Half of them jumped ship before the company got sold. Even still with restructuring being commonplace, what hope does the games future have with no development team?
Cool. Maybe we can get some people in the company who actually communicate with the player base on their own forum instead of Reddit and Twitter?
We are hoping that they replace them with people that are competent. That is all we can do, hope they are going long and not the quick pump and dump.. This is not their first video game studio they bought: http://www.wired.com/2010/12/viacom-sells-harmonix-2/ You know, the guys that make Rock band, Guitar Hero, Dance Central.. they didn't run them into the ground..
Oh wow, I was wondering what happened around that time that made Rockband/Guitar Hero disappear completely off radar. I was never a fan, but have friends that were pretty big into that. Right around 2010 it kind of died out, I haven't even remembered those games in 4-5 years until this post. Explains a lot.
You guys had to see this coming. Vulture venture capitalists only go where the money is. PS2 hasn't been producing, so it will be axed. Working in IT I've seen it over and over. They MAY replace some of the team, usually they'll bring in "greenies" who will work for next to nothing to get a resume built, but they won't have the skills or experience required to make it go. Then the vultures investors will scratch the whole thing because it's not making a good return on investment. On another note, everyone who knows me knows I have a thing for geeky guys. Higby will be missed
Here is the list off wiki of games produced since the buy out: 2010-Green Day: Rock Band 2010-Rock Band 3 2010-Dance Central 2011-Dance Central 2 2011-VidRhythm 2012-Rock Band Blitz 2012-Dance Central 3 2014-Record Run 2014-Dance Central Spotlight 2014-A City Sleeps 2014-Fantasia: Music Evolved 2014-Samsung Gear VR project 2015-Amplitude TBA-Chroma "As an independent developer Approximately 6 to 9 months after its sale from Viacom, Harmonix started to grow again, boosted by sales of Dance Central which led to the development of its sequel Dance Central 2 in late 2011.[39] By mid-2011, the company began developing new IP in both the mobile and social game markets, and began rehiring to aid in the development of these games.[39] Continued support of the Rock Band franchise has remained a "meaningful source of profitability" to Harmonix through 2011, according to Rigopulos.[39] Bloomberg then projected that Harmonix would post $100 million in profit in 2011, based on sales of Dance Central and continued downloadable content for the game.[40] At the onset of the 2013 E3 conference, Harmonix announced that its next title would be the Kinect-enabled Fantasia: Music Evolved produced in association with Disney Interactive. The game is based around the animated film Fantasia, and puts the player in control of music in a manner similar to Harmonix' previous rhythm games, affecting the virtual environment and interactive objects within it. The game is based on licensed contemporary rock music such as Queen and Bruno Mars.[41] In February 2014, Harmonix announced a new title, Chroma, co developed with Hidden Path Entertainment, which combines their music genre experience with first-person shooters. The player's actions are timed to the music in the game, influencing their effect with certain actions like gunfire, grenade explosions, and team healing. Chroma is planned for release in late 2014 on Microsoft Windows systems via Steam." Lets just hope they don't turn PS2 into Chroma...
Seeing as tankers have been waiting for the infantry AV nerf for six months and counting since the tank AI nerf part of the bargain, and even more critical things like resource revamp and mission phase 2 being put on indefinite hold since god-knows-how-long-ago, I'd say good riddance. I'd rather gamble on a miracle of competent new blood than waiting more for Higby to move his sorry *** to fulfill promises.
I've given Higby a lot of ****, but he helped make my favorite game. Salute. I know he will be fine, but there are other soldiers lost in the layoffs that won't be. I feel for them. My advice, get out of the gaming industry and stay out. There are much healthier industries out there.
This is a sad day for me. Higby was like a friend i had who did so much for me even though i don't think i ever once interacted with the guy. You guys whining about how he was 'holding the game back' will be disappointed when they see what a truly held back game looks like. Imagine updates once every 6 months, limited to no dev interaction, blatant cheating with few gm's around to police it, bugs bugs bugs like you never imagined, performance loss where you can't exceed 30 fps, sloppy console ports with no shared servers, ghost capping during prime time because there aren'tany events promoting the game. Honestly i have my finger on the quitting the game trigger.. mainly because i have vested so much time money and effort into this game as a hobby. It's been a rough few months since so many of my favorite youtubers had quit around Christmas and then the sudden unexpected announcement that soe is no more, now higby quits and half the dev staff gets axed. Even if it does recover the game is now wounded in its heart. Of course this happens shortly after my sub auto renewed too. All i can hope is that the new daybreak games staff can surprise me by making the game better. wtf is our money supporting now!? It used to be support for the game i enjoyed but now it feels like it's going into some rich jerk's pockets while he systematically takes away the hopes i had for this game.
Are we playing the same game and reading the same forums?? You pretty much described how the last year has been... Many of us are in the "it can't get any worse" camp... This game acts like it was coded by 1st year interns. Personally I don't care if we ever get any new content dropped, long as they can fix the bugs, they are better than the previous team.
Not sure if this was posted here or if the community's aware but I'll just go out on a limb here and post anyway: http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/2vm5nl/dont_hate_on_columbus_novadaybreak/ If Carey's giving the restructuring at DB a chance, I will too. For now, PS2 is still fun despite some annoying/persistent bugs etc. Just hope any new staff/devs don't screw things up.
Well I hope they do get replaced and things go somewhere. If that doesn't happen, it's not like the game has been going anywhere for years now anyways...
I hope they have or choose skilled people to finish the game. It can be better with just a few things, like connecting all the continents by WG and finishing the bases that need it. Stopping playing permanently with the balance and focusing of the real content too. To bad Malorn left a few months ago (probably the best bases designer of PS2) and Xander was part of the lay-off. I wonder who is remaining as level designer and who will finish Hossin ? Maybe Devin Lafontaine (environnmental designer) but I haven't heard of him recently. Maybe we will have an art direction more in line with what is a FPS and what players want, without childlish and shiny things...
I really hated the way he and others, with him being the most prominent one, communicated with the community and it never even came close to what I'd call professional. He did seem to do a lot of stuff, or at least want to, but the pace it happened was far too slow for the expectations he roused - on reddit. Still, I feel highly insecure about all of this change, especially since a week ago the ONLY change that was talked about was Daybreak Games getting more resources for PS2 development. Which is why I have cancelled my membership for now. Or, in "corporate speak": My investment is in danger, until it is re-evaluated I put a hold on future capital expenditures. IF Daybreak games manages a 180 degrees turn and not only stop Planetside2s declining quality but also improve the game overall I'll be the first one to resubscribe. Because let's be honest - there is NOTHING like PS2 out there at the moment. Abandoning a product that has virtually NO competition at the moment would be a strange move even for a greedy investor - if he is even aware of the fact. This is why I have not given up hope yet, although I'm not very optimistic.
Without insider information it is tough to tell who is responsible for what. I'd fire the guy who was responsible for the F2P-model, because the cash flow takes a dive as soon as people got their basic needs covered. I'd also fire the guy who decided to produce a battlefield-clone instead of a real PS1-sequel. Last but not least, I'd fire the guy who is responsible for releasing a game that was still in Alpha-stage thereby screwing up the reputation from the get-go. I call that product-milestone-fraud. Maybe Highby had nothing to do with all of that. If he was just a tool, he doesn't deserve punishment at least. On the other hand, it's not clear if he really deserves his salary either.
I can't see it being a good thing really (game developement-wise), none of the reasons behind him leaving are likely to be good for the game (or frankly he'd have stayed - assuming it was his choice in reality). I mean it is possible they will get some amazing new lead dev and pump money into development, but I very, very, very much doubt it, it would seem that the new owners are doing what most "investment companies" do, strip a company down to the bone and see if it makes money like that, then either sell it on or break it up and sell the parts. I don't think they are remotely interested in developing PS2 further to be honest (unless they have things that are 99% done perhaps). Nothing about what has happened since SOE>DBGs has suggested anything other than this reality.
This just keeps getting better and better... Are we finally allowed to say that the sky is falling, or does it have to give us a concussion first?
Can't imagine the game w/o Higby the ****ter. Thx for your work man and all the best for the future! Farewell crazyhairman 07
