By Kieron Gillen on August 29th, 2010 at 9:46 am.
Yes, I was right to be suspicious. The previously reported Serial Killer Rogue-like was a total fake. It was initially apparently claimed to be some manner of university project but very rapidly reduced down to a plain shoulder-shrug and admission of trolling. Why did he do it?
Because I can? Do trolls need legitimate reasons to do what they do? It was fun and I was bored. I didn’t use an existing game as a template and I made the videos using flash. Didn’t take that long, maybe an hour for the first game play footage. Much less for the other one. The response was extremely positive though. Didn’t expect that. I figured I’d run with it anyway, throwing out possible game play elements. Why not?
Of course, pinch of salt. You can trust his words about as far as you can trust a serial killer’s. One thing’s for sure, I fear. Expect to see someone to do it.
I really don’t understand the “bravo” comments in that bay thread. Congratulate him for lying to you?
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It’s not the fact that he tried to trick people. It’s the fact that he succeeded. It’s like congratulating your opponent in a game after they beat you.
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Didn’t really see it as being too fun anyways.
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For a troll attempt, it was a great success. He got a ton of attention and people talking. Good job Mr. Troll.
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I still don’t get why lying and tricking people is worthy of praise.
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You don’t enjoy April Fools, then?
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No.
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“Yeah, I lied to a shitload of people on the net for the lols, you know?”
Fuck this guy.
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@Urael not if someone went to the lengths he did
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Hmm, a lot of people taking this waaay too personally. What did he do, slap your mothers while he was at it? Cause the Pakistan floods? Start the Global Economic Crisis? From what I can see is he’s done absolutely no harm apart from raising expectation and then shattering it. From a certain perspective, the reactions he’s getting ARE funny, because that’s exactly what he set out to achieve and here you are providing in spades. :)
Yeah, “Fuck this guy”. Sheesh.
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Well I think he is either attention seeking or got in over his head. Attention seeking by lying for the “lols” is pretty fucking lame if you ask me. Me thinking he shouldn’t be praised for doing this is hardly “taking it too personally”.
Also do you have to do something as massive as start the GFC or cause terrible natural disasters to be an asshole? I don’t agree.
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And a little bit continued, as for someone just saying “Fuck this guy”, how is that funny?
Might be a case of http://i611.photobucket.com/albums/tt192/djeumdewq/what-trolls-want-you-to-believe.png
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Clearly, my comments re: world-changing events were exaggeration for comic effect. Good job I never mentioned Hitler or someone might’ve gone all ‘Godwin’s Law’ at me.
Let’s look at what he did achieve, though. He had a solid concept for a game. He went as far as making mock-ups of it in operation which, being fair, would have taken time and effort to get create. He then stuck with it for a while as attention began to focus on it, even sparring with the might Keiron Gillen in one or two places – net result: he got people interested, talking about the game and the issues therein and *MIGHT* even have inspired someone to make their own version of it someday. That’s praise-worthy right there, regardless of his intent.
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Well your hyperbole didn’t land that well.
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Urael: “From what I can see is he’s done absolutely no harm apart from raising expectation and then shattering it.”
Compared to a number of game companies that let you pay for games before they shatter your expectations with flawed software or lack of suppoert, this guy, indeed, has done no harm, ;o)
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Well, I’m not angry at him, he made a joke and he put some good effort in it – it really does look like an actual rogue-like and it got people thinking and talking about this – is it right, is it wrong, some people said they’d play such thing even if only to experiment, some even started imagining funny or not-so scenarios – so no harm done, mostly interesting debate. So kudos to the guy.
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I’m not sure what to think, really.
I mean, on one hand, you have that it was funny, and fair play that it was. It was a good joke, had at the expense of everyone who likes roguelikes, maybe, but it was still pretty well executed. It was a typical troll thing, sure, but therein lies the problem. I can’t help but feel that he was trying too hard, and that’s why I don’t find it as funny as I could.
People who troll to this kind of professional degree, like this guy, like the Something Awful goons, like Encyclopedia Dramatica, do it to such a professional degree that I can’t help but liken them to hardcore World of Warcraft players in my head, in that they appear to have such little in the way of RL activities and creativity that this is what they do.
And in my mind, it can’t be really likened to uploading an amazing work of art to deviantART or something, it’s not as constructive. It was just loads of effort to fuck with people for a little while, you could achieve the same thing without about 5% of the effort. Some of my fave sites have topped this on April 1st with very little effort at all.
One of the werewolf site I visited spent five minutes throwing together a hackjob suggesting that it had been hacked and taken over by ‘real werewolves’ (not the actual sort, but the kind of truly odd people who take these things to an obsessive degree, taking let’s pretend one step too far) and was now their territory. It was a five minute thing and I got a good laugh out of it, especially since it was so obviously fake, which helped with the whole joke.
But this? Just trying too hard. Doesn’t he have friends? So on one level, yeah, funny, but on another I actually feel sort of sorry for him, you know?
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I suppose what irritates me is that this kind of talent could be put toward actually creating something that’s really neat. After all, the 360 title I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1N IT!!!1 obviously took far less effort, and was an absolutely amazing game regardless.
It just seems like squandered talent, I’d harvest his brain if I could and tap the creativity it has and use it to actually make a game. :P
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Might be a case of http://i611.photobucket.com/albums/tt192/djeumdewq/what-trolls-want-you-to-believe.png
Yep, judging by all the ‘fuck this guy!’s and if I’m not mistaken – an admin ip banning him from the bay forum – that picture seems to be very close actualization of the event.
Well, I’m not angry at him, he made a joke and he put some good effort in it…
Indeed, I was amused. Can’t say I am angry, and as much as I would have liked to play the game, I suppose it’s just not happening. C’est la vie.
But he did lay the groundwork for someone else. Silver lining?
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“Yeah, “Fuck this guy”. Sheesh.”
If it makes you feel better, I could lie and say that I was trolling, and wanted just the reaction you gave me. Frustration and a lot of words, it’s the lols!
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Actually, Rob could swoop in and claim he was trolling, and I’d call it a weak success at best. No one is frothing or even seems upset. Just slightly annoyed.
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I’m not even annoyed, really. Just sort of disappointed. He put far too much effort into making himself look like a complete dick, and really, to what end? I’d like to see him put this focus toward something productive, then he might be able to make something of himself, instead of just being a troll. To me, it’s just wasted potential.
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He could of made a serial rapist game and got more attention that way. Maybe even get a news article about it 4 years later.
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~16k views of youtube video and 60+ pages in thread on Bay12 forum in 3 days. Not so bad for a troll.
Thou ’tis sad that if many ‘inspired’ people will attempt to make such roguelike game possibly we won’t see any finished one. Everyone will think “ah, the other guy gonna make it anyway, I shouldn’t push myself that hard”.
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Awww… was quite looking forward to playing this… come on internets! Make it so!
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I am sad now. :-(
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As much as I was hoping this was a real game in development, I could smell this as a fake from miles away.
A game in alpha does not have that good of an interface; it can’t be that feature complete without there being a playable version. And most glaring of all: people who make games like this for no profit live off of the praise and excitement of their audience. A game of this scale could not be made by a single person in secret. For a perfect example, see the history of Dwarf Fortress, or Minecraft… or more recently, see RPS’s very own coverage of Goblin Camp: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/16/the-boyz-are-back-in-town-goblin-camp/
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DF is basically done by one person…whatever the credits say.
So this COULD be done to a playable point before hearing about it…and I wish it had been, ah well.
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Well, if nobody picks it up, I may. I’ve made (graphical) roguelikes before, I don’t think it would be much of a problem. My parents are psychiatrists, I could make it more realistic. One problem would be the buildings, they would be pretty hard to generate. Maybe a fixed city with random inhabitants and factions? I don’t know.
So, would anyone want to play this?
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Do it!
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Yep.
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Wouldn’t your parents be a bit dusturbed you starting to ask questions of “whats the mind of a serial killer like?” and stuff like that lol?
But yes you should.
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Yes! Do it!
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You should do it, if you like the idea; and when you need testers you could just write a post on the RPS forums.
Maybe start from a single city and then try randomizing it once everything else is done. It shouldn’t be to hard to generate the buildings, as all cover the same area (and in the example only have 1 floor).
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Check out the Bay 12 Forum thread if you’re wondering if people would want to play it.
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Long answer: Even though this was a troll, and I normally hate trolls, this generated some interesting discussion and when it’s passed that point, I must say Well Played to the guy who came up with this. It’s a genuinely interesting idea.
Short answer: YES!
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When did randomly lying to people become cool, anyway? Randomly being a dick to strangers became popular at some point.
Why, though? It just tells me that someone has a very empty and hollow life if they have to get their jollies being randomly passive-aggressive towards strangers.
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“When did randomly lying to people become cool, anyway? Randomly being a dick to strangers became popular at some point.”
It’s not the lying that’s become cool, it’s the implication that the trolls are entertaining in doing what they do. Internet users come online to become entertained and communicate and when for whatever reason, communication is out, they fall back to their entertainment mindset. So if someone played the internet denizen for a fool, at least it was entertaining.
“Why, though? It just tells me that someone has a very empty and hollow life if they have to get their jollies being randomly passive-aggressive towards strangers.”
I think that judgment might be too heavy handed for what amounts to pretty basic two-handed transactional game “I am being far-fetched, see if you can catch me first ” — “oh you sly bastard, you got me”. It’s pretty harmless, well until it goes third degree and trolls start calling your home leaving death threats on your answering machine.
I am not defending trolling, I find it a waste of my time but it’s not so strange why people do it. Attention is a difficult thing to get on the internet because there’s so many people saying so many things, you know?
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What’s the difference between “lying” and “creating a fiction”? I see people using various outlets to create narratives that aren’t explicitly tagged as fictional that serve all sorts of purposes. Sometimes those narratives aren’t necessarily intended to deceive, but the ambiguity (is it real or not?) is important to the impact of the fiction. Sometimes they are intended to deceive to raise questions/consciousness about an issue (see RE/Search’s book on pranks. or the work of the “Yes Men”), sometimes it’s just trolling (how many people can one deceive?).
In some ways this isn’t any different from most game trailers: the game it shows may never exist, at least in the form it shows, but it does get you thinking about what that sort of game could be like.
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Differences can be detected in relation to through which lens you look at it. On one level, that of whether you’re being entertained, there is little difference between someone telling you what really happened to them last Sunday on the train and someone making up that very same story. On a transactional game analysis level though, the honesty aspect is what differentiates between a surface pastime (“isn’t life weird?” in my example) and the hidden angle that might be going on beneath (“I need you to validate my narcissism by telling me that I lead such an interesting life”).
People care if they’re being played or not for great many reasons. Deception hurts because it raises uncertainty and stress. “Do I really know what’s going on around me? Can I take this world at face value?”. Deception is especially devious and dastardly when encountered in the context of interpersonal communication, which aims at decreasing uncertainty and stress. It’s like a gnostic slap in the face “so you thought you could get to know people and that’d make your life safer and better!” laughs the cruel demiurge. If you’ve ever entered into an interpersonal relationship you’ll know how important feeling at ease and getting your trust rewarded is. Most social games however, are a shortcut to the benefits of social interaction without having to do any of the soul-bearing, risky intimacy stuff. They’re a tool for broken people to get what they want without fixing themselves.
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Wow, some people have really much time to waste…
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I would be very interested in it.
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So would I.
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I am not amused.
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It’s sad because the most difficult part in making a video game is advertising it.
I basically stop finishing the levels of my feature complete game because nearly nobody read about it.
I try the IGF, build a specific website, send emails, run a forum, make videos and screenshots with description but not a single word of interest happened.
Since I soon leave my country for a low cost trip around the world, I decide to stop developing anymore levels right now in order to be fair and free. Once I return, I hope to polish a Demo version and see what’s happen.
But seeing this is just… I don’t know… Pain maybe ? Humm not that much, but certainly a waste!
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You should remake your game so that the main character is a serial killer now, look how fired up some folks here are. ;)
Seriously though, here are your 15 minutes of Internet fame, what’s that game? Elaborate. Who knows you might even get noticed by the RPS hivemind and get a blogpost all for yourself.
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@sfury
Could it be www dot arm42 dot com/games/metagolf thats listed on the front page of his site.
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Aww i would of actually wanted to play this. And the game…
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Even if the serial killer concept seemed tasteless to some (understandable), a roguelike like this could have pulled the genre out of the fantasy pit, it’s been stuck in for years and years. I love fantasy, I do, but sometimes I would like to see roguelikes boldly go and explore new worlds.
The superhero /Batman roguelike I mentioned in the other thread, a mecha roguelike, etc. There are possibilities here and unfortunately, I couldn’t code my way out of a wet paperbag if I wanted to, so I’m powerless to do anything about it.
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You could always play DoomRL and AliensRL for your non-fantasy Roguelike fix.
http://doom.chaosforge.org/
http://alien.chaosforge.org/
Both are fun, but DoomRL is easily the better of the two.
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http://www.gearheadrpg.com/ Pretty much THE mecha RL being hammered away at….there’s a few other Sci-fi as well at varying stages…
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I knew about Doom and Aliens, but not about the mecha one. I guess I wanted to say that it would be interesting if roguelikes would try new genres andnot just fantasy and then I thought about DF, which does fantasy in a different way… I have nothing, I guess.
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Not to mention ZapM (“the sci-fi Nethack”, as its author calls it), Privateer: ASCII Sector, and others…
Basically, just have a trawl through RogueBasin. Some real gems there, like the one about 15th century colonisation…
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Hmm… I had the opposite reaction. I thought it was real, so I guess he trolled me good.
In any case… there did not appear to be that many “features” that you wouldn’t get “for free” if you used an existing roguelike code base and adapted it to your needs. Honestly, you can code a seemingly complex roguelike in a matter of hours, so long as you’re reusing existing code you can find in dozens of different places across the web.
I do remember thinking, “nice tileset!” while watching the video, though…
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damnit. this was meant to be a reply @chiablo
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It’s kind of amusing that the guy making the /serial killer/ game is even more of a bastard than you first suspected.
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Dumbass trolls.
That’s all I have to say on this matter.
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Excellent trolling work. I rather like seeing someone put in this much effort into something so pointless.
I want call him a cheeky scamp while chuckling and ruffling his hair.
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Do it. Don’t be a troll tho. :P
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This ended too soon. He should’ve kept going with the bit. Though, part of me actually wanted this to be completed, just to see the inevitable media reaction to the soulless, graphic violence described in the game’s status text.
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I dont really like the theme, but as rogue-like player , the gameplay looked awesome and very advanced.
Perhaps we will see such game, hopefully maybe in different context
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And here I was ready to can my hibernating roguelike project since it already had the things I was planning. Except the ability to choose the cloak color.
The cloak color is very important.
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On the subject of trolling, is perhaps one of the greatest articles I’ve ever read. If memory serves, John linked it on here many moons ago.
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A fantastic read. Thanks for that. :)
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@Lewis
After receiving death threats, Fortuny meticulously scrubbed his real address and phone number from the Internet. “Anyone who knows who and where you are is a security hole,” he told me. “I own a gun. I have an escape route. If someone comes, I’m ready”
and in the next paragraph
He is thin, with birdlike features
DOH
Im going to piss people off and then shoot them and run away if they try and get me. I like the old way better, you piss someone off they punch you in the face.
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Regardless of what people do to anyone on the internet, I believe escalating it to ‘real world’ violence is unacceptable. I don’t have the attention span of Fortuny, but I would have taken my contact info off the web as well.
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Klaus did you even read the article? (He did some harsh stuff) trolls are mainly people who in real life are to scared to do what they do online, this guy just proves it by having a gun an escape plan and the willingness to use both, instead of you know taken the beating or oh I don’t know beating the person who came to beat him instead of hiding behind anonymity and weapons.
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taken taking bleh
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4/9/09 – The court entered a default judgment against Fortuny, requiring him to pay $74,252.56 in damages, attorneys fees, and costs.
Ouch
So if he ever showed up at court that would of defeated his purpose of scrubbing his data off the web, which if what a quick google search shows is correct he failed at horrible.
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I read the article, and as long as he isn’t physically harming anyone then I don’t care too much. Granted, there are some things I disagreed with and wouldn’t do (that epilepsy thing for one, always hated that), I just don’t wish him physically harmed. Nor do I wish it for any of the people who I think deserved their trolling.
Trolls are just people. And like all people, they are varied, some are basement dwelling cowards and some are likely doing fine in their life. I don’t have any determinate answers, some things like Fortuny’s Craigslist thing and “an hero” I find funny, and some things like that epilepsy thing and Lori Drew fiasco I don’t.
4/9/09 – The court entered a default judgment against Fortuny, requiring him to pay $74,252.56 in damages, attorneys fees, and costs.
Ouch
eh.
He shouldn’t have been such an attention whore.
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Im sorry but that’s just crap, if someone started following you around heckling you day in day out or standing around where you live with billboards about you, you would ask them to stop and if they didn’t you punch them in the face why if someone does it on the internet its suddenly perfectly fine. Makes no sense.
Mocking people who have committed suicide and tormenting the family of the deceased is ok………WTF
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As long as it isn’t physical abuse it’s ok? What a terrible blanket statement.
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Because I can not turn off real life, but I can turn off the internet for a while. And a majority of victims that can, will not. They will keep up their fight against anonymous people of an uncertain amount who – as they say – have nothing better do. And while it may be a moral battle for them, I think it is ultimately self-defeating. No they shouldn’t have to leave, but that is the reality of the situation when the aggressors are nameless, faceless, unsympathetic and come in droves.
As long as it isn’t physical abuse it’s ok? What a terrible blanket statement.
Pretty much only because I believe one is far more escapable than the other. As for the people who can’t leave the internet, then yeah, I feel for them but not enough for it to ruin my day.
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Thanks Lewis. But christ that was a depressing read. These people clearly need a hug.
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Given that it got this much attention despite just being a fake, I’d be surprised if someone didn’t pick it up and run with it.
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Why do people go to magic shows, and clap when it is revealed that they were tricked?
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Because people are paying to see an impressive illusion. Most people would rather not have random jerks lie to them because the jerks think it’s funny.
Walk into a cinema and shout that the building is on fire. People will just be lining up to pat you on the back for that winsome jape.
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What an obnoxious little cunt.
Trolling is bad. A prank is good, but this had no punchline, no slapstick, no fun involved. It’s a joke that wasn’t funny.
A lot of people wasted just a few minutes of their lives studying this – a lot more minutes overall than he spent working on it. Well done. You stole a little bit of everyone’s soul. I wonder what he’ll do with them?
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You are mistaken in thinking that I care if you didn’t enjoy my little joke. I enjoyed it. That’s the whole point.
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I thought the idea was pretty sick, but i’m kinda bummed it’s a fake. I wanted to sneak into houses and scare people, then run away. :(
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“One thing’s for sure, I fear. Expect to see someone to do it.”
You fear someone will make a roguelike with interesting, compelling stealth gameplay that differs from the norm? Does not compute, surely I must have misunderstood that sentence…
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Agreed, I get that trolling/pranking at times can be funny but this one never worked for me (and it’s not like I was tricked and bitter, I hit most of this post hoax reveal). I think Wulf said it best, that he just seemed to try too hard, and came off as creepy not funny.
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reply fail
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@Wulf: forum posts claiming that somebody should be finding more constructive ways to spend their time always seem ironic to me. Posts on *gaming forums* claiming this are double so. People in glass houses, and all that!
Also, I’ll claim that what this guy did *was* constructive. He had an interesting idea, and took it as far as a convincing mockup. It’ll almost certainly inspire other creators, some of whom might take it all the way to implementation.
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Posting on an online community can only take a few minutes, creating a mock up game and spending days keeping the lie going certainly requires more time. So uh, how are they comparable?
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The mockup was actually a flash video and he said it only took about 2 hours for the original, far less for character creation one. The forums posts likewise did not take all that much effort from him.
I say successful troll was successful, looking at how much time you’re spending being annoyed at him; that’s kinda the point of trolling
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It created debate about trolls in general rather then me frothing about what he did. It really seems I can’t argue against doing this kind of thing without someone pointing out I got trolled or something.
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What a douche. I am gmailing him a million dead roses as a symbolic gesture for murdering my trust. Like a serial killer.
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“some things like Fortuny’s Craigslist thing and “an hero” I find funny”
and then you write
“Pretty much only because I believe one is far more escapable than the other. As for the people who can’t leave the internet, then yeah, I feel for them but not enough for it to ruin my day.”
Again I have to ask did you read the article? or just skim it?
“The phone began ringing at Mitchell’s parents’ home. “It sounded like kids,” remembers Mitchell’s father, Mark Henderson, a 44-year-old I.T. executive. “They’d say, ‘Hi, this is Mitchell, I’m at the cemetery.’ ‘Hi, I’ve got Mitchell’s iPod.’ ‘Hi, I’m Mitchell’s ghost, the front door is locked. Can you come down and let me in?’ ” He sighed. “It really got to my wife.” The calls continued for a year and a half.”
That’s about the “an hero” that you found “funny” thats not on the internet you can’t turn that off.
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ahhh replies hate me today, that was a response to klaus
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That’s about the “an hero” that you found “funny”
People can like something and not be fans of all of the material it inspires.
The calls continued for a year and a half.”
thats not on the internet you can’t turn that off.
Yeah, it would be pretty awful if after he changed his phone number they found it and started harassing him again. But that article doesn’t imply that he did. So, I’m left to imagine he took this abuse for 1.6 years for whatever reason. Lamenting about cruelty instead of trying a common sense procedure like changing his telephone number. If he did do so, and I’ve read no article saying otherwise, then it seems like an important tidbit to neglect to mention. And again, no he shouldn’t have to and it shouldn’t have happened, but it did. For more than a year.
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@klaus
“That’s about the “an hero” that you found “funny”
People can like something and not be fans of all of the material it inspires.”
So suicide is funny but some cases aren’t?
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I am apathetic about Mitchell’s suicide itself, to be honest. Because it was stupid. I find Megan Meier’s suicide reasoning stupid too, but I dislike Lori Drew’s role in it intensely. I don’t think she was a ‘troll.’ It wasn’t about ‘lulz’ or amusing one’s self. I think she was just a vindictive and cruel person.
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So are most of the people who do it for the ‘lulz’
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Yep twisted bitch agree on that.
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You do realize the “an hero” meme is for people who commit suicide, right? the kid was dead the trolls were tormenting his parents not him due to him being six feet under and unable to pick up a phone, are you sure you read the article or any other articles on the trolls mentioned in that article, if you did then nice job taking the info on board, and seriously it’s ok in your mind to harass someone to the level they have to change their house number, dude that is f*cked.
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Well, it would have been a remarkably meticulous engine if it were true. There’s a lot of code that would go into recognizing and differentiating states such as “suspicious, trespassing, break&enter”. I probably should have been suspicious at that point, but such a hurdle is not insurmountable.
Although the gameplay itself struck me as being potentially exciting just for that, “you’re doing something extremely naughty” thrill, aside from that it would have been pretty dull – murdering people in their homes is not a real complicated, nor challenging activity.
Now, we see if Fox News circulates a story it was real or not.
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Quite excellent Auteurs reference, KG. A gold star for you!
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He wasn’t trolling. He was lying his ass off after the fact. That’s what a narcissistic ego does to protect itself when criticized. He was too emotional in his early responses, and the story changed too many times in this period, with a tapering off of the enormity of the lies and a gradual approach towards truth as his emotions were checked (TLA government organization > research for thesis > I TROLL U > I’m really not that accomplished and wanted someone else to make the game for me > boohoo I’m CrimsonFaced sitting in a pool of my own piss and shame).
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Here I was looking forward to a game that finally fulfilled STALKER’s promises.
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What?
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That’s pretty clever.
@Yeah
Think about the name, rather than the game. :p
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I’m pretty disappointed in this scam. I was never tempted to play a roguelike, but this would sell me for sure.
Not just because it’s a cheap serialkiller thrill, but because it would allow you to do pretty relatable things, while applying the roguelike unpredictability. You could do some sick roguelikes where little to nothing happens, like a Heavy Rain sort of deal, except with actual gameplay.
Pretty pathetic to fake a game like that, though.
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This is as pathetic as when 3D Realms continued to release Duke Nukem Forever footage.
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I didn’t want the game encroaching on my actual life. Five days after my first post and it already spread further than I thought was possible. Hypothetically speaking, what if some psychopath actually murdered someone and the police found my game on his computer, with saved characters that echo the players real crimes. Maybe they’d want to talk to the person who made a “game” that allows you to plan and execute murders from a serial killer’s perspective.
It’s a long shot, but a scenario like that IS possible. I’m not going to jeopardize the life that I’ve built for a fucking game. I won’t. And I also don’t want to deal with fifty messages a day containing variations of torture, rape and murder as feature suggestions. I can’t handle that shit, it’s too stressful and I don’t have the capacity or will to deal with it, and my wife and I agree that a mere game isn’t worth the potential headache’s that it could cause us. At the very least, I’m sure some other programmers will come up with a similar game now that the idea is out there.
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Post the alpha build you showed in the vid and release the source or GTFO the idea (for the game) is good the excuses are lame.
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We’re still moving along that sliding scale towards truth. However, one can imagine where it ends, so this is about all we’re realistically gonna get.
Regardless, it’s only interesting from a psychological POV. We’re here for games. So I’m with the guy above. Drop dat sauce.
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:O Is TheCrimsoinKing your real name?
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If you can’t handle the feature requests how about you merely stop accepting them and just make the game you want, release it as you likely would want to do, and leave it at that, with no “fan interaction” or whatever? As for the “possibility” of you being accused of anything, eh, lol? What precedent is there? Sure, Rockstar got sued a couple times but they never lost money for something that ridiculous, and since you’re not a corporation the number one reason to get sued, money, doesn’t apply to you anyway. Not to mention you’d be set for an easy victory with few expenses since now there’s legal precedent. Besides, that would have been a “possibility” (it’s also a possibility you’re an actual serial killer yourself, but I’d bet money that you aren’t… yet…) even if there wasn’t such heated discussion in a couple of forums that make up a tiny, insignificant to anyone who doesn’t visit them, percentage of the internet… And why do you keep changing your story, from “I never intended to develop it, it was a scam” to “I wanted to entice others to develop it because I can’t” to “I was gonna develop it but it’s the backlash nobody sane would care about that made me change mind” or whatever? You’re nothing if not consistent… Oh well, I guess this is just a lesson to people that you can’t even trust small time freebie/indie developers without proof of their work and intentions… Though I’m not even sure if you qualify as one of them with how much you change your story. Sad really.
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Dude he’s just trolling us again.
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So if someone were to make a decent serial killer roguelike, can this guy claim “Hey, I totally came up with that first!” and if they make money off of it, can he sue for royalties?
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Pfff, what? You can’t place a copyright on serial killing games in general, so no. I don’t think he’d have the balls to show his face and give out his name anyway, not with how many people he’s pissed off. I definitely wouldn’t if I was in his position.
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It’s either the original douchebag or some other copycat troll trying to stir up trouble again. I vote for the latter because the other accounts he used are completely inactive and haven’t been logged into since the hoax was announced. Seriously, don’t respond to the bullshit either way. The idea is good and someone will almost certainly make a game out of it. Eventually.
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It’s him. And he’s not a troll so technically it couldn’t be a copycat anyway.
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Eh, whatever. I’m done with it all anyway. Even if the troll bullshit he pulled is some kind of smoke screen, the way he went about it has left a bad taste in my mouth. He could have just come clean from the start and dropped the real reason why he wanted to bail on the game. Even give the source out so other people can work on it. But no. He acted like a child instead. And what’s the point of coming here to tell people that it wasn’t actually a hoax if his original intent was to escape from the spotlight? Doesn’t that defeat the entire purpose of saying it was a hoax? No logic at all. That’s why I say he’s a straight up troll. He just wants to stir the pot a bit more.
Anyway, I’ll wait for some dev’s with integrity to use his ideas rather than touch anything he creates.
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I thought that this was a well thought out and executed hoax. Those are still amusing even if they’re called trolling in the internet age, aren’t they?
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Whatever. I am sure there is someone who is now GOING to make a serial killer game :)
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Jesus, Redd. You fell for it. Again.
As to why I actually did it — I simply thought it would provide a few laughs. It did. People are far too serious and quick to anger so sometimes I like to poke a stick at them. Did I personally come over to your house and fuck your sister? No. And did I not, at the very least, provide you with an interesting idea for a game? Shit, some of you pretend like you don’t have any character flaws whatsoever. Mine isn’t so bad. I’m not stabbing old ladies for the change in their purses, am I.
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“I’m not stabbing old ladies for the change in their purses, am I.”
That would be one way to play SK Roguelike… :D
I don’t give a flying f about this trolling stuff. But what makes me sad, SK Roguelike felt like ‘close to alpha release’ and now it has degraded to ‘game concept’ :/
Somebody go make it now! Time for stabbity stab in dark corners of the virtual world o_o
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Norb. Let me simplify things for you. A successful act of trolling should generate commentary proportionate to the effort put into the angle you play. It took me less than an hour to write the flavor text for my game. Two hours for the videos. A few minutes here and there over a period of six days to reply to the comments.
The entire premise for a game, example included, created in took about as long as it would take to watch a decently long movie. And it managed to generate thousands of comments and reached gaming sites who have substantial amounts of readers.
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I don’t really know what all the noise is about. Is it about the violence of the game, the fact that it’s not a real game, or both, or neither? What is so “trollish” about such a hoax?
It’s my personal opinion of course, but I see nothing offensive in either making such a game, playing such a game or faking such a game.
And yes, I would have definitely played it, if it existed. now I even wish I were a better programmer, so I could bring this idea to life.
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I dont know, for me it feels like Modern trolling is an excuse to say nasty things and then mock people for assuming you were honest when you said it. In the backgroud there is the argument that the troll is holding an idea or a belief that is extremely out there and marginal, basically mocking the audience for actually believing that such a straw man person would actually exist. Now this to me is strong evidence that many trolls live in a rarefied environment. because they often take up ideas genuinely held by some groups of people.
Case in point, a while back there was an article about a senator who had said that women weren’t as competent as men because if they were then employers would pay then as much as men. In the comments was a guy saying that women are in fact less capable then men and not surprisingly he got jumped on by the other commentators, in fact he wasn’t the only one to say something like that in the thread but later on he comes back and mocks everyone for thinking that he actually genuinely felt the things he said he felt.
I guess my personal opinion that we should always start by assuming that someone is debating in good faith makes me an easy victim for trolling but it is kinda the basic requirement for a conversation so its not like I could get anything done if I didn’t. I hold myself eternally thankful that the kind of sites I frequent just aren’t conductive to trolling (LOL I cant believe you’re such idiots to think that i would support first past-post electoral system within an bicameral legislative process!)
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