Originally posted by MosesZD

Originally posted by Wickedjelly

They didn't do a good job marketing KOA all. Regardless the quality of the game their marketing for it was awful.

 

EA didn't do much marketing.  Which was their job as publisher.   But they were marketing the heck out of SWTOR and ME3.  So they let KoA pretty much rot with minimal support.

This is why I don't understand people choosing to use a publisher that is also a rival development house.

Conflict of interest.

If the dev house part of the publisher (EA) has games important to their bottom line out at the same time as your game that they're only publishing, which do you think they're going to focus on?

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Sony needs to fire the entire SOE staff down to the project managers and hire some people with a little bit of talent.  To say this sounds like a horrible game is an understatement.

Careful what you ask for. Eaware devs are currently looking for jobs. lol

Originally posted by Deron_Barak
I'm not defending anything and yes there were supposed to be more employees in RI but "mass layoffs"? Can you link that info?

http://www.gamespot.com/news/layoffs-strike-38-studios-6378046

http://www.abc6.com/story/18578306/governor-chafee-says-38-studios-has-had-layoffs

Originally posted by Worstluck

Sad to see anyone get fired, unless they deserved it.  There is no doubt that some people at Bioware needed to be let go, unfortuantely the big wigs will probably keep their job, or get transferred to some other lame management position that is overpaid.  The competent people will most likely get jobs elsewhere and I wish them luck.

 

Completely unrelated side note...Is the forum layout for the SWTOR just plain awful or what?  I haven't seen their forums in few months, checked them today, I can't even read them. 

 

Is this how they look to everyone, or is just my browser/addons?

http://i.imgur.com/9bHUj.jpg

Yeah, that's what EAware considers a "forum overhaul". lol

Originally posted by Deron_Barak

Originally posted by niceguy3978

Originally posted by Uhwop

Originally posted by Deron_Barak

Originally posted by GrayGhost79

Originally posted by Deron_Barak

 The best part about this whole issue, which is really nothing considering people's livelihoods are at stake, is the lack of information between multiple news outlets and the reactions of people from said half information.

 Fret not, "Copernicus" will see the light of day one way or another.

I'll have to admit, I'm having a hard time getting the full story regardless of where I go. Each news outlet seems to be giving out just enough information to seem different from the other news outlets while at the same time being just as attention grabbing.

 This is probably the best source for the whole picture.

http://www.joystiq.com/tag/38-studios/

 

 A few notes:

 

• Studio 38 has only received 49 million of the 75 they're paying back.  Of that 25 million outstanding only 12.5M has been listed as being "held back" by RI.  Keep an eye on that other 12.5M...
• The 75M did not come from RI.  It was collected by RI from investors who then gave it to Studio 38.  RI will be on the hook if 38 hits bankrupcy however.  I wish Mr. Chafee realized that although political grandstanding is fun he is hurting the product that will keep his constituants out of paying the bill.  it's ironic when you think about it.
• Studio 38 used part of the 49-50M they recieved to purchase Big Huge Games and modify the game they were working on into KoA.

 

 I have no idea what Studio 38 has created with the money they didn't use on KoA.  What I think happened is that Studio 38 thought they could pull KoA and Copernicus off with the portion of the loan they received.  Obviously this didn't happen and the representatives of RI only want to make sure it's residents aren't on the hook or the damage is controlled.

 

 

 I would still like to know when Studio 38 was supposed to get the other 25 million if they've been paying on 75M (112.6M with Interest) since last year.

 

 

 In regards to the initial decision by RI and the name calling now taking place: Who wouldn't have done it? The creative names for Copernicus alone will make sure it gets completed, either by Studio 38 or another entity (SoE for example).  Not only was the 75M going to be paid back (112.6M total with interest) but already 250+ people have been paying RI taxes and buying goods in the state.  It was supposed to be 350+ however.  The sad thing is that public posturing by a politician is devaluing what can still be a success depending on the decisions made from there on out.  We'll have to stay tuned.

 Not sure were you got the second bullet point from.

The magority of all money that the REIDC aquires comes from the RI general assembly, only a small portion of it is got from private investors.  Besides that, any loan only becomes the responsibility of the person issuing it when it's not repaid.

It's like saying the bank is only on the books for my loan if I default.  The taxpayers are in the same situation here, only if the loan defaults will they be on the books for it. 

Also, it's public information that if the loan defaults, the taxpayers are responsible for the initial loan plus interest, 112 milliion.  If the money was secured through private investment, the taxpayers wouldn't be on the book for it.  Even if, and this is what I'm assuming, the REIDC aquired the money from priviate investors and backed that money by a loan that the general assembly co-signed, it would still boil down to using taxpayer money to finance a business.  In other words, it sounds to me like the gov. of RI took private investment money and backed it with a taxpayer loan so that the private investors would hold no liability.

In other words.  He set up a venture that would make private indivuduals money regardless if the venture failed or not.  How effed up is that?  If 38 studios doesn't fold and repays the loan with interest, the investors get paid, if they do fold then the taxpayers have to repay the loan and the investors still get paid.

This seems like it should be the headlining story to me, not 38 studios themself.  Win win situatins aren't investments, it's a savings account! 

Anyone else curious who the private investors are?  Or how linked to the governor they may be?

Glad to know that it was in fact funded by RI rather than the way it is in the post you were responding to.  Because if that were the case and RI didn't actually loan the money and instead investors did, but RI would be on the hook for the bill if the company failed.  That would be even more rediculous.  It would be privatising the profits, but socializing the loss.

"The math works a little something this this: The Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation borrowed $75 million from private investors for 38 Studios, at interest rates between 6 - 7.75 percent, with the expectation that 38 Studios would pay it back with the sale of games."

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/05/15/if-38-studios-collapses-rhode-island-taxpayers-owe-112-6-milli/ 

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/07/13/mass_officials_hope_to_keep_schillings_company_here/

 

RI was supposed to, and has already to an extent, been benefitting from the employees of Studio 38 in the form of taxes and good bought by the employees in the state.  People are making Schilling out to be this snake oil salesman who pulled a fast one on RI.  This is not the case.

Edit: I was wrong on the aquiring of BHG.  It was done by Studio 38 before the 75M, er 50M, was giving to them.

So who  

Schilling was also required to hire 450 people from R.I. as part of the loan agreement. As of March, the company had 379 employees. As of today, the company has announced mass layoffs.

First off, Schilling is an idiot for even agreeing to the 450 jobs clause. Schilling was too busy seing dollar signs however.

Being a decent baseball player doesn't automatically make you even an adequate business man.

Both Schilling and the former governor who approved the loan are 'snake oil salesmen". Neither of them could reasonably provide on the promises they made.

Originally posted by Tayah

Looks like Stephen Reid may be one of those laid off. They're saying on the swtor forums in the bioware laid off post that he no longer has them down on his linkedin page. He's a terrible community manager anyways. Always new information from twitter from him and never on the official forums. Good riddance, if he truly is one of the ones let go. Now they need to get the rest on the list from above.

Now there's someone I won't miss. Reid was a complete tool.

Originally posted by DarkDemon69

Ill go one step further, this game requires you to really use your head. 90% of complaints I see or supposed "bugs" are due to player ignorance/stupidity. But these low IQ individuals tend to think they are just as smart as everyone and cry on the forums how the game is broke, when the truth of it is they are too stupid to understand. Kudos to Funcom for making an "intelligent" game. Lets stop the cycle of dumbing games down to the IQ of most players.

And on the other end, they make those of somewhat average intelligence somehow think they're fucking geniuses because they can use Google or follow insignias on sewer lids.

Originally posted by Greyhooff

They clarified the situation, but it's anyone's guess if they can or will actually investigate and ban, or if they will pretend to and do nothing. If nothing is done, it's going to be a disaster for the game going forward.

-------

Silvanoshi

Community Manager

Join Date

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Enchanting exploit

Hello everyone,

We are aware of the presence of a exploit with the enchanting system in the current build of TERA. We have spoken to the developers, and they are creating a fix for the issue.

Please be aware that if you use this exploit this can lead to a temporary account block!
We will investigate all accounts involved in the use of this exploit and remove any benefits gained as a result of its use.

Using an exploit violates the rules and is treated with the same severity as using bots or other 3rd party software to gain an unfair advantage over legitimate players. You don’t have to fear anything if you enchanted your items in a proper way, without using the enchanting exploit.

Explanation for the exploit: This means you used white alkahest found at normal vendors to get your items with the exploit to +7/+8 or +9. Without using the exploit it is not possible to enchant your items to those values with the normal white alkahest sold by normal vendor NPCs.

While we wait for a patch to fix this exploit, we wanted to make this point clear for everyone again! We do not tolerate any use of cheats, bots or exploiting in our games.

We’ll address this exploit as soon as possible.

Silvanoshi

Their statement in yellow means their statements in green are useless lies.

Originally posted by Dreadstone

It would be nice if when people write articles like this they gave some numbers to support the arguments.  EA announced 1.3 million subscribers at their recent Q4 earnings conference and while that is much less than expected it still represents a huge cash flow for them.  With subscriptions for $10-$20 million per month I can't see any model that would justify throwing that income away in the hopes people will spend more in some yet to be developed cash shops.

 

SWTOR is still one of the largest MMOs on the market and has a huge number of paying subscribers.  EA is definitely disappointed it didn't become another WoW right after launch, but for now it is pulling in too much money to do much besides look at ways to cut maintenance expenses and let revenues catch up with some of the already spent development costs.

Of that 1.3 million, how many are cancelled accounts that still have time left on them ( which are counted as "active subscribers" )? How many of those are cancelled accounts that had free time thrown on them to once again count them as "active subscribers"? Stop believing the spin.

It just keeps getting better.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/layoffs-strike-38-studios-6378046

Originally posted by adam_nox

ugh, please just give me dragon age 3 before you completely implode, Bioware.  The world of gaming is going to get a lot dimmer without them around.  You never know how good a company is until their next game is in your hands.  It's clear blizzard has changed, who knows if Bethesda's next project will have the same quality. You just never know.

It's a scary time.

After DA2, do you really want to see what kind of simplified garbage they slap a "3" on?

Originally posted by StoneRoses

Originally posted by Grotar89

Maintenance mod  comes soon, exact same things are happening as with WAR. I am glad my prediciton was true, guess many TOR fanboys who flamed me all the time will now realise that TOR is going downhill fast.

This will actually be good for MMORPG genre, devs will realise they cant make lame WoW clones anymore and begin to innovate.

I just hope ppl learened their lesson and wont give money anymore to EA after all its we / you (since i m not buying their games) who keep EA and its crappy games alive.

Success or failure your arguement still does't explain how there are still folks who still find the enjoyment playing the game. It's our invesment, time and money, this goes for the next MMO many of choose to pick up.

 

 

 

 

I think it explains it pretty well. If there were more of you that like it and were still willing to pay for it than those who don't and won't, those people wouldn't be out of a job.

Originally posted by CalmOceans

Originally posted by eyeswideopen

Originally posted by Dekron

Yes, but it's all nice and wonderful that you need to buy an extra "pack" to be able to run any media (DVDs, CDs, etc.).

???

I can't speak for Dekron, but I think she / he is referring to this: http://www.digital-digest.com/news-63351-DVD-Playback-Media-Center-Not-Included-In-Mainstream-Windows-8-Version.html

Ah, ok. Won't affect me then, I always buy the "Pro"/"Ultimate" versions of Windows. None of the other versions are ever worth it. Besides, there's plenty of free third party codecs/players to not have to buy any extra packs for the lesser Windows version.

Originally posted by Distopia

Originally posted by eyeswideopen

Originally posted by Vorthanion

Originally posted by Grotar89
 

I find it disgusting that you are glad people are losing their jobs, especially in this day and age where they can be hard to come by.

I don't find it disgusting at all. The more mediocre fucks that get fired opens the doors for people competent enough for the job at hand. A bad economy does not justify "welfare employment". Noone is entitled to hold their job just because they might starve without it. In fact, noone is entitled to a job period.

You actually think the decision makers are the ones to suffer for their decisions? Open your eyes a little more :P

No, I don't. But I stand by my statement. Did some good people get let go? Most likely. As well as many who likely shouldn't have been there to begin with but got moved there from failed projects by EA  to save on having to hire, and pay better salaries to, more competent individuals. Those worth a shit will likely find more work without too much problem, whether at another studio or freelancing/filling in for understaffed studios. While the game industry may not be an economy all its own, the chances of any really talented individual suddenly finding himself flipping burgers is exceptionally low. There will always be projects needing programmers, artists, etc.

it just really bugs me when people seem to think noone should ever lose their job "because of an economy" or some other reason. Again, noone is "entitled" to keep their job. Maybe I'm just an insensitive asshole, or maybe I'm just calling it the way it is. Everyone else can decide that for themselves.

It'll be as successful as The Agency was, I'm sure.

Originally posted by Piiritus

Hope they are not going to outsorce everything now from some third world sweat shop where no one has ever heard about Star Wars before. Oh well, kind of sad seeing this game tanking so hard. They should fire top brass who mismanaged SWTOR production from start to end.

After seeing things like the armor and other designs such as the "space game", I highly doubt they had very many working on the game who knew Star Wars to begin with, so what's the difference?

Originally posted by Lilioups

Originally posted by colddog04

Originally posted by Lilioups

Originally posted by Grotar89

 

This will actually be good for MMORPG genre, devs will realise they cant make lame WoW clones anymore and begin to innovate.

 

huh? because gw2 innovate the mmo genre?

gw2 is a warhammer-rift clone

its awesome bashing games we dont like but to do that u need to bash the flaws of ur own game.

gw2 brings nothing new to the table everything is deja vu except the trinity wich seriously the hardcore wont like it.

You really wanted to smash GW2. He didn't mention anything about GW2.

 

lol

1 check signature

2 check history post

3 check how he embrace gw2

4 do some research before trying to act cool captain obvious kkthxbb

Better to be Captain Obvious than Captain Save-a-ho. ToR is dead.

Originally posted by Vorthanion

Originally posted by Grotar89
 

I find it disgusting that you are glad people are losing their jobs, especially in this day and age where they can be hard to come by.

I don't find it disgusting at all. The more mediocre fucks that get fired opens the doors for people competent enough for the job at hand. A bad economy does not justify "welfare employment". Noone is entitled to hold their job just because they might starve without it. In fact, noone is entitled to a job period.

Why are the moderators in this section allowed to delete posts without sending notification why?

Also, why are the moderators in this section allowed to lock threads without including a post as to why it's locked?

Originally posted by Dekron

Yes, but it's all nice and wonderful that you need to buy an extra "pack" to be able to run any media (DVDs, CDs, etc.).

???