|
Post by phillip on Oct 30, 2006 1:43:46 GMT
Both Phillip and tant are not really in sync with things these days. Phillip goes around bashing anyone who questions EII's ability while still burning Bowman and Tulga at the stake. He will be bashing EII hard in the next couple of months while still playing the game and claiming he can bash them because he is waiting for another game. You said that 2 months ago. Now I got 2 more months. Yay! Yeah so I'm not a fan of DB. I believe that Horizons is a sad chapter in the MMO world because of him. Sue me. Show me. All the hypocritical I've posted. All the nice things I said about EI. Show me. You know, I've asked you before to prove stuff to me but you can never, and the reason is, your statements are usually in future tense. hahaha is that for real? look what you just wrote Thanks for the laugh.
|
|
|
Post by slaytanic on Oct 30, 2006 2:53:07 GMT
I wonder how long the link to this will remain on the Horizons forums. I wonder if I fall into the vocal minorty that is spewing lies about EI. One will likely find I have been classified as one of the above . Tulga never fed me a line. Ei ( ei oh ) did , thrice ( holds up three fingers ) I recieved emails that my accounts had been cancelled and no subsequent billing would take place , sorry kiddies , I was billed on those accounts AND emailed thrice ( holds up three fingers ) that the problem had been fixed. Refunded I was , but not thrice ( you know the three fingers ) but twice , BBB was notified and credait card cancelled , cut up and garbaged. So who are the liars to me ? I am interested in reading part two of this article for my own curiosity.
|
|
|
Post by maddwarf on Oct 30, 2006 12:24:11 GMT
Phillip we can agree to disagree. Really I do hate to stooping to throwing insults at one another. But I question your stance on how Tulga was the curse on Horizons and how EII is any better. 3 Months is plenty of time to see how competant EII is. So far I have to say they haven't demonstrated any competance and have inspired no real faith in anyone who cares to stare reality in the face. They could of course change this but I doubt they will.
But I got ONE HELL of a PM from someone on the official boards. It was eye opening as to the back dealings of the sale and how things went on. I will not post it here due to that being inappropriate.
But I am just going to say this. EII is just as clueless as they come. They are naive in what it actually takes to run an MMO. They I can see clearly now are in way over their heads. As well if we say that Tulga and its CEO were lying to the playerbase on a constant basis. I can say that EII will probably top any lie ever spewed by Bowman.
Ophelea ? I never believed a word she said. But I also tempered that with the knowledge that she actually believed everything said by Bowman. There are worse crimes then being duped by someone such as that.
Bowman ? he just knew of no other way to bail water on a game that was always sinking and always had another torpedo in the water to sink it. I believe that torpedo to finally be EII.
What I find amazing is the continued support horizons recieves from its very small non profitable playerbase. I guess we should commend such loyalty ? But with everything that playerbase has put up with from Tulga to EII Horizons just was never that good nor was it ever on the verge of being that good. Horizons was never allowed to just be a game to the people that played it and have played it. No indeed Horizons was never that good and never could be.
|
|
|
Post by woooooooo on Oct 30, 2006 12:34:38 GMT
Then why bring it up at all? If your not going to prove that it happened, theres no point in bringing it up because you have no credibility. I could sit around and say "I know George Bush's motives. I got a helluva note from him about it, but I cant show it to you." and it would mean nothing.
You guys just need to realize that this game has been slipping down the ladder, 3 and 4 rungs at a time. Guys like Amon and Smeg did what they could, but this thing started down the ladder back in Jan of 04, smacking its chin on every rung on the way down.
And the progression has been DA -> AE -> Tulga -> EII. Sometime in the middle of AE's tenure as the 'lorekeeper' for Horizons, the fan base eroded like a salt lick in a Hurricane. Everyone else has been clinging to this sinking rat infested boat while rescue ships go sailing by unaware.
One only needs to go back to the days when Tazoon dot com and all the rumors that flew there, and eventually their demise. That signalled the true downhill slide of Horizons and its fans, and most of us, havent looked back, happily immersed in our EQ2/Lineage II/Guild Wars/Coh-CoV/WoW ever since.
Hows that for some monday fucking metaphors?
|
|
|
Post by ophelea on Oct 30, 2006 17:38:18 GMT
Wow, somehow you all missed the point of my request.
I didn't say don't call me a "bad name". I just asked not to be lumped in with Nazi War Criminals and Bush's lackeys.
And for the record, I knew David Bowman as a person long before I worked for him. This gave me - at the office - the singular outlook on who he is as a person. It meant that I knew when he was lying to himself because he needed to to justify what he had lost (his family through spending too damned much time on this game), lying to me because he felt embarrassed about his past (and I'm not talking about games or the games industry, I'm talking about things between friends) and when the truth he told was the truth he believed.
Remember, two people can believe an incident occurred two completely different ways and NEITHER be correct on facts. But, without a video AND audio tape to correct them, both accounts are correct.
Also, David never intentionally lied to me. Or not so I believed him. I knew him too well for it so he couldn't. I didn't work for him, I worked WITH him. I was contract labor and could leave at will. There were many times he and I went head to head at the top of our voices - something that long term employees didn't do with their "boss". He did have final say, but our working relationship was different.
Ask Amon about some of our public rows. I'm no dupe.
And another thing, you all seem to COMPLETELY miss the mark on what exactly an OCR/CM does. It's not our job to regurgitate what we're told. It's our job to play "chain link fence" between the players and the developers.
I was brought in to make it possible for the developers (especially David and Amon) to lessen their postings. I was brought in to catch trends in player concerns and get them to the developers before they got out of hand. My job was to talk to anyone responsible for a question and either get them to answer it or find out the answer and answer in a consistent manner as the answer was given to me.
David and Amon (and several others including Illyist, Reyem, etc) would post responses and it was my job to make sure we were ALL on the same page and that tone was consistent, fewer spelling errors and grammatical mistakes were made, etc.
I simply oversaw the communications that went forth from the team. And yes, at times I wrote them. But there was more than once that those communications were a 3-4 day compilation of discussions between 4-8 people that had to come to a consensus and be agreed upon and everyone had to approve the final draft.
SO....this idea that I EVER said "nothing has changed regarding T6" is false. I said "nothing has changed regarding the design" because I saw the concern, went to Smeglor, Amon and David and asked. That was my job.
Again, I do not care whether you like or villify me. If everyone liked me, I wouldn't have been doing my job well because there is simply no way I could please everyone all of the time.
But I did and do take my job seriously.
This is not my first foray into CM....nor has it been my last.
I do not hold David Bowman on high as a CEO, but he's a DAMED good producer and an AMAZING Creative Director and like Smeglor and Amon have both stated, I would work with him again in a heartbeat in ONE of those capacities. He could not handle all three as they are in conflict and there in lies the failure.
And I know him far better than any one of you here comprehend because we have a friendship that extends beyond gaming which means I know his faults and I'm not afraid to tell him when he's wrong (nor he I) - and we do.
So....get your facts straight. Then give me my monniker!
|
|
|
Post by woooooooo on Oct 30, 2006 17:43:31 GMT
Didnt you take Monniker's job?
|
|
|
Post by rottencabbage on Oct 30, 2006 18:21:27 GMT
Actually Ophelea, A retired navy friend of mine once said to me. "If you don't piss someone off, then your not working/doing your job" So to this day I still piss people off
|
|
|
Post by vinea on Oct 30, 2006 21:28:10 GMT
Oddly I found the moniker Baghdad Ophelia to be funny and not linked to atrocities, war criminals and Bush lackeys (bush lackeys? Now who's making an unfounded linkages? Cheney is a jerk but he's no Nazi). Then again, I'm not on the receiving end.
ObDis: I've never read anything official written by Ophelia as far as I know. RR (and the occasional links to other forums that appear here) is about all the Hz news I care to read.
Vinea
PS Is there a fight in PvP? That place is under used for a rants site.
|
|
|
Post by Pharcellus on Oct 30, 2006 22:32:53 GMT
Wow, somehow you all missed the point of my request. I didn't say don't call me a "bad name". I just asked not to be lumped in with Nazi War Criminals and Bush's lackeys. ..and NO ONE ever did. Are you really this dense? You're the one making the connection to Nazis (and Bush lackeys? I musta missed that one). I haven't seen anyone yet even REMOTELY suggest that you practiced genocide (except maybe of common sense and egalitarian values), killed anyone, tortured anyone (except maybe with the 1,000 dull pokes of your rapier wit), or otherwise committed any atrocities (except maybe the HIDEOUSLY POOR attempt at pretending you were a CM). Yay for you and DB! Too bad that means precisely __DICK__ to the discussion. Yeah, but then there's the situation where you claim something CONTRARY TO THE REAL EVIDENCE WHILE IT IS PRESENT. THAT's what gets you labelled "spin doctor" and "liar". No, I have never missed the mark on what a CM does, BECAUSE I HAVE FUCKING BEEN THERE, you twit. No, your JOB is to be the PLAYER'S ADVOCATE to the developers. Communicating all the problems, issues, AND praise as need be, and championing their cause, because developers are typically myopic, deaf, and often quite full of their own bullshit, and they need someone who CAN get into their face and let them know when they are fucking up. Not that that has to be the CM's direct responsibility, but he/she should have the ear (and gonads, if necessary) of the person whose responsibility it is. Then maybe you should have done more of that, rather than telling players that white is black while they are stuck waiting at a goddamn zebra crossing. It isn't false. You said it, and the context was quite clear from your message. That quote in my previous message is YOUR WORDS VERBATIM. So, unless you're speaking a language using English words which have completely different meanings than their English homophones, it's quite clear that you stated "nothing has changed". However, please do continue to spin it as you like; I know it's a hard habit to break, but if you're not very good at it, it only continues to make you look like a twit. Surprisingly enough, when you are a GOOD CM, most everyone DOES like you; the staff as well as the customers sing your praises, and those few that actually act as your detractors have little to no basis for their claims other than they "just don't like you". Personally, I don't know you well enough to like or dislike you, but I damn sure as fuck know that I DISliked you as a CM. Take some advice from another fellow CM: shape up or find another line of work. What else would anyone expect a "long time (non-MMO) friend of DB" to say about him? Uhh, we have our "facts" straight; perhaps you need to get a grip on them, "Baghdad" Ophelea.
|
|
|
Post by phillip on Oct 30, 2006 23:05:44 GMT
Phillip we can agree to disagree. Really I do hate to stooping to throwing insults at one another. But I question your stance on how Tulga was the curse on Horizons and how EII is any better. I haven't said EI is better. They haven't done anything on gameplay so I don't know. Yes I know they got billing issues (check). It may take anywhere from 6 months to 1 year before we see anything on gameplay and it was that which DB failed (read Smegs responses and add them up). Opinions vary. three months of utter failure vs. five plus years of utter failure...hmm. I could see your point. It's about even, huh?I could doubt EI and speak in future tense like you, but I won't. I don't see the point for doing so. After Verio, I really don't look into that sort of thing anymore. Welcome to the business world. Was that in future tense again? Hell you are probably right. Or not. Fuck if I know. I don't find it profound to spew the probably's on the official site. That is true, say, maybe I'll just stop pouncing her from now on. In fact, I'll call her: Spiffy. Yeah, blame it on the torpedo, hehe. Yeah ok becuz of EI, HZ will die? Don't you think that Baker was gona pull the plug regardless of if he gets a buyer or not? HZ was always sinking, and EI is trying to save it with a rubber duckie. The big thing is gameplay. Done right, and it's all good. You got a formula for all types of players here. Only if done right, though. In the past few years development has been weak, and for the meek. No offense on Smeg or any others but the depth of the game, craft & adv, and what defines the game, the war, went downhill since release. The Golden Age, with those nifty events, were great but, haunted by lag and client issues, world model etc. Threw it off. I don't get it. 2.5 years DB had Horizons, and couldn't swing the client issue? 3 more years after release and yes, someone was working on it? Yeah there's a file somewhere guy was making a new client. Yeah ok I haven't heard that before about 50 times. When Smeg said it was due to incompetency of the devs prior to launch that was responsible for the problems, i fucking knew it. It had to be. Yes I was one to say over and again HZ was run by amateurs. Over 5 years is an amble amount of time. I mean c'mon. Oh fuck I didn't think of them cowbells. Dammit I'm sorry! So how to fix it after those devs left/fired/let go? I know, promote everyone and their grandmas to dev status. Kick ass. You, guy on phone, what's you name? Ok starting today you will work on crafting content ok? Here's a nametag.. Horizons is something we all wanted to succeed. It failed due to human error. Some want it trash, some want another chance.
|
|
|
Post by maddwarf on Oct 31, 2006 0:37:53 GMT
The big thing is gameplay. Done right, and it's all good. You got a formula for all types of players here. Only if done right, though. In the past few years development has been weak, and for the meek. No offense on Smeg or any others but the depth of the game, craft & adv, and what defines the game, the war, went downhill since release. The Golden Age, with those nifty events, were great but, haunted by lag and client issues, world model etc. Threw it off. I don't get it. 2.5 years DB had Horizons, and couldn't swing the client issue? 3 more years after release and yes, someone was working on it? Yeah there's a file somewhere guy was making a new client. Yeah ok I haven't heard that before about 50 times. When Smeg said it was due to incompetency of the devs prior to launch that was responsible for the problems, i fucking knew it. It had to be. Yes I was one to say over and again HZ was run by amateurs. Over 5 years is an amble amount of time. I mean c'mon. Oh fuck I didn't think of them cowbells. Dammit I'm sorry! So how to fix it after those devs left/fired/let go? I know, promote everyone and their grandmas to dev status. Kick ass. You, guy on phone, what's you name? Ok starting today you will work on crafting content ok? Here's a nametag.. Horizons is something we all wanted to succeed. It failed due to human error. Some want it trash, some want another chance. now this I can agree with you on all of it. Well just about all of it. Yes DB and Crew had the game for 2.5 years. It may have started to turn the corner money wise according to some. But problem is the game was still losing money and the guy that was losing money was done with it all. Horizons HAD potential. But it has been squandered away. It has lost opportunities to really hit it big over and over again.l I can say now with Tulga gone though any chance is gone. Cause I just do not see EII having the gnads to pull this off. So yeah I guess EII will be the final torpedo in the water for this game. My super secret PM ? Nah not so super secret. But I suppose I shouldn't have mentioned it. I mentioned to the person in question that they oughta post it all here. But looking back on it most of it has already been said and I wouldn't want anyone to get into legal trouble over it all. none of this though doesn't really matter now does it ?
|
|
|
Post by FrithRae on Oct 31, 2006 3:11:08 GMT
nope it doesn't....after a million threads we keep going though...
stupid humans....
|
|
Kulamata
Unemployed
Mane Man
Posts: 1,362
|
Post by Kulamata on Oct 31, 2006 7:29:34 GMT
A very interesting post Ophelea;finally a portrait by an acute observer of DB sufficiently complex to be describing an actual human being. Thank you.
I hadn't known about his family; I'm sorry to hear that. And his skills in two out of four of his areas (I'd add tech group manager as well, if only by default) dovetails with how it seemed externally.
The sophistry, hairsplitting, bickering, quibbling, backbiting and sheer pettiness of much of the rest of these threads is just amazing. Depressing too.
It's pretty common for poorly managed companies to have trouble handling the conflicting needs of the short and long term. AFAIK Tango was certainly the prime candidate for the rewrite, which he was doing; but we also know that he could not work on it uninterruptedly; I seem to remember that he had to be moved over to help with some of the lair technical problems. And of course he had to put out some other fires as well. Further, I would expect that the rewrite had to be approved by Chris B as well, and VC's are not noted for their long term outlook. (Usually their long term planning is who to have lunch with next Tuesday.)
|
|
|
Post by maddwarf on Oct 31, 2006 13:02:10 GMT
David Bowman was ruled by his dream. A dream of having his own successful MMO. Human or not it was obvious he was intent on obtaining this dream through any means possible. It sad really and I can understand how this would effect him personally. Many people have sacrificed family for professional goals and I pity him and feel bad for his family. But once again I reiterate then that Horizons was never good enough nor had the potential any longer to be a smash hit. Any mmo has maybe 6 months after it releases to hit it big. The most the game could ever really hope for in this fantastically competitive industry was for a small profit. But horizons lost its chance at premiere status the very second it launched the way it did. That is whats all so sad about any personal sacrifices he made for the game.
It just couldn't have been worth it. But humanize him or not he was guilty of spewing forth a great many falsehoods in the hope of maintaining and chasing his dreams.
|
|
|
Post by vinea on Oct 31, 2006 20:59:37 GMT
But hten I could point to the hypocricacy that was dumped on me when I compared people enjoying the pain of others (by clapping as Hz falls) to going and viewing ogrish.com and then Vinea called me a Cath. Ultimately offensive, but apparently Ophelia is feeling the same that the monikor is lumping her in with things that are far and away worse than what she's doing. Missed this earlier. The comparison with Cath isn't your opinion of whatever (which you are entitled to and frankly I don't remember anyway) but your asinine presumption that folks that disagree with you are degenerates in some manner and inferior to your lofty station. In simple words your belief that your shit don't stink like everyone elses regardless of egalitarian protestations otherwise. Besides there is a world of difference between naming someone Baghdad Ophelia (which is equated to lying in such grand proportions as to be hilarious as opposed to death squads...that would be equating Ophelia with Gobbels in some manner) and equating the failure of some two-bit game that barely anyone plays with real pain. I've bit my tongue a few times these last months not to make snide comments in the interests of peace but WTF...this is PvP and you're a real bitch that usually hides it well. Don't like being compared to Cath? Don't be like her (she hid it pretty well too except for a few choice episodes). Hard to change basic personality though. Vinea
|
|