Official forums incoming

[Bismallah]

What an asshole...

"Folks,

Paul and Colin were trying to be funny. That's Paul's style and Colin is one of our most trusted, talented and valued guys. If they can poke a little fun at things...

And by the way, Paul also makes fun of himself and doesn't take himself too seriously (well, most of the time happy ).

Bugs happen, design errors happen and nobody's perfect. Well, except for some folks on the Internet who never make mistakes at their jobs and neither should anybody according to their posts.

A sense of humor is a wonderful thing and necessary, especially nowadays.

Mark"

So now he's trolling the VN forums?? Fuck this guy needs to stop posting.

[Trippy]

Throwing people under the bus is Good Business.

You mean publically humiliating your team members isn't good for morale?

[Fordel]

All his posts might as well read "HOW U WERK INTERWEBS?"

[HaemishM]

A short video - how open RVR contribution was broken for two months and nobody at Mythic noticed.  Maybe official forums would have helped.

 

I'm absolutely gobsmacked. I'm actually not that surprised the fucked up bit of code made it into the game and no one noticed. That happens on a regular basis in DIKU-style games, happened all the time in EQ1 (alchemy, rogues at release) and DAOC (left axe anyone). No, what gobsmacks me is that Barnett had the stones to essentially BERATE a subordinate in public about the fuckup. That's WHOLLY UNPROFESSIONAL. In a lawsuit, that shit could be used as evidence of a hostile workplace. Is he completely fucking braindead?

EDIT: And I see Mark just responded. Hey Mark, if you still read this board? Here's a fucking hint.

That shit is so goddamn amateur hour it's unbelievable that you let that kind of thing go on. In ANY OTHER FUCKING INDUSTRY, that is grounds for dismissal. It's borderline harrassment. It's the kind of thing that prompts people who are competent enough to get better jobs to start looking for other jobs. You don't create divisions between "code and design" even in jest and most especially not in public. It makes you look like garage band fuckups.

[tolakram]

Dysfunctional might fit here.

I get the impression there are a lot of egos at Mythic.

[WitchKiller]

I completely agree with you, Mr Haemish.  I can't believe that I just watched a man humiliate his subordinate in such a public forum.  Absolutely zero class and professionalism.  Even in the Army we only tore into guys 'in house.'  I worked for Oceaneering for a couple years (my only corporate experience), and I believe that you are spot on with the hostile workplace observations. 

Disregarding the policy, legal, and professional issues:  what the hell is he thinking?  What would motivate someone to do that to a team member?  I'm trying to find the drive behind this aberrant behavior, but I keep coming back to scapegoating.

I absolutely abhor poor leadership.  I'm very content to lurk F13 and glean knowledge from the community here, but I'm compelled to voice my disgust on this topic.  I've lived in several countries, worked in many fields, and I am currently a member in multiple fraternities.  I can honestly say that I have never seen such poor leadership.  This is completely disgusting.  Now I'm only following Mythic news in hope of seeing a mutiny.

Never will I pay for, or recommend, a product that Mr Jacobs has touched.  I don't know if he was doing damage control, or legitimately defending Paul Barnett's actions.  Whichever is the case, I hope that video is down by the morning, and we see a "Paul Barnett has decided move on to better things.  We'll miss him." Before the new year.

I couldn't be more disappointed.

-Rocco

[Sheepherder]

I'm absolutely gobsmacked. I'm actually not that surprised the fucked up bit of code made it into the game and no one noticed. That happens on a regular basis in DIKU-style games, happened all the time in EQ1 (alchemy, rogues at release) and DAOC (left axe anyone). No, what gobsmacks me is that Barnett had the stones to essentially BERATE a subordinate in public about the fuckup. That's WHOLLY UNPROFESSIONAL. In a lawsuit, that shit could be used as evidence of a hostile workplace. Is he completely fucking braindead?

EDIT: And I see Mark just responded. Hey Mark, if you still read this board? Here's a fucking hint.

That shit is so goddamn amateur hour it's unbelievable that you let that kind of thing go on. In ANY OTHER FUCKING INDUSTRY, that is grounds for dismissal. It's borderline harrassment. It's the kind of thing that prompts people who are competent enough to get better jobs to start looking for other jobs. You don't create divisions between "code and design" even in jest and most especially not in public. It makes you look like garage band fuckups.

This was a fairly big fuckup in terms of effect, fairly small in terms of retardation required for it to propagate into a live build.  I've been working on putting together a city in Morrowind ever since it was actually played by a fair number of people (should probably finish it) and hate fucking checking through the master record for inadvertent changes and keeping track of backups.  I'd honestly be more pissed with the play testers, who are supposed to find this shit before you screw the pooch in front of the assembled masses, though the task of reverse-engineering the game via testing and discovering specific failures in subsystems and poor design decisions is probably not enviable as well.  I'm sure the extra-secret super hardcore restricted access beta had nothing to do with this making live either. 

This is the kind of shit that makes me feel good about waiting for a reaction from players before I purchase.  Barnett is fucking clown shoes since apparently he couldn't even port the Warhammer IP without it turning into the classic "good vs. evil" shit that it emphatically is not supposed to be.  That he's criticizing a person who at the very least can manage to close an if...endif block shows exactly how well the "five star drive" works in practice.

[Zzulo]

wow, you guys crack me up

it was all quite obviously in good humour, like every Paul video ever made for the last 3 years

[nurtsi]

Heh, that joke certainly backfired on them. Maybe people are taking things a bit too seriously...

[Bismallah]

All in good fun, maybe? Paul is kinda an ass and I don't get British humor sometimes... sure I can see that. But what the fuck is Mark Jacobs doing on the VN boards yet again spouting off with his sarcastic comments saying that "<roll eyes> oh right people folks aren't allowed to make mistakes, yooouuu never made mistakes do you??<roll eyes>" like some 12 year old.

[Arthur_Parker]

A sense of humor is a wonderful thing and necessary, especially nowadays.

Mark"

I guess laughing is better than crying.  How much money was spent on WAR again?

[Trippy]

wow, you guys crack me up

it was all quite obviously in good humour, like every Paul video ever made for the last 3 years

Yes it was supposed to be done in fun. The problem is is that every other sentence is like "it's not my fucking fault, it was the programmer's fault".  I.e. instead of making a video saying "Hi guys *WE* fucked it up, here's what happened, ha ha ha" he made a video saying "*HE* fucked it up not me, ha ha ha".

[schild]

Just for the record, I'm fairly well-known for not taking things seriously. And even I thought it was FUBAR. That's simply not a great joke. Particularly when Paul already comes across as a big poncy douchebag mouthpiece in half of his videos.

[WindupAtheist]

There's a reason Blizzard chooses to remain utterly impersonal and not play the usual reindeer games.

[Triforcer]

God, I love this industry.  Even after only ten years of following it, I feel like McConaughey's character in Dazed and Confused ("Great thing about dating high school girls is they always stay the same age").  Nobody ever learns or grows or advances.  I could be sixty and I'll still be reading posts from 14 year olds about how FFA pvp really works, and developers will keep doing things like that video. 

The reason MMOs are so great is not gameplay, or in-game social bonds, or any of that crap.  Its the infinite entertainment we get every day for free. 

[Modern Angel]

Just for the record, I'm fairly well-known for not taking things seriously. And even I thought it was FUBAR. That's simply not a great joke. Particularly when Paul already comes across as a big poncy douchebag mouthpiece in half of his videos.

This, god this. I take nothing seriously. I watch videos of vomit fights, laughing uproariously. I love sarcasm and invective, no matter how over the top. But come the fuck ON, that shit is unprofessional. If you can't imagine Blizzard or Microsoft or Apple releasing a video like that *do not fucking release a video like that.* This industry isn't going to go back to five guys in a garage ever again so stop fucking acting like you're still there. Show a little fucking pride and professionalism and, as stated, if you MUST do that sort of thing then you say WE fucked up. Because, Mythic, you basically all fucked up.

[Zzulo]

I couldn't disagree more 

I'd rather take this than complete silence or a column of robotic text like from most other companies. Too much sand up peoples vaginas these days 

[Jherad]

There was nothing 'British' about that 'humour'. Unless you count using 'The Office' as a real life template for running a business.

Fuck.

[Goreschach]

I couldn't disagree more 

I'd rather take this than complete silence or a column of robotic text like from most other companies. Too much sand up peoples vaginas these days 

How the hell did you make it through the cleansing?

[Modern Angel]

I couldn't disagree more 

I'd rather take this than complete silence or a column of robotic text like from most other companies. Too much sand up peoples vaginas these days 

I'm not going all apeshit with the never buying anything from Mythic or EA or whatever ever again stuff, and you'll never hear me speak of it off these forums, but that was tacky. It wasn't offensive, it was gauche. I hate gauche. You keep that shit under the hood.

[Jherad]

And yeah. If they had come out and said 'yeah, silly us, we fucked up - we've fixed it', people would shake their heads and get on with it. As it is, with fucked up decision after fucked up decision, people think the place is being run like a circus act. This doesn't help.

[ghost]

Look, in my day I have had to "dress down" an underling or two and they always have that same look in their eyes...............it is the same one this dude has. 

My take is that this was not a pleasant experience for him.  Maybe it was just a "joke", but then why the need to come out and tell us it was a joke? 

[Modern Angel]

Look, in my day I have had to "dress down" an underling or two and they always have that same look in their eyes...............it is the same one this dude has. 

My take is that this was not a pleasant experience for him.  Maybe it was just a "joke", but then why the need to come out and tell us it was a joke? 

Right. He just looked more than a little uncomfortable throughout the whole thing and there was a little edge to it that made me feel like I really, really didn't need to see it. It's like when you're at a party and everyone gets really drunk and loose so people start talking in groups about sex and then there's the one girl who takes it just a little too far and starts talking about how she loves getting crowbarred anally... and everyone just looks the other way, trying to ignore it, because party, right? But the whole thing is just that extra little foot over the line where it becomes extremely tacky.

[Special J]

What an asshole...

"Folks,

Paul and Colin were trying to be funny. That's Paul's style and Colin is one of our most trusted, talented and valued guys. If they can poke a little fun at things...

And by the way, Paul also makes fun of himself and doesn't take himself too seriously (well, most of the time happy ).

Bugs happen, design errors happen and nobody's perfect. Well, except for some folks on the Internet who never make mistakes at their jobs and neither should anybody according to their posts.

A sense of humor is a wonderful thing and necessary, especially nowadays.

Mark"

So now he's trolling the VN forums?? Fuck this guy needs to stop posting.

Yeah, Mark, I've made mistakes on the job, but I generally own up to them rather than try and cover it up for two months.  You thought your customers were stupid and couldn't figure it out.  I am in awe at how unprofessional it was handled.

[Nebu]

When someone gives you millions of dollars to build a ship, it's only natural to get a little freaked out and defensive when that ship starts sinking.  Accountability is a bitch.

[Goreschach]

When someone gives you millions of dollars to build a ship, it's only natural to get a little freaked out and defensive when that ship starts sinking.  Accountability is a bitch.

What accountability? You seriously think any one of these assclowns are in danger of not being able to find a new job at another MMO company within approximately 5 minutes of when they lose this one?

[Special J]

Yes it was supposed to be done in fun. The problem is is that every other sentence is like "it's not my fucking fault, it was the programmer's fault".  I.e. instead of making a video saying "Hi guys *WE* fucked it up, here's what happened, ha ha ha" he made a video saying "*HE* fucked it up not me, ha ha ha".

That's exactly what drives me crazy.  I don't care so much that they had some fun with it; but rather they took the approach that since they're having fun with it, that the paying shmucks shouldn't care and just have a good laugh too.

Haha, big goof up, haha.  Yeah we hid it. No big deal though! You guys don't care. We'll get around to it. haha. 

[raydeen]

The only thing mildly funny in that was "Mr. Clever Cloggs". The rest was just absolutely clownshoes. And not good, clean, healthy, funny clownshoes. This was Stephen King's IT Pennywise clownshoes. Wow. If that's the caliber of employee at Mythic, it's no wonder WAR is as fucked up as it is.

[Zzulo]

I couldn't disagree more 

I'd rather take this than complete silence or a column of robotic text like from most other companies. Too much sand up peoples vaginas these days 

How the hell did you make it through the cleansing?

What? I expressed an opinion. Silly goose.

I don't even think it was that much of a special opinion to begin with. This is pretty much the only forum I've seen where people are actively hating on that video. To each their own though

[Bismallah]

Check the VN, plenty of haters there too, and WHA.

[Rishathra]

I never really followed Mythic or Warhammer Online all that closely, so when I watched that video, I didn't realize it was "official."  I assumed it was some dressing down parody made by randominternetguy1138 who did some code digging.  I mean, no company would be that unprofessional, would they?  After all, "don't do it in public" is dressing down rule fucking one.  You learn that shit in kindergarten.

[Zzulo]

Granted I only read the last page of the thread on VN, but almost everyone on that page clearly didn't care or was discussing the broken system rather than the podcast. Some even applauded the video.

like I said, to each their own

[Arthur_Parker]

The joking around in the video didn't really bother me, but then I'm no longer a subscriber, clearly getting Paul to break the news was a bad idea.  Most of that is due paying customers being upset but also for the insight it's given into how things are run at Mythic HQ. 

Also people wasted their own time testing the contribution system and trying to bring their findings to Mythic's attention, I don't think there's a Mythic dev comment in response, even to the Chicken coming top in contribution.  That suggests to me they didn't pay much attention to the players trying to report a serious issue, I'm also struck with how easy this would have been for Mythic to test, 30 minutes tops to capture a keep with someone there but not contributing?  But forget testing, why didn't a Mythic dev spot it during normal game play, wotlk?

Lastly the key thing that came out of Paul's video to me was finger pointing.  Something goes wrong and the top priority response is finding someone to blame, not identifying the procedures and processes that need changing to reduce the risk of similar happening again.  Very similar to what Trippy said, for me it was the whole attitude of "WE don't a code checking/booking system that could be improved", it's "BOB fucked up". 

[Arthur_Parker]

Linky

Quote:
-------
"As long as an 'official' forum is willing to field constructive criticism, then go."
-------

Based on their actions on the Test Forums, criticism of any kind will be modded away and the poster will be banned. 
 

That's just not true at all.  Reading through the boards there is plenty of pro/con discussions and criticism.  The difference is that we will quickly and happily ban people who refuse to follow the very simple rules that we lay out for our PTS forums just as we did during beta.  If people cannot follow those rules, posts will be modded and people will be banned.  The PTS boards are not for "This sucks, the end is here, you killed my class, Epic FAIL!, you [Insert most hated class] are a bunch of *&*&*&*&*" posts.  We want to have discussion and feedback but it is not too much to ask that people stay on topic, don't continue to post the same thing again and again, refrain from personal attacks on other players or on Mythic. 

And BTW, we're perma-banned a total of 8 people so far, that's all including a number of people who post and flame us here as well.  Sorry, but I don't consider 8 perma-bans to be excessive at all considering what we want is a place where people can have an adult discussion without worrying about being flamed, yelled at and have that discussion in a place without having to deal with the drama so often seen around any MMORPG discussion on just about any forum.

Mark 

Mark responds to a vn thread titled "so I guess there will be an OFFICIAL forum after all..." and doesn't deny it's happening.  Guess either he realised official forums are a good idea, or far more likely, someone higher up at EA overruled him.

[Modern Angel]

I'm not certain saying "Dudes on the VN boards thought it was fine!" is the sort of defense you want to be using here.