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I'm going to date myself really frelling badly here. I don't post here often but have been lurking since basically day one.
As one of the lucky few chosen in the first round of Alpha in May of 2005 I have seen too much. I installed the Alpha client on May 9, 2005, that's a long long time ago. Heck back then we didn’t refer to DDO as DDO is was DDS or D-DOS. Ah the days, when Irestone Inlet, Stormcleave, and Tempest Spine were the “raids” in the game.
Judith got a raw deal.
Kate made my head spin
Fernando was supposed to be a care taker
Aaron well, I am not sure, ...
Now we have Athena.
Judith Hoffman was the original Executive Producer of DDO:Stormreach back from conception to release. She was moved, I mean promoted, right at launch to be Director of International Operations or some such title. The game suffered from unrealistic expectations from Atari (5 Million monthly subscribers) and the usual lack of unwillingness to put resources into addressing some critical problems. Ladder Bug, Faulty AI, Unbalanced Classes, sound familiar. I remember pleading with Judy and the other Devs at the time that the AI was broken and Ranged Attacks were too powerful, it took weeks/months of persuasion to have them get into the game with me and watch as I stood on breakable and mow down mobs who’s AI was so broken they couldn’t move once they realized they couldn’t make a path to my character. That same pathing problem pokes it head up in LOTRO and now the mobs get “???” and invulnerability, I chuckle.
When Judy was “promoted” Kate Paiz was promoted to Senior Producer and by default the leading the game as the other producer was Staurt Zissu (man I hope I spelled his name right).
In Jan 2008 Fernando becomes the Executive Producer and Kate is responsible for the F2P design for DDO:Ebberon Unlimited. Kate Moves to LOTRO in 2010.
I don’t think people give Kate enough credit for keeping the game alive, AC2 was shut down, and dozen of other games you probably don’t remember including Tabula Risa, which I still think is the most expensive MMO ever created (at least if you believe how little Star Wars cost). I’m sure there was a huge push to cut your losses, especially since Turbine was a "lights on" funded kind of company at the time.
Talking about other things Kate did still makes my head spin. I remember talking to Kate, Gen Con 2007 maybe, about Crafting and the systems that become Green Steel, Dragon Touched and Subterrane loot. Yeah they all are the same system (well initially anyways - not sure if they still are). It took me a long time to understand what they did and I still shake my head. Each one is one step further along the line, GS is full crafting, in DT you get a base item and random effects that are already crafted and in the Subterrane you get the finished item. I never understood how we got three systems from the one concept, could you imagine three crafting systems that were joined together and the joys of the playerbase? I’m not sure how those three separate systems now function internally but…
However in my interactions with Kate she always seemed "worried" that she wasn't really the boss. I remember the Mournlands forums were filled with yes people at the time, no one dared make more than a minor fuss, or booted you were. Yes one Mournland player was perma-banned from the game for his extremely over the top posts. You could see it building and I think he had finally had enough before he posted his vitriol and he knew how it was going to end. Want to know what he was so upset about? Several former Devs were basically writing at how “stupid” the player base was at the time.
What was an interesting program became more and more useless, things were more and more dictated to us, how many Mournland players bit their tongues, how many people went sure that sounds good, made worse by the fact that the system was abused for personal gain. WoP / New Builds / price rigging on the auction house.
At the same Time the lawsuits were flying, backroom agreements with WOTC and other shit was happening. I remember reading a post that hinted at Module 9 being delayed and legal action against Atari. That was like six months before it happened.
My access to the Mournland’s forum was intermittent at best now and I only once or twice was privileged enough to scour the last rendition of the Mournland forum. In many cases MANY of the Devs posted detailed, verbose, answers on why things were designed the way they were. Yet in the public forums they told the players to sod off (considering they could have cut and paste what they posted in the Mournland Forums pissed me off).
When Kate left many of the Mournlands players hoped that they would have a better influence on the game, the problem was too many things were left in half finished states. There was no easy fix.
Fernando was never going to “overrule” Kate in any major way, for the same reason that Popes don’t over rule recent previous Popes. And there is the fact they probably agreed on many of the same things as well as a happy home life. I have met Fernando more than a few times, had a couple of beers with him, not like he would likely remember me, but I always felt the impression he had his head stuck in the sand, he was waiting for the next EP to step up to the plate so he could get back to what he loved to do (Systems), heck when Turbine posted the Director of Systems and Engineering Position I figured it was tailored specifically for him to take.
Not sure what happened to Fernando, maybe he finally did get his Director Position, a year ago Producer Glin becomes Sr. Producer, and last spring Rowan became Franchise Director and around December Aaron got the EP title. Last week he moved across the isle and became EP of LOTRO.
I have heard (and MajMal hinted at it) that DDO had its most profitable Calendar year ever in 2013, which beat even 2012 and 2011 and… Aaron, with a back ground in QA, put an effort to get at bugs and tightening loose nuts throughout the machine. I hope that continues. I fell through the bridge in Waterworks the other day and laughed my ass off. His other stated goal was to finish half-finished systems. But he was honest, Cannith Crafting was going to cost too much to do more than put a band-aid on it for now, the Monster Manual for as cool as it is is expensive, and players want the MOON!
If I was Athena’s Boss I’d be talking about staying the course.
I know it sounds like I am defending the EPs, and I am too an extent, but a lot of decisions made years ago still are effecting game play. Back to GS Crafting, could you imagine if those three systems were redone and linked together? Epic GS, Epic Dragon Touched, Epic Set Bonuses? Maybe, just Maybe that is why we are get E3BC instead…. I doubt it but a guy can dream.
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Rowan abandoned ship. (Read 20387 times)
