Relic is in trouble - 121 employees fired

This is such a bad direction for discussion.

And how much of the blame is because the PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR of CoH3 is an executive whose past is mostly an executive from EA. The game was trusted to this dude, David Littman, and he fucked us all. His past includes being a hockey player, and then 10 years of hockey game production for EA. WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU EXPECT TO HAPPEN WHEN THE DIRECTOR IS SOMEONE WHO HAS NEVER WORKED ON RTS BEFORE. No wonder they prioritized the fucking console port and mtx, because... that is where EA made most of the money on the hockey game.

Instead of blaming women/minorities/sjw/egs and all the other buzzwords, just blame this guy. Even if Relic had employees who weren't the best qualified in all roles (I doubt it, but I can give you 10% of blame to the mandated corporate hiring). I looked up some profiles on linkedin what I can find, they all have backgrounds in mobile games, smaller games, enterprise - none of them are unqualified, and most are the white dudes. Still, if the project isn't going smoothly along, it is always on the producer/director to set things right, not the low-level employees to somehow steer the ship.

We lost. We all lost with these layoffs because you cannot "continue" with your plan without the audio team, and probably the more than half of CoH3 team. If AOE4/Team2 is spared, then it COH3/Team1/(probably DOW3 too) is the one being culled.

In conclusion: captain hockey is the person responsible for COH3 fuckup. Even if he is replaced, COH3 team lost so much development power (they are not hiring replacements), it is physically impossible to steer it forward. If you thought COH3 development was slow with 100/100 popcap, now we have the 40/100 popcap trying to win the late game against Axis.

If you thought COH3 development was slow with 100/100 popcap, now we have the 40/100 popcap trying to win the late game against Axis.

Excellent!

Basic concepts of RTS games weren't included:

a) User friendly interface and friends menu,
b) player names,
c) replay function,
d) ranked mode with ladders.

Getting this game "E-sports ready" was a year long topic in the community. This is greatly hampered by the lack of the above mentioned functions. Casters don't get replays sent in. Viewers can't see the players. Even the unit kills are hidden and you have to hover over the interface. That lack of input is poison for any multiplayer game. This is even more frustrating if you think about the year long discussion in the CoH-Community that Coh2 should be "E-Sports-Ready". It was a meme for years.

It is obvious that the people responsible for Coh3 are absolutely out of touch with the Coh-community or any competitive gaming-community for that matter.

That is simply false. Companies make games and not a specific group of people.

That is completely arbitrary attempt to create a connection where there is little to non. It like claiming "Canadian people made COH3, whether that's bad or not is a decision the player makes".

I was speaking generally, not about CoH 3. If I was talking about CoH , I would have said CoH 3. It would be nore accurate to say "canadians are making our games. whether that's bad or not is up to the player." Which is a completely accurate statement.

Anyways, I've already relented on this issue and admitted CoH 3's issues come more from corporate "sell first, develop later" MTX-heavy bullshit, but there is clear proof that Relic is posting about SJW talking points. White men can be SJWs too, if you weren't aware (that whole reddit thread I quoted was from one), they just hate living in their own skin.

I'il just live it there for you to figure it out why CoH3 is poopy.

https://www.mobygames.com/person/108570/david-littman/ - big boss
https://www.mobygames.com/person/67141/aaron-janzen/ - lead sound designer
https://www.mobygames.com/person/114702/steven-mele/ - executive produsser
https://www.mobygames.com/person/40562/tristan-brett/ - art director (why everything is so bright and mobile basically)

Also if you want to look at all devs:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/199646/company-of-heroes-3/credits/windows/?autoplatform=true

To sum up, while a lot of devs had good experience, majority of leading roles were left to the guys from EA who worked on a failed projects like BF5\BF hardline or strate up were pumping out EA sports games.

And this is perfectly explains everything. Why game is super good from a technical side? Because it was made by people who worked with RTS\CoH before and have nothing to so with EA. Why overall design is 50\50, because devs are 50\50 here. And why some areas are complete shit? Figure it out.

And on a side note, while you guys shittalk about diversity and why not, female devs at Relic actually have really good and diverse experience in game dev, which is actually some what close to the whole CoH idea.

I'il just live it there for you to figure it out why CoH3 is poopy.

https://www.mobygames.com/person/108570/david-littman/ - big boss
https://www.mobygames.com/person/67141/aaron-janzen/ - lead sound designer
https://www.mobygames.com/person/114702/steven-mele/ - executive produsser
https://www.mobygames.com/person/40562/tristan-brett/ - art director (why everything is so bright and mobile basically)

Also if you want to look at all devs:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/199646/company-of-heroes-3/credits/windows/?autoplatform=true

To sum up, while a lot of devs had good experience, majority of leading roles were left to the guys from EA who worked on a failed projects like BF5\BF hardline or strate up were pumping out EA sports games.

And this is perfectly explains everything. Why game is super good from a technical side? Because it was made by people who worked with RTS\CoH before and have nothing to so with EA. Why overall design is 50\50, because devs are 50\50 here. And why some areas are complete shit? Figure it out.

And on a side note, while you guys shittalk about diversity and why not, female devs at Relic actually have really good and diverse experience in game dev, which is actually some what close to the whole CoH idea.

Thank you for the overview. Not sure if it "explains everything" - but it definately shows the lack of competency and potentially dedication for the franchise in leading positions. But most of them are gone now, correct?

Thank you for the overview. Not sure if it "explains everything" - but it definately shows the lack of competency and potentially dedication for the franchise in leading positions. But most of them are gone now, correct?

Well Aera posted list of the ones who is supposed to be gone somewhat earlier in a thread.

By explains everything, I mean, you can clearly see how experience of people in the leading roles, be it animation\sound\art influenced the final product. I mean you cant expect beefy hollywood sounds, if the lead sound designer was working on a realistic sports games.

Or movement animations for instance, compared to previous CoHs they are super smooth, with models slowly turning and so on. Leading animators, were working on a games majority of which had similar smooth movement. One of them at least.

Same with art director. His previous works usually were a bright, very saturated games.

Or why such emphasis was put on a single player, lead producers mostly worked on SP games.

Of course its super simplified, but you got the idea. Personal experience have a huge influence, especially when a supervisors have no experience with a subject what so ever.

Show Spoiler

I'il just live it there for you to figure it out why CoH3 is poopy.

https://www.mobygames.com/person/108570/david-littman/ - big boss
https://www.mobygames.com/person/67141/aaron-janzen/ - lead sound designer
https://www.mobygames.com/person/114702/steven-mele/ - executive produsser
https://www.mobygames.com/person/40562/tristan-brett/ - art director (why everything is so bright and mobile basically)

Also if you want to look at all devs:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/199646/company-of-heroes-3/credits/windows/?autoplatform=true

To sum up, while a lot of devs had good experience, majority of leading roles were left to the guys from EA who worked on a failed projects like BF5\BF hardline or strate up were pumping out EA sports games.

And this is perfectly explains everything. Why game is super good from a technical side? Because it was made by people who worked with RTS\CoH before and have nothing to so with EA. Why overall design is 50\50, because devs are 50\50 here. And why some areas are complete shit? Figure it out.

And on a side note, while you guys shittalk about diversity and why not, female devs at Relic actually have really good and diverse experience in game dev, which is actually some what close to the whole CoH idea.

Coh3 is still a good game, i had good 2v2 still.

These people credits are terrible and they are saved by coh2 and coh1 meta. I hope Relic hires good people, where are the original coh1 developers, come back and save coh3!

Go through Relics own twitter feed.
At least a handful of employees got the job, because they had vaginas, not required skill and experience level.

Lead sound director for coh1 was a female.

Which is the game imo, that had probably the best overall audio

Lead sound director for coh1 was a female.

Which is the game imo, that had probably the best overall audio

I can't remember the guy's name, unfortunately. But wasn't there somebody else as well, who was heavily involved in the sound department and was responsible for some quite innovative design choices... He died in a car crash I believe? Someone help me out here... I first heard someone mention him on this forum i think.


Completely agree it was the best, everything from weapon effects, the radio static and of course the voiceovers for units as well. Clearly a labour of love.

Lead sound director for coh1 was a female.

Which is the game imo, that had probably the best overall audio

Click the link for relic twitter I gave earlier.

I'il just live it there for you to figure it out why CoH3 is poopy.

Well that tells a story.

When Litty was in videos prior to release he seemed a little slow and lost as to what Coh3 should be. But I hoped he was just responsible for wrangling the actual game designers etc. His first Coh game. Now gone.

Mele was the guy who never answered a question John asked him after Coh3s release. He just kept saying they were proud of what they achieved. First Coh game. Now gone.

People say the sound is bad and thin. Janzens first Coh game. Now gone.

Cant wait to go thru this list in depth at a later date. Is it really these top people that caused the game to fail? Katitof claims to be a game guy, how much responsibility did they have? Or are there a lot more people in this list with no Coh experience?

From a technical aspect, I think Coh3 bit off more than it could handle. Seems like every aspect of the game was rewritten. Worldbuilder, modding, pathing, rendering, etc. Ian Thomson was a long time Coh guy, and this could explain why they got most of it done well? Gives me hope they can continue to improve things.

Either way, I really hate to see people get crapped on and hope these people well in the future. The game was really close to what it should have been. Just needed another year to bake maybe? But it further emphasizes what I keep saying, anyone here could get this game finished up quick because we know what it needs.

I really hope these layoffs open up some promotions within Relic to people that have actual experience with Coh. This may be a good thing eventually. It really needs some experienced person to clean it up.

I'il just live it there for you to figure it out why CoH3 is poopy.

https://www.mobygames.com/person/108570/david-littman/ - big boss
https://www.mobygames.com/person/67141/aaron-janzen/ - lead sound designer
https://www.mobygames.com/person/114702/steven-mele/ - executive produsser
https://www.mobygames.com/person/40562/tristan-brett/ - art director (why everything is so bright and mobile basically)

Also if you want to look at all devs:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/199646/company-of-heroes-3/credits/windows/?autoplatform=true

To sum up, while a lot of devs had good experience, majority of leading roles were left to the guys from EA who worked on a failed projects like BF5\BF hardline or strate up were pumping out EA sports games.

And this is perfectly explains everything. Why game is super good from a technical side? Because it was made by people who worked with RTS\CoH before and have nothing to so with EA. Why overall design is 50\50, because devs are 50\50 here. And why some areas are complete shit? Figure it out.

And on a side note, while you guys shittalk about diversity and why not, female devs at Relic actually have really good and diverse experience in game dev, which is actually some what close to the whole CoH idea.

Thanks Gasm

Lead sound director for coh1 was a female.

Which is the game imo, that had probably the best overall audio

So, what is the point you are making?

People are not annoyed there were women involved in the development of COH3.

People are annoyed because they think Relic hires not ONLY based on ability but also on "diversity". I don`t think this has anything to do with why COH3 is disappointing by the way. I do find it annoying that Relic has also jumped on the "woke" bandwagon though.

The very best people have to be hired to get the job done. No matter if they are male, female, transgender, two-spirit or whatever else.

I can't remember the guy's name, unfortunately. But wasn't there somebody else as well, who was heavily involved in the sound department and was responsible for some quite innovative design choices... He died in a car crash I believe? Someone help me out here... I first heard someone mention him on this forum i think.


Completely agree it was the best, everything from weapon effects, the radio static and of course the voiceovers for units as well. Clearly a labour of love.

The late Brian Wood was responsible for the Opposing Fronts campaign and was appointed joint Lead Designer for Tales of Valor. He was sadly killed in a car crash during the lead-up to Co0mpany of Heroes Online for which he was the Lead. Incidentally, COHO was free to play but was pulled after approx 6 months, by which time Relic had opened a shop ingame and some had paid into it.

Lead sound director for coh1 was a female.

Which is the game imo, that had probably the best overall audio

The Lead Sound designers for COH1 were all male, FWIW.

Or are there a lot more people in this list with no Coh experience?

At very basic level, the better it is - the more CoH\RTS guys it has in it.

Tech part of CoH3 is great - it has the most CoH\RTS\Good titles people in it. And lead tech guy is a CoH veteran.

Sound for instance is the weakest part - had no CoH people in it what so ever and people in it aren't even close to the WW2 RTS setting.

CoH3 team generally was overbloated with people who worked on weak EA titles\Sports or with 0 experience in RTS games

Problem here is not that a lot of people arent CoH veterans, thats not the case any more. Problem here is that a majority of people aren't even an RTS devs or nor have experience with anything close to a WW2 game and they were led by people who had no idea what they were doing because again, lack of experience.