To the players

[kilo2]

hey now... we are in the same squad and all but don't forget, just because your neighbor calls you an illegal when you get a tan, doesn't mean that the rest of us live in 'eMerikkka'.

yeah, I am kinda curious on how AkAk sounds.... It would be funny if I discovered I have actually met him at GDC or something...
And yeah, I'm with sun batt on this, if AkAk was asking to borrow a card from a kid when he has a job... sounds kinda cheap to me.

Sounds cheap? You can buy a sound card for 20 bucks.

[Ardy123]

Sounds cheap? You can buy a sound card for 20 bucks.

yeah, like Ak-Ak was too cheap to pay 20 bucks for a card, so he instead asked to borrow one from another player of the game, But that might be an invention of Sunbat and not the truth.

[Ack-Ack]

Typical left-coaster playing the racism card when ya got nothing left to say.  

When someone comes into the game and calls me an ethnic slur they saw storch use on another forum, are you not surprised I found you to be nothing more than a tool?  

You still seem to be missing the points.  There are two points.  First, you must squeak or something because there is no other reason you for you not to just get a mic.  That USB excuse is cute though.  

Like I mentioned already, I don't see a reason to buy another sound card when other than the problem with the mic plug, the card works just fine.  Why does it bother you so much that I don't use vox or don't feel like getting a new sound card?  

Second,  when you act like a tool about something in the land of the internet, you are going to get spurned and made fun of.  You thump your chest constantly about the fact that you work for a gaming company and expect the rest of us to give a damn.

From where I stand, the guy that is humping my ankle because of where I work or that I don't use vox is the tool.  If you want to see an example of a tool first hand, I suggest looking in the mirror.

Your saying that you want Grizz to buy you a mic was a perfect opening for me to make fun of the tool Ack-Ack for having a squeak AND for being so proud of his meaningless job.  (I typed that real slow so that you could get it this time.)  End of story.

I never asked Grizz to buy me a new mic, the headphones I have has a perfectly good mic on it.  I just mentioned that if Grizz and you are so desperate to hear my voice then buy me a new sound card to indulge your voice fantasy fetish you must obviously have.

And as I also mentioned, your obsession with my job just screams jealousy because you are obviously unfullfilled working on your back.

ack-ack

[DMGOD]

I have 2 decent sound cards that 100% work. Sound blaster audiology cards that I'd be more then happy to give for free to akak I'm even willing to pay for shipping just say the word bud and they are yours

[Ack-Ack]

Damn Ack I don’t know how you do it.   

It's a gift.   

ack-ack

[grizz441]

When someone comes into the game and calls me an ethnic slur they saw storch use on another forum, are you not surprised I found you to be nothing more than a tool?  

Akak, your P38J isn't considered an ethnicity.

[SunBat]

Damn Ack I don’t know how you do it.   

Here's how:

Step 1:  Open mouth.

Step 2:  Get stomped on. 


(Give me a minute.  I have an idea to personify "tool".  To be continued...)

[SunBat]

Jackpot!  Gentlemen, a quick keyword search and a simple review of recent posts evinces the personification of "tool" (declarations of self-importance on channel 200 not included).  I rest my case.

project manager at some game studio/developer.


ack-ack

Working for a game company myself and involved in helping create these games from the alpha stage to the final release, what makes up the 'development cycle' differs from company to company and game to game.
Ack-Ack

Until you know what it takes to not only design a massively multiplayer game but run it as well, you should stop making comments like the ones you've made.


ack-ack

Show one MMO company that sends any of their customers a reciept after billing.  It's just not done in this industry as there is no need for it and the return is very small that it's basically not worth it.   In all the customer surveys I've done to gauge customer satisfaction with our game, not one customer in any of our surveys listed not receiving a reciept or other acknowledgement of payment as a negative with their customer service experience.

ack-ack

When your parent company tells you to release the game by XX date or they'll refuse to pay the guaranteed bonuses and royalties, are you not surprised when the developer pushes out an unfinished product?  Especially as the developer you do not have any control over the IP you created?  Why do you think the founders of Infinity Ward bailed and left to make their own studio?  Activision is the one to blame, not IW.

ack-ack

Must suck to work where you do.  I play games on my work station all the time at work.

ack-ack

But we do have an inept IT team.

ack-ack

I will tell you that what you wish for is extremely difficult and the cost of development would be prohibitive for most large studios as there is no guarantee the developed tech will pan out.

Our company looked at doing something like this for a series of our games and came to the conclusion that the tech needed to get it to work isn't quite there yet and we would need to develop the tech, the money costs would be extremely high with little or no guarantee that we'd ever see a return on the investment and time.  It was estimated that it would take at least 3 to 5 years to develop the tech to allow these seperate games to connect with each other, that doesn't include the development time for the engine these games would use that would allow not only cross-game play but also cross-platform play.

It's difficult enough to get people on different platforms to play together in a single game.

ack-ack

In my company's games, if we would let the players dictate what the balance should be, there would be no clear notion as to what that balance is and the result would be a very flawed and unbalanced game.
ack-ack

The company I work for has been sued like this many times in the past and won every time.  When I was still at Sony Online Entertainment, we got sued by Ben Stein because he was an utter failure as a father and expected us to do the parenting he failed to do.  Ben Stein lost that one big time and considers Sony to be one of the reasons for the moral decay of this country.  No joke, he really thinks that.

ack-ack

Pretty good, live up in L.A. now working for a Japanese game company and lovin' it up here.

Even the person who you think is the most responsible person in the world can still rob you blind.  A couple of years ago one of our Game Masters at the company I work for had a couple of players contact him about some items and in game currency that was stolen from their linkshell.
ack-ack

Our company recently put up our game (FINAL FANTASY XI) up on Steam.  SOE has most of their games on Steam (EQ/EQ2/PotBS/Vanguard).

Other MMO games on Steam:
Age of Conan
Lineage I/II
GuildWars
Champions Online
Warhammer

Speaking of the experience we went through to get it up on Steam, it was kind of a pain in the ass.  It took about 4 months or so to resolve the compatibility issues with the Steam wrapper that is used for games on Steam.


ack-ack

It's a really good game, not quite as good as the original but still fun to play.  It's the 2nd RTS the company I work for has released.


ack-ack

DirectX 11 is already out, has been for some months now.  In fact, it made its debut with the release of Windows 7 as that's the version of DirectX that ships with it.  Also, game are already being made with DirectX 11 compatibility.  One or two were released last year after Windows 7 was released and more are being released this year.  I know that there are a couple of games that are being released by my company that will have DirectX 11 support, though sadly Final Fantasy XIII isn't one of them.

ack-ack

As for the team at Endrant Studios, the entire team was let go the day the game released.  That's not a very good thing, and telling of the multiplayer portion of the game.  How do I know they were sacked?  Because a number of them have submitted their resumés to the gaming company I work for. lol
ack-ack

Surprised to see in the list of supported games that my company's game is listed there as well.  Though, I don't know of anyone that plays FFXI using these.

ack-ack

I got another job at a major game developer up here in Los Angeles in a newly created division the company recently started up.
ack-ack

The company I work for has two of the largest MMOG games in the world.  Our flagship MMOG is now edging up past the 5 year mark and has extremely out dated graphics that we are in the process of updating with a new graphics engine so we can compete with the new MMOG games that are coming out.  Even though our flagship game has a paid subscriber base of 300,000+, we are forced to do this to remain competitive. 

He actually tried to sue a company I used to work for (Sony Online Entertainment) because of one of our games (Everquest).

[SunBat]

I'm glad you don't work for my company or any other online gaming company because you really have no clue as to what makes or how to make an online game successful.  AH is one of the oldest MMOs on the market and it's safe to assume that HTC does have a grasp as to what his intended subscriber bases wants and a business model to ensure that his game survives, you don't.
ack-ack

Reminds me of an encounter I had in a game I worked on.  A player was going around scamming other players out of items so I went in game to speak with him about it.  When I pulled his character aside so I could ask him what he was doing he started to claim that he was an employee of the company I work for.  When I asked him what his name was, he gave me a name of one of our employees.  The only problem was that he gave my name.   I had a little fun at his expense before dropping the bombshell that I was the person he claimed to be.  Never seen a player disconnect so fast from a game, must have pulled his connection.  Safe to say that little jr. isn't playing any of Square Enix's game anymore.
ack-ack

Obviously with the recent studio acquisitions, the pressure to release Soldner now was too great.  It's a shame really and you're right, game developers should take the time to release a game that doesn't require immediate patching.  Unfortunately the company I work for has been guilty of this with some of our games. 

If the company I work for had the development team size of HTC, I don't think any of our games would have seen the light of day.

  She also works at the same gaming company I do, so she's a tad more tolerant when it comes to playing time.

Everquest II, a game the company I work for makes.

A game that has been in development for 5+ years shouldn't release and expect people to play for a "beta".  Again, that says a lot about the dev team and lack of supervision/control by the game designer and producer.  There is no excuse as to why a game in development that long shouldn't be released in a complete state.

ack-ack

with the amount of time the game was under development and it was released in this state doesn't speak well for the dev team. 

ack-ack

I agree, Ubisoft dropping DCS was probably the best thing that happened to the DCS guys because they no longer had the marketing weasels from Ubi telling how to make their game "more accessible".  It also helped that DCS was able to get some major venture and funding capital to help out.

I understand Oleg's disillusionment with having to work with Ubisoft, he's a 3rd party developer that is literally a slave to his publisher/distributor as they are the ones that hold the purse strings and can make him dance like a marionette and that has to get very tiring if the studio and publisher are at odds on the game, with the publisher having a set idea as to how the game should be and the studio having another vision for their game.  Ubisoft always wanted to turn IL2 into a more arcade like shooter to appeal more to the masses and elevate IL2/SoW from a niche game to a mass marketable game.

while I don't think Oleg's self-imposed retirement will stop development of IL2/SoW, I do think it will put an end to any future plans of developing IL2/SoW into a MMO like Oleg had envisioned doing at some point.

But from what I gathered from some of the posts from people close to Oleg is that he actually "left" over a year ago and someone named Ilya (sp?) has been running the show for IL2/SoW.

Hmmm...


ack-ack

Not surprised, rumor on the grapevine is that Ubisoft was going to drop Maddox again and he was going to be left without a publisher/distributor.

ack-ack

Damn, I was going to suggest that our company outsource our forum support to a 3rd party and you were the one I had in mind. 


ack-ack

HiTech is correct when he stated that you can't make game design decisions based solely on what the customer demands, iEN is an example of what happens when a game studio does. 

ack-ack

[SunBat]

Sheesh Ack-Ack, we get it, you work for a game company.  And we don't give a damn. 

Now pray a nice prayer to DMGOD and he will grant you a sound card and we can hear your squeaky lisp. 

(After you get done steppin' and fetchin' that developer's mail, boy.  Now get to it.)

[Masherbrum]

You're going to get lock-jaw.

[BiPoLaR]

Damn Ack I don’t know how you do it.   

He works for a game company.

[grizz441]

He works for a game company.

You sure about that?  Prove it.

[BiPoLaR]

You sure about that?  Prove it.

im only repeating what i heard from another guy that heard it from someone else. Grapevine man.

[The Fugitive]

Damn Ack I don’t know how you do it.   

It's the one thing he's good at !