I don't know, but from memory it was in the thousands. He had a paypal link on paymyth at the time and IIRC a little ticker showing how much people had put in.
Who knows, perhaps he genuinely did use it to buy a server that was used exclusively for myth ...
iron wrote:Short memories maybe No-one remembers the public funds drive Blades launched to buy himself a spanking new server to run paymyth on? I'm sure everyone who donated really feels they got good value for their money...
I not only remember the fund drive, but I actually sent him a little money and I feel like I got GREAT value. I only sent him $5 or $10, but I played Myth on his hardware/server for at least a couple of years before he had his fund drive, and I don't feel ripped off or cheated at all. To tell you the thruth, even if he had taken the money and shut down the server the day after I sent the paypal payment (which he didn't do) I' might be annoyed at the false pretenses the money was collected under, but overall I consider paying $5 for two years of playing myth a bargain. Could I have played it for free and saved myself $5? Yes, but that doesn't mean I was ripped off - I got way more than $5 worth of fun on the playmyth server/website.
I looked at donating to the PM server fund much like I view donation-ware software. If I download some free (donation-ware) software that I really like and use regularly I try to send the author a few bucks. That's what I did with PlayMyth and I feel like I got great value for my money.
rationalizing may make you feel better about being scammed, but it doesn't change the fact that you were scammed.
(though, if it helps, you can send me $5-$10 for all the work I've put into keeping this game alive over the years... I'd say it's a pretty great value since I've done so much of it for free.)
I think some individuals even donated $1000 so that Myth could be guaranteed a future.
People
-> Paid Money to Blades
-> For Future of Myth
Blades
-> Closed Playmyth.net
-> Kept money
Again, though, if you feel that's a great value, please, PLEASE by all means send me some cash. I'll even throw in some empty promises for fun, like "if you pay my rent, I promise to spend one month getting mention of myth into the new york times." pm me for paypal information.
ducky wrote:rationalizing may make you feel better about being scammed, but it doesn't change the fact that you were scammed.
What is the time frame between solicitation of money and server closing?
Unless it was right after and the person intended all along to shut down the site as soon as he got the money, I don't consider it a 'scam'. I can believe back in PM days that someone's PC was running into issues hosting both a really active server and (mb?) the website/download site for PM. I can believe the appeal for money for a new Myth server was sincere. I can believe the server was purchased and at some point a few months later or a year or more later life changed (multiple hackings and drama) and the person hosted decided he didn't want to host the server any longer. Unfortunate? Yes. Inconvenient for the players? Yes. Dissapointing to people who donated money? Definitely. Proof that the server host was running a scam and planned on cheating people all along? No.
Unless you were promised a server for x number of years you weren't scammed. If you donated and just magically expected someone to host a server forever you (generic) were stupid.
With all the money blades got to keep that server going... it should still be up and running to this day even if he didnt "feel" like keeping it running. He (blades) didnt keep his end of the deal. Sure...if all you donated was 15 bucks you may think you got your moneys worth even for past usage but what if you donated 500 bucks? 1000? I mean come on man. You cant tell people you need money to keep the server going and then shut it down soon after. Thats scamming people.
No matter how much icing you put on a rock its never going to be a cake.
i think that as large a problem is people's expectations. who would give a large sum of money to a stranger to buy a computer without some kind of guarantee or signed agreement regarding what they are getting in return?
I'll give $5/$10 here and there with no expectation of future benefit (shareware/playmyth), but WHO is naive (e.g. stupid) enough to give several hundred dollars to someone they don't know expecting the server to stay in operation until they 'got their money's worth'.
besides that problem? WHO determines how much your money is worth? If I donate $100 and spend 100 hours playing Myth on your server have I got my money's worth? What if you as the server host think $1/hour is a great rate, and I think playing myth on your server is only worth 10 cents/hour? If you don't agree ahead of time on what is being donated and what you get in return for your donation you are just stupid.
btw, were the amounts people donated to PM ever published? Or is this $100, $500, etc just heresay?
Mmmm... yeah it might be semantics, but accepting donations to run a server for an unspecified amount of time, only to (for whatever reason) decide that the server isn't worth running, isn't exactly ripping people off.
I wonder how much trouble it would've been to return some of the donations? God I love PayPal.
Okay I got the models but now I'm too dumb to do anything with 'em
vinylrake wrote:btw, were the amounts people donated to PM ever published? Or is this $100, $500, etc just heresay?
I believe there was a list of people who donated on the playmyth site somewhere, I don't recall the actual amounts published but Blades did single out one person for "a particularly generous donation" which suggests a large number
that's the problem with these 'debates' people arguing (myself included) when no even knows the details.
regardless of the amounts involved (because the principle is the same whether it's $1 or $1000), unless there was some specific quid-pro-quo (sorry for spelling if that's wrong) someone promised in exchange for money, then no one was being ripped off, neither was anyone doing any rip offs.
well if you dont feel you got ripped off thats good but its also understandable how someone might feel a bit slighted and to be honest thats not for you or I to decide.
ozone wrote:well if you dont feel you got ripped off thats good but its also understandable how someone might feel a bit slighted and to be honest thats not for you or I to decide.
No of course it's not for you or I to *decide* how other people should *feel*, but a logical case can be made for whether or not the accused person *actually* ripped people off. And if someone is publically accusing someone else of "ripping people off" because he thinks some other (as yet unidentified) people gave (some unknown amount of) money under some vague (undefined) expectation that a Myth server would go on until they got their (as yet unidentified sum of) money's worth, I think it's quite within my rights to point out my feelings and opinion on the matter - in fact, given that I am the only one in this conversation who's admitted donating money to finance PLayMyth I think my opinion is much more relevant than 3rd hand indignation based on rumors and ancient memories.
No-one remembers the public funds drive Blades launched to buy himself a spanking new server to run paymyth on? I'm sure everyone who donated really feels they got good value for their money...
