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Ugh, ignorant consumers.
Stellus
Member UncommonPosts: 263
If I had a nickel for every comment made about how certain companies are stupid for doing certain things or that they suck at making games, I'd be the richest man alive.
I don't think I've played a single Turbine game in my life, but I'm willing to defend them anyway for various reasons. First, if you have any insight in the industry, you know what goes on and who's behind it. These guys sacrifice time with their families and their lives, their wife and kids, so that they can work 14 - 16 hour shifts to finish a work of art that they hope the consumer will enjoy. The comments regarding companies not caring, "sucking", etc. are beyond any incoherent remark I've heard on the internet. There's no sense in saying that when you get behind the scenes and realize how hard these people work and how well they do it. My advice to anyone who disagrees is to get off your asses, get out from behind that desk, go to an expo or a conference and meet these people face to face. I guarantee you will earn a newfound respect for the guys behind each and every one of these games.
I had the privelege of sitting down and talking with the developers of City of Heroes, Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, The Outfit, Huxley, World of Warcraft, and even guys from SOE (yeah i know). If there's one thing they all had in common, it's this: these guys pour their heart and soul into their work every day. They love what they do and they do it well, day in and day out. Not one of them mentioned the money - not their paycheck, not their benefits, nothing. And believe it or not guys, they listen to the community more than you will ever know.
The people you should be blaming in your angry tirades are not the guys who are building your world 16/6, 360 days of the year. It's the corporate suits who sit back and count your money after pushing impossible deadlines and careless decisions. They wouldn't begin to give a damn about the game and if it will appease the player base. Meanwhile the developers who are trying to make that deadline are catching your flak and damn is that a tough thing to do, especially if you're new in the industry. All that work, only to have thousands of people berate you, threaten you, kick dirt in your eyes.
There's a lot more behind the scenes going on that you aren't aware of. The comments being made about how it's silly that Turbine is making 2 games at once and that they can't afford it are just that - silly. They have investors to replenish the budget, hired staff, project flow charts, project time managers, seperate buildings, divisions, locations, everything to get things done properly.
Guys, I know everyone is entitled to their opinion, but you have to give credit when it's due and starve those who don't deserve it. If you're going to speculate about how shitty a game is going to be when you have absolutely no general knowledge of what's even going on behind those closed doors, then do it constructively. If you aren't satisfied with a game, cancel your subscription, pay your respects to the developers, and write a letter to those who are in charge upstairs. They're the ones packing your money away while you, as the consumer suffer. The developers are suffering with you, because that's their pay.
Maybe that's why SOE is quickly becoming a niche company, failing game after game - because they worry about things in the short run, nothing long term (how many expansion packs for a 1 1/2 year old game now?). And maybe that's why we're seeing the rise of independent studios like CCP and Cryptic - because they're giving the players what they want without anyone breathing down their necks.
Comments
/tissue
opinions are like assholes.......everyone has one!!!!!!
(begin insider rant)
Agreed, Stellus. I work in a company that develops electronic media content, as well as play City of Heroes, and am in the DDO stress beta right now.
The biggest single problem any content development company (like the partnerships that create/update and release CoH/CoV, DDO, Planetside, etc) is the lack of interest in "bigwigs" in ALLOWING the developers to create awesome content. Without a doubt, the worst aspect of this is the rediculous schedules they encourage/partner with the "Marketing team" to create. There's nothing like being told to do 18 months of work in 12 months, and not being allowed to staff up to meet the deadline. Instead of going on a lengthy rant, I'll sum it up in one nasty Prime Directive:
"Say/do anything just get the userbase up... and then say/do anything to keep costs down."
(end insider rant)
Cheers, and game on!
Wow...what a nice college educated thesis....
I give it an A!
I agree...in so many words. I admit i dont know much about the inner workings of the industry, but when devs dont pay attention to what the customers want thats when they run into problems.
"Despite what they tell you the original RAY's is on 7th ave."
Oh yeah, that's a real fine example of a group that cares about what it does and listens to the player base.
They care so much, in fact, that they tried to hide one of the biggest nerfs in the history of the game from the players, even going so far as to remove posts discussing it during CoV's beta. When they couldn't keep the lid on it, they had to admit what they had done for Issue 6: nerfed every AT in CoH, despite 4 previous Issues of virtually nothing but nerfs!
And here's where Emmert's duplicity came to the surface: Enhancement Diversification (as the nerf is known) had been in the works for 7 months. Knowing they were going to go live with it in Issue 6, Emmert was telling people on the boards in Issue 5 (a whole Issue Emmert himself called a nerf) that if they had a problem with certain powers, simply six-slot them, even though he and the developers knew that in Issue 6, this would no longer be the way to fix what Issue 5's nerfs had broken!
To add insult to injury, for the 7 months ED was in developement, Emmert repeated his statement that he felt most powers and ATs were "working as intended."
He lied about that, lied about 6-slotting powers he and the team knew were going to be nerfed anyway, then tried to cover up the nerf by removing posts and concocting laughable stories about how the developers "don't view enhancements as powers", despite the fact HE knew the playbase does! (They are not powers, the ENHANCE powers, so they are certainly related, Emmert's hair-splitting notwithstanding).
The Cryptic dev team is a lying, under-handed, disingenuous bunch of pr!cks that wants only one thing: people's money. And it appears they are not beyond using any means to try and get it, even lying to their customers and treating them like dirt.
Oh, and one more thing: Emmert is involved in a huge conflict of interest now, too. Check this out: he proudly announced on the CoH web site that he's writing the Prima Strategy Guide for Issue 7, a guide that his customers can purchase from Prima, which will contain proprietary information about City of Heroes/Villains. And get this: he'll be paid by Prima for it!
Now what's wrong with this picture?
Jack writes for third party-publisher, and gets paid by third party-publisher using info from the games and input from his paying customers on the CoH web board to sell that information back to his paying customers, information many of his paying customers have been asking him to post on the website since the game was released!
That's got to be one of the sleeziest, most UNethical things I've ever heard of a manager for any company doing! And believe me, were this any other business, an a-hole like that would be summarily fired! This is nothing more than Jack Emmert putting his interests ahead of his company's and customer's interests, and that - in a nutshell - is the definition of a conflict of interest!
Yeah, that's some paragon of virtue you're talking about, there. He should be fired, not lauded.
I'm sure there are good people doing software developement out there, but I highly doubt any of them work at Cryptic.
"If I had a nickel for every comment made about how certain companies are stupid for doing certain things or that they suck at making games, I'd be the richest man alive."
Later on down the post...
"Maybe that's why SOE is quickly becoming a niche company, failing game after game - because they worry about things in the short run, nothing long term (how many expansion packs for a 1 1/2 year old game now?). And maybe that's why we're seeing the rise of independent studios like CCP and Cryptic - because they're giving the players what they want without anyone breathing down their necks."
hmm. Sounds to me like your the exact same type of kid that you speak out so much against. Just another SOE rant all wrapped up in a college-level vocabulary. Did college teach you what hypocrisy means by any chance?
Cryptic isn't about what the customers want. If it were, there would never have been nerfs so draconian as travel suppression and enhancement diversification. CoH/V are Emmert's toys and he's stated as much with his infamous "balance vision" statement and proven it with the kind of repeated nerfs you find at SOE.
Please find another paragon of virtue to exemplify your point. Cryptic and its developers are hacks and scammers.
No, I clearly pointed out that SOE is run by "the man" upstairs and not by the guys who truly make it happen. The developers over at SOE toil day in and day out and I really give them props for what they do and the conditions they work under.
The poor decisions made by the people who walk away with the consumer's money is what causing SOE's slow decline.
The Cryptic dev team is a lying, under-handed, disingenuous bunch of pr!cks that wants only one thing: people's money. And it appears they are not beyond using any means to try and get it, even lying to their customers and treating them like dirt.
Who's the one being unreasonable here? You're really going out on a limb and accusing these guys of something far from reality. Every (and I mean every) PM on their forums has gotten a response (even from Statesman), every nerf or change has been through hearings from the public and in which most are changed so that they form a compromise between its subscribers and the developers. I've been with that game for almost 2 years and I've never once felt mistreated.
You're trying to portray the innocent changes of game mechanics to a federal offense. Have you played the game lately? It's still the same as it ever was. It's just as playable, bearable, believable. It's changed for the better and the community had a HUGE hand in it. Trust me.
Cryptic isn't about what the customers want. If it were, there would never have been nerfs so draconian as travel suppression and enhancement diversification. CoH/V are Emmert's toys and he's stated as much with his infamous "balance vision" statement and proven it with the kind of repeated nerfs you find at SOE.
Please find another paragon of virtue to exemplify your point. Cryptic and its developers are hacks and scammers.
You show me a nerf or a change made in that game, and you will find a compromise or a reversal inspired by the paying community. Your proof lies within the Developers' Digest. Read on.
Moved my reply to you to the City of Heroes forum here:
http://mmorpg.com/discussion.cfm/setstart/31/loadthread/66964/loadforum/450/loadclass/143
I'll check it out. On a brief note, here are some things I dug up from the Developer Digest to kind of dispel the myth of Cryptic developers not caring:
Quotes from Statesman:
"Many game developers never post on their own forums, precisely because theyre afraid of what they might say. Id rather make an error of commission than omission; in other words, Id rather post away and have a better informed community than live in fear of a miscommunication."
- He's honest about it.
"There are very, very few things that weve done with PvP in mind. Travel Suppression is often given as an example but that isnt true. During Beta, we noticed that players would Fly and Snipe away from mobs beyond their range and essentially gain XP for no risk. We instituted an Accuracy penalty to discourage this gameplay. We noticed early in Live that the same thing was happening with Super Jump and Super Speed; a player could zoom in with either power, attack and escape with impunity. Its not that we minded escaping, because travel powers should help with that, but the issue was that the travel powers were being used to get XP for no risk. We initially added an Accuracy component, but players didnt like it as much, because it seemed to remove completely the option of attacking while traveling. I agreed and we went back to the drawing board and came up with Suppression."
- This is true. I was in beta and it was easy to power level off of purples in this manner.
"Oddly, ED came as a suggestion for diminishing returns on the forums. Archery and Sonics were both mentioned. "
"Why do the patch notes always have to be filled in by players?
Human error. Carelessness. Poor processes. Its unacceptable and Cryptic Studios must improve. "
There's about a hundred more of these I can dig up if people would like me to continue. Anyway, that's beside the point of the OP and we should probably move that discussion over to the CoH boards like Serling has done.