It was the first Cookie I found of google images, but it's still a cookie :3

Well, this guy still hasn't definitely stated that he's a troll and he's still answering some questions, along with promising that another colleague will sign up and answer questions too. Still, if we wait a little more then we can see if all will be revealed or this just dies.

So I forgive ya too. Wouldn't mind having a piece of that cookie too, looks tasty =P

Tbh, I just saw this on dS (or was it redit?) and posted stuff here to see if people wanted to talk about it without reading up (which I tend to do ).

Pls forgive me

Also another indicator that it could all be *bleep* is that he said EtD was made from scratch, using no graphical assets. That's not true. If you extract the textures from the game, you can see that there are some IDENTICAL textures. I'll link proper pics later.

Something else I wanted to add while we're at it is that the guy sounds not like someone who's busy making games (and, let's face it, wouldn't be able to remember every detail), and more like an obsessive fan. He goes into unusual amounts of detail about these fantasies of the Sorceress coming back, Hunter and Bianca's wedding, or 'Peace Keepers Redux'--very much Spyro-ised perspective that sound like they're coming from someone obsessed with the classic series. Most actual developers don't have the time to go this deep into the actual canon, or the memory to do so 13 years after the fact.

^This right here is very much true. I talk to many developers all the time about the series' they've worked on. A lot of those people don't focus on those games to the point where they know everything about it. They just happened to be on board. Now I could be spreading a misconception, like many game developers such as our own Ted Price know nearly everything about Ratchet & Clank.

That's a little disappointing. It would have been interesting to see the photos and screenshots he refers to, but obviously there's nothing to see if they don't really exist.

Out of curiosity, who is the troll? Some anonymous person on Wikipedia keeps editing the Spyro article with fake information, and I'm wondering if it might be the same troll you're talking about. If you'd rather not say, that's okay.

It's someone so familiar that it's not even funny. x.x I wasn't sure about giving him due attention, but since you asked: based purely on his typing styles and attitudes, and other evidence which I don't want to reveal in case he decides to patch them up (he probably hangs around here), I'm 90% certain it's ccrogers/spyrobeta/whatever name he goes by now. Just to add to this, he also made up a Croc game (on that same forum) and another Spyro game before, not long back. And he's the only one I know of who still seems to get a kick out of making this stuff up, which really made him a prime suspect from the get-go. There are not many normal people who do this. =/

Something else I wanted to add while we're at it is that the guy sounds not like someone who's busy making games (and, let's face it, wouldn't be able to remember every detail), and more like an obsessive fan. He goes into unusual amounts of detail about these fantasies of the Sorceress coming back, Hunter and Bianca's wedding, or 'Peace Keepers Redux'--very much Spyro-ised perspective that sound like they're coming from someone obsessed with the classic series. Most actual developers don't have the time to go this deep into the actual canon, or the memory to do so 13 years after the fact. (Edit: My bad--this is basically what Bitmap just said. Sorry I kinda stole your comment XD)

Finally, just want to add that his latest comment about the Dreamcast version ('looks identical to retail') sounds as bogus as the rest as it implies that they had a working Dreamcast version late in the development cycle (reminder of reality: Universal never announced such a thing), despite strongly suggesting earlier that they 'started with Dreamcast and then decided to go PS2', later adding 'we simply had to make a little tech demo', before backtracking onto 'it was a fun project', until finally 'it looked identical to retail'. His first comment on how it would look was 'it wouldn't look as good as it did on the PS2', and his last comment on that was that it 'looks much like the PS2 version'. His story is falling apart.

It sucks though and I agree with everyone that it would be really nice to get some actual info on EtD's development and possible cut content. Although I have a feeling that if we did, it'd be less romantic than it's been made to sound--after all, the final game did have 25ish levels when you include the minigames, and would have had 100 dragonflies if Enchanted Forest made it in. It may well have been a buggy mess, but it may well have met most of its deadlines regardless.

Out of curiosity, who is the troll? Some anonymous person on Wikipedia keeps editing the Spyro article with fake information, and I'm wondering if it might be the same troll you're talking about. If you'd rather not say, that's okay.

I'd take this news with a grain of salt. It'd be great to be proven wrong, but there's a few things that bother me with regards to his consistency, as well as the practicality of this story in industry terms. His latest claim about the Dreamcast thing raises my eyebrow even further than it did at first.

1. He's half-revealing himself: 'my name's Dan and I work at Activision but *cough* *cough* I can't reveal myself'. This is strange behaviour, one who wants to be anonymous will typically say they're an anonymous worker at [this place], and one who doesn't mind being known will typically mention their name and position. I might be wrong on this, but it seems weird to me.
2. No evidence at all! But it's justified: because everything was conveniently destroyed.
3. He mentions they were developing an exclusive version on a dead console (Dreamcast) in a dead country (Spyro 3 wasn't even released in Japan due to lack of success), before backtracking and making his 'just for fun' claim which I find to be just as dubious.
4. Tells us that it was in development from mid-2000, also tries to tell us the game was rushed. (Trivia: Traveller's Tales impressively created The Wrath of Cortex from scratch in one year.)
5. Tries to suggest that Universal 'suddenly' forced them to terminate development in October 2002. This is false: Spyro Enter the Dragonfly was announced to be a November release as far back as April 2002, when screenshots were already available. Furthermore, the final US game was actually built (finished) in September 2002--earlier than he claims that Universal stopped them. His view that they 'needed a few more months' to fix it because the development was suddenly ended is a juvenile perspective of how the game industry actually works. (though there are rare cases, though they are arguably juvenile themselves)
6. Apparently Insomniac handed their copyrighted assets, including engine source code (traits of which Insomniac was still using even by Ratchet & Clank) and models? Interesting treatment--considering the PS2 was already coming out, Crash was already working on it and we all knew Spyro was next, and Crash was made with original assets.
7. Has familiar typing patterns, with familiar quirks, reminiscent of a familiar troll who continues to evade bans in Spyro communities by alternative names and even now has a seemingly obsessive desire to constantly make up rumours of games that don't exist, in exactly the places I'd expect to find him, in the exact ways I'd expect to him to post them. Personal opinion.

There's no evidence, guys. I'll take this all back and apologise profusely if by some miracle this is all proven, but this happened too many times already. Some people don't grow up.

Edit: On a more fun note though, I'd love to see someone ask him if he knows how to trigger the mysterious flying cow that nobody has figured out how to trigger in the homeworld. Because if he actually knows that, colour me impressed; and I miiiiight have some apologising to do!