David Morgan-Mar of Irregular Webcomic formed a website in (I think) late June called Mezzacotta, apparently with at least one other user known as The Hyperstig. It has a countdown to two weeks from now, and, as of the redesign in earlier this week, a blog with (as of now) four entries, and an FAQ. It claims to have some idea behind it, but will not reveal what that is until two weeks from now, but is offering to sell the site and the idea behind it for €2000000, up from the original €1000000 after a re-evaluation, to anyone within this period. After revealing the idea, the price will jump to €5000000. They say they are quite serious about the whole affair, including the millions, and the blog claims to have gotten one person seriously looking into it as of July 21.
For some reason, the minutes digits in the countdown turn red when they're a five, and the ones-digit in the seconds is green when an eight (the other digit may be green when eight as well, but such never occurs). I haven't seen if the hours or days get colorful numbers.
Also of note, "mezzacotta" may be a portmanteau of a word meaning "medium" and a word meaning "baked" - "half-baked."
A few questions, then:
Is it possible that their idea could reasonably be sold at five million euros, and if so, do you think they have such an idea?
Do you think they actually expect to get a buyer? If not, why do you think they made it?
Given that the idea is real, do you have any idea of what it could be?
Would you buy the site if you had enough money, and if so, how much is "enough money"?
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[The Crafters] | [Johnnies United]
My anecdotal evidence disagrees with yours! EXPLAIN THAT!
Wow that's weird.... sounds like a way of cheating people of a lot of money, a load of money. 2,000,000 euros is a lot. And with only 2 posters it doesn't seem to be too big or amazing. Then again, it could be the next wiki or google, but I doubt it.
EDIT: It looks like some comic thing doesn't it? But how can you have a comic site that can cost that much right off the bat?
Interesting, I hadn't noticed the legal information. That copyright's there because of the license being used.
Wizards of the Coast created the Open Game License, which, while copyrighted, anyone may use, and which describes how persons may and may not copy and use the data created by an entity. The OGL was designed for role-playing games, and is set up to create "open" information, that which can be referenced, copied, and used by others, and "closed" information, that which is protected as per normal copyright, with the intent of letting outside companies produce content for a game. Generally, it is used to hold rights to flavorful aspects, while letting anyone have access to the rules foundation.
As far as I know, it has only ever been used for pen and paper games. There's nothing that requires it to be used exclusively for such games, but it could still be telling in that regard. Also note that the license isn't really doing anything at the moment, as nothing has been defined as open content (closed is the default). So the idea's either something structured similarly to a game such that other entities would be able to produce content for it based upon a given part of it, or there to make it a more convincing hoax.
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[The Crafters] | [Johnnies United]
My anecdotal evidence disagrees with yours! EXPLAIN THAT!
Since these guys are supposedly comic book junkies, I'll have to assume the idea has something to do with a pen and paper comic game.
I'm going to have to say this is all just a really big scam and that there's no way on earth that this idea can possibly be worth 1.6 million euros. If it was so great, why wouldn't these dudes use it themselves? What makes them want to sell it to us? They must believe that the idea isn't worth the amount they're selling. Furthermore, the site is too basic to lead me to believe that a buyer could be buying a MMORPG. Game designers have better skills than that.
These guys are obviously playing on our curiosities. There probably never was a potential buyer and they're just increasing the price of the site to try and make us believe that the idea is even better than anticipated and can really pick up. I mean, think of it this way. If they know their idea is so great and they were truly selling it, why wouldn't they just reveal it now and charge 5 million euros? Most people, even wealthy investors, would fight to the last penny.
These guy seriously have nothing and I would never pay a cent over an investment from some no-name investors / entrepreneurs.
I suppose it could be a social networking site for comic readers and gamers, much like the failed Gleemax. If that's the case, then I think it's a decent idea, but couldn't estimate the value.
Since these guys are supposedly comic book junkies, I'll have to assume the idea has something to do with a pen and paper comic game.
I'm going to have to say this is all just a really big scam and that there's no way on earth that this idea can possibly be worth 1.6 euros. If it was so great, why wouldn't these dudes use it themselves? What makes them want to sell it to us? They must believe that the idea isn't worth the amount they're selling. Furthermore, the site is too basic to lead me to believe that a buyer could be buying a MMORPG. Game designers have better skills than that.
These guys are obviously playing on our curiosities. There probably never was a potential buyer and they're just increasing the price of the site to try and make us believe that the idea is even better than anticipated and can really pick up. I mean, think of it this way. If they know their idea was so great and they were truly selling it, why wouldn't they just reveal it now and charge 5 million euros? Most people, even wealthy investors, would fight to the last penny.
These guy seriously have nothing and I would never pay a cent over an investment from some no-name investors / entrepreneurs.
Zendikar = Mirrodin/Urza reborn, just with more money rares and mythic bull ****. I hope to god we get another Masques block after this, jumping man on a ****ing pogo stick.
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I suppose it could be a social networking site for comic readers and gamers, much like the failed Gleemax. If that's the case, then I think it's a decent idea, but couldn't estimate the value.
I'm sure you don't need to buy that idea from them for any amount of money. With less than 1 million euros, you can set up a MTGS style site. It's not that high tech or flashy but it still beats how Mezzacotta looks now. I don't think there'd be any way to copyright that idea so you would automatically be a competitor.
I will bet that mezzacotta's idea will have almost no material worth. I think that the whole "Pay us a million and you can have the site" thing is totally a joke.
What do I have to base it on? Not much, just that I've been reading IWC for a couple years and Darths and Droids from the beginning, and the picture of DMM's personality I get from those leads me to believe that any get rich scheme he would set out on is not much more than a joke.
I missed from my analysis before the more obvious reason he'd use the OGL. It may be that he's using open content from something itself licensed by the OGL, as the license requires any work authorized by the content being open to itself be licensed by it.
But yes, I rather agree that it's unlikely to be worth the two million euros, let alone five million, though if this gets enough attention by word of mouth because of the stunt it could be a good start for advertising revenue. I figure there's probably some idea, but I wouldn't put money on that one, either...
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[The Crafters] | [Johnnies United]
My anecdotal evidence disagrees with yours! EXPLAIN THAT!
Interesting notion there, Le_Gambit. Do you think the putting it off then bringing it back bit was staged?
I noticed that the countdown timer has changed the way the digits get color, and this time I decided to check the source code. It looks like things have shifted - hour digits are red when 5, minute digits green when 8, and second digits blue when 2. I also noticed that this doesn't appear to be coded dynamically - that is, they make these changes by hand. I'm going to guess that it doesn't mean anything, that it's just there to make people wonder about it and spark conversation, quite possibly like the whole of the site.
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[The Crafters] | [Johnnies United]
My anecdotal evidence disagrees with yours! EXPLAIN THAT!
According to mezzacota, it has been 2 days since I last looked at it, which was actually 9 days ago. Hmmmmmmm, dodgy. It said 12 days to go 9 days ago, and now it says 10, not 3. It is not entirely trustworthy, methinks.
According to mezzacota, it has been 2 days since I last looked at it, which was actually 9 days ago. Hmmmmmmm, dodgy. It said 12 days to go 9 days ago, and now it says 10, not 3. It is not entirely trustworthy, methinks.
Yeah, they had to put it off. There was a huge delay related to their September 24 post, then cut to the one week delay with the next day's post.
From the recent posts about coding and the need for Scalable Vector graphics, combined with the open game licence, I have developed an idea over what this could be.
An online virtual tabletop for D20 games.
The difficulty for many games groups these days that i have seen is attendance. I can find the 4-5 people needed for a campaign but finding a night when they are all free and able to gather at the same location is hard.
A site which combines various hex based mapping plus online dice rolling (trusting your player dice has always been a problem) along with a video and audio client would enable people to sit around the gaming table from their own home.
Depends on the buisness model but with a reasonable pay per play system (or simply just good on site advertising) this could be worth the money IF it gets taken up by the right number of users.
That's an interesting notion, and quite possible. DMM definitely plays D&D, and this price tag business could be a gimmick to garner attention for both participation and advertising revenue.
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[The Crafters] | [Johnnies United]
My anecdotal evidence disagrees with yours! EXPLAIN THAT!
5 days to go! I'll be away from a computer for a week so when I come back, this will be up and running. I am very curious.
EDIT: I just noticed that the 2 goes blue (purple? I can't tell, I'm colour blind) so there may be something about 2 which is special about this site??????
EDIT: I just noticed that the 2 goes blue (purple? I can't tell, I'm colour blind) so there may be something about 2 which is special about this site??????
It's very weird, but I'm guessing it's just randomness. I've posted the actual pattern earlier, which can be found in the source code.
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[The Crafters] | [Johnnies United]
My anecdotal evidence disagrees with yours! EXPLAIN THAT!
In terms of a D&D gametable, there's already something like that already in at least the development stage at WotC already. It seems to be part of their "D&D Insider" dealie.
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They call me Hadoken 'cause I'm down-right fierce.
So I just took out a 5.000.000 dollar loan from the local bank Fortis (no problem now that they have loads of government money) and I have sent it to the website people via mailorder check.
At worse the government should bail me out with like paying me a little over 10.000.000 to reward me for my very very intelligent investment (that's how it works right, judging from recent news stories)
After that, I can go on a long vacation to a 5 star hotel costing little more than 500.000 for the week, all thanks to you tax paying citizens.
So yeah, this should be a very hot deal!
/sarcasm
I like the way you think.
So I watched the launch. At first, it was a .php error, but in moments it was getting fixed, so we instead saw an internal server error. And then it
turned out to be...
a scalable vector graphics webcomic. Something of a letdown to me, as it was the more obvious thing for Morgan-Mar to do, and makes the money more preposterous than it was.
Oh, and the "half-baked" translation of "mezzacotta" has turned out to be a rating system that lets you say how "well-baked," or enjoyable, each comic is. There's apparently going to be a "best of" section.
Edit: Blog post up now says that the whole point is to be a repository and stage for all the half-baked ideas he and his pals come up with - one of which was the whole countdown and preposterous sale offer bit.
Wow... Mezzacotta surely is unimpressive. Even though it obviously wasn't worth a million euros, I still had higher expectations for it than this. Right now, it looks worse than a vBulletin run website. Also, I am not at all pleased with the creators excuse for their million dollar buyout offer. If someone really had spent money on the site, I would expect them to pull through with something worth at least 50% of the investment. Internet knows no moral. Of course, their best defense is that they were just playing around but I'm not so sure I'd buy it. They're the type of people who would cash in if they had the opportunity. For shame.
They're the type of people who would cash in if they had the opportunity. For shame.
They are? Have you actually looked at any of the other of the things they have done?
They do two webcomics, neither of them serious, and neither of them with adds or a way to make money. They do a website that jokingly "explains" sports. Again: no monetary gain. Anyone who looked at Darths and Droids and IWC for more than 15 minutes could tell they were made by someone not just out for making a quick buck.
EDIT: So maybe being in it for the lulz is not all that much better than being in it for the scamming, but it is better, all the same.
Ah. The FAQ including a question about what calendar it uses (proleptic Gregorian) makes a lot more sense now that there's date-jumping and random date features, missing at launch.
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[The Crafters] | [Johnnies United]
My anecdotal evidence disagrees with yours! EXPLAIN THAT!
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For some reason, the minutes digits in the countdown turn red when they're a five, and the ones-digit in the seconds is green when an eight (the other digit may be green when eight as well, but such never occurs). I haven't seen if the hours or days get colorful numbers.
Also of note, "mezzacotta" may be a portmanteau of a word meaning "medium" and a word meaning "baked" - "half-baked."
A few questions, then:
Is it possible that their idea could reasonably be sold at five million euros, and if so, do you think they have such an idea?
Do you think they actually expect to get a buyer? If not, why do you think they made it?
Given that the idea is real, do you have any idea of what it could be?
Would you buy the site if you had enough money, and if so, how much is "enough money"?
EDIT: It looks like some comic thing doesn't it? But how can you have a comic site that can cost that much right off the bat?
Draft it on Cubetutor!
The following text is the property of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. and is Copyright 2000 Wizards of the Coast, Inc (”Wizards”). All Rights Reserved.
Is that a weird coincidence?
Wizards of the Coast created the Open Game License, which, while copyrighted, anyone may use, and which describes how persons may and may not copy and use the data created by an entity. The OGL was designed for role-playing games, and is set up to create "open" information, that which can be referenced, copied, and used by others, and "closed" information, that which is protected as per normal copyright, with the intent of letting outside companies produce content for a game. Generally, it is used to hold rights to flavorful aspects, while letting anyone have access to the rules foundation.
As far as I know, it has only ever been used for pen and paper games. There's nothing that requires it to be used exclusively for such games, but it could still be telling in that regard. Also note that the license isn't really doing anything at the moment, as nothing has been defined as open content (closed is the default). So the idea's either something structured similarly to a game such that other entities would be able to produce content for it based upon a given part of it, or there to make it a more convincing hoax.
I'm going to have to say this is all just a really big scam and that there's no way on earth that this idea can possibly be worth 1.6 million euros. If it was so great, why wouldn't these dudes use it themselves? What makes them want to sell it to us? They must believe that the idea isn't worth the amount they're selling. Furthermore, the site is too basic to lead me to believe that a buyer could be buying a MMORPG. Game designers have better skills than that.
These guys are obviously playing on our curiosities. There probably never was a potential buyer and they're just increasing the price of the site to try and make us believe that the idea is even better than anticipated and can really pick up. I mean, think of it this way. If they know their idea is so great and they were truly selling it, why wouldn't they just reveal it now and charge 5 million euros? Most people, even wealthy investors, would fight to the last penny.
These guy seriously have nothing and I would never pay a cent over an investment from some no-name investors / entrepreneurs.
Somehow I find your logic to be exactly right.
I'm sure you don't need to buy that idea from them for any amount of money. With less than 1 million euros, you can set up a MTGS style site. It's not that high tech or flashy but it still beats how Mezzacotta looks now. I don't think there'd be any way to copyright that idea so you would automatically be a competitor.
I find his logic to be missing the point.
I will bet that mezzacotta's idea will have almost no material worth. I think that the whole "Pay us a million and you can have the site" thing is totally a joke.
What do I have to base it on? Not much, just that I've been reading IWC for a couple years and Darths and Droids from the beginning, and the picture of DMM's personality I get from those leads me to believe that any get rich scheme he would set out on is not much more than a joke.
But yes, I rather agree that it's unlikely to be worth the two million euros, let alone five million, though if this gets enough attention by word of mouth because of the stunt it could be a good start for advertising revenue. I figure there's probably some idea, but I wouldn't put money on that one, either...
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Not a little Sheeple.
I noticed that the countdown timer has changed the way the digits get color, and this time I decided to check the source code. It looks like things have shifted - hour digits are red when 5, minute digits green when 8, and second digits blue when 2. I also noticed that this doesn't appear to be coded dynamically - that is, they make these changes by hand. I'm going to guess that it doesn't mean anything, that it's just there to make people wonder about it and spark conversation, quite possibly like the whole of the site.
Draft it on Cubetutor!
I'll give them 10 bucks.
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I'm banned from posting until next Monday. If you want to trade with me or if you want me to make you a sig, you must PM me.
That's an interesting notion, and quite possible. DMM definitely plays D&D, and this price tag business could be a gimmick to garner attention for both participation and advertising revenue.
EDIT: I just noticed that the 2 goes blue (purple? I can't tell, I'm colour blind) so there may be something about 2 which is special about this site??????
Draft it on Cubetutor!
Ever heard of viral marketing?
I mean, apparently it's working.
cookie wizards of the the simic
The extendo siggy thingy currently dead
So I watched the launch. At first, it was a .php error, but in moments it was getting fixed, so we instead saw an internal server error. And then it
turned out to be...
a scalable vector graphics webcomic. Something of a letdown to me, as it was the more obvious thing for Morgan-Mar to do, and makes the money more preposterous than it was.
Oh, and the "half-baked" translation of "mezzacotta" has turned out to be a rating system that lets you say how "well-baked," or enjoyable, each comic is. There's apparently going to be a "best of" section.
Edit: Blog post up now says that the whole point is to be a repository and stage for all the half-baked ideas he and his pals come up with - one of which was the whole countdown and preposterous sale offer bit.
They are? Have you actually looked at any of the other of the things they have done?
They do two webcomics, neither of them serious, and neither of them with adds or a way to make money. They do a website that jokingly "explains" sports. Again: no monetary gain. Anyone who looked at Darths and Droids and IWC for more than 15 minutes could tell they were made by someone not just out for making a quick buck.
EDIT: So maybe being in it for the lulz is not all that much better than being in it for the scamming, but it is better, all the same.
That's because it is semi-randomly generated.