Kind of funny,  well this is the gist i get at least from reading the article.

Gaute made anarchy online and F'ed it up.  Craig then had to clean it up.  Instead of firing the beaver the first time they gave him a ton of money and let him F something else up.  Now this craig guy has to clean up again.  Why not just of put Craig in charge in the first place.

Originally posted by gotha

Kind of funny,  well this is the gist i get at least from reading the article.

Gaute made anarchy online and F'ed it up.  Craig then had to clean it up.  Instead of firing the beaver the first time they gave him a ton of money and let him F something else up.  Now this craig guy has to clean up again.  Why not just of put Craig in charge in the first place.

Bingo !

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Moving forward I think the game is in good hands still. Gaute took a lot of flak for lots of decisions made, some right some a bit off I felt. Craig is well known and respected a good candidate for the job. I hope his remarks in the article hold weight as its something Funcom needs to be better at.

He took a lot of flak because ALL decission made on AoC were made by Gaute. The buck, as they say, stopped with him. Not only that but a lot of the "fantastic" ideas that were implemented in AoC were his as well. There is a reason he had to resign Avery.

GODDAGER GOT FIRED!!! Funcom wants to make it look like Goddager left by decision. They also didn't want to make it apparent how horrible the game went to scare future subscribers. Thats how corporate companies do it. I stated during beta that they needed to get rid of the current Conan creators and replace them as they were doing horrible and failed to deliver what was promised. With WAR coming tomorrow  and WOTLK soon, there is no reason for Godagger and Funcom  to pretend there is a future for Conan. Hiring new help to fix it was there only choice, good luck.

resigned? more like was fired...

cashed in his stocks when the AOC hype was in overdrive and is away to buy himself a private island in the caribean

I thnk its a little bit late, and also I think bad decision always include more than one person. Hope AoC can catch up someday.

a rat leaving a sinking ship

I think new leadership is needed when a company makes serious decisions that impact it's reputation in the industry in a very negative way.  It will be interesting to see if new leadership and responsiveness to customer concerns can turn this around.  You only launch once though, so this is a real uphill battle for the new guy.  Maybe this will just put them in a better position for future projects.

LucasArts got new leadership after they and SOE broke and gutted their StarWars game in an attempt to appeal to a different target population.  I'm still waiting to see if SOE will ever get a clue.  A lot of people see John Smedley as someone they never want to do business with again.

EE next please

Clearly something went wrong with the leadership at Funcom to produce this debacle.  Hopefully with some new leadership this game can be turned around.  I think the pieces for a good game are there, it's just getting them implemented that seems to be problematic.

Apparently he saw his own writing on the wall and I wish him the best of luck in his new adventures.

Originally posted by Windlion

I honestly did not expect this at all!! this came as a  huge surprise to me! this is big news.

At least for people who have been with funcom for a long time since ao. Craig's involvement will definitely change the game for the better.

I really don't understand the why some of  you guys say its to late for  the game. now I refuse to believe that. they do still have time to make this game better, for a lot of people. and Im sure people will come back if they fix the problems and add the continent people want. so Godager  resigning from aoc is  a good thing, the game needs new fresh eyes on the project and moved things for the better.

Spoken like one of the herd.  I can believe why people are ney-saying Age of Conan.  I too was one of those ppl backing FunCom up until I started seeing the repetition in those stupid Erlingson vids.  You don't need to be a polished linguist to spot $h~! in those videos.  You get real tired of being told the same thing over and over again and at this point 80% or more of the launch players are not gonna care about jack when they fix all the bugs.   AoC is dead, and don't try to make it sound like it's not.  If you still have a subscription, login and tell me how Old Tarantia is doing and is it bustling with live ppl and not funcom employees and sets?  again, Godager leaving is just like stabbing the pig the last time it kicks.  That'll teach it to wear lipstick.. lol

Remember this as well, AoC was Gautes baby, and him "resigning" is all but both feet in the grave for AoC.  I don't think Craig can save it honestly and he needs to stick with AO, they'll make more money over there.

for the potential AoC had i can't see what's happened as one person's fault. yet, in business and society someone must be sacrificed publicly to try and signify a change. unfortunately for AoC and those of us feeling too burnt to go back, it's too late. my experience with AoC has been so bad i don't think i'll be able to take anything out of Funcom seriously until i see a solid success. not just a, "hey look! now that we got a new guy at the helm this stinking doo doesn't smell quite as bad now."

PR and others can try to spin this in a postitive light all they want but it doesn't change that this is what you see in response to a poor product.    Successes don't have this kind of thing happen. 

This guy was one of the reasons I stopped following AoC in spite of all the cool-sounded features they hyped.    The interviews and videos of the developers inspired no confidence in me that they could pull off what they claimed.     I was less familiar with the other devs but they didn't convince they could either.    If this new person has proven themselves on other games, then that might be what AoC needs. 

It is true this can only help AoC but none of this should come as a surprise to anyone.   The signs of this were clear enough during the game's development if you listened to the dev interviews. 

Originally posted by Alienovrlord

PR and others can try to spin this in a postitive light all they want but it doesn't change that this is what you see in response to a poor product.    Successes don't have this kind of thing happen. 

This guy was one of the reasons I stopped following AoC in spite of all the cool-sounded features they hyped.    The interviews and videos of the developers inspired no confidence in me that they could pull off what they claimed.     I was less familiar with the other devs but they didn't convince they could either.    If this new person has proven themselves on other games, then that might be what AoC needs. 

It is true this can only help AoC but none of this should come as a surprise to anyone.   The signs of this were clear enough during the game's development if you listened to the dev interviews. 

Well stated, you never know, they can turn this game around if they actually try. Hell, even SWG at launch (worse launch than AoC) eventually turned it around.

Good riddance. AOC will never rebound though, it is to far lost and other upcoming MMORPG's are launching soon that will have more attention.

AoC had some great ideas, but they rushed it out. RIP.

Originally posted by airborne519

Originally posted by Alienovrlord

PR and others can try to spin this in a postitive light all they want but it doesn't change that this is what you see in response to a poor product.    Successes don't have this kind of thing happen. 

This guy was one of the reasons I stopped following AoC in spite of all the cool-sounded features they hyped.    The interviews and videos of the developers inspired no confidence in me that they could pull off what they claimed.     I was less familiar with the other devs but they didn't convince they could either.    If this new person has proven themselves on other games, then that might be what AoC needs. 

It is true this can only help AoC but none of this should come as a surprise to anyone.   The signs of this were clear enough during the game's development if you listened to the dev interviews. 

 

Well stated, you never know, they can turn this game around if they actually try. Hell, even SWG at launch (worse launch than AoC) eventually turned it around.

Then look what happened to SWG.

 Resigned?  Doubtful.

AOC will be around for quite awhile, but it will forever be a shell of what was promised.  And for that it will always remain a niche game with a small player base.

It didn't capture me.  I'm a working adult.  I don't have time to invest in a game and hope it turns itself around in 1-2 years.  If it doesn't perform out of the box....it goes back in the box and on my shelf.

Originally posted by Lizante

Posted elsewhere, but applies here too:

A quote from the release is telltale: "he (Mr. Morrison) has shown a unique ability to tailor development according to the needs and requirements of the players."

Gaute could never do that.   Gaute's "Let them eat cake" style of aloof management from afar and too obviously, proving once again with AoC that he had absolutely no "pulse" on the customer base, I am sure, frustrated the hell out of FunCom. 

Gaute may have actually been asked to resign -- one thing for sure, the folks and FunCom aren't sorry to see him go.  It's the equivalent of hari-kiri career-wise for Gaute, but that's okay, he's been with FunCom for 16 years and I've sure he's taking a good chunk of the company's value with him.

Everything about FunCom has always pointed to "Those who refuse to learn from History are doomed to repeated it."   FunCom, even if Gaute said the contrary,  didn't learn from AO and made many of the same mistakes (and a host of new ones) with AoC.

 What was really annoying the FunCom investors was that AoC was not only underpreforming, it was heading south quickly while Gaute played Nero's fiddle to investors while roleplaying Marie Antoinette to the player community.  

So here we go, history repeats itself -- Craig Morrison to the rescue *AGAIN* ...Craig has a good reputation and track record. He is certainly well accustomed with taking things from a blue funk to harmoniousness with charm and panache, yet in a purposeful, determined way.
 

this post nails it to the bone.Pretty much hits the essence of the problems associated with AOC.

sounds like he was "asked" to leave.

anyway how does a journalist who wrote about MMO's have enough experiance to run a whole game?  i know his experiance tells us he is good at managing teams but it doesnt seem like hes as experianced when it comes to games as Godager.  oh well, it can only get better from here i guess

Actually AGE OF CONAN has about 500,000 subscribers that is not a failure and Gaute left for his own reasons and he may have not been the best for the game but he certainly was not the worst so you can pretend AoC is going to die but how can it be dead when it has 50 servers and 500,000 customers???

Originally posted by ILOVEFUNCOM

Actually AGE OF CONAN has about 500,000 subscribers that is not a failure and Gaute left for his own reasons and he may have not been the best for the game but he certainly was not the worst so you can pretend AoC is going to die but how can it be dead when it has 50 servers and 500,000 customers???

Where do you get the 500k from?  Funcom won't tell us how many subscribers they have.  How would you know?

Originally posted by Death1942

sounds like he was "asked" to leave.

 

anyway how does a journalist who wrote about MMO's have enough experiance to run a whole game?  i know his experiance tells us he is good at managing teams but it doesnt seem like hes as experianced when it comes to games as Godager.  oh well, it can only get better from here i guess

I'd suggest looking at Anarchy Online, as that "inexperienced journalist" went from being a player to single-handedly turning AO around. What I seen Craig accomplish in just two years was more than Gaute acomplished in 16.

Edit: To the OP: By the way, it's not "Breaking News" when the users of your site have already reported on and discussed at length the news some 6 hours before this "news" thread was made.

http://mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/2319032/thread/202285#2319032

http://mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/202286/page/1