Is this even true...

[Shimozukachi 481]

4 minutes ago, Kickapoo said:

Hello Games need to be sent to Oblivion for the crimes they committed against the Game Industry haha

oui. sheogorath's or molag bal's one?

[JamesLuck01 1,531]

58 minutes ago, TakeiT said:

But again, where is this announcement of delaying stuff?

As an investor, I dont want to be searching the forum for hours to find information, it should be right in the main forum.

Ok, it was more that They told people on twitter by answering questions and it was not official on the announcements area. They said they were behind schedule and so delays were made. Also did you not expect delays or did you expect them to prevail on a ambitious time frame.

[TakeiT 24]

17 minutes ago, JamesLuck01 said:

Ok, it was more that They told people on twitter by answering questions and it was not official on the announcements area. They said they were behind schedule and so delays were made. Also did you not expect delays or did you expect them to prevail on a ambitious time frame.

No I honestly expected delays and whatnot, but I check the forum out once a week or so and would like some sort of official announcement.  Even if some member of the community took all the twitter questions worth answering and reblogged them on an official post, something that people can go on, see and not scroll through twitter.  Maybe even not fully reblog the tweet word for word but just summarize the key points of what's going on.

[JamesLuck01 1,531]

22 minutes ago, TakeiT said:

No I honestly expected delays and whatnot, but I check the forum out once a week or so and would like some sort of official announcement.  Even if some member of the community took all the twitter questions worth answering and reblogged them on an official post, something that people can go on, see and not scroll through twitter.  Maybe even not fully reblog the tweet word for word but just summarize the key points of what's going on.

I already thought about doing that, but I have been busy the last past month and so I didn't bother about it/ re-scheduled it. I will do it when I have time which would likely be in a week or 2.

Edited October 18, 2016 by JamesLuck01

[Hanshi-Toshiro 150]

1 hour ago, JamesLuck01 said:

I already thought about doing that, but I have been busy the last past month and so I didn't bother about it/ re-scheduled it. I will do it when I have time which would likely be in a week or 2.

So busy that you cant post an official announcement on a forum. 

Edited October 18, 2016 by Hanshi-Toshiro

[Henry_Taylor 37]

Let's just agree that if this topic gets blocked or deleted then we know that they are scamming. Deal?

[TakeiT 24]

1 hour ago, JamesLuck01 said:

I already thought about doing that, but I have been busy the last past month and so I didn't bother about it/ re-scheduled it. I will do it when I have time which would likely be in a week or 2.

That sounds perfect

@whoever commented about complaining won't do anything..
I stated my opinion and now it's going to happen.

[Hanshi-Toshiro 150]

5 minutes ago, TakeiT said:

That sounds perfect

Haha. You believe it don't you! 

[JamesLuck01 1,531]

43 minutes ago, Hanshi-Toshiro said:

Haha. You believe it don't you! 

I did talk to another community member like a month ago about it.

[Hanshi-Toshiro 150]

11 minutes ago, JamesLuck01 said:

I did talk to another community member like a month ago about it.

I'm sorry to break the news to you. But either the devs and moderators don't give a shit, or it's a scam. 

Edited October 18, 2016 by Hanshi-Toshiro

[JamesLuck01 1,531]

19 minutes ago, Hanshi-Toshiro said:

I'm sorry to break the news to you. But either the devs and moderators don't give a shit, or it's a scam. 

Its called they have Bad PR. They are under staffed and do need to fix up a schedule.

[Motown 774]

Hey guys, wanted to address this to prevent any further confusion, and to offer our perspective and transparency.

Asylum Entertainment is registered in Canada by Paratus because he is a Canadian citizen and the owner of the company. I spent 6 months in Canada with Paratus and Marc (another programmer on Identity) and then returned home due to a work visa issue related to missing tax paperwork. I am a co-founder but I am not an executive of Asylum, and until I recently requested so, was the lowest paid employee, earning minimum wage (even less than our freelance artists). Around July, I requested that Paratus stop paying me because I didn't feel comfortable taking resources that were better spent towards the development of our project, considering how limited our funding is. Paratus insisted on continuing to pay me, but I stubbornly insisted right back that he not. If there is any reward to be earned for my work on Identity, I prefer that it come after the successful launch of this game. I have always said that I would work on Identity for free, even if we ran out of funding, and I feel a sense of pride knowing that these resources are spent on real progress.

Now on to the Reddit post. The user /u/theafricandream on Reddit who posted that thread is a former member of our Altis Life community who had been permanently banned more than 9 months ago by a member of our volunteer staff as a result of a long history of bans, despite receiving multiple second chances.

Here you can read my reply to a Reddit thread he created 9 months ago after he was banned.

In this thread, TheAfricanDream accuses us of banning players that have donated to Asylum in order to scam and steal their money. Presumably he had donated prior to receiving his ban and in the wake of his upset, created this post. I, nor anyone else that I am aware of besides Paratus, has access to Asylum's Altis Life Paypal account or transaction data, and especially not credit card information. Paypal does not send credit card information to vendors, and we only accept Paypal as a means of payment.

And as for the content on AsylumExposed, It is almost entirely (unless fabricated or untrue) related to incidents that had been addressed as soon as we had discovered them, in many cases, before they landed on that webpage or in the hands of the community. Any time you are managing a community of volunteers, you will encounter people who become comfortable in their position and eventually attempt to test the waters and see how much they can get away with. Abusive actions on the part of our volunteer administrators are treated as an insult to the community and the rest of the volunteer staff. There are numerous ways we handle abuse, ranging from removal from the admin team, to requiring they provide compensation and an apology depending on the severity of the issue. Remember that Empathy is Asylum's goal, and it is extended to both the community and staff.

Despite inflammatory commentary and accusations, we understand where users like TheAfricanDream are coming from. Without a constant flow of official information, people rely on external sources wherever they can find them. We blame no one but ourselves and find no excuse for the lack of communication between us and our incredibly supportive and deserving community.

Public Relations is a matter we have struggled with since the start of this project. Simply put, and regrettably so, none of us are experts in Public Relations. I took up the mantle of Community Manager because I was already involved in managing Asylum's Altis Life community for Paratus when he and I got together to conceptualize the idea for Identity. Paratus was a skilled programmer with industry experience, and I had experience with 3D modeling and went to school for it. We both had very ambitious dreams about the type of game we wanted to play and with our combined knowledge, knew we were capable of pulling it off together. The success of Identity's Kickstarter cemented our dreams in reality. It introduced us to an entire universe of people who had the same dreams as us, and provided proof that the market was there for Identity.

Identity's financial situation isn't entirely accidental either. Since Identity's start, we've dodged investors and publishers that have offered enticing deals, as a measure to ensure Identity was completed as close to our original design as possible. To us, accepting many of these deals meant compromise, and we simply haven't been willing to rush features, or give up creative control to push out a product that is any less than what we have promised.

Thank you so much for your continued patience and support. You guys will never understand what this journey has meant to us and how much your support has lifted our spirits.
 

[JonathanTaylor 1,028]

33 minutes ago, Motown said:

Hey guys, wanted to address this to prevent any further confusion, and to offer our perspective and transparency.

Asylum Entertainment is registered in Canada by Paratus because he is a Canadian citizen and the owner of the company. I spent 6 months in Canada with Paratus and Marc (another programmer on Identity) and then returned home due to a work visa issue related to missing tax paperwork. I am a co-founder but I am not an executive of Asylum, and until I recently requested so, was the lowest paid employee, earning minimum wage (even less than our freelance artists). Around July, I requested that Paratus stop paying me because I didn't feel comfortable taking resources that were better spent towards the development of our project, considering how limited our funding is. Paratus insisted on continuing to pay me, but I stubbornly insisted right back that he not. If there is any reward to be earned for my work on Identity, I prefer that it come after the successful launch of this game. I have always said that I would work on Identity for free, even if we ran out of funding, and I feel a sense of pride knowing that these resources are spent on real progress.

Now on to the Reddit post. The user /u/theafricandream on Reddit who posted that thread is a former member of our Altis Life community who had been permanently banned more than 9 months ago by a member of our volunteer staff as a result of a long history of bans, despite receiving multiple second chances.

Here you can read my reply to a Reddit thread he created 9 months ago after he was banned.

In this thread, TheAfricanDream accuses us of banning players that have donated to Asylum in order to scam and steal their money. Presumably he had donated prior to receiving his ban and in the wake of his upset, created this post. I, nor anyone else that I am aware of besides Paratus, has access to Asylum's Altis Life Paypal account or transaction data, and especially not credit card information. Paypal does not send credit card information to vendors, and we only accept Paypal as a means of payment.

As for as the content on AsylumExposed. It is almost entirely (unless fabricated or untrue) related to incidents that had been addressed as soon as we had discovered them, in many cases, before they landed on that webpage or in the hands of the community. Any time you are managing a community of volunteers, you will encounter people who become comfortable in their position and eventually attempt to test the waters and see how much they can get away with. Abusive actions on the part of our volunteer administrators are treated as an insult to the community and the rest of the volunteer staff. There are numerous ways we handle abuse, ranging from removal from the admin team, to requiring they provide compensation and an apology depending on the severity of the issue. Remember that Empathy is Asylum's goal, and it is extended to both the community and staff.

Despite inflammatory commentary and accusations, we understand where users like TheAfricanDream are coming from. Without a constant flow of official information, people rely on external sources wherever they can find them. We blame no one but ourselves and find no excuse for for the lack of communication between us and our incredibly supportive and deserving community.

Public Relations is a matter we have struggled with since the start of this project. Simply put, and regrettably so, none of us are experts in Public Relations. I took up the mantle of Community Manager because I was already involved in managing Asylum's Altis Life community for Paratus when he and I got together to conceptualize the idea for Identity. Paratus was a skilled programmer with industry experience, and I had experience and went to school for 3D modeling. We both had very ambitious dreams about the type of game we wanted to play and with our combined knowledge, knew we were capable of pulling it off together. The success of Identity's Kickstarter cemented our dreams in reality. It introduced us to an entire universe of people who had the same dreams as us, and provided proof that the market was there for Identity.

Identity's financial situation isn't entirely accidental either. Since Identity's start, we've dodged investors and publishers that have offered enticing deals, as a measure to ensure Identity was completed as close to our original design as possible. To us, accepting many of these deals meant compromise, and we simply haven't been willing to rush features, or give up creative control to push out a product that is any less than what we have promised.

Thank you so much for your continued patience and support. You guys will never understand what this journey has meant to us and how much your support has lifted our spirits.
 

 

Thank you so much for this comment @Motown , im hoping that the community will calm a bit after receiving this straight from you. Have you ever thought of volunteer staff such as asking the community to take on such roles as PR? Of course there are a lot of us that are on here most of the time and im sure most of us would be happy to help staff the community. At the end of the day it of course is all up to you but i think just the extra helping hand might ease up the tension that surfs this forum a lot with the lack of updates.

[GeneSmith 197]

While I understand the difficulty in game design and crafting a world from nothing.. Your excuse for the last two years has been that "You're under staffed." While I'm not trying to make a complaint nor a problem I'm simply pointing out that if you were so aware for over two years and raised 200,000$ why did you not just get a staff that would be solely dedicated to your project. Every time this subject is brought up we end up hearing the same thing over and over. When you hired your staff you knew they were freelance and continued to promise announcements you knew you couldn't reach within the time you made. My theory is that you keep saying more is to be announced to keep people here. And Parutus? What is he so busy with? I can see the that he's a leader. Making sure people do their jobs. Making sure people get paid. But how does that take 6 months to do? When I was in the Discord I saw multiple people offer help to you for the sake of the game. You didn't give them an answer and to my knowledge you still haven't. I don't think this is a scam. I just think you're hurting your customers hopes by never releasing anything but pictures. I don't care if the video is a minute long showing off a bunch of blank textures with some buildings placed. At least them we know you and your team aren't lying. Again, not trying to complain just simply making an observation and expressing my thoughts.

[Hanshi-Toshiro 150]

I very much agree with what Gene has to say. For I follow a game called Survive The Nights. They put out change logs ever so often, but at least we get an update. The last change log was today. Before that was April, and yes. That is a long gap, but I can see 80+ additions, mechanical and prop wise. They also have added what they've fixed, what's in store for the next change log, and their known bugs. Their community is well and alive like that of identity, and if you post a thread, you're guaranteed to get a response from others and 100% of the time; it's from an admin. And yes, only one admin is active. The information they put out is insane, and the game has been in production for two years. The other side of the game is the developing. For the game is run by a decent size team. But yet their are only two dev's, and two graphic modelers/designers. So you saying you are just understaffed is completely wrong. I think 200K can get you some good workers? Am I not right? Then I thought I was lazy! 

Edited October 18, 2016 by Hanshi-Toshiro

[Motown 774]

45 minutes ago, GeneSmith said:

While I understand the difficulty in game design and crafting a world from nothing.. Your excuse for the last two years has been that "You're under staffed." While I'm not trying to make a complaint nor a problem I'm simply pointing out that if you were so aware for over two years and raised 200,000$ why did you not just get a staff that would be solely dedicated to your project. Every time this subject is brought up we end up hearing the same thing over and over. When you hired your staff you knew they were freelance and continued to promise announcements you knew you couldn't reach within the time you made. My theory is that you keep saying more is to be announced to keep people here. And Parutus? What is he so busy with? I can see the that he's a leader. Making sure people do their jobs. Making sure people get paid. But how does that take 6 months to do? When I was in the Discord I saw multiple people offer help to you for the sake of the game. You didn't give them an answer and to my knowledge you still haven't. I don't think this is a scam. I just think you're hurting your customers hopes by never releasing anything but pictures. I don't care if the video is a minute long showing off a bunch of blank textures with some buildings placed. At least them we know you and your team aren't lying. Again, not trying to complain just simply making an observation and expressing my thoughts.

All very good questions. We continuously plot our budget to hire as many people as we can (accounting for up to a years pay in most cases) in all essential areas. This essentially means that in order to make more room for more artists or programmers, some of us have to do multiple jobs at once. For instance, I'm both the Community Manager and a 3D artist. Paratus, besides just being our project manager, is also a full time programmer and technical artist for Identity. He's always busy with one thing or another and It's not that he's taking 6 months to do one thing. it's more like that he's actually moving from one priority to another with the video never being at the top of that list. The longer it takes him of course, the higher priority it becomes, and it's certainly far past due now. He knows that and isn't intentionally avoiding it.

We've had a lot of people offer to help us for free, but we've also had a few offer to help for a price. We have hired a couple freelancers in the past from our community on Twitter, but we do have incredibly high standards for our artists, and not everyone is capable of meeting those standards, and that kind of talent doesn't come free. The other issue is that, perhaps hypocritically on my part being the exception, we feel very strongly against accepting free work. With our budget in check, we can't afford to pay these people if they were looking for a paid job, and don't feel comfortable exploiting their services for free. There are a lot of moral and ethical concerns regarding that, even if the person providing thinks they are ok with it. From our experience, eventually they are going to want compensation, which leaves the door open for potential legal issues.

I think this post particularly is a wake up call for our entire team. As a result of our lack of communication, we can observe how damaging false accusations, like that posted on Reddit can be, especially when noone from the community has been provided anything in support of countering these claims. Worse still, this burden is my responsibility specifically, and I absolutely do feel like I am underachieving by not being able to provide new information to our community with any kind of frequency.

I will work with Paratus to see what we can move around to develop a new strategy for dealing with our PR issues.

[GeneSmith 197]

 

10 minutes ago, Motown said:

All very good questions. We continuously plot our budget to hire as many people as we can (accounting for up to a years pay in most cases) in all essential areas. This essentially means that in order to make more room for more artists or programmers, some of us have to do multiple jobs at once. For instance, I'm both the Community Managemer and a 3D artist. Paratus, besides just being our project manager, is also a full time programmer and technical artist for Identity. He's always busy with one thing or another and It's not that he's taking 6 months to do one thing. it's more like that he's actually moving from one priority to another with the video never being at the top of that list. The longer it takes him of course, the higher priority it becomes, and it's certainly far past due now. He knows that and isn't intentionally avoiding it.

We've had a lot of people offer to help us for free, but we've also had a few offer to help for a price. We have hired a couple freelancers in the past from our community on Twitter, but we do have incredibly high standards for our artists, and not everyone is capable of meeting those standards, and that kind of talent doesn't come free. The other issue is that, perhaps hypocritically on my part being the exception, we feel very strongly against accepting free work. With our budget in check, we can't afford to pay these people if they were looking for a paid job, and don't feel comfortable exploiting their services for free. There are a lot of moral and ethical concerns regarding that, even if the person providing thinks they are ok. From our experience, eventually they are going to want compensation, which leaves the door open for potential legal issues.

I think this post particularly is a wake up call for our entire team. As a result of our lack of communication, we can observe how damaging false accusations, like that posted on Reddit can be, especially when noone from the community has been provided anything in support of countering these claims. Worse still, this burden is my responsibility specifically, and I absolutely do feel like I am underachieving by not being able to provide new information to our community with any kind of frequency.

If he knows it's too priority why didn't he just do it to get it over with. He's a programmer so he shouldn't have a problem with it. It's only showing of apartments right?

[Jinx 166]

*sings* 'The wheels on the truck go round and round'................and here we are again, back at square one.

I have a question: How many times are you people going to get dragged into this same shit storm by forum trolls who are OBVIOUSLY disgruntled Altis Life players? Ring any bells?

[–]ShlongSamuel1123 1 point 4 hours ago 

Me and my freind have been trying to expose asylum for a long time now.

Our forum names are Luca Santarelli and Dj Bobby Vee

................seriously, wake the hell up and stop replying to this shit. Whoever the hell runs these forums needs to start I.P. banning these morons so everyone can get back to what's important, developing the dam game. Just let these posts die, for the love of god use your brains, because you keep giving these bottom feeders air time it's actually starting to damage Asylums reputation.....and on the subject of Asylums reputation....

Maybe it's time you gave serious consideration to shutting down Altis Life, because lets face it, that's where all your problems are coming from. That's a free mod, this is your business, pick what's important ffs. I know it's your baby, I know the sentiment that goes with that kind of thing, and I also know that there are players there who are actually worty of your time and effort, but Altis Life was yesterday, Identity is today. It's time to get serious.

[Shimozukachi 481]

15 minutes ago, Jinx said:

*sings* 'The wheels on the truck go round and round'................and here we are again, back at square one.

I have a question: How many times are you people going to get dragged into this same shit storm by forum trolls who are OBVIOUSLY disgruntled Altis Life players? Ring any bells?

[–]ShlongSamuel1123 1 point 4 hours ago 

Me and my freind have been trying to expose asylum for a long time now.

Our forum names are Luca Santarelli and Dj Bobby Vee

................seriously, wake the hell up and stop replying to this shit. Whoever the hell runs these forums needs to start I.P. banning these morons so everyone can get back to what's important, developing the dam game. Just let these posts die, for the love of god use your brains, because you keep giving these bottom feeders air time it's actually starting to damage Asylums reputation.....and on the subject of Asylums reputation....

Maybe it's time you gave serious consideration to shutting down Altis Life, because lets face it, that's where all your problems are coming from. That's a free mod, this is your business, pick what's important ffs. I know it's your baby, I know the sentiment that goes with that kind of thing, and I also know that there are players there who are actually worty of your time and effort, but Altis Life was yesterday, Identity is today. It's time to get serious.

and that's the problem. they aren't the gods that do everything for us. they are human beings that offer us all a platform to contact eachother or share ideas, suggestions and to make all those roleplay threads! and soon they'll offer us all a game to do it all in! a fuckin roleplay multiplayer game (not multiplayer roleplay game) to do all that things in it!

[CalTerranova 7]

The only thing I want is to hear from the backers who bought the largest one and got to go meet the team. I do believe Identity is in development and is still coming but I feel like if they spoke up on meeting the devs then it would silence a lot of suspicions. That's just me though.

[Santoyo 19]

Yeah I'm not spending a single dime until the devs released another solid 10+ minute showcase video showcasing every feature they've completed so far. I get that they only have like 10 people working on the game, but 2 years has passed and they must have something new to showcase.

[Motown 774]

35 minutes ago, CalTerranova said:

The only thing I want is to hear from the backers who bought the largest one and got to go meet the team. I do believe Identity is in development and is still coming but I feel like if they spoke up on meeting the devs then it would silence a lot of suspicions. That's just me though.

None of the 5, $5,000 backers confirmed their pledge after the Kickstarter campaign ended. We were really looking forward to that experience too unfortunately, and would have already fulfilled that pledge promise by now.

That's part of the reason why we don't offer those tier rewards on our site now. It would be too easy to pledge that amount and then do a charge back through Paypal.

We did invite a guy from the Asylum community who happened to live in Ottawa near where we were working to come hang out with us for a day, but he never showed up.
 

26 minutes ago, Santoyo said:

Yeah I'm not spending a single dime until the devs released another solid 10+ minute showcase video showcasing every feature they've completed so far. I get that they only have like 10 people working on the game, but 2 years has passed and they must have something new to showcase.

We absolutely encourage people to wait to pledge until they are actually able to play the beta if they aren't sure what they are getting into yet. Our pledge options will still be available throughout that process. It's much less stressful that way, for all parties! 

[Frank 251]

1 hour ago, Motown said:

None of the 5, $5,000 backers confirmed their pledge after the Kickstarter campaign ended. We were really looking forward to that experience too unfortunately, and would have already fulfilled that pledge promise by now.

That's part of the reason why we don't offer those tier rewards on our site now. It would be too easy to pledge that amount and then do a charge back through Paypal.

We did invite a guy from the Asylum community who happened to live in Ottawa near where we were working to come hang out with us for a day, but he never showed up.
 

We absolutely encourage people to wait to pledge until they are actually able to play the beta if they aren't sure what they are getting into yet. Our pledge options will still be available throughout that process. It's much less stressful that way, for all parties! 

Thanks for keeping us updated Motown! Btw, are you guys still planning on coming out with the devlog this week or do you guys have too much on your plate?

Edited October 19, 2016 by Frank

[Sneaky 5]

11 hours ago, lemon said:

But back to @TakeiT, would also know where the evidence is. I mean even Rockstar will release his trailer to Read Dead: Redemption 2 on thursday and announced it today.

   On this note you must realize that red dead 2 has likely been in development for a long time and the announcement is only just coming out now. Also conaider the size of the studio working on that project and compare it to identity.

   There is room for improvement for communication between the community and developers, motown has said this himself just last month. They are eagerly working to get an update video created to showcase the progress to this point. I understand the concern that everyone has but Paratus and Motown fully believe in creating this game.

[CalTerranova 7]

Yeah the thing people need to realized is that, the big games don't need to announce at the beginning of the concept so they can get funding. I'm sure Red Dead has been in development and they are just now releasing a video...it has probably been longer than identity. They also have a bigger team. They only reason people are freaking out is that they have known sense the beginning and haven't had anything. I'm sure that if we knew about Red Dead from the beginning then by this time in the development of that game you would be freaking out. Its just unfortunate that Identity had to ask for funding at the beginning. If they would of had Wads of cash and didn't need a kick-starter then we these dumb ass's wouldn't be freaking out.