Zeb Cook leaves Cryptic. Creative disagreement?

[Marcin]

According to this post by Cryptic's CoV community relations type person, David "Zeb" Cook is no longer with the studio. As he was the lead designer of CoV, of which the second half (Issue 7 will finish off Villains, adding 40-50 content, Epic powers, a new zone, etc) is not complete yet, speculation ranges from "contract simply ended" to "he pissed someone off and got the bewt" to "he got a better offer from DDO".

I believe he also designed the not-out-yet new zone (Grandeville) completely, so the timing is rather odd.

Anyone recall any cases of one of the lead designers leaving a successful game mid-development? Is it time to start crying Co* is DOMED yet?

[Charles]

I think all MMOs should regularly (say, every 8-12 months) have their design staff completely replaced.

[stusser]

Err, they pretty much do.

Was that sarcasm? If so, woosh, I totally missed it.

[Robert Sharp]

I think Charles might be serious. It brings in fresh ideas. OTOH, if you have too much turnover, it might disrupt the creative vision, leading to inconsistencies or other problems. You don't want many MMOs going the SWG route, I don't think. If the original vision is just way off (and maybe it was with SWG...I didn't play it, only because I didn't like the features it came out with), then there might be good reason. But CoH is not way off. There are improvements that could be made, but it's my favorite MMORPG and has been for the last year or so. I like WoW a lot, but I get a lot more actual RPing in CoH.

[Menzo]

It could be none of the above. People leave companies for all sorts of reasons. If he really went to Turbine, perhaps he simply wanted to move back East (I worked with him briefly when he was at Impressions).

[RobotPants]

From the vibe I got in the last several months from the developers, I wouldn't rule out the chance that he left due to disagreements. The way they've been making changes just seems like there's something very wrong internally. It just seems like whatever organization they've got going on for designing the game isn't quite doing the job. I know an MMO is going to have changes, but so many of the ones they've put in that made virtually the entire community say "Uh, what?" leads me to believe that not everyone on the team knows where they want the game to go.

But of course, it could also be simply that he's moving on to other things.

[Lum]

Live teams are almost always different from development teams. Developing for a game that's shipped and has thousands of people playing every night is only recommended for those hardy souls that eat Stress Cubes for breakfast. People who like creating new things generally want to move on once the game ships.

(On the other hand, I prefer being on a live team. Must be those stress cubes.)

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Robert Sharp

I think Charles might be serious. It brings in fresh ideas. OTOH, if you have too much turnover, it might disrupt the creative vision, leading to inconsistencies or other problems.

I am serious. And yes, fresh ideas would be nice. And while I'm all for creative vision, when the 'creative vision' gets stuck in a rut and becomes convinced that only Plan A is ever worthwhile, well, it would be beneficial to replace them.

[mouselock]

Originally Posted by Charles

I am serious. And yes, fresh ideas would be nice. And while I'm all for creative vision, when the 'creative vision' gets stuck in a rut and becomes convinced that only Plan A is ever worthwhile, well, it would be beneficial to replace them.

What if Plan A is a lot better than Plans B-F, no matter how big the rut is? I'm not sure I'm all that keen on having games change character mid-stride. SWG is an egregious example, but it's what drove me out of EQ as well. If I wanted another game than the one I was paying for, I'd buy it. If I didn't want the one I was paying for, I'd quit paying for it.

[Derek French]

Originally Posted by Charles

I am serious. And yes, fresh ideas would be nice. And while I'm all for creative vision, when the 'creative vision' gets stuck in a rut and becomes convinced that only Plan A is ever worthwhile, well, it would be beneficial to replace them.

That was basically EQ1. When other MMOs showed up and EQ didn't evolve, many players left. The Vision almost killed them. Once they started changing things for the better, many people came back, me included.

[mouselock]

Originally Posted by Derek French

That was basically EQ1. When other MMOs showed up and EQ didn't evolve, many players left. The Vision almost killed them. Once they started changing things for the better, many people came back, me included.

The Vision pretty much only had to deal with DAoC and a lot of the random MMOs that went more or less nowhere (Anarchy Online, Shadowbane, etc..) that I recall. By the time the actual mass exodus started (PoP or GoD), I thought The Vision had pretty much left the building, and taken Brad McQuaid and his crew with it.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by mouselock

What if Plan A is a lot better than Plans B-F, no matter how big the rut is? I'm not sure I'm all that keen on having games change character mid-stride. SWG is an egregious example, but it's what drove me out of EQ as well. If I wanted another game than the one I was paying for, I'd buy it. If I didn't want the one I was paying for, I'd quit paying for it.

It is possible to change design focus without pulling an SWG. For instance, if Blizzard's design team was swapped out (and tigole hung, that would make me happy) with people who, you know, actually know what fun is, maybe we'd get a little more focus on small teams and questing rather than raid raid raid.

Also, I think that most games (not just MMOs) could be improved if they brought in a different design team during the last few months with a fresh perspective. Just limit them on how sweeping their changes can be, and I can think of a lot of games that would've been drastically improved just by a little outside focus for the last bit.

[mutt]

I wanna know what HRose thinks.

[Ed Solomon]

Originally Posted by muttbunch

I wanna know what HRose thinks.

Check his blog from six months ago.

[Mark Asher]

There are two other superhero MMOs in development I believe, one Marvel and one DC. It's possible he got poached.

It does have the feel of a less than amicable parting.

[Tyjenks]

Wasn't Zeb the one that was attempting to ressurect Lords of the Realm III after several had jumped ship from it. LotR III then ended up being a released at $19.99 (as a sales strategy not because it sucked, right?).

[Miramon]

Originally Posted by Lum

Live teams are almost always different from development teams. Developing for a game that's shipped and has thousands of people playing every night is only recommended for those hardy souls that eat Stress Cubes for breakfast. People who like creating new things generally want to move on once the game ships.

(On the other hand, I prefer being on a live team. Must be those stress cubes.)

Actually I found being on a Live team much easier than being in the regular development team.

[HRose]

Originally Posted by Charles

I think all MMOs should regularly (say, every 8-12 months) have their design staff completely replaced.

That's exactly what makes them crumble to pieces.

Fastest way possible.

Originally Posted by Robert Sharp

I think Charles might be serious. It brings in fresh ideas.

Fresh ideas can come from *new* people. That's good.

But without commitment and experience these games go nowhere.

[stusser]

God knows I hate to agree with HRose but c'mon guys, are you out of your gourd? UO had like fourteen separate lead designers. They didn't benefit from it.

Many of you will conjure shockingly repellant tentacled abashi-monster nightmares parotting "working as intended" from brad's infamous The Vision, but that's all in your head. The lead designer should, must, have a concrete picture of how the game will play. Vision conceptually is a great thing, a prerequisite to critical and financial success. Every symphony needs a conductor, every movie a director, every worthwhile endeavor is inevitably driven by a shared Vision.

[HRose]

I'm one of those who want "authorship" in games.

This is why I try to track people and what they do, and why I don't care about the "brand".

And it's why I gave emphasis on the fact that many devs left Blizzard (btw, the lead artist of "Stargate Worlds" is another Blizzard escapee). The brand is nothing. It's the people behind it that are important.

[Angie Gallant]

I just want to say that the phrase "Blizzard escapee" is amusing. I picture developers with bags of loot and t-shirt ninja masks tryign to tiptoe out of the office without being noticed. Alternately, floating on rafts.

[mouselock]

Originally Posted by Charles

It is possible to change design focus without pulling an SWG. For instance, if Blizzard's design team was swapped out (and tigole hung, that would make me happy) with people who, you know, actually know what fun is, maybe we'd get a little more focus on small teams and questing rather than raid raid raid.

Sure.. SWG is a horribly egregious example. My point is that I'm not sure why this should be done habitually. How in the world is switching a design team ona successful game a good idea? I know you like to use WoW as an example because you utterly despise the game and everything, but realistically the people at WoW would be utter fools to not continue doing exactly what they have been so far, because their sales aren't exactly declining.

That's what I meant: I don't want the game switching out from under me because of some arbitrary decision to "freshen it up". I'd much rather know that the game is going to continue to be what it has been shown to be so far, because then I can make an informed decision about whether or not it is likely to continue to deserve my money. Presumably the only time that it's a good idea to switch any portion of your design team is when the customers are telling you, unqeuivocally, that your current design is flawed. Not because a few months have passed or because your product is doing fine, but you think it's time to try a substantially different tack on a whim.

[EFlannum]

I agree completely with those in the "changing a design team is not good" camp. Constant turnover on a design team only leads to confusion about the long term goals of the game as well as a slow down in content production (it takes a while to learn tools, pipeline, etc...)

The truth of the matter imho is, fans are more likely to be responsible for any stagnation that occurs as any time a game experience is changed too much you tend to get a lot of complaints form the hardcore fans (understandably so in most cases). This happens not only with pay to play games but also with sequels as well... a good semi-recent example is the hard core fan reaction to Kohan 2 which was pretty negative over some relatively minor changes (heck I wish they had changed up their formula even more.)

Designers actually like to design new things (I know I do) and if you gave designers more free reign to make changes regardless of financial (fanbase) repercussion I am betting you'd see a lot of changes. One of the coolest things about working on a persistent game for me has been the ability to go back in and fix mistakes or even to take things in another direction entirely. There's a lot of things I wish I could change in past games, now I actually get to do it (in some cases :p )

[HRose]

Originally Posted by EFlannum

One of the coolest things about working on a persistent game for me has been the ability to go back in and fix mistakes or even to take things in another direction entirely.

That's one of the most important points.

People expect that brand new teams can move the game onward by solving the previous mistakes. But that's exactly the prerogative of those who made the mistakes in the first place. That's what the experience is, the possibility to learn from what you do so that you can get better.

I think it's basically the responsibility of those who do the mistakes to acknowledge them and solve them. That's how these games move onward.

Jumping from company to company and from game to game is a way to move away from the responsibility and avoid to "commit". Which is exactly the opposite of improving and learning.

Without the mistakes you go nowhere. So it's important that you make them and learn from them. The mmorpgs are the very best scenario for this because they are malleable. So their VERY BEST potential is in the possibility to experiment and learn, so that you can slowly improve and readjust what didn't go as expected.

This cannot happen if people keep coming and going. Noone feels the responsibility for the mistakes.

[Mark Asher]

"People expect that brand new teams can move the game onward by solving the previous mistakes. But that's exactly the prerogative of those who made the mistakes in the first place. That's what the experience is, the possibility to learn from what you do so that you can get better.

"I think it's basically the responsibility of those who do the mistakes to acknowledge them and solve them. That's how these games move onward."

There's no guarantee that the people responsible for any "mistakes" will admit to them being mistakes and fix them. I'll cite EverQuest and "The Vision" as an example of things that bugged players that didn't get changed until the old guard had left the game.

I think you can make a strong argument about the necessity of developers leaving so that fresh ideas can take root.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by mouselock

Sure.. SWG is a horribly egregious example. My point is that I'm not sure why this should be done habitually. How in the world is switching a design team ona successful game a good idea? I know you like to use WoW as an example because you utterly despise the game and everything, but realistically the people at WoW would be utter fools to not continue doing exactly what they have been so far, because their sales aren't exactly declining.

Yeah, cause we all know sales are directly proportional to quality. NEXT!

That's what I meant: I don't want the game switching out from under me because of some arbitrary decision to "freshen it up". I'd much rather know that the game is going to continue to be what it has been shown to be so far, because then I can make an informed decision about whether or not it is likely to continue to deserve my money. Presumably the only time that it's a good idea to switch any portion of your design team is when the customers are telling you, unqeuivocally, that your current design is flawed. Not because a few months have passed or because your product is doing fine, but you think it's time to try a substantially different tack on a whim.

Well, see, there's the thing. You can pull in new ideas without radically changing the game. And on top of that, slightly switching focus isn't going to magically make the game bad. If for a period of six months blizzard didn't make any raid content, but instead made class specific quests, so what? You think all the raiders are going to up and leave? I doubt it. And if they did... so what? Chances are they've been playing for years by that point anyway.

All things considered, I think the games need to cycle their playerbase occasionally as well, otherwise they just force the developer to STAY in the rut.

This brings up another tenet that I believe should be held close by the game industry: Don't listen to the consumer.

[HRose]

Originally Posted by Charles

Don't listen to the consumer.

Yeah, old topic :)

[EFlannum]

Originally Posted by Mark Asher

There's no guarantee that the people responsible for any "mistakes" will admit to them being mistakes and fix them.

Any developer, especially a game designer who will not admit to and recognize mistakes that they make is doing a bad job. Part of any game designers job is to identify and fix flaws in the game and I would seriously doubt the sanity of any designer who would tell me that a game they've worked on is without flaws.

Note: This is not a comment on the specific example you gave using EQ1 as I have no idea of the extent to which the design team did or did not acknowledge any mistakes that they made.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by EFlannum

Any developer, especially a game designer who will not admit to and recognize mistakes that they make is doing a bad job. Part of any game designers job is to identify and fix flaws in the game and I would seriously doubt the sanity of any designer who would tell me that a game they've worked on is without flaws.

Yeah well, most game designers get an idea stuck in their head, convince themselves their way is god and everyone else is wrong.

At least, that has largely been my experience in the industry.

[EFlannum]

Originally Posted by Charles

Yeah well, most game designers get an idea stuck in their head, convince themselves their way is god and everyone else is wrong.

At least, that has largely been my experience in the industry.

I keep hearing this sort of thing and I've yet to run into it... of course I could totally be that way without knowing it. Come to think of it I am always right about everything... :P

Anyways, in my experience this hasn't been the case.