Remote Development is the Future of Tech

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Black Tortoise, Mar 2, 2019.

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  1. DavidDC

    DavidDC Programmer Moderator SOTA Developer

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    As far as i know every company need an address of the head office, where it is now? ;p atos home?
     
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  2. Arcanoxer

    Arcanoxer Avatar

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    Portalarium becomes a letterbox company, wtf? o_O
    This is the official beginning of the end.
     
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  3. Alleine Dragonfyre

    Alleine Dragonfyre Avatar

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    As someone that's telecommuted and worked in a virtual office for years, I think this is a good move. Why should they spend so much on overhead when it's not necessary when that money can be reinvested in game development and new staff?

    I HATE working in an office now. It's distracting, you smell other peoples nasty lunches, etc. I get half the work done in the office that I would have done at home. Plus I have my dogs and can work in sweatpants. Don't even get me started about commuting by car in Seattle. UGH!

    Google, Amazon and many, many companies do this with thousands of employees. It's not a new concept.

    Welcome to the 21st century :)
     
    Last edited: Mar 4, 2019
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  4. evillego6

    evillego6 Avatar

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    Their corporate address has been in Delaware since 2013 I believe.
     
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  5. rebbieforever

    rebbieforever Avatar

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    It seems both good and bad. Good on the part they can save some income to use differently and have more free times that would get spent getting at the office. Bad cause the typical trolls who try to visit every thread on the net mentioning SotA will have some "ammo" to use to try scare potential players away. I already watched threads on gaming sites being swarmed by them today. Also I am not sure if it makes watching the server status any harder in case of problems
     
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  6. oplek

    oplek Avatar

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    As someone who has worked 9 years telecommuting... make sure to keep your work and personal spaces separate! You'll slowly lose your minds.
     
  7. DavidDC

    DavidDC Programmer Moderator SOTA Developer

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    I dont think working from home is something everyone can do. You have to be self motivated, tell your family to not bother you all day and stick with that in idea (honey do list take priority often in case of a couple, and kids). Just the self motivation to sit on the desk and actually work without being distracted by everything around you is really hard to do. I often see people that claim to work from home yet their on game all day playing. That just cant work for those case. You cant give your 100% that way. People have to be really serious to do this kind of job and even if i think everyone at port is serious its improbably that 100% of them accomplish this. It would turn around the 50%, diminishing the overall works. But we will see this in further release. The logic would be that many thing will get delayed and more stuff will be broken and those that worked hard will work even harder this time taking all thats not done over their shoulder. But i hope they prove me wrong. ;]

    There also different kind of work to do from home, taking phone calls, doing comptability and creating is 3 different kind of work, the first dont need motivation, the second you have the pressure of giving stuff in time, the third you have no time limit, the only limit is your own motivation which is often solidified by the motivation of others people around you.
     
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  8. Beaumaris

    Beaumaris Avatar

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    Smart move.

    Anyone running a small business, or a branch office of a large business, understands the tremendous cost (and often waste) of office rent.
     
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  9. Feeyo

    Feeyo Avatar

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    It is not positive at all. Stating we now have 8 to 10K to spend on advertising is just silly really. Sorry, I do not trust it at all.

    You need to wake up community..
     
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  10. cjnukem

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    Didn't they just raise like 80 k or more last month ? Not sure .. but saw a stretch goal video. If it is the case , renting a small office space in Texas is cheap af.... So I'm sure it's not a " can't afford the rent issue "
     
  11. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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    Y u no read?!
    Really all you people ask for more communication and when you receive it you just don't read it!
    Here, from Chris new/old blog:

    With that said, I’ve already started talking to a few people about possible office space options. We have a few people who think they will have trouble working from home due to kids, bad internet, or no good work space so I’ll start shopping around for options. We pretty much will have to have an office for some of the new hires we will need to make later this year since there is a lot of training that will be done to onboard new employees.
     
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  12. Daigoji Gai

    Daigoji Gai Avatar

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    Crazy late to this thread but have been working from home over past 2 years (going into the office occasionally for face to face meetings) and while my commute was longer (4 hours daily; 2 hrs per direction) it has been a seriously game changer in terms of work/life balance. Now most of my team is at least 65% remote. Not having to worry about accounting for a 2 hour commute in the morning, sleeping in a few hours, comfort of home food that is a little better priced than city... Life changing. Between Jira and Harvest time is accounted for and work is actually being done at a lower burn rate than before which is pretty amazeballs.
    I am sold.
     
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  13. Caernarvon

    Caernarvon Avatar

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    I was really surprised at this news, but I do think ultimately it *should* prove positive for many reasons, as long as the team are disciplined to not let themselves get distracted by home life, and are passionate enough about the game and its future, which I believe they are all invested in to various degrees be it actual financial reward based on performance/profits through to simply keeping themselves employed.

    I've been fortunate enough to be self-employed working from home for a decade now and I can't imagine any other way now. When I think about all the hours wasted in years gone by travelling to and from previous jobs, some of which sapped 5 hours a day in exceptionally tedious travel time, not to mention all the endless pointless red tape meetings and other matters... which.... well didn't really matter!

    Nowadays, I can roll straight out of bed at 6am, make a cup of tea, crack on, and get 3 hours work done where I might have otherwise been doing the daily rat race. Also... POWER NAPS. Don't judge lol! But if you're at home, you can grab a quick 30 mins if your head is thumping or you're feeling a bit woozy, and then get back to it 30 mins later feeling completely revitalised and still put in a very solid days work - highly recommended if your work is coding / programming or of a creative nature - brilliant way to refresh and come back for another stint - something you just can't do in most offices. And then at the other end of the clock, you can put in some hours later on if you're really invested. I regularly find myself working into the small hours.

    But yeah, discipline is the key, as long as they tick that box, and all have easy contact with each other, and still meet once or twice a week, ideally in person, it should have soooo many positive benefits all round I'd say. I'll be very interested to see how the next couple of releases go as a consequence of this setup.
     
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  14. Caernarvon

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    Yes there is truth in that too. I think if they can be disciplined enough to ensure they also have a weekly meet or two, make a morning or afternoon of it, that should help alleviate that somewhat. Personally I've found I'm endlessly more productive on my own terms in my own comfortable environment. That said I live on my own and don't have much in the way of distractions. Generally put some music on, or something not too distracting on YT and crack on (that whole 'whistle while you work' thing) Discipline is the key word though, and yeah I guess it might not be an option for everyone at the team for whatever reasons, but I think for the big guns at Port this should definitely be a positive.
     
  15. Arcanoxer

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    I still think the office is not the problem when the Technical Direction is going wrong over and over again.
     
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  16. Feeyo

    Feeyo Avatar

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    This is a very different situation.
     
  17. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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  18. Feeyo

    Feeyo Avatar

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    I did read that, I just chose to ignore. As that is not the current situation. And they can state anything to make us feel right.

    Like they say in dutch: Eerst zien, dan geloven.
    Translated: First see, then believe.
     
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  19. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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    Fair enough.
     
  20. Daigoji Gai

    Daigoji Gai Avatar

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    No it really isn't - you'll be surprised how much dev work is remote, freelance and outsourced. Additionally, I like they are cutting out the costs of a brick and mortar office presence and redirecting those funds. Isn't end of the world. Sky isn't falling. They also said it was just an experiment to see how it goes, so I wouldn't be panicking and rushed to reply to every thread that offers a counter opinion that supports their decision.

    Cheers!

    Hugs.
     
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