They aren't mutually exclusive, and Utnayan would probably admit that he goes overboard half the time. We've always called him out for going apeshit, just like you've been called out for being a shill for some time now.
Oh, I totally do. I can go overboard, those posts usually coincide with seeing ridiculous Canadians like Quaid posting here and my brain cannot comprehend how his brain has the capability to send electronic signals to his fingers to type. My brain fries trying to understand how he can defy science, and then I realize he is Canadian, so he isn't human and isn't like the rest of us. Your posts, however, are like the calming waves of my vacation in Playa Del Carmen with my wife and I sucking down fruity drinks and being served fish tacos from our cabana boy Oscar. And then I can rationally think again without the normal distractions.
So with that said, now that I have been calmed by Erronius.
I do not hate Matt Firor. I do not hate Paul Sage. I am sure they are fantastic lovable people, have families, maybe have kids, are good dads, good husbands, who knows. Guess what... That's not what I am talking about. What I am talking about relates to their work in the industry making games.
Paul Sage designs games his way without any input from his team from the top down, demands resources from other teams so his portion of the project goes off without a hitch, and is a drain on the leadership side of the team itself. His employees have no say in the game design, have little input, and therefore have zero ownership. Now, if Paul Sage was a creative and well respected designer, this may be a good thing. However, he isn't. And it isn't a good thing. And the end result is seeing the level 1-17 content be passed over 7 times in 3-4 years resulting in Tortage part 2. Level 17-32 content is still being populated and itemized (World design is fairly complete for everything at this point - world design meaning the landscape) without anything higher level complete. With 5 months to go, * This is NOT GOOD * even if it wasn't a multi-platform launch - which makes it even worse. So to sum up, he is a leadership void within the organization, takes little to zero input from very creative designers he leads, and is fairly unethical from even the Ultima days.
Matt Firor should not be president of a company. He flat out shouldn't. The decisions made to promote Zeb Cook and then Paul Sage over Rich Lambert is a complete travesty. It's why the entire genre is at a stand still as we see it today. I would genuinely be excited to see this game and what it could be with Rich Lambert at the helm. Matt Firor doesn't understand economies of scale, and is NOT a business minded person. His decisions to make this a subscription based model is attrocious, but even more so in the fact he has already allocated resources to not finish the damn game, but to start the process of the Free to Play conversion for the sake of the buck. He is ultimately behind the marketing decisions, using the IP to sell boxes to make TESO look more profitable, and then to switch it into a F2P model in 6 months to make sure the game as a whole is in the black. After, my guess is he won't stay with the organization. In fact, neither will Paul Sage. They will head over to Battlecry and fuck up Fallout Online with Rich Vogel.
This evidence cannot be refuted, it cannot be shunned. The one thing I was initially wrong about was Brian Wheeler. It isn't Brian Wheeler's fault (Wheeler is the PvP lead) when he cannot get resources needed for his scope of the project when Sage cannot keep anyone on track even with his top down design methods and forced down my way or the highway approach to what aren't even game designers anymore, but drones.
If you like it somehow, good for you. For some reason there are people that liked Defiance, still play SWTOR, and even Vanguard.
That doesn't mean this title won't be the next non commercial flop. And what is horrible is this type of development with these types of people continue on, and quite honestly, to the point where a lot of people here don't even give a fuck anymore. That's fucking horrible.
So to recap, I am sure the people outside of the industry are decent enough people. BUt they are fucking cancers inside the industry, and especially inside the MMORPG genre.
