I think the team needs to finish what they started. I mean I supported the game based on this content Oort Online - Announcement Trailer - YouTube and still have yet to see the concepts come to fruition…
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Yeah, ADHD is rough for the state of mind. I know it too well. ^^
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I wonder if it could even be from within – looking at the company info, appears to be at least one other major stakeholder there at Turbulenz, which still exists separately and holds Boundless. If their share of ownership is in the majority especially, shots could be getting called there, plus, might be risky to do something (leveling with us if the situation is bad) that could hurt the bottom line, even if in such a small way.
I wondered also like you if he might be tearing a page from Sean’s book on the heads-down-go-to-work bit, too. Also another thing he perhaps took inspiration from Sean on – that he has mostly been the front person, doing the bulk of the communication and (Sean’s stated reason for doing so) fielding the ire of the fans so as to take that burden off his team. In both cases, not a good match and though Sean managed to work it out, he clearly paid a high price for it in what he dealt with. James is clearly a tech genius, but he even said himself somewhere that he’s not a good person to be doing the moderation here, being somebody who isn’t personally offended by anything. It is a wonderful trait to have in many ways, and I’ve seen it seems to be common in highly intelligent tech types… but the flip side of it is, people who truly take no offense at anything seem often to have a lot of trouble understanding the mindset of more sensitive sorts (like me 
) who do. Given the way gaming communities are, you HAVE to have a very people skills savvy person doing the communication, IMO, I’ve followed so many communities for so long to say this with a lot of confidence. Otherwise, you could end up stepping on a lot of toes and may truly have zero clue why. Even with optimal handling, you still get some near impossible situations to resolve without creating disgruntled fans… but being in tune with emotions so as to soothe ruffled feathers can be quite important damage control.
This is not a dig, it is honestly meant to be a constructive critique here on why I’ve seen upset, both now and in the past. We all have our own set of skills, which is a good thing. I’m sort of the polar opposite, all my IRL stat points were dumped into Speech, everything else got like 0. I freely admit I’m terrible at some things and it makes me no lesser a person for it, just a benefit to maximizing life successes and minimizing frustrations to know my strengths and limitations. Being a people-speech person, I can see where some serious missteps were made here with community management. I have ALL the respect and gratitude for the work that went into this game in the world, and I really want to believe there isn’t any malicious intent with regards to us, that it isn’t meant as disrespect to the community - just my own speculation, but sort of strikes me as a situation where he might be in over his head or not sure what to do about us, personally and perhaps from a legal standpoint too as speculated due to potential liability… so retreats to a shell and goes to work. Obviously the game was a passion project, and the way things went couldn’t have been anything but painful, so while I admit that – because of my massive love of this game – I feel frustration and negative feelings and there have been things that have given me offense, they’re in the end overridden by empathy and sadness. 
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Yeah, the essential vibe of what you’re saying i think. Precarity sucks for everybody but the thrill junkies.
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No where did I say he lied and I don’t appreciate trying to insinuate that is what my statement meant when it clearly didn’t.
Sure they pay for the servers, etc. but again as I said their statements are only from THEIR perspective and people should be careful to just take everything at face value when only one side has come out. It isn’t fair to the situation.
But, many here like to demonize the Devs because they didn’t do things the way they wanted. Sure everyone has a right to be mad or disappointed at the communication and other things (I myself and not thrilled by it) but there is other context to the situation that hasn’t been shared. So those in the forum seeing SE as the white knights and James and the team as the bad guys are fooling themselves. It is more likely both sides hurt and hampered the game’s success without meaning to in their own ways.
You haven’t said you are not a thief and a liar or murder little children so it is mighty suspicious on your part…
Maybe look at the situation in a neutral way. You have no context or understanding on why James has decided to address this situation in Boundless this way.
So many in this forum think they are his mom and have moral authority on how he should respond.
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We represent a big chunk of his playerbase, and we deserve a proper explanation.
So we’re not his Mom, but he might be the Dad who went to get cigarettes and never came back.
Dude, come on. Kal SPECIFICALLY said “While it is from their perspective, there are certain things presented as facts that are facts unless your suggestion is that Phil lied.”
Don’t go all “myeh I don’t appreciate the insinuation”, otherwise I’m gonna have to go all “I don’t like that you’re insinuating that I’m a thief and a liar and murderer of little children!” on your butt. Kal didn’t say “so you’re insinuating that he lied to us”. He clearly meant that there are things Phil mentioned that are straight-up facts and cannot be a ‘side of the story’.
You yourself are not looking at the situation in a neutral way, you’re clearly defending the devs.
I’d argue we can’t be neutral on this, since James isn’t giving us much to work with to understand his side of things.
If you read my entire post instead of picking selective statements like you constantly seem to do you would know that I never state you said Phil lied. What I said was:
Next time instead of personal attacks, read and consider the entire post because context matters. But as you are not saying Phil lied (which I never said or insinuated that you did), then there are FACTS in what he stated that have nothing to do with perspective. Who is paying for the servers and the game not covering its costs being just two of those.
Now if I am wrong and you are saying that those two items are from SE’s perspective then I would have to argue you are saying Phil lied. Because either SE is or is not paying for the servers that run the MMO part of the game (Not the sovereigns) and they are or are not getting enough funding to cover those costs. So either they are true and facts or they are false and Phil lied.
And just to be clear I am not and have not said SE is a white knight in any of this and I do not appreciate the insinuation that I have. I also find your characterization of comments made by me as demonizing the developers to be particularly insulting. Every player that has contributed time and money to the game has a right to express their opinion about the game and the developers. What I am is extremely disappointed in is James behavior regarding communications and follow through on the commitments made to the various classes of backers. I think the way we were having calls one month and then there was a total lack of communication after that is unprofessional. If that is demonizing the developers then you and I have a very different definition of that term and we will never agree on anything.
Not looking for an apology, because I know it would mean nothing. But do not look for one from me either. I have not done anything wrong, I have not made a personal attack and I will continue to not be bullied into not stating my opinions on this forum. If you do not like that, then block me.
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I personally avoided to react to this in my previous message as I made it VERY CLEAR that I don’t look at companies like SE as angels, and I think(hope) Xal wasn’t aiming the remark at us… then again, who was he aiming it at? Always tricky with remarks aiming at ‘some’ people. Because yeah, there is a lot of bad vibes going towards the devs (for good reasons, I think), but I’ve never gotten the vibe that people are saying “yeah, SE are the good guys!” either.
ALTHOUGH I do have some respect for SE because they are paying for the servers at a loss, which is a pretty rough situation to be in, and I doubt they know more than us how long it will be until the game starts to pay for itself or when they finally will have to take decisive action.
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Um hmmm since I’m the only 1 on Houchus there’s still plenty of space for everyone Houchus is excluded from this 
Or if we can live on a T8 planet I Would be fine moving boop
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Didn’t realise that they advertised that you could dig for Oort stones……
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Yeah, that was once considered, but I think they didn’t go through with it just because it would’ve made things too easy and/or something-something the economy yadi-yada.
But they advertised A LOT of things as if they were right around the corner. Still can’t get over the fact they thought it was a good idea to put a prototype of Titans and some creatures in an official trailer which still haven’t been released, and which might never be released.
If you could Mine for oort then i would be i think swimming in oort Like Dagobert Duck in His gold 
Wait.
Wait wait wait. Is that how you call Scrooge McDuck in some other country?
Uh. Yep. I just checked. Neat! We call him Balthazar Picsou in French.
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-and-
Kal-El specifically said:
That insinuates with the context of his first sentence that there is NO other option but that I am saying Phil lied. There are many more conclusions a person can come to beyond just only one option - Phil lied.
He left info out, he has an agenda, etc… So there was no reason to specifically focus on that in my view and think that is what I meant.
My original point was valid and true - context is left out and we don’t know the full story so people should take things with a grain of salt and not rush to any conclusion. There is NOTHING that says information is true or false just for people to be wary of coming to conclusions.
I took Phil’s information as exactly that - information on face value. I assume it is valid and true but have the understanding that he could leave information out or not actually give all the information or that he could portray the information in a way that makes SE look good, etc.
Since James has not shared anything and I haven’t talked privately to him then there is no more context to determine the “actual story of what happened.” Note I’ve many times said I was disappointed in the lack of communication.
The defense you see is because people rushed to judgement and blame the Devs and how they treat them. It isn’t in relation to Phil’s statement even though I think it was completely bad form with how that other thread played out and specifics on the deal being shared on this companies forum without approval. Additionally, I don’t particularly, on a personal level, think SE really helped the game at all based on some of the actions I’ve seen and heard about. But, even in that situation since I wasn’t in the back room for the deal or during the game’s release so I don’t know the full story. They both did what we did and we are where we are because of they way they handled things…
I should have been more clear in the original statement. I was talking about the numerous comments in general that I see that disparage or are overly critical of the Devs regularly in the forums. Additionally, during the SE information release I saw comments that put them in the context of some white-knight saving them. People have a right to see each company like they want so I really don’t pay attention to who said what or see any reason to call a specific person out. They are welcome to their opinions, just like I am.
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So I’m confused. You got all hippity-hoppity at Kal-El because you claim he said that you implied Phil was lying, which was not Kal-El’s intent.
BUT THEN you say this:
So you weren’t saying Phil was lying, but you were saying that he was potentially leaving information out on purpose and/or that he was potentially trying to make Square Enix look good and/or making Wonderstruck/James look bad/worse.
Correct?
Could you elaborate?
You very often let us know that you seemingly know things that we, common folk, don’t. Is there something we should know about Square Enix that looks bad?
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So now you take selective comments from two different posts to try and defend what you said? My point was since you had not said Phil was lying that the statements of fact had to be true, but yet again, you twist everything to try and make it look like you are right and absolutely everyone else is in the wrong.
It is not even reasonable to think that the items I mentioned as facts are due to Phil’s perspective. The game’s server costs either are or are not being paid by SE. Phil says they are. So how is that influenced by Phil’s or SE’s perspective? Phil says the money they are getting from the game is not covering the costs to run the servers. So how again is this a matter of perspective? Its not plain and simple.
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With respect to your cognitive abilities, it seems the three of you know exactly what the others mean. You two are correct about the facts, Xal is correct in that facts can be manipulated as the speaker sees fit.
Example: Someone could say “The contract to fund the servers ends tomorrow.” That’s a fact. If you infer that the servers are shutting down permanently tomorrow, that’s a fallacy. With more context, we could have learned that there’s a new contract signed today to extend funding for another year. (There may not be a contract with this, I just made that up for the example.)
Remember that this is Square Enix Collective. They deal with indie games and I imagine they have a sort of [music industry] A&R-type position that finds new games and brings them to the table to potentially sign on. There could be any number of reasons someone in that position might want to help a game fail. I don’t want to use Phil as the example so imagine a different guy in charge of a similar game… He brings it to the company, vouches for it, and it loses money for 3 years. He feels personally responsible and has to be reminded of it every time they have a project status meeting. Eventually he just wants it off his plate, which could be as simple as planting a seed to convince everyone it’s as good as dead.
That’s why the things Phil said are inconsequential to the present status of the game, no matter what facts we now know.
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Correct me if I’m wrong but all of this big discussion hinges on whether you prefer to think that Square Enix did something bad, that Wonderstruck did something bad, or that both did something bad.
None of these options would surprise me in the least at this point.
But in the meantime, I will elect to trust that Phil isn’t lying/leaving stuff out/trying to make Square Enix look better/trying to make James look bad. I might very well be wrong, but I tend to trust his character, from what I’ve read of him, he looks like a stand-up guy. MAYBE Square Enix was/is a bad actor in this entire situation, but I have absolutely no proof/reason to think that. I’d be happy to change my mind, given more than suppositions.
However, I’ve always suspected that Wonderstruck made … ‘odd’ choices in terms of priorities.
MAYBE I’m wrong, but I highly doubt that some entity like Square Enix, Larian, or another unknown is behind the devs ghosting us since January on matters of development. I think that’s James’ idea. You’re free to change my mind if you have evidence of the contrary.
Now I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that James was forced to make the deal with Larian because Square Enix left him no other choice.
MAYBE I’m wrong, but I suspect it wasn’t Square Enix who had the idea of putting prototype content that would (to this day) never see the light of day in official trailers. That was a scumbag-move, and that should say a lot about whoever got the idea.
I will respectfully disagree. If the fact is the cost to run the game servers is being borne by Square Enix, there is not really a lot or manipulation that can be done with that fact. Either it is true or not. Either Square Enix is getting enough cash from the Steam side of Boundless to cover the cost of running the servers or they are not. This again is a fact that is either true or not given the context that they are obligated under a contract to do certain things with the funds received. So either we believe the facts provided or we say the person providing them is not telling the truth. All lying would do is subject SE to possible legal action such as breach of contract, so I would argue they would be careful about what was said.
I will agree that you can question a persons motive about why they provided the information that was provided. I choose to not believe it was malicious but everyone is free to make their own choices. I will also agree that a person can provide some but not all facts. The fact could be that Square Enix is obligated under a contract to pay for the games cost for 8 years even if it makes does not turn a profit. We will never know these things, but I will also say that James has every ability to correct any misstatements made and has chosen not too for some unknown reason.
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