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 Warzone Resurrection wrote:

Joyboozer wrote:

 Warzone Resurrection wrote:

Sining wrote:
I didn't back but warzone; if that is a prodos staff posting, you're being quite obtuse about why people are talking about possibly not receiving their stuff. Having the page down also doesn't help because there's no where else for backers to get together and discuss stuff that that isn't moderated by yourself

Sorry if you read my post that way, it was not my intention.

However, our job is to make sure that peoples are aware about the progress and they know that the product is not at risk, maybe then we could discuss the future of AvP rather than "possibility of not receiving their stuff" , as this is not the case.


In regards to "moderating" it's necessary in the case of AvP as we are obligated to protect the IP.

How strict are the rules you have to abide by? Can we see new painted pictures of finished miniatures and gameplay videos? I think getting as much of that out as possible at the moment would placate most backers.

As per official update, we have to wait until we have the product fully approved and ready to go to customers, this is the PD policy and we cannot do anything about it.

From my understanding, based on the issues with the Alien:Colonial marines, we cannot show any WIPs any more as if someone use these pictures for advertising it may be classified as "misleading customers".The product, until is ready to go, is subjects to changes. Lucky we have our models fully approved at proto stage, meaning that after the packaging approval (and Fluff) would have "product ready to go", so not far away from that.

Hi Jarek,

The bit I have bolded above actually calms me down a lot (although I was pretty firmly in the "It will come when it comes" camp to some extent) As a Big aliens fan I remember with great excitement the A:CM game coming out and the infamous E3 video that basically showed an action game a lot like the engine of Alien: Isolation used. What we received was a totally different game that was simply a travesty.

I can very much appreciate FOX not wanting that gak storm again in their lives. Okay the AvP game and the community here is much smaller than the VG community, its the same principal.

I think at the end of the day you have been pretty up front with info, barring what I realise you probably cant\wont say for reasons of business and legality, I get that, and people cannot have everything they expect in life (this is especially true of online forums users (I include myself in this).

However I thinking the main sticking point was the XMAS DELIVERY WOOOOO! timeline given to backers, and that's always a bad idea because if anything goes wrong, people go from happy to bat gak crazy angry in a second, as Infinity players found with IceStorm when there was a delay because it was so massively (unexpectedly) popular.

I think if we assume the AvP game may start to be in our hands come March-June 2015 id be happy, but the sudden close down of the KS page, a long period of silence then an (oops was a mistake) followed by, "actually not a mistake but now we will keep it closed" made a lot of people go WTF! and go into super paranoid internet rumour mode. This didn't help your image.

However I have faith, i'm a bit sad I wont see game for xmas but Q1 2015 ill be happy. But a little update from FOX\Prodos just saying, happy days, and a pic of a approved new thing, will help massively I think.

Folk just got scared and paranoid and that's BAD online

I agree, the line Rick_1138 bolded helps make a lot of sense of why this is happening.

Alien colonial marines came out ages ago. Why the sudden take down or change in policy in a fairly recent time frame though?

The ruling in the court case wasn't that long ago.

Also, FOX simply don't want a repeat of that ever again. So it doesn't matter when the A:CE issue happened, it was a showing of how NOT to do WIP shots and release later.

So I think FOX maybe just had a look into the KS a bit closer the closer we are to final approvals and realised the final stuff looks diff to original WIP product and got a bit twitchy in regards to A:CE memories.

Its actually common sense in that respect.

Does anyone think Prodos would be explaining any of this now if some of us had not been hammering them?

I don't.

The lesson they continue to teach us is:

"We will treat you like crap until you bring pressure on us. At that point we'll become more polite and try to actually communicate with you."

I'm not sure that is the lesson they intend to pass on, and I sure wish they would instead themselves learn the lesson "Honest and plentiful communication early is good and what our backers expect".

From my understanding, based on the issues with the Alien:Colonial marines, we cannot show any WIPs any more as if someone use these pictures for advertising it may be classified as "misleading customers".

Suddenly a grand chorus of.. "ooooohhhhh righhhhhhhhhhht" !

Yeah,

Prodos wrote:From my understanding, based on the issues with the Alien:Colonial marines, we cannot show any WIPs any more as if someone use these pictures for advertising it may be classified as "misleading customers".

But your happy to send emails about pressing the wrong button, and tiding up the page??


I'm not joining other forum to talk to a fraction of the backers.
I want to talk to all of them.

I've contacted KS informing them that Prodos and Fox lied about an IP dispute to have the page removed.
I've requested it's put back so backers can talk to each other.

Panic...

 CptJake wrote:
Does anyone think Prodos would be explaining any of this now if some of us had not been hammering them?

I don't.

The lesson they continue to teach us is:

"We will treat you like crap until you bring pressure on us. At that point we'll become more polite and try to actually communicate with you."

I'm not sure that is the lesson they intend to pass on, and I sure wish they would instead themselves learn the lesson "Honest and plentiful communication early is good and what our backers expect".

Thanks Cpt.Jakee, sorry if you think that way about us however, please consider this: get in to our boots and try to provide an "official" communication base around issue that is not not related with Prodos, that cannot be mentioned in the official communication? It's easy to criticise us and thrown accusations, however there is a lot happening behind the scenes, that for backers it's completely relevant or we simply cannot talk about it.

 CptJake wrote:
Does anyone think Prodos would be explaining any of this now if some of us had not been hammering them?

I don't.

The lesson they continue to teach us is:

"We will treat you like crap until you bring pressure on us. At that point we'll become more polite and try to actually communicate with you."

I'm not sure that is the lesson they intend to pass on, and I sure wish they would instead themselves learn the lesson "Honest and plentiful communication early is good and what our backers expect".

Absolutely. This for me is the fundamental issue here, and I'm not remotely convinced it's one Prodos have (or even want to) learned from.

The whole ethos of kickstarter is based on trust. We, the backers, trust Prodos, the creator, to do the right thing with our money and create their product, giving us some of that product in return. By far the most important word in that sentence was trust. Without trust, we've taken a huge blind and rather stupid gamble. Now initially that trust is built on little more than a handshake. We do have the advantage of having seen Prodos go through the kickstarter proces before - not without problems, but all in all, largely reasonably successfully, and that counts for something, but basically, early on, we're taking their word for it that things will be ok.

That trust is then built up over time as they show us more and more of the product and we get updates on progress. Those updates, those pictures of WIP designs are important - they show us that Prodos know what they are doing - that they are following the right steps towards completion - that things are happening. There's still a lot of trust involved (it could be an elaborate scam of course), but over time, those posts build confidence and therefore trust.

What (for me at least) Prodos have done by taking down the kickstarter, by removing images from facebook and the website, by doing so without warning and without proper explanation, and then by changing what little explanation we got out of them over time, is breach that trust, and without trust, we have nothing. Without trust, @WZR's posting of the "official" update is utterly meaningless. It's just words, and they are now hollow. He asks what else he can do, and therin lies a problem - there really is no way back short of successful delivery.

It's most definitely a lesson Prodos should learn for the future. Fox must have known in advance that Prodos were funding using kickstarter. Therefore Fox must have known that WIPs would be shown. They must have known this was an important part of the trust building process. If they were not aware of this, then while they are partly to blame for not investigating the process in advance, Prodos was probably equally to blame for not explaining it sufficiently. Prodos should have seeked assurances from Fox that it would be ok to show backers those images well in advance of the project starting. To not do so, to ultimately have Fox pull the plug on images they have decided they didn't really want us to see, is to breach the trust of the backers.

Question - if all this mess had happened before then end of the funding period. how many backers would have pulled out? I suspect the answer is an awful lot - probably enough to kill the project or at least make it financially crippling. They would do well to consider that and take steps to avoid such damaging actions in future.

 Warzone Resurrection wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
Does anyone think Prodos would be explaining any of this now if some of us had not been hammering them?

I don't.

The lesson they continue to teach us is:

"We will treat you like crap until you bring pressure on us. At that point we'll become more polite and try to actually communicate with you."

I'm not sure that is the lesson they intend to pass on, and I sure wish they would instead themselves learn the lesson "Honest and plentiful communication early is good and what our backers expect".

Thanks Cpt.Jakee, sorry if you think that way about us however, please consider this: get in to our boots and try to provide an "official" communication base around issue that is not not related with Prodos, that cannot be mentioned in the official communication? It's easy to criticise us and thrown accusations, however there is a lot happening behind the scenes, that for backers it's completely relevant or we simply cannot talk about it.

And yet, here you are, communicating with a small handful of people instead of via the KS Update mechanism that ensures ALL backers get the word.

And again, you are only seemingly doing so because the criticism is harsh and getting louder.

See where I am going with this?

It is especially easy to criticize you when the criticisms appear valid, not addressed, and the actions leading to the criticism are repeated and develop into a pattern.

 Warzone Resurrection wrote:

Thanks Cpt.Jakee, sorry if you think that way about us however, please consider this: get in to our boots and try to provide an "official" communication base around issue that is not not related with Prodos, that cannot be mentioned in the official communication? It's easy to criticise us and thrown accusations, however there is a lot happening behind the scenes, that for backers it's completely relevant or we simply cannot talk about it.

I'm pretty sure you meant to say irrelevant there rather than relevant - if it were relevant, then you'd want to be telling us!

and that is also part of the problem. You tell us lots has happened behind the scenes between Prodos and Fox that is irrelevant, and you couldn't be further from the truth. EVERYTHING that happens between Prodos and Fox IS relevant to us almost by definition. It is not impossible, even at this late stage, for Fox to pull the plug on the entire project because they don't like something. Therefore it is critical to us backers, that we believe the relationship and agreements between Prodos and Fox are cast-iron, that they are stable, that the two companies are working off the same page. Right now we see absolutely no evidence of that. It's clear that Fox have not allowed you to keep certain images (and possibly text) visible to backers and/or the general public - that much is blatantly obvious, but how far that extends we don't and can't know. I fully understand that you can't tell us because (I assume) you have various NDAs in place - you have a gagging order essentially, but that doesn't help our belief in the relationship - our trust (that word again) in Prodos, one little bit. Telling us that there is stuff happening in the background between the two companies that is irrelevant to us is failing to understand how important Fox is to this whole process from our point of view. It actually makes us feel more anxious about the whole process.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
one last small point - don't forget that we are all backers. We didn't chuck our money at you just so that we could whine and whinge - we WANT Prodos to succeed in this every bit as much as you do. We want to trust you, we want to believe you. It's just hard to do so when trust has been so badly broken.

biggusdoggus wrote:

 Warzone Resurrection wrote:

Thanks Cpt.Jakee, sorry if you think that way about us however, please consider this: get in to our boots and try to provide an "official" communication base around issue that is not not related with Prodos, that cannot be mentioned in the official communication? It's easy to criticise us and thrown accusations, however there is a lot happening behind the scenes, that for backers it's completely relevant or we simply cannot talk about it.

I'm pretty sure you meant to say irrelevant there rather than relevant - if it were relevant, then you'd want to be telling us!

and that is also part of the problem. You tell us lots has happened behind the scenes between Prodos and Fox that is irrelevant, and you couldn't be further from the truth. EVERYTHING that happens between Prodos and Fox IS relevant to us almost by definition. It is not impossible, even at this late stage, for Fox to pull the plug on the entire project because they don't like something. Therefore it is critical to us backers, that we believe the relationship and agreements between Prodos and Fox are cast-iron, that they are stable, that the two companies are working off the same page. Right now we see absolutely no evidence of that. It's clear that Fox have not allowed you to keep certain images (and possibly text) visible to backers and/or the general public - that much is blatantly obvious, but how far that extends we don't and can't know. I fully understand that you can't tell us because (I assume) you have various NDAs in place - you have a gagging order essentially, but that doesn't help our belief in the relationship - our trust (that word again) in Prodos, one little bit. Telling us that there is stuff happening in the background between the two companies that is irrelevant to us is failing to understand how important Fox is to this whole process from our point of view. It actually makes us feel more anxious about the whole process.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
one last small point - don't forget that we are all backers. We didn't chuck our money at you just so that we could whine and whinge - we WANT Prodos to succeed in this every bit as much as you do. We want to trust you, we want to believe you. It's just hard to do so when trust has been so badly broken.

Totally agreed, this is why we have every official communication approved by the Fox, we say that all the time, just to make sure its not coming only from Prodos but from the licensor as well.

Then you simply should have stated this and left up what you've already posted instead of trying to remove it, alternating between silence and vastly different contradictory reasons ("it's an accident... it's on purpose but for different reasons... we're forced to!"), and then trying to paint the backers who just want the answers that they deserve as trolls/unreasonable/non-constructive. The fact is that you trying to get the pee out of the pool after someone took a piss and tried unsuccessfully denying that you were closing the pool and that someone pee'd in the first place. You may not be at fault for the underlying circumstances but the drama is 100% prodos' fault because of HOW you handled the situation. You didn't "accidentally" close the KS as you stated; you did it on purpose because it was the only way you could remove the information that suddenly a year later violated an agreement that NO backers ever signed. You broke that trust, not Fox. What you should have done is state what you stated last night here on a KS update and have the new rules that you are subject affect FUTURE updates. I really doubt the vast majority of the backers would have had a problem with that path.

While I agree with the sentiments raised, I think it's been made pretty clear now and doesn't need repeating over and over again?

It's starting to resemble that scene from Casino, with Warzone Resurrection as Joe Pesci..

 Pacific wrote:

From my understanding, based on the issues with the Alien:Colonial marines, we cannot show any WIPs any more as if someone use these pictures for advertising it may be classified as "misleading customers".

Suddenly a grand chorus of.. "ooooohhhhh righhhhhhhhhhht" !

Could someone give me a summary of that, and why it generates such an "Oh right!" moment?

 warboss wrote:
Then you simply should have stated this and left up what you've already posted instead of trying to remove it, alternating between silence and vastly different contradictory reasons ("it's an accident... it's on purpose but for different reasons... we're forced to!"), and then trying to paint the backers who just want the answers that they deserve as trolls/unreasonable/non-constructive. The fact is that you trying to get the pee out of the pool after someone took a piss and tried unsuccessfully denying that you were closing the pool and that someone pee'd in the first place. You may not be at fault for the underlying circumstances but the drama is 100% prodos' fault because of HOW you handled the situation. You didn't "accidentally" close the KS as you stated; you did it on purpose because it was the only way you could remove the information that suddenly a year later violated an agreement that NO backers ever signed. You broke that trust, not Fox. What you should have done is state what you stated last night here on a KS update and have the new rules that you are subject affect FUTURE updates. I really doubt the vast majority of the backers would have had a problem with that path.

We didn't got the clearance to say that in the official update. However the KS was taken by me, I swear to God.

I wont hide that we had have some concerns regarding the KS content, especially lack of control over the comments (KS does not take any responsibility for damage caused to the IP or 3rd parties due to offensive/ bad comments).
And I can assure you that when you sign the contract for any IP it will state that your main job is to protect the IP then develop the product.
In regards to WIPs the Terms and Condition of the KS states that the final product may be different as shown, so that was covered by KS rules, and we make Fox aware about this from day 1.

However, once the page went down we had a phone call... new rules!
Edit: sounds like coincidence...

 RiTides wrote:

 Pacific wrote:

From my understanding, based on the issues with the Alien:Colonial marines, we cannot show any WIPs any more as if someone use these pictures for advertising it may be classified as "misleading customers".

Suddenly a grand chorus of.. "ooooohhhhh righhhhhhhhhhht" !

Could someone give me a summary of that, and why it generates such an "Oh right!" moment?

Sega and Gearbox are getting sued because the promo demos, screenshots, and vidoes they released prior to the Aliens: Colonial Marines were NOT indicative of the quality of the final game. To my (admittedly limited) knowledge, Fox is not a defendant in that suit. If Fox is jumping the gun and extending a restriction on "bullshots" as they're known in the videogame world and extending it to the completely different medium of physical tabletop games despite them not being involved in the former suit, that is a harsh step on their part. In any case, their new restrictions were NOT agreed to by any backers and the KS campaign was a contract between PRODOS and the backers. They shouldn't have taken it down but rather let the new restrictions affect future updates, not try to erase the full history of the campaign. It's not really an "oh right!" but rather a "whaaaaaaaat?".

 warboss wrote:

 RiTides wrote:

 Pacific wrote:

From my understanding, based on the issues with the Alien:Colonial marines, we cannot show any WIPs any more as if someone use these pictures for advertising it may be classified as "misleading customers".

Suddenly a grand chorus of.. "ooooohhhhh righhhhhhhhhhht" !

Could someone give me a summary of that, and why it generates such an "Oh right!" moment?

Sega and Gearbox are getting sued because the promo demos, screenshots, and vidoes they released prior to the Aliens: Colonial Marines were NOT indicative of the quality of the final game. To my (admittedly limited) knowledge, Fox is not a defendant in that suit. If Fox is jumping the gun and extending a restriction on "bullshots" as they're known in the videogame world and extending it to the completely different medium of physical tabletop games despite them not being involved in the former suit, that is a harsh step on their part. In any case, their new restrictions were NOT agreed to by any backers and the KS campaign was a contract between PRODOS and the backers. They shouldn't have taken it down but rather let the new restrictions affect future updates, not try to erase the full history of the campaign. It's not really an "oh right!" but rather a "whaaaaaaaat?".

Its all about the IP and stock holders. I would do the same if it was my property,

Comments being troublesome for the IP? Having a ks page that says the page is taken down cause of IP issues is going to be so much better won't it -_-. I'm sure there won't be any troublesome comments about that either

I'm just thinking how much the backers would have loved this level of interaction in the comments section when the KS page was still up and running.

Maybe it wouldn't have generated so many negative comments in the first place...

 Alex C wrote:
I'm just thinking how much the backers would have loved this level of interaction in the comments section when the KS page was still up and running.

Maybe it wouldn't have generated so many negative comments in the first place...

BINGO!

We wouldn't have been complaining here or other forums for a start - these are places Fox can't control - Prodos did at least have some measure of control over the KS comments - they could remove comments for breaching KS rules. here, they can do nothing and we can potentially say anything we like about Fox - and, this place is read by potentially far more people than the KS. Which is more damaging? A forum you can control (but didn't bother) or a forum you cannot? (rhetorical)

I'm still trying to think what was said on the KS comments page that could have been so damaging to Fox and/or their IP, and for the life of me I can't think of anything. Sure there were discussions about other companies' related products (perhaps unlicenced for all we know), but that will happen wherever. Sure there were a few backers expressing their frustration at lack of updates or slow delivery, but nothing abnormal, all to be expected in the world of KS, and frankly a situation Prodos could and should have managed better.

Nope, I'm stumped - I've got nothing - except for one small but rather niggling point if you're Fox. Every time Prodos have been criticized for not showing us something or not telling us something or not posting an update throughout this project, they've almost always blamed Fox. "We're waiting on Fox for approval", "Fox won't allow us to show this or that" etc etc. It's been relentless, and I should think, potentially extremely damaging to Fox and most certainly extremely damaging to the relationship between Prodos and Fox.

As for pictures of WIP that we've seen that Fox would rather we had not, Between you, that horse left the stable some time ago. Most if not all the pictures are available elsewhere on the internet. Most are in our own email boxes anyway. You're closing a door to keep an animal in, but the animal is at the bottom of the field already. The action is ridiculous. In the unlikely event the product you finally deliver is not reasonably comparable to the photos we've been shown, you're still going to cop it in a big way from your backers.

Warzone wrote:Totally agreed, this is why we have every official communication approved by the Fox, we say that all the time, just to make sure its not coming only from Prodos but from the licensor as well.

You do realize that Fox were never ever mentioned on your home page in the KS? That we effectively have a contract with Prodos not Fox? That the only "proof" any of us have that Fox is involved is your own say so? I'm sure you're familiar with the word "hearsay". That's all we have on that matter - nothing. Just as there were a group of backers yesterday that tried to suggest the email I posted from kickstarter was something I'd invented, your "official" update is no more valid. Should we believe that it is official? Yup, we should. But we're right back to that trust word again now aren't we?

Can we just calm the feth down please? Mods WILL lock this thread...

 angelofvengeance wrote:
Can we just calm the feth down please? Mods WILL lock this thread...

I think we are all fairly calm here. Nobody is being abusive, it's all pretty well thought through debate on both sides. Mods are even involved in the discussions, and have posted no warnings (because they've had no reason to)

No reason to believe at this point that there is any cause to lock the thread.


And it's by far the most sensible debate between Prodos and disgruntled backers that I've seen in the past 3 weeks. It's a shame it didn't happen sooner, it's a shame it's not happening on a live KS page, but at least it is happening (and I commend Prodos for that).

biggusdoggus wrote:

 Alex C wrote:
.....

Warzone wrote:Totally agreed, this is why we have every official communication approved by the Fox, we say that all the time, just to make sure its not coming only from Prodos but from the licensor as well.

Lets be real here, there is no way that Fox would have let us do this project for so long I we did not have a license for AvP...
If you don't believe me how the LD of Fox works, please run your own Alien KS without a license and lets see how long it will last. We got mail after 5h of running AvP, saying that they can "see" it.
Also, I am not an idiot as to risk our company and 20+ employees jobs by taking a risk of getting sued or losing the license and risk the chance of being closed down just just to say "approved by Fox" were it was not the case.


EDITED.

Might wanna fix the quoting there Jarek...

 Warzone Resurrection wrote:

Lets be real here, there is no way that Fox would let us do this for so long I we did not have a license for AvP...
If you don't believe me how the LD of Fox works, please run an Alien KS and lets see how long it will last. We got mail after 5h of ruining it, that they can "see" it.

Also, I am not an idiot to risk our company and 20+ employees jobs also taking risk of getting sued or loosing the license and being close down just just to say "approved by Fox" were it was not the case.

I know it is just a typo but there is a wholelotta irony in the bolded part given the developments of the past few weeks.

yeah,
I would like product soon this is going to far, you've become offensive to me the customer.
Your not giving clear indications of what's going on.

So when are you going to reply to my facebook messages? Seems hypocritical that you would slam KS for not responding to your emails while you ignore your customers.
Or do I really have to swear at you too?

What's happened to the first wave you promised a few months ago?
Why dont you send the minis that are ready? You say they have already passed approval.
If it's a cost thing I'll pay for my packages postage, you may then send the missing minis and print materials as normal when they are ready.

Panic...

 Panic wrote:
yeah,

Why dont you send the minis that are ready? You say they have already passed approval.
If it's a cost thing I'll pay for my packages postage, you may then send the missing minis and print materials as normal when they are ready.

Are you... what? That's not how it works man, if this is like any other product with a license like the AvP one, they can't just send out models without the Official(TM) Fox Approved(C) packaging on literally every single item no matter how small. Expecting anything else is frankly, delusional.

 Ktulhut wrote:

 Panic wrote:
yeah,

Why dont you send the minis that are ready? You say they have already passed approval.
If it's a cost thing I'll pay for my packages postage, you may then send the missing minis and print materials as normal when they are ready.

Are you... what? That's not how it works man, if this is like any other product with a license like the AvP one, they can't just send out models without the Official(TM) Fox Approved(C) packaging on literally every single item no matter how small. Expecting anything else is frankly, delusional.

That's not exactly how it works either. It depends on each individual agreement as to how and when the product can be distributed. For example, Mantic sent some of the Mars Attacks stuff in baggies with stickers on them, no official packaging.

If Prodos wanted to make a show of good faith they could always ask permission to send backers some stuff.