Two weeks before GMS became seriously ill over 18 months ago, we had an estimate from GMS that the book was 24 hours from PDF release. The Is Far West Out Yet site shows how (at best) delusional GMS has been with his estimates.

The fact that he is now saying he is back to laying out chapters which were apparently finished 12 months ago is concerning but not surprising.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;857350It means I didn't become aware of the project until I saw Skarka's posts about his surgery. It flew under my radar and wasn't paying a lot of attention to kick starters at the time. Since then, his posts on the subject have seemed believable to me and the condition serious. As far as I know I haven't repeated any misleading second hand information. Was pretty clear that I didn't follow it early on. If you don't find his explanations believable, that is fine. Think what you want. Personally I am inclined to believe the guy based on my own experiences and what I've seen him say. Again, if you feel otherwise, I don't really have an issue. But don't insist everyone else has to agree with you or be just as pissed off about a late kickstarter.

Believe me, I am not insisting everyone agree with me. That's not the problem with what you or anyone else has said. The trouble is the suggestion that the products are only, or in any significant part, delayed because of GMS' health. That's categorically false. So much so, that GMS, to my knowledge, has never made the claim that his illness was the problem before he was first hospitalized. So why do people, who admit they don't know, come into threads and throw up their hands, "well, he was legitimately ill, so..."

I completely believe GMS when he says his bowel ruptured due to divertic. That has very little bordering on nothing to do with why none of his projects are released. Look at the original release date for Far West: December 2011. Now look at when GMS' "guts tried to kill (him)": February 2014. By GMS' own account, the bowel trouble caught him completely by surprise. It simply can't explain the previous two years of delay (and lies, and evasions, and excuses, etc.). What it can explain is why there is now no money to print Team-Up or issue refunds for products never delivered. Whether that is, in and of itself, acceptable is up to the individuals owed the money to decide.

As for the second-hand information remark, I re-read your post and Saplatt's, and I'll apologise for that. That may be me inferring too much from your remarks around his health. It's simply very frustrating to have his health dragged out in the context of the delays as any sort of justification. That excuse doesn't just clash with the established facts, it's one that GMS hasn't tried to use to explain all the delays.

Quote from: Bobloblah;857354Believe me, I am not insisting everyone agree with me. That's not the problem with what you or anyone else has said. The trouble is the suggestion that the products are only, or in any significant part, delayed because of GMS' health. That's categorically false. So much so, that GMS, to my knowledge, has never made the claim that his illness was the problem before he was first hospitalized. So why do people, who admit they don't know, come into threads and throw up their hands, "well, he was legitimately ill, so..."

I completely believe GMS when he says his bowel ruptured due to divertic. That has very little bordering on nothing to do with why none of his projects are released. Look at the original release date for Far West: December 2011. Now look at when GMS' "guts tried to kill (him)": February 2014. By GMS' own account, the bowel trouble caught him completely by surprise. It simply can't explain the previous two years of delay (and lies, and evasions, and excuses, etc.). What it can explain is why there is now no money to print Team-Up or issue refunds for products never delivered. Whether that is, in and of itself, acceptable is up to the individuals owed the money to decide.

As for the second-hand information remark, I re-read your post and Saplatt's, and I'll apologise for that. That may be me inferring too much from your remarks around his health. It's simply very frustrating to have his health dragged out in the context of the delays as any sort of justification. That excuse doesn't just clash with the established facts, it's one that GMS hasn't tried to use to explain all the delays.

I am not saying it explains all the delays, nor am I justifying the delays that occurred. I am simply saying I can see how such health issues would have played a role during the production of the game, and that presently I would expect them to have an impact. My opinion here is simply, again as a non-backer, I am interested in the game and am willing to be patient with the release. Based his posts I've seen since the surgery, and the interactions I've had with him, I think he is working on the project and it will just take time. Definitely having had surgeries like that myself, it does make me sympathetic as I've had to work on projects leading up to and following recoveries. That has all kinds of crazy impacts on your ability to generate creative material. And again, I am not attributing all delays to that.

Quote from: Bobloblah;857354As for the second-hand information remark, I re-read your post and Saplatt's, and I'll apologise for that. That may be me inferring too much from your remarks around his health.

Thanks.

Didn't know about his health issues. Poor bastard.

I wish him and his backers the best of luck.

Quote from: Bobloblah;857354...
As for the second-hand information remark, I re-read your post and Saplatt's, and I'll apologise for that. That may be me inferring too much from your remarks around his health.

I can see how you'd interpret my post that way, but to be clear:

1. I've never had any interest in the project and therefore haven't followed it. Nothing personal against GMS or his talents; I just have no interest in that genre mash. At all. Never have.

2. I have absolutely no idea what was behind the delays, what was promised, who did what or who said what when.

3. I have heard the guy is seriously ill and, like anyone else, he has my sympathies and well-wishes.

It does seem to me that this whole mess has probably damaged his reputation in the industry. And that's going to be hard to restore. Who knows? Maybe that's even been added pressure to futilely try to turn out some sort of "masterpiece." Maybe not. Like I said, I have no idea.  

One thing I do know is that when you promise people something and don't deliver, they get pretty pissed. And the more you do that, the more pissed off they get.

How much could the license fee for Buckaroo Banzai actually be? I'm not sure it even qualifies as a cult movie - I don't think I've ever seen it on TV.  Probably much cheaper than something like Big Trouble in Little China or even Miami Connection.

Anyway, there are really probably two factors. For one, it's hard to motivate yourself (at least a lot of people) when you already have a pile of money.  At worst, people are going to yell at you. But you have their money, so what can they actually do? (This is sort of the whole basis for capitalism, people work much harder when they get money for their work, if they get the money first they simply won't work as hard).

For another, gamers tend not to be the healthiest lot in the world. And I'm guessing many game designers don't have health insurance, so they probably don't get much in the way of preventative care...

Quote from: Saplatt;857377It does seem to me that this whole mess has probably damaged his reputation in the industry. And that's going to be hard to restore.

:rotfl:
That there is some serious understatement. For anyone who is familiar with what has happened, he has utterly destroyed his reputation, possibly beyond repair.

Quote from: Saplatt;8573771. I've never had any interest in the project and therefore haven't followed it. Nothing personal against GMS or his talents; I just have no interest in that genre mash. At all. Never have.

2. I have absolutely no idea what was behind the delays, what was promised, who did what or who said what when.

3. I have heard the guy is seriously ill and, like anyone else, he has my sympathies and well-wishes.

And I get all that, but I think the last part, in particular, is just completely misplaced in the discussion about the problems with his projects. I, too, feel sympathy for someone who has to deal with the health troubles he had.

But, imagine, if you will:
Somebody defrauds you out of your house...
So you speak up, saying, "This guy really ripped me off. I lost my house."
And then another random person comes along, discussing the person who defrauded you, saying, "Poor guy. He cut off his leg!"
And you say, "Wait, what?"
So they repeat themselves, "Can you imagine? It's hard to be upset at them for the house when they cut off their leg!"
At which stage you point out, "But he cut his leg off two years AFTER he defrauded me out of my home..."

Now yes, losing a home and losing a leg are worse than what's actually happened, but I'm trying to provide a more extreme example to throw into relief the disconnect between the blown pre-order and Kickstarters, and his health troubles. The latter has nothing to do with the former. He had years before he got sick. He's had more than a year since he should've been recovered from his final surgery, and it's just like the two years before he got sick (i.e. lies, lies, and more lies). And that's not opinion, that's fact based on the public record. At what point do you stop making excuses for GMS?

He appears to be making noises on Kickstarter that, this time, he really will finish writing the thing. We'll see.

tldr: Yes, he's had health troubles. No, those have no real bearing on the current complaints.

So just how much money did you lose on this thing, anyway?

Quote from: JeremyR;857386For another, gamers tend not to be the healthiest lot in the world. And I'm guessing many game designers don't have health insurance, so they probably don't get much in the way of preventative care...

These are expensive health issues. At one point I think my insurance paid like a 30,000 dollar bill for a single surgery. Something like what he had, I don't know how preventative you could be though. I had health insurance and I spent roughly 2 to 2 1/2 years in and out of the emergency room with horrible infections before it came to the point that I needed surgery and then spent another year and half before they were able to identify the cause (and that's with insurance, and me going to the doctor all the time). I can say leading up to that first surgery it impacted everything. I was still able to work and write, but I had to drink like 7 cups of coffee a day just to have the energy to write a page of material on many days. Some of my worst work was done during that period. Prior to the surgery, in that 2 and half year period, I wouldn't have called myself sick or admitted it was having the impact it was because it was on and off. His condition is different form mine, but appears to be in the same class, so I just am generally sympathetic to him and feel it likely had a bigger impact than people realize on the process (and again, not saying it was the only thing here).

Quote from: Saplatt;857471So just how much money did you lose on this thing, anyway?

I backed the "Alas Vegas" kickstarter back in '13, and when that one was a year late, we were promised an additional free pdf copy of "Far West" as compensation. So I didn't lose money on this thing, but I do have a small stake in it.

("Alas Vegas" also isn't out yet.)

It's one thing to fuck up a Kickstarter and deliver nothing...that's bad, no matter what the reason. The terrible part about the Far West Kickstarter is the outright contempt GMS seems to have for anyone asking where the fuck it is, as if his customers should just be happy they were allowed to give him money. That dude is a total douche. His behavior is pretty indicative of someone going on the offensive to counteract lots of very valid criticism. Easier to pretend you're just being attacked and attack back than address why you're simply a thief.

Unlike the JMal Dwimmermount, this one is Duke Nukem Forever. Even if it does come out, it'll probably suck.

GMS has done many weird and offensive things, like attacking Evil Hat for giving KS a bad name. This was from the guy who has done more to harm KS for RPG creators than just about anyone.

Quote from: Saplatt;857377It does seem to me that this whole mess has probably damaged his reputation in the industry. And that's going to be hard to restore.

I thought his reputation was for "being a prick".

Then again, if he hadn't been a douche nozzle to me in the past, I might have backed this project and lost money. So, now that I think of it: thanks, Gareth!

Therin lies the problem.

At face value it seems like a game designer got sick and the game was delayed. Sympahy is appropriate.

But only so far. He has been stalling and scamming people for four years before he got sick. Possibly longer.

On the other hand he has, and still is treating customers like dirt. So to those who have been on the receiving end it can end up being seen as karma nailing him.

And then you feel bad about feeling good that something bad happened to him.

Then will come the next project "which is 99% done and here give me some money!" And people will. And the cycle continues.