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  1. #1
    High Overlord
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    Hal Hanlin has left

    From his Facebook page.

    Huge step today. After 4 and a half years at Trion, I have moved on. As of Monday, I will be working as a Lead Producer at Zynga. This is a huge opportunity for me professionally, and I will be working closely with some good friends.

    Nothing but love for Trion, but with the maturation of Rift, there was no urgent demand for my specific skillset.

    Thanks and deep respect to the people I have shared this whitewater ride with. Now it's time for some new horizons.

  2. #2
    Hehe, Zynga. Hehe!

  3. #3
    The Lightbringer GKLeatherCraft's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shrouded View Post
    Hehe, Zynga. Hehe!
    Way to contribute to a thread

    OT Good on him, might as well go somewhere you will have more to do and try new things, keeps things feeling fresh, especially with being able to work with friends

  4. #4
    Hate to get on the negative train but that's the 2nd big name from Rift that's left the team in as many months, and I can only speak for myself in saying that I'm a bit disappointed with SL. The release was fine, what you'd expect. But I've suffered short lags and ability lags for a while, I've waited 3 months for a patch which has essentially just given me another grind. For 3 months I've had raiding and grinding to keep me going, no new warfronts, no new conquest, all the 'outside of raiding stuff' that isn't rep grinding is basically old content. Now with 2.2 we've got 4 new hardmode bosses amd T3 PA - a grind, I don't play wow but in their 5.2 they have 16 new bosses, one of the reasons I moved to Rift was for the extra content. Just doesn't seem to paint a good picture for me atm. My 1 year sub runs out soon and I can't say I'm planning to get another year atm. Not enough there, I've become a raid logger pretty much and am trying to fill my time with other things. Don't know if anyone else is in a similar position to me, but I guess different people expect different things from a game, put in different amounts of time and are entertained in different ways.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Fluffygong View Post
    Hate to get on the negative train but that's the 2nd big name from Rift that's left the team in as many months
    Third. Russell Brown (the white haired guy who talked about things being 'honkingly large' in SL vids) has also left, very quietly. With Scott Hartman, Hal Hanlin and Russell Brown all gone and with these guys being the guys who did all the videos talking about RIFT during the vanilla period, I'm wondering what the future of RIFT will be like without them aboard.

    Of course, huge chunks of the WoW vanilla team left before the first expansion even shipped, and WoW continued to be awesome for some time and still does well today, so we'll just have to see.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fluffygong View Post
    Hate to get on the negative train but that's the 2nd big name from Rift that's left the team in as many months, and I can only speak for myself in saying that I'm a bit disappointed with SL. The release was fine, what you'd expect. But I've suffered short lags and ability lags for a while, I've waited 3 months for a patch which has essentially just given me another grind. For 3 months I've had raiding and grinding to keep me going, no new warfronts, no new conquest, all the 'outside of raiding stuff' that isn't rep grinding is basically old content. Now with 2.2 we've got 4 new hardmode bosses amd T3 PA - a grind, I don't play wow but in their 5.2 they have 16 new bosses, one of the reasons I moved to Rift was for the extra content. Just doesn't seem to paint a good picture for me atm. My 1 year sub runs out soon and I can't say I'm planning to get another year atm. Not enough there, I've become a raid logger pretty much and am trying to fill my time with other things. Don't know if anyone else is in a similar position to me, but I guess different people expect different things from a game, put in different amounts of time and are entertained in different ways.
    I am in the exact same position, I'm loving raiding at the moment, but as soon as I've cleared the hardmodes it's going to be what another 4 month dry spell before a decent 20 man?, they seem to be really lacking and going in the wrong direction with things at the moment.

  7. #7
    Any place that allows their workers to bring their dogs to work is an awesome place to work. Even if it is Zynga. Hope Hal all the best at his new place of employment.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Tarien View Post
    Third. Russell Brown (the white haired guy who talked about things being 'honkingly large' in SL vids) has also left, very quietly. With Scott Hartman, Hal Hanlin and Russell Brown all gone and with these guys being the guys who did all the videos talking about RIFT during the vanilla period, I'm wondering what the future of RIFT will be like without them aboard.

    Of course, huge chunks of the WoW vanilla team left before the first expansion even shipped, and WoW continued to be awesome for some time and still does well today, so we'll just have to see.
    open a successful start up and then cash in hard... Hal is about to get paid! Zynga has a lot of capital too bad they have no direction in anything they do.

  9. #9
    The Unstoppable Force Kelimbror's Avatar
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    Unfortunately this is a product of how industry works these days. Most of these people are there for direction and presentation, but won't have a noticeable effect on the actual product. There's a reason you always see these guys going and not the people reporting to them. They have inflated salaries and are essentially a middle man to the public/investors. The next level down from these guys are starting to make names for themselves because they are continuing to pump out their creative work while managing all of the things their bosses used to do.

    This isn't really unique to this industry either. All companies do reorgs and do similar things. Redistributing management so that everyone is doing more work for the same money and letting go a couple of big people who aren't 'really' needed. I won't think the sky is falling until SL has been out a year and there's nothing much to show for it.

    We will see.
    BAD WOLF

  10. #10
    Not sure how Hal Hanlin leaving to get a 6 figure + job is foreboding of Trion taking Rift F2P. There are some leaps and bounds in logic going on. Zynga games are stupid simple compared to Rift. Not sure how Hal will be challenged at that company outside of figured out how to turn F2P games into profit machines.

  11. #11
    The Unstoppable Force Kelimbror's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Puremallace View Post
    Not sure how Hal Hanlin leaving to get a 6 figure + job is foreboding of Trion taking Rift F2P. There are some leaps and bounds in logic going on. Zynga games are stupid simple compared to Rift. Not sure how Hal will be challenged at that company outside of figured out how to turn F2P games into profit machines.
    He will be challenged on how to properly dive into a money pit to prepare for his eventual exec job at EA. While I don't think this is negative for Trion at all, I don't see how it's really an opportunity beyond more money for someone. They definitely aren't going to be breaking ground at Zynga for anything even remotely stimulating. It's just not even in their radar of things to do. It's definitely akin to selling your soul for money, because I can't imagine being engaged in that job at all.

    But I'm not an expert, so of course this is just a forum jockey's opinion.
    BAD WOLF

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Kittyvicious View Post
    He will be challenged on how to properly dive into a money pit to prepare for his eventual exec job at EA.


    Jumping into a money pit is a lot harder than most people think.
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  13. #13
    The Unstoppable Force DeltrusDisc's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tarien View Post
    Third. Russell Brown (the white haired guy who talked about things being 'honkingly large' in SL vids) has also left, very quietly. With Scott Hartman, Hal Hanlin and Russell Brown all gone and with these guys being the guys who did all the videos talking about RIFT during the vanilla period, I'm wondering what the future of RIFT will be like without them aboard.

    Of course, huge chunks of the WoW vanilla team left before the first expansion even shipped, and WoW continued to be awesome for some time and still does well today, so we'll just have to see.
    I never was Mr. Brown's biggest fan... he was just too... too... I don't know what the word is. But yeah - bigger isn't always better. =/
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  14. #14
    Pit Lord philefluxx's Avatar
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    Maybe Hal was the F2P protagonist around the Trion office. Maybe Trion doesnt feel the same as him, would explain why he choose to go to Zynga. Just sayin....

  15. #15
    I keep getting this feeling as though Storm Legion wasn't as successful sales wise as Trion hoped it would be.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    I keep getting this feeling as though Storm Legion wasn't as successful sales wise as Trion hoped it would be.
    Yeah, getting this vibe as well.

    Strange to see him moving to Zynga given all their financial troubles and the fact that most of the executives have bailed from the company and/or sold much of their stock. I guess between shutting down a few dozen games, laying off a good chunk of their workforce/closing studios, and their new gambling ventures, they're on the turnaround. At least they made a profit for the first time since going public last quarter (unless they turned a profit the first quarter after they went public, I don't remember if they did or not).

    Concerning, as always, but I'm still waiting for changes to be super apparent (they're there, but they're not massive from what I can see yet) before worrying too much.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by philefluxx View Post
    Maybe Hal was the F2P protagonist around the Trion office. Maybe Trion doesnt feel the same as him, would explain why he choose to go to Zynga. Just sayin....
    It could be possible. My assumption is launching Rift, then red door, followed by Defiance has pretty much loaded up Hal's resume to the point he could go anywhere he wanted. Anyone ever figure out where Hartsman went? I imagine him being the lead producer somewhere on something major.

    This has brought up the "Rift F2P" debates again. Those threads are always fun to read.

  18. #18
    Titan Arbs's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fencers View Post
    I keep getting this feeling as though Storm Legion wasn't as successful sales wise as Trion hoped it would be.
    Not to be rude in any matter, but I could of told you that months ago.
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  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Archdruid Dehydrate View Post
    Not to be rude in any matter, but I could of told you that months ago.
    Success is relative. WoW lost a lot of subs after Mist. Am I to assume MOP = not succeeding? Rift did a very good job of survivng GW2. The lag at zone events is kind of high. Rift just launched recently in China and that is a huge market. The game is still growing despite popular belief.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Puremallace View Post
    Success is relative. WoW lost a lot of subs after Mist. Am I to assume MOP = not succeeding? Rift did a very good job of survivng GW2. The lag at zone events is kind of high. Rift just launched recently in China and that is a huge market. The game is still growing despite popular belief.
    They also lost,what, 25% of their peak since cata? I'm pretty sure the genre is just fragmenting rather than anyone failing or winning or w/e. It's more complicated than that.
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