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[DimensionWarped]

Look, I'm not going to argue with that. But you absolutely HAVE to acknowledge that the opposite is true as well and that any one from Retro could have simply got PC0 through whatever communication channel of choice or posted a message here just as easily. And yes, that's what I'd like to start working on advancing. We just need to wait for some of SFGHQ members here who are actually involved in the organization of SAGE to chime in.

[Bartman]

You mean like how Tweaker just did that based on the first indication that something was wrong?

[DimensionWarped]

No, I mean like two months ago before everyone had hurt feelings over people getting cut out of the loop.

[P3DR0]

Look, I'm not going to argue with that. But you absolutely HAVE to acknowledge that the opposite is true as well and that any one from Retro could have simply got PC0 through whatever communication channel of choice or posted a message here just as easily.

But none did it, so what's the point of arguing this, anyway? What is done is done, let's move foward.

[DimensionWarped]

The only point of me arguing this is to make it clear that I'm not going to accept this sentiment that Smidge/PC0/whoever else is involved are somehow totally responsible for the communications breakdown. These are good guys who are contributing a great deal of themselves to make this stuff happen in spite of everything that has went wrong throughout the past several months. They don't deserve to be attacked just for acknowledging that something that was planned between our groups didn't come to fruition.

[OverbounD]

Agreed we owe Smidge, PC0, USC, and Blyde a great deal for their work on SAGE and all the other stuff they do around here.

[Tweaker]

The only point of me arguing this is to make it clear that I'm not going to accept this sentiment that Smidge/PC0/whoever else is involved are somehow totally responsible for the communications breakdown.

Well, if you want to live in denial...

These are good guys who are contributing a great deal of themselves to make this stuff happen in spite of everything that has went wrong throughout the past several months. They don't deserve to be attacked just for acknowledging that something that was planned between our groups didn't come to fruition.

And we're not contributing a good deal of ourselves to organize our own portions of this event? So we don't have people designing websites and making graphics and animation and planning events and shit? Really? That's good to know. I wasn't aware all of our staff members were lying through their teeth when they sent me storyboards and animation tests specifically designated for our half of the event.

We don't deserve to be attacked or slandered or put in a bad light for doing exactly what we were asked to, let alone have insinuations thrown our way that it's our fault that SAGE was delayed or something. It's not. We only did what we were asked to, were always in contact and constantly cooperative. I will not have you run your fucking mouth about how we're at fault for all of this crap based on absolutely nothing. The fact that we were held in such low regard to never be told that this alliance was broken is insulting enough, but you constantly trying to defend indefensible actions is just pissing me off. Shut your fucking mouth. You know nothing about the nitty and gritty in this situation and have absolutely no room to speak about it.

[tentril]

Listen, no one said anything about Retro people being bad. Quit putting words in our mouth and then whining about it. You are the one putting yourself in a bad light, because no matter whose fault this is, it isn't very becoming to come here and start swearing at us for things that you think we insinuated about you.

tl;dr I don't care what happened, don't make a fool out of yourself if you don't want to be thought of that way.

[Blyde]

I feel like Smidge has been hauling ass to get stuff done in, yes, the interest of a backup option. To be honest, I was drafted to the SAGE team pretty late (from the sounds of it), but IRC became the main venue of communication as opposed to Skype, which PC0 proposed when recruiting. I remember noting that when I came in, the joint effort with Retro appeared to have fallen apart - despite Scarred Sun (and probably some others) having been forwarded the Google Docs of the site layout.

Fast forward to maybe a week or so later, layout has changed drastically and my first design doesn't cut it so I have to remake it. And at this point the Retro collab is back on in full swing. But I wasn't contacted about it, Smidge told me it took him forever to locate my e-mail address as well...I was admittedly a little annoyed, and it demotivated me, but nothing too big. I completed the work I needed to do about a week ago, to Smidge's approval. Please note that there was no animosity on my side AT ALL - I realized it was half my fault that the layout changed and that I should have poked my head in and asked "what's up?" instead of just doing shit on my own. It sounds like the same situation is happening here, except in reverse. So yeah, there's even a slight lack of communication from within the SAGE team.

At any rate, PC0 and Smidge are busy fellas, and I do agree that we shouldn't fault them for what they're doing. They're still doing a great job and are great to work with. We also shouldn't hop on some anti-Retro bandwagon, just in case anyone thinks lowly of them - that's not good behavior at all. They've got a fun community, too. This is a fun little event and should be billed as such. The lack of administrative oversight is a little worrying, but I'm sure we can still work stuff out. I would suggest holding more official meetings so that we know we're all on the same page. But what can I say? I'm just a graphic designer, I know nothing about the inner workings or whatever plans we have. There's still time to work this stuff off before SAGE hits, right?

P.S. Overbound, I was supposed to collab with you on the site...got mixed up with IRL stuff and went for it anyway. Sorry about that, maybe we can work on something later on.

[DimensionWarped]

It's true that anything you didn't mention over here or in any other publicly viewable topic slipped past my radar, but I don't especially consider that a fault to myself. I still think all of these efforts could be easily salvaged at this point though if we'd just approach it more calmly.

[BlazefireLP]

I personally think it is too late to do this collaberstion now. It needs more planning, more communication and more time to pan out. There needs to be more regular meetings and the SAME dedication on BOTH sides of it.

Rather than a trying to explain in detail to eachother who's fault lies where. What we should do is take a step back and go okay, what went wrong, how did it go wrong and how can we avoid it happening again ON both sides. There is absolutely no need to keep arguing as it solves absolutely nothing and just flares tempers and makes the situations that much more difficult.

Bare in mind even if it doesn't happen this time, I'm prety sure the next time will be much more sucessful. What people also need from the sound of things is more awarness of the current situation as it resides and also to inform those involved and those interested in SAGE itself, not just including the submiters for the event.

For this to work, we need to work together. The least we can all do now is think of a solution. Now I know I am probably of no authority to be saying this but take is as someone who is thinking outside the box here and try to find something in what I said at the least helpful and a move-on point.

[P3DR0]

For the love of Thor, Dimension Whine and Twarker, enough both of you.

It's a fault on both sides, deal with it and work it up.

[Tweaker]

Listen, no one said anything about Retro people being bad. Quit putting words in our mouth and then whining about it. You are the one putting yourself in a bad light, because no matter whose fault this is, it isn't very becoming to come here and start swearing at us for things that you think we insinuated about you.

tl;dr I don't care what happened, don't make a fool out of yourself if you don't want to be thought of that way.

So you don't know or care what happened and you want to make moral judgements about it. Riiiiight. You're pretty cool there, bro.

You're missing the point--that blame is being placed on us for this collaboration supposedly falling out. We're not to blame. That's the main point I'm addressing here, other than that I think it's absolutely ridiculous that this is, again, the first time we're hearing about this alliance being broken with the excuse of being "unable to establish contact" being thrown in our face. It's absolute bullshit; if you can't see or understand that and yet still want to judge our emotional investment in this situation, you're painting yourself as unreasonable and not worth listening to.

Rather than a trying to explain in detail to eachother who's fault lies where. What we should do is take a step back and go okay, what went wrong, how did it go wrong and how can we avoid it happening again ON both sides.

I would love to find out what made Smidge think this course of action was necessary, let alone in the manner he did. Unfortunately, it seems everyone is chiming in on the situation but the person we initially wanted to address, so that's been complicated just a tad.

[DimensionWarped]

Tweaker, I don't know how better to explain to you that there isn't some giant finger that has to be pointed at someone about where blame should be placed. No one here ever said "The collaboration fell apart because of Retro." I don't believe Smidge's post implied that and I don't think anyone here was trying to say otherwise. I honestly believe this whole thing is just one giant misunderstanding brought on by perhaps some kind of unresolved problems from before Ila left. Scarred Sun was saying something about losing access to the moderator forum, and I tried to explain that the only reason that access was lost was because it was accidentally applied in the first place (the forum is only supposed to be for global mods and admins, but someone accidentally messed up the permissions). Apparently that action was misconstrued as Retro staff members being removed from SAGE planning, but I can assure you that almost no discussion of SAGE whatsoever has taken place in there since that incident. There is literally one topic in there on SAGE from the past year, and that was just between me and Overbound. Dialog consists of the following:

Overbound 6-12: So what exactly is going on with SAGE is year anyway? Are we doing it with Retro?

Overbound 6-17: Someones got to know something.

Me 6-17: PC0 is your best bet. You should probably try to hit him up on AIM.

Overbound 6-17: Yeah I know he's been gone lately though. Just trying to get an answer on a date at least.

Me 7-11: I'm hearing some buzz that SAGE planning and design is back underway and that PC0 is tentatively thinking a reasonable date might be as early as mid-August.

Overbound 7-11: Yeah thanks DW. We're working on it now for real.

And that's it. That's all of the discussion that's happened in the mod forums since Ila left as far as SAGE goes.

What I'm saying is that there has been some kind of substantial misunderstanding that we were deliberately forcing you guys out of planning on this, but isn't true. It's just that there hasn't been a proper place for handling it.

It was always my desire that we'd have a publicly accessible forum on here for discussing SAGE planning, and for a while we did... but for some reason, these things tended to get more private as the years went on. I think a big source of our troubles here stem from everyone doing their communication in bubbles. There's the various IRC chat rooms and skype chat rooms that people talk in and most of us just don't have the capacity to pay constant attention to... it's just more convenient for us to keep discussion about these kinds of events in forums.

[Smidge204]

Over July 7th/8th PC0 and I had a conversation over IM.

(6:46:48 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: But we still got some time left so I'm sure we can get this pulled back together

(6:46:58 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: I was gonna start registration probably at the end of this week

(6:47:01 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: think that's about right?

(6:47:16 PM) Smidge204: Is there a date for SAGE yet?

(6:47:16 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: But before I do so

(6:47:18 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: WEll

(6:47:28 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: It's sorta august septemberyish

(6:47:51 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: Frankly, the whole ----- thing is looking really weird the way they're going about it

(6:47:57 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: So I wanna get SAGE like

(6:48:01 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: runnable

(6:48:14 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: and if they get their shit rollin proper, hey cool, we'll do it with them as planned

(6:48:19 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: but if not, event can still go as planned

(6:48:22 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: know what I'm sayin'?

(6:48:25 PM) Smidge204: Yup

(6:48:32 PM) Smidge204: With or without 'em we're goin ahead

(6:48:35 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: Exactly

(6:48:42 PM) Smidge204: That's the way I like it

(6:48:46 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: That said

(6:48:59 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: I figure I'll start organizing everyone in IRC along with you

(6:49:00 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: In fact...

(6:49:04 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: I'll make the chan right now

(6:49:13 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: but anyway, this being the case, I could really use your help on this

(6:49:14 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: D:

(6:49:15 PM) Smidge204: What network?

(6:49:36 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: I'm thinking just doing irc.badnik.net

(6:49:44 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: Incase ----- people decide to join the fun?

(6:50:03 PM) Smidge204: 'k

(6:51:02 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: #sageplanning

(6:51:05 PM) PerfectChaosZEON: irc.badnik.net

(4:48:16 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: Speaking of SAGE I've been trying to investigate wtf is going on with the whole ----- shit

(4:48:34 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: Haven't gotten too far but that's likely because weekends usually end up to be 9 - 14 hour work days for me

(4:48:48 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: rest of the week I'm usually 4 - 6 hours a day so yeah

(4:48:54 AM) Smidge204: :/

(4:49:02 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: Weird eh?

(4:49:03 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: Anyway

(4:49:07 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: What I have learned however

(4:49:15 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: Is that ----- is going on in octoberish

(4:49:50 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: However, I no longer have access to the ----- constructino forum? This could mean a multitude of things so I'm not making any assumptions

(4:50:10 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: Brad said that they thought SAGE wasn't going down, mostly because Shadix kinda acted like he was the one in charge and they didn't like that idea

(4:50:19 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: But

(4:50:20 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: aslo

(4:50:27 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: They may of taken that forum down?

(4:50:27 AM) Smidge204: That seems to be a problem y'know

(4:50:42 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: Indeed, but not anything I can't handle quite well

(4:50:48 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: I've talked to tweaker about it

(4:50:56 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: but I am unsure if he's had the chance to pass my message along to SS

(4:51:13 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: However, being that I work 3-7 today

(4:51:25 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: I think I might have a chance of getting ahold of her today

(4:51:31 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: since she's usually on noonish or before

(4:51:40 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: If I can pull that off

(4:52:02 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: Things should at the very least become definitive on that end

(4:52:08 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: IE "We doin dis shit or wat"

(4:52:22 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: If they're not on the same boat, we can just do our thing in august

(4:52:44 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: Which hilariously, will beat the to the punch announcement wise, especially if I start registration in the next day or two

(4:53:06 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: If our event goes first before they even get a chance, they have no hope of "over shadowing us"

(4:53:14 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: Cause no one will no shit about'em lol

(4:53:22 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: *know

(4:53:44 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: Hopefully though we can do this as planned and it'll be awesome for both events

(4:53:59 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: thoughts?

(4:54:56 AM) Smidge204: We can plug ----- at the end of SAGE

(4:54:58 AM) Smidge204:

(4:55:04 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: hahahaha

(5:05:22 AM) Smidge204: So I want to get a quick opinion on something since I'm not 100% convinced it's the way to go

(5:05:32 AM) PerfectChaosZEON: Ok

This was a solid month ago that things fell apart. It's only becoming an issue now because the scheduling is all fucked up. I never received any communication from Retro and PC0 never mentioned anything so I assume he didn't either. We had resolved to continue with SAGE but leave the date open hoping Retro would get back into the mix.

Now we've waited by the phone for a month and we're running late, so I'm operating under the assumption that Retro hasn't gotten their act together at all and moving ahead.

I'm penciling in SAGE2011 for the week of Sept. 18th. All I can say to the Retro folks at this point is that the train is leaving the station so either get on or step back.

=Smidge=

[Tweaker]

I remember that conversation. If I recall correctly, they got in contact and discussed things further from that point. It was over a month ago so I don't remember specifics but I'm fairly confident plans have been made since then. I mentioned before that there were animation tests, storyboards and designs for ----- being thrown about so we've definitely been making progress. In the Skype chat earlier we also seem to have decided on a late September timeframe at some point, so it's not like people are just sitting around doing nothing.

What gets me is that you're quoting a month old chatlog for the decision you made. I don't know if I'd establish a temporary lapse in communication due to preoccupied parties as "falling apart," but if nothing else if this was a decision being made you could have made even the smallest effort to talk to us about it, cause we've definitely been available and open to questions, concerns and all of that jazz. It's not cool.

Re:the ----- planning forum, I'm pretty sure SS got rid of it because it wasn't being made use of in favor of people just directly contacting one another with plans. If I recall, further ----- planning has just been made in the Retro staff forum. Mind you, I'm not the ultimate authority on this situation as I'm not actively involved in neither SAGE or ----- planning, but these are things I've observed being done in these particular situations. Nobody's sitting still here.

[Spanner]

If I can provide some sort of input, this is a rather confusing issue on both sides. I was discussing a few things with Shadix regarding a possible tie-in with the Hacking Contest's interactive voting week (which right now will probably be hosted at the SSRG) and results show that is in the works, but now his involvement is unknown?

I enjoy SAGE every year as it's generally the only week that many members of the community will join together and engage in good activities whilst taking part in many functions on offer. Even I try to get involved, regardless if it was a question, a submission in the TSSZ joke contest or the radio show I worked on with someone. My idea was put forward because of this, and the potential voters that we could get, as hacks do get submitted to SAGE too. For reference, my idea was put forward to Scarred Sun too in a way for -----, but from what I got back it seems that it wasn't needed or wanted.

But yeah, hopefully things can be ironed out so that both events can be put on without any problems. SAGE is a staple of the year, it cannot be missed out. If anyone has an issue with what I said in this post, feel free to remove it. It's my opinion and suggestions, that's all. I'm not trying to cause any problems, regardless of what some people may think.

[Smidge204]

What gets me is that you're quoting a month old chatlog for the decision you made. I don't know if I'd establish a temporary lapse in communication due to preoccupied parties as "falling apart," but if nothing else if this was a decision being made you could have made even the smallest effort to talk to us about it, cause we've definitely been available and open to questions, concerns and all of that jazz. It's not cool.

I'm quoting a month old conversation because that is the most recent pertaining to whatever Retro is doing. A month ago we asked what was going on with you guys - admittedly I've been using PC0 as a proxy, but he's not that bad that he'd neglect to say anything about it during numerous discussions with him in the last month.

I've send out e-mail using the Google Docs list. I'm certain there's one or two Retro staffers on it (ScarrdeSun being one of them) - nothing in return. Up until some time last week I was in #sageplanning 24/7 where I'd often see Shadix idling and occasionally talk to SpexFox. Nobody seemed to say anything even though I opined openly that we were proceeding with SAGE with or without Retro. All of the SFGHQ people involved seemed to get it so I figured if nobody from Retro was speaking up, they were asleep.

Or it's possible that the Retro people I have contact info on were the wrong people. I never thought to ask because PC0 was the broker of sorts, so I guess that's on me.

At this point SAGE is nailed down design-wise with just some touchup and backend stuff to get it running. I have NO idea where ----- is in terms of development but last I heard (a month ago) they were still more or less goofing off. Who's in charge over there?

=Smidge=

[tentril]

You're missing the point--that blame is being placed on us for this collaboration supposedly falling out. We're not to blame. That's the main point I'm addressing here, other than that I think it's absolutely ridiculous that this is, again, the first time we're hearing about this alliance being broken with the excuse of being "unable to establish contact" being thrown in our face. It's absolute bullshit; if you can't see or understand that and yet still want to judge our emotional investment in this situation, you're painting yourself as unreasonable and not worth listening to.

No, you missed my point. No matter what happened, it doesn't look mature or professional to come in here and start swearing at us and calling us names. Also, "moral judgements"? You won't go to hell for this, I'm just trying to tell you that you're making yourself look terrible. For the millionth time, the post on the main site basically says "There were problems" not "Sonic Retro fucked up". Only in the last three to four posts did anyone blame you guys in the slightest. Before that you were just yelling at us for mentioning you when we said we had problems with SAGE.

[flame6753]

Been gone a while. So what's it lookin like this year?

[BlazefireLP]

Read all the above posts and you can see where SAGE lies at it's current state. I'm glad you guys have posted information with eachother now. The chat logs where a good insight into the situation.

[luksamuk]

Hey, let's cool, guys.

I personally think that SAGE isn't really completely linked to either SFGHQ or Sonic Retro. Yes, there are people from both websites/forums involved in SAGE, specially admins and mods, but hey. Is it turning into a rivalry?

Most important than that is getting SAGE to work. It IS an important event in the online cloud, it even gets reviews for the games in the expo. You guys should forget the "SFGHQ+Retro Staff" and think more about a "SAGE Staff". But yet, I'm not saying that it shouldn't be on any forum. It should be organized like, if someone fails to provide some kind of support, there'd be another member rolling the ball. Without having arguments of superiority against the other and vice-versa.

I'm not sure if I was clear.

[Sparks]

Read all the above posts and you can see where SAGE lies at it's current state.

A summary would be more convenient than reading four pages of drama that some of us don't really have any connection to. The jist I'm getting is miscommunication is causing a debate and SAGEs fate this year is undetermined.

[BlazefireLP]

But more leaning towards a general late September launch?

[Sparks]

That's all you had to say.