Far West 12th Anniversary

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There was a website that tracked the many promises. It was called www.whenisfarwestout.com or something similar but I can’t find it.

Tenkars Tavern is also a good place to see some of the drama that has been created over the years.

The weird thing is that GMS has released 2/3rds of an RPG in raw text. My guess is that he is waiting for a financial backer to help fund art and layout. A financial backer who will plainly never turn up.
 
It’s mostly up to date.

www.mutedhorn.net

Far West Delivery Estimates

The FAR WEST Adventure Game Kickstarter project went live on 11 July 2011 and funded on 25 August 2011. This document lists delivery-date and release-date estimates given for the game by project creator Gareth-Michael Skarka (“GMS”) in various media.
www.mutedhorn.net
 
Skywalker said:
It’s mostly up to date.

www.mutedhorn.net

Far West Delivery Estimates

The FAR WEST Adventure Game Kickstarter project went live on 11 July 2011 and funded on 25 August 2011. This document lists delivery-date and release-date estimates given for the game by project creator Gareth-Michael Skarka (“GMS”) in various media.
www.mutedhorn.net
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If that were one of those novels written in the form of correspondence like Les Liaisons Dangereuses, it would be brilliant black comedy.

I'm not kidding when I submit the premise that this man suffers from some form of mental illness and hasn't received whatever help he needs to manage it. There's just no other way he could have honestly believed so many of those statements even at the time he typed them, and I just can't see anyone deliberately lying so poorly over and over again when nobody on earth would fall for it.
 
Dumarest said:
That's apples and oranges! Totally different situation. I mean, Gareth got sick a couple of times. And depressed. And then meanies on the Internet piled on criticizing him for lying about his progress and delivery dates, which slowed him down further. And then he got busy tweeting his political views and had no time for work. Except for the various jobs he took because the Far West Kickstarter money and the Buckaroo Banzai preorder money ran out. It's like you want him to starve and live on the streets. You guys are basically forcing him to lie and obfuscate and violate Kickstarter update rules and do anything but work on Far West. So, really, it's the backers who are to blame for not getting their game!
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Dumarest said:
I'm not kidding when I submit the premise that this man suffers from some form of mental illness and hasn't received whatever help he needs to manage it. There's just no other way he could have honestly believed so many of those statements even at the time he typed them, and I just can't see anyone deliberately lying so poorly over and over again when nobody on earth would fall for it.
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The behaviour is... suspect of n a certain something. I am definitely not qualified to diagnose, but I have some experience being at the receiving end of it... These people really don't think there's anything wrong with them and shift the blame and play the victim card whenever they're called out.

edited for completeness and clarification
 
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Dumarest said:
If that were one of those novels written in the form of correspondence like Les Liaisons Dangereuses, it would be brilliant black comedy.

I'm not kidding when I submit the premise that this man suffers from some form of mental illness and hasn't received whatever help he needs to manage it. There's just no other way he could have honestly believed so many of those statements even at the time he typed them, and I just can't see anyone deliberately lying so poorly over and over again when nobody on earth would fall for it.
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"Nobody on Earth" is clearly a big exaggeration, given what some people actually believe:thumbsup:!
 
Dumarest said:
I'm not kidding when I submit the premise that this man suffers from some form of mental illness and hasn't received whatever help he needs to manage it.
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He's said as much. But at some point, even that becomes just another excuse.

Gringnr said:
I read somewhere that, a few years before Guns N' Roses' long-delayed last album came out, The Offspring wanted to name one of their own, "Chinese Democracy (You Snooze, You Lose)".
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en.wikipedia.org

Splinter (The Offspring album) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

On April Fools' Day 2003, the album's title was jokingly announced as Chinese Democrazy, a reference to the repeatedly delayed Chinese Democracy album by Guns N' Roses. Holland quipped, "You snooze, you lose. Axl ripped off my braids, so I ripped off his album title."
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I don't think GMS is a Ken Whitman, but I don't understand not having something written before you launch your Kickstarter. Seems like you're being naively optimistic and setting yourself up for failure at the same time.
 
Gringnr said:
I don't think GMS is a Ken Whitman, but I don't understand not having something written before you launch your Kickstarter. Seems like you're being naively optimistic and setting yourself up for failure at the same time.
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To be fair 9 years ago that was more common. Kickstarter really was looked at as a way to fund people working on something vs paying people to finish/pretty up something.

Failures like these led to the evolution of "make sure it's written 90% first!" Kickstarter.
 
FreeGamer said:
He was certainly changing the system to something else. I don't remember what. I was one of those backers, too. Almost worth it to be part of history like this.
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TristramEvans said:
I mean, just the fact that you can participate in that KS comments section has to be worth something...
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I legitimately regret not knowing about this Kickstarter when it was running.
 
I only know about this from the talk about it on forums. I had never actually looked at the Kickstarter before. I was wondering how much money the contributors were out, and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't look like most individuals are out more than a hundred bucks or two. Yeah, it sucks but that's not earth shattering. It also means that there's no justice for those people because it's too small of an amount to really be worth what it would require to get it back.

Then I got to the $500 level.

Immortal of the Far West: You become a Patron of the entire FAR WEST property, entitled to the same rewards as the Golden Flower, with the addition of receiving complimentary copies of every FAR WEST product we ever release. This will include shirts and other merchandise, additional role-playing releases, novels, short fiction anthologies, graphic novels, DVD/Blu-Rays of the webseries, and much more. You're along for the Long Ride.
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Now, this has red flags all over it to me. This is the type of thing someone says when they want some money from you they never intend to pay back or carry through their end of the deal. This is the type of thing a bad vendor does when selling you something and then after you're locked in suddenly everything costs extra. This is exactly the thing that someone deliberately intending to screw you over and then string you along says.

This is an amazing long term opportunity! You'll get everything now and in the future for this low price now! And when this is wildly successful, you will have been in on the ground level!

I mean, even if he wasn't doing it deliberately and the game itself wasn't a scam, he knows there isn't going to be any kind of other merchandise. He knows he's not going to give people free product perpetually. He knows he's lying.

But, I guess technically the level delivered it's reward. The people who contributed have been taken on a long ride that's still going. And they have indeed received every Far West product GMS has ever released.
 
I think he had ridiculous ambitions, but they're not that different (maybe even tamer) than the Mentzer Kickstarter
 
Gabriel said:
I only know about this from the talk about it on forums. I had never actually looked at the Kickstarter before. I was wondering how much money the contributors were out, and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't look like most individuals are out more than a hundred bucks or two. Yeah, it sucks but that's not earth shattering. It also means that there's no justice for those people because it's too small of an amount to really be worth what it would require to get it back.

Then I got to the $500 level.



Now, this has red flags all over it to me. This is the type of thing someone says when they want some money from you they never intend to pay back or carry through their end of the deal. This is the type of thing a bad vendor does when selling you something and then after you're locked in suddenly everything costs extra. This is exactly the thing that someone deliberately intending to screw you over and then string you along says.

This is an amazing long term opportunity! You'll get everything now and in the future for this low price now! And when this is wildly successful, you will have been in on the ground level!

I mean, even if he wasn't doing it deliberately and the game itself wasn't a scam, he knows there isn't going to be any kind of other merchandise. He knows he's not going to give people free product perpetually. He knows he's lying.

But, I guess technically the level delivered it's reward. The people who contributed have been taken on a long ride that's still going. And they have indeed received every Far West product GMS has ever released.
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Didn't modipheous offer something like that for Conan?
 
You'd have to be a real sucker to go in for the $500 level though surely? Who's going to pay $500 for the entire product line of a game they've never seen let alone played (plus T-shirts?).

I'd hope that if any did enter at that level it was because they had so much personal wealth they just didn't give a fuck that it was ridiculous.
 
TJS said:
You'd have to be a real sucker to go in for the $500 level though surely?
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22 suckers. But one person went in on the $1000 level. I wonder if they've revealed themselves in the comments
 
Bunch said:
Didn't modipheous offer something like that for Conan?
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Hell, I dunno. Did they?

Didn't Modiphius go out of their way to keep GMS on the payroll and keep his name off the credits of books so customers wouldn't know?
 
Yes, they did. I believe Tenkar’s Tavern has the full details. Worse yet, it was after Modiphius promised only to give GMS work if he finished Far West.

GMS has been giving refunds sporadically and I wouldn’t be surprised if the higher tier backers were included.
 
TristramEvans said:
didn't a few years back GMS randomly decide to restart using the D6 system?
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Yes. He did. The original system looked interesting- but he scrapped that and started a rewrite in D6 as possibly a way to buy more time.
 
UnplayedRanger said:
This dude thought his game was gonna be so popular he’d have the money/demand for a webseries? They can’t even get a decent DND movie made.
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FaerieGodfather said:
It seems to be a common delusion. BIg part of why Mighty Number 9 was such a catastrophic cock-up.
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TristramEvans said:
Not familiar with that one
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AsenRG said:
Neither am I, but it's still a common delusion:smile:.
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Screw all you naysayers! Roller Lordz of the 31st Century is destined to take all media by storm and you'll all regret not floating me $500 apiece up front to get things rolling! Pun intended!
 
Yep. Though they were all the core rules chapters iirc

I think he is either waiting for funding from somewhere to pay for the print run before finishing the PDF or he has a serious issue with actually finishing the RPG given how dreadful the end result actually has proven to be, leaving aside all his lies and mistreatment of his customers.
 
dbm said:
I havent heard of that one, either. But it looks like they delivered something which is in stark contrast to Far West...
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Yeah, that seemed more like a failure of project management - massive scope creep and far too much backer involvement. But at least it actually came out (Well, except for the handheld versions)... and without it we might not have got Mighty Gunvolt Burst, which is ace.
 
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