Star Fleet 2010

Ok if your following the Catalyst Gaming Labs ‘Drama’ as some call it you’ve by now seen the one hundred and one posts across every forum by a certain Frank Trollman. Look people honestly the letter is confidental between the parties involved by actually posting it anywhere Mr Trollman himself may have broken the law.

But lets look at what is going on here CGL has some issues right? they are a Privately Owned company right?

Answer to every thing there YES

Alright with that in mind guess what, the public that is me and you don’t have ANY RIGHT to know what is going on behind closed doors, zips nada.. and even if they where a public company you only have the right to know if you are a shareholder.

So with that in mind sorry folks CGL actually didn’t have to post their press release but they did.

Onto what Frank has done again, he’s posted information that is clearly covered by a NDA (most company letters etc are) what’s a NDA you ask? NDA stands for Non-Disclosure Agreement, this is a legally binding document that basically says what you can and can not say about anything from a product to an entire business.. It keeps things they don’t want out of the public eye and it is as mentioned LEGALLY binding. The only way out of a NDA? Well that is when it has a time limit on the document or a clause that states you can exit if x and x is met. Ie ‘This Non-Disclosure Agreement will remain in effect for 6 years from the date of signing’ or ‘Once the closed beta phase is over and the product has been moved into open beta, release or if posted by the company you may talk about this product’ etc etc.

So whoever gave Mr Trollman the info he’s sprouting about the internet is actually looking at some heavy litigation, add to that the fact that he is making wild accusations with out actual physical evidence means that he himself is quite possibly leaving himself open to Litigation as well.

Breaking NDA’s can be career ending in certain business’s, in governement well it can be prison or worse but were talking business so yeah.

All over though you have people jumping to conclusions screaming help the house is on fire.. Help this person is a lier, help this person is etc etc..

Look guys the LAW will deal with this that’s what it exists for alright, so let the lawyers do their jobs, let the dust settle and THEN post.. Speculation and mud flicking is not productive.

If you don’t get the emails this is a heads up the latest on the old republic States that the biographies are up and the big part is that you have information on some of the most important characters in the movers and shakers of the game. As always they also have updates on new area’s, lore and Sneak Peaks of the web-comic.

Lets hope Bioware continues their good work cause I really want it out and hope they have a smoother release then others.

Just a reminder that unless something changes on the 25th Star Trek online’s first major content update the Season 1: Common Ground Expansion, it is to be followed of course by more in time.

You can find more information on star trek online at Http://www.startrekonline.com

Just a heads up again, that those who are Intresting in D&D should look at checking out Dungeons and Dragons Online, it went free to play a while back but by the looks of it Wizards of the Coast has started to even promote it on their website. DDO as Dungeons and Dragons Online is often shortened to is not a bad MMO, it does have it’s flaws but no one can point to one that doesn’t.

In other D&D News if you’ve not been keeping up of late you’ll notice that the 3rd Players Handbook for 4th Edition has released so it’s clear they are milking that for what it’s worth, These include a few old classics like Monks and Psions.

Still no word though as far as I can see on the next update for the Tool Pack and as such I don’t think that the ‘Hold’ they put on their Virtual Table Top is ever going to actually come out of ‘hold’.

By now most places and people are reporting on Catalyst Game Labs problems.

Most of these appear to be rumor, very very few have posted actual evidence of the constant doom and gloom that is going around on the net, the only official posting on the entire thing is the press statement at Catalyst Gaming labs own website. Other places are claiming stores have been told to cease selling products however Catalysts own main sales site of Battlecorps is still selling PDF’s of all products as are several others not to mention the fact that even if Catalyst had lost the Shadowrun and the like licenses it is actually rather improbable that they will do a cease of sales on already printed books, why is this? Because that is Not how the industry works, if a book is printed their is nothing in the laws that says you have to recall all the books, rather you try and get them to sell to get the money from having to print them.

Examples of this alone can be seen in the fact that you can still pick up books from FASA, Fanpro and even some copies of the Warhammer 40k RPG that have their ORIGINAL creators logo’s on them.

So the big one here guys, look for actual PRESS RELEASES that come from the companies rather then just rumors.