Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
The Secret World: Martin Bruusgaard Laid Off
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
According to a report at Develop-Online, The Secret World Lead Designer Martin Bruusgaard has been put on "forced leave" in addition to most of his fellow employees in the Oslo, Norway office of Funcom.
This news comes on the heels of earlier 'redundancies' throughout Funcom as a result of TSW's less-than-expected sales.
He suggested that the studio’s Norway headquarters had been hit much harder than other offices as it was expensive to run, and suggested that it was “cheaper to hire someone abroad”.
“Unfortunately, I'm not with Funcom anymore,” said Bruusgaard.
“Got put on forced leave along with most of our Oslo Office, a week ago.”
)
Comments
In before doomsayers and usual pointless mess of people speculating about things they have no idea about.
Anyway, as long as Ragnar remains, there won't be any no big problems with game's direction and game won't be affected that much.
# A GRIM, ODD, ARCANE SKY
# ANY GOD, I MARK SACRED
# A MASKED CRY ADORING
# A DREAMY, SICK DRAGON
Though it is usually not the person actually responsible for the problem. Business dynamics 101....
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
So true. I am enjoying the game. I don't believe it was a design problem.
Lead designer is a weird position to 'lay off'.
I hope it recovers though and putting it on Steam helped.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I would have purchased this day one if it was Buy to play.
The games not worth a subscription.
Honestly I don't think any game on the market is worth a subscription...
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Do games offer as much if not more than they did back in 1997? Keeping in mind that while it may be a case of not necessarily liking what they offer...do they offer as much if not more? Did you not pay subs back in 1997? If the answer to both of those is yes, how could you say that no game on the market is worth a sub?
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I kinda agree with you on the VO thing. Too expensive, and very difficult to make fast changes in your game when the voicing is so cut and dried. Going with a few lines of dialogue to set the voice in your memory, and then continuing with text would be much simpler, and probably do almost as good a job. But people did love to complain about it. You can find countless accounts and rants about how Age of Conan's intro was great, and then after that the world was silent. Oopsie.
Referencing metacritic is kinda useless and flawed too though. Too many vague impressions and forum PVP issues with its reviews and scores.
Don't know what TSW will do, as they seem to be predicated on continually added content. If they fire everyone, it could be pretty slow going for the extra bits they were working up.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
This! I live in Norway and salaries are really high here due to expensive living.
Add to the fact that norwegian government has their heads stuck in the sand and only care about the oil, R&D companies (which game studios are part off) don't get any benefits in Norway and thus no incentive to stay here.
A lot of R&D companies are pulling out of Norway due to this, as other countries like Canada (where Funcom moved most of it's development too) is luring R&D companies to it's country with all kinds of tax benefits and cheap employment!
Ragnar is "the" brains behind TSW. It is his baby. So as long as he is around, this game will be around.
When Ragnar gets kicked out.... then you got reason to worry and start dooming and glooming.
Quite a few used to be, and even then that number is dwindling even further. EQ used to be but then they made it into that horribly crappy Freemium model, and every server except the "Time Locked Progression" lost quite the appeal for current paying subscribers.
However, games like Age of Conan, FF14 (first time around), Vanguard, SWTOR, RIFT, Aion, and TERA just aren't worth subs. They're low quality products
. Then again I also don't believe WoW is even worth $5/month ever since its launch.
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
Doesn't really matter if they offer the same or more than they did in 97, mainly because there was so little competition, and if you wanted to play an mmo, you had to pay. Today there is much more competition and some of it doesn't require a subscription fee. Thus, in 97 if you wanted to play you paid, today you actually have options if you want to play but don't want a monthly fee.
That avoids the question.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
I think it is good for game ,VA & cut scenes are waste of time & resources for an mmorpg,now is time to add more social content in game
newer games certainly don't appear to be worth the subs these days, while older games that have perhaps stood the test of time.. and perhaps player patience, clearly do.. not so sure how thats going to go with WoW after MoP... as i have a few misgivings about it personally.. but i know for one thing that Eve is definitely more than worth its sub. Cant think of any others offhand at the moment that i'd consider even playing long term let alone paying for the dubious priviledge of. Sign of the times perhaps. though its probably just me getting older
I can kinda see his point as well. When I started with Meridian 59 in 1996 bandwidth was a huge cost and there were no alternatives. Sure, 15 bucks today is less than the 10 (I think it was 10, it was a really long time ago) in 1996 but TSW do have a cashshop
I decided when cashshops became common to never start with a game that have both cashshop and monthly fees, that is robbery. That was the reason I didnt buy the game at launch, I have no problem with paying 15 bucks a month all inclusive or even 20 but my principles forbid me to buy the game right now just as it did with Diablo 3.
To be honest didnt I quit EQ2 when they added the cashshop, I just whined and I did look really hard on TSW when it launched, I like the world.
But box cost + montly fees + itemshop = expensive in my book and I support P2P.
Other than UO, what was even avilable in 1997?? Today we have over 570 MMOs (not even including the browser games) and many of those are free.....And yeah TSW was not worth a sub...In fact its cash grab may have hurt it more than anything (box + sub + cash shop = FTL)...The game fell so far short of expectations that Funcom will be lucky to be in business next year.
There is nothing in the cash shop you need to buy to fully experience everything in TSW.
I cant say the same thing about EQ2. I went back and saw that the characters (my highest) which I had access to before I left I either needed to sub or spend in the store to access them. It was only F2P if I wanted to start again with less then I had before they went F2P.
How awful
Making such a nieche game (that's awesome though) obviously gets less sales.
MMORPG business is so harsh ;O
Many times after layoffs come server merges.