Former Funcom CEO Faces Insider Trading Allegations
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
I am so surprised that someone who has never played the game thinks that the game played like World of Warcraft.kajinking said:The secret worlds setting was actually really interesting to me but the gameplay was basically WOW with modern guns replacing arrows and muskets which is why I never bothered. Plus with it being sub based and me already paying for EVE there was no way I could even afford it even if I wanted to.
The similarities between Secret World and World of Warcraft are much smaller than the similarities between World of Warcraft and most any other MMORPG released in the last five years.
Idiot early reviewers who probably based their opinions of the game on half of the opening tutorial are the reason people believe this game is anything less than the most fun and engaging MMORPG ever (which it is, by the way, in the opinion of my tried-most-every-MMORPG-since-being-in-the-Ultima-Online-beta self).
Sounds like a fanboy trolling here then anything else. If this game was so great and amazing then it wouldnt be in so much trouble, and pretty much on the verge of going F2P. Just because you and all 4 of your friends love the game in no way makes it anything of a success or a hit. Its just delusional fanboyism, it sounds like when the game completely fails you'll still be clinging to the idea the game is a success instead of facing reality.Metalhandkerchief said:Understand that I'm not arguing that the game was not a hit in sales. It was a hit with fans, because 100% of the game's fans bought and enjoyed the game. Your wording in the article makes it sound like fans didn't like the game, while you are trying to say TSW had problems generating new fans. It is offensive to fans and the developers, who succeeded in making the game the fans wanted.
Thought some things needed clarification:
1. TSW had an amazing following from the early days, first triggered by people's expectation that Tornquist will deliver on another awesome story like he did in Dreamfall/TLJ, second, by the marketing hype that this MMO will be completely different, and third because of the cool conspiracy spin and all the Alternate reality game shebang. Towards the end of development, almost a year before release, the ARG had wound down, people knew most of the story that was in Tornquists head had remained safely there(!) and that our game was not much different than any other MMO. The combat system, in particular had been changed around so many times that almost everyone was sick of it - few saw merits in it. So that's what most developers thought - our fans on the other hand were awesomely patient with us, and forgiving with the faults of our game.
2. I always thought that it was weird that Trond Aas was downplaying the fact that we had issues, and towards the end kept acting like we had hit a gold mine with the game. People would look at him in disbelief when he claimed that 1.2 million people had logged in at some point or another during the beta to play the game and then him and his crew kept giving us cooked numbers to support the fact that soon all of us will be rich from the stock option we had gotten if we went ahead and purchased them stocks. It made no sense to me back then, especially since Trond had always tried to scare us into working harder and making a better game in the two years running up to the release of Age of Conan, I guess I know now why he wanted to synthesize the hype - that even we developers knew was not justified - and believe me, our projects are our babies, so we love them, even when you hate them.
3. TWS had potential - it still does. It will hopefully rebound, even if it does so slowly, and it will do that despite Trond's dubious trades and lies and greedy behavior - it will rebound because of the great fans it has, and because at this point we have no other option than to make this work. Unfortunately pretty much everyone I had any respect for was laid off recently, but we will fill in for them, and will try our hardest to make this right and if any of our managers are reading this I want you to know: for each one of you who messed up the game and got to stay, two great employees who warned you all along of the shortcomings of the game were fired so value the second chance you got.
4. To Trond: I am glad you have left one way or another - acting like you care about a game, when you are not willing to take any of the steps necessary to get it right, and only thinking about your bank account when you see a ship sinking (yes, you DID have pre-release sales numbers, and yes you knew how many people spent how many hours in the beta servers) is disgusting, and we don't need people like you in the industry. You used the company as your personal piggybank, and you didn't shy away from breaking it in the end.
5. To our fans: we will try hard to do the right thing by you, even if it means not getting paid for a while. You did your part, we will do ours.
1. TSW had an amazing following from the early days, first triggered by people's expectation that Tornquist will deliver on another awesome story like he did in Dreamfall/TLJ, second, by the marketing hype that this MMO will be completely different, and third because of the cool conspiracy spin and all the Alternate reality game shebang. Towards the end of development, almost a year before release, the ARG had wound down, people knew most of the story that was in Tornquists head had remained safely there(!) and that our game was not much different than any other MMO. The combat system, in particular had been changed around so many times that almost everyone was sick of it - few saw merits in it. So that's what most developers thought - our fans on the other hand were awesomely patient with us, and forgiving with the faults of our game.
2. I always thought that it was weird that Trond Aas was downplaying the fact that we had issues, and towards the end kept acting like we had hit a gold mine with the game. People would look at him in disbelief when he claimed that 1.2 million people had logged in at some point or another during the beta to play the game and then him and his crew kept giving us cooked numbers to support the fact that soon all of us will be rich from the stock option we had gotten if we went ahead and purchased them stocks. It made no sense to me back then, especially since Trond had always tried to scare us into working harder and making a better game in the two years running up to the release of Age of Conan, I guess I know now why he wanted to synthesize the hype - that even we developers knew was not justified - and believe me, our projects are our babies, so we love them, even when you hate them.
3. TWS had potential - it still does. It will hopefully rebound, even if it does so slowly, and it will do that despite Trond's dubious trades and lies and greedy behavior - it will rebound because of the great fans it has, and because at this point we have no other option than to make this work. Unfortunately pretty much everyone I had any respect for was laid off recently, but we will fill in for them, and will try our hardest to make this right and if any of our managers are reading this I want you to know: for each one of you who messed up the game and got to stay, two great employees who warned you all along of the shortcomings of the game were fired so value the second chance you got.
4. To Trond: I am glad you have left one way or another - acting like you care about a game, when you are not willing to take any of the steps necessary to get it right, and only thinking about your bank account when you see a ship sinking (yes, you DID have pre-release sales numbers, and yes you knew how many people spent how many hours in the beta servers) is disgusting, and we don't need people like you in the industry. You used the company as your personal piggybank, and you didn't shy away from breaking it in the end.
5. To our fans: we will try hard to do the right thing by you, even if it means not getting paid for a while. You did your part, we will do ours.