Adventure Gamers - Forums

Fien - 20 July 2012 10:07 AM

supaplex - 20 July 2012 09:39 AM

Travis Fahs has written several articles for IGN mostly about retro gaming and is active in several forums under the user name Frogacuda. He is also a backer of LSL and has expressed his dislike for Paul’s behaviour in several places. Too bad for Paul that a few of us managed to read the tweet before it was deleted.

Is that the same Frogacuda who is active at AG? The same guy who told someone they should leave the discussion because their English wasn’t up to it? I hope not. Such incredibly low and childish behavior is only marginally better than this Paul character’s shit.

LOL, those Frogacuda remarks were directed at me. Funny, I remember posting multiple links to his hypocritical comments from other boards and only getting subtly bigoted insults and a few insecure, aggressive PMs (even though English is my first language - have the old SAT/ACT scores to prove that ).

When someone resorts to personal attacks, it means they have no argument and that whatever was said strikes a deep nerve. The way Trowe has lashed out and not been able to control his emotions tells me that the backers have every right to be suspicious of how Replay is spending their money.

I know Josh has posted in here, so I don’t want to insult him or Al. I don’t know what the situation is behind the scenes, but I simply wonder how the hell does this keep happening? They’re lucky this isn’t getting more press.

supaplex - 20 July 2012 09:39 AM

Paul Trowe on Twitter:
“I would rather stay positive than to stoop to the level of some freelance writer for IGN that has 1% knowledge of what we’re doing at Replay.”

He also deleted another tweet in which he said something against Travis Fahs, claiming that he is not a journalist and his articles are full of hearsay and dubious claims. Travis Fahs has written several articles for IGN mostly about retro gaming and is active in several forums under the user name Frogacuda. He is also a backer of LSL and has expressed his dislike for Paul’s behaviour in several places. Too bad for Paul that a few of us managed to read the tweet before it was deleted.

It’s funny that now Paul Trowe thinks it’s a good idea to single out backers and insult them. The guy can’t keep a lid on. It’s one stupid thing after another. And remember guys we probably have at least 9 more months of development until LSL is released. It’s just gonna get stupider and stupider. Grab some popcorn if you haven’t already.

I’m really sorry for Al Lowe, since I have a special fondness for him, LSL being the first adventure game I have ever played more than 20 years ago, but Paul is a disaster and in all probability this is the last LSL game that will ever be released.

The crazy thing is that this lashing out against me (and I’m quite sure Paul never read one of my articles, as I go out of my way to keep a neutral tone and research everything I publish), is that it seems to be in response to a couple posts I made on the Replay forums that were factual, civil, and carefully worded to avoid any presumptive claims. These posts were deleted by the mods (which is fine, it’s their forum), and I made no effort to bring it up again, but the only point I was making is that Paul has tremendous difficulty projecting a professional, credible public persona.

It’s almost as if he’s trying to prove me right, without any sense of irony.

Fien - 20 July 2012 10:07 AM

Is that the same Frogacuda who is active at AG? The same guy who told someone they should leave the discussion because their English wasn’t up to it? I hope not. Such incredibly low and childish behavior is only marginally better than this Paul character’s shit.

I never told anybody that. I just made a (mistaken, but honest) observation that English was someone’s second language and that might be the reason they were having difficulty interpreting what I was saying. It wasn’t an insult. This poster then started calling names and getting very aggressive, so I took the conversation over to PMs so as not to bother the rest of the forum with it.

No personal back-and-forth in this thread, please. If this discussion is going to continue, move it to PMs.

I have to say, I truly adore the humility of Tim Schafer. When someone stated that they didn’t like the poster reward for the tier they pledged at, he offered to refund them in full. The man is a gentleman.

Now, let’s compare this to Paul Trowe. You question him and he has your comment deleted from his forum, and he berates you on Twitter. My favourite prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, once said, and I’ll paraphrase: “If they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.” He’s a lot like this, he has no solid ground to stand on, and so he’s forced to hide dissent, and attack anyone who dares disagree with him. It’s hardly reassuring.

Frogacuda - 20 July 2012 06:09 PM

a couple posts I made on the Replay forums that were factual, civil, and carefully worded to avoid any presumptive claims. These posts were deleted by the mods (which is fine, it’s their forum), and I made no effort to bring it up again, but the only point I was making is that Paul has tremendous difficulty projecting a professional, credible public persona.

I may have decided to bring it up again… http://forums.replaygamesinc.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=383&p=3284#p3284

Maybe this whole saga is just a cog in Paul Trowe’s master marketing plan. He has people talking about the game after all, doesn’t he? No publicity like bad publicity.

supaplex - 20 July 2012 09:39 AM

I’m really sorry for Al Lowe, since I have a special fondness for him, LSL being the first adventure game I have ever played more than 20 years ago, but Paul is a disaster and in all probability this is the last LSL game that will ever be released.

Well this part is inaccurate. It’s way too valuable a property to be lost forever because of one idiot.

A comment that really feels strange to me is:

Josho - 15 July 2012 11:54 PM

Not having experience in the adventure field specifically…well, how many developers active today DO have experience in that genre? Did Adventure Mob?

This looks to me like he hasn’t watched the adventure genre during the last years. Because there are quite a few active adventure developers. E.g.:
Cranberry - Black Mirror series (2 & 3), Last Chronicles of Zerzura
Deck 13 - Ankh series, Jack Keane, Haunted
Daedalic - The Whispered World, A new Beginning, The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav
Pendulo - Runaway series, The next big Thing, The case of John Yesterday
King Arts - The Book of Unwritten Tales, The Critter Chronicles
Centauri - Memento Mori series, Alternativa

So as a backer I have doubts about the new developer. I didn’t know that Adventure Mob hasn’t released a game yet. During the funding I had the feeling that they have already worked together with positive results.

But while I have doubts I still hope that this will work out. We’ve seen other developers creating their first adventure and it was ok. So.. who knows…

I contacted Paul to have a conversation with me about the whole thing, which he obliged. We talked on the phone for about an hour and cleared a lot up.

The Sam Suede thing seems like a situation that ramped up too quickly on both parts. Al was upset that the campaign overstated his involvement, and Paul, protective of Al, jumped right to calling lawyers without knowing about Al’s agreement with them. Wisecrack then threatened legal action right back, which pretty much soured any hope of cooperation.

The Two Guys thing has a lot of personal backstory that probably isn’t important and shouldn’t be public, but the long and the short seems to be that Paul stated his intention to make other Sierra sequels and did so without having Scott on board, which got Scott upset. Paul explained that he would never make any Sierra sequels without the creators involved. This is good to know, but it’s still probably fair to say he spoke prematurely and shouldn’t have.

We also got into the Gamespygeek thing. He said the comments were made by a real life friend of his in Austin not by him. This is a lot more believable than it being a random stranger or frame job, but there’s really no way to prove it either way, and it doesn’t explain the very similar writing styles or the use of Paul’s face on the myspace account. He seemed otherwise forthcoming so I’d like to believe him, but really, only he knows for sure.

Paul doesn’t seem like a bad guy, but he does seem to talk out of school without doing his due diligence at times, and it’s gotten him into some trouble. However, it’s also clear that some of that trouble has been overstated by some (including myself). I’m going to talk to others involved and try to write a neutral story on this whole thing.

Thanks for the update, Frogacuda. Looking forward to your article - will you link it here once it’s done (assuming it’ll be for IGN)?

I kind of doubt IGN will be interested in the article since it’s not super timely and they’re stingy about covering less mainstream stuff to begin with. I’m freelance so it’ll end up with whoever’s interested.

Replay Games know what works better for them.
Seriously, who cares how they make the game!?
The final product is what count.

It’s good to know you’re still writing, Frog. It’s been a while since the ol’ Classic Sega Board days.

Cozyhome is right—Replay will ultimately be judged on the quality of the game (unless it never comes out).