Dev team bios

Galadourn

So I checked this guy, Jason Crawford, who is a key member of the dev team. Look at his bio:

http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,222685/

I think it is safe to say that AoC is in good hands. There are also a few other developers from SoE that were involved in EQ1/2/Next. Could this be the spiritual incarnation of EQN that was so shamefully cancelled?

I hope so. But for the first time in years, amongst the multitude of kickstarter projects, I feel that this dev team knows what they're doing.

Here, take a look at some more bios: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreybard/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-bacon-a453571/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidthornfield/

Vrika

So you're confident that someone is qualified to become technical director for an MMO because he's studied in Pleasant Valley High School and after working years in engineering he finally got promoted as Senior Engineer in 2015.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/eqpaladin

There's no doubt that he's a good engineer and good addition to the team, but to me it looks like he's lacking in both education and in experience of senior level positions.

Jacobin

I just don't get why people think EQ2/N is the type of work experience that would make anyone confident in this project.

It was clearly stated by SOE that the game was 'unfun' and bleeding money. It assisted in crashing one of the oldest and most successful MMORPG companies.

Not only was it a development failure, but it also shattered consumer confidence by conning people through the sale of very high priced founders packs for Landmark with the claim that it would tie into EQN.

If EQN was worth anything, Daybreak would have kept the developers and project going. How anyone could think Intrepid games will somehow be able to pull off what SOE could not is the highest level of magical thinking.

Could these SOE/Daybreak rejects make another good game? Maybe, but I am not interested in funding their paychecks for the next several years to find out.

Galadourn

Well, given the state of modern MMOs, even an old-school at its core MMO with refined features would resonate well with a sizeable community, at least sizeable enough to support it. So work experience on EQ1/2 is proof of adequacy on the dev team's part.

And I wouldn't pay any heed to any comments from DayBreak Games; they are an investment company, so "not fun" probably means "not enough return on the investment".

Jacobin

AoC is in no way a 'traditional' MMO so I have no idea why that is even mentioned. Its also false since themepark MMOs just go FTP and die unless they have Blizzard, Bethesda or SquareEnix money.

Your statement about Daybreak is also very revealing. You really don't see a problem with a studio bleeding money due to huge cost overruns and lack of scope? Its totally fine for a company on KS to completely fails to deliver on its stated goals?

MaxBacon

Their experience will be rather irrelevant to the problem that such a small dev team for one big MMO project.

It's always the same story, always the same struggles, the small ones going big and the big ones going small, it's the opposite of what it should be.

Galadourn

Jacobin said:

AoC is in no way a 'traditional' MMO so I have no idea why that is even mentioned.

Your statement about Daybreak is also very revealing. You really don't see a problem with a studio bleeding money due to huge cost overruns and lack of scope? You don't care if a company on KS completely fails to deliver on its stated goals?

There's a misunderstanding, what i meant to say is that "even if" AoC were a traditional MMO, there would still be an audience for it.

With regard to DBG, I don't have the numbers ofc, but i believe that the overheads in big multi-nationals with extensive financing obligations render any project that is not stellar almost non-viable. The threshold for acceptable return on the investment is vastly different between DBG and Intrepid.

Slapshot1188

I thought this would be a breakdown on all the bios, not just one guy...

Why not go through the whole list... from the top... and list the key products they delivered and their role which makes you confident that they can deliver where so many have failed before?  What projects have they LED?  Not contributed to, but LED?

Jacobin

Galadourn said:

There's a misunderstanding, what i meant to say is that "even if" AoC were a traditional MMO, there would still be an audience for it.

With regard to DBG, I don't have the numbers ofc, but i believe that the overheads in big multi-nationals with extensive financing obligations render any project that is not stellar almost non-viable. The threshold for acceptable return on the investment is vastly different between DBG and Intrepid.

So EQN - a game you never played - was actually amazing and we should therefore think 1 engineer on it can effectively direct a new revolutionary MMO with no budget in under 2 years?

DBG just cancels multi year, secretly amazing games with awesome development teams because they won't make WoW Money? There is zero possibility that the game and team were just not that great?

Distopia

Jacobin said:

AoC is in no way a 'traditional' MMO so I have no idea why that is even mentioned. Its also false since themepark MMOs just go FTP and die unless they have Blizzard, Bethesda or SquareEnix money.

Your statement about Daybreak is also very revealing. You really don't see a problem with a studio bleeding money due to huge cost overruns and lack of scope? Its totally fine for a company on KS to completely fails to deliver on its stated goals?

Either way I don't see how management issues relate to this guy? All he really did was system engineering (which really doesn't tell you what specific thing he worked on. He's not the one making such decisions, so what does it really have to do with him? Or any of these other guys? 

Jacobin

Distopia said:

Either way I don't see how management issues relate to this guy? All he really did was system engineering (which really doesn't tell you what specific thing he worked on. He's not the one making such decisions, so what does it really have to do with him? Or any of these other guys? 

They are the ones being touted as the technical masterminds behind building a new revolutionary MMO that will 'rebirth' a billion dollar genre with a small budget and in under 2 years.

If their last project shows the exact opposite with way more time, money and people how is that not relevant?

Maybe he was the one lone superstar at SOE who did everything right and it was everyone else was holding him back. But then why didn't Daybreak keep him on the payroll?

Wasting KS backer money is one thing, but in this case I am actually a little worried for Mr. Sharif who could be the next SOE employing a development that costs tons of money and can't produce anything. With his lack of IT management experience how would he even know if progress is being made? He migh actually be the one being conned.

Leiloni

Vrika said:

So you're confident that someone is qualified to become technical director for an MMO because he's studied in Pleasant Valley High School and after working years in engineering he finally got promoted as Senior Engineer in 2015.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/eqpaladin

There's no doubt that he's a good engineer and good addition to the team, but to me it looks like he's lacking in both education and in experience of senior level positions.

According to the link in the OP he has 9 years of relevant experience. That's enough to get you a director level position in most fields.

Leiloni

Jacobin said:

Distopia said:

Either way I don't see how management issues relate to this guy? All he really did was system engineering (which really doesn't tell you what specific thing he worked on. He's not the one making such decisions, so what does it really have to do with him? Or any of these other guys? 

But then why didn't Daybreak keep him on the payroll?

Have you thought about the more likely scenario where he maybe didn't want to stay at Daybreak? Just from the shitstorm that has been their PR the past few years any sane person would hightail it out of there and from what I've read on Glassdoor, many already have.

Leiloni

Jacobin said:

Distopia said:

Either way I don't see how management issues relate to this guy? All he really did was system engineering (which really doesn't tell you what specific thing he worked on. He's not the one making such decisions, so what does it really have to do with him? Or any of these other guys? 

They are the ones being touted as the technical masterminds behind building a new revolutionary MMO that will 'rebirth' a billion dollar genre with a small budget and in under 2 years.

If their last project shows the exact opposite with way more time, money and people how is that not relevant?

Maybe he was the one lone superstar at SOE who did everything right and it was everyone else was holding him back. But then why didn't Daybreak keep him on the payroll?

Wasting KS backer money is one thing, but in this case I am actually a little worried for Mr. Sharif who could be the next SOE employing a development that costs tons of money and can't produce anything. With his lack of IT management experience how would he even know if progress is being made? He migh actually be the one being conned.

I don't honestly see what's so revolutionary about what they're doing. Most of what they're doing has already been done before, they're just putting features together in a different way. The only "new" system is the Node system, which honestly is just an evolution of systems we've seen before. 

Jacobin

Leiloni said:

Have you thought about the more likely scenario where he maybe didn't want to stay at Daybreak? Just from the shitstorm that has been their PR the past few years any sane person would hightail it out of there and from what I've read on Glassdoor, many already have.

There is no way to know if that scenario is 'more likely'. If he was the one shining star in a sea of garbage, you would think Smedley, who employed him for 9 years, would bring him to Amazon.

Vrika

Leiloni said:

Vrika said:

So you're confident that someone is qualified to become technical director for an MMO because he's studied in Pleasant Valley High School and after working years in engineering he finally got promoted as Senior Engineer in 2015.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/eqpaladin

There's no doubt that he's a good engineer and good addition to the team, but to me it looks like he's lacking in both education and in experience of senior level positions.

According to the link in the OP he has 9 years of relevant experience. That's enough to get you a director level position in most fields.

A director normally requires:
-Education
-Relevant experience
-Leadership experience

He's missing the education part, and has less than 2 years of experience in senior position. No matter how much relevant experience he has, that alone won't cover what he's missing.

He's just someone they were able to hire more cheaply than a qualified director would have been.

MightyUnclean

So many red flags with this one.  I wish I was still as optimistic about crowd funded games as I once was.  After funding a handful and seeing them flounder endlessly in early access, I can't bring myself to fork over cash again.

Galadourn

Here, take a look at some more bios: 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreybard/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-bacon-a453571/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidthornfield/