Some of us here are familiar with the small-community MORPG called Whispers in Akarra that was run by Swedish video game developer Jens Bergensten, owner of Oxeye Games. He terminated the project in February of 2002, after previously passing on the project's leadership to an incompetant, fun, power-abusing party animal.
In the summer of 2005, Jens released Whispers in Akarra's Alpha 1 server package and content editors for public use. Many servers of Alpha 1 with new and unique, non-canon content appeared in the following year and a half.
Meanwhile, since the termination of Akarra, former Akarra developers have been working on a game called Dawn of Daria that was originally intended to use Akarra's engine, but later decided not to.
The following summer, Jens sold the source code and all abandoned content to a Canadian named John Pawlak for two payments adding up to $1750.00 USD.
John began a project that would become known as Whispers in Akarra Alpha 2. His poor leadership skills compensated for the talents of many of his co-developers. He deemed the project inactive, while his only two remaining active developers had continued work without consulting him for leadership, due to his constant inattentiveness. John fired all of his co-developers apart from those that were his closest friends in real life (whom had not benefited the project in any way). All were terminated without having been given any notice or reasoning of the dismissal.
John and his close-friends continue to develop the project in secret, without any of their former co-developers, while telling the Akarrian Community that the project is dead. The development IRC channel is completely inactive at the moment.
Many of the people that used to work on the Alpha 2 project that were hindered by John's poor leadership have come here seeking refuge, to help Solectral and BigRed work on their MORPG project.
Here is my humble opinion on Whispers in Akarra's spin-offs:
- Project Phoenix was the only spin-off of Whispers in Akarra that I don't consider to be a tragic mockery of Akarra. All other publicly-run servers as well as Alpha 2 were corrupt, unbalanced and badly developed. The same goes for the original Akarra when under Trance's leadership.
- Alpha 2 suffered greatly because of one incompetent person calling the shots. A keystone analogy works here, or the Open Source Development jargon term of 'Bus Factor'.
- Akarra was a good 2d MORPG system that NEVER reached its full potential.
- Alpha 2 has yet to have a capable programmer that can actually use the Akarra source code in a useful manner.
- John Pawlak is a manipulative, emotionally immature person with bad judgment and leadership skills when it comes to online MORPG development. However, he is academically intelligent, and that is about all I care to give him praise for. I believe that he is the reason Akarra's most talented developer, apart from Jens, quit his hobby of game development (Antoine Lemay-Joly, the Akarra player known as Felicia).
Here is a list of those that have or may come from Whispers in Akarra Alpha 2. Please judge us individually, not as a group.
Antoine "Felicia" Lemay-Joly <[email protected]> (Seems to have given up on MORPG development)
May-Lynn "SLJ" Chan <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>
Derek "Firestorm" Aldrich <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>
"Cade" <[email protected]> (We are having problems contacting him...)
Patrick "Chybi" Chapdelaine <[email protected]> (Will only join if Antoine does also...)
Matt "Xet" Gervasio <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>
Aaron "Fledge" Cairney <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>
"Miklotov" <[email protected]> (Swedish)
Shannon "Elerrina" Horbatiuk <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>
Gage "Fyran" <[email protected]> (Might prefer to hang out on the sidelines, Major in Computer Science at University)
All of these individuals are 17+, about half are 20+. Roughly another half are Canadian, most living near Toronto. A vast majority played the original Akarra. There are a few more, but I don't want to include extremely uncertain people.
Do not expect more than a third of the people listed to become active workers here. Do not expect more than half of them to even show up here. Expect hateful spam from John "Veneficus/Slayermagic" Pawlak and his friends if they learn of our existence here. Expect to be banned from #akarra, if they ever start to actively show up there.
In the summer of 2005, Jens released Whispers in Akarra's Alpha 1 server package and content editors for public use. Many servers of Alpha 1 with new and unique, non-canon content appeared in the following year and a half.
Meanwhile, since the termination of Akarra, former Akarra developers have been working on a game called Dawn of Daria that was originally intended to use Akarra's engine, but later decided not to.
The following summer, Jens sold the source code and all abandoned content to a Canadian named John Pawlak for two payments adding up to $1750.00 USD.
John began a project that would become known as Whispers in Akarra Alpha 2. His poor leadership skills compensated for the talents of many of his co-developers. He deemed the project inactive, while his only two remaining active developers had continued work without consulting him for leadership, due to his constant inattentiveness. John fired all of his co-developers apart from those that were his closest friends in real life (whom had not benefited the project in any way). All were terminated without having been given any notice or reasoning of the dismissal.
John and his close-friends continue to develop the project in secret, without any of their former co-developers, while telling the Akarrian Community that the project is dead. The development IRC channel is completely inactive at the moment.
Many of the people that used to work on the Alpha 2 project that were hindered by John's poor leadership have come here seeking refuge, to help Solectral and BigRed work on their MORPG project.
Here is my humble opinion on Whispers in Akarra's spin-offs:
- Project Phoenix was the only spin-off of Whispers in Akarra that I don't consider to be a tragic mockery of Akarra. All other publicly-run servers as well as Alpha 2 were corrupt, unbalanced and badly developed. The same goes for the original Akarra when under Trance's leadership.
- Alpha 2 suffered greatly because of one incompetent person calling the shots. A keystone analogy works here, or the Open Source Development jargon term of 'Bus Factor'.
- Akarra was a good 2d MORPG system that NEVER reached its full potential.
- Alpha 2 has yet to have a capable programmer that can actually use the Akarra source code in a useful manner.
- John Pawlak is a manipulative, emotionally immature person with bad judgment and leadership skills when it comes to online MORPG development. However, he is academically intelligent, and that is about all I care to give him praise for. I believe that he is the reason Akarra's most talented developer, apart from Jens, quit his hobby of game development (Antoine Lemay-Joly, the Akarra player known as Felicia).
Here is a list of those that have or may come from Whispers in Akarra Alpha 2. Please judge us individually, not as a group.
Antoine "Felicia" Lemay-Joly <[email protected]> (Seems to have given up on MORPG development)
May-Lynn "SLJ" Chan <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>
Derek "Firestorm" Aldrich <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>
"Cade" <[email protected]> (We are having problems contacting him...)
Patrick "Chybi" Chapdelaine <[email protected]> (Will only join if Antoine does also...)
Matt "Xet" Gervasio <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>
Aaron "Fledge" Cairney <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>
"Miklotov" <[email protected]> (Swedish)
Shannon "Elerrina" Horbatiuk <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>
Gage "Fyran" <[email protected]> (Might prefer to hang out on the sidelines, Major in Computer Science at University)
All of these individuals are 17+, about half are 20+. Roughly another half are Canadian, most living near Toronto. A vast majority played the original Akarra. There are a few more, but I don't want to include extremely uncertain people.
Do not expect more than a third of the people listed to become active workers here. Do not expect more than half of them to even show up here. Expect hateful spam from John "Veneficus/Slayermagic" Pawlak and his friends if they learn of our existence here. Expect to be banned from #akarra, if they ever start to actively show up there.
And the oldest, at 27.