PC1 Banned for no reason!

[Bruno Pereira]

I get the feeling that they would rather have everyones defamatory opinions stopped untill they release the final product.
Then when the sales figures come through, they wouldnt mind anyone saying anything.

I agree with you.

(Just my opinion)
But I think releasing the pre beta (alpha) program to the general public was a bad marketing mistake.
They should of allowed bedroom modders, graphic designers, programmers and builders to buy in to the pre beta stage only.
Then they could work out and iron out all the bad things first, then released a pre-purchase beta/demo.

From what I can see and read on the net, it looks to me that they need to employ a media trained communicator to calm everything down, as this is the first time I have ever seen a manager come onto the shop floor and start arguing/debating in public.

Things can get said in the heat of the moment that we all read back and regret saying.

I just hope that somewhere along the line there is a pleasant equilibrium from all of this, and we can ALL look back and laugh at this one day.

In this kind of projects Kickstarter and WMD i dont believe that it would help them get the funds needed if they did that, it is also important to have community feedback (constructive preferably) in terms of being able to develop a good game and avoid mistakes that are made in a release base by the big companies out there. Sure it may lead to some fanatics going beserk but thats something that Ian warns in every new member that joins the project.

But i understand your comment on it.

 

[Klazerman]

I think both of you talk past each other. Purely imho...

Yeah, Bram clearly didn't understand what I was getting at with the first "third riche" not true comment. No wonder we are arguing about bad moderation when they can't even follow simple postings.

 

[Xosé Estrada]

It is not because they dont like the comments or want to defend their comercial interests. To be honest if this thread was moderated from the beginning asking for evidence before considering it true this wouldnt be happening.

What the OP said in this thread is a diffamation, for this to be considered an opinion or a judgment there had to be evidences of the ban being made with no reason.

I can show you this easily using this example:


Source: Wikipedia

That is different because there was not direct interaction between the pars like in this case.

In this case, a user was banned by the company (fact) and he thinks that was done without reason (opinion).

If the company thinks this opinion is false and even defamatory, then just have to expose the objective reasons why the user was ban, the violations of the agreements he made, etc.

Once that is done, they can talk about defamation, meanwhile is just the opinion of one particular against the opinon of the company, and RD can't judge that because we don't know the facts, so we will just censor based on who is more powerful or who we subjectively think has reason, which would mean a violation of the free speech like I said before, because we will be "Censoring a user without reason".

 

[Bruno Pereira]

It is a fact that he was banned, but it is still a libel accusation that the ban was done has he said as theres no evidences.
The communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business ,product, group, religion or nation a negative or inferior image is still a defamation until proven contrary.

 

[Xosé Estrada]

"Banned for reasons I think are not legitimate reasons".

That won't be defamatory then, and in real life, in practice, we all would say "ban for no reason", but that's not the problem here.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

So this whole discussion is now focusing on the first post of Rob Every?

The way I read it: He logged into WMD and noticed he was banned (fact). As WMD is a forum powered by old fashioned vbulletin software that we used to run here at RD for years as well. I do know the ins and out of the backend and that that you can specify a specific reason for the ban that will be displayed to the user when he logs in.

Rob logged in and because SMS didn't specify a reason it displayed "No reason given" (fact)

Hence: Banned (fact) for no reason (fact).

 

[Senad Subasic]

I lold, even though no reason given isn't the same as there is no reason

But I have a different quandary. Would "Ian Bell of SMS and pCARS fame threatens with legal action" be an acceptable substitute? That one isn't libelous.

It's a strictly personal quandary, unrelated to my powerful Staff role of running the netKar races once a week. Any cats killed should be mine, and not the ones communally owned by RD site owners.

 

[Andy_J]

I just think it's smoke and mirrors (whatever that means). Don't worry about it. ISR and other websites are getting wind of threats and that could be bad publicity for WMD with many members asking why a company should bully it's way around. I wonder if WMD will sue ISR for a pretty bad review of Test Drive Ferrari? Perhaps, for the sake of friendship and less hassle, the admin here could just change the thread title to "Banned for no good reason in my opinion". Sorted.

 

[Bruno Pereira]

Without knowing the facts/evidences, you don't know if they are in the Terms and Rules of Project Cars so its still libel.
You know as well as i, if not better, that people dont read the TOS, EULA, Terms and Rules or even Privacy Policys and completly ignore their existances until its too late.

Its the same as if someone here would be banned and placed false accusations about RD on other competitors forums saying you guys did it without legitimate reasons.

I dont want to turn this thread into some law discussion thread, just trying to calm everyone down and help people think straight, no one in here from the admins/mods/devs in my opinion should continue with such a public discussion it is bad for both sides as it affects the opinion of people against SMS and RD.

Andy has a point in terms of changing the title to something with (opinion) tag or something along.
And by the way Test Drive = Atari = they demand SMS supply, the review is a good one about the game but sad to include the name pCars in between.
Even tho EA made some pretty bad games it doesnt mean the developers behind them are at fault, the same applies here.

 

[Andy_J]

So this whole discussion is now focusing on the first post of Rob Every?

I know. It's one of the most silly things I ever read about and even more sillier that a company gets it's virtual knickers in a twist over it. Personally I think their own trolling around here caused the biggest grief for them, with Pimphand causing most of the animosity by winding people up. Some of his posts have been deleted I notice, either by him under instruction or by mods here I don't know. I have some saved as screenshots somewhere on my bloomin big hard drive. I keep them for posterity and sentimental reasons.

 

[Lee Ross]

The same thing happened to VirtualR a few years back when it used to be a sim community. Rob was threatened with court action for comments posted by members on the Simbin and SMS row.
So maybe in two yeasrs time Bram and Xose will be part of the SMS team aswell? That would be quite a turnaround

Update: Unfortunately, I had no other choice but to close the comments for this item, since Slightly Mad Studios have chosen to send legal threats my way due to one of the submitted comments. It seems like discussion on this particular matter is frowned upon, apologies for the inconvenience!

http://www.virtualr.net/more-on-simbin-vs-sms

 

[Andy_J]

The same thing happened to VirtualR a few years back when it used to be a sim community. Rob was threatened with court action for comments posted by members on the Simbin and SMS row.
So maybe in two yeasrs time Bram and Xose will be part of the SMS team aswell? That would be quite a turnaround

Update: Unfortunately, I had no other choice but to close the comments for this item, since Slightly Mad Studios have chosen to send legal threats my way due to one of the submitted comments. It seems like discussion on this particular matter is frowned upon, apologies for the inconvenience!

http://www.virtualr.net/more-on-simbin-vs-sms

Amazing. WMD/SMS are quite an act. Is that why VR does not allow PCars negativity too?

 

[Andy_J]

And by the way Test Drive = Atari = they demand SMS supply, the review is a good one about the game but sad to include the name pCars in between.

They only included Pcars in the sense that they hoped it would be better than TDF when it's released. Nothing wrong with that is there? And the review is hardly good. Both stated they would be bothered to ever pick the game up and play it ever again.

They are just honest reviewers and speaking as they want. They should not be afraid to so either, despite what others say.

 

[Bruno Pereira]

It is indeed strange why that's the only website to report such thing, and those news were everywhere if i remember.

I meant good as in a "good review" never mentioned it was good for Test Drive.

 

[Lee Ross]

Amazing. WMD/SMS are quite an act. Is that why VR does not allow PCars negativity too?

No idea tbh but Rob does now work for them so that obviously has a bearing on things.

I posted that purely because Ian mentioned earlier about we as in all of us as a community. But SMS have threatened two of the biggest community websites now with legal action so the whole community thing seems a little lost on me. Nothing to do with pCARS btw for the record

 

[Kazumi]

So using the Madness engine just isn't producing you the results except lollipop candy graphics hey? You team was on that project before Shift 1 and 2? Amazing work. Seen them playing the game and reviewing it. Tires don't blow? Yet on the box you lied and stated this and that?

Tire damage is just a few parameters. I can imagine some of the involved parties didn't like it that much. (Maybe it's still in and people just didn't notice?)

And so on.

Of course if damage isn't that realistic it should not be used in advertizing.

Farrell
Please! This is just total rubbish and ignorance! Your comments comparing TDFL and pcars are preposterous and groundless! They are totally different products without any shared tech. TDFL is a project controlled tightly by Atari and based on Shift tech and a Ferrari licence. It does not share any engines with pcars (neither physics nor graphics, or any other). You say TDFL looks like pcars?? I will stop arguing with you, but you are wrong on as good as all your points...

- Nope. He got a point there. It's valid to compare pCars with other sims / games especially those made by the same dev team. Of course in ideal case we all would know of more then a few (or even one) in a very early state for a better comparision.

- Ian Bell said it's based on early Shift tech which makes sense considering at that time a release around 2010 was planned (Ferrari Project for 10tacle)

In any case, sadly, good tech won't make a good game automatically

 

[Lee Ross]

Tire damage is just a few parameters. I can imagine some of the involved parties didn't like it that much. (Maybe it's still in and people just didn't notice?)

I don't think SMS did lie either. If i remember rightly from my brief play of SHIFT2, the tyres and wear/blowouts etc only seemed to happen in the Endurance races. I think possibly they didn't have the time or going by the review the will to carry on playing to find out. Not played it myself so can not comment. But the game seems to be SHIFT in all but name but just with Ferrari DLC so i would presume if it says it on the box, it is possible.

 

[Peter]

Yeah the two admins of this forum are deliberately steering up the community and therefore this thread. Gimme a break please.

Like a great and wise philosopher once said in the 1980s: "i didn't draw first blood"

I love that movie

 

[Bruno Pereira]

Like a genius said once: “It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them."


Im off to the gym.

 

[Nathan Robinson]

There may be a tv deal in this thread bram. You should shop it around and make some revenue off it. The sms representatives seem unreasonable and so do the guys that constantly nag a work in progress. Guys are knocking the wmd way of of development but will then pay to beta test rfactor 2 with no issues. Hypocracy me thinks. Someday this will all be over and we will have a final release to review and rip apart or gloat over. Its just sad that a community of like minded enthusiasts have to be so divided over one game.