99 replies to this topic

[Igorius]

Damn. Garth, on the off chance you should ever read this, I hope all is well with you. Buona fortuna, amico.

Sybreed, on 18 February 2014 - 06:41 PM, said:

yup he got fired, which kinda sucks for him. And makes you wonder what direction PGI is willing to take with MWO's community.

Based completely on my own subjective view of the happenings of the past year and a half, I'd be nervous.

[JohnnyWayne]

Exactly. Better communication with the community without a known and designated community manager? Are forum mods now manageing the community?

[Rebas Kradd]

I'm reading this the exact opposite way, JohnnyWayne. Sorry to sound so harsh, but it's a business, and I speculate that Garth was let go because the communication with the player base just wasn't there. The community has been in the dark for months now concerning the hows and whys of so many of PGI's decisions lately, and that's a mark that communication has been bad. There was a burst of balance debate from him recently, but that was entirely on Reddit. Nothing here.

"Evolving needs of the product and studio"...meaning the game fell behind by a year and they needed a top-notch PR guy to win back some goodwill.

I sound horribly arrogant right now, but between this and the generous timing of this hotfix, I'd bet a cold $50 that PGI has lucked into a new community manager, soon to appear, who sat them down and told them "This is what we have to do." Maybe it's not that simple, but it kinda sounds like new voices are being heard in that studio right now.

I do hope that Garth finds other opportunities quickly, though. Being let go is never a good thing these days.

Edited by Rebas Kradd, 18 February 2014 - 08:01 PM.

[Roadbeer]

Wait?
There was a community manager?
I thought it was just some guy who only talked about Cicadas.

[Vulpesveritas]

To be fair, I wasn't around the last few months, but back in 2012 Garth was pretty active and was great to talk to. I'll miss him if nothing else.

[GalaxyBluestar]

Roadbeer, on 18 February 2014 - 08:04 PM, said:

Wait?
There was a community manager?
I thought it was just some guy who only talked about Cicadas.

well it's interesting you should say that.

only a weekso ago when teh omni rules came out garth was communicating with the community about how plans were coming together for things like clan weapons and such.

http://www.reddit.co...ruction/cf6jvma

only yesterday so his name turned into deleted. perhaps he let on too much about the erppc plan to be nerfed down to 10 dmg or something. who knows... but i do know the garth is gone and MWO will need a new one from the garth farm.

Edited by GalaxyBluestar, 18 February 2014 - 08:39 PM.

[Bagheera]

Wait, wasn't there speculation that he had been moved from Community Mgr to some other position a while back? Reading through that reddit is weird - why would a CM be using phrasing about their personal goals for design level balance decisions?

GarthGate thickens? j/k

[Heffay]

Going to miss him, but I'm curious as to how this will affect Achievements. I think he was working on those.

[Deux]

Man if they started firing everyone for lack of skill sets there would be no one working there from russ on down lol

[Hawkeye 72]

No words can describe the shock here. Garth was there from the beginning and it seemed that ineptitude in the development department costed him his postion. Back in 2012 in the beginning he was fantastic, but as features slipped it gave him less and less to work with it seemed like.

I feel MWO has fallen a long way from where we all were two years ago.

Edited by Hawkeye 72, 18 February 2014 - 09:22 PM.

[Peiper]

Impressions here, but I am curious so I'll weigh in.

A community manager can only do his job if he's given the tools to do so. I'm guessing that job would be:

1. To be a conduit of information to the community.
2. To be a Q & A guy.
3. To organize tournaments and events for the community.
4. To visit with the various units/factions and community groups out there - that is, make courtesy calls and do his best to represent the company and keep up the morale.

This is what probably happened:

1. PGI didn't give him information to release, and he was bound by a contract to not give away information that wasn't approved to be released - which was anything that wasn't basically already ready to be released. The speed of releases, other than mechs and maybe maps means that he didn't have much that he could say.
2. You can't be a Q & A guy if you aren't allowed to say anything, and since PGI doesn't KNOW a lot about their future he can't say much. Example: he can't tell us how community warfare will work, because PGI doesn't know either. Also, if his bosses and various department heads put up command chair posts to explain how their balancing things, improving stuff, and new information that's going out: well, they've made Garth useless.
3. Can't organize tournaments and activities if there is very little mechanism to allow for it, or, even when you DO set up tournaments like "Hunt the Devs," it requires programmer and engineer time. Garth wouldn't be the boss of those people, and so only if Paul or Bryan tell them to stop what they're doing to set up a tourney/event, it wouldn't happen; rendering Garth useless once again.
4. He probably isn't allowed to visit independent and/or private units, which make up the vast majority of the veteran/old guard mechwarrior community. The Steiner Hub, which is the LARGEST confederation of over a dozen Steiner aligned units, many which have been playing as a unit in mechwarrior for a decade or more, has NEVER been officially visited by ANY PGI employee. I don't know if Garth was aloud to even visit teamspeaks and chat with them or not, but I expect he wasn't or he would. This has kept PGI segregated from the core of their playerbase, leading directly to the town hall stuff, resentment among the playerbase, and the idea that we are on an 'Island.'

So, here's what I figured happened. Garth was given a job, but not the tools to do that job. PGI NEEDS a community manager. It's apparent that Garth COULDN'T do the job - if his job was as I outlined above. Whether he couldn't because PGI mismanaged him, didn't give him the freedom and the tools to do it, or if he just didn't have the skill-set to do the job as Russ implies in his Twitter. Reading between the lines, and having studied how PGI releases information - when they actually do - Garth was probably hogtied and gagged the moment they hired him.

One example is the question on all my friend's minds, as they contemplate the purchase of clan mechs: Will I be able to play with my friends, on the same team, if some of us have clan mechs and some have inner sphere mechs? This question has been asked over and over since the Dev Vlog #2 and no one has answered. It would be Garth's job to answer that question, explain why to the community, gather that feedback and deliver it to the devs so they can continue to build and improve the game in a positive way. However, even if Garth were still a PGI employee, and KNEW the answer, I doubt he would be allowed to say anything. Also, if he was allowed to talk to the community about it and gathered the feedback, I bet the Devs would just laugh and say: watch this, and do what they wanted anyway. Thus, hogtied and gagged.

Conclusion based on my impressions: Garth never had a chance.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Peiper, on 18 February 2014 - 09:55 PM, said:

Conclusion based on my impressions: Garth never had a chance.

Just keep in mind that is a lot of supposition.

[Tekadept]

Shar Wolf, on 18 February 2014 - 10:04 PM, said:

Just keep in mind that is a lot of supposition.

Supposition is what powers the Interwebz

[GalaxyBluestar]

Peiper, on 18 February 2014 - 09:55 PM, said:

One example is the question on all my friend's minds, as they contemplate the purchase of clan mechs: Will I be able to play with my friends, on the same team, if some of us have clan mechs and some have inner sphere mechs? This question has been asked over and over since the Dev Vlog #2 and no one has answered.

Conclusion based on my impressions: Garth never had a chance.

i've recently had a go at organising for that...

Spoiler

i'm hoping that

a} with this system clan players get an honor currency because if we were to get c-bills at the IS prices on the current earnings you are putting a horrible pay wall around clan material. leveling up a diashi would be like leveling up an atlas 3 times. that would be the worst fuel for the P2W crowd.

b} slavage would be obtained via working on your clan mechs in your clan faction, change the faction to diamond sharks, then in the mech bay you would sell out a whole bar of loyalty points to be able to transfer a clan chassis over to your IS account. but the loadout would be locked as you only have IS equipment.

from point b we'll discuss IS using clan material. the MM is goverend by

Tonnage
Tech
Elo

so

A clan team ie; ghostbears, wolf, jade falcons, smoke jaguar, nova cats, diamond and bloodspirit etc etc

Those teams would be able to field;

530 tons

Pure clan tech only

IS teams ie; kurita, stiener davion etc would be able to field both types of tech if someone wants to play with their friends with a clan mech on an IS team via salvage

800 tons IS material
150 tons clan material

Both tech

this allows 2 "i want it all muh friends" crowd to field with their IS compatriots however their loyalty earnings are halved {please use IS tech} encouragement there. if you're fielding a clan hero or bonuses mech all of those are lost fielded with the IS.

Later in the game Wolfs dragoons could be their own team, fielding in 1 lance and 1 star and would be able to field a greater spread for more a balanced team

500 tons IS
270 tons clan
Both tech

that's how i'd handle this situation.

disclaimer; notice bad spelling puntuation but mostly the numbers i'm making a rush estimate none of these figures are final but a proof of concept.

not sure if i should put it in the feature suggestions thread.

Edited by GalaxyBluestar, 18 February 2014 - 10:34 PM.

[Peiper]

GalaxyBluestar, on 18 February 2014 - 10:33 PM, said:

i've recently had a go at organising for that...

not sure if i should put it in the feature suggestions thread.

It can't hurt. My argument would be that if Clan mechs are not better, but different than Inner Sphere mechs, then what difference does it make which mechs' we use? Also, Clan tech will be available to all even before CW/planetary capture is: so, why bother even declaring a faction if it doesn't MEAN anything? It's too late, but the best thing they could have done was run a 4th Succession War for at least a year before even considering the clan invasion. That they're bringing out clan mechs now shows they know far more about making more mechs than they do about how to create functioning community warfare.

You responded to me, so I felt compelled to respond, but let's keep the thread on track.

[Bagheera]

Shar Wolf, on 18 February 2014 - 10:04 PM, said:

Just keep in mind that is a lot of supposition.

Fair enough, but it wouldn't be the first time someone got thrown under the bus by their superiors at work. Not to say that is the case either, just to say we will never really know.

Edited by Bagheera, 18 February 2014 - 10:55 PM.

[ApolloKaras]

It sucks either way. Who are you going to get to interact with the community now, its not Russ or Bryan. Kyle maybe?

All but all of the communication has stopped on the website, everything is being released via Twitter which makes NO SENSE at all.

Yes definitely sorry to see him go, I'm thinking he was 'Let go'

[King Arthur IV]

As he exits the door.

Edited by King Arthur IV, 18 February 2014 - 11:33 PM.

[Shiro Matsumoto]

"skillset not matching anymore" is euphemistic for "he got the boot in the back", right?

Well...

[Cest7]

His skills weren't needed? WTF?

He was an involved community manager with game and battletech knowledge.

His absence leaves a huge gap in the forums, a missing link between PGI and its consumers and a large set of boots to fill.

Niko left on his own accord... maybe he saw something coming...?