^^

And Funcom isn't the only company I've worked for. I know pretty well that I'm far from incompetent.

About stock options, I don't think anybody got those, at least not for working over time. We did have a lot of bonus programs though, where we got some extra money depending on the amount of overtime we worked.

But I don't think anybody at Funcom really worked as much as they did because they wanted to get more money, or because they wanted to get promoted. The thing was that working overtime was just kind of the default, and you really had to be quite rebelious to just go home at 6.

Originally posted by CobraSolidus

Originally posted by Lieven

Originally posted by CobraSolidus

Originally posted by Crashloop

Because just getting a new job is so easy :)

It might be very easy if you are willing to move to another country to develop games, but for those who have family that have job here and maybe kids too, just moo\ving to another country isn't something you do over night. Funcom is breaking the laws when people work overtime without getting paid, it's easy to say that is how the businiess is, but still they have to follow the laws.

 

You see what you say there is the crux of the whole situation. FC never asked anybody to go nutto and work all the time. If a worker love his work so much that he rather stay and do his work all the time, does not mean he should and even less can he expect FC to start paying overtime. Anyone noodling around in the office at evening time unless asked to are there purely on their own initiative. NO PAY !

Ow, believe me, they don't even ask you to work overtime, they politely force you to do it. And not just a bit, but a lot.

 

Do you mean as in they ask you ok mister project manager, whats the time required for project A, and then you sit down and say B after a while. However when some time passes and B start to creep up on you and you realize that you are fare behind your deadline. You damn right thats pressure, but it's the kind of pressure any project manager have to deal with. You are not supposed to be late. Did you know that? You see this whole thing about AoC patching that got delayed and delayed over the summer was not really acceptable. And I am glad FC obviously have started to do something about this. A project manager is responsible for his project!

Nice try, but no.

And if you would know anything about managing software projects, you know that sliding happens all the time, especially in a company with so much legacy code as Funcom has. DirectX 10 anyone?

Originally posted by CobraSolidus

Originally posted by Lieven

And to give a short version of my story:

I guess I started as a promising employee, of which they had really high expectations. I myself was a bit over courageous as well, and I ended up with a task that was a bit too big for someone who didn't know their code yet, so I grosly underestimated the amount of time it was going to cost. After some time, they took me off the task, and my reputation got a big blow. Then for the rest of the time, the things I got to do weren't really that important, but I did them fine. The feedback I got from my direct lead was fine, but mr Pål the technical director felt like it was still needed to keep destroying my reputation even further. Of course I got worried about this, so talked with my direct lead about it, and she said that I shouldn't worry, as the rest of management know what that guy was like, and they didn't really take him serious anyway. Then there was this meeting, where I got offered 3 months of pay if I would resign. Which of couse sucked. Then I started looking for a new job, and after some interviews with a certain company, they offered me a position as lead. I didn't take it though, for obvious reasons, but I figured that it was kinda important to understand where it went wrong at funcom, as the dots didn't really seem to connect any more. So I first contacted my previous lead, and later kjetil the hr dude, but they were just acting like they were dealing with an annoying customer, which finally turned me into the disgruntled little ex employee I am now.

The long version, which I'm currently writing is much more saucy, but I probably won't post it here anyway, as it may be a bit too personal on some stuff:).

 

My god are you for real? lol. Are you posting your lifes serenade on these forums? I am very happy to see that FC take people with low coding efficiency off the project. Do you really think FC (the evil monster) would on purpose (for personal reasons) take you of the project? NO, truth is if you were an excellent programmer you would have been promoted, but you were not so you got demoted. I see nothing wrong in this. And by the way, did you know that when you give a deadline for a project that thats actually supposed to match the date when you are done? You can get fired for less dude (in any industry). lol. Reading your posts and how FC professionally moved ahead through your performance issues I am very optimistic on their behalf.

Another thing, reading all your posts you almost come accross quite trollish. It's almost like I have read your posts somewhere else... Let me think about that one..

 

Well, that's what this thread is about, eh?

And I do realize my mistake with that task, so if they had fired me right away, then they would be harsh and unforgiving, but still fair. But that wasn't the case, I still worked there for almost a year, and during that year I hadn't done anything wrong. And believe me, I have made a great effort to find out if there was anything, but it became pretty clear that there just wasn't.

But even if I would have been doing a bad job, there's just no way that could have justified the badmouthing people in management started doing. And really, the charicature they finally fired was just so far from the truth that it was almost rediculous.

And it's not like I don't understand it. After all management was clearly very frustrated, especially this Pål guy who really is just a fossile from the time Funcom was a much smaller company. He clearly had completely lost his touch of what was going on, and was probably also feeling the hot breath of the current technical director in his neck, so I don't think it's that weird that he needed his scape goats. And who do you pick fo that? Not the people that are doing fine, not the people that are just useless junior programmers, but someone who has been in the spotlight, but let you down (and btw, I'm not the only one, I know at least a couple of other people that have been threated in a similar way too).

And as I said, I'm disgruntled, so I know my posts are cynical, but that doesn't make them any less true.

And I'm curious who you think I would be... I tend to use the same name on most forums.

Originally posted by ZeGerman1942

As for Funcom firing people, i only know of 3 people who were fired - 2 during development, and 1 (Gaute) after launch. Everyone else left on their own accord. And there were some very very talented people on board and if you read the manual/credits of a few up coming games next year and compare it to the Age of Conan credits you will see that.

He, I guess nobody knows the exact number, but I think the famous 3 months pay for resign deal has been made far more often than you think.

Thing is that in my meeting, they actually tried to bring up "we need to think of a good way to tell the rest of the team". My immediate reaction was just "ow, they can just know the truth", so I guess they didn't bother to try to convince me further, but for most people I know that got "fired", they actually put up this whole show that it was so great working together, but that the employee decided to move on.

Originally posted by CobraSolidus

Originally posted by Crashloop

Because just getting a new job is so easy :)

It might be very easy if you are willing to move to another country to develop games, but for those who have family that have job here and maybe kids too, just moo\ving to another country isn't something you do over night. Funcom is breaking the laws when people work overtime without getting paid, it's easy to say that is how the businiess is, but still they have to follow the laws.

 

You see what you say there is the crux of the whole situation. FC never asked anybody to go nutto and work all the time. If a worker love his work so much that he rather stay and do his work all the time, does not mean he should and even less can he expect FC to start paying overtime. Anyone noodling around in the office at evening time unless asked to are there purely on their own initiative. NO PAY !

Ow, believe me, they don't even ask you to work overtime, they politely force you to do it. And not just a bit, but a lot.

And to give a short version of my story:

I guess I started as a promising employee, of which they had really high expectations. I myself was a bit over courageous as well, and I ended up with a task that was a bit too big for someone who didn't know their code yet, so I grosly underestimated the amount of time it was going to cost. After some time, they took me off the task, and my reputation got a big blow. Then for the rest of the time, the things I got to do weren't really that important, but I did them fine. The feedback I got from my direct lead was fine, but mr Pål the technical director felt like it was still needed to keep destroying my reputation even further. Of course I got worried about this, so talked with my direct lead about it, and she said that I shouldn't worry, as the rest of management know what that guy was like, and they didn't really take him serious anyway. Then there was this meeting, where I got offered 3 months of pay if I would resign. Which of couse sucked. Then I started looking for a new job, and after some interviews with a certain company, they offered me a position as lead. I didn't take it though, for obvious reasons, but I figured that it was kinda important to understand where it went wrong at funcom, as the dots didn't really seem to connect any more. So I first contacted my previous lead, and later kjetil the hr dude, but they were just acting like they were dealing with an annoying customer, which finally turned me into the disgruntled little ex employee I am now.

The long version, which I'm currently writing is much more saucy, but I probably won't post it here anyway, as it may be a bit too personal on some stuff:).

Overtime and stress for deadlines is one thing, but I don't think that was really the biggest problem with Funcom. Thing is that there was a lot of frustration inside the company, on all levels. Of course you had lots of employees that where frustrated by certain things, or the way they were threated by management. But also management was clearly very frustrated, as they must have felt really powerless to see things slip away and break apart all the time. And it happened a lot that they just needed to release their frustration on employees. And with that I don't mean just criticizing someone, but really nasty below the belt remarks, or just random comments like "yea, this or that guy is just fucking everything up" in front of other employees. And no matter how much deadlines or pressure there would be, I think that is just completely unacceptable.

 ^^

I really like your theory, and generally completely agree with you, only thing is that the situation with Funcom and Osman is completely different from this, so please stup making assumptions about things you have no clue about.

Originally posted by ruslans

Originally posted by Lieven

 ^^

And Ruslan, just for your information, I am not someone who calls someone else "evil" easily, let alone a whole group of people, I always try to understand what's going on underneath it, and how different people may have thought, so even though I know some of the people at Funcom aren't "evil", I do think that as part of management, they do contribute to this poisonous culture.

 

 

Well, my point indeed was that what we here call a "culture" is nothing else as a system on itself. So, if you are an employee, then you are destined to contribute to this culture in some way. Be you "decent" or not - it does not matter, you're still a part of the system.

So, we basically agree here.

But let's go further. Putting it differently - culture is a system of people's relationships, personal or  job related.

When it's poisoned, it is not  necessarily because of certain people being evil. You see, I believe every person has own good and bad sides. What makes for a bad culture, is a wrong combination of people, and also certain circumstances, which supress those good sides, but let bad sides to flourish instead.

 

Some people are not experienced, but are inventive.

Some people are smart but arrogant.

Some people are overly emotional, but less egoistic.

Some people are communicative, but scared.

Some people are knowledgeable, but rigid-thinking.

Some people are creative, but too quiet.

 

Now, mix and match these people, let them do a wrong job in a wrong teams with a wrong subordination, and eventually you get a "poisonous culture".

Chaos, depression, pressure and personal grievances lead to lost productivity, which in turn leads to chaos, depression, pressure... ad infinitum.

 

I am by no means saying that it's the way it should be.

Or saying that it is not this way (or, it did not use to be this way).

I am saying that while, of course, it's easy to blame certain people and the whole abstract notion of the company, it will not do any good to understanding of the real reasons of why things are wrong, and most importantly, what could and should be done to break these deadly loops.

Oh, and I did not refer to your post in particular, let alone thinking that you call someone "evil". Peace :)

 

Don't worry, my post wasn't intended to sound pissed off or so, and I perfectly get your point, that things just aren't as black and white, but that doesn't mean that I think there are certain things done by Funcom management, even by people I really respect, that I'm having a really hard time with to forgive them.

But if you want, I can definitely send the thing I'm writing now to you (if you're interested of course).

and, I'm sorry Norwegians, but I think this janteloven thing is a big reason why lots of people in management are just too affraid to stand up against the stuff that was happening, and instead just go with the flow.

 ^^

And Ruslan, just for your information, I am not someone who calls someone else "evil" easily, let alone a whole group of people, I always try to understand what's going on underneath it, and how different people may have thought, so even though I know some of the people at Funcom aren't "evil", I do think that as part of management, they do contribute to this poisonous culture.

Originally posted by ruslans

It's quite outstanding that most of the time people speak about the "company" as an intelligent almost-human being, which is "lying", "doing", "pressuring", "threatening" etc.

And it's not only in this paticular case. Be it EA or Funcom, Flagship or Sigil - this kind of atomic treatment is very common.

And it's quite convenient (and for the speculations in particular). You can not blame 1/3rd of the person, for example. When you build your judgment - it's either bad, good or inbetween. But it always relates to this abstract alive being as a whole.

Real life is much more complex, however.

A company, and especially a big one, which produces goods with an extremely high creative and intellectual involvement, is a very complex system.

It is not a person, not a human being, it is a system. Which, ironically enough, genuinely depends on the concrete human beings, this time real ones, alive.

 

If you read all these articles carefully again, there is a common pattern: all of the correponding ex-employees  seem to have had a bad experience with the certain elements of the forementioned system (that is, certain management people), but not with the company itself.

Also they say, that "things have certainly changed" since then.

And it's also not surprising, because it happens quite often that in some ill-formed complex system it's just enough to gently pull and break several bad dependencies, remove some poisoned elements, and then eventually observe that system shapes itself into something new and healthy.

 

We'll see.

Well, it's not a single person, but companies (or it's management) do tend to have a certain culture. And even though some people would be pretty decent by themselves, they can be part of this culture when they are part of the bigger team. 

And I'm sure you know how much behind-each-others-back talking, and lying there is going on between management and other employees, and probably also between different people in management.

And even if you are a decent person, this isn't something you can break free from easily.

 ^^

EA isn't bad anymore at all. And if I compare the situation at Funcom to what I hear from other collegues in the industry, the situation at Funcom is really extreme (maybe not even the amount of overtime, but the way management deals with it).

I don't think you will find a lot of game development companies that has so many disgruntled former employees as Funcom has.

 I'm a former Funcom employee as well, and I can say that it all looks very recognizable.

Of course we had to work a lot of overtime, which I personally didn't mind that much (although some appreciation for it would have been nice), but I can understand that it kills other people. But the truth is that there are indeed some *very* poisonous people in management. If you don't have to deal with them, I can understand that Funcom seems like a fine place (which is probably the case with that intern), but once you get into their target, and become the target of their frustrations, they can get really nasty.

I'm in the process of writing down my own story, which l'm gonna send to Erik Bråten. I'll probably post it here as well.

 Yes, they should definitely do this, but before they do it, they'll have to make sure there really is some obvious stuff that shows how the game is different from before. Just less bugs won't do it.

Well, shit happens, but I gotta say it's kinda weird that they didn't find this out before they let that merged server go live.

Originally posted by Crashloop

Originally posted by mackdawg19

 Avery, do me a huge favor and post some SS's in a thread once the patch goes to test live. I would love to see what type of imporvements they have made visually. Might even promote me to buy a better video card and re enable my account. Thanks for the notes btw also, things are looking great.

 

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/487/1/

A page comparing screenshots in Dx10 and Dx9.

Here you have a Video from Funcom with the dx10 enabled

ftp://ftp.funcom.com/media/Age_of_Conan/videos/24jan07/conan_dx10_tease_720p.wmv

show's a bit of how things looks like. Quite like what I see. :)

Lol, that comparison is so obviously bullshit.

If I remember correctly those shadows and light beams where there as well in the DX9 version of the forest, and the one with the campfire just has foliage disabled, and the drawing distance much closer.

Looks like a marketing guy had some fun dragging some sliders around, and then posted the ugly version as DX9 and the normal version as DX10.

Good going with the lying Funcom.

 Welcome to the club dude, but it's very likely you'll be just as disappointed as everybody else once you see the difference between the first couple of days, and the incomplete pos the rest of the game is.

Originally posted by arimer

Originally posted by Lieven

 But anyway, I'd happily see them go down. The world will be a better place without that bunch of lying incompetent parasites burning money that isn't theirs. (I'm talking about FC management here, not all their employees).

 

I hope your spending as much time on political websites fighting the good fight about the bailout and major companies cooking the books.  But probably not since that's nowhere near as important as a game launching with some missing features.

See, that's the beauty of knowing what your limits are. My good friend obama is taking care of the world, and I make sure to do the funcom bashing.