The Lie That Never Lived: Shionbi Life Online

[Jamezoar]

It just hit me, the unexpected realization, how could I have been this blind? It all makes sense now, well... to me at least.

Now you're probably wondering, "what is looney toons over here talking about?" Well.. the answer is simple:
Have you ever stopped for a second to think about everything that's happening? Laying aside your hopes for a "naruto game", laying aside your biases for the things you want made a reality? For the people you've already put your hope and trust in?

I'm only one of many who visit this site, I might not make a difference, but all together, the sheer number of people creates some... let's say.. lucrative traffic. Online traffic.
It's safe to say that there will be no Shinobi Life Online, whether you waited an hour or a couple of years, quite unfortunate.

*You were never meant to have a naruto game in the first place, either that.. or the plan to make one has been slightly.... altered.*
Now if my right to free speech is left unharmed, I present you with the following:

1. The site uses Ads.
        -> Sure... the game needs funding.. that's an OBVIOUS.... or is it?
        -> What type of funding is this if ad revenue is being made but no advance in progress is being seen
        -> Why does the site need to host ads?
        -> Can't we just use an adblocker then???
        -> Of course you can... or can you?
        -> In attempts to stop ads from loading on the webpage, a subtle trick has been implemented
        -> A small popup box appears on each and every page you attempt to load, telling you about how the poor project is STARVING "financially".
        -> Like a small fly.. circling nearby, refusing to disappear, it slowly chips away at your patience, nibbling away slowly... but surely.
        -> Until you lose your patience and create an exception, "it's just ONE exception isn't it? And I barely visit the site, so what?"

2. The site is extremely outdated and left to rot.
        -> "Looks fine to me! What are you talking about?"
        -> I'm saying.. this site still uses that old forum posting interface, the one I'm writing this forum post with right now
        -> Assuming you didn't scoff already, no. An "old forum posting interface" is the LEAST of my worries here. (I actually love using it)
        -> Now that that's out of the way, the following point includes a link, it doesn't take quarter a brain to figure out what it's about
        -> https://imgur.com/a/XwC6Khw <- Look closely, and notice where it says "shinobilifeonline.com" as well as the scrollbar indicator
        -> The previous link holds 3 pictures, all related to my claim that "this site is extremely outdated and left to rot"
        -> What type of website maintenance is this if the team web developers are more-or-less active but the website is absolute trash?
        -> https://i.imgur.com/PE4EGeO.png

3. The only 2 people who really visit the site are:
    A. Ya boi, the lord and savior, the almighty chin... Vreg Soon Johnson (That's his real name btw)
   
(you're not running SHIT buddy)
   
   

    B. (who might be the same person as A... -> burning hot like the sun.. it's ya boi, the almighty Red "Community Manager" (whatever the f community managing is in this place)
    B.5. The occasional donors who lost their money for their names to appear in a different color, and for the "supposed financial aid" of this whole thing

    C. And of course.. us, the oh so poor gullible souls, and they thought their dreams will come true, (yes I'm talking about you, unless you're one of the above)

    D.     Google (AdSense) (x)  ...  Google (x) ... Baidu (x)  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu)
    -> yikes.

And with that, I conclude that this is all one selfish con being played on all you gullible peasants, how much money did you make VREG? Care to share? You'll share Soon™ right?

all of you are being taken advantage of, through your feelings of hope that one day, this will become what you want it to become, you're all under one HUGE FUCKING TSUKUYOMI

?When's the next update Vreg?
?Whens the next "forum topic" complaining about how long this game is taking?
?When's the next new thing coming out?
?When will Shinobi Life Online EVER be satisfied financially?
?How to change the team?
?Maybe Reach Out To Other Indie/Small Video Game Companies To Get More Help?

?When's the next update?
?I'm back, long time no see?

?I'm starting to learn unity, maybe I can help?




xoxo

[NinjaMirage]

You know what kind of ad revenue this website generates a month with only 281 people a day and at its best 1192 people almost a year ago.
Less then 10 dollars a day at its best. Vreg likely makes more then that an hour at his day job. I suppose you think he should quit the day job and focus solely on this game. A game he has stated he wants to be free to play and as realistic a open world mmorpg of Naruto as possible.

Chill the fuck out!! Yes I have donated to this project but you don’t see me bitching about how long it’s taking. I’m instead actively trying to support the project with my time because I can’t afford to invest the needed funds to make the project financially a priority. Am I pleased with the delay and vreg lax attitude for updates no, but I understand the issues and complexity of programming and development a little better now. Could this be a scam.. yes but it’s the least profitable scam in history. I’ll bet the add revenue barely covers the server costs. Vreg was smart to monetize the site for that perpose.

[Nova]

Lmao, had a decent laugh reading the post.
I get where you're coming from, I wouldn't expect any update soon™.
Furthermore I don't quite get why you didn't label donators as "gullible fools" when they've invested more than the players listed in C.

As for showing the team page as an argument, the list is ridiculously outdated. Vreg doesn't bother updating the roles, and I as a moderator don't have the permissions to do so. Pretty sure that the only ones from that list that still do something (albeit just posting on the discord) are Vreg and I. Though by your detective reasoning I'm the same person as Vreg? Kinda disappointing if the admin of the site was only removing spambots or banning alternate accounts lately. Though seeing as you only hop on once every so often to make a complain post I reckon you rarely see the spamposts, as they've been removed already.

Unironically that's a reoccurring theme, the players that haven't invested as much time and never got close with the community are the ones that complain the most. No one is forcing you to stay, and the people that do usually stay do so only because they have friends in this community. This is just a hunch but the thread came off as emotional, so I assume that the (lack of) progress is hurting you on an emotional level for you to actually take time and write this thread. I'm not going to completely defend Vreg as I do agree that he should've/could've invested more time into SLO, though the AD revenue doesn't make that much money, in fact SLO is costing Vreg money on a monthly basis as the site & game are kept online despite it being in a slumber (though I reckon your detective reasoning was still trying to solve that case, I wish you the best of luck James Holmes.) Though you could still make the donator argument, to which I wouldn't have an answer as I have no information on where that money went (not my job).

Just do what the majority are doing, which is to check the discord every so often and to not expect a single thing. The only reason I'm still around is to keep the forum relatively clean for newer members.

[Leebz]

You arent the first to realise this and these points were more valid when SLO was in its prime. Vreg does not gain bags of dollar bills from having this site monetised bud. Not with the now ghost town it is. You wasted your time writing this and arent amy smarter than the rest of us who know this project is dead. Most of us stay for the memes or community and boy oh boy, you gave us the biggest laugh to date. Nice post.

[Fraudulent]

Imagine going out of your way to make a detailed and analytical thread about something everyone has been aware of for a very long time.

[Hiruko]

Dude chill a bit will you the game aint official so it takes a bit of time to make all we can do is support vreg and hope that the project works

He actually has Hope

[Manuster]

so no head?

[Jamezoar]

I wrote this?? (bump)

[AY0]

Well i also think vreg amsterdam , and i also think nova is vreg

[Saitou]

I wrote this?? (bump)

Hello, I'm the first member of SLO, a forum moderator and I handled a big part of the team recruitment for SLO.
Despite how much you got laughed at and shunned down for what the topic you made, I for the most party agree with you.

There seems to be no intention of ever continuing this project. Aside from the couple thousand euros donated by the community, a team member/investory/ whatever you call it donated 1000 dollars to Vreg/SLO. that on top of the gradually declining income from Adsense over the course of 5 years or so ? only a minuscule amount was redirected towards the development of SLO. oh not to mention an instance I was present for ( unaware if any other have happened in by absence ) in which a community member purchased a 150 euro headset for Vreg, which he happily accepted.

I truly believe SLO will never see the light of day. If I get proven wrong then so be it, but you need not waste your time and money on it, as that has yielded nothing positive since its release.

I must mention that a request by the SLO team members to Vreg for the donations and how they're spent to be transparent ( to the team and the community ) was declined.

[EternalEyes]

Lol just came back to see how the forum is after all these years. Im pretty sure i was the 3rd dev after Saitou? I remember winning a tournament to be the concept artist when i was 13/14 lol. Saitou is right, this game will never get made under big V, I'm honestly so surprised there are still people thinking he'll come back to it. Consider that I saw the game progress to the point it is now in terms of gameplay and graphics in the first year i was on board. Even when Vreg had about 7-10 active devs working entirely for FREE, as well as pretty consistant donations including a 2k donation, Vreg added almost nothing additional coding wise, claiming plugins from the unity store as his contributions. I mean we had guys like Matt Alecs working like 40 hour weeks on a game he was getting nothing back from, pretty much all of his work was never integrated (including the village). Meanwhile Vreg refused to accept any of the applicants for coding roles because they 'didnt meet his standard' but decided to spend the donations on buying himself a Laptop instead of hiring a coder to help add some functionality. You probably are wondering why I didnt leave earlier, but this game was something I desperately wanted to happen, i mean i was pumping out concept art and doing fucking fortnightly dev updates like an idiot for fuck sake lol. I was a dumb idealistic teenager as well i guess. I mean to be honest we did have the personel and community to achieve it if Vreg had put in the same amount of work his devs were, the problem was after that first year he just didnt give a shit, and yeah, it turned into something he could turn into a side income stream as long as he kept spinning the message of 'update soon',  and if it worked out he could claim responsiblity and bragging rights for it.

Eh tbh it didnt turn out too bad for me personally, I improved my skills loads and have got jobs from the work ive done on this project, but I feel sorry for certain devs who put CRAZY hours into this project (MATT) and didnt have anything to show for it, as well as the donators who basically gave vreg some extra pocket money. If you havent already GIVE UP AND LEAVE THIS PROJECT it will never happen, and its really not worth the time praying Vregs gonna miraculously have a change heart and quit the job that apparently bought him a mansion and a porsche to work on an anime fan project. If Vreg reads this and decides to prove me wrong, youre welcome.

Peace

[DMKEric]

Everybody knows it's dead, lol. I too, like the others, donated in hopes of building a great game little by little. I guess if the dev no longer wants to work on this, then it is what it is... at least quit the bs with "soon" to attract more donations, it's getting ridiculous. I wish I had such a big community for my game, he doesn't know what he's missing... an ideal instead of just money. w/e

[Reminance]

Happy that even the ex-devs and moderators are saying that Vreg all had us under his Genjutsu

[LethalDarkness4]

Happy that even the ex-devs and moderators are saying that Vreg all had us under his Genjutsu

Lmao Remi, fyd here?

[Leebz]

Lol just came back to see how the forum is after all these years. Im pretty sure i was the 3rd dev after Saitou? I remember winning a tournament to be the concept artist when i was 13/14 lol. Saitou is right, this game will never get made under big V, I'm honestly so surprised there are still people thinking he'll come back to it. Consider that I saw the game progress to the point it is now in terms of gameplay and graphics in the first year i was on board. Even when Vreg had about 7-10 active devs working entirely for FREE, as well as pretty consistant donations including a 2k donation, Vreg added almost nothing additional coding wise, claiming plugins from the unity store as his contributions. I mean we had guys like Matt Alecs working like 40 hour weeks on a game he was getting nothing back from, pretty much all of his work was never integrated (including the village). Meanwhile Vreg refused to accept any of the applicants for coding roles because they 'didnt meet his standard' but decided to spend the donations on buying himself a Laptop instead of hiring a coder to help add some functionality. You probably are wondering why I didnt leave earlier, but this game was something I desperately wanted to happen, i mean i was pumping out concept art and doing fucking fortnightly dev updates like an idiot for fuck sake lol. I was a dumb idealistic teenager as well i guess. I mean to be honest we did have the personel and community to achieve it if Vreg had put in the same amount of work his devs were, the problem was after that first year he just didnt give a shit, and yeah, it turned into something he could turn into a side income stream as long as he kept spinning the message of 'update soon',  and if it worked out he could claim responsiblity and bragging rights for it.

Eh tbh it didnt turn out too bad for me personally, I improved my skills loads and have got jobs from the work ive done on this project, but I feel sorry for certain devs who put CRAZY hours into this project (MATT) and didnt have anything to show for it, as well as the donators who basically gave vreg some extra pocket money. If you havent already GIVE UP AND LEAVE THIS PROJECT it will never happen, and its really not worth the time praying Vregs gonna miraculously have a change heart and quit the job that apparently bought him a mansion and a porsche to work on an anime fan project. If Vreg reads this and decides to prove me wrong, youre welcome.

Peace

+1
Can vouch, this is 100% accurate and the OG community figured it out a long time ago. People only come back for the memories and memes we all had together minus Vregs false promises.