Fraud or Fail? The Day of Dragons Story
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- Опубликовано: 26 авг 2024
- Day of Dragons is a game that has been dragged through the mud for multiple years regarding the crowdfunding methods which resulted in over $530,000 raised for what people called an asset flip. Asset flip being the term used for when someone buys pre-made assets from a marketplace and throws them together with very little effort for the sole purpose to raise money or hoodwink people into believing the game is more legit than it is. The result was over a year of back and forth between content creators, communities for and against the project and the sole developer referred to as "Jao". Legal threats, DMCA claims and 2 years later, this is the result.
Other kickstarter to court videos:
• $8,368,023 Taken, 6 Ye...
• $116,684 Taken, 4 year...
Thanks for watching.
store.steampow...
Videos I used for reference and clips below:
IGP:
• The Truth About Day of...
SidAlpha:
• Dirty Devs: Day of Dra...
IcyCaress:
• 510 Days Later - Day o...
Anthomnia:
• Hatch from an Egg and ...
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As an indie dev, I can tell this never started as a scam but absolutely turned into one. 300k for dragon models....bruh, that's a house you bought not some custom 3d models.
35 grand for music? Bollocks... hehehe
What I find hilarious is he originally asked for 12k to replace 3 dragon models. And then suddenly it was 10k each. So how the hell was he planning to do 3 with 12k?
I would've thought it'd be significantly more. I mean, you hear about all these games having a budget of 30-100 million and still not having enough to compete with AAA projects, 12k seems like child's play in comparison. Even 500k feels like way too little to make a fully fledged, feature complete game.
Though, as someone who knows literally nothing about videogame development, maybe most of the huge budgets games have nowadays goes towards marketing instead of making the actual game. I honestly have no clue. Lol.
@@zeropolicy7456 I think there's a number of factors for big games having large budgets. The size of the team, for one, though I'm not sure if labor hours are figured into the published cost. As you said, marketing, but also Triple AAA games have an obsession for largeness and photorealistic graphics, as well as even more detailed cutscenes featuring celebrity voices, and so on.
For indie titles with solo devs, budget, afaict, is less about the game's final quality than how long it takes to get there. Anyone with the knowledge can make a game, but they're restrained by time. Most people would probably work on a game a couple hours a day as a hobby, while those getting financial support can afford to put more time into the game as a job in itself. Although, having extra money to pay other people to do the bits you can't do personally, not without some effort, does help in the end.
@@zeropolicy7456 It depends on the kind of game you wanna make and how you wanna make it. An MMO, for example, will cost WAY more and generally be more complicated because you need the servers, netcode, you have to plan for how people will interact, etc. But a single player game will be much easier and cheaper since none of that matters. There's also the question of whether you buy assets, use an existing engine, etc.
And then even with all the money a single person or just handful of people will struggle to keep up with a AAA dev because the AAA dev has more people and more experience.
I love how they threatened copyright infringement, while at the same time, deliberately using a Night Fury, a Saphira, and a few other very obvious copyright infringements on well-known dragons from fantasy video games, books and movies.
oh, but actually it's totally ok because they're freely admitted to be """inspired by""" so that means it doesn't matter if they look and behave exactly like something that already exists... /s 🙄
You forgot james camerons avatar direct rip off dragon. That one made me mad :') It was so shameless, same with the hybrid. The other ones could be excused barely, but the hybrid & the banshee rip off is just... whyyy
@@MizuSky I recall the human colonizers called them banchees. did the dragon game call them that?
@@kaiyodeiYeah, the huans called them Banshees, while the natives called them Ikran DOD calls them Singe Crest.
A saphira?
"why would I spend 2 years of my life to scam people" is something a scammer would say
That was one of the funniest things he said 😆
Like, does that guy not know what a “career criminal” is? How does he think the mafia operates lmao
"So the dragons you said were custom made for your game, but they're store bought assets?"
"Yeah so this totally isn't a scam"
BRUH
Uh, for the money perhaps?
The answer to that is so obvious as well, you're basically lighting yourself on fire for nothing by saying this
I know the public has beaten the hell out of this topic, but it seems relevant. They said the same thing about Amber Heard when that whole thing started. "Why would she lie?"
There's always an easy answer, and it's always money or fame/power (fame is like social power, right?). Or they lie to keep themselves out of the trouble they got into while trying to get the money, fame, and power.
It's absolutely wild that Jao mocked IcyCaress's "ripoff" game for having less complicated code. That's actually a point in IcyCaress's favor. Achieving the same result with what looks like less than half of the code just shows that either IcyCaress is a prodigy or Jao is a complete amateur who really should have hired another dev with the money he raised.
i doubt he's even an amateur. even a person with VERY little computer knowledge like me knows that less is more when it comes to code.
This is pretty well exactly what happened with Earth 2 and Dreamworld. Critics remade the published content in a week on their own that supposedly took dev teams years and millions of dollars invested. It says a lot.
IcyCaress as in Icy , friend of IGP ??
@Lord Gallo Yes, they were mentioned throughout the video. I'm impressed because from what I've seen of them they're normally complete morons who happen to be semi-entertaining.
@@lordgallo4213 yeah both of them are mentioned in the video
"Aren't those dragons store bought assets?"
Reply: *ITS NOT A SCAM*
*every scammer ever* : "It's not a scam..."
At least the kickstarter money is used for something other than lining pockets. Better to have a store-bought Night Fury than nothing if you were unfortunately scammed by this "game."
@@bullymaguire7554 yeah, but he basically only did the bare minimum to call it a "game" and be like: hey ya wanted a game I gave ya one now byebye ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's a scam and a stolen idea as well. I don't believe it. 10 years ago it was pitched and now it came back.
Guess the person behind the project learned PR management from Trump. Why did yourself out of a hole when you can dig a deeper hole?
when a developer reacts so hostile against someone sho asked a few questions it has to be a scam
Imagine going to a bank, applying for a loan and then being this hostile when they asked what you planned to do with the money (as they do) ...... you'd not get a loan. And you might even be told to never come back to that bank again, depending on how hostile you did get.
Except it wasn't a scam. Work continues.
@@WintersFinalstand lol okay sure. Are you in any other cults? Or just the DoD echo chamber?
@@thenethuns5271 No, just watching conspiracy theorists like you. Look mate, I have my own gripes with the game, and have been quite loud about them to the developer. But the difference is I don't get a high by beating on others. I am not as low as you in that regard.
Unfortunately, I was responsible for a friend investing in that kickstarter. I have a obligation to at least make sure it develops. And it does. At a pace I want? Hell no. With things I want? Hell no. But the work proceeds. Now before you try and retort from your cushy chair with self-righteousness, look at the evidence for the game, rather than the publicity. I take it you know not to trust the news right? Well, much of what is said about DoD is itself, fearmongering. Take the part about Jao as a internet personality. You gunna give me your real name right now? Age, job, and more? Of course not. And unfortunately, Jao isn't either despite being a developer. But at the same time, I know how to find his real identity. But I choose to not cross that line because I respect anonymity and his desire to keep his life too.
You could cite things like lawyers. Why Lawyers? Well, beyond the Feds coming in and shutting him down for not licensing his game and more which must all be paid through a lawyer, I could think of a few reasons.
As for game contenr, believe me, I said plenty about this to Jao myself and within his more secure places such as the patreon channel. I want a good dragon game, and Draconia is not shaping up to be that at present. Which means I got 1 shot. Unlike you though, I am trying to steer things positively for the game and think up solutions to whichever issue is at the talking table.
So, conspiracy man. Gunna still call me a cultist? Or a Investor who just wants a game and has no interest in endlessly tearing down others? Because I think I know just who you are. Prove me wrong. What is your intent?
@@thenethuns5271 Even just going by what he presented in the video, I wouldn't say it was a scam. It was exactly as Kira put it, he got unexpectedly overfunded. There was definite fuckery, but he delivered basically what he always intended to and the fact people threw money at him well past the goal is more their fault in my opinion.
Imagine having a legal case so WEAK that youtube won't entertain your DMCA. That's a big achievement
I actually didn't think it was possible for RUclips to not just auto-oblige DMCA's. That's probably this guy's biggest achievement after scamming people out of half a million dollars.
Why does the game still exist and thrives?
@@135791max It's mainly because youtube just want to avoid any liability, which makes sense. They really just act as a middle man, allowing you to publish videos. If somone wants to sue for DMCA violations then they sue the channel/creator and not youtube.
@@lulu111_the_cool can you really call it thriving?
@@lulu111_the_cool “thrives”
They had me at 12:08
That interviewer knew exactly what questions to ask, and them getting standoffish was all I needed to hear
"The truth does not mind being questioned, a lie does no want to be challenged"
Even before that at 8:30 As soon as he says 'taxes' as an expense, you know hes lying. Business' pay tax on profit, not on gross. Even if the kickstarter is considered income and not capital injection (which is always non-taxable). Even 'sole trader' type business' write off their expenses.
I wish more people saw your comment, love the quote as well!
@@elLooto yea, I was thinking the same thing
@@elLooto yeah he also listed sales tax. Sales tax is paid by the buyer. And corporate taxes are not 30%. He was totally full of it.
The truth fears no question.
Considering the lack of gameplay, it's interesting that Steam reviews rate this so highly. I took a few minutes to dig into those and found that the vast majority (~90%) of the positive reviews consisted of a single vague line of praise and were posted from accounts with a Steam level of 1 and just a few games owned. While this in itself is not solid proof of anything, it does bear the hallmarks of review boosting. Makes one wonder if some of that 500k wasn't spent there...
I feel like there is still some people who hope for it to become a game but I lost complete hope in the months ago
Definitely review boosted. Not even a doubt in my mind
@@ferretappreciator if you look on youtube there are people posting videos about new content, but there's no accounting for taste, so..
There is also some lunatic in the "Discussion" Steam page of the game that defends this game at all costs and writes damm romans how great it is and how wrong you are
I didnt even tried talking to that one, beceause I knew it would be hopeless
At worst, some review boosting was done, likely and ironically with the same money raised from the Kickstater. And at best, if not so and I had to guess, it's either people having no idea that everything they are seeing/playing are asset flips and bought assets and code, or a small niche that may want to play a game where you are a dragon, being that there aren't many around as far as I know, and so are willing to get settled with utter shit just to have something.
As a former moderator of that Discord back during the days of Big Drama, my favourite memories are Jao gaslighting his entire staff team - telling his mods they weren't doing a good enough job, constantly going over the head of his community manager, never talking to his team and instigating fights himself and then demanding they pick up the pieces, constantly making himself a victim when he was told to stop being an actual abusive boss. Fun times!
A lot of people like to say the game isn't a "scam" because "uwu but he's devewoping the game uwu he's making the dwagons uwu he's hiwing all these people uwu" but they seem to happily neglect the fact the entire Discord has become a literal cult where the loudest defenders always get rewarded with mod or admin positions, and are allowed to be vitriolic and abusive to anybody with a concern without any fear of reprimand. Meanwhile Jao brags about how his game is going to be the "WoW killer" and has so much ego that rather than properly version his updates, he calls them shit like J.A.O because he needs you to know how he's the boss and how he's cool and also he's definitely a victim and did nothing wrong ever, don't you believe the nasty little RUclips liars.
Then again what can you expect from a man who puts YandereDev on a pedestal and treats him like a role model?
cool story bro, you sound like my ex gf, but I doubt you were really a mod, you sound like you are describing yourself in this novel you just wrote. The fact that there's a bunch of people in the discord who love the game compared to the few of you who hate it says you are wrong. But keep telling stories cause we like to laugh at them.
@@jasonborne9435 If you'd like proof that she was a mod, you can find the announcement Midnight made about it in the Discord server. You can find it by filtering with in:announcements containing the word "moderators" (you may have to scroll through a few posts though).
I know it won't mean much to you, but as someone who was also a mod at the time, I can confirm all of those things happened. I don't hate the game, but there's a reason why Jao keeps digging himself into holes, and there are few moderators remaining from the very early days.
@@jasonborne9435 cope harder. Keep kneeling in front of Jao. I'm sure your game will be finished someday.
@@jasonborne9435 Because the ones disliking the game got booted from discord
@@elodiecliff106 "Proof is boring. Proof is tiresome. Proof is an irrelevance. People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes."
Joe Abercrombie, Last Argument of Kings (First Law)
You could have proof a mountain high and they wouldn't care less about it.
I love how the first response to a concern regarding whether or not the dragons were store-bought was "It's not a scam" as if that had anything to do with the question asked. Just saying, denying something nobody asked is a common sign of lying in the presence of paranoia. Maybe there's some additional context that prompted that being the first thing he said, but knowing what we do, I doubt it.
To be fair, store-bought assets are a legitimate market ... BUT they're usually lower-level assets (textures, audio samples, fonts, etc.) that aren't easily recognized as such in the end product, sometimes even when you know what you're looking for.
I can think of several indie games that use prebought assets and animation but are still good games at their core. Such as Wasteland 2 and Red Daze Decision
Yeah, he basically told on himself there.
@@Stratelier To be actually fair, store bought assets are not "unique assets I created for my game" none of this is about them being a "legitimate market" or not, its about him claiming to have made them himself.
@@doublesunday1268 Yeah, no disputes there. I could think of a few definitions by which he "made" "them" "himself" but that's just dodging the ethical questions.
Also, getting a cohesive overall style becomes much harder when using store-bought assets unmodified.
It’s probably a mixture of ego, inexperience and a scam.
On the flip side, it does show that there’s an interest in such a game. Maybe something a major developer might be more interested in doing
it's been done, see comments above this one.
@@CosplayZine there should not have been not any intrest in this game at all
My 7-year old niece loves animal simulator games 😅
I would love a game like The Isle but with Dragons. That sounds really cool, unfortunately Day of Dragons seems incapable of delivering on a game concept people are clearly interested in
NA, It will fail. It plays on a novel idea...it won't last though.
…the first real “hold up” moment for me in this video was when the person was proposing DLC for an UNRELEASED GAME.
That’s not only really risky on their part, but it just sounds super-suspicious.
That’s like every dev haha
@@moparmatt5683 …every dev announces DLC before a game is even in a beta phase? Weird. Never seen that happen.
@@Darkoriax17 this game is obviously sus for the extreme they are doing it, but every game launches as a beta now they dont say it like that but most big games launch basically as a beta and let customers figure out all the faults then do 10000000gb of patches in the few weeks that fix half,
also nearly everything has a season pass not only announcing dlc but selling it and you get that on preorder often before beta sometimes
Ark: survival evolved did it fairly well. But yeah, it's usually a red flag
@@BeeTheBee Ark’s only saving grace was that despite it being HEAVILY unpolished it was still rather stable for being an early build. I still think it should have been brought out of beta before a console release but that’s not a thing we can change now. It is partially to blame for the flood of unfinished/cheap indie moneygrabs in console markets though.
As a solo indie developer, this reeks of an absolute scam.
"I don't want to talk to other developers" yeah don't talk to people with knowledge when you have something to hide
@@johannoas1 This exactly, you SHOULD always get knowledge from more experienced single man developer if you have chance.
Too bad because idea and videos they showed looks awesome
@@philxdev copium
@@philxdev They gave him money - he didn't have to take it. What's that they tell us about the working world? More money, more responsibility? .... It's not a lottery where you make a kickstarter and "...wow bingo jackpot half a million bucks! Thanks you guys!" - if this " little studio wanted to put out a little minimalistic dragon sim" - would they have honestly pocketed every penny pitched at them? .... anyway yup you are smoking cope dude - slow down a little bit too when you type, you are making mistakes all over the place. Kinda ruins the whole "intellectual" look you're trying to emulate here.
Honestly, I'd love a MMO that allows you to play as Dragons, Centaurs and whatnot. Not many MMO companies go outside the usual Human, Human 2, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, Dark Elf.. etc.
Same here...
Well at least "The Isle" exists... and there are some "Ark - Survival Evolved" serves that allow you to play as dragon, dino, etc (with a mod)
Look at Untamed :)
As a game developer this "developer" really just spat in the face of all of us trying to make a career out of passion. Would have gotten away with $12,000 if it didn't blow up awesome video.
I remember like YEARS ago there was a dinosaur survival game that only had a few dinos and you played as humans who could tame them, I think carno was the strongest but after they got enough money they just up and left and I remember it looked really promising too
@@DragonsRocks017 the stomping lands i think?
@@gix.y YESSSS I THINK THAT WAS THE NAME, that game looked so promising too
@@DragonsRocks017 my first steam game, and where i met my first pc buddy. He lives across the world, and nowadays we catch up once in a while, play some AoE II if there’s time. I really liked the concept, the crafting system and wearing leaves and such looked like it was gonna be great, I was more into the prehistoric man aspect over the dinos, but it was all certainly barebones. I still have it downloaded on my pc, and shitty laptop (the thing runs on a potato if need be), and i run around and reminisce on eating cherry vanilla blue bunny ice cream at my grandma’s house back in 2014-15(?) i think it was. she had the shittiest pc ever but that vacation to her house was filled with Arma 2 Takistan Life at 10-15fps, and the Stomping Land, which ran at a solid (for me at the time) 35fps. Sorry for the long random text, but you unlocked some very fond memories id forgotten about. Good times.
@@samaiello7543 bruh that game had so much promise I'd honestly love if it came back into light and was worked on again
The typical "I am sorry, but who are you?" to try and undermine the other party sais enough.
It's bad enough when high ranked employees at AAA studios use that, but it's hilarious when a sole developer with no online footprint and no educational/work experience with game development is saying it.
It's basically his way of saying, I don't want to talk to anyone who has the background and knowhow to call me on my BS
yeah that clearly was a classic attempt to shut down their argument no matter what they said. I thought he was going to say "Well if you're not a coder then you don't know what it's really like" but the fact that he went "I don't want to talk to any competing game devs" and the fact that he could have gone either way just shows that he was looking to shut them down.
nowadays people seems to forgot that in situation like this especially in game development, the MORE you block them out, straight ban them for "troll" etc, it will cause even more chaos, people will instead push further to dig for the truth.
@@atomictoaster3393 At this stage I think it's less about public perception in a broader sense, and more about keeping those 1% of people who still believe in the project ignorant.
The truth doesn't work in their favour and they're not willing to change that, so the second best step is to block the ears of what remains of their supporters. Seems to be especially be the case with NFT's and crypto games.
Ah, the famous children's film "How To Scam A Dragon"
😆 🤣 🤣
I am not a dragon trainer. This is not dragon training advise.
@@Shizlgizl sounds like 911 operator but with an Indian man asking you to buy a subscription++ to call 911
🤯🤣😅🤣
Simple logic for any indie game kickstarter : "If that is too good to be true, it is too good to be true"
Seriously, if some indie developer claimed to work on a game that's better than AAA game that cost hundred of million dollars in development and takes 5 years to complete by major developer, yet indie developer claimed that game will complete only for 1-2 years ? it definitely a SCAM, doesn't matter "how good their presentation was"
Look at: Assasin's Creed. 3-4 years to make one game, budget above 20 000 000$ and several studios working as full time job. Of course they are released annually, but if my calculations are right at one point there were 5 AC games in progress (4 unreleased and one expanded with post-release content). You don't need to be developer to know that, you need common sense and Google.
Someone proving how easy Day of Dragons was to replicate in Unity was the reason I started developing in unity. And for that, I'll always feel kind of grateful to Day of Dragons for being what it was ❤️
All jokes aside, if you are not a developer it is easy to be tricked by gameplay videos. You don't know what is hard to accomplish and what can be done in 15 minutes. If you are willing to learn, you could download unity and create this game by the end of your first week. ( and maybe $300 in bought assets)
@@PeterSedesse oh, I wasn't joking. I actually DID download unity and I got a world built, player and camera controls, Dragons (found a free asset) flying around it, nice trees and grass and moving skybox... All that. I probably had a working world in a couple of days thanks to all the tutorials out there. Terrain was made in two days. Then real life came in the way, but I'm getting back into it now building a space game just because I wanted to :) (also I'm just doing it for fun, so I'm trying to do most without assets from the store and the ones I use are all free)
It sounds like something that belongs on roblox of all platforms
Either this is a scam or the most unprofessional project I have ever seen, run by an incredibly immature developer.
It's both
Wanna see even more unprofessional one? Check out yandere simulator.
why not both
I don't believe it to be a total scam. I think it's an immature dev who is vary narsisitic and doesn't have a good PR team. He's incredibly unprofessional but I have seen where the money went, that being the dozens of players models still bottlenecked at animation stage. He's def trying, I just with he would get his head out of his ass.
@@zzzmmm6362 he's not immature, I just don't think he's a développer. I'm front end web développer, not in game dev in any way, but 4 lines of codes over multiple years? Nah, impossible.
Any self respecting dev, immature or inexperienced WILL play around and try to build something. This just seems like a dude with basic computer skills putting a world together in unreal engine, use free assets and then try to outsource the actual game to an Indian guy on Fiverr.
I love how the "creator" of said game got called out for all his toxicity in this comment section. The truth has found its way.
What's your profile picture from?
@@agenticex It's my (Lahn) character from Black Desert Online. I guess I need to change my pfp, I don't play BDO anymore heh
@Teycona Bring her to Crimson Desert
This hit close to home... I'm developing an RPG that has quite a lot to do with dragons with friends as sort of a sideproject for fun with friends, the idea isn't profit, honestly, it all began in 2016 as an opportunity for friends and I to try and study Unreal Engine 4 together, and it just kept going. DoD is a good example as to why we don't open a kickstarter or advertise anything yet. We're too afraid we wouldn't be able to deliver for really any reason.
Also, edit, as a mediocre 3D artist:
I used to do jobs as low as 200 dollars for custom 3D work back in the day. Now, I am no expert, but 30k? No goddamn way.
Also, unrelated, but if you want to check an actually promising dragon survival game, look up 'Draconia'!
A NEW HAND
The most shocking part of this video is the fact that the game actually released at all, holy shit.
who knows how much of it was even legal for him to use.
With how much i was following this since it took off in popularity, i was actually expecting it to be stuck in the development faze forever before just being abandoned altogether. It’s not much content in the game at all except the “community” part. Because that community have become very strong and resilient. But from an outside perspective and with a critical eye, the game is such an empty shell. it sure was released, but it shouldn’t have been.
I really should've known better, but I was so caught off guard when the egg hatched and it was just the same model but smaller. I was expecting some type of model evolution, not just "lol shrink"
Exactly, even a roblox game (creatures of sonoria) have tons of creatures that have unique models from baby to adult. Like it's just lazy.
Honestly I’m very upset that I bought this game in early access, just to support the developers. I was hoping for something awesome since I’ve always loved dragons, but after two years it’s still the same exact game with like two playable dragons. Plus, with grow times being like 6 to 12 hours, I’ll stick with The Isle, thank you very much.
@@mbehji6505 Isn't The Isle's dev problematic tho. I remember many youtubers stopped playing the game because of it.
Same I was like "really dude"
@@catscanhavelittleasalami yes he is.
When you put it this way it sounds a lot like Yandere Simulator. This isn't a scam in the sense that there isn't a product, but this is also a lone developer having a decent enough concept idea, with store bought assets, not delivering for years and also being a really awful PR person.
So basically a scam, that’s what it is in a sense.
@@ArstotzkaEmpire Technically Yandere Dev did have custom coding, it was just shit because he’s a terrible programmer.
@@anubis7457 something is telling me that DoD has less game than YS
@@anubis7457 yea but, at least Y.D. at least made an effort to, you know, make a game. Rather than doing what DoD did
@@amberthepuppeteer
His “effort” causes the game to crap itself whenever a student moves. He relies on people who know how to code doing it for free. Any good code is replaced with his own, and they’re not allowed to work on the game anymore, since YanDev is an egomaniac. Not to mention, totally creepy for trying to defend a 17 year old being sexualized by both him, and the fans, by going “nah she’s totally 18 guys, even if I say she isn’t.” Which he’s done multiple times.
$10,000 per dragon model? As a 3D modeler I can say that's ridiculously unrealistic. Most freelancers would charge around $1,000 for one.
my best friend convinced me to be a backer for this game (I never drop anything on kickstarter) and even knowing i spent the bare minimum i regret it. poor girl was a mod for their discord server too, i got some behind the scenes shit secondhand. she was super manipulated by jao, but eventually realized what a huge scam it was and bailed without any help. I'm hoping the in-development game she's currently working with turns out better (i met the dev irl and he liked my homemade banana bread, so that's promising) but I'm never putting a dime to anything until i see the finished product ever again, no matter what.
What’s she working on?
Glad you guys got out of there, that sucks
Signs of trustworthy people:
Enjoys your homemade banana bread
Not hostile
Loves you
Never gives you up
Never lets you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Banana Bread is a solid plus.
@@DepthPerceptionEnjoyer good comment
@@DepthPerceptionEnjoyer I've never been so happy to read a rickroll comment
Really well done video.
Thanks dude, appreciate that a lot
Agreed. It was very interesting.
@@KiraTV1 absolutely i couldn't agree more was clean and organized and very informative well done buddy you have a knack for this deep dive stuff keep it up :) i have seen almost all your past videos
It's almost like it's just repeating and copying what you made. Gasp. How original. And how very unhelpful. Where's the content covering the game in it's CURRENT state. Guys need ot let the past die already and move the fuck on.
Hey you're the guy from the video!
It's a scam. He said everything was custom made when it was just bought assets. If he was just honest about it he wouldn't receive vitriol.
"i want to redesign 3 dragons because the three i have came from different artists" most honest thing he said, he just didnt mention they were storebought assets
I have seen all of the custom made models, they look amazing and are real
@@livegains3441 Well, by the sound of things, at least the second half of the sentence was true. If the first half was true, that those three models were the priority, it's hard to explain how he ended up with just one custom model in the base game for half a million.
Yep. Lots of games that is in the early prototype stage SHOULD use as much store assets as possible, so you can prove your game concept actually works, is fun, and people want to play it. Then hire graphic artists and actually make the game instead of the shitshow shown here with this guys ego.
@@Lusewing nice try jonathan!
As an indie dev, I can tell this started as a scam. They just didn't expect to reach the initial goal, let alone the stretch goals. They could cover the failure of the 12k project by saying "it wasn't enought, we undesrtimated the costs" and leave with that. But instead they got 500k and they didn't know how to react to that.
The obvious part where you can tell it's a scam is that it wouldn't take 2 years to write the code used for this game even if you did start learning how to code from the day you started to count the time spent coding. Except for the chat and network parts, I could code this game in a day
So why do the still develop the game?
@@lulu111_the_cool Well most scammers tend to not be intelligent so much as willing to do the things that others won't do out of a sense of ethics. That isn't to say that is true of all scammers, but if Jao was the Bernie Maddof type I don't think he would be going after this kind of low tier maneuver. I wouldn't be surprised if after the not massive but still considerable funding they got that they thought they could somehow segway into legitimate game design without realizing how immensely out of their depth they are.
@@Samtastrophi but he wanted at the beginning only fun 3 dragons designs. After he got much more money he hired help.
@@lulu111_the_cool I mean that would make sense if he wasn't taking it seriously at first. If it was originally a scam, but then became a 'serious' project, why wouldn't he hire help?
yeah going from needing 12k to claiming that 500k wasn't enough and his hostile reactions towards people including bans and stuff just fires off so many red flags to me. Not to mention the stretch goals required a second purchase because prior backers didn't get the stuff makes no sense. If this isn't a scam its a guy who got greedy as hell and than decided not to deliver on what he promised
I'm sorry you had such a bad experience with the game. I know this is a bit late, but I'm really interested in the original kickstarter backers and their rewards. Would you by any chance be interested in selling them?
The fact that the creator of day of dragons blocks people on the discord who ask questions about bugs and lack of updates you can understand why people would assume the game was a scam surely someone who believed their game wasn't a scam would defend and explain themselves because the blocking and ignoring response doesn't do well for a games image.
Or even take constructive criticism in order to improve the game.
@@NecrochildK indeed
You guys obviously aren't aware of the complete deluge of dogshit input a community can flood a creator with.
@@dee-wreck And yet Unknown Worlds did just fine with even having a suggestions and bug report built into their game and made their game better for it. There are a lot of great elements in the Subnautica games that they never planned on in the first place, all suggestions from the community following their progress. Shutting out all critique is just really foolish from a creation standpoint. Yes, there will be a lot of poorly written or just plain dogshit suggestions or comments, but when people make legitimate criticisms and suggestions on how to fix things, you're shooting yourself in the foot by shutting out all input. You can't so easily see the flaws in your own design or where it may be missing things that would greatly improve it or even where it actually shines most for players, parts that some devs might think of removing instead of keeping because they don't directly see the relevance.
There is a massive difference between reducing dogshit input and cutting out all input entirely.
@@dee-wreck I'm fully aware, it's called take some of the hugely excessive amount of extra cash and hire on more people to help.
When he said 'Legitimate concern' to that woman, I died of laughter. My man said 'come back when you are legitimately concerned' after they literally ask him legitimately what his goal is.
I hope one day we actually do get a decent game were you can play as a dragon and/or ride dragons. So many games focus on killing dragons but really I just want to live my childhood dreams of being friends with them.
Dude, istaria, ark (to a degree), legend of spyro. Just look outside of mainstream games and big youtubers. But DEFINETLY try istaria.
Dawn of dragons is an upcoming game with humans and dragons, and you can be a tamed dragon for the humans to ride, it'll come quite soon I think
Update April 24 2024: the game is still a growth simulator. Only difference is better map and 1 new free dragon to play. Lol what a joke
It also comes with massive framerate issues. Jao's advice? Go buy a better PC.
@@cfowler7936to be fair, UE5 is the problem. Not the game. Most PCs now a days have a 2080ti graphics card max, which is a pretty decent card to run UE5 but not the greatest. Not everyone knows how to build a PC, nor even knows the term "Ti" not a lot of games are using UE5 yet because UE5 has a LOT of cool features that the average PC can't keep up with.
One other thing I would like to point out is the fact that the steam page is currently on a "Mostly Positive" rating. Any upon closer inspection reveals that the VAST MAJORITY of positive reviews come from bot accounts/people paid to review after leaving their PC's to rot with the game open for a day or so.
This is still true atm. Lots of one word "positive" reviews and the communityhub discussions full of white knights..
There needs to be some policy for kickstarters that attempts to mitigate against situations like this. Maybe they hold the balance of funds until certain milestones are reached.
Problem is some real projects need the money to buy the tech and hire people to make the game. Can't reach milestones without devs, office and tech. Kickstarter will always have scams unles they start acting more like a bank, less like a middle man.
In this case he released a playable game. Was it a great game? No. But what is kickstarter supposed to do?
Well my point is a lot of these kickstarts are run by people with no business or financial experience so they need drip feeding money from their pool. Also, who gets paid entirely up front? When I’ve worked freelance for a company (assuming this is the path they would take for dev’s designers etc..) then you’ll get some money when you sign on and then the rest when you deliver.
That’s motivation to get shit done.
@@Fafmagic we don't need another massive company holding peoples money from them until arbitrary goals are met. Especially when that company has already shown it will weaponize its TOS to remove people it doesn't like. It's their right to do it with no experience nor hire someone who is, just as it's the backers right to give the money.
@@Fafmagic That's actually how I was paid when the DoD devs hired me to help out with some design work for one of their dragons. They paid half up front, then another half later.
Sadly this is not how Kickstarter works. But alas...KS does what KS does. Its a risk-taking prospect, but hey...it's ultimately the people who decide to risk their money or not.
What sucks is this is an awesome idea. There are NOT enough games out there where you can play as a freakin' dragon.
There's a lack of games in general that do the whole animal simulator thing well. Every single game I have come across in that genre is mediocre at best, besides a very select few.
@@someoneidk308 yeah the only decent one right now is WolfQuest Anniversary.
So wait a few years and see what comes from Day of dragons. As of there was a court they won
@@ikillpeople13 Touch grass
@@ikillpeople13wyverns are dragons. the "uhm... is wyvern... not dragon" is such a dumb point idiots keep trying to use to seem smart when it's factually incorrect.
this is exactly what you get when you cross an inexperienced dev and the dragon fanbase starved of a proper dragon game. A shit ton of backer money, but a terrible game
Which still gets developed
The guy literally spent two years planning a scam just to have people still purchase the game after release. Sounds like the guy wins.
i highly HIGHLY doubt he spent 2 years on this like he said he probably thought up the idea and make the game in about a month
@@mrmemethememelord5940 no he spent 2 years planning on how ti scam people, the game was just part of the plan
@@grinningdragondren -- Yeah nah.. The "2 years planning" anything is just a lie, or at best and over-zealous boasting.. Garunteed his idea is "well i've been thinking of this game for like.. 2 whole years, so of course i was 'working' on it."
JAO wasn't planning to scam anyone, he just thought he could create a game without knowing anything about it, The game is a scam, but JAO himself doesn't have the capacity to plan that..
plus like. 2 years? Dude, "I make fake game" is a 5 seconds of planning, than 5 minutes of "Why did I think that, that's so stupid."
The last 10% is the hardest part. When you work on a game for a long time you get bored with it, start to hate it even if it's good. Going the last mile and finishing it is something a lot of people can't do. Early Access has proved that over the years. After a while they just mark it "1.0 Release" and run away as fast as they can
If Steam had quality control, this wouldn't happen
I witnessed this spectacular disaster since the very beginning. Jao and the majority if not all of the game's staff were and probably still are part of a private discord server which acts more akin to a literal cult rather than the group of friends they were supposed to be. My girlfriend was part of said group years ago and once the true narcissistic and malicious nature of Jao became apparent, the level of toxicity and harassment towards my partner and other members became more extreme, so extreme in fact that deeply affected her mental health.
Jao not only has zero programming experience, but this project was "made" with the intension of filling his insufferable ego while making a couple thousand dollars along the way. The game's "progress", the insane amount of lies and the straight up tyrannical behaviour of the "developers" is already enough to alert people of the horrible purchase they are making, however knowing my partner's stories truly shows how disgusting people they really are.
I will never play a single second of Jao's products out of principal and respect towards my girlfriend. Never trust this people.
i talked woth jao on his discord for 5 minutes
it was literally him flexing that he banned me and everyone who doesnt own the game from the steam discussions
then i got banned ffrom the discord for calling it a "defensive move only made to silence the critics"
@@Zanta100 He also banned someone for "hacking" the game even though that person didn't even own the game, they were just in the discord for observing. When asking for proof, every moderator refused to show any evidence of the supposed violation. The moderators are a joke as well, they will ban you for saying "shit" 3 times in a row but they will refuse to punish or ban a person that openly admits to being a fan of Hitler. I guess they'd rather support a Nazi troll than tolerate mild swearing on their discord.
@@apalala4166 I was banned for _____ reasons on Discord. Admins not only didn't warn me I was violating any rules on DC but straight up banned me, then ignored me. Apparently the Mod to speak with is called Midnight on issues about bans. Let me just say, I'm better off addressing these issues with roadkill.
Midnight ignores their duties as Moderator and only rears their face when it suits them. I know a few people being ignored by them and have seen evidence of this. It's disgusting.
I was also banned from Steam Discussion very quickly when the "Beta" first came out. I was explaining why the term Beta was misleading buyers into thinking the game is more finished than it actually is. Beta is when the game has got its content and is in the final stages before release. Alpha is when the game is still developing and is entitled ti have major changes.
I was banned for spreading 'misinformation'. 😂
@@cfowler7936 I was banned for existing.
I actually talked to him and was banned for questioning "his coding" knowing beforehand that he never had the prior experience, he just wanted to scam people of they're hard earned money and to fuel his ego , there are several similar games with the same dragon models as well that are actually finished and or being developed, looking at the graphics of "his game" and those there is a huge difference,I'm sorry for your girlfriend as well.
It's fairly common for programmers to use other people's code in my experience, but the problem lies in the fact that they haven't put anything together that resembles a game or original work, its basically a tech demo with a stock environment, they have no unique level design or character design, and they don't really have much as far as gameplay beyond basic movement controls from the sounds of it
I remember watching Sid Alphas coverage of this ages ago. Ultimately actions speak louder than words and JAO can call doubters "trolls" all he likes. But when he is literally taking an extremely hostile and authoritarian attitude towards people that are just asking for answers to their concerns, then he has shown his hand. If he had noble and legitimate intentions then face people with genuine consideration not threats and ban hammers.
Actions do speak louder than words. So go look at what DoD REALLY is right now instead of just watching a youtubers vid covering old news from 2 years ago. Everyone said Jao wouldn't keep going with his 'game'...guess what, he did. And still is. So yeah! Actions DO speaker louder than words! Hence why no one should just beleive everything they hear in a youtube vid.
@@UltimateTH 2 years later and he still hasnt delivered the 3 custom dragons he needed 12k for. this game became star citizen for him when he received funds much greater than he wanted. the idea of the game is great and sold well. but the execution is still a tech demo, not a game. speaking of which. did he get artists to re do the "custom" maps he bought from the asset store yet? or is it just the 2 dragons, one of which is DLC?
if you bought assets, no one cares as long as you are upftont about it. but claiming they are custom.. being found out, and then banning everyone pointin it out...
not that I would ever support a dev that hostile anyway. such behaviour should not be encouraged.
but if you are fine being sold dreams.. that's fine, its your choise. but do not defend the bad actor to validate your choise.
@@UltimateTH Actions eh? So where was that December Update he posted about in September?
@@UltimateTH so what products has been offered for the 500k+ past the initial 12k needed. You know the 12k that was for content still not delivered on....
@@UltimateTH Actions eh? I am still waiting on Flame Stalker that I was promised Q1 2021.
I had to talk a friend down from this scam. I told him "You'll hang out for like an hour, maybe two, and realize you can't do anything so why bother? It's a glorified dragon RP chat room at present." Which was hard for him, because he's a hella fan of being a dragon. My opinion is it was always supposed to be a small scale asset flip and then move on. Get some original dragon models, and leave it there. He didn't expect to have a fan base he had to answer to, nor interest of how the game is going to perform later. He got overwhelmed from successfully becoming known and got violent because he couldn't easily back out of the project anymore. It was never going to be a grand dragon adventure, but a measly sandbox with little to do and only the dragons as original content.
Because it's either that, or he admittedly spent 2 years buying assets and code to cobble together a pretty little glass jar to sit around in.... and fuck all with actual progress making a game. So either he wanted to scam people and move on as quickly and quietly as possible with a very modest kickstarter goal.... OR he has absolutely no experience in game development and is terribly slow/stubborn to learn how to actually create a game. Either way, he's got a shitty personality and a "personal righteousness" that makes him think everyone with legitimate critique is a troll out to get him.
Never got my money, never gunna get my money. It's too little too late at this point, and I try my damnest not to support gaming assholes anymore.
I was one of the kickstarters for the game, and I honestly wish I could get a refund. None of the backers even got the majority of the things they were promised, plus the last that I heard, the game was still incredibly barren.
What did you expect? What was expected? Villages to be burned down by dragons? Villagers to be burned alive? More animals/creatures/monsters/etc...?
I was wondering if you still have access to one of your kickstarter codes, I would be interested in buying them!
Would you by any chance still have access to your kickstarter keys? I would be very interested in them
Sad to say I was really excited about this and backed it, it had felt fishy from pretty early on but it was the first time I had put money into one of these projects and decided that it'd either be a great game or a great lesson. The community shortly after was pretty nice, a lot of groups sprung up and player groups were forming, I even managed to play on one of the earliest tests and it was fairly fun, because of the other players not the game, which was even more barebones at the time. I remember hearing about the acid dragon addition and I realized that things weren't okay. Then rumors about the assets and even sounds being taken broke out and so many of the groups and servers broke away from the game. I decided to put the game to rest at this point but I let the Kickstarter emails keep going. It was just same thing over and over even until now, just WIPs, ideas, and mechanisms over and over again.
I had never even thought about the coinciding Harry Potter event nor realized that RUclips videos had popped up around it. To some extent, I had always hoped it was a project that had simply gone wrong or didn't have the same passion over time but it was pretty clear within a few weeks or a month that things weren't going to pan out. As I only put a small amount of money into it, I'll just take the lesson I got from it and maybe something to screencap dragon references from once in a while. Guess it taught everyone to give these Kickstarters just a little more of a critical look than before.
I'm sorry you had such a bad experience with the game. I know this is a bit late, but I'm really interested in the original kickstarter backers and their rewards. Would you by any chance be interested in selling them?
Would you by any chance still have access to your kickstarter keys? I would be very interested in them
This style of content suits you well Kira. Really enjoyed this one
Completely agree.
@@jamesd5767 That's partially why I enjoy it. As he mostly does ad lib and reaction style content, it's also nice to get more scripted and structured videos aswell.
@@jamesd5767 because it is scripted and rehearsed?
100%. Lot of work into this stuff, and I generally enjoy most of what you post, but you hit this sort of thing on the head.
@@jamesd5767 it would seem much less professional especially when covering controversial topics, this way it seems much more of a credible source as they aren't stuttering or making mistakes.
I genuinely do believe that DoD wasn't *meant* to be a scam, but with Jao vastly overestimating his abilities as a solo dev and selling a tech demo as anything other than a proof of concept, it certainly became such.
The same story, each time, every time. Basicly DO NOT pay for a Kickstarter unless you are totally OK to say bye-bye to that money!
if that was the case he wouldn't have been lying so much and trying to sell merchandise
If you don't know you are able of doing something don't ask people for money. Do it alone. I'm tired of this excuse. Those are just people who ruin the system for the rest.
@@stefan1360 Self-delusion is a powerful thing, unfortunately. He seems fully convinced of his skills, and banks on that delusion to have the gall to try and create merch for a non-game.
Nope, the fact that he had 3 line of custom code in and decided to start a Kickstarter for dragon art for an "existing" game is a blatant scam attempt. He just wanted to make an easy 12k, he didn't expect for it to spiral out o control.
I remember looking at the kickstarter and recognizing it immediately as a project with no value or promise. One of the biggest red flags to me was the part that promised "Huge Mega Map. The world is huge and beautiful with multiple biomes including forests, deserts, lava, swamps, grasslands, and caves." 1. what in the world does "huge mega map" mean, 2. How is an immature game developer with no prior history going to create a stable multiplayer game on a huge scale? Anyone with experience in such games knows that the bigger the map = the only way to make it feel alive is to populate it with so many players that the lag is hell. Dude legit just said "the world is huge and beautiful" and that was the extent of the detail given
Watching the game develop has been like watching a circus fire except people are still celebrating its existence. The first modeler they hired to work on the game was a 3D sculptor, NOT a game modeler--completely different skill sets when it comes to creating low-poly models capable of being diversely animated, and you can tell when you look at the models... that acid dragon was NOT made with video game modelling skills in mind and you can tell in how stiffly its animated. It's default pose looks like a catastrophe
I remember seeing this and thinking "This looks cool! Lets see where it goes... wouldnt be the first unique survival game that goes nowhere..."
And i was right.
If you want a dragon game that's actually legit, consider getting Draconia. You can actually customize your dragon and there are things and missions you can do. It's still being developed but it has already far surpassed the crap the DoD developer has done, even with only a fraction of the funding he had.
Or that gta dragon flesh game with multiplayer, which is free.
@@ArstotzkaEmpire Or Dragons of the Edge, which is also free and Decently fun.
Seconding this. Draconia is so good so far! I love customizing my skins for my dragons and you can make tons of them.
plus the devs of draconia provide WIPS in the discord server on stuff that theyre working on, which is refreshingly transparent. i like seeing 'under the hood' since it shows progress. although its still kind of 'naked' right now, i can clearly see that there's real work being put into draconia and i'm always excited whenever there's a new update/patch, no matter how small it is.
There's also Dragon Simulator
it's a mobile game but honestly one i have fond memories of
I remember back when this game was getting all hyped up by content creators I found it odd how whenever Jao was being interviewed, particularly in Gaming Beaver's video, Jao always had a tone to his voice that sounded like he didn't care to take the time in the video whatsoever and would leave usually about halfway the way through the video.
Maybe it was just his natural speaking voice but I would think someone that recieved such an overwhelming kickstarter would be ecstatic for his vision getting so much attention. But no he usually acted bored or uninterested in ever talking about his own game.
Like the only reason he took the time was because he knew it would get him more attention and profit.
I remember in Gaming Beaver video he had a strange reaction when Beaver told him he was recording. I felt something off like Jao didn’t want to be recorded.
if its his natural sounding voice well at least hes got a 10/10 dead teenager voice maybe he should try voice acting in the future
TheGamingBeaver reference spotted
what about you guys just quit giving money to complete strangers on kickstarter? stop buying pre-orders, and stuff like that too... this kind of marketing already clearly turned out to be a cancer for videogame industry, often reducing the quality of finished products. And i am not talking only about indies, but "AAA" games too.
Let's of course not forget that Jao also _violated steam ToS by hardcoding bans of the steam profiles of several content creators that were critical of him._
Then why is DoD still on Steam if it violates their terms of service? Try using your brain.
Oh no, the sacred ToS is violated for banning two attention seekers :O
@roseCatcher_ "Attention seekers" sure is a weird way to say "people who were pointing out Jao's lies."
But I guess there's always gonna be that one dumbass who's still in denial and will whiteknight for a game and suck off the dev long after its been proven the game was a scam.
@Cross3x7 Because steam didn't ban them _despite_ violating ToS for some unknown reason.
Does your dumbass need me to quote the exact part of the ToS?
"The effects of the game ban are determined by the developer, and must be consistent with a VAC ban, such as being prevented from playing online with other players and/or trading items for that game. *It cannot prevent the user from launching and playing the game offline.* It cannot prevent the user from using Steam."
Jao literally hard-coded the game so that certain steam IDs couldn't even start the game, which inarguably violates that very clear part of the ToS.
The amount of people that still run to the defense of Jao after its been proven Day of Dragons is a fucking scam is truly unbelievable.
I was a backer for the game, and let me tell you, I'm very clearly still salty about the game. Very little progress on anything. I've been waiting for more than a year to see the Bio-Dragon. And people who backed much higher tiers than me have probably been pretty disappointed that their money has been used poorly. When the game actually starts looking better, like Draconia, maybe I'll dislike it less. I know there's a road map for DoD, BUT, people have been waiting a really long time for some of these things that have been promised. And for people who backed high enough for the Acid Spitter... Whoooo boi... You'd have to feel sorry for them because they'll have to buy the Acid Spitter DLC, lol. I'm glad I didn't go beyond 40 bux, cuz I'd feel like I would've lost A LOT MORE.
I'm sorry, but you actually fell for this? I just want to know what it's like from the perspective of a backer. What exactly about the 'project' looked like a promising game worth forking money over for? If a trailer only shows characters moving around and nothing else, I'm immediately suspicious. Especially with graphics like that. I would probably be one of the first people to look up if those are stolen/flipped assets or not.
@@RevolutionaryOven Sometimes it really seems like a short trailer and a wall of text full of promises is enough to convince people to sink in hundreds of dollars... you'd think people would be a little more careful given how many scams have taken place in the past
@@RevolutionaryOven To be honest, that was the 1st time I've ever backed something on Kickstarter. A friend of mine found it. We both had no idea that what we saw in the video were just store bought assists, or copied and pasted code. It was only finding that out through Anthomnia, IGP, and Icy did we learn this. My friend is still hopeful for the game and I sometimes see them playing it from Steam. But for me, I'm clearly the one who's the most salty. I most likely will not be backing any projects anymore. I've learned my lesson. You understand that there are people who also backed for the 1st time, as well. It's a learning experience. If what you backed actually kept all of its promises, like Draconia, for example. It would feel great to have helped to bring more things to the game. Then more people after a success like that will maybe feel compelled to do the same for other projects. And it's only later if and when they find out if what they backed was worth it. Mistakes can be made. You probably feel like you're higher because you've found somebody that made a mistake like myself. But don't look down on us, we can learn. Mistakes are something that just happen in life, I'm sure you've made a score of mistakes yourself in your time you'd probably not want to share. I've learned, and I'll be more careful if I ever decide to want back a project again. I'll have to look into it more, like if the models are just store bought or not.
@@RevolutionaryOven we both fell for it in our household. We went in at a pretty low level thankfully. The update emails are at best “fluff”. It became extremely apparent that something was off well before update #15. Then his wave of bans, hard coded exclusions for certain content creators started escalating. (Steam did make him remove that due to violations of TOS.)
Honestly, we learned our lesson and are much more wary about Kickstarter events. I am quite aggravated that this scam has been allowed to continue.
@@aurorafina Ya, Anth, IGP, and Icey, talked about that, I pay very little attention to the DoD discord server, but most of the "updates" have been, more of just the "fluff", showing mostly bug fixes to how servers run, and barely any mentions of the dragons. In one of Anth's latest videos, he actually goes back to the game, even though he's still not sure about it, and sees if any progress has been made. He gets to see the dev server, and gets to take a look inside one of the test rooms; located through a portal. In cold storage, there were basically dragons and ai creatures that have been fully modeled that we have yet to see. Btw, Pooky is a giant scary monster worm now. Way scarier than before. As of right now, it's still seems like a bit of a scam, but what I saw all the way in cold storage was at the very least some sorta progress. Jao, to me still has issues against creative criticism, and may or may not, weaponize his staff against itself or against anyone who speaks negative truth with a ban to the server. So, basically if you pay more attention to it, the server may look a bit more cult-like. I wish I had backed Draconia instead, but it's been far better and much quicker and more open about what they're working on. I bought the game. It's a nice game so far, with more things to come. I can't wait to give the noodle dragon a try when it's out.
Pro tip: if the developer can prove to steam they are being review bombed. (regardless of deserved and fairly acquired negative rating) Then steam will reset the review amount to 72% every time. I noticed the game starbase always dipping to 50-60% then magically with no new reviews it would jump to 72% this happened over a period of weeks. Steam just resets the score and leaves the total reviews while discounting the negative ones. There are further ways to find this just by looking at the review graph for a game.
So in the case of this game with a spicey history. I could easily see the developer using this tool to keep his crisp 72% approval.
that seems scamy and misleading bruh
Not sure of the legitimacy of "just when ever", but yes. If review bombed Steam may take action. Same with Amazon. RUclips took away the ability of seeing negative feedback, unless you are the uploader of the content. It makes it appear everything is good when it is not to other viewers.
@@tilasole3252 I can still see it
@@tadpolegaming4510 see what?
@@JohnZombi88 no doubt as well. RUclips also kicked those doing the down voting and complaining, because even though they were literally lying and just plain horrible, they were paid ads.
My parter wanted to donate to this, she LOVES dragons, she was absolutely in love with the idea of this game, she just wanted to be a dragon so bad, I begged her to wait till it showed developement and I am so freaking glad she did.
On a side note, from a coding standpoint, more is not always better.
When I was learning Python for example, I made a text-based RPG, where you could choose your own class, go explore, have events and all your usual stuff. It totaled something stupid like 10,000 lines. Immediately after that, which took many hours, I redid it from scratch in like 1,000 lines.
His flying thing should only really have that much code involved if it is reacting to the terrain or environment, and there's probably a more efficient way to organize it, to speed up performance. I.e. divide the first check in two, with a formula that accounts for speed, and registers if there is an object within that distance. If not, then it defaults to the standard flying pattern. If there is, it then 'reacts' based on the object to change to a different animation, and possibly move the hitbox / model etc. Depends on the engine / language, but you get the idea. This way it only runs 1 check under nominal conditions, so under your usual operation it minimizes the impact.
This video was really well done.
Was? Quick watch
@@animelytical8354 I was like 70% done when I posted. It was reminding me of a death of a video game video and I assumed the last 10 min were not going to be shit. They were not. I stand by my op.
You sure? I prefer my videos medium or medium rare :V
agree
@@Doomerang01 Yea i prefer videos that are rare or medium rare
I'm glad you reviewed this one. Anthomia got so many death threats from fans that still believed the piece after he backed out and said this isn't right. So thank you for reviewing what happened
People were threatening to kill his dog over it. Was ridiculously stressful time for the staff team on Nycta managing the backlash from that mess. Not to mention Jao sending his staff over to harass one of our head staff, then the fanboys attacking the server.
That was a throwback man,, I totally forgot about Anthomia and the whole drama behind it. It was truly sickening
What's Anthomia?
@@PanduPoluan Anthomia is a RUclipsr who does update videos on certain games. One big one being Subnautica and I think The Isle. He had touched the subject of DOD at one time iirc
@@ExoticTrico He did, that's how I found out about DoD. It's disgusting how far people took the situation. Anthomnia was also why I started to realize it was not a good project to get behind, because he recognized the red flags for what they were, and I for one was glad of that.
this 100% started as a scam because he was already lying in the Kickstarter, saying he had been working on it for 2 years when it was actually 2 lines of code and bought assets that could be put together in a day (as was shown later)
Also he now lies about the development starting date. 2017 was mentioned in the KS campaign. Jao then flipped it to 2019 on his Streams.
You can find a lot of his "new dragon models" on turbo squid. I assume they purchased some models through turbosquid and "tweaked" them enough to consider them as original. Those dragon models go for anywhere between 100 bucks to 1000. Once you purchase them you can basically shape them however you want. It's not that expensive. It's not that deep.
Love the format of this deep dive, very much reminiscent of Sid Alpha, one of the main youtubers behind the original coverage of this story
I do like the bias free outside view. It’s is refreshing to see a well researched video that doesn’t have a personal stake in things. That said, are we really not going to talk about the discount nightfury? How has Jao not gotten his ass sued be dreamworks yet? Like… how?
“Each dragon costs 10,000 dollars to make and there are thirty dragons”
How did literally anyone buy this? Anyone who knows anything about game development would call bullshit on that immediately.
bro, him flexing that his blueprints look complicated as fuck is hilarious, especially in unreals blueprint/visual coding system, simple is better, it's also never the most optimised and normally used for prototyping quickly. To think that your blueprints being a spaghetti fuck fest is actually a good sign just goes to show the experience behind this project. I can't stop binging your vids btw kira, dont stop lol
imo i like to know what my blueprints are doing when i look at them like 2 weeks later
I've been following Day of Dragons since before the kickstarter ended. I backed it about 18 days in. I was originally very excited about it and backed it knowing full well that a polished, original game may not happen. However, as time went on that quickly soured. I felt that the kickstarter backers were (and honestly still are) being ignored. At one point the game was getting updates on their patreon, instead of on the kickstarter page or in the discord. I was there in the discord event when the acid spitter was announced. It might not seem like it now, but just about everyone was being very vocal about how much they disliked that a DLC dragon was being planned before even getting the 3 base dragons fully designed. Even today, the Acid Spitter was the first "original" dragon ever added to the game. Not to mention how they made some of the kickstarter-exclusive dragons (which I can question the fairness of) unlockable to anybody.
I put original in quotes earlier in my comment because of my biggest gripe: either Jao or the designer is taking very heavy inspiration from other popular dragons in media. The wyverns and the 4-legged fire dragon is fine, they look like generic dragons, but its when you start to look at the others that I find a personal issue with. The plasma dragon (Shadow Scale i think) is obviously inspired by Toothless from How to Train your Dragon (HTTYD). The ridges along the spine, the protrusions on the head, the tail fins. Hell, the fact that it glows blue in its mouth and along its back (you can see this at 21:17 in the video), EXACTLY like Toothless does at the end of the second movie? Its far too close for me to think they came up with it completely originally. I won't go into my other examples as detailed, but it can be easily looked up and compared if you would want to do so. Their Hybrid dragon looks like Stormcutters from HTTYD, the Singe Crest looks like the Banshees from Avatar (Blue people movie, not the last airbender), and the Blitz Striker looks like Skrills from HTTYD. I could go in depth about what exactly I see that's the same or similar about each design, but my comment is far too long already.
I can give details for anything I've said here if so desired. But tl;dr:The game is a disappointment. Not because of the game itself, I never expected anything from it, but because of the developers. Or, developer (singular) I should say. I was hoping for some exciting, original dragons, maybe a pvp toggle, and a cool environment to explore. However, it feels like backers are ignored, the dragons are derivative of other media, and any discussion area for the game is one you WILL get shut out of if you disagree. I'm just done and tired of it, but want to put some kind of word out there for anyone who might consider the game.
Thanks for contributing to shitty behaviour by Developers. People like you enable them
Given Disney's incredible legal team I find it curious he hasn't been smacked with copywrite lawsuits to take down that content.
Hey, I saw you were an original kickstarter on this game, I would be very interested in your kickstarter rewards. Is there a chance you would be down to sell them?
Would you by any chance still have access to your kickstarter keys? I would be very interested in them
I love that you went back and looked at this "game." I remember when all of the drama started about it. It's cool to see where it is now to an extent, even if it's essentially a scam that keeps on scamming.
Might not have started as a scam but it was literally an asset flip and kinda still is so it ended as one.
I bought this one Steam's greenlight because my mind was like "Dragons, awesome!" Messed about for less than an hour realizing how it was nothing like what was advertised. And fortunately got a refund from Steam.
best case scenario this man was completely delusional to the difficulties of game development and in complete denial of how basic and shoddy his attempt at making a game really was. But lets be real here, the level of hostility and defensiveness he was showing when being investigated and how little actual work he put into it, (especially when you brought up the copy someone made with 0 skill or time), I think it's clear that he knew what he was doing. I've worked on games, including shoddy little projects with not many developers. Even when something is not going well or you're not sure how to proceed, you typically still put in so much more effort than what he was displaying.
I think unreal assets have done this to people. Slap an environment down, maybe a couple buildings, and a generic dude , a stock monster -and people get the delusion that they can be developers with no experience. Not quite like playing with Legos. More like having Spiderman and Batman action figures meet in a 'bar' and you're just a kid playing around in a cardboard box. It's like that but with adults using asset figures.
@@Sorrowdusk That's definitely true, even as an actual developer was I shocked at how easy it was to get started on a project in unreal. But even still I feel like even a novice would recognize that 1 day's worth of work isn't a lot to brag about. Though I guess maybe it's more that because they know absolutely nothing, what would take someone who knows what they're doing 1 day, might take someone who barely knows how to import free assets several weeks of watching tutorials and messing up and putting way too much time into things that don't matter. So I guess that's where that mindset of "I've put so much time into this project" might come from. When in reality it's like an aspiring novelist bragging about how long it took them to come up with the title and forward to their book before having written any actual pages.
I love your duck profile pic!
I knew it was serious when Kira didn't have the face cam...
1) String together assets from an asset store without writing a single line of code.
2) Make a kickstarter.
3) Profit
This is becoming way too common.
New here, and glad I stumbled onto your channel. I deeply appreciate this type of content and the massive amount of research that goes into it. Good work!
Thanks, welcome!
The biggest benefit of terrible insomnia, I can watch Kira videos as soon as they hit from over the pond!
What are the other benefits?
Working nights gets the same xD
@@elpapa68 Peace and quiet. Best time to really concentrate on things you enjoy.
Same
I didn't think Day of Dragon was a scam at first but just a case of wannabe game developer way in over his head...until he started pulling Star Citizen crap
I believe this game is still being "worked on" solely to avoid lawsuit from pissed off backers, just like Chronicles of Elyria but with more progress. The nerve of this guy to sell "bundles" in early access stage though...
its way worse than star citizen crap. at least they have their own code, their own models, animations, etc. its clearly never going to become the game theyre selling to people but at least they hire developers etc. i dont think they are aware of the fact theyre scammers, i believe they truly think theyre building the game they sell.
this guy however is pure scam. he wrote no code, he made no assets, he just put together a scam and didnt spend a single dollar on his "game" that he raised, it was pure scamming.
I don't understand how trials can't move forward. When it's something medical, say a trial out of wrongdoings in process of examination, or something a person, they call medical experts in the field or psychologists to do tests or say and explain how due process is actually done, or all the steps to take care of a patient. Same for security and police and other stuff.
I am confused as to why you can't bring a (true) professional dev (or devs) to say "yes, a game develeopment can take 10 years, but in 10 years of actual work you would have "this", not "that". Caspian and this guy should be in jail for fraud.
The idea of "in-development" should be held over 3 years, maybe 4. It's a fair sensible amount of time for you to either finish the game, develop it further to a playing state or something similar to show that you're actually doing it and on way to delivering what you promised/advertised.
@@LautaroQ2812 Game development is a iterative process. Sadly there is no specific timeframe you can put on a project’s progress. Things are cut, changed or remade all the time throughout development. Having game developers looking at code and assets is a good idea though! Also going through server logs and checking commits would be useful
Except Star Citizen devs wrote a lot of amazing tech. They're 100% not scammers, just a bunch of people who are too good at what they do for their own good. Obviously they need to stop developing their core, and just finish the game. I love watching the videos where they showcase the tech they're working on or show people how it all ties together.
I've toyed with Star Citizen a bit myself, and as other comments have said, it at least tries, and has made some ridiculously impressive tech. Won't ever meet the hopes and expectations of players and devs alike, but the fact they made huge procedural generated planets with weather, temperatures, foliage, etc, is worth the 20-40 bucks I tossed at it. This game however, as much as I wanted to play a game where I could be a dragon just doing dragon things, there's just way too many red flags and toxicity to put a dime in this even if I didn't believe it to be a scam.
"im not here to be interrogated by other developers"
aka "if you work in the industry you might figure out my scam"
Yes, it is absolutely a scam. Because even if the dev started out with sincere intentions, he lied as he continued to take lots and lots and lots of other people's money. Collecting money under false pretenses is fraud. That's a scam. He lied to people--overtly, through implication, and through omission--about his abilities, his progress, what he was producing, and what was and was not his own work, in order to keep collecting money. It's a scam whether a good game results or not.
This game will forever hold a special place in my heart, I was one of the kickstarter backers that jumped into the hype train with the original video. But after seeing it for what it really was I promised myself never again to pay anything for a game that isn't already released, I'm still holding on to that idea to this very day.
In the days of day one patches even that is not entirely safe. My PS4 copy of Cyberpunk 2077 is a great example of this
@@dracohawkxxx2079 Cyber is not that bad IMO. Sure it's buggy as hell, but I actually really enjoyed the gameplay, and graphics very much. I haven't gave it a go in a while, I am actually going to check er out to see how far along if has come. Hopefully they have continued to work on it. But it definitely failed to live up to the enormous hype surrounding it. Though for me personally. If it weren't for the fact that CDProjektRed bit off more than they could chew trying to top The Witcher 3. Which IMO actually could've been possible if they pushed back their release date so they could tweak it, and fix all the shit wrong with it. They should've cut back on their marketing a tad, or 2 also. But instead they over-marketed it, and rushed its release. Too bad lol...
In all honesty there was basically no way Cyberpunk was going to top Wild Hunt. Even if they did the 3 things I mentioned above... They caught lightening in a bottle with Wild Hunt. It's very much a contender for GOAT. So they set the bar insanely high for not just Cyberpunk, but for any future game to rival. Still though, Cyberpunk is not a bad game. I enjoyed, and I was very skeptical of it. I probably wouldn't have even given it the chance, if it weren't for my ex preordering it for me haha.
Kickstarter seemed like an answer for indie developers to hold their own company and economic progress as possibilities thanks to early boost. But it was used as a scam and milked for money for a decade. I really think the kickstarters will truely die in 5 years more.
best way to do it. most ill even wait for the first sale or check g2a every so often
If you still have some kickstarter key(s), I would be very interested in buying them.
The fact that the game was replicated in a few hours by someone with little to no game development experience says it all for me.
It actually pretty amazing how easy it is with modern tools and store assets to make something that looks like a game with a lot of work put into it when it really isn't anything at all. People really need to learn to be more critical of these things.
At first it started as a small passion project where they intended to have a few custom models for a prefab game that they could play on word store bought code and enviro assets. Then they got over 500k and it became an o-sht moment for a somewhat fledgling coder. Now they could create a full fledged game. Now they could get better modelers, better sounds, better music. They never said that it was a mostly fully coded game. They never said they had assets that weren’t store bought. This was a concept presentation that no one would have freaked out about if the ks hadn’t been so successful.
Jao also had a melt down which didn’t help. He was under a lot of pressure, was majorly overwhelmed, and blew it. He was also being heavily attacked, so I get it. What’s important is he eventually pulled himself together, shut out the distractions, and set to work.
He DID hire some of the top people for design and creation. The original amounts he quoted didn’t take into account for the ks explosion. Instead of buying a cheap modeler and crappy music, now he could hire some of the best.
I’m not fully defending this project, I know it has its issues, but honestly, I don’t think it was a scam. I think it was someone who got in over his head, and not even because of him. He asked for 12k for a small first passion project with mostly store bought crap. He got a crap ton of money with HUGE expectation pressure.
There has been decent progress since the ks. It’s far from perfect, but it’s showing promise. The worst part right now is the lag.
500k isn’t a lot of money in the creation of a game. Not sure why people think this is a caste sum of cash. Especially when you take in to account taxes.
A RUclipsr literally recreated the game on his own to the point that no one could tell the difference. It's a complete scam. An asset flip for money.
Noticed an identical concept game called Draconia a few days ago. It seems to not have been in development as long as Day of Dragons, but already is plenty playable and the dev blog actively shows progress including concept art for new dragons as well as their progress in modeling and animating them. Very transparent and very promising.
What upsets me most is that a blatant scam like this gets more positive reviews than a game that is actually trying to deliver on its promises like Draconia
Draconia is currently on Steam in pre-alpha, labeled as Early Access, and is slowly adding more content, and yet it has a lower review score than DoD, despite it shaping up to be everything DoD promised to be
Because DoD is not a scam and Draconia actually is a scam?
@@Cross3x7 I don't know anything about Draconia but if you think a game that raised half a million dollars and then charged even more money to play it and in-game purchases for what equates to an asset flight simulator is not a scam I have a bridge to sell you.
@@Cross3x7 I can only say from what I saw. Adding a skin, a signle skin, worth 300$ VS adding in a new type of Dragon (The eastern dragon) for free as release content is telling.
To this devs defense, Star Citizen has raised over 400 million and there is still nothing to do in that game either.
This is why I only take interest in games after it released, don't even care about pre-order
I don't even buy a game till it's been out for a year
I don’t buy any game on release day nor preorder because of the lesson I learned from FO76. I wait for trusted reviews and actual gameplay footage before I buy.
I never have ever spent any money on Kickstarter programs as I really don’t have the money to gamble on stuff like that. But I’m glad I never heard of “Day of Dragons” until this video itself.
Dragons are my favourite mythical creature and being some kind of dragon yourself or as a dragon trainer are so far and few between. The majority of games will dragons in, they’re enemies or you’re a dragon slayer.
I like the idea of being able to start as an egg, then growing up and playing as a dragon so I might have been tempted.
@@jonathansoko1085 Even better
Love this "story time" format! Keep up the great work. Having said that, please never stop your ranting videos either!
I'd love to see something like this on cube world. Followed that game for 6 years with nothing but blind faith and got nothing but dissapointments.
30-35k for a indie game soundtrack. Wow that’s a musicians best scam of a lifetime.
Jao bragged it was actually 50k.
Whether he's a scammer or just a terrible excuse for a dev who doesn't actually develop anything, he should not be producing game products. That said, somehow he's garnered a positive score on Steam and as long as that's true, it feels like the people who apparently like no-content games should be listened to. Not in the sense that anyone should buy this hot garbage, but in that maybe it still deserves to be for sale on Steam.
I disagree. I think for the most part, aggregate steam reviews are as accurate to a game's worth as IGN scores are. I've played many horrible games that were rated 'mostly positive' or higher. We deserve better products, and to say nothing is wrong because people like it is like saying Nestle is fine because people buy it. It's super naive.
@@Mouse_Librarian there is no end to this.
The game has content. This video just does not show any of it. There is more to do than simply spawn in and fly around/fight others.
@@gigaburgerer please tell us what this content is then
@@mrmemethememelord5940 and thus, he never answered
Woww this guy was so hostile. 'I'm not here to be interrogated' -- but here you are with no background asking for money for your scam game. The paranoia as well thinking it's another developer out there to 'steal' his ideas or coding reeks of scam and desperation.
"But there is nothing [so carefully] concealed that it will not be revealed, nor so hidden that it will not be made known. For that reason, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops."
I thoroughly dislike the way the dragons keep their wings open when they walk or run, it would look far better if they folded their wings like pterosaurs for moving on the ground.
This is the best edited and my favorite video you've made. This is exactly what I look for when I wanna see reviews. You've never edited a video like this before. I loved your old way of doing things but I couldn't turn this one off. Great job. Best vid you've made to date. No joke.
Great video! Love these "history of a thing/game" vids.
Great video, you highlight the issues and talk about them professionally without being overly critical which is very tough to do. I never personally got involved with DoD at the beginning, I disagree with buying things unfinished although I'm not small minded enough to understand that funding is how stuff gets done when you're a small company. However, I have seen so many videos on it and it's all the same. I cannot believe DoD is STILL getting away with carbon copies of a night fury and what now appears to be the dragons from GoT but with a set of four legs instead of two. What a joke. Are we so desperate for a game where you play as a dragon that we are ignoring the uncreative, unqualified and incompetence behind it?
Would you by any chance still have access to your kickstarter keys? I would be very interested in them
I have a quote my dad tells me often and is one of the rules I live by. "Never play with someone's money." Jao should've given what he promised, or the bare minimum, a functioning game.
That amount of money just for the dragons and soundtrack is insane. From my experience you can make and use one rig that is similar for the other models as well. Just with minor tweaks. Plus depending on the engine you use Unreal and Unity are free. The money is mostly for the soundtrack because I'm not sure how much money it takes to get an original soundtrack for a game. But in my experience in UAT game studios. We do it all for free for the experience. Sure we don't model dragons. But we model humans, creatures, sometimes hand rig them. Or use the Maya human rig and manually hand key everything. But even then unless you are using over the top mocap technology or a full Autodesk license full price non indie subscription per year would you need that type of money. Sure the hardware may be over the top expensive as well. But I have a PC build that only cost 1,500 and it still works 2 years later. All I'm saying is for an independent studio something isn't adding up right.
Only 1500 for your computer? That's a lot. I put in 650 and can play everything and can do everything I wanted with 650
High quality studio time can be expensive, as well as high quality mastering of the audio tracks. They'll also have to hire musicians to actually write the music. 30k does sound about right for the soundtrack, depending on the quality they want