Cats out of the bag Irth Online = SPHERE and I want my friends back....

[Ryan]

Well as things go in life I think a lot of people take gaming too far. I’ve made a ton of friends through out my Ultima Online days. I’ve gained friendships that will last a lifetime and met some really amazing people. One could say I am a lucky person, but I don’t know if even the word luck can wrap around how fortunate I am.

I think we as a group of developers give a lot to our users, however I think our community which is the cornerstone of this entire operation is the key to our success. As such from time to time I have to make posts regarding the happenings of the community such as you saw with my recent post about Nix and Westy.

Nix and Westy are both my friends… they’ve been unable to talk to me for a long time now and I haven’t heard anything from them of substance in nearly two years. They are part of the original development team of SPHERE… what some might consider a competing product to RunUO. The original SPHERE development team was Nix, Westy and Menace. These guys built a successful emulator (Greyworld) on the heels of UOX, and quickly moved into what is today SPHERE. Shortly after SPHERE’s success Damian joined their team. Now while I wasn’t a fan of their product, I was a fan of Westy and Nix… sure from time to time we had our emulator rivalry run-ins but for the most part our relationship was of admiration for each other. They had a good product and we had a good product (we thought). However Damian and I were like Fire and Ice… I couldn’t stand the way he acted toward the community… not just SPHERE but everyone. Regardless this isn’t about him…

Well about the time we started RunUO I didn’t have a whole heck of a lot of communication with them. I was nose down in RunUO with Krrios and working my butt off to create what is today RunUO. Little did I know they (The SPHERE Team) were in the process of getting venture capital to make their own game… now that’s exciting isn’t it?

I had a few conversations with Damian following the news about them making their own game, and I found him to be both pretentious and overbearing. He really sort of thought the entire world revolved around him and that he was the best thing since sliced bread. I don’t know… that’s just how he came off to me personally. Of course quickly after RunUO gained popularity he began driving the entire SPHERE user base away and we began to grow exponentially. Then I began finding out I wasn’t the only guy on the block who didn’t like Damian, nearly everyone I spoke to felt the same way.

So why is this relevant?

I’d doubt many of you have tried the new game released by part of the SPHERE team… it’s called Irth Online. This game was by any measure a FLOP. What I found most interesting during my period of attempting to play the game is that it has the SAME bugs in it that SPHERE has in it. The weight bug is a perfect example… followed by the stackable bugs so on and so forth. This lead me to a simple conclusion… one which it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to draw… Irth Online uses SPHERE for its server side code… (I could be wrong but I doubt it).
So who cares right…?

Well I’m in the mode of sticking up for my friends after reading ganked.com. I recently read a “press release” done by Magic Hat software (Irth Online) that said Nix and Westy were “…posting on other game sites with allegations that they are co-founders and co-developers of Irth Online.”

Now again… guys I’m not a rocket scientist but I can tell you a few things I know. Damian has been using the title “Lead Game Designer”. This tells me he’s responsible for the game design (or lack there of). Here’s the exact text posted on the Irth Website:

DEDHAM, MA – NOVEMBER 15, 2005



To: Online Gaming Community:

We are writing this letter to inform the gaming community about the recent allegations from Laura Painter (a.k.a. Nix or Laura Nixon) and Peter Westberg (a.k.a. Westy).

Recently Ms. Painter and Mr. Westberg have been posting on other gaming sites with allegations that they are co-founders and co-developers of Irth Online.

Magic Hat Software, LLC. is the proper owner and copyright holder to Irth Online.

Magic Hat Software was founded prior to Laura Painter or Peter Westberg being employed by Magic Hat Software, LLC. They left their employment with Magic Hat Software, LLC of their own free will.

Magic Hat Software, LLC has hired a law firm to handle these allegation, and will not be making any other statement in regards to this matter.

Magic Hat Software, LLC
Creators of Irth Online
Dedham, MA 02026

So…first the grammar mistake at the bottom…

Magic Hat Software, LLC has hired a law firm to handle these allegation, and will not be making any other statement in regards to this matter.

I pasted that sentence into Microsoft Word and it picked it up… if RunUO was a company you can bet I would spell and grammar check EVERYTHING I put up here. Regardless its just something I noticed.

So… a reasonable and prudent person could make some assumptions. My assumptions are as follows:

1. Somehow Damian is the one who controls Magic Hat Software
2. Irth Online is built on SPHERE code (explains the bugs that match SPHERE bugs).
3. Damian kicked out Westy and Nix and probably even Menace who WROTE SPHERE, thus holding the copyright to SPHERE which by my best guess is what Irth is based on… thus they would hold the copyright on a derivative work.
4. Damian is now running the show by himself

I am NOT in any way shape or form saying these are facts, these are conclusions that I as a reasonable and prudent person have drawn. Only a court of law can decide the outcome I guess. I just wanted to bring to light just how shady it seems this whole thing is. It explains why I haven’t seen my friends for a long time.

Nix and Westy – God bless both of you… and take care of yourselves.

Thanks,
Ryan

[Ryan]

And I KNOW You guys would rather hear about RunUO right now... but I really feel like my friends are getting shafted... and they ARE members of OUR community and helped make RunUO what it is today. They DESERVE our support.

[Rabban]

So they weren't fired, but were driven away instead by actions... big difference.

[tobyjug]

Any legal battles planned? What can Nix and Westy, under the eyes of the law, actually do to combat this?

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by tobyjug

Any legal battles planned? What can Nix and Westy, under the eyes of the law, actually do to combat this?

I dont know... I dont even know if they plan on doing anything... My GUESS is since irht posted they are hiring lawyers that Nix/Westy are already sueing maybe?

I really dont know anythinga bout the situation outside of what I've speculated in my post.

[Memnoch]

Not to change the subject to much, but Ryan, when are you going to get some of this venture capital and make your own game?

[Phantom]

I knew this about Damian about the time he started using a Microsoft product, as a backend to his website, basicly it was a really bad idea. Anyways that just to share the fact Damian is a horrible webmaster should really find something else to do besides that.

Back to when I realized Damian was the true person he was, when somebody within his team allowed somebody else outside of their team have old source code. You guys I am sure understand what happen, if not well its better not to waste your brain cells on something thats freaking pointless, its not even worth talking about. Basicly he started threating and trying to sue a person who had permission ( logs and all of that to have the source code ). When Damian found out he tried to spin it another way.

Another example is back in the old days of orbsydia.com before it became a multiple website network. Anyways he basicly blacklisted the owner, which meant anyone who showed him support, would get banned. Even people on their own websites were not safe from his bans, which goes against just about everything I learned as a "kid".

Anyways I have no doubt that Damian would try to have a power struggle and the sad part is, he most likely will win. I only say that because sadly when he says he has a lawyer on commission even if his sentences don't make since, he actually does.

I am sure Ryan and others who have got "Cease and Dismiss" orders understand what I am talking about :-)

But whats funny is the following:
Even after everything I have said about Damian, over the years which feels like it was before I was in High School, which most likely it was. I don't even think I have been banned from his site by him. I from time to time was banned by one of his power hunger moderators, who in the end got screwed by Damian, because the took the wrong side.

I forget the name of the one moderator, after months of work, she ended up being well a four letter word that I would rather not repeat

Needless to say, I treasure my time within the RunUO community, mainly because compared having to deal with Damian again i would rather just vanish

I have not knowingly typed incorrect information, so Damian if your reading this, you can just stick it up where the sun don't shine. I know Damian he actually would sue people because they said something, even if was the truth, about him. Of course considering it was 4+ freaking years ago I could have forgotten certain facts. So consider this your typical message, to protect my ass, from a bullshit slander claim.

Of course he would have to find me, which I am sure cause him some trouble, since he has gone blind from "doing that act that makes you go blind" a little to much.

Consider this my rant, towards the Damian subject, because to my knowlege there are not alot of us left :-)

He sort of killed off the alot of the people, I am just to lazy to give up on a game I have not played since I found Sphere. Which means I actually NEVER played UO, except on "The Dark Side" back before a wipe.

I think I should go, I think I have a good page, and I am tired so screw the spelling and grammer check.

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by Memnoch

Not to change the subject to much, but Ryan, when are you going to get some of this venture capital and make your own game?

There is one rule to having a hobby, don't try to make money off it.

Except if its a broad subject, like Programming in general which would me he already is :-)

I don't care how close you are, money can tear friends and even family apart, how else can you explain 4 siblings fighting over who gets the extra 10 million in stocks and bonds :-)

* Please don't ask about this, its a personal matter, my Aunt had ALOT of money and she recently passedaway. Given that fact, her children were fighting over who would get the most, because they felt thats how she showed her love. Anyways trying to make money off something like RunUO would be a mistake.

I know thats how these great little companies are formed. I suppose a pampus jackass like Damian could hurt any friendship. Its better not to risk it :-)

Plus if they try to make a game, then its work and thus not fun, plus "Zippy, Krrios, and Ryan" are way to busy to make a game :lol:

Zippy got married, Ryan I am sure is working on it, and has a job, and well Krrios is a robot so he can't be part of a company :-)

Mark and Asayre are both students, Asayre is also a minor so he couldn't be part of a company anyways. Mark to be honest, I don't know him that well, he is sort of good about keeping is private life well PRIVATE

[Memnoch]

while on the subject of grammer, run the last 2 through a spell check. I'm honestly the last person that needs to comment on that so i'll shut up now.

edit: inconclusion: informative, just type slower

[TMSTKSBK]

Originally Posted by Ryan

And I KNOW You guys would rather hear about RunUO right now... but I really feel like my friends are getting shafted... and they ARE members of OUR community and helped make RunUO what it is today. They DESERVE our support.

What can I do to help?

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by TMSTKSBK

What can I do to help?

Just let them know you support them. That's what they really need.

[Deaths Advocate]

Originally Posted by Ryan

And I KNOW You guys would rather hear about RunUO right now... but I really feel like my friends are getting shafted... and they ARE members of OUR community and helped make RunUO what it is today. They DESERVE our support.

nah any friend of the runuo team is a friend of mine i will give my support to them all RunUO is something i like to be updated on BUT this is a lil more important, when a friends in trouble we try to git as much support as we can so i say keep atleast me and the others that care to hear about this sit posted to the best of your knowledge

that is if ya feel like it i support you and then all the way with this

and i may not know you guys to well but i still no whats right and wrong and support the cause

[smokified]

I have been an avid member of the Ultima Online Emulation gaming community for a long time. Since the original (buggy as hell) released version of sphere. To the best of my knowledge I was one of the first if not the first to create a shard that hosted more than 200 players online at any given time. It is hard to say for sure however because there was no UOG at that time. Some of you may have played on my shard, it was the original SmokeNET. (that was not an advertisment, it was just a look back through distant memories). In those days, when most people heard of being able to play UO for free, they almost crapped themselves.

I was also a beta tester for Irth online. It is a very accurate statemnet to say that it was a flop. It wa a great idea, it just was not executed properly.

Just let them know you support them. That's what they really need.

The point to all of this is that nix and westy opened a door for a completly different and original gaming community in my oppinion. Sphere was not the only emulation program out there, but it was the first one that many found to be very user friendly and customizable. My experience running a shard with sphere was a very posotive one, and it lead me to becoming educated and very interested in server administration. Unfortunatly my server caught fire and was destroyed. By some act of god i was able to salvage the information and re-launch the shard. It was never the same. It all became so large that jealousy and greifing were a common thing. My shard then was hacked and this time I lost it all.

I took a long break from free shards and wasted my hard earned money to play EA's version of UO. When finaly got sick of the crap EA was doing to destroy UO as we know it, I came back to check out the free shard scene again. The memories and experiences and fun that I had using sphere were too great to give up and leave behind. I had to have more. It was like that first orgasm that we all try to have again.

I thank nix and westy for helping make that all possible, and helping me acheive years of entertainment, education, and new experiences. Remember guys bad things happen to good people, but they are rewarded greatly in the long run, good things happen to bad people, but they are severely punished at the time when it all matters.

[Jarrod]

/me supports Westy + Nix
I also had done my fair share of scripting with Sphere back in the day (no, not scripting Sphere, scripting WITH Sphere)

If I read what has happened correctly, Wes and Nix could easily counter sue for theft of intellectual property. Case closed.

~Jarrod
(Sphere Dev Nicodemus / Beowulf)

[Kiwi]

I haven't personally played Irth, but...

BlahGoD Mobile: the pvp for irth is actually pretty sweet
BlahGoD Mobile: you have 100 hp
BlahGoD Mobile: and there is a spell called
BlahGoD Mobile: Flame Struck
BlahGoD Mobile: and it does 40 dmg
BlahGoD Mobile: everytime

sound familiar?

[XxSP1DERxX]

Wow Smokified, thats how I lost my sphere server too. The datacenter burned down from an electrical storm. Although it seemed that one of the co-admins had burned a copy of it to a CD, however nobody had the accounts file, so we could never get it back up and running. By that time we found RunUO and the rest is history

As for Nix and Westy, I support them 100%. I hope they fight for what is truly theirs and get all they can for it. Also I wonder if Irth has the same bank bug as Sphere does.... where you rename your horse as bank, put him near a banker, and then nobody can access their bank anymore Haha go figure, stupid coders.

[RavonTUS]

Greetings,

I was surfing Irth's site and found this little snipet under tech support. Kinda funny...

What ports do I need to have open for Irth Online?

If you have a firewall, you should have ports 2591, 2592 and 2593 TCP open to play Irth Online.

Port 2593 - where have I seen that before.

-Ravon

[XxSP1DERxX]

Its funny because Sphere doesn't use 2591,2,3 hahaha. :\ At least they didn't use to.... Did it change?

EDIT: yes they use 2593 now...

[XxSP1DERxX]

Sphereserver.com - 67.108.223.36
- DNS - DNS1.IWH.COM, DNS2.IWH.COM, DNS3.IWH.COM
- PO BOX 2537, Westwood MA
IrthOnline.com - 67.108.223.52
- DNS - DNS1.IWH.COM, DNS2.IWH.COM
- PO BOX 2537, Westwood MA


UMMM wow, its really obvious!.... come on!.... Anyone who wants to prove it to themselves, go to register.com and do a domain whois lookup, thats where I got it from.

[smokified]

Well I am sure there is a lot of evidence to point out, however no accurate oppinions can be drawn by anyone except for those involved based on the fact that everything we hear is second hand information. This is how rumors get started and turn nasty.

I just hope everything works out for the correct party, and I in this case hope the correct party consists of nix and westy

[siran]

Regarding threats by Damien or whoever to sue for slander....heh....how can you sue one for anything said about a pseudoname?

You could say anything you wanted about "siran" and it wouldn't constitute slander against me....that's not really my name.

[nitewender]

Originally Posted by siran

Regarding threats by Damien or whoever to sue for slander....heh....how can you sue one for anything said about a pseudoname?

You could say anything you wanted about "siran" and it wouldn't constitute slander against me....that's not really my name.

Not nessesarily. Any slander against Bauchman could have been used by Stephen King (back in the day) as fodder for a lawsuit. If a psudoname is tied to some company, product, reputation, etc it could essentially damage the person and that person's well being who uses the psudoname.

That asside. What asshattery. I hope Nix and Westy fry Damien in court. It would serve him right. Squabling over petty crap when he owes so much to them (and everyone who helped make Sphere a sucuess and in turn made Irth come to life.) Greed and ego give me gas.

[Viago]

the thing is, i my self dont trust anyone. when i meet somone i asume the worst, at every angle. Why? because of trust. i learnt a few times the hard way, but it is minor in compairason.

The same should go for any buisness simular to Runuo or sphere, because it is so small and can not really aford things such as, lets say EA.

You should only trust those who have proven them selfs valuable. Sometimes, i admit those friends might not....exactly be cream of the crop...depending on things.....

I dont have many friends, i know this. I only call a friend a friend if i can count on them for something. otherwise, i only give information when needed. such as i dont tell anyone what they dont need to know.

Trust is tricky, there are people who , know that you have acess to this or that, or you know people, so theyll be nice to you and work on you til lthey get thier foot in the door. this happends all to often.

RoninGT, known here on Runuo forums, and i are friends, i still call him that even after alot has happend. With one of his admins and all that stuff. but that is in the past, and i know it wasnt his fault for what had happend with one of his admins long long long long ago...but there are people, like i said, will abuse thier friendship to ruin another. for what ever reason. maybe a told u so, so listen to me, or a you can count on me kinda way, but still be wrong.

Ryan. I dont know you at all, just like any user here whould know you. From what i can tell you your self honor friendship to the highest level. that is good. friends are important. and i hope that you still keep those friends that got shafted.

Personaly, i dont go and make friends, i let them come to me, in a manner of speaking. Running anything with another person needs a greate deal of trust, working alone will nearly kill you....trust me. but if your in a position where you have to trust somone you dont know or trust verry lil, i recomend agenst it.

but this comming from a quiet person like my self, and i try not to dubble talk, but i do know for a fact that what he did is wrong, and thier is a special place for people like that.

And using a windows platform to host a website server, or anything like that is just...retarded, even for backdoor lan acess. eather get to know linux, or find a day job.

[Khaybel]

As far as sphere goes, no comment, as far as Damien goes, I have totally no love for him at all :P

As far Menace goes, we've kept in contact over the years ... and all is good. I can relate to anyone that tried to help sphere grow, then got attacked by D... because of his politics I pulled orbsydia.com out of the sphere community years ago, it wasn't worth the stress for trying to help people.

anyway I wish menace the best on any future projects, and or westy and nix.

Peace!