Mini-Rant: Felicia Day and Geek and Sundry Borrowed My Footage A Long Time Ago

A long time ago I made an Ultima V Lazarus let's play. It was fun until the laptop died with the save games on it. I should get them off the HD and play again, or backup on Dropbox next time. Or just retrace my steps and finish it. Lazarus is good.

A year ago along came Felicia Day on her Geek and Sundry, who made a great video with some weird Ultima beat-poetry. There was a little bit of footage from Ultima V Lazarus at the codex, given Felicia Day is called Codex Dragon and Codex in the Gamers. Except the Ultima V Lazarus footage looked incredibly familiar. It was from my video. Which is probably the only Let's Play to get to the codex in U5:L as that is frickin' late in the game due to the fact you can't just jump in a pirate vessel like in the original Ultima 4.

Unfortunately pointing this out in the comments section led to the following 2 camps of individuals bombarding my inbox and the odd comment on youtube and (with swear words removed) said...

"I should be happy that Felicia had ripped off my footage without even telling me she was doing it."

"The footage is completely different from my let's play, so how dare I try to get some youtube hits by linking my rubbishy videos to this glorious lady."

More stingingly Felicia noticed this, apologised and her people (as one dare not speak to the goddess of the internet herself lest her voice destroy thy modem) promised to send some schwag to me as compensation which never materialised despite numerous re-emailings. Salt on wound methinks as Hollywood players like Felicia would be first to complain if I started pirating the Guild.

Anyway I present Exhibits A and B.
(Incidentally internet, feel free to rip off all my stuff, just toss me a mail to let me know you are doing so as a courtesy).

Resurrection of the Lamented Heroquest

Heroquest 25th Anniversary has been back for a while and doing relatively great-guns trade despite two failed crowdfunding attempts. While I'd love to back it, the fact they do not have the rights from Hasbro to make Heroquest and that the excessively litigious Games Workshop might one day throw their hat into the ring mean it seems like a fool's investment.

Add to that I've yet to see any real plastic miniatures (but an abundance of 3D models) and the poor English on the site seems to be a warning sign that the rules may read like Tommy Wiseau wrote them. They also seem to be adding a lot of new stuff (new characters, 'hero cards') and are rushing the game out, which makes me wonder how much testing and game balance there will be.

Finally there's the number crunching - my current copy of Heroquest, bought in 2013, cost a mere £25.00 on Ebay + £6 shipping. This new edition costs 65 Euros (or £51) + 29.41 Euros (£24) shipping. And that's presumably with the crowdfunding discount along with the fact they've taken your money and you won't see a product until allegedly December 2014 (and every kickstarter I've backed has been 2-3 months late). The deluxe edition with all the extra stuff (vampire crypts, rolling boulders, levers) costs a whopping 115 Euros (£95).

Maybe if it appears in a retail shop, heavily discounted.