I've been lurking on this thread for quite awhile, but figure I should chime in here. From what I know of Brad, I don't think that's a fair assessment. Mind you, I don't agree with all of his actions in this kerfuffle, but I can remember a Reddit post I once made on a topic Brad created, disagreeing with whatever his premise was and sort of disparaging GalCiv on a basic level as not all that well designed, albeit as politely as I could muster, and Brad's response to that was something along the lines of "This is an amazing post." I know people who only want to hear self-affirming things, and by and large they don't respond like that to serious criticism.

Unfortunately that's still just a PR tactic because he knows appearing reasonable to a potential customer is more likely to garner him sales. I can tell you from personal experience that if you disagree with him for long enough, no matter how logically consistent you are, no matter if you reasonably cite basic evidence, he will turn on you because he will deem it is too much work to be equally consistent to convince you to advocate for him past a certain threshold, so it is instead more profitable reputation wise for him to try and garner another new person, even regardless of whether such an action is good his company as a whole. This has been the case with myself and many people here, where he seemed reasonable at first, but then over time, people saw the larger pattern.

With regards to my *private* venting

It should be noted to the public that Mr. Wardell and many of his own staff and supporters made claims on discord such as there is no such thing as private, that Mr. Wardell is open and that he has nothing to hide and has been continuously praised by his own staff and players for being open. So the fact that he is only now citing the privacy of his own company he prided for being open as a point of contention and only shortly after he made audacious claims about controlling the existence of a community in a maniacal manner should be an additional cause for concern over the integrity of his claims.

As yet another cause for concern, this quote

This doesn't make it okay to even entertain such opinions.

undermines the fact that Mr. Wardell himself made claims about Fred and Paul without the evidence to prove them, which is different than a mere rant since it is the basis of arguments in Stardock's claim filed against Fred and Paul, such as that Fred and Paul were not creators despite testimony from their former staff and despite that they have openly displayed pages upon pages upon pages of their original draft work on their blog. This is along with stating that Fred and Paul are rich as a means of undermining their funding campaign despite Mr. Wardell's admission that his own company will pay little or nothing for the lawyers taking on his company's case.

Upon asking the CEO whether he would protect the fan community by putting it in writing, he refused to and said he "can't make any promises". A loose forum agreement that is not a contract in writing has no chance of being enforced. So both months ago and recently, there is a trend that he refuses to officialize protecting the community. Extrapolating this pattern means he does not intend to in the future and could simply be waiting to attempt pulling the plug until after everything with Fred and Paul is settled since his own team can't actually confirm Stardock owns anything here until after the trial.

At this point, there is no reason to hope that

that Mr. Wardell is a lawyer, there is no reason to hope Mr. Wardell is a lawyer. There is a minor claim of trademark confusion due to a flier sent out by Fred and Paul for which they will most likely be asked to rename their project, but beyond that, fans of any kind of project have the freedom to express their opinions about it. It seems most of what he says is a simple scare tactic to garner sales by making them give up or turn them against Fred and Paul or simply just to advertise the existence of his game. Considering his opinions though, he would have shut down this community long ago if he actually owned it. Due to that same freedom, he can also say just about whatever he wants regardless of if it's true or not, there is no reason to take everything he says at face value.

If the real creators are Accolade, or dozens of people who helped make the game, you could argue that they hold the Copyright. Not Paul and Fred.

A lot of the people who worked with F&P are still friends with them, and even if they weren't, it's not like they have any incentive to try and compete with the original project leaders over a story that all the employees recognized as F&P being the creators of.

What doesn't make sense after all this time is why there is an intentional effort to make SCO races similar at all when there are literally infinite possibilities after declaring the game a separate universe.

There’s a Q&A thread on starcontrol.com. You can always ask there or see if your questions haven’t already been asked dozens of times and answered dozens of times.

If you're already committed to these forums as you claimed, then you would accept answering them here would benefit the community here, the people of this community who view these forums on a regular basis and who have indicated an interest in the truth on the matter.

I've said I care about this community.  

I don't know you. You just joined here.   I may get annoyed with Elestan but at least he's actually been part of this community for years.  I get angry with him but I respect him so I am more likely to answer him than some guy who just showed up to stir up trouble.

As for the litigation, it has nothing to do with you.  You're just random internet guy who thinks he's entitled to answers. You're not.   I'm here at my pleasure and will talk about whatever I'd like within the rules of the community.

You've spent all this time coming up with excuses not to answer the questions, yet in that time, you could have answered the questions to your very own benefit if their premises were all false, and you've already demonstrated you're willing to commit time to PR.

Whether or not you know me doesn't have any bearing on whether the answers to those questions are "true".  So if you have no ulterior motive, then you and the public could only benefit to see evidence of such from the answers to those questions.

You had no problem spending days and days conversing with me, telling me F&P weren't original creators, saying they issued some PR campaign against you, that they wanted your trademark, that Stardock is purely the victim, etc, yet on these very specific questions, you insist on dodging them. I wasn't particularly sure of the answers to all of them, but because you've put so much effort into dodging them on a basis that contradicts your previous correspondence, I can now be more sure that the answers wouldn't benefit you.

You seem to be missing the point.  Why should I answer your questions in the first place, anonymous internet person?

If you're committed to this site and the litigation as you claim, then why *shouldn't* you answer the questions? You weren't obligated to respond to Elestan, nor rose, nor Laks, nor arilou nor anyone else here. I don't see that anyone is saying you're obligated to answer anything here, but that doesn't mean your refusal to answer something here has no consequences.

Your entitlement is noted.

And yet again, instead of answering the questions honestly, you try and attack the person who is asking the questions with some strawman about entitlement in order to get out of answering them. This only makes you look even worse than before. You've already demonstrated you're committed to discussing the issue with your numerous posts, so deflecting from these specific questions despite the proof of your continuous committed time on the issue only points strongly to the answers to those questions showing an ulterior motive.

So right after I mention hanging out here is *not* an exercise in PR you want to try to do an online deposition?

So why are you here CS? Are you engaging in PR?  You're the new one here, after all.  If we're going to assign ulterior motives to anyone who wants to hang out online and talk to people, why not start with you?

So after dodging the point I brought up that you can in fact still settle with F&P, you are now dodging all of the 9 questions I asked despite that you are the CEO who has publicly proclaimed they are engaged in a litigation with Fred & Paul and has made public statements questioning their integrity and character? That's also beside the fact that multiple people besides myself agree that it's possible you have ulterior motives centered around PR.

Hanging out here is not an exercise in PR.

Isn't it true that;

A: You personally corresponded with people to name in-game planets after them in exchange for pre-sales?

B: You explicitly stated on discord you could not guarantee UQM's safety despite that you have the legal capacity to authorize it in writing?

C: That Stardock's legal fees for this litigation are covered by insurance, whereas F&Ps are being paid for out of pocket?

D: Stardock has gotten pre-sales as a result of communication on these forums?

E: You claimed F&P are not original creators, both as a legal claim and in discord, despite that F&P have pages upon pages of original draft content on their blog and are still in contact with former employees of theirs who have not made statements to contradict F&P's status as creators?

F: That Stardock sold the original games containing F&P's copyrighted content on Steam prior to having the DMCA issued to them?

G: That on several occasions, Stardock beseeched F&P to collaborate on several projects centered around Stardock's games, including a project to include original F&P races within the Galactic Civilizations franchise?

H: That on Stardock's Steam forums, beta testers were asked explicitly if they have played the original SC-titled games containing F&P's content?

I: Starock issued that SC:O is a prequel to the original games?



It seems like Stardock is willing to do quite a lot for PR and Stardock can only stand to benefit from any amount of it.

You know what's a bummer? We can't discuss settlement offers anymore

Yeah you can, the court order applies to public disclosure, there is no legislation in the United States forcing you to peruse this legal action that you don't want to peruse, you and F&P are free to drop the entire case, at literally any time, upon any basis you all decide up until before the trial. This is why I don't give you the benefit of the doubt anymore because in the best case scenario, you're just as inexperienced as F&P, and in the worst case scenario you're dysfunctionally manipulative, there just aren't many possibilities left for you after this much time and I even used to side more with you.

The point of my post was to caution that a hasty person might respond to the subpoena without checking with an attorney first, and thereby forfeit their opportunity to object to it.  

But that's the whole point is you can object to it easily, and even if one is issued arbitrarily, then it's not only grounds to reject it, but grounds to hold the party responsible for filing it in the first place. Stardock is having enough trouble getting a subpoena through when they claim F&P issued a giant negative PR campaign, do you really there's grounds for some random internet user?

Actually you can, though there are more restrictions on how burdensome they can me.

They can ask expert witnesses, very specific people such as those who worked contracted under F&P's game development company, which isn't the same. Subpoenas have to be of someone directly involved in evidence that affects the case, it's not for random people off the internet.

Could I ask for your source on this?  The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not appear to contain any such restriction, and other articles specifically discuss non-party subpoenas.

It's within the very document you referenced. Undue burden is the protection, you need a standard of evidence in order to request a subpoena in the first place, referenced in subdivision (d) of the 1946 amendment and paragraph (c)(1) enforced in the 1991 amendment that specifies a lawyer's abuse of a subpoena itself gives rise to a cause of action. This protects citizens from outlandish requests that are made for the sake of abuse, Stardock wouldn't get away with using the burden of a subpoena as a threat against someone's right to freedom of speech.

Actually you can, though there are more restrictions on how burdensome they can me.

They can ask expert witnesses, very specific people such as those who worked contracted under F&P's game development company, which isn't the same. Subpoenas have to be of someone directly involved in evidence that affects the case, it's not for random people off the internet.

By the way, since the threat of subpoenaing non-parties

You can't subpoena "non-parties", you don't get a subpoena like you get fast food. F&P or Frogboy can "request" certain information pertaining exclusively to the two parties involved in the case to be entered into discovery until some time in October which may or may not be granted.