Company News Travis Baldree leaves Wild Tangent

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Travis Baldree; Wild Tangent

<b>Travis Baldree</b>, that guy behind <A href="Http://www.playfate.com">Fate</a>, has left <A href="http://www.wildtangent.com/">Wild Tangent</a> and moved on to <A href="http://www.flagshipstudios.com/">Flagship Studios</a>. Here's a bit of <A href="https://forum.wildtangent.com/viewtopic.php?t=5014">goodbye message</a> which I'm a week late on posting about:
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<blockquote>I figure I ought to let folks know. Friday the 7th was my last day at Wildtangent. I'm leaving on totally amicable terms for a job that allows me a unique opportunity to spend more time with my family. My little girl is 8 months old and I'm looking forward to spending a lot more time with her.
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I will, however, still be popping into the forums from time to time to offer help wherever I can.
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I want to thank everyone for all the warm feedback we've received for Fate, and I'd like to thank the rest of the Fate team. They are continuing onward to make some great new stuff, and I hope you'll stick around to see what they come up with!</blockquote>
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Well, I'm a little bummed about that. It's nice to see him getting new digs, but it leaves me with questions about the future of <A href="http://www.playfate.com">Fate</a> and any possible sequels it might get. It still is the top seller on <A href="http://www.wildtangent.com">Wild Tangent</a>'s site.
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[Sol Invictus]

You mislinked Flagship Studios.

 

[Whipporowill]

I pretty much guess his success with Fate got him the job - anyway, good luck to Travis.

 

[gromit]

Here's to working for a company whose tech isn't detected as spyware! Hip, hip, hooray!

 

[DarkUnderlord]

My little girl is 8 months old and I'm looking forward to spending a lot more time with her.

Paedophile!

Lynch! Lynch!

 

[Section8]

Here's to working for a company whose tech isn't detected as spyware! Hip, hip, hooray

It's not like the ex-Blizzard gang are saints.

The StarCraft privacy controversy that exploded last week is now a lawsuit.

Earlier this week, Albany, Calif. Attorney Donald P. Driscoll filed a lawsuit against Blizzard and parent company Cendant Corp. on behalf of Intervention, Inc., a non-profit consumer rights group.

The suit, filed Monday in San Francisco County Superior Court, claims that Blizzard violated sections of the California Business and Professions Code and the California Penal Code. Namely, that Blizzard used a program (StarCraft) to transmit user information without the permission of the user.

The lawsuit centers around Blizzard’s disclosure that it had collected the names and email addresses of players without their knowledge. The company said it had collected the information from those players who were having trouble logging onto the company’s battle.net to play StarCraft. According to Blizzard, the information was used to determine why the players were having trouble logging on.

Driscoll told Computer Games Online that they want Blizzard to remove the "trapdoor" that allowed it to collect the information. The lawsuit also asks that Blizzard offer a full refund on StarCraft to each customer (as restitution and "to serve as a deterrent against future similar unlawful conduct"), that a court enjoin Blizzard from using StarCraft to upload any information other than that necessary for the game to function, and that Blizzard create and offer an updated version of the game without the trapdoor. Apart from attorney fees, the suit is not asking for any monetary damages.

Driscoll said that he’s been in contact with Blizzard and that the company has agreed to destroy any information gained from the registry snooping. Blizzard said last week that it had destroyed the information it had collected over a seven-day period and thus could not determine the number of names and email addresses it had collected. However, a company spokesperson said that the number of people affected was less than 100.

Driscoll added that Blizzard has been faxed the papers but has not yet been formally served. He said that he expects the company to be formally served next week, after some changes are made to correctly identify some of the corporate entities involved. The next step will be to see whether Blizzard will agree to the group’s requests. If not, then Driscoll said they will push ahead with the litigation.


©1998 Strategy Plus, Inc.
Posted 4/29/1998

Blizzard were distributing spyware almost as far back as Microsoft.


But since that's entirely off topic, I hope Travis Baldree finds a good little niche for himself at Flagship. Fate may not have been groundbreaking, but at least it learned from Diablo, and bettered it (aside from the lack of multiplayer) unlike most Diablo clones.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Speaking of Fate, I've been giving it a go again recently which is why I checked the forum over there to see what all has changed there. There's a few pretty nifty mods for the game like this Enhanced Textures mod which adds new dungeon styles as well as makes the original ones look niftier... Here's a screenshot:

http://www.rpgcodex.com/screenshot.php? ... ate050.jpg

Pretty, ain't it?

 

[Naked_Lunch]

Have they made a mod that fixes the Lil' Tyke (TM) character models? It's a fun game and all, but those are just irritating.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Have they made a mod that fixes the Lil' Tyke (TM) character models? It's a fun game and all, but those are just irritating.

That would be nice. I think my biggest beef with Fate is the character model and how unisex they are. Men don't look like men. Women don't look like women. Both look like little munchkin kids. I'd much rather have more realistic looking human character models where gender even shows through armor than the generic child hero looking characters Fate has now.

 

[Travis Baldree]

My little girl is 8 months old and I'm looking forward to spending a lot more time with her.

Paedophile!

Lynch! Lynch!

Dude.... Ick.

Travis

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Crap. I need to change the developer rank for Travis.