Get together developers to talk about starting an “indie”? Priceless.
Actually produce the game? Expensive – but doable.
Let Derek Smart talk about changes after you make him president?
Not very smart…
Those who are regular listeners, those who follow us on Virgin Worlds, and read us here, know that we are normally the champions of independent developers. In fact it was not that long ago that we had the community manager and lead designer for Quest Online Studios as guests on the show, where they described us as their “soldiers” making their game and efforts well known. As a result, the No Prisoners, No Mercy team has been following the shakeup at Quest Online studios. This morning’s news feed included some of the following Derek Smart quotes that came to us via Broken Toys in a post Scott Jennings calls “I am not making any of this up.”
“Dave Allen didn’t “depart”. I fired him back in February for insubordination and for acting against the best interests of the company. Shortly after the investors of the LLC unanimously voted him off the LLC….” – Derek Smart
“The average gamer is as finicky as a hummingbird on acid, with a very short attention span and a penchant for being largely unforgiving.” – Derek Smart
It was just yesterday that one of our long time regulars, who goes by the name Token, said he missed a feature we used to do call “Flame Proof Undies.” Well Token, my friend, buckle up and put on your asbestos long johns because the ride is going to rough and it might get a tad hot.
First off, in a proactive move I will anticipate some of the email and comments we will get regarding Messer Godwin’s Reductio ad Hitlerum – Attorney Godwin may indeed be a kind and wonderful soul but he doesn’t pay the bills around here so let me set the stage with one of my favorite lawyer jokes.
Question: What can a goose do, a duck can’t and a lawyer should?
Answer: Stick his bill up his ass.
Now that we have set the proper mood, let me begin to violate said inane “law” by pointing out that, based the announcements by Derek Smart regarding Quest Online Studios (QOL), allowing him to do public relations for QOL is like asking to have Joseph Mengele as your family physician. First off a few words of advice to Mr. Smart who I know will tell us to put our advice the same place the joke above said lawyers should put the bill…
Derek, there is an old expression that says “be nice to the people you meet on the way up because you will meet the same people on the way back down.” The gaming industry is a much smaller community than many people expect and bragging that you fired David Allen isn’t like burning your bridges behind you, it’s more like dynamiting the town on the other side as well. Second, based on your opinion of the “average” gamer you really do need to get out more. That or at least find a way out of the time warp that has left you stuck back in the 1970’s. Your concept of the average gamer is about as archaic as the dial telephone, and useful as a third anus (considering, of course that a second one would be extraneous).
And speaking of extraneous…if you are there to turn things around for Quest Online Studios, you MIGHT not want to self destruct the studio’s reputation before they get their next product out the door. At the rate you are going you probably wouldn’t be able to sell water to a man dying of thirst in the desert. Why am I saying all this? Because I care about Quest Online Studios and hope I am wrong…and if I am right I hope they survive you.
See you online,
Julie Whitefeather
(posted by The Webmaster for Julie Whitefeather)
[...] No Prisoners, No Mercy look unfavorably at the actions of one Mr. Derek Smart [...]
I read the thread after Derek posted and it seemed that Alganon players were broadly in favour. The game probably needed a radical shake-up – it was very similar to WoW on a much smaller budget for the same price. Now a lot of your WoW sub goes into creation of new content so the model wasn’t sustainable.
The issue I have is I really doubt that Derek will actually be able to deliver. It’s all very well to step in and go everything that’s gone before is rubbish I have come to save you but that’s not how these games work. They are collaborative projects taking years of cooperation from a sizeable team of people. You can’t just tear up the canvas and paint a new painting, the game that Derek is bashing on and vowing to replace is going to be the same game in 3 months time. Gamers really don’t care about a facelift that doesn’t change gameplay.
I was also disappointed that skill training time was added to the item shop. I play a lot of Eve this days. I love its skill system and don’t mind that I’m miles behind the early adopters, catching up is part of the challenge. I can’t imagine playing it though if you could just buy a year’s worth of training in the item shop. It’s like buying an extra rook for a chess game.
For all that I wish him luck not just for his sake but for the players and staff involved.