So why have i had a mail from Ember?

[DeadDuck]

As far as I know it's not ember that hacked FF data base, it's just a old account I believe the name was "Sexy ...." I forgot the last parts, that changed their name to the ember game one that it currently is. This game is SUPPOSED to be what FF was in the EARLY stages... still waiting to see more details on that part. As it is currently it's just a concept game that's "coming (soon tm) in the future". You've got it to where PM's sent to you on the FF forums are sent to your email I believe.

EDIT, Punk got to what I was getting at

Respectfully, you guys (plural) miss understand the objections entirely. You're looking at the surface only. At this early stage, I am interested in things much, much deeper. I am aware of spam filters, I am aware of the option to opt-out of PM emails. I am aware that had I predicted the use of Firefall as an advertising medium, I could have opted out and not received the email. But, it's just one email. I am really not concerned with any of that.

This incident was approved and sanctioned by the Ember CEO.

In my view, the Ember CEO IS Ember at this point, and provided he learns his lesson and does not sell majority interest in Ember to a third party who then has the authority to remove him, the current Ember CEO will always be, as long as Ember is a thing.

What you miss here is the generalization of the situation. Two arguments here.

1.) A character argument.

The current Ember CEO was the father of Firefall -- it was his creation -- and as much love and respect each of us has for it, how much more must he have? Unless the rumors of his leadership being "unattentive and uncaring" were true, which I'll assume they're not. How then, as former CEO, could he approve this? ... Well, have you ever been kicked from a raid platoon? You know that feeling of rejection and anger? That's how. Tell me, given the chance, would any of you not destroy the platoon who kicked you simply out of anger? Or at least understand the want to do this? He asked players to stop playing, then did this... Its so easy to see where he was coming from if you remember back to when you were kicked from anything. He showed restraint by waiting until most of Red5 had been fired, but this is not enough. As CEO of ANY company, one must be beyond petty revenge and must hold himself to the highest standard. It's not easy, but Mark was absolutely capable of this. I am disappointed that he did not live to his potential in the position that he currently holds.

2.) Team / Community leading

I implore all of you to watch CNBC, specifically the interviews of CEOs. Watch how they behave. Now, most will note that they act very politically correct -- I hate PC -- but I understand the need for it when it comes to CEOs. They empathize with everyone even when its simply impossible that they actually agree with everything that's being said. They do this to ensure that they do not "pick a side" and divide the company. We all know Red5 was by in large a "clique-esk" company, irregardless of Mr. Kern's role in what happened, this hurt Red5 in ways that cannot possibly be measured. A good CEO will make sure he does not instigate this, because once its happened it is very hard to fix.

Now, to the events here. the Ember CEO posted the following:

You have an action taken, approved by the Ember CEO, that divides the community and he responds by, admirably defending his decision, but also alienating the other side calling them "confused." I would never invest in a stock where the CEO does this. That is what you are doing by supporting Ember. You are investing, be it time, money or both.

Any Beta player who can remember the days of Grummz being on the Firefall forums will understand this, but even without a historical perspective, we're witnessing it before our VERY eyes. If you agree with Mr. Kern, you'll be totally fine. If you disagree, you'll be alienated and belittled.

I base my support of this game on whether it can grow. When you have a vast collection of people, it is statistically impossible that they will all agree with Mr. Kern 100% of the time. So the implication is that they will leave because they're "confused." So, will this game make it? No. This is not based of Reddit posts, or hearsay, or rumor, or anything else that can be discredited as possibly coming from a shill. This is the implications of Mr. Kern's documented reaction, extrapolating its long term effects on the community and it....will.....die. Not now, not in 2 years, but when the game (by this I likely mean Mr. Kern) needs to make tough decisions that will divide the community, Mr. Kern will be unable to unite us in his vision due to comments like those made above. After many, many toxic posts and ban hammers, this will die.

Consider PEZ and the Dev event -- a classic example. Some thought it was ok, awesome even. Some thought it was "vile" and a miss use of power. What did PEZ do? He said, essentially "I love you guys, and I am sorry for the impact it had on the community." PEZ for CEO 2017! Bravo! This, I expected from the Ember CEO. This, I did not get. So, I'm out.

I absolutely respect others who disagree and wish to stay. I also respect Mr. Kern for what he wants do here. But to label me as someone who is upset with a single email was simply inaccurate, and I hope I've outlined my concern a little more thoroughly.

 

[Brezals]

Mark is saying "mad" don't think he would refer to you, or anobody that has found this place, but I am sure Grummz has gotten a lot of flammotory tweet becuase of whoever was behind that email. Do you think it matters if Grummz doesn't "unite" those people?

 

[ChinoGreen]

Is this the first ember ragequit?


Cmon now...Is this guy for real.

 

[DeyjaVou]

I will never, ever, understand how these flames happen. People say "That's it, I'm out, I don't want anything to do with this, take my name off the list".

Then they come back and write a 7 paragraph retort complete with images and a thesaurus at hand. Are you actually upset? Are you just stirring stuff up? If you say you're out, don't come back every three hours to reply, just leave.

 

[OhNoDomo!]

I will never, ever, understand how these flames happen. People say "That's it, I'm out, I don't want anything to do with this, take my name off the list".

Then they come back and write a 7 paragraph retort complete with images and a thesaurus at hand. Are you actually upset? Are you just stirring stuff up? If you say you're out, don't come back every three hours to reply, just leave.

This kind of personality MUST gain support for their point of view in order to feel justified, as they somehow cannot feel justified simply on their own. They need others to validate their opinions, often due to narcissistic tendencies. If they don't see the support their ego requires, they supplement with causing drama and upset in order to divide and conquer so to speak. I've had a lot of experience with this type of personality.

The best solution to this is what most of our moms told us in elementary school: Just ignore him, he just wants attention.

 

[DeadDuck]

This kind of personality MUST gain support for their point of view in order to feel justified, as they somehow cannot feel justified simply on their own. They need others to validate their opinions, often due to narcissistic tendencies. If they don't see the support their ego requires, they supplement with causing drama and upset in order to divide and conquer so to speak. I've had a lot of experience with this type of personality.

The best solution to this is what most of our moms told us in elementary school: Just ignore him, he just wants attention.

I absolutely want attention, but ... not from you. You've made your decision, and as I stated before, I respect that.

I am looking for attention from the hundreds of people coming here every day wanting to know if Ember is something worth getting invested in -- in my opinion, no. To deny me the right to express this correctly would be absolutely wrong of you.

Also, as anyone would, I do seek validation/justification because I accept that I could be wrong. So, I have a script written that monitors the Ember forums for active members. The numbers are falling pretty steadily. So... To me, this is all the validation I need, nevermind replies or likes.

Below is what I've collected so far... More to come, I am sure.

So, I ask ... having laid out my opinion, respectfully. Please. Let it be heard and evaluated by those who've not decided as you have and do not reply to this.

 

[Btabc]

I absolutely want attention, but ... not from you. You've made your decision, and as I stated before, I respect that.

I am looking for attention from the hundreds of people coming here every day wanting to know if Ember is something worth getting invested in -- in my opinion, no. To deny me the right to express this correctly would be absolutely wrong of you.

Also, as anyone would, I do seek validation/justification because I accept that I could be wrong. So, I have a script written that monitors the Ember forums for active members. The numbers are falling pretty steadily. So... To me, this is all the validation I need, nevermind replies or likes.

Below is what I've collected so far... More to come, I am sure.

So, I ask ... having laid out my opinion, respectfully. Please. Let it be heard and evaluated by those who've not decided as you have and do not reply to this.

I understand why you're frustrated/upset. No one wants to be apart of something that's been allowed and not stopped, I received the same PM in FF and questioned the sender (to please stop sending things and such) to not get a reply back. I felt that it was wrong as well, especially when someone may have condoned advertising on another game, but that aside I'd like to just give it a chance and see what happens. Hey I look at it as the worst that happens, there isn't a online game and he flubs... no money lost for me. However IF something should come out of this (from what I've seen it seems Grummz is REALLY wanting to get something out there) I'd like to judge it for myself and see if I like it or not, and if I don't I'll just move along .
I asked around and decided to check it out here and see what it's like. What I found was another idea that has potential. I'm here to see what comes of it, if everything backs what he's saying it will be (we all know things change haha).

As for numbers steadily falling I think that's just due to there NOT being anything here at the moment. There's no game, not much artwork (which it's early on so I wouldn't expect there to be) and nothing to show for money spent besides a forum title. Grummz knows this and will WANT to keep people around so something will have to be released to get numbers back up.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

you seriously can't perceive any other reason the numbers are dropping like that?
You put all this effort to do this and you only can think of one reason it's doing that?

that's sad really.

 

[DeyjaVou]

I absolutely want attention, but ... not from you. You've made your decision, and as I stated before, I respect that.

I am looking for attention from the hundreds of people coming here every day wanting to know if Ember is something worth getting invested in -- in my opinion, no. To deny me the right to express this correctly would be absolutely wrong of you.

Also, as anyone would, I do seek validation/justification because I accept that I could be wrong. So, I have a script written that monitors the Ember forums for active members. The numbers are falling pretty steadily. So... To me, this is all the validation I need, nevermind replies or likes.

Below is what I've collected so far... More to come, I am sure.

So, I ask ... having laid out my opinion, respectfully. Please. Let it be heard and evaluated by those who've not decided as you have and do not reply to this.

Fair enough, I'm just not sure who you're defending by disparaging the project. Is Ember worth investing in? Who knows? I respect everyone's ability to make informed choices about what to invest their time and money in, and I recognize that while you are not an authority of any kind, you are certainly willing to do research, which, when presented fairly, aids in making an informed decision.

We have absolutely nothing concrete, and historically, Kern is bad at management. But circumstances have changed, and hindsight is one of our best senses. Hindsight is the only reason a lot of people have faith that this will move forward. That, and the absolute lack of free development resources to explore with. The game must be laser focused, and Kern knows this. Firefall had over a hundred million dollars of up front investment, and money was spent left and right. Not this time.

We're here, same as you, watching to see if it'll move forward. If it does, however, we'll feed it a little and see if it grows.


Now, in regards to your graph, since you didn't label any axes, I'll assume X is time and Y is active forum members. At minimum, you've been collecting data for 21 hours, and at maximum 45 hours (according to the graph). I'm not sure what unit that's measured in, but it seems to me the only way to read it. Additionally, I will assume that you're measuring concurrent users at a time. This is a misrepresentation of daily traffic. I make this assumption based off the fact that you have significantly more datapoints than would be present if one were to measure the total number of unique users to visit the forums daily, or even every hour.

Given the sinusoidal shape of the graph, and from the above assumption that it is concurrent users, and not daily users, we can infer that your graph clearly displays one major pattern of behavior: people log on, check threads, and log off, doing so on a regular basis. I believe this behavior is a result of the backstretch code which is responsible for changing the background. Backstretch makes use of javascript to change opacity values, which is a very CPU-intensive task. If the code is restructured to utilize CSS transitions, the load will be lifted, but people are discouraged from remaining logged in as a result of the current strain it places on their systems. Regardless, this is being presented, unintentionally or not, as statistics on daily visitors, not concurrent users at times of measurement. These two numbers are vastly different.


At the beginning I said that fairly presented data helps us to make informed decisions. Without any labels or explanations except "numbers are falling steadily and this is all the validation I need", I can only assume, and perhaps incorrectly without clarification from you, that you are manipulating statistics to discredit the project. Present your data fairly and clearly, and I will respect you.

 

[DeadDuck]

Fair enough, I'm just not sure who you're defending by disparaging the project. Is Ember worth investing in? Who knows? I respect everyone's ability to make informed choices about what to invest their time and money in, and I recognize that while you are not an authority of any kind, you are certainly willing to do research, which, when presented fairly, aids in making an informed decision.

We have absolutely nothing concrete, and historically, Kern is bad at management. But circumstances have changed, and hindsight is one of our best senses. Hindsight is the only reason a lot of people have faith that this will move forward. That, and the absolute lack of free development resources to explore with. The game must be laser focused, and Kern knows this. Firefall had over a hundred million dollars of up front investment, and money was spent left and right. Not this time.

We're here, same as you, watching to see if it'll move forward. If it does, however, we'll feed it a little and see if it grows.


Now, in regards to your graph, since you didn't label any axes, I'll assume X is time and Y is active forum members. At minimum, you've been collecting data for 21 hours, and at maximum 45 hours (according to the graph). I'm not sure what unit that's measured in, but it seems to me the only way to read it. Additionally, I will assume that you're measuring concurrent users at a time. This is a misrepresentation of daily traffic. I make this assumption based off the fact that you have significantly more datapoints than would be present if one were to measure the total number of unique users to visit the forums daily, or even every hour.

Given the sinusoidal shape of the graph, and from the above assumption that it is concurrent users, and not daily users, we can infer that your graph clearly displays one major pattern of behavior: people log on, check threads, and log off, doing so on a regular basis. I believe this behavior is a result of the backstretch code which is responsible for changing the background. Backstretch makes use of javascript to change opacity values, which is a very CPU-intensive task. If the code is restructured to utilize CSS transitions, the load will be lifted, but people are discouraged from remaining logged in as a result of the current strain it places on their systems.


At the beginning I said that fairly presented data helps us to make informed decisions. Without any labels or explanations except "numbers are falling steadily and this is all the validation I need", I can only assume, and perhaps incorrectly without clarification from you, that you are manipulating statistics to discredit the project. Present your data fairly and clearly, and I will respect you.

You are correct, I believe it is concurrent. Simply put, on the forum home page, it gives the number of people currently online, it is simply a record of that number over time, however they generate it.

I, too, gave much consideration to the points you mentioned. The data for me is not technically valid until I have a full week's worth of data to account for periodicity. (weekends, I suspect will be rather active)... As you mentioned, people logon, check, read, etc... then log off. I will be happy to report back when I have this data, if you'd like.

 

[DeyjaVou]

You are correct, I believe it is concurrent. Simply put, on the forum home page, it gives the number of people currently online, it is simply a record of that number over time, however they generate it.

I, too, gave much consideration to the points you mentioned. The data for me is not technically valid until I have a full week's worth of data to account for periodicity. (weekends, I suspect will be rather active)... As you mentioned, people logon, check, read, etc... then log off. I will be happy to report back when I have this data, if you'd like.

You could start by labeling the units of measurement used on your time axis. I would also assume weekends would be active.

You could also create an array of usernames that appear on that sidebar, remove duplicates, and tally entries or pull length of array at the end of a 24 hour period. This would discount guests, but we could pull a reasonable margin of error from average guest count over the day.

Concurrent users mean little to me over a two day period. I'm interested to see your findings at the end of a week or so of collection, provided they're accurate and clearly presented. You presented data you now decry as incomplete as "all the validation you need" for the project's inevitable failure, and that active users are declining. Your sample includes a period of a weekend, followed by a weekday, yet is evidence enough for this:

So, I have a script written that monitors the Ember forums for active members. The numbers are falling pretty steadily. So... To me, this is all the validation I need, nevermind replies or likes.

When your rhetoric reflects emotion alone and does not mirror your own rational thoughts on the data you provided as evidence, you create unnecessary tensions and discredit yourself. You admitted yourself the downtrend is a result of the shift from a weekend to a weekday.

 

[DeadDuck]

You could start by labeling the units of measurement used on your time axis. I would also assume weekends would be active.

You could also create an array of usernames that appear on that sidebar, remove duplicates, and tally entries or pull length of array at the end of a 24 hour period. This would discount guests, but we could pull a reasonable margin of error from average guest count over the day.

Concurrent users mean little to me over a two day period. I'm interested to see your findings at the end of a week or so of collection, provided they're accurate and clearly presented. You presented data you now decry as incomplete as "all the validation you need" for the project's inevitable failure, and that active users are declining. Your sample includes a period of a weekend, followed by a weekday, yet is evidence enough for this:

When your rhetoric reflects emotion alone and does not mirror your own rational thoughts on the data you provided as evidence, you create unnecessary tensions and discredit yourself. You admitted yourself the downtrend is a result of the shift from a weekend to a weekday.

Within any data interpretation, there is always a human "leap" that has to occur. This sort of data is statistical, meaning it cannot on its own imply causation. This is where the human "leap" is needed. To conclude anything from a statistical sample, a human being is needed to look at the data and say "This is what's happening." There is inherent subjectivity to that, so its a decision that must be made on an individual basis.

The downshift could absolutely be because of a shift from a weekend to a weekday. Like I say, statistics cannot infer causation. I absolutely agree that's a possibility. For me, the data gives validation, even @ only 1 day. But, I have my own bias that is affecting that judgement; everyone does. A week will say more, but even that will be subjective. Technically, the years of SteamCharts data we have on Firefall is subjective. It all requires interpretation. By no means do I intend to imply that "to me" should also mean "to you."

That being said, a week will account for periodicity, so on that objective basis, I feel a week is enough to consider it valid for most. Even in terms of myself, a day is valid subject to my internal bias, a week is valid regardless of bias... to me.

So, accounting for internal bias, I would still very much like to see what happens in a week. I'll post here what I find. i am thinking I can hook Mathematica in to my dropbox and post a pic (via a link) from my dropbox, that way it updates itself automatically.

 

[DeyjaVou]

Within any data interpretation, there is always a human "leap" that has to occur. This sort of data is statistical, meaning it cannot on its own imply causation. This is where the human "leap" is needed. To conclude anything from a statistical sample, a human being is needed to look at the data and say "This is what's happening." There is inherent subjectivity to that, so its a decision that must be made on an individual basis.

The downshift could absolutely be because of a shift from a weekend to a weekday. Like I say, statistics cannot infer causation. I absolutely agree that's a possibility. For me, the data gives validation, even @ only 1 day. But, I have my own bias that is affecting that judgement; everyone does. A week will say more, but even that will be subjective. Technically, the years of SteamCharts data we have on Firefall is subjective. It all requires interpretation. By no means do I intend to imply that "to me" should also mean "to you."

That being said, a week will account for periodicity, so on that objective basis, I feel a week is enough to consider it valid for most. Even in terms of myself, a day is valid subject to my internal bias, a week is valid regardless of bias... to me.

You justify your position by stating that your interpretation of present statistics, statistics ill-suited to clearly represent the subject at hand, is tailored to confirm your own bias. Even in the presence of a valid counterargument, which you have yourself acknowledged as the likely truth, you persist in your exercise in bias confirmation. I believe you may be interested in a certain Jenny McCarthy.

I told you that if you presented meaningful data clearly and accurately I would respect your efforts to inform incoming persons of your opinion and influence their decision. However, you've admitted that despite major inconsistencies in any evidence you produce or uncover, you will consider it evidence to your case and present it as such, due to your own confirmation bias. This is not the presentation of honest and accurate data, this is a dishonest manipulation of statistical data to prove a point, and it discredits your point at large.

And reflecting back upon your point, the only reason you are attacking the project is because of your personal dislike of Mark Kern. I don't recall people buying stocks in Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, people buy stocks in Apple and Microsoft. There is a limit to behavioral deviance we can tolerate, but Mark has proven himself a capable designer multiple times in the past, and I feel his managerial shortcomings exhibited during Firefall were a combination of now absent factors, which included investor pressure, an enormous budget, and a lack of focus. While I may not be 100% on board, I will put faith in the project, and solidify my opinion when the first playable milestone is released.

 

[DeadDuck]

You justify your position by stating that your interpretation of present statistics, statistics ill-suited to clearly represent the subject at hand, is tailored to confirm your own bias. Even in the presence of a valid counterargument, which you have yourself acknowledged as the likely truth, you persist in your exercise in bias confirmation. I believe you may be interested in a certain Jenny McCarthy.

I'm not sure how member data is ill-suited for an MMO. Can you clarify this for me?

Also, I acknowledge that the counter argument is absolutely a valid possibility, that's given to the nature of any statistical method irregardless or how or when its used. How's that the same as saying its likely true? From a statistical point of view, its also possible that green muffin' men are eating the forum user's computers -- it would account for the same shifts in data, but I'm not saying that's likely true...only that its impossible for the data to distinguish that reality from any other, so its possible if all we consider is the data, and the data alone.

You're absolutely free to disagree ... I presented data + my interpretation of it... Your mileage will vary.

 

[Nunaden]

I'm not sure how member data is ill-suited for an MMO. Can you clarify this for me?

easy answer: THIS IS NO MMO!!!!!! This is the fucking Forum! The MMO "Ember" still doesn't exist, but only the project....

And stop to argue about that the "game is dying"... Hell fuck that shit already... there is no game... just the project, and we are just at 0.1% of the development and it is just announced + we got some concept art... there is still stuff coming, and when it comes the activity will fucking jump high

 

[DeadDuck]

easy answer: THIS IS NO MMO!!!!!!

lol -- true.

 

[Rocket]

Is this the first ember ragequit?

No. Just the first shill from The9. I think he used to post elsewhere as BrutalWhimsy.

 

[DeyjaVou]

For me, the data gives validation, even @ only 1 day. But, I have my own bias that is affecting that judgement; everyone does. By no means do I intend to imply that "to me" should also mean "to you." ... a day is valid subject to my internal bias, a week is valid regardless of bias... to me.

You claim "to me" does not mean "to you", yet the point of you raising these statistics is entirely to discredit the project, or indicate some flaw to drive away potential players. You did so on a public forum, and presented these statistics, with your opinion attached, to the public.

Data is subject to bias and interpretation, I won't pretend that it isn't. But if you are to bring it into a public space and use it as a weapon, you must scrub it of as much bias as possible.

And to clarify,

I'm not sure how member data is ill-suited for an MMO. Can you clarify this for me?

you presented concurrent online forum accounts over the course of 21 to 45 hours, without labeling any data. Aside from obfuscation, if you had wanted to properly feed your case you should have used total unique visitors over a 24 hour period. A sample size of a week, with 2+ weeks preferred, would show the most meaningful data.

 

[Nunaden]

No. Just the first shill from The9. I think he used to post elsewhere as BrutalWhimsy.

*LOL* REKT! Sry, but its kinda true xD
(the BrutalWhimsy + Mark + Voxelnaut + etc. shit: https://forums.emberthegame.com/threads/so-i-did-some-research-this-is-what-i-found.132/)

 

[DeadDuck]

No. Just the first shill from The9. I think he used to post elsewhere as BrutalWhimsy.

Tell me what I have to do to prove I'm not a shill. I would suggest some things, but, you could make the argument that I pre-arranged the proof, so, you tell me. Something that's possible for anyone who isn't a shill to do, but random in that I couldn't have prepped for it ahead of time.

I will also add that I really don't care for the ones who've decided except that what you do here only makes it worse because it happened so much on FF forums. You (a numer of you) aren't respecting my right to have a voice and an opinion. Its so simple, just say "Your opinion is noted" and let it be. People will decide for themselves and what will be, will be.