But well, next time you are free to skip the whole post and save me from more of your STEAK DINNERS, thanks.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
-- Thomas Edison
I would change it to:
"I have not failed. I've just found 20,000 ways that won't work. Anyways.. you want fries with that?"
-- Gaute
----------------------------- Originally posted by Frobner "Massive sieges" "mounted combat" and "spellweaving" are just few words that spring to mind when I hear the word AOC.... But the word FAILURE will always top the list.
Ruslans: I did not say that you said it was a big success. I was speaking generally, I am sorry for not making this clearer, my mistake. I believe that people get biased by their experiences and I see no reason for believing devs more than ex-devs.
Very true, everyone is biased by one's own experience. But since quite a lot of things in the company have changed since the release date, and keep changing rapidly, I believe that experience of the people currently working there reflects the real situation better. It does not necessarily mean that ex-devs all lie, of course.
I base my opinions upon what seems to be the most logical explanations. If you think that I should not believe anything of what people say, then why should I believe what you are saying and if you really mean that why are you even saying anything? (I'm not trying to be rude here btw.)
True, I can not force you to adopt my point of view, neither I am trying to. There is a difference between expressing one's opinion/knowledge and imposing it.
I respect personal position of anyone here (including spamhaters, really). But also I believe that in the process of inferring the mentioned logical explanations human mind often tends to make convenient shortcuts which distort the reality. And that can be easily manipulated by the certain other people. Who in turn can go to extreme extents trying to shape the world according to their own beliefs.
So what I am trying to say is not "believe me, not him", but rather "believe everyone, but with the grain of salt".
People can be utterly wrong but at the same time wholeheartedly believe in their own words themselves. I am sure that Gaute, when telling this "wine vs McDonalds" thing, did not lie at all. That's the way he wanted it to be, and he believed it could be done...
Oh well... too much usage of the word "believe" in one post
While we are at this topic... I will let myself to use the word "believe" a bit more. There is a philosophical work, called "The Ethics of Belief". It starts with the passage:
A SHIPOWNER was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship. He knew that she was old, and not over-well built at the first; that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had needed repairs. Doubts had been suggested to him that possibly she was not seaworthy. These doubts preyed upon his mind and made him unhappy; he thought that perhaps he ought to have her thoroughly overhauled and refitted, even though this should put him to great expense. Before the ship sailed, however, he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections. He said to himself that she had gone safely through so many voyages and weathered so many storms that it was idle to suppose she would not come safely home from this trip also. He would put his trust in Providence, which could hardly fail to protect all these unhappy families that were leaving their fatherland to seek for better times elsewhere. He would dismiss from his mind all ungenerous suspicions about the honesty of builders and contractors. In such ways he acquired a sincere and comfortable conviction that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy; he watched her departure with a light heart, and benevolent wishes for the success of the exiles in their strange new home that was to be; and he got his insurance-money when she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales. What shall we say of him? Surely this, that he was verily guilty of the death of those men. It is admitted that he did sincerely believe in the soundness of his ship; but the sincerity of his conviction can in no wise help him, because he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him. He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts. And although in the end he may have felt so sure about it that he could not think otherwise, yet inasmuch as he had knowingly and willingly worked himself into that frame of mind, he must be held responsible for it. Let us alter the case a little, and suppose that the ship was not unsound after all; that she made her voyage safely, and many others after it. Will that diminish the guilt of her owner? Not one jot. When an action is once done, it is right or wrong for ever; no accidental failure of its good or evil fruits can possibly alter that. The man would not have been innocent, he would only have been not found out. The question of right or wrong has to do with the origin of his belief, not the matter of it; not what it was, but how he got it; not whether it turned out to be true or false, but whether he had a right to believe on such evidence as was before him.
... and ends with the conclusion:
To sum up: We may believe what goes beyond our experience, only when it is inferred from that experience by the assumption that what we do not know is like what we know. We may believe the statement of another person, when there is reasonable ground for supposing that he knows the matter of which he speaks, and that he is speaking the truth so far as he knows it. It is wrong in all cases to believe on insufficient evidence; and where it is presumption to doubt and to investigate, there it is worse than presumption to believe.
I think that it applies to surprisingly wide range of the human relationships scenarios. Starting with the game project management, and ending with the discussions on forums.
unfortunatly this kind of affair happens a lot in the games industry there was a major case against electronic arts a few years back. If i remember they used wartime legislation to effectivly work through weekends and holidays somthing like 6 to 7 day weeks to clear deadlines. Was an old law linked to the cold war and software development that noone had gotten rid of.
However its with the contracts that these people sign that they are so enthusiastic to be in the industry they sign anything put infront of them. And so they sign up for unpaid overtime and other lovies work till they burn and sacked due to contract breach.
There are also other laws which says that when they work for a company they arnt allowed to work for any other company for at least a year if they are sacked/leave to stop them from taking secrets to rivals ok they have to be paid but its normally much much less than what they were on.
Basically funcom and any company that burns out its employees through unfair sweatshop type policies and contacts should have the people at the top fined heavily NOT the company. because its people that put these practices into action not buildings. So fine the head honchos and problem might just disapear.
But i doubt it, its very much a dog eat dog world in the games industry.
Bollocks, the game is fine and is very far from being a failure. Speaking about overtime and stuff - Funcom did compensate for the overtime with an extra vacation days and bonuses, more or less fairly. People who have left the company around the release date did not get it, of course. It's a common practice in game development companies, though. Frankly, I am sick looking at all the speculations people pull out of their butts here.
The game might be "fine" now, but it certainly was not at start Ruslan.
And your statement about Funcome compensation - more or less fairly is a wide margin.
- the bonus was hour based with a cap. You needed a certain amount of overtime to qualify for it (so not everyone got one), there was 3 time-based brackets (most hours got highest bonus) and that bonus was capped at the top (which was not very high). For some people the bonus came out around 0.5 times (or less) of their normal hourly rate (as per their salary) - normaly regular overtime is paid at at least the same hourly rate, work for weekends and bank holidays covered at at least 1.5x the normal hourly rate and night work as well is higher. So Funcom's bonus system left some people who worked less than the minimum time a month to qualify (less than 30 hours of OT a month i think it was - but might be wrong) without any bonus, and on the other end of the spectrum it paid people a fraction of what they were due for the hours they put in. Besides that, a system like that will always favour hours worked over quality produced, because people are not held accountable for their work and it's only hours on paper that are looked at - the stats count, hence the emphasis of management to track tasks accurately (mentioned at least once a week).
- compensation time was maxed out at 5 weeks. Initially that used to be 4 weeks, but when a lot of people had reached that mark, and the release was pushed out another 3 months, that was increased to 5 weeks. I know of several people who had accumulated upwards of 8 to 10 weeks - and they only got 5 weeks in return. That is one of the reasons WHY the bonus system was introduced in the last 3 months before launch, to try and keep the people happy who had already reached maximum compensation, and to ensure they would continue to work overtime rather than go home after their normal hours (by making the bonus overtime based).
And you are wrong People who left at or around launch still got the compensation time. Either as holiday to shorten the 3 month notice period, or some even paid out i think. The only thing people forfeited by leaving at or around launch was any bonus paid out after, based on sales and subscriptions.
I hope i don't come across as bitching and whining. As i mentioned before i still enjoyed my time at Funcom and on the project, the only problems i had were with Management and Game Direction - i worked OT like the rest of the team and had no real problems with it, the problem i had was WHY we had to work overtime.
Funcom is a clear example of how some people who have no clue and should never work in the games industry (Gaute and Pal) manage to fuck up a team of 200 people, a game, a release schedule and exploit the staff of the company all in one go - i am really happy to see that Craig is in place now and things have turned around. Maybe it took 2 not so successfull MMOs (AO and AoC) for Funcom to realise that the right people in the right place make a difference.
I believe that experience of the people currently working there reflects the real situation better. It does not necessarily mean that ex-devs all lie, of course.
I am sure that Gaute, when telling this "wine vs McDonalds" thing, did not lie at all. That's the way he wanted it to be, and he believed it could be done...
I don't think that this discussion is or should only be about how things are at Funcom now at this moment. I'll use an extreme example to prove my point: If an unknown serial killer has murdered 100 people in the past, but has stopped his killing for the time being. Then we discover who the killer really is, should we then just forget about those people he killed and not hold him accountable for it because he is not killing any longer? This is ofcouse put on the edge, but the point is the same. They have weakened many peoples health, etc, and I do feel that the people responsible for mistreating their workers should be held accountable for their actions, or else things will get back to normal after a while.
I am sure that Gaute wanted to believe that "wine vs McDonals" thing aswell, but that was a rather misleading example. There's been many things the Funcom management have said and are still saying that are plain out lies. A couple examples: 1. Kjetil says there is not and have very rarely been worked any overtime at Funcom, because Funcom can not afford to pay it. (He can't say that Funcom employees are working overtime, since they do not follow Norwegian law and pay their workers accordingly.) Just call him yourself and check. 2. They knew DX10 would not be ready for launch and yet it's written on the box. (This is also not legal in most countries.) 3. Watch any video interview with Erling Ellingsen and I bet you get lots of new lies on the list for each interview.
And then you have this Xbox 360 thing that I saw CEO Trond Arne Aas was pimping on gamesindustry.biz... how will they manage to make AoC run with the Xbox' 512mb of shared memory? (Those megabytes are shared between the system RAM and video memory.) To make AoC run smooth with OK graphics I need 4gigs of system RAM alone and 512mb on my video card. To make AoC run OK with OK graphics I need 2 gigs of system RAM and 256mb on my video card, which is still waaaay too much for the Xbox to handle. I guess it is possible with texture streaming technologies IF you reduce the texture resolutions by A LOT aswell. ( I know that windows take up RAM resources aswell, but it's far from the 1,7gb or so they need to free up.) Now THIS is speculations though, and I am one of those who think anything is possible, but if I am to use my experience with Funcom as a company chances are BIG that this is just more HYPE andor LIES.
I believe that experience of the people currently working there reflects the real situation better. It does not necessarily mean that ex-devs all lie, of course.
I am sure that Gaute, when telling this "wine vs McDonalds" thing, did not lie at all. That's the way he wanted it to be, and he believed it could be done...
I don't think that this discussion is or should only be about how things are at Funcom now at this moment. I'll use an extreme example to prove my point: If an unknown serial killer has murdered 100 people in the past, but has stopped his killing for the time being. Then we discover who the killer really is, should we then just forget about those people he killed and not hold him accountable for it because he is not killing any longer? This is ofcouse put on the edge, but the point is the same. They have weakened many peoples health, etc, and I do feel that the people responsible for mistreating their workers should be held accountable for their actions, or else things will get back to normal after a while.
I am sure that Gaute wanted to believe that "wine vs McDonals" thing aswell, but that was a rather misleading example. There's been many things the Funcom management have said and are still saying that are plain out lies. A couple examples: 1. Kjetil says there is not and have very rarely been worked any overtime at Funcom, because Funcom can not afford to pay it. (He can't say that Funcom employees are working overtime, since they do not follow Norwegian law and pay their workers accordingly.) Just call him yourself and check. 2. They knew DX10 would not be ready for launch and yet it's written on the box. (This is also not legal in most countries.) 3. Watch any video interview with Erling Ellingsen and I bet you get lots of new lies on the list for each interview.
And then you have this Xbox 360 thing that I saw CEO Trond Arne Aas was pimping on gamesindustry.biz... how will they manage to make AoC run with the Xbox' 512mb of shared memory? (Those megabytes are shared between the system RAM and video memory.) To make AoC run smooth with OK graphics I need 4gigs of system RAM alone and 512mb on my video card. To make AoC run OK with OK graphics I need 2 gigs of system RAM and 256mb on my video card, which is still waaaay too much for the Xbox to handle. I guess it is possible with texture streaming technologies IF you reduce the texture resolutions by A LOT aswell. ( I know that windows take up RAM resources aswell, but it's far from the 1,7gb or so they need to free up.) Now THIS is speculations though, and I am one of those who think anything is possible, but if I am to use my experience with Funcom as a company chances are BIG that this is just more HYPE andor LIES.
Look dude, the guy with the Mohawk was not allowed to work on AoC, then he got angry, started the whine and FC called him into HR office. "Look Mr Mohawk, you are not a good programmer, you are neither producing very much artistic material, and all in all you seems not that happy anymore. Perhaps you should take the retirement package and do something that works etter for you". Now, tell me what is wrong about firing useless employees. Doing hightech development is not for everyone. It is crucial that FC get ridd of rotten apples like that Mohawk guy. And I think we all can see the performance increase in AoCs devteam after FC cleaned a few desks back in September.
I believe that experience of the people currently working there reflects the real situation better. It does not necessarily mean that ex-devs all lie, of course.
I am sure that Gaute, when telling this "wine vs McDonalds" thing, did not lie at all. That's the way he wanted it to be, and he believed it could be done...
I don't think that this discussion is or should only be about how things are at Funcom now at this moment. I'll use an extreme example to prove my point: If an unknown serial killer has murdered 100 people in the past, but has stopped his killing for the time being. Then we discover who the killer really is, should we then just forget about those people he killed and not hold him accountable for it because he is not killing any longer? This is ofcouse put on the edge, but the point is the same. They have weakened many peoples health, etc, and I do feel that the people responsible for mistreating their workers should be held accountable for their actions, or else things will get back to normal after a while.
I am sure that Gaute wanted to believe that "wine vs McDonals" thing aswell, but that was a rather misleading example. There's been many things the Funcom management have said and are still saying that are plain out lies. A couple examples: 1. Kjetil says there is not and have very rarely been worked any overtime at Funcom, because Funcom can not afford to pay it. (He can't say that Funcom employees are working overtime, since they do not follow Norwegian law and pay their workers accordingly.) Just call him yourself and check. 2. They knew DX10 would not be ready for launch and yet it's written on the box. (This is also not legal in most countries.) 3. Watch any video interview with Erling Ellingsen and I bet you get lots of new lies on the list for each interview.
And then you have this Xbox 360 thing that I saw CEO Trond Arne Aas was pimping on gamesindustry.biz... how will they manage to make AoC run with the Xbox' 512mb of shared memory? (Those megabytes are shared between the system RAM and video memory.) To make AoC run smooth with OK graphics I need 4gigs of system RAM alone and 512mb on my video card. To make AoC run OK with OK graphics I need 2 gigs of system RAM and 256mb on my video card, which is still waaaay too much for the Xbox to handle. I guess it is possible with texture streaming technologies IF you reduce the texture resolutions by A LOT aswell. ( I know that windows take up RAM resources aswell, but it's far from the 1,7gb or so they need to free up.) Now THIS is speculations though, and I am one of those who think anything is possible, but if I am to use my experience with Funcom as a company chances are BIG that this is just more HYPE andor LIES.
I am really sorry that you did not get my point at all. Must be my english.
Unfortunately, I don't feel to be good enough at rhethoric to go deep arguing with your, as you have admitted yourself, speculations (btw it's a pity, that you did not call them LIES in the same way as you call a similar things coming from others... that would sound refreshing at least).
Still, your experience with "Funcom as a company" must be not broad enough, otherwise you would know that "impossible" console port was already done there once with the game named Dreamfall, three years ago.
It was ported to Xbox (not 360), even though it seemed to be not very doable at first.
Different people, engine, game, time, platform... still the same company.
So, as long as you can only see the "company" , not people (and it seems to be the case), it must be a good argument.
I believe that experience of the people currently working there reflects the real situation better. It does not necessarily mean that ex-devs all lie, of course.
I am sure that Gaute, when telling this "wine vs McDonalds" thing, did not lie at all. That's the way he wanted it to be, and he believed it could be done...
I don't think that this discussion is or should only be about how things are at Funcom now at this moment. I'll use an extreme example to prove my point: If an unknown serial killer has murdered 100 people in the past, but has stopped his killing for the time being. Then we discover who the killer really is, should we then just forget about those people he killed and not hold him accountable for it because he is not killing any longer? This is ofcouse put on the edge, but the point is the same. They have weakened many peoples health, etc, and I do feel that the people responsible for mistreating their workers should be held accountable for their actions, or else things will get back to normal after a while.
I am sure that Gaute wanted to believe that "wine vs McDonals" thing aswell, but that was a rather misleading example. There's been many things the Funcom management have said and are still saying that are plain out lies. A couple examples: 1. Kjetil says there is not and have very rarely been worked any overtime at Funcom, because Funcom can not afford to pay it. (He can't say that Funcom employees are working overtime, since they do not follow Norwegian law and pay their workers accordingly.) Just call him yourself and check. 2. They knew DX10 would not be ready for launch and yet it's written on the box. (This is also not legal in most countries.) 3. Watch any video interview with Erling Ellingsen and I bet you get lots of new lies on the list for each interview.
And then you have this Xbox 360 thing that I saw CEO Trond Arne Aas was pimping on gamesindustry.biz... how will they manage to make AoC run with the Xbox' 512mb of shared memory? (Those megabytes are shared between the system RAM and video memory.) To make AoC run smooth with OK graphics I need 4gigs of system RAM alone and 512mb on my video card. To make AoC run OK with OK graphics I need 2 gigs of system RAM and 256mb on my video card, which is still waaaay too much for the Xbox to handle. I guess it is possible with texture streaming technologies IF you reduce the texture resolutions by A LOT aswell. ( I know that windows take up RAM resources aswell, but it's far from the 1,7gb or so they need to free up.) Now THIS is speculations though, and I am one of those who think anything is possible, but if I am to use my experience with Funcom as a company chances are BIG that this is just more HYPE andor LIES.
Look dude, the guy with the Mohawk was not allowed to work on AoC, then he got angry, started the whine and FC called him into HR office. "Look Mr Mohawk, you are not a good programmer, you are neither producing very much artistic material, and all in all you seems not that happy anymore. Perhaps you should take the retirement package and do something that works etter for you". Now, tell me what is wrong about firing useless employees. Doing hightech development is not for everyone. It is crucial that FC get ridd of rotten apples like that Mohawk guy. And I think we all can see the performance increase in AoCs devteam after FC cleaned a few desks back in September.
Please, stop telling the crap about the person you don't know.
I am really sorry that you did not get my point at all. Must be my english. Unfortunately, I don't feel to be good enough at rhethoric to go deep arguing with your, as you have admitted yourself, speculations (btw it's a pity, that you did not call them LIES in the same way as you call a similar things coming from others... that would sound refreshing at least). Still, your experience with "Funcom as a company" must be not broad enough, otherwise you would know that "impossible" console port was already done there once with the game named Dreamfall, three years ago. It was ported to Xbox (not 360), even though it seemed to be not very doable at first. Different people, engine, game, time, platform... still the same company. So, as long as you can only see the "company" , not people (and it seems to be the case), it must be a good argument.
I believe I did get your point. I also do not want to argue with you, only discuss, because I want to understand how you are thinking. I find discussing with you interesting as you seem like a rather intelligent person, but with quite different views as myself.
I believe there is a big difference between speculations and lies. So calling me a lier since I am speculating would be totally wrong. Those examples I gave you is not about showing that Funcom are speculating, it's about them saying stuff they know is false.
I did not say porting AoC to Xbox 360 would be impossible. I'm just saying that it sounds like Funcom is hyping something that they probably won't manage to do, just like so many other things they've hyped before. When I speculate that Funcom probably are just doing more of the same old marketing tricks I base that on what the history has shown us. I'm simply saying that people should take what Funcom say with a grain of salt, which kind of proves you are correct also as you said this in one of your earlier comments.
I believe that experience of the people currently working there reflects the real situation better. It does not necessarily mean that ex-devs all lie, of course.
I am sure that Gaute, when telling this "wine vs McDonalds" thing, did not lie at all. That's the way he wanted it to be, and he believed it could be done...
I don't think that this discussion is or should only be about how things are at Funcom now at this moment. I'll use an extreme example to prove my point: If an unknown serial killer has murdered 100 people in the past, but has stopped his killing for the time being. Then we discover who the killer really is, should we then just forget about those people he killed and not hold him accountable for it because he is not killing any longer? This is ofcouse put on the edge, but the point is the same. They have weakened many peoples health, etc, and I do feel that the people responsible for mistreating their workers should be held accountable for their actions, or else things will get back to normal after a while.
I am sure that Gaute wanted to believe that "wine vs McDonals" thing aswell, but that was a rather misleading example. There's been many things the Funcom management have said and are still saying that are plain out lies. A couple examples: 1. Kjetil says there is not and have very rarely been worked any overtime at Funcom, because Funcom can not afford to pay it. (He can't say that Funcom employees are working overtime, since they do not follow Norwegian law and pay their workers accordingly.) Just call him yourself and check. 2. They knew DX10 would not be ready for launch and yet it's written on the box. (This is also not legal in most countries.) 3. Watch any video interview with Erling Ellingsen and I bet you get lots of new lies on the list for each interview.
And then you have this Xbox 360 thing that I saw CEO Trond Arne Aas was pimping on gamesindustry.biz... how will they manage to make AoC run with the Xbox' 512mb of shared memory? (Those megabytes are shared between the system RAM and video memory.) To make AoC run smooth with OK graphics I need 4gigs of system RAM alone and 512mb on my video card. To make AoC run OK with OK graphics I need 2 gigs of system RAM and 256mb on my video card, which is still waaaay too much for the Xbox to handle. I guess it is possible with texture streaming technologies IF you reduce the texture resolutions by A LOT aswell. ( I know that windows take up RAM resources aswell, but it's far from the 1,7gb or so they need to free up.) Now THIS is speculations though, and I am one of those who think anything is possible, but if I am to use my experience with Funcom as a company chances are BIG that this is just more HYPE andor LIES.
Look dude, the guy with the Mohawk was not allowed to work on AoC, then he got angry, started the whine and FC called him into HR office. "Look Mr Mohawk, you are not a good programmer, you are neither producing very much artistic material, and all in all you seems not that happy anymore. Perhaps you should take the retirement package and do something that works etter for you". Now, tell me what is wrong about firing useless employees. Doing hightech development is not for everyone. It is crucial that FC get ridd of rotten apples like that Mohawk guy. And I think we all can see the performance increase in AoCs devteam after FC cleaned a few desks back in September.
Please, stop telling the crap about the person you don't know.
You are right I don't know hims as probably you also don't. What I do know though is all those "facts" posted about this in a public forums over the last week. I have read all on this and what I gathered was that the guy had performance issues, grew into the role of the "pain in the butt employee" and finally FC sacked him. And another thing, I was allowed to produce my own opinions on this case the moment the guy himself brought his employment issues out in public. I am not badmouthing anyone here, I just simply discuss a public pice of information. I belive the guy was sacked due to performance issues!
Look dude, the guy with the Mohawk was not allowed to work on AoC, then he got angry, started the whine and FC called him into HR office. "Look Mr Mohawk, you are not a good programmer, you are neither producing very much artistic material, and all in all you seems not that happy anymore. Perhaps you should take the retirement package and do something that works etter for you". Now, tell me what is wrong about firing useless employees. Doing hightech development is not for everyone. It is crucial that FC get ridd of rotten apples like that Mohawk guy. And I think we all can see the performance increase in AoCs devteam after FC cleaned a few desks back in September.
Why do you hold such a personal grudge against this "Mohawk" guy? Why are you constantly going after him, but none of the other devs or ex-devs that say exactly the same stuff as him?
I am sorry on your behalf and you have my condolences. I really hope you are not and will not become anyone elses boss in the future. If anything is useless it is guys like you doing comments like this.
Look dude, the guy with the Mohawk was not allowed to work on AoC, then he got angry, started the whine and FC called him into HR office. "Look Mr Mohawk, you are not a good programmer, you are neither producing very much artistic material, and all in all you seems not that happy anymore. Perhaps you should take the retirement package and do something that works etter for you". Now, tell me what is wrong about firing useless employees. Doing hightech development is not for everyone. It is crucial that FC get ridd of rotten apples like that Mohawk guy. And I think we all can see the performance increase in AoCs devteam after FC cleaned a few desks back in September.
Why do you hold such a personal grudge against this "Mohawk" guy? Why are you constantly going after him, but none of the other devs or ex-devs that say exactly the same stuff as him?
I am sorry on your behalf and you have my condolences. I really hope you are not and will not become anyone elses boss in the future. If anything is useless it is guys like you doing comments like this.
lol. I am somebodys boss. lol. And guess what I have a fantastic talented team. The real question however is, have I ever had to deal with useless people that never seem to get their stuff done regardless of how long and much they work? YES. How do managers deal with that, well, at end of every quarter we do performance appraisal and when a guy had enough C and D's we kind of ask him, "hey whats the problem dude. We like you and all but hell this is development business man, you have to produce". All I'm just saying is, it's very easy to take the sympatetic role since most of us are all workers and have had experiences related to a crappy boss. Do however, not forget to also try and look at it from the other side. FC does after all try to make a DX10 game with effects that most other developer have not even been able to touch yet. It can't be easy for them to handle too many subperformant people.
lol. I am somebodys boss. lol. And guess what I have a fantastic talented team. The real question however is, have I ever had to deal with useless people that never seem to get their stuff done regardless of how long and much they work? YES. How do managers deal with that, well, at end of every quarter we do performance appraisal and when a guy had enough C and D's we kind of ask him, "hey whats the problem dude. We like you and all but hell this is development business man, you have to produce". All I'm just saying is, it's very easy to take the sympatetic role since most of us are all workers and have had experiences related to a crappy boss. Do however, not forget to also try and look at it from the other side. FC does after all try to make a DX10 game with effects that most other developer have not even been able to touch yet. It can't be easy for them to handle too many subperformant people.
No, the real question is not if you ever had to deal with useless people. Nothing that you or I have read about this so far implies that the "Mohawk" guy is useless, far from it.
You argue as if all that matters is creating a game that has great effects, but creating a product is far more than this. If you are not able to create "great effects" without taking proper care of your workers then "great effects" mean nothing.
I am allways trying to look at an issue from both sidesall angles and looking at Funcom from their side does not make their lying and law breaking any better in this case. There simply are no excuses for taking advantage of people (Workers & customers). If you still do not think Funcom has done anything wrong and should not take responsebility for it, well, then you are very blind and ignorant in my opinion.
lol. I am somebodys boss. lol. And guess what I have a fantastic talented team. The real question however is, have I ever had to deal with useless people that never seem to get their stuff done regardless of how long and much they work? YES. How do managers deal with that, well, at end of every quarter we do performance appraisal and when a guy had enough C and D's we kind of ask him, "hey whats the problem dude. We like you and all but hell this is development business man, you have to produce". All I'm just saying is, it's very easy to take the sympatetic role since most of us are all workers and have had experiences related to a crappy boss. Do however, not forget to also try and look at it from the other side. FC does after all try to make a DX10 game with effects that most other developer have not even been able to touch yet. It can't be easy for them to handle too many subperformant people.
No, the real question is not if you ever had to deal with useless people. Nothing that you or I have read about this so far implies that the "Mohawk" guy is useless, far from it.
You argue as if all that matters is creating a game that has great effects, but creating a product is far more than this. If you are not able to create "great effects" without taking proper care of your workers then "great effects" mean nothing.
I am allways trying to look at an issue from both sidesall angles and looking at Funcom from their side does not make their lying and law breaking any better in this case. There simply are no excuses for taking advantage of people (Workers & customers). If you still do not think Funcom has done anything wrong and should not take responsebility for it, well, then you are very blind and ignorant in my opinion.
Nothing implies that the guy was useless. Seriously... When a guy is pulled out of every project he touched and given less and less responsibility, do you think thats because he was an extreme performer, or do you perhaps think it's part of FC's evil masterplan of making every man and/or efficient worker of their team unhappy. lol ..I think we both know that there are several points to raise from your perspective as well as from mine. I think the guy was not a very good performer.
I wount even debate your second point as it is totally idiotic. You start by telling how FC should make games and why they should not try to go for hightech, then you jump to the conclusion that FC take advantage of people. What the hell happened to looking at things from both sides. You can't just pull such an conclusion out of your hat and still expect people to take you seriously. If you looked at things from both sides you would also have to aske yourself, what happens when a devteam consisting of several development clusters and each cluster again depending on every person in that cluster finishing their stuff on time. Well the answer is simple, either everybody gets their stuff done on time or the whole team grinds to a hault. You see if one guy consistently fail in the very fine symbiosis of a devteam, it gets quickly very clear that someone must be changed and/or moved to other projects of lower profile.
Finally, you want to see things from both sides, yet again your entire post demonstrates that you don't. Seeing things fropm both side is not to advocate the MohawkMans case. Seeing things from both sides is as the english kind of indicate, "Seeing both sides of a matter as in trying to see the problems from the perspective of BOTH parties in the dispute".
Finally, I call the guy Mohawk guy because I don't remember/know the name of the guy in that news article. He had a rather special Mohawk haircut though. I figuered it was ok to call him MohawkMan as we this way could somewhat protect his name and at the same time talk about his now public case. It's not like Mohawk is deregotary in any way, come on he has the damn thing on his head. If he had a problem with it in the first place I doubt he would get such a haircut. Anyways, BOTH sides means not to read cheap interview in a news paper word by word and the jump to the conclusion "Ohh big bad corporate monster, what did you do". For christ sake, developing cutting edge software is not something everybody can do. The only problem is most people have a hard time admitting that they "don't have it". Well here is the thing, the guys cranking out that monthly payslip is in charge of handing over that message. And when it happens, it is seldom a pretty sight. You are merely discussing the crashscene without knowing anything of all the drama behind this. BOTH sides!
I believe that experience of the people currently working there reflects the real situation better. It does not necessarily mean that ex-devs all lie, of course.
I am sure that Gaute, when telling this "wine vs McDonalds" thing, did not lie at all. That's the way he wanted it to be, and he believed it could be done...
I don't think that this discussion is or should only be about how things are at Funcom now at this moment. I'll use an extreme example to prove my point: If an unknown serial killer has murdered 100 people in the past, but has stopped his killing for the time being. Then we discover who the killer really is, should we then just forget about those people he killed and not hold him accountable for it because he is not killing any longer? This is ofcouse put on the edge, but the point is the same. They have weakened many peoples health, etc, and I do feel that the people responsible for mistreating their workers should be held accountable for their actions, or else things will get back to normal after a while.
I am sure that Gaute wanted to believe that "wine vs McDonals" thing aswell, but that was a rather misleading example. There's been many things the Funcom management have said and are still saying that are plain out lies. A couple examples: 1. Kjetil says there is not and have very rarely been worked any overtime at Funcom, because Funcom can not afford to pay it. (He can't say that Funcom employees are working overtime, since they do not follow Norwegian law and pay their workers accordingly.) Just call him yourself and check. 2. They knew DX10 would not be ready for launch and yet it's written on the box. (This is also not legal in most countries.) 3. Watch any video interview with Erling Ellingsen and I bet you get lots of new lies on the list for each interview.
And then you have this Xbox 360 thing that I saw CEO Trond Arne Aas was pimping on gamesindustry.biz... how will they manage to make AoC run with the Xbox' 512mb of shared memory? (Those megabytes are shared between the system RAM and video memory.) To make AoC run smooth with OK graphics I need 4gigs of system RAM alone and 512mb on my video card. To make AoC run OK with OK graphics I need 2 gigs of system RAM and 256mb on my video card, which is still waaaay too much for the Xbox to handle. I guess it is possible with texture streaming technologies IF you reduce the texture resolutions by A LOT aswell. ( I know that windows take up RAM resources aswell, but it's far from the 1,7gb or so they need to free up.) Now THIS is speculations though, and I am one of those who think anything is possible, but if I am to use my experience with Funcom as a company chances are BIG that this is just more HYPE andor LIES.
Look dude, the guy with the Mohawk was not allowed to work on AoC, then he got angry, started the whine and FC called him into HR office. "Look Mr Mohawk, you are not a good programmer, you are neither producing very much artistic material, and all in all you seems not that happy anymore. Perhaps you should take the retirement package and do something that works etter for you". Now, tell me what is wrong about firing useless employees. Doing hightech development is not for everyone. It is crucial that FC get ridd of rotten apples like that Mohawk guy. And I think we all can see the performance increase in AoCs devteam after FC cleaned a few desks back in September.
Please, stop telling the crap about the person you don't know.
You are right I don't know hims as probably you also don't. What I do know though is all those "facts" posted about this in a public forums over the last week. I have read all on this and what I gathered was that the guy had performance issues, grew into the role of the "pain in the butt employee" and finally FC sacked him. And another thing, I was allowed to produce my own opinions on this case the moment the guy himself brought his employment issues out in public. I am not badmouthing anyone here, I just simply discuss a public pice of information. I belive the guy was sacked due to performance issues!
Unless you can prove this, he has a good case of Liable on ya there Cobra. You cant make claims such as these with out support and in some countries you can not ever make claims like this. Furthermore if you are attached to the company and making these claims, you are leaving them open to litigation... Enjoy your viral marketing.
Some people are like slinkies, they dont really have a purpose, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.
Unless you can prove this, he has a good case of Liable on ya there Cobra. You cant make claims such as these with out support and in some countries you can not ever make claims like this. Furthermore if you are attached to the company and making these claims, you are leaving them open to litigation... Enjoy your viral marketing.
Nothing implies that the guy was useless. Seriously... When a guy is pulled out of every project he touched and given less and less responsibility, do you think thats because he was an extreme performer, or do you perhaps think it's part of FC's evil masterplan of making every man and/or efficient worker of their team unhappy. lol ..I think we both know that there are several points to raise from your perspective as well as from mine. I think the guy was not a very good performer. I wount even debate your second point as it is totally idiotic. You start by telling how FC should make games and why they should not try to go for hightech, then you jump to the conclusion that FC take advantage of people. What the hell happened to looking at things from both sides. You can't just pull such an conclusion out of your hat and still expect people to take you seriously. If you looked at things from both sides you would also have to aske yourself, what happens when a devteam consisting of several development clusters and each cluster again depending on every person in that cluster finishing their stuff on time. Well the answer is simple, either everybody gets their stuff done on time or the whole team grinds to a hault. You see if one guy consistently fail in the very fine symbiosis of a devteam, it gets quickly very clear that someone must be changed and/or moved to other projects of lower profile. Finally, you want to see things from both sides, yet again your entire post demonstrates that you don't. Seeing things fropm both side is not to advocate the MohawkMans case. Seeing things from both sides is as the english kind of indicate, "Seeing both sides of a matter as in trying to see the problems from the perspective of BOTH parties in the dispute". Finally, I call the guy Mohawk guy because I don't remember/know the name of the guy in that news article. He had a rather special Mohawk haircut though. I figuered it was ok to call him MohawkMan as we this way could somewhat protect his name and at the same time talk about his now public case. It's not like Mohawk is deregotary in any way, come on he has the damn thing on his head. If he had a problem with it in the first place I doubt he would get such a haircut. Anyways, BOTH sides means not to read cheap interview in a news paper word by word and the jump to the conclusion "Ohh big bad corporate monster, what did you do". For christ sake, developing cutting edge software is not something everybody can do. The only problem is most people have a hard time admitting that they "don't have it". Well here is the thing, the guys cranking out that monthly payslip is in charge of handing over that message. And when it happens, it is seldom a pretty sight. You are merely discussing the crashscene without knowing anything of all the drama behind this. BOTH sides!
Now you are really something... your mother must be very proud.
Stop tweaking my words and stop dodging my arguments. The only one you fool is yourself.
You know nothing about why he switched from AoC to AO, there could be many many reasons for it. Do you really believe they put all the less talented people on AO? Hillarious.. One of his last responsibilities was to upgrade the AO render engine on his own, is that very little responsibility?
And what about all the other devs and ex-devs that confirm the "mohawk guy", are they all disgrunteled & useless people? Are they all made up? Are my IRL friends from Funcom making this up to trick me aswell? And BTW I never said it was wrong to call him the "mohawk guy".
Did I ever say Funcom should not go for hightech? I said they can do anything they want as long as they do not take advantage of people. What I also said was that I think it is more likely that Funcom is using this Xbox 360 AoC version for hyping the game more to get the stock value up, than them actually releasing AoC on Xbox 360. I base these thoughts on what history has shown us about Funcom, that they are more about hype than actually delivering. And if they deliver, it's usually far over due. Ofcourse I could be wrong and I hope so on behalf of Funcoms workers.
Cheap interview? The guy has a whole union behind him and "Arbeidstilsynet" seems to believe him. That's a bit beyond a cheap interview. To get a union behind you in Norway, you have to provide them proof that back up your claims.
When I hear about cases like these I always try to put myself in the shoes of both sides. I try to understand why things got like they did, but in this case the evidence speaks for itself. So looking at it from Funcom's side in this case does not make it any better. I've found nothing that would suggest that the Funcom management has only done the right things or anything close to that. So it is like Orzo pointed out, who you believe should be a question about liability and not what you want the truth to be. The latter obviously fit you well.
Comments
When I read a comment like this, I usually skip the rest of the post.
ANYONE who says Age of Conan launch was something else than a TOTAL FAILURE is out of his or her mind. Lets look at the facts shall we.
- 90% of players QUIT
- Funcom stock went DOWN 95%
- Game Director was FIRED
- There are more Funcom HATERS than any other MMO in history
Yea.. very far from being a failure..
www.quotedb.com/quotes/1351
But well, next time you are free to skip the whole post and save me from more of your STEAK DINNERS, thanks.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
-- Thomas Edison
I would change it to:
"I have not failed. I've just found 20,000 ways that won't work. Anyways.. you want fries with that?"
-- Gaute
-----------------------------
Originally posted by Frobner
"Massive sieges" "mounted combat" and "spellweaving" are just few words that spring to mind when I hear the word AOC.... But the word FAILURE will always top the list.
Very true, everyone is biased by one's own experience. But since quite a lot of things in the company have changed since the release date, and keep changing rapidly, I believe that experience of the people currently working there reflects the real situation better.
It does not necessarily mean that ex-devs all lie, of course.
True, I can not force you to adopt my point of view, neither I am trying to.
There is a difference between expressing one's opinion/knowledge and imposing it.
I respect personal position of anyone here (including spamhaters, really). But also I believe that in the process of inferring the mentioned logical explanations human mind often tends to make convenient shortcuts which distort the reality.
And that can be easily manipulated by the certain other people. Who in turn can go to extreme extents trying to shape the world according to their own beliefs.
So what I am trying to say is not "believe me, not him", but rather "believe everyone, but with the grain of salt".
People can be utterly wrong but at the same time wholeheartedly believe in their own words themselves.
I am sure that Gaute, when telling this "wine vs McDonalds" thing, did not lie at all. That's the way he wanted it to be, and he believed it could be done...
Oh well... too much usage of the word "believe" in one post
While we are at this topic... I will let myself to use the word "believe" a bit more.
... and ends with the conclusion: I think that it applies to surprisingly wide range of the human relationships scenarios. Starting with the game project management, and ending with the discussions on forums.There is a philosophical work, called "The Ethics of Belief".
It starts with the passage:
unfortunatly this kind of affair happens a lot in the games industry there was a major case against electronic arts a few years back. If i remember they used wartime legislation to effectivly work through weekends and holidays somthing like 6 to 7 day weeks to clear deadlines. Was an old law linked to the cold war and software development that noone had gotten rid of.
However its with the contracts that these people sign that they are so enthusiastic to be in the industry they sign anything put infront of them. And so they sign up for unpaid overtime and other lovies work till they burn and sacked due to contract breach.
There are also other laws which says that when they work for a company they arnt allowed to work for any other company for at least a year if they are sacked/leave to stop them from taking secrets to rivals ok they have to be paid but its normally much much less than what they were on.
Basically funcom and any company that burns out its employees through unfair sweatshop type policies and contacts should have the people at the top fined heavily NOT the company. because its people that put these practices into action not buildings. So fine the head honchos and problem might just disapear.
But i doubt it, its very much a dog eat dog world in the games industry.
The game might be "fine" now, but it certainly was not at start Ruslan.
And your statement about Funcome compensation - more or less fairly is a wide margin.
- the bonus was hour based with a cap. You needed a certain amount of overtime to qualify for it (so not everyone got one), there was 3 time-based brackets (most hours got highest bonus) and that bonus was capped at the top (which was not very high). For some people the bonus came out around 0.5 times (or less) of their normal hourly rate (as per their salary) - normaly regular overtime is paid at at least the same hourly rate, work for weekends and bank holidays covered at at least 1.5x the normal hourly rate and night work as well is higher. So Funcom's bonus system left some people who worked less than the minimum time a month to qualify (less than 30 hours of OT a month i think it was - but might be wrong) without any bonus, and on the other end of the spectrum it paid people a fraction of what they were due for the hours they put in. Besides that, a system like that will always favour hours worked over quality produced, because people are not held accountable for their work and it's only hours on paper that are looked at - the stats count, hence the emphasis of management to track tasks accurately (mentioned at least once a week).
- compensation time was maxed out at 5 weeks. Initially that used to be 4 weeks, but when a lot of people had reached that mark, and the release was pushed out another 3 months, that was increased to 5 weeks. I know of several people who had accumulated upwards of 8 to 10 weeks - and they only got 5 weeks in return. That is one of the reasons WHY the bonus system was introduced in the last 3 months before launch, to try and keep the people happy who had already reached maximum compensation, and to ensure they would continue to work overtime rather than go home after their normal hours (by making the bonus overtime based).
And you are wrong
People who left at or around launch still got the compensation time. Either as holiday to shorten the 3 month notice period, or some even paid out i think. The only thing people forfeited by leaving at or around launch was any bonus paid out after, based on sales and subscriptions.
I hope i don't come across as bitching and whining. As i mentioned before i still enjoyed my time at Funcom and on the project, the only problems i had were with Management and Game Direction - i worked OT like the rest of the team and had no real problems with it, the problem i had was WHY we had to work overtime.
Funcom is a clear example of how some people who have no clue and should never work in the games industry (Gaute and Pal) manage to fuck up a team of 200 people, a game, a release schedule and exploit the staff of the company all in one go - i am really happy to see that Craig is in place now and things have turned around. Maybe it took 2 not so successfull MMOs (AO and AoC) for Funcom to realise that the right people in the right place make a difference.
I don't think that this discussion is or should only be about how things are at Funcom now at this moment. I'll use an extreme example to prove my point: If an unknown serial killer has murdered 100 people in the past, but has stopped his killing for the time being. Then we discover who the killer really is, should we then just forget about those people he killed and not hold him accountable for it because he is not killing any longer? This is ofcouse put on the edge, but the point is the same. They have weakened many peoples health, etc, and I do feel that the people responsible for mistreating their workers should be held accountable for their actions, or else things will get back to normal after a while.
I am sure that Gaute wanted to believe that "wine vs McDonals" thing aswell, but that was a rather misleading example. There's been many things the Funcom management have said and are still saying that are plain out lies. A couple examples: 1. Kjetil says there is not and have very rarely been worked any overtime at Funcom, because Funcom can not afford to pay it. (He can't say that Funcom employees are working overtime, since they do not follow Norwegian law and pay their workers accordingly.) Just call him yourself and check. 2. They knew DX10 would not be ready for launch and yet it's written on the box. (This is also not legal in most countries.) 3. Watch any video interview with Erling Ellingsen and I bet you get lots of new lies on the list for each interview.
And then you have this Xbox 360 thing that I saw CEO Trond Arne Aas was pimping on gamesindustry.biz... how will they manage to make AoC run with the Xbox' 512mb of shared memory? (Those megabytes are shared between the system RAM and video memory.) To make AoC run smooth with OK graphics I need 4gigs of system RAM alone and 512mb on my video card. To make AoC run OK with OK graphics I need 2 gigs of system RAM and 256mb on my video card, which is still waaaay too much for the Xbox to handle. I guess it is possible with texture streaming technologies IF you reduce the texture resolutions by A LOT aswell. ( I know that windows take up RAM resources aswell, but it's far from the 1,7gb or so they need to free up.) Now THIS is speculations though, and I am one of those who think anything is possible, but if I am to use my experience with Funcom as a company chances are BIG that this is just more HYPE andor LIES.
I don't think that this discussion is or should only be about how things are at Funcom now at this moment. I'll use an extreme example to prove my point: If an unknown serial killer has murdered 100 people in the past, but has stopped his killing for the time being. Then we discover who the killer really is, should we then just forget about those people he killed and not hold him accountable for it because he is not killing any longer? This is ofcouse put on the edge, but the point is the same. They have weakened many peoples health, etc, and I do feel that the people responsible for mistreating their workers should be held accountable for their actions, or else things will get back to normal after a while.
I am sure that Gaute wanted to believe that "wine vs McDonals" thing aswell, but that was a rather misleading example. There's been many things the Funcom management have said and are still saying that are plain out lies. A couple examples: 1. Kjetil says there is not and have very rarely been worked any overtime at Funcom, because Funcom can not afford to pay it. (He can't say that Funcom employees are working overtime, since they do not follow Norwegian law and pay their workers accordingly.) Just call him yourself and check. 2. They knew DX10 would not be ready for launch and yet it's written on the box. (This is also not legal in most countries.) 3. Watch any video interview with Erling Ellingsen and I bet you get lots of new lies on the list for each interview.
And then you have this Xbox 360 thing that I saw CEO Trond Arne Aas was pimping on gamesindustry.biz... how will they manage to make AoC run with the Xbox' 512mb of shared memory? (Those megabytes are shared between the system RAM and video memory.) To make AoC run smooth with OK graphics I need 4gigs of system RAM alone and 512mb on my video card. To make AoC run OK with OK graphics I need 2 gigs of system RAM and 256mb on my video card, which is still waaaay too much for the Xbox to handle. I guess it is possible with texture streaming technologies IF you reduce the texture resolutions by A LOT aswell. ( I know that windows take up RAM resources aswell, but it's far from the 1,7gb or so they need to free up.) Now THIS is speculations though, and I am one of those who think anything is possible, but if I am to use my experience with Funcom as a company chances are BIG that this is just more HYPE andor LIES.
Look dude, the guy with the Mohawk was not allowed to work on AoC, then he got angry, started the whine and FC called him into HR office. "Look Mr Mohawk, you are not a good programmer, you are neither producing very much artistic material, and all in all you seems not that happy anymore. Perhaps you should take the retirement package and do something that works etter for you". Now, tell me what is wrong about firing useless employees. Doing hightech development is not for everyone. It is crucial that FC get ridd of rotten apples like that Mohawk guy. And I think we all can see the performance increase in AoCs devteam after FC cleaned a few desks back in September.
I don't think that this discussion is or should only be about how things are at Funcom now at this moment. I'll use an extreme example to prove my point: If an unknown serial killer has murdered 100 people in the past, but has stopped his killing for the time being. Then we discover who the killer really is, should we then just forget about those people he killed and not hold him accountable for it because he is not killing any longer? This is ofcouse put on the edge, but the point is the same. They have weakened many peoples health, etc, and I do feel that the people responsible for mistreating their workers should be held accountable for their actions, or else things will get back to normal after a while.
I am sure that Gaute wanted to believe that "wine vs McDonals" thing aswell, but that was a rather misleading example. There's been many things the Funcom management have said and are still saying that are plain out lies. A couple examples: 1. Kjetil says there is not and have very rarely been worked any overtime at Funcom, because Funcom can not afford to pay it. (He can't say that Funcom employees are working overtime, since they do not follow Norwegian law and pay their workers accordingly.) Just call him yourself and check. 2. They knew DX10 would not be ready for launch and yet it's written on the box. (This is also not legal in most countries.) 3. Watch any video interview with Erling Ellingsen and I bet you get lots of new lies on the list for each interview.
And then you have this Xbox 360 thing that I saw CEO Trond Arne Aas was pimping on gamesindustry.biz... how will they manage to make AoC run with the Xbox' 512mb of shared memory? (Those megabytes are shared between the system RAM and video memory.) To make AoC run smooth with OK graphics I need 4gigs of system RAM alone and 512mb on my video card. To make AoC run OK with OK graphics I need 2 gigs of system RAM and 256mb on my video card, which is still waaaay too much for the Xbox to handle. I guess it is possible with texture streaming technologies IF you reduce the texture resolutions by A LOT aswell. ( I know that windows take up RAM resources aswell, but it's far from the 1,7gb or so they need to free up.) Now THIS is speculations though, and I am one of those who think anything is possible, but if I am to use my experience with Funcom as a company chances are BIG that this is just more HYPE andor LIES.
I am really sorry that you did not get my point at all. Must be my english.
Unfortunately, I don't feel to be good enough at rhethoric to go deep arguing with your, as you have admitted yourself, speculations (btw it's a pity, that you did not call them LIES in the same way as you call a similar things coming from others... that would sound refreshing at least).
Still, your experience with "Funcom as a company" must be not broad enough, otherwise you would know that "impossible" console port was already done there once with the game named Dreamfall, three years ago.
It was ported to Xbox (not 360), even though it seemed to be not very doable at first.
Different people, engine, game, time, platform... still the same company.
So, as long as you can only see the "company" , not people (and it seems to be the case), it must be a good argument.
I don't think that this discussion is or should only be about how things are at Funcom now at this moment. I'll use an extreme example to prove my point: If an unknown serial killer has murdered 100 people in the past, but has stopped his killing for the time being. Then we discover who the killer really is, should we then just forget about those people he killed and not hold him accountable for it because he is not killing any longer? This is ofcouse put on the edge, but the point is the same. They have weakened many peoples health, etc, and I do feel that the people responsible for mistreating their workers should be held accountable for their actions, or else things will get back to normal after a while.
I am sure that Gaute wanted to believe that "wine vs McDonals" thing aswell, but that was a rather misleading example. There's been many things the Funcom management have said and are still saying that are plain out lies. A couple examples: 1. Kjetil says there is not and have very rarely been worked any overtime at Funcom, because Funcom can not afford to pay it. (He can't say that Funcom employees are working overtime, since they do not follow Norwegian law and pay their workers accordingly.) Just call him yourself and check. 2. They knew DX10 would not be ready for launch and yet it's written on the box. (This is also not legal in most countries.) 3. Watch any video interview with Erling Ellingsen and I bet you get lots of new lies on the list for each interview.
And then you have this Xbox 360 thing that I saw CEO Trond Arne Aas was pimping on gamesindustry.biz... how will they manage to make AoC run with the Xbox' 512mb of shared memory? (Those megabytes are shared between the system RAM and video memory.) To make AoC run smooth with OK graphics I need 4gigs of system RAM alone and 512mb on my video card. To make AoC run OK with OK graphics I need 2 gigs of system RAM and 256mb on my video card, which is still waaaay too much for the Xbox to handle. I guess it is possible with texture streaming technologies IF you reduce the texture resolutions by A LOT aswell. ( I know that windows take up RAM resources aswell, but it's far from the 1,7gb or so they need to free up.) Now THIS is speculations though, and I am one of those who think anything is possible, but if I am to use my experience with Funcom as a company chances are BIG that this is just more HYPE andor LIES.
Look dude, the guy with the Mohawk was not allowed to work on AoC, then he got angry, started the whine and FC called him into HR office. "Look Mr Mohawk, you are not a good programmer, you are neither producing very much artistic material, and all in all you seems not that happy anymore. Perhaps you should take the retirement package and do something that works etter for you". Now, tell me what is wrong about firing useless employees. Doing hightech development is not for everyone. It is crucial that FC get ridd of rotten apples like that Mohawk guy. And I think we all can see the performance increase in AoCs devteam after FC cleaned a few desks back in September.
Please, stop telling the crap about the person you don't know.
I believe I did get your point. I also do not want to argue with you, only discuss, because I want to understand how you are thinking. I find discussing with you interesting as you seem like a rather intelligent person, but with quite different views as myself.
I believe there is a big difference between speculations and lies. So calling me a lier since I am speculating would be totally wrong. Those examples I gave you is not about showing that Funcom are speculating, it's about them saying stuff they know is false.
I did not say porting AoC to Xbox 360 would be impossible. I'm just saying that it sounds like Funcom is hyping something that they probably won't manage to do, just like so many other things they've hyped before. When I speculate that Funcom probably are just doing more of the same old marketing tricks I base that on what the history has shown us. I'm simply saying that people should take what Funcom say with a grain of salt, which kind of proves you are correct also as you said this in one of your earlier comments.
I don't think that this discussion is or should only be about how things are at Funcom now at this moment. I'll use an extreme example to prove my point: If an unknown serial killer has murdered 100 people in the past, but has stopped his killing for the time being. Then we discover who the killer really is, should we then just forget about those people he killed and not hold him accountable for it because he is not killing any longer? This is ofcouse put on the edge, but the point is the same. They have weakened many peoples health, etc, and I do feel that the people responsible for mistreating their workers should be held accountable for their actions, or else things will get back to normal after a while.
I am sure that Gaute wanted to believe that "wine vs McDonals" thing aswell, but that was a rather misleading example. There's been many things the Funcom management have said and are still saying that are plain out lies. A couple examples: 1. Kjetil says there is not and have very rarely been worked any overtime at Funcom, because Funcom can not afford to pay it. (He can't say that Funcom employees are working overtime, since they do not follow Norwegian law and pay their workers accordingly.) Just call him yourself and check. 2. They knew DX10 would not be ready for launch and yet it's written on the box. (This is also not legal in most countries.) 3. Watch any video interview with Erling Ellingsen and I bet you get lots of new lies on the list for each interview.
And then you have this Xbox 360 thing that I saw CEO Trond Arne Aas was pimping on gamesindustry.biz... how will they manage to make AoC run with the Xbox' 512mb of shared memory? (Those megabytes are shared between the system RAM and video memory.) To make AoC run smooth with OK graphics I need 4gigs of system RAM alone and 512mb on my video card. To make AoC run OK with OK graphics I need 2 gigs of system RAM and 256mb on my video card, which is still waaaay too much for the Xbox to handle. I guess it is possible with texture streaming technologies IF you reduce the texture resolutions by A LOT aswell. ( I know that windows take up RAM resources aswell, but it's far from the 1,7gb or so they need to free up.) Now THIS is speculations though, and I am one of those who think anything is possible, but if I am to use my experience with Funcom as a company chances are BIG that this is just more HYPE andor LIES.
Look dude, the guy with the Mohawk was not allowed to work on AoC, then he got angry, started the whine and FC called him into HR office. "Look Mr Mohawk, you are not a good programmer, you are neither producing very much artistic material, and all in all you seems not that happy anymore. Perhaps you should take the retirement package and do something that works etter for you". Now, tell me what is wrong about firing useless employees. Doing hightech development is not for everyone. It is crucial that FC get ridd of rotten apples like that Mohawk guy. And I think we all can see the performance increase in AoCs devteam after FC cleaned a few desks back in September.
Please, stop telling the crap about the person you don't know.
You are right I don't know hims as probably you also don't. What I do know though is all those "facts" posted about this in a public forums over the last week. I have read all on this and what I gathered was that the guy had performance issues, grew into the role of the "pain in the butt employee" and finally FC sacked him. And another thing, I was allowed to produce my own opinions on this case the moment the guy himself brought his employment issues out in public. I am not badmouthing anyone here, I just simply discuss a public pice of information. I belive the guy was sacked due to performance issues!
Why do you hold such a personal grudge against this "Mohawk" guy? Why are you constantly going after him, but none of the other devs or ex-devs that say exactly the same stuff as him?
I am sorry on your behalf and you have my condolences. I really hope you are not and will not become anyone elses boss in the future. If anything is useless it is guys like you doing comments like this.
Why do you hold such a personal grudge against this "Mohawk" guy? Why are you constantly going after him, but none of the other devs or ex-devs that say exactly the same stuff as him?
I am sorry on your behalf and you have my condolences. I really hope you are not and will not become anyone elses boss in the future. If anything is useless it is guys like you doing comments like this.
lol. I am somebodys boss. lol. And guess what I have a fantastic talented team. The real question however is, have I ever had to deal with useless people that never seem to get their stuff done regardless of how long and much they work? YES. How do managers deal with that, well, at end of every quarter we do performance appraisal and when a guy had enough C and D's we kind of ask him, "hey whats the problem dude. We like you and all but hell this is development business man, you have to produce". All I'm just saying is, it's very easy to take the sympatetic role since most of us are all workers and have had experiences related to a crappy boss. Do however, not forget to also try and look at it from the other side. FC does after all try to make a DX10 game with effects that most other developer have not even been able to touch yet. It can't be easy for them to handle too many subperformant people.
No, the real question is not if you ever had to deal with useless people. Nothing that you or I have read about this so far implies that the "Mohawk" guy is useless, far from it.
You argue as if all that matters is creating a game that has great effects, but creating a product is far more than this. If you are not able to create "great effects" without taking proper care of your workers then "great effects" mean nothing.
I am allways trying to look at an issue from both sidesall angles and looking at Funcom from their side does not make their lying and law breaking any better in this case. There simply are no excuses for taking advantage of people (Workers & customers). If you still do not think Funcom has done anything wrong and should not take responsebility for it, well, then you are very blind and ignorant in my opinion.
No, the real question is not if you ever had to deal with useless people. Nothing that you or I have read about this so far implies that the "Mohawk" guy is useless, far from it.
You argue as if all that matters is creating a game that has great effects, but creating a product is far more than this. If you are not able to create "great effects" without taking proper care of your workers then "great effects" mean nothing.
I am allways trying to look at an issue from both sidesall angles and looking at Funcom from their side does not make their lying and law breaking any better in this case. There simply are no excuses for taking advantage of people (Workers & customers). If you still do not think Funcom has done anything wrong and should not take responsebility for it, well, then you are very blind and ignorant in my opinion.
Nothing implies that the guy was useless. Seriously... When a guy is pulled out of every project he touched and given less and less responsibility, do you think thats because he was an extreme performer, or do you perhaps think it's part of FC's evil masterplan of making every man and/or efficient worker of their team unhappy. lol ..I think we both know that there are several points to raise from your perspective as well as from mine. I think the guy was not a very good performer.
I wount even debate your second point as it is totally idiotic. You start by telling how FC should make games and why they should not try to go for hightech, then you jump to the conclusion that FC take advantage of people. What the hell happened to looking at things from both sides. You can't just pull such an conclusion out of your hat and still expect people to take you seriously. If you looked at things from both sides you would also have to aske yourself, what happens when a devteam consisting of several development clusters and each cluster again depending on every person in that cluster finishing their stuff on time. Well the answer is simple, either everybody gets their stuff done on time or the whole team grinds to a hault. You see if one guy consistently fail in the very fine symbiosis of a devteam, it gets quickly very clear that someone must be changed and/or moved to other projects of lower profile.
Finally, you want to see things from both sides, yet again your entire post demonstrates that you don't. Seeing things fropm both side is not to advocate the MohawkMans case. Seeing things from both sides is as the english kind of indicate, "Seeing both sides of a matter as in trying to see the problems from the perspective of BOTH parties in the dispute".
Finally, I call the guy Mohawk guy because I don't remember/know the name of the guy in that news article. He had a rather special Mohawk haircut though. I figuered it was ok to call him MohawkMan as we this way could somewhat protect his name and at the same time talk about his now public case. It's not like Mohawk is deregotary in any way, come on he has the damn thing on his head. If he had a problem with it in the first place I doubt he would get such a haircut. Anyways, BOTH sides means not to read cheap interview in a news paper word by word and the jump to the conclusion "Ohh big bad corporate monster, what did you do". For christ sake, developing cutting edge software is not something everybody can do. The only problem is most people have a hard time admitting that they "don't have it". Well here is the thing, the guys cranking out that monthly payslip is in charge of handing over that message. And when it happens, it is seldom a pretty sight. You are merely discussing the crashscene without knowing anything of all the drama behind this. BOTH sides!
I don't think that this discussion is or should only be about how things are at Funcom now at this moment. I'll use an extreme example to prove my point: If an unknown serial killer has murdered 100 people in the past, but has stopped his killing for the time being. Then we discover who the killer really is, should we then just forget about those people he killed and not hold him accountable for it because he is not killing any longer? This is ofcouse put on the edge, but the point is the same. They have weakened many peoples health, etc, and I do feel that the people responsible for mistreating their workers should be held accountable for their actions, or else things will get back to normal after a while.
I am sure that Gaute wanted to believe that "wine vs McDonals" thing aswell, but that was a rather misleading example. There's been many things the Funcom management have said and are still saying that are plain out lies. A couple examples: 1. Kjetil says there is not and have very rarely been worked any overtime at Funcom, because Funcom can not afford to pay it. (He can't say that Funcom employees are working overtime, since they do not follow Norwegian law and pay their workers accordingly.) Just call him yourself and check. 2. They knew DX10 would not be ready for launch and yet it's written on the box. (This is also not legal in most countries.) 3. Watch any video interview with Erling Ellingsen and I bet you get lots of new lies on the list for each interview.
And then you have this Xbox 360 thing that I saw CEO Trond Arne Aas was pimping on gamesindustry.biz... how will they manage to make AoC run with the Xbox' 512mb of shared memory? (Those megabytes are shared between the system RAM and video memory.) To make AoC run smooth with OK graphics I need 4gigs of system RAM alone and 512mb on my video card. To make AoC run OK with OK graphics I need 2 gigs of system RAM and 256mb on my video card, which is still waaaay too much for the Xbox to handle. I guess it is possible with texture streaming technologies IF you reduce the texture resolutions by A LOT aswell. ( I know that windows take up RAM resources aswell, but it's far from the 1,7gb or so they need to free up.) Now THIS is speculations though, and I am one of those who think anything is possible, but if I am to use my experience with Funcom as a company chances are BIG that this is just more HYPE andor LIES.
Look dude, the guy with the Mohawk was not allowed to work on AoC, then he got angry, started the whine and FC called him into HR office. "Look Mr Mohawk, you are not a good programmer, you are neither producing very much artistic material, and all in all you seems not that happy anymore. Perhaps you should take the retirement package and do something that works etter for you". Now, tell me what is wrong about firing useless employees. Doing hightech development is not for everyone. It is crucial that FC get ridd of rotten apples like that Mohawk guy. And I think we all can see the performance increase in AoCs devteam after FC cleaned a few desks back in September.
Please, stop telling the crap about the person you don't know.
You are right I don't know hims as probably you also don't. What I do know though is all those "facts" posted about this in a public forums over the last week. I have read all on this and what I gathered was that the guy had performance issues, grew into the role of the "pain in the butt employee" and finally FC sacked him. And another thing, I was allowed to produce my own opinions on this case the moment the guy himself brought his employment issues out in public. I am not badmouthing anyone here, I just simply discuss a public pice of information. I belive the guy was sacked due to performance issues!
Unless you can prove this, he has a good case of Liable on ya there Cobra. You cant make claims such as these with out support and in some countries you can not ever make claims like this. Furthermore if you are attached to the company and making these claims, you are leaving them open to litigation... Enjoy your viral marketing.
Some people are like slinkies, they dont really have a purpose, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.
Welcome back Orzo!
*Tackle!*
Now you are really something... your mother must be very proud.
Stop tweaking my words and stop dodging my arguments. The only one you fool is yourself.
You know nothing about why he switched from AoC to AO, there could be many many reasons for it. Do you really believe they put all the less talented people on AO? Hillarious.. One of his last responsibilities was to upgrade the AO render engine on his own, is that very little responsibility?
And what about all the other devs and ex-devs that confirm the "mohawk guy", are they all disgrunteled & useless people? Are they all made up? Are my IRL friends from Funcom making this up to trick me aswell? And BTW I never said it was wrong to call him the "mohawk guy".
Did I ever say Funcom should not go for hightech? I said they can do anything they want as long as they do not take advantage of people. What I also said was that I think it is more likely that Funcom is using this Xbox 360 AoC version for hyping the game more to get the stock value up, than them actually releasing AoC on Xbox 360. I base these thoughts on what history has shown us about Funcom, that they are more about hype than actually delivering. And if they deliver, it's usually far over due. Ofcourse I could be wrong and I hope so on behalf of Funcoms workers.
Cheap interview? The guy has a whole union behind him and "Arbeidstilsynet" seems to believe him. That's a bit beyond a cheap interview. To get a union behind you in Norway, you have to provide them proof that back up your claims.
When I hear about cases like these I always try to put myself in the shoes of both sides. I try to understand why things got like they did, but in this case the evidence speaks for itself. So looking at it from Funcom's side in this case does not make it any better. I've found nothing that would suggest that the Funcom management has only done the right things or anything close to that. So it is like Orzo pointed out, who you believe should be a question about liability and not what you want the truth to be. The latter obviously fit you well.