Comments on: Bad MMORPG launch? Fine. It’s really par for the course!

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:34:08 +0000

Oh I can make a subjective analysis. Your use of the word “twat” is very uncommon for an American (if you are an American), for example. You probably also like watching Doctor Who and other “quality British TV”. But getting back to the point at hand, however, I still think anyone who attaches themselves to a company, sports team, government, etc, which suffers hardship, should pretty much expect to be tarred with the same brush. It’s the way the world works. That doesn’t mean you have to like it – it just does.

By: Athelan

Athelan — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:15:01 +0000

Sure, but making those blanket statements is just the same as those stereotypes Americans put on the world, and the world puts on Americans thanks to media portrayal of all of us as ignorant uneducated selfish twats.

You can make a blanket statement targeting management without being individual if you felt that was the source of the issue, or design, or programming, you name it. But instead it’s easier for you from an uneducated perspective to simply generalize and claim that obviously no one on the team had any real talent or ability.

And when I say uneducated, I don’t mean as in you are not intelligent, just that you as an outsider are not privy to the information that would let you make a more subjective analysis.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:38:31 +0000

Athelan, I take onboard your point. In the most literal sense, you’re right. But blanket statements *do* serve to quickly establish that there is blame to be taken and there’s a body of people in the company who are to blame for the current situation. To start pulling out specific names or job titles would, in the end, do more harm than good as there would undoubtedly be guilty parties walking free of blame in such a scenario. Easier to point to the company as a whole. Because, you know, at the end of the day, whether someone is directly involced or not, if you work for a company which has done the wrong thing, or play on a sports team which has done the wrong thing, or are part of a government which has done the wrong thing, etc, etc, there is still a portion of blame that will always need to be taken, regardless of your own actions. It’s just the way organised bodies of people work.

By: Athelan

Athelan — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:25:15 +0000

As an outsider its easy to come to the conclusion no one at Funcom could “mail a letter” but once you have seen the other side of the fence so to speak and actually worked on an MMO and seen one develop and launch from the inside you realize that so much great work, ability, and talent can be completely wasted by poor project management and inexperienced leadership or just bad decisions. Having come into the industry through customer service and quality assurance before going into design I can tell you its not that QA does not report issues, its that issues get downprioritized due to deadlines imposed by forces outside the development team or by management themselves. Really when a game with as large a scope as an MMO stumbles or falls the “fault” does not lie with everyone who worked on it which your statement is a bit blanket and inaccurate in that regard.

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 23:11:54 +0000

Yes, Lichbane, my last few posts on the blog, covering topics like the SWG TCG tournament, Raph Koster’s 10 years in MMOs, being pwned by a BioWare developer, the fragmented nature of the MMO market… yeah… they were all about AoC *rolls eyes* Suggest you read the blog a little more widely before you get too carried away with your comments. At present it would seem that you can’t seem to see the wood for the trees.

By: Lichbane

Lichbane — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 21:55:52 +0000

This site really is the “AOC ate my cat” site isn’t it. All this Rob guy ever writes about is “how much AOC sux”.

GET OVER IT!! IT’S GETTING BORING!!

By: Jack Ratched

Jack Ratched — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:25:00 +0000

The horse is dead. Stop beating it. Or at least use a different stick.

By: Paul M

Paul M — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:19:53 +0000

*nodding in agreement*

Let’s hope that AoC cost Funcom enough in real $$$s and reputation to demonstrates that:
1. customers now demand more polish; half-baked games are not going to cut it
2. even with heaps of marketing spend, and 3 or 6 month lock-ins, the game still has to be good to be profitable

Doing some very rough math – if AoC cost Funcom $100m like some posts are reporting, and they sold at $50 ea, with three months sub at $20/mo, Funcom made around $44m – not including any sort of operating expense. That leaves them at a $56m shortfall…. hopefully that is a good enough message…

I think developers and publishers are realising that MMO customers are more sophisticated and that they rely on the ‘long-tail’ for their $$$, so hopefully that means games will get better. Otherwise studios will lose a lot of money, and people will keep going back to WoW.

By: Openedge1

Openedge1 — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:11:34 +0000

Too bad Funcom has decided NOT to put the 6 months to good use.
They actually had a GOOD launch, and have progressively gotten worse.
This is an oddity, as most of these games do get better (Tabula Rasa, EQ2, Vanguard)
Yet, AoC seems to be going backwards.

They better hope for a darn good patch next week or WAR will eat Funcom for breakfast.

By: Qix

Qix — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:52:55 +0000

“Save those extra ideas, or classes, or quests, or zones, for the game’s first update in a year’s time. ”

This is EXACTLY why I was not dis-heartened by WAR’s announcment of less classes / capital cities.

Hopefully the extra time that it bought was used for something good.