What is the general opinion of Improved Anvil?

[Guest Guest]

The only traffic there is about Anvil. Everything else is basically dead. What BWL did by this is loose a lot of forum members (myself included) for good. I really don't approve this "elitism". And the idea of "modders making custom mods for Gold members" is litteraly obscene. Worst of all, forum members were not even warned about what's going to happen. 2 years of time wasted there, to get treated like a bum. tnx a lot. Any mention about "fan clubs", and everything else there, is basicaly about Anvil. If you don't pay, you probably won't be able to download it for a while (possibly a couple of months). Just crazy, and I fail to see how Sikret (of who I had a high opinion, at least until now) complied to that.

[temujin]

Dear gents,

 

I've given this matter some thought and I've come to realize that what Dean_1982 says makes the most sense. If we do *not* donate, I'm sure the BWL kingpin, Baronius, will cause some other type of uproar that may gain Bioware's attention potentially causing them to (possibly) end the existence of ALL modding communities.

 

 

So I strongly encourage you all to just go ahead and donate a few quid anyway, even if you don't plan on visiting the BWL forums or using their mods for your playing consumption. It's for the greater good. Think of it as charity (even though the person being donated to is already filthy rich).

 

 

Like I said, this is a criminal mastermind we're dealing with. He is an expert at playing psycho mind games. This is a battle we cannot win! So we might as well just yield and give in. Money is the only thing that Baronius is after, so let's throw all the money at his face (hopefully that'll shut him up once and for all).

 

 

I've emailed Baro (under an alternate name, obviously) and politely asked him if 'Gold' is the highest membership one can attain. To my surprise, he said 'no.' For $1000, you will be given all the luxuries of a Platinum member.

 

 

What does Platinum membership give you?

 

All the luxuries for being a Gold member PLUS the following:

 

- 1 golf T-shirt personally autographed by none other than the modding gods - Baro & Sikky.

 

- 1 BWL coffee mug

 

- 1 BWL mousepad containing a logo of a big, black, scary Wyrm.

 

- 1 DVD featuring behind-the-scenes documentary titled "The Making of Improved Anvil", including exclusive one-on-one interviews with Baro and Sikky themselves. Rumor has it the DVD also contains bonus items/quests/areas for you include in your Improved Anvil adventures.

 

- 1 (slightly) modded flag of Hungary sketched by Baronius himself. (don't know what the purpose of the flag is or what use it will be to a non-Hungarian, but anyway, it sounds fun... I suppose that's all that matters)

 

- and lastly, you also gain ADMINISTRATOR access to the BWL forums!!!! In other words, YOU GET TO MOVE, DELETE, MONITOR POSTS and EVEN BAN ANYONE YOU LIKE/DISLIKE... for one day! How cool is that!

 

 

 

I was shocked!!! All of that actually sounded very interesting! I then asked Baro if Platinum is the highest membership one can attain. To my surprise, once again, he said 'no.' He said to me:

 

If you somehow manage to hold all existing memberships simultaneously, (i.e. you must be a Privileged Member, as well as a Premium Member, as well as a Gold Member, as well as a Platinum Member - all at the same time), a new possibility will be opened up for you where you'll be then eligible to apply for a Diamond membership!!!

 

 

Remember he said you will only be eligible to apply for one (you don't automatically become one). You still have to pay up - a grand total of $10000. Which will net you a brand new, shiny Diamond membership card for you show off to everyone!

 

 

So what does Diamond membership offer?

 

- ALL the luxuries of a Platinum member PLUS...

 

 

you get to visit and spend time with Baronius and Sikret for one week(*)!!!

 

 

You will be given a personal tour of Sikret's modding studio (an actual workroom where Sikret claims to get all his inspiration & original ideas)

 

You will be given a personal tour of Hungary, including the magnificent city of Budapest by our very own Baronius.

 

 

 

 

 

Wait! There's more, if you've been a good boy/girl during your stay, then, you get to spend the last night WITH BARONIUS!!!! ???

 

 

 

 

 

 

(*) food & travel expenses not included (apologies if this causes incovenience to members from abroad).

 

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You see, folks... donating doesn't seem so bad now, does it?

 

 

So let's all chip in a few quid and help out our Hungarian brother from another mother.

[Guest Guest]

Well then the BWL really opened some kinda Pandora's box now, didn't they??

 

.. then good mods end up in torrent : (

And that would be bad because ...

 

i had luck to get used to drawbacks of decentralised sharing. for some things nice central place is just good. on torrent for example there is no origin check for mods or at least some plus mechanism needed and of course all the other things. ie mods typically an area where dedic download mirors don't hurt.

 

yes may be pandora's box especially if someone takes it to bioware attention. they're not going to send anyone warning to stop asking donation for this or that mod as i said a lawyer said they just take down all as it's more economic that way cost-wise. because mods illegal in the first place. unless purely solved via patching without any files but almost all mods are not like that. for now they tolerate it as it helps their games stay alive but it may change. regardless they're often such an ass i'm satisfied with their accessibility and dragonshard center for download. used to dl many mods that werent their's from there. good bandwidth

 

so i think no need for over reaction. as i said, dedic servers cost much even though i'm not sure if they really spend for that. but. i don't care for that thing. if they do, then they indeed pay server: ok. if they are fucking swindler bastards then they find their way somewhere else we are not going to be the ones who prevent it. but sikret though hard personality made a good job. balance and cheesee only drawbacks i can see.

[Guest Fantozzi]

I'm pretty sure IA and few other mods from BWL will be taken down from the Pocketplane site because of this.

 

Yes it's only 6 bucks today, I wouldn't be it will stay 6 bucks in the next months/years.

I'm also pretty sure when IAv6 comes out some forum member from over there will upload it on RS or MU. I can also see a lot of Threads and Spoilers copy/pasted on other forums when v6 comes out

[Guest Guest]

temujin, this is hilarious and I cried as I read through your post..

[Guest Nominar]

I'm an IA player and I really like the mod. I was looking so much forward to v6 after having waited for 1+ years (2 even? can't remember) and now just before the release (if it's not delayed again) they enforce this? It's like being hit in face. It saddens me greatly as I have a lot of respect for Sikret but this is just a completely wrong direction they're taking IMO.

 

I was even seriously considering donating to Sikret for the v7 project, but I'm not about to pay BWL just to be able to access the forums, that's ridiculous! The only part of the forum I ever browse is the IA forum and that's not even often. If BWL can't stand on it's own feet, why not move the IA project to another modding site? Let's face it, IA is about the only active mod there and as I personally see it, this 'financial support' thingy is just about selling IA for actual money. I mean, who's going to play IA without forum support? Forum support is crucial for any mod, a mod is just not complete without it IMO. Without it, the mod's popularity is going to dwindle, and I think that is a fact even Sikret and Baronius realize.

 

I really hope they reconsider this as I think IA is absolutely fantastic. If not I guess I'll just stick to SCS and multi-mod installs (not that they're worse than IA in any way, it just has a different flavor and I like to play different mods now and then).

[CoM_Solaufein]

Now that I thought it over, it may not be so bad that we may decide to give it a try. A rough draft about our services.

[Lollorian]

So it begins ...

 

yes may be pandora's box especially if someone takes it to bioware attention. they're not going to send anyone warning to stop asking donation for this or that mod as i said a lawyer said they just take down all as it's more economic that way cost-wise.

Don't get me wrong mate But that sounded like a threat (ifa-youse-gonna-report-us-then-we-gonna-take-joo-down-too )

 

Also, have you thought out the slight chance that the concerned peeps (EA/BioWare) might (and I emphasize slight and might) just reward the guy that reports this kinda stuff?? I mean, if another site did this, they could get promoted to official fansite or such

 

So, in this scenario, instead of "first one to report dooms the community", we have "first one to report WINS!!! " (gets thrown in front of a train )

[devSin]

Could we stop already with the endless legal speculation? We don't even know if BioWare retained any rights at all to the game, and there's not one official person who's ever even claimed to give a shit (and this is not the first time people have tried to cash in on IE mods), much less have nothing at all better to do now ten years later.

[Guest Fantozzi]

** That is if I allow you to be a Privileged Member. In order for this to happen there are some prerequisites that must be met.

 

1 You are awesome and are worthy to be in my 1337 inner circle.

2 You don't smell funny.

3 You're not a spam bot.

4 Your e-mail address doesn't have a .ru extension or you have some funny name. I suspect you may be a spam bot and you will be denied. Your IP, e-mail address, funky name will be banned forever and your name may be just deleted.

5 That you are not a supporter of another IE modding community, especially BWL. If you happen to be a BWL Council Member, you will receive the #4 treatment.

6 You give my mods a 5 star rating.

7 You're not emo.

8 If you're a hot babe. Well if you are that hot I may bump you up to the next level, free of charge.

9 You're not a MPrilla or Moongaze alt.

10 You kiss my ass and tell me how awesome our mods are and how you can't wait for the next project to get done.

 

LOL the number four treatment. Good one Solaufein.

 

I kinda saw something like this happening, when Sikret announced he refused a full time job to work on IAv7, and asked for personal "donations".

 

Anyway it's sad to see veteran IA players getting poop in the face after being long time players and forum contributors. Most of the vanilla game bugs and v5 bugs were reported by players.

[Guest Guest]

While u here produce shit we produce profit !!!

[Guest kkk]

Bioware already knows about this, but simply does not care about it - in legal terms, they can't touch them - some guy is charging for Forums (btw, BWL is the first site I had ever seen that does that). My guess is that very few people (apart from mod testers) actually gave money to Sikret so now they charge for Forum visits. I was very badly surprised when, after being an active forum memeber for a long time I got demoted to "Visitor" and lost the ability to browse the Forums, without ever being contacted about it. Money makes the world go round, eh? needles to say, I ain't paying squat. Not that 6USD is that big of an issue - it's not, I earn that in an hour. But the way it was handled is very bad indeed.

[Guest Guest]

I was a member too, and became a visitor which surprised me, but don't think it's something terrible. It's their site, they do what they want, I could view the forums for free, now I cannot. I'm going to pay because I want to see Improved Anvil. As I've said I was surprised but hardly offended. It's their right, and Improved Anvil (which I admittedly supported - paid - before) is a really well-made MOD. If this is needed to pay their bills. IMO most people nowadays get used to free things and then they start to whine when they need to pay a few cents for a quality service. Just because you were an active member, do you think you did some favour for them and they owe you? They just want to pay their bills, and you bunch of troublemakers here immediately start to complain, as you immediately think to the worst (admittedly due to some inspiration from a troll). I've actively played the Improved Anvil MOD for more than a year, and it's great fun. They don't owe because I was playing their mod or actively visiting their forum.

 

Seeing how you're bad mouthing here, I'm actually glad there is an elite subscriber group at Improved Anvil homepage forums for privileged members. It keeps out your troublemaker sort (no offense).

 

Those who even feel a little need to become elite in this crowd, I suggest joining Improved Anvil. I'm setting up my PayPal account at the moment (haven't possessed one until now). There is nothing in paying a few bucks. No, I'm not Vlad or Sikret with an alternative account, smart asses. I just agree with their elite concept, that is all.

[Guest Dinos_L]

Well said! I'm from Greece and I've been playing that great Mod for a long time. Sending some info emails before taking my access would've been better, but this is just a detail. Imporved Anvil just rocks!!!

[Guest Dinos_L]

And needless to say, if you REALLY love that Mod (as I do), you truly don't give a shit about a few bucks!