No more cinematics?I.. I.. fu... ..*turns red*......*door slams*......*from other side of door* Can someone help me? I got my tail caught.
Taking all bets!Who's next? The engineers? The QA department?Are we soon to be left solely with Rarebit? He's only one man. ONE.No, wait, I have an idea! Let's hire an intern, hand him a little notebook based on the loose thoughts of the collective Dev Team, and make HIM the sole person left! That'll really lower the costs.FA-LLUUUUUUUSSHHHHHH.
I certainly knew this wasn't going to be a popular letter, but I had to lay everything out on the table. Cinematics aren't ending because Paul is leaving, although he did do all the storyboards. We had the budget last year and did as much as we could with it. That saw us through all the storyline we had fully fleshed-out at the time.
Could we have players do the cinematics? We certainly have talent out there but, just like LESIG, it would have to be a totally volunteer effort. That means we *can't* demand things be done on a set schedule. The best we could do is put the deadline out there and *hope* the work got done on time--or at all. That's not a good way to carry on storyline.
It also requires dev time to oversee the process. That's time away from missions, events, and any additional content we could add to the game. So we turn to LESIG to help us with the Sentinel, which isn't as time-critical as cinematics would be. Is it an ideal situation? Absolutely not. But we do what we can.
And why announce it now right before the party? Well, you're right in that maybe we're making the event less a celebration than it would otherwise be. Would it have been better having the party then announcing later? That seemed deceptive to the team. Instead, we'll be online with you this afternoon, still celebrating three years since release with no end in sight.
And that is the case: We've no plans to shut MxO down.
None of these issues have been easy for the team to accept, so we understand where you all are coming from. For those of us still working on MxO, it's been four or more years of hard work, so it's sad for us to have to make these decisions. But we make the best choices we can and continue working to improve the game in other ways.
Virrago wrote:NightTrace wrote:That does not promise any content/good news/effort.They will cut features/costs until the playerbase is gone and THEN they will shut us down.Thanks SOE for the consistent *CENSORED* you've given us over the years of our games span.There will still be content.. Datamine for instance.Please name one game SOE has ever closed down?V, we're not so worried about the game being closed down so much as we are that the company's letting us stagnate. Chadwick got the can, and now suddenly we're not worth an artist/animator or the money that was dropped on voice actors previously. Keep in mind Datamine was produced under such conditions where we still got cinematics, so it's fair for us to expect both moving pictures with spoken words as well as constructs on our fifteen bucks.And this isn't the first time it's happened, either, considering that our fifteen bucks used to pay for a whole team of people who would sit around and play live events characters day in and day out for us in addition to a combat revision, three new ability trees which still haven't been released, fully CG panoramic cinematics, and other stuff.And it's hard for us to believe this is the cause of inflation, man. When you're in the community position, it's not hard to see how things are slipping away. Maybe SoE won't shut down the servers, but no one's going to want to play when there are no active developers because Rarebit, Fu, and Dracomet have been taken to develop SoE's new Hello Kitty MMO acquisition. We're being treated like our fifteen bucks doesn't matter, and since it's all going into the company tip jar, it's not so hard for any of us to imagine that it's being recycled into EQ2 or Vanguard instead of MxO, because really, our staffing only goes down. And when you're considering the buck, that's where it goes. Not into "content" per say, but into paying people to make content.So despite the fact that we're still getting the same game content and that creative control is now entirely within Rarebit's hands (a good thing, in my eyes) this is still a net loss on the fifteen bucks we pay.
NightTrace wrote:That does not promise any content/good news/effort.They will cut features/costs until the playerbase is gone and THEN they will shut us down.Thanks SOE for the consistent *CENSORED* you've given us over the years of our games span.There will still be content.. Datamine for instance.Please name one game SOE has ever closed down?
That does not promise any content/good news/effort.They will cut features/costs until the playerbase is gone and THEN they will shut us down.Thanks SOE for the consistent *CENSORED* you've given us over the years of our games span.
V, we're not so worried about the game being closed down so much as we are that the company's letting us stagnate. Chadwick got the can, and now suddenly we're not worth an artist/animator or the money that was dropped on voice actors previously. Keep in mind Datamine was produced under such conditions where we still got cinematics, so it's fair for us to expect both moving pictures with spoken words as well as constructs on our fifteen bucks.
And this isn't the first time it's happened, either, considering that our fifteen bucks used to pay for a whole team of people who would sit around and play live events characters day in and day out for us in addition to a combat revision, three new ability trees which still haven't been released, fully CG panoramic cinematics, and other stuff.
And it's hard for us to believe this is the cause of inflation, man. When you're in the community position, it's not hard to see how things are slipping away. Maybe SoE won't shut down the servers, but no one's going to want to play when there are no active developers because Rarebit, Fu, and Dracomet have been taken to develop SoE's new Hello Kitty MMO acquisition. We're being treated like our fifteen bucks doesn't matter, and since it's all going into the company tip jar, it's not so hard for any of us to imagine that it's being recycled into EQ2 or Vanguard instead of MxO, because really, our staffing only goes down. And when you're considering the buck, that's where it goes. Not into "content" per say, but into paying people to make content.
So despite the fact that we're still getting the same game content and that creative control is now entirely within Rarebit's hands (a good thing, in my eyes) this is still a net loss on the fifteen bucks we pay.
Virrago wrote:NightTrace wrote:That does not promise any content/good news/effort.They will cut features/costs until the playerbase is gone and THEN they will shut us down.Thanks SOE for the consistent *CENSORED* you've given us over the years of our games span.There will still be content.. Datamine for instance.Please name one game SOE has ever closed down?Virrago I never said there wouldn't be new content, I said that it was in fact not being promised. What we have to realize is that we have been promised that what we have is what we will have. They will cut features if they see fit to, and they have. That we enjoy those featues since the start of the game means nothing. I'm sorry if you took my meaning to be something else.And no, no SOE game has ever closed, but theres plenty that might as well have. We're not EQ, so we don't count. Thats all I've gotten from any official SOE rep in so far as how they treat us. The best thing I can say is that you are at least 100% up front about everything.
Could we have players do the cinematics? We certainly have talent out there but, just like LESIG, it would have to be a totally volunteer effort. That means we *can't* demand things be done on a set schedule. The best we could do is put the deadline out there and *hope* the work got done on time--or at all. That's not a good way to carry on storyline.It also requires dev time to oversee the process. That's time away from missions, events, and any additional content we could add to the game. So we turn to LESIG to help us with the Sentinel, which isn't as time-critical as cinematics would be. Is it an ideal situation? Absolutely not. But we do what we can.
Well, that about affirms it. MxO has been hit with yet another budget cutback, leading to even less content. And this is why we have a problem with SoE. They don't treat their customers properly as far as financial matters and appropriation of fundings are concerned.
I think, however, that we should recognize that it's not the fault of any of the devs here, nor is it the fault of the CSR team, Virrago, or LESIG. This is an issue we'd have to take up with the money movers at SoE.
Walrus wrote:Could we have players do the cinematics? We certainly have talent out there but, just like LESIG, it would have to be a totally volunteer effort. That means we *can't* demand things be done on a set schedule. The best we could do is put the deadline out there and *hope* the work got done on time--or at all. That's not a good way to carry on storyline.It also requires dev time to oversee the process. That's time away from missions, events, and any additional content we could add to the game. So we turn to LESIG to help us with the Sentinel, which isn't as time-critical as cinematics would be. Is it an ideal situation? Absolutely not. But we do what we can.*puts hand way up over the crowd*Volunteer here ready to do cinematics.
What are we going to have in place of the cinematics? That really sucks if we have nothing...
Walrus wrote:Could we have players do the cinematics? We certainly have talent out there but, just like LESIG, it would have to be a totally volunteer effort. That means we *can't* demand things be done on a set schedule. The best we could do is put the deadline out there and *hope* the work got done on time--or at all. That's not a good way to carry on storyline. It also requires dev time to oversee the process. That's time away from missions, events, and any additional content we could add to the game. So we turn to LESIG to help us with the Sentinel, which isn't as time-critical as cinematics would be. Is it an ideal situation? Absolutely not. But we do what we can.*puts hand way up over the crowd*Volunteer here ready to do cinematics.
Could we have players do the cinematics? We certainly have talent out there but, just like LESIG, it would have to be a totally volunteer effort. That means we *can't* demand things be done on a set schedule. The best we could do is put the deadline out there and *hope* the work got done on time--or at all. That's not a good way to carry on storyline. It also requires dev time to oversee the process. That's time away from missions, events, and any additional content we could add to the game. So we turn to LESIG to help us with the Sentinel, which isn't as time-critical as cinematics would be. Is it an ideal situation? Absolutely not. But we do what we can.
Free labor.
Take it.
