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Topic: My take on Stardock (Read 197052 times)
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CommanderShepard
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Posts: 111
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So you talk about review bombing and it's not hostile. I get defensive for the forum and want you to shut up because I don't want to the forum to become a target - "that's hostile". I don't mind being the bad guy, i just want to point out the hypocrisy. I just don't want the forum to turn into a 4chan-type where it basically becomes this base of operations for witchhunts, brigades, and group DDOS attacks. I don't see that it would be, operations would eventually move to private conversations. I mean... WTF mate? How is that not hostile?
I don't know what your deal is exactly but I'm past this issue. I talked to Stardock a lot, I like them more after getting to know them, UQM will allegedly be untouched but that has yet to be fully confirmed.
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Pyro411
Zebranky food
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Posts: 15
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@CelticMinstrel
No I'm not here trolling. I'm calling those who are being Social Justice Warriors and the cult they indoctrinate the trolls.
These are trying times and unfortunately we won't know jack diddly until the legal battle is complete and no matter how many pages of text people write up or how many Wikis people write that's not going to change the fact that the courts will have to do their thing. Now something for everyone to remember, just because you flag yourself as "Neutral or IANAL" your actions can poison the well of good faith either in P&F or Stardock. No matter how right you think you are, you are not a lawyer, and depending on certain conditions could get yourself and potentially this forum dragged into a lawsuit as well.
Just to put out an example, legal issues are complex, so complex for example that people around the nation are able to get out of parking tickets because of spelling or grammar issues within the laws themselves such as a missing , somewhere along the line.
My stance is as follows...
I want to see Paul & Fred get the band back together and complete the story that UQM started.
I also want to see Stardock build their own universe and see their story.
Unfortunately the above is at the mercy of the legal system as a whole.
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Elestan
*Smell* controller
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Posts: 431
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I talked to Stardock a lot, I like them more after getting to know them, UQM will allegedly be untouched but that has yet to be fully confirmed.
The issue is that Stardock is taking legal actions that would give them the authority to shut UQM down via trademark litigation. While they have publicly said that they have no intention of doing so, I do not believe that those assurances can be relied upon; their behavior to date, including kicking people out of their own forums, is less than comforting. When I directly asked their CEO to make a legally binding commitment not to use the trademark against fan projects like UQM, he would not do so. And I'm inferring that Serosis, who has had more contact with Brad on the topic of fan projects, must also have concerns about whether Brad is truly committed to not touching UQM, or else he wouldn't be so worried about it.
As you can tell I am American by the fact that I don't know my country's history one bit.
As an American who does try to study and learn from our history, I'd like to suggest that the stereotype is far from universal fact.
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Tas
Zebranky food
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Posts: 28
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Can't we all just get along?
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Tas
Zebranky food
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Posts: 28
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One thing to note however,
One of the allegations that Stardock has put forth in their lawsuit is that Paul and Fred are more concerned with PR smear campaigns then actual communication and the timing of their communications was designed to cost SD sales of SC:O
By trying to organize any sort of boycott and or review bomb while voicing support for Paul and Fred, you are in essence proving at least one part of Stardock's allegations to be true.
I'm sure Paul and Fred are glad they have the support from the majority of the folks on this page, but I would bet a fairly large sum of money that screen shots of the discussions on this forum have and will be used as examples of how Paul and Fred have stirred the pot to create a toxic fan base.
Elastan will argue that Stardock created it's own toxic environment, and I agree whole heartedly that they have played very dirty this year as this fight has become personal for Brad. However, I would argue based on what Paul and Fred have done that it always was personal and was never professional for them. Chicken and the Egg argument. In the end the courts will decide. I just caution folks not to fall into doing exactly what Stardock has claimed Paul and Fred are wanting fans to do.
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Death 999
Global Moderator
Enlightened
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Posts: 3874
We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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CommanderShepard, calling for more negative reviews is hostile. We will NOT be a base or a launching point for such an activity, whether done here or in private, partially because it's wrong to do and partially for the reasons Tas mentions. If you keep trying to defend this or discuss how it would be done in 'clever' hypothetical ways, I'll simply ban you so no one interested has a point of contact.
Pyro411, I don't recall any activity on this forum which could be even loosely seen as SJW-related recently (unless you consider Zanthius' tracts to be SJW, which would be a stretch), let alone SJW-based trolling. I recognize that SJW trolling is a thing, but if you think it's a problem around here, I think your troll-detection and SJW-relatedness routines need to be recalibrated. Bringing it up is muddying the waters. If you have a specific instance of trolling to mention, feel free to do so in an appropriate place, e.g. in response to it, or use the report button on the post. Whether it's SJW-like or not will not be relevant to its treatment as trolling. If you don't actually have any specific posts in mind and just wish to suggest that there sure is a lot of SJW trolling around here without being able to point to any… well, the last user who persisted in doing something a little bit like that ceased to be a user.
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CommanderShepard
*Many bubbles*
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It turns out it was a good idea to double check because it seems like Stardock is trying to claim ownership over the races themselves in order to enforce ownership over the SC title, so Stardock did lie twice now.
I still don't see that anyone would be issuing DOS attacks, that sounds like an intentionally hostile tone and is obviously illegal.
I do have some support for SCO itself, though with some reluctance. They do have 100 employees to pay, they have a growing fan base, they have a giant game with customizable features and they've made other cool games, they've been learning the value of listening to their players. However, I personally have tried their beta and don't want Stardock to control the *future* of the series and UQM since their writing is very inexperienced, that's something Fred and Paul should be involved with without question, so I haven't given up on them either.
CommanderShepard, calling for more negative reviews is hostile.
You clearly don't understand how it works, because no one would be making up a review, it's an authentic gamble based on the current standing of the fanbase. Doing anything that isn't 100% authentic is a bad idea and poses ethical dillemas, so your premise that there are any plans for any kind of review bomb is fallacious.
Someone wouldn't be explicitly telling people to leave a negative review, one would simply be asking objectively for people to compare the SCO writing to the SC2 writing, and if SC2 is actually as good as we think it is, then we can assume their conclusion will most often be that SC2 is a better story and therefore SCO is comparatively lower quality. But, it doesn't matter anyway because I don't think it would change as much at this point, I did some investigating and I see more opportunity for Fred and Paul to focus on the future or settling.
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« Last Edit: July 19, 2018, 01:08:14 am by CommanderShepard »
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CelticMinstrel
Enlightened
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Posts: 522
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@CelticMinstrel
No I'm not here trolling. I'm calling those who are being Social Justice Warriors and the cult they indoctrinate the trolls.
For someone who claims not to be trolling, you're sure doing an amazing job of trying to convince me that you are trolling.
Granted, the remainder of your post sounds pretty reasonable, but your choice of SJW here is still suspicious.
Pyro411, I don't recall any activity on this forum which could be even loosely seen as SJW-related recently (unless you consider Zanthius' tracts to be SJW, which would be a stretch), let alone SJW-based trolling. I recognize that SJW trolling is a thing, but if you think it's a problem around here, I think your troll-detection and SJW-relatedness routines need to be recalibrated. Bringing it up is muddying the waters. If you have a specific instance of trolling to mention, feel free to do so in an appropriate place, e.g. in response to it, or use the report button on the post. Whether it's SJW-like or not will not be relevant to its treatment as trolling. If you don't actually have any specific posts in mind and just wish to suggest that there sure is a lot of SJW trolling around here without being able to point to any… well, the last user who persisted in doing something a little bit like that ceased to be a user.
In my experience, SJW-related trolling consists of jerks calling people who dislike them or their views SJWs as an insult. I don't recall seeing any self-identified SJWs, let alone ones who engage in trolling. So from that perspective, simply mentioning the term SJW is a good sign that someone is likely a troll.
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Death 999
Global Moderator
Enlightened
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Posts: 3874
We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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CommanderShepard, calling for more negative reviews is hostile.
You clearly don't understand how it works, because no one would be making up a review, it's an authentic gamble based on the current standing of the fanbase.
I suggest that you avoid being condescending. Reread what I wrote above. I'll reproduce it here in full, with new emphasis:
I see nothing in the definition of a review bomb that says it has to be dishonest.
People who have opinions about the game itself from direct experience should honestly report those opinions to those who lack it. People who have opinions about Stardock in general may also give those opinions. Attempting to increase the rate of negative opinions being expressed would not be dishonest at the individual level, but it would be dishonest in aggregate, much as a focus group chosen with bias will present a biased view of general opinions even if each member of the group is honest. I think honesty is more important than spite.
On the other end of things, I see no reason for F&P to do this - they are not directly harmed by SC:O, and if it came out that they did, it would be very bad for them. This suggests that they aren't doing it. And calling their legal adversaries names does not count as inciting a review bomb.
TL;DR: we shouldn't organize bias in SC:O reviews. That's dumb and bad.
Attempting to organize people you think would produce honest, sincere negative reviews is entirely under this umbrella. And this was clearly what you were saying earlier, emphasis added:
If you want to boycott it more effectively, get players to leave negative reviews on all platforms it might be released on and on game blogs (which will require researching them) while mentioning how Star Control 2 / UQM was the best of the series in order to garner reputation to P&F.
If you wish to totally disown this, suggesting instead that any unbiased sample would end up posting negative reviews, so you want more reviews out there with no targeting of audience whatsoever… that would be minimally acceptable. Is that your intention?
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CommanderShepard
*Many bubbles*
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Posts: 111
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CommanderShepard, calling for more negative reviews is hostile.
You clearly don't understand how it works, because no one would be making up a review, it's an authentic gamble based on the current standing of the fanbase. I suggest that you avoid being condescending. Reread what I wrote above. I'll reproduce it here in full, with new emphasis: I see nothing in the definition of a review bomb that says it has to be dishonest.
People who have opinions about the game itself from direct experience should honestly report those opinions to those who lack it. People who have opinions about Stardock in general may also give those opinions. Attempting to increase the rate of negative opinions being expressed would not be dishonest at the individual level, but it would be dishonest in aggregate, much as a focus group chosen with bias will present a biased view of general opinions even if each member of the group is honest. I think honesty is more important than spite.
On the other end of things, I see no reason for F&P to do this - they are not directly harmed by SC:O, and if it came out that they did, it would be very bad for them. This suggests that they aren't doing it. And calling their legal adversaries names does not count as inciting a review bomb.
TL;DR: we shouldn't organize bias in SC:O reviews. That's dumb and bad.
Attempting to organize people you think would produce honest, sincere negative reviews is entirely under this umbrella. And this was clearly what you were saying earlier, emphasis added: If you want to boycott it more effectively, get players to leave negative reviews on all platforms it might be released on and on game blogs (which will require researching them) while mentioning how Star Control 2 / UQM was the best of the series in order to garner reputation to P&F.
You still don't understand what I suggested which is ironic given that you seemed to present it yourself, and that's not to be condescending, that's my assessment based on your repeated comments. I'm not in control over the outcome of people's conclusions, it's Star Control, not Mind Conrtol, I don't logically *know* they're going to be negative because it would be a statistical gamble, which, based on the fans, would have a good chance of succeeding.
If I were conducting such a campaign, I would only be in control over *asking* people for their feedback, but not whether or not the feedback is positive or negative, so there are no ethical problems with it. On it's own, all it would do is simply attract more attention to the dispute, but since Fred and Paul happen to look like the underdogs in this issue, it's more likely people will sympathize with them. Simply asking people for their feedback is not "minimally" acceptable, it's across the board accepted by everyone. Have you ever heard of Rotten Tomatoes or IGN? Seems like plenty of people are fine using those sites.
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« Last Edit: July 18, 2018, 05:37:45 am by CommanderShepard »
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rosepatel
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This discussion has gotten really off track with the personal attacks and ridiculous grandstanding.
It's one thing to engage with the facts of what's going on, and form opinions about the main stakeholders in this case.
It's something else to start slamming other users on these forums for having an opinion. With apparently no self-awareness that we all have opinions.
The only opinion that I openly shit on is one that is clearly misinformed, which is pretty much the easiest way to get me to waste an hour on a dumb internet fight.
So I'm here because I'm sick of the number of times that people think that free speech only applies to things they agree with. Free speech applies to opinions. Including opinions you disagree with. Especially opinions you disagree with. People are allowed to hate Stardock. Or love Stardock. Or hate or love Paul and Fred. Or stay neutral. Or organize a boycott -- that's not only free speech, but has been proven to be one of the most effective forms of free speech for getting someone to change their behavior.
Things that are also free speech: downvoting someone you disagree with, moderating a forum any way you want, and expressing a negative opinion, even an uninformed one.
Let's stop pretending anyone has the exclusive moral high ground here. People have opinions. Including the moderators. That doesn't make anyone's opinion better or worse. Some opinions are backed by more facts. And some opinions are backed by actual power, which might matter more in terms of what opinions are going to be heard.
Anyway, not really interested in watching people argue about each other. I'll be back when the conversation re-focuses on the people in the lawsuit.
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