I’m not going to comment much on this story about the supposed EA employee identifying why WAR failed.  Whether or not it’s true doesn’t matter. I’m sure most of the major themes are true to an extent but like most of these whistle blowers the details are probably iffy. The absolute bottom line here is that it identifies an environment of hostile management and ignorance. If you followed DAOC, or better yet Mythic, long enough this doesn’t sound surprising after seeing how WAR turned out.
I stated it long ago that the ultimate reason WAR failed was zero vision and ignorance as to how they succeeded with DAOC. Try and write it off all you want, but no one in their right mind purposely avoids repeat success. “They didn’t want to make DAOC 2.0!” Bull. They wanted very much to make DAOC 2.0. Even with an entirely different pre-existing IP they brought in Keeps, RvR, talk of “realm ranks”, and pushed hard to capture the spirit of DAOC. Bottom line, they were ignorant and their work environment didn’t help them any to identify what they were missing.
I’m starting to think that perhaps no one we even know by name is responsible for DAOC. It was probably some guy in a cubicle who had a decent idea and pitched it to the people we now know infamously by name. They took credit and thought, “How hard could it be to do it again?”. I guess we know, right? This boils down to two points in the end: 1) Those who deserve credit rarely get it and 2) Trying to copy success without understanding it is a recipe for failure.  #2 is a point I have beaten to death over the years. Oh what the heck, let’s throw in 3) If you’re going to copy a game (like WoW or DAOC) then at least make it an actual copy.
This changes nothing for me, reading this real or fake commentary. It’s just telling us what we already know.
P.S. I can’t get this picture out of my head. Louse? Is that you?
that’s why i like google’s corporate model. The engineers design the product. ideas percolate up, instead of orders trickling down.
Here’s hoping that in the Bioware/Mythic merger, Bioware won.
Say what you will about Bioware, they have created multiple classic games, and seem to have management that isn’t pathologically obsessed with a) corporate power or b) doing it their way instead of a good way.
Unfortunately, ‘better at your job’ doesn’t always mean ‘ends up in the driver’s seat’. Sometimes it’s the management hacks that play the corporate game better and end up in control.
I am sure SWOTOR will be a bitter disappointment for a large number of people because that seems to be what everyone is into these days, but if they can at least have a fun core that the rest is built upon, it’ll stick around and be worth playing.
That article sounds like a butthurt employee who got fired for not doing his job. It’s pretty sad, really.
Uh oh, should we be concerned about KOTOR according to what Louse has said?
@Shadrah
Rob Denton? Is that you?
No, but I don’t really care about some employee who only decided to come out against his company after he knew he was being laid off. If he felt THAT strongly about it, he would have done it well before this. This is nothing but a sad attempt at getting revenge on a company who’s shedding dead weight. It’s no surprise that there are layoffs. The team managing WAR were doing nothing with the game. Pitiful content updates every 6 months do not constitute as “doing your job”.
So now they’re finally getting rid of those people and they’re lashing out because of it. It’s pretty pathetic. “It’s not my fault. It’s HIS fault!” What is this guy, 10? If you don’t like it, tough. If this guy had REALLY thought what they were doing was wrong, he would have left Mythic LONG before they “let him go”.
I won’t even comment on the SWTOR info. I haven’t played it. I only know a handful of people who have and I won’t even share their comments. The only part that I feel qualified to comment on at all is WAR because of how much it ties in with a company whose game I tested and played for many years.
It’s surprising how many people can’t let go the fact that WAR wasn’t everything they wanted it to be. Yes the game was shabby at launch, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not improving. Most of the people described in EALouse’ moved on or were fired (some good people aswell), so even if everything in that post is true, WAR is under new management. The described happened in the past. Let’s not dwell on it, let’s pressure the companies (corporate giants especially) and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
The Mythic of today are working hard, listening to the players and heading into the right direction. The game has been pretty much salvaged and is now ready to be picked up by players who were previously disappointed, but I’m afraid that’s not going to happen because of players who are content with raving on about how much it sucked two years ago. So be it.
But all this is just an opinion of someone who you’d (probably) call a fanboi. Sorry to interrupt, carry on.
PS: Keen, I really hope you aren’t insinuating that EALouse is really Josh Drescher, because that would be just inappropriate. I’m probably reading too much into it.
@Blaq: For a fanboy shouldn’t you know that all the people mentioned by name still work there except for Mark Jacobs? 😉
And of course the Josh reference is a joke. There was absolutely no mention of hobo-fudge or poop-laden clouds of steam. It couldn’t be him.
Well, therein lies the problem I think. You’re still comparing it to something that it will never be. Something that it never tried to be. WAR only ever tried to bring back the same experience DAoC had in essence. I think it did that in terms of RvR. It’s one of, if not the, best PvP games available right now. Like I said before, DAoC was still JUST an RvR game. Most of what made it great was the community. Not the game itself.
This guy is clearly someone butthurt over being let go. His post isn’t filled with any citations or evidence to support anything he’s said. It’s just a bunch of insults and nay-saying. Which, right off the hitch, makes him a very non-credible person to me. He’s not just trying to give reasons why games did poorly in the start. He’s taking it upon himself to bash anything EA/Mythic and now Bioware has ever had their hands on.
@Shadrah: We’re just going back and forth. I say WAR did try to be like DAOC. You say it didn’t. As for DAOC being “Just an RvR game”, that is factually incorrect. Simply false. There’s no room for opinion there. It’s a fact that it was very much a PvE game as well.
I’ve pretty decided that SWTOR is going to be a terrible MMO already on my own. Possibly a fun RPG, much like any other Bioware offering… but I just don’t look for very compelling MMO gameplay. This potential whistleblower really doesn’t say anything I don’t already anticipate.
Good post title Keen, lol.
@Keen: We’re not going back and forth. You just keep saying that WAR was trying to be DAoC 2.0 when it wasn’t. They only ever said they wanted to capture the feel of DAoC. Also, DAoC was an RvR game. That’s what people remember about it. That’s what it has always been praised for. I’ve never seen it praised for anything else. So, to call it an RvR game isn’t anywhere close to false. Period. You loved DAoC, I understand that. However, using that as a catalyst to trash Warhammer is pretty biased. That’s the problem I have. That’s the problem I will always have.
As I’ve said. I don’t mind that you don’t like Warhammer. I get it, I do. However, I don’t like your reasoning behind calling the game bad. Because all it’s boiled down to is that because it wasn’t like DAoC it’s a bad game. It had a shakey launch. We all know this. Hell, that’s why I stopped playing after launch like many people. That’s still no reason to go in and continue to call a game bad that has improved since then. Especially because you’re comparing it to a game that it will never be. That’s all I’m tryin’ get across.
When you can be objective about the game, then I’ll accept it. Until then, I’ll continue to defend my side of things just like you will. Just like you said before. You can’t stop comparing it to DAoC because that’s what you wanted from WAR. Just as I can’t stop trying to get the point across that it’s not, or never was, another DAoC.
So in other words, we’re going back and forth. 😉 “Yes it is.” “No it isn’t.” “Yes it is.” “No it isn’t”. Very little reason to continually rehash the same thought processes.
I guess in a way. It’s not that I’m trying to argue or anything. I just have a tendancy to defend games when I see a reason that isn’t objective. I did the same for WoW when I used to play it. All of the “WoW sucks” posts that never gave actual reasons why it was bad. However, I understand where you’re coming from. I wanted WAR to offer more than it did as well. However, it’s changed since launch. On the surface it may not seem that way, but it has. Launch was riddled with bugs and crashes that really did kill the game. That’s not there anymore. That in and of itself is enough to vastly improve the game.
Impossible for me to be objective in a place where I openly express my opinion. Not to go too far into this discussion, but the crashes and bugs didn’t bother me. I care about the core mechanics, scope, and overall design. None of that has changed. None of that will change with the RvR patch. They’re just making what is currently available “better”. I don’t like what is currently available, so I don’t care for a better version. I want “Different”.
Like I keep repeating, I know that it isn’t fair to keep holding them responsible for not living up to their potential. I’m not going to pretend to like something though just because an attempt is made to better it. In this case, I don’t care about being fair.
I understand where you’re coming from, I honestly do. However, in rebuttal: I’m infinitely surprised you like WoW as much as you do. Not to say it’s a bad game or anything, but it doesn’t really offer anything “different” either. It’s generally the same “get x levels, grind for gear, profit”. That’s why I went to Warhammer. Sure, it has some of that very same stuff. It just does it in a different way.
WAR provides a feeling that what I do actually matters. WoW, after a good while, stopped offering me that very thing. That’s all I ever look for in an MMO. “Did I feel like I made a contribution?” If I don’t feel that way then I start to believe my “work” is for nothing. In Warhammer I can go out with a group of my friends and quite literally conquer the world around me if I so choose.
In WoW, if I killed the Lich King I might have gotten a shiney piece of armor. However, I didn’t actually accomplish anything. The world isn’t changed around me because of it, not really. I think that’s why I’m looking forward to Rift so much. It takes what I get from WAR and amplifies it to do exactly what I imagine. What I do in the game world literally WILL change the world around me. WAR does that to an extent as well.
By saying I wanted something different, I meant for WAR. I play WoW for entirely different reasons. I find leveling to be fun. I like the lore. WoW is currently the most polished experience with the most content for me and my friends to play.
I think you’ve played MMO’s before WoW, right? WAR is like the playschool version of the college that is DAOC’s design. You go there to have to fun, interact with others, maybe get a most basic sense of the experience but you won’t find any of the deeper meaning or substance. If you played DAOC you understand.
Logically, WAR should have come before DAOC because DAOC is a step up. That’s my opinion.
Mhm. My first ever MMO was actually Ultima Online. I loved it. I played it with quite a bit of friends, and was in one of the top guilds on my server. It was a great experience, but eventually it wasn’t enough. WoW is the same for me. I loved it from the start, but eventually it stopped being good to me.
Warhammer hasn’t really lost that feel for me. It was good from the gate for me. The bugs were not. I was one of those players who actually liked Warhammer as is. I just couldn’t play through the instabilities. However, I don’t necessarily think Warhammer is infant in any way. It’s an RvR game with some PvE mixed in. In that regard, it’s vastly superior to most games that offer the same.
War hasn’t failed. it’s still going.
First off what blows my mind about EALouse is that he/she obviously was an art designer or animator or something, and he is really really pissed about GW being draconian about their IP, and he seems pissed about the dark and gloomy feel of warhammer. bohooo there’s no dancing! oh the huge manatee. Well, tough tits, dolly!
I think WAR did a great job preserving the feel of the IP, I would have been in a furious nerd berserker rage if they had ‘cuted up’ warhammer, in fact i could have gone for more gloom, darkness and ugliness.
What bugged me about WAR, in terms of gameplay, however. Is that even the friggin’ Battlegrounds in DAOC felt more organic and interesting than WARs battles. The scenarios felt like first person shooter maps, where all that mattered were how many frags you scored. The RVR open areas were better, but there was still something off compared to the epic feel of DAOC.
@Keen
‘Logically, WAR should have come before DAOC because DAOC is a step up. That’s my opinion.’
I think the problem is that WAR was a step “forward” not “upward”. They wanted to cater to the new generation of mmo gamers, the XBOX gamers, not to the old-school mmo gamers who came from the mud era.
War has somewhere in the neighborhood of 100k active subscriptions. As far as MMO’s go, it’s on its last legs and is likely in a position where it can no longer recover. Even though the game is still running, it does not change the fact that it is metaphorically on life support.
@Keen: Paul B has been promoted and is somewhere in EA afaik, Hickman too, Jacobs was fired a long time ago. For the rest I don’t know, but it seems to me that a large part of the management (if not all) has been replaced.
@Blaq – Apparently Barnett is leading some UO/Facebook app at Mythic, Hickman is in Mythic’s upper level management, and Jacobs was fired.
Strangest of all to me was Drescher being laid off… He seemed like the most intelligent, level-headed, and all-around good guy of the bunch to me anyway. Maybe he wasn’t towing the company line? Maybe they just needed to cut a high salary position and he had the least seniority? Not sure…
@St. Pierre: I wouldn’t even say it was a step forward. To me a step in the wrong direction can’t be forward. I see it as dumbing something down to, as you say, “cater to the new generation”. That’s neither forward or up.
@Blaq: Not replaced. You just hear different names but still names that were already there. It’s the same group of people LEADING the project, minus Jacobs. The underlings have been shuffled around or let go.
@Keen – I think Jacobs recently blogged about his original inspiration for DAOC. It was based off some older game called Air Warrior (http://onlinegamesareanichemarket.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/thank-you-kesmai-i-still-miss-aw-damnit/).
Who really knows where the credit is due for WAR… does anyone actually want to step up and take credit for that game? 😛
If they purely sought to create a DAOC 2.0 they failed completely, but I don’t think this was their intention. Many in the community were begging for DAOC 2.0 but Mythic seemed to be taking a different tack. Instead, they wanted to mash up DAOC with WoW and mask it with a Warhammer IP. That recipe didn’t quite turn out.
On some level I don’t think DAOC 2.0 would have been a good business decision because it would cannibalize players from the original. I still think it would have made a much better game.
I remember the day when it was reported that the third realm was being scratched because they could not get it right. True or not it killed the game for many people and it sure did kill it for me.
I would love to see a game that had three realms/sides again.
More realms typically does not = better game. While it might be nice in theory, the more realms you have the more chaotic and segregated a game becomes. Politics ramp up to extreme highs and you will always have that one faction that everyone gangs up against for the easy win. Two factions is perfect. You don’t have two sides killing another. You don’t have 4 sides killing another. You have two factions that hate each other. That’s all it takes for all out war.
A third faction would have heavily hindered the direction WAR was taking. ORvR is the soul of the game. It’s already bad enough when one faction has a population advantage. Imagine two factions against one. The only time that ever works is when that third faction is the strongest of the three. Sure, that’s how it SHOULD work.. but it rarely does with today’s generation of gamers. We want easy wins. Which typically means picking on the little guy.
@Andarien: You do realize that 100-300k is the average subscriber base for most MMOs right now, right? WoW is the only exception to that rule that I know of. As I’ve said, and as many have said.. WAR’s numbers are growing. Not decreasing. If the game were on it’s last leg it would be shut down already. They’re obviously making money. No company lets a game roll on that is leaking money.
Loved Daoc, still play it from time to time but can’t afford to run 2 accounts for the buffbot that you need to compete. Did the reinlistment to War and i really enjoy the rvr. But i’ve been avoiding the city seiges that made me quit before.
You can’t shoot for DAoC 2.0 or claim the ‘spirit’ of DAoC if you don’t incorporate the one design decision that set DAoC apart from every other MMO – 3 factions. Honestly, the majority of old DAoC players knew WAR wouldn’t be the game they wanted the second that 3rd faction got cut. WAR sucked for alot of reasons, but number 1 for me, if you focus on objective based, open world pvp you better have an EFFECTIVE way to control population balance. No math formula or smart developer has yet come up with a better solution to balance population anywhere near as effective as letting the players do it themselves (AKA 3 factions).
More factions does not, and never will, control population balance. You have have 10 factions in a game, and if 6 of them decide to join together.. guess what.. that’s still an imbalance of population. Same for 3 factions. You’re almost never going to have just three factions doing their own thing. You’re going to generally have one dominant faction that the two weaker have to team against. Or one weak faction that the two other will do the same to for the easy win.
This isn’t the days of DAoC anymore. People will always go for the easy win over the long victory.
people will always go for the best rewards. If the easy win is the most rewarding (WAR, in a nutshell), then yes they go for the easy win.
If you make the long, tough victory the most rewarding… folks will go for that.
WAR screwed the pooch on this in multiple ways. Zone locking mechanics. Battlefield Objective timers and rewards. All hugely wrong-headed design.
There’s nothing wrong about zone locking. When you lock a zone it belongs to you. That’s how it should be. When you conquer an area it’s yours. Also, long victories will NEVER be rewarding in today’s generation of gaming. WoW doesn’t have 12 million players because it’s pretty. It has them because it’s quick and easy to get into.
Besides, spending anywhere from 4-6 hours in ORvR just to get the reward of a city siege is long enough. Any longer than that and it wouldn’t be worth it.
Shadrah, I sincerely mean no offense man, but the more you post about WAR and DAoC the more evident it is that you don’t really understand why it is that those who were so enamored with DAoC were so utterly disappointed with WAR. I don’t want to assume you have never played DAoC, but it seems like you have not. It’s like Keen said…it was more of a step backward than anything. At. It’s. Core. I’ve spent way more time talking about this with all old school DAoC buddies than I should be and there is nothing short of a fundamental re-design from the ground up that could save it in our minds.
These systems should be evolving and improving over time. Developers and designers should be learning from their predecessors, improving upon their successes, and learning from their mistakes. That process seems to have stopped after WoW. The one exception might be EVE, but it’s kind of a whole other animal.
Three factions was/is amazing in DAoC. You can say it doesn’t matter all you want. But, I can tell you that in practice, it DID matter. I saw how it impacted RvR whenever I played and I saw what a hole it left in WAR’s version of RvR by not having that.
You might like WAR and thousands of others might as well. However, 1.2 million people bought the game. Now it’s down to 4 active servers. I’d be surprised if more than 1 in 10 of those who bought the game have stuck around this long. I think it’s fair to say that over 1 million consumers spoke with their wallets and said WAR was lacking, disagreeing with you and the rest who have stuck around. It took DAoC ALMOST 10 YEARS to get to the same point subscription-wise that WAR is after 2 years! And this is in an era when ~250,000 subscriptions was considered phenomenal.
I understand why some people might like it. I played it for about 5 months all the while trying to convince myself I loved it. However, for those of us who experienced DAoC, it is easier to see what it really is: a dumbed down, hollowed out, “purtied up” version of the game it could have been. It’s more like an online lobby FPS game with heavy RPG elements influencing gameplay than any MMORPG I’d ever recognize.
Not that I am bitter about it or anything…
@Shadrah: “You’re going to generally have one dominant faction that the two weaker have to team against.”
That’s the whole point of 3 factions, man. Not that 3 factions suddenly guarantees that each one will the same population, but that the two weak ones have some recourse when one faction becomes dominant.
So, you’re right, more is not better. But 3 is better than 2, 5, 6, or any other number.
Except in Gallahad server where the damn hibs and mids teamed up against the albs no matter who was stronger.
@ jay p
HAHA! I played Midgard Galahad. At least when I played, Albion had a huge population advantage on that server and I agree that Mid and Hib would routinely team up against Alb. Of course, it made things interesting when we thought had a deal and then the Hibs would back out, or worse, attack us where they knew we’d be vulnerable.
The Albs could come with with these massive zergs with numbers that we could never hope to attain. Also, there was the perception that Mythic favored Albion since the game was called “Camelot” and their realm was completed first with more classes and polish. It came to the point that most in Midgard resented the Albs, and if we came across a Hib and an Alb in the frontier, the Alb always died first.
But in the end there was a fair amount of back and forth always going on between all sides it seemed to me.
Good times.
@Sisy
That’s my point. Even in that situation, the only recourse is to either even the population to give the two a chance by forming an alliance. Or overrun the population of the strong by forming an alliance. It’s really no different than it is here. An alliance can be made of 15 factions and it’s still one allied front. Normally held under the same name. Which is no different than a single faction. So now matter how you look at it. It still comes out to one side against another.
I agree the Hibs had no honor. Hey isn’t Keen named after the Lurikeen? Hmmmmmmmmmm……lol
I am, but I hail from Midgard. 😉
Ah yes the mids. One of my happiest moments on DAOC was when i finally learned how to kill a bonedancer on my infiltrator. I hated bonedancers…..
Shadrah, even if we assume you are correct with you analysis (which I disagree with), can’t you see how much more interesting it gets with more factions? It doesn’t really work as black and white as you describe. These are not alliances where you actually click a button and declare who is you ally or who is your enemy. They’re all still enemies, they just might agree not to attack one another for a given period or coordinate attacks for mutual advantage.
Can’t you see the possibilities with politics and personalities that start to influence the realm war with multiple factions? You have the possibility of shifting or short-term or tentative or even begrudging alliances due to circumstances and then betrayals, etc.
These can’t happen when you just have two sides perpetually bashing each other. Believe me, there was still plenty of that going on too. In addition, not every alliance and/or guild was aware of all the dealings and truces, etc.
So, for example, the mids would be running around in the frontier and come across a hib zerg. Instinct tells you to open fire, but “Hey, isn’t there a truce?”
“Hmmm…well, do these particular hibs know about it?”
“Is it still on?”
“Even so, it looks like they are headed to Caer Erasleigh that we’ve claimed.”
“That truce was 2 days ago, maybe something happened?”
“Oh, SHIT! they’re all over us!”
“KILL DEM HIBBIES!!!!”
Granted, it wasn’t always that way and the frequency of truces and their strength ebbed and flowed as much as the realm war did. But, it’s so much more fun than, “I see red, now it’s dead!”
First off. Politics are better left for C-Span. If I wanted to play a game for the politics of it I would just follow the election instead. I play a game to enjoy the content. Whatever that may be. I don’t really care about the alliances, so forth and so on, that Joe Blow A (that I don’t even like in the first place) made with Tom Anyperson B (that I don’t even know well enough to ally with in the first place) just so they could overrun random nation Q. I like simple. Simple is vastly better than having to deal with the constant headache that are the everyday human problems.
I play games to get away from those for a while. Not just to live another life in them.
That’s cool. I understand your position. I enjoy that from certain games as well.
But, to me at least, it begs the question, why do you expect that from your MMOs? It seems that level of, as you put it, simplicity should be left to the the FPS or the Wii platformer or fighting game genre. Especially considering that the fundamental foundation of an MMO (in my view, but maybe this is where the disconnect is) is to play with and/or against other people in an online persistent world. Take away the “politics”, and you have single player games in my opinion…
Another point about what you said. In DAoC, it wasn’t “Anyperson B” or “Random Nation Q.” It was your Alliance leader or guild leader or the ENEMY ALBS or that damn HIB GUILD that we’re always butting heads with, often times people you knew, if not directly, at least by reputation.
I know we’re obviously not going to convince each other, but maybe we can eek out a bit of mutual understanding from all this.
@Shadrah:
“That’s my point. Even in that situation, the only recourse is to either even the population to give the two a chance by forming an alliance. Or overrun the population of the strong by forming an alliance…. Which is no different than a single faction. So now matter how you look at it. It still comes out to one side against another.”
You’re oversimplifying it – it’s *completely* different than a single faction. With 3 factions, if balance shifts and one realm becomes “flavor of the month” and more populous / powerful, the alliances can change to adjust, which can never happen with two factions. In theory, if all the Albion players suddenly rolled Midgard because a super strong class gets added in an expansion – as often happens, look at the huge shift of PvP players in WoW from Horde to Alliance and back again as racials were changed – then all that needs to happen is for Albion and the Hibs to forge a new alliance and keep Midgard in check. The players are no longer at the mercy of the developer’s month-long development cycle to correct population shifts.
So even if we accept the faulty argument that there are “effectively” 2 sides in a 3 faction setup, the point remains that these two sides can be dynamically rebalanced *by the players* in response to shifts in strength, making this model clearly superior to a 2 faction system.
And even if *you* don’t want to be involved in the politics – which are always going to be a huge part of an MMO – you will still feel the benefits of the alliance leaders and guild leaders being involved. And let’s be honest, these “politics” are just natural human interactions colored by the internet – you’ll never get rid of them as long as you’re allowing players to play together, why not work with them rather than flail around trying to prevent people from being human?
@Sisy: It’s not that I’m trying to prevent anything, at all. I just don’t care to deal with the politics of a game. That’s not interesting or entertaining to me. That’s too much like what I deal with on a daily basis. If I want a game to feel like real life, then I’ll just do something in real life. If you get my drift. Which is why I steer away from drama stirs in video games. I’m not there to hear why you hate each other. I’m there to enjoy myself.
@Bal: Also, I do understand where you’re coming from. However, that’s still what it boils down to. When you think about it. Alliances are rarely formed at the behest of the population. They’re generally formed by nameless (or named) figureheads to further their own agendas. Such as it’s been in war for a while. Gaming is no different, honestly. Just because you might know the guy (Anyperson B) doesn’t necessarily mean I do. Also, politics have no place in video games. It causes unneeded drama in most cases (In my experience at least).
@Shadrah: “That article sounds like a butthurt employee who got fired for not doing his job. It’s pretty sad, really.”
Sorry but after this you cannot be taken seriously. Did you even bothered to read the his/her post? The problem is EA outsourcing any and all art to China and getting rid of the local talents – regardless of their accomplishments, skills and behavior.
@Trotten: Actually, I did read it. All it was was some guy pissing and moaning about losing his job. If he’s really felt THAT strongly about what was going on he wouldn’t have waited until they canned him to say anything. He got fired, so now he wants payback for it. Boohoo. Get over it. The entire blog post was nothing more than one long, ranting insult.
@Shadrah: Right, because we are all financial secure enough to publicly denounce our employer, thus ensuring we do lose our job even if it wasnt in jeopardy before.
I dont know about you, but I have a wife and 2 small children to think of. There are many things about my company that I greatly dislike, but Im not going to lose my job outing them over those issues.
Therein lies the problem. If you greatly dislike things about your company and you do nothing, then how do things ever get better? Sitting in a cubicle wasting your life away under a so-called tyrannical thumb (as this guy would lead us to believe) isn’t life. At all. The gaming industry is booming. It’s not that hard to find other opportunities. When you get fired, and then you come out bashing the company that fired you.. how does that really look? Is it constructive? Hell no.
It’s nothing more than a rant. A pitiful one at that. Why do you think this guy remained anonymous? Was it to protect the job he already lost? Or to protect himself from being called out on it? Think about that. It obviously wasn’t to protect his job. All he did was bash the company that let him go, while providing no real proof that any of this happened. It’s slander. Plain and simple.
I’ve been in the position of taking a stand against hostile management. I was lucky and the guy backed off of me, but it made life very uncomfortable from then on and I eventually left due to stress. A friend of mine who worked with me wasn’t so lucky and he was immediately fired.
My big take away from that whole experience was that you better make damn sure you can effect some kind of substantive change or have an exit strategy if you make it that clear to a hostile management team that you aren’t toeing the line. Otherwise, you might just get yourself fired quick for some bogus made-up reason or make your life a living hell day in and day out from that moment forward.
Furthermore, if you’ve got to put food on the table for others and pay for a roof over your family’s head you really have to evaluate the consequences. Other people are counting on you. You can’t just go on some personal crusade to “reform the company” that’s going to get you fired and then say, “Sorry wife and kids, that guy was a real tyrant and I had to let him know. Otherwise, nothing will ever change there and living under a tyrant like that really isn’t life to me. Hopefully, we qualify for food stamps.” See how well that line goes over.
At the time my friend was fired, the economy was good and jobs were aplenty. My friend found one quickly. But, I can’t believe you would seriously say that it’s not hard to find other opportunities in the current economic environment. Do you read the news? Watch TV? We’ve got a 9.6% unemployment rate. It hasn’t been that high in about 30 years.
I just graduated with my JD in May. I didn’t find a job until last week and I consider myself damn lucky I found one. Many of my classmates are still unemployed. A month or so ago I applied for a part-time position with a brand new start-up general practice firm. I was applying for part-time positions because I was applying for ANY job that popped up on the radar screen simply because sometimes it was WEEKS between job postings and I was getting desperate. During the interview, she informed me that 150 people had applied for this 20 hour a week job.
You gotta be kidding me man. Anyone who has a job right now would be a fool not to hold onto with a white-knuckled grip.
By the way, truth is an absolute defense to slander.
@Shadrah – you just like to argue me thinks…
@Keen – I hail from Midgard as well! 🙂 Btw, me thinks Shadrah didn’t play DAOC very much or wasn’t playing the same game as you and I. I agree with you very much.