Fronzel Neekburm

Hopefully that update will be done before bedtime. All that frothing at the mouth stuff (see my wall of text above) has made me sleepy.

For the love of God, NOOO!!! That thing was developed by a company called NCH Software. I recently installed one of their other programmes (WavePad I believe it was called...) and it was a fucking nightmare beyond belief! It re-assigned all my media files to WavePad by default (not that you could tell it not to do so during installation, no siree!), re-assigned other types of files to other NCH-related programmes (if you tried to open them it would try to download that program from the Internet). Not to mention it installs files all over your computer and is an absolute bitch to get rid of. If you're using a program like Thunderbird, it will (allegedly) try to pull your mail information. If that doesn't constitute spyware/malware, it's pretty goddamn close! Do yourself a favor and get rid of this shit!

It's been literally since last summer that I read anything SpaceVenture-related, so forgive me for any misconceptions on my part. Personally, I always thought that in most games the main character is a less important factor than the world he inhabits. Even in the first few SQ games, Roger Wilco is pretty much a blank slate (especially considering the option to name your own character). That said, I think there are all sorts of ways Ace could be interesting. It might actually be funny to have a regular guy like him, who's pretty much on the bottom of the food chain, ACTING like a conceited jerk with a Lancelot complex when around other people (working as a space plumber might give you all sorts of megalomanic delusions). The laid-back a man's got to do what a man's got to do-attitude works fine, but it might actually be funnier to have Ace be a bit of a condescending jerk towards his clientele at times (kind of a "Stand back! Let a professional handle this!" attitude). It'll also be interesting to see how he interacts with the other two main characters, Rooter and Cluck. This could be handled like a father-son-relationship, with Rooter being Ace's - sort of - child and Ace in turn being Cluck's protégé. The three of them could be one big, happy, dysfunctional family.

@PurpleTentacle I'd agree with you, were it not for the fact that this bunch of people you mentioned pumped - literally! - thousands of dollars into the game, worked as moderators for Replay and did all sorts of free labor (artworks, beta testing and such). All that rewarded with a great big "Fuck you!", just because they dared to point out that someone is making a complete ass of himself. (Bear in mind that I consider myself mostly a neural party in this. Yes, I was also thrown out of the forum - presumably because I posted an animated gif of a guy munching on a bag of popcorn (!) - but I was nowhere near as involved in either the forums or the actual game as most of the other banned parties were.) Imagine if you had been the one who basically had given a year of his life to the project. Wouldn't you agree that this goes quite a bit beyond bruised egos and delves into the realm of, shall we say, exploitation? That and, you know,... - threatening Wisecrack with a lawsuit even though they had Al's permission - causing a shitstorm obout this in the gaming press, claiming that it was Al who wants to sue - impersonating Josh in one of the updates - attempting to sabotage other people's kickstarters - revealing rather intimate details about Scott Murphy's private life in this very forum in some desperate attempt to make himself look good - leaking other companies' delicate information to the press - the numerous instances of cyber-bullying and so on and so forth. I agree about the inappropriate and rude part, though. As for news about these recent developments hitting the Steam forums: Since it was the community who is basically responsible for getting this game on Steam in the first place (via the greenlighting process), I'd call it a classic case of poetic justice. Still, I had hoped that this would happen in a somewhat more refined and articulate way. People deserve to know what's going on, but I'm afraid just pasting a link to these forums might do more harm than good. But it looks like it's been removed anyway. Sorry for not letting this topic rest (as I had promised earlier), but like I said a few pages ago: people ought to know why this is a big deal.

Surely, this aPAULing behaviour can't be AlLowed! (Sorry, had to go there as well)

Perfect! Nov 1st sounds like a great idea! I have a few ideas kicking around my head for short snippets which could be inserted throughout the tribute video to spice up the sappiness. If anyone's interested to put my silly ideas into practice (or is suffering from writer's block), feel free to contact me!

I'm camera shy to an incapacitating degree (good luck finding a picture of me on the interwebs!). I'll probably need a psychiatry session or two before I can handle stepping in front of a camera, so I'll second Datadog's query for a potential cut-off date. When the SQ6 commentary happened, I mailed Chris Pope my SQ-story, which sure enough contained enough sappiness and pathos to fill at least two Spielberg films. That one would've made for the best script for a sappy fan tribute. Unfortunately, since I mailed this from a lavabit-account, that mail is no longer there. True to the most recent episode of the Space Quest historian, I'd also be more than happy to translate someone's sappy story into German. In case you'd like to deliver your sappy story with a teutonic twist (you know, to boost not only the two guys' morale, but their work ethics as well... :P ), feel free to drop me a PM!

I agree with the idea for a petition. Our mails to Codemasters would probably have been dismissed anyway as a handful of fans venting their anger over getting thrown out of a forum. They probably get mails like that all the time. A petition would give us the opportunity to truly stand together in this, make people realise who was involved, why this is such a great deal and get noticed.

I'm a bit hesitant to send that mail to Josh. I don't want him to feel pressured to take a stand in this and if the disappearance of his fb profile is any indication, the man might value some privacy. Hah! Like I care! The retail version has been out for months (in Europe at least) and for all I know, my name is in it. Twice. Of all the damage that's been done in the last few days, this is one of the things I least worry about. And if you paid money to get your name in there, Replay is, I would assume, liable to keep it in.

Most of you probably know, but in case you don't: It was originally Replay's intention to remake all the old Larry games. That's six remakes in a row we're talking about, with the possibility of a new Larry game being released afterwards. What this boils down to is that the cool-sounding name of Chief Creative Officer most likely would have reduced Josh to nothing more than an assembly line worker, cranking out remake after remake, possibly for the next decade or so. It always horrified me beyond belief that from survey results on the Replay forum, most people seemed to be okay with letting all that creative genius go to waste instead of letting the man create something new and exciting from the ground up. No matter what his current situation is, he has earned nothing but the greatest respect from the Sierra fanbase in general and the (former) Replay community in particular and he certainly deserves better than to have his talents squandered on endless remakes.

Happy Birthday, Mr Murphy!

Yeah, I had also hoped for a new GK. All the more so since Sins of the Fathers is as much of a perfect game as Sierra ever released IMHO, so the remake is going to face some tough scrutiny. Living up to the original won't be an easy task, but I really wish them the best of success with it!

This thing is a work of genius! They're faithfully retaining every single massacre-in-outer-space-FPS-cliché in the book (the levels look like they were lifted straight out of Doom 3) while replacing the fast-paced action with the most menial chores imaginable. And oddly enough, it works! Not just on the subversion level, this thing is actually fun to play.

If Josh is really gone for good (he has been absent from the forums ever since the game came out), then I'm amazed at the brazenness of Replay still having him listed as part of the company on their website (https://www.replayga.../index/about-us). All the more so considering the kind of litigious bullshit being stirred up by Trowe last year when some Kickstarter campaign featured Al Lowe in their pitch. I'm sure you all remember. I've said it before, Josh was the embodiment of everything Reloaded did right. A company should consider itself lucky to have a man of his talent and integrity. I hope that, despite all this ugliness, we'll be seeing more from him in the future. Thanks to MusicallyInspired for archiving this heartwarming display of solidarity in the face of true vileness. Again, I'm truly sorry for anyone affected by these recent bans, but at this point I can't really imagine anybody having any bad feelings about being kicked out of Replay's forums. Getting banned from that place is more a badge of honor than anything else. As for the few people who still remain (or reregistered), I hope they'll soon realize that even flaming on that carcass of a forum is a waste of time. The place is doomed now anyway. Personally, I'll put my energy into posting on more constructive subjects than Mr Trowe's vicious antics from now on. Having us vent our collective rage will only fuel this guy's delusion, that he's actually worthy of our attention. He clearly isn't. Don't feed the Trowe!

An increase in Twitter followers, eh? I guess people don't want to be late to the party when this batshit insane PR meltdown on legs throws his next misdirected hissy fit. Not that he's got anyone left to vent his anger on, anyway.

Awesome! I was about to resign in disgust from the Replay forums after Trowe's revolting display towards dedicated über-fans like Serena and Tom, only to find out that someone already took the dirty work upon himself and banned me. Well played, Mr Trowe! Well played! Driving away the few remaining fans who were willing to spread some positive word of mouth about a perfectly mediocre game. I can't say how sincerely sorry I am for people like Serena, Tom and Irishmile for having so graciously given so much of their time, money, hard labour and LOVE, who are now getting spit out by this ungrateful scumbag.

Holy shit! The Troweman is at it again! Somebody fetch me some fucking popcorn! :D

I didn't even scroll down that far, to avoid frustration. Damn you, minimum wage job!

They did? Well, I'll be... Sorry for my inflammatory wording and excessive use of hyperbole. That's the internet for you. Mental note taken.

You probably won't once you read mine. Anyway, here goes... http://www.bigfinishgames.com/support-project-fedora-paypal THIS is how it's done! Your page deviates from the standard set in terms of ease of use, clarity, etc. First of all, you ought to give international backers an extra button for every reward tier. That one extra button you have for intl. backers at the bottom of the page comes across as ultra-lazy. It's like telling your customers that you simply couldn't be bothered to create a few extra buttons for intl. pledgers, so you'll just have the people who FINANCE YOUR GAME go through the extra hassle. Not customer-friendly! Not recommended! I can see the reasoning behind this. It's a dumb idea nonetheless. One that will discourage people from choosing a higher tier. Furthermore, and that's just personal preference, I couldn't care less for the translations. I'd rather have something else - ANYTHING else - from that list at the $550K stretch goal. Graphic novel, Mini adventure or female character should be at the top of the stretch goals, since they are the most incentive. I don't even know if there are any Europeans left that can't speak English. But that is totally your call. Overall, I still think it's a major improvement over the rather bold "Be sure to check out our nightmarishly convoluted and contradictory reward tier clusterfuck over at Kickstarter!"-message. But you might want to think the "Less bang for your buck"-attitude over. And don't forget to include the extra buttons for international backers!

Sehr feines Interview, werter Mit-Münchener! :) Thanks!

Yeah, I still wonder if it was a particularly smart move to do all those Sierra-related KS-campaigns back-to-back. You can only pledge everything you got so many times...

@ Rahul Thanks for chiming in and addressing my concerns. I read some of the things you posted and felt very... how shall I put it... disenchanted by them. Far be it from me to belittle your work (up until now, I had no idea it was just two people working on those prototypes), I do however question some of the decisions that I feel hurt the campaign. Basically, what this boils down to is a difference of opinion. However, let me stress this again, so far this project has my unwavering support. By extension YOU have my unwavering support.

Unfortunately, it's a fairly unexciting story: I found it on ebay and figured it would make a nice addition to the collection. I'll try to post a picture as soon as possible.