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ITF ARTICLE DONE PLEASE ALL READ ITS IMPORTANT
Ok guys I've finished my promised article on how Sierra have screwed with ITF. Its a long one, 1,824 words long. I've gone through it an checked it. I just need your opinions on it, inparticular from Randy, Rick and Biggles. I used some quotes from the old questions/info on the game. Do you think I should credit where they came from? I wasn't sure really.
So I want opinions guys and lots of them! I not saying that it will do much for us, but its something. We're not ready to launch the site where I'm going to publish the article. These things always take longer than anticipated.
So here it is.... have a good read!
A Day in the Life of a Game Cancellation: brought to you by Sierra Studios.
-You know, the gaming industry is generating big bucks these days. A report by The Register.com (30/05/2001) stated that by 2006, the gaming market would be worth a staggering $86bn. Now that’s a lot of money. So you could say then with confidence that publishing house's spend a lot of money to develop games, in order to gain a large bite of the big market cherry (and it’s a big bright red one too!). Sure as technology and hardware improves, costs can go down, but its still a bloody expensive game to be in (excuse the pun, I'm sorry!). But not all companies approach the "spend our money wisely" model with much common business sense. Some decide not to spend any money at all, resulting in a pants game, and rubbish sales figures. Others just go crazy and spend money like a drunken aristocrat in the local pub, which always results in a bit of messy puddle when the night is over. It is these unwise spenders/ poor planners that I wish to discuss with you in this article. Today's nomination for this honour goes too Sierra Studios.
In the autumn of 1997, Sierra Studios announced the development of a brand new space simulator, Babylon 5: Into the Fire. Based on the very successful Science Fiction TV series by J. Michael Straczynski, the gaming community (and Babylon 5 fans too of course!) became excited at the prospect of an new space simulator, an area of game development that had become somewhat neglected, despite releases like the splendid I-Wars.
Yosemite Entertainment (formally Oakhurst Studios), the group chosen to design the game by Sierra, had quite a significant challenge ahead of them. Not only had they to develop a completely new game engine, they had to adhere to the strict guidelines of the Babylon 5 universe, (especially the fact that ships operated to the principles of real physics unlike in Star Trek!), they also had to develop the game around a new story-line specially approved by J. Michael Straczynski. This involved shooting actual film footage of the main Babylon 5 cast specially for the game! Using film footage would be controversial especially when one remembers back to the movie over kill in the Wing Commander Series.
As the months past and the engine began to take shape, the developers started to tease the already drooling fan base with tasty morsels of what was to come:
"The story is being developed in-house by Christy Marx and Randy Littlejohn. The overall story arc was conceived by the design team (myself, Dan Foy, Randy and Christy). The idea was pitched to JMS and several others at Babylonian. They signed off on it and have been working with Christy as it gets fleshed out.
….The storyline will be dynamic, but the style of dynamic is beyond anything we have ever seen before. There are upwards of 100 missions, and capabilities for a lot more."
"The flight model is very realistic. Don't try to make a hard turn when you're close to a capital ship or station and are trying to avoid it. Chances are, you can't, because when you make the hard turn, you don't stop on a dime. The thrusters still have to fire for a certain amount of time before you are going in your new direction. In the end, you're slamming into the object sideways." (7.6.99)
"You will be able to disable and destroy specific systems and components (take out specific guns for example). What systems you do damage too will also have an impact on how the ship breaks apart when it is ultimately destroyed. The cap ships will tend to break apart near the area where the enemy fire has been concentrated on it." (7.7.99)
"You will always have the choice of jumping into your Starfury - regardless of your rank - regardless if you decide to set up your strategy on the bridge first. This is always an option. You could even do part of your war strategy on the bridge and then hop into your Starfury and finish up your strategy there! If you get tired of being "in the trenches" during a furball you can dock and go back onto the bridge - provided that you can pull that off without getting shot up, of course." (7.7.99)
So you kind of get the picture here. I could go into more detail but the cows would have come home and gone out again before I finished. The general picture then was of a very interesting game in development. Babylon 5 fans were at this point going crazy with excitement at the thought of flying a Starfury of a Thunderbolt. Space Sim fans were drooling at the idea of flying using real physics, with a very capable online multiplayer mode to look forward too! So things looked to be going very smoothly for the outside. However all was not well! And for the sake of space and saving your eyes from all the reading, I'll make it short and too the point.
First off, the rot set in when Sierra decided to close down Oakhurst Studios, reforming it as Yosemite Studios. The decision was then made to move the entire studio from the west coast of the United States to Bellevue in Washington (east coast for our non geographical friends). This was where Sierra management began to really mess up. The Yosemite work force arrived in Bellevue to find that no office space was ready for them. Prior to the restructuring and move, the former Oakhurst team had been steaming along very efficiently with the game. They now had to wait a month to sort out the office space, which Sierra counted against their budget. The closing of Oakhurst and moving of Yosemite was supposed to be a cost cutting measure.
Once the studio got up and running again, the programming staff were suddenly pulled to work on another game at another studio. This again was put down against the budget, even though not much could be done on the game since the programmers were tied up. Up until now, the time allotment for the game development was 1.5 years. By now the team had lost 3 months of very valuable time on the game. On top of this, Sierra officials began to demand working demos of the game to be used for upcoming conventions and promotions. Because the engine development was still in its early days, the design team were forced to create mock-ups of what the game might look like. This very time consuming work was wasted, as it would never have been used in the final game, and nearly all staff (approximately 15) working on the game were pulled to work on the mock ups. Despite these glaring financial and time wasting facts being clearly pointed out, the Sierra officials forged ahead. On top of this there were other managerial mess ups (which cannot be discussed for legal reasons), which added to the design teams headaches.
By now, 2 years had been spent on developing Babylon 5: Into the Fire. This included all the bad management decisions by Sierra. Then, to put the icing on the cake, and with 60% of the game completed, Sierra Studios announced on September 21st 1999, the cancellation of Babylon 5: Into the Fire and the closure of Yosemite Entertainment. In total 105 people lost their jobs, and 5 games in development were cancelled.
Unfortunately, due to legal reasons, I was unable to discover how much Sierra spent on the whole debacle. Well that is enough to confirm that Sierra spent a lot of money on this game. And it was all for what may I ask? It seems to me that the Sierra management wasted huge sums of money with their poor decision making, which they then ironically labelled as "cost cutting measures." From a PC Gamer point of view, these developments are extremely worrying. It goes to show that just by chucking huge sums of money at a Studio that a game will come out at the end. Well yes there would actually, if management didn't perform their normal role of sticking fingers in where they're not wanted! If Sierra management had left the Babylon 5: Into the Fire team to developing the game with no corporate interference, it could very well be sitting on the shop shelf right now. But instead what we have is an unfinished game sitting on a shelf in a Sierra warehouse, gathering dust. Doesn't really make sound financial sense to me, and I'm not a businessman.
So I hear you ask what happened after the closure of Yosemite? Well, some of the former development team, after moving themselves and their families half way across the US to only lose their jobs 6 months later, decided to try and save the game by taking their fight to [url="http://www.Firstones.com."]www.Firstones.com.[/url] This web site, which had been set up by fans of the game in anticipation of its release, now became the centre for promoting Babylon 5: Into the Fire. Hopes were raised early in 2000 when Codemasters, the UK game firm, expressed interest in the unfinished game. However by March 2000, Codemasters had decided against purchasing the game. Then on the 25th of March 2000, came the announcement that some of the former developers were establishing a new studio, Sector 14 Studios, with the expressed intention to buy the unfinished Babylon 5: Into the Fire from Sierra Studios. After months of planning and discussion and with the necessary funds available to purchase the game, Sierra refused to sell. It seemed that Sierra weren't interested in recouping their losses on the game! Undeterred, and with the support of Firstones.com, Sector 14 gathered themselves and came up with a new business plan, this time to start from scratch. Unfortunately, after months of hard work, Sector 14 just announced last week that they were unsuccessful in their bid acquire support for the development a new Babylon 5 based space simulator. All hope of resurrecting Babylon 5: Into the Fire is now gone.
To conclude, I hope you have enjoyed my little tale of how game companies can make a complete mess of things and waste was is essentially hard-earned gamers money. In an age of cost cutting and corporate restructuring, this doesn’t really make much sense to mean. Does it make much sense to you? I doubt it. Well one things for sure, if Sierra continue with such bad management practices, they won't be having a bite of that big $86bn cherry and that’s for sure! If you are interested in following the Babylon 5 space simulator saga, drop by Firstones.com. They're a cool bunch. I would like to thank Randy, Rick, Biggles, and David of Mac for providing me with the much-needed facts for this article! Thanks guys!
------------------
'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]
So I want opinions guys and lots of them! I not saying that it will do much for us, but its something. We're not ready to launch the site where I'm going to publish the article. These things always take longer than anticipated.
So here it is.... have a good read!
A Day in the Life of a Game Cancellation: brought to you by Sierra Studios.
-You know, the gaming industry is generating big bucks these days. A report by The Register.com (30/05/2001) stated that by 2006, the gaming market would be worth a staggering $86bn. Now that’s a lot of money. So you could say then with confidence that publishing house's spend a lot of money to develop games, in order to gain a large bite of the big market cherry (and it’s a big bright red one too!). Sure as technology and hardware improves, costs can go down, but its still a bloody expensive game to be in (excuse the pun, I'm sorry!). But not all companies approach the "spend our money wisely" model with much common business sense. Some decide not to spend any money at all, resulting in a pants game, and rubbish sales figures. Others just go crazy and spend money like a drunken aristocrat in the local pub, which always results in a bit of messy puddle when the night is over. It is these unwise spenders/ poor planners that I wish to discuss with you in this article. Today's nomination for this honour goes too Sierra Studios.
In the autumn of 1997, Sierra Studios announced the development of a brand new space simulator, Babylon 5: Into the Fire. Based on the very successful Science Fiction TV series by J. Michael Straczynski, the gaming community (and Babylon 5 fans too of course!) became excited at the prospect of an new space simulator, an area of game development that had become somewhat neglected, despite releases like the splendid I-Wars.
Yosemite Entertainment (formally Oakhurst Studios), the group chosen to design the game by Sierra, had quite a significant challenge ahead of them. Not only had they to develop a completely new game engine, they had to adhere to the strict guidelines of the Babylon 5 universe, (especially the fact that ships operated to the principles of real physics unlike in Star Trek!), they also had to develop the game around a new story-line specially approved by J. Michael Straczynski. This involved shooting actual film footage of the main Babylon 5 cast specially for the game! Using film footage would be controversial especially when one remembers back to the movie over kill in the Wing Commander Series.
As the months past and the engine began to take shape, the developers started to tease the already drooling fan base with tasty morsels of what was to come:
"The story is being developed in-house by Christy Marx and Randy Littlejohn. The overall story arc was conceived by the design team (myself, Dan Foy, Randy and Christy). The idea was pitched to JMS and several others at Babylonian. They signed off on it and have been working with Christy as it gets fleshed out.
….The storyline will be dynamic, but the style of dynamic is beyond anything we have ever seen before. There are upwards of 100 missions, and capabilities for a lot more."
"The flight model is very realistic. Don't try to make a hard turn when you're close to a capital ship or station and are trying to avoid it. Chances are, you can't, because when you make the hard turn, you don't stop on a dime. The thrusters still have to fire for a certain amount of time before you are going in your new direction. In the end, you're slamming into the object sideways." (7.6.99)
"You will be able to disable and destroy specific systems and components (take out specific guns for example). What systems you do damage too will also have an impact on how the ship breaks apart when it is ultimately destroyed. The cap ships will tend to break apart near the area where the enemy fire has been concentrated on it." (7.7.99)
"You will always have the choice of jumping into your Starfury - regardless of your rank - regardless if you decide to set up your strategy on the bridge first. This is always an option. You could even do part of your war strategy on the bridge and then hop into your Starfury and finish up your strategy there! If you get tired of being "in the trenches" during a furball you can dock and go back onto the bridge - provided that you can pull that off without getting shot up, of course." (7.7.99)
So you kind of get the picture here. I could go into more detail but the cows would have come home and gone out again before I finished. The general picture then was of a very interesting game in development. Babylon 5 fans were at this point going crazy with excitement at the thought of flying a Starfury of a Thunderbolt. Space Sim fans were drooling at the idea of flying using real physics, with a very capable online multiplayer mode to look forward too! So things looked to be going very smoothly for the outside. However all was not well! And for the sake of space and saving your eyes from all the reading, I'll make it short and too the point.
First off, the rot set in when Sierra decided to close down Oakhurst Studios, reforming it as Yosemite Studios. The decision was then made to move the entire studio from the west coast of the United States to Bellevue in Washington (east coast for our non geographical friends). This was where Sierra management began to really mess up. The Yosemite work force arrived in Bellevue to find that no office space was ready for them. Prior to the restructuring and move, the former Oakhurst team had been steaming along very efficiently with the game. They now had to wait a month to sort out the office space, which Sierra counted against their budget. The closing of Oakhurst and moving of Yosemite was supposed to be a cost cutting measure.
Once the studio got up and running again, the programming staff were suddenly pulled to work on another game at another studio. This again was put down against the budget, even though not much could be done on the game since the programmers were tied up. Up until now, the time allotment for the game development was 1.5 years. By now the team had lost 3 months of very valuable time on the game. On top of this, Sierra officials began to demand working demos of the game to be used for upcoming conventions and promotions. Because the engine development was still in its early days, the design team were forced to create mock-ups of what the game might look like. This very time consuming work was wasted, as it would never have been used in the final game, and nearly all staff (approximately 15) working on the game were pulled to work on the mock ups. Despite these glaring financial and time wasting facts being clearly pointed out, the Sierra officials forged ahead. On top of this there were other managerial mess ups (which cannot be discussed for legal reasons), which added to the design teams headaches.
By now, 2 years had been spent on developing Babylon 5: Into the Fire. This included all the bad management decisions by Sierra. Then, to put the icing on the cake, and with 60% of the game completed, Sierra Studios announced on September 21st 1999, the cancellation of Babylon 5: Into the Fire and the closure of Yosemite Entertainment. In total 105 people lost their jobs, and 5 games in development were cancelled.
Unfortunately, due to legal reasons, I was unable to discover how much Sierra spent on the whole debacle. Well that is enough to confirm that Sierra spent a lot of money on this game. And it was all for what may I ask? It seems to me that the Sierra management wasted huge sums of money with their poor decision making, which they then ironically labelled as "cost cutting measures." From a PC Gamer point of view, these developments are extremely worrying. It goes to show that just by chucking huge sums of money at a Studio that a game will come out at the end. Well yes there would actually, if management didn't perform their normal role of sticking fingers in where they're not wanted! If Sierra management had left the Babylon 5: Into the Fire team to developing the game with no corporate interference, it could very well be sitting on the shop shelf right now. But instead what we have is an unfinished game sitting on a shelf in a Sierra warehouse, gathering dust. Doesn't really make sound financial sense to me, and I'm not a businessman.
So I hear you ask what happened after the closure of Yosemite? Well, some of the former development team, after moving themselves and their families half way across the US to only lose their jobs 6 months later, decided to try and save the game by taking their fight to [url="http://www.Firstones.com."]www.Firstones.com.[/url] This web site, which had been set up by fans of the game in anticipation of its release, now became the centre for promoting Babylon 5: Into the Fire. Hopes were raised early in 2000 when Codemasters, the UK game firm, expressed interest in the unfinished game. However by March 2000, Codemasters had decided against purchasing the game. Then on the 25th of March 2000, came the announcement that some of the former developers were establishing a new studio, Sector 14 Studios, with the expressed intention to buy the unfinished Babylon 5: Into the Fire from Sierra Studios. After months of planning and discussion and with the necessary funds available to purchase the game, Sierra refused to sell. It seemed that Sierra weren't interested in recouping their losses on the game! Undeterred, and with the support of Firstones.com, Sector 14 gathered themselves and came up with a new business plan, this time to start from scratch. Unfortunately, after months of hard work, Sector 14 just announced last week that they were unsuccessful in their bid acquire support for the development a new Babylon 5 based space simulator. All hope of resurrecting Babylon 5: Into the Fire is now gone.
To conclude, I hope you have enjoyed my little tale of how game companies can make a complete mess of things and waste was is essentially hard-earned gamers money. In an age of cost cutting and corporate restructuring, this doesn’t really make much sense to mean. Does it make much sense to you? I doubt it. Well one things for sure, if Sierra continue with such bad management practices, they won't be having a bite of that big $86bn cherry and that’s for sure! If you are interested in following the Babylon 5 space simulator saga, drop by Firstones.com. They're a cool bunch. I would like to thank Randy, Rick, Biggles, and David of Mac for providing me with the much-needed facts for this article! Thanks guys!
------------------
'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]
Comments
Also, Washington State is not on the East Coast. its very much on the West coast. As i remember Sierra was in Washington State, Not Washington DC.
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..And so it Begins
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[url="http://www.insaneclownposse.com"]Insane Clown Posse.com[/url]
[url="http://www.twiztid.com"]Twiztid.com[/url]
[b]Resident Juggalo of Firstones.com[/b]
[i]Drive By Finger on the Trigger I'm Addicted![/i]
To whom are you going to send it?
Or is it just to be posted here?
Cherio.
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Catapvltam habeo. Nisi pecvniam omnem mihi dabis, ad capvt tvvm saxvm immane mittam.
Mater tva criceta fvit, et pater tvo redolvit bacarvm sambvcvs.
[b]A few points.. There were a couple grammatical errors (Starfury of Thunderbolt instead of "OR"
Also, Washington State is not on the East Coast. its very much on the West coast. As i remember Sierra was in Washington State, Not Washington DC.
[/b][/quote]
Cheers Entil'Zha, hadn't noticed that one... [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/wink.gif[/img]
Oh right I seem to be mixing my US geography up a bit. So to get the facts straight, Yosemite moved to Washington DC? I think thats what I ment to say.
Thanks Tyco! It was a hard one to tackle, due to the amount of information and events that took place. I tried to summarise it a best I could.
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'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]
I like it. Details much of the history of the game.
[b]Nice work, but what's it for? [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/confused.gif[/img]
To whom are you going to send it?
Or is it just to be posted here?
Cherio.
[/b][/quote]
I'm working on launching a comedy based gaming news website with 2 friends of mine. I'm in charge of the site design and general webmaster stuff. So I have a lot of control over what goes on the site. I thought it would be good to get some publicity for Firstones and Sector 14 by writing an article on the cock ups that Sierra made. I've written a similar style article on Sony doing a deal with Connectix, the company that made the virtual gamestation for the Mac. They spent a shed load of money on law suits, and then decided to show them a briefcase full of cash to work together.
I'll give the url of the site once its ready. It is up and running, but only for testing at the moment. Once we launch I'll post here with a link to the site.
Oh we will be looking for people to review for us, ie. computer games, old and new, all console types and for pc & mac platforms, and linux for the few thats out there. So if anyone is interested drop me an email. Our idea is to have a bit of fun, and bring an amusing side to gaming news. Alot of the sites out there are very good yes, but they're all serious. We just want to make people snigger abit [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
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'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]
[b]Very nicely done [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
I like it. Details much of the history of the game. [/b][/quote]
Cheers Sanfam [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
------------------
'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]
------------------
'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]
------------------
'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]
Just tell me what to do. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
Cherio.
------------------
Catapvltam habeo. Nisi pecvniam omnem mihi dabis, ad capvt tvvm saxvm immane mittam.
Mater tva criceta fvit, et pater tvo redolvit bacarvm sambvcvs.
I spotted a couple of mistakes, I hope you don't mind but I have taken the liberty of posting some corrections below (hopefully without changing the style):
THIS: As the months past and the engine began to take shape, the developers started to tease the already drooling fan base with tasty morsels of what was to come:
SHOULD BE: As the months passed and the engine began to take shape, the developers started to tease the already drooling fan base with tasty morsels of what was to come:
THIS: What systems you do damage too will also have an impact on how the ship breaks apart when it is ultimately destroyed
SHOULD BE:What systems you do damage to will also have an impact on how the ship breaks apart when it is ultimately destroyed
THIS: Babylon 5 fans were at this point going crazy with excitement at the thought of flying a Starfury of a Thunderbolt
SHOULD BE:Babylon 5 fans were at this point going crazy with excitement at the thought of flying a Starfury or a Thunderbolt
THIS:And for the sake of space and saving your eyes from all the reading, I'll make it short and too the point.
SHOULD BE: For the sake of space and saving your eyes from all the reading, I'll make it short and to the point.
(It's not a good idea to start a sentence with "And")
THIS:And it was all for what may I ask?
SHOULD BE: What was it all for, may I ask?
THIS: To conclude, I hope you have enjoyed my little tale of how game companies can make a complete mess of things and waste was is essentially hard-earned gamers money.
SHOULD BE: To conclude, I hope you have enjoyed my little tale of how game companies can make a complete mess of things and waste what is essentially hard-earned gamers' money.
THIS: In an age of cost cutting and corporate restructuring, this doesn’t really make much sense to mean
SHOULD BE: In an age of cost cutting and corporate restructuring, this doesn’t really make much sense to me
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No plan survives first contact with reality.
[b] Oh right I seem to be mixing my US geography up a bit. So to get the facts straight, Yosemite moved to Washington DC? I think thats what I ment to say.
[/b][/quote]
I don't remember where they moved to, I thought the ended up in Washington State, not DC. DC is on the East coast. You'd have to ask Rick, he'd know better than I [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
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..And so it Begins
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Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
When the programmers were forced to work on another game it was during early development when we were still in Oakhurst. So a decision was made by management at the very beginning that cut into our schedule – still that time was held against us.
Maybe you have information that they had to work on another game in Bellevue too. I wouldn't know about this since I sayed in Oakhurst and continued to work on the game as an independent contractor.
When we were forced to spend our time making demos and artwork for marketing videos - that was in Oakhurst too, before the studio was closed down.
So the schedule was artificially extended by management decisions well before having to move up to Washington. The whole shutting down of the Oakhurst studio and moving up to WA added time and cost to a schedule that was already artificially inflated.
When you’re trying to do something original, a new benchmark, especially when you’re designing a brand new engine from scratch – it’s not unusual to have a schedule slip. And without all of the dumb management decision along the way we probably would have slipped. The thing is we probably would have slipped well within what is normally expected. It was the dumb management decisions along the way that put our schedule so far out of the ballpark that it became financially dubious to continue production. However, since we were nearly done at the time of cancellation, it’s hard to see why they didn’t finish the game in order to recoup as much money as possible.
In my opinion part of the problem was that management listened to marketing weenies who had an incentive to under estimate how many units we would sell. Part of the problem is that there were no management types who were hot to do a B5 sim. Part of the problem was all of the financial and political and legal problems that beset Sierra after Ken and Roberta left the company. Part of the problem was Havas trying to figure out a way to cut their losses after buying a lemon.
[This message has been edited by Randy (edited 06-17-2001).]
[b]Not bad. Couple of things though.
Part of the problem was all of the financial and political and legal problems that beset Sierra after Ken and Roberta left the company.
[This message has been edited by Randy (edited 06-17-2001).][/b][/quote]
Would it be possible for you to shed some light on the circumstances of Ken and Roberta leaving, I didn't even know they were gone until the game was canceled and i said something one one of the boards to the effect of "I can't beleve Ken and Roberta would let this sort of thing happen" and i was informed that they were no longer with the company.
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..And so it Begins
[b]I'd be happy to help you guys out, and review stuff.
Just tell me what to do. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
Cherio.
[/b][/quote]
Cheers Shuup Nick! I'll be posting a general recruitment notice in the next 2 weeks. I'll be sticking it in the Zocalo. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
Alaric, thanks for the corrections! I'll get right onto them! [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/wink.gif[/img]
Thanks alot Randy! I'm making note of your new info and will work it into the article. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/wink.gif[/img] Better have my facts right!
Randy have you noticed Entil'Zha's post on Ken and Roberta leaving? My memory doesn't serve me well on them. Could you flesh their leaving circumstances out abit?
Cheers guys! Much appreciated! [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
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'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]
1. Your text is rather fluent, but there still were a lot of grammatical errors. A lot of them have been pointed out already, so no more on that subject.
2. I'd try to get my hands on some more "to-the-point -accurate" info (figures, amounts of emails sent in different campaigns, signee amounts on petitions etc.) on the this whole embargo, because they really spice the whole story up.
3. Your use of exclamation points or whatever you call these: !!!!. I just woke up, sorry. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/tongue.gif[/img]. You used them a lot in the text and that is IMHO your worst problem. You seem to have used exlamation points to point out every aspect and thing in the text that pissed you off or which you though was simply outrageous. Granted, you have a point, but if you shove an exclamation point to every sentence, it's like you're not giving the readers any chance to figure things out by themselves, rather than just blurting out your opinions. In the long run, this makes the reader feel underappreciated, and thus makes the whole text seem like not worthy enough for the reader. Not to mention a little childish. I'd take out around 80% of the exclamation points in your text, and only leave those in the texts that a common John Doe can understand as plain stupidities even if he hadn't even heard of the game before. If even those.
Just stating the facts without taking any sides is a much more effective way of "spreading the word" than handing out pre-chewed material.
I'd boost up the word count to around 2500-3000 (if possible) to give an all-out accurate picture of our little campaign, but would also add some tasty mid-headlines before some paragraphs, like "Cancellation, How Stupidity Struck In" and so forth, all in effort to give out a general picture of the whole text to an uncommited reader with only the first glance.
Good text, and a quite fun read, however.
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Life is full of surprises. The ones reserved for me usually come wearing brass knuckles.
[This message has been edited by Data Crystal (edited 06-18-2001).]
[b]So, I'm back. Here's what I noticed.
1. Your text is rather fluent, but there still were a lot of grammatical errors. A lot of them have been pointed out already, so no more on that subject.
2. I'd try to get my hands on some more "to-the-point -accurate" info (figures, amounts of emails sent in different campaigns, signee amounts on petitions etc.) on the this whole embargo, because they really spice the whole story up.
3. Your use of exclamation points or whatever you call these: !!!!. I just woke up, sorry. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/tongue.gif[/img]. You used them a lot in the text and that is IMHO your worst problem. You seem to have used exlamation points to point out every aspect and thing in the text that pissed you off or which you though was simply outrageous. Granted, you have a point, but if you shove an exclamation point to every sentence, it's like you're not giving the readers any chance to figure things out by themselves, rather than just blurting out your opinions. In the long run, this makes the reader feel underappreciated, and thus makes the whole text seem like not worthy enough for the reader. Not to mention a little childish. I'd take out around 80% of the exclamation points in your text, and only leave those in the texts that a common John Doe can understand as plain stupidities even if he hadn't even heard of the game before. If even those.
Just stating the facts without taking any sides is a much more effective way of "spreading the word" than handing out pre-chewed material.
I'd boost up the word count to around 2500-3000 (if possible) to give an all-out accurate picture of our little campaign, but would also add some tasty mid-headlines before some paragraphs, like "Cancellation, How Stupidity Struck In" and so forth, all in effort to give out a general picture of the whole text to an uncommited reader with only the first glance.
Good text, and a quite fun read, however.
[/b][/quote]
I see your point Data Crystal. I was worried about the bias that I would bring into this article, since I want this game as bad as the rest of you. And yeah I think using too many ! was a way of showing my dissaprovel of events (god can't spell either).
I like your idea about putting in paragraph headings! I hadn't thought of that before. Most of the articles we've written so far have been quite short, with this one being the longest of the all.
And yeah if any one has any facts that would be of use please post them here.
Thanks for the feedback Data Crystal [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/wink.gif[/img]
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'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]
[b]...especially the fact that ships operated to the principles of real physics unlike in Star Trek!
[/b][/quote]
I'd suggest losing the comparison to ST lest you unnecessarily offend ST fans. After all we're all in this together, and it's not like ST's the only one not to use real physics in spaceflight (Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Space: Above & Beyond to name a few).
Other than that, looks very good.
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There are 3 things in life I never forget: my friends, my enemies, and my access codes.
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[b] I'd suggest losing the comparison to ST lest you unnecessarily offend ST fans. After all we're all in this together, and it's not like ST's the only one not to use real physics in spaceflight (Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Space: Above & Beyond to name a few).
Other than that, looks very good.
[/b][/quote]
Point taken... the last thing I want to do is get peoples backs up.
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'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]
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Never eat anything bigger than your own head.
The Balance provides. The Balance protects.
"Nonono...Is not [i]Great[/i] Machine. Is...[i]Not[/i]-so-Great Machine. It make good snow cone though." - Zathras
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'The future is all around us' G'kar
'I have no surviving enemies! None what so ever!' Galen
Visit my B5 site at: [url="http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110"]http://babylon5.acmecity.com/alliance/110[/url]
I'd like to see the finnished article.
Your site sounds quite interesting too.
Well done for your iniciative. [img]http://216.15.145.59/mainforums/smile.gif[/img]
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[i]"Heads up...Incoming Hostiles!"[/i]
[b][i]"WE LIVE FOR FIRSTONES-WE DIE FOR FIRSTONES"[/b][/i]
[b][i]Marcus:[/i]"Touch passion when it comes your way. It's rare enough as it is. Don't
walk away when it calls you by name."[/b]
B5 I.T.F.
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