Okay, so uh, really now, how dying is AoC? I really haven't been following it much but it seems that the initial OMG aewsome phase is through and the company forgot to add in some stuff like DX10 and some endgame things that they said have been pushed back to a $30 expansion pack...
My wife and I bought two copies and played for about a month. Left WoW and my raid position, struck out in a new game.
Un-subbed. Couldn't rationalize paying the money per month for it. Went back to WoW.
shanis on
Origin(BF4) - hunter28100 / Steam - Shanis
"Uh, I have never said that you are not good at what you do. It's just that what you do is not worth doing." -S.C.
I know AoC gets a lot of flak but I enjoyed it for the month and a half that I played it. It has problems but I feel I got my money's worth.
While I've said it before, for an over the summer game it's pretty decent at that, because you can try out several characters to around 30-40 and get one up to near end game in that time. However, for an MMO company, that's not good to have it be a "Good for a month" MMO if they want to make money. So, maybe it was just a quick cash scheme to fuel their next MMO?
I know AoC gets a lot of flak but I enjoyed it for the month and a half that I played it. It has problems but I feel I got my money's worth.
While I've said it before, for an over the summer game it's pretty decent at that, because you can try out several characters to around 30-40 and get one up to near end game in that time. However, for an MMO company, that's not good to have it be a "Good for a month" MMO if they want to make money. So, maybe it was just a quick cash scheme to fuel their next MMO?
I don't even think they have paid off development for AoC just yet, more or less money for a new MMO
Hillean on
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited September 2008
From my understanding, they bet the farm on AoC, so uhh, I wouldn't expect a next MMO, unless they get bailed out by venture capital.
I know AoC gets a lot of flak but I enjoyed it for the month and a half that I played it. It has problems but I feel I got my money's worth.
While I've said it before, for an over the summer game it's pretty decent at that, because you can try out several characters to around 30-40 and get one up to near end game in that time. However, for an MMO company, that's not good to have it be a "Good for a month" MMO if they want to make money. So, maybe it was just a quick cash scheme to fuel their next MMO?
I don't even think they have paid off development for AoC just yet, more or less money for a new MMO
Yeah, a quick look at some of the production values alone would show you that the team really poured their hearts into this one. It's easy to dismiss it as all flash, but with a deeper look you can tell a lot of effort was put into this title. I feel as bad for the devs as I do for all the players who had their hopes dashed by AoC.
I'm sure we can all say that, looking back on it, it really could have been a great game.
Darius Black on
Quick, quiet, confident
Comfortable, permanent
Undisputed, every tense
Not a trace of what went left
More equal than the best
Unparalleled success
Everybody, V-impressed
It sounds like poor management will be the downfall of this game. I don't think talent is the problem.
I don't know, they were constantly introducing new bugs in each of their patches when they came out on time, and now they're being endlessly pushed back. Certainly the game would have been better off if they didn't launch so early but not all dev teams are as good as Blizzard, sometimes the programmers just aren't skilled enough.
It sounds like poor management will be the downfall of this game. I don't think talent is the problem.
I don't know, they were constantly introducing new bugs in each of their patches when they came out on time, and now they're being endlessly pushed back. Certainly the game would have been better off if they didn't launch so early but not all dev teams are as good as Blizzard, sometimes the programmers just aren't skilled enough.
It's more likely to be the QA and the management. If you think back to when AOC launched, it was a beautiful game that had some very obvious bugs in terms of broken quest lines and stuff, and with about 3 abilities that needed a nerf because they were retarded. Then you had siege warfare, which just straight up did not work at all. And the male/female attack speed issue.
It was a management decision to put their coders to work on class re-balancing above and beyond the 3 screwed up abilities, and it was a corporate decision to release the game with siege warfare known to be completely inoperable (since even small scale testing would have determined this).
As the game went on, additional small bugs were discovered and logged but never fixed. Instead, the devs were put onto trying to implement the PVP system with some new layer around criminal/murderer or whatever. Raid bosses were found to be bugged in absolutely typical ways, but were not addressed. All the effort was poured into the PVP system, class re-balancing, and trying to fix the unworkable siege warfare.
The whole development team was thrown into "new" work (even if it was on the master schedule and intended for pre-release, it's still new if they haven't done it), instead of on fixing the eminently fixable things that would allow people to derive some enjoyment from the game. The introduction of new elements invariably caused new bugs, which always were missed by the (possibly fictional) QA teams. Player acceptance testing didn't appear until about six weeks in, at about the same time as the landscape became impossible to navigate handily due to invisible walls... an issue that lasted for 3 weeks, despite one of the lead developers saying it was just a setting they changed. For all I know, that's still a problem. It was at that point that I unsubbed.
The people prioritising what to do, and the people responsible for assessing impact, were the ones who fucked the dog, here. The developers look to have done a pretty solid job with everything they were given, but they were given the wrong things to do, at the wrong times, and they seemingly had no QA support.
Basically, you can't blame a failure as abject as AOC on the people doing the work, anymore than you can say that the Big Dig in Mass is failing because of the engineers. In large enough groups, the output is going to be predictable, as are the problems that will be faced. You don't need amazing programmers. What you plan for are mediocre ones, really.
What you do need is talented and capable management, which AOC blatantly lacked.
It's not the QA teams. As I understand it, the QA teams protested most of the patches, as well as the releases, insisting that things they'd been finding weren't being addressed before product was being pushed live.
The PvP patch has been the only big thing they have been working on for a month now, and it still is not ready. I can't put all the blame on management if they are making this a priority and yet still nothing is getting done.
Also, I don't think you recall how horrible the game was at launch. It wasn't just a few bugs and over powered skills. Four of the six crafting abilities did not work correctly, some (gem crafting/alchemy) did not work AT ALL. City building did not work. Trade supplies were added for a short time and then removed again. Traders were removed as they were horribly broken (either very exploitable or most of the time stuff sent just vanished) breaking the bank/mailing system/auction house. When gems were even possible, socketing an item with a gem and moving your mouse over that item would crash your game. If that item was equipped you were fucked. This took about a month in to get it working correctly (and even then it still was hit and miss).
So no, the things that were done were not "solid" at all.
The PvP patch has been the only big thing they have been working on for a month now, and it still is not ready. I can't put all the blame on management if they are making this a priority and yet still nothing is getting done.
Also, I don't think you recall how horrible the game was at launch. It wasn't just a few bugs and over powered skills. Four of the six crafting abilities did not work correctly, some (gem crafting/alchemy) did not work AT ALL. City building did not work. Trade supplies were added for a short time and then removed again. Traders were removed as they were horribly broken (either very exploitable or most of the time stuff sent just vanished) breaking the bank/mailing system/auction house. When gems were even possible, socketing an item with a gem and moving your mouse over that item would crash your game. If that item was equipped you were fucked. This took about a month in to get it working correctly (and even then it still was hit and miss).
So no, the things that were done were not "solid" at all.
My major point is that enough stuff worked that you can't really claim that the developers were a bunch of crack monkeys.
When a project fails, it's the fault of management, not of the worker bees. Your variation for Developer A to Developer B may be gigantic, but your variation from Large Development Team A to Large Development Team B will not be. Unless you've hired completely the wrong people. Which is done by management.
Management determines the schedule, ensures adherence to it, updates it as necessary, tracks critical path items and dependencies, reviews the QA reports, and basically governs the entire project.
Age of Conan is an end-to-end failure, with the only high points likely being because of some talented development / graphic design teams.
When something fails massively and completely, it is always the fault of those running the show.
Leemo on
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited September 2008
I am of the mind that the sudden success of AoC caused them to basically lose their collective heads.
You don't get to the point that AoC was at release with idiotic management and coders. That said, once the game sold an obscene amount of copies (for a PC MMO not named WoW anyway), I think the suits and bean counters got involved, and when that happens, it's over. You can kiss the project goodbye, because the people with intimate knowledge of it are no longer in control.
Take the new content issue. Why would management all the sudden start pushing new content, instead of fixing old bugs? Because new content is flashy and brings in NEW subs. The bean counters had decided they should make a sub grab, rather than trying to keep the subs they already had. I dunno, maybe after they sold 800k boxes, or whatever it was, they started to see a big W O W in their eyes and got greedy, thinking they could get those kind of numbers.
I agree that when something like this happens it's management, but it's usually the management that is most out of touch with the reality of a project (aka upper management). Usually middle management, the people who really drive a project, are pushed out of the loop when something goes this bad, this fast.
I am of the mind that the sudden success of AoC caused them to basically lose their collective heads.
You don't get to the point that AoC was at release with idiotic management and coders. That said, once the game sold an obscene amount of copies (for a PC MMO not named WoW anyway), I think the suits and bean counters got involved, and when that happens, it's over. You can kiss the project goodbye, because the people with intimate knowledge of it are no longer in control.
Take the new content issue. Why would management all the sudden start pushing new content, instead of fixing old bugs? Because new content is flashy and brings in NEW subs. The bean counters had decided they should make a sub grab, rather than trying to keep the subs they already had. I dunno, maybe after they sold 800k boxes, or whatever it was, they started to see a big W O W in their eyes and got greedy, thinking they could get those kind of numbers.
I agree that when something like this happens it's management, but it's usually the management that is most out of touch with the reality of a project (aka upper management). Usually middle management, the people who really drive a project, are pushed out of the loop when something goes this bad, this fast.
Bugs weren't the only problem, the game really really needed new content. I was frustrated by the stuff that didn't work, but I quit because I was bored as hell by level 60 having already done like 10 levels worth of straight grinding for lack of quests. That I can definitely agree was a management issue, even if they absolutely had to release when they did they should have chopped off levels rather than stretching things out so thin. Then they could be working on endgame content right now instead of just trying to fill the gaps.
I think it was more likely one of those situations where management hired x guys, when 3x guys were needed, or even 3y where y=more experienced codemonkeys. It's the management's fault when they tell two guys that they have till tomorrow to make the WoW-killer, and then go tell the media how awesome the game is, without hiring a larger team or extending development time.
I think it was more likely one of those situations where management hired x guys, when 3x guys were needed, or even 3y where y=more experienced codemonkeys. It's the management's fault when they tell two guys that they have till tomorrow to make the WoW-killer, and then go tell the media how awesome the game is, without hiring a larger team or extending development time.
It's worth noting that one of your responsibilities as a manager is to understand when you've been set an impossible task, and to be willing to walk away from it. If the expectations don't line up with reality, management has to make it very clear to corporate, and present an alternate reality. If they don't believe you, that's a job you quit.
This discussion reminds me of an email i got recently:
Programmer to Team Leader :
"We can't do this proposed project.**CAN NOT**. It will involve a major
design change and no one in our team knows the design of this legacy
system.And above that, nobody in our company knows the language in which this
application has been written. So even if somebody wants to work on it,
they can't. If you ask my personal opinion, the company should never take these type of projects."
Team Leader to Project Manager :
"This project will involve a design change. Currently, we don't have any staff who has experience in this type of work. Also, the language is
unfamiliar to us, so we will have to arrange for some training if we take
this project. In my personal opinion, we are not ready to take on a project of this nature."
Project Manager to 1st Level Manager :
"This project involves a design change in the system and we don't have much
experience in that area. Also, not many people in our company are
appropriately trained for it. In my personal opinion, we might be able to do
the project but we would need more time than usual to complete it."
1st Level Manager to Senior Level Manager :
"This project involves design re-engineering. We have some people who have
worked in this area and others who know the implementation language. So they
can train other people. In my personal opinion we should take this project, but with caution."
Senior Level Manager to CEO :
"This project will demonstrate to the industry our capabilities in
remodelling the design of a complete legacy system. We have all the
necessary skills and people to execute this project successfully. Some
people have already given in house training in this area to other staff
members. In my personal opinion, we should not let this project slip by us
under any circumstances."
CEO to Client :
"This is the type of project in which our company specializes. We have
executed many projects of the same nature for many large clients. Trust me
when I say that we are the most competent firm in the industry for doing
this kind of work. It is my personal opinion that we can execute this
project successfully and well within the given time frame."
AoC has a lot of broken and unfinished content but so far (lvl 40ish) its nailed the combat and feel. I really hope it doesn't sink. I mean look what funcom did with Anarchy Online. From what I had heard at launch it was awful but a year or 2 ago when I gave it a run it seemed like there were plenty playing and the game didn't feel broken.
For now though I can't decide if I want to keep playing or put it aside and hope in a few months its patched up. I just did a fresh install of my OS (so I need to reload the game) and my account is about to resub so I can't decide if I want to stick with it or put it aside and give Warhammer a try (with a pile of its own issues). More so when I consider WoW's expansion will be hitting probably Nov. and I'll be playing that.
I didnt find that to be true, but maybe thats just me. I played launch for both games. For me, AO had the basics. The core gameplay was fun, the design was solid. The damn thing just didnt run! Servers up and down, getting trapped because the zoning servers were broken (i was stuck in a shop for an hour once, along with about 30 other people lol). But when it worked, i was enjoying it.
I didnt get that with AoC. I actually thought it was pretty stable. Servers stayed up. The gameplay just didnt have anything to it, for me. The combat, while good in theory, seemed to be really poorly executed. The way combos work specifically, is fucking stupid. The character models were pretty ugly. In a literal sense: i couldnt find a male face that looked 'handsome' in my view, or a female that looked cute/hot/whatever. It felt like my character was totally aimless. The game didnt give me the impression i was headed somewhere. I didnt feel like there was any point to what i was doing. I think i was one of the few that didnt like Tortage. Oh and the world felt disjointed, it didnt feel like the zones were connected in any real way, they just sort of existed.
I dont even know where i'd begin if i was on a quest to fix this game.
edit: Oh, there were parts i DID like. I thought a lot of the landscapes were really nice, and a lot of the villages really had a good medieval feel to them.
If I was paying to play a game with as many problems as this one and I heared they were diverting attention away from the current game to work on an expansion I would be pissed.
(i was stuck in a shop for an hour once, along with about 30 other people lol). [\QUOTE]
I got stuck in asda for a while once, but only because I was lost.
Is this game any good yet? I still have a 60 day game card and have nothing to do until WAR is released. Perhaps I'll save it for a year or so.
EDIT: Damnit, why won't the quote tags work
It might not be around in a year.
Also, use front slash. Not back slash.
Darius Black on
Quick, quiet, confident
Comfortable, permanent
Undisputed, every tense
Not a trace of what went left
More equal than the best
Unparalleled success
Everybody, V-impressed
If I was paying to play a game with as many problems as this one and I heared they were diverting attention away from the current game to work on an expansion I would be pissed.
With how long it took them to develop and release AoC, I guess they are going to be diverted on the expansion pack for a long time.
If I was paying to play a game with as many problems as this one and I heared they were diverting attention away from the current game to work on an expansion I would be pissed.
With how long it took them to develop and release AoC, I guess they are going to be diverted on the expansion pack for a long time.
Well, now that they know how little time it takes for them to hype aspects of a game they can't actually put in, I imagine it won't take too long.
Posts
Go outside for a while. Warhammer is coming up soon, and if it grips you you'll be happy you accumulated some vitamin D.
My wife and I bought two copies and played for about a month. Left WoW and my raid position, struck out in a new game.
Un-subbed. Couldn't rationalize paying the money per month for it. Went back to WoW.
"Uh, I have never said that you are not good at what you do. It's just that what you do is not worth doing." -S.C.
Steam: MightyPotatoKing
While I've said it before, for an over the summer game it's pretty decent at that, because you can try out several characters to around 30-40 and get one up to near end game in that time. However, for an MMO company, that's not good to have it be a "Good for a month" MMO if they want to make money. So, maybe it was just a quick cash scheme to fuel their next MMO?
I don't even think they have paid off development for AoC just yet, more or less money for a new MMO
Yeah, a quick look at some of the production values alone would show you that the team really poured their hearts into this one. It's easy to dismiss it as all flash, but with a deeper look you can tell a lot of effort was put into this title. I feel as bad for the devs as I do for all the players who had their hopes dashed by AoC.
I'm sure we can all say that, looking back on it, it really could have been a great game.
Comfortable, permanent
Undisputed, every tense
Not a trace of what went left
More equal than the best
Unparalleled success
Everybody, V-impressed
And the whole patches make the game worse thing.
I still miss that music that plays in the outpost and camps in Cimmerian lands.
I don't know, they were constantly introducing new bugs in each of their patches when they came out on time, and now they're being endlessly pushed back. Certainly the game would have been better off if they didn't launch so early but not all dev teams are as good as Blizzard, sometimes the programmers just aren't skilled enough.
It's more likely to be the QA and the management. If you think back to when AOC launched, it was a beautiful game that had some very obvious bugs in terms of broken quest lines and stuff, and with about 3 abilities that needed a nerf because they were retarded. Then you had siege warfare, which just straight up did not work at all. And the male/female attack speed issue.
It was a management decision to put their coders to work on class re-balancing above and beyond the 3 screwed up abilities, and it was a corporate decision to release the game with siege warfare known to be completely inoperable (since even small scale testing would have determined this).
As the game went on, additional small bugs were discovered and logged but never fixed. Instead, the devs were put onto trying to implement the PVP system with some new layer around criminal/murderer or whatever. Raid bosses were found to be bugged in absolutely typical ways, but were not addressed. All the effort was poured into the PVP system, class re-balancing, and trying to fix the unworkable siege warfare.
The whole development team was thrown into "new" work (even if it was on the master schedule and intended for pre-release, it's still new if they haven't done it), instead of on fixing the eminently fixable things that would allow people to derive some enjoyment from the game. The introduction of new elements invariably caused new bugs, which always were missed by the (possibly fictional) QA teams. Player acceptance testing didn't appear until about six weeks in, at about the same time as the landscape became impossible to navigate handily due to invisible walls... an issue that lasted for 3 weeks, despite one of the lead developers saying it was just a setting they changed. For all I know, that's still a problem. It was at that point that I unsubbed.
The people prioritising what to do, and the people responsible for assessing impact, were the ones who fucked the dog, here. The developers look to have done a pretty solid job with everything they were given, but they were given the wrong things to do, at the wrong times, and they seemingly had no QA support.
Basically, you can't blame a failure as abject as AOC on the people doing the work, anymore than you can say that the Big Dig in Mass is failing because of the engineers. In large enough groups, the output is going to be predictable, as are the problems that will be faced. You don't need amazing programmers. What you plan for are mediocre ones, really.
What you do need is talented and capable management, which AOC blatantly lacked.
Yea, but in the real world when that happens it's the fault of management.
Liming is still cool, damnit.
Also, I don't think you recall how horrible the game was at launch. It wasn't just a few bugs and over powered skills. Four of the six crafting abilities did not work correctly, some (gem crafting/alchemy) did not work AT ALL. City building did not work. Trade supplies were added for a short time and then removed again. Traders were removed as they were horribly broken (either very exploitable or most of the time stuff sent just vanished) breaking the bank/mailing system/auction house. When gems were even possible, socketing an item with a gem and moving your mouse over that item would crash your game. If that item was equipped you were fucked. This took about a month in to get it working correctly (and even then it still was hit and miss).
So no, the things that were done were not "solid" at all.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Cykstfc
then the quests ran out and yeah, that's when the fun went away
My major point is that enough stuff worked that you can't really claim that the developers were a bunch of crack monkeys.
When a project fails, it's the fault of management, not of the worker bees. Your variation for Developer A to Developer B may be gigantic, but your variation from Large Development Team A to Large Development Team B will not be. Unless you've hired completely the wrong people. Which is done by management.
Management determines the schedule, ensures adherence to it, updates it as necessary, tracks critical path items and dependencies, reviews the QA reports, and basically governs the entire project.
Age of Conan is an end-to-end failure, with the only high points likely being because of some talented development / graphic design teams.
When something fails massively and completely, it is always the fault of those running the show.
You don't get to the point that AoC was at release with idiotic management and coders. That said, once the game sold an obscene amount of copies (for a PC MMO not named WoW anyway), I think the suits and bean counters got involved, and when that happens, it's over. You can kiss the project goodbye, because the people with intimate knowledge of it are no longer in control.
Take the new content issue. Why would management all the sudden start pushing new content, instead of fixing old bugs? Because new content is flashy and brings in NEW subs. The bean counters had decided they should make a sub grab, rather than trying to keep the subs they already had. I dunno, maybe after they sold 800k boxes, or whatever it was, they started to see a big W O W in their eyes and got greedy, thinking they could get those kind of numbers.
I agree that when something like this happens it's management, but it's usually the management that is most out of touch with the reality of a project (aka upper management). Usually middle management, the people who really drive a project, are pushed out of the loop when something goes this bad, this fast.
Bugs weren't the only problem, the game really really needed new content. I was frustrated by the stuff that didn't work, but I quit because I was bored as hell by level 60 having already done like 10 levels worth of straight grinding for lack of quests. That I can definitely agree was a management issue, even if they absolutely had to release when they did they should have chopped off levels rather than stretching things out so thin. Then they could be working on endgame content right now instead of just trying to fill the gaps.
It's worth noting that one of your responsibilities as a manager is to understand when you've been set an impossible task, and to be willing to walk away from it. If the expectations don't line up with reality, management has to make it very clear to corporate, and present an alternate reality. If they don't believe you, that's a job you quit.
Programmer to Team Leader :
"We can't do this proposed project.**CAN NOT**. It will involve a major
design change and no one in our team knows the design of this legacy
system.And above that, nobody in our company knows the language in which this
application has been written. So even if somebody wants to work on it,
they can't. If you ask my personal opinion, the company should never take these type of projects."
Team Leader to Project Manager :
"This project will involve a design change. Currently, we don't have any staff who has experience in this type of work. Also, the language is
unfamiliar to us, so we will have to arrange for some training if we take
this project. In my personal opinion, we are not ready to take on a project of this nature."
Project Manager to 1st Level Manager :
"This project involves a design change in the system and we don't have much
experience in that area. Also, not many people in our company are
appropriately trained for it. In my personal opinion, we might be able to do
the project but we would need more time than usual to complete it."
1st Level Manager to Senior Level Manager :
"This project involves design re-engineering. We have some people who have
worked in this area and others who know the implementation language. So they
can train other people. In my personal opinion we should take this project, but with caution."
Senior Level Manager to CEO :
"This project will demonstrate to the industry our capabilities in
remodelling the design of a complete legacy system. We have all the
necessary skills and people to execute this project successfully. Some
people have already given in house training in this area to other staff
members. In my personal opinion, we should not let this project slip by us
under any circumstances."
CEO to Client :
"This is the type of project in which our company specializes. We have
executed many projects of the same nature for many large clients. Trust me
when I say that we are the most competent firm in the industry for doing
this kind of work. It is my personal opinion that we can execute this
project successfully and well within the given time frame."
Beautiful. I am so stealing that, and spreading it about the office.
And by stealing, I mean asking you if that's fine 8-)
For now though I can't decide if I want to keep playing or put it aside and hope in a few months its patched up. I just did a fresh install of my OS (so I need to reload the game) and my account is about to resub so I can't decide if I want to stick with it or put it aside and give Warhammer a try (with a pile of its own issues). More so when I consider WoW's expansion will be hitting probably Nov. and I'll be playing that.
I didnt get that with AoC. I actually thought it was pretty stable. Servers stayed up. The gameplay just didnt have anything to it, for me. The combat, while good in theory, seemed to be really poorly executed. The way combos work specifically, is fucking stupid. The character models were pretty ugly. In a literal sense: i couldnt find a male face that looked 'handsome' in my view, or a female that looked cute/hot/whatever. It felt like my character was totally aimless. The game didnt give me the impression i was headed somewhere. I didnt feel like there was any point to what i was doing. I think i was one of the few that didnt like Tortage. Oh and the world felt disjointed, it didnt feel like the zones were connected in any real way, they just sort of existed.
I dont even know where i'd begin if i was on a quest to fix this game.
edit: Oh, there were parts i DID like. I thought a lot of the landscapes were really nice, and a lot of the villages really had a good medieval feel to them.
good weird point.... its only a few months old.
Trying to beat AC2 for fastest cradle to grave time?
It might not be around in a year.
Also, use front slash. Not back slash.
Comfortable, permanent
Undisputed, every tense
Not a trace of what went left
More equal than the best
Unparalleled success
Everybody, V-impressed
With how long it took them to develop and release AoC, I guess they are going to be diverted on the expansion pack for a long time.
Well, now that they know how little time it takes for them to hype aspects of a game they can't actually put in, I imagine it won't take too long.