IMHO, it looks like Turbine has a big pool of resources for systems changes and very few working with content.

If they had put more focus on producing lots of nice content during the years, instead of constantly changing the systems and re-writing stuff, I think the gamle population would be much larger today as not so many would have gotten bored running the same quests over and over throught endless numbers of TRs.

I thought DDO was all about incomplete systems.

Turd_Ferguson wrote on Nov 18^th, 2014 at 10:59am:

Depends on what qualifies. For instance, they have consistently fucked up handwraps/unarmed fighting.

it does seem to be a issue with all games,  game companies just dont give a fuck, some spend as much as 400,000,000.00 for a big pile of turd. but my guess is the first ones (first developers) put so much time into the game that is the only reason its still going now. even with all the interns and Jerry the fucktard working at tirdbine now.

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This one gets rolled out frequently by game developers to justify the half complete, partially tested crap they deliver.

The above situation is not unique to MMO's or game development in general.
Construction projects, Resource projects all suffer from abbreviated timelines and under-budgeting because the accountants think saving a couple of bucks up front is best (ironically it is often their KPI, to the detriment of the business).

Most projects could use more budget and more time.  The trade off of risk vs reward is a balancing act, and sometimes decision makers get it wrong.  I don't know how sophisticated the modelling and analytics are around game development.  It might be that they do consistently get underfunded, or conversely it might be that the industry doesn't have enough good projects managers to adapt to changing scope, limited budgets or tight milestones.
I haven't seen enough case studies on the industry to know the drivers of success in that sector.

It's not is common to the entertainment industry - we don't see movies released half finished with the promise that it will be fixed in the Director's cut to be released next year.

And it is not endemic to software development in general.  I know that other software developers in finance, medical etc can't use the same excuses as game development.  You cannot get away with responding to client complaints with shrugging your shoulders and saying "tough shit".
Turdbine says, "but our code base is a spaghetti mess".  So what?  Ever looked under the skirt of other software - DDO is not Robinson Crusoe in the software world.  But why fix it, when you can just complain about it?  There is no appetite in Turdbine to fix it when they can continue to use it as an excuse.

To the best of my knowledge this behaviour is particular to electronic games development.  Why is that?
I believe it is partly due to culture - but it is not work ethic.  It is the culture of management.
I believe the difference lies in the demographic of game software customers.  In gaming, the developers do not fear their customers litigating them.
The customers are perceived as unsophisticated individuals without the resources or motivation to sue them.
Hence over time, games development companies have observed that they can push the envelope of quality on games, such that they start using their paying clients as involuntarily Beta testers.
There are no perceived consequences to cutting corners - until the project fails.

Developers and staff, like most professionals are motivated to do a decent job.  Most of us don't start our work day planning to produce poor results or outcomes, but excessive mgmt interference, demotivated workforces and poor KPI's drive this outcome.
I think Turdbine suffers from poor middle mgmt decision making too.  It has shown a blatant disregard for customer concerns (QA/CS) and an unwillingness to listen in development.  Even the PC claim their ability to influence decisions is minimal - why bother with the a focus group if you won't listen to them?

Turdbine have a great IP in DDO.  With professional mgmt (Producer/Marketing/Development/QA&QC) and competent staff, they could have a great product, regardless of the age of the product.  It'll never have WoW success, but it could be a stable income earner for many years to come.
But given it's stage in the product life cycle, some MBA at Warner will never permit it to recover.

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Turdbine did all the same shit befote WB. That's not to say that the same problems weren't occurring in-house... just that WB may not be the culprit.

SwashbucklerHater wrote on Nov 20^th, 2014 at 1:49pm:


Would you reckon if Infinite Crisis has ladders?

Turd_Ferguson wrote on Nov 18^th, 2014 at 10:59am:


They seem pretty committed to their system of layoffs.

GermanicusMaximus wrote on Nov 20^th, 2014 at 11:00pm:


You may well be right GM but I don't know any of them personally to make that assessment.
I said they are motivated to do a decent job.  I did not reflect on their individual or collective competencies.

I am very critical of Turdbine as an entity, but try to steer clear of attributing blame to individuals unless I can be sure.
Jerry is an easy target - his work is self-evident, and I 100% support your observations with regard to Jerry.  I would not want his job because it would suck, but correspondingly, he is pretty unprofessional in his behaviour.

Turdbine work practices and quality are appalling by any standard, but from the outside it is very difficult to attribute any specific poor work to an individual.  There might be some very competent individuals in the DDO team that have/are held back by the majority and it would be unfair to tar them with the same brush as the others.

I believe the problem at Turbine is endemic to the whole mgmt culture and the "system/process".  Too many to go through here - but basics like versioning control, competent QA/QC, responsibility for one's work, lack of coordination/cohesiveness, general lack of direction (too many solo projects that make previous work redundant and are often never finished) etc. etc.

Every reasonable sized workplace has their share of "chair warmers" - people who serve little purpose other than consume oxygen and keep a chair company.
You might be right, perhaps Turdbine through recruiting practices, remuneration and reputation has an unusually number of oxygen thieves.

We're 100% aligned on the Turdbine arrogance - the sheer arrogance of their staff is beyond unbelievable. 
There's a big difference between having a thick skin and a thick skull, and Turdbine employees fall into the latter whilst thinking they're the former.
But that type of consistent arrogance cannot come from so many individuals - that is "groupthink" which comes from an embedded culture - it probably started with F.ernando, became assimilated and evolved into the norm in the DDO work group.
I imagine from what we see, that they generally view their customers with disdain.  "Stupid, simple gamers - what would they know about games development?" is likely the team mantra at planning meetings.

TL:DR - my view of Turdbine and the DDO team is not too dissimilar to yours, i just don't have any basis or desire to target individuals at this point as most of the team are new. I hear anecdotal stuff in back channels which supports my view on the culture though.

I think it's hard to judge the developers because we don't know how the code of DDO looks like. And all evidence we have make it look like spagetti code with nearly no commentary.
This situation needs very good programmers to do a half decent job.

And yeah, now you probably say they could just try to rework the code and make it better and stuff. But that's the part where the managers probably say, that this would make some developers work on something that doesn't produce new content and no new content = no money = useless.

And I once saw how the developers of a browser game changed and the first 6 months they did nothing but looking at the current code, understanding the code and bringing the code to a state a professional engineer could work with that and some minor changes/bugfixes when they noticed flaws in the code. And that was only a browser game. The code base of DDO is probably several times larger.

Especially at the current state where Turbine probably has only few developers left they can't go that route because even if you say you would prefer this route most gamers would cry out loud if they don't get new content for 6-9 months.
They need content to keep the players busy.

SwashbucklerHater wrote on Nov 21^st, 2014 at 3:46am:


I understand what you're saying, and we do have an inkling that the legacy code base is a mess.
But you cannot continue to use that as an excuse.  Either deal with it or fix it.
It might be a minor point, but re-writing the code is the role of a software engineer, not a developer, so to be clear this task would not stop content development directly. 
It would require a code freeze, so depending how the code is structured, it would require major system changes to stop, but this should not impact content development.
So the playerbase would largely be unaware.

Art, character modesl, maps and GUI would need minimal work.  Just the back end and quest code would be targeted.

And this need not be a massive expense either.  Get yourself 1 or 2 top shelf engineers and you could likely get it done in 6-12 months - they're not having to extensively design.  Target is same functionality, but tidier back end.  You could extend the scope to enhance the back end (incorporate automated design tools for example).  Try to save costs and get some hack engineers and you'll end up with a project disaster.
Furthermore, DDO2 would require extensive functionality testing as the engineers would likely know nothing about DnD.  This is where your loyal customer base comes in to bring your costs down.
This last step requires a competent QA/QC to coordinate a dedicated team of reliable players who can go through detailed testing programs for you.

So what would DDO2 offer to make this worthwhile.  Visually, likely nothing to the customer as not advocating that they change the visual game engine.  But it might allow the devs to produce saleable content faster with less bugs.  Automated development tool kits and testing scripts.  It might allow them to consolidate legacy crafting systems and standardise other systems by having common logic modules rather than individually coded segments.  This in turn could reduce lag as the code becomes more efficient.  Who knows, as it will never happen.

Our business is undertaking this at the moment - we have a software engineer rewriting the code for our software in a faster, modern code format that is easier to develop and taking the opportunity to standardise legacy work.
During this time, the business has suffered no interruption, continues to earn an income to fund the development, and the integration to the new software has been planned ahead of time so the switch over should be smooth.  We know there will be issues with interfaces and integrated systems, but we're mitigating these risks as much as possible up front.

It all comes down to the vision of the mgmt.
"It's too hard" and "we can't afford it" were heard in our orgn too, but someone with vision made the call.   
But that's business, you have to take a risk to get rewards.