Manio Clears the Air news

I couldn't agree more with this.

I don't see why, WHY are people trying to come up with some sexy name for their "game studio" that is no more than just people sitting at their homes on computers. There is no "studio", "productions" "entertainment" in most of the mod teams. It's not a business. A proper name for a mod TEAM would be something like "looney raccoons".

It's part of the make believe tactics where developers want to fool the public (maybe even themselves) into trusting the mod, whereas the correct way to do that is to release convincing in-game material. To me, this kind of toying around with naming is completely transparent and only leads me to believe there might really be nothing backing up the supposed quality there.

And when it comes to Slenderman, sure it's a great phenomenon and all but if it is really what keeps you from going greenlight then you should just scrap it and prove you have some creative talent of your own by coming up with new character. You have the name already, "Faceless".

Stop crying!

Woah, what?

How did you come up with that we're secretly coming up with company names in order to 'fool' the public into getting our game?

I think you're really pulling at straws there. We're a bunch of 20 year olds who just wanted to mod a game. We didn't 'plan' for this popularity. And Justin certainly didn't devise a name as some sort of tactic to mess with people.

It's just a name he thought sounded nice for the team and so we used it. We just use it to refer to people actually working on the game. There's no conspiracy 'hidden' meaning to it.

Woah, what?

I didn't say "conspiracy".
I didn't say "mess with people".
I didn't say "hidden meaning".

All I am saying is that kind of name is MISLEADING and you know it. Most people also know it. So why pick such bigshot names especially when one of them is trademarked? Total facepalm.

Haven't you heard that truly talented people are humble and don't need to show off and boast every way they can?

I didn't pick the name. I came onto the team afterwards.

But it wasn't picked to make us look like 'Big-Shots.' We've never said we were. And I searched in the United States Trademark Electronic Search System and it appears their name isn't trademarked either.

When have we ever pushed our name forward between our game? No one is going like "Well, Faceless looks okay I guess. But it's by Ethereal Entertainment. That must mean they are big shots.'

The team has been an indie since day one. The fact it's an indie is plastered all over our studio site. I don't understand how you can think by picking a name that means we can lean back and forget about the game quality.

You mean 'Total FACElesspalm" am I right? Right?

@ForbiddenDonutz: I'm not saying there is a conspiracy I'm just trying to tell you it would be better to change the group name now then later near release when you are trying to make sure everything is good to go.

The actual Ethereal Entertainment group isn't exactly well known but right now if you do a search on the name their site comes up first. Your group would be better off making a new name where you are the first search so people don't get confused.

We are aware there is another studio called Ethereal Entertainment, found out a few months ago, we have already had talks of changing into an official registered studio after Faceless if we go on to make commercial modifications/games, however, for the time being, we do have an alternative "studio" if needed for Greenlight, but if not, it doesn't pose as a significant problem at this current stage of development. Manio did start this 'Ethereal Entertainment' but it is of nothing 'official' in a sense, the rest of the team really have followed Manio's decisions as project leader, but now that is not the case, the team have undoubtedly agreed to do what is best for this mod at the end of the day, by any means necessary.

We had talked about dropping Slenderman and creating our own character, but in the end due to our game mechanics, we'd only be creating a rip-off of Slenderman under another name and a different look, I titled it as a 'Chinese knock-off product' if we took that route, and most of the team, including myself wouldn't be too happy to make all of our work to date redundant and useless, we do have original character ideas for our next project though. So in that case, we appreciate your comments and onto a high degree, we agree with them.

The beta's being pushed back because we won't have a solid, and playable build by December. We're working on the game, and doing things with it everyday.

It's a horror game. We don't want to reveal everything. Stuff still needs to surprise the player. The money is going towards dedicated servers for the game. No one is disappearing with anyone's money.

The mod was made before Greenlight was even a thing. The game didn't and won't ever have a pricetag, so it wasn't ever looked into. Games on ModDB play on all sorts of copyrights. It's when you bring them to Steam that it becomes an issue. It was a misstep on our part: we didn't really expect how difficult it would be to get permission. We're just college students, after all.

The 'going quiet' thing isn't really quite as you make it out to be. We'll still be here to answer questions, update people on happenings and discuss. We're building up a big upcoming update, so we're saving the content postings for that. That's all.

If you want a break-down of what's going on with the money - the first campaign was set for $600. It made something like $1200. That $600 we asked for will be going towards the official servers that we promised. $100 is going for a new website server that will be up in the next day or two (our last one got overloaded with users and buckled under the traffic).

The second campaign was opened because people still wanted beta keys. The number set for the second campaign wasn't important - we weren't going to make 25,000 bucks off a game that is still being made. It was just to round up anyone else interested in a key.

So, what about the extra money? It's in an account that's being saved when we actually go for a license (we don't know how much it will cost, but it will cost money). None of the money has gone into anyone's pocket.

If you have more questions, Justin knows more about the specifics than I do. But I hope that helps clear things up a little bit, Doppler.

I'm aware it was around before Greenlight. My point is that it should have been a motive initially to get permission or the 'go ahead' from the original creator/publish and then go for Steam with the solid backing.

$600 for dedicated servers? How many are you planning on having because I'm sure they would require monthly renewal(s). If $600 is going to the servers, how do you pull $100 for the website? Yes, you went over your goal, but why or how did you get $100 from $600 which were used on servers in your initial campaign?

I don't buy what you're saying that it's in an account, for all that could mean it's in a shared account which you profit/live from. It would be nice if you made a public log of that secure account to display it's ins and outs which is allowed under USA law.

Regardless. I'm sure everyone is waiting to see the mod's future. Good luck.

Personally I don't understand why they would need dedicated servers at all for a small multiplayer mod that hosts under 10 people. Most basic gaming rigs these days can easily support the number of players for this mod.

@Dopper I'll send you a PM with details about the exact funding.

@wazanator Because we want to be able to offer official servers that allow players to play with each other without cheats/mods and the need to port forw./hemachi.

Considering how much traffic our greenlight page gets, I am not quite so certain if 'small' is the right word. There's a lot of people that will be trying to play this game. And this will help make the launch week not such a mess.

Hmm. When I try to PM you, Doppler, it gives me the error 'Person could not be found. They have been removed!'

Do you have an email or something?

I'm sure posting it here isn't a bad idea, because I'm probably not alone on who would like to know where it's going.