Btw. Did you guys notice that this thread have attracted: a) casters - lets seee.... MrBitter, Ipp b) players - Pokebunny c) guys with good idea - Primadog
I think Xavi-avi now can finnaly contact some guys ^^
On the topic on things needed to improve. When you create a showmatch it would be good to have a option to name the caster for that showmatch. Of course people who would donate to price pool would be able to add their favorite. So we would have eg: Artosis vs Tasteless below: casted by: hmmm Ipp, MrBitter.
The caster who gets mentioned more times will be a first pick while contacting to set up that show-match (apart of players of course)
Also the match time-out counter (basically the max date the match might take place and if not the money return date ) If match is confirmed. A big confirmed sign and count down to the show-match.
On October 27 2011 01:50 Sc2ggRise wrote: I get the impression from reading through the thread that people are upset this guy might make $10 from promoting fun matches that people want to see. The thread title itself is already a guilty until proven innocent accusation. Pretty lame sc2 community, pretty lame.
Agreed Rise, agreed.
Unless any publicity is good publicity, this guy has had his name muddied without any evidence that he's done anything wrong. I think that the thread should either be closed or renamed (since it has sparked some interesting discussion.)
On October 27 2011 01:50 Sc2ggRise wrote: I get the impression from reading through the thread that people are upset this guy might make $10 from promoting fun matches that people want to see. The thread title itself is already a guilty until proven innocent accusation. Pretty lame sc2 community, pretty lame.
Agreed Rise, agreed.
Unless any publicity is good publicity, this guy has had his name muddied without any evidence that he's done anything wrong. I think that the thread should either be closed or renamed (since it has sparked some interesting discussion.)
Just a poor choice of thread title.
(Cast some SC2 games ffs Rise)
Hell, sign up to be a caster for this guys showmatches Rise. It would be even more awesome.
On October 27 2011 01:53 Geovu wrote: At first I thought it was obviously a scam. The site looks too good to be true. iNcontroL vs Nestea or Destiny? Lol
I wonder what the demand for show matches is right now. I know for me, there's so many tournaments out there, that I see the majority of players play quite often, so I don't even watch current show matches that happen now. Plus, with so many streamers, you see people play their ladder games all the time where they'll run into other pros on ladder often.
It is, in my mind, overwhelmingly likely to be a scam. Failing that, it's a ridiculously poorly thought out scheme:
When does my donation exit my account? What if the match never happens? When you make a donation, ProVPro only gets authorization to charge your credit card or paypal at a later time (within 28 days). Money isn't actually collected until the match takes place. If the match doesn't happen within 28 days after you donate, you are no longer obligated to pay.
Firstly, there is no expiration date on any of the matches collections, they could be 'collecting' for up to 28 days, there is no mention of any sort of fundraising deadline, which is odd/concerning. Secondly, afaik, nobody has contacted any of the people who would presumably give showmatches-- organizing something takes time, you need to accomodate peoples' schedules, etc, yet they claim that people won't get charged until AFTER the match takes place?
I think this topic was justified. The whole concept of the website seemed shady especially considering it came out of nowhere suddenly asking for money for matchups that seemed very difficult to put together. Would you all have preferred for Bitter to ignore the site and wait for if people got ripped off (hypothetically)?
It would probably have been a better idea to ask players to sign up to be in the player pool for which you choose show matches before starting something like this.
On October 27 2011 01:59 caradoc wrote: It is, in my mind, overwhelmingly likely to be a scam. Failing that, it's a ridiculously poorly thought out scheme:
When does my donation exit my account? What if the match never happens? When you make a donation, ProVPro only gets authorization to charge your credit card or paypal at a later time (within 28 days). Money isn't actually collected until the match takes place. If the match doesn't happen within 28 days after you donate, you are no longer obligated to pay.
Firstly, there is no expiration date on any of the matches collections, they could be 'collecting' for up to 28 days, there is no mention of any sort of fundraising deadline, which is odd/concerning. Secondly, afaik, nobody has contacted any of the people who would presumably give showmatches-- organizing something takes time, you need to accomodate peoples' schedules, etc, yet they claim that people won't get charged until AFTER the match takes place?
Yeah it needs a visible time window for when the donations will expire.
Like after the first person creates matches and pledges the first $10, it needs to show a 28 day countdown for that match so people know they have to donate in that time frame if they want the match to happen. People who donate after the first day should have the same expiration date as the original pledge, so that everyone's pledge for that match will expire at the same time.
Sounds like a scam to me, because I would like to think some of the people that are supposedly going to be involved in these show matches would be supporting this site or at least mentioning something about it in someway. I find it a bit strange that this site is asking for donations and then says "We will get Nestea to iNcontrol"....I doubt it. "I'll just call up Nestea or MMA and say, he I am putting together a show match, told the community you'd do it if I received enough donations" Something like this just starting off...these are some big names to go after, something smaller scale at first would make this seem more legitimate.
EDIT: Thanks MrBitter for bringing this to the attention of the community.
On October 27 2011 01:25 Pokebunny wrote: You can't give power to the community when the site doesn't have the authority to give that power... the power is in the players. If the players aren't willing to play, the site should not be able to advertise them as a showmatch possibility. Even if they're not promising anything, the prospect of a match is false advertisement that draws people to their site for nothing.
I think players should be able to sign up for the player pool, with requirement of having games listed in TLPD (or something of the sort to prove they are notable), then setting their minimum requirement for a match / servers willing to play / etc.
It's a fan site where fans say who they want to see play each other with the most obvious incentive to anyone. There is no guarantee made anywhere saying the matches will ever even happen. If the players aren't interested, they'll say so when asked to play for $100's of dollars and that will be that. It is probably not something that can be set up ahead of time in TLPD since players might be bronze league or never even have played before (e.g. Joe Rogan vs Sundance).
I get the impression from reading through the thread that people are upset this guy might make $10 from promoting fun matches that people want to see. The thread title itself is already a guilty until proven innocent accusation. Pretty lame sc2 community, pretty lame.
Nyovne said it best in his post, IMO
There's nothing lame about speaking up when you think someone might be getting screwed. It's a hell of a lot more lame to stand around and do nothing, in my opinion.
I talked to Xavi for about 30 minutes.
While I'm still not completely convinced, he pointed out, very correctly, that there is virtually no risk to the community here.
There is fraud and theft protection built into PayPal, and into the credit card companies that would protect us as individuals should something shady happen.
But I don't believe he has bad intentions. He's a real dude - not some Russian hacker ripping off people's social security numbers.
The launch of the site might have been a bit hasty, and the lack of polish on smaller details like casters and streaming is a bit unfortunate, but I feel like he's actually a pretty legit guy, trying to provide something to the community.
I gave him some contacts to hopefully help him along, and I will continue to keep in touch with him, and, so long as everything is proven to be legit, will help him out where I can.
Again, I'm still not 100% convinced, but it's starting to look like I might owe Xavi an apology or three.
On October 27 2011 01:54 Frankon wrote: Btw. Did you guys notice that this thread have attracted: a) casters - lets seee.... MrBitter, Ipp b) players - Pokebunny c) guys with good idea - Primadog
I think Xavi-avi now can finnaly contact some guys ^^
On the topic on things needed to improve. When you create a showmatch it would be good to have a option to name the caster for that showmatch. Of course people who would donate to price pool would be able to add their favorite. So we would have eg: Artosis vs Tasteless below: casted by: hmmm Ipp, MrBitter.
The caster who gets mentioned more times will be a first pick while contacting to set up that show-match (apart of players of course)
Also the match time-out counter (basically the max date the match might take place and if not the money return date ) If match is confirmed. A big confirmed sign and count down to the show-match.
On October 27 2011 02:09 TheSasquatch wrote: Sounds like a scam to me, because I would like to think some of the people that are supposedly going to be involved in these show matches would be supporting this site or at least mentioning something about it in someway. I find it a bit strange that this site is asking for donations and then says "We will get Nestea to iNcontrol"....I doubt it. "I'll just call up Nestea or MMA and say, he I am putting together a show match, told the community you'd do it if I received enough donations" Something like this just starting off...these are some big names to go after, something smaller scale at first would make this seem more legitimate.
EDIT: Thanks MrBitter for bringing this to the attention of the community.
Your not understanding how the site works, scam or not.
Anyone can put up a match on the site and pledge money, the idea being that the people involved in the potential match think "oh, there's $1000 of money if I play this game and win" and then sort out the match.
I could go on now and pledge $1000 for me vs sAvior if I wanted to/had the money (on the massively low chance it happened). Doesn't mean it will ever actually happen/money will change hands.
On October 27 2011 02:12 MrBitter wrote: While I'm still not completely convinced, he pointed out, very correctly, that there is virtually no risk to the community here.
There is fraud and theft protection built into PayPal, and into the credit card companies that would protect us as individuals should something shady happen.
The fact that he had to point this out to you shows that you went way too far with the tone of your OP.
Before you call someone a scammer for taking paypal pledges you should consider the implications of using paypal.
You took a really cool concept and gave the first impression to TL as a scam. When he was willing to come here and talk about it all along.
You know what they say about first impressions...
Everything you did to get to the bottom of this could have been done without parading this out in public.
In mrbitter's defense, cc and paypal fraud protection doesn't stop anyone from scamming. There had been, and always will be, plenty of ways people will try to make a quick buck.
What reassure me, though, is mrbitter's personal stance has changed. Having a community veteran looking though the details reassure me that the effort is legit. Look forward to what comes out of ProVPro.
I hope we didn't managed to scare Xavi away, but instead provided him throughout this thread, good ideas to make this concept even better.
On October 27 2011 02:12 MrBitter wrote: There's nothing lame about speaking up when you thinksomeone might be getting screwed. It's a hell of a lot more lame to stand around and do nothing, in my opinion.
Yes there is, in some cases. There was a sportswriter in Toronto last year who wrote a blog about Jose Bautista (Home Run Champ 2 years running now). The title of the article was "Is he on steroids? The question has to be asked." No evidence to back up saying so, linking his name with steroids completely unjustifiably. He took universal panning from the rest of Toronto's sports media.
What was done in the OP and title of this is analogous to this.
On October 27 2011 01:25 Pokebunny wrote: You can't give power to the community when the site doesn't have the authority to give that power... the power is in the players. If the players aren't willing to play, the site should not be able to advertise them as a showmatch possibility. Even if they're not promising anything, the prospect of a match is false advertisement that draws people to their site for nothing.
I think players should be able to sign up for the player pool, with requirement of having games listed in TLPD (or something of the sort to prove they are notable), then setting their minimum requirement for a match / servers willing to play / etc.
It's a fan site where fans say who they want to see play each other with the most obvious incentive to anyone. There is no guarantee made anywhere saying the matches will ever even happen. If the players aren't interested, they'll say so when asked to play for $100's of dollars and that will be that. It is probably not something that can be set up ahead of time in TLPD since players might be bronze league or never even have played before (e.g. Joe Rogan vs Sundance).
I get the impression from reading through the thread that people are upset this guy might make $10 from promoting fun matches that people want to see. The thread title itself is already a guilty until proven innocent accusation. Pretty lame sc2 community, pretty lame.
Nyovne said it best in his post, IMO
There's nothing lame about speaking up when you think someone might be getting screwed. It's a hell of a lot more lame to stand around and do nothing, in my opinion.
I talked to Xavi for about 30 minutes.
While I'm still not completely convinced, he pointed out, very correctly, that there is virtually no risk to the community here.
There is fraud and theft protection built into PayPal, and into the credit card companies that would protect us as individuals should something shady happen.
But I don't believe he has bad intentions. He's a real dude - not some Russian hacker ripping off people's social security numbers.
The launch of the site might have been a bit hasty, and the lack of polish on smaller details like casters and streaming is a bit unfortunate, but I feel like he's actually a pretty legit guy, trying to provide something to the community.
I gave him some contacts to hopefully help him along, and I will continue to keep in touch with him, and, so long as everything is proven to be legit, will help him out where I can.
Again, I'm still not 100% convinced, but it's starting to look like I might owe Xavi an apology or three.
You really don't owe him an apology. The presentation and execution were piss poor. It looked and continues to look fishy and scam-like.
If anything he should be happy this thread was made because a lot of us have pointed out the negatives, a discussion has ensued and because of this you gave him contacts. He has started on the road to getting this off the ground. Now with a few more tweaks and changes it might actually turn into what he expected and wanted it to be.
It seems less fishy as time goes on because he is able to expound and explain himself more clearly than on the website. This being said until I see something come out of this I will be wary but that should always be the case with everything that is a startup.
Worst case: he rebrands it and opens it up with more community and caster support.
Although I understand Mr.Bitter's intentions were mainly to protect the community, I would be careful before making accusations like this in the future. Legally those were baseless and could have been grounds for litigation if the damage to Xavi's reputation had been significant enough. I Love Mr.Bitter's work in general but that was not a very cool thing to do...
"There is fraud and theft protection built into PayPal, and into the credit card companies that would protect us as individuals should something shady happen."
Unless they changed their ToS the last year, there is absolutely no fraud protection in PayPal..in fact, there is a written rule stating they will NOT help with fraud. Which Kinda left me out dark when I bought a paintball gun worth 500usd, recieved an empty box, and PayPal refused to help.
EPT
