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Well, there was a bit of other news today. If you had been wondering where designer Jake Thornton had disappeared to, there was an announcement on his blog today at www.quirkworthy.com

The gist of it is that he and Mantic are having an unspecified dispute that has dragged on for some some time without being resolved. While not offering any details, Jake said he won't be doing any work for Mantic unless/until this is resolved.

Some of you more vicious people out there may consider this good news, considering the number of half baked games he has released for Mantic. Anyway, if you were wondering where he was for Dreadball 2 or Star Saga, there's your answer.

I am wondering if the dispute is exactly because of the state his games were.

From a comment on his blog he indirectly accuses Mantic as pushing his designs out without enouph time for proper play testing and directly looks down upon the rules committee.

Mantic had him working on 3-4 games at once at one point.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Mantic had him working on 3-4 games at once at one point.

Considering he's a freelance contractor and not an employee, they couldn't force him to do that

The Adventurers Companion drained all my faith in the guy. That wasn't just a case of it being rushed out too soon. I was following his development blog - he honestly had no interest in anything Warhammer Quest/Advanced Heroquest like, and didn't seem to understand why anyone would want such a thing. It's not that the Designing Dungeons section was rushed, it's that it was written as a developers article instead of rules and guidelines for use by Overlord players.

I won't go so far as saying it's good he's caught up in a dispute, but I can't say I'm unhappy to see him uninvolved in future rules development for Mantic after the AC.

Wouldn't you also be pointing the finger at Ronnie, or whoever hired Jake? Jake was the designer behind the original Dwarven Saga, but, instead of Jake, someone who was interested in developing it further should have been the designer instead. Of course, this would assume that Jake told Ronnie that he wasn't interested in the AC, which I would guess he did if he was willing to say something like that in public. My speculation is that Ronnie, or whoever was running the Dungeon Saga KS, was agreeing to the demand from backers for a coop game and AC rules, and putting Jake in an awkward position.

Jake's actually done some good work, including this *solo* wargame. I'd like to see it themed to generic fantasy. : http://thefrontlinegamer.blogspot.com/2012/03/review-tribes-of-legend.html

 NTRabbit wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Mantic had him working on 3-4 games at once at one point.

Considering he's a freelance contractor and not an employee, they couldn't force him to do that

He probably likes to eat.

ced1106 wrote:
Wouldn't you also be pointing the finger at Ronnie, or whoever hired Jake? Jake was the designer behind the original Dwarven Saga, but, instead of Jake, someone who was interested in developing it further should have been the designer instead. Of course, this would assume that Jake told Ronnie that he wasn't interested in the AC, which I would guess he did if he was willing to say something like that in public. My speculation is that Ronnie, or whoever was running the Dungeon Saga KS, was agreeing to the demand from backers for a coop game and AC rules, and putting Jake in an awkward position.

Jake's actually done some good work, including this *solo* wargame. I'd like to see it themed to generic fantasy. : http://thefrontlinegamer.blogspot.com/2012/03/review-tribes-of-legend.html

Ronnie bears responsibility for letting that book release in the state it did, but the development blog articles I read and online conversations I had with Jake were from well into the writing process, after he'd been given the project proposals. The man just did not understand the idea or concepts behind why people loved the Warhammer Quest roleplay book, and the results are plain to see in what may be the worst wargaming supplement I own. The core game of Dungeon Saga is actually really good, but it's Jake's Heroquest clone on rails and a timer. I backed for the promises of the Adventurers Companion content which Jake did not deliver on. There's plenty of blame to go around on this, but the fact remains that Jake did a terrible job writing the Adventurer's Companion and that's going to color my perceptions of his Quirkworthy brand going forwards.

I'd imagine it's like many freelance positions with free-floating demands,

you talk to a prospective employer, they say (roughly) what they want, how long you have to deliver it and occasionally whether they might want extra time,

negotiations end, you get the job and block out that bit of your schedule, then carry on looking for work elsewhere

but suddenly your employer decides they want different stuff, that preliminary work now isn't sufficient so time gets eaten doing more prep,

the customer also wants you do more work too but you've already committed your tome to somebody else (or to something totally different from the same client) so you start having to juggle multiple jobs

result the stuff delivered isn't quite the best work you could have done if you'd stuck to the original plan, it might be later than desired etc. you may well have put in extra hours you think should be covered by the client, the client may disagree

the clients fault for wanting more/different/extra
the contractors fault for agreeing to make changes to the original plan, not saying the client must accept later delivery if they do want changes
and both of them for not having an original contract that clearly sets out who pays for what when all of the above happens

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
I'd imagine it's like many freelance positions with free-floating demands,

you talk to a prospective employer, they say (roughly) what they want, how long you have to deliver it and occasionally whether they might want extra time,

negotiations end, you get the job and block out that bit of your schedule, then carry on looking for work elsewhere

but suddenly your employer decides they want different stuff, that preliminary work now isn't sufficient so time gets eaten doing more prep,

the customer also wants you do more work too but you've already committed your tome to somebody else (or to something totally different from the same client) so you start having to juggle multiple jobs

result the stuff delivered isn't quite the best work you could have done if you'd stuck to the original plan, it might be later than desired etc. you may well have put in extra hours you think should be covered by the client, the client may disagree

the clients fault for wanting more/different/extra
the contractors fault for agreeing to make changes to the original plan, not saying the client must accept later delivery if they do want changes
and both of them for not having an original contract that clearly sets out who pays for what when all of the above happens

This

I've done contracting and freelance work and had the exact situation above happen to me or the company I was subcontracting under numerous times. As a freelance artist I even lost work because I didn't want to let them run with my unfinished art. It wasn't even an argument or anything, I was just like "hey, I'm going to have the final thing done tonight or tomorrow if you want to wait". They paid for that and poof.. that was it.. It was even worse doing 3d stuff for training courses since the parent company low-balled the estimates to begin with (sound familiar Mantic?).

However, this is also part of the thing I don't like about the idea of Mantic using an unpaid Rules Council. I have been on the other side of this where the organization I was with pulled the rug out from under the contractor and gave me the unfinished/partially finished product to finish. They did the bulk of the work and then I was just finishing it off, taking weeks or potentially months of pay from the other guys.. and I was salaried so it was just sandwiched into my other duties.
In Mantic's respect, they're taking a 70% product and handing it off to the equivalent of unpaid interns to finish up a product they're making hundreds of thousands of dollars off of.

I didn't buy into Dungeon Saga and in hindsight, I'm rather glad. I did back Star Saga but I did so fully telling myself that going in, if it didn't make sense to pay the money for the miniatures, then walk away because I have zero faith in Star Saga being fun and only a little bit of faith in it actually being playable.

My experience with Jake work, including some exchanges in comments on his blog about Deadzone and Dreadball, is that while his core systems are rather goods, he tend to see campaign/XP systems as less important.
It's of course possible that it ws the result of him being pressed by close releases dates, but both Dreadball and Deadzone initial campaign systems, despite some very good general ideas, suffered from problem like heavy attrition that he didn't seems to think as important.

This remind me of the video game Elemental : War of magic by Stardock, when the company president and project manager explained how the game assets (3D engine, textures, musics, etc ...) where 80% of the game developpement efforts, it was now completly false, but it completly ignored the fact that game designing is not simply writing some game system, it also need a lots of iterations to get right, and my point of view is that at the time Stardock clearly underevaluated the importance of this step. It's easy to evaluate the time needed to get a nice 3D model, it's must harder to evaluate the time needed to get a good combat system, some game designers still don't get it right after several *years* of work.

In other words, my opinion is that Jake probably evaluated correctly the efforts needed for core rules of his games, but considered the campaign/XP systems as simple add on not worth the same efforts.

Once again, it's fairly possible that he simply didn't get the time needed to design and test them, but this also remind me of the situation with Kings of War and Allessio, where he had to be overridden by Mantic in favor of the RC for some changes (for both 2nd edition and more recently the historical KoW), and I think that we gained in the endfrom Mantic desision of siding with the RC.

It's after all very easy for a game designer to be so involved in his own game that he can miss some very obvious things, especially when balancing and fine tuning the system.

It's usually a good idea to not overbloat your core system with special rules and other exceptions, but sometimes it's still better to add one simple exception than to let a good core system be dragged down by some specific abuse or other problem.

If the core problem with Jake is that he was in conflict with the RC because of some sacred cow that he refused to see killed or something similar, then it's maybe better in the end for us that he separated from Mantic, letting his core system able to be improved bvy the RC, hopefully with them learning what to fix from the experience of the first games (Dungeon Saga/Dreadball 1 in this case) whil still keeping the good parts that Jake developped.

If however the problem is more along the lines of Mantic not giving him or the RC the time and ressources needed then it's a different matter of course.

Without knowing the details, my experience as an end-consumer is much the same as others above - Jake (and Alessio) having good core rules, but flawed "expansion" aspects to them that have had to be fixed up by the RC.

Obviously that's a case of shared blame - not just Mantic/Ronnie - and we know this as we've heard from multiple sources where the contractor (especially Jake) wants to do "their thing" rather entirely fulfil what the client (Mantic) are after in entirety. I don't know. Jake comes across like a bit of a special snowflake in his personal writing sometimes while I don't appear to see the same attitude from many other designers who do work for hire - consider the guys who seem to just get gak done (Richard Borg, etc).

Mantic's issue seems to be more rushing too many projects out the door too fast and letting so many products out that clearly aren't up to snuff - not just rules but especially displayed in a lot of the miniatures they've released, right up to those Elf Chariots or the "mouldline" flyer. I've been saying it for years - they need a proper Art director on payroll and clearly then need a proper editor on payroll - and they need to not accept any old fething thing from their work-for-hire contractors, and Jake is very much one of those. If this is the start of Ronnie/Manic (Matt?) making a stand against the bs level of "good enough - ship it out!" that Mantic has had up to this point, then fething good on them.

As stated above my MLaw, the contractors probably aren't entirely on board with the idea of unpaid volunteers ("generous payment" being made in models notwithstanding) "taking food from their mouths", but then again - if you're pushing out rules that are half-arsed, then it's on you if the client decides to get others - paid or volunteers - to "fix" them rather than paying you additional funds to do so. And I'll reiterate once again that the RC should be paid in money and that they've improved KoW no end and trust them more than Mantic or Jake or Alessio to balance whatever they're given. On that though, Mantic needs to give them enough of a beta timetable to get gak balanced properly. While I applaud both the RC and all those who gave feedback for things like Uncharted Empires, the playtest period was a fething joke, and the process felt horribly rushed. Resulting in a good rule supplement (and far better than it started as - remember Alessio's "roll for everything" WTF chaos/abyssal list? - but not one that quite lives up to its potential, as it still feels like it needs "house-rule" tweaking in many cases.

I never bothered to play KoW's "Pamphlet editions", but I played a decent amount of the first KS hardcover, and it was a damned solid game. The newer edition is a great polish and tweak. Jake's stuff seems to consistently have been much sloppier, and frankly the Adventurer's Companion debacle played a very large part in putting me off backing anything from Mantic ever again. Not the only thing, but a significant factor. I've not been the only person to voice this, and not just in Mantic threads here where some people might claim "Echo-chamber" as I've seen similar comments browsing other forums where I lurk but do not post, and in the KS comments. So it's pretty firm that Jake's attitude to doing what he wants and not what the client wants (remember Ronnie's grand promises for the AC?) has harmed Mantic's reputation in general to the point where people like myself will no longer purchase/back their products. I skipped the last 150 iterations of SpaceBloodBowl as well - long before the real thing was confirmed as returning.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Had a quick look at Quirkworthy. Clearly Mantic needs to put The RC onto Dungeon Saga as well. However, Mantic don't have a good track record with the post-support of flawed products, either. Jake clearly isn't too concerned, anyway as he states that he hadn't played DS in any form since well before it was released...

https://quirkworthy.com/2015/11/11/dungeon-saga-faq/#comment-275764

jtrowell wrote:
Once again, it's fairly possible that he simply didn't get the time needed to design and test them, but this also remind me of the situation with Kings of War and Allessio, where he had to be overridden by Mantic in favor of the RC for some changes (for both 2nd edition and more recently the historical KoW), and I think that we gained in the endfrom Mantic desision of siding with the RC.

It's after all very easy for a game designer to be so involved in his own game that he can miss some very obvious things, especially when balancing and fine tuning the system.

KoW Historical was almost entirely done by the RC, we didn't like the original and Mantic let us take a shot at it.

The (general) problem with freelance designers in this instance is they aren't involved enough in their games to have good visibility of the issues as they evolve and are discussed over the years from release through to edition revision.

 Baragash wrote:

jtrowell wrote:
Once again, it's fairly possible that he simply didn't get the time needed to design and test them, but this also remind me of the situation with Kings of War and Allessio, where he had to be overridden by Mantic in favor of the RC for some changes (for both 2nd edition and more recently the historical KoW), and I think that we gained in the endfrom Mantic desision of siding with the RC.

It's after all very easy for a game designer to be so involved in his own game that he can miss some very obvious things, especially when balancing and fine tuning the system.

KoW Historical was almost entirely done by the RC, we didn't like the original and Mantic let us take a shot at it.

The (general) problem with freelance designers in this instance is they aren't involved enough in their games to have good visibility of the issues as they evolve and are discussed over the years from release through to edition revision.

Doesn't this really say more about Mantic than any freelancers though? It's almost (to me) like they view their products as throwaway to the point that they don't want someone on staff maintaining the consistency or evaluating the products in a way that would promote future changes or perhaps more importantly from a competitive standpoint being able to view the various products' meta scenes to maintain some sort of balance. Even Wizkids understands this.. Yes, there is the RC.. but again.. I would hope Mantic would actually have someone on payroll that they can plan and coordinate future releases (in Mantic's case I suppose this really means Kickstarters) without a lengthy NDA and non-compete. Oh wait.. did you RC folks have to sign an NDA or a non-compete? I shouldn't make assumptions I suppose.

I'm a bit surprised KoW historical was released. I had to look it up just now. If RC are in fact that talented, Mantic should bring them on as official staff and pay them legitimate wages. What's that song about putting a ring on it? I don't think they're considering the possibility that all the RC needs to do is figure out how to work a 3d printer and some basic graphic design and/or photography (assuming they don't have these skills among themselves already) and start their own company in a similar move to how Mantic was started in the first place. If they were to throw up a .. say.. cyberpunk game on KS, I would certainly back it.

I picked up KoW Historical last night, and its a fantastic product. The historical accuracy is pretty fast and loose, but the create-an-army system is really well done and should excite Kingdoms of Men players in the fantasy system.

As regards Mantic's part in the quality of rulesets, I've long thought Ronnie needs to hire a professional turd in the punch bowl. Someone who is enough of a pragmatist and donkey-cave to say, "No, this sculpt sucks. The legs are ridiculously tiny, and the pose looks like it's trying to buck up while squatting for a dump. Go back and rework the leg proportions and give us a natural pose, because we're not paying for this." This mythical QA donkey-cave probably would have made Jake cry during the Adventurer's Companion debacle...but given the final outcome we got, that probably wouldn't have been a bad thing.

I wouldn't jump to too many conclusions, Jake worked with the RC on releasing the Deadzone v2 FAQ and was great to work with.

I honestly haven't found much wrong with Dungeon Saga at all, but then I've just played through the quest books and haven't been after any kind of D&D style campaign play.

With over 80 scenarios to play through I haven't felt the need or had the time to go into the advanced stuff. Kickstarter throws way too much at you at once! It's like 5 years worth of core game + expansions arriving on the same day.

That's probably the bulk of Mantic's game design issues there, having to work to such tight schedules that are demanded by Kickstarter. Things like KoW Historical and Nexus Psi have been written by RC members on a much more reasonable schedule hence the increase in quality. We had 3 proofreading iterations on Nexus Psi, the first of which happened 2 months before the print deadline.

Hoping for more straight-to-retail releases in future.

MLaw wrote:

Spoiler:

 Baragash wrote:

jtrowell wrote:
Once again, it's fairly possible that he simply didn't get the time needed to design and test them, but this also remind me of the situation with Kings of War and Allessio, where he had to be overridden by Mantic in favor of the RC for some changes (for both 2nd edition and more recently the historical KoW), and I think that we gained in the endfrom Mantic desision of siding with the RC.

It's after all very easy for a game designer to be so involved in his own game that he can miss some very obvious things, especially when balancing and fine tuning the system.

KoW Historical was almost entirely done by the RC, we didn't like the original and Mantic let us take a shot at it.

The (general) problem with freelance designers in this instance is they aren't involved enough in their games to have good visibility of the issues as they evolve and are discussed over the years from release through to edition revision.

Doesn't this really say more about Mantic than any freelancers though? It's almost (to me) like they view their products as throwaway to the point that they don't want someone on staff maintaining the consistency or evaluating the products in a way that would promote future changes or perhaps more importantly from a competitive standpoint being able to view the various products' meta scenes to maintain some sort of balance. Even Wizkids understands this.. Yes, there is the RC.. but again.. I would hope Mantic would actually have someone on payroll that they can plan and coordinate future releases (in Mantic's case I suppose this really means Kickstarters) without a lengthy NDA and non-compete. Oh wait.. did you RC folks have to sign an NDA or a non-compete? I shouldn't make assumptions I suppose.

I'm a bit surprised KoW historical was released. I had to look it up just now. If RC are in fact that talented, Mantic should bring them on as official staff and pay them legitimate wages. What's that song about putting a ring on it? I don't think they're considering the possibility that all the RC needs to do is figure out how to work a 3d printer and some basic graphic design and/or photography (assuming they don't have these skills among themselves already) and start their own company in a similar move to how Mantic was started in the first place. If they were to throw up a .. say.. cyberpunk game on KS, I would certainly back it.

Probably yes. I had a long conversation with Ronnie about it recently so hopefully there will be changes in the future. KoW already has that sort of coverage set up for 2017 onwards. We have NDAs.

Psychopomp wrote:I picked up KoW Historical last night, and its a fantastic product. The historical accuracy is pretty fast and loose, but the create-an-army system is really well done and should excite Kingdoms of Men players in the fantasy system.

As regards Mantic's part in the quality of rulesets, I've long thought Ronnie needs to hire a professional turd in the punch bowl. Someone who is enough of a pragmatist and donkey-cave to say, "No, this sculpt sucks. The legs are ridiculously tiny, and the pose looks like it's trying to buck up while squatting for a dump. Go back and rework the leg proportions and give us a natural pose, because we're not paying for this." This mythical QA donkey-cave probably would have made Jake cry during the Adventurer's Companion debacle...but given the final outcome we got, that probably wouldn't have been a bad thing.

TBH the rules don't really need an [MOD EDIT - Language. - Alpharius] to oversee them, just more time to gestate (internally and publicly) before final print run - and that's not really anything to do with KS either, they just need to start writing the rules a lot further ahead of time.

scarletsquig wrote:That's probably the bulk of Mantic's game design issues there, having to work to such tight schedules that are demanded by Kickstarter. Things like KoW Historical and Nexus Psi have been written by RC members on a much more reasonable schedule hence the increase in quality. We had 3 proofreading iterations on Nexus Psi, the first of which happened 2 months before the print deadline.

Historical is the most rushed and least reasonably scheduled piece we've done, and will likely remain in the #1 spot for.....ever. From now on it should be different though.......

 scarletsquig wrote:
I wouldn't jump to too many conclusions, Jake worked with the RC on releasing the Deadzone v2 FAQ and was great to work with.

I honestly haven't found much wrong with Dungeon Saga at all, but then I've just played through the quest books and haven't been after any kind of D&D style campaign play.

With over 80 scenarios to play through I haven't felt the need or had the time to go into the advanced stuff. Kickstarter throws way too much at you at once! It's like 5 years worth of core game + expansions arriving on the same day.

That's probably the bulk of Mantic's game design issues there, having to work to such tight schedules that are demanded by Kickstarter. Things like KoW Historical and Nexus Psi have been written by RC members on a much more reasonable schedule hence the increase in quality. We had 3 proofreading iterations on Nexus Psi, the first of which happened 2 months before the print deadline.

Hoping for more straight-to-retail releases in future.

This is what I've been saying too.. When they focus on individual releases instead of shotgun blast, they don't have to rush miniatures or rules. Instead they want to try to cram not only an entire rule system but also every army for that system into one arbitrary developmental cycle that's determined by a kickstarter window? WOW.. It doesn't make sense. When they were starting off.. sure.. but they really need to focus on things that drag those of us who aren't willing to dip more than a toe or an occasional kickstarter into their world. I own what is probably an entire Enforcer and Forgefather army at this point... but I have no interest in Mantic's systems or fluff to make me want to really drill down on investing in them in the way that we've seen GW or PP manage in the past. Everything just feels so half-arsed and generic at this point to me. I have been following them since they launched as a company and have been hopeful the whole time. They just haven't really answered that in a way that I feel is commiserate to the amount of patience invested at this point.

You RC folks really do need to realize that you're probably at the point that you could easily prop up a competitor, get a 3d artist or two, and get ludo to pump out a big batch of minis for your own thing. You're getting trinkets for the type of work that could be netting you 10s or even 100s of thousands of $$..

scarletsquig wrote:I wouldn't jump to too many conclusions, Jake worked with the RC on releasing the Deadzone v2 FAQ and was great to work with.

That is why he downplays your contribution so much?

If it was just a matter of taking half an hour here or there to deal with the odd question, then it would be doable. Unfortunately it would take a couple of days to get sufficiently up to speed to answer the complex queries which remain unanswered as I haven’t played the game in many, many months. In fact, not since well before it was released.

A “rules committee” will at least get you an answer, which is a start.

Especially with "an" been in italics he means any RC answer is not as valuable as the answer he would provide. For me in the posts he posted the last two days (the moment he revealed the dispute) his answers are alluding in Mantic not giving him enouph time to test his rules and that the rules committee is doing work he disapproves of.

From the discussions that have came up the last few days it also seems he can deliver a solid base work that needs a lot of development to be worthy of commercial release that he simply does not do (and then the RC does)

MLaw wrote:
You RC folks really do need to realize that you're probably at the point that you could easily prop up a competitor, get a 3d artist or two, and get ludo to pump out a big batch of minis for your own thing. You're getting trinkets for the type of work that could be netting you 10s or even 100s of thousands of $$..

Probably because that would need capital, connections and willingness to take the risk, running a business is not that simple and the unwillingness to take such a risk is something logical.

It could be inoffensive - as an RC didn't write the original rules you can be (and we have been) faced with "author's intent" issues.

 MLaw wrote:
You RC folks really do need to realize that you're probably at the point that you could easily prop up a competitor, get a 3d artist or two, and get ludo to pump out a big batch of minis for your own thing. You're getting trinkets for the type of work that could be netting you 10s or even 100s of thousands of $$..

I'm not sure you appreciate how low wages are in the wargaming industry

If any of us did want to launch our own game, we'd have to pay for artists up front before launching a kickstarter, compete with any number of other wargaming kickstarters when the KS market seems to be declining and give up our day jobs... We'd also need to know how to run large shipping and logistics operations and as far as I know none of us have that experience.

Alternatively if we have a saleable idea for a game and can put a pitch together, we can go through Mantic and get them to shoulder the risk, up front costs etc.

...by launching a KS so the backers shoulder the risk.

Not meaning to come off as snarky to you, since I have a lot of respect for you and the RC, but that's how Mantic do things.

Up to a point I agree, but the money they put in before the KS is not something one can ignore if they are individuals and not an established company.

I am not against the KS business model, though it needs some tweaking for retailers support if the company doing it cares about such things.

 Azazelx wrote:
...by launching a KS so the backers shoulder the risk.

Not meaning to come off as snarky to you, since I have a lot of respect for you and the RC, but that's how Mantic do things.

Giving up a well paying career, going from a stable income to running a company which may or may not succeed, putting several thousand pounds up front for concept art, sculpting etc so the KS launches with some actual content, ensuring that you correctly cost and plan everything for a business that you have no experience of running else you'll either destroy your name by not delivering or go bankrupt raising funds to cover your underestimates. That's all on the backers is it?

 Daedleh wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
...by launching a KS so the backers shoulder the risk.

Not meaning to come off as snarky to you, since I have a lot of respect for you and the RC, but that's how Mantic do things.

Giving up a well paying career, going from a stable income to running a company which may or may not succeed, putting several thousand pounds up front for concept art, sculpting etc so the KS launches with some actual content, ensuring that you correctly cost and plan everything for a business that you have no experience of running else you'll either destroy your name by not delivering or go bankrupt raising funds to cover your underestimates. That's all on the backers is it?

As an artist who did basically this but it was several thousand into training to be an artist and all the materials etc etc.. I definitely know where you're coming from. It's a lot of risk and in my instance has not paid off outside of some comic work and miniature design. However, if you ask around you will find a few artists who are willing to work for back-end pay on a project like that.

In the interests of full disclosure I do know Jake, and also Ronnie to a much lesser degree. The legal dispute is exactly that, a legal dispute. It's not my place to reveal what it is, that's up to Mantic or Jake should they want to, but it's nothing to do with Jake being unhappy with the rules committee. That could only lead to a legal dispute if it actually breached any legal agreement Mantic and Jake have with each other.

Also, and at the risk of the being that guy on the internet who claims to know stuff but won't say what any of it is, I do know stuff but won't say what any of it is lol. Other than to say that Jake worked freelance for Mantic (and as mentioned above it's because he likes being able to buy enough food to live), and as such he produces what Mantic want him to produce under the restrictions Mantic place on him. Which is not any criticism of Mantic, all companies place restrictions on their freelancers by definition. Mantic don't tell him they want a dungeon crawler and then let him go off and do whatever he wants, anymore than they let their concept artists and sculptors do whatever they want.

redben wrote:
anymore than they let their concept artists and sculptors do whatever they want.

Um, about that...

I am quite sure the dispute will either have something to do with payment, or ownership of game system, or in a more extreme case reputation damage and not if Mantic uses the rules committee, but I think that from the cracks of the dispute some jabs at the RC (maybe not the individuals but the notion of it existing) have slipped through.

 Daedleh wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:
...by launching a KS so the backers shoulder the risk.

Not meaning to come off as snarky to you, since I have a lot of respect for you and the RC, but that's how Mantic do things.

Giving up a well paying career, going from a stable income to running a company which may or may not succeed, putting several thousand pounds up front for concept art, sculpting etc so the KS launches with some actual content, ensuring that you correctly cost and plan everything for a business that you have no experience of running else you'll either destroy your name by not delivering or go bankrupt raising funds to cover your underestimates. That's all on the backers is it?

I think you misunderstood, or I was unclear. My quote was in reply to this part of it:

 Daedleh wrote:

Alternatively if we have a saleable idea for a game and can put a pitch together, we can go through Mantic and get them to shoulder the risk, up front costs etc.

Unless you're talking about Ronnie?

Apologies for not posting photos of the quality of the Walking Dead miniatures like I said I would. Unfortunately my copy hasn't arrived yet, it was posted out to me no later than the 31st October by Royal Mail but hasn't yet arrived despite copies reaching America. Starting to think it's either been lost in the post or left on my doorstep and stolen, unfortunately Mantic do not ship recorded so cannot track where it is.

I will post photos when it hopefully does turn up.