That's in 3:15 hours, isn't it? Count me in, I want to /Salute him as it should be.

A bit late for us Europeans, don't you think?

What I meant is that very few europeans would be able to attend and that's kinda sad because if I could attend, I would but I can't at 1 AM. I'm sure many others are in the same situation.

@Sleepy-Hollows:
I have similar ideas, but not as direct. They're in the middle of huge changes where a designer is strongly needed at the helm (because the direction of whole teams in f2p games relies on decisions made by a designer that balances out quality and income), so I'm a little worried about the lead designer jumping ship at this point in time. I hope (for the game's survival) that either his plans were solid and will be continued on or that the team finds a direction that gives us quality and keeps the game tempting enough to pay for.

I actually left the game industry recently myself, though in my case it was more of tiredness of my quality of life (seriously, I had trouble scheduling dinners in "after work" hours with friends because they'd keep us late promising us we'd get time off in return - psh). The thing that scares me is that in the company I worked for, one of their games had shut down a few months before and soon after I (and other programmers) left, the remaining team was laid off and the project pretty much put on a slow hiatus with like 2 people working on it.

There are some similarities, but at the very least, Nick spins it in a positive light, so I think SK will be okay. I always did tell my other friends in the industry that the only real way to 'win' (in terms of satisfaction) in the game industry was to make your own games.

[edit]
I just took a look here - it seems they treat them well ¦3

-------

Random note:
If he resigned today, wouldn't that give him at least two weeks? Or is this more of a late last-day notice?

ah, close.
I know many of the decisions that my team made begrudgingly (like, if I were a player, I would frown at those decisions) were made not because the higher ups wanted to please the community voices/suggestions, but because the higher ups wanted to squeeze money out of them in the wrong way. You all should know that while forums give personality to the (smaller, vocal) community's voice, the game itself can track what all players purchase, access, and do. They can see what (more) people "care about" and do by watching that data.
But decisions still have to be made by people up top by people who actually rake in the money. The designers either make that decision or try to balance quality to reach the goal set by the higher ups.

If you're a professional game developer (indie or otherwise), your decisions put food on your plate. For one-time-sale games, you can get more sales by making fun things that people want to pay for. For F2P games, you try to introduce features that get as many people to want to pay [multiple times] for. It sounds similar, but it often means that if you're a gold-hearted person who wants to bring fun in F2P, you will often have to balance 'fun' and 'income'. I mean if things like Facebook games wanted to really please their communities, none of them would have an energy system or annoy people to invite friends and all that, then they'd shut down out of lack of income (this happened to the first facebook game that I really played lol - their energy came back so fast that it wasn't really a hindrance nor something I'd need to pay for, and they eventually shut down. They had a really active multiplayer too).

Also, there's no 'remaking' SK since it belongs to Three Rings/Sega, not Nick.

Speaking hypothetically here:
It can be 'good' if Nick was (completely) in charge of decisions like removing the energy system and replacing it with the high paywalls of the Fire Crystals (while tweaking down the drop rates). If he were removing the game's sources of income and driving the game towards trying to suck money out of drier fountains, then having different people at the helm might find the golden balance of fun and income.

For players, that means a different designer not bogged down by other ideas might be able to introduce features that are fun and things that people want (not need) to pay for.

@Sleepy-Hollows
Ahaha, I completely forgot about 9! Touché, but MMOs like this need a ton more resources than can be managed by a few people on an indie budget ;/
At the very least, 9 is more of a traditional game in terms of value and income (make it really fun and more people will buy it).

Anyway, I'd love to continue this direction but we're way off topic.

But i've got school stuff :( - damn you school stuff!

On a serious note, i hope nick graces us with his presence in-game for the last time :(

Nah, it hasn't even started yet. You still have 40 minutes.

That someone was me.

I'm uploading screenshots as we you read. I'll show them in a minute

EDIT: Here they are.

I think i saw nick once on christmas, he had the whole christmas set on him, he was pretty cool....Or it was another sexy admin in the impostoclaus costume...