Many of you know him already as Omega, the PTS master of Lineage II. But today, I'd like to officially introduce him in his much deserved new role. Please take a moment and help me to congratulate Samuel Han, the new North American Producer for Lineage II. Way to go Omega!
I am very honored to take on this new role and I want to assure everyone that the Lineage II team is still going strong. The changes we’ve made in the team and overall at NC West are about reinvesting in AAA MMOs in general and in particular the Lineage and Lineage II franchises. New content and events will be introduced soon and we’re working hard to provide new types of account services, which I will go into at a later date.
Our goal as a team and company is still the same. We are here to provide a great gaming experience to all who log in. We have a lot of exciting things coming up on the horizon. With Gracia - Part 2 not far away, I hope you will all join us as we make Lineage II the best it can be.
I am very honored to take on this new role and I want to assure everyone that the Lineage II team is still going strong. The changes we’ve made in the team and overall at NC West are about reinvesting in AAA MMOs in general and in particular the Lineage and Lineage II franchises. New content and events will be introduced soon and we’re working hard to provide new types of account services, which I will go into at a later date.
Our goal as a team and company is still the same. We are here to provide a great gaming experience to all who log in. We have a lot of exciting things coming up on the horizon. With Gracia - Part 2 not far away, I hope you will all join us as we make Lineage II the best it can be.
(and probably no one old enough to know what I am talking about :( )
I am... unfortunately :eek:
Watched the series every day after i came back from school !
Didnt they make a movie after the series, too ?
(and yeah, i wanna know what happend to Tim Tan too !)
Whenever I hear the name Tim Tan it reminds me of the most delicious chocolate-filled cookie (or biscuits as they call there) I've ever tasted in my life: Tim Tams :)
But yeah... it's kinda shady on what happened to them, still... welcome, Omega. Was fun playing with you on the PTS, I hope you bring some action to the game as well.
More NCsoft Layoffs Coming
Don't say I didn't warn you.
Word on the street is that every team and department at NCSoft Austin except Tabula Rasa has been given the axe. No hard numbers yet, but let's be honest - we, well no, I saw this coming.
Lineage 2, axed. Has nearly 150,000 subcribers. That's five times more than Tabula Rasa.
Dungeon Runners seems to be safe at the moment, because they were already touched in bad places last time around.
Aion, axed. It wasn't even out yet.
Lineage 1, axed.
Most of localization, community, production and publishing that isn't under the TR banner will be looking for new jobs.
More later, I suppose. I'm in awe at the moment. How does a company rationalize keeping a game that has no chance of recovering? As someone else most eloquently put it, "It's just getting *****ing silly at this point."
Is this where I type "hilarity ensues"? As always, best of luck to all the people let go.
Oh, hey, a press release. While I was typing. A press release that says nothing of layoffs but talks about a new studio. I think a shark just jumped NCsoft. Disgusting. My condolences to those let go.
A quick update: I'm not saying these games are canceled. I'm saying much of the staff that was left on these titles, which may or may not have already been skeleton crews, have been let go.
So to the PR spinners i ask.....
Will Lineage2 be shut down?
I have to say my player confidence is at an all time low. If i had to sum it up Lineage2 is that bank thats closing and all those customers are afraid that they will loose their money. :confused:
Would be nice with an Official word on any of this. I can understand that detail of staff layoff can not be disclosed even though it is starting to become obvious but SOMETHING would be nice.
Alyra is no longer listed as a Moderator so I guess that is sort of official. Wonder how they will support L2 - The AAA Game - with that much less staff?
Alyra is no longer listed as a Moderator so I guess that is sort of official. Wonder how they will support L2 - The AAA Game - with that much less staff?
So... wait a minute here.... They have closed down the NCSoft L2 offices? Huh? So all this "PR" here is just something to give us a false sense of security before we get the dreadful post that Lineage II servers will all be closing down?
I don't believe they have 'closed' them down, maybe downsized. There are still jobs available in all 3 sites, according to NC's website. Texas, CA and orange county.
So... wait a minute here.... They have closed down the NCSoft L2 offices? Huh? So all this "PR" here is just something to give us a false sense of security before we get the dreadful post that Lineage II servers will all be closing down?
Good Lord. I hope this is a rumor.
No, I don't think anything is shutting down. NC West will be taking care of all business in the west. They are just restructuring.
"Word on the street is that every team and department at NCSoft Austin except Tabula Rasa has been given the axe."
thats odd, because, i've tried dungeon runners, eXteel, Lineage1, Lineage2, GuildWars, and Tabula Rasa, and TR was, without a doubt, the worst of the bunch. As in, even getting it to run properly was physically painful. Never tried Assult Cars or whatever that one was called...but c'mon! even the wanna-be-beta-testers for Aion is a larger playerbase than the TR playerbase...sounds like they're putting all their eggs in one basket...the one with the hole in it.
Before the shake-up, NC Austin was the HQ for North America with publishing done in CA (Orange County and the NorCal studios in Mountain View - both of which have active job vacancies on the NC website). Don't quote me on this but that's what I've read in the past and put together based on random press releases I've read.
Carbine, which I believe work out of the Orange County offices of NC were bought/merged with NC back in October last year. They are still working on an unannounced MMORPG which is set to be released in 2008(?)/2009. I initially thought this was Aion, but Aion doesn't bear any resemblance to any titles that were worked on by any of the Carbine teams. How can people be losing their jobs because of the new formation of NC West? Why are people losing their jobs? We need, if anything, more support, more forum moderators and more active in-game GM's... NOT LESS. How can a new, in development game get all the attention when there is still so much promise left in Lineage II?
I'm stick to the teeth of being fed such basic information for a service which we pay good money for. Yes, I'm addicted to this game and I'm beginning to lose patience.
Did anyone else play Hellgate: London? Were you a subscriber? That game was discontinued because of many reasons - I think it was sold or passed to someone who didn't care too much for it. I loved that game and was waiting so long to get the updates and patches. Now it's gathering dust.... I hope Lineage II doesn't follow.
Did anyone else play Hellgate: London? Were you a subscriber?
yep. was a awesome game for all 5 miutes or so but i couldnt really get into it because it freaked me out more than i enjoyed, in first person. besides that, EA is #3 on the list of "most evil companies ever".
If we go down I am so totally going to steal a korean ssn and proxy play to my hearts content someplace where candycanes and rainbows do power the universe, and cake is distributed on a bi-weekly basis.
How can people be losing their jobs because of the new formation of NC West? Why are people losing their jobs? We need, if anything, more support, more forum moderators and more active in-game GM's... NOT LESS. How can a new, in development game get all the attention when there is still so much promise left in Lineage II?
It doesn't work that way.
It's all about getting rid of any redundancies and consolidating.
Remember, NC is a publicly traded company and they work for their investors. That said, if any of you are investors in NC then they are working for you!
To that end they will elimate any people who are doing the same job in another office as they might only need a few finance people or a few HR people.
as for cm's and the like if they can get away with less then they will. Especially if they can utilize one who makes less money.
and yes, sure L2 has more potential but is that potential to make more money or just potential to be a good game?
L2 is on the decline and has been fore quite some time.
The release of a new game has the potential to bring in a large influx of cash and to inspire new players to try their games.
If they can maintain L2 and still make a profit then they will do so. Not to say they are abandoning it but with the newer games coming out they will want to capitalize on all the new players out there.
With L2, they know that after 4+ years (5 now?) that it has done what it was going to do and now they can just keep it going.
But L2 is not the future of NC. Games like Aion, Blade and Soul and a possible L3 (because it would be the next generation in the franchise) are the future of NC.
They no doubt want to promote their new games, but if people feel jaded because of the lack of support and problems with bots in L2 They will think twice and then a third time before going to any of these games. They are not doing enough to maintain customer loyalty for their products. Personally I won't touch Aion largely because of the problems I have had with L2. I have been reading up on Aion and seen nothing about how they will handle things differently. Also Aion will have GameGuard.
They no doubt want to promote their new games, but if people feel jaded because of the lack of support and problems with bots in L2 They will think twice and then a third time before going to any of these games. They are not doing enough to maintain customer loyalty for their products. Personally I won't touch Aion largely because of the problems I have had with L2. I have been reading up on Aion and seen nothing about how they will handle things differently. Also Aion will have GameGuard.
ok but if you are still playing Lineage 2 then you are playing with gameguard. It's obviously not so much of a deterrent to playing.
I have to agree with you that they don't really inspire customer loyalty however from what I've been getting from Aion, it seems that the dev team and cm's are a bit more transparent. It feels quite the opposite from my L2 experience.
And since I have yet to see any game whatsoever to eliminate the secondary market I've come to at least learn how to have fun despite them.
Other than that, I take the games on a "per game basis". I log in, have my fun and log off.
bots don't make me go nuts as there are worse things in the world to get upset about. They suck, true, but they can be dealt with.
...except that, one year from now when aion launches, the number of people playing on private servers of L2 will still be more than aion can ever hope to have... it just doesnt add up. besides, theres Already a FREE game that includes the whole PvP flying thing. by the time it comes out, Aion will be old hat, in asia at least. and there might not be a large enough audience left for it in the US, with competition from all the other new MMOs that got released just this year, people are going to be just getting into the swing of those. Not that there would be a better release time, im just sying that if it gets the same lack of advertisement that L2 did, it wont last long.
...except that, one year from now when aion launches, the number of people playing on private servers of L2 will still be more than aion can ever hope to have... it just doesnt add up. besides, theres Already a FREE game that includes the whole PvP flying thing. by the time it comes out, Aion will be old hat, in asia at least. and there might not be a large enough audience left for it in the US, with competition from all the other new MMOs that got released just this year, people are going to be just getting into the swing of those. Not that there would be a better release time, im just sying that if it gets the same lack of advertisement that L2 did, it wont last long.
Well, as we know, the one thing that NC is bad at is actually letting people know about their games.
If you are going to make a game you have to be behind it 100%
"Word on the street is that every team and department at NCSoft Austin except Tabula Rasa has been given the axe."
thats odd, because, i've tried dungeon runners, eXteel, Lineage1, Lineage2, GuildWars, and Tabula Rasa, and TR was, without a doubt, the worst of the bunch. As in, even getting it to run properly was physically painful. Never tried Assult Cars or whatever that one was called...but c'mon! even the wanna-be-beta-testers for Aion is a larger playerbase than the TR playerbase...sounds like they're putting all their eggs in one basket...the one with the hole in it.
Tabula Rasa was the first to have the cuts before everyone else lol, like a couple of months ago. That's why they were spared this time. There's probably one dude left on the team working from home.