Savage Empire Tshirt

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plasticrabbit

Guest
hi there! i was just wandering if anybody had one of the tshirts you could send off for after completeing the savage empire? ive been trying to find a decent picture so i can have onje made. this is the best ive come up with so far..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v430/plasticrabbit/untitled-1.jpg

before i spend the £13 getting it done i wanted to see if i could find a clearer picture.

love what you guys are doing with the origin museum, ive been a collecter myself for a while.

roundy13@hotmail.com
 
Hi plasticrabbit!

Yes--the Savage Empire T-shirt is a rare Origin collectible. Available only thru direct order, or as part of the Savage Empire Special Edition version of the game, it is a very hard-to-find item (and a really cool design as well!) :)
We don't have a good graphic at the moment, but I'm sure I can take a pic for you that's a little better than this one. Being collectors, we kind of frown upon making replicas of actual artifacts, so when you do get the graphic, it will have a small difference, to distinguish it from a genuine Savage Empire T-shirt.
I'll make sure that it doesn't mess up the graphic design tho.
 
OM Curator said:
Being collectors, we kind of frown upon making replicas of actual artifacts, so when you do get the graphic, it will have a small difference, to distinguish it from a genuine Savage Empire T-shirt.

This is not a common belief around here. We always attempt to reproduce the highest fidelity samplings of Origin collectibles that we can at the CIC. We do not watermark or distort things in this manner. There's no reason to. It's hard enough to preserve stuff as it is - the community doesn't need us adding imperfections.
 
WRONG!

What ChrisReid says and what he knows are two completely different things. He has no experience dealing with the collectors market. He has no experience dealing with forgers, and he certainly has no experience in Origin Museum policy or operations.

WCNEWS hosts these forums for us, and ChrisReid is one of the members of the CIC--but this gives him NO AUTHORITY in the workings of the Origin Museum. He is not afilliated with us in any way, and his attitude and opinions have nothing to do with how we run things here.
 
OM Curator said:
Hi plasticrabbit!

Yes--the Savage Empire T-shirt is a rare Origin collectible. Available only thru direct order, or as part of the Savage Empire Special Edition version of the game, it is a very hard-to-find item (and a really cool design as well!) :)
We don't have a good graphic at the moment, but I'm sure I can take a pic for you that's a little better than this one. Being collectors, we kind of frown upon making replicas of actual artifacts, so when you do get the graphic, it will have a small difference, to distinguish it from a genuine Savage Empire T-shirt.
I'll make sure that it doesn't mess up the graphic design tho.

hi! that would be great, just so you know i'm not going to try and pass it off as an origonal or anything. i just want one to wear. =)
 
That's cool, P-R. :)

Yeah--I trust that you're not gonna try to make a forgery. Just please understand that forgeries of gaming memorabilia have increased in the last few years. A few unscrupulous folks are making copies of rare games, and collectibles (-even T-SHIRTS), and selling them on Ebay as originals--Check out this page, for details on game T-Shirt forgeries (about halfway down):
http://www.if-legends.org/~yois/column.php?column_date=2004-02-01

Although we love to encourage fans to continue the Origin tradition, we always need to have a responsibility to prevent forgery in our hobby.

I'll get you some pics (hopefully) by the end of the week. I'd love to see your final results!
 
OM Curator said:

No.. I'm pretty sure my post was spot on.

OM Curator said:
What ChrisReid says and what he knows are two completely different things.

I don't even know what that's supposed to mean (but somehow I do?).

OM Curator said:
He has no experience dealing with the collectors market.

Anyone who reads the CIC knows better than that. I've spent many thousands of dollars on a wide range of rare and exotic gaming merchandise over the last decade - and I've spent hundreds of hours working to share it with our visitors as best I can.

OM Curator said:
He has no experience dealing with forgers,

Of course I have. I've taken the lead in sharing information on numerous Wing Commander forgeries with our community, not to mention stopping the illegal distribution of Wing Commander items. And I know that hiding secret messages and downsizing pictures does nothing to hurt people who choose to do this. On the contrary, providing everyone with high quality authentic photos of things like t-shirts actually has the opposite effect.

OM Curator said:
and he certainly has no experience in Origin Museum policy or operations.

I never claimed to. Everything in my original post was a direct reply to things you posted in this thread or a reference to how the CIC operates.

OM Curator said:
WCNEWS hosts these forums for us, and ChrisReid is one of the members of the CIC--but this gives him NO AUTHORITY in the workings of the Origin Museum.

Obviously. I think I demonstrated this by showing how differently the CIC runs.

OM Curator said:
He is not afilliated with us in any way,

Yeah.. aside from providing your online presence and directing thousands of people to it.

OM Curator said:
and his attitude and opinions have nothing to do with how we run things here.

Which is, once again, abundantly clear.

OM Curator said:
A few unscrupulous folks are making copies of rare games, and collectibles (-even T-SHIRTS), and selling them on Ebay as originals--Check out this page, for details on game T-Shirt forgeries (about halfway down):
http://www.if-legends.org/~yois/column.php?column_date=2004-02-01

That site perfectly demonstrates the problem with restricting information. Tight fisted people who won't even share instructions are the reason prices have ballooned to a ridiculous price on ebay. Forgeries of Wing Commander documentation have appeared on eBay too (which I wrote about in the news), but you'll never ever see anyone get swindled in some high priced scam over them, because we're continually educating people and adding to our own online database of game manuals.

OM Curator said:
Although we love to encourage fans to continue the Origin tradition, we always need to have a responsibility to prevent forgery in our hobby.

We have a responsibility not to cut off our nose to spite our face too.
 
Good points, all.

You're right Chris--I'm wrong... You won the argument. Three cheers, and a tiger for you. I'll leave it to you to help out plasticrabbit.

You made your point clearly--that YOU control the CIC--and everything that is associated with it. I accept that.

Thanks to all who supported us.
 
OM Curator said:
You won the argument. Three cheers, and a tiger for you. I'll leave it to you to help out plasticrabbit.

If I had the t-shirt, I would have done so already (without screwing with it). You know we don't have one, so spiting an innocent bystander to make some asinine point to me seems pretty childish.

I guess I figured you'd find some way to avoid sharing your precious shirt with anyone - but I have to admit that even I'm shocked and apalled that you deleted your entire website (without even backing it up) to do it. I guess that's why the "Preserving Worlds" bit in your signature is in quotation marks.

OM Curator said:
You made your point clearly--that YOU control the CIC--and everything that is associated with it. I accept that.

Where did you even get that? You're the one that introduced the concept to this thread - not me. The horrible thing here (I mean.. besides demonstrating how little you value the contributions of countless Origin veterans by deleting their exhibits in a crazy fit of misplaced rage) is that my original point just bounced off into dead space. I thought my simple post about archiving methods would get something better than a paranoid rant in reply.

OM Curator said:
Thanks to all who supported us.

You're welcome.

I really have to ask though: Did you get down to the line where I talked about not cutting off your nose to spite your face and think "I'll do just that!" or was the irony of the action just lost on you?
 
That's just the same thing that happened to me half a year ago, dealing with cars.

People who collect stuff to just have it for its rarity, and people who collect stuff to have fun in using them are very different on some level.

The former thrill in items that are rare and celebrate when another item disappears or is destroyed, becuas the value of their own collection has gone up. The other group wants everybody to enjoy the rare stuff, and promote copies, remakes or reimaginations - which makes the shares experience more valuable for them.

Every time both groups start discussing that difference, a nuclear exposion seems to be the unavoidable consequence.

..which, in my case, led to a guy literally suing me for making a suggestion in the contract (I just wanted a different radio installed).
 
To Joe - I can understand the point you're trying to make, but I definitely don't agree. You really need to rethink what you wrote here. Yes, the existence of 100% identical non-authentic copies of an item certainly makes life hard for collects who actually want to find a rare original item. Ultimately, however, you're wrong. I mean, ask yourself what your actual objective in all this is. Are you trying to preserve the memory of Origin, as you stated on your website, or do you just want to preserve scraps of Origin memorabilia?

If you choose the latter option, then you do indeed have to watch out for fake copies. Bear in mind, however, that if you do so, you will deprive the memorabilia you collect of any meaning. At the end of the day, nobody will be interested in the stuff you collect, whether it be Savage Empire shirts or anything else, simply because nobody will understand what this stuff stands for. If you prevent people from making copies of Origin memorabilia, you in fact prevent people from sharing memories. This means that, as years go on and more and more of these items are lost or destroyed, only the collection in your museum will remain, and... nobody will know what these items are any more, because nobody will have ever seen them. Your memorabilia will become just meaningless stuff, because as the name indicates, things are memorabilia as long as people remember what they stand for.

That's not the way to go. If you want to preserve the memory of Origin, it's your duty to help people share their memories. It's your duty to help people make copies of memorabilia as close to the original as humanly possible. People are more likely to remember what The Savage Empire was when there's a thousand of these shirts around, than when there is a dozen. By helping people to make copies of such artifacts, you do not reduce the value of the items in your collection - what you do is help those items retain any value at all.

Finally, I just don't understand why you reacted to Chris' post the way you did. He didn't order you to do anything. He didn't make any demands. All he did was explain his point of view (...our point of view - I think most of the people visiting this forum would agree with what he said, and not because he represents the CIC or anything like that, but simply because he is right in this case). He didn't try to force his views on you, he simply explained them. Why react this way? Do you truly care so little about your collection, that you're willing to destroy your website just because someone dared to suggest you might be wrong? The website contents are just as much a part of your museum collection as the actual physical stuff. Three years ago, I sent you, from halfway around the world, a fresh, factory-sealed copy of an Origin game from the 1980s... you can be damn certain I'd never consider doing that again - how could I be sure you wouldn't one day destroy it in another fit of rage?
 
The story, as I understand it, is that Joe has worked out an elaborate conspiracy theory. He is absolutely, vehemently certain that Chris Reid is out to get him. When Chris dared to post an opinion opposite Joe's, he absolutely and thoroughly lost his mind. Joe actually decided, somehow, that Chris Reid disagreeing with him was an automatic prelude to Chris banning him, removing his website and embarassing him publically. I have given the process two teary, sleepless nights now, and I have been unable to fathom the logic involved.

Joe was further offended that I would not post in his defense, and that I told him he was wrong. He sent me the nastiest e-mail I've ever seen, insisting that we're no longer friends and stating outright that the whole of our involvement was some plot on my part to steal documents for the CIC. That's beyond terrible, and if nothing else I need to refute that claim.

So, I'm posting.

I can certainly defend or demonize Chris Reid. Chris isn't an easy to guy love. He's often coarse in his online interactions, arguably the result of a lifetime of usenet posts to an internet that was a lot messier than the one you all enjoy today. Chris is my opposite in many, many ways: from physical appearance to political opinions to interests outside of Wing Commander.

At the same time, I know Chris Reid as the guy who won't remove Hadrian from the CIC staff list, even after Hadrian stole hundreds of dollars from Chris and did his best to ruin our vacation. Joe should remember Chris as the guy who, before having his succesful engineering career, offered to pay to send Joe's whole family to Dragon*Con after finding out they wouldn't be able to make it in 2002. Chris is fundamentally a good person who loves us all more than we will ever really believe. From spending thousands of dollars a year to keep the CIC running, to mailing out a hundred prizes every August to capping his eight to twelve hour work days with two hours of update writing several days a week, Chris gives the community his all -- even if he isn't an outright fun character like LOAF or Joe Garrity.

I don't think Chris likes Joe Garrity very much. Joe smokes, he has a big personality and he isn't the same kind of Wing Commander fanboy that many of us are. Chris is the kind of person who will look at you funny if you talk about how you've never read False Colors. Elitist? Sure, I'll agree -- but I probably feel the same way half the time.

Joe Garrity certainly doesn't like Chris -- at all. For all the raging he has done in the alst 48 hours about Chris daring to offend (read: disagree with) him in his 'home', it's Joe Garrity who shoes up in #WingNut to make fun of Chris on a regular basis. #WingNut is, of course, *Chris*' home.

Joe knows Chris' personality, and feels the need to needle him about it constantly. Beyond that, Chris recieves constant reports from channel users that Joe has been badmouthing him in private. Chris was so happy after the party last month -- after all the IRC antics, everyone got along great and had a wonderful time... and I personally watched him become crestfallen when he got back online and found another log of Joe making fun of him to Goku.

That's a 'motive' -- but there's no crime. Chris didn't attack Joe, Quarto -- the most reasonable of all of us -- 's reaction proves that. Chris had every right to dislike Joe, to attack him, and so on... and he didn't. He pointed out his opinion.

And was savaged for it. And Joe expects me to defend him for that.

The hell I will.

I want to refute the attack on me, personally. I swear here it isn't true.

Read our archives -- how many times did we credit Joe with archiving work that Hades or I did? How many times did we promote the Origin Museum for no reason? How many Origin people that he knows were introduced to him because I explained his museum to them? How many rare artifacts did I personally donate to his collection, with no fanfare whatsoever?

The answer to all of these questions is many.

I'm not some thief, and it's disgusting that he could forget our history to that extent -- all because I would dare agree with my friend Chris over my friend Joe.

The Joe Garrity I thought I knew might be dead now, but he was a great man with a great idea.

Joe and Paula were beyond very kind to me for a great many years. They used to take me out to nicer dinners than I ever deserved to talk about crazy Origin schemes. I've always felt indebted for that, and I've wanted to believe all along that I've helped him, too... from attending an *Ultima* convention to find him rare games, to spending a fortune tracking down a rare hat for him, to keeping him in the loop about secret WC projects whenever they are discussed, to forwarding him any WC veterans I meet to his museum.

Apparently that all adds up to nothing, and it was all part of a scheme I had, to get things from him. As I often make long friendships in the hopes that people I know will recieve things to scan from EA years later. Then I help them scan those things and put them online, giving them all the credit and... well, I think you see where this evil plot goes.

I mention with some reserve, in so far as it breaks with whatever narrative this rant might have had, that this happened once before -- back at the first DragonCon, a former WC producer offered to send Joe a box of props. Knowing that this had been offered to everyone in the universe before, I seized on the opportunity, replied and told him it'd be great if we could get them in the next week or so because we were going to Dragon*Con (where we had a booth displaying Origin memorabelia). Those props are all in Joe's museum now, but somehow he still thought for years that I was trying to screw him over. I blamed Hades for that for years, but I think now that it probably wasn't anything he said -- it was just an unwarranted conspiracy theory in the mind of someone who didn't understand that I wanted to do something for him.

Ahh, and the museum. I agree, somewhat sadly, with Quarto and criticalmass. Joe straddled the line between collector and archivist. I won't say he was one and tried to sell himself as the other -- I'd say he just never managed to balance the two properly... but what he did do, he did brilliantly -- and everyone, everyone he talked to about Origin believed in him. Look at Quarto, who send him a game from the other side of the world. Everybody did that. The first time I met Joe, he mentioned he didn't have a boxed Origin FX. I went home, got my copy and gave it to him the second time we met. Only OFX box I've ever had, and I was happy to donate it. Joe was that persuasive, his museum was that cool and his dream was that amazing.

It was necessary, for any adult spending their own money on this sort of thing, to believe that it might be an investment. You put it in the back of your mind, because the rhetoric was so very, very good. That sounds shallow, though -- the practice itself was very, very good. Joe put on a great show. Yes, Chris and I came along and we started archiving things in a very serious trained-archivist manner... and we had a set of non-profit ideals there that I think impresses our WC audience... but we never had the pizzaz and the dream that Joe did, and because of that we were always happy to put our abilities behind his dream.

Joe, god dammit... we all loved you, so very, very much. Me, Hades, Frosty... random people who read about you... you were this amazing character, this great friend... and what did you do to yourself?

Maybe he really does hate us all, maybe he really is just a greedy collector... I can't believe those things. Maybe he has some personal issue and just took out his anger here... maybe he hated Chris Reid more than any of us could have believed, for reasons we can't understand... those two guesses are, at least, believable. In any case, I urge none of us to judge him too harshly -- I believe, truly believe, that he didn't know what he was doing and couldn't see the way out for reasons beyond our understanding.

I sincerely hope that he will recognize that he's done something very stupid, that he's gone out of his way to offend his friends and that he will apologize and make things right. I hope, too, that you will all let him. There once was a great man who was Joe Garrity... I hope that this broad recollection, attempt to explain and sadly required defense of Chris will not need to be an elegy.

I will end with a true story.

I got an e-mail the other day from a graphic designer -- someone who worked for Origin years ago. He answered my WC question, and then he happened to mention -- he had a mockup box for Bioforge Plus and did I think there'd be any interest if he were to sell it?

Reading that, I literally broke down crying... because the one guy who I wanted to call and tell about that had just told me he wasn't really my friend.
 
LOAF that post has brough a tear to my eye, and given how little I ever do that is even more for you. I hope that this matter can be wrapped up swiftly and politely.
 
Thank you LOAF for taking the hard job in clearing that up for all of us.
For people strewn all over the globe like many forum members are, the CIC core people (including Joe) always formed that mysterious group of different characters with the same purposes; friends despite varying views or opinions.

For me it always felt good to check out the news and forum threads while sitting in some godforsaken hotel room, because somewhere there were people talking about stuff I like, and sharing that with the world. That may have nothing to do with Wing Commander, it's over and above, a basic need for human company.

To glimpse at these developments now, however incomplete in their complexity and history, makes me realize that you guys don't live in LaLa-land either. People are full of inconsistencies, quirks, conflicting emotions and disappointments, but what counts is the way we deal with it.

I somehow know that you'll keep working on this, it's not simply "forget Joe". I admired his collection too, I don't know him or anything about him, but I know that something like that is not over that quickly. There may be more emails ahead, more misunderstandings, more grief - until something, someone changes.
But this is not a topic for public discussion, it's between people - and I hope that everybody not directly involved can scrape together enough self-restraint to keep out. You guys have my sincerest wishes to find a good way through this.
 
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