Question for Uber regarding Moon Breakers

You're superimposing fraudulent intent based on a lack of responses from the developer, that borders on calumny (especially considering that you're making these superimpositions public)

Carefully consider who the fraud is in this case.

Does it state (explicitly) anywhere that any in-game purchases made will directly fund the development of the game?

If that's not the case -> You have no case, read the first paragraph again.

Promised features that have not been delivered are a staple in the industry and don't give you any legal basis (to my current knowledge).

Disclaimer: I have not read the ToS of Moon Breakers, so take this with a grain of salt.

"You're superimposing fraudulent intent based on a lack of responses from the developer"
i'm out of options to reach uber in any rational way - they refuse to respond on the matter, so all possibilities are being laid bare... people who have paid for this game want to know what will happen to it. they are wondering what eventualities have occurred that would have caused them to not respond for so long.

one possibility is they have honestly not noticed.
another is they have noticed but for whatever reason cannot respond.
they may have noticed and think no response is necessary.
they may have noticed and simply not care.

fact is we don't know. i don't know, you don't know, only uber can answer that.

now, 4 months is a long time not to respond because they haven't noticed us asking. i find it hard to imagine that they would have missed direct emails from people, PM's and entire posts on the matter.

if a book publisher said a new edition of a book was coming out on promo posters, and it never does... would you expect a reason or at least some public acknowledgement that it never came? if nothing happens, and you cared enough, would you go to the publisher and ask them directly? and suppose they never respond (whether they noticed you asking or not), how would you then feel if you still see the posters up advertising this never-to-come-out book? it's only salting the wound for myself and others who feel as i do to see people requesting for a means to donate, find out they don't have one and turn to paying for in-game items.

i want to know why the posters are still up, to keep the analogy going... we can't justify going beyond asking people to simply consider the state of the game before paying for anything in it. frankly that call lays with uber who, as the topic suggests, have not said anything about it.

i fail to see possibilities other than the 3:
1 uber have not noticed us asking at all.
2 uber have noticed us asking and don't see the need to say anything.
3 uber have noticed us asking and for some reason cannot say anything.

if 1 is true, it makes them a questionable publisher in the eyes of those who feel betrayed by the devs.
if 2 is true, i have to wonder why as this isn't a very respectful response.
if 3 is true, they're either doing something fraudulent (or at least bad PR) or the development involved is hush hush.

#1 is getting less and less likely.
#2 i can only speculate why and can't think of a reason other than apathy.
#3... the development becoming hush hush when previously we had frequent updates seems unlikely. the dialog between the community and dev's was open enough that they would have said if the game was now going to be developed without public updates or input. at the least they would have responded when contacted directly to such a question... a lack of response with what has been tried means they cannot respond, in all likelihood.

if the devs cannot respond even to answer if the game is developed in 'secret' now, that is fairly benign yes and it would be crazy to suggest some conspiracy. i have not heard of NDA's, though, that prohibit you from even saying you are under an NDA - that overkill in social protocol for such a minor project strongly suggests there is something more going on. of course it could just be the biggest occurrence of apathy from a publisher towards its customers ive seen first-hand...

those are the possibilities, those are the opinions floating around. the longer they delay responding the more people are going to think poorly of them at the least, and accuse them of fraud at the far end. however you look at the situation uber could have acted better and i see little gain in remaining civil at this point, so i may say what i have to in order to get a response. no response is not an acceptable response from a publisher, it's the principle of the matter here.

PS - to clarify, my intent is not to damage uber's reputation, or the reputation of the game itself. if possible i would be one of the first in line to petition further development for the game and encourage others to do the same. no such option exists, and inquiry as to whether it is worth even asking for the chance to has been either ignored or missed for 4 months, so here we are...

1) Moonbreakers was a POS from the very start.
2) You've effectively placed a box in a dusty corner of Uber's attic (forum) that no one ever visits while they were on holiday and expected them to notice.

Thanks for sharing your opinion. FWIW I believe Super MNC was a POS too.

Have you any suggestions for somewhere this box could get their attention?

support@uberent.com

been there, done that. no reply.

There's your answer then.

Not opinion, objective fact. Poor design and code in nearly every aspect. It didn't get a single mixed or positive review from any reputable source.

Then you never played it


As for contacting UberEnt, you could hope and pray that someone checks this section of the forum, you could PM an Uber employee, you could E-Mail support@uberent.com, you could as during Uber's livestream on the 10th, or you could actually take the issue up with the people responsible for the game instead of the people who did a friend a favor to get the game on Steam.

araxisht, you obviously never played MB, I couldn't care less what your "reputable sources" have to say about it. It was in reality a beta that was released incomplete & still under development, but its gameplay is unique & it had huge potential.

Thanks for your contact suggestions - all pursued already by multiple people, and as pointed out earlier it doesn't appear that IMBA (what you call the "people responsible for the game") exists in anything other than name only. The people we knew from IMBA have either left (Ed Byrne) or been absorbed by Uber (William Johnson). And Uber _are_ the people responsible for the game. They are the publisher, they are the ones continuing to accept people's money. Every other game I've ever played, its the publisher you deal with both in terms of payment and support, not the developer, and its the publisher who owns the rights. Why would this be any different?

You do seem to be less-than-politely telling us to just suck it up and drop the matter. If this is how Uber behave towards paying customers, don't be surprised if one day they pull the rug from under you after you paid them for a favourite game of yours, and when you ask questions you receive a similar "go ask someone who cares" response from the Uber community.

Unfortunately this thread isn't going anywhere positive. I hope someone from Uber does notice it (or one of our other attempts to contact them) and clarifies the future of Moonbreakers, but I don't see any benefit in continuing to post here.

I did play Moonbreakers. I played for a few hours on May 17, 2012 with 2 friends. It'snot even unique. It's a really crappy attempt at the Freelancer/Tie Fighter (loved both those games btw) genre.

So your view is what? That our attempting to contact Uber over the future of the game after they apparently pulled development while continuing to accept money from people who _do_ like it ... is all invalid because you played it for a few hours and thought it was crap? I really don't understand what you're trying to say here.

So are people paying for something and not getting anything in return?

Opinions vary. That's why there's more than one game. I like MoonBreakers lots and lots. Been playing since last May on Steam. I've tried it on Chrome, and it works, sorta. Renders well enough, but screen edge problems and loose controls make it a struggle. In the Steam client, the feedback between mouse movement and ship control is tight. Makes it easy to get a feel for the ship.

As a beta, it's a ton of fun and shows a lot of promise. Granted there's a rough edge or two. Since it was introduced on Steam, it showed steady progress with client updates and bug fixes. Rotating offerings to try various for-purchase ships helped stir interest.

However, it's been mite quiet over there for the last few months. The fans who've noticed are concerned. Some have expressed that better than others. An official nod and wave with a vague promise to look into it after PA is launched would go a long ways toward assuring current fans and customers of MoonBreakers.

Is that too much to ask?

They are still updating SMNC and they no longer talk to us in the forums. So I'd cut your losses.

Last time I checked when devs. stop working on a released product they don't pull it from the shelves (or remove it from steam) so people can't buy/pay for it anymore.

Source: Every game ever.

On the other hand, it's free to play, so no losses really. Think I'll enjoy it while I can, and hope The Powers That Be will see that it's worth further development after Planetary Annihilation settles down.

I can easily see MoonBreakers and Planetary Annihilation existing in the same game universe, as it were, yet appealing to different markets and styles of play.

In the meanwhile, why not give it a try? Doesn't crash nearly as often as it used to, and you can be back up and going in seconds should the worst happen. Best time is probably during US afternoon over on the EUwest server or evenings on the US servers. Free pro tip: If you remap the forward zoom to the left shift key it becomes usable without compromising control of the ship.

yea exactly.

Some of you may want to read this thread: Moon Breakers: A brief update.