Just saw this over at ENWorld. Is ANYONE surprised?

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?2874-Pathfinder-Online-Layoffs#.Veh9BfT6LfY

Only surprised that it took this long.

I was caught COMPLETELY unaware of this! Hell I didn't even know that there WAS a Pathfinder online game in development. Oh well, this article gets backstab damage against me I suppose.

And apparently Paizo customer service has been awful to this point concerning the Kickstarter and game...which goes against the popular "Paizo has awesome customer service" meme Paizobots always push. Take a look at the comments section of the Kickstarter.  So now Paizo is laying people off (OMG Paizo never lays people off!) and has bad customer service (OMG Paizo always has great customer service!) and appears to be circling the toilet on a Kickstarter they have thus far failed to deliver on (OMG Paizo always does what they say they are going to do!).

I do like many Paizo products (and own several), but I never liked the "Paizo is special" line the over-the-top Paizobots always push.  They're just a company, like any other.  They lay people off.  They outsource some jobs to China.  They sometimes have bad customer service.  They sometimes have dud products.  They sometimes fail to deliver.  None of this makes them a bad company or bad people - it just makes them a normal company with normal people.  Sometimes they do good stuff, sometimes bad stuff, sometimes adequate stuff.  Overall they're decent to good.  But, they're not special.

MMOs are like big-budget movies, only riskier and trickier. They have broken many men and stripped many deep coffers bare.

Quote from: Mistwell;853066And apparently Paizo customer service has been awful to this point concerning the Kickstarter and game...which goes against the popular "Paizo has awesome customer service" meme Paizobots always push. Take a look at the comments section of the Kickstarter.  So now Paizo is laying people off (OMG Paizo never lays people off!) and has bad customer service (OMG Paizo always has great customer service!) and appears to be circling the toilet on a Kickstarter they have thus far failed to deliver on (OMG Paizo always does what they say they are going to do!).

This game is being done by Goblinworks, which licensed the Pathfinder name from Paizo. It's not actually a Paizo product. It looks like Lisa Stevens from Paizo is stepping in to try and clean up the mess, kind of like how Stafford and Peterson have stepped in at Chaosium.

You could lay some blame at Paizo for doing business with Dancey, but it seems unfair to put it all on them.

CORRECTION: Looks like Lisa Stevens was at Goblineworks all along, so this is partly on her after all. It is still a separate company from Paizo though.

Quote from: Mistwell;853066I do like many Paizo products (and own several), but I never liked the "Paizo is special" line the over-the-top Paizobots always push.  

I have no particular love for Paizo, but I was under the impression that Goblinworks was a separate company. Ryan Dancey was involved; his track record continues...

Quote from: Baulderstone;853071This game is being done by Goblinworks, which licensed the Pathfinder name from Paizo.

This is, and always has been, a legal fiction.  It's a separate company Paizo created, for liability protection and other business reasons.  But, Lisa Stevens has always had authority there and is now the CEO, it's the MMO Paizo is making and promoting for their game, when you call their customer service it's Paizo employees who answer, when you want to discuss the game you go to the Paizo message boards, when they go to investors and ask for money it's with the backing of Paizo and Paizo's name they use to try and get that financing, when you look at the Goblinworks privacy policy it says, "Currently, Goblinworks works with Paizo, Inc. to manage certain customer data related to Kickstarter fulfilment and account management, and they retain all personal, financial, and demographic information provided to Goblinworks...", in the Kickstarter Paizo backed it and the Kickstarter said, "Paizo reached out to those publishers and asked them if they would be willing to donate a PDF or two (or sometimes even more) that we could bundle up and offer as part of the Crowdforger Kickstarter backers, and the response has been absolutely amazing—including Paizo's own contribution...", the Goblinworks employees that remain are now moving into the Paizo offices, etc..  We can pretend it's not all we want...but we all know it's Paizo.

Wow a MMORPG is failing?  I am shock.  No not really.  People the days of MMORPG have gone and past.  It's either WoW, Eve Oline, or some dinky free to play MMORPG.  It is suicide to make one now.  Pathfinder should had done a Shadowrun Returns type of game.

I was caught totally unawares.  Not ashamed to admit that.  Didn't see it coming at all.

Cuz I thought this thing was dead for years!

Quote from: Snowman0147;853101Wow a MMORPG is failing?  I am shock.  No not really.  People the days of MMORPG have gone and past.  It's either WoW, Eve Oline, or some dinky free to play MMORPG.  It is suicide to make one now.  Pathfinder should had done a Shadowrun Returns type of game.

Mostly true on the MMO front — the fad's definitely dialed back and even WoW is bleeding subscribers, but I feel GW2, ESO and Neverwinter are doing fine, even if not "WoW in 2008" fine — but yeah, a more trad CRPG would probably have been a safer bet.

Pathfinder Online was a perfect example of Hubris.

How many tabletop games have been made into Videogames outside of Dungeons and Dragons? Oh, that's right, about zero, except for Whitewolf who got two Vampire Games, an aborted Werewolf game and an aborted MMO.

Quote from: Snowman0147;853101Wow a MMORPG is failing?  I am shock.  No not really.  People the days of MMORPG have gone and past.  It's either WoW, Eve Oline, or some dinky free to play MMORPG.  It is suicide to make one now.  Pathfinder should had done a Shadowrun Returns type of game.

While Blizzard has a billions-with-a-'B' deep budget thanks to WoW's success, I wouldn't be the farm on World of Warcraft these days.  Yeah I'm thinking MMOs as the unshakable gold standard might be done.  Maybe.  I could be wrong though.  But something tells me they're waning.

Quote from: Orphan81;853131Pathfinder Online was a perfect example of Hubris.

Correct me if I'm remembering this wrong...

I remember in the early days of this project listening to a podcast (I think it was Fear the Boot) where Dancey was a guest and claimed that his team was going to revolutionize the MMORPG genre and finally bridge the gap between tabletop RPGs' freedom and computer convenience that would in time pave the way for tabletop GM obsolescence.

This was also around the time he was making lots of smug statements about tabletop being doooooooomed.

I'll always be grateful to him for the SRD, but talk about hubris...

Quote from: Orphan81;853131Pathfinder Online was a perfect example of Hubris.

How many tabletop games have been made into Videogames outside of Dungeons and Dragons? Oh, that's right, about zero, except for Whitewolf who got two Vampire Games, an aborted Werewolf game and an aborted MMO.

You forgot some hunter games that play like Diablo.  Pretty decent games I might add.