Letter to the 9Dragons Community, From Yongnam, Partner and CFO of Indy21:
Dear Fellow Dragons,
I am Yongnam, Partner and CFO at Indy21.
I believe that this is the first time that I, on behalf of Indy21, am talking to the community directly. First off, thank you all very much for having been the biggest supporters of 9Dragons. You have always been with us through our ups and downs.
Although there have been many times that I wanted to communicate with you directly, especially to show my gratitude, we chose to let our previous publisher take care of the direct contact with you, due to a contractual obligations.
However, the series of events that happened recently has made me want to step up and initiate this communication to provide you all with our perspectives and thoughts on the current situation.
On August 26, I was shocked and disappointed by the way business was conducted by reputable companies like Playdom and Disney. We are operating in the business in which, I believe, if there are any disputes, we try to resolve the issues in congenial terms between companies by putting our customers interests first, not by holding our loyal community members hostage.
I believe, whether you are Western-based or Eastern-based, that is just a simple rule of thumb in the industry that we are in.
We had known that 9Dragons was to be transitioned to our new friends at GamersFirst and were promised by our former publisher that they would support a smooth and friendly transition of all player accounts. We had already inked our agreement with GamersFirst and had started working together to begin this transition, cooperating fully with Acclaim and taking them for their word. However, when the plug was pulled, we, along with the rest of you, were left completely in shock. We were not given the promised notice; the game database, which we required to recreate your characters and accounts for the upcoming re-launch of the game, was not transferred. What is most hurtful and saddening was that even in the last few hours of service, you were not informed of what was going on with the game.
SO, where do we stand now? We have a steep challenge ahead of us and here are our immediate priorities:
1. Restart 9Dragons immediately! We are working tirelessly with our friends at GamersFirst to re-launch 9Dragons as soon as humanly possible.
With little or no sleep in the last week both our teams are working around the clock to re-launch the game. In our estimate we are about less than ten days away from restarting service.
2. Recreate ALL player characters and accounts: It is my promise along with the rest of my team that we will move mountains to make this happen. We are consulting legal counsel and negotiating with stakeholders at Disney to find an amicable solution. We are also working with GamersFirst and trying to come up with some innovative solutions to resolve this problem. We don’t have a definitive timeline for this but, again, it is my promise that WE WILL MAKE THIS HAPPEN. GamersFirst and Indy21 will do manual account updates if it becomes absolutely necessary athough we don’t think it will come to that!
3. Design and Develop exciting new content updates and communicate the release schedule with you all. The abandonment of our community has fired up each one of our developers here in Korea and they are on a mission to make the 9Dragons community the greatest gaming community out there via providing you with enriched content updates.
With our combined efforts, we will all be playing 9Dragons again very very soon and we look forward to this new chapter in our journey as a stronger community and close friends.
Yongnam
Partner and Chief Financial Officer
Indy21 Co., Ltd.
So, it was Acclaim’s fault after all. Didn’t Acclaim’s 9D leaders say all the time indirectly “It’s Ind21’s fault”? All the time “We are only the publisher” and “We are waiting for Indy21 to solve this“?
What can we clearly see right now? I don’t know what you people can see, but I, for my part, can see that it is possible to talk with the community, to work with little breaks for getting statisfied players, and to promise the whole community to recover all characters, no matter what may happen.
Even Indy21 was shocked about the unprofessionalism from Acclaim/Playdom/Disney. Even Indy21 had to agree: Acclaim broke their promises. Somehow, it’s sad that they just realized at the end how Acclaim really works, while we players had to see it all over again. But it’s nice that 9Dragons seems to be in better hands now. Not only GamersFirst, the new 9Dragons publisher, but also Indy21 itself talks to the community.
How I said already some years ago to Acclaim’s Game Managers: Communication is the key. Also many other people said the same. They didn’t want to listen, now we all can see that this is really true.
Written by
Legend – The Son of The Vagabond
P.S:
Also, make sure to check this post from Hyperion.
Project AI's 9Dragons Blog 
At least we found it out.
So Acclame was the big problem.
Omg, words from Indy21, can’t believe it………………
They should sue them.
I can’t believe what I see… Indy21 after 4 years speaks.
It was Acclaim’s fault after all.
Is like ‘thanks for your support and love, your support is our motivation.’ He has style.
Acclaim always lied to us. See, you can do it.
Collaborative efforts is a must! G1 did what Acclaim never did it : bring Indy to us.
How G1 do it also Acclaim could have done it, but they didn’t want it.
Sure, always was Indy fault. In fact was Acclame fault for not trying to communicate with Indy or bring Iddy21 to us and speak about the problems we have.
Finally Indy21 speaks to 9d community. I hope they can recover all our accounts.
This is another step ahead, at least we know they try to do all in their power to get our accounts back. One way or another I am sure they will do it.
Acclame likes it hard till the end. I was sure there was something else behind ‘ It is Indy21 fault’. Was Acclaim fault all the way.
They speak in the end….
Like in 9d K we will have to wait 30 days. Is good that Indy21 give us a message. Since 2007 I never heard nothing from them.
“We had known that 9Dragons was to be transitioned to our new friends at GamersFirst and were promised by our former publisher that they would support a smooth and friendly transition of all player accounts.”
Right, Indy21 should have know how Acclaim manage the game. It is not only Playdom and Disney fault. Acclaim made 9d to die.
They didn’t said much about our account.
I trust them, I hope this time they choose the best publisher for 9dragons.
At 24 h they speak, even them at least they did it.
9d premiere : INDY21 said hi to us.
This is some funny stuff there Indy21. You state ” So, it was Acclaim’s fault after all. Didn’t Acclaim’s 9D leaders say all the time indirectly “It’s Ind21′s fault”? All the time “We are only the publisher” and “We are waiting for Indy21 to solve this“?”
Well after this latest event on Halloween and ALL the bugs that came with patch 122, guess what Hyperion is now starting to say?
” Hmm, this is no good.
FYI…I am an employee of GamersFirst, the game publisher, when there are issues in the game client I can report them to Indy (as I am doing with this now) but I cannot fix IN-GAME bugs, only Indy21 can. Fixing these will require a new patch, which means that you cannot expect a patch until at the earliest, Monday – November 1.”
So maybe it was not Acclaim’s fault, and is not G1’s fault. Maybe Indy21 should be looking in the mirror??
True. Seems like Indy21 does a bad job.
That doesn’t change my opinion about Acclaim’s miserable job, by the way.
YEP, TY employee of G1! i was muted and all kinds of stuff for my post about how INDY was to blame for all this. Folks always pinned the bugs etc on Acclaim. One thing would be fixed, while 10 new things would break. Things that had worked FOREVER would suddenly break with new patches. The sloppiness is frankly, some of the worst i’ve ever seen. I wasn’t ranting against G1 in any of my posts (until i was muted for numerous days over level headed criticism). I’ll return to the G1 forum at this point, because it seems like at least ONE of you have a brain ( i left and havent logged back in since i was muted). Yes players were mad, yes many more are getting even angrier, and god damnit aint it about god damned time?. Indy addresses everyone and we’re all supposed to stop in awe of their words? They are acting like the emperor closed up in his forbidden city, COMPLETELY out of touch with anything outside their walls. I’ve been playing off and on (and who could blame me?) for over 5 years now. I’m playing again, but i’m not putting in any money again until Indy starts to get some shit right. Time for them to start acting like an MMO dev team. I do it with just one other guy, it ain’t that hard, if that’s what you do.
9Dragons isn’t out yet for 5 years…
That’s one thing I don”t like about G1. They are too quick on the ban, mute, kick button if you don’t agree with them. I will not spend any money on this game again either, at least for a little while. Both G1 and Indy have to get their acts together before this game goes way of the Dodo bird.
well maybe 5 years full isnt the total, but im pretty sure its close. We didnt have 4 pockets when i started, just 2. there were only a few maps. looks like it went open in 2007, so 4 years, my bad. tho yes the game is as old as 2002, when it went trough testing in asia. i can link you to some reading etc, but with such a great eye for detail im sure you can find that for yourself. anyway i dont think the exact time in play was the point of my comment, just that Indy has been screwing things up for as long as i can remember, first with acclaim, now under Gamers First.
Why should I argue with you about your other points if not even the total time of 9Dragons is right?
I play vagabond since 2007. While clan members had 4 pockets, we vagabonds had to stick to 3 pockets, so I think you’re talking to the wrong person about it. Yes, I chose that way, and I don’t regret it.
I’m sure I’m only a troll for you. But I can assure you, I have the same, if not even more experience than you about 9Dragons.
It’s time that you guys make the best out of the current situation, respectively the new publisher. It’s not a secret that I don’t like everything what GamersFirst does, but we won’t get a better publisher for 9Dragons.
Blame Indy21 for their bad work…
nah i came here cuz i know who you are, tho i dont know you personally, and i respect your opinion. I’ve been blaming Indy all along tho, while many others seemed to blame Acclaim (during the past). Maybe acclaim had its issues, but i never encountered something, in all my time, that acclaim had ruined, only buggy Indy21 work. Im sticking up for G1 as well at their forums, so it cetainly appears we’re on the same side, at least until my own game comes out =)
I certainly blame only Yong and company for the past, present, and hope for them to make a better furture for those of us who play (and havent left….yet).
know you are working hard sorry about hackers and the such to ruin a very interesting and fun game enjoy it and play when every i can get on line with it . thank you very much…
So here it is a year later Aug 2011 and now G1 is giving up on 9 Dragons. Whats going to happen with the game now? another publisher? or are you going to scrap the game. We players need to know.
I did ClosedBeta with Persistant Worlds then I did the end of cb then open beta with Accaim. Even though PW couldn’t work out how to finance it, they were a top rate dev team and I was sorely dissapointed that I had to settle with Acclaim for the next 2 years, Accaim were useless at resloving bugs, fix one cause 3 new ones. I went back to GamersFirst and made new new chars but really got sick of spending money when so many use cheats and administrators can’t keep money sites out of the game.Us out here in the game world always knew the loss of accounts was at the Acclaim end. Indy21 all those years ago you should of backed Persistant Worlds.
Not everyone got a chance to transfer, it is not fair that accounts were lost. People should actually be sued since money was involved.