xStarfirex xStarfirex

And you decide to hire the guy that could do great things for elemental???

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And you decide to hire the guy that could do great things for elemental???

from Elemental Forums

Yeh so atm there is that other thread, which lets be honest isn't the most welcoming thread for Jon to be reading in his first week here. I would like to think we as a community are at the very least a balanced sort so I figure why not have a place for positive opinions of Mr Shafer. So yeh, heres your place for Jon Shafer love, Oh and don't get bogged down in petty things like the "Truth" or "Facts" I am looking for the more positive side of our little elemental community to shine through.

Right I will start us off.

Welcome to Elemental Jon!! ^_^   I admire alot of aspects of your previous work and based on what Brad and others say about you I feel you are a great fit for the job role they have given you here. You seem to have a good sense of humor and I hope over time these forums come to feel like a second home to you (that is unless you already have more than one home, in which case more like a 3rd or 4th home).

Ps: Is it true that you once saved a whole group of kittens from almost certain death with just great game design alone?  :meow: If it is that's pretty awesome man.

elemental
656,895 views 206 replies
Reply #176 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Jam3, reply 171
I would bet he isn't you really think they want to payout a second salary just to keep an ex-employee from airing grievances? Activision canned two of the largest names in the industry cause they didn't want to pay them bonuses (albeit rather large ones). That mentality is like 10 years old, companies don't just sign contracts with people who don't work for them to "keep quiet". And even if they did its probably not for very long.

 

Pay a second salary to an ex-employee to keep him from airing grievances ?????

Are you serious?  LMAO  That's the funnies thing I've ever heard.

 

Well maybe someone can address the problems with Civ 5 here now that Jon is here lets give him a chance to defend

 

Shafer needs to "defend" nothing but his own ass.  He is now working for his former company's competitor and it is in his best interest to do just that.

 

If you really need to learn about what happened to Steam's Sid V, then go to 2kForums and post your inquiries there.  Oh and good luck with that.

 

-.-

Reply #177 from Elemental Forums Top

How many python programmers do I know who are really good? Lots. Ones that you would hire? Probably not any of them because they don't have "industry experience". You'd see 25 years of Unix admin work and think nah but they would probably run circles around whatever you threw at them. The way you framed that statement that no one could do what he can for you using python almost sounded a bit like a cult of personality.

Ain't that the truth.   That's exactly what I was saying.   One issue might be the pay, though.   Someone with 25 years' sysadmin experience is going to command 6 digits.

 

Star Control: Origins
Reply #178 from Stardock Forums Top

So that this doesn't become an ongoing distraction...


As part of a public company, 2K has a policy where only certain individuals are permitted to talk about the company and its games in public. The only exceptions to this are for special events, like trade show interviews. Everyone employed by 2K is beholden to this policy, and it does not expire after someone departs the company, regardless of the circumstances. Some people don't always abide by this, but that's on them.


I'll be happy to discuss what projects I'm working on at Stardock as they're announced, what my thoughts are on various topics and why I made certain decisions, but you won't see me talking about games I've worked on prior to me joining Stardock.


Jon

Reply #179 from Elemental Forums Top

Jon, I don't give a handful of monkey shit about what you did on games before, god damn it, I want to hear about new shit!  New shit for Elemental and new Stardock games, give me!  Give me!

Reply #180 from Stardock Forums Top

Soon... very soon... ;)

Jon

Reply #181 from Elemental Forums Top

One valuable life lesson I learned from my dog:  if you've got old s***, at least it's easier to pick up.

Reply #182 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Jon, reply 178
So that this doesn't become an ongoing distraction...


As part of a public company, 2K has a policy where only certain individuals are permitted to talk about the company and its games in public. The only exceptions to this are for special events, like trade show interviews. Everyone employed by 2K is beholden to this policy, and it does not expire after someone departs the company, regardless of the circumstances. Some people don't always abide by this, but that's on them.


I'll be happy to discuss what projects I'm working on at Stardock as they're announced, what my thoughts are on various topics and why I made certain decisions, but you won't see me talking about games I've worked on prior to me joining Stardock.


Jon

Mr Shafer!!!  Hey!!  Cool avatar!  lol  Very fitting indeed.

Thanks for joining in on the conversations.  Really.  The devs involvement in this regard is vital and is one of the reasons why I prefer to purchase anything digital via Stardock Corp.

:D

So thanks!!!!

 

Reply #183 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Jon, reply 180
Soon... very soon... The world of Elemental WILL BE MINE, muhahahahah MUHAHAHAHAHA

Jon

Edited your comment to reflect the sinister undertones I was senseing for some reason.

Reply #184 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Jon, reply 178
So that this doesn't become an ongoing distraction...


As part of a public company, 2K has a policy where only certain individuals are permitted to talk about the company and its games in public. The only exceptions to this are for special events, like trade show interviews. Everyone employed by 2K is beholden to this policy, and it does not expire after someone departs the company, regardless of the circumstances. Some people don't always abide by this, but that's on them.


I'll be happy to discuss what projects I'm working on at Stardock as they're announced, what my thoughts are on various topics and why I made certain decisions, but you won't see me talking about games I've worked on prior to me joining Stardock.


Jon

Glad to hear that.

I'm happy you are here to make Elemental better. :grin:

 

I'm curious about your position. You are here to increase the modding capacity of Elemental. Will you be making a sample mod to show it off in all it's glory? I think that'd be pretty cool.

Reply #185 from Elemental Forums Top

Dear Jon,

 

Thank you for mostly fixing the biggest problems with the civilization series.

 

Welcome to stardock.  May your future prove fruitful.

Reply #186 from Elemental Forums Top

I respect your decision to not want to defame your former employer, you better than anyone know the rhetoric flying around on the internet about your involvement with Civ 5. I am sure your a nice guy and we have all been in over our head, or not supported with a proper budget or team, and various things that cause problems for anyone doing jobs and projects. I truly hope you, Kael and Brad succeed with Elemental.

That being said  a choice to honor a prior companies policy is just that its a choice not a contract. And the result of that is people will draw their own conclusion based upon information they can obtain. Maybe you know those conclusions are wrong. But you and Brad and everyone needs to stop telling us how wrong we all are (I have read pretty much all the threads) if your unwilling to give us accurate information. There are consequences to choices you can't have it both ways, this is an unfortunate reality of life for everyone in almost every choice a person makes.

I am just going to guess but maybe you know you made some bad design decisions on Civ 5. I don't think thats that big of a deal, personally hexes and 1upt inmho were great decisions that with a little more AI work would give it that classic panzer general type wargame feel. But some of the others well ..

Anyways what I am getting at is maybe this is a second chance for you and I hope that whatever huberis or ego you may have acquired in this industry is tempered and maybe youll go play some more of the classic tbs games, some of the newer highly invoative board games, and maybe incorporate more ideas and hard playtesting into Elemental to make it the game we all want.

From the information I have gleaned I think your an extremly hard worker (heard you got onto the dev team at firaxis by documenting the code base) and I hope the best for you in your new job (which you should be thankful to have in this economy.

Reply #187 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Jam3, reply 186

That being said  a choice to honor a prior companies policy is just that its a choice not a contract. And the result of that is people will draw their own conclusion based upon information they can obtain.

Jam, you must not live in the United States.  This is the country where lawyers outnumber chickens and companies file lawsuits at the drop of a hat.  Furthermore it IS a contract not a choice.  The choice is whether the company decides to come down on someone for their comments.

Reply #188 from Elemental Forums Top

Jam3 is just making a whole lot of assumptions about something he knows nothing about....which is not reflective of any nationality.

Even with Mr Shafer's recent informative comment, he still continues to dish out the jabs...lol.  Poor guy.

If I could get him a Happy Meal (tm), I would.

-.-

Reply #189 from Elemental Forums Top

We need an emoticon for beating a dead horse. Not just for this thread.. but this one makes me want it more than most. Furthermore the horse should have jons face to commemorate his welcome at stardock. O:) Or at the vary least the code for it should be :shafer:

Reply #190 from Stardock Forums Top

 :meow: :banhammer:  Hammering a dead cat - one step beyond beating a dead horse. Someone call the SPCA. 

Reply #191 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Fistalis, reply 189
We need an emoticon for beating a dead horse. Not just for this thread.. but this one makes me want it more than most. Furthermore the horse should have jons face to commemorate his welcome at stardock. Or at the vary least the code for it should be :shafer:

Whoa not the threads fault. If you read the OP this thread was started in order to give jon a nice welcome, not my fault some people have brought the "grr he ruined my civ debate" here :'(

Reply #192 from Elemental Forums Top

I like this: 

But we would need one in style with the ones we already have.

Quoting xStarfirex, reply 191
Whoa not the threads fault. If you read the OP this thread was started in order to give jon a nice welcome, not my fault some people have brought the "grr he ruined my civ debate" here
Don't feel bad. SOme people need to spread their anger everywhere, specially in happy places. :karma:

Reply #193 from Stardock Forums Top

 If you ssquint it doens't look like he's killing that horse... ew.... LOL. Funniest damn emoticon I've seen in a long time.

Reply #194 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah because everyone in here has never said anything bad about a former employer. And you would be laughed out of court if you filed a civil suit versus an ex-employee you didn't have a contract with, thats the entire point of contracts.  And since we don;t know what happened with Civ or with the conversation between Brad and Jon that lead to a decision to hire were not beating a dead horse were running around like chickens with our heads cut off because we don;t have any good information, which was basically my entire point.

Reply #195 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Jam3, reply 194
Yeah because everyone in here has never said anything bad about a former employer. And you would be laughed out of court if you filed a civil suit versus an ex-employee you didn't have a contract with, thats the entire point of contracts.  And since we don;t know what happened with Civ or with the conversation between Brad and Jon that lead to a decision to hire were not beating a dead horse were running around like chickens with our heads cut off because we don;t have any good information, which was basically my entire point.

 

I was under the impression everyone thought you were the one running around with your head cut off? You struck out here quite a while ago, don't you think it might be time to slink off and do some batting practice for those future battles against the evil foes of Civ4 mentality? }:)

Reply #196 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Jam3, reply 194
Yeah because everyone in here has never said anything bad about a former employer. And you would be laughed out of court if you filed a civil suit versus an ex-employee you didn't have a contract with, thats the entire point of contracts.  And since we don;t know what happened with Civ or with the conversation between Brad and Jon that lead to a decision to hire were not beating a dead horse were running around like chickens with our heads cut off because we don;t have any good information, which was basically my entire point.

We DO know what happened with 'civ'.  The Civ franchise is now on [facebook]...seeking to recruit new young blood...since Firaxis/2k shafted most current civ fans.

The conversation between Shafer and Wardell was one of a business deal which is intended to ultimately provide you (and me and rest of Stardock fans) with unlimited entertainment value for a considerable amount of time from here forward.....so it is best that you get on with enjoying it.

-.-

Reply #198 from Elemental Forums Top

Soooo... yeah, I liked Civ4 more than Civ5.

Aaaaand, seeing what I read, the initial state of Elemental was so flawed, I would have liked Civ5 better than that.

AAaaand I just got into playing elemental and its fun, after I got my head around it.

Just needs polish. And diversity. And upgrades.

So stardock hiring Jon Shafer for polish, diversity and upgrades is cool. So with this, my 3rd post or something, I'd like to welcome him too!

 

*ahem*

Welcome!

Reply #199 from Elemental Forums Top

I welcome Jon to Stardock of all my heart, even though I would like to see him design the expansion packs for Civ5 as well....

Reply #200 from Elemental Forums Top

So, poor OP person - tearing your hair out yet?

This was supposed to be a nice welcome thread as opposed to that 'other' thread.

Ah well, welcome aboard, 'nuff said.