Remco Moedt wrote:
> On 27 Aug 2005 00:32:42 -0700,
> wrote:
>
> >The community has no one to blame but itself for their lack of
> >contact. They're human too and aren't exactly thrilled with "you guys
> >are a idiots, what the heck are you wasting time on this or that for"
> >types of posts.
> >
> >Ya can stands so much and ya just can't stands no more :-P
>
> Hmmm. I'm convinced about their talent regarding programming and art,
> I'm less convinced about their talent regarding public relations.
> First they promised mountains (WSC), then it was a long silence, then
> they promised mountains again with a big hype (RL), and then there was
> silence again....
>

Ok, I'll explain how this situation would work with one of my projects.
Please keep in mind that I tell anecdotes and analogies to keep people
from getting sued, ok? These threads will always be available on
usenet...

By the way, grab some coffee or Mountain Dew and try to read through
the children's story :-D Hint: WSC = lawn #1. The lawnmowers are
source codes/engines behind everything. (Somehow everyone that wrote
back except Gregor got that confused. :-))

Anyway, moving right along. One of my contracts states basically that
if I say anything publically that the publisher doesn't like and fail
to rectify the situation immediately, I can be sued for an amount of
money that is also defined in the contract. It is such a huge sum of
money you wouldn't believe it. If I was told tomorrow to stop talking
about that game on r.a.s. or anywhere else, to take down any videos
I've posted and so on, I could be held liable for this amount of money
*every day* that I continue to talk or any of those materials are
available anywhere online. In short, in a matter of *hours* I would be
financially destroyed. Zip, zilch, nada. This section of the contract
makes an NDA look like a field trip permission slip :-)

So, if the publisher tells me to shut up, stop talking to everyone
about it, stop sharing news, pics, videos, etc., there will indeed be a
long silence. What if this happened right before the game was released
and I'd been sharing news/vids/etc. with everyone for months? Would
you be angry with me for suddenly stopping communication? Well, if you
knew what I just told you about the contract or worked under similar
contracts and knew how that usually works, I'm sure you wouldn't be mad
at me at all for disappearing. I had no choice and you'd completely
understand! (<cough> other devs aren't typically mad at them <cough>)

But.... Most people wouldn't know. As far as they know I just
vanished and stopped talking and posting news for some unknown reason.
"Vapourware" accusations will follow quickly after.

Now here's another kicker to add insult to injury: Part of my shutting
up would most certainly be that I can't come in here to make one last
goodbye to tell you that my publisher is being a jerk and refusing to
let me speak. Or just to announce that I've been told I can't talk
about it any more. If I did, that would be damaging to the publisher
(makes him look like a bad guy, right?) and whoops, clause 12.4.5
section 1.2 or whatever with $______________________________ penalty is
invoked. Libelous comments? Well, as far as this contract goes it
doesn't even matter, I think. The contract has its own provisions and
definitions for all that. Libelous stuff could probably be done on top
of it, I don't know. Doesn't matter anyway, either way I'd be toast
and be crying in bankruptcy court the next day! :-)

If this title happened to be WSC instead of something else, could you
see where the first silent period would pop up?

Now, imagine the whole thing gets canned for whatever reason. There is
also a termination clause in this contract. Typically you'd have every
sort of possible scenario marked out in that for what happens if one
side or the other stops cooperating or insists on changing the deal and
so on. I.e., if the publisher yanks the plug, you still can't discuss
the project or use the source code for anything for a year or two, or
the penalties are invoked. And... I most likely am not allowed to go
tell anyone what happened or tell them why, other than to say something
about "due to contractual obligations..." This would continue for
whatever period of time is covered in the contract.

Vanished... News stops... Project winds up cancelled with official
confirmation a year or so later when I decide to go do another thing on
my own without the publisher....

"they promised mountains again with a big hype (RL), "

They're really damned if they do and damned if they don't on this one.
What they were doing at the start of RL was putting up news, screen
shots, and so on. If they do that, they're making mountains of big
hype and **** you off, and if they don't, they're ignoring the
community and **** off the people that want all the hype just to see
that it's not vapourware, which right now seems to be in the majority.
How many posts have you read that say something along the lines of "all
I've seen are rendered screen shots that could have done in MAX?" The
fact is screen shots aren't even doing it for people. Movies? Go get
the WSC movies if you want to see what they have done. Think those
were 3DMax rendering tricks?

No, people were screaming for a demo. They were sick of pics and news.
If they didn't believe them then when they said they were working on
it because they perhaps misjudged how long it would take to put out a
demo, why would they believe them now? Do people really think an
"August 28- Hi guys, just wanted to let you know we're still alive and
working on RL" is going to help? No way! Then people will be ****ed
that all they did is write a couple of crummy sentences. Where are the
screen shots? First the transporter that took twenty five years off
the development time and now this sorry excuse for an update?
HAHAHAHA!!!!!

> You seem to forget that they agreed to update the site every month,
> but they didn't keep their promise. Like they also didn't deliver the
> promised demo. Can happen, but TELL the public that you're not ready
> yet, don't hide and blame the community.
>

They "agreed to update the site every month?" I think their intention
to do so was announced. That's quite a different thing from making an
agreement with you or anybody else. After the hate mails and forum
postings come flooding in after each one, would you continue with it?
I can name a few other developers that have also announced regular
weekly/monthly news updates and failed to deliver. Why aren't they
being harrassed? In my opinion this is all spillover from WSC and
stems from a lack of understanding over what happened there. People
got ****ed at them instead of the publisher that yanked the plug. If
mum's the word, you can bet contracts are the reason.


As far as notifying the public of their intentions goes, Chris did
precisely that one year, seven months ago:

http://www.west-racing.com/forums/in... f19084b93b16

And of course, this thread became cannon fodder as well for probably at
least a year. The infamous "sorry" post that came after the infamous
"transporter incident." I can't see anything they can do at this point
that would not create a similar reaction.

>Like they also didn't deliver the
> promised demo.

What promised demo? I searched their news page and saw no mention of
any demo at all.

Anyway, even if they had or did, all I can say is "oh, please."
Lighten up. I got involved in Virtual RC Racing in 2000. You know
what our planned release date was? Sometime in 2001. It would be
called Virtual RC Racing 2000, I kid you not. 2001 came and went. We
changed the title to Virtual RC Racing 2001 and did a beta test. Then
we changed it to Virtual RC Racing 2002. Finally, in 2003 we thought
it might be best to just drop the year from the title and call it
Virtual RC Racing :-D Thank goodness our little corner of the sim
racing community did not harbor such resentment at our vicious lies.
We finally released it November 29, 2004, four years late. That
version didn't have AI cars or multiplayer. We just released the AI
version a month or so ago. Five years. We'll finish the multiplayer
some time next year. (By the way, Tony came in in the last year and a
half and did twenty three tracks and probably ten cars in that period.
He is wickedly fast. He did one full track in a week once. 'Stuff
like the transporter slows down RL development?' Oh please...)

If any demo they mentioned took longer than expected to put out (even
years longer), I sure can't hold a grudge against them for that! :-D
You see, we kept adding and adding and adding things. You can easily
get to a point where it doesn't make sense to actually do the demo when
you were planning to do it originally before you started much work on
the thing. Once you get to writing the code things change.

If it makes you feel any better, there are a few of us in this thread
that have already driven the RL physics engine ;-) I assure you it is
very real, and is very much in very real development and has been all
along.

Todd Wasson
http://www.VirtualRC.com
http://www.PerformanceSimulations.com