Has Paul Sage left ZoS?

Rosveen

It just occured to me that it's been only a few weeks since they established community ambassadors, but when it came to important news about people responsible for the game's direction, they didn't treat us like a community at all. I understand being quiet about Nick or Maria, but Paul was one of the faces of the company - and he left without a word. I have nothing against this change, let's see what Rich brings to the table, but I think we should have been informed instead of discovering it on our own.

KerinKor

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We can confirm that Paul left ZOS after the launch of ESOTU on console. He, along with rest of the team, are very happy with how the game is doing and we wish him the best in his future endeavors. ESOTU continues to be in great hands with Game Director, Matt Firor

Why am I worried?

kaithuzar

Faulgor wrote: »

Cogo wrote: »

Nick Konkle left too? That explains why Spell Crafting was delayed I guess.

I don't think it's any sinking ship, but will there be a new Creative Manager for ESO?

Nick Konkle, Maria Aliprando and now Paul Sage are the ones we know about who left ZOS in the months after B2P.

Not to sound like a broken record, but lets face it; Maria Aliprando #EveryGuysDreamGirl

JD2013

BigM wrote: »

[snip]

It may not be what you want to hear, but at least something was said, even if only to confirm what we already knew. What exactly is it that you want them to say? To lay out every reason he left? Never gonna happen. This is how big companies operate. Is it right? Likely not. Some more transparency would be great. But we ain't getting it.

[edited to remove quote]

Cogo

What are you on about?

ZoS gave us info about the status of the dev team and a new Creative lead.
Of course it has to be communicated in a proper manner. Media is reporting about these things.

Cuyler

We got the Oblivion guy! Couldn't be happier

Carde

kaithuzar wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

Cogo wrote: »

Nick Konkle left too? That explains why Spell Crafting was delayed I guess.

I don't think it's any sinking ship, but will there be a new Creative Manager for ESO?

Nick Konkle, Maria Aliprando and now Paul Sage are the ones we know about who left ZOS in the months after B2P.

Not to sound like a broken record, but lets face it; Maria Aliprando #EveryGuysDreamGirl

Not that I disagree with your comment in the least, but I felt so bad for her when all the nerds were creeping on her back before launch every time she did an interview. Its no wonder she sort of dropped off the face of the earth shortly afterwards as far as the face of the game is concerned.

Ffastyl

JD2013 wrote: »

Some more transparency would be great. But we ain't getting it.

ZOS was more transparent at the start, showing stuff even in early development. What we, as the playerbase, did not understand is that early development = subject to extreme change and delays, as is oft the case when the subject matter is still on whiteboard. Other companies wait until the product to be discussed is almost finished and subject to little or no change before revealing, and this generates less fury from customers.

ZOS learned the "why" the hard way. Now we want that transparency back after we showed them that we'll explode at them if they do become transparent again.


Getting more updates on what the Dev team's working on is always nice, but more than a few people are impatient, ignorant, and/or violent about getting updates on features not set in stone nor due to come for several months if not years.

Elsonso

Darklord_Tiberius wrote: »

Amiculi wrote: »

LrdRahvin wrote: »

[snip]

They also specifically have rules against conspiracy theories.

[snip]

They do, and it is.

So many parts of this game are amazing. People tend to focus on what is wrong, which is great because that is how the game moves forward, but really there is a whole lot of the game that just works.

[edited to remove quote]

pmn100b16_ESO

Haven't read the whole thread. Did he quit, or was he 'let go'?

BigM

pmn100b16_ESO wrote: »

Haven't read the whole thread. Did he quit, or was he 'let go'?

Quit!

pmn100b16_ESO

BigM wrote: »

pmn100b16_ESO wrote: »

Haven't read the whole thread. Did he quit, or was he 'let go'?

Quit!

Hmm, okay. Just wouldn't surprise me if he was sacked or rather 'reallocated'.

Samadhi

Rosveen wrote: »

It just occured to me that it's been only a few weeks since they established community ambassadors, but when it came to important news about people responsible for the game's direction, they didn't treat us like a community at all. I understand being quiet about Nick or Maria, but Paul was one of the faces of the company - and he left without a word. I have nothing against this change, let's see what Rich brings to the table, but I think we should have been informed instead of discovering it on our own.

At the f2p MMO company that I did moderator work for, we had a community manager jump ship to a different company (to a mobile gaming company, in fact) he did not want people to know what happened. In that scenario, informing the players made more sense because it was someone actually involved in the community; however, his appreciation for privacy was also worthy of respect.

Not saying that Paul asked ZOS not to mention it, but it is really not that pertinent of knowledge for players if someone quits his or her job.
He did make a point of not leaving until after console launch, instead of in the thick of one of the busiest times the company had to deal with. Think he may have just wanted to leave on good terms and with as little drama as possible.

Muizer

Amiculi wrote: »

LrdRahvin wrote: »

They frequently "unsink" threads (allow them to go to the top with new posts) when called out on it.

They also specifically have rules against conspiracy theories.

Yeah well, that's what they say...........

Heromofo

Good job keeping Zenimax honest bud +1

Carde

Samadhi wrote: »

Not saying that Paul asked ZOS not to mention it, but it is really not that pertinent of knowledge for players if someone quits his or her job.
He did make a point of not leaving until after console launch, instead of in the thick of one of the busiest times the company had to deal with. Think he may have just wanted to leave on good terms and with as little drama as possible.

This is a pretty good point. He stuck through the console launch which I'm sure was a huge rush time for them all, so it couldn't have been on that bad of a term. Also, I mean look how happy he looks in the Gearbox photo? Can't be the look of a man that just got fired and then hired by a smaller company.

BigM

Well one thing is true, they have been very cool today, they must of had a meeting about not banning people and let us B because I see a lot of posts today that 2 days ago would of been deleted.

So I guess they finally see who runs the game, the one's that pay them too. Just hope it isn't to late to save the game.

Samadhi

Carde wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

Not saying that Paul asked ZOS not to mention it, but it is really not that pertinent of knowledge for players if someone quits his or her job.
He did make a point of not leaving until after console launch, instead of in the thick of one of the busiest times the company had to deal with. Think he may have just wanted to leave on good terms and with as little drama as possible.

This is a pretty good point. He stuck through the console launch which I'm sure was a huge rush time for them all, so it couldn't have been on that bad of a term. Also, I mean look how happy he looks in the Gearbox photo? Can't be the look of a man that just got fired and then hired by a smaller company.

Yeah, if he had been feeling dissatisfied with the project on the whole, he likely would not have cared about waiting until after launch. People don't tend to make an effort to see something succeed on their way out the door if the project left them disillusioned or bitter.

But do not expect much of the community to care one way or another -- there are people in this very thread trying to claim that it was sunk when no effort to do so was actually made.
Was actively watching General Discussion for several hours yesterday, and at no point did the thread sink below other posts while active.

There was a brief period where many threads were receiving active posts at one time and this thread was dropping 10-15 spaces in a matter of a minute or two; however, that was because other threads were receiving active posts.

AngryNord

Samadhi wrote: »

Rosveen wrote: »

It just occured to me that it's been only a few weeks since they established community ambassadors, but when it came to important news about people responsible for the game's direction, they didn't treat us like a community at all. I understand being quiet about Nick or Maria, but Paul was one of the faces of the company - and he left without a word. I have nothing against this change, let's see what Rich brings to the table, but I think we should have been informed instead of discovering it on our own.

At the f2p MMO company that I did moderator work for, we had a community manager jump ship to a different company (to a mobile gaming company, in fact) he did not want people to know what happened. In that scenario, informing the players made more sense because it was someone actually involved in the community; however, his appreciation for privacy was also worthy of respect.

Not saying that Paul asked ZOS not to mention it, but it is really not that pertinent of knowledge for players if someone quits his or her job.
He did make a point of not leaving until after console launch, instead of in the thick of one of the busiest times the company had to deal with. Think he may have just wanted to leave on good terms and with as little drama as possible.

Paul Hines has had a fairly high profile in media, for both Zenimax and Bethesada - IIRC he even was at Bethesda's E3 presentation not too long ago. It is quite natural that it gets noticed when such a person 'changes pasture'.

Samadhi

AngryNord wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

Rosveen wrote: »

It just occured to me that it's been only a few weeks since they established community ambassadors, but when it came to important news about people responsible for the game's direction, they didn't treat us like a community at all. I understand being quiet about Nick or Maria, but Paul was one of the faces of the company - and he left without a word. I have nothing against this change, let's see what Rich brings to the table, but I think we should have been informed instead of discovering it on our own.

At the f2p MMO company that I did moderator work for, we had a community manager jump ship to a different company (to a mobile gaming company, in fact) he did not want people to know what happened. In that scenario, informing the players made more sense because it was someone actually involved in the community; however, his appreciation for privacy was also worthy of respect.

Not saying that Paul asked ZOS not to mention it, but it is really not that pertinent of knowledge for players if someone quits his or her job.
He did make a point of not leaving until after console launch, instead of in the thick of one of the busiest times the company had to deal with. Think he may have just wanted to leave on good terms and with as little drama as possible.

Paul Hines has had a fairly high profile in media, for both Zenimax and Bethesada - IIRC he even was at Bethesda's E3 presentation not too long ago. It is quite natural that it gets noticed when such a person 'changes pasture'.

Paul Sage and Pete Hines are two different people though...

Darklord_Tiberius

lordrichter wrote: »

Darklord_Tiberius wrote: »

Amiculi wrote: »

LrdRahvin wrote: »

They frequently "unsink" threads (allow them to go to the top with new posts) when called out on it.

They also specifically have rules against conspiracy theories.

Yea, I am at a warning level 2 due to apparently promoting conspiracy theory lol. If ZOS put as much effort into this game as they do trolling their own forums; ESO would be AMAZING.

They do, and it is.

So many parts of this game are amazing. People tend to focus on what is wrong, which is great because that is how the game moves forward, but really there is a whole lot of the game that just works.

Hardly.

The game is amazing; the base game. However, since launch they have had the worst communication, worst reaction time to broken/exploited skills/behavior in PvP and a sever lack of creativity in regards to PvP. They advertised this game almost exclusively with Cyrodiil and the 3 way alliance war; however, they have delivered very little to those of us that bought this game due to that selling point. They lost massive PC population because of their lack and care to PvP, its why they had to shift focus over to the PvE side of things; because that is where their majority player base was then located. They are getting back to addressing the many issues that plague Cyrodiil, which is good; but more care can be done and needs to be done if they want to save this game.

Quintal

You don't need to know the numbers, just this...

Whendim_ESO

There are some people who like to work to launch and then move on to the next challenge. Spinning stories based on our own biases and lives will never explain why someone would decide to leave. It's all projection and speculation.

Good luck folks!

Cody

so is this part of the reason this game started on its downhill slope?

Teiji

Cody wrote: »

so is this part of the reason this game started on its downhill slope?

Likely, if you look at interview with Maria, Paul and Nick; you can see there were all involved in very important projects which have a huge impact on the game; Maria was responsible for a lot of work that went into the Champion System, Nick would've been responsible for Spellcrafting. Nick was always very enthusiastic about how Veteran dungeons were always unique to normal dungeons, a decision philosophy which can be seen to no longer be active with IC update where the layout is the same.

Now they've left. Whatever that means, I hope we find out soon as this is TESO: TU' first content release which shall shape our expectations for Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild, Mephala's Realm and more.

Also, IC grinding provides the best XP available, last update XP was actually increased to be even better.

AngryNord

Cody wrote: »

so is this part of the reason this game started on its downhill slope?

Or did they leave because the game had already started on its downhill slope?

Cody

AngryNord wrote: »

Cody wrote: »

so is this part of the reason this game started on its downhill slope?

Or did they leave because the game had already started on its downhill slope?

I remember everything really starting to go downhill after some lighting patch WAY back around 1.2 or 1.3. Immense lag consumed PvP; imbalances dominated, as well as zerg blobs being virtually undefeatable and making PvP a horror to play. PvE turned into a boring grind after VR1, and one could not really even do much in PvP until about VR10+, which was attained by PvE grinding.

Craglorn was nothing but a grindzone(a blessing in disguise that many people, including me, mocked until we realized it was an absolute necessity) and that was pretty much 1.2ish until 1.5. then 1.6 released, infinite resource builds break game balance, nirnhoned breaks magicka builds(which i'm not even aware if it has been fixed) and gamebreaking lag continued to run rampant thruout the game, as well as numerous bugs.

and i haven't even discussed buff servers. #rememberhopesfire

the bad certainly outweighed the good, so yes, the downhill slope started way before the original heads in charge left. I won't make a conspiracy theory out of it, as I've dealt with enough senseless drama on these forums, but it is interesting to think about.

olsborg

Cody wrote: »

then 1.6 released, infinite resource builds break game balance, nirnhoned breaks magicka builds(which i'm not even aware if it has been fixed) and gamebreaking lag continued to run rampant thruout the game, as well as numerous bugs.

Nirnhoned is fixed on pts. But it was left in the game for so long, Im already thinking about unsubbing (again) and uninstalling. This was just the final slap in the face after all the other bugs thats been running rampant for months and months. Whats most annoying, is on an ESO LIVE show in like May, it was said that, Yes nirnhoned is a bug and will be fixed, then it was left willingly in the game until....aug/sep? Wich is just bollocks. It just tells me that they dont really care about game balance...releasing new content take precedence over it..wich will introduce new bugs. GJ.

TheBonesXXX

Psychobunni wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

It is what it is, and it's probably too late to salvage in one direction or the other.

I hope not. I just had this conversation with my husband, I came to ESO for a MMO. While loving the TES line it was the MMO experience I was after. We played LOTRO after vanilla, after turbine took over and the store ....and still LOVED it, even though there are many, many players that hated it from the point we played.

I don't think ESO is "unsalvageable" I think it just needs more options.

I will never forgive Turbine for putting Asherons Call on the back burner for LOTRO.

Tolkien is in every MMO there is, because all MMOs stem from his storytelling.

Alucardo

Phinix1 wrote: »

I have OCD, and can confirm this picture ruined my morning.
For those of you that suffered like myself, I present you with this



You're welcome.