Chris Avellone: The Final Frontier

[DragonWiz]

 

If this is really about revealing corporate wrongdoing, why are we taking this to RPG Codex, a website well known for it's population of alt-right grognards? Why not actual journalists?

 If he thought his comments would stay Codex only he was hideously- and frankly, unbelievably- naive.

 

 

Doubt it, MCA is probably playing a PR game. Spilling such dirty laundry, right before their most important IP is released. Also let's not forget Obsidian itself has been suspect, for example, why have they switched publishers. Can't tell me Paradox has been under handing them, or whatever the usual excuses are. 

[DragonWiz]

We will probably never get the full story on this, so I find it kind of useless to speculate on whatever deals or lackthereof surrounded Avellone's departure.

 

I will say that

 

A) It seems kinda suspect that the guy claims his beef is purely with upper management in one breath and indirectly accuses pretty much everyone working there of rank incompetence immediately prior to that. It's a cowardly kind of passive aggressiveness, and it doesn't really reflect well on him.

 

B) If this is really about revealing corporate wrongdoing, why are we taking this to RPG Codex, a website well known for it's population of alt-right grognards? Why not actual journalists? Is he worried that Obsidian, the company not all that long ago on the verge of going out of business pre-Pillars, is going to...what exactly? Use it's limitless warchest to hush all the journalists?

 

That said I'm not willing to discard the possibility that his allegations are partially or fully true. Just because he's doing this in an incredibly ill advised way doesn't mean he's wrong.

 

But it does give reason to doubt.

 

Sure, but what would MCA gain from defaming Obsidian? Dude has so much to lose from this, if such allegations prove to be nonsense. 

[Karkarov]

Uh as a guy who works in the real business world I will say this.

 

Avellone is a moronic diva cancer.  Anyone who hires him is a world grade lackwit.

Never EVER believe a one sided story about "business corruption and employee mistreatment" if only one person is singing it and there is no substantiating evidence.  Especially when this "news" doesn't come out until a critical moment for that company financially, and isn't being run by actual news outlets.

Here is the real meaning to all of this.

 

Avellone is a douche bag, and he wants to financially hurt his former employer because they didn't cater to whatever BS he tried to pull when he worked there.  I am always amazed when anyone thinks this scumsucker is worth emulating, much less a good writer.  Go read read some decent literature, video games are not the bastion of world class writing, and he is no where near a great author.  Professionally he is a walking example of what not to do.

Edited May 4, 2018 by Karkarov

[Oner]

On the bright side of this mess, I learned new things about US and non-US corporate customs and related laws, so thanks peeps.

[HoonDing]

Obsidian dindu nuffin

[Achilles]

Uh as a guy who works in the real business world I will say this.

 

Avellone is a moronic diva cancer. Anyone who hires him is a world grade lackwit.

 

Never EVER believe a one sided story about "business corruption and employee mistreatment" if only one person is singing it and there is no substantiating evidence. Especially when this "news" doesn't come out until a critical moment for that company financially, and isn't being run by actual news outlets.

 

Here is the real meaning to all of this.

 

Avellone is a douche bag, and he wants to financially hurt his former employer because they didn't cater to whatever BS he tried to pull when he worked there. I am always amazed when anyone thinks this scumsucker is worth emulating, much less a good writer. Go read read some decent literature, video games are not the bastion of world class writing, and he is no where near a great author. Professionally he is a walking example of what not to do.

He reminds me of numerous employees who complain about “management” but have never actually been “managers”.

[Epaminondas]

Okay, now I'm all caught up. Well... I read the nine posts on the last page. I disagree about art. Avellone was a great writer for the person I was when I played PS:T Even now, some of the scenes hold up very well as literature in and of themselves. Certainly, in critical terms, he had plenty of room for improvement, but I think he was honing his art well enough at the time. Art should never be limited by the medium. If I ran across Shylock's speech on youtube, it would be still convey the greatness of the writer just as much as if I read it in a book, watch it on the silver screen, or see it played out on stage. No, the problem isn't that Avellone didn't have skills. After PS:T, it seemed to me that he never rose again to the occasion. Some specific passages over the years were impressive, but mostly I thought they were by and large hard to recall after I'd read through them once. If I'm not mistaken, he wrote for the old crone in KotORII, which made me laugh in a way I'm sure was not intentional. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy what PS:T gave me as a much younger gamer. I wish I could play it for the first time all over again, even with my admittedly older and much more jaded eye.

 

In the same way, I won't let what amounts to muckraking as regards his former colleagues and employees change my appreciation for the things he's done well. I do completely agree that it makes him look bad, but I prefer to think maybe he's just genuinely embittered and feels aggrieved. I prefer that because it's not quite so grievous a sin as intentionally trying to **** over an entire group for, as others have noted above, a beef with a small handful of people at the top. This is going to sound like I'm trying to be clever (and failing), but the expression for which I was searching is that this is his fall from grace. Even though it's a bad pun, it does convey something of the irony I see in the situation. Assuming he wrote the FFG character.

[GhostofAnakin]

So no stake or shares and getting 'de-ownered' at the snap of a finger? Who the hell negotiated his contract?

Fergus.

[Malcador]

Uh as a guy who works in the real business world I will say this.

 

Avellone is a moronic diva cancer. Anyone who hires him is a world grade lackwit.

 

Never EVER believe a one sided story about "business corruption and employee mistreatment" if only one person is singing it and there is no substantiating evidence. Especially when this "news" doesn't come out until a critical moment for that company financially, and isn't being run by actual news outlets.

 

Here is the real meaning to all of this.

 

Avellone is a douche bag, and he wants to financially hurt his former employer because they didn't cater to whatever BS he tried to pull when he worked there. I am always amazed when anyone thinks this scumsucker is worth emulating, much less a good writer. Go read read some decent literature, video games are not the bastion of world class writing, and he is no where near a great author. Professionally he is a walking example of what not to do.

Seems like a good fanboy response. I like the repeated insults on Avellone Edited May 4, 2018 by Malcador

[Cavauro]

Haven't seen a single person qualified to make definitive statements about this situation. If you think an actual company being silent about an emotional forum post from a former employee is daming then you were itching to have an issue with them, because that makes no sense.

 

Hopefully everything turns out alright for everyone actually involved. It's unlikely that it wouldn't.

Edited May 4, 2018 by Cavauro

[Zoraptor]

 

Can't tell me Paradox has been under handing them, or whatever the usual excuses are. 

 

 

Maybe Obsidian simply got offered a better deal? Satisfies Ockham's Razor better than a conspiracy in the lack of any other evidence. Remember, Paradox only came on board for PoE1 very much when it was on the home straight.

 

And to be honest I could tell you that the 'usual excuses' have- on occasion- allegedly applied to Paradox as well. There isn't a publisher in existence that hasn't had some 'ethics' problems. I won't go into details because it's hearsay (with some pretty good supporting evidence, but still hearsay ultimately), and I don't think PoE2 isn't being published by them due to such issues.

[Liser]

A new statement from Chris Avellone:

 

 

To give a little more detail on the financial issues raised shortly before (and then after) the departure:

Note the financial issues were only part of the discussion points, and we did continue to debate them after the departure. They amounted to:

- I asked about making the company’s finances more transparent, since those were often a mystery. This lack of clarity also interfered with the review process (in short, you can’t do reviews and give raises until finances are in order, and we always got held up on that as part of the process, sometimes for months, even if reviews had been written – this is apparently still the case).

- Feargus as CFO had total control over this part of the process. Unfortunately, it was hard to see behind the curtain, and that curtain was not only Feargus himself, but HR and also a number of long-time friends who worked offsite. I have never felt Feargus to be good with money and budgeting, and we had much different approaches on how to save, spend, and what amounted to raises and equal pay for employees. Our usual lack of funds ended up causing a lot of problems with publishers because we were very, very dependent on their payments, so we had little or no leverage or breathing room if disagreements arose - if we had funds in the bank, there's a number of things we could have handled differently.

- The problem is when we did have a lot of money in the bank, Feargus tended to spend it freely and rarely checked with other owners before doing so. Worse, when we had little in the bank, you learned to avoid him, as he’d interpret the depletion in funds as somehow a failing on your part (even if you weren’t being paid for months at a time, or worse, if you’d given the company loans to make payroll).

- Strangely, this particular point is likely one of the big triggers for the de-ownering: I asked why family members who didn’t work at the studio were doing on our payroll – notably, Feargus’s wife (other employees have spotted this as well and brought it up to me after I left since they saw her on spreadsheets, so either it didn’t get fixed or is still the norm). To be fair, I don’t know if she’s still on payroll or not as of today, but even for a while after my departure, she was still employed by the studio, and while she was, I had no idea what she was doing for us.

- I asked why the Fair Market Value of the company hadn’t been adjusted in 10 years (it was still sitting around what the company’s initial value was, which was almost nothing). It turned out none of the procedures for voting on this had ever taken place according to the company’s own bylaws. So I asked we resume our own procedure and vote on having it evaluated – which was ignored, then interrupted by being de-ownered before the shares could be re-evaluated (which was also good business, but again, poor ethics). I don’t know if not doing a FMV evaluation is legal or not, but guessing it is.

Any of these could have been a trigger for de-ownering, even the last one, but there were other issues brought up as well (non-financial) that continued to be discussed before or after I was no longer an employee. These weren’t resolved.

For the record, I would have been far more comfortable if the finances were managed by someone else, including any other owner (and despite my other feelings about the owners and their organization/communication, I would trust any of them more than Feargus with finances because at least they understood the basic principles of how to maintain a positive cashflow).

As an added benefit, you’d also remove a good deal of any potential defensiveness by having it managed by a neutral party when inquiring about it - hopefully. That may be naive, but I'd like to think so.

As another benefit, removing this aspect of his job would have been one less thing to distract Feargus, since he was already overseeing and doing too much that arguably he shouldn’t be doing, and he couldn’t keep track (or remember) the tasks he was asking for anyway. This was certainly the case in dealings after the departure, which made the problems more apparent. This may have changed since – any of this may have, but they were issues at the time.

Anyway, this wasn’t all the issues brought up, but it’s a good chunk of the financial issues that were causing problems overall.

 

 

RPG Codex Interview: Chris Avellone on Pillars Cut Content, Game Development Hierarchies and More

[DragonWiz]

 

A new statement from Chris Avellone:

 

 

To give a little more detail on the financial issues raised shortly before (and then after) the departure:

 

Note the financial issues were only part of the discussion points, and we did continue to debate them after the departure. They amounted to:

 

- I asked about making the company’s finances more transparent, since those were often a mystery. This lack of clarity also interfered with the review process (in short, you can’t do reviews and give raises until finances are in order, and we always got held up on that as part of the process, sometimes for months, even if reviews had been written – this is apparently still the case).

 

- Feargus as CFO had total control over this part of the process. Unfortunately, it was hard to see behind the curtain, and that curtain was not only Feargus himself, but HR and also a number of long-time friends who worked offsite. I have never felt Feargus to be good with money and budgeting, and we had much different approaches on how to save, spend, and what amounted to raises and equal pay for employees. Our usual lack of funds ended up causing a lot of problems with publishers because we were very, very dependent on their payments, so we had little or no leverage or breathing room if disagreements arose - if we had funds in the bank, there's a number of things we could have handled differently.

 

- The problem is when we did have a lot of money in the bank, Feargus tended to spend it freely and rarely checked with other owners before doing so. Worse, when we had little in the bank, you learned to avoid him, as he’d interpret the depletion in funds as somehow a failing on your part (even if you weren’t being paid for months at a time, or worse, if you’d given the company loans to make payroll).

 

- Strangely, this particular point is likely one of the big triggers for the de-ownering: I asked why family members who didn’t work at the studio were doing on our payroll – notably, Feargus’s wife (other employees have spotted this as well and brought it up to me after I left since they saw her on spreadsheets, so either it didn’t get fixed or is still the norm). To be fair, I don’t know if she’s still on payroll or not as of today, but even for a while after my departure, she was still employed by the studio, and while she was, I had no idea what she was doing for us.

 

- I asked why the Fair Market Value of the company hadn’t been adjusted in 10 years (it was still sitting around what the company’s initial value was, which was almost nothing). It turned out none of the procedures for voting on this had ever taken place according to the company’s own bylaws. So I asked we resume our own procedure and vote on having it evaluated – which was ignored, then interrupted by being de-ownered before the shares could be re-evaluated (which was also good business, but again, poor ethics). I don’t know if not doing a FMV evaluation is legal or not, but guessing it is.

 

Any of these could have been a trigger for de-ownering, even the last one, but there were other issues brought up as well (non-financial) that continued to be discussed before or after I was no longer an employee. These weren’t resolved.

 

For the record, I would have been far more comfortable if the finances were managed by someone else, including any other owner (and despite my other feelings about the owners and their organization/communication, I would trust any of them more than Feargus with finances because at least they understood the basic principles of how to maintain a positive cashflow).

 

As an added benefit, you’d also remove a good deal of any potential defensiveness by having it managed by a neutral party when inquiring about it - hopefully. That may be naive, but I'd like to think so.

 

As another benefit, removing this aspect of his job would have been one less thing to distract Feargus, since he was already overseeing and doing too much that arguably he shouldn’t be doing, and he couldn’t keep track (or remember) the tasks he was asking for anyway. This was certainly the case in dealings after the departure, which made the problems more apparent. This may have changed since – any of this may have, but they were issues at the time.

 

Anyway, this wasn’t all the issues brought up, but it’s a good chunk of the financial issues that were causing problems overall.

 

 

RPG Codex Interview: Chris Avellone on Pillars Cut Content, Game Development Hierarchies and More

 

             

[kirottu]

The more I read the codex thread the more I get the feeling Avellone started to see interactions with other owners as glass half empty kind of situation. And not just was the glass half empty, but the glass was ugly too. And my god, is the water lukewarm? I bet it's tap water as well... I think you only gave me this half empty ugly glass of lukewarm tap water, because you're out to get me.

 

Let's take this "deownering" thing for example. Avellone had created tensions between the owners and developers since Dungeon Siege 3. So at least for seven years. For me that could very well be reason enough to "deowner" him. Not to mention they still wanted Avellone to keep working on Tyranny as a developer. Avellone took that offer as some kind of slap in the face, but was it? Maybe the owners didn't think Avellone could keep working in management anymore, but still respected him as a developer. Why does the job offer need to be something bad?

 

Edit: I apparently got ninja'ed by Avellone.

Edited May 4, 2018 by kirottu

[grumpymoose]

I've struggled for years trying to get the things I've written finished, let alone published. I always looked at that as the battle, the hill I needed to climb. Logging into all of this, when I really came on to do was generate my Deadfire key . . . it left me feeling sad and empty. Sad because I don't like the idea of people that have worked on things I've enjoyed, for years, being at each others throat's for reasons good or ill. I don't want people to mistreat others, be it focused or by neglect. Life's a challenge all on its own, without complicating things further for one another.

 

Empty . . . because it made me realize the battle doesn't end. If one day I do get what I've worked on, so hard and long, out there, into the wild, it can just be stepped on through neglect or direct ill intent. The battle doesn't end. If something can go so wrong for a writer whose talents I've a great of respect for, whose known and lauded, what hope is there for a nobody like me, or any other world be talents out there?

 

I don't really care who is wrong or right, all I really wanted out of this was a game I could enjoy in my spare time. Something creative and fun to cleanse a hard or stressful day. I have enough on my plate as is. I don't need more.

 

I hope everyone finds it within them to be their best, live their best and find some semblance of peace in a world that quite simply goes on without us, whether we're smiling or suffering while it does so be damned. For myself . . .

 

I think I'm just going to log off and go for a walk.

[DragonWiz]

I've struggled for years trying to get the things I've written finished, let alone published. I always looked at that as the battle, the hill I needed to climb. Logging into all of this, when I really came on to do was generate my Deadfire key . . . it left me feeling sad and empty. Sad because I don't like the idea of people that have worked on things I've enjoyed, for years, being at each others throat's for reasons good or ill. I don't want people to mistreat others, be it focused or by neglect. Life's a challenge all on its own, without complicating things further for one another.

 

Empty . . . because it made me realize the battle doesn't end. If one day I do get what I've worked on, so hard and long, out there, into the wild, it can just be stepped on through neglect or direct ill intent. The battle doesn't end. If something can go so wrong for a writer whose talents I've a great of respect for, whose known and lauded, what hope is there for a nobody like me, or any other world be talents out there?

 

I don't really care who is wrong or right, all I really wanted out of this was a game I could enjoy in my spare time. Something creative and fun to cleanse a hard or stressful day. I have enough on my plate as is. I don't need more.

 

I hope everyone finds it within them to be their best, live their best and find some semblance of peace in a world that quite simply goes on without us, whether we're smiling or suffering while it does so be damned. For myself . . .

 

I think I'm just going to log off and go for a walk

 

 

This made me sad. 

[213374U]

Edit: I apparently got ninja'ed by Avellone.

 

Don't feel bad. How many people can say that?

[kirottu]

A new statement from Chris Avellone: 

- Feargus as CFO had total control over this part of the process. Unfortunately, it was hard to see behind the curtain, and that curtain was not only Feargus himself, but HR and also a number of long-time friends who worked offsite. I have never felt Feargus to be good with money and budgeting, and we had much different approaches on how to save, spend, and what amounted to raises and equal pay for employees. Our usual lack of funds ended up causing a lot of problems with publishers because we were very, very dependent on their payments, so we had little or no leverage or breathing room if disagreements arose - if we had funds in the bank, there's a number of things we could have handled differently.

 

- The problem is when we did have a lot of money in the bank, Feargus tended to spend it freely and rarely checked with other owners before doing so. Worse, when we had little in the bank, you learned to avoid him, as he’d interpret the depletion in funds as somehow a failing on your part (even if you weren’t being paid for months at a time, or worse, if you’d given the company loans to make payroll).

 

This is where I think Avellone is being glass half full. He couldn't see the finances so he assumes Urquhart was doing a bad job. But Obsidian has been running for 15 years. Urquhart couldn't have been that bad at his job.

 

- Strangely, this particular point is likely one of the big triggers for the de-ownering: I asked why family members who didn’t work at the studio were doing on our payroll – notably, Feargus’s wife (other employees have spotted this as well and brought it up to me after I left since they saw her on spreadsheets, so either it didn’t get fixed or is still the norm). To be fair, I don’t know if she’s still on payroll or not as of today, but even for a while after my departure, she was still employed by the studio, and while she was, I had no idea what she was doing for us.

Damn. Nepotism is cancer.

 

- I asked why the Fair Market Value of the company hadn’t been adjusted in 10 years (it was still sitting around what the company’s initial value was, which was almost nothing). It turned out none of the procedures for voting on this had ever taken place according to the company’s own bylaws. So I asked we resume our own procedure and vote on having it evaluated – which was ignored, then interrupted by being de-ownered before the shares could be re-evaluated (which was also good business, but again, poor ethics). I don’t know if not doing a FMV evaluation is legal or not, but guessing it is.

This sounds downright illegal.

Edited May 4, 2018 by kirottu

[Utritum]

Honestly, Chris Avellone is sounding more and more like Derek Smart in all of this.

[Zack Fair]

  Go read read some decent literature, video games are not the bastion of world class writing, and he is no where near a great author.

Umm, has anyone here said that, or has this anything to do with the hand at matter? And for the record, Chris was always humble about his writing, and contrary to other "writers" in the industry, he never tried to write a novel (cough cough, Dragon Age books anyone), probably because he knows his place. The most he did is some novellas for Kickstarter games. And if you don't think that his writing is pretty good in terms of videogame writing, you don't know what are you talking about. So thank for your insight, it meant a lot.

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

A new statement from Chris Avellone:

 

 

To give a little more detail on the financial issues raised shortly before (and then after) the departure:

 

the financial issues amounted to:

 

- I asked about making the company’s finances more transparent, since those were often a mystery. This lack of clarity also interfered with the review process (in short, you can’t do reviews and give raises until finances are in order, and we always got held up on that as part of the process, sometimes for months, even if reviews had been written – this is apparently still the case).

 

- Feargus as CFO had total control over this part of the process. Unfortunately, it was hard to see behind the curtain, and that curtain was not only Feargus himself, but HR and also a number of long-time friends who worked offsite.

 

- The problem is when we did have a lot of money in the bank, Feargus tended to spend it freely and rarely checked with other owners before doing so.

 

- Strangely, this particular point is likely one of the big triggers for the de-ownering: I asked why family members who didn’t work at the studio were doing on our payroll – notably, Feargus’s wife

 

- I asked why the Fair Market Value of the company hadn’t been adjusted in 10 years (it was still sitting around what the company’s initial value was, which was almost nothing).

 

Any of these could have been a trigger for de-ownering, even the last one, but there were other issues brought up as well (non-financial) that continued to be discussed before or after I was no longer an employee. These weren’t resolved.

 

 

 

 

 

Surely, this is all basic stuff within the rights of Feargus as CFO? Question it you may, but he's running the company the way he sees fit.

And having one or two relatives on your payroll at some time or another in a firm isn't exactly unheard of. 

As far as I know, Obsidian is one of the longest lasting mid-sized "indie" studios on the map.

I rather sense that Chris wanted more power over and in the company, but then slowly realizing that he wouldn't get any, and full of grandeur, he slowly festered, like a blister waiting to pop.

Edited May 4, 2018 by IndiraLightfoot

[Epaminondas]

yeah, this is a multi-partner cluster-**** where you don't know who's wearing protection and if anyone knows where all the parts are.

[Skazz]

I've struggled for years trying to get the things I've written finished, let alone published. I always looked at that as the battle, the hill I needed to climb. Logging into all of this, when I really came on to do was generate my Deadfire key . . . it left me feeling sad and empty. Sad because I don't like the idea of people that have worked on things I've enjoyed, for years, being at each others throat's for reasons good or ill. I don't want people to mistreat others, be it focused or by neglect. Life's a challenge all on its own, without complicating things further for one another.

 

Empty . . . because it made me realize the battle doesn't end. If one day I do get what I've worked on, so hard and long, out there, into the wild, it can just be stepped on through neglect or direct ill intent. The battle doesn't end. If something can go so wrong for a writer whose talents I've a great of respect for, whose known and lauded, what hope is there for a nobody like me, or any other world be talents out there?

 

I'm not sure if it will make you feel better, but please know - remember - that you are not alone in feeling like this. The inability to understand why people would hurt other people over inconsequential things is a question that haunts me in my waking hours, and a major reason why I've been on medication for the past ten years. It's also why I avoid these grand conversations of social order or politics like a plague. The existence of the internet sure doesn't make it any better, especially when one is forced to watch the unraveling of something seemingly as pure in concept as one's childhood heroes.

 

I don't know you, so forgive me if I am missing the mark here, but you're probably a bit like me: both very naive and very idealistic. As such, I wish I could offer you the comfort you need, and I hate myself for being bad at important words when it matters. Still, for me, it feels better knowing that there's someone like you around.

 

It's not just you against a bleak world - we're out there, people like you, people like me. Don't give up just yet.

Edited May 4, 2018 by Skazz

[Zack Fair]

 

 

A new statement from Chris Avellone:

 

 

To give a little more detail on the financial issues raised shortly before (and then after) the departure:

 

the financial issues amounted to:

 

- I asked about making the company’s finances more transparent, since those were often a mystery. This lack of clarity also interfered with the review process (in short, you can’t do reviews and give raises until finances are in order, and we always got held up on that as part of the process, sometimes for months, even if reviews had been written – this is apparently still the case).

 

- Feargus as CFO had total control over this part of the process. Unfortunately, it was hard to see behind the curtain, and that curtain was not only Feargus himself, but HR and also a number of long-time friends who worked offsite.

 

- The problem is when we did have a lot of money in the bank, Feargus tended to spend it freely and rarely checked with other owners before doing so.

 

- Strangely, this particular point is likely one of the big triggers for the de-ownering: I asked why family members who didn’t work at the studio were doing on our payroll – notably, Feargus’s wife

 

- I asked why the Fair Market Value of the company hadn’t been adjusted in 10 years (it was still sitting around what the company’s initial value was, which was almost nothing).

 

Any of these could have been a trigger for de-ownering, even the last one, but there were other issues brought up as well (non-financial) that continued to be discussed before or after I was no longer an employee. These weren’t resolved.

 

 

 

 

 

Surely, this is all basic stuff within the rights of Feargus as CFO? Question it you may, but he's running the company the way he sees fit.

And having one or two relatives on your payroll at some time or another in a firm isn't exactly unheard of. 

As far as I know, Obsidian is one of the longest lasting mid-sized "indie" studios on the map.

I rather sense that Chris wanted more power over and in the company, but then slowly realizing that he wouldn't get any, and full of grandeur, he slowly festered, like a blister waiting to pop.

 

Actually what I read from this is that while Chris knew that this is legal, he feels that is was not the good way to run a business. And it is not. A CFO without accounting or financial qualifications? Family members on a payroll just because? I know there are companies like this out there, but it is still not a good way to run a business.

Edited May 4, 2018 by Zack Fair

[IndiraLightfoot]

I've struggled for years trying to get the things I've written finished, let alone published. I always looked at that as the battle, the hill I needed to climb. Logging into all of this, when I really came on to do was generate my Deadfire key . . . it left me feeling sad and empty. Sad because I don't like the idea of people that have worked on things I've enjoyed, for years, being at each others throat's for reasons good or ill. I don't want people to mistreat others, be it focused or by neglect. Life's a challenge all on its own, without complicating things further for one another.

 

Empty . . . because it made me realize the battle doesn't end. If one day I do get what I've worked on, so hard and long, out there, into the wild, it can just be stepped on through neglect or direct ill intent. The battle doesn't end. If something can go so wrong for a writer whose talents I've a great of respect for, whose known and lauded, what hope is there for a nobody like me, or any other world be talents out there?

 

I don't really care who is wrong or right, all I really wanted out of this was a game I could enjoy in my spare time. Something creative and fun to cleanse a hard or stressful day. I have enough on my plate as is. I don't need more.

 

I hope everyone finds it within them to be their best, live their best and find some semblance of peace in a world that quite simply goes on without us, whether we're smiling or suffering while it does so be damned. For myself . . .

 

I think I'm just going to log off and go for a walk.

 

 

 

I've struggled for years trying to get the things I've written finished, let alone published. I always looked at that as the battle, the hill I needed to climb. Logging into all of this, when I really came on to do was generate my Deadfire key . . . it left me feeling sad and empty. Sad because I don't like the idea of people that have worked on things I've enjoyed, for years, being at each others throat's for reasons good or ill. I don't want people to mistreat others, be it focused or by neglect. Life's a challenge all on its own, without complicating things further for one another.

 

Empty . . . because it made me realize the battle doesn't end. If one day I do get what I've worked on, so hard and long, out there, into the wild, it can just be stepped on through neglect or direct ill intent. The battle doesn't end. If something can go so wrong for a writer whose talents I've a great of respect for, whose known and lauded, what hope is there for a nobody like me, or any other world be talents out there?

 

I'm not sure if it will make you feel better, but please know - remember - that you are not alone in feeling like this. The inability to understand why people would hurt other people over inconsequential things is a question that haunts me in my waking hours, and a major reason why I've been on medication for the past ten years. It's also why I avoid these grand conversations of social order or politics like a plague. The existence of the internet sure doesn't make it any better, especially when one is forced to watch the unraveling of something seemingly as pure in concept as one's childhood heroes.

 

I don't know you, so forgive me if I am missing the mark here, but you're probably a bit like me: both very naive and very idealistic. As such, I wish I could offer you the comfort you need, and I hate myself for being bad at important words when it matters. Still, for me, it feels better knowing that there's at someone like you around.

 

It's not just you against a bleak world - we're out there, people like you, people like me. Don't give up just yet.

 

I wanna give you both a warm, big and sincere hug! Peace, love and understanding is out there - it's just in short supply, so whenever you're in deficit, turn to those who care for you and recharge some TLC.