Age of Conan

When it comes to their developers that is.

I suppose to start, it's worth considering that Funcom has four different offices around the world: Oslo, Durham, Zurich and Beijing.
http://www.funcom.com/wsp/funcom/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&func_id=1005&table=PUBLISH&item=1005

Doesn't mean they're all autonomous and capable of development however. And as incorrect as it may be, I'm going to assume only their Oslo location develops meaningfully given it's the only one listed that's hiring something other than customer support and translators.

Anyway, assuming all or most of the meaningful development that goes on occurs in the one location of Oslo; just how fragmented are they over there?

Traditionally, we know MMOs have at least two teams; live and expansion.

So we have a team responsible for live updates; in AoC's case the weekly patches. No tellin' if they incorporate a separate team for free live updates the way Mythic used to with New Frontiers and Housing; which would be guys taking care of all the Alliances and other huge updates Funcom promised for Age of Conan in the future.

We know from Leipzeg now that Funcom's definitely working on an expansion; so that's at least one other team.

We know there's a Russian localization being worked on, and probably other localizations. This probably isn't mandating resources more than the Xbox 360 port we also know of; or the DX10 client being developed. 

Could we assume Anarchy Online still has a live update team and expansion team as well? I don't know much about what goes on with it, but I assume there's a team or two.

We also know of at least one other MMO in production; the Secret World. I doubt they're delegating an entirely new-hire team to that...and it's worth mentioning this is a cross-platform title as well.

My point? They're doing entirely too much, and it shows in the bugginess of the patches, and slow to arrive content.

It took Mythic years before they announced a new MMO project; Imperator and then Warhammer. This could be for any number of reasons, but the fact that the people who built Dark Age of Camelot, took care of it during the critical weeks, months and years post-launch I'm sure contributed to its success.

More impressively, Blizzard has gone on record to say The Burning Crusades came as late as it did because they kept their team working on the core game before going off and making an expansion.

Blizzard also did things such as delay and eventually cancel Starcraft: Ghosts. Again, could be entirely unrelated, but I'm sure it benefited World of Warcraft; if even there was one extra guy around to hand out drink coasters.

And of course it's only been years later now that we see a ton of new game development from Blizzard; but that first year or two of WoW, everything was all about WoW.

It just worries me that Funcom is doing so much when obviously their game isn't finished. It's difficult for them to earn sympathy over things like...their regret in not finishing Drunken Brawling, when they have so many other projects going on.

You could argue that it doesn't matter how many projects they have runnin', so long as they have the cash to hire new people to carry it out.

But, would you believe the development teams of each these separate projects consist entirely of new hires? I'm sure there's people from Age of Conan's pre-release team that were shifted around; which is opposite of what a responsible company like Blizzard did in making sure their developers stayed in one place; no matter the kajillion dollars they earned.

MMOs are prone to being buggy at release, thats understandable, but understanding that problem is essentially understanding that it's difficult for one man to finish and perfect his own work. The patches to me come off as amateurs trying to finish the work of others who began it; which is even worse. 

That said, I gave it until August to see if Funcoms patch quality would improve, and it really hasn't. It's just gotten worse and every week is unpredictable. 

I can't help but wonder if it's just coincidence that companies like Cryptic, Mythic and Blizzard really had nothing or little else going on during the first year of their most acclaimed MMOs' releases.

Very good post, OP.

Brad McQuaid and Sigil got caught up in the exact same problem.  Sure most everyone who was around the first six months of 2007 knows all about the drama that transpired, but it can't be forgotten that when Vanguard Saga of Heroes needed the entire team the most, the team was infighting and some were bored with Vanguard and IMHO, moved on to other projects like the comic book MMO Sigil was working on.

Funcom is creating the same exact problem with The Secret World.  They have several staff members that were assigned to AoC and then assigned to The Secret World as well.  People can say all they want to how people can work on different games at the same time.  However, I have to counter that if a person is restricted by cannon and lore or unrestricted with a new project, which would be more enticing to  work in?  Most creative people I know don't like restrictions.  Again, IMHO, I think the restrictions that the Conan lore put on the developers got them bored of their own project.

After all, back in November of last year when the crafting community asked about a crafting update, we were told that it is in game and has been mechanically functional for about a year.  We also all know how the crafting system turned out.  It shows just how bored and unimaginative they got.  It was all about combat and nothing else in the game really mattered.

The good part about AoC is the writers never got bored with the lore.  From beginning to end game, AoC has a great story behind it.

Very good points, and I believe the core of the problem at FunCom. Trying to do too much and not paying attention to a cardinal rule of every craftsman: When you do something, do it -right-.

Instead of devoting all their time to polishing and fixing AoC, they set off to develop an expansion already, another MMO as well. That's a strain on ressources and thins out the people throughout the company.

In essence, they're placing their priorities completely wrong. AoC should be their only concern right now. But it isn't and it shows.

Problem is that Funcom can't rely on AOC to fund any future projects now. So they can not justify keeping alot of ppl working on fixing it.   The only thing that can save the company now is new game.   FC need to cut the looses on AOC and hope someone missed that launch and still belives something of the PR that goes on in next game.

As for AOC is conserned.  Yes - it will be coninued news about content coming in "soon".  The fact of the matter is that there are no miracle patches in retail and it will take the game more than 2 years to fix the horrendus bugs and flaws in the core game design.  

So AOC subscribers that think the game will all of a sudden get extra smooth and with meaningfull core systems... Dream on for the next 2 years.  It just wont happen. 

Originally posted by Alan0n

The fact of the matter is that there are no miracle patches in retail and it will take the game more than 2 years to fix the horrendus bugs and flaws in the core game design.  

May I ask what horrendous bugs and flaws in the core game design ?

Good point, maybe some managers will learn how to do things right, when they release a highly anticipated MMO.

Originally posted by IKShadow

Originally posted by Alan0n

The fact of the matter is that there are no miracle patches in retail and it will take the game more than 2 years to fix the horrendus bugs and flaws in the core game design.  

 

May I ask what horrendous bugs and flaws in the core game design ?

quite simply: everything

- stats don't work

- game engine is more unstable than xenon

- can't have more than 30 players on screen without lag

- every game idea, both PVE and PVP, is broken

horrendous bugs and flaws doesn't begin to describe the utter failure of AOC

Originally posted by Arthousesig

Originally posted by IKShadow

Originally posted by Alan0n

The fact of the matter is that there are no miracle patches in retail and it will take the game more than 2 years to fix the horrendus bugs and flaws in the core game design.  

 

May I ask what horrendous bugs and flaws in the core game design ?

quite simply: everything

- stats don't work

- game engine is more unstable than xenon

- can't have more than 30 players on screen without lag

- every game idea, both PVE and PVP, is broken

horrendous bugs and flaws doesn't begin to describe the utter failure of AOC

- Stats does work. Are they balanced, no do they matter yes and its easily testable.
 

- Client have some stability issues but it really depends on PC and OS you are using.
( dont get me wrong even on perfect machine you will crash every 3 hours if you are zoning a lot )
 

- Well 25 frames here on siege 48 vs 48 and at one point iam sure i had more then 80 players on screen.
( -> i did disable particles and shadows )
 

- Whats broken PvE wise ? 99% existing quests are working.
( There are some quest gaps at certain levels so it requires some boring grind to get past that or do vilas repeatable quests to level up )
The only really borked PvE content is higher tier raiding where quite few bosses are completly buged.

- PvP .. gems are borked and some minor class unbalances .. lacking of PvP XP and levels makes it boring after while

Saying that core design is completly borked makes you  blind as fanboys are ... saying how everything is in perfect order.