Having been a QA Tester, I agree! Great QA are really hard to find, and super valuable, especially the ones that are technically apt (unfortunately, those types also rise up quickly to better positions).
If I had it my way, QA Testers would be paid roughly the same as other Developers, but also have higher expectations and criteria. I can't tell you how many QA Testers I've worked with just don't deserve their job b/c they're seen as disposable, so HR doesn't really bother to test for higher competency and skill...
"Players haven't been badmouthing EVE's recent development direction out of spite or an irrational want to see the game fail but rather out of a desperate desire to see it and the company that gave it life succeed."
Heh, not me! I love seeing these guys suffering a little bit more. I've met quite a lot CCP Developers in the past 2 years both at GDC and PAX 2010 / 2011 and 95% of them were COMPLETE assholes and arrogant douchebags.
Yes I'm spiteful, but Karma is a bitch!
So I kick my heels and laugh with giddiness to see the world paying them back with shitty events for the way they treat others.
(My heart does go out for all the developers that go affected though, that might have been among the 5% of the Devs that were truly nice and genuine. I hope they will find work at WAY better studios!)
I was definitely swayed. Played in the SWTOR Beta, and whenever I sign into Vindictus, or WoW, or Eve Online, or any other MMO I've played in the last year or 2, I get bored pretty immediately and miss the story-aspect ofr ToR.
Course, SWTOR isn't going to satisfy everyone, but it was well-made and a lot more polished then I expected.
I don't see this happening at all. As much as SWTOR is going to be a big presence in a few months, only MMO's that are releasing around the same time-line will be affected.
Here's why.
Take Everquest and Everquest II. Both were big games that has since lost a huge portion of it's population to MMO's like WoW, AoC, City of Heroes, etc...
However, it's at that point where it is no longer affected by new MMO's because the people who wanted to leave have already left, and those that remain like it more then enough to be swayed differently, regardless of newer mechanics, game-play, etc...
The same goes for AoC. The people who have gotten disillusioned, disliked the game, or didn't want to stay have already left. The majority of the population that has remained play AoC because they legitimately enjoy it, and it's very likely a game like SWTOR will change their minds that much.
You see this in every major type of game. The very small amount of hardcore players will inevitably keep the gaming running for a while, even with bigger releases coming out.
Lastly, you shift the argument to the ease of stealing, but that counterpoint has no relevancy here, due to general unlikelihood.
Unless these guys had the most terrible luck in the world, I HIGHLY doubt, and would bet money on it, that there would be NO possible way that a back-up on an External Drive, Cloud Storage, SVN Revision Control, Web Hosting, Flash Drive, etc... could have all been stolen at the exactly same time.
1) Cloud Storage / Version Control / Web Hosting, etc... are all online hosted and stored. There was no way thieves would go after it unless they were specifically aiming for it. (Doesn't seem like the case, and even then, you have enough of a time that you would be able to recover files, as services like Version Control keep their own back-ups for you.
2) External Drive / Flash Drive, etc... Keep multiple backups on several different drives. Unless they went for ALL of them, yeah I highly doubt someone's going to try to pick your pocket for a Flash Drive. That's just a silly thing to even mention.
In general, this had nothing to do with their laziness of being home, or their sense of security. It was their lack of preparedness and organization period.
Don't try to come up with excuses for people. They need to learn from their mistakes, and honestly, suffer for their incompetence.
I don't buy that, home or not, they were working on a professional project that had a community backing. It's Game Development 101 to keep back-ups, etc... (hell, this is shit we learn in HS and College, even for things as silly as an essay for class).
I work on game projects both with colleagues / friends, as well as myself, and I always have back-ups, whether it's on some sort of Cloud Storage (like Amazon / Dropbox), or external hard-drives, etc...
Honestly, when I look at this from a professional perspective, all I can think of is a complete lack of foresight, organization and management. Also does not instill a lot of faith in me as a consumer.
It sucks, I can totally understand losing work, but man, something this big, they better learn from this lesson and pick up the slack. :P
Ace Combat has always been a niche game, targeted towards Arcade loving Flight gamers. It was never in-depth enough for Simulators, and "casual" fans have no idea about the series :P.
I've been a fan of AC since #4, and I'll continue to play them because no other studio has been able to offer the same kind of experience. (Hawx was an okay outside attempt, but was still nowhere near the same.)
Haha, you must be one of those players who actually never really played Ace Combat. Tell me one game in the series that didn't have scripted dog-fights?
At least there is now a little bit of variety with Helicopters and AC-130s.
Umm... You should read actual Game Development news instead of "Gaming News" sites if you want to comment about CERT processes.
Apple, MS, Sony, etc... every major platform has pretty difficult Certification processes in place that are meant to weed out bad games (and help make sure complete games make it to the consumer). The horror stories I do hear from Devs typically involve problems on the Dev end... (and this is from experience working as QA and w/ the CERT Teams).
It's easy to blame CERT and all these rules placed by Publishers when you're a small studio, but honestly, I'm sure the issues are split 50/50 between this Blow guy and MS, especially when it came to Braid.
I highly doubt his game was "perfect" in terms of development.
TERA exalts its game testing team
Oct 27th 2011 7:26PM (Massively)Having been a QA Tester, I agree! Great QA are really hard to find, and super valuable, especially the ones that are technically apt (unfortunately, those types also rise up quickly to better positions).
If I had it my way, QA Testers would be paid roughly the same as other Developers, but also have higher expectations and criteria. I can't tell you how many QA Testers I've worked with just don't deserve their job b/c they're seen as disposable, so HR doesn't really bother to test for higher competency and skill...
EVE Evolved: The human casualties
Oct 24th 2011 7:57PM (Massively)Heh, not me! I love seeing these guys suffering a little bit more. I've met quite a lot CCP Developers in the past 2 years both at GDC and PAX 2010 / 2011 and 95% of them were COMPLETE assholes and arrogant douchebags.
Yes I'm spiteful, but Karma is a bitch!
So I kick my heels and laugh with giddiness to see the world paying them back with shitty events for the way they treat others.
(My heart does go out for all the developers that go affected though, that might have been among the 5% of the Devs that were truly nice and genuine. I hope they will find work at WAY better studios!)
BioWare says gamers find it hard to go back to other MMOs after playing SWTOR
Oct 17th 2011 7:58PM (Massively)I was definitely swayed. Played in the SWTOR Beta, and whenever I sign into Vindictus, or WoW, or Eve Online, or any other MMO I've played in the last year or 2, I get bored pretty immediately and miss the story-aspect ofr ToR.
Course, SWTOR isn't going to satisfy everyone, but it was well-made and a lot more polished then I expected.
What they said was true for me :).
The Anvil of Crom: Can AoC survive The Old Republic?
Oct 17th 2011 1:10PM (Massively)Here's why.
Take Everquest and Everquest II. Both were big games that has since lost a huge portion of it's population to MMO's like WoW, AoC, City of Heroes, etc...
However, it's at that point where it is no longer affected by new MMO's because the people who wanted to leave have already left, and those that remain like it more then enough to be swayed differently, regardless of newer mechanics, game-play, etc...
The same goes for AoC. The people who have gotten disillusioned, disliked the game, or didn't want to stay have already left. The majority of the population that has remained play AoC because they legitimately enjoy it, and it's very likely a game like SWTOR will change their minds that much.
You see this in every major type of game. The very small amount of hardcore players will inevitably keep the gaming running for a while, even with bigger releases coming out.
The Indie Stone is burgled, loses code for latest Project Zomboid update
Oct 17th 2011 12:39AM (Joystiq)Lastly, you shift the argument to the ease of stealing, but that counterpoint has no relevancy here, due to general unlikelihood.
Unless these guys had the most terrible luck in the world, I HIGHLY doubt, and would bet money on it, that there would be NO possible way that a back-up on an External Drive, Cloud Storage, SVN Revision Control, Web Hosting, Flash Drive, etc... could have all been stolen at the exactly same time.
1) Cloud Storage / Version Control / Web Hosting, etc... are all online hosted and stored. There was no way thieves would go after it unless they were specifically aiming for it. (Doesn't seem like the case, and even then, you have enough of a time that you would be able to recover files, as services like Version Control keep their own back-ups for you.
2) External Drive / Flash Drive, etc... Keep multiple backups on several different drives. Unless they went for ALL of them, yeah I highly doubt someone's going to try to pick your pocket for a Flash Drive. That's just a silly thing to even mention.
In general, this had nothing to do with their laziness of being home, or their sense of security. It was their lack of preparedness and organization period.
Don't try to come up with excuses for people. They need to learn from their mistakes, and honestly, suffer for their incompetence.
The Indie Stone is burgled, loses code for latest Project Zomboid update
Oct 17th 2011 12:30AM (Joystiq)I don't buy that, home or not, they were working on a professional project that had a community backing. It's Game Development 101 to keep back-ups, etc... (hell, this is shit we learn in HS and College, even for things as silly as an essay for class).
I work on game projects both with colleagues / friends, as well as myself, and I always have back-ups, whether it's on some sort of Cloud Storage (like Amazon / Dropbox), or external hard-drives, etc...
Honestly, when I look at this from a professional perspective, all I can think of is a complete lack of foresight, organization and management. Also does not instill a lot of faith in me as a consumer.
It sucks, I can totally understand losing work, but man, something this big, they better learn from this lesson and pick up the slack. :P
Ace Combat: Assault Horizon review: Old dogfight, new tricks
Oct 11th 2011 2:25PM (Joystiq)Ace Combat has always been a niche game, targeted towards Arcade loving Flight gamers. It was never in-depth enough for Simulators, and "casual" fans have no idea about the series :P.
I've been a fan of AC since #4, and I'll continue to play them because no other studio has been able to offer the same kind of experience. (Hawx was an okay outside attempt, but was still nowhere near the same.)
Ace Combat: Assault Horizon review: Old dogfight, new tricks
Oct 11th 2011 2:21PM (Joystiq)Haha, you must be one of those players who actually never really played Ace Combat. Tell me one game in the series that didn't have scripted dog-fights?
At least there is now a little bit of variety with Helicopters and AC-130s.
Your comment just reeks with ignorance.
The Witness coming to PC and iOS, Blow says consoles are too old
Sep 28th 2011 3:35PM (Joystiq)Umm... You should read actual Game Development news instead of "Gaming News" sites if you want to comment about CERT processes.
Apple, MS, Sony, etc... every major platform has pretty difficult Certification processes in place that are meant to weed out bad games (and help make sure complete games make it to the consumer). The horror stories I do hear from Devs typically involve problems on the Dev end... (and this is from experience working as QA and w/ the CERT Teams).
It's easy to blame CERT and all these rules placed by Publishers when you're a small studio, but honestly, I'm sure the issues are split 50/50 between this Blow guy and MS, especially when it came to Braid.
I highly doubt his game was "perfect" in terms of development.
The Witness coming to PC and iOS, Blow says consoles are too old
Sep 28th 2011 3:29PM (Joystiq)A) Admit they don't have the capability or resources to maximize performance and take full advantage of hardware.
B) Has their ego so big from 1 game that they think they're the next best thing since Sid Meier.
One more reason why I find the Indie scene laughable, b/c I find 10x more idiots like this Blow guy here then I do in traditional studios.