Richard Garriot's Future... More Swords and Dragons Online

[Goreschach]

Does this mean I get to share a bunk with Grunk? I'm excited, I haven't had the chance to be in a Grunk thread yet.

[WayAbvPar]

Eat lead paint chips for about a decade and you will get close to the experience.

[Signe]

The phrase "Bunk with Grunk" is stuck in my head.  Poor Bunk.  I miss thejeni so much, you know.

[Cheddar]

The phrase "Bunk with Grunk" is stuck in my head.  Poor Bunk.  I miss thejeni so much, you know.

Why are you not in irc?

[Der Helm]

"Der" is an article... AN ARTICLE !!! 

[Signe]

I don't know why I'm not in it.  Maybe I'm scared.  Or maybe I just prefer to post about chat clients.  I think I'm just lazy.

And please don't anyone delete the Der Helm!

[Venkman]

You just posted the same thing as Merusk.  The "D" purge shall begin shortly.  We apologize for the delay.

Hey!

[Lantyssa]

"Der" is an article... AN ARTICLE !!! 

I'm sorry, but you'll have to be purged to be safe.  Our system does not recognize foreign words.  Auf Weidersehen.

[UnSub]

Garriott to give talk about being space cadet

[schild]

Garriott to give talk about being space cadet

So what.

$65 a ticket?

SIXTY FIVE?

Who the fuck?

Man, what an asshole.

[Trippy]

Well he blew on his money on the flight so he needs to refill the coffers somehow

[UnSub]

For those who don't check Lum's blog: the fall of TR from an inside perspective. Check out Adam Martin's blog too - it started the ball rolling.

Part of me thinks that neither Lum nor Adam believes they'll be working at NCsoft again. Another part wants to know what Lum wrote about Imperator that almost got him fired. But they are really interesting views of how large organisations deal with a major product that might not be up to snuff.

EDIT: ... and the consequences of getting it so wrong with the project management.

[Venkman]

This is long, but heartflet

tl;dr: large companies are their own sociology.

Anyone who's ever been a creative (or a producer on the creative side) at a large company has basically this template on hand. There are rarely actual good post mortems, even more rarely does the knowledge base of a team transfer to a new project (because most times the teams are split up by function), and lots of projects take on that air of inertia with the expectation that "someone else" (usually the management-facing person) is responsible for the decisions that'll make it all better. In reality of course that someone else is relying on someone else to make the decisions. And so on, until eventually the project itself is just an underperforming line item on an SVPs chart, allowed to continue because it's below their radar and hidden by larger numbers on more successful projects.

It's when those more successful projects are no longer successful, or at least no longer a distraction, that your project is under a microscope. And then when it is, most times it's not going to go well. And that is due to the inherent contradiction of being under the radar:

If you're not getting the face time with management, or your "someone else" is not selling the needs of the project, then you're not getting the resources needed to do the project justice. You're doing the job you can, borrowing the resources when you can, and hoping to have enough to show to someday get those resources.

But if your organization and project are going as described in paragraph one, you end up like Lum's project after the demise of expectations for TR: suddenly out in front with little to show for it. And worse, you're never allowed to talk about why that is the case:

• You can't complain about the resources you never got because that's telling the company leads that they don't know how to allocate resources.
• You can't complain that management never cared about your project because that's throwing "someone else" under the bus.
• You can't complain about your own incompetence (not saying Lum nor his team were, but I've seen the self-aware incompetence thing a lot) because you still want your paycheck.
  
• And you can't complain about unrealistic expectations because chances are high at one point you and your team have also drank the Kool Aid.

I've found this applies to game development, business development, and marketing. Being actually successful in a large company is more how you position yourself for the next project than how well you're doing on the current. And that's because how well the current project is going is generally based on a whole crapload of factors outside your control.

Large companies are replete with middle management trying to justify their existence and upper management expecting them to do something useful. The fun part is that you do need a middle management, but they're never actually empowered to do their job.

This is why large companies are generally more successful at buying a smaller company with a near-complete project/business model than internally generating one themselves.

[Ratman_tf]

Anyone who's worked in an office building knows that weird two-faced thing. I've worked projects that were doomed to failure, but still liked to take home a paycheck every week, so I was quite willing to give constructive negative feedback... to a point.

I think more projects need a position of "No Man". The person who runs around telling everyone that (and why) everything sucks and doesn't have to fear for his/her job.

[LC]

I think more projects need a position of "No Man". The person who runs around telling everyone that (and why) everything sucks and doesn't have to fear for his/her job.

HOLY SHIT! That's my dream job.

[Venkman]

Companies have those already. They're just the "naysayers" and "not team players" who eventually get shuffled laterally until they quit 

[tmp]

Companies have those already. They're just the "naysayers" and "not team players" who eventually get shuffled laterally until they quit 

I thought these are heretics who are burnt at the stake... 

[LC]

Here's another interview. I think the highlight is:

And while Tabula Rasa definitely had a rocky start, it did have a core fan base, and the team was motivated to continue to grow it. So I wish it had continued.

[schild]

No one can hear you lament in space.

[Soln]

I think Gariott is now just working on securing his legacy.  Much like the recent President.  Maybe he will open his own library.  IN SPAAAACEEEE...

[UnSub]

Here's another interview. I think the highlight is:

And while Tabula Rasa definitely had a rocky start, it did have a core fan base, and the team was motivated to continue to grow it. So I wish it had continued.

So much so that you stuck around, fighting to the end, eh Rick?

[Trippy]

Here's another interview. I think the highlight is:

And while Tabula Rasa definitely had a rocky start, it did have a core fan base, and the team was motivated to continue to grow it. So I wish it had continued.

So much so that you stuck around, fighting to the end, eh Rick?

It's likely he didn't have a choice.

[DLRiley]

Here's another interview. I think the highlight is:

And while Tabula Rasa definitely had a rocky start, it did have a core fan base, and the team was motivated to continue to grow it. So I wish it had continued.

So much so that you stuck around, fighting to the end, eh Rick?

It's likely he didn't have a choice.

He did. His incompetence prevented him from doing any good.

[Venkman]

Incompetence is not a choice. It's also a label externally applied.

[Aez]

Taking your medication is a choice though.

[DLRiley]

Incompetence is not a choice. It's also a label externally applied.

Taking off into space with subscribers money is  .

[Ratman_tf]

Incompetence is not a choice. It's also a label externally applied.

Taking off into space with subscribers money is  .

If anything, RG creates the most epic jokes around himself. None of the HGL or Vanguard devs went into space! 

[tmp]

If anything, RG creates the most epic jokes around himself. None of the HGL or Vanguard devs went into space! 

That's not what people say about at least one of them...

[Ratman_tf]

If anything, RG creates the most epic jokes around himself. None of the HGL or Vanguard devs went into space! 

That's not what people say about at least one of them...

RG has pictures and witnesses. 

[UnSub]

Here's another interview. I think the highlight is:

And while Tabula Rasa definitely had a rocky start, it did have a core fan base, and the team was motivated to continue to grow it. So I wish it had continued.

So much so that you stuck around, fighting to the end, eh Rick?

It's likely he didn't have a choice.

I don't know at what point he officially left the project other than the announcement that he was cutting ties about 10 days before the full shutdown was announced. Prior to then it really seemed he didn't have much interaction with TR at all, going back to launch.

I'm not angry about TR shutting down - it needed to, for the good of the MMO industry - but I think it is a bit rich that RG stands back and pontificates on keeping the title open when he was responsible for what happened. At least Roper came out and talked about how HG:L was his fault.

[tmp]

RG has pictures and witnesses. 

Well, the reports of Brad routinely shooting himself to a high orbit come from the witnesses, too. But i don't know if there's any pictures. 

[UnSub]

Garriot suing NCsoft for $24m.

Fraud, he says. The jokes write themselves.

[Trippy]

Garriot suing NCsoft for $24m.

Fraud, he says. The jokes write themselves.

Another dup:

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=16288.msg639848#msg639848

[Falconeer]

This is too good to be true. They should make a TV show based on Garriott and McQuaid's lives, something along the lines of Nip/Tuck. It has to include aliens and conspiracies, of course. Yum.

[patience]

I don't want to see Garriot's or McQuad's bare ass while appealing to Judge Judy, thank you very much.