[Josho]

Originally Posted by cesarbittar

"Cruel" would have been to "give up" as a leader, when I learned of the threat of being shut down.

Cesar, you and I and everybody else knew from Day One that any fan game stands a reasonable chance of being shut down. It could not have come as some sort of revelation to you. We talked about it years ago, you were aware of it then. The fact that somebody told you more recently that Vivendi was watching could not possibly have been a surprise, especially given the amount of publicity you had already worked to generate.

Originally Posted by cesarbittar

And I will appreciate if you (Josh Mandel) stop calling me names and making conclusions about the things I do (and my real intentions) in public.

I have never called you names, Cesar, nor have I jumped to any conclusions about your actions or intentions. I've been very clear NOT to jump to any conclusions, preferring instead to only comment on the facts as they have been explained to me by the people directly involved. In fact, when the C&D letter was publicized, I urged that people not jump to conclusions about it.

Originally Posted by cesarbittar

And I will appreciate it also if you stop putting down my team's work so easily. From PR to writing to everyone else that has worked hard and believed in this.

I have never publicly put down your team's work or the game's content whatsoever. I challenge you to find a single instance where I have done so. In fact, I've said positive things about the game since seeing the demo. I admit fully to making critical statements about the way the game has been prepublicized and marketed.

Originally Posted by cesarbittar

I personally don't want an apology from you, but I strongly believe you owe my team one.

I happily and sincerely apologize to your team for any perceived slights. I admire their work greatly. The demo looks terrific, and, as I said earlier in this thread, I'm glad the game is coming out.

Originally Posted by cesarbittar

everytime that you talk about how wrong it was for us to go big, or how "disrespectful" the story is to Roberta Williams (who doesn't happen to think so), you are attacking the team.

Since you've characterized the decision to "go big" as your own, I don't believe that criticizing that decision is attacking the team. As for how disrespectful the story actually is or is not to Roberta, I have never broached that publicly -- but you have. Twice now.

I don't think there has been a single professional, working adventure game designer more supportive and proactive in the fangame community as I've been, Cesar, and from AGD to Colin and others, I have never tried to quash anyone's creativity -- my intentions have been to facilitate fangames in general, to help where possible, and to encourage talented teams such as yours to exercise originality. As for the disrespect issue, my feelings were (and still are) that IF a fangame is going to promote itself specifically as the next game in the series (as the title “KQ IX” did) -- which virtually states that the game is a direct and quasi-official inheritor of the series’ label -- that it should not rewrite canon. This is a marketing issue, not a content issue, since the solution is not to change the content (and I never suggested any such changes), but to very slightly alter the marketing. This not only gives one "clean hands" as far as the canon issues go, and eliminates the possibility of disrespect (back when Roberta had refused to give you a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on your content), but also makes the owners of the copyright less likely to exercise their legal rights.

--Josh