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Gaute Godager RESIGNED!!!
WisebutCruel
Member Posts: 1,089
http://mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2319032/thread/202285#2319032
"Former Producer and Game Director Gaute Godager has chosen to resign from Funcom after working on Age of Conan since the initial conception, and he leaves the company after 16 years. Godager was one of the original founders of Funcom, and leaves a large legacy, having contributed to making Funcom the largest MMO company in Europe. I have done my very best making this fabulous game, but I have concluded there are elements which I am dissatisfied with. I have decided to act on this, and as a result I have chosen to leave Funcom. It is time to get new, fresh eyes on Age of Conan, and I wholeheartedly support the appointment of Craig. I have had a fantastic time these last 16 years, and I am very proud of the many things Funcom has achieved. Funcom and Conan will always be a big part of me, but as I now look to new ventures outside the gaming industry I am certain Age of Conans future is in the best of hands.
Comments
Probably the best thing that could have happened for Age of Conan. Now someone can step in and fix the game without having to deal with the original 'vision' (or lack there of).
Yep, they removed the game director from Anarchy Online ( the one who actually made it work ) Craig Morrison.
Which means all the attention will be on AoC while some second-rate gets plopped in the AO chair.
Poor AO suckers...I mean customers.....better plan on that new graphic engine never happening now.
It's official
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And when we got more women on the team, it was like No, no, no. We need puppies and horses in there.
John Smedley, SOE
Well, they probably looked at the Age of Conan subscriber base and the Anarchy Online subscriber base and decided that the AoC subscribers were actually paying money and they should probably try to keep them.
Oh ... My ... God ...
That's a bit of a bombshell! I'm guessing that things are not as rosy as Funcom are claiming and are dire enough to force the replacement of the top man.
-DarktideForever
Funny thing is, as a founder, Funcom couldn't really fire him. Wonder how bad the pressure was to make him resign. Wonder if investors perhaps had a say in his decision. I'm betting those stocks the fanbois kept saying didn't matter did indeed.
He hasn't just left Funcom, he's been run out of the entire industry.
Craig Morrison aka Silirrion, the dude who delivered a final killing blow to AO with his stupid ideas of PvP revamping?
Oh geez, AoC is dead... so dead now
No wonder the stock went up.
Don't worry, it's temporary phenomenon, untill people who never played AO will realize what Craig Morrison is all about.
I was wondering about this myself. As a founder, he should be immune to this. Usually people have to leave after doing something wrong. As there weren't any news the last few days that I am aware of, , I'm guessing some bad news are coming...
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And when we got more women on the team, it was like No, no, no. We need puppies and horses in there.
John Smedley, SOE
Gaute in my view was actually a really good ambassador for Funcom ...this is a lose .
Also the vision for AOC was never the problem...it was really inspiring .The problem was the delivery of the vision .....they failed technically to achieve it.
"after the time of dice came the day of mice "
Don't worry, it's temporary phenomenon, untill people who never played AO will realize what Craig Morrison is all about.
Craig is the only reason AO is still alive. Even if he screwed pvp in your opinion, he added more content both paid and free then any other director, fixed more bugs both major and minor than any other director, listened to the community WAY more than any other director, implemented the fr00b program and the Phasefront paid points system, upgraded the servers to todays technology AND got the ball rolling with the new graphics engine ( which again will probably never happen now that he's gone to AoC ).
Lets' see.
Anarchy Online had a horrid launch and almost died out the gate. Director: Gaute Godager.
Age of Conan had a horrid launch the minute players saw past level 20 and is now on the brink of death. Director: Gaute Godager.
Who was in charge of delivering this "vision" you speak of? Gaute Godager.
Yeah, REAL good ambassador for Funcom.
A good decision that hopefully gets AOC back on track. Sometimes a shake up like this is needed to get a fresh perspective and focus.
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Opinions are like assholes - everyone has one and they all stink
Great news for all the current players! I hope you guys get your game fixed now. Surprising news? Meh, not really it was coming sooner or later. I guarantee you it was an investor meeting that made Gaute throw in the towel. Sometimes it is best to just let go, he finally learned this.
As someone said, for a founder to leave the company he created and game something must have been happening behind the curtains. IMO, I've never gotten the impression Mr.Godager has wished to leave.
But hey, maybe this is Funcom listening to its customers? I do know one thing fans have been often saying is how Craig Morrison saved AO after replacing Gaute. So, call me a conspiracy theorist nut, but I do believe atm that the investors and maybe other Funcom people are the ones responsible for Gaute leaving.
RIP Blackguard. May a resurrection come.
Don't worry, it's temporary phenomenon, untill people who never played AO will realize what Craig Morrison is all about.
Craig is the only reason AO is still alive.
I wouldn't call it alive. I took the free month offer to check the things out. I ran through the most popular zones and cities, the server(RK1) is a ghost town. The new content he added was too little too late, people spent 2-3 days to finish the new content and it only caused already tiny player bease to be spead out even more. As a result it became totally impossible to find a group. Also his stubborness and inability to balance the new idiotic LE OS system, which totally ruined NW PvP, has caused mass exodus of players from AO.
Not to mention I still fail to realize what he spent 2 years on working on expansion that included a whole new zone and a set of whooping T3 wanna be armors, some kind of battleground wannabe and some more perks.
Agreed, Sil has been a great boon to AO and it will suffer with him gone, and the PvP changes since he's become director haven't been that bad, and are far outshined by all the good he's done for AO... more anti-FunCom rhetoric and propaganda TBH. IMO this is a great thing for AoC, and a very bad thing for AO, although if his team can keep things rolling then it might not be so bad. Hopefully Colin Cragg will do well for AO.
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"Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places..." ~ H.P.Lovecraft, "From Beyond"
Member Since March 2004
Lets' see.
Anarchy Online had a horrid launch and almost died out the gate. Director: Gaute Godager.
Age of Conan had a horrid launch the minute players saw past level 20 and is now on the brink of death. Director: Gaute Godager.
Who was in charge of delivering this "vision" you speak of? Gaute Godager.
Yeah, REAL good ambassador for Funcom.
I've never played AO so I cant comment
However you don't seem to understand the difference between a vision and the delivery of that vision.
AOC had a vision to revolutionize the MMO community with features like epic Siege battles ,unique PVP and an immersive game set in Conan universe. The vision required the technical ability to deliver that from the developers.Gaute is not a developer . Funcom failed in that respect ...he is responsible to a certain degree but can you blame him for the programming ineptitude of the Devs...maybe you can ?I don't think it's fair ?The problems with AOC cannot be fixed by him...they are fundamental and serious Dev issues and the way the game is coded ...egg instances ...and there is no quick fix
"after the time of dice came the day of mice "
This was bound to happen.
Now why and how he left is another matter.
What is for sure that things are not fine with AOC and are even much worse than first expected.
Hah! I knew this is why Godager was never fired. He was a friggin founder. All the people screaming at Funcom to fire him just didn't kow that he was immune to being fired. I figured that was the problem from the start.
Gaute should have made himself a PR person or some other position than designer. They guy is full of ideas but he lacks some execution skills. If he was a founder he could have been redirected to any branch in the company. But resigning is also good. He will still make a killing in stocks.....I hope.
Lets' see.
Anarchy Online had a horrid launch and almost died out the gate. Director: Gaute Godager.
Age of Conan had a horrid launch the minute players saw past level 20 and is now on the brink of death. Director: Gaute Godager.
Who was in charge of delivering this "vision" you speak of? Gaute Godager.
Yeah, REAL good ambassador for Funcom.
I've never played AO so I cant comment
However you don't seem to understand the difference between a vision and the delivery of that vision.
AOC had a vision to revolutionize the MMO community with features like epic Siege battles ,unique PVP and an immersive game set in Conan universe. The vision required the technical ability to deliver that from the developers.Gaute is not a developer . Funcom failed in that respect ...he is responsible to a certain degree but can you blame him for the programming ineptitude of the Devs...maybe you can ?I don't think it's fair ?The problems with AOC cannot be fixed by him...they are fundamental and serious Dev issues and the way the game is coded ...egg instances ...and there is no quick fix
Yes he's to blame and yes, it's fair.
Gaute is not an ordinary peon. He co-founded the company. He was in charge of hiring and firing devs. He was in charge of making sure he had the right team to build the game as desired. Is it a devs fault for lacking certain skills, or is it the game directors' fault for not recognizing this and getting someone who could?
He was pretty free with all those millions, you'd think he'd have researched the talent he was spending those millions on.
Exactly, which shows he was forced out, not asked.
He didn't wake up one morning and say "I don't want my fancy cars and big salary anymore, I wanna go work at McDonald's.".
Lets' see.
Anarchy Online had a horrid launch and almost died out the gate. Director: Gaute Godager.
Age of Conan had a horrid launch the minute players saw past level 20 and is now on the brink of death. Director: Gaute Godager.
Who was in charge of delivering this "vision" you speak of? Gaute Godager.
Yeah, REAL good ambassador for Funcom.
I've never played AO so I cant comment
However you don't seem to understand the difference between a vision and the delivery of that vision.
AOC had a vision to revolutionize the MMO community with features like epic Siege battles ,unique PVP and an immersive game set in Conan universe. The vision required the technical ability to deliver that from the developers.Gaute is not a developer . Funcom failed in that respect ...he is responsible to a certain degree but can you blame him for the programming ineptitude of the Devs...maybe you can ?I don't think it's fair ?The problems with AOC cannot be fixed by him...they are fundamental and serious Dev issues and the way the game is coded ...egg instances ...and there is no quick fix
Yes he's to blame and yes, it's fair.
Gaute is not an ordinary peon. He co-founded the company. He was in charge of hiring and firing devs. He was in charge of making sure he had the right team to build the game as desired. Is it a devs fault for lacking certain skills, or is it the game directors' fault for not recognizing this and getting someone who could?
He was pretty free with all those millions, you'd think he'd have researched the talent he was spending those millions on.
Actually Wise if we are going to be correct about this then the person to blame should be Quality Assurance and Beta Team who should have reported back to Gaute the glaring issues .Then if he still chose to release the game in it's state if he had the information then yes he is to balme
"after the time of dice came the day of mice "
Conclusion; It sure takes a good amount of flaming before one gets fired
If thou catches me drift ...
My brand new bloggity blog.