Another lead designer leaves sigil.

[Angrier]

I was agreeing with you. Even though EQ was one of the earlier mmorpg's (first generation), it's no excuse to have your developers and designers be so out of touch with what the players were experiencing in their game.

[Lambourne]

Originally Posted by Tolanin

who was the dev who decided that being able to drop copper was a bad thing?

I think that was actually a workaround for a bug rather than a design issue. After some patch, if you dropped coppers on the ground and stepped on them, the game would crash. The very next patch, they removed the ability to drop coins.

[Lhon]

Originally Posted by Smed

Doesn't this happen to all of you where you work?

Yes, unfortunately it does. It hurts morale, and in my experience, the schedule and/or end product suffers because of it.

[Ziann]

I dont get why people think senior game designers are the ultimate creative source. I read an article about GZ (Geoffry Zatkin, the original EQ spell guy coincidentally) a while ago and he was basically saying that the designer job was more like a project manager not an idea guy. He moved on to Monolith Productions: Matrix Online, Aliens vs Predator, few other ok games, long ago.

I'm not sure if it's just SOE or the industry, because from Tigole's feedback on WoW game design it sounds like he's got a big part in the creative process. Maybe hes just communicating his meeting stuff though.

Heres that article, yeah its like a year old but its relevant to this discussion I guess. It's on Smeds favorite gaming site too.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2005/04/04

[Jait]

That was such a worthless post Smed. Gonna have to start calling you Barry Bonds.

You might wanna keep in mind there's no boards dedicated to my or most of our fields, nor are there hundreds of fan sites. Most companies dont rely on direct, person to person communication between their company officers and the consumer. You do. That's why you post here.

And the worst thing is, Vanguard is aimed at one game and one game only. Yours. Vanguard might as well change their motto to: It's everything I wanted EQ2 to be before they took it away from me!!

You should be on bended knee thanking the stars that Brad is still forcing his kool-aid down the throats of the best talent this genre has. Kendrick, Akkirus, Poe. Yeah, most of the company officers and talent leave during Design Phase, yup, perfectly normal, nothing to see here...

[Incognitogamer]

Originally Posted by BruuceWarduck

vanguard beta shook my faith in vanguard.

qft

[Gnome Eater]

Originally Posted by Smed

This is something I've wanted to comment on for a while.

Please be sure to publicly say where you are all working so we can post when people leave where you work too.

People come and people go. Even the very best of companies (and I think highly of Sigil btw) lose people. Even the best of companies fire people (no, I am not talking about this case). Even the best of companies making the very best of anything, games included, lose talent. That's the nature of creative endeavors.

I was reading yesterday on Slashdot about Apple losing one of guys involved in the iPod . At some point you just have to expect that people do move around. I personally think that's a good thing. At SOE some of our most talented people have come from CS up through the ranks, replaced more senior designers who have left (in fact, guess what Lawrence Poe was one of them). Then those people eventually leave and are replaced and the cycle begins again.

Doesn't this happen to all of you where you work?

Smed

I'll make an example - when Andrew Card 'resigned' from the White House, did you believe it was because he was genuinly tired of working there?

[Neric]

Originally Posted by Gieve

I'm not really a vanguard hater, but who's replacing these guys?

I am afraid they couldn't afford my salary

Originally Posted by Smed

At SOE some of our most talented people have come from CS up through the ranks, replaced more senior designers who have left (in fact, guess what Lawrence Poe was one of them).

Guess what, I had that suspicion for a long time...

[Aradune Mithara]

Originally Posted by redav

when sigil first got started you often stated that the people working behind the scenes should get more recognition. be carefull what you wish for?

This is true. We are very open about who works at Sigil, what they do, their past experiences and pedigree, etc. The downside of this is that when people leave, the public often notices and we really can't talk about any details as to what occured because that wouldn't respect the privacy of either Sigil or the individual leaving. It also makes it easy, btw, for head hunters to go down our roster and solicit people (not saying this occured in this case -- not commenting at all on any specific departure).

The updside is that people get recognized for their contributions and that it's on an individual basis, such that we're not some nameless corporate entity. It's been important from since Sigil formed that we promote those who work here and are open about both people coming and going (although as I mentioned, the details of why someone leaves must ethicaly remain private). And I remain proud that we are open about who works here, and what they did before coming to Sigil, involving them in interviews, promoting them where we can, etc. No regrets.

So even when people do leave and a thread pops up like this on a message board, I still feel strongly that the upsides to promoting people outweigh the downsides and such a policy is better than that of other companies who are much more private about who works there and what they do.

We wish Lawrence the best and I know he has a bright future ahead of him wherever he ends up. He contributed a lot to the game and to the company and I consider him a friend. Beyond that, however, the issue is a private one.

The bottom line is that with 95 people now at Sigil, and with projects lasting 3+ years, people will come and go. Some will be more visible as their names are known and/or they held senior positions or were with the company for a while. With other people, changes in employment sometimes aren't noticed by the gaming public. For example, we just hired two new people last week, which didn't generate a thread anywhere. Such is life.

Anyway, we will continue to be open about who works at Sigil, their backgrounds, etc., and undoubtedly people will continue to come to the company as we naturally grow, and also people will leave for a variety of reasons. And, like I said, those reasons will the vast majority of the time remain private as that's the right way to do business, even with our more open approach in general.

[The Hiram Key]

Originally Posted by Smed

hmm. Ok. I guess I hadn't thought of it that way but I suppose that's a fair enough way to look at it.

Smed

Glad he has your permission Smed.

[Gnome Eater]

Originally Posted by The Hiram Key

Glad he has your permission Smed.

Jesus christ, way to be a douche? He said that his point of view made sense, not that he allowed him to think in a particular fashion.

[Neric]

The point is not that people come and go. The point is why people go. It could point towards a problem with the product or with the company and that should be alarming.

For most of the playerbase the name Lawrence Poe means nothing. The fact that a lead designer is leaving the company, that's what makes them curious. It could be harmless, but it could also be a very dangerous sign.

[Gnome Eater]

I am intrigued as well, but as Brad said, they cannot really comment on it one way or the other. I will wait for the rumours to float through the grapevine one way or the other, I'll admit that I did not know what exactly Poe did in vanguard beyond being a senior game designer. If he was responsable for the wack-a-mole combat, firing him was the bestest thing ever.

[Qhue]

I spoke to Lawrence Poe on a couple of occasions over the years and I can tell you that he DID know his stuff, I just simply disagreed with him on almost every single topic.

The principle area in which we disagreed was in spell mechanics and how magic should work in EQ (and later Vanguard). His was a very utilitarian approach to spell design or the sort seen in World of Warcraft where spell does X damage and the next version of that spell does X+Y damage and otherwise remains exactly the same. He refused to accept the principle tennent of game design that the system has to mesh with the content in order to produce a viable and enjoyable game experience. It wasn't until he left the position of spell designer for EQ, for example, that mobs stopped resisting magic nearly 100% of the time. His spreadsheet showed that only a few pecent of mobs resisted 100% of the time and so he deemed there to be no problem...despite that those few pecent of mobs in the game happened to be nearly every mob in Temple of Veeshan at the time.

He's a very talented designer and his work on EQOA was underappreciated and so Im sure that he will find a ready home at another company regardless of the circumstances of his departure from Sigil.

[Magnum PI]

Originally Posted by Soygen

This might actually be a good thing for Vanguard.

Not to be rude but what on earth do you know about this event and why would releaseing these devs be good?