GW2 was under the direction of Mike O'Brien while Jeff Strain was the President of NCSoft.The way they put things looks like Strain left NCSoft not ArenaNet.If Wyatt,OBrien and Strain are still the backbone of ArenaNet then we have nothing to fear even if that news sound like somekind of whistleblower.
As has been pointed out, Strain was no longer part of ArenaNet. He had moved up to a job at NCsoft and is now no longer with either company.
Dana Massey Formerly of MMORPG.com Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
I bet it has something to do with the lackluster pre-sales for Aion (in turn from a huge lack of marketing). You don't "let-go" your company's US-CEO for minor or creative issues......you save that for AFTER the big launch. Seems to me that NCSoft HQ doesn't understand that here in the US we players are just as inquisitive and passionate about the men and women BEHIND the games, as we are about the games themselves.
We follow these guys like pro athletes being traded from team to team. Well at least the analyst, loyalist and enthusiast that follow MMOs do. And most of us take an announcement like this and form strong, opinionated views about how we approach present and future products from companies we may have once supported. I dunno guys take from it what you will, I can only say that from where I'm standing, one less voice to stress western playing styles is one less hurdle for the head honchos to jump over.
All I know is as long as they get another vet with western game developmental experience (nationality is not an issue) I can rest easy knowing that at least a voice from our perspective is at the table.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
when you look at Aion you will recognize, that it uses GameGuard. A hacking prevention system used primary by korean MMOs. The system is totaly crappy, the aion beta forum was full of error reports concerning GG and the people tried to make pressure to solve the problem or superior: remove GG completely from the game, because it behaves like a root kit.
What happend? Nothing happend till today, it wasn't even added to the known bugs list!
This is a beavior I found to appear in a lot of korean free to play MMOs: inconvenient but importent problems are successively beeing ignored.
I'm curious if they'll keep this behavior up. At the comming weekend there will be the next beta event and the betaboard with the buglists will be open again.
I ask myself if the shown problem management of NCSoft is highly influenced by the korean management and if it will find entrance as a general behaviour to the customers of NC Soft.
Honestly people...none of us know what the inner workings of ArenaNet or NCsoft are, so all we have to go by is what they tell us, which is what I intend to do.
This is true - you should trust people based only on what they say.
On that note, you need to give me your financial account information and passwords for your own good. Trust me. Also, get in my van here - it has candy in the back.
Thanks for the laugh. That was made enjoyable by the fact that what you quoted me on has turned out to be absolutely true.
And I said trust "them," who happen to be the largest MMO publisher, not some random forum poster who doesn't know his/her foot from his/her elbow regarding the inner-politics of NCsoft.
Honestly people...none of us know what the inner workings of ArenaNet or NCsoft are, so all we have to go by is what they tell us, which is what I intend to do.
This is true - you should trust people based only on what they say.
On that note, you need to give me your financial account information and passwords for your own good. Trust me. Also, get in my van here - it has candy in the back.
Thanks for the laugh. That was made enjoyable by the fact that what you quoted me on has turned out to be absolutely true.
And I said trust "them," who happen to be the largest MMO publisher, not some random forum poster who doesn't know his/her foot from his/her elbow regarding the inner-politics of NCsoft.
It's also important to note whether anyone has trust in NCSoft or not, they are taking their own speculation over information given out by the company itself.
I, for one, am more inclined to believe the press release over what a random forum member says, unless there is factual information for me to think otherwise.
My bet is that they have been offered job on Blizzard's new MMO. Most likely strategic effort from Actavision to create negative talk around the release of Aion.
Get real, GW2 was already planned out and everything it's going to be fine. Some of you people are such drama queens. Anyway, he did some good things so he will be missed I'm sure...
Originally posted by Spaceweed10
I would imagine GW2 has been thrown in the bin. Hardly surprising since GW1 was a huge embarrassment to the MMO genre.
No loss here.
Just because you were dissapointed with GW does not mean it was an embarrassment on the contrary it did very well and a lot of people have even higher hopes for GW2. Sorry to report that your feelings aren't fact. But don't play if you don't like it. No loss here.
I would imagine GW2 has been thrown in the bin. Hardly surprising since GW1 was a huge embarrassment to the MMO genre. No loss here.
What an incredibly rediculous statement backed by personal perspective especially considering how well it continued to excel while the main focus of development. Nothing else needs to be added. http://www.guildwars.com/events/press/awards/
If this article is going to be linked on the main page then the Mike O'Brien statement should be added at the end as well instead of buried on page 2 of the conversation.
What i find comical is the usual PR bs.On one hand they say hes the best thing since sliced cheese,he is the driving force,the brains behind the operation,then they go on to say his loss will not be missed at all,they see no impact on any of their games or AION.......SOOOOoooooooooooo i guess his influence/impact there was not really needed at all,he was just a person collecting a huge paycheck?
The lead behind the Xbox369 release? probably the worst handling Microsoft has ever had,out of the gate Xbox could not tie the Playstation shoelaces,Microsoft almost gave up on the Xbox360.Only recently has the Xbox 360 started to shine,this guy obviously did nothing for the system or it's launch.
Lead pragrammer for Warcraft? well warcraft is anything but a failure for tech and coding,it is a throwback to console gaming,his efforts are obviously ancient and not up to standards,witch is probably why WOW was so meek in its efforts.
I think this guy is just a smash bit over rated,otherwise he would be leading NCSOFT a giant wih a fair bit of money to bigger and better things.Ncsoft is still behind the eight ball on tech,and personally AION is nothing short of a L2 remake,so this guy has done nothing for gaming IMO.
He gets credit for GW's,ok a decent game with a slight different approach,but it is again ancient coding,low end graphics,nothing new what so ever,other than another WOW that can solo easily.GW's is one big giant instanced game,it is in theory not really a MMORPG at all,it is exactly like a console game rpg,i would call it more a CO OP game .
I do not see this guy as deserving of any special heroics.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
WTF.. noooo.... my GW2 is never gonna be done with Jeff Strain gone! Omg.... no way...why why why.. no wonder it's been so damn quite of GW2 updates!!!! eerrrggg
I would imagine GW2 has been thrown in the bin. Hardly surprising since GW1 was a huge embarrassment to the MMO genre. No loss here.
Just because you luv your WoW and your other WoW clones doesn't mean GW was an embarrassment. GW was meant to be different from WoW and WoW-like MMOs and that was why they made GW! Get it?
I would imagine GW2 has been thrown in the bin. Hardly surprising since GW1 was a huge embarrassment to the MMO genre. No loss here.
Just because you luv your WoW and your other WoW clones doesn't mean GW was an embarrassment. GW was meant to be different from WoW and WoW-like MMOs and that was why they made GW! Get it?
I dont see why GW was an embarassment to the MMO genre. It wasnt a true MMO, but Arenanet always sold it as a CORPG (cooperative online ropleplaying game) and the game was estremely solid and allowed a much better, fair and balanced pvp than the most games out there, and it still does.
If indeed GW2 dies as a project, it will be a great loss to the MMO genre, but i dont believe it will and NCSoft will certainly keep the engine running
Just a tiny little nitpick, but i'm wondering just how correct the info about him working on Diablo is. I was in tech support there for a short time right after the D2 release, and from what i was told ALL design/prog work for the original diablo was handled by blizzard north - which no longer exists, and was in northern california, like 300+ miles away. Possible Strain was up there first and moved down to the Irvine office though. It's probably just worded funny, but he wouldnt have contributed to Diablo while at the Irvine office.
To pour some more water on the rumour mill: when you look at Aion you will recognize, that it uses GameGuard. A hacking prevention system used primary by korean MMOs. The system is totaly crappy, the aion beta forum was full of error reports concerning GG and the people tried to make pressure to solve the problem or superior: remove GG completely from the game, because it behaves like a root kit. What happend? Nothing happend till today, it wasn't even added to the known bugs list! This is a beavior I found to appear in a lot of korean free to play MMOs: inconvenient but importent problems are successively beeing ignored. I'm curious if they'll keep this behavior up. At the comming weekend there will be the next beta event and the betaboard with the buglists will be open again. I ask myself if the shown problem management of NCSoft is highly influenced by the korean management and if it will find entrance as a general behaviour to the customers of NC Soft.
My experience with Game Guard has led me to inevitably ignore all games with Game Guard. I really wanted to play some of those games, too, but Game Guard makes that impossible. I've found 1000 ways to get around problems with games over the years, but Game Guard. . .~shudders~ It even kept me from playing a game I actually paid money for. Poof! Goodbye money. And no, I'm not a hacker, never been a hacker, never gonna be a hacker. Hacking is cheating, and cheating is for losers. Yes, I've unplugged everything possible and turned off everything you can turn off. No matter what I've tried, Game Guard is the DEVIL! ~makes a warding gesture~
For me, I think the timing of these departures close to Aion release might imply a little corporate drama.
As someone mentioned before, I reckon they've intentionally held back GW2 so it doesn't steal Aion's thunder. If Arenanet had their way, I reckon it would have been released by now but the game's been held on a leash under heavy quarantine. As a big liker of Guild Wars, I confess I'm a little nervous as to the future of GW2 even under assurance, because even if we don't need to worry about the game becoming vaporware, some of us might be rightly concerned about the direction that GW2 will go.
There's hardly any info on the game and for all we know it could become subscription/MT based, and I never liked the idea of creating many racial characters like Charr and Asuras. It sounds too WOW to me.
i think some people confuse David Reid with Mike O'brien.
From the 3 founders of Anet only Jeff left, and he already didnt work for Anet anymore
Agree completely. People are assuming that because these people did good by certain projects in the past that they are somehow still currently attached to either those projects or their predecessors. I am pretty sure both these guys were upper management people and really would not effect the outcome of games in development. Though Paragon Studios, Arena.net, and Carbine Studios are all owned by NCSoft, but they are all given enough free reign that changes in upper management don't effect them all that much. It seems like a loss do to these guys past accomplishments, but perhaps they were doing all that well in what was there current positions. We don't know, but we all seem to like to jump to conclusions quite quickly based on assumptions rather than facts.
i think some people confuse David Reid with Mike O'brien.
From the 3 founders of Anet only Jeff left, and he already didnt work for Anet anymore
Agree completely. People are assuming that because these people did good by certain projects in the past that they are somehow still currently attached to either those projects or their predecessors. I am pretty sure both these guys were upper management people and really would not effect the outcome of games in development. Though Paragon Studios, Arena.net, and Carbine Studios are all owned by NCSoft, but they are all given enough free reign that changes in upper management don't effect them all that much. It seems like a loss do to these guys past accomplishments, but perhaps they were doing all that well in what was there current positions. We don't know, but we all seem to like to jump to conclusions quite quickly based on assumptions rather than facts.
Funny someone without a clue would be mouthing off about facts and ignoring assumptions.
They weren't just some guys in upper management, THEY WERE UPPER MANAGEMENT. They have been running ncwest for almost a year. You idiots suck down that pr bullshit like it's the sweet nectar of infallible truth. As of right now, ncwest is now in the hands of a few unknown koreans shipped directly from korea. This may or may not be a good thing depending on your view of things, but you have to be pretty stupid to think this won't effect anything just because some press release said so. This is the korean method of doing business, and it works fine in korea, but time and time again it has shown to rub westerners the wrong way.
Tell me, seriously, what was the point of delaying aion for 6 months to "westernize" it and build a team committed to the western world and then basically replacing the heads of that team with some faceless koreans a month before the game is released?
I wanted to take a moment to offer my personal note on Jeff's departure.
Jeff is a personal friend of mine. We worked together very closely from the time he joined Blizzard in 1996, through our founding of ArenaNet in 2000, until he left ArenaNet to join NCsoft West in 2008. I'm sad to see him leaving NCsoft now. We remain good friends and I wish him great success in his next endeavor.
It's important to understand that ArenaNet is a separate and self-contained development studio. Jeff hasn't been involved in the day-to-day development of Guild Wars 2 since he left ArenaNet more than a year ago, and I don't expect his departure to have a direct impact on our studio or on Guild Wars 2. I continue to lead ArenaNet, and I'm not going anywhere.
We have an amazing team here at ArenaNet, and we continue to work hard on Guild Wars 2, preparing for the day when we can first reveal it to the world. That day is coming very soon now. I'm confident that, when you see Guild Wars 2 for the first time, you're going to love what you see, and any worries you have about its development will fade away.
--Mike O'Brien 01:56, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
thx a lot, that was a relief.
Funny how official PR = epic fail and O'Brian can do better with a simple reply...
This does not change our plans or negatively impact our upcoming launch of Aion
Comments
As has been pointed out, Strain was no longer part of ArenaNet. He had moved up to a job at NCsoft and is now no longer with either company.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
I bet it has something to do with the lackluster pre-sales for Aion (in turn from a huge lack of marketing). You don't "let-go" your company's US-CEO for minor or creative issues......you save that for AFTER the big launch. Seems to me that NCSoft HQ doesn't understand that here in the US we players are just as inquisitive and passionate about the men and women BEHIND the games, as we are about the games themselves.
We follow these guys like pro athletes being traded from team to team. Well at least the analyst, loyalist and enthusiast that follow MMOs do. And most of us take an announcement like this and form strong, opinionated views about how we approach present and future products from companies we may have once supported. I dunno guys take from it what you will, I can only say that from where I'm standing, one less voice to stress western playing styles is one less hurdle for the head honchos to jump over.
All I know is as long as they get another vet with western game developmental experience (nationality is not an issue) I can rest easy knowing that at least a voice from our perspective is at the table.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
To pour some more water on the rumour mill:
when you look at Aion you will recognize, that it uses GameGuard. A hacking prevention system used primary by korean MMOs. The system is totaly crappy, the aion beta forum was full of error reports concerning GG and the people tried to make pressure to solve the problem or superior: remove GG completely from the game, because it behaves like a root kit.
What happend? Nothing happend till today, it wasn't even added to the known bugs list!
This is a beavior I found to appear in a lot of korean free to play MMOs: inconvenient but importent problems are successively beeing ignored.
I'm curious if they'll keep this behavior up. At the comming weekend there will be the next beta event and the betaboard with the buglists will be open again.
I ask myself if the shown problem management of NCSoft is highly influenced by the korean management and if it will find entrance as a general behaviour to the customers of NC Soft.
This is true - you should trust people based only on what they say.
On that note, you need to give me your financial account information and passwords for your own good. Trust me. Also, get in my van here - it has candy in the back.
Thanks for the laugh. That was made enjoyable by the fact that what you quoted me on has turned out to be absolutely true.
And I said trust "them," who happen to be the largest MMO publisher, not some random forum poster who doesn't know his/her foot from his/her elbow regarding the inner-politics of NCsoft.
This is true - you should trust people based only on what they say.
On that note, you need to give me your financial account information and passwords for your own good. Trust me. Also, get in my van here - it has candy in the back.
Thanks for the laugh. That was made enjoyable by the fact that what you quoted me on has turned out to be absolutely true.
And I said trust "them," who happen to be the largest MMO publisher, not some random forum poster who doesn't know his/her foot from his/her elbow regarding the inner-politics of NCsoft.
It's also important to note whether anyone has trust in NCSoft or not, they are taking their own speculation over information given out by the company itself.
I, for one, am more inclined to believe the press release over what a random forum member says, unless there is factual information for me to think otherwise.
I would imagine GW2 has been thrown in the bin. Hardly surprising since GW1 was a huge embarrassment to the MMO genre.
No loss here.
My bet is that they have been offered job on Blizzard's new MMO. Most likely strategic effort from Actavision to create negative talk around the release of Aion.
Its only buisness after all.
Get real, GW2 was already planned out and everything it's going to be fine. Some of you people are such drama queens. Anyway, he did some good things so he will be missed I'm sure...
Originally posted by Spaceweed10
I would imagine GW2 has been thrown in the bin. Hardly surprising since GW1 was a huge embarrassment to the MMO genre.
No loss here.
Just because you were dissapointed with GW does not mean it was an embarrassment on the contrary it did very well and a lot of people have even higher hopes for GW2. Sorry to report that your feelings aren't fact. But don't play if you don't like it. No loss here.
Obviously you have not read the statement Mike O'brien has made. Ignorance is bliss so they say!
Please read... wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User_talk:Mike_O%27Brien
What an incredibly rediculous statement backed by personal perspective especially considering how well it continued to excel while the main focus of development. Nothing else needs to be added.
http://www.guildwars.com/events/press/awards/
If this article is going to be linked on the main page then the Mike O'Brien statement should be added at the end as well instead of buried on page 2 of the conversation.
What i find comical is the usual PR bs.On one hand they say hes the best thing since sliced cheese,he is the driving force,the brains behind the operation,then they go on to say his loss will not be missed at all,they see no impact on any of their games or AION.......SOOOOoooooooooooo i guess his influence/impact there was not really needed at all,he was just a person collecting a huge paycheck?
The lead behind the Xbox369 release? probably the worst handling Microsoft has ever had,out of the gate Xbox could not tie the Playstation shoelaces,Microsoft almost gave up on the Xbox360.Only recently has the Xbox 360 started to shine,this guy obviously did nothing for the system or it's launch.
Lead pragrammer for Warcraft? well warcraft is anything but a failure for tech and coding,it is a throwback to console gaming,his efforts are obviously ancient and not up to standards,witch is probably why WOW was so meek in its efforts.
I think this guy is just a smash bit over rated,otherwise he would be leading NCSOFT a giant wih a fair bit of money to bigger and better things.Ncsoft is still behind the eight ball on tech,and personally AION is nothing short of a L2 remake,so this guy has done nothing for gaming IMO.
He gets credit for GW's,ok a decent game with a slight different approach,but it is again ancient coding,low end graphics,nothing new what so ever,other than another WOW that can solo easily.GW's is one big giant instanced game,it is in theory not really a MMORPG at all,it is exactly like a console game rpg,i would call it more a CO OP game .
I do not see this guy as deserving of any special heroics.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
WTF.. noooo.... my GW2 is never gonna be done with Jeff Strain gone! Omg.... no way...why why why.. no wonder it's been so damn quite of GW2 updates!!!! eerrrggg
Just because you luv your WoW and your other WoW clones doesn't mean GW was an embarrassment. GW was meant to be different from WoW and WoW-like MMOs and that was why they made GW! Get it?
Just because you luv your WoW and your other WoW clones doesn't mean GW was an embarrassment. GW was meant to be different from WoW and WoW-like MMOs and that was why they made GW! Get it?
I dont see why GW was an embarassment to the MMO genre. It wasnt a true MMO, but Arenanet always sold it as a CORPG (cooperative online ropleplaying game) and the game was estremely solid and allowed a much better, fair and balanced pvp than the most games out there, and it still does.
If indeed GW2 dies as a project, it will be a great loss to the MMO genre, but i dont believe it will and NCSoft will certainly keep the engine running
Just a tiny little nitpick, but i'm wondering just how correct the info about him working on Diablo is. I was in tech support there for a short time right after the D2 release, and from what i was told ALL design/prog work for the original diablo was handled by blizzard north - which no longer exists, and was in northern california, like 300+ miles away. Possible Strain was up there first and moved down to the Irvine office though. It's probably just worded funny, but he wouldnt have contributed to Diablo while at the Irvine office.
think GW2 will not be under NCsoft but im suprised at this and hope GW2 will not be heavily affected
My experience with Game Guard has led me to inevitably ignore all games with Game Guard. I really wanted to play some of those games, too, but Game Guard makes that impossible. I've found 1000 ways to get around problems with games over the years, but Game Guard. . .~shudders~ It even kept me from playing a game I actually paid money for. Poof! Goodbye money. And no, I'm not a hacker, never been a hacker, never gonna be a hacker. Hacking is cheating, and cheating is for losers.
Yes, I've unplugged everything possible and turned off everything you can turn off. No matter what I've tried, Game Guard is the DEVIL! ~makes a warding gesture~
Did I mention that I farking hate Game Guard?
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Bleakmage
It will be, ArenaNet is owned by NCSoft
Jeff Strain wasnt working on GW2 , so i dont think GW2 will be affected much
Who cares about Aion, it's another Pay to Play money sucking time sink.
I'm sure there's more to it than we are being told.
Mark my words, GW2 will not be free to play, now that Jeff is gone.
NCSoft is just like all the rest, give me your credit card so we can use and abuse you.
NCSoft doesn't care about gamers, they care about $$$, unlike Jeff.
I personally will follow Jeff , just like I did with him leaving WoW and same for GW's.
I hope the next project he works on; he sticks to his ideals and leaves the Money Grubbers out of it.
You should consider yourself lucky they don't charge a subscription on top of an RMT item mall.
For me, I think the timing of these departures close to Aion release might imply a little corporate drama.
As someone mentioned before, I reckon they've intentionally held back GW2 so it doesn't steal Aion's thunder. If Arenanet had their way, I reckon it would have been released by now but the game's been held on a leash under heavy quarantine. As a big liker of Guild Wars, I confess I'm a little nervous as to the future of GW2 even under assurance, because even if we don't need to worry about the game becoming vaporware, some of us might be rightly concerned about the direction that GW2 will go.
There's hardly any info on the game and for all we know it could become subscription/MT based, and I never liked the idea of creating many racial characters like Charr and Asuras. It sounds too WOW to me.
i think some people confuse David Reid with Mike O'brien.
From the 3 founders of Anet only Jeff left, and he already didnt work for Anet anymore
Agree completely. People are assuming that because these people did good by certain projects in the past that they are somehow still currently attached to either those projects or their predecessors. I am pretty sure both these guys were upper management people and really would not effect the outcome of games in development. Though Paragon Studios, Arena.net, and Carbine Studios are all owned by NCSoft, but they are all given enough free reign that changes in upper management don't effect them all that much. It seems like a loss do to these guys past accomplishments, but perhaps they were doing all that well in what was there current positions. We don't know, but we all seem to like to jump to conclusions quite quickly based on assumptions rather than facts.
Agree completely. People are assuming that because these people did good by certain projects in the past that they are somehow still currently attached to either those projects or their predecessors. I am pretty sure both these guys were upper management people and really would not effect the outcome of games in development. Though Paragon Studios, Arena.net, and Carbine Studios are all owned by NCSoft, but they are all given enough free reign that changes in upper management don't effect them all that much. It seems like a loss do to these guys past accomplishments, but perhaps they were doing all that well in what was there current positions. We don't know, but we all seem to like to jump to conclusions quite quickly based on assumptions rather than facts.
Funny someone without a clue would be mouthing off about facts and ignoring assumptions.
They weren't just some guys in upper management, THEY WERE UPPER MANAGEMENT. They have been running ncwest for almost a year. You idiots suck down that pr bullshit like it's the sweet nectar of infallible truth. As of right now, ncwest is now in the hands of a few unknown koreans shipped directly from korea. This may or may not be a good thing depending on your view of things, but you have to be pretty stupid to think this won't effect anything just because some press release said so. This is the korean method of doing business, and it works fine in korea, but time and time again it has shown to rub westerners the wrong way.
Tell me, seriously, what was the point of delaying aion for 6 months to "westernize" it and build a team committed to the western world and then basically replacing the heads of that team with some faceless koreans a month before the game is released?
Hi all,
I wanted to take a moment to offer my personal note on Jeff's departure.
Jeff is a personal friend of mine. We worked together very closely from the time he joined Blizzard in 1996, through our founding of ArenaNet in 2000, until he left ArenaNet to join NCsoft West in 2008. I'm sad to see him leaving NCsoft now. We remain good friends and I wish him great success in his next endeavor.
It's important to understand that ArenaNet is a separate and self-contained development studio. Jeff hasn't been involved in the day-to-day development of Guild Wars 2 since he left ArenaNet more than a year ago, and I don't expect his departure to have a direct impact on our studio or on Guild Wars 2. I continue to lead ArenaNet, and I'm not going anywhere.
We have an amazing team here at ArenaNet, and we continue to work hard on Guild Wars 2, preparing for the day when we can first reveal it to the world. That day is coming very soon now. I'm confident that, when you see Guild Wars 2 for the first time, you're going to love what you see, and any worries you have about its development will fade away.
--Mike O'Brien 01:56, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
thx a lot, that was a relief.
Funny how official PR = epic fail and O'Brian can do better with a simple reply...
Thx, but Aion can go to hell.
I want Guild Wars 2, imo it will be the next WoW.
Hype train -> Reality