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    Monday, February 12, 2007

    The Internet is Truly a Scary Piece of Work!

    This is only slightly related to the Exmortis games, but it is more of a commentry on the availability of information on the net...

    So, I woke up this morning and dragged myself in to work only to find a nice little email waiting for me in my inbox... It was absolutely priceless, and I couldn't resist posting it up here on my development blog...

    This is from a person who would only identify themselves as Nightsrose on the email…

    “you sad little man. after playing exmortis 1, I realised that I have just wasted part of my life because of your lack of creativity and skill, you are an ABOMINATION to the human race and the horror writing community. You should hang yourself now instead of creating any more filth. The graphics and imagery were laughable and you've got fucking losers commenting on "How totally scary it was!" JUST FUCKING DIE!!!! When you're completing the next piece of rubbish you decide to make, include a side-game in which the gamer gets to batter you with different parts of you dismembered corpse. That way you won't get hate mail from dissapointed people who feel they need to hurt you in order to claim a sense of justice because of what you have done to them and the whole world, through unleashing the visual atrocity which you pass off as a game.

    I fail to see why on earth you would put your real name to a piece of shit like this, then publish on the fucking internet! All I need to do now, Is look for someone called ben leffler who lives in new south wales in austrailia for when I feel the overwhelming urge to mutilate your putrid carcass after pissing all over your so called work. Don't you have a life? do you have any friends? no? didn't think so, dont worry, dont be so sad, the noose should help make us all feel better, go on just hang yourself.”

    Personally, I find it highly amusing that someone who claims to have wasted part of their life playing my game, would then willingly invest further time in constructing such a poorly worded/punctuated attack upon me directly. My reaction to this email was nothing short of falling off my chair in fits of histerical laughter...

    So anyway - the hate mail is not the reason for this blog entry - what I am going to say next is what i actually set out to blog about today...

    So I thought that I would do a bit of investigation based on the only bit of info that I had about this hate mailer (ie. the email address it was sent to me from) and it's really demostrated to me the unbelievable amount of information you can find on the internet with just one email address...

    I now know my assailants name, gender, sexual-preference, address, age, likes, dislikes, height, weight, eye-colour, hair-colour, vices, hobbies, professional skill-sets, background, phone number AND I even have numerous pictures of her so I know what she looks like...

    I mean, holy jesus!!! All this info gathered just from what started as a simple Google search on an email address, and then following along the branches of sites until I found information that was relevant to my motives...

    And I am not by any means the most techy person in the world, but even if I am fairly web savvy it made me realise that anyone with even the most remote experience in web surfing has easy access to an unending multitude of personal information on virtually anyone in the modern world with a computer... AND THAT'S JUST FREAKING SCARY!!

    But in closing this entry, and getting back to the email - I have to say that it was fairly disappointing that Emma (aka Nightsrose) demonstrated such venom and a complete lack of maturity in her email, because what is clearly evident (from my investigations in to her) is that she is a very talented graphic artist and an accomplished word-smith - as demonstrated by her numerous works on DeviantArt.com. Not to mention, that I was very suprised and anguished that such ugliness could be produced by a person of such beauty who has the capability of creating works that posess amazing emotive properties whilst also retaining a clarity and quality worthy of publication...

    Emma - if you happen to stumble across this blog entry... I have the highest respect for your work/art, and so I pay my homage to it as such... however your vitriolic email, written without even the slightest idea of the person that I am and what I was setting out to achieve with the Exmortis game, paints a picture of you that does a great disservice to the person you (probably) are...

    26 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    Hay, maybe her younger brother used her e-mail or something.

    Anonymous said...

    My guess is that she got VERY scared/frustrated by the game or she was just joking.

    Anonymous said...

    yeah yeah but there are sooooo many people like that, i mean check out youtube and you'll see the amount of people that just sling insults at each other like it was nothing. I think thats one of the problems with the internet, its the ability to say anything you want to someone without having to look them in the face and accept the victims response which considering some of the things I've seen written would likely be a violent one! but anyway yea the last thing you want to do is actually take offence from it, better to just ignore it or even better in your case find amusement in it!

    Anonymous said...

    ignore the bitch, your stuff rocks

    Anonymous said...

    Wow, what a sad life this Emma must live to actually attempt to insult you (rather poorly might I add) after claiming your creations are an utter waste of time. My guess is she's the type of person who has very little friends or people who care for her for that matter. Plus...dear god....for someone who degrades another's work, making it sound as if she's perfect, her grammar was so horridly atrocious my eyes were burning upong reading it.

    Anonymous said...

    Heh, was "she" an American? If so, you should have replied that if she really had an issue with your work, she was always free to fly to Sydney and "discuss" the matter with you. That usually shuts them up really fast. LOL!!!

    Anonymous said...

    But wait...this Emma probably could not even find Australia on a map!!! She, like a lot of my fellow Americans, would probably even say it is Winter down there right now!!!

    Btw Ben, great work on the games. and I am more than willing to wait for Ex3 if it means a better game. And I know you will deliver unlike a group of people that really got the Freespace2 community all excited with a rockin' add-on campaign, then never released it...

    Anonymous said...

    hate mail lol

    Anonymous said...

    "I mean check out youtube and you'll see the amount of people that just sling insults at each other like it was nothing" - your right, here's an example:

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=XyEA6PLytmE

    Anonymous said...

    what a sad world this is

    Anonymous said...

    I think people like Nightsrose just try to make others feel bad by writing hate mail and end up only showing how immature they really are.
    I hate it when people don't take the time to spell correctly and use correct punctuation and talk like this..."I luv 2 th3ow sno bowls cause I cn thro tehm and daht is vry phun. Du U like to thow sno bolls 2?"

    Sad,

    TK

    Anonymous said...

    Nightsrose appears to be a goth. I have a friend like her and she is deeply depressed.

    [I would have logged in but I forgot my Google/Blogspot password :/ Oh, well!]

    Pablo K. said...

    The fact that she is a goth doesn't mean that she is a bitch... there are bitches of all kinds, and I have many goth friends that are very nice, social people... Then again I remember, this is Argentina...

    Anonymous said...

    Here is a good laugh!!

    Nightsrose's Geocities Bio

    That is a site that gives a little bio about her. Ben, you probably already saw the site. But for others, read her section titled HATES. This line is funny:

    people shallow enough to judge people they know nothing about

    Funny! She must hate herself!

    Anonymous said...

    Hahaha! Priceless!

    cplkhane said...

    "ignore the bitch, your stuff rocks"

    Yeah seriously. btw can't wait for exmortis 3!

    Anonymous said...

    well id have to agree that she was out of her mind. Shes ignorant and rude,dont even give her the time of day.

    But i must argue with the fact that one of my fellow commentors.
    thinks all americans are stupid,as if being american automatically makes us slow.

    sorry,that isnt the case.

    ahh cant wait for ex03

    Anonymous said...

    well done for rising above it. "Emma" will just have to go elsewhere for entertainment.

    Anonymous said...

    well done for rising above it. "Emma" will just have to go elsewhere for entertainment.

    Unknown said...

    It is quiet scary what people can find on the internet,
    But in this case It found you.

    How could you have resisted looking her up^^

    Anonymous said...

    This is where her goth name is from: http://www.nightrose.com/ with Lenore, the gothic undead girl. And besides, eveeryone starts somewhere... She should see my PONG that I programmed in grade 10.

    Good luck with Exmortis 3. I support humans!!!

    Ben Leffler said...

    For the record - I have nothing against Goth's, and I don't support any comments derogatory or vindictive towards the lifestyle. The fact that Emma is a goth has nothing to do with this post.

    Anonymous said...

    that gurl is on drugs and cant see the total awsomeness of ur games, probbly just jealous she cant make one herself

    Unknown said...

    hello ben, i've just got my evil p.c. working again and looked up your blog because i was curious to find out how you were getting on with exmortis 3. that person that has insulted your creativity is a complete fuckwit. i came across the exmortis games by accident (on jay is games, so it's hardly supprising that i rate your stuff because j.i.g. is a quality site that always promotes good stuff), and was instantly drawn in to the way you try to make the world you create so immersive. keep up the good work. i'm really looking forward to 3.

    Anonymous said...

    The real problem is that people like to post their bio-info and whatnot on the internet for social purposes, not knowing it can be used for something else. I remember there was a news wherein a homosexual college student got expelled because he showed some pics in his myspace or something and the school found out about it. I also heard employers look at myspace profiles of potential applicants to see their personal background. Well, if there's anything negative in what you write on the Internet, its your fault. The Internet is more or less a no man's land area where anyone can put anything.

    peche pona said...

    that gal has real psichological problems, we know your stuff is cool, and she probably can't apreciate it becuase she couldn't beat the game