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Article from Massively.com (http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/01/22/scott-hartsman-leaving-trion-worlds/)

I don't play RIFT, but the only real confidence I had in Defiance was that Hartsman was at least partially behind it. So... yeah. That's a big gap for Trion Worlds.

UPDATE: The thread title, to reflect current events.

Now where the hell is he going? Cause I probably want a piece of that.

Maybe Bethesda cherry-picked him for ESO.

Maybe Blizzard hired him for D3.

To be fair, Defiance was always Trion's initial "baby."  The main line item in their business plan.  RIFT was really the stopgap tech. barometer and salespitch for their middleware.  When RIFT did well, they gave a final thumbs-up for Defiance.  Wasn't Hartsman brought in specifically for Rift?  Game's been out a while so probably time to move on regardless.

Still a bummer, but injecting him into Defiance likely would've created a 'Rift'  :awesome_for_real: with upper mgmt. 

While I am definitely a Hartsman Fanboy from when he was on EQ2, I don't think that he was 100 percent of the magic at Trion. Trion always felt like it was full of devs that were in tune with the players and care deeply about their products. Well, at least that's the impression i get. Where ever he goes will be lucky to have him.

I don't think Scott has ever worked on a project as the head guy from beginning to launch.  If I had to guess that's what he's going to try to do. 

Hartsman and Firor working together on TESO would be hilarious.  I also don't think he'll get poached for EQN either.  Bother games are way to far into their development.

He was always more a fantasy geek anyways.  Defiance is a different type of crazy.

I hope he does something I'll be interested in playing. It seems to me that Rift is one of very few mainstream MMO in years that really succeeded as a game. It didn't break the mould, it was a WoW-style game with some fun twists, but it did what it did well.

Hartsman back at Trion as CEO (http://www.mmorpg.com/newsroom.cfm/read/28294/Rift-Hartsman-Returns-to-Trion-as-CEO.html). That pretty much solidifies my recent return to Rift and is the first thing that's made me think they could turn Defiance around.

I'd love to hear the backroom gossip on that one.

Hartsman is the reason I played Rift.  He's a talent and where he goes, I'll follow.

Hartsman as CEO might actually salvage Defiance (or just quietly kill it off but even that might be a better option than going on with the current game)

Hartsman CEO?  Half Life 3 confirmed.

Meh. Whatever happens to the Defiance team, they deserve it.

They should say "Thank you for not firing us along with the other schlubs during the Great Purge", especially now that Defiance fell down to $10.

Funny timing, given the rift thread today.

I am very excited to have him back and in charge. :)

uh, thanks?   :grin:

I am, too!

Made me worry about Arche Age being published by y'all a bit when he stepped down.  Now I'm all excited again.

Wow, awesome news!

Looks like something's going on with Defiance, San Diego studio closing and being merged with other operations.

Yeah, forgot to mention  :Love_Letters:

Oh, I didn't mean that personally. Don't take it that way. You're the new guy there.

I meant that collectively as in, that team that made Defiance before you showed up from End of Nations? Those guys should be happy they have a job with all the lack of information, communication, delays, bad info, you name it.  That combined with how Trion seems to have been pissing money away too quickly by doing too much too soon without real income coming back... wow. Seems like Rift was the only game making money to pay for all of that.

Now, when I posted that about 5 hours ago, I didn't realize that Scott would come in cleaning your house so soon by shutting you all down and shifting ops. He sure didn't take long, but that's what it takes when you're the boss... gotta crack that whip.

Let the troops know it's nothing personal and sorry for the coming layoffs a lot of them are going to get, but I am a firm believer in gaming Darwinism.

Seemed fairly inevitable, it was clear Defiance wasn't living up to expectations and turning it around was not going to be fast so they needed to control the cash burn.

Suspect he's going to be pretty busy, but wish him luck in getting everything back on track.

This pleases me. Deep down I wish he was CEO of a new company though.

I just want him to issue DLC package refunds. I feel straight ripped off.

Or heading up EQN, amirite!?  :drill:



Don't hurt me

[/quote]Oh, I didn't mean that personally. Don't take it that way. You're the new guy there.
[/quote]

I know! Just giving you a hard time.

I'd back that for a dollar.

That sucks, I know some people down there that managed to make it through the first round of cuts. But I'm sure everyone suspected it was just a matter of time.

This makes me happy.

Must've been such a tough life decision.

(http://www.blogcdn.com/massively.joystiq.com/media/2013/08/scott.jpg)

I remember those End of Nations chicks. I had a similar picture taken with them at one of their events at PAX (I think).

Why doesn't Defiance have a poster in that picture ;P  I get the impression it was Hartsman who hated Defiance in the first place and thought Trion should be working on the game that was already working, and not the piece of crap they sunk all their money into.  They said no, he quit, they realized he was right, and made him CEO.  Maybe they can sell the game to Red 5 and package it as Firefall's hot new DLC.

Probably has something to do with Syfy. They've had panels as early as NYCC 2011.

There's a lot to hate.   

End of Nations seems like a huge boondoggle. The game has been in development forever and the core concept seems to have changed a few times. There's almost zero chance of it making back close to what it cost - I guess they are hoping for a F2P LoL-style home run.

Well it went from a F2P RTS to a F2P MOBA. I haven't check it out yet, though I should. It also went from Petroglyph to Trion prior to the MOBA flip announcement. I played the original game and it has some interesting concepts, but I never got hooked and I didn't have a good position to make an opinion. I'm not an RTS player. I haven't played one since Warcraft 2.

They've actually set the date for Defiance's first DLC: August 20th (just about 4 months later than the originally planned date which was a week after the game's release)

And now it's Europe's turn (http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/trion-worlds-closes-european-office/0120231) to feel the "new winds" blowing at Trion.

Sheesh. Is it still okay to say "Don't worry. This is just normal staff reduction" like fanners have been saying for the last year?
 :awesome_for_real:
Anyone smell a bid to pitch Trion to an Asian company in the near future as a possibility by trimming all the fat now or does that sound too Chicken Little?

I'd say alot will depend on Archeage's western release which was at some point expected for end of 2013 or early 2014 (according to Suk Woo Choi so it was atleast somewhat credible estimate). I doubt that either Rift or Defiance will gain lots of new subscribers and End of Nations seems like a bottomless moneysink so they'll need something... (but this is just my feeling and not based on any real information).

Then they are truly doomed if everything depends on AA.

 I don't see AA pulling any measurable amount of Westerners into it, at least the people I think they want in that sandpark. Considering Wildstar will be sandpark, TESO will handle the realm vs realm type PvP fix and FFXIV will take the fantasy people.. I'm not sure what's left for a game that wants a Western audience but has no direction in style. Trion just has to be happy that EQN isn't as far along as many people wished it was, or this company would be dead.

That's why I was thinking maybe they are trimming it make it more attractive. Idk if that rumor was true about Trion getting rebuffed by SOE in private overtures behind the scenes (I have no contacts that deep), but I do think SyFy will cancel after next season's show. Defiance has to face Destiny/Division and even GTA announced they are doing a semi-mmo today, so that's another shooter.

By cutting fat now, you make the company leaner and if Random Asian juggernaut wants to get a better foot in Western games they buy the company. Everyone (mostly) keeps their jobs and Rift stays in the top 5 for now. Trion is squeezing the Rift Patrons now to pay for everything else in the company but at some point, that money is going to run out when other mmos launch soon, or people get tired of it.

Rift, Defiance, EON all don't require a sub.

AA will probably make them some money, but they aren't developing the game, it's part of their Red Door program. I think AA will gain some audience here, especially those PVP crazies. I think it'll make them some money though.

As for the competition you mentioned. Wildstar is a full blown themepark. There is zero sandbox in there. TESO will fail harder than SWTOR from what I've been reading. I don't think they have even demod the RvR stuff yet. FFXIV will make some money, but I don't think it's a long term thing but I could be wrong there. It'll get all the FFXI people back into their fold though at the least.

Trimming Defiance was smart because that whole thing was a disaster and whatever happens to the show doesn't matter. Defaince, the game, should just close down their doors. Rift is still doing very well for their initial investment. EON has to do something, but who knows. It really depends on the size of the team. I don't really see this game succeeding in any case. AA is a pretty good investment though.

I hope they don't shut it down although the shortcut on my desktop is suffering from loneliness.  I liked bits of it even thought there really weren't enough of the likable bits or even enough of the entire game.  I like the idea of it, too.  I really wish they'd just fix it.  Having said that, I'm still hoping they fix Shadowbane.

they won't shut down Defiance for a while since they have to churn out 5 dlcs that they sold in the form of a season pass at launch (and they need to keep the servers up for a while after all the dlcs if they don't want some real bad pr)

So they are proper fucked you say.

Well, Elrar that poor fucker is, that's for sure.

Elrar has left the Building  (http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1332722-Elrar-has-left-the-Building?p=22106840)

I dunno but for the last couple years, I've had all these citizens trying to shit rainbows down my neck telling me how great Trion is and all I see is an average game with what appears to be a sub-average management staff with regards to budgets.  They can't seem to pick reliable or otherwise unlaughable partners (Petro/Syfy) and aside from their launch which went incredibly well, most of the things they poop out, whether a new expansion or a new game seems broken, laggy, poorly communicated or only slightly interesting.

The more I see Scott with the hatchet, the more it appears he's getting this company in shape to get bought out by someone. I read they laughed at the EA buyout rumors (don't think EA wants this) but they didn't address anyone else, especially foreign interests so technically....  :roll:

Well at least Elrar got a good four years out of them, and he's decent so he'll get on. Hope he doesn't have kids cause I wouldn't want to be uprooting them every four years.. gotta bite.

Kind of ironic, Scott says the model is 'fundamentally broken', yet isn't he the one who actually built the Rift model in the first place?

http://www.twitch.tv/trionworlds/b/446758879?t=5540

Hartsman says End of Nations is going  to "rest for a little bit."  Which is kind of hilarious given that they just finished an 8 month overhaul of the game and restarted alpha.

Scott came in halfway through Rift (or Heroes of Telara) development. From what I know HoT was a disaster and Scott "turned it around". The dude's never been in charge of a game from the ground up. I look forward to the time he does.

It's too bad he landed back there with no projects I'm interested in (unless the deal was for him to finally build one from scratch). Too bad he couldn't have landed at SOE to guide some of the potentially interesting stuff there.

You know what you do with games that have no future? Put them to rest for a little bit.

I actually don't think the choice is wrong, I just think that it is funny timing given that they just made a big deal about all their fancy new MOBA elements in the game.

Yea, well, Hartsman is smart enough to know they can't compete in that arena. Not in a million years. There's so much that needs to be done at Trion, he doesn't need to dick around with guaranteed failures.

I honestly think EON has more of a niche it could maybe fill than Defiance. I don't think any amount of rebranding/revitalizing/making free is going to be enough to save that game.

Or they can just kill both.

Teams and studios the magnitude of Trion have no amazing reason to chase a "niche" of any sort.

End of Nations has gone through two major redesigns and has ended up as a MOBAish thing that has to worry about competiting with LoL and DOTA 2.  I don't see how they have any hope in that arena.  Maybe there is some group out there that REALLY wants to play a MOBA but likes the idea of controlling a tank instead of a guy, I dunno, but that sounds like a long shot at best.

Rumours say that XLAGames (Archeage's Korean developer) is restructuring (http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/09/02/rumor-xlgames-eyes-restructuring-after-disappointing-archeage-p/) and still no word from Trion on when the game will have a western release...

Wow.  Just caught this thread, good stuff.  Hartsman is good at what he does.