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Funcom game directors talk relocation, effects on TSW, AoC, and AO development [Updated]
Funcom has published game director letters for all three of its MMOs this morning, and one of the topics on everyone's mind is of course the studio's reorganization. As it turns out, the dev teams for The Secret World, Age of Conan, and Anarchy Online will all be operating out of the company's Raleigh, North Carolina facility which was previously the sole domain of the Funcom customer service team. TSW's Joel Bylos notes that the move will cause some "development turbulence," and that the game's DLC and update schedule will slow down temporarily as a result. He has more details on both the game's Issue #6 update and veteran rewards in his letter. AoC's Craig Morrison says that the fantasy title isn't going anywhere, although he also acknowledges some staff turnover due to the relocation. He also notes that having the game's dev team and community team in the same building will be a huge benefit. Finally, Anarchy Online's update echoes the first two, but game director Dave "Ilaliya" Williams writes that the engine upgrade, server migration, and new player experience are all still on the table. [Update]: Funcom has also published an update on the restructuring process on its main website. [Thanks to David for the tip!]
Anarchy Online's Colin Cragg steps down as producer and game director
Anarchy Online players know Colin "Means" Cragg quite well at this point, as Cragg has worked at Funcom since 2004 and handled the roles of both producer and game director in recent years. Sadly, Cragg announced that he will be leaving the company at the end of the month to "pursue another challenge" and be closer to his family in Sweden. "When I look at the passion this team and the community has for Anarchy Online it has always made me feel privileged just to get to be a part of it," Cragg wrote in his farewell letter. "It has been an incredible honor to get to spend the last eight years working with Anarchy Online and being a part of the Funcom family." Two Funcom employees will split his former duties. Dave "Ilaliya" Williams, who has worked on both Age of Conan and The Secret World, will take over as producer. Filling the game director shoes is Fia "Lindelu" Tjernberg, a long-time member of the Anarchy Online dev team.
The Anvil of Crom: Changes aren't permanent, but change is
Yeah, so they're pulling the rug out from under my rangers, in the form of a hefty class revamp that is basically taking a good chunk of everything familiar about Age of Conan's rascally rogues and tossing it out the proverbial window. I shouldn't be shocked by this, after all; spend more than a week playing in this genre and it becomes clear that MMORPG developers are the game-industry equivalent of George Lucas: constantly tinkering with their creations (sometimes to the dismay of their fans) and rarely leaving well enough alone. While it's a truism that one of the appeals of an MMORPG is its malleable nature, that doesn't make it any easier to adapt and adapt again, particularly if you were happy with the status quo. All that said, I'm not dismissing Funcom's upcoming ranger revamp out of hand, as I haven't yet been privy to testing any of the changes. They may well turn out to be a blessing, but ten years of messing around with these games has left me a little leery of radical revisitations. Hopefully my reservations are unfounded this time around. Read on after the cut to see what's in store for Hyboria's bow-and-crossbow crowd.
