This is a repost of my announcement in regards to the change in Development Leadership. The decision has not changed; WNxFireWraith will lead the Development department from this point forward. I am reposting this announcement to provide an explanation as to why and I have no problem telling you my reasons as I have nothing to hide.
Firewraith may be a controversial selection with some of you but I will state that selecting him is in the best interest of Development. This is not about who deserves a promotion or the rewards of those who should be promoted, it is about what WN needs at a certain point in time. I do not make decisions of promotion based on who I like best nor do I play favorites. In fact in my past I have on several occasions promoted people I disliked because it was not about my own personal interest, it was about WN’s interest. I am not implying that I dislike Firewraith so do not misinterpret this. What I am saying is my decisions are based on how a business should run and the choices I make are based upon the improvement of WN.
Development needed some changes in the past with its staff. The games in Development were not always the best choice. It was a point in time that required changes. Tempest made the decision to make some hard changes. While this was not wrong to suggest, it is how those plans progress that matter. It is the details of it more than the final outcomes that are imperative. Stopping the flow of incoming games to Development was not the best decision. It was in fact advised against by the peers in the Pentagon not to stop taking incoming games but to be more selective. It was not advised to purge the entire staff, but suggested to turn them over in groups or some alternative method that would not cause Development to be non-functional in regards to new games. The plan it seemed had been put into stone that under no circumstances would there be any exception or change to this plan. When confronted it was still apparent that no one would be flexible and the current state of Development would not waver in any way because there was some ultimate goal left to achieve.
In order to make successful changes it is always important that when we put together a plan, we always consider that along the path we will have to make modifications. As a plan unravels new problems may arise that didn’t exist before, but because we are on path to eliminate some other problem it does not justify ignoring the new surfacing issues. Exceptions are not what is made however we may refer to them as exceptions, however they are merely modifications to our plan when we see a problem. We had 2 specific games that were climbing in membership that could almost rival our top 10, but they were refused any assistance or forums because it didn’t fall into the said plan. Blaming them for making alternative choices seemed to be easier that accepting that the freeze contributed to them merging with other clans. It is very easy to just say, well they joined another clan, that’s their won fault for not waiting. Whether that is true or not, Development contributed to that problem and should take some responsibility in that issue. I found myself having conversations with the members of these games to figure out how to bring in Age of Conan and Rohan without Development in order to fix the immediate problem. Upon my attempt to help them get though development in any way I could, I received resistance and an unwilling to consider helping these two strong games. So if I have to take matters into my own hands and am unable to depend on Development who refused to waver from their set in stone plan, I must ask myself, how did we allow this to happen? How can WN allow Administrators to behave this way because it didn’t seem like it was in the best interest of WN. It may have been sold that way, but it defiantly wasn’t helping.
So I had to make a choice and quickly find someone who I knew without a doubt could do the job of Development with absolutely no training that was not going to just continue this failed plan. It required me to select FireWraith because of his experience and skill. Maybe you don’t agree, but at least I know that Development is going to be put back into the right direction for all of you to benefit by. I just don’t see how we can afford for me to spend weeks going through candidates to figure out whom and maybe some out there deserve a promotion but how do I know they are right for the job. Time is of the essence as we need immediate corrections and I don’t care what Firewraith said about the system on WN because what we need is a functional Development Department right now. Whatever he did in the past is past right now and what matters is what he can do for WN right now going forward.
. Temp had good plans just did them in 2 big a step should have broken them down little by little for each problem dev was having.
