Klas Moreau new MindArk CEO - David Simmonds new Planet Calypso CEO

That guy needs to get a PhD.... and an Island.... oh wait, he's got Next Island. Sorted! just the PhD or Med degree then ;)

OK read it now. Interesting stuff! He mentions focusing on communication and stability. Of late we have had comics for Calypso as well as a "heads up" on what MA are working on. I've also noticed when I report bugs, things get fixed.

So far so good I'd say. Lets hope this trend continues :)
Wistrel

 

Mr. Moreaus goal for 2013 was "to double the amount of participants".

http://entropia-universe-mmorpg.blogspot.de/2012/05/mindark-recruits-new-cto-from-ericsson.html

He might be a good man, with great knowledge, but that usually fades, if you turn into a...MindArker.

 

Dear Mr Klas Moreau,

I hope you are enjoying your new position within MindArk.
Now lets get straight down to business shall we. No beating around the bush.

First order of business requested from a hopeful participant:

Please as a downward directive to all employees of MindArk, ask them to get real and stay real;
MindArk has a well established corporate image as being a company that is full of shit, says one thing and does another, rarely delivers on time, if at all, etc. This has to change, pronto, it is time to make your organisation accountable.

This directive is to cover everything from everyday life at MindArk (company culture) through to producing this so called quality product you commit yourself to deliver to the customer base at some point in the future ...

Keep your organisation's press releases real and more importantly your development roadmap overview clear and concise so that we as customers can hold your organisation accountable when promises are not delivered (Minor changes to roadmap are allowed if they do not interupt the timetable of delivery in a major way that will upset your customer base on previous promises).

Up to date, your company MindArk has delivered the following style outcomes to its customer base over the last 5+ years of operation;

It is no surprise Mindark continues to lose face in the real world, constantly having to lie or bend the truth in being vague enough to be correct (If putting it this way helps you sleep better at night) in what your organisation MindArk says it will do over the next X period of time, yet produces something entirely different htrough your organisations lack of clear and concise communication and inadequate transparency.

In video and pictorial form for ease of understanding

You promise to improve and somewhat revolutionise the Entropia Universe product much like this example:

eg. This is what MindArk promises to create:
A revolutionary vehicle that will allow for increased traffic flow, cut down on costs and improve the experience for the customer ....

MindArk get its customer base all excited and interested again for a period, willing to stay onboard and remaining hopeful. Then after a rather long and drawn out wait, you deliver us something like this, a real let down:

WTF, a huge and rather old in technological standards vehicle with many unecessary additions, most of which do not improve or add any functionality to the product at the end of the day other than increasing the cost to operate the product.



I hope this overview from a concept level demonstrates the exact way in which MindArk has operated for the past 5+ years now in the results MindArk has produced (Modus Operandi) and that you Klas, can weed out the root causes of this problem in MindArk, ultimately being able to deliver what you are promising to achieve in a timely manner, a quality product that is up to date with today's industry standards.

On a final note, I will raise this concern also:
I am in disgust of how pathetic MindArk and the Entropia Universe product is rated by the gaming community as far as MetaScoring science is concerned.

Let us look at the largest established site for such metascoring statistics:
MindArk/Entropia Universe > http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/entropia-universe

Now let us look at a game that has been out for 2 weeks now,
Larion Studios/Divinity Original Sin > http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/divinity-original-sin

Almost 900 reviews in the last 2 weeks verses MindArk/Entropia has been up on this site for a very long time (years) with only 5 reviews, 1 positive, 1 mixed, 3 totally trashing the product and MindArk the company behind the product.

This is MindArk's own doing, clean up your organisation's act and market image, I have outlined a starting point above and the rest is upto you Sir Klas Moreau;

On that note, good luck and I do hope all goes well in your new role as CEO of MindArk; I truely hope you do make an impact as CEO and steer things back on track. Your one of those in MindArk that does have the skillset, aptitude and professionalism to do so unlike the other pretender puppet clowns that have gone before you.

Thanks for listening.
DCB/Viper
http://raptr.com/viperstrike2611/about

 

Some starter points of where MindArk can focus their initial attention:

I agree with these reviews so far as being accurate, both also being negative aspects, yet honest.

1. Entropia Universe is a MMORPG available on the PC platform. It uses some of the most outdated and worst game mechanics that most modern MMORPG games have abandoned ....

2. After years of playing this game (i had hopes things would change, both costwise and bugwise), i have to conclude: Entropia Universe (EU) is not worth your time. MindArk, the company behind EU, keeps nerf'ing and breaking things that were ok before, reintroducing bugs, they seem to be too focused on making a quick dollar from the players (no storyline, no playerretention, lots of lies, no decent communication ....

 

Please be more specific next time as to what has been double posted.

Nothing has been double posted in this thread for starters, secondly, post # 24 was reposted in the communications & roadmap thread as an addon to the end of another post I did there today, specifying that the contents of post # 24 was being reposted due to the content directly relating to that thread as much as it relates to this one.

Mayvbe check the post time next time ?

Also I see no rule against doing this, so I was none the wiser,;
Does the reposted content make you uneasy?
Then fine. Request noted for the next time as a personal request from Razer.

Thankyou.

 

Your opinion and version of events not mine, please be specific and show all content relating to this.
As a personal request in correct order to demonstrate what you are talking about, not isolated events taken out of lead up or follow on context.

Or shall we discuss the facts in this forum thread as to where it began to settle your unease >
http://www.entropiaplanets.com/thre...ns-financial-investment-wip.11464/#post-68857

Until OzTwo realises that I record everything I do online to recall with ease for later review >
http://www.entropiaplanets.com/thre...ns-financial-investment-wip.11464/#post-68871

And then has a change of heart about flat out lying, now being concerned about my heart, yea right >
http://www.entropiaplanets.com/thre...ns-financial-investment-wip.11464/#post-68873

If it is such a big issue for you Razer then I advise to save face in stating factually what happened rather than a version of, you will get a better response if you take it to PM rather than posting unrelated content to the topic at hand. OZTwo was asked this request also and couldn't comply, instead doing exactly what you are acusing me of to start with;

How surreal coming from someone who can not even make a request in the right thread and needed another post to explain what you were even going on about.

Never the less, do not fear, OpaloMan has resurfaced doing the same thing again, more cautious this time granted as no one likes to know everything is being video recorded and has been for the last few years.

Seems his state of mind can not handle any content in its correct forum area that does not relate to Entropia Universe, like there is much content of substance to post about other than the rare once in a blue moon bit of upcoming news. eg. Arkadia Smuggler thread you posted today.

 

Back on topic,

Requested Future Development Roadmap for Entropia Universe.

Dear Klas Moreau of MindArk and David Simmonds of Planet Calypso (And other PPs)

Another suggestion, a no brainer really in terms of displaying the company's professional standards in keeping it real. I would hope all of you start to regularly (once per quarter) demonstrate what the majority of other established game development companies do in the industry today to keep their customers up to date, roadmap wise rather than a whole lot of hot air each time that no one these days seems to take any of you seriously for anymore.

See such a roadmap and communications Q&A demonstrated here >
http://www.entropiaplanets.com/thre...ing-features-with-notes-videos-roadmap.11633/

 

Yes... I have this theory that somehow if you join the Evil Empire (comedically so to speak ;) ) somehow they break you. This troubles me cause I think the only way to change MA is to join (MA or maybe a PP). People who do though seem to loose their enthusiasm or fall eerily silent. Lykke is a good example. I only see her post on Cyrene forum now and even that is just vu contents or previews.

I somehow feel that, should anyone join MA, they should make sure they have a tie to the community to keep them strong and fighting the good flight. Illegitimi non carborundum so to speak

Wistrel

 

Unfortunately Wistrel, you're pretty damn close to the truth there. For some of us who have had the opportunity to surpass barriers, we learn pretty quickly just how much the "Map is not the Territory" ... and no matter how strong your ties are to the community (I would like to think mine were pretty strong), the experience on the inside opens up a whole new level of reality and understanding.

The other unfortunate thing is, unless you've had the inside experience, or have a decent level of respect for the truth, then blinders are the fashion of the day, and it's a wash, rinse, repeat cycle that some (maybe even more than some) players are bound to continue engaging in, and will defend the developers no matter what.

Funny thing is ... I don't think it's all bad, but bad enough that there needs to be a much higher level of focus on what they term "dynamic" game-play. Viper may not have been on the inside, but I can tell you that there is a great deal of truth to quite a bit of what he puts into print, so his analysis is quite striking, no matter how anyone tries to twist it.

I hope everyone is doing well ... I am.

 

*blush* Though people may say don't feed the troll lol

 

Well I might need to take another look then. I think I mentioned before about how we can sit around and guess all day about how they do things but without knowing for sure we can't say for definite why black is black and white is white when it comes to MA. If you have some insight then MS9 maybe I should re read viperstrikes posts again. Which ones in particular can I ask?

I can imagine about MA though. I guess it might be akin to when I stopped being a student at uni and crossed onto the "other side", suddenly you see the university system in a whole different light as well as the students. I imagine working with for at MA its like Entropia is the system and the players are the students but instead of marking their courswork you are dealing with their support cases and forum posts ;)

Wistrel

 

Sooooo..... and you know where this is going don't you? ;) You are not on the inside any more sooo.... tell us about the Territory ;) ;) ;)

 

Just found this on PCF actually... seems interesting
http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/f...se-would-you&p=3274513&viewfull=1#post3274513

Makes me wonder though... with a potential 8 year lag on idea to implementation and everyone having the same motivation to be there (ie to effect change) how come progress is so slow and the same situation with bugs keeps occurring?

 

Ive "worked" for MA as well. David Simmonds once called me to talk about a little project they were working on. Something like the "Red VS. Blue" series (Halo).
It sounded fun, I was amazed he knew about halo and all was good...

But I was a one man army and the idea never became real.. I had another idea of doing a video with the MindArk company (real people), but it seemed to be impossible to do the intro sequnce already...all main employees in black suits walkign towards the camera in slow motion.

Then I got asked to make tutorial videos instead for Entropia by Mr. Simmonds again. Soon afterwards, even Frank Campbell contacted me and asked about these tutorial idea and even offered a payment. With PED. Ingame. And he added, that he was doing this all on his own from his private pocket now.

Communications soon got dropped, I finished a hunting tutorial which was quiete cool, but a payment of about 75 Euro (1000 PED) did not seem to be ok to me for weeks of working, editing and talking. Also my voice does not really fit into videos, so I got the idea of buying professional voices...but as Frank woudl have to pay these...no...end of story.

Many months later AkiranBlade did some tutorials, I think even with his own voice. I remember he released some of them even before he got contacted by "MA"...and I dont know if he got payed.


I even "worked" with other planet partners. If that can be called work. Neverdie was open to all kind of ideas an offered his help. It was for my "Project Entropia - The Movie" site and yeaaahh I finally selected Neverdie for a short action scene. Suddenly he was busy with his new movie and apologized. Communication got dropped then.

I wanted to do a Monria trailer with 3d models, but communication between Monria and MA seemed to be (too) slow to me. Meanwhile another well known player, named Jamira, made a very nice Monria Trailer with recorded ingame videos. He also made one hotel complex for this moon, if Im not mistaken. :)

I wanted to to a trailer for Cyrene. Ed, you rock, but somehow I got left behind and you were choosing Lykke and MS9 to do the "talking". Which was a good choice. No offense. :)

I wanted to do an Arkadia trailer an even a new Calypso trailer...but Mr. Simmonds said they were doing a new 3D render trailer with a real actress...called Sayah King....once again and that it was already in produciton. 6 years later team Arkadia had to do this video...and it felt decent. No Sayah King, no real actors, just ingame material and an awful recorded female voice. Sorry, just beeing honest.

Not that anyone cares anymore, but I tried to imagine what it would be to work for MA with a real contract and NDA stuff attached...and I thought of (poor) Hanne.
Sure, some people were "funny" at MA. And it could have been fun working with these. But in the end you did not work together with these and tried to manage to do your very own stuff...which not always got approved.

I had different talks with different (ex) MA employees and they gareed it was fun now and then. But dont dare to ask em about MA today...

Remember the SEE incident ? Betrayal at Krodor ? Then all the creative people got fired...and so on...

Hail to the king baby !

 

I received a private message at the original Entropia Forum from Marco who said that Justin Sorrell (a VP of something at the time) wanted to call me IRL and discuss a project that they thought I would be interested in, so we set a date for the phone call.

It was in January 2008, and we talked for about 1-1/2 hrs. He asked me if I was going to continue writing the Who's Who profiles because they were thinking of creating an item in-game, much like the PC upload screens (or something like that) so the profiles were available in the game and players could pay for them.

However, there was no mention of compensation for my time and effort (those profiles were very time-consuming and production heavy), so my assumption was, that it was yet another way for MA to make money from the players if the idea worked for them.

I said I would think about it and get back to them, but ... the answer on my part was a clear no.

THEN ... their PR agency President wanted to partner with me regarding media work, especially with my writing, and utilize MindStar Media as a venue to promote EU. It involved press releases and getting them an hour earlier than other media entities so that I could reveal information to the EU community sooner, but that idea blew up when some in the community took issue with it ... I totally understand why btw.

THEN ... (or maybe it was before the PR agency thing) ... the CEO of Planet Calypso, who was also on the MA Board of Directors at the same time, contacted me and wanted to use my writing (articles) as their newsletters because (according to Sven Sandberg), "they were so well written and they wouldn't need to change anything" ... including the graphics I used. They were going to send the newsletters out to active and inactive database players, and the plan was (according to Sven Sandberg) for David Simmonds and I to both sign off on the end product before they published it.

Well, that didn't work out either, nor did the "full credit" for writing and putting the article together for the newsletter. The first one that went out (major update with crafting system), they changed one word that made absolutely no damn sense whatsoever, and ... at the bottom of the newsletter they gave a mention that MindStar Media "made a contribution" to the newsletter with a link to my site that was operating at the time. I wrote the entire article, and created the photos that were used, so how was that "making a contribution" ... it all came across as if it was MA's work ... that stopped immediately.

After that incident, as well as other broken promises over the years, and not following through on the invites to do other projects by PP's, I said "no more" ... and as of Oct 1st last year, my writing era with EU ended.

I totally enjoyed writing and providing entertainment for the community, because as far as I'm concerned, the community is MA's and the PP's greatest asset, but except for one PP's continued exceptional work with his planet (despite not following through on his project invitations), I have no desire whatsoever to support or promote anything that is MA or EU.

And even though I'm not heavily involved in activities in the game right now, I check in now and then and keep up with what's going on. It's been over 9 yrs, and I was majorly involved from the inside out, so I have plenty of knowledge and understanding from many sources and personal experience that gives me the right to an opinion, as well as utilizing my critical thinking about past and current events to arrive at my opinions, or anything further as "fact" from living in the bull pen so to speak.

The EU community has very talented and creative participants, and I've seen far too many times where they have been taken advantage of over and over again, as well as not receiving the level of respect that is due them, nor compensation for major contributions that are not always publicly known.

More are coming to the realization that history continues to repeat itself, but there will always be those who turn a blind eye to that reality and defend at all costs for any number of variables that fit the need to do so. Some refuse to accept the facts, let alone take the time to review them. They take a defensive posture immediately no matter what the circumstances, and proceed to give a plethora of justifications as to why certain things are the way they are, along with applauding any effort being made.

Really, after 10 or 11 yrs of broken promises, fixing bugs, only for them to come back with a future VU, along with new bugs ... removed systems that had tremendous negative effects on player investments, and making decisions with other things that have a negative effect on investments? They seem to be focused on creating the next big thing to capture player attention that generates more revenue, while basically ignoring or focusing on things that truly need attention ... especially platform stability, which they post with just about every update saying that they worked on it, but it doesn't seem to have improved to the level of quality game-play that the players deserve.

To Wistrel ... all I will say to your inquiry is ... "All is not what it seems." ... players see and are told what they need to be told, no matter how much MA espouses increased communication. I realize that all cannot be revealed, but there is plenty more that they can share and don't.

Therefore, the community continues to speculate and make assumptions based on what is fed to them through multiple communication lines, but I clearly see that there are some who are far wiser than they are given credit for, and even through speculation or assumption, have come quite close if not hitting the nail on the head with an analysis of "the lay of the land" ... just remember one thing (the more tuned-in players always do), that there is very much a psychology to game-play, and developers use it to their advantage more often than you might think.

Not sure why I got so wordy ... it just might be one of those days, because I rarely post anywhere anymore except on FB, so we'll see where this goes. I'm sure there will be those who will have some justification as to why my content won't fit the map ... that's because the territory is too big.

 

Hi Wistrel,

Here is a brief overview of intent of the thread you quoted from PCF >
http://www.entropiaplanets.com/thre...punctuation-reviews-duke-nukem-forever.11636/

There is an underlaying message within the video which also was posted by another member within that thread, even though I have posted this as entertainment, I would expect most to miss it. It is the reality that governs all commercially produced goods or services for their customers. (And no, it has nothing to do with the fluff, eg. Taking any form of legal action etc, please zoom in a few levels and look deeper)

Watch 3:25 onwards on the reality of how the world works with relation to the such;
Or the entire video to give even better understanding without takign it out of context.

The above video's message, when extracting its relationship to Duke Nukem Forever and then applying it to MindArk and their product/service Entropia Universe may give you better understanding of what MindStar9 is talking about in the posts she has made.

I snipped a lot of MindStar9's posts to make it a bit easier to understand;

You may then understand (Or still may not) why I have requested of Klas Moreau in my post earlier to
"keep it REAL" for their own sake more than anyone elses.

 

Agreed, as all good (and normal) companies do Peter :)
I have been watching and waiting > http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/unity-5-release-date.235223/

Graham is a cheeky fellow lol. Post # 14, though he is a straight shooter on what to expect :)
And an update yesterday too, cool!

It will be good to see how the updated pay once to play "potential EU2" will turn out with Unity 5 at some point after release ;) Oops *hides Viper's daggers*