Back Alley Brawler gone?

Sometimes.
Removing Chris from the CoH team is not a positive, virtually anyway you look at it.

I dimly recall that last year when they were ramping up, one or two of the reqs looked a lot like project manager openings for a new project. It could be they had a small team working on a side project like COH2 or something entirely new, and that project got axed. That'd be commensurate with smaller team = increased focus.

I don't assume I have a RIGHT to know someone else's private life. A game developer is not like a celebrity or public figure that has given up some of his privacy.

I believe it's the person's RIGHT to decide who and how he will share this information I understand that the laws are written to that extent- so the EMPLOYER can neither volunteer such a disclosure nor do anything that would appear as coercion of the individual to disclose anything himself (for example, make him feel obligated to write a farewell message). Finally, I would never expect the person to make any effort TO make me feel better about his departure by giving me a chance to say goodbye. He's the one going through the tougher time... not me.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

Hold up, I'm not talking about their private lives... I'm talking about company notifications. When employees are hired, there's an email stating John Smith has joined the company in this capacity. We've gotten tons of these as a player base over the years. There's never been an email however letting folks know that John Smith has left the company and that So n' So will be assuming responsibility as a result. No need nor mention of how or why they left the company. If NCsoft hadn't made a point of formerly introducing new employees to the player base there'd be no reason to disclose this kind of offboarding information. But they did, and so folks are naturally curious as to what these layoffs means for the game.

And I agree with you: there is never a good reason to divulge why anyone left, but its good policy to acknowledge there's been a change of staff and that John Smith who they've introduced to the community once before has since left the company and that a backup has been put in place for the short term. If its that big an issue to give the player base some closure, then don't introduce new employees to begin with. Its that simple.


And try not to SHOUT IN CAPS, please. Thank you dear.

Let me re-write the lyrics to "Candle In The Wind"....

....

......

Okay... maybe someone other than ME should do it... I think the whole "respectful solemnity" thing would go south.... quickly.

increasing focus is just PR talk for 'we don't have enough ppl to work on alot of things at the same time anymore so we're just working on a specific thing at one time'

Since I stabbed her in the back with my katana, would that be right about now?

Seriously though, I would have to say I'm skeptical that refocusing through a reduction in the workforce and then losing such a small number of people should include your top animation guy.

We'll probably never know, but I always looked for his posts in the Dev digest as a matter of course. I'm not happy that he's gone.

Nor am I sure that, despite standard issue marketing speak, the game will have the same quality in the animation department that it has previously had going forward.

I'm also not a huge fan of the relatively low level of dev interaction we've had lately. Usually when they announce something of the magnitude of inherent fitness pool, it is accompanied by some good back and forth with the community. I miss those days.

On the other hand, he kept telling me how the animation system made perfect sense to him, which suggests it might have been good to get out while he still had a functioning cerebral cortex. I pity the new animation guy, really I do.

Oh my god: I'm actually technically the most veteran person left with knowledge of the animation system.



BhhaaaaaaaaaB!

Wasn't he responsible for bases?

I'm aware of several out of whatever, but I'm not outing anyone on my own under any conditions whatsoever.

In fact I should say I'm only kind of making fun of BaB in my previous post because I've heard from him since his departure and he personally knows my sense of humor. I would otherwise never joke about that (also, I know BaB is following along but can't publicly respond, which means after three years I win, har har, hardy har har).

But while I know I can't (and frankly don't want to) eliminate speculation on who is and is no longer at PS, I would recommend keeping the speculation on the why to a minimum out of respect for the people no longer there. If they want us to know why, in 2010 they all have ways of informing us.

I wouldn't be suprised if Aeon is gone too. He hasn't done **** all since AE launch
Also who ever's in charge of PVP is probably gone. If he isn't, he should go.

You mean apart from writing a large amount of the GR missions?

We've gotten updates on new team members when those team members' jobs is to be among us: Community Reps and the like.

We've only gotten updates for backroom Devs when they choose to let us know.

If David Nakayama hadn't mentioned Colin Brown, would you have known he worked at PS?
What about Castle's minions?
What about all the other 50+ unaccounted for Paragon Studios workers?

Yeah designated MA dev writing GR missions and not touching MA? Sounds like nothing's new there

The MA doesn't need constant attention

Because they take advice from you all the time right, Mr pro cox player? Oh wait...

Nemesis Automatons.

Obviously never been to the MA forum or used MA, since non of the dev's choice arcs have been updated since MA launched.

They're more open to constructive criticism