Zeb Cook has left the building - Page 2 - City of Heroes Forums

Poison · 02-01-2006, 08:52 AM

Zeb Cook basically had Emmert's job for CoV, lead designer. But Jack still had the last word on everything, as far as I know.
I would agree that they hired Zeb just to do the basic game design of CoV, but he was always a nice guy on the forums, so it surprises me that he just left without a word to the community.

Rick Dakan, if I remember correctly, was responsible for the Paragon history and backgruond stories, before he left Cryptic. I think Manticore/Fish was either working with him from start or then took over Rick's job.
Jack's work has always been having the last word and telling others to find solutions. That's what lead designers do. Good ones come up with ideas and have others put them into practice, not so good ones sit on their throne and take credit for others' work. And I get the feeling it's the latter case way too often from Jack, when you know Geko or Poz or Positron came up with some new design but in the official statement about it Jack makes it sound as if it was his idea.

iggy880 · 02-01-2006, 01:41 PM

I know it will hold together, I mean we did have CoH before without him, and the issues for both games should still be terriffic, even without his influence inside of Cryptic. Anyways, I doubt one man leaving (all-be-it the man who seemed to be behind the CoV story) should not be able to topple these two popular games. What we should worry about is what the next sequal is (City of Neutuals?)

razoras · 02-01-2006, 01:44 PM

A lot of the "second team" hired for CoV has left with him. We've got pretty much one team working on two games right now.

Akamaz · 02-01-2006, 02:15 PM

more like one team working on one game and it's expansion pack...

Elemento · 02-01-2006, 02:28 PM

I still think it was a money issue.
Let us not forget that Shane Lacy Hensley of Pinnacle's Deadlands also wrote on the backstories for the Rogue Isles.
He was their Lead Writer for CoV.

iggy880 · 02-01-2006, 02:49 PM

I feel they were more or less story, and I mean we shouldn't worry about the mentallity of two teams one game, I mean something tells me they were planning to make it so it could be run by one team. First of all we have the thing that may have given CoV lower reviews, which was that it was pretty much CoH with more powers, and villainous atmosphere, missions, and costumes, secondly, they kept them on the same servers, another way to make it easier to manage. And while this seems like not much, the creation of Pocket-D as a place where both heroes and villains can go just shows the intermixing of the two games.

bpphantom · 02-01-2006, 02:58 PM

Zeb's leaving without a message to the community could indicate that he left on "your stuff will be in a box when we're done with this meeeting" style terms.
Or maybe he was just bumed about leaving but either saw no future for himself or was leaving to work on another non-Cryptic projet.

Anyway, it's all conjecture since we don't know what happened.

What we do know is that the Isles need ALOT more story to them and to the groups that inhabit them. More like CoH in that the story is revealed as you progress along arcs against those groups.

Oh, and they need to at least double their art staff

Enlightened One · 02-01-2006, 03:23 PM

This news worries me.

Remianen · 02-01-2006, 05:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bpphantom

Or maybe he was just bumed about leaving but either saw no future for himself or was leaving to work on another non-Cryptic projet.

Umm, are we talking about the same David "Zeb" Cook here? I would think having no future at Cryptic would be a blessing for him. With his credentials and resumé, he could write his own ticket, whether it be developing another MMO (SOE's game for DC doesn't have a lead designer yet, as far as I know), or writing books or source material for any number of offline games.

I think this might fit a baseball analogy. Considering the fact that there are several competing projects in the works, it might've been better to hang on to him rather than let him possibly go to a team in your division, so to speak. And I can't help but think about what Zeb would be able to pull off with the tall dollars of Sony or Microsoft behind him. Especially if "the second team" left with him. With just a couple people who know how CoH's sidekicking mechanism truly works (EQ1's version is, well, not the same) as well as some other game systems, it could be a case where the best parts of CoH are available to the highest bidder.

Emerald Sky · 02-01-2006, 06:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Remianen

Umm, are we talking about the same David "Zeb" Cook here? I would think having no future at Cryptic would be a blessing for him. With his credentials and resumé, he could write his own ticket

Exactly. It doesn't make much sense for someone with his background and experience to commit to only one game.

Some people prefer to stay at one job for their entire careers. Others prefer to make their money, get out, and make more money somewhere else. With his skills and experience, it just makes too much sense for him to fit into the latter. Why should he stick with one game when he can probably make more money as a freelance designer? Going from game to game would probably be the smarter business decision for him.

But I'll let the conspiracy theorists continue to keep digging for something devious that "had to have happened" behind the scenes