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Originally posted by AmazingAvery

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Originally posted by _Shadowmage

 

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Originally posted by Spack
BUT you have to admit that it's pretty wild that 120 developers are still working in AoC. That spells potential to me.

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So with 120 developers - that would mean in one month - the equivalent of 10 man years of development was done in AOC. ie 120 months work.

Game development seems horribly inefficient. By the time AOC has been out 12 months - thats more than 100 man years of work or over 200,000 hours of development work done.

Also - I noticed Funcom misrepresented their place on the 2008 PC sales chart. They were actually the 4th best selling game. World of Warcraft beat them twice - with the expansion, and with the game.

Which must really suck for other MMO developers - not just Funcom - as Blizzard sold more copies of WOW than AOC or WAR in 2008. It just keeps getting bigger.

 

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How does that work out with the darkfall developers then? like some 30 of them? I don't know where your getting your numbers from.
NPD charts were 4th best, for US only.

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Yes - I think I looked at the NPD charts for the U.S - so I assumed they lumped the Warcraft & Expansion together.

For Darkfall - good point - with a third the developers how can they produce a quality MMO if other developers have trouble - Funcom / Mythic.

Either - their title just isnt as good, they take 3 times as long to develop, or they work more effectively, or its so sandbox the players have to make all the content.

Certainly with other software projects you do hit a point where the more developers you have , the less extra productivity you get. It just gets too large, so more time spent in meetings etc.

I was just boggled thinking about it. So I went 120 developers, assuming 80% productivity and a 35 hour week and averaging 4 weeks = 120 * 4 * 28 = 13,440 hours of work done on AOC in a month. Thats a lot of work. Is it really more than 1 person could do in ten years or is there a lot of inefficiency from having that many people.

They cant all be working on patches, so some are working on content that will come out on a longer cycle, some are working on expansion or whatever. Still its a staggering amount of work - in 6 months its like 80,000 hours work on the game.

Do those developer numbers include office support staff, managers etc?

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Originally posted by conanowns
AoC as of right now...........is the best mmorpg on the market..nuff said.

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Originally posted by Spack
BUT you have to admit that it's pretty wild that 120 developers are still working in AoC. That spells potential to me.

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My biggest concern would be the lack of testing of later skills/content if characters / server is being constantly reset - no one can build a town or advance skills far enough to test later skills.

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Originally posted by ScamMan
I'm asking because I'm worried about my toons, which I spent a lot of time leveling.
Discuss.
 

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So let me see if I understand the OP - someone with the word FART in their name is buying Funcom stock - their stock must be a steaming pile of poop :)

Read the news - its the new design.

I have to say since you started the thread - I dont like the design for the game forums - grouped by letter and no idea if they are in development or released.

As the poster above me mentioned - there are no requirements out yet. Which is almost unheard of for a game that was originally going to be released a few days ago.

That said I did some basic research on your graphic card and found a review where they play Guild Wars at reasonable frame rates 25-40 in 800*600 resolution.

So as long as you have lighting and shadows off and Darkfall allows you to set the resolution down to 800*600 you may be able to play.

Of course the more people on screen the harder your card has to work and the lower your frame rate will be.

Best to try before you buy due to your graphics card.

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Originally posted by demalus
2. According to this, SWG should have been a huge success.

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The problem here is that players don't decide what to do; they are forced to play the game exactly how the developers envision. When you think of what an MMO truly brings to the table, it is the complete opposite of the single player philosophy - which is why this game is not looking promising to certain people.

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I like the fact they have licensed a lot of the software from experienced companies rather than creating their own engine.

So to me that means rather than focusing on things they dont really know (like MMO engines) they can focus on things they are good at - content.

From memory there is a blue (split into 10 segments) XP bar across the bottom of the U.I (Screen). Hovering your mouse pointer over this should do a popup that says how much XP you have, and how much for the next level.

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Originally posted by branko2307
HHAHAHAHHA i love these new threads of ppl saying how they cant wait to see reactions for the new delay, how they knew this whould happen.All i can say on that is HAHAHAHHAHAHAH

I havent heard better news about Darkfall in a while.Cmon trollz are u blind?

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Originally posted by Laurann
These are the same types of kids who have duped GOOD publishers, and made it hard for both you and I to secure funding for legitimate projects. These types of little startups with all their bullshit are one of the big reasons games like Wish, Realm, and quite a few others in development will never hit the street.
....
When I worked with Keith on VG, our number one priority with our work was always the fans, no matter how hard Jeff or MS tried to fuck it up.

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The real question is what those shares were worth in 2001. I have no idea how to check that.

I did see a interview when i was hunting where RG said they were undervalued in 2001 so they and employees bought shares.

Heres a link that might help your understanding of the redesign.

Gamasutra - Redesigning T.R

That article reads to me as though
- Too many high level talents
- Designed for both Eastern & Western markets that failed to please either
- R.G pushed on hoping it would come together but it didnt.

The game was cancelled and restarted in 2004. T.R is what you get when you spend 3.5 years on a AAA title instead of 5.

I read an article saying the Garriott brothers had put 2 million into starting up Destination Games. Hardly chump change. When EA released most of the origins staff to industry (Fired) they hired them, then needed a backer to provide the funding - enter NCSoft stage right.

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Inking Garriott was certainly a bold investment for NCsoft, which spent 43 billion won to acquire the American's company, Destination Games, in 2001 and allocating 2.06 million shares in stock options to him, his brother Robert, and other Destination employees.

By adding Garriott, the company hoped to enhance its profile among Western gamers as it looked to further expand to the lucrative markets of North America and Europe.

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Originally posted by hatertots
It's interesting how many times we keep hearing about beta testers begging a publisher not to release a game...Tabula Rasa, Vanguard, Age of Conan, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Warhammer, etc.
Why even have a beta test period if you're not going to listen to your testers?

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Originally posted by indiramourn
I agree--heck all my fellow beta testers begged--that the game should not be released when it was, it was no-where near ready. But I don't blame the publishers when it is clearly the game developers who were not up to the task.

If you had been one of the developers and the choices were either: Have the game cancelled and never see the light-of-day after years of development, or Have the game released before it is ready and be given 12 months to bring it up to speed. Which would you pick?

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Hmmm - perhaps too much of a technology generation gap in your example.

I would say a book is more like a board game - both older low tech entertainment that you can re-use over and over until they wear out.

Whereas games are like movies - I have all these old movies on VHS tapes that I cant lend to people as most people no longer have the old technology required to watch it.

AOC is like blue-ray - looks really good - but who can afford the technology required to run it.

Tabula Rasa then would be HD-DVD - great idea - but not enough people adopted it :)

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Originally posted by Ravanos
WTF WoW didnt win? they must have posted on thier forum to come and rig the vote!!!11111!!!

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Originally posted by Wolfdor
I guess Garriott wants to take a trip down to the Titanic or something and needs more cash from some sucker company to make it happen.
I wish some company would give Raph Koster that money instead. :)

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A book can be its own operation pain in the ass. Especially if its a multi-book saga and each book comes out 12-18 months after the previous.

I did make a suggestion in beta that they should be writing T.R novels to capitalize on the I.P Other companies do it - Blizzard, Bioware spring to mind.

TV & Movies write Novel tie ins as well. Star Trek, Star Wars, Star Gate.