New Direction NI Staff let go.

That... sucks.

Manny Sad.

 

Sorry to hear that :(

 

Not sure what to think of this.. first thoughts are of sadness.. :( next are thoughts.. is this planet going to be recalled by MA...
I guess it's a waiting game from here on....

 

I feel sorry for Meg and the other developers. I like Next Island (it's just that I've been "stuck" on calypso because of the upcoming revamps of the missions there, and the ongoing migration that's likely to be the last one before the Nerf Bat comes).

I like next island and the environment, and when ancient greece came, I felt in level with the big ubers (who usually have guns, armor and FAP way above my budget). There was also refresingly mob-bree areas on AG. One thing I missed in ancent greece was mining, maybe with, uh "slagruta" (dunno english word) as finder, and a showel as excavator.

(Main reason I haven't spent more time there is just the way travelling is done - unless you want to spend almost an hour flying, you need to follow the schedule of the big ships that stops by. Before I found a low-cost "line" doing nearly daily treavel , the main service I knew did regular trips only did one-two stops there/week. Charter is a bit expensive for just leisure travelling if you want to travel around rather than trade. And I din't like the old pay-TP fees either - 60 ped for a roundtrip going to people who just happened to have a hangar deed even if they in the past didn't do any service of their own didn't feel right).

I hope you (Meg & the others) are allowed to play the game as normal people now at least, so you can visit.

Now I just wonder what will happen, if NI will be taken over by MA (as Calypso was when FPC was dissolved), or if it all was done because another company is taking over with a totally different perspective.

 

WOW Speechless :(

 

Very saddening news. Last time I read a post like that was at the collapse of Hellgate. :(

I await some form of official announcement.

 

Beyond the numerous comments on other Entropia Universe forums (some of them just reflecting a profound lack of knowledge about Next Island) here is some factual information posted by Bjorn/MindArk on EntropiaForum:

"I'd like to reassure everyone that Planet Next Island will not be shutting down.

MindArk is in constant contact with the developers of Next Island, and we are monitoring the situation closely.

More detailed information about Next Island's plans for continued development will be provided as it becomes available."

 

I never feared that NI would simply vanish - MA has stated in the past that if ever that was the case they'd take control of the planet after the PP bowed out for whatever reasons. It's just sad to hear of the entire team being let go from Meg's personal blog without any official announcement what so ever.

But I guess the ones that had the role to communicate with players don't work for NI any more...

 

I hope that David Post will come on here to let us know he is just freeing up some expenses to push forward in a new exciting direction. I know that if it isn't true that MA will take over NI, and I can just hope that they will either try and sell it to someone interested or take over the operations until there is a new party involved.

Don't get me wrong, I would rather see David keep on moving forward with NI as he has a very big interest in this universe and his planet. I would hate to see him not being able to see it to his ultimate goal.

 

Quote from webpage (my underlining):

I can't interprete that differently as everyone who was actually working on it was fired.

Sure, there can be people left in the company who aren't really staff (like CEO), but unless that CEO speaks up the company is, well, very silent.

As my knowledge about next island apparently is shallow, I wouldn't mind if someone who knows more would spread the light. Only main thing I know about NI, was that in the beginning Neverdie was hired as a designer and is a land owner of "his" server area (the one with pirate skeletons, big rollercoaster and the Club Neverdie village), but that he was said not to be a planet partner, only a designer (so Next Island wouldn't automatically go to Neverdie Studios).

 

The problem here is that this is MA response to any and all problems. You have put in a support case before right? The good news is that Next Island can't be shut down. To many players with inventory here plus it would just make a mess of a lot of other stuff in game. MA will most likely take it over and let it sit as a dead planet while they try and sale it. Or..or..and..or

But the good news here could be that the staff was just let go so the owners can try again with a new team. Remember this was soon after Meg did announce that she did a lot of work to bring us yet one more Crystal. Also you have to remember the Next Island of just a few months ago. The team was hard at it to change it to what they were hoping would bring more people in while destroying the theme of the planet. Right now NI is a rack and I hope who ever takes over the project can get MA to roll the planet back a few versions -- while keeping the new content and missions.

 

He has posted? He could post? Or he just has a Facebook account??

 

Wasn't it someting mined? Maybe just next step after Prateterium? (Maybe an idea gotten from Arkadia, introducing "planet specific" ore/enmatter). Dunno if it's good or bad.

But with all staff gone, I wonder what will happen to the mission(s) that's been mentioned and were said to come with the VU in "august", even if a new company takes over it can't be easy to continue with something you would have to spend a lot time learning by yourself first (as there is noone around to ask).

Oh, and I don't mind the crystals. They're sort of cool, and as they are only 1 PEC each, they don't hog lot of TT-value. I got two main problems with crystals, one is I've sortted them in shape rather than name in storage (which apparently was a bad idea now when they're used), and the other that I pretty often get "overweight" during hunts when I reach above 200 level (as I usually have around "items" normally - things like armor, weapons, mindforce chips (including tiny (L) ones...). Most annoying during hunts is when I get "overweight" because of duplicate ammo stacks. Sigh. (Looted ammo stacks smaller than what gun can use) - I guess MAs ammo stacking algorithm for looted ammo needs to get polished (add all looted ammo to *same* stack don't create new stacks all the time).

So besides from inventory management crystals aren't that bad. (It's worse on Calypso where my storage gets filled of enhancer crafting components and such I don't know if I should TT or not - they do have a significant TT value after a while). And, ahh, those animal oils with a market value of 102%. And when the new texture system came, people on calypso had to start thinking of what to do with all the different extractors.

 

Sad to see Meg go. Wish her the best in the future.

 

Beware if you're looking for info on your own:
It appears like one of the servers (ad-server?) that www.nextXsland is using is spreading "redkit" trojan (by way of java exploit).
Google advices not to and it appears wise to follow that in this case. (It's not the website itself that's infected, but rather probably one of the ad-servers or counters or whatever it's using).

 

They need to hire or at least consult with people who know this game. That was the main problem with the former staff, that and I don't think that there was many of them. I know they were working hard and it was showing, but the inherent knowledge of how this universe works is extremely important.

 

It's no rocket sience.
1.Introduce new BPs that use the looted an mined materials.
2.Get the 10-20k HP mobs back which attract the gamblers.
3. Get rid of anything named "Neverdie" or "ND"
4. IMC
5. More Fashin...stick to the summer/beach scheme

That's it...at least in my opinion.