A Game Artist (like TTobey) makes the game art and graphics. A Game Designer (like Absor) makes quests, raids, spells, items, etc. A Software Engineer / Game Coder (like Meeko) works on things like the DX11 port, the 64 bit engine, the new UI engine, etc. The title is not wrong; they're looking for someone to replace Qwalla - who was a game designer, and maybe an additional coder. The engineer and creative director may or may not be hired for EQ1 or EQ2 because the studio is working on additional games. Darkpaw Games and Cold Iron Studios have been working on something with the EQ IP slated to be released in 2025. Darkpaw Games also has another game in pre-production; based on what Ji Ham has said in presentations, it's an AAA game of some kind (it could be an EQ3, it could be something else). The AAA game will either enter full production before the end of 2024, or it will be scrapped. If it goes into full production it's slated to be released in 2029. How do I know this? I read the quarterly reports and financials EG7 provides on their website and watch the investor presentations. It's public knowledge.
My personal speculation is that this is why the team has pressed forward with pushing the DX11 upgrade to Live before it was ready, and also pushing the whole persona concept before it was properly designed, because JChan was under the gun regarding these deliverables in order to prove her team was capable to take on the new big project. If these two things don't work as promised, EG7 will either a) cancel funding for the AAA project, or b) cancel the funding for JChan (or both). Current status as of today is that the latest Test patch has completely broken personas, you cannot swap or create a new one. Period. Full stop. Meeko says the cause is known and there will be a fix by the time patch goes Live next week. There is no commit to hotfix this on Test before the Live patch, to verify it actually works out in the wild. This is not good news from a competency standpoint going forward.
They did the test patch, as per their normal schedule (2nd Tuesday of the month). The live patch is scheduled for next week, as per their normal schedule (3rd Tuesday of the month). The test true-up patch, which will take whatever additional changes were added live and put them on test, is scheduled for the following week as per their normal schedule (4th Tuesday of the month). There is nothing unusual about it; it's the patch cycle they've used for many years now and it's unlikely to change. Some things can't actually be "hotfixed" which is a patch where they don't take the servers down, personas being one of those things. The only times I can recall them taking the servers down for an unscheduled patch... is when the servers were unexpectedly down in the first place.
This is off-topic, but anyway... We're talking about taking ONE server down for 1-2 hours to patch one thing. The last time they did such a hotfix on Test was... wait for it... just last month for DX11 changes. We can't test advertised changes to persona functionality in this test cycle if personas themselves DON'T WORK AT ALL. Read this forum. Read how many veteran players won't try out personas because they don't trust the system, due to all the persona bugs that have previously made it to Live. Also... Live patches are always on Wednesdays, not Tuesdays. A sync-up back to Test often takes place two weeks after the Live patch, not one. Some months there is no Test sync-up at all. And people are surprised when they find out DBG's YoY revenue is down.
A huge issue with what Darkpaw/Daybreak has been doing the last ~8-9 years is pretty much zero transparency. No one on, not a single person, asked for a new UI/DX11 updates. They've basically been working on worthless garbo for the last 2 years at least. So now a decent amount of players are frustrated like crazy cause the game is almost unplayable. Buggy UI, constant crashing, lag, chat filters going insane lately too =/ Worst part is they coulda been at least halfway done making EQ3 by now but they chose not to pursue it for whatever reason. Selos and Mischief have been the only good things to come out of Darkpaw in its entirety so far, and that's really not saying much.
US employees in the gaming industry are very expensive due to the high wages In many industries US workers are protected by trade barriers and protectionism. This goes out of the window when it comes to digital content, where these US studios have to openly compete with people working 24/7 on games and doing it for a fraction of the wage. Up until very recently, US gaming companies could lower costs by outsourcing a lot of work to lower wage nations, even Daybreak does this, EQ content is outsourced to India. But those nations now realise they can make their own games, working for foreign companies is no longer as attractive. People are saying there are mass layoffs in the gaming industry. Not really, there are mass layoffs in US gaming companies, but there is a lot of hiring taking place in other countries. This same thing is happening with Hollywood and the movie industry. Foreign films and series are more successful than ever, and streaming services are very happy to show that content since it is produced much cheaper outside of the US. Hollywood no longer has a strangehold on the movie industry, and the workers are starting to realize that, the Hollywood strikes amounted to nothing. We no longer need Hollywood to make content, it is much cheaper made somewhere else. “Hollywood is now irrelevant.” - IAC Chairman Barry Diller
The fact you don't understand how the game development industry works or likely ANY computer-based development works is quite evident. Someone who is in the games industry already would understand what the HR is looking for, even those who have seriously looked into games development would. If you think they have someone who is a coder, a programmer, doing the design work for quests and other DESIGN aspects is laughable. If you think someone in art or animation, such as Tom Tobey, is doing programming, that's also very deluded. Someone doing animation is also not doing environmental art. The tools for making the quests, etc., are spreadsheets, databases, and similar items. They're storywriters. It's like thinking a script writer for a movie is the one who is running the cameras or even doing the film editing. There are many different jobs and they're all very specialised. Yes, in a tiny niche independent game you might have a single person doing multiple things but they're likely relying on pre-built off-the-shelf items that work with a certain "engine" that they haven't programmed but have bought from others who have. They're not doing the role of programmer as a designer either.
Whoa too much sense in this. This is one of the issues, people be too much having fun. Then you look at the posting, Get work done in 1-3 days!!!! Angry!!! All I can ask and then say is, At that location, how many of those employees are prior military? None? That job I'd get someone who prior military then. Look at bootcamps that focus on prior military, poach the graduation dates, when it happens, email time. "hey you interested in San Diego, coding job, designer, UI" Whats your stack? Word, and Excel nah They need to get serious that posting. Like what engine is running on, what code what design or whatever, what are they really gonna be using majority of the day. It sure aint Word and Excel, if it is thats pretty sad, Designer job, Word and Excel is your stack. Thats not really a designer to me. Yeah? Well 58k San Diego, thats gonna be kinda rough. You know rent is usually x3 your salary. Theres a bit of places to live in an apartment, not as many options. So I guess its doable. https://www.apartments.com/tizon-senior-apartments-62-san-diego-ca/58761pn/ Thats a senior place actually, https://www.apartments.com/bella-vista-san-diego-ca/y4558nt/ This gonna be your apartment if you get that job. I guess its doable. I'd hire prior military though especially if they don't have anyone that works at that location that was prior military and since the job seems to be about Get work done in 1-3 days!!!! Angry!!! When it comes to UI, it really don't matter. If its a quest maker, prior military folks they are good with directions. 1. do this 2. do that 3. now this 4. these are the materials you gonna to do this Maintenance doing maintenance is like doing quests in video games. Prior military folks are very good at maintenance, very good at get this place spotless. good at maintenance inspections. Letting people higher than them, explaining the maintenance, performing it, everything. 15 minutes early. They need get a prior military person for that job if you ask me. btw bootcamps as in coding bootcamps.
Umm... coding bootcamps, database bootcamps, network admin bootcamps and all the rest have absolutely nothing to do with the military in any way shape or form. They're only short workshop like training often a week or less with concentrated information. Many of them focus on a single aspect of an area such as a networking bootcamp focusing only on some of the features of a Microsoft server and how to configure it for for very specific tasks and uses and, from the ones I've taken, they're much more marketing oriented than academic, as in selling a specific software tool with its basic uses vs anything about the topic in general. They're called "bootcamps" because they're concentrated starters and nothing military at all. They're as military as the firewall term "DMZ" (demilitarized zone) has anything to do with military or governments, etc. Because you don't understand the terms and descriptions or even what software is used for certain roles doesn't make them invalid. However, based on information I have had in the past, I am pretty sure EQ and EQ2 is still using their own in-house built engine. They're not using an engine built by some other company that can be purchased for generic use. Like many companies, their use of Microsoft products on the front end (i.e. the design and worker side) doesn't indicate at all what they're using in the server rooms. They might even be using Microsoft server software for employee level work but have a completely different OS running the games. I don't know that level of detail because I haven't worked for them and haven't delved into it that deeply.
I said prior military. As in they are outta the military. Bootcamps meaning, they went to the coding bootcamps. Now they looking for work. Hire prior military people that are outta the bootcamps. They hungry. That job description, that sounds full stack. Designer, thats graphics and stuff. But do quests do the mechanics. Thats developer stuff. Fullstack. Whats their stack? According to that job description Word and Excel.
And this is the problem. If the fix they are putting on live next week and not testing on test this week doesn't work we are stuck with broken personas for a month. It's a test server when things are broken they need to be fixed, patched and retested before sending it to live.
There seems to be this idea that a magical "hotfix" can solve all the problems. A "hotfix" is just an unschedueled patch. To do so, that requires a "fix" or "change" to the problems to exist and be in a stable enough state to push onto a public server. they could have a "hotpatch" every hour. However nothing would change, because they wouldn't be putting any changes onto the public servers.
I recall multiple people requesting the ability to hyperthread, as well as many users requesting updates to EQ graphics. Both of which DirectX 11 would be required to do. And don't even get me started on people QQing about the UI needing updated. If you want your posts to be taken seriously, then don't use hyperbole to try to make a point. Just because it is not something you asked for, does not mean multiple other's didn't ask for it. As for the making of EQ3, they've already provided a timeline on when they anticipate it done. So that point is completely irrelevant to this conversation. As for anything uberkingkong posts, some advice: "Silence is the virtue of those who are not wise."
Hyper-threading has existed as far as I can remember through changing client affinity. No one important wanted a changed ui and even if they did, they already had the garbage custom ones you still can't utilize properly on a 4k+ resolution due to size of stat fonts being too small. The default UI on EQ has always been the only one I've ever stuck with, there's not a damn thing that was wrong with it and the beautiful part? It functioned AND looked fine. Same issue EQ2 always had, their quest journal was illegible at high resolutions so I stopped playing the damn game entirely. No one wanted this clunky mess that's made peoples older PC's completely unplayable now. You want updated graphics, play a modern mmo or wait for EQ3, I'm done hearing about this game needs this or it needs that changed. trying to force the change of aesthetics of a 25 year old game while breaking it for many is outright embarrassing.
Likewise, I probably would not want to see the "art" done by someone who is coding. They're completely different skill sets!!
Reports are starting to appear in the mainstream gaming media, all saying that DBG has just laid off ~15 people, and that every sub-studio was touched. We already know the PS2 team lost a few, and the DCUO team lost Mepps, but the press is saying one or more people got pink-slipped who were supporting each of EQ, LOTRO and DDO. Anyone want to guess who we lost on the EQ side, if anyone?
