Making MMOs - Saga of Lucimia Dev Talks Crunch, Making MMOs and Studio Transparency

System · March 2020

Making MMOs - Saga of Lucimia Dev Talks Crunch, Making MMOs and Studio Transparency

Making MMORPGs, especially in today's industry, isn't easy. It's especially got its own set of challenges if you're a small studio working on your first project as an MMO. We sat down with Saga of Lucimia's Creative Director, Tim Anderson, to discuss topics such as crunch, the business of making MMOs, the games industry, risk and more.

Read the full story here

Renfail · March 2020

Thanks for reaching out! I look forward to seeing the second part when it comes out later this week!

There are some transcribing issues I'm seeing throughout (it was a phone interview; I did not write the replies other than the clarification on crunch dialogue), but overall gist is there.

I'll be on call for comments throughout the rest of this afternoon/evening (with a short break for a nap at some point) for those who would like to discuss specific aspects in greater detail.

[Deleted User] · March 2020

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Renfail · March 2020

blueturtle13 said:

Great read, thanks for the write up

Twas a fun sit-down for sure.

Wizardry · March 2020

I touched on the topic in the past of small business and how to do it properly >>IMO of course.
I believe 100% in deep systems,it keeps players interested and i believe in longevity and keeping old zones relevant.
A small studio does have a problem in that it cannot make a large robust game full of 50-100 zones and full of tons of assets.So it should focus on quality over quantity.

System design is not really that tough,it is mostly codes and parameters and no so much asset design.Example lots of ....if this happens then this triggers sort of stuff or to hit mechanics as another example.

I would rather have 30 levels of enjoyment than 100 levels of a questing treadmill.Some gamer's are very superficial,they adore the idea of seeing a marker over a npc head and just mindlessly clicking them for something to do.This is usually an easy place for a small studio to enter,simple questing treadmill,instances and mostly a loot game rather than a world.

You do not have to be a large studio to make a AAA game,it will of course be smaller but can still be a very in depth game.FFXI started at 30 levels before it hit NA,it started small.

An example of how to turn me right off?Rift an often praised game at the time.I was plopped down in some warehouse,no reasoning at all,just a simple place to toss me into the world.Then from there i am suppose to just play connect the dots,clicking on every marker i see over a npc head....NO,i do not want that type of crap.Give me a city,town,village, a home,a reason for being in this game world.I do not want to see any markers in the game,they ruin the feeling of immersion big time,makes the world look silly.

Pyuk · March 2020

Wow, Tim Anderson really is clueless about game devs. Game devs get paid SALARY, not hourly. They don't get time-and-a-half. And game devs get paid less than what they can earn in the non-gaming world. Where the hell did he get his info, a AAA Exec from EA trying to cover his clueless ass? Good luck with your pet project, but man, what a ditz.

Jindujun · March 2020

Arterius said:

Dont agree with the crunch concept at all. I do if it's by choice but most of the time it isn't there choice. They see other people who have been told you dont have to crunch and then go home. Those people are fired. So when the boss comes to them and tells them the same they are more or less forced to crunch.

I think this was a good interview but I cant and never will agree with mandatory crunch. Games are not something we need I would rather a game been delayed for years the have people deal with stress breakdowns at work, like in the case of Anthem and Rockstar

I dont get this, what kind of weird work contracts do you guys have over there in the US? I work a salaried position, a fixed monthly payment with an 8 hours a day, five days a week contract. As soon as i work even 10min over my daily 8 hours i get paid overtime and that is the rule across the entire workforce.

Pala · March 2020

Well done! Finally

Drindin · March 2020

I think what Tim was trying to portray is that crunch is (and should be) the responsibility of the owners, who are passionate about their dream, not the employees who will never love their boss' dream as much as their boss does. Employees should be fairly compensated if they are asked to work extra, however, owners should be willing to do crunch just to see their dreams come to fruition and their rewards are commensurate with that if their dreams are actualized and successful.

Tim said "So I have no sympathy for people who talk about crunch because when you’re building something, that’s what it takes.

“Now, obviously, I don’t expect that of our contractors because they get paid to work their 40 hours or whatever and that’s done.”

Tim is talking about the crunch being the responsibility of the business owners, not the employees or contractors. On our team we've worked for free through lots of stressful times, because we are passionate owners with a dream. Being game devs is a dream come true for us and the rewards could be great. But our contractors and employees will never be forced to crunch, and if they are willing to do some crunch for us they will be fairly compensated and I will personally ask them to take a break if I see them wearing out or that they need to be more present to their families.

We care a lot for those we do, or will employ and I hope that comes out clearly in our core values listed here: http://stormhavenstudios.com/mission-statement/

The 8 owners however will continue to crunch to get our product out to our players. Running a business and developing a product is super hard and Tim, Bobby, and I have so much on our plates that the crunch feeling is just an everyday reality for us. We are all working very hard to bring this awesome game to you all. Hopefully that explanation helps @Jindujun @arterius @Pyuk

druez · March 2020

I have zero issues with crunch. As long as there is an ebb and flow to the crunch and they are properly rewarded for it.

Renfail · March 2020

druez said:

I have zero issues with crunch. As long as there is an ebb and flow to the crunch and they are properly rewarded for it.

This. 100% this.

Which, if folks read the TL;DR followup Joseph asked me to provide to clarify my initial comments made during the phone interview to provide additional context, is exactly what I stated.

Not all crunch is bad; every job has it. It's called "overtime". And employees/contractors are *always* rewarded for working overtime.

TOO MUCH crunch (for the employees) is bad. That's a sign of poor management.

Business owners should ALWAYS be ready and willing to crunch; that's their responsibility and why they get rewarded beyond simply a salary/overtime compensation.

I broke this all down in the 10-paragraph part that it seems some people breezed right over and didn't bother to read

Forgrimm · March 2020

Jindujun said:

Arterius said:

Dont agree with the crunch concept at all. I do if it's by choice but most of the time it isn't there choice. They see other people who have been told you dont have to crunch and then go home. Those people are fired. So when the boss comes to them and tells them the same they are more or less forced to crunch.

I think this was a good interview but I cant and never will agree with mandatory crunch. Games are not something we need I would rather a game been delayed for years the have people deal with stress breakdowns at work, like in the case of Anthem and Rockstar

I dont get this, what kind of weird work contracts do you guys have over there in the US? I work a salaried position, a fixed monthly payment with an 8 hours a day, five days a week contract. As soon as i work even 10min over my daily 8 hours i get paid overtime and that is the rule across the entire workforce.

In the US, in general, only hourly-wage workers can get paid overtime for working beyond 40 hours in a week. If you're salaried, then you get paid the same amount yearly whether you work 30 hours a week or 80 hours a week.

lahnmir · March 2020

Forgrimm said:

Jindujun said:

Arterius said:

Dont agree with the crunch concept at all. I do if it's by choice but most of the time it isn't there choice. They see other people who have been told you dont have to crunch and then go home. Those people are fired. So when the boss comes to them and tells them the same they are more or less forced to crunch.

I think this was a good interview but I cant and never will agree with mandatory crunch. Games are not something we need I would rather a game been delayed for years the have people deal with stress breakdowns at work, like in the case of Anthem and Rockstar

I dont get this, what kind of weird work contracts do you guys have over there in the US? I work a salaried position, a fixed monthly payment with an 8 hours a day, five days a week contract. As soon as i work even 10min over my daily 8 hours i get paid overtime and that is the rule across the entire workforce.

In the US, in general, only hourly-wage workers can get paid overtime for working beyond 40 hours in a week. If you're salaried, then you get paid the same amount yearly whether you work 30 hours a week or 80 hours a week.

That sounds like an easily exploitable construction for companies. Every extra hour I make gets compensated with an extra hour of free time, and I already have ten weeks off per year.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

Utinni · March 2020

lahnmir said:

Forgrimm said:

Jindujun said:

Arterius said:

Dont agree with the crunch concept at all. I do if it's by choice but most of the time it isn't there choice. They see other people who have been told you dont have to crunch and then go home. Those people are fired. So when the boss comes to them and tells them the same they are more or less forced to crunch.

I think this was a good interview but I cant and never will agree with mandatory crunch. Games are not something we need I would rather a game been delayed for years the have people deal with stress breakdowns at work, like in the case of Anthem and Rockstar

I dont get this, what kind of weird work contracts do you guys have over there in the US? I work a salaried position, a fixed monthly payment with an 8 hours a day, five days a week contract. As soon as i work even 10min over my daily 8 hours i get paid overtime and that is the rule across the entire workforce.

In the US, in general, only hourly-wage workers can get paid overtime for working beyond 40 hours in a week. If you're salaried, then you get paid the same amount yearly whether you work 30 hours a week or 80 hours a week.

That sounds like an easily exploitable construction for companies. Every extra hour I make gets compensated with an extra hour of free time, and I already have ten weeks off per year.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

It's not even considered exploitable since we're just accustomed to it. It's how most salary jobs work. It typically only gets to extreme levels in industries that produce things (restaurants, manufacturing plants, game and movie studios) and during peak seasons for particular businesses.

10 weeks off a year though? I'm not sure I'd even want that much time off, and couldn't imagine any employer here that would pay someone to not work for 10 weeks. Even as liberal as I can be that seems a bit ridiculous.

Mendel · March 2020

lahnmir said:

Forgrimm said:

Jindujun said:

Arterius said:

Dont agree with the crunch concept at all. I do if it's by choice but most of the time it isn't there choice. They see other people who have been told you dont have to crunch and then go home. Those people are fired. So when the boss comes to them and tells them the same they are more or less forced to crunch.

I think this was a good interview but I cant and never will agree with mandatory crunch. Games are not something we need I would rather a game been delayed for years the have people deal with stress breakdowns at work, like in the case of Anthem and Rockstar

I dont get this, what kind of weird work contracts do you guys have over there in the US? I work a salaried position, a fixed monthly payment with an 8 hours a day, five days a week contract. As soon as i work even 10min over my daily 8 hours i get paid overtime and that is the rule across the entire workforce.

In the US, in general, only hourly-wage workers can get paid overtime for working beyond 40 hours in a week. If you're salaried, then you get paid the same amount yearly whether you work 30 hours a week or 80 hours a week.

That sounds like an easily exploitable construction for companies. Every extra hour I make gets compensated with an extra hour of free time, and I already have ten weeks off per year.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

At one time, I bought into the whole 'comp time' thing. After accumulating weeks worth of time off, I was never able to take that time off. The company always found something else pressing that absolutely needed all hands on deck. It wasn't just a single company, either. This seems to be epidemic in the IT industry, particularly in the insurance/financial/banking industries. Basically, anywhere where the company doesn't sell IT products but IT is a major supporting operation in the company's operation.

This has been going on for years. At one time, I thought that the IT industry really needed some unionization. Maybe not universally, but certainly some companies look at salaried employees as a modern form of slave labor. That's wrong.

But I'm out of the work force now. Companies can do what they want, it doesn't affect me anymore. Oddly, my blood pressure is now in 'reasonable' ranges, and I don't have the stress I once did.

Aeander · March 2020

No need to crunch. It's not like any of the other Kickstarter MMOs will launch before I die of chronic depression and a szechuan chicken overdose.

Kyleran · March 2020

lahnmir said:

Forgrimm said:

Jindujun said:

Arterius said:

Dont agree with the crunch concept at all. I do if it's by choice but most of the time it isn't there choice. They see other people who have been told you dont have to crunch and then go home. Those people are fired. So when the boss comes to them and tells them the same they are more or less forced to crunch.

I think this was a good interview but I cant and never will agree with mandatory crunch. Games are not something we need I would rather a game been delayed for years the have people deal with stress breakdowns at work, like in the case of Anthem and Rockstar

I dont get this, what kind of weird work contracts do you guys have over there in the US? I work a salaried position, a fixed monthly payment with an 8 hours a day, five days a week contract. As soon as i work even 10min over my daily 8 hours i get paid overtime and that is the rule across the entire workforce.

In the US, in general, only hourly-wage workers can get paid overtime for working beyond 40 hours in a week. If you're salaried, then you get paid the same amount yearly whether you work 30 hours a week or 80 hours a week.

That sounds like an easily exploitable construction for companies. Every extra hour I make gets compensated with an extra hour of free time, and I already have ten weeks off per year.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

You Euros have it soft, theres a reason why US corporations do so well financially, they profit off of the backs of the workers.

Almost all IT jobs are salaried except certain support roles.

I've been salaried all of my life, working as a sales rep, purchasing agent, engineering tech, and a variety of software dev roles.

Every one required overtime, varying from a few hours a week to near stupid levels like the year I put in over 400 hours of unpaid OT.

Mandatory 50 hour work weeks, yep, done that. I recall wide eyed younger workers who I interviewed asking if they could work four ten hour days. I would smirk a bit and reply sure, as long as they could put in 8 hrs more on Friday/Saturday.

I recall one team (thankfully not mine) doing a huge DB upgrade working 13 straight weekends (8 plus hrs a day) on top of their regular 40 plus week.

Their reward? No huge cash bonuses, no siree, their boss wrangled an extra week of vacation (40 hours), who hoo!

They were the last Tech employees to get comp time in my area that I know of and this was over 6 years ago.

Meanwhile last year my employer had their greatest single quarter in history so the Execs profited handsomely.

I took a 10% bonus reduction but did get a 1.5% raise for 2020.....on what most of my team / managers would say was a banner year for me, go figure.

I know, I should move on, but the health and retirement benefits are good, the company is rock solid, all important factors when 60 is in the rear view mirror.

Kyleran · March 2020

Pyuk said:

Wow, Tim Anderson really is clueless about game devs. Game devs get paid SALARY, not hourly. They don't get time-and-a-half. And game devs get paid less than what they can earn in the non-gaming world. Where the hell did he get his info, a AAA Exec from EA trying to cover his clueless ass? Good luck with your pet project, but man, what a ditz.

Now that's a bit harsh, Tim hasn't worked much as a corporate worker bee so he just doesn't know the reality many salaried workers face, especially in IT, at least here in the States.

Shit, most of us don't even get to make games.

Pala · March 2020

Think about who you vote for is the only advice on that

Really looking forward to the game.

Wizardry · March 2020

Not ALWAYS....case in point,,research EA lawsuit that btw they made a settlement on ,no doubt at all that EA got away easy street.Never paid their employees over time for years and even worse than that,underpaid,super long hours,employees that had to live in the office for days,weeks.

What does crunch mean anyhow?Behind on the time schedule?Does it spell bad management,poor production,idk not entirely i mean over the years tons of jobs in every facet of life are done in timely fashion,sometimes not,sometimes it just happens.However in the gaming world,my guess is it happens too often because imo studios are not organized well enough before they start.

Money is up in the air with all these upstart studios,so they hire as they go,that means right away an unorganized team.One might argue that they don't need the entire team on board from day 1 ,well yeah but when,what if you don't find the right person,how do they even find the person,past history,diploma,resume?

To me i would want a team all on the same page from day 1,i want everyone that is interested in my game,i don't want to go on a whim day by day.However in saying that ,as long as you have ONE person that has a vision for the entire game and makes sure to see that all through,then yeah it can still work .

Rather than this kind of talk anyhow,which btw almost sounds like an excuse for "incoming...unpolished..eq2 repeat" sort of ordeal,i rather hear more about the stuff this game does that will get me addicted.

Scot · March 2020

I look forward to seeing more about SoL on here and elsewhere. I think the only time I have disagreed with Renfail is the idea that SoL is better of putting itself forward in arenas which seemed to me more uncritical no matter how helpful they were in going forward with the game. Taking some sharp hits goes with the territory, though he takes the negative onboard I think you need to embrace all arenas of debate.

I think they had the right game plan of playing it close to the chest up till now with the no updates idea. But there comes a time when you have to show a bit of leg, social media of all types thrives on it and I think they have an alpha to be proud of.

lahnmir · March 2020

Kyleran said:

lahnmir said:

Forgrimm said:

Jindujun said:

Arterius said:

Dont agree with the crunch concept at all. I do if it's by choice but most of the time it isn't there choice. They see other people who have been told you dont have to crunch and then go home. Those people are fired. So when the boss comes to them and tells them the same they are more or less forced to crunch.

I think this was a good interview but I cant and never will agree with mandatory crunch. Games are not something we need I would rather a game been delayed for years the have people deal with stress breakdowns at work, like in the case of Anthem and Rockstar

I dont get this, what kind of weird work contracts do you guys have over there in the US? I work a salaried position, a fixed monthly payment with an 8 hours a day, five days a week contract. As soon as i work even 10min over my daily 8 hours i get paid overtime and that is the rule across the entire workforce.

In the US, in general, only hourly-wage workers can get paid overtime for working beyond 40 hours in a week. If you're salaried, then you get paid the same amount yearly whether you work 30 hours a week or 80 hours a week.

That sounds like an easily exploitable construction for companies. Every extra hour I make gets compensated with an extra hour of free time, and I already have ten weeks off per year.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

You Euros have it soft, theres a reason why US corporations do so well financially, they profit off of the backs of the workers.

Almost all IT jobs are salaried except certain support roles.

I've been salaried all of my life, working as a sales rep, purchasing agent, engineering tech, and a variety of software dev roles.

Every one required overtime, varying from a few hours a week to near stupid levels like the year I put in over 400 hours of unpaid OT.

Mandatory 50 hour work weeks, yep, done that. I recall wide eyed younger workers who I interviewed asking if they could work four ten hour days. I would smirk a bit and reply sure, as long as they could put in 8 hrs more on Friday/Saturday.

I recall one team (thankfully not mine) doing a huge DB upgrade working 13 straight weekends (8 plus hrs a day) on top of their regular 40 plus week.

Their reward? No huge cash bonuses, no siree, their boss wrangled an extra week of vacation (40 hours), who hoo!

They were the last Tech employees to get comp time in my area that I know of and this was over 6 years ago.

Meanwhile last year my employer had their greatest single quarter in history so the Execs profited handsomely.

I took a 10% bonus reduction but did get a 1.5% raise for 2020.....on what most of my team / managers would say was a banner year for me, go figure.

I know, I should move on, but the health and retirement benefits are good, the company is rock solid, all important factors when 60 is in the rear view mirror.

Well, that is rather sobering.

It does somewhat explain why the Dutch population is in 5th place when it comes to happiest people on the planet and the USA rates 19th. Or why we are 15th in healthiest countries in the world and the USA is 35th.

I like working hard and being succesful, but I run my life, not my company. These examples you give definitely fall under the exploitable constructions I mentioned earlier for me. But a bit of perspective is always good, thanks for the insight.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

Howdy, Stranger!

Making MMOs - Saga of Lucimia Dev Talks Crunch, Making MMOs and Studio Transparency

Comments

거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Howdy, Stranger!

Quick Links

Making MMOs - Saga of Lucimia Dev Talks Crunch, Making MMOs and Studio Transparency

Comments

거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV