News: Daybreak Games Hit With Layoffs, Matt Higby resigns

[Calista]

Originally Posted by Hamma

This thread isn't about PSU but I put my heart and soul into this place. An initiative happened at SOE to move to reddit. Look at H1Z1 today they don't even have official forums really. Their participation in this site ended due to a policy decision on their side. Pretty much all of their games now have little Dev participation outside social media networks. I could have offered free candy and/or beer and it wouldn't have changed the outcome of this site.

But I digress this convo has nothing to do with this site. If we want to talk about that I can create another thread... But I really don't have much else to say on it. I've accepted where we are now and I feel like I put in my best effort to make this place awesome.

I'm at peace with it

I know you have Hamma. I can remember back in the lean years this site was still kicking. I have a theory they went with reddit so the SOE employees could get away with perusing other sub-reddits while at work. See their bosses would walk behind them and see reddit and just figure it was job related I don't like reddit. Something about the layout just doesn't work for me but maybe I am in a minority with that.

Also, didn't SOE provide you with additional hardware or funding (I don't recall exactly) to bolster your site for the anticipated increase in traffic?

Funny thing is they always have to explain to the disgruntled players why they don't use official forums like most other games do and it pisses many off. If I were CN I would enforce a policy change in this area and consider reddit a fan site just like PSU. It's an easy opportunity to smooth things over with the playerbase.

[Muldoon]

Originally Posted by Hamma

This thread isn't about PSU but I put my heart and soul into this place. An initiative happened at SOE to move to reddit.

Never saw any directives come down that told us to use reddit over anything else. I can really only speak for me, but I personally like the layout of reddit over reading a typical forum thread. Liked comments are upvoted, annoying and off topic stuff is downvoted. Easier to get a lot of info faster. Stuff flows up and down, and rarely stays up for more than a day, so all the comments feel fresh. And you can't derail the entire thread with a comment, only the person you're talking to.

I think I have one of the oldest reddit accounts of the PS2 team, so clearly I'm biased towards it.

[Hamma]

Originally Posted by Muldoon

Never saw any directives come down that told us to use reddit over anything else.

This is good to hear

[Figment]

The answer of the debate you two are having is probably somewhere in the middle in this case. IMO. Think you're both right to a degree so not necessarily wrong. You both just weigh things differently due to focus, I think.

[Hamma]

Originally Posted by Figment

The answer of the debate you two are having is probably somewhere in the middle in this case. IMO. Think you're both right to a degree so not necessarily wrong. You both just weigh things differently due to focus, I think.

Agreed! Let's move on.

SOE provided a little financial help in the PlanetSide 1 days.

[Babyfark McGeez]

Yeah, right, now to the important part: With whom can we negotiate for the PS1 Source Code?

[Zeta]

Why does it always seem to turn into anti-PS1, or PS2 or PS1 vs PS2 around here? PS1 should have NOTHING to do with it. PS2 was sparse from day 1, and no one was wrong for calling them out on it.

PS2 doesn't have to be exactly like PS1, but if anyone made any comparisons between the two then how was that not to be expected or naive to think otherwise, considering it was the games predecessor?

PS2 needed to be much more than just a giant TDM, and it's at a much better state now than it was at release, but it stayed broken for WAY too long after FAR too short a Beta before they even started to address many of the problems. By then so many people had already left.

Just 3 months after releasing the game they were already announcing the first server merges. That's concerning from the start, and its lack of depth/variety had nothing to do with a lack of advertising. People knew about the game, but player retention has always been an issue as the game has always been hemorrhaging new players.

[ringring]

Originally Posted by Zeta

Why does it always seem to turn into anti-PS1, or PS2 or PS1 vs PS2 around here? PS1 should have NOTHING to do with it. PS2 was sparse from day 1, and no one was wrong for calling them out on it.

PS2 doesn't have to be exactly like PS1, but if anyone made any comparisons between the two then how was that not to be expected or naive to think otherwise, considering it was the games predecessor?

PS2 needed to be much more than just a giant TDM, and it's at a much better state now than it was at release, but it stayed broken for WAY too long after FAR too short a Beta before they even started to address many of the problems. By then so many people had already left.

Just 3 months after releasing the game they were already announcing the first server merges. That's concerning from the start, and its lack of depth/variety had nothing to do with a lack of advertising. People knew about the game, but player retention has always been an issue as the game has always been hemorrhaging new players.

tbh, I never expected ps2 to be the same as ps1, I only expected there would be a few top line attributes that would stay the same across both games.

For example, there had to be the three empires, it had to be a persistent world and it had to be large scale.

The other must-have in my view was a strategic meta game. Now that meta game didn't have to be the same as ps1 but there had to be something there done differently, what that would be I don't know. But we have had two attempts from the devs, Events and WDS of which to my mind Events worked best - but I haven't seen anything that worked better than the inter-continental lattice (ICL) of ps1.

Now I've seen Malorn say that the ICL won't work in ps2 and I accept that, but it's a shame there's no other idea being put forward. (This is the point when someone says Figgy made a suggestion x months ago).

Also, there's features in ps2 that I accepted until after playing for some time that I turned against. Resources is one example of that. I think the purpose was to restrict access to vehicles and to give a reason to take up a subscription, but the problem was it didn't work.

Overall however, I can't criticise the devs for trying something different. We know PS1 was only a very minor success and we know Battlefield is a major success so it's only natural to at least try to give the greater mass of people what they appear to want.

[Hamma]

Ahh good point, I forgot you hold some sort of baseless grudge against me.

[Ghoest9]

Just go away pointman.
You are forum cancer and just make the forum less relevant for everyone.

Im sure you are sincere and think you are accomplishing something but the truth is you have publicly disliked almost everything about the game since the beginning and have almost continuously complained.
You should have realized early on that this was not a game that could suit you and then left so as to not to to obscure the voice of players who really liked the game and just wanted to talk about realistic improvements.

You are often a selfish poster who ultimately made this forum worse for everyone.
You werent alone there was 3 or 4 of you.

[bpostal]

While this seems to be off topic, the following quote from Billbacca is what worries me most about these layoffs. I'm not entirely sure what his role at DBG is but here he's speaking about the new tutorial continent Koltyr:

...

Also this will have been the fastest continent we have produced so far and if it works well we can re-use the technique for making new zones. The initial launch zones and Hossin we made were crazy time sync's in terms of man years. That many a man year zone is just not an option anymore. So let's see how this one goes.

-Billbacca

Sounds like no more Searhus.

[ringring]

Originally Posted by bpostal

While this seems to be off topic, the following quote from Billbacca is what worries me most about these layoffs. I'm not entirely sure what his role at DBG is but here he's speaking about the new tutorial continent Koltyr:



Sounds like no more Searhus.

I'd be surprised if there are any new continents after Koltyr.

However, I don't think this quote on it's own implies that. One of the problems with PS2 is the amount of work each continent has entailed and consequently the few that there are.

If they can work out better and quicker ways to create new ones then that's all to the good. And that is what I think he's saying there.

But, I'd point out that when Nexus was being shown the dev (I can't recall which one) commented that they can do those Battle Islands quickly because there're small. He quoted 5-6 weeks for the terrain and then the outposts are on top of that, literally and figuratively I suppose.

I bet the existing continents have been major costs on the project.

[bpostal]

I don't mind seeing smaller continents but I don't buy the "smaller continents = more continents, faster" argument. Valve stated that they were going to episodic releases because it would enable them to put out more content in a shorter timespan and look at how that's ended up.

[Baneblade]

Technically, PS2 is a success. The problems with it were always about the divergence from PS1 philosophies. It was no accident that all the core improvements to PS2 were directly taken from PS1.

I mean, you really have to be full of yourself to take the sequel down the exact same road as the original, making the exact same mistakes, and eventually realizing that reinventing the wheel wasn't necessary... and still act like you can do the exact same thing for each and every issue.

Watching PS2 development postbeta, was like watching a toddler trying to find a new better way of walking.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Matthew Higby ‏@mhigby 20 feb.

@HansKappers thanks for all the great concepts and inspiration, i hope you keep helping the @Planetside2 team out with your ideas!

Drat, now I might just have to make that list p0intman was on about.