13 Comments »

Resin213 said:

However much you dislike the guy, gloating is still unbecoming.
- 18 September 2008 at 9:42 am
MyPreciouss said:

Your post is so full of hatred, who do you think you are to rejoice at someone’s misfortune of being fired, some kind of high priest fighting evil and purifying the MMO scene from its demons? MMO should be about fun playing, positive constructive criticism, not harassing other people and dragging then in the mud. I don’t want to play AoC and don’t care but frankly your sort of violent “reviews” as if you were slapping this guy in the face and you had a personal revenge to exerce upon him are evil… not evil in the sense of a funny cool badass character, just plain negative evil from a guy who’s trying to hurt and harm people. You suck dude.
- 18 September 2008 at 9:42 am
Reinier001 said:

it looks like everyone is jumping off the sinking Funcom Ship
- 50% of players dont resubscribe after the first free month
- Many More leave after realizeing theres not much 50+ content
- Stocks Sink from $45-55 to $14
- CEO sells stocks
- Head producer who has been with the company 16 yrs leaves
whats next?
- 18 September 2008 at 9:43 am
chrisleko said:

…because his resignation had anything to do with you.
- 18 September 2008 at 9:43 am
imbant said:

wow looking at the responses to this blog tells me one thing…this world is definitely getting soft.
I avoided AoC like the plague before it was released because of the shady tactics being used, and was happy that I was right.
But the fact is that this guy straight up LIED to the community and in a way stole from people expecting features that were obviously not there. Thats pretty low and deserves to be fired and have people be happy about it.
- 18 September 2008 at 9:44 am
UncertaintyP said:

chrisleko shoots and scores
- 18 September 2008 at 9:44 am
Daedren (author) said:

Ah, sarcasm is a lost art.
Humor, people, humor. Lighten up.
- 18 September 2008 at 9:44 am
Rambo621 said:

Richard Garriott, anyone? That creepy dude should have been fired for the massive failure known as Tabula Rasa. Instead, he gets to go into space with his millions!
…hate that Richard Garriott, his dumb Operation Immortality (so lame!!!)
- 18 September 2008 at 9:45 am
PrinnySquad said:

When your game’s two main features are female nipples* and decapitations, you are royally boned.
*Note: The term nudity for Age of Conan is a double-standard since I can’t show some dong.
- 18 September 2008 at 9:45 am
triste said:

Seems to be a lot of haters in here the past couple of days. I have a feeling that it’s because most people are off enjoying Warhammer, while those that aren’t come in here all jaded.
Everyone needs to chill. Godager was a disaster for the MMO industry. He ruined AO when he touched it and he was responsible, completely, for Age of Conan.
The worst thing is some other company will probably hire him to make another MMO because of his experience.
Cut Daedren some slack. You don’t see people defending Enron CEO’s or movie directors who constantly make shit movies. Gaute’s the UWE BOLL of the MMO Industry.
- 18 September 2008 at 9:50 am
starmonkey said:

@PrinnySquad
“*Note: The term nudity for Age of Conan is a double-standard since I can’t show some dong.”
You can’t show any snatch either. Showing dong is not in the same ballpark as showing nipples.
If you *really* want dong, I’d suggest your closest torrent site.
- 23 September 2008 at 2:06 am
Bub said:

Blaming the guy for the game is pure unfounded speculation. Sure, a lot of the screwups are ultimately his responsibility, but I’ve recently rewatched a few old interviews of his and he seemed to have a coherent vision for this game that just didn’t come through. Was it his fault? Was it that he didn’t communicate that vision to his subordinate designers, or that he didn’t micromanage them and check up on what they did frequently enough? Was it FC’s corporate structure, the fact that they have offices in 3 continents, and that they tried to launch a triple-A MMO title without the support of a major publisher?
Was it Gaute’s decision to launch a game that was patently not ready, at a stage when they didn’t even have a European customer support centre set up? I dunno, it may have been, but I find it hard to believe - it’s his “baby” after all, if he’s anything like most creatives he’d probably rather get it to the shape he wanted it, even if it meant releasing in the wake of WAR and WOTLK and risking a lot fewer people buying it. I know if I were making a game I’d rather have 100 people play it and love it than 1,000,000 play it and hate it. (Unless I, too, owned Funcom stock, of course, then I’d have conflicting interests.)
My guess is it wasn’t GG’s decision to launch when they did. Ultimately it’s still his responsibility, as he had the option to shout “the boss-man’s screwing with my game!” and resign in protest. I doubt anyone with half a brain would’ve done that in his place though - rather than see your “baby” taken off your hands and taken in unanticipated directions, you’d rather compromise, stay on board, and salvage as much of your original vision as you can. The game’s mess was a combination of bad management practices, compromised design vision, and knee-jerk reactions to the fear of big competitors (which are perhaps understandable when you’re Funcom and your competition is EA and Activision). Sure, a lot of it must’ve been Gaute’s fault, but journalists and bloggers heaping scorn on him without ACTUALLY knowing squat about what happened just strike me as petty. The thought occurs to me that the ones who gloat the most over the game’s state are the ones who were most rabid for it pre-release, and have been made to feel stupid by the state it came out in.
In the final analysis, unless you have comparable experience to managing 200 people over 5 years spread over several international locations and speaking at least two languages, you can’t really call him out on what he did wrong. I know what *I* don’t like about the game, but that’s not the same as saying Gaute mucked those things up.
- 12 October 2008 at 2:43 pm
Daedren (author) said:

@Bub: Thanks for the well thought out response. I know where you’re coming from, and can even agree somewhat.
However, being a Game Director gives the same responsibility as a Movie Director. We can use Ewe Bol as an example here (perhaps an unfair one) - it’s universally agreed that his video game adaptation movies are horrible. Who’s fault is that? The actors? The producers? (well, maybe!) - the writers? I agree they all play a part in the making of a horrible movie, but the *direction* of the movie lies on the director.
You also have to take into the account of what GG did with Anarchy Online; general consensus is anything he touched in that game turned to futuristic shit.
My last point is that with the new Game Director, the game seems to have taken a positive turn. Perhaps too little too late, but who knows.
- 13 October 2008 at 9:42 am

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