Quote from: One Horse Town;266360If they are getting paid by the word (which is, by far the most common kind of agreement) then no-siree.

Apparently the NDA which they signed forbids them from saying anything about the matter of the payment.

Quote from: One Horse Town;266360If they are getting paid by the word (which is, by far the most common kind of agreement) then no-siree.

And if memory serves, previous freelancers found themselves getting less money than was agreed upon (even getting lower rates, in at least one or two cases based on what people had said).

Quote from: One Horse Town;266360If they are getting paid by the word (which is, by far the most common kind of agreement) then no-siree.

Would be interesting to know. Oh well.

Quote from: jgants;266367And if memory serves, previous freelancers found themselves getting less money than was agreed upon (even getting lower rates, in at least one or two cases based on what people had said).

Thus my comment about 'arcane' editing practises upthread.

Quote from: HinterWelt;266349You should see some of the industry only forum

Could you say a little more about this, Bill? I mean not the content of those forums, but what they are, how you get onto them, whether they're publicly accessible (I assume not), etc? Thanks.

I don't get the impression Sembieda is actually crooked. More that he just thinks he's a real champ and nobody can possibly match his "vision". So whatever manuscript he got he'd rewrite entirely calling it an "edit". If you had a time machine you could take a published manuscript which was entirely his, put "John Smith" on the cover, go back and present it to him and he'd rewrite it entirely saying it wasn't good enough.

The thing to remember about all game companies is that they're run not by true publishing professionals, but by geeks like us. It's not like someone steps down from Penguin or Doubleday, taking a bestselling technical book writer with them and then founds DiceOfDoom.com to write and publish rpgs. rpg companies are founded by some gamer geek with a bunch of ideas and too much time on their hands.

Next game session, look around the table and imagine founding a company with those people. Think about it honestly and then figure out how well-organised and professional you'd all be together. What would you get? Sloppy editing, crappy artwork, writing deadlines missed, books published years after they were promised, arguments about nothing which spill out onto forums where you all slander each-other...

Once you realise that all these game companies are run by ordinary gamer geeks, nerds hopped up on Mountain Dew with cheeto-stained fingers, everything else makes much more sense.

Quote from: HinterWelt;266349You should see some of the industry only forums, scary on a surreal level. Stuff that would make Kevin look tame.

Hehe. rpgnow.com. I haven't been there for ages. Good old GMS

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;266405I don't get the impression Sembieda is actually crooked. More that he just thinks he's a real champ and nobody can possibly match his "vision". So whatever manuscript he got he'd rewrite entirely calling it an "edit". If you had a time machine you could take a published manuscript which was entirely his, put "John Smith" on the cover, go back and present it to him and he'd rewrite it entirely saying it wasn't good enough.

I think your spot the fuck on here Kyle.

As for the companies are run by geeks like us. Yes and no. Some are just as you described. But their are planty of examples of geek companies that are plenty proffesional. I think its hard to make that large of a generalization.

KS's murmurs and announcements are a never ending stream of entertainment.

Check out his letter to Robotech fans.  It's written with just enough rational talk and "homespun" dialogue that you can almost miss that it's saying "Shut up you stupid fucks.  Go back to pissing yourself for the supplements.  I am God."  Well, I lie.  You can't really miss it's saying that in the most condescending way possible.

As for the freelancer issue.  It must hurt KS to deal with so many "incompetents."  This was something I've noticed long before the internet era.  Many a book featured an introduction where allegedly the book was late because some failure of a human being KS trusted had failed to deliver a book, so he had to rewrite it from the ground up.  And he has a very distinct track record of demonizing anyone who begins to upstage him (Bill Coffin and CJ Carella).

"I have no intention of going into all the details of the situation or my decision, because that would be unfair, unkind and inappropriate, especially in a public forum. Josh Hilden and Joshua Sanford put their hearts into their manuscript. They did their best. Unfortunately for them, "I" deemed it was not acceptable."

So he won't go into it because it was unfair, but then he follows it up by going into it. I mean, he doesn't even finish the paragraph before going into it. And then there are the gems like, "Despite Josh and Joshua’s extensive knowledge and fondness of the zombie genre, when I reviewed the manuscript in September, I was deeply disappointed with it."

Seanchai

Quote from: Nicephorus;266339I don't follow Palladium but this is at least the 3rd time I've heard of him trashing a freelancer and redoing a book.  Once, I could blow off as a bitter freelancer.  The pattern makes him either a dick trying to screw writers or a guy with pathalogical problems.

Personally, I think it begs the question of why freelancers still work with him. Er, I mean, kinda sorta for him.

Seanchai

Quote from: Gabriel2;266458And he has a very distinct track record of demonizing anyone who begins to upstage him (Bill Coffin and CJ Carella).

I think this is the heart of the matter in a way. He set things up so that he's always coming to the rescue - of a manuscript, of his company, of his fan. He's writing ever script so that he's the hero of his own, personal Megaverse.

Seanchai

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;266405I don't get the impression Sembieda is actually crooked. More that he just thinks he's a real champ and nobody can possibly match his "vision".

I'd actually agree with that.  I don't think the man consciously does bad things (at least, not most of the time).  I think he's insecure and sometimes dumb, and so makes really bad decisions and won't listen to anyone - but in his mind, he's the intelligent but misunderstood hero who feels like people are always letting him down and/or betraying him.

Anyway you slice it, the guy is a dick.

Quote from: Seanchai;266464I think this is the heart of the matter in a way. He set things up so that he's always coming to the rescue - of a manuscript, of his company, of his fan. He's writing ever script so that he's the hero of his own, personal Megaverse.

Seanchai

That's a spot-on observation.  Every crisis I've read about Palladium having plays out this way.