SOE Becomes Daybreak / Russian shutdown

Vitality

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Was Higby the root cause of Planetside Next being canned and PS2 being created instead? I don't remember him being around back in the PS1 days.

I always wish they had stuck with their Tribes inspired gameplay rather than switching over to Battlefield based gameplay. A game series so shallow that requires frequent sequels to retain interest never felt like the best base to design a MMO around.
Planetside post Core Combat was managed by Dave Georgeson. Thank him for the BFR and subsequent garroting of my all time favorite game.

Edit: Also fuck you Brewko wherever you are.

R I P Johari 2003
 

Oldbased

> Than U
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This.

Anyone who has ever managed people for awhile, or been in business setting has seen people do dumbass stuff when they leave, even at the risk of criminal charges. Of course, this decreases if they have another job lined up. If you kick them to the curb, you have to be willing to expect anything.
Hell even in remodeling we have had people steal tools, break tools and cause a scene. People can get quite upset when they are losing their Johny49 hooker funds.
 

Shonuff

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Hell even in remodeling we have had people steal tools, break tools and cause a scene. People can get quite upset when they are losing their Johny49 hooker funds.
A guy can no-call, no-show multiple times, and then when you lay him off, try to steal equipment. Hell, I had a guy get canned and try to swing on the guy who canned him.
 

kaid

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Well that makes me hopeful they will roll PS2 to my PS4 I would love to be able to sit back on my futon and play PS2 on my big TV.
 

Bruman

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And then this...



Love it.

So in typical SOE fashion, no one knows what the hell is going on. It's amazing this company managed to ship fucking anything at all.
Are you saying he's contradicting himself? It's kind of hard to tell. In case you are, he's not. They're different statements. He said that Smed told everyone that there will be layoffs, generally speaking. The second question is about the actual specific people being laid off knowing before hand, and they didn't. As he went on to say in his AMA, in his case, he actually had to pick his team members that were being laid off alongside him (which is pretty brutal, fwiw). There's no way everyone could've known at the same time, provided his experience was similar to other project managers. They culled the top layers, and had them pick the lower layers too.
 

InterSlayer_sl

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Was Higby the root cause of Planetside Next being canned and PS2 being created instead? I don't remember him being around back in the PS1 days.

I always wish they had stuck with their Tribes inspired gameplay rather than switching over to Battlefield based gameplay. A game series so shallow that requires frequent sequels to retain interest never felt like the best base to design a MMO around.
Higby was a big reason they switched to BF style gameplay. Probably also because it is obviously popular.

Carey also says in the AMA that PS2 was Smed's baby project. Pretty sure PS Next was Planetside 2 and don't recall there being another iteration of it that got scrapped like with EQ Next. PS1 was not exactly successful, I doubt they were actively looking to make a sequel.

In fact, if I remember correctly back in 2012 during some interviews, someone said Planetside 2 was kind of a "Why not?" type deal, since they already had Forgelight brewing for EQ Next. Seemingly kind of the way H1Z1 came about, as an offshoot and direct result of Planetside 2.
 

Villide

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This.

Anyone who has ever managed people for awhile, or been in business setting has seen people do dumbass stuff when they leave, even at the risk of criminal charges. Of course, this decreases if they have another job lined up. If you kick them to the curb, you have to be willing to expect anything.
It's why you tie severance pay to them completing their term of employment. If they do anything stupid during the interim, no extra pay for joo!
 

Nija

<Silver Donator>
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Large acquisitions like this usually have large retention bonuses that are paid out at some point in the future. The usual structure is something like, 25% after 3 months, 25% after 6 months, 50% after 1 year. Sometimes it's spread over the course of two years.

With that said, I expect a very large exodus after the retention bonuses have been paid out. That's just what always happens.

Smed has probably made enough that he can just retire after this. Sorry to disappoint everyone, but being a shitbird pays.
 

Elidroth_sl

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Planetside post Core Combat was managed by Dave Georgeson. Thank him for the BFR and subsequent garroting of my all time favorite game.

Edit: Also fuck you Brewko wherever you are.

R I P Johari 2003
To be fair, Dave HATED the BFRs. I had that discussion with him more than once. PS2 grew out of the skeleton crew of PSNext because Higby sold Smed on making a full new game out of it instead of just an overhaul of the existing game.
 

Beastro

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Hey guys, what's your beef with Georgeson? A friend's wanting to know who plays EQ since what he knows of the guy makes him feel he's pretty decent running things.
 

Shonuff

Mr. Poopybutthole
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It's why you tie severance pay to them completing their term of employment. If they do anything stupid during the interim, no extra pay for joo!
I'm sure that would work great in a situation like this, where you have hundreds of people with access to systems, who are also adept at covering their tracks. All it takes is one asshole.
 

90Proof_sl

shitlord
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Hey guys, what's your beef with Georgeson? A friend's wanting to know who plays EQ since what he knows of the guy makes him feel he's pretty decent running things.
No beef.

I agree with his overall philosophy of trying to grow a community around a developing mmo. Solid public speaker with a positive attitude. I never worked for or with him, so I can't speak to that.
 

Convo

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No beef.

I agree with his overall philosophy of trying to grow a community around a developing mmo. Solid public speaker with a positive attitude. I never worked for or with him, so I can't speak to that.
From what I know, he was a good dude but part of the problem there. It doesn't sound like he even knew the games he was in charge of. Basically an idiot. That and meetings with him were a place where ideas went to die.
 

Japanfour_sl

shitlord
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Hey guys, what's your beef with Georgeson? A friend's wanting to know who plays EQ since what he knows of the guy makes him feel he's pretty decent running things.
georgeson was a lame duck, didnt really represent the franchise for people that actually had been playing it. He literally financially tried to buttfuck people who liked and played eq1/eq2 by making it free to play(pay to win, dont know about eq1 but on eq2 pay to win server when they were experimenting with it there was an item that you could click to destroy mobs)

He Managed to turn a game that released rich large expansions for 40 a piece to a company who sold content releases that offered less than a quarter of the content for the same price, further fucking the fans wallets

he pushed for useless features (SoEmote so you can live out your furry/anthropomorphic fantasy), and things that looked like features that were later crafted into hurdles (Research Assistants)

The fucker was hired by smedley to do only one thing in reality, kick the EQ can down the road. Everything he did was just a direct attempt to fuck peoples wallets and milk the people playing the game as long as they were willing to play. All advertising was still inclusive, and not really branching out to new crowds. Everything this guy did was just to fuck over people he knew were already addicted to the games. Every thing aside from SOEmote preached by cocksmoker was a 2 sided attempt to make the fans cash in more for what they used to get for just 14 a month.

georgeson knew what most people who get addicted to mmos dont...You never forget your first love. It is what you compare all of your future loves to. Whether you played eq1 or eq2 or wow as your first mmo, it was your first love if you got into it and when you are in love you tend to validate flaws and overlook them, and stick with it whether it sucks or not. We all would like to think that these rose colored goggles would break sometime but for some people they dont. Thats the kind of person that SOE targets. The person with OCD who cant let shit go. Its like marketing a future to severely crippled kids.
 

Vitality

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To be fair, Dave HATED the BFRs. I had that discussion with him more than once. PS2 grew out of the skeleton crew of PSNext because Higby sold Smed on making a full new game out of it instead of just an overhaul of the existing game.
Thanks for the elaboration, loved that game up until that point.