Comments on: Not-so-Funcom – Delays, Lay-offs

By: abercrombie

abercrombie — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 11:13:52 +0000

The idea of this game interests me – it’s just the piss-poor interface and apparently completely passive AI that turn me off

By: Nate

Nate — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:23:03 +0000

NC Soft is tied to games like Lineage, Guild Wars, Aion…etc, so yeah I’d say they’ve been able to do pretty ell on games (more so in asia than NA/).

Funcom is not tied to Nc Soft in any way though.

By: Swanny

Swanny — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:22:14 +0000

What I believe Funcom needed to do was put the effort from AoC into Anarchy Online.
Except for Eve Online, I think there are no great sci-fi mmo’s.
AO had the potential to have that niche, to get players who are sick of bats and elves and orcs.
It needed a major graphics overhaul, though, probably some accessibility improvements, amd major bug fixes.
Last i was in, AO was still running very poorly on newer ATI cards.
Instead of building their foundation, – ‘Let’s do another fantasy MMO!’
I think Funcom fumbled bigtime, and I do not think they will recover.

By: Kakksakkamaddafakka

Kakksakkamaddafakka — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:42:16 +0000

It looks like people have problems understanding how a big developer like Funcom works.

This isn’t the AoC team. It’s Ragnar Tørnquist, who has been the driving force behind the TLJ series, and a lot of the Dreamfall team with additions made from the AoC team and otherwise.

You can’t simply say that Funcom IS this and that. It’s a huge company, with a lot of people going out and in all the time, with a bunch of different designers and clicks around them.

Who cares if AoC wasn’t stellar, that pretty much has nothing to do with TSW.

By: KikiJiki

KikiJiki — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:52:35 +0000

The problem I (and I suspect I may not be the only one) had with AoC was not the launch, not the lack of endgame content, nor the grindyness of the midsection of the game.

No, the problem I had was Funcom’s completely arse over tit management of it post launch that resulted in some of the worst (and I sincerely mean that) design choices/bugfixes I’ve ever seen in any game.

The sad thing is that at launch it was a passable MMO, post launch Funcom turned it into the crap game that I remember.

By: bill

bill — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:51:50 +0000

nah. I don’t buy it. Quality or originality aren’t the over-riding factors in MMO success or failure. Numerous good and original MMOs have crashed and burned.

The main problem seems to be content. Due to costs it’s almost impossible to launch an MMO with enough content… it has to be added later. But most MMO “early adopters” are power players who burn through the content so quickly that they get bored and quit after a month or two.
Which means the devs are left toiling away making content that’ll be seen by very few people.

I think the problem might simply be that there aren’t enough “chilled out” MMO players to support more than 1 or 2 games. The power players flit from game to game, burning through content… but the rest just hang out on WoW.

Either that or you just need enough starting capital and time to make an almost complete MMO at launch… but that limits the field to very few companies.

By: frightlever

frightlever — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:52:03 +0000

“Age of Conan is a long Golden Axe level”

That’s a great way to describe it.

By: Tei

Tei — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:30:51 +0000

Well.. Age of Conan was build by people with a problem with “control”. The developer of that game want to control the experience. Is not a world where you live, but something like a table where you have to follow unwritten and written developper laws.

This has two sides. On the general way, the game is ONE long path. You can move back, and fort, but theres not much room for… you know 2D movement. The designers want yo to play in Area A at level X, so you can’t be a player with level Y in that area. The designers want you to follow the path (for 8888 million times), not to climb mountains.
Hence,.. invisible walls where added to stop people from climbin mountains, shorcut long and lame paths, force people on the 1D design of AoC.

Why Age of Conan is a 1D (one dimension) game? because the designers want total control over the experience, and give none to the player. I think this a personal problem of the devs, and I am like … I want.. I want to say are a bunch of “control freaks”.

The problem with a 1D game is that it has a end. You complete the line, and theres nothing else to do. Much like Hellgate London (that has already closed his doors) totally linear design is cool, till the moment you “win”, and the game instantly dies.

By the moment the players enter the last map (THE) keshata, players are fatigued and bored by the 1D design. Any attemp to PLAY the games is broken.

Breaking the game more, adding more invisible walls, is higuer on the dev’s priority of this devs than fixing bugs.

Age of Conan is a long Golden Axe level, not a MMORPG game. Its still alive (not like Hellgate London) because others redeaming features like excellent start area, excellent graphics, excellent feelings, some pro-groups dungeons, etc.

It will become a very good MMO, if his devs relaxe his “zeal” to control the players, and stop then reinvent the game. Oh.. and add something more than “optional paths”, a full 2D design.

By: DK

DK — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:20:13 +0000

Excuse for why Secret World is going to suck spotted.

By: Rei Onryou

Rei Onryou — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:56:30 +0000

Someone throw some money their way. The Secret World must see the light of day!

By: joben

joben — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:41:51 +0000

AoC is actually pretty good now. Most of the problems have been fixed, and it’s simply just great fun.

It’s a shame Funcom released it in the state that it was, and it’s more of a shame that people are simply not willing to give it another chance, and insist on having this ‘crap MMO’ image of it stuck in their heads.

I’m willing to bet that many of the people that bad-mouth it either haven’t played it recently, or haven’t played it at all.

PS. If there’s something the game doesn’t seem to lack now, it’s things to do… plenty of quests for all levels, and a lot of great-looking environments with some really awesome music.

By: the affront

the affront — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:43:30 +0000

bill: How about making a somewhat unique MMO with genuine niche appeal instead of, when it comes down to it, another boring clone anyone could live without, and then STICKING WITH IT a few years even if the launch crashes and burns and the game sucks (because, you know, actual belief in your product instead of just seeing it as another cash cow to be exploited short-term), instead of just going “ah screw it, we’ll just siphon the most possible money off those damn fools stupid enough to stay with this buggy mess while on 10% of the original development/patch budget to cut costs and slowly let it die”?

Kind of like CCP did with Eve. Because that was complete shit for the first year or so, too, and most others publishers/devs would have just dropped it like hot coals.

But, yeah, like that will happen any time in the near future again, with the current “hype, pump & dump – MMO style” release schemes….