What is "Commercial"?

[Aleema]

By all means, let's continue arguing about arguing. That's never gone wrong. I think it's time people stop putting their 2 cents in to where we get to a point where we dilute the original topic into finger pointing about things that really weren't that big of a deal. I had a personal interpretation about the opening post, and I got on my high horse. At least I can admit that. I'm momma bear and if I even get a whiff of you looking at my cubs, I will bring out my fangs.

All this said, I hold no ill will towards vNovel as a company, though I think Rick should apologize for calling me a flamer but that's not going to happen and I've accepted it. But I would have serious doubts about the credibility of all of them if jakemorrow is indeed their sockpuppet. Very, very unprofessional, not to mention a dick move to use another account to call everyone who disagrees with you a ... what was it? An "ego-jerk"? But I've decided to give vNovel the benefit of the doubt, since I'm not exactly sure how common IP mismatches are.

I am an argumentative person by nature, so I apologize. Now here's a puppy very clearly not on Mars:

[Hayzel]

Yay! Puppies not on mars thread!!!

[Fawn]

A dick move, indeed.

We should send this puppy to Mars, he seems eager:

[Auro-Cyanide]

I personally don't have a problem with them rerealsing the game simply because that is more of a choice between the original author, the publisher and the future audience. Whether I think it is a good business move is a different thing, but overall that is there choice to make.

I was more concerned about the community basically being called anti-commercial, not so much that we were called that, but someone got this opinion from somewhere. Commercial games are an important part of the community just as free games are and I would be concerned if someone avoided one or the other because of some kind of negative opinion. I have never seen this anti-commercial attitude anywhere here, which is good. As far as I have seen, people tend to be very supportive with this kind of thing.

And like others, I was slightly concerned over the wording, but I don't think that was actually intentional, but more of an amateur mistake. It is quite common for new business to 'try too hard' at being business like so they appear professional. This can cause quite a negative reaction. Proper business writing and tone of voice is difficult to do, but important. That is why copy writers exist. Tone of voice and language might be something vnovel would like to consider in the future. A good mixture of friendliness and professionalism would be nice. You want to engage the audience, not isolate them, so you need to talk just as you would to an actual person. Especially since you are in the business of producing written stories.

[fortaat]

I would have serious doubts about the credibility of all of them if jakemorrow is indeed their sockpuppet.

No need for doubts, this isn't their first time sockpuppeting.

They did the same thing before when publicizing their services in this thread with the user boki46, who also identified himself on another forum as part of their team. Read the thread if you're interested in the gory details, or my post which sums it.

vnovel, this isn't your first time, so allow me to ask you a personal question - do you guys really enjoy crapping on your reputation? Is it some form of challenge, seeing if you can get someone to cooperate with you after acting like complete imbeciles?

What is it with engine developers and stupid drama?

EDIT:

[vnovel]

...though I think Rick should apologize for calling me a flamer but that's not going to happen and I've accepted it.

Hi Aleema. I'm sorry, but I had never intended to direct an attack on you. I spoke figuratively, and I probably could have phrased that better... I meant flaming as in "in rage", not flaming as in "flamer". I apologize if I made you feel awful thinking that, and I apologize for not answering sooner (I've only just read your message).

But I've decided to give vNovel the benefit of the doubt, since I'm not exactly sure how common IP mismatches are.

They are actually quite common with some internet service providers. In our case, we are also located in an apartment building that has a shared network with other businesses. Becky is currently trying to find out if the user lives in the building, or if this came from the outside. One thing is sure: our team had nothing to do with this user account.

We've already had this happen once, a while ago... It turned out to be a hacker replicating one of our user accounts, with the intention of causing trouble for us.

With the help of the Lemma administration we might be able to identify what this is all about, and track down who is responsible.

Tone of voice and language might be something vnovel would like to consider in the future. A good mixture of friendliness and professionalism would be nice. You want to engage the audience, not isolate them, so you need to talk just as you would to an actual person. Especially since you are in the business of producing written stories.

Thank you for your feedback, Auro-Cyanide. We'll certainly take this into consideration when posting on the forums in the future.

Best Regards,
Rick

[vnovel]

vnovel, this isn't your first time, so allow me to ask you a personal question - do you guys really enjoy crapping on your reputation? Is it some form of challenge, seeing if you can get someone to cooperate with you after acting like complete imbeciles?

That's not nice, and I'm not sure it complies with the forum rules...

As I've mentioned in the post above, these user accounts have nothing to do with our team or this company.

Edit (more info): Boki46 is an old user account that was actively used once in a few forums, but that was "hijacked" here at the Lemma forums by an impostor. Jakemorrow was never used as an alias by any of our team members, and we have no clue yet as to why this user appears to be on our network. If we don't get a response now, it's possible that it's the same hijacker, playing games...

~Rick

[HikkiPanda]

I was more concerned about the community basically being called anti-commercial, not so much that we were called that, but someone got this opinion from somewhere. Commercial games are an important part of the community just as free games are and I would be concerned if someone avoided one or the other because of some kind of negative opinion. I have never seen this anti-commercial attitude anywhere here, which is good. As far as I have seen, people tend to be very supportive with this kind of thing.

I think it's very natural if vnovel got the impression that this community is anti commercial. Negative response tend to have more effect than positive response, thus giving the (probably wrong) impression that the community is negative in general. It's human nature to react that way. Plus negative people tend to scream their disagreement louder (It's also human nature ). These two traits combined can create a dangerous phenomena called "vocal minority" where a small number of people unconsciously create an illusion that they represent the majority o:

And if you look at fortaat's link, this is not the first time this kind of stuff happening to them .. so I kinda understand if vnovel ( and probably some other people ) begin to have negative impression toward this community ^^; .. It's all natural human response

[fortaat]

One thing is sure: our team had nothing to do with this user account.

Hi guys,
Just wanted to let you know that Sakevisual's Ripples is now available on Facebook, as a fully playable online game (Facebook app), that you can add to your profile.
...
If you'd like to know more about the engine that runs this game online, please PM me, and I'll give you the rundown.

It's just that I've built this game engine, and I'm wondering if we could put it to use, by turning an assembled visual novel into a working video game - the engine was created for this purpose.

boki46 last post on the site was on October 17, 2010.
jakemorrow joins the forum on October 18, 2010.

It turned out to be a hacker replicating one of our user accounts, with the intention of causing trouble for us.

You guys are full of shit.
You seriously expect us to believe that for the last year and a half (!!!) there's a hacker promoting your engine, pretending to be one of you, and has inside information about your product?

With the help of the Lemma administration we might be able to identify what this is all about, and track down who is responsible.

Ever heard of Occam's razor?

[Hayzel]

For every post continuing to argue they will send a puppy to mars...



serious guys stop arguing with them and let PT or Lemma handle it<3

[HikkiPanda]

You guys are full of shit.
You seriously expect US to believe that for the last year and a half (!!!) there's a hacker promoting your engine, pretending to be one of you, and has inside information about your product?

err ... you shouldn't use the word 'us' like that, it's reckless .. because you don't represent us at all, your words only represent yourself ^^; ... sorry if i hurt you a bit

[Fawn]

@HikkiPanda: If this ends up being truly incriminating evidence of sockpuppetry, it will be "us" in my book The truth is out there~~

Also, if this thing doesn't get resolved, I'm sending this KITTEN to Mars too, along with the puppies:

[Hayzel]

@HikkiPanda: If this ends up being truly incriminating evidence of sockpuppetry, it will be "us" in my book The truth is out there~~

Also, if this thing doesn't get resolved, I'm sending this KITTEN to Mars too, along with the puppies:

Oh gawd think of the kitten T-T

[Aleema]

@vnovel:
I appreciate the apology now, though I know the PM was read yesterday. Yes, I can see how "flaming" can mean "on fire/in rage."

But I don't really appreciate this contrived cock-and-bull story about hijacking, hacking, your building's wireless, boki46 only being a friend and/or relative, etc. It's one load of excuses after another, and you did not step forward to out this hijacker back when he made his first appearance. This is the first anyone is hearing about someone who's out to "play games" by ... fanatically supporting you? In the same vein of saying you do not condone boki46/jakemorrow's actions, you did not tell him to stop, but you will happily tell others to stop. (For instance, telling fortaat he is not speaking politely, but jakemorrow crossed this threshold as well, several times.) Also, boki46 confirmed that he is relative to your company (vndb.org):

For the information of Lemma Soft users, who are curious regarding Fortaat's post: this is a very early, unsuccessful promotion I did for a friend of mine. It has nothing to do with the publisher in question, and the engine mentioned here is not the publisher's software. Apart from the fact that the developer friend I've mentioned is now working at that company, this has no relevance to the publisher, thank you.

Not to mention the similar behavior and wording/phrases the 3 accounts. And forgive me if I don't take you, the suspect, at his own words when you claim that IP fraud is very common. I'd rather a 3rd party shed light on the chances.

@Hayzel: I'm sorry. I really am. There is still the chance the vNovel is the victim in this case, but each time they post, that chance gets more slim ... I'm bowing out and letting the mods handle this.

This thread has been unmoderated for far too long.

[Auro-Cyanide]

Tone of voice and language might be something vnovel would like to consider in the future. A good mixture of friendliness and professionalism would be nice. You want to engage the audience, not isolate them, so you need to talk just as you would to an actual person. Especially since you are in the business of producing written stories.

Thank you for your feedback, Auro-Cyanide. We'll certainly take this into consideration when posting on the forums in the future.

No problem I work in the communication department of an ISP company and I hear about this stuff aaaaaaa lot. A great deal of thought goes into exactly how to phrase things to particular audiences, what kind of lexicon to use and tone of voice. One of the copy writers I work with is absolute fantastic at it. 'Business talk' is great when you are either talking to other business or to business like people, like stock brokers. For your VN audience and especially for VN makers, don't be afraid to relax and use more casual language. Proper English is a must to remain professional, but the tone itself can be friendly. Contractions for instance are great at mimicking casual speech. This kind of casualness will not make you be seen as less professional and will help to relax people's defensive barriers. And we all know how quickly they can go up

I think it's very natural if vnovel got the impression that this community is anti commercial. Negative response tend to have more effect than positive response, thus giving the (probably wrong) impression that the community is negative in general. It's human nature to react that way. Plus negative people tend to scream their disagreement louder (It's also human nature ). These two traits combined can create a dangerous phenomena called "vocal minority" where a small number of people unconsciously create an illusion that they represent the majority o:

And if you look at fortaat's link, this is not the first time this kind of stuff happening to them .. so I kinda understand if vnovel ( and probably some other people ) begin to have negative impression toward this community ^^; .. It's all natural human response

Yeah, I think that was generally a misunderstanding. As a community though it is something to be aware of. Like I said, I don't want to see someone avoiding one or the other for fear of a negative reaction. Both commercial and freeware games have their place and can both be unique opportunities.