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more devs for the dev team?

thefiresidecatthefiresidecat Member Posts: 4,486 Arc User
With magic dissolving and neverwinter still being the crown jewel in cryptics coffer will the team be expanding to try and fix this game? I read that the entire magic crew had been laid off? is this true?

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  • armadeonxarmadeonx Member Posts: 4,952 Arc User
    edited June 2021
    I don't know if this phrase is known in the US, but in the UK you'd say "they couldn't organise a HAMSTER-up in a brewery" (translates as 'drinking session' or party).

    Meaning that regardless of whatever tools they have at their disposal, they are unable to get their act together...
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  • thefiresidecatthefiresidecat Member Posts: 4,486 Arc User
    edited June 2021
    armadeonx said:

    I don't know if this phrase is known in the US, but in the UK you'd say "they couldn't organise a HAMSTER-up in a brewery" (translates as 'drinking session' or party).

    Meaning that regardless of whatever tools they have at their disposal, they are unable to get their act together...

    with the team they have currently that seems true. but in the past this has been a better game and to the best of my knowledge (Which here is admittedly slim) some of those people who were involved in that phase of the game, were transferred over to magic.
  • armadeonxarmadeonx Member Posts: 4,952 Arc User

    armadeonx said:

    I don't know if this phrase is known in the US, but in the UK you'd say "they couldn't organise a HAMSTER-up in a brewery" (translates as 'drinking session' or party).

    Meaning that regardless of whatever tools they have at their disposal, they are unable to get their act together...

    with the team they have currently that seems true. but in the past this has been a better game and to the best of my knowledge (Which here is admittedly slim) some of those people who were involved in that phase of the game, were transferred over to magic.
    Oh, I have no doubt they have some very capable people and we have seen some good stuff over the years. Leadership is where they appear to fall down. It's the whole "lions led by sheep" situation, regardless of how good the team is, poor leadership always results in many bad choices being implemented.

    Cryptic need to learn the lesson that CW gave them; you need to look deeper than an applicant's own PR to judge whether they are good at what they do.
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  • datarider#1036 datarider Member Posts: 221 Arc User
    better not :D
    more ppl = more chances to hamster hamster :D
  • tchefi#6735 tchefi Member Posts: 417 Arc User
    edited June 2021
    Shutting down a game who has already reached the public beta stage is quite uncommon. I'm wondering how much PE and WotC were involved in the cancel decision.
    Quite a waste, especially considering the probable cost of the MtG license purchase + developpement time, and i'm worrying about the financial impacts on Cryptic overall...

    I doubt much of the Magic devs had transition back to Neverwinter, from what i read on news, it seems 44 employees were laid off.

    Ricossa said : "We learned several valuable lessons along the way, and we will use them to improve Cryptic’s future development efforts."

    I hope some of these lessons have been truly learnt and would help in the future for Neverwinter (some of the top issues during the first weeks of Magic Legends beta were about awful performances, meaningfull progression to quickly halted by a wall of an inane grinding, and quite over the top predatory monetization). But
    I'm not deluding myself too...
  • regenerderegenerde Member Posts: 3,041 Arc User
    edited June 2021
    Well, i gave M:L a try, but something didn't work with the registration, and i couldn't even get in. /shrug

    No idea what went wrong with that game, but it must have been something serious, because they're shutting it down in a few months. Imagine for a moment all that Dev time would have been gone into their "old" games instead...

    Anyway, would be nice to see the Devs returning to NWO, STO and CO again.
    Post edited by regenerde on
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  • jules#6770 jules Member Posts: 709 Arc User
    regenerde said:

    Imagine for a moment all that Dev time would have been gone into their "old" games instead...

    Yeah exactly

    - bye bye -
  • thefiresidecatthefiresidecat Member Posts: 4,486 Arc User
    edited July 2021
    they had a working model for what works and keeps the population base entertained and engaged in this game and they've been ignoring it and doing the opposite of that since mod 16. but doing anything else would mean actually doing some work and junk and I just can' tbe botherrrrreed
    Post edited by thefiresidecat on
  • blargskullblargskull Member Posts: 514 Arc User
    Ok I just found this on Twitter. That confirms my suspicion and you won't be seeing "more devs" here from the project.

    Just killing time...
  • sagakaiyume#0847 sagakaiyume Member Posts: 402 Arc User
    Mistakes like this then people wonder why there are more games with "zax" backlog or higher ratios.

    Really unfortunate for the people laid off, hopefully they can find something soon.
  • sagakaiyume#0847 sagakaiyume Member Posts: 402 Arc User
    The people who worked on the project that didn't work on sound design, any news what happened to them?
  • thefiresidecatthefiresidecat Member Posts: 4,486 Arc User

    Ok I just found this on Twitter. That confirms my suspicion and you won't be seeing "more devs" here from the project.

    laying off 44 employees doesn't mean any of them did not get transferred over. we don't know how many employees there were to begin with. only that 44 were let go.
  • rockster#6227 rockster Member Posts: 1,860 Arc User
    I think all the amazing talent which originally created and maintained this game has now gone and whoever is there now is just not up to par and unable to fix what's broken or introduce brand new content which is of the same standard of that which already exists. I get the feeling this is why they are deleting existing content and re-packaging it as new, because it's just easier and takes less talent to do, and why the fundamentals of the game are constantly changing so much that it's almost morphing into a different game despite the fact that the player base is usually happy and has adjusted to whatever changes they made the last time around. There is also some really sloppy building and map design going on which is just not up to scratch and looks like it was done by people with less building experience than required for a game of this stature.

    This is only my feeling and I'm only speculating but I think the bottom financial line has been shrinking so much due to past mistakes which pushed most of the original playerbase away and they are now hiring cheaper people/designers/coders (maybe just out of college who knows) who are not as experienced and are just not able to do what is needed to the game to keep it authentic to it's roots and they're just trying to push it in a direction they personally like and understand as brand new just out of the box devs instead of doing the work to maintain what is already there and build on it in a way that the game is not changed or disrupted too much for the players. Again, I'm only speculating, but if this is what's going on I don't think they would be adding more devs other than more of the same who aren't all that good at understanding how the game functions and is coded, why players love it and what needs to stay the same to keep them playing, and instead want to make their mark in the world by introducing their own vision for the game to put something nice on their CV when they move-on, so imo things aren't going to get any better. The best we could hope for maybe is that they would just hire one new senior person like CW again because that's all they could afford currently. You need money to hire good talent. If you pay less you get what you pay for. I might be totally wrong. That's just my feeling on it.
    Apparently pointing-out the bleeding obvious is a 'personal attack'.
  • mentinmindmakermentinmindmaker Member Posts: 1,489 Arc User

    Ok I just found this on Twitter. That confirms my suspicion and you won't be seeing "more devs" here from the project.

    laying off 44 employees doesn't mean any of them did not get transferred over. we don't know how many employees there were to begin with. only that 44 were let go.
    Yeah, they certainly will have filled any internal vacancies before laying off people.

    Very likely the best talent available to Cryptic was focused on ML, so those layoffs likely will hurt a lot talent-wise too.
  • mongol69mongol69 Member Posts: 447 Arc User
    edited July 2021
    Hopefully they can get some devs in charge of warlocks and wizards that have actually played and understand how the classes work, and fix problems that have plagued the classes since mod 16....the current silence addressing issues or saying again they are looking into them still, could be finally resolved since they still exist after the last few years.
  • sandukutupusandukutupu Member Posts: 2,285 Arc User

    Ok I just found this on Twitter. That confirms my suspicion and you won't be seeing "more devs" here from the project.

    laying off 44 employees doesn't mean any of them did not get transferred over. we don't know how many employees there were to begin with. only that 44 were let go.
    Laying off an employee is the nicest way to say, "We didn't fire them for incompetence.". Cryptic Studios, has (or had) 260 employees the last I knew or cared to know. This would mean 17% of their total workforce. If you want more current numbers, I am informed, the number is (or was) less than 210 currently bringing the total loss to 22% or more. If you want to average it out, you are still looking at 20% or one-fifth gone and not relocated within the company.

    Other information: They made roughly $4 million per year. March 2011, Jack Emmert was promoted to chief executive officer replacing John Needham. In 2016, Jack Emmert became CEO of Daybreak Game Company for DC Universe Online. I don't know who was appointed CEO after Jack left but the current person in charge is Stephen D'Angelo from all reports. Company salaries vary, Environment Artist $95K, Programmer $91K, Software Engineer $100K, Producer $110K, and lowest Game Designer $84K.

    At best, you might get a tiny handful of vets who have years invested at the company. Some companies offer these people early retirement packages. I don't know if Cryptic practices this, it is where you get reduced benefits for leaving the company. Many people normally jump at early retirement packages, however my father took a buyout option when he left his company. This meant he walked away with less money but got a cash buyout. Since the company declared Chapter 11 shortly after he left, he wouldn't have a retirement package anyway. He invested his buyout into Dow Chemical stocks and lived off the dividends.

    Sorry to hear about this tragic turn of events. My best hopes and prayers go out to the former Cryptic employees. <3
    wb-cenders.gif
  • lantern22lantern22 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,111 Arc User
    lol more devs so they can remove old content faster
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