Layoffs = No Future Patches?

[kalbear]

i have a simple math equation for you:

layoffs=!no patches

Layoffs gets the negated value of 'no patches'?

Thus, layoffs == patches?

Just being a smartass.

I know of very few development houses that don't do this. It's a common thing for EA, for Westwood, for Interplay's various houses, and yes, for IG. Dont' fret about it none. It doesn't bode well or poorly either way for Moo3. It might bode ill for QS doing MoM2, however.

Moo and Moo2 had quite a few patches. Moo2 had at least 4 that I recall, and only two of them were actually good. Moo2 1.3 was hilarious, though - all the races were completely schizophrenic. They'd blame you for your economic imperialism as your BCs were in the multiple negatives, and then give you a planet as a peace offering to stop your warfare.

It was really, really funny. Especially on drugs.

A

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by TheMaestro They don't fire people for making good games.

BINGO!

[darcy]

If they truly were fiddling around with MP bugs, then they are going to regret this decision, as they should.

No they shouldn't. No developer should ever regret making their software the best they can, with as few bugs as possible. I can't believe someone would say that about a computer game...

Well, it is possible to say something like that about the MP part about a game. If I'm not mistaken the people who are actively interested in multiplayer gaming are a small and economically insignificant minority. They are however very vocal and naturally populate all internet sites, so they are often perceived as a majority and influence public opinion. So, late game MP problems might matter for less people than we think.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by TheMaestro
They don't fire people for making good games. Unless politics gets in the way somehow

But, as in the case of Looking Glass Studios (to bring that up again...), no matter how many awesome games they made, one stupid over-budget flop was all it took to sink the place.

On the bright side, I'm reasonably sure (just my intuition ) that we're not experiencing that here. If I'm wrong, I'll have learned to trust my hunches less and stay well away from gambling

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Arnelos


But, as in the case of Looking Glass Studios (to bring that up again...), no matter how many awesome games they made, one stupid over-budget flop was all it took to sink the place.

What "stupid over-budget flop" did Looking Glass Studios make? I thought Thief 2 was their last game.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by darcy


Well, it is possible to say something like that about the MP part about a game. If I'm not mistaken the people who are actively interested in multiplayer gaming are a small and economically insignificant minority. They are however very vocal and naturally populate all internet sites, so they are often perceived as a majority and influence public opinion. So, late game MP problems might matter for less people than we think.

I guess some people are so selfish and impatient that they don't mind geting unfinished games, so long as they don't have to wait.

Although I'm really doubtful about how moo3 is going to turn out after all the cuts, it's nice to see a game be delayed past a christmas release for once. It might be the first game I buy since NWN that was actually finished before release.

[jscott991]

Neverwinter Nights was no where near finished when released. Need I remind of you of the XP bug? The fact you couldn't complete the Host Tower chapter about 50% of the time because the battle on top would not start?

If you want an example of a game largely finished before released, you need only look at the other DnD game, IWD2. There are minor faults in it, but nothing gamebreaking.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by Osweld
What "stupid over-budget flop" did Looking Glass Studios make? I thought Thief 2 was their last game.

Eidos, the publisher for Looking Glass, spent inordinant amounts of money on Daikatana and went belly-up when the game completely flopped... Looking Glass, which was in debt, then went flop despite Thief 2 being a success.

Thus an awesome game developer that made awesome games went belly up and laid off their employees despite making a good game... it happens.

I'm not saying that Quicksilver is ANY of those things (an awesome developer or that it will go belly-up), just that the rumor (which I happen to think is probably false, but who knows), if true, would create a disturbing simularity to the demise of Looking Glass - a good developer gone the way of the dodo bird because of managerial incompetence.

That said, I'm highly skeptical of the rumor.

[kalbear]

eidos went belly-up? They're still quite active right now. DX2 is coming out, hitman 2 is doing decently, timesplitters 2 did great on the console, and they've got that whole tomb raider franchise to go on.

Eidos lost a lot on Daikatana, but I'd never heard anything about that loss being the reason that LG went under. If anything, it was due to the fact that Thief 2/System Shock 2 were both highly critical successes that did excessively badly in terms of sales, especially compared to what they expected.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by jscott991
Neverwinter Nights was no where near finished when released. Need I remind of you of the XP bug? The fact you couldn't complete the Host Tower chapter about 50% of the time because the battle on top would not start?

Well, I haven't actually played it much since it doesn't run well on my computer, that was just the last game I could think of where I didn't feel like I'd bought a beta version. I guess I could look even further back for my example, but I can't even remembre what games I've bought before then... it'd probably have to be Tropico or Deus Ex or something. Anyways, just shows my point.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by jscott991
Neverwinter Nights was no where near finished when released. Need I remind of you of the XP bug? The fact you couldn't complete the Host Tower chapter about 50% of the time because the battle on top would not start?

If you want an example of a game largely finished before released, you need only look at the other DnD game, IWD2. There are minor faults in it, but nothing gamebreaking.

NWN had minor bugs on release, nothing more. A tiny percentage of very vocal customers understandably made a lot of noise about the problems they had with the SP campaign. Others just mouthed off because they didn't like the style of the adventure itself.

[Corentor]

Originally posted by Arnelos


Eidos, the publisher for Looking Glass, spent inordinant amounts of money on Daikatana and went belly-up when the game completely flopped... Looking Glass, which was in debt, then went flop despite Thief 2 being a success.

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That said, I'm highly skeptical of the rumor.

I believe you are refering to Ion Storm Dallas, the division of Ion Storm that was operated by John Romero. His situation has nothing in common with the rumoured QS layoffs. Romero proclaimed himself as the second comming and spent five years doing nothing while 3 full dev teams walked out on him and then he released a pile of trash as a game.

Looking Glass went under because of the same problem as rumored to be happening with QS: No new contract - hence no publisher funding them.

While it is still a rumour, it is from a site that has a history of getting it right since its info comes from employees on the inside.

The only thing I am worried is that if there is a layoff, that means no expansion pack or major new features in patches.

[Harry Seldon]

If MOO3 looks good after it comes out, Maybe we can start a letter writing campaign for MOM2 or at least updates for MOM and MOO1&2 for better graphics and advanced OS compatibility.

[jscott991]

Grumbold, you should visit the boards for NWN and look up the old problems with the conclusion of the Host Tower chapter. Bioware admitted that this problem was being experienced by many, if not most, players. The battle on the top would simply not trigger, making the campaign uncompletable unless you cheated and warped into the next chapter.

Plus, the XP bug which was not fixed until months after release substantially effected gameplay. You could earn XP about 3-4x faster if you just summoned a badger and had it hang around. The entire formula, which to my knowledge has never been totally fixed, made MP advancement nearly impossible. This is hardly a minor bug for a RPG.

I won't get in to how good or bad the game is. Suffice it to say, if you wanted BG3, you didn't get it. If you wanted Diablo 3 or Dungeon Siege 2, you were largely satisfied.

Originally posted by Grumbold


NWN had minor bugs on release, nothing more. A tiny percentage of very vocal customers understandably made a lot of noise about the problems they had with the SP campaign. Others just mouthed off because they didn't like the style of the adventure itself.

[Grumbold]

Many players does not mean a great percentage of players. If you sell 100,000 copies and 2% have problem then you have 2000 unhappy customers, which nobody wants. I was actively reading and posting on those boards at the time those problems were experienced. It was all of a week before a verifiable workaround was produced.

People exploiting the code by summoning the weakest pet they could then killing the monsters that the game generated as a result is again no biggie imho. If they can kill the monsters without a decent pet but feel the need to cheat, so be it. Any true roleplayer summoned the pet they needed.

NWN was, thank god, nothing like Diablo or Dungeon Siege. It wasn't BG either. It is the first attempt to bring true D&D to the computer. I'm looking forward to the next installment of SP modules and plug in monsters, spells and hopefully other tools to make it more and more comprehensive.