Timothy Kane is just We were able to watch Wildstar’s development through a porthole. One of only two games he stopped developing. This video is his 20-minute journey through weird office politics, stubborn co-workers, and a meeting where Kane arrives with his four-plus hours of notes to set the record straight.
I played Carbine’s action MMO in 2014 and was sad to see it end in 2018. It had fun combat, a funny Ratchet & Clank-style setting, and a serious endgame problem that sank it just four years after its release. But Kane’s video tells a deeper story of miscommunication and the cracked vision that started causing problems in 2008.
“Carbin was one of the best companies I’ve ever worked for,” Kane begins. “I worked with the best people in the field: great programmers, great artists, great designers. […] I worked with some very talented people, working on original IP, and the pay was amazing. ”
The problem started in 2008 with an unexpected role change from programming to design. “We had a really great MMO engine, but it’s been 3 years and we didn’t have a setting, no story, no classes. HQ was very upset.” They sent in a new studio head who approved the art direction, then promptly fired nearly the entire design team, including the then-design director.
Kain said he was asked to step up because no one had filled the vacant position. “Design directors don’t just hang around looking for jobs. Nobody had heard of Carbine, [while] NCsoft was popular in Korea, but I don’t think they will release anything of their own [in the US] not yet. […] About two months later, the head of the studio asked me if I was going to do it, but he prefaced by saying that if I said no, the studio would be closed. ”
“So when I accepted [the role]The head of the studio said, “We have 90 days to create the setting and the classes,” and he and his team have done just that. But the three-way tug-of-war that Kane later described began when the new art director started. They allegedly sabotaged Kane and gave other artists the wrong impression of his demeanor.
Kane outlines a discussion with a young artist who showed him the concept of the double jump, a mechanism he loves. “I said, ‘Let’s add this to the explorer’s pass.'” Kane replies that one of Wildstar’s classes, the Spellslinger, began as an invention of the lead concept artist. “I said, ‘Then why are you saying that?'” [said] “I heard someone upstairs say that.”
Things haven’t been great for the game studio head since his first blitzkrieg in 2008, according to Kane. “He said I was in charge, but if I didn’t like it, he’d run a competing strike team.” With his own designer […] My hitting team won the ‘popularity vote,'” he said, noting he doesn’t like committee-run games, but “still said he was going to do things the same way his hitting team did.” added.
Kane said he kept detailed digital records during his time at Carbin and used them in meetings with the art director himself, saying, “I was talking non-stop for four hours. rice field.[…] I went back to work the next day and nothing had changed with the art director. he hasn’t changed anything. So I gave up – basically, no more arguing, no more resistance. ”
But it was at a meeting with Fun QA, a Seoul-based quality assurance group under NCSoft, that Kane tendered his resignation. “The head of the studio told us at the director’s meeting: [Fun QA’s report]we need to look into it next week […] And it was 100 percent a design complaint. ”
“So we got 56 pages of design reviews, mostly positive. […] followed by another [document of] 79 pages. Nothing more than a complaint against art.” This became a straw sandal for Kane to break his camel’s back. “After the meeting, I went to the studio director, went to his office, closed the door, and said, ‘You lied to me, this is my resignation letter,'” and said, 24- Within 48 hours, he reported that the audio director, senior programmer and lead concept artist had all left “before me and after me.”
The video depicts the turbulent conditions of life at Wildstar’s developing Carbine Corporation, where infighting and lack of communication are rife, made all the more bitter by Kane’s positive remarks towards his colleagues. was This is a pretty tight encapsulation of Wildstar as a whole. An MMO of his that was very promising upon release, but failed to keep that vision intact as it was pulled in all sorts of directions. Hearing the same story that allegedly reflected the corporate culture during development reminds me of what Wildstar might have been.
