Smirk was the worst CM we ever had - and that is going all the way back to Wishstone who would ban people at the drop of a hat. The man just did not do his job properly. I cannot even count all the times I have had to go to other Cryptic game forums to get information that Smirk should have gotten to us here.
I have nothing against the man personally, and I am certain he is a wonderful, fun, person to hang with, but as a CM he just did not cut it, IMO. You need to be more then friendly and nice to do your job properly. You might think your surgeon is the nicest person in the world but if every patient he/she ever operated on died you would be rethinking him doing your surgery.
I wish him well in his future endeavors but I am not sorry to see him go.
18 people were laid off from Cryptic it seems. Half were from the Neverwinter team. :eek: No word on the STO side of things, other than Smirk and Matt Miller.
Smirk wasn't/isn't really a Dev, though ... he was/is Community Manager, so his Job was/is to "care about people" & interact with said Community -> Just saying ...
yeah... for what little thats worth. in a way im glad smirk is gone if true, however who will replace smirk is the question that will answer how i would really feel about it. if its a much better community lead like brandon was, i would be very happy that smirk took a hike, if its worse, then its only slightly amused by it, if its a no change type of comunity lead, then i cant wait for that one to go away as well until there is a good community lead who can bring a few of our ideas to the developers and give us back some good feedback on the game.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
18 people were laid off from Cryptic it seems. Half were from the Neverwinter team. :eek: No word on the STO side of things, other than Smirk and Matt Miller.
So Smirk (assuming he counts as Cryptic employee) + Miller + 7 other people ... don't even tell me how many people are left ... "Local Starbucks" comes to mind ...
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
18 people were laid off from Cryptic it seems. Half were from the Neverwinter team. :eek: No word on the STO side of things, other than Smirk and Matt Miller.
i bet all this was because cryptic were spending more on voice actors and actresses in salaries then they could manage, getting a reputation for bringing in a well known actors is one thing, lets hope pwe doesnt pull event more out of cryptic, because sto will go down like a roman candle when their promised iconian plot turns into one of the worst cases of vaporware next to freelancer 2, starcraft: ghost and probably star citizen as well.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
I'm sorry to see you leave like that. I hope you'll soon find a better employer sporting a better managed game and most of all a better publishing company.
:P thats why its called vaporware, was there a freelancer 2? there was development for it at one point for a project by the same people, same type of game and then got canned.
Sad to hear about Smirk and Matt "Positron" Miller.
Matt's work on the new Fed tutorial did more to capture the spirit of Star Trek, then the rest of the game could in the 4 years before that new tutorial was introduced.
Best of luck to all affected, hopefully they'll land on their feet quickly.
In no way can this news (it's no longer just a rumor) be considered good, especially considering past news reports of financial troubles.
PWE's North American division isn't performing well huh? I think we all know why. If your players aren't spending enough money then maybe that's a sign you should change your f2p model.
And yeah like james I'm spending a single cent on this game. This isn't the first news of this sort we've heard.
18 people were laid off from Cryptic it seems. Half were from the Neverwinter team. :eek: No word on the STO side of things, other than Smirk and Matt Miller.
Only positive is that Neverwinter was hit a lot harder than STO, with most of the lay offs coming from that MMO team. Still very sad either way.
Rumour has it our Community Manager Captain Smirk is no longer with PWE, can we have an official statement?
From a big fan, SMIRK WE LOVE YOU! Your livestreams we're hilarious and your ship builds, well those made you awesome as well. If your still here, there are quite a few of us that stand behind you.
...we had a Community Manager?
NO to ARC RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
Maby if they didn't make the game so p2w more people would be compelled to buy from the cash shop, it works really well for guild wars 2. They need to stop trying to force everyone to pay and come up with a system that lets people pay on their own terms, the more happy the community the more likely they'll pay.
What worries me is the lack of communications about this as it's made me think twice about spending on this game incase it's wasted (and yes I know in the long run the game may die one day but with the silence it's making my wallet stay closed until I know what's going on)
I have to admit, its made me worried. You can only hope if things are dire behind the scenes they will be taking some very big steps to understand the massive player migration and negative reception from the players since DR launch and finally do something about it.
Only positive is that Neverwinter was hit a lot harder than STO, with most of the lay offs coming from that MMO team. Still very sad either way.
Maybe I'm missing something here but :
Champions Online is being left to chug along, our source says.
MMORPG fans will recall that Cryptic has pulled at least one developer from live projects to work on unannounced games. Those projects will continue: The secret projects are unaffected, says our source.
=> 9 people from Neverwinter / 9 people from STO ... ??
Patch Notes : Resolved an Issue, where people would accidently experience Fun.
Smirk was the worst CM we ever had - and that is going all the way back to
Wishstone
who would ban people at the drop of a hat. The man just did not do his job properly. I cannot even count all the times I have had to go to other Cryptic game forums to get information that Smirk should have gotten to us here.
I have nothing against the man personally, and I am certain he is a wonderful, fun, person to hang with, but as a CM he just did not cut it, IMO. You need to be more then friendly and nice to do your job properly. You might think your surgeon is the nicest person in the world but if every patient he/she ever operated on died you would be rethinking him doing your surgery.
I wish him well in his future endeavors but I am not sorry to see him go.
Smirk on the other hand...I think he had a great attitude at least. But no one will ever beat Brandon Felczer I hope I spelled that right.
Maby if they didn't make the game so p2w more people would be compelled to buy from the cash shop, it works really well for guild wars 2. They need to stop trying to force everyone to pay and come up with a system that lets people pay on their own terms, the more happy the community the more likely they'll pay.
Exactly. I don't know why they don't understand that other than to say that they're an asian company probably used to using an asian f2p MMO model which really emphasizes the cash shop and relies on people being practically addicted to the game. That sort of f2p model isn't popular in the US and I'm guessing Europe and Australia feel the same way.
I should point out that the gears of public relations tend to grind slowly at PWE (see what I did there?) and Cryptic Devs haven't been free to say whatever they want whenever they want for a long, long time.
When/If there's an officially blessed from on-high communication, they'll post it and not sooner.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Smirk was the worst CM we ever had - and that is going all the way back to Wishstone who would ban people at the drop of a hat. The man just did not do his job properly. I cannot even count all the times I have had to go to other Cryptic game forums to get information that Smirk should have gotten to us here.
I have nothing against the man personally, and I am certain he is a wonderful, fun, person to hang with, but as a CM he just did not cut it, IMO. You need to be more then friendly and nice to do your job properly. You might think your surgeon is the nicest person in the world but if every patient he/she ever operated on died you would be rethinking him doing your surgery.
I wish him well in his future endeavors but I am not sorry to see him go.
I have to agree with Cosmic here...for those who have been around a "while"...no long lost here.
This guy was a typical "politically correct" kind of guy...great people skills on the outside but horrible doing the job of CM. Too quick to push the "ban" buttons and call out people while leaving "others" untouched. To me seems very unfair in what he did and was a turned off for many "old" players who left already due to his quick impulses. Some were deserved but most weren't.
I know this post will be closed sooner or later but I don't have any sympathy except for him just being another human being and respect that much. I don't AGREE with his quick impulses nor with the manner he ignored most of the playerbase when they made "good" points...enough said.
I still have pending tickets not being followed up by him but hope the new CMs will be a good change for STO.
... who needs to play the game for entertainment, the blogs and resulting forum storms are far more entertaining and free! Free 2 Laugh!
DR launched, doom, EP bailed out before stuff hit the fan, people got fired for low revenues. Guarantee NWN is in the same boat, they are following the exact same unsustainable development cycle.
Cryptic isn't bringing nearly enough to support their staff compared to before, this could only be round one. Besides, the CMs during DR did a particularly bad job smoothing the DR launch out, if I had a CM working for me and that went on, they'd have been fired long ago.
Well, there's really no development going on for CO, so that leaves STO and Neverwinter and the "secret" projects. Since the reports are that the secret stuff was unaffected, that leaves STO. Just speculation of course.
given that there are no confirmable numbers at all? yeah....
Comments
Yep. Since Branny left it was a mess.
18 people were laid off from Cryptic it seems. Half were from the Neverwinter team. :eek: No word on the STO side of things, other than Smirk and Matt Miller.
yeah... for what little thats worth. in a way im glad smirk is gone if true, however who will replace smirk is the question that will answer how i would really feel about it. if its a much better community lead like brandon was, i would be very happy that smirk took a hike, if its worse, then its only slightly amused by it, if its a no change type of comunity lead, then i cant wait for that one to go away as well until there is a good community lead who can bring a few of our ideas to the developers and give us back some good feedback on the game.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
So Smirk (assuming he counts as Cryptic employee) + Miller + 7 other people ... don't even tell me how many people are left ... "Local Starbucks" comes to mind ...
i bet all this was because cryptic were spending more on voice actors and actresses in salaries then they could manage, getting a reputation for bringing in a well known actors is one thing, lets hope pwe doesnt pull event more out of cryptic, because sto will go down like a roman candle when their promised iconian plot turns into one of the worst cases of vaporware next to freelancer 2, starcraft: ghost and probably star citizen as well.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Geko will turn off the light lol
I'm sorry to see you leave like that. I hope you'll soon find a better employer sporting a better managed game and most of all a better publishing company.
All the best to you!
LLAP
MCP
:P thats why its called vaporware, was there a freelancer 2? there was development for it at one point for a project by the same people, same type of game and then got canned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ik9liH8OUw
enough off topic though.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Make that the exact opposite ... and it would be the only good news about it ...
Matt's work on the new Fed tutorial did more to capture the spirit of Star Trek, then the rest of the game could in the 4 years before that new tutorial was introduced.
Best of luck to all affected, hopefully they'll land on their feet quickly.
PWE's North American division isn't performing well huh? I think we all know why. If your players aren't spending enough money then maybe that's a sign you should change your f2p model.
And yeah like james I'm spending a single cent on this game. This isn't the first news of this sort we've heard.
Only positive is that Neverwinter was hit a lot harder than STO, with most of the lay offs coming from that MMO team. Still very sad either way.
...we had a Community Manager?
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
I have to admit, its made me worried. You can only hope if things are dire behind the scenes they will be taking some very big steps to understand the massive player migration and negative reception from the players since DR launch and finally do something about it.
Maybe I'm missing something here but :
=> 9 people from Neverwinter / 9 people from STO ... ??
I thought only two people were lost from STO? Am I wrong then?
2 are "confirmed" ... but if Neverwinter lost 9 people ... and other projects were left alone ... the other 9 must have been on the STO Team !?
Smirk on the other hand...I think he had a great attitude at least. But no one will ever beat Brandon Felczer I hope I spelled that right.
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~Bluegeek
Exactly. I don't know why they don't understand that other than to say that they're an asian company probably used to using an asian f2p MMO model which really emphasizes the cash shop and relies on people being practically addicted to the game. That sort of f2p model isn't popular in the US and I'm guessing Europe and Australia feel the same way.
When/If there's an officially blessed from on-high communication, they'll post it and not sooner.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I have to agree with Cosmic here...for those who have been around a "while"...no long lost here.
This guy was a typical "politically correct" kind of guy...great people skills on the outside but horrible doing the job of CM. Too quick to push the "ban" buttons and call out people while leaving "others" untouched. To me seems very unfair in what he did and was a turned off for many "old" players who left already due to his quick impulses. Some were deserved but most weren't.
I know this post will be closed sooner or later but I don't have any sympathy except for him just being another human being and respect that much. I don't AGREE with his quick impulses nor with the manner he ignored most of the playerbase when they made "good" points...enough said.
I still have pending tickets not being followed up by him but hope the new CMs will be a good change for STO.
DR launched, doom, EP bailed out before stuff hit the fan, people got fired for low revenues. Guarantee NWN is in the same boat, they are following the exact same unsustainable development cycle.
Cryptic isn't bringing nearly enough to support their staff compared to before, this could only be round one. Besides, the CMs during DR did a particularly bad job smoothing the DR launch out, if I had a CM working for me and that went on, they'd have been fired long ago.
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