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[Neonivek]

Kickstart isn't donations they are "funding" you are the producer

[Egan_BW]

Turns out that making games is harder than giving five dollars to a kickstarter campaign! Turns out that sometimes, game development doesn't work out!
You give devs a bunch of money to make a game. That's just what it costs to make it.

[Puzzlemaker]

Yeah, from the sound of it I want to drive to the developers house and give him a hug.

[TempAcc]

I do think its a bit unfair to compare things like this to Toady and DF, for a number of reasons:
I think this development model works only when the right people are involved. When you got people like Toady, who are passionate about their project since it has evolved and grown to be more than just a project, but also an important part of their lives and even who they are as a person, then said project will likely be awesome and take great advantage of this kind of development model. Hell, toady would prob keep developing DF even if he never achieved such a following (and donations). Toady also happens to be a guy who can deal with his own issues and overcome problems by himself (its publicy known toady overcame a meth addiction). DF is the result of the perfect combination of factors, the kind of thing that only happens when the right person works on the right project with the right approach and the best kind of support.

However, this doesn't mean that we should all just give the TWS dev a hug, give him a friendly pink card with "you tried" written on it and call it a day. A fair bit of money and trust was put on this project, and when people put their effort into you, its completely reasonable to expect you to at least inform said people when things don't work out. Instead the guy just isolated himself more and more, first from the community and then from the people who actualy had direct contact with him.

Its like he's his biggest enemy. We can come up with a hundred excuses for it, but if someone comes to you and tells you they can totally 100% make a rad looking toy if you give him enough money, spends the next few months telling you about how awesome it will be, then delivers nothing while also telling you nothing, well, I think you have every right to be disappointed.

[Cthulhu]

Kickstart isn't donations they are "funding" you are the producer

Turns out that making games is harder than giving five dollars to a kickstarter campaign! Turns out that sometimes, game development doesn't work out!
You give devs a bunch of money to make a game. That's just what it costs to make it.

Kickstarter is whatever suits your current argument the best.  They took 80,000 dollars of other people's money and have nothing to show for it.  There is nowhere else in the universe but video game kickstarters that people would try to defend that.

[ZeroGravitas]

The environment was extremely encouraging for a very long time.  The Vordrak thing was the first time things actually started getting nasty and it was absolutely not the norm when it happened.

Not just encouraging; the environment was incredible forgiving, even after years, but when we were still getting screenshots.

I'm upset because if I paid into the game under what I now think were false pretenses.

The Kickstarter page literally said "we have a working game." Yet somehow years later, we have nothing. I know, I know, the stretch goals meant they had to vastly expand the game and recode in a new version of Unity or whatever. But where's the old working game? It was lost? Really?

The much more likely scenario is that nobody actually coded a working game at any point, yet they wrote that on the kickstarter page anyway.

And here's the real question: How could Fenicks possibly not know this? He really saw nothing, knew nothing? Just like he now claims he didn't know that he was President of EVO Games, Ltd, or that he had no involvement with that earlier company?

Everyone saying, "oh how sad, their lost friendship." - you are a muppet. This was a scam from the start, by both of them, and probably not their first. There was no "working game."

[forsaken1111]

If you really think it was a scam then you should bring some kind of legal action against them.

I get that people are upset, but investing in a startup is not a license to slander or abuse the producers of the product. If you think your money has been misused, file suit. Leaving mean comments on the forum or kickstarter page does nothing but make you look like an idiot.

[ndkid]

Kickstarter is whatever suits your current argument the best.  They took 80,000 dollars of other people's money and have nothing to show for it.  There is nowhere else in the universe but video game kickstarters that people would try to defend that.

experimental research
Speculative drilling
casinos and lotteries
election campaigns
protection money
insurance

I could go on. And this isn't even about whether a kickstarter is donation or preorder, which is an argument I've never taken a side on. Just that there are lots and lots of speculative ventures out there, and to pretend there aren't strikes me as unreasonable.

[Neonivek]

I should state that at this point people actually CAN litigate.

Just that there are lots and lots of speculative ventures out there, and to pretend there aren't strikes me as unreasonable.

Yes but you see if you go through a speculative venture and turn out nothing. You still have to prove you actually made an attempt.

---

I am not up in arms or anything...

But the sad thing is here... ZeroGravitas isn't out of line and believing that the entire thing was a Scam isn't an unfounded assumption in this case either.

Sure, "I" don't believe it. But honestly at this point the kickstarter has more then justified the negativity surrounding it. It has lost the grace period of "Stop being negative and assuming the worst!"

---

Anyhow this situation, assuming it really isn't a scam, isn't anything new to videogames and often is why videogames CAN go over budget.

[ZeroGravitas]

If you really think it was a scam then you should bring some kind of legal action against them.

I get that people are upset, but investing in a startup is not a license to slander or abuse the producers of the product. If you think your money has been misused, file suit. Leaving mean comments on the forum or kickstarter page does nothing but make you look like an idiot.

Libel, kid. Slander is oral.

[SangerZonvolt]

Hello, this is my first post in this forum and I have made my account specificaly for this reason: To tell you my last days on the that which sleeps forums and ask some questions for those who can still visit there.


But first let me tell you a bit so you get some context:
I have been posting in the TWS forum under the same name, so the beta backers will recognize me. I have been registered there for about 9 months, with multiple postings a day. Until yesterday I think I was in the top 10 numbers of posts, more than Fenicks and some of the mods. So I think itīs clear that I was/am interested in the game.

I preodered the game for 50 dollars back then when they stoped giving infos to the public, because I couldnīt stop my curiosity and believed a beta would be inbound for the end of 2015. I did not kickstart, but preorder, so formaly speaking I could demand my money back, but this isnīt an option because the transaction is more than 180 days back and paypal wouldnīt let me charge it back themself and I donīt think the developers are willing to pay anything back. My loss, but one I was willing to take if the project would fail in a normal way. Thatīs not why I am here.

The reason I am here is that I was permanently banned from the forum yesterday without any direct warning.

What happened? I will try to tell it as objectively as I can.

As you are all probably aware from this thread Josh stoped posting a long while back. A few months ago Fen started to communicate with us, and I hoped things would improve. When the screenshots came I was optimistic for a week or two.

But then Fen would repedetly promise to get into contact with Josh but refused to share any information. The way he worded things made it seem like Josh didnīt share any infos with him that he could then give us in the first place.

Then in the last week Fen promised to meet up with Josh after Josh moved back to near his home. That meeting was pushed to the weekend, and then to this wednessday.

Then the unthinkable happened: Fen announced the cancelation of the meeting with:
"POSTPONED: HAR HAR HAR"

I and others at first believed this to be a joke because it was immediately followed by a joke about how Josh is an abusive husband but Fen stays with him because of how nice he is when others arenīt around (explaining it would need more context, just believe me it was supposed to be funny). No further explanation was offered.

This offended a few members of the forum, including me. I answered that I couldnīt understand how he could troll those few that remained until now. I have used some swearwords for emphasis, but never used an insult towards a person. Nya, the main mod of the forum, explicitly stated that he had no problem with the post (though Nya, the strongest supporter of the game, was offended enough himself by the message to step down from his moderation post).


Shortly after that Fen posted a number of postes in which he stated that we canīt expect him to know more about the game since he hasnīt seen anything himself for over a year, that he isnīt obliged to give us a day by day update, that he IS annoyed by some people on the forum more than by Josh (though he would still buy us a beer), and that he was waiting for my answer specifically while he was still angry. This was shortly after he completely purged the public and backer forums.

I gave my answer: I told him that he didnīt give day by day updates, just told us everyday that there arenīt any updates. I told him that his actions even caused Nya, who spend a lot more time on the forums than Fen and more money than any other backer (except maybe one backer who backed with 3000), to turn down his post.

And I said what probably led to my ban: I told him that yes, we can expect him to know more about the game which is developed by a company of two people which he is one from (but that hey, I understand that itīs hard to keep an overview on who does what in such a big company). I guess he took that second part personaly.

I wrote that post while being seriously pissed on how he treated the few of us that remained and kept loyal. Next time I tried to log in I was told that my account had been permanently baned without any further explanation being offered.

Again: I was baned for this permanently and without any prior warning The last one to be ban permanently was Vordrak after very extensive warnings for far worse behavior.

So now everyone here can judge for themself if that is how you deal with customers.



Since yesterday I have tried to contact the developers via email, in which I even apologized for any perceived insults and asked for either a reactivation of my account or giving me my money back, as I canīt receive any beta without my account even if it should eventually release and I view that as a termination/violation of contract (again: preorder, not backer) if this status should remain. I would even be satisfied with a read only permission. I am however not sure anyone reads those mails anymore. I have also filled in a refund request via paypal, which wonīt happen if KDG doesnīt agree because of the 180 days rule.


So now that I have told my story I would like to ask someone who is still in the forums over there some questions:
Who did ban me? I assume Fenicks but I canīt tell for sure.
Did that person state any reason for my ban or was I jsut gone from one moment to the next?
How did the people over there react to this? Was I the evil guy or was there any protest (I am mostly interested in Nyas opinion, as I value him as a neutral force)?
Did the banner state if there was any way to unban me? Or if I would receive any beta in another way should the ban remain?

Could you please ask Fen if he could consider giving me at least my reading abilities back if he doesnīt want to deal with me anymore? Of course I would cancel the chargeback attempt then, though I assume they donīt care about that anyway.

I would be very thankfull for any answers at all.

Edit: Paypal has closed my chareback attempt so there is no way for me to get my way back but to sue, which I am not going to do over 50 dollars on another continent.

Note: This is a very abriged summary of the events since those involved dozens or hundrets of posts. If anyone from there feels like I left something important out they are free to quote me from there to paint whatever they think is a more accurate picture.

[forsaken1111]

Maybe I'm missing something but don't the gameplay videos and screenshots show that they 'made an attempt'?

Libel, kid. Slander is oral.

Fair enough, I misspoke. You can drop the 'kid' crap though.

[Neonivek]

Maybe I'm missing something but don't the gameplay videos and screenshots show that they 'made an attempt'?

It can be fixed or set up.

A famous example would be Spore which had a "Gameplay video" before they had any actual gameplay.

Or it could have been propped up.

Though as I said, I personally do not believe it is the case. Yet I wouldn't personally denounce anyone who thought otherwise at this point.

[ZeroGravitas]

Maybe I'm missing something but don't the gameplay videos and screenshots show that they 'made an attempt'?

There are no "gameplay" videos. He never presses end turn. The entire thing is probably a mockup in Unity. It looks like there is a game, sure. But there really isn't. It's smoke and mirrors.

Same thing with the screenshots. There are even typos in them that suggest that there is no game engine - like ruler names being randomly misspelled in particular fields. The only real explanation for a mistake like that is that there is no game engine pulling a string from a data file. There is a guy manually entering text into a field to make it look like a video game, but he screwed up.

[ZeroGravitas]

If you play the Standard Scenario you generally have a basic level of understanding how the game is going to play out, which was our goal - to make it a challenging experience that relies on your learning the patterns of the world.  Manipulating the nations that hate eachother, targeting wise kings, timing a crippling famine at the right moment - but even inside that structure there's so many explosive elements.  The moment you take a "radical" choice like killing the King and his immediate family, you get the unexpected - like one time I had cursed the King's Family, the Barons declared him unfit, split into two nations, and began to fight a civil war.  Meanwhile the Tribes had united behind a Hero, who they proclaimed their chosen king, but he was Cylarian, the barons have a diplomatic summit after a bloody battle, declare the Cylarian hero their king (I didn't see this result but I'm assuming its because he is friends with all the barons and the heroes that were acting as diplomats), making him the king of both powers, he then went on to marry the daughter of the elves (at this point he's simply a diplomatic monster)... overthrows the Elvish Council and declares himself King.... now his ego and diplomatic skill are both max, he manages to Annex Elerion into Cylaria (still only three crowns) - I'm just watching this happen, because I'm spellbound, I don't want to interfere because I need to know what can possibly happen.   The united three kingdoms attack Arden, recapturing the farmlands, he makes peace and turns Arden into an ally.

Long story short, he discovers I'm rising and crushes me.  Despite the fact that he was simply taking over the world he was friendly with every hero, so no one was stopping him.  I ended up adjusting how heroes see other friends if they're growing too powerful, but the completely random events that lead up to this were otherwise "expected" to function that way.   In addition, later builds implemented the Balance of Power desire which makes nations take a more critical eye at people who are growing stronger.

Now that's an outlier but still somewhat understandable based on the scenario setup, if you add in the Game Modes you get some real crazy stuff.  I have a lot of favorite Modes, but on the North Burns playing with "Liberty" is a really fun way to switch it - it makes revolutions and slave revolts much more common and you get to see the world rip itself apart and remake itself.

(emphasis added in bold)

This post is a great example of the fraud.

If any of this ever happened, where is the game it happened in?

Oh, it doesn't exist.

None of the things written here actually happened. They are stories he made up about a game that "sounds cool."