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12/16/08 7:32:55 AM#41
I actually think Erling would do a much better job at being an HR director than Kjetil. Erling does atleast not seem mean. ;) |
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12/16/08 7:43:52 AM#42
Originally posted by ZeGerman1942
Avery you have been to Funcom once as far as i know. I met you then. You, the guys from TTH and other fans/press have seen exactly what Gaute and the others wanted you to see. Including the trip to the irish pub. The work conditions described by the norwegian news site were present during AoC. There were people who did upwards of 12 weeks overtime (that is 12x 37 hours) in a 6 month period before launch. AoC entered "crunch" in December 2007, when the release date was still set for February 2008. When the release date was changed to May, crunch continued on. Prior to that there was crunch period in February/March 2007 and in August/September 2007 - before the other published release dates. There have been MANY people who left Funcom because of working conditions (i know of 5 who left for that particular reason and a few others who were influenced by the working conditions). There was several emails and discussions on internal newsgroups about working conditions, overtime pay, the law and ways of getting help - i am glad someone actually had the balls and do something about it now. Picking up the dinner bill? Funcom employees could order from 5 different take away places. When you order from the same places for more than a year it gets old really fast. And when people work 4 to 6 hours overtime a day, and get NOTHING for it, a meal is the least they can expect. What you saw was us all munching away happily at pizza in a time when we were still in early crunch time. If you had come and visited Funcom in May for example, you probably would have gotten a different picture. Avery it is fine with me if you want to defend AoC. I think it is great that the game has such loyal fans. I believe the game will continue to do ok and it will definately break even and make a profit. Particularly with Gaute gone and Craig at the helm of the ship. Had i known that Gaute was going to be fired (and don't believe for a second that "he stepped down because he was unhappy with how the game was handled after launch"), i might have considered staying at Funcom. But Avery PLEASE do not profess to know anything about how Funcom really is, and please do not defend a company you know NOTHING about, simply because you are in love with the product they make. I personaly do not regret working for Funcom. Overall i had a good time there because of the people i worked with and the atmosphere the employees created. But at the same time i am glad i left and i would not work for them again, because management was utter rubbish, working conditions were the worst i have experienced in the industry (and i have been around a while) and game direction was a lost cause. There will always be people who worked/work at Funcom who will defend the company and who are happy. Those will generally be people who have not been in any other games company, who have a job that require little to no overtime or people like you, who are blindly faithfull and don't see the bad things. The mere fact that there ARE people who go public and that Funcom is actually being investigated, should show you that there is something wrong. Perhaps Avery will wake up now and take the rose tinted glasses off. Hopefully, anyway. And trust me, NOONE with half a brain cell believes Gaute "stepped down". His ass was canned. |
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Originally posted by Yucko55
Well I never implied he would not wear a smile while he used his taser oO lol. But yes I agree lol with him being better than Kjetil from what ive heard lol. |
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12/16/08 9:13:48 AM#44
Originally posted by ZeGerman1942
Avery you have been to Funcom once as far as i know. I met you then. You, the guys from TTH and other fans/press have seen exactly what Gaute and the others wanted you to see. Including the trip to the irish pub. The work conditions described by the norwegian news site were present during AoC. There were people who did upwards of 12 weeks overtime (that is 12x 37 hours) in a 6 month period before launch. AoC entered "crunch" in December 2007, when the release date was still set for February 2008. When the release date was changed to May, crunch continued on. Prior to that there was crunch period in February/March 2007 and in August/September 2007 - before the other published release dates. There have been MANY people who left Funcom because of working conditions (i know of 5 who left for that particular reason and a few others who were influenced by the working conditions). There was several emails and discussions on internal newsgroups about working conditions, overtime pay, the law and ways of getting help - i am glad someone actually had the balls and do something about it now. Picking up the dinner bill? Funcom employees could order from 5 different take away places. When you order from the same places for more than a year it gets old really fast. And when people work 4 to 6 hours overtime a day, and get NOTHING for it, a meal is the least they can expect. What you saw was us all munching away happily at pizza in a time when we were still in early crunch time. If you had come and visited Funcom in May for example, you probably would have gotten a different picture. Avery it is fine with me if you want to defend AoC. I think it is great that the game has such loyal fans. I believe the game will continue to do ok and it will definately break even and make a profit. Particularly with Gaute gone and Craig at the helm of the ship. Had i known that Gaute was going to be fired (and don't believe for a second that "he stepped down because he was unhappy with how the game was handled after launch"), i might have considered staying at Funcom. But Avery PLEASE do not profess to know anything about how Funcom really is, and please do not defend a company you know NOTHING about, simply because you are in love with the product they make. I personaly do not regret working for Funcom. Overall i had a good time there because of the people i worked with and the atmosphere the employees created. But at the same time i am glad i left and i would not work for them again, because management was utter rubbish, working conditions were the worst i have experienced in the industry (and i have been around a while) and game direction was a lost cause. There will always be people who worked/work at Funcom who will defend the company and who are happy. Those will generally be people who have not been in any other games company, who have a job that require little to no overtime or people like you, who are blindly faithfull and don't see the bad things. The mere fact that there ARE people who go public and that Funcom is actually being investigated, should show you that there is something wrong. *crickets* Avery, where you at?
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12/16/08 11:05:12 AM#45
Originally posted by AmazingAvery
Sorry to post again, but i just saw this post. Avery, i hope you don't feel like i am picking on you in particular, but i really think your love for AoC has caused you to talk about things you really know very little about. Again, as mentioned in my last post, i think it's great the game has fans like you, but please don't comment on the development of AoC. You were/are a fan that has gotten a trip to Oslo but you did not spend any time working on it. The game had a deadline? Which deadline was that? February 2007? September 2007? February 2008? May 2008? The deadline for Conan changed on a monthly basis almost. And the deliverables required for each deadline changed. - Conan was supposed to be single player only up to level 20 - Players were not meant to pick ANY arch type until level 5 - Players were not meant to pick ANY class until level 20 These 3 things had changed around 4 times (until it settled to the final cookie cutter MMO class system it has now). Do you know what that meant in terms of content, quests, EPIC quests? The dialogue, the story, the gameplay the functionality it all had to be re-written. Why? because the head of the company and the Game Director decided that the game was not fun enough as a solo experience and we should bring the experience closer to World of Warcraft. That meant MONTHS of work was lost for the 1 to 20 team. That is WHY there were so many bugs in 1 to 20 all the way to launch (and after). Those guys worked their asses off - they literally did 20 hours a day shifts for weeks - and who's fault is that? (and this is just ONE example for the first 20 levels) Your statement makes it sound as if it is the developers fault if the deliverables of a deadline are not met. But what if the deliverables and the deadline changes so often and arbitrarily that months of your work are lost? And as a result you are required to work hundreds of overtime hours. Should you not get compensated for that? This has NOTHING to do with how talented, organized and efficient the actual developers are. Conan did not turn out as bad as it did because the people working on it were bad. I would work with ANY of them again in a heartbeat. The reason for the years of delay, the massive amount of bugs, the broken content, the missing content, the not delivered functionality is purely down to the fact that the original game design was updated on a daily basis, nobody told anyone anything and overall project management was extremely bad. In short: the people on the floor had to make up for high level mistakes time and time again. want another example? climbing. climbing was re-worked more than 5 times. We did not know until 1 week before gold milestone (when the DVDs were created and all assets had to be locked down) HOW the final implementation of climbing would look like. which is WHY you have climbing that works and looks different in several areas of the world. Avery, go play the game, enjoy it, love it. But please stop being ignorant and talk about things you know NOTHING about. You seriously are talking out of your behind on this one. |
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AmazingAvery
Age of Conan Advocate
Joined: 1/16/07
The only time you run out of chances is when you stop taking them. |
12/16/08 11:23:46 AM#46
Your right I know nothing of the game development or making it, but I have worked with million pound budgets and deadlines before right from the floor up into management. I do not profess to understand the working conditions at Funcom, I can only comment on what I saw. I did also take that Sunday as an unscheduled trip up there, I did sit with a few people who all told me they could order food from where they wanted and after a certain time by law (or company policy) FC would pick up the bill for it. Whilst there on that day there were several employees from different area's all coming to collect food that was delivered (few more than 5 different places) - Anyway, I don't work there I can't profess for the in's and out's and workings. It does seem that things were bad a while back and have improved or focused in the right direction. I do not blame dev's either and I didn't think my posts read like that. My background has similarities that can mirror what sounds like the working conditions there and thats what I am relating off, experience. I used to be in HR in the past dealing with a couple of hundred employees too. I understand UK working of employement law and legislation in and out. Lets hope FC pull their finger out and make right any wrongs. I can appreciate some employee's issues, and I think we hope they get resolved properly and those that work there feel as comfortable as possible.
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12/16/08 11:48:21 AM#47
Originally posted by Lieven
Can't wait to hear it! I heard you got in trouble with the former Technical Director, the very same Technical Director that I heard is the least technical guy at Funcom, is this correct? I was in a job interview with him once, but he acted like an asshole so I thought I'd better not work at Funcom. He made me feel like they did not really want to have any new employees there and that I was not good enough for them, so why the hell did they want me to take an interview in the first place? Cunts.. |
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12/16/08 12:11:26 PM#48
Originally posted by AmazingAvery
You working and managing million pound budgets has nothing to do with game development at all. And you can not compare that kind of project and budget mangement at all - i wish you could (because that would mean games would be run better), but you can't. What do you think Funcom employees will say when you sit next to them at work? I wish i could dig out the emails from marketing that were sent out prior to ever visit we had. "Please tidy your desk, please have stuff on screen that works, please answer questions this way or that" - come on, you did not honestly think you'd get the full picture on a visit? The places we got food from: Dolly's Pizza, Spice, Ring 222222, Room Service and one other (which i forgot). Sometimes one would be dropped for another. Unless you spent some time in Norway and at Funcom, i doubt you managed to tell apart the different food containers. I kind of expect you to come back and trying to spin/defend what you said, but honestly mate the answer is: when it comes to this you have no clue. When it comes to Age of Conan, you probably know more about the game how it is now than myself or many others (even though you might look at it through rose tinted glasses). I love the fact how people compare working at Funcom or game development with any other job. Sure there are always similarities, but please (and that's not just for Avery), unless you worked in the industry or at Funcom, don't pretend you know anything. I know f*** all about investment banking, insurance, running a 5 star hotel or how people work at EA - so you won't see me talking about it. |
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12/16/08 12:58:48 PM#49
Originally posted by ZeGerman1942
You working and managing million pound budgets has nothing to do with game development at all. And you can not compare that kind of project and budget mangement at all - i wish you could (because that would mean games would be run better), but you can't. What do you think Funcom employees will say when you sit next to them at work? I wish i could dig out the emails from marketing that were sent out prior to ever visit we had. "Please tidy your desk, please have stuff on screen that works, please answer questions this way or that" - come on, you did not honestly think you'd get the full picture on a visit? The places we got food from: Dolly's Pizza, Spice, Ring 222222, Room Service and one other (which i forgot). Sometimes one would be dropped for another. Unless you spent some time in Norway and at Funcom, i doubt you managed to tell apart the different food containers. I kind of expect you to come back and trying to spin/defend what you said, but honestly mate the answer is: when it comes to this you have no clue. When it comes to Age of Conan, you probably know more about the game how it is now than myself or many others (even though you might look at it through rose tinted glasses). I love the fact how people compare working at Funcom or game development with any other job. Sure there are always similarities, but please (and that's not just for Avery), unless you worked in the industry or at Funcom, don't pretend you know anything. I know f*** all about investment banking, insurance, running a 5 star hotel or how people work at EA - so you won't see me talking about it.
But you sure as hell take a great confidence in the Mohawk guy that got fired from FunCom. You know, people can even get fired in Norway for incompetancy. Of course he's disapointed because they just fired his useless ass. End of story. I would not use a disgrunteled ex-worker's story as referance for your arguments. |
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12/16/08 1:09:38 PM#50
Originally posted by CobraSolidus
LOL. He is not only using this story as reference for his arguments, he is mainly using his own experience in the company. However, I happen to know a couple of Funcom guys that know the "Tomahawk guy" aswell as "Theodor" and from what I hear they are both talented people that give everything they've got to their workplace. Osman revamped the AO engine, made it look a lot more up to date, added some really nice features on his own initiative in his spare time and after that his bosses took the credit for all of it. Useless? I've been following Funcom for a while now and I've counted 20 or so different devs and ex-devs that says mainly the same stuff. Coinsidense? How many more must there be that has experienced the same stuff, but just don't talk about it in public? |
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12/16/08 1:17:47 PM#51
Originally posted by CobraSolidus
But you sure as hell take a great confidence in the Mohawk guy that got fired from FunCom. You know, people can even get fired in Norway for incompetancy. Of course he's disapointed because they just fired his useless ass. End of story. I would not use a disgrunteled ex-worker's story as referance for your arguments.
Oh really? The last time I checked firing someone who is a employee in norway is not an easy task, sure you can fire him for being incompetent... But wait you can't, you have to move him to a different position in the company, if there is no job he can do yes then you can fire him. Sure it happens people get fired for being incompetent and most people don't bother go to a jury and try their case, because if they did, the chances are they will win. As a employee in Norway you have it nice, if you are a part of a worker union it's even worse firing you. I know people who I trust 100% that has told me much of what Zegerman1942 says so I have no doubts that he is telling the truth, how can I trust them you might ask? I don't know.. RL friends who had family working for Funcom maybe? Funcom isn't saints when it comes to working politics, but there is many companies worldwide that breaks those rules so they are far from unique.
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12/16/08 1:28:32 PM#52
I also need to point out that Osman did not get fired, he willingly left himself. |
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12/16/08 1:43:46 PM#53
no surprise here. Check how they treat ppl in their offitial forums .. If a company does that to their costumers, imagine what will do to their employees. My simpathy to the fellow programmers, game designers and workers affected at FailCom. |
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12/16/08 1:49:26 PM#54
Originally posted by EduardoASG
And exactly how do they treat their customers on the forums then? |
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12/16/08 2:33:02 PM#55
Glad to see former employees come out of the wood work to post on this subject. Maybe the Ostrichs will start to pull their heads out of the sand now. I know, I know wishful thinking. " I know everything their is to know about FunCom I visited their Once " |
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12/16/08 3:25:16 PM#56
Originally posted by ZeGerman1942
You working and managing million pound budgets has nothing to do with game development at all. And you can not compare that kind of project and budget mangement at all - i wish you could (because that would mean games would be run better), but you can't. What do you think Funcom employees will say when you sit next to them at work? I wish i could dig out the emails from marketing that were sent out prior to ever visit we had. "Please tidy your desk, please have stuff on screen that works, please answer questions this way or that" - come on, you did not honestly think you'd get the full picture on a visit? The places we got food from: Dolly's Pizza, Spice, Ring 222222, Room Service and one other (which i forgot). Sometimes one would be dropped for another. Unless you spent some time in Norway and at Funcom, i doubt you managed to tell apart the different food containers. I kind of expect you to come back and trying to spin/defend what you said, but honestly mate the answer is: when it comes to this you have no clue. When it comes to Age of Conan, you probably know more about the game how it is now than myself or many others (even though you might look at it through rose tinted glasses). I love the fact how people compare working at Funcom or game development with any other job. Sure there are always similarities, but please (and that's not just for Avery), unless you worked in the industry or at Funcom, don't pretend you know anything. I know f*** all about investment banking, insurance, running a 5 star hotel or how people work at EA - so you won't see me talking about it.
I appreciate you and Lieven for posting in this thread and lending both personal experience and perspective to this topic. It was an honest and worthwhile read on several counts; and I think it speaks volumes of you both that you're not on here daily espousing negative views as people with your knowledge and insight certainly could. Again, thanks for your posts and I'm sure many who are not on either extreme appreciate your honesty. |
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I am glad how this thread turned out, there were a few comments not needed but I am glad how it has gone overall. Avery thanks for posting in the original thread informing them of this thread. As for those of you posting that are Ex FC staff thank you for giving us a bit of insight and I truely hope things work out for everyone in the end. |
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12/16/08 7:54:27 PM#58
This is just more proof of what Funcom is. They treat their customers like crap, they treat their employees like crap, they lie, cheat and yes...steal to make a buck. When is the rest of the mmo community gonna wake up and see this company for what it is? As I said in another thread, the guy running this dog and pony show called Funcom should be in jail for fraud. Its gonna be a great day when this so called legitamate business goes under and they lock the doors for good. |
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12/16/08 9:46:52 PM#59
Originally posted by Hamrtime2
This is just more proof that the truth is in the eyes of the beholder. And that would be fine, if people were beholding whatever distorted truth they wish without spewing too much of the the crap (or, ponies and butterflies, for that matter) back . But Internet makes this kind of spewing much easier, and one usually doesn't trouble himself enough to reflect on his own judgement before starting to shout aloud in extremely assertive way.
You say that "they lie, cheat, steal, treat people like crap and deserve to die"?.. You know what? I say that it's very far from being that. And believe it or not, I have more objective knowledge about the matters at hand than you. Go figure the truth... oh wait, you say it so many times, and I don't, so the truth must be yours... right? right?
Today's world seriously lacks positive people.
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12/16/08 11:10:32 PM#60
Originally posted by Yucko55
LOL. He is not only using this story as reference for his arguments, he is mainly using his own experience in the company. However, I happen to know a couple of Funcom guys that know the "Tomahawk guy" aswell as "Theodor" and from what I hear they are both talented people that give everything they've got to their workplace. Osman revamped the AO engine, made it look a lot more up to date, added some really nice features on his own initiative in his spare time and after that his bosses took the credit for all of it. Useless? I've been following Funcom for a while now and I've counted 20 or so different devs and ex-devs that says mainly the same stuff. Coinsidense? How many more must there be that has experienced the same stuff, but just don't talk about it in public?
My god this made me laugh. Such sentimental nonsense. 1. For starters. Who tha hell use all his sparetime to work (revamp AO). Nobody asked this guy to do it, he just went ahead and did it with the hope that, yupp they sure gona give me a tremendous bonus now. That's completely idiotic. You can't go ahead and do that. No wonder he is disappointed. If he tought he would get promoted to GD by acting crazy, it's no wonder he is disappointed now. The workers reality just caught up with him. FC has no obligation to pay, bow, suck up, pay lots of lots of money to people fcking around in their offices at evening time. lol, this is just too much. 2. 20 unhappy workers. Oh, I guess I just should belive you... NOT. Ref please. 3. I like that FC fire inefficient developers. Thats how we get the highest efficiency in the workplace. It's not good to have a bunch of nerds sosializing with eachother in the office every night. Fire them, get a professional and efficient workforce in place. Thats what I feel FC have going now, hence all the new content and the game shaping very nicely up. 4. So The Mohawk Man, was disappointed over how little his boss appreciated his work. De Ja Vu... Let us all call Opera or nearest tabloid paper right away to get some crytime in public. My god how pathetic. Get over it. |
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