Atari : A Visual History Book is now LIVE on Kickstarter

[ebiguy]

I give up. A discussion with you all is futile. You made up your mind and cant hear any arguments, instead you just are insinuating things, like there is only one way this has to go. Also insinuating that I have a personal interest in this project is nothing more than a diversion from my argument and a personal attack.

I have rethink, whether I can contribute anything to this kind of community.

 

Please, JoSch, continue to contribute. Your best contribution is what you offer in RespeQt for instance (and maybe on other fields I am not aware of). Talking is not real contribution.

 

It seems that this thread has been doomed or cursed.

It is like roman circus games when someone is thrown in the arena.

Don't know if the man deserves what happens but, look at the public, exited by the show.

 

What I am saying is that it seems Greyfox has already received enough negative feedbacks.

With a little empathy, I think it is very hard for anyone to get so much negative posts when you are involved in a project (whatever bad moves you made).

Eveything has been said.

Just two words: please, stop (and no, I have no financial interest in the book).

[_The Doctor__]

I've been through many of these b*tch fests.... they start talking of tacos and all the kind of thing. We had many people pack up and go, a self fulfilling prophecy unfolds... see we knew it would fail, etc. etc....

 

Just remember many people soldier through and become the hero on the forums.

 

I don't want to see you leave the community because of this kind of thing. Some folks have no idea who or what they've lost over the years. Don't let several of those kinds of displays deprive the thousands that support you and want you here.

 

Nobody is perfect, I ain't met nobody...

I love seeing people try, I have enjoyed watching beginners progress to some of the best in all areas of the Atari, be it programming, artistry, engineering, wonderful devices, fixes and updates they have dreamed created and made reality.

 

These are some of the joys that help us feel good as the sun rises on the incoming enthusiasts as it sets on those of us heading towards the great mystery.

 

It can be a technocratic nightmare if we forget these lessons in life. I hope to see the good fight continue, and many good people continue on with this great machine and mostly caring community.

Edited May 20, 2019 by _The Doctor__

[Guest]

I give up. A discussion with you all is futile. You made up your mind and cant hear any arguments, instead you just are insinuating things, like there is only one way this has to go.

I have rethink, whether I can contribute anything to this kind of community.

 

conversely, you're taking the same approach: there is ONLY ONE way this has to go - the way you say it is.

 

of course you can contribute - you already have (quite a bit), but healthy discussion has to result in disagreement, sometimes. look at the positives: no one has been abusive or aggressive. people have held opposing views in a calm and measured way. if nothing else, that is refreshing.

 

as i suggested earlier you may be in the wrong corner here. it's admirable to support someone/thing, but also, you need to recognise that the vast majority can't be wrong ALL OF THE TIME.

 

i can't speak for everyone - but i'm sure that most (along with myself) bear you no ill-will. i think you should stick around - after all, there's been nothing personal going on, just a difference of opinion. and sometimes (not this time, i'd add) Devil's Advocate isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Edited May 20, 2019 by Guest

[ebiguy]

 

if nothing else, that is refreshing.

 

I have a problem with the "refreshing" concept when someone is ready to leave the community after a discussion.

[Mr Robot]

My first post on these forums got me 6 pages of flack and insults. I'm still here. (And I still think I was right!) :-)

 

I'd like to think that with the average age of the forum members here, we are a bit too old and thick skinned to not be able to take a little constructive criticism now and then. Sometimes people get the red mist, like with the plagiarism thing earlier, but mostly, they are just a bunch of people who say exactly what they think, consequences be damned.

 

It's not an environment that everyone thrives in.

Edited May 20, 2019 by Mr Robot

[6BQ5]

My first post on these forums got me 6 pages of flack and insults. I'm still here. (And I still think I was right!) :-)

 

[snip ... snip]

 

Digression - that was an awesome read!

[Greyfox]

Hello everybody,

 

Apologies for not writing back here on the thread, I have been recently having internet issues with my broadband provider that I needed to get it sorted and properly evaluate everything that has been raised here by all you guys and wanted to finally try and address everything in the best possible and honest way I can, So I think the main reasoning for this post is to discuss the Book cover firstly, I wish to say it was unprofessional of me to utilise and copy a cover design of a publication that was plagiaristic and unfair, but I repeat, I did attempt to contact the author in relation to doing this type of design about 6 months as I wished to seek their permission to use this design style as a homage, not to steal or pass off as my own original work and felt it fitted the book brilliantly, but was inappropriate to have it there and I hold my hands up this, and to straighten the record here, I did not begin work on a new cover original to smooth over the fact people claiming I was caught out or "something was off" this is pure bullsh!t in my opinion and incredibly pedantic comment to make, I am not bad person or somebody trying to make a buck off some bodies else work, it was a misrepresentation I have admitted to honestly and sincerely. The book cover has been more or less now redesigned and is better for it and hope people will see the direction I've taken with it and be able to put that behind us.

 

Secondly, The Game spread and the artwork used, To answer questions of why did you use this cover art and not that cover art, well this is very simply at the time of producing the spreads, these covers were simply not available to me to be able to use them, but the one that was incorrect example fo this "Zaxxon" have been found, remastered and replaced to that game and many others that were incorrect. I have cross referenced the origins of the covers and their territories from the likes of AtariMania and host of other sites and I need one possible original cover art in high-resolution to change if I can find or obtain it, then it will have to stay in as is. The game reviews themselves were to be designed to be light reading demonstrating a screenshot of the game, the box or cassette art across two pages and aim at both Atari fan and people not so familiar with the Atari 8-bit machines, and although many people don't like the layout and scheme of the work here, this is perfectly fine as I mentioned it's not for everyone, This is to be seen as a pick up and go style book, I would have loved to include all the extras like disk images and cassette tape art and manuals, but I simply did not have access to such a resource to which could be used or incorporated into the book mainly due to the page count of the book, this would have meant far fewer games to be included, high resolution imagery lite correctly and extraction work would have made the creation of the book unviable for me to make and would have taken possibly years to do and if I'm been honest here only for the few people that helped me get to where the book is now, I've had very little help from the Atari Community on this project which was quite disheartening personally. I attempted to reach out with a previous thread no one showed interest in mid-last year

 

The preview images used in the Kickstarter where simply just that, it doesn't mean the written content was wrongly placed on the page from one game is the same in another, I used Lorem ipsum text as a text holder and in some cases used text from previously game reviews, that have all be written over the last few months, so these are not typos or visible errors or concerns to anything only that representations of the game spreads. I have taken on board some of the issues raised about the games spread and have addressed them, but I will make one point here from the outset, The way the book was intended will remain just that, i won't be making the alterations and in some cases, unrealistic changes asked in the thread. I had a vision of the way I wished the games to be done and presented. And to respect certain things have been raised here in relation to them to try and please people to which I could have ignored, find some common ground here.

 

Now to the Grammar of the book, I can declare that a professional technical proofreader has been commissioned by me to oversee the 50,000 plus words in the book by the name of Sean Townsend the programmer of the Atari 8-bit version of Chuckie Egg and has when above and beyond with helping in this department to wish I am eternally grateful for. Thanks Sean if you see this thread. So I can assure you all that this has been being taken care off. This is the very first venture into a creating a book of this type and in publishing and I won't even try to discuss what was done over the last few months behind the scenes of impact on my personal life, work life and working on the book for some 400+ hours designing, writing and producing something to appeal to everyone, but sadly hasn't been the case from what you all have said and I'm sorry you all feel this way, I would have hoped for quite the opposite in this regard.

 

With the Kickstarter itself, I have learned a tremendous amount of what when wrong and how this wasn't what it should have been. i know I nailed the marketing aspect with possibly needed more networking in that department which has great room for improvement and with only 9 days left to go with the crowdfunding I have been extremely optimistic in the hope that it would fund, but this is now unlikely to take place, which I'm fine with, I realised where it wasn't priced correctly across all areas of the fundraising and will be re-evaluating this over the next few weeks/months I will be actioning for cancellation of this Kickstarter over the next few days unless a miracle can happen The copyright issues possible facing the book will also be re-enforced as I and Lost Dragon during the very first stages tried to reach and get permission and of those that we did get in contact were delighted that somebody was willing to take up the time to acknowledge their work and did not feel that I was overstepping the mark or anything shady or un-towards their games and amazing work they had produced on the Atari 8-bit machines and that alone was a fantastic experience. I hope I have answered the majority of the concerns here, I can't say when and if the Atari: a Visual History will return to a crowdfunding platform as I need to take time out and see what is possible and what is realistic for the book and to answer while I'm thinking of it, somebody made a statement of investing your own money in the book, I did..€4,000 of it!.

 

This will be my last post in this thread, I want to thank all of those that supported the book here at Atari Age, I will be forever in your debt. Thank You so much. All comments good or bad have been taken and hopefully one day the book will become a realisation. But until then I wish you all the best.

 

Thanks for everything

Darren.

[JoSch]

 

conversely, you're taking the same approach: there is ONLY ONE way this has to go - the way you say it is.

 

of course you can contribute - you already have (quite a bit), but healthy discussion has to result in disagreement, sometimes. look at the positives: no one has been abusive or aggressive. people have held opposing views in a calm and measured way. if nothing else, that is refreshing.

 

as i suggested earlier you may be in the wrong corner here. it's admirable to support someone/thing, but also, you need to recognise that the vast majority can't be wrong ALL OF THE TIME.

 

i can't speak for everyone - but i'm sure that most (along with myself) bear you no ill-will. i think you should stick around - after all, there's been nothing personal going on, just a difference of opinion. and sometimes (not this time, i'd add) Devil's Advocate isn't necessarily a bad thing.

No, it's not about "my way or no way".

I tried to make my case. I hope, it was civil and rational.

But then I got attacked personally. That's what's triggering me here.

At this point, the discussion was definitely losed. When you have to resort to personal attack against a discussion partner, however heated the discussion, it's game over. There is no comming back from that.

If not getting personally attacked is not "there is ONLY ONE way this has to go - the way you say it is.", if that's the consensus here that personal attacks are OK, then again I'm in the wrong place. For personal attacks it's easier to go to Facebook.

Brenski, do you really think I have to let myself get personnaly attacked for my opinion just to show YOU that's not about my way. The whole argument, you are making totally wrong.

 

 

Jochen

[JoSch]

My first post on these forums got me 6 pages of flack and insults. I'm still here. (And I still think I was right!) :-)

 

I'd like to think that with the average age of the forum members here, we are a bit too old and thick skinned to not be able to take a little constructive criticism now and then. Sometimes people get the red mist, like with the plagiarism thing earlier, but mostly, they are just a bunch of people who say exactly what they think, consequences be damned.

 

It's not an environment that everyone thrives in.

I also got flack. I wasn't aware of any insults against you, but that lies in the eye of the beholder.

You have to decide for yourself how much you can take, but don't insinuate I'm thin-skinned.

I'm not, there were enough moments in this discussion, I was feeling like throwing the towel. I did not.

I have had my share of hard ball discussions in my own political party, so I can take some punches.

But to insinuate, I have more than a backer's interest in this, makes me furious. That's FB level. Plain and simple.

That wasn't "a little constructive criticism now and then". It was plain, that it was to discredit my arguments.

[JoSch]

as i suggested earlier you may be in the wrong corner here. it's admirable to support someone/thing, but also, you need to recognise that the vast majority can't be wrong ALL OF THE TIME.

Sometimes, they do. Also, that's not a really bad argument.

[Guest]

 

But then I got attacked personally. That's what's triggering me here.

At this point, the discussion was definitely losed. When you have to resort to personal attack against a discussion partner, however heated the discussion, it's game over. There is no comming back from that.

If not getting personally attacked is not "there is ONLY ONE way this has to go - the way you say it is.", if that's the consensus here that personal attacks are OK, then again I'm in the wrong place. For personal attacks it's easier to go to Facebook.

Brenski, do you really think I have to let myself get personnaly attacked for my opinion just to show YOU that's not about my way. The whole argument, you are making totally wrong.

 

 

Jochen

 

I can't see where I have attacked you. Perhaps you feel someone has done so - if you quoted what you feel to be a personal attack, that'd give the "perpetrator" a chance to explain their intent.

Edited May 21, 2019 by Guest

[JoSch]

 

I can't see where I have attacked you. Perhaps you feel someone has done so - if you quoted what you feel to be a personal attack, that'd give the "perpetrator" a chance to explain their intent.

I'm not speaking about you. I have quoted in my "rethink" post.

Edited May 21, 2019 by JoSch

[Mclaneinc]

I give up. A discussion with you all is futile. You made up your mind and cant hear any arguments, instead you just are insinuating things, like there is only one way this has to go. Also insinuating that I have a personal interest in this project is nothing more than a diversion from my argument and a personal attack.

I have rethink, whether I can contribute anything to this kind of community.

 

No its wasn't an insinuation, it was a simple question...Are you involved in the project, the reason I asked wasn't to blame or attack it was that you are so incredibly defending all this despite loads of things being shown it just made me wonder if you had any hand in it and before that's taken as bad, I nearly had a hand in it. And remember it seems just as futile at my end explaining it so perhaps we agree to disagree. Forums are a place to voice on topic thoughts, agree, disagree but always in a non angry manner. Perhaps you want the book a lot and see me or anyone else as taking it away from you, that isn't the case, I don't want to stop anyone having a great book but some of us are daring to show that you might not be getting that, its then for every one to make their mind up. From my point I wasn't really bothered about the book content and had not really looked at it much, it was the way I and others had been privately treated that made it a sore point with Darren so I decided not to back it...That was it, I never came on here screaming Darren's this or that, I just chose to not back. What then happened was others saw defects in the book and defects in the way the book had been setup as and I tend to agree with them...

 

I'm perfectly allowed to agree and I've still wished the book well and hope when it does come out that Darren makes a bit of profit for the hard work...

 

I'm not an enemy here, just stating my side, you come across as having such a deep attachment to the whole deal I had to ask if you are attached in any way...Instead of saying yes or no you act like you are being attacked which isn't the case. Lost Dragon has been attached, has he been spit roasted on a bed of flames, no, the point is if that you had an attachment you would have more reason / pride to defend it, hence why I asked..Do you see now?

 

Its NOT suggesting any bad practice as you seem to have taken it..

 

I've been called "The Grand dad" of the forum in a nice way because I am usually a welcome happy and helpful person, I am known not to suffer fools lightly but I've dealt with a great many on here and its genuinely a warm helping set of folks, please do not do not consider not getting the outcome you want in a discussion a reason to remove yourself. If you think I'm full of it then use the ignore button but I'd hope you were more than that and realise none of this is personal.

Edited May 21, 2019 by Mclaneinc

[JoSch]

 

No its wasn't an insinuation, it was a simple question...Are you involved in the project, the reason I asked wasn't to blame or attack it was that you are so incredibly defending all this despite loads of things being shown it just made me wonder if you had any hand in it and before that's taken as bad, I nearly had a hand in it. And remember it seems just as futile at my end explaining it so perhaps we agree to disagree. Forums are a place to voice on topic thoughts, agree, disagree but always in a non angry manner. Perhaps you want the book a lot and see me or anyone else as taking it away from you, that isn't the case, I don't want to stop anyone having a great book but some of us are daring to show that you might not be getting that, its then for every one to make their mind up. From my point I wasn't really bothered about the book content and had not really looked at it much, it was the way I and others had been privately treated that made it a sore point with Darren so I decided not to back it...That was it, I never came on here screaming Darren's this or that, I just chose to not back. What then happened was others saw defects in the book and defects in the way the book had been setup as and I tend to agree with them...

The wording and the flow your text suggests an insinuation. I read it as that.

[Guest]

I'm not speaking about you. I have quoted in my "rethink" post.

 

got it - just realised why i never saw the quote you referred to.

[Mclaneinc]

The wording and the flow your text suggests an insinuation. I read it as that.

 

Well I apologise if you took it that way, it truly was not meant as that...I hoped what I wrote in my last post would show there was no ill feeling...As said, IF you were part of the project, its a GOOD thing, no one gets roasted for that. I hope that this can be and end to the supposed argument..

 

Paul..

[Mr Robot]

I also got flack. I wasn't aware of any insults against you, but that lies in the eye of the beholder.

You have to decide for yourself how much you can take, but don't insinuate I'm thin-skinned.

I'm not, there were enough moments in this discussion, I was feeling like throwing the towel. I did not.

I have had my share of hard ball discussions in my own political party, so I can take some punches.

But to insinuate, I have more than a backer's interest in this, makes me furious. That's FB level. Plain and simple.

That wasn't "a little constructive criticism now and then". It was plain, that it was to discredit my arguments.

 

 

I wasn't using ad hominem in my post, I was just stating that there is a robustness of character required if debating some of the more opinionated characters on these fora. Claiming you are being personally attacked by anyone who raises a counter to your points is a cheap form of straw-man that doesn't even hold up to the lightest scrutiny.

 

I make no comment about people asking if you have more connection to this project than you have disclosed, merely your claim that I'm insinuating you are thin-skinned. Those people can fight their own battles.

[Greyfox]

As this is going in another direction and has been mentioned that JoSch being a part of the book or the project is not true, I have never spoken with JoSch personally or here on the forum and is not affiliated with the Atari Visual History in case this as perceived as such, I appreciate his input here as well as many others that have voiced their opinions.

 

The previous post was to be my last, but felt I needed to straighten the record on this belief if exisiting

 

Thanks

 

Darren

Edited May 21, 2019 by Greyfox

[JoSch]

 

 

I wasn't using ad hominem in my post, I was just stating that there is a robustness of character required if debating some of the more opinionated characters on these fora. Claiming you are being personally attacked by anyone who raises a counter to your points is a cheap form of straw-man that doesn't even hold up to the lightest scrutiny.

 

I make no comment about people asking if you have more connection to this project than you have disclosed, merely your claim that I'm insinuating you are thin-skinned. Those people can fight their own battles.

I was also not talking about you concerning "ad hominem"

[Mr Robot]

I was also not talking about you concerning "ad hominem"

 

:brohug:

[6BQ5]

Has anyone been watching the Kickstarter? The number of pledges has jumped up considerably!

 

Just goes to show all publicity is good publicity!

[Mclaneinc]

I was also not talking about you concerning "ad hominem"

 

Yes I know it was me but I think its unfair and a little cheap...I really have tried to sort this out and very clearly explained the reason I asked if you were more than a backer a number of times, I even PM'ed you early on to explain my part in this and you never replied..

 

I wasn't trying to smash your argument down, I was actually trying to find out why you were ignoring all the points that even Darren clarified.

 

So for me ad hominem is a cheap shot...A silly and pointless one up man ship attempt...If we look at the posts it more applies to you than me as you have avoided every issue...Seriously, let it go, posting the above after I have tried to sort this really isn't helping...A PM to Mr Robot would have been the right way..

[JoSch]

Please, Maclaneinc: I just explained Mr Robot, that he wasn't meant.

It was definitely meant as cheap shot. Look, I didn't even mentioned you, because it wasn't meant that way.

[Mclaneinc]

Ok, lets put this to bed please...Lets hope a great book comes out of all of this at some point...

[InfoMan]

Now to the Grammar of the book, I can declare that a professional technical proofreader has been commissioned by me to oversee the 50,000 plus words in the book by the name of Sean Townsend...

 

The next time you do a Kickstarter campaign, you should have someone proofread the text for your blurb because it is an implied reflection of the quality of the product.