Curse

Sora267 · Aug 13, 2008, 04:28 AM // 04:28

Note: This is all rumor:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joystiq.com

Hot on the heels of news that Midway would be laying off approximately 90 employees from its Austin location comes a tip from a reliable source that NCsoft Austin (a.k.a. NCsoft North America) is on the verge of eliminating all of its development staff. The studio is currently home to the teams behind Tabula Rasa and Dungeon Runners, the latter of which will "be closed," according to our source. We've been told that only customer support staff will continue to operate out of the branch.

Future development of Tabula Rasa will reportedly be handed over to Seattle-based Guild Wars creator Arena.net, with Massively reporting that the title may meet a similar fate as Dungeon Runners if it "fails to turn the tide of subscribers and expectations." It has also learned that any future collaboration between NCsoft and Tabula Rasa principals Richard and Robert Garriot will be "limited in scope," due to a souring of relations with the Korean management team over their title's lackluster performance.

With regard to City of Heroes, a source at NCsoft's Bay Area studio confirmed with us that its development staff will be completely unaffected by the events transpiring in Austin, saying that the title's status is "sound." Further to this, the source echoed Massively's report that only the Austin studio is being affected, with remaining development proceeding normally in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Korea.

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2008/08/12/ru...abula-rasa-to/

What do you all think of this? If it were true, do you think it'd affect GW2's progress in any way (Either speed it up because of increased staff due to two MMOs, or slow it down if the one team has to work on both)? I personally don't know what to make of this.

Update: Some layoffs from NCsoft Austin were confirmed. Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2008/08/13/so...ffs-confirmed/

Richardt · Aug 13, 2008, 04:48 AM // 04:48

Interesting if true.

Might slow things down initially as they get the flow of managing Tabula Rasa down, but I imagine once they get that squared away it'll increase production.

DarkNecrid · Aug 13, 2008, 04:52 AM // 04:52

lol

Questionable at best. ArenaNet doesn't have the staff to manage 1 game and 1 incomplete game at a decent pace, let alone 2 complete games and 1 incomplete game.

If this does happen, Tabula Rasa will basically just die.

Keero89 · Aug 13, 2008, 04:59 AM // 04:59

I hope it'll speed up GW2. [From what I've read] I mean, TR had a pretty buggy launch and it's a grindfest. Not that much substance in it. It may end up closing like Auto Assault did (as cool was it looked).[/FwIr] Or it may give a bigger crew for GW itself, who knows.

DarkNecrid · Aug 13, 2008, 04:59 AM // 04:59

Too bad this was already proven false a short while after it went live, lol.

http://www.planettr.com/forums/showp...90&postcount=5

gg.

Keero89 · Aug 13, 2008, 05:00 AM // 05:00

Bah, poo. :P

Nevin · Aug 13, 2008, 05:12 AM // 05:12

Tabula Rasa may've been fun, now i'm not so sure.

ElinoraNeSangre · Aug 13, 2008, 05:35 PM // 17:35

What's interesting is that the original article in the thread that DarkNecrid posted originally said CA, now has changed the story. And I really don't see Richard Garriott's team passing it to someone else. It doesn't make sense. Not saying it couldn't happen, but it would be a darned shame given how much they've been doing with the game lately.

TR is pretty awesome where it is in my opinion; I've been playing for 8 months and they've done nothing but improve the game. In fact, the whole "devs in the forums constantly and always making positive, solid changes to the game" thing over there really impresses me, personally. It's a change to have devs so active and having so many changes going on, plus changes get to be tested by the player base before they go live to work out kinks early (through use of a testing server).

Shameless plug: and I'm always happy to hand out trial keys.

The game actually involves a lot less grind than GW did for me, I actually moved to it because I just get to play the game and don't feel like I have to farm or grind or anything. So reports of "grindfest" are probably subjective at best.

Just my opinion, of course.

Winterclaw · Aug 13, 2008, 05:47 PM // 17:47

Sounds like it sucks to be a game developer in Texas these days.

I'm going to guess both TR and DR are going to be completely closed down ASAP.

Snow Bunny · Aug 13, 2008, 05:51 PM // 17:51

I beta-tested TR and played it for a bit. It was terrible and I thought the whole "Richard Garriot's" part of the title was pretentious.

Kanyatta · Aug 13, 2008, 06:10 PM // 18:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Snow Bunny

I beta-tested TR and played it for a bit. It was terrible and I thought the whole "Richard Garriot's" part of the title was pretentious.

Same, and I had the exact same thoughts.

I just need a solid MMO that isn't grind based, so I've been beta-testing like mad.

Winterclaw · Aug 13, 2008, 06:17 PM // 18:17

An MMO that isn't grind based seems like a contridiction.

Nightow · Aug 13, 2008, 06:20 PM // 18:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winterclaw

An MMO that isn't grind based seems like a contridiction.

Right, all MMO's have grind. It just depends on how well they hide it.

**cosyfiep** · Aug 13, 2008, 06:26 PM // 18:26

so they can add to the already repetitious line...
"we are working on gw2 ....and TR now....we cant tell you anything" when we ask about anything in the future, great, just what they needed ---more excuses.

Sora267 · Aug 13, 2008, 08:34 PM // 20:34

Update: Some layoffs from NCsoft Austin were confirmed. Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2008/08/13/so...ffs-confirmed/

ElinoraNeSangre · Aug 13, 2008, 10:24 PM // 22:24

Meh, TR's changed a lot since beta. It felt like it was released quite a bit too soon, but the changes in the last 4 months have been pretty effective. I also played in beta and wasn't completely sold - I started actually playing by accident in December, and found that I was having a lot of fun.

Note I never said no grind, just that I feel that I have to grind a lot less than I did in GW.

And if "grind" is sitting around grinning like an idiot with a team of 6 blowing stuff up for two hours and having a heck of a fun time, then great, grind.

But as long as something is fun, I guess I don't care what people call it so long as *I* call it fun.

Here's something a little more specific about the layoffs BTW: http://kotaku.com/5036705/ncsoft-lays-off-21 Again, never know if that's accurate, but it's at least mildly less ambiguous.

Sleeper Service · Aug 14, 2008, 03:28 AM // 03:28

well TR is (apparently) not getting touched by the layoffs.
source:

Quote:

(...)Tabula Rasa was not touched upon in the official release, meaning that its core team will likely be unaffected by the cuts.(...)

and i just did something i havent done in quite some time....pulled off an all nighter playing a game, give the TR trial a whirl i didnt even notice the time until the traffic shook me out of my trip in pew pew land.

really more than pleasantly surprised.

Buster · Aug 14, 2008, 01:15 PM // 13:15

While there are rumors floating around about the longevity of NCsoft's Austin Studio, MMORPG.com has been able to confirm that 21 people were laid off today from the Austin Office.

What this means for the future of the studio and the future of Dungeon Runners remains to be seen. What we can tell you at this time is that both Dungeon Runners and Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa are currently run out of the Austin studio.

MMORPG.com will continue to follow this story as it develops.

We are announcing that 21 positions are being eliminated in the Austin office of NCsoft in the area of product development. Primarily this is related to products which we have not previously announced and were in prototype phases. We are also cutting some positions on the Dungeon Runners team after deciding not to port the client to other platforms at this time.

- David Swafford, NCsoft

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/194488

tre_peter · Aug 14, 2008, 01:26 PM // 13:26

Always sad to hear people loosing jobs for the sake of their superiours protecting their protecting profit magin. But, there is always light at the end of the tunnel, if they don't feel too bitter towards thier ex-employers...

EDIT: Light at the end of the tunnel? I mean 'every cloud' blah blah...

Martin Alvito · Aug 14, 2008, 02:47 PM // 14:47

When you begin mortgaging the future, the end is nigh.

In this case, the company is forfeiting its time investment in training 21 people, and further is reducing its investment in future revenue streams.

One would only do such a thing when constrained to do so by cashflow.