Reputation Activity
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Raiden got a reaction from Decaffeinated Jedi in Pledge Quest II: Noodle Shop of Horrors has arrived!That was good fun, I'm really enjoying these little Pledge Quest games. Great work guys! :)
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Raiden reacted to mrtnkl in EGA version of the SpaceVenture prototype domeHey all,
It's been a while since I visited these forums. Years actually: back when I was coding a virtual sierra-related chatroom in 2003 or 2004. Didn't even remember my login credentials so the sign-in-with-twitter was a nice welcoming :D
Just for the fun of sharing, I was wondering if any of you SQ fans saw the EGA pics we made for laughs during the kickstarter?
We thought they'd make a good sq4-ish joke where the KS 2012 dome was in fact a remake of an old 1986 Sierra game - with time and space all getting mixed up and such.
Fun fact: Mark loved them but was afraid it would scare away new potential backers as it could make them think this was the new game they were backing ;-)
We posted these in the KS comments back when they were in high-rotation mode during the final days of the campaign (10 updates a second? What was it? ;)) so it probably got lost forever in the gap between everyone's page-refreshes.
So I thought reposting them here would hopefully be apprecated.
Cheers from a true sq-fan,
- Martin
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OK, so my "game" is done.
Can be downloaded here: http://www.mediafire...d6r5yk2dlzrncqf
It's really a very basic thing and I'm not very comfortable writing in English, but hey... I had fun with it and figuring out AGS the past couple of days. :)
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Raiden got a reaction from Frede in Mixnmojo: Is Paul Trowe of Replay Sabotaging Other Kickstarters?I don't think Paul Trowe really understands business (surprise, surprise) if he thinks a development studio subsidiary is going to have any control over the intellectual property owned by the parent company, Activision.
Activision already owns another studio in the UK, FreeStyleGames, and has done so since 2008. They also own three studios in Canada, and one in Ireland. Regardless of whether he thinks they might be more "reasonable," he could contact all of them and each one would tell him the same thing: "We just develop games, you'll have to contact Activision management in head office to discuss IP licencing."
I think we can rest safe that he won't be getting the Space Quest IP any time soon, and the whole thing just serves to highlight his ineptitude and underhandedness.
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Raiden reacted to drdrslashvohaul in Mixnmojo: Is Paul Trowe of Replay Sabotaging Other Kickstarters?Agree with both of you. It really is pretty much irrelevant whether Paul Trowe and/or his group are "really" "guilty" of the things their accused of. What's most important is that the Two Guys get their project funded.
Getting the SQ IP is irrelevant too. Without a company to do anything with it, it seems rather pointless. And if it doesn't go to the Two Guys (or at least the Two Guys aren't employed to create the new game) there's more than enough people who will make damn sure everyone knows that it's not really SQ.
Basically, it will backfire majorly on Paul if these rumours have substance - and it will be pointless for Paul to acquire the SQ IP unless he enters sincere dialogue with the Crowemurphyists.
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Raiden got a reaction from jfrisby in Mixnmojo: Is Paul Trowe of Replay Sabotaging Other Kickstarters?I'll quote something I just read on AdventureGamers, as it pertains to this topic:
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Raiden got a reaction from Decaffeinated Jedi in A one-room AGI/AGS adventure to promote SpaceVenture?I doff my hat to you guys. I think it's amazing that anyone would go to the effort of building a game like this to help promote a project. Scott and Mark are very fortunate to have such dedicated fans.
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Raiden got a reaction from KenSentMe in Mixnmojo: Is Paul Trowe of Replay Sabotaging Other Kickstarters?I'll quote something I just read on AdventureGamers, as it pertains to this topic:
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Raiden got a reaction from Frede in A one-room AGI/AGS adventure to promote SpaceVenture?I doff my hat to you guys. I think it's amazing that anyone would go to the effort of building a game like this to help promote a project. Scott and Mark are very fortunate to have such dedicated fans.
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Raiden got a reaction from Troels Pleimert in A one-room AGI/AGS adventure to promote SpaceVenture?I doff my hat to you guys. I think it's amazing that anyone would go to the effort of building a game like this to help promote a project. Scott and Mark are very fortunate to have such dedicated fans.
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Raiden got a reaction from Frede in Mixnmojo: Is Paul Trowe of Replay Sabotaging Other Kickstarters?I'll quote something I just read on AdventureGamers, as it pertains to this topic:
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Raiden got a reaction from Dat Engineer in Mixnmojo: Is Paul Trowe of Replay Sabotaging Other Kickstarters?I'll quote something I just read on AdventureGamers, as it pertains to this topic:
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Raiden got a reaction from Troels Pleimert in Mixnmojo: Is Paul Trowe of Replay Sabotaging Other Kickstarters?I'll quote something I just read on AdventureGamers, as it pertains to this topic:
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Raiden got a reaction from metafx in Mixnmojo: Is Paul Trowe of Replay Sabotaging Other Kickstarters?I'll quote something I just read on AdventureGamers, as it pertains to this topic:
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Raiden got a reaction from pcj in Mixnmojo: Is Paul Trowe of Replay Sabotaging Other Kickstarters?I'm not sure whether it was wise for Mojo to publish that article. It's fine for forum debate, but the claims are too speculative and unsubstantiated to warrant an article on the subject.
I find it quite hard to maintain objectivity on this issue, because of my personal dislike for Paul Trowe that has grown after watching his behaviour over the past few weeks. I backed Leisure Suit Larry, and I don't regret that, nor do I want my money back, but he's making it hard for me to remain as excited about the project as I once was. I find myself almost wanting to believe the worst about him when claims like this surface.
If we look at Gamespygeek the evidence is rather damning. The Myspace page had a photo of Trowe on it. The name "Jiminy Drambuie" is clearly a pseudonym. The style of writing is the same as Trowe's. He seems to have the same beef with people as Trowe does, namely the Two Guys / Chris Pope, and Wisecrack. The whole Myspace page mysteriously vanished as soon as the story broke. Now people have said "why would he publicly support the Two Guys and secretly undermine them at the same time?" Well I think it's quite plausible that he's merely being two-faced to protect his public image. He was almost forced into apologising here for his behaviour in a thread about the Two Guys, because people were turning against him. The sincerity of that apology is questionable, he could still be pissed off at them, and we know from Twitter/Facebook that he's an angry man, so the only outlet for his true feelings is via an anonymous account, and people are always at their most honest when they're anonymous. While that's going on he can publicly play the nice guy urging people to support them, and hope that no one is any the wiser. Of course, none of this evidence amounts to solid proof, it wouldn't hold up in a court and could be argued either way, so it comes down to our personal feelings to dictate which conclusion we believe. Personally I can't escape the feeling that Paul Trowe would be more than capable of this, just judging by his past actions and comments as an indicator.
With the issue that Irishmile raised on the Replay forums, having two people posting from the same IP address is always suspicious. The people did have a plausible excuse though, that they work together. People naturally befriend their work colleagues, discuss their interests and opinions. It's foreseeable to me that two people who formed a friendship via work would back the same project and share a similar opinion on events. I know that I told all my friends about the campaigns I was supporting, in order to get them to pledge too, and typically when I discuss how I feel about something with a friend it's because I know they will agree with me. The fact that they come from Chicago, as does Ken from Wisecrack could also be seen as a little suspect, but Chicago is a big city, so it's hard to draw much from that other than co-incidence without something more substantive. Again, it's a lot of speculation, but I feel the argument of sabotage is much more of a stretch to make here, and I'm more willing to extend the benefit of the doubt towards everyone in this instance.
I think it's a shame that everything got so blown out of proportion here. Wisecrack were misleading in their original approach, but had someone just politely messaged them and asked them to change the wording of their campaign then things could probably have been cleared up easily. The fact is that all the media involvement, threats of lawsuits, and mudslinging across social networks, all done by Paul Trowe, merely made Wisecrack look like the victims, and tarnished Paul's own image. Had Wisecrack refused a reasonable request, then I wouldn't be inclined to support them at this stage, but it's in fact Paul's unreasonable behaviour throughout that has really turned many people, including myself, against him, and made me more inclined to support Wisecrack. At the end of the day I want to see a positive, inclusive, adventure game community, where as many projects get funded and games get made as possible. There needs to be camaraderie and mutual support amongst small developers, and not in fighting and sabotage. In my eyes I feel that Paul Trowe is going to have to go a long way to redeem himself. Whether some of the claims about him are true or not, he's already done a lot of damage to himself without the help of anyone else.
This annoys me a little. All the campaigns seem to support the idea of "Kick it Forward", yet because they all decided to launch in such a small period of time, it means they can't take advantage of this. I can understand the eagerness to capitalise on what they see as a shimmering new opportunity, but had they waited a year then they could have received a helpful cash injection from one of their former colleagues who had already produced a successful finished product.
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Raiden got a reaction from pcj in Mixnmojo: Is Paul Trowe of Replay Sabotaging Other Kickstarters?I'll quote something I just read on AdventureGamers, as it pertains to this topic:
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Raiden got a reaction from Spikey in Mixnmojo: Is Paul Trowe of Replay Sabotaging Other Kickstarters?I'm not sure whether it was wise for Mojo to publish that article. It's fine for forum debate, but the claims are too speculative and unsubstantiated to warrant an article on the subject.
I find it quite hard to maintain objectivity on this issue, because of my personal dislike for Paul Trowe that has grown after watching his behaviour over the past few weeks. I backed Leisure Suit Larry, and I don't regret that, nor do I want my money back, but he's making it hard for me to remain as excited about the project as I once was. I find myself almost wanting to believe the worst about him when claims like this surface.
If we look at Gamespygeek the evidence is rather damning. The Myspace page had a photo of Trowe on it. The name "Jiminy Drambuie" is clearly a pseudonym. The style of writing is the same as Trowe's. He seems to have the same beef with people as Trowe does, namely the Two Guys / Chris Pope, and Wisecrack. The whole Myspace page mysteriously vanished as soon as the story broke. Now people have said "why would he publicly support the Two Guys and secretly undermine them at the same time?" Well I think it's quite plausible that he's merely being two-faced to protect his public image. He was almost forced into apologising here for his behaviour in a thread about the Two Guys, because people were turning against him. The sincerity of that apology is questionable, he could still be pissed off at them, and we know from Twitter/Facebook that he's an angry man, so the only outlet for his true feelings is via an anonymous account, and people are always at their most honest when they're anonymous. While that's going on he can publicly play the nice guy urging people to support them, and hope that no one is any the wiser. Of course, none of this evidence amounts to solid proof, it wouldn't hold up in a court and could be argued either way, so it comes down to our personal feelings to dictate which conclusion we believe. Personally I can't escape the feeling that Paul Trowe would be more than capable of this, just judging by his past actions and comments as an indicator.
With the issue that Irishmile raised on the Replay forums, having two people posting from the same IP address is always suspicious. The people did have a plausible excuse though, that they work together. People naturally befriend their work colleagues, discuss their interests and opinions. It's foreseeable to me that two people who formed a friendship via work would back the same project and share a similar opinion on events. I know that I told all my friends about the campaigns I was supporting, in order to get them to pledge too, and typically when I discuss how I feel about something with a friend it's because I know they will agree with me. The fact that they come from Chicago, as does Ken from Wisecrack could also be seen as a little suspect, but Chicago is a big city, so it's hard to draw much from that other than co-incidence without something more substantive. Again, it's a lot of speculation, but I feel the argument of sabotage is much more of a stretch to make here, and I'm more willing to extend the benefit of the doubt towards everyone in this instance.
I think it's a shame that everything got so blown out of proportion here. Wisecrack were misleading in their original approach, but had someone just politely messaged them and asked them to change the wording of their campaign then things could probably have been cleared up easily. The fact is that all the media involvement, threats of lawsuits, and mudslinging across social networks, all done by Paul Trowe, merely made Wisecrack look like the victims, and tarnished Paul's own image. Had Wisecrack refused a reasonable request, then I wouldn't be inclined to support them at this stage, but it's in fact Paul's unreasonable behaviour throughout that has really turned many people, including myself, against him, and made me more inclined to support Wisecrack. At the end of the day I want to see a positive, inclusive, adventure game community, where as many projects get funded and games get made as possible. There needs to be camaraderie and mutual support amongst small developers, and not in fighting and sabotage. In my eyes I feel that Paul Trowe is going to have to go a long way to redeem himself. Whether some of the claims about him are true or not, he's already done a lot of damage to himself without the help of anyone else.
This annoys me a little. All the campaigns seem to support the idea of "Kick it Forward", yet because they all decided to launch in such a small period of time, it means they can't take advantage of this. I can understand the eagerness to capitalise on what they see as a shimmering new opportunity, but had they waited a year then they could have received a helpful cash injection from one of their former colleagues who had already produced a successful finished product.
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The theories claiming PT is being framed seem to ignore the fact that Gamespygeek started posting early on the Leisure Suit Larry campaign, with posts that were very defensive of LSL and Replay. His first post on the LSL project comments is dated April 4.
The negative posts started only with SpaceVenture, with the 'opening salvo' made in the update of May 21.
Sam Suede only launched their Kickstarer on May 30. How could Wisecrack predict the developments that followed and make those posts under Gamespygeek's name so well in advance? IMHO if they could do that they'd be funding Sam Suede from spare change coming out of their stock market investments...
For reference here's a list of Gamespygeek's posts prior to the Mixnmojo article: http://pastebin.com/APpNyyPZ
Of course all those comments are still on KS too if you wish to dig there.
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Raiden got a reaction from jocolloman in Mixnmojo: Is Paul Trowe of Replay Sabotaging Other Kickstarters?I'm not sure whether it was wise for Mojo to publish that article. It's fine for forum debate, but the claims are too speculative and unsubstantiated to warrant an article on the subject.
I find it quite hard to maintain objectivity on this issue, because of my personal dislike for Paul Trowe that has grown after watching his behaviour over the past few weeks. I backed Leisure Suit Larry, and I don't regret that, nor do I want my money back, but he's making it hard for me to remain as excited about the project as I once was. I find myself almost wanting to believe the worst about him when claims like this surface.
If we look at Gamespygeek the evidence is rather damning. The Myspace page had a photo of Trowe on it. The name "Jiminy Drambuie" is clearly a pseudonym. The style of writing is the same as Trowe's. He seems to have the same beef with people as Trowe does, namely the Two Guys / Chris Pope, and Wisecrack. The whole Myspace page mysteriously vanished as soon as the story broke. Now people have said "why would he publicly support the Two Guys and secretly undermine them at the same time?" Well I think it's quite plausible that he's merely being two-faced to protect his public image. He was almost forced into apologising here for his behaviour in a thread about the Two Guys, because people were turning against him. The sincerity of that apology is questionable, he could still be pissed off at them, and we know from Twitter/Facebook that he's an angry man, so the only outlet for his true feelings is via an anonymous account, and people are always at their most honest when they're anonymous. While that's going on he can publicly play the nice guy urging people to support them, and hope that no one is any the wiser. Of course, none of this evidence amounts to solid proof, it wouldn't hold up in a court and could be argued either way, so it comes down to our personal feelings to dictate which conclusion we believe. Personally I can't escape the feeling that Paul Trowe would be more than capable of this, just judging by his past actions and comments as an indicator.
With the issue that Irishmile raised on the Replay forums, having two people posting from the same IP address is always suspicious. The people did have a plausible excuse though, that they work together. People naturally befriend their work colleagues, discuss their interests and opinions. It's foreseeable to me that two people who formed a friendship via work would back the same project and share a similar opinion on events. I know that I told all my friends about the campaigns I was supporting, in order to get them to pledge too, and typically when I discuss how I feel about something with a friend it's because I know they will agree with me. The fact that they come from Chicago, as does Ken from Wisecrack could also be seen as a little suspect, but Chicago is a big city, so it's hard to draw much from that other than co-incidence without something more substantive. Again, it's a lot of speculation, but I feel the argument of sabotage is much more of a stretch to make here, and I'm more willing to extend the benefit of the doubt towards everyone in this instance.
I think it's a shame that everything got so blown out of proportion here. Wisecrack were misleading in their original approach, but had someone just politely messaged them and asked them to change the wording of their campaign then things could probably have been cleared up easily. The fact is that all the media involvement, threats of lawsuits, and mudslinging across social networks, all done by Paul Trowe, merely made Wisecrack look like the victims, and tarnished Paul's own image. Had Wisecrack refused a reasonable request, then I wouldn't be inclined to support them at this stage, but it's in fact Paul's unreasonable behaviour throughout that has really turned many people, including myself, against him, and made me more inclined to support Wisecrack. At the end of the day I want to see a positive, inclusive, adventure game community, where as many projects get funded and games get made as possible. There needs to be camaraderie and mutual support amongst small developers, and not in fighting and sabotage. In my eyes I feel that Paul Trowe is going to have to go a long way to redeem himself. Whether some of the claims about him are true or not, he's already done a lot of damage to himself without the help of anyone else.
This annoys me a little. All the campaigns seem to support the idea of "Kick it Forward", yet because they all decided to launch in such a small period of time, it means they can't take advantage of this. I can understand the eagerness to capitalise on what they see as a shimmering new opportunity, but had they waited a year then they could have received a helpful cash injection from one of their former colleagues who had already produced a successful finished product.
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Raiden got a reaction from Decaffeinated Jedi in Mixnmojo: Is Paul Trowe of Replay Sabotaging Other Kickstarters?I'm not sure whether it was wise for Mojo to publish that article. It's fine for forum debate, but the claims are too speculative and unsubstantiated to warrant an article on the subject.
I find it quite hard to maintain objectivity on this issue, because of my personal dislike for Paul Trowe that has grown after watching his behaviour over the past few weeks. I backed Leisure Suit Larry, and I don't regret that, nor do I want my money back, but he's making it hard for me to remain as excited about the project as I once was. I find myself almost wanting to believe the worst about him when claims like this surface.
If we look at Gamespygeek the evidence is rather damning. The Myspace page had a photo of Trowe on it. The name "Jiminy Drambuie" is clearly a pseudonym. The style of writing is the same as Trowe's. He seems to have the same beef with people as Trowe does, namely the Two Guys / Chris Pope, and Wisecrack. The whole Myspace page mysteriously vanished as soon as the story broke. Now people have said "why would he publicly support the Two Guys and secretly undermine them at the same time?" Well I think it's quite plausible that he's merely being two-faced to protect his public image. He was almost forced into apologising here for his behaviour in a thread about the Two Guys, because people were turning against him. The sincerity of that apology is questionable, he could still be pissed off at them, and we know from Twitter/Facebook that he's an angry man, so the only outlet for his true feelings is via an anonymous account, and people are always at their most honest when they're anonymous. While that's going on he can publicly play the nice guy urging people to support them, and hope that no one is any the wiser. Of course, none of this evidence amounts to solid proof, it wouldn't hold up in a court and could be argued either way, so it comes down to our personal feelings to dictate which conclusion we believe. Personally I can't escape the feeling that Paul Trowe would be more than capable of this, just judging by his past actions and comments as an indicator.
With the issue that Irishmile raised on the Replay forums, having two people posting from the same IP address is always suspicious. The people did have a plausible excuse though, that they work together. People naturally befriend their work colleagues, discuss their interests and opinions. It's foreseeable to me that two people who formed a friendship via work would back the same project and share a similar opinion on events. I know that I told all my friends about the campaigns I was supporting, in order to get them to pledge too, and typically when I discuss how I feel about something with a friend it's because I know they will agree with me. The fact that they come from Chicago, as does Ken from Wisecrack could also be seen as a little suspect, but Chicago is a big city, so it's hard to draw much from that other than co-incidence without something more substantive. Again, it's a lot of speculation, but I feel the argument of sabotage is much more of a stretch to make here, and I'm more willing to extend the benefit of the doubt towards everyone in this instance.
I think it's a shame that everything got so blown out of proportion here. Wisecrack were misleading in their original approach, but had someone just politely messaged them and asked them to change the wording of their campaign then things could probably have been cleared up easily. The fact is that all the media involvement, threats of lawsuits, and mudslinging across social networks, all done by Paul Trowe, merely made Wisecrack look like the victims, and tarnished Paul's own image. Had Wisecrack refused a reasonable request, then I wouldn't be inclined to support them at this stage, but it's in fact Paul's unreasonable behaviour throughout that has really turned many people, including myself, against him, and made me more inclined to support Wisecrack. At the end of the day I want to see a positive, inclusive, adventure game community, where as many projects get funded and games get made as possible. There needs to be camaraderie and mutual support amongst small developers, and not in fighting and sabotage. In my eyes I feel that Paul Trowe is going to have to go a long way to redeem himself. Whether some of the claims about him are true or not, he's already done a lot of damage to himself without the help of anyone else.
This annoys me a little. All the campaigns seem to support the idea of "Kick it Forward", yet because they all decided to launch in such a small period of time, it means they can't take advantage of this. I can understand the eagerness to capitalise on what they see as a shimmering new opportunity, but had they waited a year then they could have received a helpful cash injection from one of their former colleagues who had already produced a successful finished product.
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Raiden got a reaction from Frede in Mixnmojo: Is Paul Trowe of Replay Sabotaging Other Kickstarters?I'm not sure whether it was wise for Mojo to publish that article. It's fine for forum debate, but the claims are too speculative and unsubstantiated to warrant an article on the subject.
I find it quite hard to maintain objectivity on this issue, because of my personal dislike for Paul Trowe that has grown after watching his behaviour over the past few weeks. I backed Leisure Suit Larry, and I don't regret that, nor do I want my money back, but he's making it hard for me to remain as excited about the project as I once was. I find myself almost wanting to believe the worst about him when claims like this surface.
If we look at Gamespygeek the evidence is rather damning. The Myspace page had a photo of Trowe on it. The name "Jiminy Drambuie" is clearly a pseudonym. The style of writing is the same as Trowe's. He seems to have the same beef with people as Trowe does, namely the Two Guys / Chris Pope, and Wisecrack. The whole Myspace page mysteriously vanished as soon as the story broke. Now people have said "why would he publicly support the Two Guys and secretly undermine them at the same time?" Well I think it's quite plausible that he's merely being two-faced to protect his public image. He was almost forced into apologising here for his behaviour in a thread about the Two Guys, because people were turning against him. The sincerity of that apology is questionable, he could still be pissed off at them, and we know from Twitter/Facebook that he's an angry man, so the only outlet for his true feelings is via an anonymous account, and people are always at their most honest when they're anonymous. While that's going on he can publicly play the nice guy urging people to support them, and hope that no one is any the wiser. Of course, none of this evidence amounts to solid proof, it wouldn't hold up in a court and could be argued either way, so it comes down to our personal feelings to dictate which conclusion we believe. Personally I can't escape the feeling that Paul Trowe would be more than capable of this, just judging by his past actions and comments as an indicator.
With the issue that Irishmile raised on the Replay forums, having two people posting from the same IP address is always suspicious. The people did have a plausible excuse though, that they work together. People naturally befriend their work colleagues, discuss their interests and opinions. It's foreseeable to me that two people who formed a friendship via work would back the same project and share a similar opinion on events. I know that I told all my friends about the campaigns I was supporting, in order to get them to pledge too, and typically when I discuss how I feel about something with a friend it's because I know they will agree with me. The fact that they come from Chicago, as does Ken from Wisecrack could also be seen as a little suspect, but Chicago is a big city, so it's hard to draw much from that other than co-incidence without something more substantive. Again, it's a lot of speculation, but I feel the argument of sabotage is much more of a stretch to make here, and I'm more willing to extend the benefit of the doubt towards everyone in this instance.
I think it's a shame that everything got so blown out of proportion here. Wisecrack were misleading in their original approach, but had someone just politely messaged them and asked them to change the wording of their campaign then things could probably have been cleared up easily. The fact is that all the media involvement, threats of lawsuits, and mudslinging across social networks, all done by Paul Trowe, merely made Wisecrack look like the victims, and tarnished Paul's own image. Had Wisecrack refused a reasonable request, then I wouldn't be inclined to support them at this stage, but it's in fact Paul's unreasonable behaviour throughout that has really turned many people, including myself, against him, and made me more inclined to support Wisecrack. At the end of the day I want to see a positive, inclusive, adventure game community, where as many projects get funded and games get made as possible. There needs to be camaraderie and mutual support amongst small developers, and not in fighting and sabotage. In my eyes I feel that Paul Trowe is going to have to go a long way to redeem himself. Whether some of the claims about him are true or not, he's already done a lot of damage to himself without the help of anyone else.
This annoys me a little. All the campaigns seem to support the idea of "Kick it Forward", yet because they all decided to launch in such a small period of time, it means they can't take advantage of this. I can understand the eagerness to capitalise on what they see as a shimmering new opportunity, but had they waited a year then they could have received a helpful cash injection from one of their former colleagues who had already produced a successful finished product.
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Raiden got a reaction from drdrslashvohaul in Mixnmojo: Is Paul Trowe of Replay Sabotaging Other Kickstarters?I'm not sure whether it was wise for Mojo to publish that article. It's fine for forum debate, but the claims are too speculative and unsubstantiated to warrant an article on the subject.
I find it quite hard to maintain objectivity on this issue, because of my personal dislike for Paul Trowe that has grown after watching his behaviour over the past few weeks. I backed Leisure Suit Larry, and I don't regret that, nor do I want my money back, but he's making it hard for me to remain as excited about the project as I once was. I find myself almost wanting to believe the worst about him when claims like this surface.
If we look at Gamespygeek the evidence is rather damning. The Myspace page had a photo of Trowe on it. The name "Jiminy Drambuie" is clearly a pseudonym. The style of writing is the same as Trowe's. He seems to have the same beef with people as Trowe does, namely the Two Guys / Chris Pope, and Wisecrack. The whole Myspace page mysteriously vanished as soon as the story broke. Now people have said "why would he publicly support the Two Guys and secretly undermine them at the same time?" Well I think it's quite plausible that he's merely being two-faced to protect his public image. He was almost forced into apologising here for his behaviour in a thread about the Two Guys, because people were turning against him. The sincerity of that apology is questionable, he could still be pissed off at them, and we know from Twitter/Facebook that he's an angry man, so the only outlet for his true feelings is via an anonymous account, and people are always at their most honest when they're anonymous. While that's going on he can publicly play the nice guy urging people to support them, and hope that no one is any the wiser. Of course, none of this evidence amounts to solid proof, it wouldn't hold up in a court and could be argued either way, so it comes down to our personal feelings to dictate which conclusion we believe. Personally I can't escape the feeling that Paul Trowe would be more than capable of this, just judging by his past actions and comments as an indicator.
With the issue that Irishmile raised on the Replay forums, having two people posting from the same IP address is always suspicious. The people did have a plausible excuse though, that they work together. People naturally befriend their work colleagues, discuss their interests and opinions. It's foreseeable to me that two people who formed a friendship via work would back the same project and share a similar opinion on events. I know that I told all my friends about the campaigns I was supporting, in order to get them to pledge too, and typically when I discuss how I feel about something with a friend it's because I know they will agree with me. The fact that they come from Chicago, as does Ken from Wisecrack could also be seen as a little suspect, but Chicago is a big city, so it's hard to draw much from that other than co-incidence without something more substantive. Again, it's a lot of speculation, but I feel the argument of sabotage is much more of a stretch to make here, and I'm more willing to extend the benefit of the doubt towards everyone in this instance.
I think it's a shame that everything got so blown out of proportion here. Wisecrack were misleading in their original approach, but had someone just politely messaged them and asked them to change the wording of their campaign then things could probably have been cleared up easily. The fact is that all the media involvement, threats of lawsuits, and mudslinging across social networks, all done by Paul Trowe, merely made Wisecrack look like the victims, and tarnished Paul's own image. Had Wisecrack refused a reasonable request, then I wouldn't be inclined to support them at this stage, but it's in fact Paul's unreasonable behaviour throughout that has really turned many people, including myself, against him, and made me more inclined to support Wisecrack. At the end of the day I want to see a positive, inclusive, adventure game community, where as many projects get funded and games get made as possible. There needs to be camaraderie and mutual support amongst small developers, and not in fighting and sabotage. In my eyes I feel that Paul Trowe is going to have to go a long way to redeem himself. Whether some of the claims about him are true or not, he's already done a lot of damage to himself without the help of anyone else.
This annoys me a little. All the campaigns seem to support the idea of "Kick it Forward", yet because they all decided to launch in such a small period of time, it means they can't take advantage of this. I can understand the eagerness to capitalise on what they see as a shimmering new opportunity, but had they waited a year then they could have received a helpful cash injection from one of their former colleagues who had already produced a successful finished product.