3241

Matt what is the difference? Fox News does the exact same thing with Obama’s public speeches. Takes one or two sentences out of context and then runs with them. We’ve seen them do this a bunch. Why is it different? If RPS is not going to provide context, they are not much better than Fox or TMZ. They have to tell the whole boring story.

3242

Fortunately, RPS didn’t do that. I’d venture to say you’re making more out of it than they did.

Takes one or two sentences out of context and then runs with them. We’ve seen them do this a bunch. Why is it different? If RPS is not going to provide context, they are not much better than Fox or TMZ.

Alright, so what context did RPS miss, and how would that context have altered RPS’ post?

3243

You know what I don’t get? This thread is the first thing that pops up if I google “Brad Wardell Elemental”, so if I was publishing an article about him and the state of his game that’s probably the first place I’d look to snag a quote.

I mean I’m not a journalist or anything, but looking at the RPS article I really don’t see how this has become such a big deal over here. Hell, Quintin doesn’t even post on the forums.

-edit- Looking over the article again, it seems RPS pulled the quote from PCG, so why is it all of a sudden Qt3 vs. RPS?

3244

I like you. :)

3245

Leinad what you lack in quantity you make up in quality. Outstanding post, you said everything I wanted to say but didn’t and I am a native speaker.
Albeit with horrible proofreading skills.

3246

You make good points, but it is not necessary to press the Return key every time you reach the end of a sentence. :)

But yes, I pretty much agree with this. The original headline and take of the RPS article was highly unfortunate and I’m still not sure that quoting Brad adds a whole lot to it, but it’s certainly fair game. This is a public forum, like it or not; people aren’t betraying some kind of secret confidence to quote what’s written on here. In the heat of the moment I’ve said some things on forums I would be absolutely mortified to have publicised in the way Brad’s comments have been, but the forums in question have a couple of dozen users at most and I of course am an internet nobody. Brad on the other hand is the CEO of a well-known games company posting about a game his company has made, and Quarter to Three isn’t some internet backwater. It’s valid journalism.

3247

A careless, stupid comment from a CEO, followed by a lazy, kinda’ sleazy news blip on a gaming website.

Plenty of blame to spread around, and a very unfortunate situation.

3248

You know, I’ve wondered why you let that guy keep doing what he’s doing. If people were interested in his games they’d make a topic and post about them. He brings nothing to Qt3 except press releases.

3249

Whoa!! Hold on there cowboy.

I’ve been defending Elemental and Stardock from what I considered unfair attacks in this thread all week. And when I woke up this morning and saw Tom Francis and then RPSs posts, I posted a comment there setting the record straight. I post under the name FreezerBag, check it out.

I have my own reasons for doing things, I’m sure Tom has his. If it wasn’t for RPS I would not know who the hell Tom Chick is or be a member of Qt3. If it wasn’t for Tom Francis and his incredible GCII diaries, I would have no idea who Stardock and Brad Wardell were. I have huge respect for these people, which is why it saddens me so much to see them debase themselves indulging in Yellow Journalism.

What’s really sad is I don’t know why RPS posted this story in the tone that they did, I’m pretty sure they’re not just chasing hits, I guess they really did think it’s newsworthy.

As for Tom Francis, I think I get it. Maybe he was hugely excited about this game, then he finally got his hands on it and discovered that it crashed every 10 minutes for him. He tried to get it working on another machine, but no luck, and so he unwisely posted while at his most upset but on PC Gamers site rather than his personal blog. Just like Brad’s foolish comment in this thread, I can forgive the lapse.

3250

UPDATE: Stardock’s own Gamer’s Bill of Rights is no longer to be found on their site, which looked a bit odd. But actually you can still find it on its own site here. So that’s that stuff out the window. Anyway, there’s more… That’d be the Bill of Rights featuring the proud bulletpoint:

“2. Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.”

Fantasy strategy epic Elemental: War of Magic was released by Stardock this week, a day ahead of schedule. We’re still waiting on our code (as are most other online gaming sites, judging by the game’s barren metacritic page), but the metaphorical word on the digital street is that it’s broken to the point of being unplayable, having never convincingly left the beta that was available to pre-order customers. Here’s people being upset right on the RPS forum.

PC Gamer are up in arms about it being unfinished in a similar manner to earlier Stardock release, DemiGod, which also came out earlier than its announced release date. PCG go on to quote a post from Stardock CEO Brad Wardell on the Quarter to Three forums in which he responds to a displeased customer, seemingly in absolute contradiction of his own Rule #2:

“…the hostility in this thread exceeds my own tolerance for putting up with said hostility.

Also, to anyone, like you Ben, saying the game is like an “early beta” then well, please stay away from our games in the future. I consider it ready for release and if others disagree, don’t buy our games.”

We’ve contacted Stardock and await review code. Their contact reports that a day zero patch has left them rather busy.

First of all Stardock has not said it’s rescinded its bill of rights. There is no statement of such by Brad or any other Stardock employee. This is a conclusion that RPS implies as fact based on what other people have said. They don’t note that Brad’s statement was made as a response to an ongoing conversation, not a released statement by Stardock. The entire piece has pre-judged what the game is and what the game is like while admitting that they’ve yet to play the game. Not everybody even in this thread agrees with their conclusion, nor do all people on Octopus Overlords.

It just reads like something Fox would do regarding someone they disagree with. Sure, he shouldn’t have said it, just like other public figures have said things in the heat of the moment that they then apologize for. We move on. Making some front page headline out of this is silly.

3251

Things I have learned from this thread:

  1. Brad is an ass, or at least comes across as an ass consistently when posting here. I knew this before, though.

  2. Tom is getting very close to being an ass, at least when posting in this thread and others like it.

  3. See 1)

  4. There are a lot of thoughtful intelligent people that post here. This I have known since forever, but it’s nice to be reminded of it from time to time. Certain people should remember this when responding to these folks’ thoughtful intelligent posts, especially the critical ones.

  5. Elemental needs a lot of work.

  6. See 1) and 3)

  7. Reading this thread made me forget all about my cares and woes today (small though they may be), and for that, you all deserve many attaboysngirls, and cookies. Thank you all, great entertainment, would read again.

3252

Leinad, I think this is more about shitting where you sleep. People are here to discuss games. Gamers, developers, journalists. This is supposed to be a place where everyone can hang and and talk games. It seems a little underhanded to participate in this forum and then run off to post the gossip on your blog.

3253

Ooh, let me try!

Dear Kieron:

You are a rampallian! Fustilarian! You lump of foul deformity! Thou tottering rough-hewn devil-mon!

3254

But this isn’t amongst friends. It’s public, and the topic is a commercial product available to the public. If you want this to be friends-only, it needs to be invite-only and private.

It’s pretty naive to think that what you say in public isn’t fair game for the press. Every public person in the word understands this, or at least they do after their first Tweet gets them on CNN’s homepage. The press only has an obligation to accurately quote and put things in proper context; a blanket, “you shouldn’t quote someone in a public forum” is absurd. It’s a lot easier to not post than it is to take back a dumb one.

3255

We all know how Tom feels about his forum and people should stop questioning that, after all it is his forum and not yours.

3256

This is a conclusion that RPS implies as fact based on what other people have said. They don’t note that Brad’s statement was made as a response to an ongoing conversation, not a released statement by Stardock.

It’s quite easy to come to that conclusion when Stardock went ahead and released an unfinished product like Elemental.

The whole gamer bill of right thing is a bunch of rubbish anyways, consider it start with “Gamer have the rights to…”, you have the rights to, but we have the rights to tell you to STFU, ignore you and release whatever we want anyways.

3257

PCG go on to quote a post from Stardock CEO Brad Wardell on the Quarter to Three forums in which he responds to a displeased customer

That’s not enough?

This is a conclusion that RPS implies as fact based on what other people have said.

Implied, yes, implies, no. Furthermore, the assumption that they were basing that bit on what other people have said is, well, more or less the same thing you’re complaining about them doing. You don’t know that what you’re asserting to be true is actually true.

The entire piece has pre-judged what the game is and what the game is like while admitting that they’ve yet to play the game.

No, the piece serves to tell its readers that A: there’s reason to be cautious about purchasing the game but that B: they have yet to play the game themselves and so can’t offer their own impressions. If I read RPS but not, say, Qt3, I’d be really glad I read that post. They’re giving their readers a valuable warning.

Actually, if anything the post is a little too late; if not for Qt3 there’s a nontrivial chance I’d have already bought the game. So, thanks, folks, for scaring me off.

3258

And now we all know how you feel about ass kissing too.

3259

Sure, but at the same time I’m guessing a lot of people view this as their forum and community. Without everyone else, it isn’t much of a forum.

Also, there’s no forum policy that anyone is questioning. The only way to keep third-parties from quoting people on this site is to block those people from viewing messages. Even if you ban the RPS guys or Tom from PC Gamer, they can still read the site.

(I want to use your message in every thread when people criticize a game I’ve worked on: THIS IS OUR GAME AND NOT YOURS, BAH! Wait, don’t quote me on that. Shit. Wait, I didn’t curse.)

3260

Exactly. That’s what journalism is supposed to be about, informing the public with actual facts. It’s a lost art to many.