iliveyourdream13 wrote on Feb 27^th, 2014 at 6:25pm:


Where I worked as a waiter, we were all students. All the customers knew this and, if you were interesting enough or they were bored enough, they'd ask you about your studies.  I don't know why, but I got a couple serious job offers and a bunch of fake offers from hacks.  The serious ones turned out ok - but they laid their cards on the table immediately.  "This is what I want from you. What do you think? Do you want to do it?"

The quacks were all like "I want to talk to you about a business venture. Let's talk about it over coffee." They never give details up front, always promise money right away - and it always involves the person being solicited doing something for nothing "but only at the beginning".  After a while I learned to spot them the second they started into their line.

I'm not saying you're a quack. I quite hope you're legitimate and that you're going to start a successful business.  If that business involves taking over DDO and making it better, all the best to you.

Hiding wrote on Feb 28^th, 2014 at 2:11am:

Do people extract value from students for nothing, sure, all the time.  Especially in college town, but life isn't always a college town.  I don't but you'd just have to trust me on that.

Let me use an example of something else I'm doing completely unrelated.  I just licensed a pretty well known erotic photographer's entire body of work for multiple years so I can put it on a fashion label.  I just signed a contract with a very good boutique owner with a strong design background who's designing the label/branding/marketing/production.  What am I doing, I'm paying the fucking bills?  Up to $5k to roll just the first release of highly limited stuff for the upper end clothing market.  What's the split on the margin in the contract, 60 boutique owner/ 20 artist / 20 me.  It does well, everybody makes money, and the right people in the deal are incentivised to make money for their efforts.  For me, 20pts is more than enough return considering the shit I get back on passive invested money not working for me.  Plus, it gives me access to the upper end fashion market, parties with models, etc, etc.  Does it need to make money, absolutely, all my ventures do, I can't stand doing ones that don't.  And in this case, the fact is, the boutique owner was going to make his own fashion anyhow out of his own pocket, so I just saved him money by underwriting the whole thing.  If the first release works out, and judging from private feedback it will likely sell out, we'll roll a real LLC and he and I will be partners.

Do people sometimes work on spec for me, sure, but with always with a solid contract.  They know what they get, and generally it's pretty generous if the idea bears fruit.  I'd say I avoid students simply because they're flaky.  I know what I was like in college, I'm not that far removed.  But, kids who come out of college and are tinkerers anyhow?  Why not offer that kid a chance to build something of real value rather than his own wordpress site?  What he gets out of it, a spot on the cap table, and if things work out, "fuck you" money.  This happens all the time in software startups, so while you may have had some sort of searing experience that forever turned you off of business dealings with others, your experience is exactly that, just yours.  Not everybody wants to fuck everyone else over.  Learning how to tell the difference is the key.

And most people who would tell you their startup business idea w/o an NDA (which doesn't apply to what's in my original post), don't know shit about business.

ETA:  Just in regards to DDO specifically.  What I'm talking about is pretty fungible as regards any one MMO in particular.  That said, was I to have the money some of the people I'm involved with do, I would buy DDO as a vanity project.  I'm not a car/boat/women collectors, but the idea of owning something that has a community around it.  That's has a certain kind of appeal that a lot of "goods" don't have.  I can't say it would ever happen, but I wouldn't deny thinking about it.  You'll know that if/when it happens, because the first thing that will happen is it will get open sourced, and the base turned over  to the mod community to propose changes.  That and I'd turn everything involving content possible into a randomisation engine in a theoretical attempt to kill the metagamer (or at least drive them insane).   

Ideas are worth nothing. Only execution has value

Good luck

Sergod wrote on Mar 1^st, 2014 at 5:13am:

I don't usually list my ventures by name simply because I also take fairly strong political positions on a number of issues and boards.  I like to keep my commercial interests exposed to only those people I'm dealing with and free from blowback by people who might have rhetorical axes to grind that have nothing to do with them.  I've had knuckleheads in my professional life try to shiv me before, so I try to innoculate myself against that risk.  Especially since some of my professional interests are very "conservative" clients, I try not to mix those with my vastly more "liberal" personal ventures.  Needless to say, I've no problem laying my credentials out for someone who's serious.  Most are "googleable" the minute I drop my name.

I've straddled the line between the gutter of pop culture and the much more buttoned down corporate world for well over a decade.  To do so well, I find it necessary to exercise a good bit of discretion and keep both sides happy clams.

eighnuss wrote on Feb 26^th, 2014 at 11:17am:


We need new banners...  Very HST.  I like it.

IMARANGER wrote on Mar 3^rd, 2014 at 6:18pm:


Since you have neither dollars nor donuts to wager, its a moot point.

are there 12 other iliveyourdream names on the vault? that's just sad.

DropBear wrote on Feb 27^th, 2014 at 2:14am:

1) This is the vault
2) He posted in DDO-Specific Discussion, but didn't want DDO-Specific information.
3) GFY, this is the vault.
4) Hi Welcome


Consultants usually get paid for this kind of advice. I think he sold Rolex watches in NYC also.

I wonder if someone could make a "The Producers" version of an MMO out of Turbine...

iliveyourdream13 wrote on Feb 28^th, 2014 at 11:18am:

Random everything would be more fun, but wont do much to gamers with 20 hotbars of scrolls, pots, and gear set up swaps.

Hiding wrote on Mar 4^th, 2014 at 12:40am:


Hmmm, a community-owned MMO would be an interesting prospect to consider.  Or even one where new content options were kickstarted, versus decided beforehand and given to players (I'm a supported of both Wasteland II and Torment II's kickstarters).

Of course, to achieve things like that you have to remove the anchor of the corporate overlords that only care about maximizing profit extraction.  There's probably a sustainable MMO model to be fleshed out yet that's profitable within reason, but not exploitative of players.

DropBear wrote on Mar 4^th, 2014 at 3:10am:


The vault to find a business partner? No

The vault to find a pedophile sex partner? Yes

Bigdickrichguy wrote on Mar 4^th, 2014 at 4:49pm:


Is this your motivation for being here?
I did wonder....