Comments
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
To repeat again, it wasn't just reading social media, it was getting into the accounts themselves, of myself and at least 2 other critics of the game. The details are all listed in the link to the SU forums.
In the case of my email address, someone apparently got the random 15ish character alphanumeric password in early December perhaps, and was able to successfully sync to my account for at least a month, until some sort of manual attempt to log in from a proxy IP address via the Outlook webpage triggered an automatic security lock down and alerted me of it being compromised.
Someone else who had foolishly used the same password in 3 places PM'd me at Reddit a few days later; they didn't know this had happened to me at that point, because I was waiting quietly to see if anyone tried to brag about it; and warned us all that their accounts had been compromised too, and if we got any strange or abusive messages they weren't from him, but someone trying to break their real life relationships.
And then a third person stated that at the same time, someone was trying to guess and reset their password at the Shroud forums.
It's all in the thread I linked too.
Take the time to read it.
I then proceeded to contact Berek via PM and said something along the lines of "You need to be aware of this; I've opened up a criminal report on one of your users. Here's the crime reference number, feel free to contact the UK authorities. At the same time this is happening, he's trying to vaguely suggest your company is personally helping him attack us. I doubt you are, but we are wondering if a database hack has allowed him to get potentially re-used passwords. If nothing else, he's dragging your name through the mud."
Nothing was done about it. Indeed the standards of community moderation have now sunk so low that when someone decided to have a complete fit and open a thread dedicated to abusing me on their own forums this week (which is what the timeline in the OP is setting the backgroud up for), the Developer Account took to many of the steam reviews and joined in with the slander.
Do you get it NOW?
I'm hardly "Letting them mess with me" What a patronizing and frankly ridiculous claim. They are merrily doing this all of their own accord... this is what they want to do, from sociopathic fan all the way up to the community moderation.
And it serves my purpose to illustrate why my disgust with this project is so correct; because they do this without any encouragement from us. They're 4 years late, have spent over $18m on the project so far, have created a greed riddled RMT nightmare... which would be bad enough already, but they've added Cult like hatred of anyone who criticises them on top too. Shroud really deserves to fail, and thanks to the unchecked sociopathy and horrendous community management, they're ensuring they will.
Frankly, I'm hoping they continue because it's destroying their reputation, and in the case of the sociopath in question, I don't have children or other innocents to protect so I'm quite happy for him to keep obsessing about me.
But at least read the enormous amount of archiving I actually did to prove it all to you lot, instead of just assuming.
That's why many of us comment in the reviews, we can actually answer the lies and abuse there without Portalarium being able to ban us for it.
Do you want to know what's so funny about that? Again, I already archived this too, but it's provable that the only reason you're banned from the Shroud forums is if you're critical of the game. Because I include the archives of someone who admitted they were scamming users, and got his forum ban removed and his in game reduced by reminding Portalarium how much he'd spent... and someone who was part of a group organising harassment of critics, who was only banned when he switched his steam review to negative.
They banned me though for using the word "Liar" to someone who tried to claim an auction had items that the auction specifically stated you wouldn't get.
All archived. All the evidence there if people take the time to read it.
And then Portalarium wonder why we now hate this badly managed, incompetently programmed disaster of a project.
I find that declaring something cult like behaviour is meant to be abrasive, because that kind of behaviour is not good.
You however want to try and redefine such criticism as being toxic in of itself, because for what ever reason, you wish either to defend the game or the unbelievably toxic community that engages in these actions, and don't want them to be righteously called out for it... or because you see something in such criticism that you personally are uncomfortable with, and want to declare it out of bounds to protect yourself.
And your feelings are not the ultimate judgement, despite your signature, so I'm unconcerned with what definitions you are using. Indeed, I consider your desperate need to be the ultimate arbitrator of what words mean to be a form of sad control freakishness, which I find unbelievably toxic, because it hinders genuine debate by trying to hide your real opinions behind pettifoggery over definitions.
None of which changes the fact that Shroud of the Avatar's active community and moderation is bloody awful, and any kind of language that reflects that is going to be harsh. Improve the community if you want the words describing it to be what ever flowery la la language you insist it should be.
This game does, and always has, looked like complete trash.
The kind of game that has around 1k players after 3 months...and is shut down after its first year.
Move on to a real game....be upset over one that matters.
The game will be DOA on arrival. I don't get why anyone would hold on to hope this long. It's not going to change...EVER.
Markee Dragon and Anshe Chung are still buying SotA assets because...well...both are too stupid to realize the ship is half sunk. Sell off what you can to them. They'll never be able to resell it in return.
Our part now is to badmouth the game as much as possible to help hasten the process of death. WE are Portalarium's karma.
There's an internet saying that says, "A disgruntled customer with 500 Facebook friends is like a loaded gun."
Do your part. Be that loaded gun.
~~ postlarval ~~
They even tried to pressure the one reddit forums that people can speak freely on to make it nice for them. Thankfully, that didn't work and they can't keep us from telling people how awful their devs are to customers and how crap this game is on other forums. And funny enough one of their rudest devs comes here sometimes to insult customers and potential customers for all to see just how unprofessional these jokers are.
They don't like that potential customers get the truth. This game is doing so bad they have to do monthly begathon and Seedinvest to make ends meet. Personally I think the Seedinvest is for the delivery of physical goods they need to ship because their so bad with managing this Project they forgot or pissed away the money budgeted for it.
I'm surprised they didn't just give us one half of those and sell the other half for $25 on their add-on store lol.
I like this one someone had put up on another forum of what the Sota gameplay experience was like lol.
I think there are alot of people like the OP that feel that everyone needs or wants to hear their dissenting opinion. Unless you've bought in, played it, became part of the community, watched the streams and spent real time all you are is an observer with an uneducated opinion. I know why I don't prefer this game, I've played it. having an uneducated opinion is like asking that guy who fell and survived without a parachute how it was and trying to explain to the world what he went through in your own personal perspective.
I'm sorry, if i was 'that' guy, i'd be pretty upset at you too. And what we are talking about is entertainment. Does anybody understand that its not a matter of life and death, socially or otherwise? 'OMG...they...they trashed my opinion! Oh how dare they!' Please get over yourselves m'kay? Give your 2c useful or not and be on your way to the next thing. Anymore then that makes it personal and it ALWAYS takes 2 people to make it personal. Ignore, is your absolute biggest buddy online.use it, live it, love it.
HBS-HELLBOUNDSOLDIERS
http://hellboundsoldiers.org/portal/forum.php
https://discord.gg/brgbpvY
does calling a group or a group within a group a cult either literally or figuratively promote toxicity or does it help to reduce the problem of toxicity.
I am not getting into a debate over if some group or group within a group meets the definition of a cult, the Calthoic Chruch meets that definition for fuck sake
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
I see this cult as the toxic one's since they refuse to accept legit negative critcism. They're are allowed to derail opposing thread's with moderator's help, thread's are closed for no reason and player's that openly inform other's of their negative game experience are banned. Developer's mainly listen to the one's that made huge real life investment's into the game.
I see such behaviour as toxic.
And i agree with you there is no reason to discuss if they meet the definition of being a cult, we all have different view's on that depending on our experience and knowledge.
~~ postlarval ~~
This is happening in real time right now. Here's one of the Portalarium Executives telling everyone to give more money during telethons... this is the message he sends after "cleaning up" the seedinvest thread of posts that had legitimate questions and concerns about the financial position of the company.
It's also kinda sketchy that one of the board members for Portalarium is also a board member for SeedInvest. And SeedInvest did the $25M valuation for Portalarium. Angel Investors aren't rushing to get in on the action here either... If you do your due diligence and review all of the companies publicly available financial documents you're going to find red flags and wtf? feelings. Which is also why they've only just limped over the 500k mark after 2 months of very active campaigning and there are still $1.5M in shares remaining to sell in the next 3 days.
People with real questions and real concerns are censored. Whales that spend money on rares for RMT are encouraged to keep spending. Their business model is sound... and 100% reprehensible.
note: Travaian is their new publisher, but two months ago when they launched the SeedInvest campaign they did so because THEY WANTED TO BE THEIR OWN PUBLISHER!
Religion is a cult so that assertion is really unimpressive.
The question is, does is calling people a cult become part of the toxic behavior or is it part of the higher ground behavior?
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Religion is a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.
The SotA community is totally a cult.
one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us.... not one of us? censored! now, back to chanting.... one of us, one of us, one of us....
And the devs just keep giving them promises, RMT, and booze all followed by a thorough milking.
it doesnt matter if its a cult or not
there are tons of assholes in the world but me going around telling them that they are assholes is NOT taking the higher ground making a community less toxic.
jesus fucking h christ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Maybe they wouldn't need to fight a war if they didn't make so many enemies.
~~ postlarval ~~
~~ postlarval ~~
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Should they get away with it unanswered?
It's up to them to change their toxic behaviour.
~~ postlarval ~~
if you walk into a room filled with assholes and call them assholes that is being part of the problem, not the solution, when it comes to the question of a toxic community. PEROID end of story.
HOWEVER, if you and your buddies are the group that is trying to go around convincing people that there is a sub-culutre group of fans that are a cult and you feel going around saying that is somehow a way of improving a community then your delsional but have fun with that,let me know how that turns out for you
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me