Monthly Development Update -- January 25th 2013

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Originally Posted by Pennypacker

How far do i have to zoom in between the lines ? tried 800x but still can't see anything between the lines :((

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you need to enable the PRspeak-to-english translator in firefox to properly understand it :(

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Originally Posted by Ilaliya

As part of the restructuring there will be one Live Team in the NC offices which will support the three MMOs. And as one chapter will close on AO's development, a new one will open. The new Live Team will include coders, designers, and artists from all the games. There are a lot of developers at Funcom across all projects who also happen to be extremely passionate AO players (and will be on the shared Live Team), so AO should be able to get the attention it deserves. And this is one of the rationales for having a shared pool of developers -- that developers can more easily shift between projects.

Obviously, not everyone is going to Raleigh. The move isn't immediate, and people will continue working in Montreal for up to a couple of months. Our immediate focus will be finishing as much of what we started as possible to make a seamless transition to the new Live Team. Before the move, we will release 18.6 to Live (Server Migration), and plan to get the New Player Experience to TestLive.

The details of the restructuring are still being hammered out, and this will impact the production schedule. This means I can't talk about what's next after the NPE gets to TestLive, since that's the furthest milestone we'll be able to hit before the new Live Team is up and running in the new location. But I will be spending the next couple of months working on the transition, and when we know more I will keep the AO community in the loop.

Sincerely,
Ilaliya

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Thank you for the update Ilaliya and I appreciate the turmoil you are all going thru with all these location and staffing changes.

I wish the community could be more positive in their thoughts for you, the team, and AO's future.

When more is known I know we all would appreciate an update of who among the current team will be going to the Raleigh, NC location. I am hoping for as much continuity in the team as possible & knowledge of AO.

Thanks,

Kinnik

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Originally Posted by Pennypacker

How far do i have to zoom in between the lines ? tried 800x but still can't see anything between the lines :((

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You can infer from what he says and how he says it, what's going on and how it's all gonna turn out. Really is the worst news I've seen for the game. Judging by the lack of information I'm sure we lost a lot of people

If you love something, let it go.

I'd encourage remaining subscribers to get out like rats from a sinking ship, but let's be honest, the ship sunk long ago. A more accurate analogy is that the ship has finally sunk so deep that it's no longer detectable by sonar.

AO will live on in your happy memories of crowded servers and active development.

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Originally Posted by Triadninja

Another question I have for you Ilaliya, because it is a "Live Team" now, and it is a single team, does that mean that whenever the suits decide they want the team working on a different project, the entire team focuses on that project, AKA they decide that everyone should work on a new expansion for AoC, so AO and TSW are put on hold until the new expac is done, or will the dev group shrink significantly down to a couple of people working on the other two MMOs until the main project is complete?

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Dude, this means all their current mmos are at their end of development. There wont be any more content, expansions nor the fabled engine. Its over. Stand by mode. Put out to pasture. Left to die.

Jebus, i really cant stand the thought of being suckered into financing FCs new kiddiegames while only an extremely tiny fraction of my money will be spent on the skeleton crew that will be running maintenance only.

this is all our fault. if everyone bought tsw lifetime subs this wouldn't be happening!

shared pool of people working on all 3 games. . .wonder where ao ranks in priority. seems like the only thing thats gonna happen first half of '13 is putting out stuff thats already been finished. my spidey sense tells me we'll be fed vague promises and have no real aditional work put into game till population loss shuts down the last server. theyre squeezing the last bit of blood from the turnip. i feel bad for devs/staff who have been trying to get stuff moving despite the corporate axe hanging over there heads. i dont doubt there are people there who love ao and genuinely want to see it reach somewhere near its potential. there IS a large group of people who want to play/pay for a game like ao. so sad to see fc unwilling to invest the resources to make it marketable

Shadows and dust!

We need a crazy person, a crazy rich person to buy ao off from funcom and have a small army of devs/whatever else is needed working for him/her so stuff gets done and none of this pooling resources crap :)

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Originally Posted by nanoforcer

We need a crazy person, a crazy rich person to buy ao off from funcom and have a small army of devs/whatever else is needed working for him/her so stuff gets done and none of this pooling resources crap :)

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Anyone here got a billion bucks and willing to spend a tiny bit of it? Someone please step up. Would if I could.

that's what kickstarter is for :p

Well, we had a president of the US (GWB) anybody could feel brighter than.
Now, we have top management any of us can feel more competent than.

Let me get this straight:
a) all their important forecasts have been wrong
b) they remedy their lack of vision by constant reorganizations that make sure very few people are ever working on something that adds value while adding to costs through constant opening/closing of locations and moving people around
c) they move the AO team 2 months before the most important deadline, the one everybody has been waiting for, for ages, and complaining loudly about
d) they manage to "organize" the moving in such a bad way that developers can't work... how is that even possible? Is the engine guy packing the toilet paper now?
e) they decide that while reducing the size of the bone-thin AO team, they will make them sustain/develop 2 different engines/clients simultaneously
f) there is a branch already done, but patching it is out of question for 6 months (more actually)?
g) developers now will need to be able to work with AO, AOC and TSW's code? Maybe have them teach ballet too?
h) there will be less red-tape because developers/customer service/billing teams are in the same building? Think what could be achieved if the janitor was there too.

I'm not even tackling the elephant in the room.

soo...plug stays in?

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Originally Posted by Superflare

soo...plug stays in?

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Yeah but the breaker is off.

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Originally Posted by schloops

Well, we had a president of the US (GWB) anybody could feel brighter than.
Now, we have top management any of us can feel more competent than.

Let me get this straight:
a) all their important forecasts have been wrong
b) they remedy their lack of vision by constant reorganizations that make sure very few people are ever working on something that adds value while adding to costs through constant opening/closing of locations and moving people around
c) they move the AO team 2 months before the most important deadline, the one everybody has been waiting for, for ages, and complaining loudly about
d) they manage to "organize" the moving in such a bad way that developers can't work... how is that even possible? Is the engine guy packing the toilet paper now?
e) they decide that while reducing the size of the bone-thin AO team, they will make them sustain/develop 2 different engines/clients simultaneously
f) there is a branch already done, but patching it is out of question for 6 months (more actually)?
g) developers now will need to be able to work with AO, AOC and TSW's code? Maybe have them teach ballet too?
h) there will be less red-tape because developers/customer service/billing teams are in the same building? Think what could be achieved if the janitor was there too.

I'm not even tackling the elephant in the room.

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http://s1.postimage.org/tnlm329n3/Co...a_02_BD_72.jpg
http://postimage.org/image/69dmr4rpn/

So FC is trying to be like Valve, where the developers choose what project they'd like to work on, or what?

{removed}

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Originally Posted by Esssch

So FC is trying to be like Valve, where the developers choose what project they'd like to work on, or what?

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to be like valve they'd have to first stop making games that flop.

lol, and to think how positive things almost looked this time last month. Damn shame

The part about consolidating resources to NC, in the US, rather than in Montreal still bugs me. I have a hard time believing that they can operate more cheaply here than in Canada. With the reductions in staff overall I would think that all CS/QA/billing could have fit in the current space they have in Montreal and I would think those divisions could be moved with less disruption than moving the Dev teams (the ones who make the games) south.

What might tip the balance in favor of having most assets in the US is the differences between bankruptcy laws here versus in Canada, if they foresee this as a slow death spiral...any legal beagles here know anything?

.