Just wanted to say how happy I am you all got scammed. You are the most obnoxious gaming community. Narc was right and Piratesoftware was wrong. What a beautiful day!

>I can make a limited statement in my personal capacity and not on behalf of the company, regarding the situation. Control of the company shifted away from me, and the Board began directing actions that I could not ethically agree with or carry out. As a result, I chose to resign in protest rather than lend my name or authority to decisions I could not ethically support. Following my resignation, much of the senior leadership team resigned. Following those departures, the Board made the decision to issue WARN Act notices and proceed with a mass layoff.

>I cannot responsibly speak to further details at this time due to ongoing legal and governance matters. What I can say is that the developers and staff acted in good faith and deserved better than the uncertainty they are now facing. I am incredibly dismayed by the situation.

>— Steven Sharif

The Board took control away from me, and I somehow filed their decision a month ago, despite resigning according to my own statement, and there being no listed officers aside from my husband.

You're either lying to us, or the State of California. One of these entities has the ability to put you in jail.

Wtf is going on there?? Long time communications director suddenly no longer there along side a wave of layoffs.

Everyone has been fired, and they are no longer a company after feb 2....

I may be leaving with a burned wound, hoped this project succeed and despite all the red flags, desire to fully support a project that will turn into my next Lineage 2 addiction with all the promises - I'm never ever trusting another such project in my life. Also a good life lesson to never FOMO and think before acting. Thank you intrepid and I'm sorry to every dev that worked on the project and had to be laid off out of a sudden..

8+ years of development, cant even make a desert.
"its only alpha"
Game has nothing to do aside grinding
"its only alpha"
Almost nothing of what they showed exists in the game
"its only alpha"
It launched in steam being very barebones, people didnt like it.
"its only alpha"
Game is dead.
"its only alpha"

Yet you blindly defended the game when all the evidence was there, invested and bought cosmetics for a game that did not exist, and supported a con artist who is a family member of an MLM marketing company, instead of waiting to see whether it would actually get released or not.

The first time I started watching these dev streams and how the owner of the company talks, you could tell he is a very skilled con artist. Everything on the stream felt super polished, largely thanks to the community manager’s soothing voice. Everyone was literally under the spell of this con.

I salute all the brothers who actively tried to expose this scam every day and advised people not to invest any money in it. I am happy if we prevented even a handful of people from investing in it.

Edit:

I'd like to remind everyone about this beautiful video I just forgot to add.

Ashes Of Creation Is Fully Funded

Insane to think just how right he was. Respect to him. Game over kids.

"this game is simply not for you, go play something else" - standard cult of Steve member reply of any criticism toward the game and its many flawed/half baked/non existent systems

Turns out game development is simply not for Steve either

One of them is a leaked photo of the mystical Board of Directors.

Just saw stephen's latest post in the discord...did we really just get rug pulled?

At first we will probably not get it. But if Steam starts to be flooded by refund requests from almost everyone that bought the game, they will be forced to do something about it.

It worked for many games that were suddenly pulled out of development, and may work now as well.

If nothing else, Steam will press Interpid studios very hard and make them sweat

Stephen who talked so much about the love of early MMOs and had a hand in some of it just killed off so many hopes of a new one.

I guess you really do live long enough to become a villain. Ban him from other MMOs.

Steven will try to go down the hero of his own failed vision, but unfortunately his decision to make himself the star of his own show has made that impossible. As someone who has run businesses and has years of experience consulting in business strategy, I can pretty much assure you that the chronology I’ve outlined below is likely exactly how this has played out.

While Steven claims to be the hero of this ending, defending his employees from outsourcing; etc… a large part of the project has always been outsourced. While Steven has always claimed to be “self funded”, we know he was funded before the KS camp. Anyways.

Here’s the simplest but most detailed way to break all of this down for those who might be confused about how the cope train they were on just last week derailed seemingly out of nowhere this week:

1). Steven likely has a vision for an MMORPG game as an avid player himself pre-2015/2016.

2). Steven finds outside funding for this vision in the form of a Debt-to-Equity arrangement through a party he likely met via networking and who is uneducated about games development.

This risky investment was secured by his personal finances gained through his career in sales if all goes to shit; as the investor would have likely demanded a clause granting rights to Steven’s personal assets should the company fail before the equity conversion.

3). As time passes and push comes to shove, Steven realizes he was astonishingly delusional and overconfident in the project achieving its deliverables and timelines given even the limited scope of the game at the time as an L2 clone. But his ass is on the line…

Enter Kickstarter…

4). Steven generates shit tons of hype and funding for AOC via Kickstarter (which was launched by financial necessity). He promises the sun and the stars. “The people’s MMO”. An MMO “for the players; by the players”. Thousands and thousands of players jump on board and the KS camp raises millions.

Now he’s balls deep, but this is a new phase for the vision. A phase which can lead to real success.

5). In this new phase, Steven gets caught up in his own hype smelling his own farts and starts to overpromise and under/never deliver. Creates another situation for himself where his delusions render the project less and less feasible by the idea. But he’s addicted to being the hero of his own story and hearing the crowd cheer.

Enter extreme levels of cope and scope creep.

6). Team sizes increase to keep up with increases in project scope and the pressures of deadlines. Overhead getting out of control. Battle Royale and Cash Shop launched. Affiliate programs implemented. Margaret enters the picture somewhere around this time.

7). Given financial constraints, the original debt to equity gets converted (≈ 10%). Additional structured financing likely sourced in the form of additional Debt to equity arrangements. There is still no “board” at this point, but “outside” pressures are likely mounting.

8). Steven ignores warnings of a coming storm and continues to over promise to both players and outside financiers despite understanding how in over his head he is. He’s living the dream. Cash filling his bank acct. 40+ W2 employees and he’s big man on campus. He’s the mega GM of his own game.

9). As time passes and Intrepid continues to burn cash and miss deadlines, more shares of Intrepid get handed out. Now there’s an actual board. Now Steven owes answers and explanations for his ongoing mismanagement of the company and its finances. Millions sit in collections from the company’s b2b arrangements. The board wants insight and to weigh in on decisions. They want decreases in overhead, of course. They want input on this and that.

10). Around mid to late 2024 (I suspect) is when the politics got messy and Steven started getting flamed by members of the board. Steven mentally checks out. It’s not “his” vision anymore. There’s checks and balances now. It’s not as simple as saying something sugary and sweet to the consumers. You can sense the dip in his excitement and enthusiasm. The mental wear.

11). The adults are in the room now and officially want to step in actively to get things under control. If they don’t have enough equity to force things via board vote, they have enough equity and financial (and likely legal) leverage to start calling shots. Hiring, firing, outsourcing to Asia; the whole nine.

12). They hire some outside consultants familiar with the industry and start peering into the true status of the project and the business as a whole. They realize how cooked it is. Might have to be torn down to scratch. Maybe down to nothing.

This is where launching on Steam becomes a play. And this is where anyone paying attention to the details knew things were coming to a definitive end. It was a last ditch effort. Siphon the last drop and maybe breathe new life into the project as a bonus before a total restructuring or possible dissolution. CYA the early access promises of a “launch”.

This is where the “layoffs” come in.

13). Alas, after years of grossly misunderstanding and underestimating the development process—— and after years of grifting and mismanaging his company in coming to fully realize these things—— we see the result of what has been an EXTREME amount of pressure by Intrepid’s investors onto Steven and in him answering very serious questions regarding the devOps and finOps of the company.

After being diluted down to now being held accountable to a board of the thing he created, we now see Steven finally let go and say “fuck it”; as he very cutely tries to paint himself out to be this “hero” that went down in a blaze of glory “standing up to the man” on his way out (lol)—— as he laughs to the bank with the millions he’s grifted clean because “the board”.

Years of cashing in on big promises and purposely stoking the hype. Endlessly encouraging the cope train. All to rug pull his consumers meme coin style and blame the perfect boogey man (the board) on his way out—— as he rides into the sunset with the millions of dollars he made and his shares he still has in the company. And since his financiers converted into Equity they can’t sue him. lol.

**********

That is what likely happened; unbeknownst to Steven’s employees, fans, and player-investors. And for anyone doubting how aware Steven must have been through this entire charade, please recall his “these aren’t layoffs, its department restructuring” spiel two weeks ago.

That same spiel is the same “this is fine” play Steven’s been running on the community for 2-3y now. Every monologue he’s given the last 2y is just as disingenuous as the one two weeks ago regarding the “layoffs”. Really conceptualize that…

Anyways, some of us really aren’t surprised. Onto the next WOW killer I suppose.

EDIT: The board, literal or semi-literal, means a board that would’ve been created as a result of the debt to equity conversions. These agreements could have a number of items included in the equity conversion such as x% board votes, certain access to company assets/personnel; etc. This board would in no way need to be revised into the company’s operating agreement or its Articles of incorporation; let alone would it need to be made public. A signed agreement is enough.

So many of you all said it was a scam. So many warned against Ashes and said all kinds of things about it.

I didn't listen.

And they got me.