It's good to see developers are now willing to spend the extra time and money rather than giving players a pay-to-beta that has been the previous standard in the MMORPG industry. It shows the industry is learning from its past mistakes and that's a good thing. It would be nice if Funcom gave more warning about these push-backs instead of waiting until the same quarter of their latest announced release date. They did the same thing with the Nov. release date and waited until shortly before to announce the push-back. They must have known things like this are going to happen more than a quarter ahead of time but they never let the community know until the same quarter.
Release dates affect stock prices, and since Funcom isn't privately owned, the decision to pushback is not one you can just let float as a rumor because of insider trading laws. Wouldn't be legal here in the USA to have a "Oh, we're gonna push back the date." comment from the higher ups float around the company where the employees (and anyone they told) could then sell or buy the companies stock based on that insider information before the public knew (And that's a federal crime here in the USA, so you get sent to the REAL big house, no parole, hehe).
No matter what you may say now, they (probably) will get your money if the game is good, regardless of the time of release. They will (probably) not get your money if they release it sooner than later but it's in poor state. I can only imagine the pressure they receive from the shareholders to release the game (I'm sure there unreasonable people among them as there are among the people of this forum). Your complaints and whatever pressure you assume you (not just the last poster but generally) put on them is nothing compared to the pressure from the people currently paying the bills.
Just goes to show, folks have been drinking the "polish" kool-aide for many years now. Good to see that meaningless excuse is still holding strong in the MMO industry today.
We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started... and know the place for the first time. -T.S. Eliot
This decision totally restores my faith back into AoC. I thought for awhile there that it would be released as is, and as it appears, there is still a good amount of work to be done inorder to start justifying a monthly fee:) Good decision Funcom
Yep I first went to their site in 2001, I wish it would come out. It sounds like a SB done right. The faq says it was being internaly tested in 2003. A expantion for WoW may be out before DF.
Well... what can i say... i could sit here and say its great that they want to take some more time to polish up the game, but i wont. im seriously disturbed by these serial roll-back, polish the game up? was it a piece of garbage at the time of the first roll back to Oct 28 2007? dont get me wrong im juiced about the release of AoC, im just trying to put in my two cents and vent my frustrations. Obviously there is nothing that anyone can do to make the release date earlier, so any suggestions on an MMO for the time being? Im sick of WoW...
Is there ANY OTHER GENRE where the developers all act like unprofessional nincompoops? Funcom has developed an MMO before, they're not even new at this. They announced a date. Period. That SHOULD have meant the game was moving into the packaging stage.
Yes, I appreciate they're taking the time to fix the game up. And yes, I do like the fact they seem committed to not bungling the launch. But comeon! Can we at least have an open beta for those of us who preordered? Maybe starting in March?
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
Release dates affect stock prices, and since Funcom isn't privately owned, the decision to pushback is not one you can just let float as a rumor because of insider trading laws. Wouldn't be legal here in the USA to have a "Oh, we're gonna push back the date." comment from the higher ups float around the company where the employees (and anyone they told) could then sell or buy the companies stock based on that insider information before the public knew (And that's a federal crime here in the USA, so you get sent to the REAL big house, no parole, hehe).
I'm not talking about releasing rumors, I'm talking about *planning*. Good planning means you change schedule dates more than a quarter ahead of time. Bad planning means you have to suddenly revise the date the same quarter you thought you'd push out a product because you didn't properly plan or realize what was happening during development.
According the recent letter from the Devs on the offical AoC site:
Launching in March was our clear goal, even up to last week.
That's not trying to avoid insider trading, that's poor planning and management. If they weren't debugging as fast as they thought, they should have seen that last quarter and changed their schedule.
I'm still glad they delayed the release if the game needs it, the Devs hearts are in the right place. I just wonder if the same lack of planning will lead to yet another delay come May.
Release dates affect stock prices, and since Funcom isn't privately owned, the decision to pushback is not one you can just let float as a rumor because of insider trading laws. Wouldn't be legal here in the USA to have a "Oh, we're gonna push back the date." comment from the higher ups float around the company where the employees (and anyone they told) could then sell or buy the companies stock based on that insider information before the public knew (And that's a federal crime here in the USA, so you get sent to the REAL big house, no parole, hehe).
I'm not talking about releasing rumors, I'm talking about *planning*. Good planning means you change schedule dates more than a quarter ahead of time. Bad planning means you have to suddenly revise the date the same quarter you thought you'd push out a product because you didn't properly plan or realize what was happening during development.
According the recent letter from the Devs on the offical AoC site:
Launching in March was our clear goal, even up to last week.
That's not trying to avoid insider trading, that's poor planning and management. If they weren't debugging as fast as they thought, they should have seen that last quarter and changed their schedule.
I'm still glad they delayed the release if the game needs it, the Devs hearts are in the right place. I just wonder if the same lack of planning will lead to yet another delay come May.
Have you worked in a development environment? You have multiple competing factions deciding timelines, and sadly, the one that wins is usually the beancounters, usually who work for the publisher (the ones providing everyone's salary during development). Obviously, the publisher wants to spend as little as possible and wants the game out as soon as possible so they can recoup their money and make their profits. The developers want the publisher's money so they have to try to be "reasonable" with their estimates of their dates.
Consider one situation I was in personally. As head of the development team, the owner of my company asked me how long it'd take to write a new tax software program. I told him 6+ months. He disagreed and wanted it done in half the time because he'd promised people that it'd be out in 3 months.
Well, you can wish in one hand, and **** in the other and see which fills first. Even with massive (and unpaid) overtime it took.... 6 months.
WoW, cant believe I read through this entire post.
I think everyone here has valid reasons to like or dislike the delay in AOC, yes it is good to see them not wanting to release an unfinished game. Yes it doesnt look good that they have had a few of these delay's now and possibly even more.
The problem is none of us can do anything about it either way so we are forced to sit and wait to see what happens, unfortunately that is the only fact.
Out of every 100 men, 10 should not be there, 80 are nothing but targets, 9 are the real fighters. Ah, but one, ONE of them is a warrior, and he will bring the others home. -Heraclitus 500BC
It is not a bad thing they have done. I would also rather a game with minimal amount of bugs, and no rushed content they have just thrown in to make it bigger at release. If they did that, think of the downloads you would have to do to get those updates.
And think of it this way, now we have more time to save up for our monster rigs to play on max!
I am not excited about the delay because unlike everyone else I was looking forward to a polished, innovative, awesome MMO on March 25th. I did build my own PC in November 2007 for AOC so I'm not going to give up on Funcom, but I do wonder how much polish they will be able to add in 15 weeks. I suppose that's a significant amount of time!!
I am not excited about the delay because unlike everyone else I was looking forward to a polished, innovative, awesome MMO on March 25th. I did build my own PC in November 2007 for AOC so I'm not going to give up on Funcom, but I do wonder how much polish they will be able to add in 15 weeks. I suppose that's a significant amount of time!! Well, cheers anyways!!
Inovative?? It is an existing IP with limited scope for growth... Over hyped prettyness... not sure they will be able to create depth that doesn't exist in 8 extra weeks...
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
300employees working 8hours a day 5 days a week for another 8weeks or so adds up to a hell of alot of working hours. alot can be done in that time. -for the ppl asking whats the point of an extra 8weeks.
If FC says they need the next 16 weeks to work out all known bugs and find as many unknowns as they can, great. I feel the fact has been forgotten that they are releasing this game into the ''WOW'' mmo market not the UO/AC or the EQ/DAoC we expect more from devs now. A rocky launch filled with bugs could result in hardship and perhaps not reaching potential for months after(if the game IS what we all hope it will be)there is not much room for error anymore, the wolves wait for any amount of failure. And as I understand, delays cost a large amount of money plus reputation from us gamers and stock holders, so if FC is willing to take the hit then I for one am going give them the chance but if we hear about another delay near to may, well then I will start the worry and give it time after launch before investing time.
For the time being I still have my CE pre-order and do not plan on cancelling it any time soon...just my two cents any ways.
No matter what you may say now, they (probably) will get your money if the game is good, regardless of the time of release. They will (probably) not get your money if they release it sooner than later but it's in poor state. I can only imagine the pressure they receive from the shareholders to release the game (I'm sure there unreasonable people among them as there are among the people of this forum). Your complaints and whatever pressure you assume you (not just the last poster but generally) put on them is nothing compared to the pressure from the people currently paying the bills.
we are the customers ultimately we pay all of their bills and we have all the right in the world to put preasure on them
Comments
Release dates affect stock prices, and since Funcom isn't privately owned, the decision to pushback is not one you can just let float as a rumor because of insider trading laws. Wouldn't be legal here in the USA to have a "Oh, we're gonna push back the date." comment from the higher ups float around the company where the employees (and anyone they told) could then sell or buy the companies stock based on that insider information before the public knew (And that's a federal crime here in the USA, so you get sent to the REAL big house, no parole, hehe).
Omg!
Just goes to show, folks have been drinking the "polish" kool-aide for many years now. Good to see that meaningless excuse is still holding strong in the MMO industry today.
We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started... and know the place for the first time.
-T.S. Eliot
Slight difference between Darkfall and AoC is that AoC has a fairly well defined world and game design concept which seems fairly doable.
Darkfall however, promised "The all time best game ever for everyone and everything and especially in PvP."
That's not a game design concept, that's a "dream".
Its hard to code dreams I've noticed.
Hehehhe.....
This decision totally restores my faith back into AoC. I thought for awhile there that it would be released as is, and as it appears, there is still a good amount of work to be done inorder to start justifying a monthly fee:) Good decision Funcom
Now this is funny. And scary at the same time.
Yep I first went to their site in 2001, I wish it would come out. It sounds like a SB done right. The faq says it was being internaly tested in 2003. A expantion for WoW may be out before DF.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Or even 2
....
Well... what can i say... i could sit here and say its great that they want to take some more time to polish up the game, but i wont. im seriously disturbed by these serial roll-back, polish the game up? was it a piece of garbage at the time of the first roll back to Oct 28 2007? dont get me wrong im juiced about the release of AoC, im just trying to put in my two cents and vent my frustrations. Obviously there is nothing that anyone can do to make the release date earlier, so any suggestions on an MMO for the time being? Im sick of WoW...
and right there is the reason i wont play this game when it first comes out Aion here i come
*twitch*
*twitch*
Is there ANY OTHER GENRE where the developers all act like unprofessional nincompoops? Funcom has developed an MMO before, they're not even new at this. They announced a date. Period. That SHOULD have meant the game was moving into the packaging stage.
Yes, I appreciate they're taking the time to fix the game up. And yes, I do like the fact they seem committed to not bungling the launch. But comeon! Can we at least have an open beta for those of us who preordered? Maybe starting in March?
In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
-Thomas Jefferson
According the recent letter from the Devs on the offical AoC site:
Launching in March was our clear goal, even up to last week.
That's not trying to avoid insider trading, that's poor planning and management. If they weren't debugging as fast as they thought, they should have seen that last quarter and changed their schedule.
I'm still glad they delayed the release if the game needs it, the Devs hearts are in the right place. I just wonder if the same lack of planning will lead to yet another delay come May.
I'm not talking about releasing rumors, I'm talking about *planning*. Good planning means you change schedule dates more than a quarter ahead of time. Bad planning means you have to suddenly revise the date the same quarter you thought you'd push out a product because you didn't properly plan or realize what was happening during development.According the recent letter from the Devs on the offical AoC site:
Launching in March was our clear goal, even up to last week.
That's not trying to avoid insider trading, that's poor planning and management. If they weren't debugging as fast as they thought, they should have seen that last quarter and changed their schedule.
I'm still glad they delayed the release if the game needs it, the Devs hearts are in the right place. I just wonder if the same lack of planning will lead to yet another delay come May.
Have you worked in a development environment? You have multiple competing factions deciding timelines, and sadly, the one that wins is usually the beancounters, usually who work for the publisher (the ones providing everyone's salary during development). Obviously, the publisher wants to spend as little as possible and wants the game out as soon as possible so they can recoup their money and make their profits. The developers want the publisher's money so they have to try to be "reasonable" with their estimates of their dates.
Consider one situation I was in personally. As head of the development team, the owner of my company asked me how long it'd take to write a new tax software program. I told him 6+ months. He disagreed and wanted it done in half the time because he'd promised people that it'd be out in 3 months.
Well, you can wish in one hand, and **** in the other and see which fills first. Even with massive (and unpaid) overtime it took.... 6 months.
WoW, cant believe I read through this entire post.
I think everyone here has valid reasons to like or dislike the delay in AOC, yes it is good to see them not wanting to release an unfinished game. Yes it doesnt look good that they have had a few of these delay's now and possibly even more.
The problem is none of us can do anything about it either way so we are forced to sit and wait to see what happens, unfortunately that is the only fact.
Out of every 100 men, 10 should not be there,
80 are nothing but targets, 9 are the real fighters.
Ah, but one, ONE of them is a warrior,
and he will bring the others home.
-Heraclitus 500BC
im glad that are pushing it back because i would much rather have a good polished game on day 1 but i wished they allready had it done i want aoc
It is not a bad thing they have done. I would also rather a game with minimal amount of bugs, and no rushed content they have just thrown in to make it bigger at release. If they did that, think of the downloads you would have to do to get those updates.
And think of it this way, now we have more time to save up for our monster rigs to play on max!
Still can't wait for AoC!!
Osahar Ismassri
Conscript of King's Guard
http://guild-of-kings-guard.com/
I am not excited about the delay because unlike everyone else I was looking forward to a polished, innovative, awesome MMO on March 25th. I did build my own PC in November 2007 for AOC so I'm not going to give up on Funcom, but I do wonder how much polish they will be able to add in 15 weeks. I suppose that's a significant amount of time!!
Well, cheers anyways!!
I am extremely glad for the delay. The game is simply not ready for a March release, and delaying it (once again) is absolutely great.
Give it an extra few months, and in the end you'll be happy you didn't receive a Vanguard 2.0
Inovative?? It is an existing IP with limited scope for growth... Over hyped prettyness... not sure they will be able to create depth that doesn't exist in 8 extra weeks...
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
300employees working 8hours a day 5 days a week for another 8weeks or so adds up to a hell of alot of working hours. alot can be done in that time. -for the ppl asking whats the point of an extra 8weeks.
If FC says they need the next 16 weeks to work out all known bugs and find as many unknowns as they can, great. I feel the fact has been forgotten that they are releasing this game into the ''WOW'' mmo market not the UO/AC or the EQ/DAoC we expect more from devs now. A rocky launch filled with bugs could result in hardship and perhaps not reaching potential for months after(if the game IS what we all hope it will be)there is not much room for error anymore, the wolves wait for any amount of failure. And as I understand, delays cost a large amount of money plus reputation from us gamers and stock holders, so if FC is willing to take the hit then I for one am going give them the chance but if we hear about another delay near to may, well then I will start the worry and give it time after launch before investing time.
For the time being I still have my CE pre-order and do not plan on cancelling it any time soon...just my two cents any ways.
we are the customers ultimately we pay all of their bills and we have all the right in the world to put preasure on them
I think this is great news!