"When I first approached Lisa about a Pathfinder MMO, I presented a plan roughly on par with the kind of development that had been the norm in the industry for the past 5 years: a $50+ million budget, a 3 to 5 year timeline, and a development staff of 50 to 75 people. One of Paizo's strengths is that they work very efficiently, and spend money when and where it counts the most. So Lisa took one look at that plan and challenged me to think outside the box. "Rather than telling me how to do it the way everyone else is doing it," she said, "tell me how to do it for the smallest budget possible while still achieving our goals." Those goals are to produce a game with the same high-quality standards for design, art, storytelling, and community involvement that Paizo has instilled into their Pathfinder products.
Since I live for challenges like that, I spent weeks re-engineering the plan, making it leaner and more efficient, and thus making it take less and less time, and cost less and less money. In the end, we arrived at what I consider to be a revolutionary approach, which I'm going to share with you today."
From GW blog dec. 6, 2011
Nice find. That actually explains everything. Lisa appears to be a somewhat less sympathetic figure in this whole mes than I had originally though. She challenged Dancy to build an MMO as cheap as humanly possible and thus Pathfinder Online was born.
This is just a good lesson to learn for anyone who invested in the game. If you are paying for early access or a kickstarted game you should simply consider yourself throwing money away in a sense. Yeah sure, you might get something out of it, but that doesn't mean you should expect it. You are throwing money at an idea. Just remember that next time you invest in something that does not fully exist yet.
So I wonder what happens to those who paid for a years subscription, like myself, lol.
Hopefully you'll take something from this. Maybe think twice before commiting a years sub to a game in early access/beta. The sooner we all stop paying for unfinished games, the sooner the industry might get it's head on straight and start making quality games again. As long as people keep throwing money at Devs for unfinished games they'll keep taking it happily and if things go tits up, tough shit on those that paid up. As the old saying goes, look before you leap.
Have to agree, as soon as we stop throwing money into what sounds liek a good idea of a game, or an unfinished game, the sooner the gaming industry will start making some decent games again. Right now i see alot of people getting together forming a company and trying to make a quick hit, fail and dissapear. Yep i place myself as guilty for throwing moneyt at early access games (1 that just vanished) about 8-10 that are still there with 2 or 3 actively updating, the rest dont seem to be doing anything. Have not done kickstarter nor am i likely too either.
Those who paid for a year will just lose what they paid for, they wont get any rebate. Though i never played this one nor looked at it either. From what i read and how things were going i decided it wont be around for long. It is not the 1st game to have this happen and will not be the last either.
I think they need to make some major changes with Crowdfunding. One, where they have to show where the money is going, like paychecks and how much each person is making. They want the money for unreleased and developing games then they need to show us where the money is going. That way everyone is up front so no under handed stuff is going on.
It would help with games like Star Citizen where they got a heck of a lot of money and no one really can see where it is going.
I think that will happen by itself after a while, games that wont will have problem getting funded eventually.
That isn't the problem here, they just had no idea how much a MMO actually cost to make and had the silly idea that sandboxes are far cheaper to make then themeparks.
With the budget they had they would have problems even making a good CORPG like Guildwars and that is the far cheapest alternative.
There is nothing wrong with supporting kickstarter games but you need to be realistic here. Having an experienced lead designer helps a lot firstly, points there to Shards, Pantheon and Camelot Unchained.
Secondly they need to have a realistic budget unless the devs can work for free until release and few can actually do that fulltime. Having a good engine helps a lot here instead of coding it yourself, unless you happen to have a master coder on the project (someone like Jeff Strain).
Also, it matters a lot if they have something and how much before the kickstarter starts. Some games are already in Alpha while others are just ideas. Let the devs have something to show you instead of just words before you put money in.
When Goblinworks started they had a boss who did some work on CCPs WoDO and a few small things for Eve, that is frankly the only one with some experience I know about but they might had a few more, but no-one really who knew how to design a game from scratch by experience. Projects like that is always risky, it is fine to support them knowing this but you should be aware that the chanses are against you.
I am actually surprised they got this far, and somewhat impressed as well. Getting a game to a playable state (at least somewhat) with the resources they had is close to a miracle. But the people at Paizo who gave them their IP must have been high.
"When I first approached Lisa about a Pathfinder MMO, I presented a plan roughly on par with the kind of development that had been the norm in the industry for the past 5 years: a $50+ million budget, a 3 to 5 year timeline, and a development staff of 50 to 75 people. One of Paizo's strengths is that they work very efficiently, and spend money when and where it counts the most. So Lisa took one look at that plan and challenged me to think outside the box. "Rather than telling me how to do it the way everyone else is doing it," she said, "tell me how to do it for the smallest budget possible while still achieving our goals." Those goals are to produce a game with the same high-quality standards for design, art, storytelling, and community involvement that Paizo has instilled into their Pathfinder products.
Since I live for challenges like that, I spent weeks re-engineering the plan, making it leaner and more efficient, and thus making it take less and less time, and cost less and less money. In the end, we arrived at what I consider to be a revolutionary approach, which I'm going to share with you today."
From GW blog dec. 6, 2011
Nice find. That actually explains everything. Lisa appears to be a somewhat less sympathetic figure in this whole mes than I had originally though. She challenged Dancy to build an MMO as cheap as humanly possible and thus Pathfinder Online was born.
My impression is that Ryan Dancey was very enthusiastic about this approach, there are several blog posts from him as well as videos of presentations he held which give off the impression (to me) that he thought he'd "figured it all out"; how a game can bootstrap itself out of humble beginnings both economically, featurewise and populationwise. I believed they had a decent chance and I still think they could have made it - had they known then what they (presumably) know now and adjusted their plan and development priorities based on that.
The GDD was pretty good. But I always always had reservations about the WOW implementation or World Of Pathfinder or even EQ-PFO actualization of design and development based off "this is what an mmo-rpg must be".
Look at Albion Online, as Bludd says in the other thread or Shards Online. They cut back on the BS presentation and it looks much better than what PFO looks like!
I like to call it the "WOW ENGINE". Barlte discussed this with MUDs, all sharing the same engine (in this case it's more the same concepts to create an mmorpg engine).
And the big issue I have with this was my first MMO- this was amazing then you realized after a month the world looks great but is restrictive and it starts bleeding colour out of it and you lose the enjoyment. Repeat that and no wonder as Bludd points out in the other thread MMO crowds are more transient these days.
But what Ryan did I think was make a calculated assessment of the market. So for example let's say there's a tournament with idk 6 teams and they all play each other home and away. The sport is the sort where odd things happen on the day, the players can be fatigued by their last matches etc so predicting who will win is not very straightforward.
The question is: How do you place your bet on 1st, 2nd, 3rd and scores in games and win a load of money?
The idea is to "spread bet" using the probabilities to off-set turn-arounds and that's often what people do to work out how to make a winning bet.
Now, if you have much bigger insight into the sport, the players, and much more, you can actually predict I would argue much tighter than the above calculation: Because you have a experience of what makes all the interacting elements "tick".
It seems this was the fundamental issue with Ryan's market bet: He decided that between WOW and EVE, a fantasy sandbox would find a niche in the market then once it got to a certain quality it would suck in a lot of players (it did not get to that stage). I can respect that as a very astute "bet" to place, doubly so given they were able to raise 1.5m$ through crowdfunding, then investors and some small change from Paizo etc. Even in the scenario of PFO blowing up, even that when spread-betting is not such a big fall.
However, understanding what it is these products or services is actually providing for players, Shokrizade goes on about this with a great example of the tobacco industry and Marlborough's research and understanding of the active/causative agent: Nicotine. From such a basis as argue above about placing your bets, knowing how things "tick" I think then you are able to re-evaluate entirely how you approach making Online Social Interaction games....
As Bludd points out again (3/3 bro!!) MOBA's have gutted out all the dead wood in mmorpg design and managed to evolve: You got some of that pokemon goodness: "Gotta Catch 'Em All" Collecting to be able to understand them and play them better or against them better and then the team units seems to keep it tight with sending gifts/requests to friends etc for that social monetization aspect.
For mmorpgs, instead of going MICRO, how about looking at MACRO? Virtual Online Worlds.
Well, it has been a few weeks since any significant news, and no positive news in a much longer time than that (ie increasing sub numbers). With the CEO of Paizo on a vacation (odd timing) and the end of the month looming, things are not looking good.
As as some have already pointed out, this does not bode well for the gaming industry and future Kickstarter projects. Maybe the gaming industry will stop inviting Ryan Dancey to sit on panels representing the successes of Kickstarters. PFO's Kickstarter can no longer be considered a success, regardless of how much it raised.
A lesson learned, that is to be sure. Never back a game before you play it. Never pay a sub for an incomplete game. Never buy into a game that Ryan Dancey is involved with.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
So I wonder what happens to those who paid for a years subscription, like myself, lol.
When it was announced CoH would be sundowned 3 years ago I had just paid my annual subscription fee. They refunded me the pro-rated difference. I expect the same for you if it happens.
This is a company that just announced they only have the server paid until the end of the month and have no other properties. I seriously doubt they will be issuing refunds.
it will be interesting to see what if any backlash Paizo proper gets from this and if they get pressured to make good on all the people with unfulfilled Kickstarter pledges.
Did Rhoklaw pay for a subscription? Or did he make a kickstarter donation that offered a free year if the game released? If it was the latter then that's all folks, no refunds, no reductions.
The same applies to all the other donors, you made your donation and they worked on the game. End of Liability.
So I wonder what happens to those who paid for a years subscription, like myself, lol.
When it was announced CoH would be sundowned 3 years ago I had just paid my annual subscription fee. They refunded me the pro-rated difference. I expect the same for you if it happens.
This is a company that just announced they only have the server paid until the end of the month and have no other properties. I seriously doubt they will be issuing refunds.
it will be interesting to see what if any backlash Paizo proper gets from this and if they get pressured to make good on all the people with unfulfilled Kickstarter pledges.
Did Rhoklaw pay for a subscription? Or did he make a kickstarter donation that offered a free year if the game released? If it was the latter then that's all folks, no refunds, no reductions.
The same applies to all the other donors, you made your donation and they worked on the game. End of Liability.
Yup, people need to understand that all these crowdfunding projects are not liable to give anything back to you. Treat any and every payment as a donation, never expecting anything in return.
I have spend several hundreds of dollars on various Kickstarter projects, games, photobooks, even an Ouya. Some were safe bets, others not so much. ALL of these dollars were completely disposable income and each and every cent spend was in order to help them succeed, NOT for getting the actual item they were creating.
People should wake up, supporting Kickstarter is not dumb, having the wrong expectations is. As a donator you are supporting the journey, not the destination so to speak. All rewards offered mean nothing if the journey is not completed, be smart, know what you are getting involved with, you and your cash only part ways because you decided it, in the end there is no one else to blame but yourself.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
'the only way he could nail it any better is if he used a cross.'
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
Maybe it's just me, but I think that after laying off almost my entire team and telling the backers that things were grim and they couldn't guarantee running the server past the end of Sept... that I might have rescheduled my vacation.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Maybe it's just me, but I think that after laying off almost my entire team and telling the backers that things were grim and they couldn't guarantee running the server past the end of Sept... that I might have rescheduled my vacation.
Always logical comments slappy-
Agreed.
After this fiasco I'm leaving pathfinder TT and going to 5th edition. hearing how Lisa is vacationing while Rome is burning means I'm not comfortable paying for her salary with my (admittedly) meager monthly purchases of pathfinder products.
Maybe it's just me, but I think that after laying off almost my entire team and telling the backers that things were grim and they couldn't guarantee running the server past the end of Sept... that I might have rescheduled my vacation.
I think you need some perspective here: Paizo is a pretty large company, only larger P&P one right now is Fantasy flight games and possibly Wizards (but FFG is mainly earning money on boardgames and WotC on CCGs). The PFO team were rather small and a rather small mainly independant thing.
Merging in Goblinworks into the company probably was the best thing to do but I don't think Paizo even considered them part of the same company before.
It would still have been a nice gesture but I don't think any Ceo would loose any sleep on something like this, particularly since the merge and firing happened before the Ceo went on vacation.
Maybe it's just me, but I think that after laying off almost my entire team and telling the backers that things were grim and they couldn't guarantee running the server past the end of Sept... that I might have rescheduled my vacation.
I think you need some perspective here: Paizo is a pretty large company, only larger P&P one right now is Fantasy flight games and possibly Wizards (but FFG is mainly earning money on boardgames and WotC on CCGs). The PFO team were rather small and a rather small mainly independant thing.
Merging in Goblinworks into the company probably was the best thing to do but I don't think Paizo even considered them part of the same company before.
It would still have been a nice gesture but I don't think any Ceo would loose any sleep on something like this, particularly since the merge and firing happened before the Ceo went on vacation.
Its in poor taste.
And I have a subscription to pathfinder through a local game shop which will be cancelled as I move to 5th edition over this (If 5th sucks i'll find something else)
I dont spend a ton on TT gaming but easily $400/year. Nothing for a CEO to worry about and I dont expect her to- I'm just voting with my dollar which sometimes makes a difference and sometimes doesnt.
Another piece of junk to add to the scrap pile of crowdfunded trash. You can't complain about getting bad games when you keep throwing money at crowdfunding projects like this. Quit pre-ordering 2 years ahead of time and paying hundreds of dollars for pictures of ideas that usually never turn into an actual playable game.
And I have a subscription to pathfinder through a local game shop which will be cancelled as I move to 5th edition over this (If 5th sucks i'll find something else)
I dont spend a ton on TT gaming but easily $400/year. Nothing for a CEO to worry about and I dont expect her to- I'm just voting with my dollar which sometimes makes a difference and sometimes doesnt.
But Goblinworks never really were part of Paizo before, they made that clear from the begining. Paizo bought them out when Goblinworks failed a month ago.
So I don't really think that is bad taste, they merged with a company and downsized it but it wasn't exactly right now. For all we know might the Ceo have postphoned her vacation to now from that time, where things actually were more critical.
5th edition is really simplified compared to Pathfinder, that might be good or bad depending on who you are. Customization is pretty limited though. There is however other good systems if that wont work for you, I recommend Shadowrun myself. FFGs new Star wars game isn't so bad either once you get used to their weird dice (but stay away from their Warhammer RPG).
Nice find. That actually explains everything. Lisa appears to be a somewhat less sympathetic figure in this whole mes than I had originally though. She challenged Dancy to build an MMO as cheap as humanly possible and thus Pathfinder Online was born.
I don't think that explains anything at all. CEO always challenges people to do things for less money or economical approach, that's their job.
What Dancey should've done is reject that outright and said back to her by doing that the chance of success is very low (which it is) and if she wants to go that route she'll need to find someone else... kinda like what General Colin Powell did when warning the Older President Bush about going into Iraq first time without sufficient force. That's sensible. Dancey wasn't.
I can't see how it is personally, since Lisa is the CEO of Paizo not Goblinworks originally. She didn't even have much to do with the project originally besides giving them the license.
People should offended if Dancey went on vocation or spending spree or something, that would definitely have been poor taste.
Ryan Dancey was fired, so any FUBAR had to have rested in his hands.
It it was his decision to try to make a functional game on a shoe-string budget. Quite honestly, where Lisa Stevens erred was in not asking to right questions or not trusting her first admitted instinct, and placed trust in Ryan that he could pull it off.
it clearly, was proven to be a bad gamble.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
I can't see how it is personally, since Lisa is the CEO of Paizo not Goblinworks originally. She didn't even have much to do with the project originally besides giving them the license.
Ryan Dancey was fired, so any FUBAR had to have rested in his hands.
So who fired him if the only involvement Lisa had was "giving them the license"?
I'm pretty sure she was involved and even used to have some sort of regular Fireside Chat where she would talk to the players about all the plans for the game. She also regularly played. It's not like she was totally disconnected.
I would say it was in poor taste for 2 reasons:
1. Just fired the whole staff except for 3 people a month ago 2. As far as I know they left players hanging about whether the server would even still be running as of Oct 1st. Some of these folks spent thousands of dollars and have more than a year worth of prepaid time left...
Not saying it's the worst thing anyone has ever done. I'm just pointing out that it appears to be insensitive on two fronts.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Comments
Caveat emptor
Yep i place myself as guilty for throwing moneyt at early access games (1 that just vanished) about 8-10 that are still there with 2 or 3 actively updating, the rest dont seem to be doing anything.
Have not done kickstarter nor am i likely too either.
Those who paid for a year will just lose what they paid for, they wont get any rebate. Though i never played this one nor looked at it either. From what i read and how things were going i decided it wont be around for long. It is not the 1st game to have this happen and will not be the last either.
That isn't the problem here, they just had no idea how much a MMO actually cost to make and had the silly idea that sandboxes are far cheaper to make then themeparks.
With the budget they had they would have problems even making a good CORPG like Guildwars and that is the far cheapest alternative.
There is nothing wrong with supporting kickstarter games but you need to be realistic here. Having an experienced lead designer helps a lot firstly, points there to Shards, Pantheon and Camelot Unchained.
Secondly they need to have a realistic budget unless the devs can work for free until release and few can actually do that fulltime. Having a good engine helps a lot here instead of coding it yourself, unless you happen to have a master coder on the project (someone like Jeff Strain).
Also, it matters a lot if they have something and how much before the kickstarter starts. Some games are already in Alpha while others are just ideas. Let the devs have something to show you instead of just words before you put money in.
When Goblinworks started they had a boss who did some work on CCPs WoDO and a few small things for Eve, that is frankly the only one with some experience I know about but they might had a few more, but no-one really who knew how to design a game from scratch by experience. Projects like that is always risky, it is fine to support them knowing this but you should be aware that the chanses are against you.
I am actually surprised they got this far, and somewhat impressed as well. Getting a game to a playable state (at least somewhat) with the resources they had is close to a miracle. But the people at Paizo who gave them their IP must have been high.
The GDD was pretty good. But I always always had reservations about the WOW implementation or World Of Pathfinder or even EQ-PFO actualization of design and development based off "this is what an mmo-rpg must be".
Look at Albion Online, as Bludd says in the other thread or Shards Online. They cut back on the BS presentation and it looks much better than what PFO looks like!
I like to call it the "WOW ENGINE". Barlte discussed this with MUDs, all sharing the same engine (in this case it's more the same concepts to create an mmorpg engine).
And the big issue I have with this was my first MMO- this was amazing then you realized after a month the world looks great but is restrictive and it starts bleeding colour out of it and you lose the enjoyment. Repeat that and no wonder as Bludd points out in the other thread MMO crowds are more transient these days.
But what Ryan did I think was make a calculated assessment of the market. So for example let's say there's a tournament with idk 6 teams and they all play each other home and away. The sport is the sort where odd things happen on the day, the players can be fatigued by their last matches etc so predicting who will win is not very straightforward.
The question is: How do you place your bet on 1st, 2nd, 3rd and scores in games and win a load of money?
The idea is to "spread bet" using the probabilities to off-set turn-arounds and that's often what people do to work out how to make a winning bet.
Now, if you have much bigger insight into the sport, the players, and much more, you can actually predict I would argue much tighter than the above calculation: Because you have a experience of what makes all the interacting elements "tick".
It seems this was the fundamental issue with Ryan's market bet: He decided that between WOW and EVE, a fantasy sandbox would find a niche in the market then once it got to a certain quality it would suck in a lot of players (it did not get to that stage). I can respect that as a very astute "bet" to place, doubly so given they were able to raise 1.5m$ through crowdfunding, then investors and some small change from Paizo etc. Even in the scenario of PFO blowing up, even that when spread-betting is not such a big fall.
However, understanding what it is these products or services is actually providing for players, Shokrizade goes on about this with a great example of the tobacco industry and Marlborough's research and understanding of the active/causative agent: Nicotine. From such a basis as argue above about placing your bets, knowing how things "tick" I think then you are able to re-evaluate entirely how you approach making Online Social Interaction games....
As Bludd points out again (3/3 bro!!) MOBA's have gutted out all the dead wood in mmorpg design and managed to evolve: You got some of that pokemon goodness: "Gotta Catch 'Em All" Collecting to be able to understand them and play them better or against them better and then the team units seems to keep it tight with sending gifts/requests to friends etc for that social monetization aspect.
For mmorpgs, instead of going MICRO, how about looking at MACRO? Virtual Online Worlds.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
As as some have already pointed out, this does not bode well for the gaming industry and future Kickstarter projects. Maybe the gaming industry will stop inviting Ryan Dancey to sit on panels representing the successes of Kickstarters. PFO's Kickstarter can no longer be considered a success, regardless of how much it raised.
A lesson learned, that is to be sure. Never back a game before you play it. Never pay a sub for an incomplete game. Never buy into a game that Ryan Dancey is involved with.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
New players can get a welcome package and old/returning players can also get a welcome back package and 7 days free subscription time! Just click here to use my referral invitation
If it was the latter then that's all folks, no refunds, no reductions.
The same applies to all the other donors, you made your donation and they worked on the game. End of Liability.
Treat any and every payment as a donation, never expecting anything in return.
New players can get a welcome package and old/returning players can also get a welcome back package and 7 days free subscription time! Just click here to use my referral invitation
People should wake up, supporting Kickstarter is not dumb, having the wrong expectations is. As a donator you are supporting the journey, not the destination so to speak. All rewards offered mean nothing if the journey is not completed, be smart, know what you are getting involved with, you and your cash only part ways because you decided it, in the end there is no one else to blame but yourself.
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
Maybe it's just me, but I think that after laying off almost my entire team and telling the backers that things were grim and they couldn't guarantee running the server past the end of Sept... that I might have rescheduled my vacation.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Agreed.
After this fiasco I'm leaving pathfinder TT and going to 5th edition. hearing how Lisa is vacationing while Rome is burning means I'm not comfortable paying for her salary with my (admittedly) meager monthly purchases of pathfinder products.
Time to move on...
Merging in Goblinworks into the company probably was the best thing to do but I don't think Paizo even considered them part of the same company before.
It would still have been a nice gesture but I don't think any Ceo would loose any sleep on something like this, particularly since the merge and firing happened before the Ceo went on vacation.
And I have a subscription to pathfinder through a local game shop which will be cancelled as I move to 5th edition over this (If 5th sucks i'll find something else)
I dont spend a ton on TT gaming but easily $400/year. Nothing for a CEO to worry about and I dont expect her to- I'm just voting with my dollar which sometimes makes a difference and sometimes doesnt.
Star Citizen – The Extinction Level Event
4/13/15 > ELE has been updated look for 16-04-13.
http://www.dereksmart.org/2016/04/star-citizen-the-ele/
Enjoy and know the truth always comes to light!
So I don't really think that is bad taste, they merged with a company and downsized it but it wasn't exactly right now. For all we know might the Ceo have postphoned her vacation to now from that time, where things actually were more critical.
5th edition is really simplified compared to Pathfinder, that might be good or bad depending on who you are. Customization is pretty limited though. There is however other good systems if that wont work for you, I recommend Shadowrun myself. FFGs new Star wars game isn't so bad either once you get used to their weird dice (but stay away from their Warhammer RPG).
What Dancey should've done is reject that outright and said back to her by doing that the chance of success is very low (which it is) and if she wants to go that route she'll need to find someone else... kinda like what General Colin Powell did when warning the Older President Bush about going into Iraq first time without sufficient force. That's sensible. Dancey wasn't.
I can't see how it is personally, since Lisa is the CEO of Paizo not Goblinworks originally. She didn't even have much to do with the project originally besides giving them the license.
People should offended if Dancey went on vocation or spending spree or something, that would definitely have been poor taste.
It it was his decision to try to make a functional game on a shoe-string budget. Quite honestly, where Lisa Stevens erred was in not asking to right questions or not trusting her first admitted instinct, and placed trust in Ryan that he could pull it off.
it clearly, was proven to be a bad gamble.
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
I'm pretty sure she was involved and even used to have some sort of regular Fireside Chat where she would talk to the players about all the plans for the game. She also regularly played. It's not like she was totally disconnected.
I would say it was in poor taste for 2 reasons:
1. Just fired the whole staff except for 3 people a month ago
2. As far as I know they left players hanging about whether the server would even still be running as of Oct 1st. Some of these folks spent thousands of dollars and have more than a year worth of prepaid time left...
Not saying it's the worst thing anyone has ever done. I'm just pointing out that it appears to be insensitive on two fronts.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
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