View Full Version : Wow, old school UO volunteers sue and make money off OSI.
kinda old news, but GM's and community assistance peoples filed suit against OSI and won (http://dir.salon.com/tech/log/2000/09/21/ultima_volunteers/index.html). This set a nasty precident within the online gaming community, forcing many companies to hire GM folk as opposed to relying on volunteers.
Hiring GM's also guarenteed a new standard for service seeing as the newly employed assitants could do much more to assist and also had their job hanging in the balance as opposed to a volunteer position with occasional perks.
I just wonder if there's any plan for KK to hire GM staff if say, BDoY does well.
*shrug*
This isn't the first time Ultima has been slapped with a lawsuit by its players -- the game was initially so egregiously buggy that several avid players filed a class-action lawsuit against Origin Systems. (The suit was eventually dropped.) It seems that avid fans are quick to become avid enemies when they feel taken advantage of.
think i might sue kk. :p
only joking so don't ban me yet, you fookers! :angel:
fix those damn bugs you lazy gits!
Hey KK, lemme be a "volunteer" GM and lemme sue you in a couple of months. 10 free for life NC accounts and give me *Dr.Evil* ONE MILLION DOLLARS! If my demands are met I will settle.
how did they get away with it? dont they have to like sign something saying they agree to VOLUNTEER?
... :confused:
how did they get away with it? dont they have to like sign something saying they agree to VOLUNTEER?
... :confused:
Just because you sign a contract doesn't mean you can sign away your rights.
Also if truth be told OSI expected what amounted to was a full time job out of thier smurfs and you got penalised if you didn't do it.
Just because you sign a contract doesn't mean you can sign away your rights.
Also if truth be told OSI expected what amounted to was a full time job out of thier smurfs and you got penalised if you didn't do it.
oh i see then...
well if they basically kinda...force you to do "free" work, then i can understand where the GM's are coming from...
but they didnt have to become gm's did they... its like a, "now that your in, you cant get out without punishment" thing i guess :lol:
Also if truth be told OSI expected what amounted to was a full time job out of thier smurfs and you got penalised if you didn't do it.
Why does this ring a bell to me... I wonder !!!
And yeah, it is disgusting when you are a volunteer and offer up your spare time, only to get shafted and lied to. Real big fuckin' laugh that is...
Clownst0pper
03-04-04, 12:31
Nidhoggs thinking about suing, I can tell!!
well if they basically kinda...force you to do "free" work, then i can understand where the GM's are coming from...
And yeah, it is disgusting when you are a volunteer and offer up your spare time, only to get shafted and lied to. Real big fuckin' laugh that is...
I was a volunteer dev on a modestly popular Q3 mod. After a couple of years of getting bitched at for not doing everything spot on first time every time and committing hours and hours of my live to it every day, I quit. I feel for these UO guys...if you volunteer and give all you have to give what more can people legitimately ask for :confused: (assuming you're not actively sabotaging or hindering progress/community support obviously :lol: ).
I was a volunteer dev on a modestly popular Q3 mod. After a couple of years of getting bitched at for not doing everything spot on first time every time and committing hours and hours of my live to it every day, I quit. I feel for these UO guys...if you volunteer and give all you have to give what more can people legitimately ask for :confused: (assuming you're not actively sabotaging or hindering progress/community support obviously :lol: ).
Part of the problem seems to be, if your face doesn't fit, or you don't kiss enough ass, then you will be made a scapegoat of. Doesn't matter that you put hours in - it gets ignored when you find MAJOR bugs - seems to me, the only ones that will get on, are the ones willing to accept getting the shaft. If they are happy to sit there and accept it, fair enough. But when you point out to these 'people' that they are wrong, it gets ignored time and time again. Doesn't matter that you show them WHY they are wrong !!!
Pissed???? Me???? You fuckin bet !!!
And no, this isn't about UO...... But having seen this sort of thing first hand, I can tell you that shit happens for no reason.
Q`alooaith
03-04-04, 14:54
It's all about ego.
you volunteer because you want to, quite a few charitys rely on volunteers to do much of the entry level work, such as selling stock or such.
while you can't sign all your right's away, you can sign away your court case, they signed an agreement to cover certain hour's of the clock, with a minimum number of hour's per day.
I see them losing this suit, sure they feel taken advantage of but it alway's happens, they wanted to help, where told when to help and then decided it was work, and so demanded payment..
I have no sympathy for them.
Im a bit worried about all this stuff actually. Basicly the early mmorpgs set
the monthly fee and it has been around 10-15$ since. This is actually too
cheap if you run some numbers, a mmorpg has to be extremely suffesful to
be able to have that low monthly fee and still supply expansions, events etc
etc. Volunteer workers is one of the ways that the mmorpg business have
been trying to work around the fact that many of the games out there have
too little money to work with. Having paid staff working as GMs may be a
good thing, the quality of the game and events will most definately be alot
higher but I think we will see quit a bit of a raise in the monthly fees if thats
becomming the norm...
I see them losing this suit, sure they feel taken advantage of but it alway's happens, they wanted to help, where told when to help and then decided it was work, and so demanded payment..
I have no sympathy for them.
They won.
Each volunteer got around 1200 USD in compensation.
o_o
Marx, mind showing us the link? Cuz I don't see it in the link you showed us.
My personal thoughts....uhh...
There's a big difference between Volunteer and Employee.
Volunteer = Do it when you can sorta thing (Generally Set Times such as x hours per week), shouldn't get paid anything monetarily.
Employee = Specific Set times such as 7:00-11:00 each day or night, monetary wages should be included.
I'm still confused on the specific details behind the reasoning for the suit..so that's all I have to say.
o_o
Marx, mind showing us the link?
All I could do is point you to forums with happy former UO GM's. After the case it wasn't really talked about - from what the former GM's have been saying, there was about a year between the end of the trial and when they received their check. Its not clear if it was a 'win' or a settlement.
p.s. look at the date for that article: September 21, 2000. :lol:
Bastard, you made me think it was recent! =P
Interesting...
I was a volunteer dev on a modestly popular Q3 mod. After a couple of years of getting bitched at for not doing everything spot on first time every time and committing hours and hours of my live to it every day, I quit. I feel for these UO guys...if you volunteer and give all you have to give what more can people legitimately ask for :confused: (assuming you're not actively sabotaging or hindering progress/community support obviously :lol: ).
Ahhh now I remember that name. Viva QWTF forever thats what I say :lol:
I was offered a place on the dev team for that mod by the original leader (you know who) but I said no. From the amount of in fighting I've heard of, even after the leadership change, I'm kinda glad...
PS: I doubt you can guess what my alias was back then ;)
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