From Hoof -

- "Just FYI, I was one of the people laid off. There were three people on the coding side that were key to the early development of WW2 Online, that being Kango, Vandal, and myself. Kango and I did what I would estimate 70-85% of the non-ui Front end coding (he being the genuis behind the amazing things the graphics engine does including the incredible terrain as well as all the low level and OS-interfacing code, me doing all the vehicle/FX/physics/weapons stuff), while Vandal did the majority of the host. It's been an incredible adventure, I'm glad to have worked in the game. I've had the opportunity to try like heck to have at least one game in existance that put realism and "how it really worked" in the top of the priority list. That's been something I've been wanting in a game since I played Falcon 3.0 years and years ago and it finally happened. I wish the comany and my friends that I worked with for so long well, and hope that we can all work on another project sometime in the (hopefully) not to distant future.

------------------
ex-CRS Sim Guy"

Not good news to hear. Especially since I think (or personally perceive) WWII Online still not being the game it was promised to be (but getter better, albeit slowly).

I heard a rumor that a total of eight people were laid off, and another two quit.

Er.. uh-oh. How long can the game last with those kind of personnel losses?

I now polish my grenade with a damp cloth.

good riddance to those sorry excuse for developpers.
they purposely sold an unfinished porduct, deceiving a lot of people, this kind of misbehaviour must have consequences...
screw CRS

Now now, be nice. Usually developers work very, VERY hard on a project, just to have some guy in a suit say it needs to be release "now," whether it's finished or not. It's never nice to act that way towards someone who just lost their job, either.

CRS is just an example of what happens when a developer isn't allowed to say No to a publisher. I think there was fear of going against the next generation of MMOGs and they wanted WWIIOL to be the first one out the door. The result? A great game released 9 - 12 months early.

Had CRS been given another year, I think they would have had a hit on their hands. But they weren't allowed to wait, nor could they afford to continue development and swithc publishers.

"Had CRS been given another year, I think they would have had a hit on their hands. But they weren't allowed to wait, nor could they afford to continue development and swithc publishers."

This is such bullshit. They were at least a year late with the game. If the publisher had let them work on the game a year longer, they probably would have pissed that year away, too.

The game was poorly designed and they spent their time trying to stick to their poor design. The whole "developers are never wrong" mantra makes me sick sometimes.

Youch. Thats a strong indictment Alan. Three months after release I thought they had what would have been a hit on their hands had it been on time. Thats only three months, not a year, and they sure didn't "piss" the time away. I don't disagree with the sentiment that sometimes its the designer's fault for a bad game (in fact there are scores of them), but you are wrong about CRS. I draw my conclusions based on playing the game, what do you draw yours on?

Blizzard puts games out 2 years late and no one says they "piss their time away". Most of us would call it "getting it right the first time". Problem is, CRS didn't have the pull Blizzard did.

WWIIOL was a dog. It was published without 70% of the promised features and with enough bugs to keep an entemologist busy for a lifetime. But, it was in beta testing and being completed at a rapid pace at that point. No stuff was going into the game every beta patch with the bugs slowly being worked out. Bottom line is, the game was improving by leaps and bounds.

Just a shame that it was released after Beta II instead of Beta IV like most games are. We all know it wasn't CRSs decision to release the game at the end of Beta II (actually, more like in the middle of Beta II).

The only thing I'll lay on CRS's shoulders is that they didn't anticipate the problems they'd have with their users. It should have been obvious that it would be flooded with 14 year olds playing at Neo-Nazi screaming for the death of jews.

While I am not happy for anyone losing their job. Before you go accusing the players - look at their interface. These guys were not that great at what they were doing.

That isn't something that was forced by a publisher - it was flawed and clunky from the begining. I like that in a recent interview, they admit that when they upgrade the interface in some distant patch they are going to listen to the feedback from the testers and players. DOH!

I agree. Not every game is the fault of the publisher and to blame that hunk of junk on the players? That is just silly. That is the only game in the past few years that I really felt like I was ripped off.

Chet

I have to agree with Alan: it's not the publisher's fault they missed their ship date. I suppose there's a few cases out there of developers being forced to ship *before* the agreed ship date by the evil powers that be, but I haven't heard of them.

"I draw my conclusions based on playing the game, what do you draw yours on?"

What are you saying, that I didn't play the game? Because I disagree with you I haven't played the game. I played it. It had some good ideas but overall it was poor. That's how I feel about it. If I never played it I would not post about it, nor would I care about it.

"This is such bullshit. They were at least a year late with the game. If the publisher had let them work on the game a year longer, they probably would have pissed that year away, too."

Oh, well you based the above sentence on the fact that you played the game? That's weak. I thought you might have based the above sentence on the fact that you were there, or that you knew some of the people involved, or that you had concrete evidence. Now I see that the above sentence is simply slanderous.

"fact that you were there, or that you knew some of the people involved, or that you had concrete evidence."

It can only be slanderous if it is false.

Knowingly and maliciously false, that is.

I remember seeing something about how they missed their ship date, but I'll be damned if I can find it now.

Why so touchy, Rob?

The game was already a year late. It had to come out or be killed.

--Dave

I drank coffee this afternoon. I wanted to power through some work, but instead I got jittery and argumentative (see below too).

"Had CRS been given another year, I think they would have had a hit on their hands. But they weren't allowed to wait, nor could they afford to continue development and swithc publishers."

How do we know this? I'm not saying they did or didn't get ordered to release, but I've read a lot of stuff about developers (not these guys) faking milestones and other development frippery. Do we really know which side of the fence the failure resided on here?

I just think it sucks when any major project goes bad. I was thinking about the SSI guy what was busting Tom's chops yesterday, and why he was so defensive. These things represent the work of years. If it's really good, and I mean really good, maybe people will play and talk about it for a couple of years. Otherwise, it disappears in a few weeks, maybe as a horrible financial debacle, and you have nothing to show for all of that work. It doesn't make Tom's analysis any less right or wrong, but I could see where it would sting.

I don't know how the honest developers do that. Ditto movie directors and actors. That level of potential abuse, taken over a product that was designed to entertain and make people happy, is just staggering to me.

"Blizzard puts games out 2 years late and no one says they "piss their time away". Most of us would call it "getting it right the first time". Problem is, CRS didn't have the pull Blizzard did."

More specifically they don't have Blizzard's cash. Blizzard has enough money that they can afford to be late for games without a penalty. Smaller companies can't do that. I think developers need to share in the responsibility with the publishers. Developers shouldn't accept the money for development if they don't think they can make the deadline.

Well I'm not entirely sure the game was a full year late, but beside that mistakes were made, things were done, some problems are still problems, and there are still people here working on them, so, far as I know, World War II Online will still go on. Layoffs have in fact occurred, but I'm still there, so it can't all be bad :)

--- Alan

what if the producers asked CRS if their game was ready and they answered yes ?
from strat first insiders sources its what had actually happened.

i've played the game from day one (till day 30...) and i'm convinced that the main problem of this game was the lack of skill of the devs : i mean there was so many incredible flaws!

btw not only CRS lacked skills but they also lacked honesty
good riddance i say