General News - Stones of Arnhem announced

Cleveland Mark Blakemore announced that Stones of Arnhem is in development on the RPG Codex:

OFFICIAL "STONES OF ARNHEM" DEVELOPMENT THREAD

I don't want to announce this to the Codex until I have my first alpha version running and up on Steam for "Coming Soon" but I will share details here for diehard fans of Grimoire. When I get Steam to accept my prototype and allow me to set up the page for SOA I will start sending out press releases.

I have all-new portraits that nobody has seen yet but they are fantastic, higher quality than anything displayed previously for Vault of Terror or other games I have been tinkering on. Looking at them and how far my blobber engine has come along were what gave me the motivation to begin working on SOA.

I have distilled the races and classes down into a synthesis of Grimoire, Crusaders and other influences. I am really happy with them and have built the RPG logic engine and editors around them. The tables necessary for character creation are done and I am thinking of pursuing a bold new mechanism of character creation that will combine ideas from other RPGs to produce a very cool easy start to the game without any library creation necessary. Characters in the library will be semi-created but experienced grognards can edit and refine them. Newbs can simply pick them and add them to the party at the start and jump right into the game ala EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.

This game is aimed at 40+ hours of play and will be a fraction of the size of Grimoire. It will be far superior in many ways but it will still be a turn-based blobber inspired by Wizardry 6 & 7.

[…]

More information.

Estimated release: 2032

I actually bought grimoire….also played a beta a long time ago(thanks corwin) but I honestly can't even get into it now…to be fair I bought it for like 2 dollars.

I am not a particularly "woke" person - I like traditional things - but I do have to question whether we should be posting anything by MCB especially when it is so devoid of content given his past history. Why not just post when the game comes out?

He is a racist, LGBQT hating, holocaust denying attention seeker. Why would RPGWatch give him a platform to expose his views which are abhorrent to most of us. People are allowed to have those views of course but they should be smart enough to realise times have changed. It's not 1900's anymore, a time when these views were tolerated.

This was his second post in the linked thread:

Subtract the t******s (removed offensive term referring to a transgender person) buying and refunding the game in one hour to give it a squeal review and Grimoire would be well into 90% and the detractors would mostly consist of people who thought they were buying a Final Fantasy game.

P.S. Wonder how it is maintained at 69% for years such that every time it slips into positive, about 100 new reviews appear in 24 hours to push it back a single point? It has nothing to do with the game and everything to do with the flabby armed non-binary lunatics.

This is an attack on many of our members and is against our ToS. If this was posted on our forums the poster would get a warning/ban. So why link to it?

Originally Posted by JDR13
Estimated release: 2032

Wow, that soon?!?

Originally Posted by bjon045

People are allowed to have those views of course but they should be smart enough to realise times have changed. It's not 1900's anymore, a time when these views were tolerated.

This is what triggers me.
Should we try to eliminate everybody just because they have views that are different?
It is just the same views, one hate another and maybe one has views that is not in trend, but who knows if in another 100 years it will change again.

That brings me to another issue with RPGs. I really hate lawful characters. They can easily be manipulated and are source of all evil. True neutral is only way to go.

Originally Posted by showtime
This is what triggers me.
Should we try to eliminate everybody just because they have views that are different?
It is just the same views, one hate another and maybe one has views that is not in trend, but who knows if in another 100 years it will change again.

That brings me to another issue with RPGs. I really hate lawful characters. They can easily be manipulated and are source of all evil. True neutral is only way to go.

There are views, which can be tolerated and there are views which cannot.

If I think we need more government and you think we should all be liberaterian, thats fine. If I am catholic and you are hindu, and each one things thats the best religion, thats fine as well.

Issues arise when it gets into the hatespeech region. In extrem case one person thinks his view must be the right one, and everyone else deserves to die for their view.

And in that regard, bjorn isn't wrong. Cleveland doesnt just have his own view. He is toxic.

bjon045 is 100% right. I'm mildly curious about the game, I admit, but CMB is just an all-around awful human being, a real piece of garbage, someone I wouldn't ever even want to sit on the bus with. We should not be linking to things like that. It's like condoning his behavior just because he makes games (which, if we see Grimoire, are hilariously broken btw).

Grimoire was actually way better than I thought it would be. Colour me astounded, and I'll just have to hope this game is also good, and that it arrives before my demise. -p

Grimoire is also on my Steam wishlist. I don't have a problem seperating the output from the person. If he is posting screenshots/videos of the game and we have a timeline for it's release it might be worthwhile posting a link to an actual article on another site or even the codex. But if it is just a post on the codex forums he is just going to use it to spin his own hateful views. It is his MO.

This is a guy who posted crap after one of his former collegues transitioned and insinuated that it was somehow one of the causes of the failure of Sir-Tech. One of the few people that CMB posts positive things about is David W Bradley. CMB never actually worked for Sir-Tech or directly with David W Bradley. He worked for an Australian company called Directsoft who was working on a sequel to Wizardry 7 called Wizardry: Stones of Arnhem (SoA). Despite having some of the resources from Wizardry 7 (the engine and assets) NOTHING was every produced. CMB was the "senior" programmer and he has two other programmers under him as well as a designer/artists/testers etc. Robert Sirotek cancelled the project in mid 1994 because not even a prototype had been shown after more than 12 months of supposed "Development". CMD handed in his "resignation" about two weeks after development had been suspended. In his resignation letter he basically said that he was basically carrying the entire development of SoA and that he couldn't do it anymore. Directsoft's owner (Bruce Wilson) wound down the company about 4 months later (October). Interestingly, Alan Moore, who was the designer on SoA had a very different opinion on what was the cause of the failure. I wonder who to believe?

Since then the only thing that CMD has constanly delivered is bullshit "true-life" stories that he posts under a pen name. The content of most of these stories is highly disturbing. Some of you may of read his "dramatisation" of what happened during the LA riots (which are full of racism towards both Mexicans and Blacks. These stories dial up the racism a few notches. He still insists that his stories are true. Yes, CMB actually took on an entire multiple gangs during the LA riots and saved his entire gated community. Yes - a failed programmer did that. He is also skilled with all manner of firearms. None of this is his imagination.

The sad thing is CMB is actually a reasonable developer/designer. If he dropped all the BS he probably would have been far more successful than he has been. More mainstream sites would of been happy to have articles on him and the game(s) he has made. It wouldn't have taken FIVE applications to GoG to get Grimiore listed (yes - he was rejected four times).

For those interested, one of his other pen names is "Texas Arcane". He ran a blog called Vault-co (http://vault-co.blogspot.com/ - closed now) that posted far right conspiracy theories - mostly local to Australia i.e. the Australian WalMart stocking products with mind controlling chemicals etc. He is a upstanding Australian citizen by all accounts.

Originally Posted by bjon045
He still insists that his stories are true. Yes, CMB actually took on an entire multiple gangs during the LA riots and saved his entire gated community. Yes - a failed programmer did that. He is also skilled with all manner of firearms. None of this is his imagination.

Maybe he packs a glock in his fanny pack.

Cleve like Roqua is one of the original shitposters of the internet - do I take his posts seriously? Simple answer: No. Exaggeration is one of his favourite conversation methods.

Do I take his work seriously - yes. I even was one of the original backers of Grimoire.

Background:
Cleveland Blakemore and the Mysterious Stones of Arnhem Game

Originally Posted by HiddenX
Cleve like Roqua is one of the original shitposters of the internet - do I take his posts seriously? Simple answer: No. Exaggeration is one of his favourite conversation methods.

Exaggeration is one thing, racism and hate speech against the LGBTQ community is another.

Arnhem is a Dutch town … I wonder how that title came to be ?

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Arnhem is a Dutch town … I wonder how that title came to be ?

In the thread he mentions it got some Australian Lore.
Arnhem is also a Region in Australia.

Okay, if this is so, then it makes some sense … I was surprised, because RPGs usually never mention places from Real Life, and mostly something "far, far away", and not within Europe …

I do not know, I am strange and like more persons who are maybe a prick, hater and totally incompatible with the global narrative than 'Yes man' who follow someones rules and does not have any spine.

it is easier to me to know someones issues than to be with someone who is hiding behind agenda.

All in all anyone who is battling solo against mob or the world puts a smile on my face even if he is complete dumbass and idiot. And when creating world for me to play I want that creative mind to be as crazy as can be.

I need to try that game to see what world this misfit created.

Incline!

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Okay, if this is so, then it makes some sense

It is so, yes. Usually it's called Arnhem Land