Vapourware That Which Sleeps - Vaporware Strategy RP

[Agesilaus]

So, where he is going to get money now? Chinese ruined kidney market and liver is too precious for any dev to waste.

Time for a new kickstarter pitch, methinks.

"From the team behind the successfully funded That Which Vapours..."

 

[MuscleSpark]

From the Kickstarter update comments:

Fenricks has posted on the forums!

Just gonna copy paste for once - with no comment

I can't really log on here or I will just fucking yell all the time and be an asshole and lost any semblance of professionalism that I had. I'm done with the project - I lost a lot of money and people are going to associate my name to this shitshow forever, I don't know if I will ever really recover from that. I don't have the KDG email anymore, only my personal one - but if you direct message me here I'll get it. I don't really know what I can do for you now except commserate. I thought of a lot of ways for people to get Joshs attention unfortunately all of them border stalking and/or include innocent folks in his life that shouldn't have to be engaged due to his fuckups.

i don't know where that leaves us. A strongly worded letter to his home? Someone posted the address a while ago *(its not the same as the KDG address)

....and this quote from a post he may have deleted?

I should be more angry but mostly I'm just numb. If his plan was to scam everyone for so long I don't really understand why I had to be a part of it at all, or why did I need to spend so much energy on it for 6 months +

I assume he thought he could do it but ultimately it got hard and now instead of putting work in on the hard stuff he is just diddling with maps over and over and pretending the community doesn't exist.

So as expected dont expect much from Josh and he is in a hole and doesn't know a way out...

Joy joy happy joy

 

[Lithium Flower]

Jesus fucking christ.

So I assume the slow trickle of refunds Fenicks promised is no longer going to happen, purely because Josh has deluded himself into thinking that he has any chance in completing this project?

 

[Agesilaus]

And so it begins... Cry "Havoc!", and let slip the dogs of war!

 

[almondblight]

It's kind of funny that so many on the forums are acting as if Fenicks is a victim, since he's been almost as dishonest as Josh and just as responsible for this whole mess.

 

[Destroid]

Two men enter, one man leaves.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

It's kind of funny that so many on the forums are acting as if Fenicks is a victim, since he's been almost as dishonest as Josh and just as responsible for this whole mess.

Yeah, this is the most bizzare aspect of this whole thing. He was the SPOKESMAN, he CHOSE to mislead when he weren't provided actual product. He CHOSE to pitch about WORKING DEMO when there was none. He CHOSE to be lead on by Josh and not actually get involved with active control and/or development. He IS if not THE problem, at THE VERY LEAST, half of the problem.

 

[almondblight]

Yeah, this is the most bizzare aspect of this whole thing. He was the SPOKESMAN, he CHOSE to mislead when he weren't provided actual product. He CHOSE to pitch about WORKING DEMO when there was none. He CHOSE to be lead on by Josh and not actually get involved with active control and/or development. He IS if not THE problem, at THE VERY LEAST, half of the problem.

Yeah, he was the one running the KS page until a few months ago - he was the one who wrote that there was a working game during the KS, who's been sending out updates saying that progress is definitely being made, etc. He's also the one that was in charge of the funds, using the money to pay the coder and buy assets when he hadn't even played a working version of the game (he was even talking about how he was looking for VO actors). He also claimed he had a backup plan in case something happened to the coder, and wrote this in February:

If we come to the conclusion that the game can't or won't be released we'll start a system where we slooooowly start refunding everyone out of pocket. I didn't even think of the best way to do this but keep in mind that it would make me personally responsible for $30,000+ - so yes it would take us to a decade to pay everyone back - but we would figure out a way to start a lottery system or something. I would start with the highest tiers though so when no one gets money for 2 years thanks awesomeguys like Sean.

He also sat by and watched (no, not just watched, kept spending the KS money on the project) while the coder was writing hundreds of posts about all the amazing things the alpha testers were doing in the game. And he just claimed he had access to "the code," but when someone asked if he could save it or share it he ignored them.

Eh, I dunno. The folks on the forum were defending Josh for years ("I'm a profeshunal programmer unlike you and I can tell from talking to him that he's definitely making a game, it's just too complex for you philistines"), so I guess it's not much of a surprise that they're defending Fenicks now. It is funny that Fenicks can show up on the forums now saying, "Man, I really got scammed!" and have all of them try to support him.

 

[thesheeep]

Two men enter, one man leaves.

Two men, one con.

 

[MRY]

The thing that I don't understand here is that, unlike with many Kickstarter scams, the two principals here aren't (as far as I know) "judgment proof." They're both grown ups who had jobs, savings, etc. You would think they would be at least a little bit worried about being sued, prosecuted, what have you, and would strike a more contrite tone rather than provoking more outrage.

Anyway, so it goes. At a minimum they should make the art public domain.

 

[barker_s]

Anyway, so it goes. At a minimum they should make the art public domain.

The thing is, most of the graphics we've seen come either from Unity Asset Store or other similar sources. As for the art they commissionned specifically for the game, it depends whether the deal included copyrights or not.

 

[Infinitron]

Eh, I dunno. The folks on the forum were defending Josh for years ("I'm a profeshunal programmer unlike you and I can tell from talking to him that he's definitely making a game, it's just too complex for you philistines"), so I guess it's not much of a surprise that they're defending Fenicks now. It is funny that Fenicks can show up on the forums now saying, "Man, I really got scammed!" and have all of them try to support him.

The Team Gizka phenomenon.

 

[MRY]

Anyway, so it goes. At a minimum they should make the art public domain.

The thing is, most of the graphics we've seen come either from Unity Asset Store or other similar sources. As for the art they commissionned specifically for the game, it depends whether the deal included copyrights or not.

Well, I know that at least some of that art was commissioned, and I can't imagine they commissioned it without getting the copyrights, though who knows? (I could ask the FG artist who worked for them, I suppose he'd show me his contract if it's not in some way subject to NDA, but it's not really that interesting.)

 

[Hobo Elf]

I told you guys it was a scam all along and not just a mismamaged project.

 

[Space Satan]

It actually scares me that people are still posting in beta forums. What possible could be discussed there now?

 

[Infinitron]

It actually scares me that people are still posting in beta forums. What possible could be discussed there now?

I'm telling you, it's the Team Gizka phenomenon. You have these morbidly compelling apocalyptic communities that linger on in the afterglow of a dead project. See also: the Sword Coast Legends forums.

 

[Dayyālu]

I'm telling you, it's the Team Gizka phenomenon. You have these morbidly compelling apocalyptic communities that linger on in the afterglow of a dead project. See also: the Sword Coast Legends forums.

Offtopic: care to explain or to point me to the relevant threads?

I never quite "got" the Team Gizka debacle.

 

[Infinitron]

I'm telling you, it's the Team Gizka phenomenon. You have these morbidly compelling apocalyptic communities that linger on in the afterglow of a dead project. See also: the Sword Coast Legends forums.

Offtopic: care to explain or to point me to the relevant threads?

I never quite "got" the Team Gizka debacle.

They were a modding team that promised to restore cut content to KOTOR2 (what the TSLRCM eventually did) back around 2005-2009. The team fell apart and the project became obvious vaporware, but the guy in charge refused to admit it. For years, a cult of sycophants flourished on their forums, convinced that it was going to come out any day now. The site is long gone now, but you can read the Codex commentary. Do a search for "Gizka" or "TSLRP" in the Obsidian subforum.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

I'm telling you, it's the Team Gizka phenomenon. You have these morbidly compelling apocalyptic communities that linger on in the afterglow of a dead project. See also: the Sword Coast Legends forums.

Offtopic: care to explain or to point me to the relevant threads?

I never quite "got" the Team Gizka debacle.

They were a modding team that promised to restore cut content to KOTOR2 (what the TSLRCM eventually did). .

Speaking of, was there any drama regarding the TSLRCM taking assets from Gizka?

 

[Kuattro]

Speaking of, was there any drama regarding the TSLRCM taking assets from Gizka?

Maybe I remember it wrong, but the only thing TSLRCM took from TG was an animation of Atton leaning on a wall, and that was the author of said animation giving them permission to use it. There was a lot of finger pointing, but nobody proved anything, and when they did what Gizka couldn't in a quarter of the time (well, in a quarter of the time they had allegedly devoted to it up to that point, technically the time Gizka has taken to do anything is infinite of course), nobody gave a fuck anymore.

I was in fact one of those Gizka sycophants, vowing not to replay the game until the mod came out (and NEVER to play it with TSLRCM, heretics!) and repeating "any day now" over and over again as I hugged myself.

And then I stopped being 13 (20 actually if it was around 2006, I thought I was much younger, which only makes it more shameful), played the damned game with TSLRCM and the android planet mods and had a good fucking time with it (except the droid planet of course, and the HK factory was a bit shit).

Good times

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

I went to their forums because I wanted my daily dose of drama but it looks like this for me:

Is it gone completely?

P.S.:Coming summer 2015

 

[Brutan]

You need to be a beta tier backer or higher to have access to(what's left of) the forum.

 

[MuscleSpark]

You need to be a beta tier backer or higher to have access to(what's left of) the forum.

You need to be a beta alright.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I'm telling you, it's the Team Gizka phenomenon. You have these morbidly compelling apocalyptic communities that linger on in the afterglow of a dead project. See also: the Sword Coast Legends forums.

Offtopic: care to explain or to point me to the relevant threads?

I never quite "got" the Team Gizka debacle.

They were a modding team that promised to restore cut content to KOTOR2 (what the TSLRCM eventually did) back around 2005-2009. The team fell apart and the project became obvious vaporware, but the guy in charge refused to admit it. For years, a cult of sycophants flourished on their forums, convinced that it was going to come out any day now. The site is long gone now, but you can read the Codex commentary. Do a search for "Gizka" or "TSLRP" in the Obsidian subforum.

There were a lot of such stories when I was still following modding. Anyone remember the Middle Earth mod for Morrowind? That was so ambitious, all we every got to see was a few screenshots of swords and probably all they ever had too.

But this here is actually my favorite: Titans of Ether, http://www.titansofether.com/
They promised a mod for approximately 13 years and now they apparently want to make a game instead.

 

[Vordrak]

Article up here "King Dinosaur Games Partners Split as their Lies are Exposed" - http://matthewhopkinsnews.com/?p=4505.

This is my last article, for obvious reasons, unless some form of law enforcement action (or other dramatic event) occurs.