Complaint Review: Titanic: Honor and Glory

My proposed solution for the future of Titanic HG -- Open Letter to Tom and crew

For the TLDR skip to the bottom...

So I'll get to the point... Tom and crew have been looking for outside investors and said "investors" have been "just around the corner" for the past five years or more by now... and post-COVID, I'm sorry to say, that its just not going to happen, at least not in the way they imagined it... No one is going to be giving them millions of dollars to finish making this project/game as Tom invisions it to be, period. full stop.

No financial investor, angel investor, venture captialists etc is ever going to invest in this project, its just too risky and would most likely end up with negative return on investment or entire loss of principle invested... lets face it, the money guys aren't dumb people, they go where there is best rate of return and if TitanicHG as a project was financially appealing they would have found an investor by now... if this project was very appealing from a monetary return on investment standpoint, they would have investors chasing them, not the other way around...

In terms of AAA title games, there is not really a market for mainstream Titanic game, at best it would be a small niche. For the sake of arguement lets say I'm wrong and some large gaming dev/publisher felt they wanted to give Titanic a chance, and they wanted to make a Titanic game for PC and consoles... Its almost certain that they would have a storyline surrounding that, and they would already have their own plot, characters, stories etc and would never hand over creative aspect to Tom's TitanicHG... any large respectable studio could afford to hire their own team of dedicated modelers, animators, script writers, game developers etc etc and wouldn't need to collaborate with TitanicHG/ Tom/FourFunnels/etc... They would be much better starting from scratch using latest and greatest tools, technologies, design methods, etc rather than say attempting to license the existing (but unfinished) TitanicHG static model from the TitanicHG team, since this project is going on better part of almost a decade now and its already aging and showing such age...

When this TitanicHG was first ported over from Crysis mod to Unreal, the then state of the art graphics card was a GTX 600 series, today we have the RTX3090 coming out, a 50 fold improvement in terms of raw performance. We are now in the age of 8k gaming, Real time ray tracing RTX, volumetric particle effects and everything else, and infinite polygons/virtual memory management with the debut of Unreal Engine 5 and its technological breakthroughs... There is nothing proprietary about the Titanic itself, and the THG team obviously does not hold any patents, copyright, to "The Titanic" itself, so any major AAA gaming group that wanted to make a Titanic game would never considering going with THG (and thus handing over creative control) or even licensing what is an incomplete Titanic model that has now aged by more than half a decade.... Just ask Microsoft if they still want to license Outerra for their next Flight Simulator lol

Okay, so what about small time indie game publishers and small game development groups that want to do a Titanic sort of game? If they partner up with THG team, odds are knowing Tom, he wouldn't settle for anything less than absolute creative control and basically hijacking any sort of collaboration and taking over the entire project... Most indie devs teams wouldn't be amenable to that sort of style and besides, at that point they really just become an investor rather than a true collaboration... that only leaves the window open for licensing the static model itself... Forget the fact that the TitanicHG static model is nowhere near 100% completed, and lets pretend for now that it wasn't already more than 7 years old and aging rapidly, the fact of the matter is, any indie team that wished to do a Titanic game would only marginally benefit from licensing the TitanicHG model, since as we all know, modeling the ship itself is the easiest part of any Titanic game, its the everything else, the characters, the animations, the physics, the storyline and other gameplay mechanics etc that is the hardest part...

so if they blow their budget by licensing TitanicHG model, they would still have to finish the rest of it themselves and update it to Unreal 5 when it comes out next year, and then they are back at square one, the exact spot that the TitanicHG indie team is at, which is a model but nothing else and still needing to complete everything else but now they are out whatever money they spent on licensing the model from Tom and what are they gonna do? A kickstarter or indiegogo to get more funds when the niche market is already saturated and anyone interested in any Titanic sim/game have already pitched into the TitanicHG crowdfunded from yesteryear so there goes that out the window....

so no, the prospects of any indie game dev interested in making a Titanic game partnering up with THG team is small to none, and licensing the model from THG only makes sense if its economica
lly feasible (if they can agree on price/cost of license) but knowing Tom and knowing the history of the THG group, they would never agree to a reasonable price on model licensing and would feel that if they let that out the door then they have nothing left (which is sadly true)

For these aforementioned reasons and more, they are never going to get an sort of investor...

So what about the future moving forward? What options does the team realistically have? What would I recommend to them if I were running the show, so to speak?

I suggest a dual-prong approach...

1) Release a TitanicHG Simulator on Steam (and make it known that this is not the same as the TitanicHG GAME) and charge a reasonable price for it, say $19.99USD in Early Access mode. This Simulator would basically be the entire static model that they have created of the Titanic so far up to this point in time, minus any WIP portions that aren't condusive to being revealed at the moment. Releasing a seperate Simulator of Titanic allows them to by pass the legal issues that they otherwise would encounter if they were to release the Titanic GAME on steam and still charge folks that already previously pitched into their many past crowd funding campaigns at levels that would have entitled these crowdfunders a free copy of the game when it came out etc... and releasing such a TitanicHG Simulator would also bring in much needed funds to help towards keeping the team alive/together long enough to proceed to the next lead in.....

2) Be open to starting a liquidation process whereby you allow the open community to essentially buy back the project in full this time around. No one is going to crowd fund you guys anymore, forget about it... Instead, come forward and be open with the community and tell the community that you would be open to a certain number in mind that if reached you would open source and publish the entire TitanicHG project, all assets, all code, all source, work products, derivative works, etc surrounding the entire TitanicHG project, including but not limited to the entire Unreal Engine 4 Titanic HG Project and all associated and related files and data themselvs etc .... You would agree to not only publicly publish all of this, but to almost give it a public domain copyright, to completely open source everything free and clear and liberated for the community and anyone, everyone else to use as they wish without any royalty payments, license use restrictions, or any other payments or contingencies. Essentially, release what you have so far to the public domain. Contact a couple of independent appraisals to get a ballpark number in terms of a fair market value of this, then tell the community that if this number can be reached, you will release the project to the world. Let us take this off your hands while it is still worth something instead of keeping it locked down forever until one day its worth nothing to no one...

If you ask me, I would price it between $25,000 and $75,000

Good luck!

Titanic Demo 3 is now available for download at titanicdemo.com

Including an album of in-game screenshots published here: https://imgur.com/a/ib3xu

My name is Bo Chen and I was wrong about Titanic: Honor and Glory Demo 3 never coming out and therefore as previously promised I am officially issuing a public apology to Thomas Lynskey, Matthew DeWinkeleer, Kyle Hudak and to their PC game Titanic: Honor and Glory and to their company Four Funnels Entertainment Co. and Vintage Digital Revival LLC and to all the Titanic: Honor and Glory followers, contributors, investors, early adopters, fans and gamers alike.

On the early morning of Saturday June 11th 2017 it was confirmed that the Demo 3 of TitanicHG was finally and formally released in the form of “early access” to all current and existing backers in good standing at the Guarantee Group level and above. I had been both adamant and vocal with regards to predicting that Demo 3 would never see the light of day, but I was proven wrong today and therefore I hereby issue this public apology.

In retrospect, I observe that I had believed, at that time, and in good faith, that the project as a whole was in somewhat dire straits. Given its increase in scope creep since the beginning, it’s dedicated but still admittingly small core team, and the dual prong pressures of lack of monetary and financial funding and the seemingly significant delay in scheduled progress plans, I had lost faith that the project as originally presented would ever be implemented to competition. It was and still is my belief that a “Titanic game” or “Titanic simulation” is at best a niche within a niche, and that not since the Titanic itself had we witnessed anything as good as the work that had been done by the THG crew, and that if they were to fail then I did not believe the world would ever see anything the likes of what THG had attempted to do in the future ever again. A chapter in history would have been permanently closed and never to reenter.

Unfortunately, we all live in the real world, and in the real world, big name publishers, main stream developers and investors of any kind won't care that every last detail is painstakingly accurate and that you can see Southampton or read the books in the lounges - they care if they'll have return, specifically the bottom line and the rate of return on investment. While I secretly applaud the THG crew for being purists, sadly we’ve seen time and again that purity doesn’t “sell”.

In my opinion, it is the general consensus of many in the community that if THG were to ever find itself in the undesirable predicament of not seeing any other feasible path forward, that in such a worst case scenario, when push came to shove, that all in all it would be best for them to publish and sell a static Titanic model, essentially the “tour mode” or “simulation mode” if you will, even if it meant forgoing completing the story mode and game modes and other even more ambitious ideas and endeavors.

My concern was that THG itself does not prescribe to this view and perspective and that THG crew does not concur with this stance. My greatest fear was that in the event that certain contingencies came true and there was no future path forward for Titanic: Honor and Glory PC game, that instead of releasing the completed static model that the THG crew would simply close its doors, so to speak, and all of the painstaking work already done would be buried forever and simply never see the light of day.

Far too many times in the past I’ve witnessed indie developers go exactly this route, in some sense it almost felt like them giving a statement to the world that if they couldn’t succeed, then the world should never be privy to the seeing firsthand and witnessing the fruits of their labor. My fear was that the same or similar fate awaited Titanic HG.

This is precisely why I had felt very strongly at the time that the public release of Demo 3 was such a critical juncture, such a precious milestone, a moment of truth, and potentially of such historical significance to the legacy that is Titanic and to the larger community itself. If THG were to ultimately end up in failure, and if THG were to decide to close its doors without releasing the work that was already done in some fashion or another, then very likely Demo 3 would be the very last significant release of anything Titanic coming from THG ever again, and being that no other competitor currently comes close to replicating the quality and depth and fidelity of modeling and simulating the Titanic, this loss for Titanic would reverberate throughout eternity. This is especially true considering that other would-be venture-ers into this niche arena would have already seen first-hand just how un-lucrative an endeavor like this can really turn out to be. So Demo 3 had special significance for me, in that it represented in my mind and my heart a sort of “lifeboat”, a semi-completed microcosm of the – or rather, of what would and could have been – an entire model and simulation of the RMS Titanic itself. As a standalone it would have stood as an intrinsic testimony and monument to the greatness that is Titanic itself, finally instantiated, embodied, and brought to life in digital and virtual form at long last. In lieu of an actual completed and finished full Titanic game, it certainly would have been the very next best thing.

Now that Demo 3 has officially been released, even if initial reports state there is a slight fps performance issue that might be likely corrected and fixed in time for the broader wide public release coming later down the road, it is essentially “out there”, and once out there for the world to see and to enjoy, it is out there and liberated and free forever.

In addition to my public apology I wish to take the chance to thank the entire Titanic: Honor and Glory team for all of the hard work and dedication to bringing all of this to existence. I enjoyed immensely the two previous Demos, especially Demo 2, and look forward to beholding Demo 3 myself once it has been finalized for broader public release in due time.

Very Sincerely,
Bo Chen
Sunday, June 11, 2017

Due to the insanity, and this particular devs patience running thin, I thought Id make a little post here chronicling the upload process for the demo.

A certain someone seems to not understand the VERY indie nature of the THG team. Were not snug in one little office with great internet, were spread out over several states. I myself am in Indiana, U.S.A. (NOT the U.K.), and my current situation ensure that not only do I have very slow, unreliable internet, but not much chance of gaining faster access at the moment. I do not need to explain myself any further on that point, especially not for his benefit. He can think what he pleases, but hes wrong. As wrong as a flat earther, young earth creationist, 9/11 truther, or Titanic switch believer.

Ive busted my a*s day in and day out on this demo and whats going into it. Toms busted his a*s doing the writing and scripting and organized the sounds and V/O work, some modeling, textures, and much, much more. Matts done an incredible amount of modeling during the time its taken to make the demo alone, and has made some great pieces youll be seeing in it. Nicolas has made great texture designs. Chris has modeled some nice pieces. Anthony has composed wonderful music for it. And much, much more.

But me, Ive gone over everything. Ive gone over every model, polished everything I could, in some cases almost doing it from scratch. Ive done the UV mapping, the lightmaps. Ive baked and drawn and made textures. Ive sculpted and made hi-poly models. Ive made my own models as well. Me and Matt and the others paid a great deal of attention to every carving on the textures.

I placed everything in the engine, did all the lighting, all the collision, all the nav layouts, all the materials, imported all the textures and models, adjusted all the lightmaps, done all the animations, placed and tweaked all the sounds, created the landscapes, sculpted the terrain, placed the buildings and trees, and hundreds, if not thousands of other objects. And Ive gone over a lot of it several times over.

Then I had to do the light builds. Even with a good PC, it takes hours to build a scene. Over 12 hours for the interior, and at one point 6 hours for Belfast. Multiple times, along with several shorter preview light builds. In the last couple days, I had to trudge through thousands of objects to check their lightmaps. Ive had to solve issues with cooking and packaging, doing it over and over until it worked. Then I had to test it, pack it again, test it, pack it yet again, to make sure it works at least fairly well and not just push it out chock full of massive problems.

Oh, not to mention the many problems Ive had to solve or that have cropped up to slow my advance. Limited data storage, engine crashes, PC crashes, internet outages, even power outages. Sometimes it seems like everything works against me.

And finally, uploading. As I said, my internets slow as hell. Not much I can do about that right now. I dont even have the ability to go to hotspots right now. I dont have to explain myself, thats just how it is. The upload started hours ago, and it still has at least 9-10 hours to go. It fluctuates based on a number of factors, namely how much my internet is being used for other things. Just to show how painful the process is, Ill post the occasional screenshot showing the upload progress.

Even now, there are potential issues. My internet could go down. My power could go out, as it has been doing the last couple weeks. (NIPSCO needs to get their s**t together.) My PC could crash. Even then, there may still be a small delay of a couple or few hours, as there may be an additional security issue to fix, which you can thank a certain someone for.

Thats now, and thats the last 4-5 months. But it goes way beyond that.

Were still a tiny team, and its a huge task. All the while sustained by whatever donations we get, the two campaigns, and all the while searching for investors. Even fully funded, it will be quite a task, but we will continue to do it. Why? Because we care about the Titanic. About her story. About her people. Were not here to defraud people or take your money. Were here to preserve a legacy. But were doing it with limited resources, from different parts of the globe.

All of us here on the project - Me, Tom, Matt, Nicholas, Chris, Bill, Parks, Ken, Anthony, Dan, and many others - have poured our hearts, minds, blood, sweat, and precious time to this project, often day in and day out, sometimes part-time, often full-time, working on this project. Weve sacrificed so much in our personal lives. Weve trudged through hard times. And yet were still working on it as hard as we can. Ever since the days of Titanic: Lost in the Darkness, and even before. Me and Matt have been modeling Titanic since 2008/2009. I started with the exterior and still primarily am tasked with the exterior modeling, but do plenty of other modeling as well as polishing/finishing/texturing the interior models. Matts modeled the entire interior on his own, a task I myself still have a hard time grasping. And Toms been doing his thing with Titanic since the days of his now-lost Lego Titanic film. And our primary consultants, they have decades of Titanic research under their belts, and two have been to the wreck. Weve practically modeled the entire ship. A whole ocean liner. Sometimes multiple times in a few places, just because the previous models werent good enough or we learned something new. Weve uncovered new things about the ship and her story ourselves in the process. We put great effort and love into every model, every texture, every design, every element, carving, piece of furniture, and more. Not to mention the story, which is a whole thing in itself, and Toms done a wonderful job.

Everything. All of us. Every year, every month, and later on every week and practically every day, for the last 7 years. For most of that time we didnt even look for funding. Only when it became clear that what we wanted to accomplish needed something extra, did we look for outside help. And still, every day, we bust our asses. Even when Tom or Tom and Matt are traveling, while some like to sit there and accuse them of lounging around, its to further the project and our goals. Right now theyre in Halifax, going to Titanic events, Titanic sites, talking to Titanic people, and meeting with the Titanic International Society. And Im here, trying to bring you guys the demo as fast as I can. Would we bother doing any of that at all, over the course of a huge chunk (relatively speaking) of our lives if we were frauds, fakes, or didnt care?

Were all doing the best that we can. Sometimes we hit obstacles. Sometimes (well, often, really) I miscalculate my estimates of things. But we do what we can, as much as we can, as best as we can, with what we have and what we can get.

Demo 3 is effectively done, after many hardships and much work. All that remains is to upload, as I stated. That alone is subject to multiple issues and will take time. Hopefully it will be VERY soon, but it will be up when it will be up. And it will be up, no matter what. The Demo will come out. That is a certainty.

A certain someone can sit there and say otherwise all he please. He can post all the Ripoff Reports he wants. He can post on Reddit as many times as he please. He can annoy our fans to no end. He can call the president, congressmen, the FBI, New Scotland Yard, the Queen, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. And he can accuse us of being frauds and fakes as much as he likes. Its no matter to us, and we know its no matter to our fans. You all know better, you all understand, and we thank you for that. We have the occasional nutjob - the Titanic community has about as many nutjobs as Titanic had rivets - but those people are a minority voice. Albeit very loud and obnoxious, as youve all seen. Despite that, we will continue, well past this, to bring great things to the world of Titanic. Demo 3 will happen.

It is happening.

Thank you

i'll introduce myself - i'm Marvin Kön*g, Asset Creator and Co-Founder of the Original Project with the original Idea in 2008 with Robin Bock. I guess it's difficult to understand if you live in another country than Germany, in my opinion it's a pretty vital point. The most "Modeling and Programming" people are pure selfmade indie-do-it-yourself guys coming from a pretty poor background. We started the Project in our freetime and gained a lot of fans and support from our fastly growing community. We never considered making it commercial - we were only 14 and 17, growing up, dealing with the german burocracy jungle and trying to achieve something, trying to "get a life" and something. I live alone since i'm 16. Living in a country with a minimum wage around 7,90$ and a maximum taxation about nearly 50% as soon as you hit ca. 4000€ per month. It's "get born rich or die poor.", so building a business under this circumstances doesn't make any sense. We wanted to get it finished as good as we could and get a slice of the cake when it's done.

I know that some members of ORM aren't very diplomatic. But i've seen every mail contact between Tom Lynskey and Robin Bock (at this time i've been busy with my education and tried not to starve, so i've been a bit "in the background") Lynskey promised the big money, did nothing productive but "talking into the camera" and his only qualification was "i have money and like titanic" so everybody fell for him - this was MY personal impression. I've always hoped we could get an arrangement with the "old team", but they almost reacted like they've been indoctrinated. The team has completely blown up because of money. It felt like a punch in the Face not only for me, Robin suffered even more from this loss. The precise circumstances are of course a bit more complex, communication issues were a big part. But as an student-indie-developer you just don't consider getting ripped by a rich guy from the other end of the world - it's something i expected from EA, but not as an untalented teenager from a village. I've grown up with the thought of respecting each other and "intellectual property", something that really shouldn't be robbed.

From my point of view, we'd all get better along if we'd sit together and developed one big Project. But i really really cant' accept that somebody just comes along, claimes the "idea" of making a new, photorealistic titanic game with modern day technology and just desperatly wants to be "CEO" of it by any means, even if it isn't his own idea and hat nothing to do with it's birth. Together we could do a fantastic Game in less time than now, but it basically get's prevented by a guy who - as i said - desperately wants to be CEO of a titanic game, ignoring what we could achieve together, ignoring the talented members of our team just because of egoism. So, the best wishes from T H&G are a bit...cynical to me.

As I pointed out - this was just my personal experience of the events. I don't like the thought of being sorted out without any word and without knowing why. the bridge instruments you see are made by me and I think, they aren't the worst. So the question - even if we've been sorted out. From the viewpoint of "reaching the goal of a finished game as soon and good as possible", why was it necessary to completely scrap the European part of the team and place a new leader? I don't understand it. it has never been explained. I'll try to do my part in the 2.0 of our former project not necessarily to compete, but for fun. maybe this time this peace will stand. I expected these discussions and im tired of "there's only one supreme titanic recreation in the world, and everything you do is s**t because it's not in the name of fourfunnels."

Regards, Marvin "Tesla" Kön*g

So finally they were forced to respond to their investors and backer base... This is a step in the right direction but after reading the contents of the letter it all seems a bit like hogwash.

http://i.imgur.com/NavqQqA.png

"Hello all! As many of you know, Demo 3 still isn't here. This has been a huge source of frustration for you guys and us alike. Whenever we're close to completion, some major issue comes up. Most recently, we've found that the current build was too large to be formatted for our current hosting setup, so we needed to make modifications.

Matt and I (Tom) are currently in Halifax to give presentations for the Canadian Titanic Society who we are honored to be the guests of while Kyle is continuing his hard work on the programming. In addition to the frequent computer issues, we've had major security leaks in the structure of our current programming (which has allowed a competing commercial venture to pull out our models and integrate it into theirs) in addition to an hourly bombardment from some followers who are demanding answers for where this free demo is.

Addendums for archived, memorialized and preserved for the record


So again, they have breached yet another deadline, the 24-36 hours have come and gone and time has passed and yet as expected, as I predicted, no demo in sight and not even the courtesy of a notification or update on the update of the delay this time around.

For posterity:

archive.is/1Zryn
https://web.archive.org/web/20170610000816/https://www.reddit.com/r/TitanicHG/comments/6gbnaz/i_told_you_so/

archive.is/OR3hl
web.archive.org/web/20170610000907/ reddit.com/r/TitanicHG/comments/6g0sdf/titanic_demo_3_delayed_again_pushed_back_to_2436/

web.archive.org/web/20170504235932/ reddit.com/r/TitanicHG/comments/6925v5/its_game_over_and_demo_3_is_never_gonna_happen/

Example of my track record for accurately calling out crowd-funded schemes early on when most of the media got it wrong:

ripoffreport.com/reports/zano-torquing-group/internet/zano-torquing-group-ivan-reedman-reece-crowther-zano-kickstarter-scam-vaporware-doe-1202412

ripoffreport.com/reports/robert-space-industries/internet/robert-space-industries-star-citizen-the-genesis-starliner-money-grab-cash-cow-pump-an-1238807

Minutes ago, we recieved a PM on reddit from one of the core THG folks, modeler Matthew DeWinkeleer admitting on the record officially that the Demo was never even completed... stating that he needs backers and investors such as myself to "settle down" in order to "let them work" so they can finish the demo.

https://i.imgur.com/7S7cui6.png

Not only is this unbelievable, as in cannot be believed, but recall that months and months ago these same folks had promised the demo was already ready and would soon be released in Titanic week of early April!

https://i.imgur.com/IKxfVPx.png