Sunday, 26 April 2009

• There Fired! who are they kidding?

  Now in December during a much needed break Gavin gets an email from countrysprite that the ip check is not working again and that if it wasn't fixed she was going to walk.  Shortly after this email came one came from Wintersprite saying keep your powers that she was done and to ban her. I will not insert copies of these emails since this has become a legal matter.

  
  After both of these emails came in both country and wintersprite went into North Gate removed their Golden Halos and glued them to the floor and then banned themselfs.

  
  Shorty after this had happend both winterspite and countrysprtie started telling all of the Xivio users that they were fired. They then proceeded to spread rumors about paradox and joeian.

  
  It has been Xivio's policy not to discuss this matter since out lawyers were filing the proper documents against the sprites for violation of their contracts along with several other legal issues.  Both paradox and I were hoping that the sprites were going to be mature and leave the users out of this but it has become obvious that they do not care about the users.

  
  

  
  

  • 9:41 PM
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• Golden Tickets and the Garage Sale

  So September comes around and Gavin and I are talking about the future of Xivio and how we can try to cover our costs of running the company.  Gavin comes up to me and says David "I have an idea your gonna hate but it might make some money."  Now yes Xivio is a business and business like to make money I said to him whats your idea.  Gavin says to me we can sell Golden Tickets.
  
  Ok Gavin whats a Golden Ticket and whats it do?  Gavin tells me we sell the Golden Tickets for $9.99 and users get to purchase special rare items that cant be bought with Vios.  He also said to me that the we would be giving the Sprites half of everything that we made since they would be redeeming the golden tickets.  Both Gavin and I felt bad for the sprites since they kept telling us how poor they really were so even though their contract didnt state it we gave them half of the Goldent Ticket Sales.  So now the Sprites are sending network messages about specials trying to get you to buy Golden Tickets.
  
  Great now people are buying Golden Tickets and Xivio is almost making enough money to cover our server bills and our other bills.  The sprites ended up making Golden Tickets look a garage sale, offering 3 for 1's and other deals.  Then every night at midnight they were wanting the money that they made sent to country's paypal account.  Well now the big problem comes paypal sends me an email telling me that our account is frozen and that I owe them over $900.  Well Gavin and I both tell the sprites this and they just about call us lairs.  Since I am not Disney and I dont have thousands of dollars lying around it took 2 months to finally pay off paypal.
  
  Now Christmas come around.  Gavin once again comes to me and says "How about we give them 100% of all the Golden Ticket Sales in the month of December for holiday expenses?"  Well now the sprites knowing that they were going to be making some money for the Holidays advertised it so much that one user (blueberry) alone bought over $1500 in tickets. The wonderful and grateful women that they never even said thank you or sent Gavin or I a holiday card. 
  
  

  In the end the user blueberry said that they never made those purchases to paypal. When countrysprite found this out shecalled her on the phone and told her that I was going to have her thrown in jail.  Imagine saying that to an 11 year old girl.

  
  

  • 9:27 PM
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• Getting to the Point

  I could go on for hours about everything that has happened month to month about our business but that was not the point of this blog.  This blog was meant to tell the truth about the sprites. 

  
  I will not lie to you.  Gavin and I from time to time like everyone have disagreements.  Normally they all start with Xivio and end with me telling he that he is right.  Over the years he has told me many things that he thought was cool but me being old and stupid I would fight with him and tell him "NO WAY!!?"  Then a huge fight will take place and neither one of us would talk to each other.  Cause I own Xivio I thought that what i say goes.  Now being an airline pilot and flying really big airplanes the first thing that you learn is to trust your crew.  It took me a long time to actually roll it over into Xivio but I am learning and doing much better now.

  
  Back of the Summer I was at a game conference in Seattle and I met the President of a major came company.  I cant tell you who it is but they have stores in the mall.  Well anyway the comment I got when I showed Xivio was "I love it, I want it, and I need it!"  I was so happy that I called Gavin to tell him and he told me to call the sprites.  I called the sprites and told them the good news and they were very happy since they basically got paid when Xivio sold.  Well the talks with this major company never went anywhere, except everyday a message from the sprites with "whats going on with *"(^&^&^?"  When everything had stopped with that company I had said that I was not going to say anything to anyone again until there was a deal on the table since i didn't want to be bothered all the time.  After all these are not my partners and I do not need to communicate every business development opportunity that i am working on them. 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  • 8:48 PM
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• Yay the new staff has arrived

  So the day when the new staff company arrived we were all excited and hoping that they would do a great job for us.  During the time when we were waiting for them to start I had written the Xivio Staff Manual and I had sent it over to the sprites for their approval and their comments and feedback.  Now I am sure that winter and country will once again make themselves the victims and say that they had no say but i call BS on you.  While I was writing the Staff Manual I had also written the World Managers Handbook that was sent to them and that they agreed upon.

  
  Lets talk about the World Managers Handbook first.  I had written this handbook designed to put all the policies and procedures down on paper and have an agreement with the sprites.  From day one it was never my intention to fire them, or force them to leave, but i also knew that Country would get extremely emotional and start screaming.    I had also included into the manual that there were times that if I made a decision it was not open to discussion.  That I reserved the right to say "I am the daddy and what i say goes" and that she should drop it.  This manual was agreed upon as it should have been.  The sprites were never partners in the business, they were never voting members, they were subcontractors providing a service based on our guidelines.  Now in most businesses if you open your mouth and scream at your boss you are carrying your personal stuff out in a box cause you will be fired. Please do not fool yourself to believe that "word scrambles" was an original "sprite" idea.

  
  The Staff Manual had everyone reporting to the world managers and the world managers would end up reporting to us.  The World Managers were asked constantly to submit to us through email and not through messaging programs as it stated in the World Managers Handbook.  The key reason for this was, messages to Gavin by the World Managers stating that my daughter wants a vacuum and pink curtains.  There were numerous times that Gavin had told me please ask them to stop messaging him and to submit to him by email.  I can understand this since when hes coding he is off on another planet, and talking to him just set him back cause he lost his train of thought.

  
  So now this new staff that is provided by this company starts working for us, and quickly we all realize that this companies staff is not what we were really looking for.  The new staffers were not paying 100% attention to the users and they were not performing up to their contract.  So I ended up terminating our contract with that company.  The sprites assumed the responsibility of hosting the games, monitoring the users and so on.  All along we had told them find some users to help you out.  And most of all make sure you spend time with your familes and take care of your needs.

  
  February 2008

  
  So I had been planning on going to this big game industry event in San Francisco called the Game Developers Conference (GDC).  Now lets go back to the month of December quickly this is when we first began with our Premium Subscriptions.  I was telling the Sprites that  my friend had gotten me a free pass and that I was trying to figure out how I was going to stay at the hotel.  Then the sprites had offered to pay one night for me at the hotel.  Then again if I didnt make it out to the GDC people wouldn't know about Xivio and they couldnt make their "big" money when we sold it.

  
  Needless to say that I had some really good meeting at the GDC and made some great contacts that in the end were very benificial for Xivio.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  • 7:35 PM
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• Lions, tigers, shovels and rakes oh my!!!

  Where are these shovels and rakes coming from I would be thinking right about now so lets find out shall we.

  
  So now I have received the signed and notarized independent contractor agreements in the mail back from both of the sprites.  I was even contacted by Wintersprite on yahoo messenger that she had her Brother in Law who is an attorney read the contracts before she signed them and that he said that everything was OK. 

  
  I had told both of the sprites that I knew they were working for free and that they should both spend time with their families and do what ever they had to for their families before Xivio and if they couldn't be on Xivio we understood. 

  
  I was then informed by Countrysprite that if we screwed them over that she would get in the car and come over here with shovels and rakes and beat us.  This comment just totally took Gavin and I by surprise but we laughed it off anyway.

  
  Now I wont lie I will say that both of the Sprites did go out and drive traffic to xivio by placing things on to yahoo answers and we were very grateful for that.  I do not know if this was before New Years Eve of not so I will add it here.  So now we are working our way to the New Year and we plan this big New Years eve party for our users. 

  
  Even the Halofairy was going to join in the NYE party.  Who is the Halofairy, ok lets discuss this one.  Since all of the new users and old users always wanted to be staff they would ask both of the sprites who picks staff and they told them the Halofairy.  So one day just to go have fun I made an avatar called Halofairy and went into Xivio to play with the kids.  In creating this mystical person behind the Avi, Halofairy was a cross between the good witch of the east from "The Wizzard of Oz," and Mrs. Doubtfire.  She was soooooooo sweet it was almost sickening.  But the users knew that when Halofairy was in that someone was getting a new staff halo, or a helper halo so they loved her. 

  
  So we go ahead and have this great NYE party and it was fun and the Sprites did a good job there. But in all actuallity Gavin made the artwork and the party hats that we gave to the users and I as the halofairy hosted the event but the sprites were there and they did help Halofairy entertain the kids. 

  
  We were all excited cause that week the new outsourced staff were going to start working.

  
  
  

  • 6:16 PM
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