Thrones of Chaos forums removed?

Samuraisword · February 2007

I knew the game was delisted but why remove the forums? They served as a warning.

When can we expect to see a staff article updating the status of this game? There were comments in the forums by the admin, but no article to date describing the deception, who was involved, how MMORPG.com was so easily deceived, and what measures are being taken now to prevent being misled by unscrupulous game developers in the future?

The admin has stated that MMORPG.com would not be doing their job if they didn't keep us informed about all MMOGs in the marketplace. Well, please enlighten us.

Cymdai · February 2007

I'm not here to speak as an official spokesperson for MMORPG.com or anything, but here's my take on what's happened. This is all speculation on my behalf and mine alone, so take it with a grain of salt.

Some of the users on the thrones of chaos forum did some of their own investigations. The last I remember hearing about it was the fact that Loud Ant Software was not even a licensed business in the state of Oregon. Someone took the liberty of searching for their business registry code with the state's database...and it was nowhere to be found. Essentially, it seems like a giant fraudulent scandal.

So as far as I could understand, their last merger was a sham in all it's entirety. The company doesn't exist, the game never transferred ownership, and the alleged "owner" never made a dime.

Between these allegations and the harassment of numerous users, both on and outside of MMORPG.com, the game was removed, certain people have been banned, and the forums were shut down to prevent further harassment.

This is my perception of what has happened. I'd imagine if I'm wrong, a higher-up will correct me

Samuraisword · February 2007

Find out anymore information about an article Cymdai?

Razorback · February 2007

I wasnt part of the decision to remove the forums.

But I agree with it as even bad publicity is still publicity and considering this um.... game.....has never been anything more than a bad joke. There really is no point in expending good hard disk space on it.

Thoemse · February 2007

I don`t say it was no scam but what did they gain from this stunt?

There was not (another) preorder right?

Zorvan · February 2007

I believe this time around, it was more of a scam to get investor money. There has been talk that a couple of investors were taken in, but I wasn't the one to find the info, so I can't say for sure. However, since they were pretty much barred by the community to try taking pre-orders, ripping off investors would seem to be the only real way money could have been made.

Suitepee · February 2007

Their last update was an 'elephant mount' picture,alongside the website changing it's entire appearance.

At that point,I figured something was up. Oh well,guess we won't be hearing from the one-man ToC fanboy club anytime soon.

Apparently the 'owner' was a young kid I believe they also found?

scx316 · March 2007

The really sucks, I was really looking forward to playing ToC. My plan was to play both that and Darkfall and see which I liked better and which I'd play permanently. I guess I don't have to worry about that now, I'll just play Darkfall

. Also, I'd like to thank the mmo staff for telling us a bit of what happened. Don't come on the forums much and didn't know what happened to the ToC website, so I decided to do a search and this is what I found.

Maphusio · March 2007

Originally posted by scx316

The really sucks, I was really looking forward to playing ToC. My plan was to play both that and Darkfall and see which I liked better and which I'd play permanently. I guess I don't have to worry about that now, I'll just play Darkfall . Also, I'd like to thank the mmo staff for telling us a bit of what happened. Don't come on the forums much and didn't know what happened to the ToC website, so I decided to do a search and this is what I found.

I'd consider yourself lucky pally. Lucky indeed.

To serve as an warning and gentle reminder to the kind readers of what Thrones of Chaos really was and why to NEVER under any circumstances trust the mastermind behind the product in the future.

May 2006 - It is announced that Mourning (Thrones Of Chaos name we know it by) was back in development.

June 2006 - Colton Burgress makes his rounds to several websites that follow MMORPG's lending interviews about his super product that is going to revolutionize the game world.

June 2006 - Colton threatens www.krelslibrary.com with a lawsuit for the content and "slanderous" information they contained regarding the development of the game.www.krelslibrary.org/emails.html

June 2006 - www.thronesofchaos.com becomes fully operational including the forums where a fallout of angry customers that were cheated by the last company developing the game express their concerns for the product. Colton assures all parties that were wrongfully charged money for a game that did not exist in the past would get a limited lifetime access to the game (free until the first expansion of the game).

August 2006 - An add is spotted in Craig's list asking for programmers that live in Portland whom are interested in working on a "commercial game engine" for free to reply to an e-mail address. Colton later denied this was his doing... Of course it was, the man could not spell mortgage and here he can’t spell license.

Do you know C++? Do you want a free liscense of a commercial game engine? Live in Portland?

As the months ticked on fewer and fewer updates came from Colton Burgress the one manned development army whom claimed to have several others working for him yet they did not have a voice on the Thrones Of Chaos forums.

December 2006 - Beta was supposed to start at some point for this product. As the month dragged on more and more suspicion arose and Colton had become quite absent. A website claiming to find insider notes on development of the game posted their findings in the middle of the month porcelainthrones.blogspot.com/

December 2006 - Colton had promised an interview with Stratics and promised "some big news was coming soon".

That interview was canceled and the posts referring to the interview were deleted on the ToC forums to cover up its existence. I contacted Stratics and asked what happened. Stratics replied to my e-mail and posted on this website as well as ToC explaining what happened and that they were sure Colton would update his fans.

Colton later explained that there was a publishing deal going down that required his and apparently his employees attention... Apparently this was a VERY long and involved process that took them away from interviews and communicating with their potential clients.

January 2007 - I blow up on Draakan the community manager of ToC that cannot speak a lick of English. I threw every bit of dirt I had dug up about Colton, ToC and LAS at Draakan. As fallout ensued and as Draakan tried to babble fish communicate with me the forums for ToC were closed. That post has been preserved and the information that I gathered about ToC and its amazing development staff at Loud Ant Studios has as well. www.krelslibrary.org/forum/viewtopic.php

From January 2007 to present - Colton cursed, harassed and verbally assaulted people on this site and others. As one may have noticed from the replies from "ColtonB" on the Krelslibrary.org forums.

The admin at krelslibrary.org found that the IP to "ColtonB" belonged to an Qwest customer in Oregon and one of the posts was from an Hawaii location coinciding with the time frame when Colton claimed to be living it up on a vacation there.

Colton was banned from this site for his Gestapo like tactics. He amusingly enough had the nerve to ask mmorpg.com why he was banned that he was "just defending himself". Mmorpg.com responded accordingly with things like, "what is wrong with you? No one treats people the way you do in your shoes. Even SOE employees have not snapped as you had"

Now we have come full swing. www.thronesofchaos.com is dead and hopefully, so is Colton and Loud Ant Software as I really, REALLY would hate to devote so much time in the future just to save some people a crushing blow to a dream or their pocket books.

I urge mmorpg.com to create an article about this to drive the nail into this coffin once and for all. Consider this the proverbial head on a steak warding off criminals and the like. To not do anything of the sort would be to doom others and possibly yourselves into this whole debacle all over again.

Edited for spelling

Maphusio · March 2007

And for those that are not familiar with the back-story to Thrones Of Chaos

www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm

Enigma · March 2007

Originally posted by scx316

The really sucks, I was really looking forward to playing ToC. My plan was to play both that and Darkfall and see which I liked better and which I'd play permanently. I guess I don't have to worry about that now, I'll just play Darkfall . Also, I'd like to thank the mmo staff for telling us a bit of what happened. Don't come on the forums much and didn't know what happened to the ToC website, so I decided to do a search and this is what I found.

If you're sad now, imagine if you actually gave Colton your credit card as part of your subscription requirements. You would have no idea what the word "identity theft" was until that kid grabbed ahold of it.

I knew it was a scam since the beginning Colton said he bought it and he was CEO of a company. I appreciate MMORPG.com's desirability to see more teenage CEOs, but what are the odds of a 19 year old rapper wannabe becoming a CEO in charge of professional and talented art developers and to crank out a multi million dollar game. Many people saw right threw him, others wanted to give the little cretan and his new bought game another chance.

Well, we saw what happened to that lol!

Samuraisword · March 2007

Actually we are still waiting for MMORPG.com to tell us what happened. All we have heard are random guesses by individual volunteer mods. There has been no official update or article explaining why it was delisted and no investigative report describing the details of the scam and how it so easily succeeded. Apparently MMORPG.com is embarrassed for being so gullible and would rather sweep the scenario under the rug than do their job and report it.

Bitey · March 2007

We already had one thread about a similar subject (why delisted?). No answer or news story about the forums.

MMORPG.com despite what Admin said should have known better. MMOPRP.com wrote an long article claiming that the ToC crew to have full resumes and crediationals, yet anyone with half-brian could search "Loud Ant" in the Oregon Business Registery. The result was that Loud Ant was not an existing company and was disbanned by the Oregon Chamber of Commerce.

Maphusio · March 2007

Mum's the word huh?

Airspell · March 2007

Damn, I donated a thousand bucks for a spot in beta

Maphusio · March 2007

Originally posted by Airspell

Damn, I donated a thousand bucks for a spot in beta

...I'm not sure what that means.

Maphusio · March 2007

Well I hate to sound like a broken record but... It looks like thats all there is too it.

Just sweep this one under the rug folks, it never happened, nor could it have...

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Thrones of Chaos forums removed?

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