Furor's 14 Days rant & First Look at WoW

BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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Too many kids growing up playing videogames and then saying "I want to be a developer when I grow up!". They don't have to pay shit.
 
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The_Black_Log Foler

Stock Pals Senior Vice President
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Word on the street is our boy Alex may be going to Pantheon, could turn it around
 
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Soygen

The Dirty Dozen For the Price of One
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Word on the street is our boy Alex may be going to Pantheon, could turn it around
That would be hilariously awesome. Look, after fuzzy gnolls/crazy church group, anything is possible in Pantheon dev lore.
 
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Warrik

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Too many kids growing up playing videogames and then saying "I want to be a developer when I grow up!". They don't have to pay shit.

Really depends on what you do and with what company. You can do very well in Games.
 
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Secrets

ResetEra Staff Member
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A billion dollar company pays its Product Managers 74K?

Either someone is lying or that explains why WoW has turned into a billion dollar pile of shit.
Correct. Those who are at the top named in the suit are top salaries which are leadership/exec positions.

They paid folks in cybersecurity something like $110k/yr top (in Los Angeles, mind you) to work on Blizzard's anticheat / application security roles.
I know of two instances of people who either declined a Blizzard job offer after they realized there was no path for advancement in salary or seniority to either work for government contractor jobs, or to work elsewhere. (Riot, Epic, made their own startup with VC, etc)

For context, here's what $50,000 USD a year income gets you in Pennsylvania vs two companies' headquarters (Blizzard, Riot) in Los Angeles.


If I make my commute be about an hour or two (ie; Santa Ana) the cost of living is still 64% more than where I am now.


I work remotely and take pay hits because it's an overall net increase in income compared to California.
I don't have to drive far in Pennsylvania except to get groceries or see a movie, so factor the cost of not having a commute, too.


It may be boring, but at least I am not living in a Sedan in a Los Angeles parking lot.

I will be honest, if I was offered $85,000 a year to work at Blizzard, they paid me benefits, and had fixed their employee turnover / internal conflict issues, I would consider it - but only if I could stay at home in Pennsylvania.

More companies need to be open to that, but I also 100% understand the apprehension with trade secrets being on someone's remote PC.

The only risk is the availability of remote work long-term. But if you have a multi-year history as a generalist engineer or some other programming position that does not require to be creative, and are good at what you do, you'll find no shortage of jobs. Plus you can keep an arm's length from whatever persons you are at the company with, so abuse in-person would never happen as you control the terms of your surroundings.
 
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BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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Yeah I remember when I was making $80K a year in the Bay Area living in a 1 bedroom apartment and my younger brother was living in Montana making $50k and he owned his house and had more disposable income than I did. Living on the coast is a scam.
 
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Warrik

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Riot HQ is based in Santa Monica. Unless your single, you will be very hard pressed to find a house to rent for a family in Santa Monica that you can afford.

Blizzard is in Orange County, and Irvine is not much better (if you need 3 beds or more).

Again it is 100% reflective on your family size. If your single, or just yourself and partner, far more doable. Families of 4+, you will struggle and need a second income unless your in a pretty senior position. Bear in mind, its not a simple as you can just live farther from the office. In LA, traffic is a real problem (because there is ALWAYS an accident, and people can't drive). This is also true of the Bay area. If you work in Mountain View or Cupertino, you cant just say I will live on the other side of the bay unless you have a large Audio Book backlog and love being in the car.

I wouldn't even try to find something in SF. Competition is high, as is the rent, and the city often smells of urine and shit. (they have a serious, serious homeless problem).

Real world example: I once left the office just after 5 (our workday was typically 11-7 to avoid the worst traffic), and it took me over an hour to go 5 red lights to get the Highway on-ramp.

I ended up living about 33 miles away from Riot. Driving in, taking the PCH, took close to an hour. Going home, PCH is slammed (and only two lanes) so you end up taking the 405 to the 101, which can be real bad (until you finally get on the 101 and it starts to clear, but that 405/101 split...ugh). At least the PCH is a pleasant commute. Driving through the canyons is nice, though in our streaming/GPS culture, mobile signal can be problematic.

So living in LA is a game of finding affordable(lol) housing close enough to work, but not too far where you have a multi hour commute.

I think the remote work situation is here to stay...to a degree, and might open up more possibilities where people can afford to live comfortably

NOTE: I should add that Respawn is located very nicely in Chatsworth. You can actually live close to the office. Overall, Respawn was one of, if not the, best studios I worked for. Great pay. Fantastic team/culture, and commute was outstanding. (15 min or less for me as no 405!)
 
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Chukzombi

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I don't like people calling me by my first name online since most foreigners can't pronounce my name right. Even my coworkers say my name incorrectly and we're the same nationality.
(The name is pronounced differently in 3 separate regions in the Country, even though it's written exactly the same).

When I speak in work-related things with foreigners (especially Chinese), I just tell them my name is "Alex" to avoid going into a 15 minute tirade on how they still can't spell my name right.
yeah, people dont give a fuck about getting names right anymore. my last name is an americanized version and people still cant say or spell it right. its like somebody having the name Jones and some dumb motherfucker will call them Joe-ness or jon-nezz. bitch, spend two seconds figuring it out. it was especially bad at the DMV when Laquisha would call my name to go to the window for my car's registration, i had to make sure i was listening closely because the bitch was liable to say some crazy shit. one of my bosses back in the day stopped trying and would just give out nick names to everyone in the office. it pissed everybody off. he didnt care. we had Scratch or Nice Guy or Keys or Patches, one black dude he named Boardwalk for some reason and the guy would tell me he was planning on killing him one day.
 
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Kharzette

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Too many kids growing up playing videogames and then saying "I want to be a developer when I grow up!". They don't have to pay shit.
This is very true. My first gig was 30k a year.

I did discover some funny tricks at one employer. Some small game places will do side gigs with biz outside games for software or whatever. I was at a bar in vegas with the bosses and the contract stuff was on the table and I could see they had me listed as something like "senior magical architect of grand wisdom" or somesuch fancy title and had my salary down as double what it actually was :emoji_laughing:
 
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Kovaks

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Wonder if this will bring an influx of new blood to revitalize this place. Saw on a few other boards and even on blizzards board that people have apparently "checked out Alex's old FOH board to dig up more dirt on him."
 
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Big Phoenix

Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Saw on a few other boards and even on blizzards board that people have apparently "checked out Alex's old FOH board to dig up more dirt on him."
lol. What a sad world one must live in to spend time doing such a thing.

But that was my first thought from the start of all this. Youre gonna get the no lifers showing up here eventually.
 
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Chukzombi

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that would be pretty hilarious, hopefully it all gets moved to its own screenshots thread so we can all have fun with them.
 
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pysek

It Didn't Happen, It Should've, and It Will.
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Finally, we'll have the better class of retard this place has so long deserved.
 
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BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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Riot HQ is based in Santa Monica. Unless your single, you will be very hard pressed to find a house to rent for a family in Santa Monica that you can afford.

Blizzard is in Orange County, and Irvine is not much better (if you need 3 beds or more).

Again it is 100% reflective on your family size. If your single, or just yourself and partner, far more doable. Families of 4+, you will struggle and need a second income unless your in a pretty senior position. Bear in mind, its not a simple as you can just live farther from the office. In LA, traffic is a real problem (because there is ALWAYS an accident, and people can't drive). This is also true of the Bay area. If you work in Mountain View or Cupertino, you cant just say I will live on the other side of the bay unless you have a large Audio Book backlog and love being in the car.

I wouldn't even try to find something in SF. Competition is high, as is the rent, and the city often smells of urine and shit. (they have a serious, serious homeless problem).

Real world example: I once left the office just after 5 (our workday was typically 11-7 to avoid the worst traffic), and it took me over an hour to go 5 red lights to get the Highway on-ramp.

I ended up living about 33 miles away from Riot. Driving in, taking the PCH, took close to an hour. Going home, PCH is slammed (and only two lanes) so you end up taking the 405 to the 101, which can be real bad (until you finally get on the 101 and it starts to clear, but that 405/101 split...ugh). At least the PCH is a pleasant commute. Driving through the canyons is nice, though in our streaming/GPS culture, mobile signal can be problematic.

So living in LA is a game of finding affordable(lol) housing close enough to work, but not too far where you have a multi hour commute.

I think the remote work situation is here to stay...to a degree, and might open up more possibilities where people can afford to live comfortably

NOTE: I should add that Respawn is located very nicely in Chatsworth. You can actually live close to the office. Overall, Respawn was one of, if not the, best studios I worked for. Great pay. Fantastic team/culture, and commute was outstanding. (15 min or less for me as no 405!)

I went to grad school at Santa Clara University for a semester while living in Livermore (32 miles away). I had to leave home by 5:30 to get to my 7:30AM class. Some days I would get there at 6:15 and have an hour to kill. Other days I was late to class. This was maybe the biggest factor (neck and neck with Everquest) in my decision to quit grad school. I can't imagine those poor bastards that commute to silicon valley from Tracy or even Modesto. Owning a house is not worth that misery.
 
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Izo

Tranny Chaser
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This is very true. My first gig was 30k a year.

I did discover some funny tricks at one employer. Some small game places will do side gigs with biz outside games for software or whatever. I was at a bar in vegas with the bosses and the contract stuff was on the table and I could see they had me listed as something like "senior magical architect of grand wisdom" or somesuch fancy title and had my salary down as double what it actually was :emoji_laughing:
Pre vs post diddle pay. Put out more, Kharzette Kharzette
 
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Izo

Tranny Chaser
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Wonder if this will bring an influx of new blood to revitalize this place. Saw on a few other boards and even on blizzards board that people have apparently "checked out Alex's old FOH board to dig up more dirt on him."
I hear alex once dated a blond megan fox of ohio who later turned prostitute, a night to remember, [email protected] - something-something. Would be a shame if that somehow surfaced.
 
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Nirgon

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I gotta give him the most props for getting to work with real Blizzard (not this shit) on making vanilla-ulduar (at least) absolutely incredible.

I saw his influence in things like Sapphiron gloves having disarm aug baked in. He had most of it as right as it could be.

I'd like to think better of him never to come back and remember where it all began (onto this newer site). If he has nothing to do otherwise I'd say there's zero chance he never browses back.

He was one of the real gaming and community enthusiasts there. Now it's just Bobby's World.
 
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