So long Higby.

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Ribero, Feb 12, 2015.

  1. Kentucky Windage

    Godspeed Mr. Higby. All the best.
  2. sustainedfire

    It's a strange sign that he left, seemingly voluntarily.

    Either he saw the game was headed downhill, or he had a much better job offer.

    Why would you leave a project that you are so enthusiastic about?
  3. Gearlock


    Because your choices were to leave amicably or be fired violently??

    High end management is typically given the choice to leave on their own or be fired, in scenarios like this, as we've seen many times in modern culture in many different arenas.

    I just want to throw this out there too...

    This is not good, at all, for the game, period. Sure, those who live breathe and love planetside who follow it and have been for the last several years may feel this could be a refresher, a new light! NEW HOPE! THIS IS SALVATION!!

    But the players like myself, who played for some length, whether long or brief, enjoyed it, but became no longer interested because of (REASONS) who keep an eye on the game are going to discover this has happened and in many cases have the following reaction:

    "So they fired most of the development staff and now HIgby. Understood. Wonder how that new assassins creed game is! click click gone forever"

    I'm sorry, but, the reality is that this is a negative event, preceeded by negative events, which reinforces the negative events and experiences players like myself, hoping to see some major, positive changes, have seen.

    Noone in my position (explayer occasionally checking on game status hoping for good news) will return to the game that has clearly come to a standstill development wise, and now no longer has devs or management.

    It reeks of death throes. And I absolutely will not throw my wallet at it, or even commit hard drive space to it.
  4. Jäger_01


    You're just saying that because Higby won't be around to favor NC anymore...
  5. Crator

    They are giving severance packages to those that they let go. If you leave, no severance package. And it also makes it harder to collect unemployment.
  6. Gearlock


    I'm a large higby detractor and have characters of all 3 factions with investment in all of them, particularly my TR.

    Thanks for your uninformed, inaccurate, and pointless opinion.
  7. Gearlock


    Noone knows the truth of the situation. Except higby and those around him.

    I will continue to believe it was an ultimatum, or a situation so ugly noone in their right mind would continue to stay.

    As far as I'm concerned, there is no positive reason for his departure other than the grass being greener anywhere but here.

    It's all speculation and opinion on that topic, I respect yours, and stated that there is simply a realm of possibilities outside of "The game is great but I have a better offer elsewhere" and "The game is amazing but I have a better offer elsewhere" which is rose tinted glasses as far as I'm concerned.
  8. Crator

    My statement wasn't really an opinion. Was fact. I'm not really speculating at all on the reason why. Like you said, he isn't happy there and doesn't want to stay for some reason... Perhaps he also got another offer somewhere else which lessened the pain of leaving as much.... </shrug>

    EDIT: Hot off the presses! Meet your new Director of Development for PS2: https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/producers-letter.214798/
  9. Jäger_01

    Dost thou prate, rogue?

    I am completely correct and you are just inventing things to say that are contrary to the facts I posted earlier. Waste no more of my time with this inane babble, pleb.
    • Up x 1
  10. vanu123

    RadarX and a few others are still there.
  11. Luftwaffe


    Absolutely ********, dude.

    Don't even begin to speak for a player-base or community first of all, especially one that's a part of a free-2-play game.

    And second of all, who cares? People come and go for many reasons all the time. Your opinion bears no weight, and simply does not matter.

    On a final note, go back to your ****** Assassin's Creed series that you suggest is better in replacement of PS2. Keep throwing money at Ubisoft who's done nothing but flooded the market with that terribly regurgitated series. It's done nothing to help the gaming industry, which is in a stagnant state currently.
    • Up x 2
  12. DxAdder

    Who is to blame for the current state of the game ? SOE

    I'm actually excited the game will now move forward.

    What did the old Development team give us beside a new continent ? NOTHING

    The rest of the development budget they had wasted on things that were never going bring more people to the game or keep current players interested.

    Yes a new team is very much needed.
    • Up x 2
  13. LordMatt XLVIII

    I can't really draw it all out here, but here's some research I did: http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/2vtafl/after_some_research_heres_my_prediction/

    I believe Columbus Nova's goal is to get Daybreak running as it was/better. They will likely try to find a replacement for Higby, but it will certainly be a while before new developers are hired.
  14. PhoenixError

    Some more optimistic thoughts on what it could mean (not saying these are true/most possible/etc. just a lot of cynicism so wanted to provide a different perspective):

    Studio(s) had a lot of redundancy so people were cut that weren't cost-effective. Basically they believe/knew there were other people who could do the job OR there were multiple people doing the same job when you only need 1 or 2 so they cut staff reducing costs. cost-effective is the idea that if you need 4 people to make a chair and hire 7 people, those 3 extra people are costing you more then they are producing.

    Planning to work on a new Planetside and wanted to bring in a fresh team and/or contract the work out to another studio.

    Looking to sell off the IP, thus the positions would (again) be not needed anymore and thus expendable.


    From the glassdoor link posted it sounds possible for the first case, along with some nonperformance and maybe the new ownership felt the underlings could be new ideas and a change in culture? Hesitant to buy full on in this since it's still reviews and got a mix of reviews from the ones I saw. Personally though interested to see what comes out of all of this, til I hear more I'm not ready to jump on either the "things will be better!" or "game is doomed/going to be milked to death!" sides yet.
  15. Rogueghost

    Not related at all but I'm curious as to how small your average player's hard drive is in order to continually uninstall and then reinstall the same game as it gains and loses interest. It seems like a lot of effort when you could just let it rot on your hard drive forever, not even related in Planetside, I'm just always hearing gamers talk about "considering to reinstall X game" or whatever and I wonder why they bothered uninstalling in the first place if there was chance they'll come back to it.

    Also unrelated but I swear people that cry about dev faction favoritism are some of the dumbest players we have, even dumber than the players claiming X and X faction are working together.
  16. Rentago

    hopefully smedly will be next, because I know he has done nothing but singlehandedly destroy SOE with horrible guidance.
    • Up x 2
  17. CNR4806

    You have summed it up better than I have.

    Things couldn't be worse than Higby and his atrocious management of both the game and dev-community relations. At the very worst it would be the same do-nothing dev team, and at the current rate PS2 is going to die out naturally in a few years or less anyway.
    • Up x 1
  18. Beardingo

    Im a console player and I will most certainly spend money on this game. Ive spent like $50 on the pc version already. Ps4 will make my inability to control my spending that much harder to deal with.
  19. Kubor

    I'm really sorry to see the Planetside 2 team decimated like this. Matt is a gamer and is somebody that we could all identify with on a human individual level.

    It's been a fair while since I've played P2, although I've kept my membership going all the time. I played Planetside 1 for 10 years and am firmly in the camp that is disappointed that Planetside 2 ended up being pretty much a Planetside game in name only. Ten years of PS1 and I only stopped playing because the last server was a ghost town. It took me less than a post-beta year to become bored with PS2, which I think speaks volumes.

    Even so, I don't want this game to go away. I still harbour some hopes of the "Planetside on crack" we were promised way back in closed beta. We go the "Battlefield on steroids" as promised, but never even got close to the second half of that promise.

    Good luck Higby. You always seemed like a genuine and decent guy.
    • Up x 1
  20. Nasher

    The company is changing hands. This is usually when staff jump ship or go and create a rival company. Best time to do it. With an "investment management company" involved, things are very unlikely to change for the better for the people who do the real work.