Conan 360, Secret World still on track Comments by Games Industry.biz

"The Xbox 360 game will also contain most, if not all of the content and improvements that have been made to the PC version of the game," he added.

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I'm saying nothing... :)

Secret World could be good. I wonder how they will approach a Lovecraftian setting.

Well the new arcarde units have enough memory on board for all the endgame content :p

@Gaol

Ouch... ;)

>Secret World could be good. I wonder how they will approach a Lovecraftian setting.

Here's a wild guess.

"Greetings, investigator! I can't leave my house because the streets are thick with eldritch monstrosities! Go and kill 10 shoggoths."

"Excellent! Now, for your next task I want you to slay the Elder Things that haunt these ruins, and gather the Slimy Receptacles that some of them bear. Open these receptacles, and in about a third of them you'll find Cyclopean Tablets Engraved With Squamous Runes. I'll need twelve. Chop, chop."

Too bad Funcom is breaking the law by forcing their employees too work too much and making some of them seriously ill.

Even if i would love a decent Norvegian 360 game i dont support companies that treat their employees like shit.

Vapourware

muscleblade took the words out of my mouth...

dreamfall chapters plz

I'm really looking forward to The Secret World. The ARG they had running for that when it was first announced was great, and I love the Cthulhu mythos which it seems to be partly based on.

Re. the "working them too hard" thing - is this a story I missed?

"Greetings, investigator! I can't leave my house because the streets are thick with eldritch monstrosities! Go and kill 10 shoggoths."

Oh dear... I hope not.

We have been brainstorming about how a Lovecraftian MMO could work with minimal combat. It is not going to be easy to find a good working gameplay mechanic. I can think of some interesting things, but I do not work for Funcom (yet) ;)

There was an adventure game years ago called "The Hound of Shadows" that was a really good Lovecraftian adventure (even if the plot was lifted from "Night of the Demon.")

Oh and "Eternal Darkness" on the Gamecube did a really good job of having your character slide into madness, as it used to screw with your perceptions and stuff.

@iokthemonkey


norwegian media is reporting on it here

norwegian media is reporting on it here

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Cheers. The link is corrupted though. The characters are all weird and it's all nonsense words... ;)

Anybody want to give a basic translation - not of the whole thing - but just the main points/thrust of the story?

I don't hear good things regarding Funcom working conditions either... Not good considering it's the only games company in Norway.

Anyone currently working for the company care to agree or refute the claims?

The big problem with a game based on Lovecraft is the use of fear and insanity.

Without them it's simply not Lovecraft, but they are very hard mechanics to implement as they both make you lose control, and making game players lose control of their character is pretty much the cardinal sin of gaming...

"The Xbox 360 game will also contain most, if not all of the content"


LOL

- too easy.

^^

@Gaol
12-Dec-08 13:12:55

Well the new arcarde units have enough memory on board for all the endgame content :p

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you win sir!
:)
take a bow.

"The position is of a specifically independent nature, and the employee must actively and responsibly contribute in setting his or her personal deadlines and milestones. As such, the position will not be regulated by the overtime compensation rules of the Norwegian Work Environment Act."

This is taken directly from a FunCom employees contract. Says a lot imo. The contract is directly against the Norwegian Work Environment Act and therefore Illegal. There has been reported illegal cases of employees being fired and also psychological terror from the managment incuding serious threats towards employees.

>Without them it's simply not Lovecraft, but they are very hard mechanics to implement as they both make you lose control

Hmmm.. not really. In the P&P version it doesn't make you lose control (unless you are totally gone) but gives you phobias and stuff. So I guess, in an MMO, it could work as Hit Points... giving you (weird) debuffs while you slowly recover sanity.

It's very commonplace for overtime compensation to be written out of developer employment contracts in the UK.

I don't know if overtime compensation is a government mandate here though. I somehow doubt it.

@Vegard

They also say it has become better since the union had to step in.

That's interesting thanks muscleblade.

It's true that those sort of contract amendments are commonplace in the UK and US. However, I'm surprised they are allowed to get away with it in Norway.. Workers are much more protected in Scandinavian countries. Why arent they being taken to task about it by the courts?

I was considering Funcom but everything I hear about them reaks of unprofessionalism.

"and thank God for that"

You could even thank Robespierre, but not God imo.

Basically

1) there is a discrepancy between Funcom's projected image about listening to workers and customers, and their actual actions: The "killing critical threads in forums" antics have been matched by "persecuting employees who raise issues in the company" according to ex-employees.

2) Norway has a term for "overtime excempt" employees which is strict enough to mostly apply to sales, middle and upper management and the like. Funcom (and quite a few other IT companies) try to apply the term to ordinary employees in order to dodge the overtime laws, both regarding extra pay and the limited number of hours.

That's the Union's case in a nutshell, anyway.

Funcom has persistantly tried to get me back into Anarchy Online since I quit in 2005. No way I'll come back to that, or any other, game they've made.

Funcom has persistantly tried to get me back into Anarchy Online since I quit in 2005.

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Same here. They keep sending me AoC update emails too, despite me cancelling my account months ago...

All the content and improvements that are in the original game - does that include 'players' these days?

No_Biggie what the fuck are you on about? Your writings reek of prejudice.

In Sweden, and in Norway judging by that newspaper article, you have laws governing how much you can work. You can trade away your overtime compensation, at least to a certain point but there is a cap on how much you are allowed to work which is the absolute maximum. That can't be changed. In Sweden for example I can work 50 hours overtime a month, and 200 max a year.

The Norwegian equivalent is what Funcom tried to get around which in my eyes is pretty shitty behaviour.

Most people in key positrions in any place in the world, don't have payment for their overtime at all as it's up to them when to get their stuff done. I mention this, because I am such a person myself. So head over to wikipedia again and look up deadline, what does it mean? Well in short it mean a predefined amount of work has to be done by a specified timelimit, and if you have not done your work you better fcking make sure you get it done OR your boss will get mad. Sorry that's reality.

Sorry, but in that scenario, you are in a SLAVE position and your boss is in a KEY position. If something is so badly planned that excessive overtime becomes a necessity, those doing the planning suck. And if the use of unpaid overtime is calculated into the milestones like you seem to indicate, then they are just EVIL.

See, you (as a skilled employee) are SELLING your time to the employer. Working unpaid overtime is the same as GIVING AWAY what you try to sell. Do you see this often in other scenarios? I mean if I go to the store and buy a loaf of bread, then take another "because I need two but will only pay for one", would they accept that? I guess: no. So why should you regarding your time?

It's not Norway's fault the rest of the world has a meek workforce used to the labour conditions of the Middle Ages.

What is a Norwegian farmer? Have you ever been to Norway? I don't understand why you defend Funcom, if that newspaper article is true, there is nothing to defend.

Also I know people that have no overtime compensation, however they are still not allowed to work an infinite amount of hours. That is what I'm talking about.

It's not the case of a bunch of lazy guys whining about much to do, it's the union whining because the company is shitting on the law. And I agree with AOFanboi, just because you have to work like the company owned you in China doesn't mean it should be that way.

An MMO on a Console.. I'll have to see how this turns out.

After a close look Keskin worked on AoC at the start (not in the past few years apparently) - he also said this (google translated)

Undergone change :
http://www.dagbladet.no/2008/12/11/kultu...

The two employee's believe it now that it is possible to track a change at Funcom.

- I think that more people know their rights now, and join the union. It is a good thing, I think something has changed at Funcom. I have also heard that the employees are not pressed as hard anymore, "said Keskin

I think you will find that pretty much the majority of complainers worked some years ago at the company, such as Keskin whom worked on AoC as a programmer at the start. (So I should of read into it a bit more that my previous statement)

Lets no forget either that Funcom was recently voted the 8th most attractive workplace in Norway for IT people.
http://www.idg.no/computerworld/karriere...




So HR dude also said " - The statements of the former employees do not reflect opinions of the majority of current employees, on the contrary we are experiencing that several employees with long experience in the industry consider Funcom as the company with the game industry's best working environment, says our countries to Dagbladet.

He points out that Funcom is a unique company with a work environment that many will perceive as unusual in American standards. Moreover, he believes that it is natural that all employees are satisfied with the management and the working conditions in a company of their size.

The international gaming industry is known for harsh working conditions. This is probably the fact that developers in the games industry are passionate about the own occupation. Those who do not love to produce games not long. The phenomenon is so far not unknown among developers in general in our industry."

So it does look like conditions in the workplace and complaints there of are based on many from years ago and is not current - even the only guy who worked on AoC "Bekir Osman Keskin" did so only at the very start of development (how long ago who knows) and lets not forget the same guy said "I think something has changed at Funcom. I have also heard that the employees are not pressed as hard anymore"


So lets see both sides of the story

Here is an article from a recent Funcom employer who worked on AoC as a designer:
http://www.gamer.no/artikler/-_funcom_br...


Gamer.no contacted another former employee Funcom, Mats Remman. We asked if he has understanding for the former employees who have experienced the problem to work for Funcom, and wishing that it comes out in the media. (Remman worked on AoC)


Even Remman was reasonably happy with working conditions in Funcom: - "If you think about the relationship between employee and company it was much back and forth. They would like to add things the way for the employees, but there was not any real structure on it. It was tried out a couple of schemes but no one was adequately planned and fell into the fish because the results were so warped. "

Mats Remman stressed however that he could well imagine working on at Funcom, had it not been for that he was offered another job. It was particularly good environment he liked.

- Men like that against the other employees, so it could hardly be better. It is a great good environment with knowledgeable and friendly people, and always someone to turn talked to. Therefore took really to thank you some "bad" conditions one way because colleagues and Monday ran an offset to a large extent.

Strong fellowship
The close link between the employees may also be one of the reasons why there was so much overtime in the company, said Remman:

– I developed a strong fellowship with the others I worked with. You get an urge to add everything to the right so that others are not sitting and waiting for your work, before they can proceed with his. It is like to be put in more hours than what is good, but you get a kind of belonging to the project, and such a personal connection and own feeling that it is difficult to let be.

– Following is easy to think that we worked lots of overtime, but exactly where and when, when you sit in it, so it feels natural, and even well to add that little extra.

Funcom is headed in the right direction, according to Mats Remman. He is also convinced that even if it is unacceptable aspects of Funcom, the situation is on track to be better:

- After the Age of Conan-launch Funcom has done a lot of good for the structure of the company. They manage technology, developers and personnel in a more efficient way, as I see it, and make the whole platform more stable. I also think the players have seen, especially after Craig Morrison came to the helm and has been open to the environment.


One thing is for sure - Funcom credits people that worked on the game at any stage and also looks like recent employees say things are better and not so bad :)

Also any media attention will make sure or shold make sure their HR area is in check and up to snuff.