Ok, if one of the main investors sells all of his shares, how does that make money for the company? I thought you were talking about them taking out a large loan or getting a grant from the government. Basically, it looks like Mr. Nystrom sold his shares during a period when the stock was maintaining a high price (i.e. "sell high")
Typically the principal shareholders in a public company responsible for running it and increasing its value are prohibited from selling stock for a significant period of time, usually from one to five years, depending. The reason for this is that when a primary/executive sells shares at the start of a project, it looks like they are cashing in and lack faith in the future of their product. It can be perceived as very ugly, to the point where a company merely went public to create the ability for it to cash in, which one would never expect to happen at launch.
Draw your own conclusions but that's reality in the business world of public companies and hopefully you can clearly understand the prudent reasoning behind it. In other words, why on earth would a person buy stock and invest in a compoany where the main shareholder is cashing his stock in on? Isn't very encouraging for expectations of the future.
4 people leaving over the course of 2 years is hardly "most of the development team"
Don't know. How big was the team to begin with and what percent did the dev. team shrink by with the departure of 4 developers?
-CC
"Lately it occurs to me, what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
I understand that initial investors "cashing in" can convey a lack of faith in a project, especially if done so early in the life of the company. However that is very different from "raising new capital" for the company, which was Unseeliecour's initial contention. As to the appropriateness of the trade, it was 1% of the total value of the company and he held it for 1 yr 10 months.
4 devs out of 11, with only one of the having left within the last year. This is in contrast to Unseeliecour's statement of "half of SV's staff disappeared".
I understand that initial investors "cashing in" can convey a lack of faith in a project, especially if done so early in the life of the company. However that is very different from "raising new capital" for the company, which was Unseeliecour's initial contention. As to the appropriateness of the trade, it was 1% of the total value of the company and he held it for 1 yr 10 months.
4 devs out of 11, with only one of the having left within the last year. This is in contrast to Unseeliecour's statement of "half of SV's staff disappeared".
Here you can see a list of all devs + testers + Interns for MO.
They are many more than just 11 devs today. So if just 3 have left the past 2 years (which sounds pretty normal) then it's not bad at all. The interns make some developing to ...
Ok, if one of the main investors sells all of his shares, how does that make money for the company? I thought you were talking about them taking out a large loan or getting a grant from the government. Basically, it looks like Mr. Nystrom sold his shares during a period when the stock was maintaining a high price (i.e. "sell high")
Typically the principal shareholders in a public company responsible for running it and increasing its value are prohibited from selling stock for a significant period of time, usually from one to five years, depending. The reason for this is that when a primary/executive sells shares at the start of a project, it looks like they are cashing in and lack faith in the future of their product. It can be perceived as very ugly, to the point where a company merely went public to create the ability for it to cash in, which one would never expect to happen at launch.
Draw your own conclusions but that's reality in the business world of public companies and hopefully you can clearly understand the prudent reasoning behind it. In other words, why on earth would a person buy stock and invest in a compoany where the main shareholder is cashing his stock in on? Isn't very encouraging for expectations of the future.
What is interesting is that he (a Deputy Board Member) sold ALL his shares right before SV announced they were delaying the release of the game...
Ok, if one of the main investors sells all of his shares, how does that make money for the company? I thought you were talking about them taking out a large loan or getting a grant from the government. Basically, it looks like Mr. Nystrom sold his shares during a period when the stock was maintaining a high price (i.e. "sell high")
Typically the principal shareholders in a public company responsible for running it and increasing its value are prohibited from selling stock for a significant period of time, usually from one to five years, depending. The reason for this is that when a primary/executive sells shares at the start of a project, it looks like they are cashing in and lack faith in the future of their product. It can be perceived as very ugly, to the point where a company merely went public to create the ability for it to cash in, which one would never expect to happen at launch.
Draw your own conclusions but that's reality in the business world of public companies and hopefully you can clearly understand the prudent reasoning behind it. In other words, why on earth would a person buy stock and invest in a compoany where the main shareholder is cashing his stock in on? Isn't very encouraging for expectations of the future.
What is interesting is that he (a Deputy Board Member) sold ALL his shares right before SV announced they were delaying the release of the game...
More Capital to keep the game going, wasn't it Henriks dad or family member who did it?
Perhaps you misunderstand. The company did not issue more stock. This PERSON (Deputy Board Member) sold off all his shares the day (or so) before the company announced they were delaying the game. I have seen nothing to indicate that this money went into the company, but certainly if you have a link to support your claim I would be happy to review it.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
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This is, at least, what we've been told about the new UE build. I don't have any reason to mistrust them.
How long have you been around in MO? We have been told this same thing probably 20 times. That is why many people who used to love the game are gone. Nothing gets better, if we are lucky it just doesn't get worse and break more stuff.
I've been around since the start of closed beta, and before that.
They had one merge with an updated version of UE; which Epic helped them with, and now they're in the process of another merge.
The first merge solve the desync with NPC's, as well as a lot of performance issues. The next merge is supposed to solve a lot of other stuff.
EPIC is responcible for a lot of goings-ons with the engine, and EPIC has a lot of stuff THEY have to fix in regards to it. EPIC has a vested interest in the game, and with thier technology (Atlas) working in a seemless, non-instanced MMO.
SV has a lot of crap they need to fix, but Epic also has a lot they need to do on thier end as well.
In short, this is only the second merge that they've told us about.
Not twisting the facts, simply presenting my interpretation of them.
That shareholder is Henrik's dad, the source of much of the investment in SV. I don't think it is a twisting of the facts to assume that he sold his share to buy that extra dev time announced the day after the sale - I think it is a logical conclusion, but that is up to others to decide. As it stands the board members hold approximately 1.5M shares out of 19M, so a lot are unaccounted for. There could be a lot more to the story and they could be sitting on a pile of money. Looking at the share price history and their market announcements, I don't think so - but they could be.
And I think the core dev team was 7 or 8 members, so 4 leaving is significant. Of course there were ohter people working on the game, but those were interns and temps.
Not twisting the facts, simply presenting my interpretation of them.
That shareholder is Henrik's dad, the source of much of the investment in SV. I don't think it is a twisting of the facts to assume that he sold his share to buy that extra dev time announced the day after the sale - I think it is a logical conclusion, but that is up to others to decide. As it stands the board members hold approximately 1.5M shares out of 19M, so a lot are unaccounted for. There could be a lot more to the story and they could be sitting on a pile of money. Looking at the share price history and their market announcements, I don't think so - but they could be.
With regard to raising capital (your original argument) the worst possible interpretation of this is that Mr. Nystrom sold his shares at the current market value, then plowed all of that money back into the company as a donation. Of course that presumes that he put the money back into the company. Also, I fail to see how it would be a big negative if that is what he did.
And I think the core dev team was 7 or 8 members, so 4 leaving is significant. Of course there were ohter people working on the game, but those were interns and temps.
You "think" the core dev team was 7 or 8, but you know that half the dev team disappeared ? Apparently, you didn't follow any of the links provided so that you could check so I'll post them again and post a summary of the contents in just a bit.
Interns: Henrik Yang, Kennie Nilsson, Niklas Wennersten, Pontus Almen
This of course doesn't prove anything beyond contradicting the mass exodus that you were trying to imply with " Someone should ask him [Henrik Nystrom] in irc where half of SV's staff disappeared to"
Not twisting the facts, simply presenting my interpretation of them.
That shareholder is Henrik's dad, the source of much of the investment in SV. I don't think it is a twisting of the facts to assume that he sold his share to buy that extra dev time announced the day after the sale - I think it is a logical conclusion, but that is up to others to decide. As it stands the board members hold approximately 1.5M shares out of 19M, so a lot are unaccounted for. There could be a lot more to the story and they could be sitting on a pile of money. Looking at the share price history and their market announcements, I don't think so - but they could be.
With regard to raising capital (your original argument) the worst possible interpretation of this is that Mr. Nystrom sold his shares at the current market value, then plowed all of that money back into the company as a donation. Of course that presumes that he put the money back into the company. Also, I fail to see how it would be a big negative if that is what he did.
Unless someone has information to the contrary. It is HIGHLY unlikely that he sold shares and "plowed all of that money back into the company as a donation". That's not the way business works and such a matter would have had to be documented since it's a public company. Typically, if a company needs to raise money they would sell additional shares (or a bond etc). Also, typically when a person puts money into a company, they get shares BACK.. so that at some future time they can recover their money.
It is MUCH more likely that the person in question sold his stock the day or so before the delay announcement because of the negative impact such news could have on the stock. It's also somewhat possible (though in my opinion unlikely) that it was just a massive coincidence and he planned to sell his stock on that day for a long time. Being on "The Board" and knowing the delay was coming the next day was just a matter of cosmic chance...
Anyhow.. to get us back on topic and away from the stock market: How are the player vendors? I know they were a BIG ticket item everyone wanted, but I haven't heard a single person talk about them on these forums yet. Have they revolutionized the economy yet?
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
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"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
We're not talking about an investor, we're talking about the financial clout behind the game who sits on the board and is the father of the CEO. If he is selling his shares because of fear of losing value during a price drop, when it was his money that brought value to the shares in the first place, then that is a bad sign. The point about reporting everything to the stock market/shareholders is correct, and we will see exactly the state of affairs when these next report is due (within a month).
As for development team - there are a few people in that list I personally would not have included (namely the volunteers). Interns also bloat the list a little. Business manager, while important, probably won't help fix the game on a technical level. Sound guys likewise (though I believe one of those has left a long time ago). I'm not sure of your definition of a developer, but it appears to differ from mine. The list reads like a part-time/contract based employment record. If all those people are full-time contributors to development, then a subscriber base that puts out a max of 500 cocurrent players is bad news. Hell, 5000 subscribers would be pushing it a bit close and MO doesn't have 5000 subscribers by a long shot.
I might seem like a troll or whatever, but this game is:
A) expensive
horribly broken
I followed the game since early 2008, bought myself a loot bag, beta-tested it almost all the way to release. I was a supporter until a week or so ago. Maybe I'm venting a little, but I really see no future for the game. That hurts me a little because I spent so much on it (not only money). Am I trying to turn away new players? I probably am, if I am honest. I feel absolutely robbed by the experience of MO - something that happened to me once before with an mmorpg. Last time I took it quietly on the chin when I knew it was sunk, and I bleated about how great everything was while new lambs invested their time/money into it. Not this time.
If you must give MO a try, do some research and make up your own mind.
Had your initial argument originally been that the stock sale showed a lack of faith in the future of the game (which it seems is your current argument), the only argument I could have given is that that is only one possible reason. However, your initial argument is that they were doing it to raise capital for development of the game, which it seems is an argument that no one is buying into, regardless of their opinion on MO in general (i.e. Slapshot)
As for the development team, I did not include any volunteers to the best of my knowledge. The titles I supplied are the ones listed on the forums, so I don't know whether "developer" means "Jack of all trades" and they go from sound to graphics to testing depending on current need or whether they are gophers. I did leave off a couple employees and did not include any known volunteers. For completeness sake, here they are.....
Quality assurance (employees):
Christian Hedberg, Daniel Backstrom, Kennie Nilsson, Pontus Almen
Some leave, some stays who cares? In the end the game is crap. Animation is crap, gfx are sub-par for the technology used, there are still sync. issues, there are not enough mobs, the UI is crap and game is far to deep in the development to radically change so I doubt the game will be in the quality that you expect of a released game in several years to come (if ever).
And I am not surprised of this as I dont know a single person working in SW with any decent experience in creating MMORPGs or just RPGs and you need atleast some experienced people to do something good. It is the same with any product.
Some leave, some stays who cares? In the end the game is crap. Animation is crap, gfx are sub-par for the technology used, there are still sync. issues, there are not enough mobs, the UI is crap and game is far to deep in the development to radically change so I doubt the game will be in the quality that you expect of a released game in several years to come (if ever).
And I am not surprised of this as I dont know a single person working in SW with any decent experience in creating MMORPGs or just RPGs and you need atleast some experienced people to do something good. It is the same with any product.
I can tell you don't follow what is going on with the game aside from posting stuff like above because most everything you said is being worked on and some of it is waiting for a patch from Epic games. Some people will tell you the Epic patch is bs but they are just the normal trolls anyway.
Animation- Some of it is good, some of it like some of the combat swings are not so good.
gfx- Waiting on Epic patch to implement speedtree maybe speedgrass. They recently solved a memory leak problem keeping them from allowing high res textures so now apparently they will be able to have 10x the texture memory they have in game now. This will also allow for new armor and clothing models.
sync issues- these were fixed. The only thing you can say is going on is lag and that would be your problem, not theirs.
Not enough mobs- Once again waiting on the patch from Epic to fix the navmesh so they can implement the advanced AI and add a lot more mob types to the world.
UI- Once again waiting on the Epic patch which will allow flash support and some other program to be implemented so we will have things like UO inventory and revamped UI.
So as I initially stated. You basically are commenting on things as they are without allowing for things as they will be which from what we know should be in the next month or so if not sooner.
So as I initially stated. You basically are commenting on things as they are without allowing for things as they will be which from what we know should be in the next month or so if not sooner.
You are critcizing him for "commenting on things as they are" and not "As they will (MIGHT!!) be", "in the next month or so".
Sorry but I think that Yamato's case is 100 times stronger.. given that it's based on what is (by your own admission) actually happening and not what might happen at some future time. This isn't a BETA.. this is a live, subscription based game that people are paying for. It get's judged for what it is providing not what one hopes it becomes at some point in the future. It's all well and good to point a finger at Epic... but Epic isn't charging Mortal's subscribers... that would be Starvault. It doesn't really matter if it's Epics fault or Starvaults fault that the game is in it's current condition.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
So as I initially stated. You basically are commenting on things as they are without allowing for things as they will be which from what we know should be in the next month or so if not sooner.
You are critcizing him for "commenting on things as they are" and not "As they will (MIGHT!!) be", "in the next month or so".
Sorry but I think that Yamato's case is 100 times stronger.. given that it's based on what is (by your own admission) actually happening and not what might happen at some future time. This isn't a BETA.. this is a live, subscription based game that people are paying for. It get's judged for what it is providing not what one hopes it becomes at some point in the future. It's all well and good to point a finger at Epic... but Epic isn't charging Mortal's subscribers... that would be Starvault. It doesn't really matter if it's Epics fault or Starvaults fault that the game is in it's current condition.
Funny thing is, these excuses and finger pointing have been going on for 12 months now. Where do you think people got the Soon(TM) joke? The only difference is that the people that were saying this months ago are gone, and a few newer people have taken their place. They soon will also know the power of Soon(TM) and prrbably leave.
So as I initially stated. You basically are commenting on things as they are without allowing for things as they will be which from what we know should be in the next month or so if not sooner.
You are critcizing him for "commenting on things as they are" and not "As they will (MIGHT!!) be", "in the next month or so".
Sorry but I think that Yamato's case is 100 times stronger.. given that it's based on what is (by your own admission) actually happening and not what might happen at some future time. This isn't a BETA.. this is a live, subscription based game that people are paying for. It get's judged for what it is providing not what one hopes it becomes at some point in the future. It's all well and good to point a finger at Epic... but Epic isn't charging Mortal's subscribers... that would be Starvault. It doesn't really matter if it's Epics fault or Starvaults fault that the game is in it's current condition.
First I think you need to look up the meaning of "criticizing" since I did no such thing. Second you need to funtamentally understand that a game based on software licensed from a 3rd party will be subject to the bugs of that 3rd party software and SV really is at the mercy of that 3rd parties ability to fix the software. You can blame SV all you want but you'd just be acting willfully obtuse. If you don't like the game you simply DON'T SUBSCRIBE. Wow what a concept. What I will never understand is what drive someone who hates a game to post constantly about it badmouthing it everywhere they can (yes I've seen your posts on massively.com). To me that just seems insane.
So as I initially stated. You basically are commenting on things as they are without allowing for things as they will be which from what we know should be in the next month or so if not sooner.
You are critcizing him for "commenting on things as they are" and not "As they will (MIGHT!!) be", "in the next month or so".
Sorry but I think that Yamato's case is 100 times stronger.. given that it's based on what is (by your own admission) actually happening and not what might happen at some future time. This isn't a BETA.. this is a live, subscription based game that people are paying for. It get's judged for what it is providing not what one hopes it becomes at some point in the future. It's all well and good to point a finger at Epic... but Epic isn't charging Mortal's subscribers... that would be Starvault. It doesn't really matter if it's Epics fault or Starvaults fault that the game is in it's current condition.
Funny thing is, these excuses and finger pointing have been going on for 12 months now. Where do you think people got the Soon(TM) joke? The only difference is that the people that were saying this months ago are gone, and a few newer people have taken their place. They soon will also know the power of Soon(TM) and prrbably leave.
Welcome to the world of MMOs. Soon(TM) is not exclusive to MO. That's been used for at least almost 10 years now when I first saw it in WW2OL. And guess what, it will keep being used in future MMO's because they are constantly evolving and being upgraded.
So as I initially stated. You basically are commenting on things as they are without allowing for things as they will be which from what we know should be in the next month or so if not sooner.
You are critcizing him for "commenting on things as they are" and not "As they will (MIGHT!!) be", "in the next month or so".
Sorry but I think that Yamato's case is 100 times stronger.. given that it's based on what is (by your own admission) actually happening and not what might happen at some future time. This isn't a BETA.. this is a live, subscription based game that people are paying for. It get's judged for what it is providing not what one hopes it becomes at some point in the future. It's all well and good to point a finger at Epic... but Epic isn't charging Mortal's subscribers... that would be Starvault. It doesn't really matter if it's Epics fault or Starvaults fault that the game is in it's current condition.
First I think you need to look up the meaning of "criticizing" since I did no such thing. Second you need to funtamentally understand that a game based on software licensed from a 3rd party will be subject to the bugs of that 3rd party software and SV really is at the mercy of that 3rd parties ability to fix the software. You can blame SV all you want but you'd just be acting willfully obtuse. If you don't like the game you simply DON'T SUBSCRIBE. Wow what a concept. What I will never understand is what drive someone who hates a game to post constantly about it badmouthing it everywhere they can (yes I've seen your posts on massively.com). To me that just seems insane.
Really? This was how you opened your post " I can tell you don't follow what is going on with the game aside from posting stuff like above..". To me that is a criticism, but it's actually irrelevant. What is rellevant is that we both agree the game is in bad shape.. you simply believe it is Epic's fault and will be fixed "soon", while I don't really care who's fault it is...
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
That isn't my arguement now - I still maintain the money was sunk back into SV/MO. I'm just pointing out that the reason why the chief investor sold his shares isn't important - it's never a good sign. They weren't even sold at a particularly high price. Like I said, we'll all find out the situation within a few weeks when SV have to make a report to the market. Have a look at the report made a week or two prior to the engine upgrade/stock sell-off - that was bad enough.
re: employees. We can both speculate about the composition of employees endlessly. If they're are running full-time with the amount of employees you listed, then they must be near to broke. Those numbers are approaching major sutdio levels, leaving SV with massive staff wages, no external investment/ publisher backing and an almost extinct subscription base. We may find out how many employees they have in their next report, but that information is useless without knowing the contract hours of each employee.
Sepcifically, as a game programmer myself (admitedly nothing network related), I look at the pace at which things are moving and can't see past them having perhaps 2 full-time programmers (that or the worst programming team ever assembled). I know there are at least 3 programmers at SV, so I'm working on the assumption of reduced hour or part-time contracts. I don't want to elaborate on this because it feels like such a sucky thing to say from a professional stance.
Thank you for your game recommendation, but that's really not why I'm bithcing here. As a long time fan, I am absolutely convinced the game is sunk: I believe SV management are being dishonest and/or delusional in continuing to trade the company into oblivion, stealing people's hard earned cash in the process. That's why I'm here on mmorpg .com taking my time to reply to this rather unimportant thread. I've been a member for 5 years and this is probably like my 20th post - I don't make a habit of posting much here.
My advice as a long time player up until a couple of weeks ago: if things are going as well at SV as Henrik suggests, the game will still be around (and in better shape) in 3 months time. At this moment in time, you're taking a gamble with MO - anyone who tells you otherwise probably has ulterior motives. I paid a tidy sum of money knowing my 'investment' was a risk - I'm telling you the game is in only a slightly better state than it was almost a year ago now, they're possibly quite low on money and the subscription base is almost non-existent. Those are the real issues facing SV/MO, not the reason for share sales or the colour of socks the lead programmer would wear if they had one.
According to your assumption, Mr Nystrom sold his shares at market value, then donated the money to the company (effectively throwing away the money) While that is possible, I find it highly unlikely.
From the lists I've provided, the SV has 20 or 22 employees (depending on the exact status of Pontus Almen and Kennie Nilsson). I don't know what kind of game programming you do, but in MMOs that is NOT a major studio.
SOE -Free realms, EQ, EQ2, EQOA, SWG, Clone Wars adventures, Vanguard, DCUO, The Agency, Pirates of the Burning Sea plus a few card games and such 900 employees (~80 per MMO depending on how many you assume are on the other games) http://kotaku.com/5317168/layoffs-hit-sony-online-entertainment
A year ago they were just letting in group C for beta testing. To say that it's only slightly better now is a significant exaggeration, unless you are talking about specific subsystems (i.e. graphics getting stripped down to improve performance.)
Comments
-CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
If something happened to the team I'm sure they would just clone Henrik a few more times.
@ Chinacat:
I understand that initial investors "cashing in" can convey a lack of faith in a project, especially if done so early in the life of the company. However that is very different from "raising new capital" for the company, which was Unseeliecour's initial contention. As to the appropriateness of the trade, it was 1% of the total value of the company and he held it for 1 yr 10 months.
4 devs out of 11, with only one of the having left within the last year. This is in contrast to Unseeliecour's statement of "half of SV's staff disappeared".
Here you can see a list of all devs + testers + Interns for MO.
http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/showgroups.php
They are many more than just 11 devs today. So if just 3 have left the past 2 years (which sounds pretty normal) then it's not bad at all. The interns make some developing to ...
What is interesting is that he (a Deputy Board Member) sold ALL his shares right before SV announced they were delaying the release of the game...
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3471922
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
More Capital to keep the game going, wasn't it Henriks dad or family member who did it?
Perhaps you misunderstand. The company did not issue more stock. This PERSON (Deputy Board Member) sold off all his shares the day (or so) before the company announced they were delaying the game. I have seen nothing to indicate that this money went into the company, but certainly if you have a link to support your claim I would be happy to review it.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
I've been around since the start of closed beta, and before that.
They had one merge with an updated version of UE; which Epic helped them with, and now they're in the process of another merge.
The first merge solve the desync with NPC's, as well as a lot of performance issues. The next merge is supposed to solve a lot of other stuff.
EPIC is responcible for a lot of goings-ons with the engine, and EPIC has a lot of stuff THEY have to fix in regards to it. EPIC has a vested interest in the game, and with thier technology (Atlas) working in a seemless, non-instanced MMO.
SV has a lot of crap they need to fix, but Epic also has a lot they need to do on thier end as well.
In short, this is only the second merge that they've told us about.
It is when someone is twisting the facts to support their opinion.
Agreed, There are multiple people on this forum who spend all there time spinning the facts.
Never trust a screenshot or a youtube video without a version stamp!
Not twisting the facts, simply presenting my interpretation of them.
That shareholder is Henrik's dad, the source of much of the investment in SV. I don't think it is a twisting of the facts to assume that he sold his share to buy that extra dev time announced the day after the sale - I think it is a logical conclusion, but that is up to others to decide. As it stands the board members hold approximately 1.5M shares out of 19M, so a lot are unaccounted for. There could be a lot more to the story and they could be sitting on a pile of money. Looking at the share price history and their market announcements, I don't think so - but they could be.
And I think the core dev team was 7 or 8 members, so 4 leaving is significant. Of course there were ohter people working on the game, but those were interns and temps.
White= still employed Blue= former employee Gold= new hire (i.e. since July 2008)
!Sebastian Persson
Christian Mörck Occupation: Leader Programmer August 2008
Daniel Adler Occupation: Programmer
Denny Lindberg Occupation: Animator April 2010
Erik Lindgren Occupation: Game Artist
Hannu Kokkonen Occupation: Concept Artist
Henrik Sonesson Occupation: Developer
Henrik Nystrom Occupation: CEO & Founder
Joel Andersson Occupation: Game Artist February 2009
Markus Lovdell Occupation: Programmer/Game Artist unsure--- but still actively involved and posting
Mats Persson Occupation: Creative Director
Patrik Jarlestam Occupation: Composing Music
Albin Esbjörnsson AI programmer
Andreas Springare Level Designer
Emil Jones Programmer
Fredrick Metcalf Developer
Heke Business Developer
Henrik Ekholm Sound designer
Maerlyn Community manager
Pompeii Master of the game
Roger Lovgren Developer
Wiktor Ohman Developer
Interns: Henrik Yang, Kennie Nilsson, Niklas Wennersten, Pontus Almen
This of course doesn't prove anything beyond contradicting the mass exodus that you were trying to imply with " Someone should ask him [Henrik Nystrom] in irc where half of SV's staff disappeared to"
Unless someone has information to the contrary. It is HIGHLY unlikely that he sold shares and "plowed all of that money back into the company as a donation". That's not the way business works and such a matter would have had to be documented since it's a public company. Typically, if a company needs to raise money they would sell additional shares (or a bond etc). Also, typically when a person puts money into a company, they get shares BACK.. so that at some future time they can recover their money.
It is MUCH more likely that the person in question sold his stock the day or so before the delay announcement because of the negative impact such news could have on the stock. It's also somewhat possible (though in my opinion unlikely) that it was just a massive coincidence and he planned to sell his stock on that day for a long time. Being on "The Board" and knowing the delay was coming the next day was just a matter of cosmic chance...
Anyhow.. to get us back on topic and away from the stock market: How are the player vendors? I know they were a BIG ticket item everyone wanted, but I haven't heard a single person talk about them on these forums yet. Have they revolutionized the economy yet?
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
We're not talking about an investor, we're talking about the financial clout behind the game who sits on the board and is the father of the CEO. If he is selling his shares because of fear of losing value during a price drop, when it was his money that brought value to the shares in the first place, then that is a bad sign. The point about reporting everything to the stock market/shareholders is correct, and we will see exactly the state of affairs when these next report is due (within a month).
As for development team - there are a few people in that list I personally would not have included (namely the volunteers). Interns also bloat the list a little. Business manager, while important, probably won't help fix the game on a technical level. Sound guys likewise (though I believe one of those has left a long time ago). I'm not sure of your definition of a developer, but it appears to differ from mine. The list reads like a part-time/contract based employment record. If all those people are full-time contributors to development, then a subscriber base that puts out a max of 500 cocurrent players is bad news. Hell, 5000 subscribers would be pushing it a bit close and MO doesn't have 5000 subscribers by a long shot.
I might seem like a troll or whatever, but this game is:
A) expensive
I followed the game since early 2008, bought myself a loot bag, beta-tested it almost all the way to release. I was a supporter until a week or so ago. Maybe I'm venting a little, but I really see no future for the game. That hurts me a little because I spent so much on it (not only money). Am I trying to turn away new players? I probably am, if I am honest. I feel absolutely robbed by the experience of MO - something that happened to me once before with an mmorpg. Last time I took it quietly on the chin when I knew it was sunk, and I bleated about how great everything was while new lambs invested their time/money into it. Not this time.
If you must give MO a try, do some research and make up your own mind.
@Unseeliecour:
Had your initial argument originally been that the stock sale showed a lack of faith in the future of the game (which it seems is your current argument), the only argument I could have given is that that is only one possible reason. However, your initial argument is that they were doing it to raise capital for development of the game, which it seems is an argument that no one is buying into, regardless of their opinion on MO in general (i.e. Slapshot)
As for the development team, I did not include any volunteers to the best of my knowledge. The titles I supplied are the ones listed on the forums, so I don't know whether "developer" means "Jack of all trades" and they go from sound to graphics to testing depending on current need or whether they are gophers. I did leave off a couple employees and did not include any known volunteers. For completeness sake, here they are.....
Quality assurance (employees):
Christian Hedberg, Daniel Backstrom, Kennie Nilsson, Pontus Almen
Moderators (volunteer):
Ar'khazad, Duxvoney, Ezekiel, Irrene, jam, josef, Magree, Noun,Sine, Tartuffe, Tazaterra, Vimes, Vuvuzela
Lead moderator: Teiwaz
Senior Moderator: Kootenay, Nihilist, Talwin
Mo radio: Bevo, Scream 112, xguild
If your concern is the cost and quality of the game, you could always address those instead of trying to allude to behind the scenes problems.
If you are a sandbox fan and are disappointed by MO, you could always try Xsyon. Rlmccoy / inferno3387 seems content with it.
Some leave, some stays who cares? In the end the game is crap. Animation is crap, gfx are sub-par for the technology used, there are still sync. issues, there are not enough mobs, the UI is crap and game is far to deep in the development to radically change so I doubt the game will be in the quality that you expect of a released game in several years to come (if ever).
And I am not surprised of this as I dont know a single person working in SW with any decent experience in creating MMORPGs or just RPGs and you need atleast some experienced people to do something good. It is the same with any product.
My gaming blog
I can tell you don't follow what is going on with the game aside from posting stuff like above because most everything you said is being worked on and some of it is waiting for a patch from Epic games. Some people will tell you the Epic patch is bs but they are just the normal trolls anyway.
Animation- Some of it is good, some of it like some of the combat swings are not so good.
gfx- Waiting on Epic patch to implement speedtree maybe speedgrass. They recently solved a memory leak problem keeping them from allowing high res textures so now apparently they will be able to have 10x the texture memory they have in game now. This will also allow for new armor and clothing models.
sync issues- these were fixed. The only thing you can say is going on is lag and that would be your problem, not theirs.
Not enough mobs- Once again waiting on the patch from Epic to fix the navmesh so they can implement the advanced AI and add a lot more mob types to the world.
UI- Once again waiting on the Epic patch which will allow flash support and some other program to be implemented so we will have things like UO inventory and revamped UI.
So as I initially stated. You basically are commenting on things as they are without allowing for things as they will be which from what we know should be in the next month or so if not sooner.
You are critcizing him for "commenting on things as they are" and not "As they will (MIGHT!!) be", "in the next month or so".
Sorry but I think that Yamato's case is 100 times stronger.. given that it's based on what is (by your own admission) actually happening and not what might happen at some future time. This isn't a BETA.. this is a live, subscription based game that people are paying for. It get's judged for what it is providing not what one hopes it becomes at some point in the future. It's all well and good to point a finger at Epic... but Epic isn't charging Mortal's subscribers... that would be Starvault. It doesn't really matter if it's Epics fault or Starvaults fault that the game is in it's current condition.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Funny thing is, these excuses and finger pointing have been going on for 12 months now. Where do you think people got the Soon(TM) joke? The only difference is that the people that were saying this months ago are gone, and a few newer people have taken their place. They soon will also know the power of Soon(TM) and prrbably leave.
First I think you need to look up the meaning of "criticizing" since I did no such thing. Second you need to funtamentally understand that a game based on software licensed from a 3rd party will be subject to the bugs of that 3rd party software and SV really is at the mercy of that 3rd parties ability to fix the software. You can blame SV all you want but you'd just be acting willfully obtuse. If you don't like the game you simply DON'T SUBSCRIBE. Wow what a concept. What I will never understand is what drive someone who hates a game to post constantly about it badmouthing it everywhere they can (yes I've seen your posts on massively.com). To me that just seems insane.
Welcome to the world of MMOs. Soon(TM) is not exclusive to MO. That's been used for at least almost 10 years now when I first saw it in WW2OL. And guess what, it will keep being used in future MMO's because they are constantly evolving and being upgraded.
Really? This was how you opened your post " I can tell you don't follow what is going on with the game aside from posting stuff like above..". To me that is a criticism, but it's actually irrelevant. What is rellevant is that we both agree the game is in bad shape.. you simply believe it is Epic's fault and will be fixed "soon", while I don't really care who's fault it is...
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
@ osmunda:
That isn't my arguement now - I still maintain the money was sunk back into SV/MO. I'm just pointing out that the reason why the chief investor sold his shares isn't important - it's never a good sign. They weren't even sold at a particularly high price. Like I said, we'll all find out the situation within a few weeks when SV have to make a report to the market. Have a look at the report made a week or two prior to the engine upgrade/stock sell-off - that was bad enough.
re: employees. We can both speculate about the composition of employees endlessly. If they're are running full-time with the amount of employees you listed, then they must be near to broke. Those numbers are approaching major sutdio levels, leaving SV with massive staff wages, no external investment/ publisher backing and an almost extinct subscription base. We may find out how many employees they have in their next report, but that information is useless without knowing the contract hours of each employee.
Sepcifically, as a game programmer myself (admitedly nothing network related), I look at the pace at which things are moving and can't see past them having perhaps 2 full-time programmers (that or the worst programming team ever assembled). I know there are at least 3 programmers at SV, so I'm working on the assumption of reduced hour or part-time contracts. I don't want to elaborate on this because it feels like such a sucky thing to say from a professional stance.
Thank you for your game recommendation, but that's really not why I'm bithcing here. As a long time fan, I am absolutely convinced the game is sunk: I believe SV management are being dishonest and/or delusional in continuing to trade the company into oblivion, stealing people's hard earned cash in the process. That's why I'm here on mmorpg .com taking my time to reply to this rather unimportant thread. I've been a member for 5 years and this is probably like my 20th post - I don't make a habit of posting much here.
My advice as a long time player up until a couple of weeks ago: if things are going as well at SV as Henrik suggests, the game will still be around (and in better shape) in 3 months time. At this moment in time, you're taking a gamble with MO - anyone who tells you otherwise probably has ulterior motives. I paid a tidy sum of money knowing my 'investment' was a risk - I'm telling you the game is in only a slightly better state than it was almost a year ago now, they're possibly quite low on money and the subscription base is almost non-existent. Those are the real issues facing SV/MO, not the reason for share sales or the colour of socks the lead programmer would wear if they had one.
Wait 3 months, that's all.
@ Unseeliecour:
According to your assumption, Mr Nystrom sold his shares at market value, then donated the money to the company (effectively throwing away the money) While that is possible, I find it highly unlikely.
From the lists I've provided, the SV has 20 or 22 employees (depending on the exact status of Pontus Almen and Kennie Nilsson). I don't know what kind of game programming you do, but in MMOs that is NOT a major studio.
Aventurine-- Darkfall 21 employees http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aventurine_SA
Fallen Earth LLC & Icarus studios -- 35 down from 110 http://www.massively.com/2010/05/03/fallen-earth-team-responds-to-layoff-concerns/
Funcom -- Age of Conan, Anarchy Online & The Secret World 322 employees http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funcom
SOE -Free realms, EQ, EQ2, EQOA, SWG, Clone Wars adventures, Vanguard, DCUO, The Agency, Pirates of the Burning Sea plus a few card games and such 900 employees (~80 per MMO depending on how many you assume are on the other games) http://kotaku.com/5317168/layoffs-hit-sony-online-entertainment
Linden labs -- second life-- 245 employees http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linden_Lab
A year ago they were just letting in group C for beta testing. To say that it's only slightly better now is a significant exaggeration, unless you are talking about specific subsystems (i.e. graphics getting stripped down to improve performance.)