Crazy news with Raven, Mythic, and a few other places going through layoffs. Then there's this:

http://ealouse.wordpress.com/

Now first off, this kind of behavior is really unprofessional. Anonymous or not, you don't talk about stuff like this in a public venue no matter how righteous it makes you feel. As this is coming from someone who's about to be laid off, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt but it definitely has the ring of truth to it...or at least I believe this person is genuine and that they believe what they say is true. This industry can be real shitty sometimes, for something that's focused on making entertainment. Not everyone is in it out of love and passion for video games. Someone has to run the business, someone has to put up money, and when you mix business and money into any venture nasty stuff is bound to happen.

Que sara.

No way!

The first story I ever heard about Jack "Statesman" Everett was on the CoH forums. As the story goes, a player was on his way to the green line in Independence Port when he saw Statesman fly past him. As the story goes, Jack was logged in on his signature character showing off the game to some execs, and this player just happened to catch him in the act. There was a certain sense of mythical magic about that story, a lot of responses like "No way!" and "THE Statesman?!"

I've no idea why that story sticks with me, but years later my own personal character had somewhat reached that level on the Justice server. Through a combination of being active on the forums, having one of the most awesome avatars, being involved in and later leading many, many Hamidon raids...I had reached a point where I went somewhere in game and someone I did not know said "No way! THE *blank*." Isn't that what most players wanted out of playing a super-hero MMO...to have some player look at your carefully crafted avatar and say "No WAY!"

My first introduction to the RL Jack was while I was at the offices of Cryptic interviewing for the position I was eventually offered. I was standing in one of the hallways of their cube-farm chatting with some of the people there and looking out the window into this enclosed into the atrium in the center of the building. Some unfortunate employee had walked out for a break and managed to lock themselves into this inescapable inside-out room and was banging on the door to be let back in. Jack came strolling down the hall, past the door and loudly proclaimed, "Don't let him back in...he'll never learn." Without even pausing, disappeared around the corner.

/em teabag

The very first assignment I had on CoH was animating the 'teabag emote'. Matt Miller's first introduction to me was me timidly poking my head into is office and inquiring "What exactly do you mean by a 'teabag emote'".

A few days later, the CEO of the company stopped by my cubicle and asked to see this teabag emote he'd heard rumors of.

Matt some time later confessed that he had trouble telling me apart from our IT guy, Gary.

I love your writing Manticore

The first Halloween after starting at Cryptic, I had the chance to help out with a live event. I was allowed to pilot Manticore for the night, awkwardly field questions directed to Sean Fish, and spent about 9 hours in Pocket D giving every player a personalized, highly coveted yellow name. I was also dressed as a pirate and about as dismally sick with the flu as I'd ever been in my life...but there was no way I was gonna miss out on the chance to play a signature character.

I spent a lot of time that night relaying messsages to Sean. I was so jazzed to be piloting a sig, but felt really bad that so many people thought I was Mr. Fish.

Devil Car

I began working on CoH, shortly after Issue 7 launched. I know it was after Issue 7 launched because on my trip from Colorado to Los Gatos my car's engine was completely destroyed by "The Sisters" outside of Evanston, Wyoming and I spent a week holed up in a Motel 8 playing I7 while the local mechanic replaced the engine. I spent my first few months living in one room of an ancient farmhouse in Santa Cruz, for which I paid $250/mo. I dare anyone living in the bay area to find accomodations for that price. The commute on I-17 over the Santa Cruz mountains destroyed two of my tires. The Sears Automative mechanic showed me the 8-inch chunk of missing rubber, which explained the odd thunking noise. They also managed to break my sway-bar while trying to align my tires. Shortly after this, my electrical system became possessed and systematically began to blow out fuses. It was around this time that I discovered a 1993 Toyota Corolla cannot be shifted out of Park unless the brake light is on.

The license plate the California DMV initially tried to issue to me ended in '666'.

I'm your biggest fan

I was working at 2015 in Tulsa, OK when CoH launched. Prior to that, my only experienc with MMOs had been playing Meridian 59 pretty hardcore...enough to know that MMOs were a dangerous drug for me. I was able to avoid MMOs since. A few of my co-workers at 2015 tried to lure me into City of Heroes and I was only able to resist the temptation for a couple of months. I eventually started playing right about the time they all stopped to start playing this other MMO called World of Warcraft...which has since faded into obscurity.

To say I was hooked would be an understatement. When 2015 folded, and I began looking for work I took a job with NetDevil. I'd be lying if I didn't say that Auto Assault being an NCSoft title (meaning that one of my CoH accounts would now be comp'd) didn't have some tiny, tiny part in my decision to take that job. Yes, the studio was awesome, Auto-Assault looked like it had the potential to be a pretty cool project, there were a lot of great people there, and living in Colorado had been a dream...but in the back of my mind I was thinking "I can play as much CoH as I want...for free!". I know I drove many of the NetDevil guys with my rabid fanboisms. "In CoH, they do this. In CoH, they do that."...but in fairness, I heard just as much "In WoW, they do this..." from them. We all take inspiration from the things we enjoy.

A short time later, when the opportunity to work for Cryptic Studios on City of Heroes/City of Villains presented itself, I took the job. I moved my family to the SF Bay area in California...hundreds of miles away from family, because I finally had the chance to work on a game that I really loved to play. Prior to this, I'd always made decisions based on how I felt about the future of the company, what the benefits were, cost of living, how close it was to family. But this time, I wanted to try something different and work on a game that I really, really liked to play.

BABs

Today I and 8 other people at Paragon Studios were let go as part of restructuring. I was completely shocked by this. It's the first time I've ever lost a job outside of the whole studio collapsing. I've never been basically told we no longer need you here. Looking back over the past few years, I have an amazing amount of memories revolving around City of Heroes, Cryptic Studios, and Paragon. I'd like to share some of them.