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Glassdoor Redux

Discussion in 'EverQuest II General Discussion' started by Semperfidelis, Oct 10, 2017.

  1. Semperfidelis

    Semperfidelis Member

    Someone recently mentioned Glassdoor to me re, Daybreak. It never occurred to me to read it before. But it helped so much to get an inside view of what's happening. I tried to mentally correct for disgruntlement but a lot of the reviews seemed sincere enough, only one really stood out as sour grapes. I was really struck by a few things,

    1. Two people mentioned "nepotism" or "elitism" which tells me there's an inner circle. Honestly I can see how that wouldn't be good in a workplace, but it is a fact of life of any design team, anywhere. I know some engineers who know that if they get a job and they aren't on the A team, they need to polish the resume and go elsewhere, or just be happy doing the scut work. Creative works would have some thematic issues if too many people were given the reigns. I mean, I don't want to see aliens in the next expac, although the Planes could go there. I just don't want to see it.

    My advice to DGB (pompous aren't I? as if they care, but there's always hope) is: hire more women, some of us are darn good coders and we listen to the backstory so when we suggest something it will probably fit. If it doesn't, be sure to appreciate the suggestion before you refuse it. Contrary to what people think, women have egos too.

    2. I was pretty shocked to learn that they're using contractors. Does that really save money? I mean really? Last time I was a contractor, I was paid 180 dollars an hour and I got two flights for free each week. That's just stupid. The assumption being, of course, that you must buy your own Insurance with that money, and give yourself whatever benefits you care about (retirement investment, etc).

    My advice: Please don't do this. Just go make up with, and rehire the people who care about it, if you have no design work for them, make them the managers in place of the "bankers" that everyone dislikes. So that's why it seems like you could play some of the content with your thumb lately. There overall seems to be a lot of micromanagement by people who don't know from games.

    I mean, Smedley, that oh so hated figure, is gone, yet H1Z1 is still the pick of the crop. Hmm, maybe it wasn't him driving that? I really don't get the Smed-hate so if someone could explain it to me, I'd appreciate it. I think DBG has hope, but they need to start listening and stop reacting to every slight like a melodramatic aunt. At some point the toxicity is so high that people forget why we hate this or that thing, it's just a mental totem.

    Much as I hate to admit it, the goal of the bankers is profit. OK good. At least it's a clear goal. I suspect the clear goal of the "inner clique" is to maintain story continuity. OK good. Goal 2, maintain continuity while making a profit. Goal 3 should be obvious. If the game isn't fun, we will stop playing it, eventually, when we give up hope that it will ever be fun again. So, Goal 3, perfectly clear, is it must be fun, fantastic, thematic, like a movie, not like a casino (pull lever and hope).

    Exhibit A: PG's... casino thinking.. pull lever, get 18 coins. Repeat. Yawwwwnnn... That said, the cooperative play is very well done - when you can get a group for it, it's often smooth and fast. and also, with that said, without the solo, we'd all be hurting for required adorns, so it's hard to complain about a grindy thing that gives you best in slot gear.

    Exhibit B: RNG with rare chance at something only a tiny bit better than the usual. Casino, only now it's required because I need my Ascension levels and Tome.

    Exhibit C: Epic - awesome job guys, definitely fantasy, definite theme, definitely like a movie. 100% fun, even while it requires a bit of interdependence. Still fun in the main. Once you do one, the grind stops, so the casino feeling is temporary.

    Exhibit D: Currencies - suddenly there are quite a few, and I still can't keep them straight. is it medals or marks or what? And it's not memorable.. I end up re-figuring it out every time, because the currency is not intuitive. (Oh darn, I need this currency not that one... sigh, more grinding.) In the past, you could be assured that you could get a useful amount of helpfulness if you did the story line, and a few extras fairly diligently over a few months. I just don't see that anymore. I'm constantly bumping into a lack of necessary currency, despite playing for at least two hours PER DAY! Actually it's more like 5 hours per day, but I am flighty so I can only promise that much focused play.

    Exhibit E: Alts. Thanks DBG for finally acknowledging and listening to the players about this. I mean, with 9 crafters and 8 of them level 100 adventurers, I do tons of login/logout, and that really feels like work to me. The "feels like work" accusation hasn't been leveled in a while. That's because each grind at least requires different actions, so as a whole, it's overall interesting. Until you NEED something and calculate you'll have to exclude everything else for a week to get that item. And there isn't any other way, like , being best friends with the Snowfang Gnolls or whatever, to get to the same place. I suspect the lack of complaining about "work" is because people have abandoned their alts. I have.

    Finally, you notice I'm posting it here? Not on the official forums? Yeah, so I think you should free your players from this ban fear. Why on earth would you not want to hear feedback from your customers? If it's so bad that you're afraid of it generating bad press... fine. But make a public announcement that NOBODY will be banned for a helpful constructive criticism that is sent to a Red Name privately.

    So, with three problems solved... the future is rosy? No, but I think if they're stuck in a rut, we as players should do whatever we can to get them unstuck. This game could produce greenbacks forever if it's managed properly. There's too much gloom and doom thinking and fear of failure. I think success is much more achievable if you keep thinking of solutions to the problems.

    To see all the reviews of current and former employees on Glassdoor, you have to sign up. But you can read page one for free:
    Daybreak Game Company Reviews | Glassdoor

    Probably the first thing I would do is ask the "bankers" whether they think the New York Times (another Columbus Nova product) would be better served by a bunch of meddling managers? And do they see that having a natural end sometime soon? Both subscription publications. Why do they feel the need to micromanage this one?

    I totally wrote this from a place of hoping the future is better. Idk if it will make any difference, and idk if I'm just misguided about things and need them explained to me. But I have to try. I love this game.
     
    • Appreciation Appreciation x 1
  2. Rosyposy

    Rosyposy Active Member

    Funny, isn't it, that employees (on glassdoor) are saying the same things that players are saying?
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
  3. Dizzy

    Dizzy Active Member

    All I can say about John is SWG NGE and you had to be there.
     
    • Agree Agree x 3
  4. Chocoholic

    Chocoholic New Member

    Interesting read ...

    I cancelled my sub a little over a week ago and logged in for the last time a couple of days ago, even though my sub runs until the end of the month.

    I've come and gone from this game several times, but I know that this is my last time. (I also feel this way about LotRO -- wow has that game changed over the years. I mention LotRO because Daybreak is now the "publisher", not really sure how much say the "bankers" have with the direction of SSG/LotRO, but lootboxes are being added to the game now with a chance for BIS gear, just moving down that slippery slope more and more.)

    I was really enjoying FG, although I didn't like the slow XP I was willing to wait for it to slowly increase. But reading those reviews I realized that what I was seeing (as well as other players) was true -- layoffs resulting in loss of (much) veteran talent, people promoted to management roles who really aren't qualified, low morale, lack of clear communication - the list goes on.

    The dysfunctional leadership coupled with all of the strange knee-jerk banning going on in recent months on the official forums and Discord, added onto the design decisions made for the last couple of expansions (which led me to try FG as a last ditch effort), have convinced me to spend my recreational dollars elsewhere.

    I will still pop in here periodically, and I really hope that the game improves for those people who choose to remain. EQ2 has a really nice community, and I have been angered more than once by the way certain devs (okay, Kander) have talked down to them (not just "trolls", mind you).
     
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  5. Chocoholic

    Chocoholic New Member

    Have to add ... I feel my personal decision with regard to Daybreak/EQ2 was a sound one.

    Just read on Massively that Daybreak is launching a pro league for e-sports in H1Z1, seems this has been their focus of late. I can't help but feel that the money I have put into EQ2 was in fact not being put back into EQ2.

    Just my personal conjecture, of course.
     
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  6. Mermut

    Mermut Well-Known Member

    It's been pretty clear for YEARS that the money from everquest has gone into things like h1z1 and the various failed eq3s.. not back into 1 and 2 :(
     
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  7. Semperfidelis

    Semperfidelis Member

    Ouch, I hadn't actually considered that. :( I would've been ok with EQ3 getting the funding, but pushing too far, if players from different types of games are getting what we pay. I mean, I'm not likely to play a space game, though I've tried a few. Meh, I'm happier with fairies and demons. And dragons, lots of dragons. :)
     
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  8. Semperfidelis

    Semperfidelis Member

    I also play a lot of LoTRO, I thought the mission---> lootbox thing was borrowed from it actually. I've had the thought for a while that these two games were "sharing a brain" as far as ideas go. The changes there were really painful around the time that Dol Amroth came out and you had those dailies that killed everyone. After a while the dailies (which weren't a serious part of the game until then) became almost soothing, you didn't' have to do something MAJOR every time you logged in, you could just work on dailies and listen for something you might want to join on Chat. But first we had to go up a bit in level and power so the dailies weren't deadly.

    I made my peace with Big Battles and they became fun. I think that game killed me more than any other ever. LOL I got frustrated with it for the same reason I'm frustrated here... my alts got neglected and the work required to make even just two of my alts viable was beyond my ability to keep up with.

    I wonder if they're making decisions based on the assumption that people are in fact multiboxing? Because I have never done that, but now it seems like both games assume you are.

    One thing I'd like to see in EQ2 that is borrowed from LOTRO is trio zones, that you can duo if you have heroic gear. I could probably do the wolf-den one without missing a step, blindfolded. But of course, the benefit there was, you got crafting mats. I'm not sure why whenever there has been a "join from anywhere" dungeon option in EQ2, it's become badly exploited and then shut down. But I'd love to be able to join Experts (for example) without having to go to OF. They'd have to move the mobs away a bit from the doors though. So we could cast buffs in peace. And the method of giving you the daily mission quests when you enter the zone. Loved that too. No more finding which of the questgivers you need and guesswork.

    The lootbox + keys thing has been part of Lotro for a while (since Moria? or the revamp of Moria?). If thta was what you meant. Or is there something new I haven't noticed yet?
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2017
  9. Coffee

    Coffee New Member

    Just a note about Glassdoor - you need to remember that negative comments about a company are likely just very biased perceptions from a subset of employees. For example, my company has a lot of IT projects, some cutting edge and some that are legacy systems on maintenance. Our best employees (be it the best talented, the most driven, the best attitudes, etc) get the new and interesting projects, and the people that have attendance and/or attitude problems or that do lackluster work end up just maintaining old legacy systems. If you look us up on Glassdoor, all of our negative reviews say we just work on old legacy systems. Reading those as an outsider, you wouldn't realize that all of those reviews obviously came from people that were too lame to qualify for other work. You wouldn't know that those reviews reflected negatively on the reviewer instead of the company.

    Edit: Oh, this is my obligatory "long-time reader, first-time poster". I have posted on the official forums from time to time, but I stopped because I got worried that they might ban my account if I said anything too negative. My account dates back to the Kunark expansion in EQ1, so I would hate to lose it.
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2017
    • Informative Informative x 1
  10. Feldon

    Feldon Administrator Staff Member

    Not in response to Coffee's post, but I wanted to say -- The one phrase I completely ignore is "disgruntled employee". It is a PR term for "former employee" that somehow convinces people that their opinion has no value. I feel that any former employee's opinion should be weighed on the merits. We shouldn't do PR's job for them.
     
    • Agree Agree x 6
  11. Semperfidelis

    Semperfidelis Member


    That is an interesting insight. Especially since it shows that "lame" employees are treated much like they would be in any engineering company. Unlike a bank where attendance and arithmetic accuracy are going to get anyone through their day... a creative project that continues long term will have to separate the lions from the kittens. Just remember that without the kittens, your legacy systems go blooey and your lions will have to do that work, or you'll have to rely on someone else to make new systems for you, which might spell doom for all of us. Leading to crying that would be perfectly justified on all fronts.

    I hate to say it but the attitude problem I see is that the maintenance of legacy systems is even SEEN as the job of "the lame." Without them, we're all of us, sunk.

    In my time as an IT person, I've often had to take on the legacy printer's network card, the ancient voicemail systems, the PBX,the sticky legal stuff like accessibility, etc. Without those actions, if even one of the systems broke down, it caused a panic of epic proportions. It should be obvious by now I'm female,and I'm a fan of female techs. I think maybe because I'm female, I saw the danger of neglecting those systems. The men seemed to think that those systems would lead their careers into the ashcan ("worked out the budget so legally blind man can have huge screen" doesn't shine on a resume). But I didn't... my attitude was, this is the catbird seat. Without me, you all fail. I felt the same way about COBOL, and look, there is still new code being written in it!

    Good luck finding a class though.

    Ask the "lame" ones if they think their assignment is a waste of time. If so, that's the most dangerous attitude to have. But you might be surprised, some might have more wisdom than they're being given credit for. There is a danger with all "tech" jobs that people will see them in an elitist way. Make a list of all the other companies or games that use the same legacy systems. Try to guess how long they will last. And even if they don't last, afterward, the next system will be built from the ashes of the old. Knowing the old systems is like knowing that there is a common strategy in raids where the mob reflects damage and you shouldn't hit it.

    No sir, the legacy systems will send out waves of similarity long after they are gone. The lame ones have an opportunity and you have an opportunity to make them feel good about their job, while saving your own. There are still people making ASCII Art. Some of it ended up on the new mobile phones. Think about that. The only question about an employees value in my book is: do they "own" the job and take responsibility for it? It sound to me like many at DBG can't do that because of a lot of micromanagement without training.

    One of them said that people have to be comfortable "asking questions" because nobody would tell them spontaneously what to do. Sounds like a mentoring program is needed.
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2017
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  12. Chocoholic

    Chocoholic New Member

    Well from what I glean from the reports, they are adding raid quality (BIS) gear to the boxes. However, I don't want to spread misinformation so just stay tuned. There was also another fiasco in the last couple of days regarding a rollback that adversely affected players, but it was SSG's mistake.

    I agree with you about DA on... and I never liked BB, I still have a few uncompleted, hated them. Honestly, from the time of mounted combat on, it's been a struggle for me in LotRO. And the revamped character look has made most of mine look goofy and horrible, so sad. I guess LotRO was my EQ2 since I started playing in 2008 and fell in love. It's hard to say goodbye to a game you've played for so long.

    Well both games are under the Daybreak/Columbus Nova banner now. The only thing constant is change.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  13. Coffee

    Coffee New Member

    My story was just to give an example that Glassdoor reviews can easily be inaccurate. On the IT people working on legacy systems, they obviously have value else we would just get rid of them. My use of the word "lame" probably sounded more damning than I meant it... where I'm from, "lame" has about as many meanings as "dude".
     
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  14. Rosyposy

    Rosyposy Active Member

    Login servers, anyone?
     
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  15. Semperfidelis

    Semperfidelis Member

    Sorry I can get kind of touchy about words. One of the funny things I keep hearing from workmates is some riff on "It's so nice that women don't have egos to beware of." I'm always like, huh? Since when? To me ego=pride=self respect. I guess I have a lot of confidence. Comes with the gamer territory. ;)
     
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  16. Semperfidelis

    Semperfidelis Member

    There's a lot of interesting stuff going on there. I mean groundbreaking. They seem to be consciously turning away from the raid-gear BIS idea. They have lately been moving toward getting everyone BIS geared from doing basic grouping, 6-man stuff. OK some of the BIS gear was still from the killer area, Osgilliath, and its dungeons, when I was there last. But hardly anyone played that anymore. You'd never find a PUG for it. So I think maybe they're taking the strategy of "everyone gets to PUG" and "everyone gets BIS gear" based on some currency you gain while playing and joining groups. I think I actually like it. If I wasn't such a fan of EQ2, I'd do it. But I only have time to max out one character in either game now. So the one character is the one over here.

    Sure my alts have decent Panda gear with some Powders of Pure Magic and Stardust accolades here and there. But to join groups here is actually harder than in LoTRO, so I have a lot more work to do. On a simply work basis, I should be there, but I'm not because I prefer EQ2. Both games are good though and I'll be interested to see where they go with it. I sensed the direction they took a while back, so I guess it doesn't offend me very much. I'm not sure if the "harder" aspect of EQ2 is what keeps me here. I think actually it's the story. This one is all made up, fresh and new each expac.
     
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  17. Feldon

    Feldon Administrator Staff Member

    Kander expressed exasperation with me about how many hours they had dedicated to trying to woo raiders, address their concerns, and give them what they wanted. Hours spent chatting with them at Fan Faire / SOE Live on Skype, etc., only to get stabbed in the back on the forums. I would not be surprised at a clear shift from raid-focus to group-focus.
     
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  18. Semperfidelis

    Semperfidelis Member

    Personally I would welcome that. But then, I have to consider that I'm an older gamer, not a young one. My days of raiding are probably behind me. I never say never though. I just hate DKP with a passion. I never fully made the mental shift from NBG looting and DKP looting.

    I think anytime you have PVP or Raiding as a large part of the equation, you get a lot of sassy players who just want to play with your mind and see how much they can get away with. It's just not conductive to a good developer-community relationship. I remember wondering how it was that some mobs in the Sleeper's Tomb just died suddenly. Then later, found out, oh, it was an exploit. They never said how they did it, but clearly a coterie of insiders had figured something out. Then the teleporters were permanently broken. I never did figure out what the cheat was. Don't really care. But stuff like that is much less of an issue if you're just joining a friendly group.

    Wise old Asian says, "If you have riches, it will take an army to protect it" (I probably just mangled the Tao, so apologies, but you get the drift.)

    The trick to group focus is to make it interesting without the wow factor of awesome OP lootz. I remember that the reason I joined a raid guild in the first place was because I was tired of not seeing the storyline play out for me. The main thread at that time was playing out in Kael, Drunder, and PoW. Not playing those dungeons meant that you didn't know what went on in the world really, you just got the rumors. I'm really glad that we get the story in the Sig lines lately.

    I have a feeling of "I want to know what happens next."
     
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2017
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