the haziel rant

[blinzer]

i don't know where to put this, so i'm just going to drop this here. i've seen this be a topic of discussion before and i didn't want it to have to come to this, but since we're approaching the 1 year mark it's time for me to put my foot down on this situation

 

so in mid october of last year, i hired a sprite artist named haziel to make me custom sprites and paid half of what the agreed price was to him before he even began. based off of his work, i thought he would be the perfect person to do justice to the project i had in mind, which was make there be sprites for every weapon in the game which doesn't have one. at the time i didn't have much money, so i decided to create a gofundme and posted the idea on ratemyserver, and promptly got called a scammer, a hacker, but whatever, so i put the money down out of my own pocket. no big deal in the grand scheme of things since this would be a step up for the game as a whole. my original intention was to release the sprites to the public since it was the public who would have funded it.  i got called a scammer and got insulted multiple times; so since i received such a barbaric negative backlash from it, i decided to pay out of my own pocket and not release the sprites to a very unworthy and ungraceful public instead. as such, i dropped half the load and paid about 185 usd to this man, and he said he'd work on it soon.

 

first of all, i tried to be nice to him and have a dialogue with him even outside of the business aspect, but it was very clear that it was a one way interest in conversation. something just seems off and fake about his personality, and he doesn't speak what is really on his mind almost ever. it was suspicious to me, but i wrote it off as a whatever thing and maybe it was just me being too skeptical. so now let's talk about the interactions i had with him as a client.

 

first of all, he only ever messaged me first once in the past 8 months, so most of it was on me to have to message him every couple of weeks(which i only did for the first few months, then just left it alone because life picked up for me and i didn't have time to chase after other people who don't do their job properly). in this time where i did try to talk to him, he constantly said that he would show me previews but then never did, and only really talked to me a lot when we were first starting to make the deal. he never really gave me any updates, and even when i would message him it would take him a long time to get back if at all, and the 'if at all' part has only gotten worse as time passed. it reached the point where i was messaging him and he barely ever answered. i do have skype logs to demonstrate if necessary, but i'm not going to go THAT far to tarnish a person's reputation unless you absolutely think i'm just writing this wall of text to waste my time and bring someone down at the same time. i still stand by the original reason i hired this person, in that he is actually good at what he does. i am just fed up with him not taking a job i hired him for seriously, because i know he could be long done by now. if you're going to take a job and money, then you have to accept that you have a responsibility towards the person who is paying you. haziel does not understand this, whether or not it's of malicious intent(which is still unclear to me).

 

the reason i'm posting here is not because of the money, it's because this is an extremely disrespectful behavior towards anyone, and from what i read has been replicated in the past as well. i waited VERY patiently and gave this person plenty of time to complete the work, a lot more than the time frame which was agreed on AND a lot more than should be expected for the amount of work i gave to him(to clarify, our deal was for me to pay him 350 usd JUST FOR SWORDS, half before and half after. i was basically paying him well enough for it to be considered a full time gig, so there's really no excuse about the pay not being good enough for his time either). if we ignore the money, it's a disservice to the game as well, for him not to use his skills as a spriter to further the meta. i don't want to have to release my server without the entire thing being done, let alone just swords being done. at this pace i would have to wait on him until 2030 before i can open, and i can assure you that was not the promised pace of work that we discussed. and i can't emphasize enough how he would come to me with excuses and i was EXTREMELY lenient with him the entire time because i was still in the middle of working on the game at that point in time, so there was no reason to push it. that doesn't mean you can lazy out and disrespect me when i paid you more than what you asked for in good faith that you would treat me with respect. i wouldn't even be as mad if there was just an honest communication, but the complete lack of it made me reach the point where i feel like i have no choice but to do exactly what i am doing right now.

 

in conclusion, the only real reason i post this is the obvious one, and it's that i want the work done. 185 usd to me didn't change my life back then, and it's not going to change my life now. wanting an agreement fulfilled is not unreasonable, and because you exhausted me being nice to you, i'm not going to be nice to you anymore. i was going to hire you for the entire gig, but you may have just lost that opportunity for yourself and more due to your own lack of discipline.

Edited June 18, 2017 by blinzer

[Azura Skyy]

Moved to general for now, may be moved to off-topic or locked. Just as a reminder, I encourage everyone to read the rules and guidelines before posting on this thread. Try to be civil.

I'd also encourage anyone seeking services to refer to the third-party services page listed under the community tab as these users have undergone a strict application and review process to have the thread there.

Regards,
~Azura Skyy