The interview with Mythic discussed clustering, DAoC price increase, expansions, Imperator staff, sales numbers for Catacombs, strategic planning, Imperator release, and ...... found at GamersInfo.



The above quote was surprising. Perhaps Matt misunderstood the question???? I was expecting a very different answer, wanted to see big picture and proactive.

Edit: Per Lum - interview is a slight exaggeration - STORY is more like it. Damn, my error for posting before checking.

I do not play the game, but that statement explains a lot of what I read about the game and its updates.

I'm still baffled by the price increase and its timing. I could see it happening a year ago, or a year from now, but just after the WoW and EQII releases? I don't get it.

I love Larian (the interviewer and Ranger TL lead) to death, but you should probably bear in mind that this would have been better presented as a story, rather than an interview, because the quotes are not direct, and in many cases are paraphrased beyond recognition. Matt Firor, for example, did not actually say what is quoted at all.

I have no doubt Larian bungled the re-telling badly. It is just not conceivable to run a company with 175 employees without some long term plans.

.....how drunk was everyone when this chat took place?

Perhaps he will get a reminder to get interviews "ok'd" before he is invited back to Mythic. ;)

Anyway, those were good questions and I really would have liked the real answers.

How do people not know how to do an interview? And that paraphrased quotes should never be presented as direct quotes?

Jayson Blair has fucked up journalism forever.

Did he not even keep a transcript of some kind of what was *actually* said? Ye gads.

Wow.

That was the worst thing I've ever read.

And I've been reading Hyu's posts for a long time.

Well... it's not like it was any better before he came around. Fudging quotes or inventing stories isn't actually a Jayson Blair invention.

Hell, as a student journalist (newb lol) I've wondered sometimes whether or not some of my quotes are a little fucked up, although I try my best to make sure that I have them down pat when I'm taking notes. If I'm not sure, I'll paraphrase. In any case, if I actually wanted to fabricate things and "ruin" some people's lives, it would be very simple to do. A tape recorder makes it a whole lot easier to verify things. I wouldn't ever agree to an interview unless the whole thing was taped.

Part of the problem, so I've heard from people who's job it is to do this sort of thing, is that what actually comes out of people's mouths looks completely disjointed and stupid on paper. (Ums, ahs, incomplete sentences, etc.) So it's pretty routine for quotes to be "tidied up" when they're published.

Of course presenting paraphrased conversations as direct questions-and-answers is pretty much on a different order of "tidied up".

Sure, but I never put things in quotes unless I was absolutely sure they came out of the interviewee's mouth in the order that I write them into the story. The way the article was written, it was as if Firor was saying everything. No, there aren't "" marks, but it's presented in Q&A format, so there might as well be.

That aside, there's nothing wrong with paraphrasing. Just be damned sure when you paraphrase, you know what the subject meant to say. Lum didn't say much to criticize it, but any doubt in my mind calls the entire article into question -- that added to the fact that it's a Web article by a TL makes me doubt the credibility of the whole thing.



There are differing schools of thought about what to do with direct quotes that have grammar problems and the like. I come from the school that says, if they can't speak proper English, it's not anyone's fault if they look stupid but their own. Yes, that means I miss out on using the "" a lot.

See, this is why I miss the Shadowbane pre-release period. Every single press release, quote, and story had someone saying something stupid or insane- nothing as weak and uncommon as the situation athand. Then the second-line community people would step in and explain how everyone misinterpreted the first quote. Then people on both the pro and anti-SB sides would call the sexual orientation of the other side into question- ie, hilarity ensued. If all journalism was like Shadowbane related journalism, the world would be a better place.

Hmm - only question I was taught to always ask was, "Have you stopped beating your wife?"

If I didn't have a tape of the interview, I would try to get the person to verify their quotes.

Granted, I left the newspaper industry 10 years ago. I still don't think that much has changed.

At least on this level, which I don't know if it qualifies as "journalism" or not, I always allow the interview subject to see a final copy before it goes online. To fail to do so probably wouldn't endear me much to game devs.

That's frowned upon, but if you're more concerned about endearment than your own freedom to do what you want because you want to do it, it makes sense. Just depends on what you want to do and what for. I never wanted my subjects to become my editors, at least not before I ended up working for them.

Yeah, most of the stuff I have done is basically knob polishing. I got to ask some interesting (to me at least) questions but by no means hard hitting. More Entertainment Tonight than 60 Minutes.