Layoffs

So, according to twitter both @mkrater and @Sorian were layed off today.

Best of luck to you both!! Thanks for your amazing work which kept me playing for many many hours! We'll miss you :3

Twitter links: Sorian: https://twitter.com/merobbins/status/655143214458908672
MKrater: https://twitter.com/michellekrater/status/655162373569798144

...wut

OMG! I loved @mkrater that sucks!

I'm less worried about @Sorian though. I think he'll find a job no time. I hear Oxide/Stardock are hirering for AOTS and they claim they want to make the "best RTS AI yet"........ that ain't gonna happen without the best RTS AI coder..... just my two cents.

I checked the Twitter feeds, he apparently got a new job same day which is awesome.

Makes you wonder what uber are doing though when they ditch customer support and a top engineer... I guess that explains the heavy focus on ai patches recently.

Sad too see them go :/ But what about Titans, does this mean the end of support for the game since they layoff the
guy who makes the AI.

I'd say these layoffs infer an end to new content patches for PA and titans (therefore little need for significant ai changes, the ai can adjust to small balance changes after all).

I think it also points to uber no longer directly distributing they're games (which was evident with no titans purchase available through uber store) removing the need for as much customer support.

Well PA has been quite the ride, and uber have done a great job with it imo.

Isn't this quite too dark view on the situation? End of PA and nothing more?

End of new content for PA isn't 'nothing more'. I still think uber will continue to develop games (e.g. wayward sky), and these will be distributed through 3rd party networks I.e. steam or PSn and so on.

Of course this is just me speculating.

MKRATER WAS WHAT!?!? Hate to be the fem nazi but wasn't she the only female in the company (gender has nothing to do with who's good at a job i know but it's ust sad to see the industry i'm going into is still so male dominated... NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH MEN I LOVE MEN!!!... i'm digging myself a hole aren't i =P)... also, she was my go to for female problems why would you guys!?!?!?
RIP </3
I wish you luck in your future ventures @mkrater <3

So......where to next boyz?

Agreed, all good things come to an end, and just because development may be winding up by no means signals the end of PA as a game. I think TA and sup com have shown us that!

Though, outside the SUPCOM master server, they're P2P while PA is not.

I feel like people are overreacting just because someone was fired. People get fired all the time. Same happened to Everquest Next, and game is still worked on.

Fired != redundancy, just for clarity's sake.

Well I wasn't suggesting Uber were going to close the servers (although if it ever got to that, they'ed open up the API so we can more easily show privately hosted servers I'm sure).

Lets be clear- neither were 'fired' (seriously, that has very specific connotations of misconduct and I'm certain neither did anything wrong). They were made redundant (i.e. surplus to current company requirements through no fault of their own), which is what happens a lot.

Why I think it indicates a wind down on development for PA is any new in game content will require specific support building into the AI. Letting Sorian go means no new AI development, ergo they're not expecting the game to change.

I would still see Sorian improving the AI in his spare time though

You are assuming that no one else in Uber can do anything with AI. I doubt that is true.