As a follow up, I wanted to share the pictures I took at the Community Dinner:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/laufeyjarson/sets/72157631633263910/I've lost so many names! If you were there, or know folks, can you label them in comments on Flickr? =)
The Devs invited players to come, and several did. I'd say there was a dozen or so players, and sixty or so devs. I went with @Malohin, and he and I wandered around and talked to a lot of people.
The community covered dinner for all the devs. At the last moment, a player called Everett stepped in and covered their bar bill, too. We were able give them a nice night out!
The good news is that many of the devs are finding work; their lives and families will be secure and they'll be able to move forward to something new and exciting. There were many still looking, but the feeling was optimistic. I think all of them enjoyed a chance to catch up after a few weeks, and a lot of names and phone numbers were exchanged.
Every dev we spoke to was friendly and happy to talk about the good times. I met Aaron, who did UI and fixed the icon buttons for the Mystic Fortune power. I met Jason who did the revamp on the costume editor for CoH Freedom. I met at least three Brians who I've gotten all mixed up.
I spent a very pleasant few minutes talking to The Dark Watcher, and asked him some details about their server infrastructure. (Windows Server 2003 or 2008, Microsoft SQL Server 2008)
I also spoke to a bunch of the players, who all seemed like really nice people. Sadly, I've lost all the names. I'd have had to have taken notes. One of them was wearing a #SaveCOH t-shirt, though, so I bet they'll chime in. =)
It was a successful evening, and we, as a community, did something good. We made sure these people understood how much what they had done meant to us, and that we were unhappy about their treatment as much as we were about our own loss.
This was a great idea, and very well done!
More in the Flickr set
http://www.flickr.com/photos/laufeyjarson/sets/72157631633263910/
