There’s a thread on Q23.

Here I know really nothing, so I don’t have a clue about what’s relevant, what isn’t, what’s true, what’s false. That DDO was doomed was already pretty obvious long before release, exactly as it was obvious for AC2. Just wait. Remember that AC2 was a major failure and STILL resisted for how long? Three years?

The news is that Ken Troop leaves Turbine to move to Wizard of the Coast. No clue about what this means. Here some quotes from the comments on Jason Booth website:

Anonymous 1:
I worked with Jason Booth at Turbine for almost 9 years. I can honestly say that he would always tell it like it is. Many times managment would not like to talk about the big white elephant in the room, but Jason would shine a light on it. Many managment folks resented him for that, but he was always right.

Anonymous 2:
Jason was just uncouth about how he approached things. That’s what led to his being fired from Turbine.

I recall when he told Robert Blackadder (the senior producer at the time) to “fuck off, I do what I want and answer only to Jeff Anderson” when Rob tried to schedule him for tasks. Or when the time he and Dan Ogles threw a fit when it was announced that Wizards wanted to change the combat system so it was more in line with traditional MMOs. Or when Jason walked out of a meeting as a form of “protest”.

Things like that don’t belong in a professional environment on any level.

Jason Boot:
clearly you have a nack for re-writting history; I never told Rob ‘fuck off, I only listen to Anderson’. I think I only talked to Jeff about 4 times that year, so he’s hardly the person I would be responding too.

Yes, I was always a controversial figure at Turbine. Love me or hate me, agree or disagree, I was going to let people know what I thought. But if we all just kissed ass and said things were great when they clearly were not then you wouldn’t have a place in this world; and that wouldn’t be good, now, would it?

Anonymous 2:
The point was not that you expressed a differing opinion. It was how you expressed it. Be professional about it, for God’s sake.

Funny how Rob himself told several of us one day that you yourself told him to “fuck off”. Why would he make that up?

Bottom line though is that I agree with you about the credits. People who worked on the game, especially those who worked on it for as long as you did, obviously contributed and therefore should have received credit. You were robbed.

Troop, btw, left to go to Wizards of the Coast. He can now fuck things up over there. Go go gadget ignorance!

Jason Boot:
Getting things done at Turbine required extreme measures. At harmonix, you simply have to state a reasonable case and someone will give you a reasonable answer and rational. But lets face it, whoever you are, you know that isn’t the case at Turbine. Someone up high gets a whim, and suddenly everything is pulled out from under you. That doesn’t make for good development, or good company health. You sit waiting for the axe to fall, because you know it will. There’s a reason DDO shipped and MEO hasn’t, and ignoring the problems was a big reason why.

Now, I will readily admit to some evil enjoyment in certain cases, but I am much happier not having to come down with a nuclear warhead when some bone headed move comes down the pipe. Those are the exact types of things that managers are supposed to filter out in advance, and that company heriarchy is supposed to protect people from. Instead, the filter seemed to work in the oposite direction. I shouldn’t have to deliver the mail to show management that they are wasting money by not hiring an intern to do the task. That having every developer on the project sift through a giant box looking for thier mail each day is a really bad use of resources. These things should be obvious, and if they are not, it should be easy to point them out and not require theatrics.

As for Ken, as I told him at GDC, I think he makes a lot more sense there than at a video game company.

Back from Q23:

Rumours peg DDO subscription numbers around 40000-50000. Concurrent connections around 15000.

Engineering Director Justin Quimby also has bailed for Maxis.

The low number of concurrent users is also having a strong negative and active impact on the players since it brings to serious LFG problems. How surprising, huh?

Rumors of gloom and doom are being weakly restrained on the official forum:

DDO is not coming to an end. We are still seeing steady growth in our subscriptions every day.

Another random quote, as an unreliable source:

By March 14th they had between 20k and 40k sales (30k +/- 10k). Now, you are saying that DDO has increased it’s playerbase to 160k, or more specifically, 800% since the 20k pre-release that were avail on day one and through all of this has not had to open 1 extra server? really??? no, seriously… I mean it? You are saying that?

Not only that but you are saying a game with a playerbase of 160k only manages to have 150-250 players online during peak play hours (Between 3PM and 9PM PST) on normal pop servers and the 3 highest servers garner 300-450 during those same hours?

Remember the Golden Rule of the mmorpg industry: the more you fuck up the higher you will be promoted.

Come on, prove me wrong.