Hi,
I wasn't actually around when this thing with James North happened, and though
I don't think there is ever any reason for anyone to be nasty to someone else
as there is always a constructive way to go around things, . I do think
however, that if a developer has taken pre-payment for something they are
making a commitment to deliver a product, I do however also understand that
stuff happens and release dates can get pushed forward, but from Sean's email
it sounds like the release date was 5 years overdue, and I think that is
unacceptable especially if that developer has taken payment from people in
advance as that is a commitment from the developer between two people to
deliver a service or product. Even worse than this it sounds like the guy
wasn't even keeping people updated on progress and was just plain ignoring his
paying customers , who just wanted the product they paid for. Again I don't
condone people being nasty to Dev's, but I think if a game that has been
pre-paid for is 5 years overdue with no updates on progress then I'm afraid as
a developer you need to understand that you will most definitely end up with
very angry customers. I completely agree with Justins point too, in that if
the guy has gone off to program for the sighted community that they would be a
lot less forgiving than people from the audio games community as on the whole
the biggest proportion of people from the audio games community would actually
put up with a 5 year delay on a game and still support the guy too, as we're
here for good audio game titles, whereas I'm sure there would be an uproar in
the sighted community if a developer took money for a game and was 5 years late
on delivering that game and with no updates . even more so that the developer
decided to then give up on the project, not release the game but still keep
everyone's money, since I'm pretty sure that’s illegal, and is also detrimental
to other audio game developers since it creates distrust between the end users
and the developers.
Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Shaun
Everiss
Sent: 30 December 2017 21:00
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: James North - Re: [blind-gamers] A Hero's Call question
<sigh>
Have everyone forgotthe disaster which james north became?
Now james north was a nice guy that decided after esp softworks had sold a lot
of arcade games that he wanted a change and sold the company to what eventually
became draconis.
He should never had done that, up till then he was doing fine but wanted more.
So he created some new games under his company, he set a preorder for
everything, and a few people payed for his stuff.
We waited and waited, and waited, the games past the release date.
We asked him and asked him off and on and wandered at it.
For 5 years the community waited, finaly those that had preordered started to
wander if they would ever get their games, some going as far as to ask their
banks for refunds.
Sure there were probably some whiners but probably far less than there are now.
Between those times he never told us what was going on or what was really going
on.
Maybe someones or a group of them became totally bad and assholish at him, but
to the outsider player that was hanging on he suddenly decided to flip for no
reason, burn out and rage quit the scene.
Maybe something was going on, maybe people were nasty at him, but it had to be
more than that, no news, nothing for ages.
True a lot of devs do this but to be honest, from then on no one releases stuff
unless they are sure it will be out on that day.
Users especially those that preorder games want their games.
Thomas ward tried, he died!, no one will ever get their games now.
I don't know if I would really want to be james north and come back.
There are people that would really like to flame him out for those games we
have never even gotten.
He owes the community big.
He never informed us, I guess if he is more open and lets us know what is going
on, then maybe.
He lost all the trust though, I my self was never nasty with him, I asked him
once about stuff and he just flipped.
We are better without him now.
If he comes back, maybe we will be nice, maybe not.
There are at least 4-5 unreleased games and some of them have been ordered by
several players, with no refunds or anything.
Thats how I understand that history.
On 31/12/2017 5:02 a.m., Charles Rivard wrote:
He made it very clear that he would not be producing games for impatient and
nasty customers anymore. If you have contact info for him, contact him to see
if he would give it another try. In short, though, lotsa luck. Some, but not
all, blind and visually impaired gamers were far too hostile.
If you think you're finished, you! really! are! finished!!
From: Lisa Hayes
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2017 3:03 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] A Hero's Call question
josh any idea how to do this? I'd love it.
From: Josh Kennedy
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2017 3:01 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] A Hero's Call question
If James North was driven away, then why don't we simply just get him to come
back?
Sent with AquaMail for Android
http://www.aqua-mail.com
On December 29, 2017 22:39:49 "Lisa Hayes" <[email protected]> wrote:
Yes He was driven away and those involved have deprived us of a good game
writer who would have continued to provide games like monkey business and the
two pinball games.
From: Michael
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2017 11:38 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] A Hero's Call question
I couldn’t agree more, that I wish James North was never driven
away from the blind gamer community. Though that sounds harsh, sadly
that’s pretty much what happened. ☹
I’ve paid my bit for a hero’s call, and I’m waiting for a link now.
I’m puzzled why this release was chozen to happen right in the middle
of a holiday week like this. Lol
Michael
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
From: Lisa Hayes
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 6:31 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] A Hero's Call question
Charles i agree with you here, we have pinball and others that James did
that can be played and never loose their interest value.
From: Charles Rivard
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2017 8:43 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] A Heros Call question
I would not gripe, if at all, until the day after an expected release.
However, I won’t complain about this one even tomorrow, as we are in a busy
Holiday season, and even developers have home lives. How many good developers
of good games have we lost due to customer impatience? As an example, I do
wish that James North were still working on games for blind gamers. When they
came out, they were of high quality and they were unique.
If you think you're finished, you! really! are! finished!!
From: Jesse Bollinger
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 3:19 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] A Heros Call question
I think the problem is most people expect the games to be released like in
the cited world. Where you hit midnight and the game is ready to go. This isn’t
the right outlook to have, however I feel like that is what most expect. I
think most people think when you give a date that means everything is good to
go and will be released promptly at midnight. No one has patients.
Sent from my iPhone
On Dec 29, 2017, at 4:09 PM, kev lyon <[email protected]> wrote:
because people never ever! learn! the gaming community for the blind has
lost so many developers over the years because people can't shut up and just
let the developers get on with what they do!
as soon as a date is mentioned, the vast majority engrave it in stone!
and then start wingeing when the game isn't availabel at 1 minute past midnight
on that date!
*goes back to playing alter eon and will play this new game when
it arrives*
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Charles Rivard
Sent: 29 December 2017 19:02
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] A Heros Call question
Why are people so dad blamed impatient?
If you think you're finished, you! really! are! finished!!
From: Bryan Peterson
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 12:12 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [blind-gamers] A Heros Call question
We’re just going to have to be patient. Joseph did say it would be
somewhat later in the day, though he wasn’t specific about exactly when. He
wants the entire development team to be able to be present so it’ll depend on
when that’ll happen.
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
From: Greg Wocher
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 9:06 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [blind-gamers] A Heros Call question
Hello all,
Has anyone heard when this will be out today? I supported the kickstarter
but I still have not heard anything about downloading the game today.
Regards,
Greg Wocher
