I just happened to stumble on this thread today, googling myself. Lol.
I had dinner with Brian a few weeks ago, and I've had a positive relationship with him for a long time now. Brian's a great guy. As noted above, I did an interview with him at the party at the conclusion of the kickstarter campaign. I don't think I am going to be involved in BT4 though I was offered the chance to contribute some content. I work for a global engineering firm doing application development, and along with a couple writing projects I have in the works, I don't have flexibility to do much else. The idea of working on a project like BT4 otherwise sounds like a blast, and while I haven't made my living in the gaming industry, I am a lifelong gamer and I have done some coding for the Unreal engine. I have more ideas for game design and content now than I ever did at age 22.
As a side note, per the MMORPG comment, let me clarify what I said in an old interview. If I were developing something along those lines, I would appeal to the broadest possible audience, as a business decision. I would also include mature and hardmode content, and would likely weight it in favor of that. That's my personal preference in MMORPGs (I played hardmodes, back when I had time to do such things). I don't see these as mutually exclusive ideas, for that scale of a project. I wouldn't envision BT4 as an MMORPG, no way. It would dumb it down and rip the soul out of it.
Talking about the events surrounding business dealings and a disconnect between two guys in their early 20s seems a little silly. From the viewpoint of 52, me at 22 is a bit of a puzzle. But as I have said in interviews, Brian was doing what he thought he agreed to with our original agreement. He is a good businessman, and business is business. It may be entirely my fault that things went wrong. If it was, it wouldn't surprise me. I used to have difficulty separating business from personal, and there was a lot of emotion in that for me; I felt more deeply connected to that game than any project I've done since. I apologized to him about 20 years ago for any misunderstanding or bad feelings I caused. The attorney who represented me in the negotiation was a strange guy, Brian will remember, and misled me to assume the worst. It took me years to realize that, and that triggered the apology.
I wasn't aware of this "hostage" story until I was asked about it in that interview a number of years ago. My memory of this is vague. But I have, on a number of occasions over the years, withheld final delivery of code or executables until I received what I was owed by a client. A couple never paid, and never got the final work product. I guess those clients might refer to that as holding hostage, I don't know. It's just how you choose to look at it. One (who did eventually pay) was really offended, but I wasn't sure they would pay otherwise. You can take Heinemann's disparaging slant on this for what it is. I am a good guy and wouldn't do anything underhanded. That's not how I approach life. If I withheld source code until the agreement was signed, I did it because I believed I was owed something specific and was worried. In the end, there was a compromise. Obviously there should have been something in writing from the beginning. So it was at worst a misunderstanding, and I undoubtedly handled it wrong. Add that to a long list.
I've read Bill's musings, in more recent years, and I can tell you that a lot of what he says about BT1 and BT2 is fictional. He was an outsider on the process of development and he was so extremely socially disconnected he couldn't have tracked much; I have to wonder if he's got Asperger's, looking back. No disrespect to the guy (and by guy I mean, genetically), I liked him back then, he made me laugh, but he's a storyteller with an agenda, and that was a long time ago. He sat isolated in a cubicle in the back corner of the room. He and I never spoke about anything significant relating to the development or design of the game from the beginning through completion of BT2.
Maybe I'll wander around the forums more. If Burger has posted anything outrageous, point me to it and I'll respond.
Thanks to the one post for the reference to my personal site; if you happen to have an interest in such things spiritual, please find the FB page and like it. If not, send your curses my way, the Lucklaran buff is up. Humming it right now.
I hope BT4 is a massive success and Brian knows I'm happy to do PR in support. I know Brian will take this in the right direction, BT means as much to him as it does to me. Thumbs up for more celebratory parties.