f13.net

Does WAR and AoC releases dates affect each other?

You forgot an option: "I'll get whichever one comes out first".

Edit: Oh, and how about a "I never buy MMO games on their release date."

 :headscratch: :-D

And yah, needs more options.  Then again, what fun is a poll with a bunch with too large of a voting spread?  I would have gone with, "Both, but I have reservations on Funcom's ability to not suck."

I expect to be in the "I'll beta test both for free and buy whichever one I like." group.  Which seems to be missing as an option.  There is a possibility that I will be in the, "Wait a month or more after launch and pick up the one that sucks least at that time." group if I don't get into the betas and which is also missing as an option.

Where is the "How the hell do I know, they are both still in deep beta!" option?

I was a very happy AO player for quite a while starting a year or two after the disaster launch. I thought the game was fun. It was well managed. And the company really seemed to understand their players.

However, while they have ground out some pretty decent expansions, they haven't been on time, they've had big parts missing at release. The latest one was, I think, a year late?

Their ability to run a quirky interesting and high quality niche game I'm completely convinced of. And that's what Conan could be really. Their ability to manage a full A-Class mainstream release? Including a console edition? That's not really plausable to me. And based on their past behavior, I would interpret a push on the release as meaning they're utterly lost and grasping for more time rather than they're right on top of things and need to polish it to perfection.

They just got more venture capital last month. They're spending it wisely. It's not a bad thing.

Why does the title say pushback?  Release dates given before mass invites to closed beta are largely imaginary and in general are probably made up via rolling dice.

Finally, a use for the d30.

I am oh so weak willed when it comes to MMOGs. Ill buy both of them.

The poll is confusing, how many that voted "get both" would still have gotten both if they launched at relatively the same time?
I'm looking forward to AoC far more than I am WAR, but now that theres a nice gap in between launches, I'll end up playing both.
I still voted for "I'll play WAR if I can't play AoC"

WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS MEAN

Okay, yeah, I'll buy both.

I thought the date slipping was expected, but Funcom stock got fucking creamed today, down 15NOK to 20NOK or 57%. As was said above, since they just got new funding the stock reaction is stupid. They are only going to make the game better. That kind of share price decline would happen if the company's financial viability was in doubt due to the delay, but it isn't.

Maybe they had that new cash infusion sitting in nice, safe mortgage-backed hedge funds :-P.

How's that?

The closer they launch the worse for AoC imho. Doesn't affect me until beta tho 

And posting from cell keypad sucks. I blink faster than i can find these stupid keys...

Hmm I pay like no attention to release dates so I've no clue what they were listed at before.   Looking at EBGames though the Xbox 360 version has slipped beyond Xmas. If it was supposed to release before Xmas then that would explain things probably.  Anyone who is so monumentally stupid that they'd buy Funcom stock is likely to see this as a big problem.

Probably there is some fear the PC version will slip past Xmas too.  It doesn't really matter for an MMO but that doesn't mean stock investors know it doesn't matter.

The stock dip isn't unexpected, their investors have a six month delay in the returns on their investments. Although 42.5% is one hell of a dip.

I mightl buy one that gets better independent reviews few months after release. My guild going to ether of them will increase my likelihood of playing it.

AoC PvP sounds better on paper so I am leaning toward that, but I will buy whichever one comes out first because I am in MMO limbo at the moment. I am glad they decided to give AoC more time because I was worried that Funcom was going to pull an AO launch, they still might, but the odds of that have at least gone down.

Just wrote a couple of posts on this over at Q23, but figured this place would be even more interested in some of this stuff.

According to Norwegian finance newspaper Dagens Næringsliv, Funcom's owners lost over $120 million dollars as Funcom shares plummeted 47,8 per cent upon the announcement that Age of Conan will be delayed. While there's no new launch date, this means AoC might have to compete not just with WoW/TBC but also Warhammer Online, Wrath of the Lich King and whatever other major MMOs might be scheduled for release in the near future.  Earlier this summer, Funcom received as much as $30 million dollars in funding from various investors. According to analyst Espen Torgersen of Carniege, Funcom's credibility is at an all-time low, and that the only way they can pull through this is by releasing the game as soon as possible and make sure the launch is successful (no shit, Sherlock). According to product manager Erling Ellingsen (who used to write for the same games site I used to write for, fact freaks), they've pushed the title back because beta testers identified some areas which needed improving if the game were to match other competitors in the market.

Funcom head honcho, Trond Arne Aas, who owns 3% of the company's shares, does not comment much, but says that he's been running from meeting to meeting with other owners and investors, and that they're all mighty pissed off. Investors bought Funcom shares at 38,12NOK (approximately $6,57) a piece earlier this summer. As of yesterday, Funcom's shares were worth 20,10NOK (or $3,45).

Ouch.

I'm a bit curious how this is going to end. I remember AO, The Longest Journey and Dreamfall as mediocre-to-poor games. One of the much-vaunted features of Conan is the combat system, but as far as I know Funcom has never made a combat-oriented game. Unless you count the "combat system" in Dreamfall, which was an utter sack of shit.

There's a lot of good people working on Conan (some of their concept artists are simply marvellous, for instance), but I get the feeling their management and some of their senior creatives are ... lacking. Ragnar Tørnquist, the "creative mastermind" behind The Longest Journey, Dreamfall and Anarchy Online, is little more than a hack. The plot and dialogue in both TLJ and DF is dreadful (even though their settings are relatively inspired, although part of that could easily be attributed to the concept artists), and his Anarchy Online book is fucking terrible. I don't know whether he's involved with this or not, but if he is ... well, it doesn't count in favour of poor Conan. Also, if Funcom's management has been willing to hedge the future of the company on Tørnquist's imagination not once or twice but three times, I'd wager they've got quite a lot of confidence in the man. I'd be outright surprised if he wasn't involved with this at a pretty senior level. It also says a lot about the decision making ability of the management.

We'll see. I'm just a little bit worried by the recent development, and I wonder what they're going to do about their potential competition. WoW is obviously bigger than Conan, and even though Warhammer is just as smelly and nerdy as Conan, it's got a much more experienced team behind it, a much more powerful marketing machinery and a more lucrative license. Who reads Conan? Who cares about Conan? I might be out of the loop, but I don't know anyone who likes Conan. Most people think the property is ridiculous.

My prediction? Funcom is going down, down, down. They've had it coming for some time, and unless they manage to handle this fiasco in a very graceful manner, they're not just fucked, they're Houston 500 fucked. They don't have massive amounts of cash stashed away, they don't have Blizzard's reputation (or bank account, or, in fact, anything Blizzard has) and they don't have an EA-sized publisher backing their product. They've got Eidos.

Once again, ouch.

Directs the OP to this:

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=10650.0

Oops. I suppose I should've looked around some more.  :cry:

Well, um, so ... nothing new here, I guess? None of my numbers juicy enough for ya?

I'll try harder next time.

The bad thing here is what happens to AoTC if Funcom's investors are screaming at them to go live. I don't think they should worry about Warhammer and Wrath of the Lich King. If AoTC is good, original, a relief from the MMOG blah-blah, then I think it'll do well even if it's competing with other product.

If they pee in their pants and go live with a game as broken and unfinished as AO was at launch, they're fucking toast. They probably already have a segment of the market that won't play anything they put out as a result of the reputational hit of the AO launch. They need to have a technically solid launch AND they need to have some of the systems they've promised that will distinguish Conan from other MMOGs. If they do what Turbine did with Lord of the Rings and basically just push a vanilla WoW-ish design out with a few little tweaks and twists in a commercial environment where WoW and Warhammer are giving them competition, they're also fucking toast.

Crunch time, Funcom. You have to sail between Scylla and Charybdis here, and god help you if your grip on the tiller slackens.

If investors are upset that an MMO is delayed, they obviously know nothing about what they are investing in.

Well, if you believe in Funcom and AoC now seems like a good time to get a deal on some stock...  :evil:

Yah.  It was only about 3-4 posts down.

Bullshit. While I haven't read the Anarchy Online novel, I'm a big fan of his videogame creative work and so are many other people. His stories have always been a cut above the outrageously tacky, poorly written, campy lore that many gamers elevate to obsessions (hi Star Wars and WarCraft lore fans). His work gives me hope for actual creative types in an industry where storylines often fall flat because they're just from a programmer exercising the other side of his/her brain.

Anarchy Online has a great ominous atmosphere that makes me return to it at times, wishing it was a better game. Yes it had the art and music, but they were the realisation of Tørnquist's dark sci-fi milieu. I still think AO set the scene for the player better than any other MMOG ever, even if the game doesn't pull it off: ftp://ftp.funcom.com/cd/intro.exe (yes an exe - it's a self-playing Bink video)

It's safer to presume all upcoming MMOGs will suck. Very few ever prove otherwise. Certainly not sensible to "pick" a game now - see Vanguard community.

That AO video still rocks after all these years. I quote Tale in full.

Thread merged. 

Opposite day for you?

:angryfist:

Depends if I get to Beta one or both, and see what the games are like. If I don't get to Beta (or open Beta) one or both then I'll follow feedback from the F13 crowd on the games for a month or two as the NDAs drop and the games go into retail. Release dates don't mean much to me, as long as the two don't release at once, and have similar positive F13 feedback, in which case I'd lean towards Warhamster since I've been a player for years, and know little about Conan.

These AoC threads are a mess. Unfortunately this is the one that got indexed by Google for "funcom" and "stock" (result #7) so I'm going to rearrange things to fit that.

We're talking about people who invested in Funcom.  That much is a given in the first place.  It's interesting though that they are worried about a WoW expansion.  It gives me the impression that investors think the MMO market is going to keep growing and that Wrath of the Lich King might gobble up AoC's "share" of the growth.   Personally I'm not sure I buy that there is a whole lot of room left for growth in the western markets as far as traditional rpg style mmo's go.  WoW added to the market by picking up a lot of single player RPGers and by appealing to the casual/nongamer market.   As far as I understood though AoC is supposed to go niche and ignore the casual market?  I've been mostly ignoring AoC till open beta since it's Funcom though.

I don't think AoC can ignore any market. You can't market just to the hardcore and expect the player numbers to roll in. Not if you are a multi-million dollar license, anyway.

One theory about WoW is that it broke a lot of player barriers - they are now used to paying by the month for a MMO, they have learned to play nicely with others team up for mutual benefit join a PUG or guild, they are used to playing in a certain way, etc. The thought is that WoW grew the number of players who might consider a MMO. The trick is to steal those players away from WoW, or to pick them up as they get bored with it.

A new WoW expansion could easily crush another MMOs launch. Although Vangard was always going to be a hard sell, it might have done a bit better if it hadn't been put up against the Burning Crusade.

No, your missing the important bit. WOW worked when launched. vanguard did not. it fucking did not work@!! Ya, Bliz has draw. Ya, Bliz has a rep for making good games at launch. vanguard was broken at launch. It had no (0) Chance in the market. The fact that what vanguard wanted to be( EQ next) and would have failed on that context is not in the argument. You have to function in order to have a chance to fail. It was simply broken.

Yes, but launching at the same time as a WoW expansion is like sitting on store shelves next to Madden or Final Fantasy... it just doesn't help your chances. Vanguard sucked, but that only mattered once people bought the game. BC (and horrible press) cut those box sales off at the pass.

Vanguard was a stinkbomb because it was a bug-riddled incomplete piece of shit built on concepts nobody wanted to play in the first place.  There are no lessons to be learned from it's failure besides "Don't build a shit game on a shit idea!"  Anything else it might have taught is obscured by that.  It's like debating the aerodynamic merits of a rocket that exploded on the launchpad.

Don't put unproven designers at the head of a project.
Don't let that unproven designer hire his friends in positions that matter.
Nepotism sucks.
If the dress code is t-shirts and jeans, it doesn't mean you get to be an asshole.
Design documents are necessary for a game.
You need more than one QA person to find enough bugs to make a game playable.
Do a lot of digging before you fund a project.

How many more do you need?

Edit: In FACT, the last reason it failed was it was a shit game built on a shit idea. That's merely the end result of a long string of colossal fuck ups.

I thought it was a great first post, the AoC stuff was pretty fucked up thread-wise, same goes for the WAR threads atm so dont worry about it.  The MMOG subforum is always a bit of a mess honestly, but the people who browse this sub-forum grind all the threads for the most part.  Even Signe's threads...

I don't have much to add except that I agree with people that say the AO setting kicked ass.  Also dialogue means fuckall to the gaming masses multiply that fact by 100 for MMO's.  There is a reason Blizzard adopted the quick quest text ui mod as a build in default game option.

Most of the good MMORPGs were made by unproven designers. It's their second games you have to watch out for.

Not if you consider WoW the only Good MMORPG - and even then, it's derivative trash.

But you don't count people who play WoW as MMORPG players -- they are Blizzard fanboys and girls (even if WoW is their first Blizzard game, they were just born that way apparently) -- so you shouldn't count that game.

Fearlessly bad logic.

I never once said WoW wasn't an MMOG. It completely is, in every possible sense. And it's a flawlessly executed dikumud with graphics. In my opinion, that goddamn game should have put a bullet hole in the brain of the genre. No one will be able to pull it off that fluidly again. Not even Blizzard. NEXT.

That's not what I said you said. I said you don't consider the people who play WoW part of the MMORPG market.

I don't, but that doesn't make WoW any less of an MMORPG. Which was the logic you used.

There are many MMORPG players that play WoW. I've put estimates at 500k to 1.5M before. And as it stands, I'd probably keep them around that. WoW hasn't grown so much lately that they've been pumping out press releases and MMORPGS - particularly Europe and the US haven't been springing up much at all nor stealing users.

And by Blizzard released numbers, that makes less than 10% (if you use the average of those numbers), that leaves 10% of WoW using being core MMOG users. Which makes it pretty safe to say that WoW players are not MMOG players. But that doesn't make WoW any less of an MMOG.

Whoa, what? WoW is an MMORPG just like any other. WoW players are playing an MMORPG very much like others (tuned much better though). And they are playing with people who have played other MMORPGs (like, ya know, the denizens of the most popular game-specific sub-forum here).

You can't lop off 9mil accounts in the PC AAA MMORPG market that easily. Some of them will never leave WoW, or leave it but not for another MMORPG. But there are still people playing UO too.

You are missing the context (as is schild but I wasn't going to bother to respond since he was in his usual nonsensical mode on this subject).

schild's whole point about about WoW, which he repeated again, is that, and I quote: "WoW players are not MMOG players" (he actually said that some may actually be MMORPG players but that's the first time he's ever admitted that and that was after I posted my reply). In other words WoW is its own special universe separate from the rest of the MMORPGs out there because WoW players are not MMORPG players. Or to say it yet another way what WoW players do or don't do doesn't have any effect on the the "real" MMORPG market because they don't count as being part of the MMORPG market.

So going back to our discussion:

schild: Don't put unproven designers at the head of a project.

Trippy: Most of the good MMORPGs were made by unproven designers.

schild: Not if you consider WoW the only Good MMORPG - and even then, it's derivative trash.

Trippy: But you don't count people who play WoW as MMORPG players therefore you shouldn't count WoW (as the only good MMORPG)

schild: My internal logic that WoW doesn't have MMORPG players therefore it's an MMORPG but it's still not part of the MMORPG market is flawless, therefore you are wrong

I love blue name fights! :)

Basically, I think that one third to one half of WoW's playerbase could be potentially sniped to play another MMO. Its the half that are feeling the grind and the boredom hitting hard. Remember your first MMO? They really enjoy the massively multiplayer part, so they will listen to their guildies about the 'next big thing'. Or they will look for another MMO because they like raiding/PVP/PvE or whatever.

Regardless, Blizzard fanbois or not, it cant be ignored that even a third of 9 million increased the MMO pool significantly.

Their contempt for PvPers isn't going to help when (if?) a good PvP game rolls around.

"So, we're not here to talk about solo player content today. Or PVP with your welfare Arena epics or anything like that. This round is for people actually go out and earn their epics by killing hard bosses in dungeons."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfb1LPo08i4

What?

why is pushing it back a bad thing? I mean, in the long run, If the game is better for the added time, AND the game in total is a great game with large appeal, then there should be no issue.

I just wonder why people automatically assume that any delay is a bad thing.

We all know what happens to rushed, unfinished games.

I think people liked the idea of a release that wasn't around the time of other stuff. That has all changed now.

That i understand. But i don't think that equates to = "FAIL!!". Competition is competition, at that point, it comes down to marketing, and the best game for the buyer.

I persionaly believe that anyone trying to "kill" WOW, is going to fail just because of that goal. Its all about the nitch now.

Please link to someone around saying that, because don't I see them.

Let's pretend the above poll is correct, pushing back near or past WAR is an 8% loss of revenue. So the business question, will the extra development time provide more revenue than that loss of revenue and the additional development costs?  The fact that Funcom answered yes to the question tells me either a) Funcom has learned from AO, or b) the game is a dreadful state. I will go with latter because learning is weak suite of the industry.

Also kinda surprising numbers back for option #4.

Your right, no one here is saying it directly. But, every time something gets delayed, the internets come alive with , well, Fail.

I have been looking at AOC, but i was always unsure about the list of features, its quite large and broad. so I welcome this extra time, as i didn’t have allot of faith they could implement all those feature fully, and stably. It would be quite an undertaking for any team.

So i guess i agree, it must be #2.

Hey, that's what the rest of us have said for the last 2 1/2 years when you spouted it.



Missed this before.  It's not that surprising for this particular site.  The majority who play MMOs here are dabblers.  Get in, play for a few months, get out.  Maybe resub a few months later/ when the expansion hits.  I'd be surprised if the number of us who have had a Sub for multiple years (without a break) in a single game (after our first) is greater than 30-40%

It's what gives the site it's nice overview of things. (imo) Nobody so entrenched as to be unwilling to try something new, and few so entrenched in a single game as to be blind to it's flaws/ similarities with others.

When I spout things, it's coherent.

Edit: I, literally, do not understand the structure of the sentence. He's taking things that I've always kept exclusive of eachother and melding them together into one three-headed dragon of misinformation.

I think I get what Schild is saying.

Imagine a marathon race where the organizers have barcaloungers with scantily-clad Swedish masseuses all along the route to rest whenever you get tired. Teams of doctors offer you oxygen bottles and water every mile. Contestants that bitch and whine about marathons enough can eventually get put on an automatic escalator.

In the end, the race is a marathon (it covers the 24 or whatever miles), and marathon runners may actually compete in it. But you wouldn't really call people who run in that marathon (and only that marathon) marathon runners, would you?

I want to play that on the Wii.


Yar.

Whether or not you like Ragnar's stories, you can't defend the technical merits of Funcom games.

I have to jump in here as well. Frankly, if SHDR is trying to say this, it automatically makes me dismiss the rest of his post as the ramblings of someone who doesn't know good game writing when he sees it. TLJ and Dreamfall both had some technical/gameplay issues, but the storylines and characters and most of the dialogue were leaps and bounds above other games.

All I want is less waiting and more killing.

Unfortunately MMORPG's live and die by their technical/gameplay issues much moreso than their storyline.

Very true. If the story really mattered, LOTRO would have 9 million subscribers. Story's not a negative by any means, but gameplay's the thing.

Except that no one puts "play an MMO" on a list of life goals. Every marathon runner is a partner in the integrity of the event. To move this analogy to a more sensible place: just because I play RTSs that don't have retarded-ass pathfinding on units, am I still considered an RTS player?

Now, what I think people are missing is that schild isn't saying "they aren't MMORPG players" in the way I put my RTS example but "they aren't aren't players some other MMORPG could take". Really though, most of those 9mil are up for grabs, not to the same game, but to a variety of games.

Now, of course this assumes the genre can get to the point where the car equivalents of AC and airbags aren't cool features, and just things you would come to expect (like decent pathfinding in an RTS). In that respect, I think SOE with EQ2 has, and I really don't think that Funcom and Mythic are retarded enough to not attempt to add in those now much desired features... will they work though is the question.

Sure that RTS has great pathing. Unfortunately it has completely automated resource gathering. The tech tree is bland and dumbed down enough that there are only a few viable cookie cutter builds. There are only 3 general types of units and there is one basic mixture of these types that everyone uses. Everyone's army looks exactly the same and the only challenge is being able to click your units' special abilities before the other guy can click his.

It's still an RTS - sorta, but the game is so dumbed down to the lowest common denominator that it begins to lose touch with the genre. Unfortunately, the interface and pathing are so slick and well-done that most players refuse to play any other RTS and start to believe that the design concepts of that RTS should be gospel, even though it's not the design concepts that popularized the game, but the execution and implementation.   

Ah, yea, thanks for clarifying. Montague got schild's nod for interpretation. In a way, I agree. If you've only ever played one MMORPG, you are not an MMORPG player. You are player of that one game. Once you've experienced an appreciable breadth of experiences, maybe then you're classifiable as an MMORPG player. However, this is all subjective for two main reasons:

• Unlike other genres that predate it, MMORPGs are not so easily to lump together. Second Life to Guild Wars with everything in between. This genre starves for agreeable sub-categories.
• Genres are all marketing speak anyway.

And yet, everyone here and everywhere has had their first MMORPG. And we've all ended up in other ones. The PC AAA MMORPG genre has always grown by plying both the existing fans and trying to attract new ones. WoW did the best at both. Most others having mostly cannabalized. So to write off most WoW players as unreachable is, well, probably the same thing a few companies said when it was EQ1 on top. Different time but similar issues, plus the glaringly big new ones  (huge IP from different studios and cheap-ass Browser-based MMOs)

Funcom should be swinging from Ragnar's nutsack at this point in time. His stories / characters in Dreamfall and TLJ are the sole reason either of those games were successful. It sure as hell wasn't the rehashed point and click adventure game motif that was paying the bills. I'd also be willing to wager that those two games are probably the major reason why Funcom not only has the opportunity to get serious funding for a big project like AoC (and TSW recently announced) but why they are still in existence as a company today.

I sure as hell don't agree with all his decisions in game design, but I'm certainly willing to give credit where it's due.

I would agree with that. I should have made clear I wasn't defending Funcom's ability to make MMOs (though I happen to think AO is pretty decent, especially for a first time MMO) rather I was defending SHDR's attack on the writer of some of the best adventure games (plotwise) in a long while. They're like Indigo Prophecy without the bad ending.

Edit: Fixed tags

Bullshit. There have and always been MMORPG players in WoW. MMORPG players go everywhere. They're just not enough in the majority to ever give them any notice. You know what half of people who play WoW probably play when they're not playing WoW (this includes raiders, casual guilds, small groups and soloers)? Probably Peggle and shit like that. Casual market shit. Or lite console fare. or fast paced FPS shit - like Fabricated. WoW is a Gamer's MMOG, not a MMORPG Player's MMOG. This is why I don't pay any attention to the MMOG gamers that go over there. Most of them probably keep active subs elsewhere (I know MANY, MANY people on this board keep EQ2, WoW, CoH, Dungeon Runners, and other shit running at the same time - that's how MMORPG gamers are). If WoW consisted of 8 Million MMOG gamers, other games would have a hell of a lot more subs. A HELL of a lot more. Simply because MMORPG gamers are so fickle, that they'll get bored one minute - and instead of playing an actual game - they'll log into the other MMORPG they're subbed to.

Also, I never said WoW couldn't steal players away from other MMORPGs. They can. And those players, while flight-fancy, are MMORPG players. That's to say, WoW most certainly is competition for every other Diku based combat MMORPG out there. They most certainly are competition. And at the moment, they're invincible. The best thing to do would be what Dave Rickey said to do a year ago. Hide in a cave or on your island, come up with something new, and make THAT. And ignore WoW. People are forgetting that part.

Dreamfall alone sold 300k copies, bringing in US $2.6m. Their operating expenses were US $14.0m and their total revenues were US $10.8m for all of 2006. Clearly AO is still bringing in money. And I rather doubt that Dreamfall cost under $2.6m to make. It costs more than that to make next-gen tetris these days.

Funcom is a public company. Most of this stuff can be easily found in their quarterly reports.

(http://a905.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/123/l_e3eda20d1e432993640fe0a471c10ca8.jpg)

Speaking of Peggle. Yeah, I really need a new MMO.

What's up with the white splotch above the "congratulations"? Is that furry DNA?

Firework, obviously.

What I'm worried about is the "gonna rape you" beaver on the right.

Just...don't go there. In the future, try to avoid terms like 'white splotch' and 'furry' in the same sentence, especially when associated with a "grand master" title.

I was laughing for like five minutes straight on this one.

Well played.

Outside of any discussion about WAR and AoC, people are most certainly not forgetting that. The genre is redefining itself, in part because of new tools and in part because of WoW. How many of the games slated for the next two years will actually launch, aside from the ones like TR that almost have no choice given the inertia. 2008 is WAR and AoC pretty much.

Meanwhile, there's dozens of new games classifiable as MMO but not for the crowd that went to or came from WoW. They don't have the look, the game mechanic, the trappings, and yet they'll do what Habbo did: expand the genre to groups of people who a) weren't here already (like WoW did); and, b) to a group of people who weren't interested in anything approaching the same playstyle already here (like WoW couldn't).

For all you're comments about WoW, it is effectively the exact same game that made the AAA MMORPG popular. It's just easier to advance through to the end. But that's mostly to quality in code and in pacing/feel.

Surely I've said that a thousand times.

And it's why I cry at night.

I played SWG for almost two years. After quitting that one I jumped from game to game and the one I settled on was... WoW. Go figure. The only other game I haven't tried out that I'm interested in is EVE.

As for WAR & AoC? I'm going with the one that gets released first. Then I'm gonna buy the one that gets realeased second and play that. It's like choosing between blondes and brunettes. Both are loaded with potential.

Absolutely do not underestimate the disillusionment of WoW's pvp crowd. There's a reason more and more games are releasing with an integrated pvp aspect of the game instead of WoW's tacked on approach.

So am I part of the MMO market?  I play an MMO, but my forays into others have been brief and generally unsatisfactory.  While it's possible for another MMO to steal me away permanently, it would have to do a lot of things that the genre just doesn't seem interested in doing.

So am I?  I thought so, because I... you know... pay for an MMO.  But on the other hand, I'd be pleased to hear that I'm not.  MMOs suck.

You're looking at this genre from the perspective of a gamer. That's not a good or bad thing of course :) But it does mean you compare what happens here with what gamers do elsewhere, and as we've discussed in the past here, I'm not sure a dedicated MMORPGer is classifiable as a "gamer". There are I'm sure a good chunk of GW players who are gamers. But SL players? EQ1 players? UO players? Even WoW players aren't likely jumping from 20 hours a week raids/PvP into Uno matches on XBLA.

Someday I'd like to see a psychographic map of MMOG players in the various spheres that represent the various sub-sections of this platform, with an overlay that shows similar maps from other genres. Where's the adjacencies?

Even though I'm an Extreme Peggle Grandmaster, I'm also an FPS killa, a PVP enthusiast, Diablo gamer, etc

Basically, I just look for games that are fun...which begs to ask the question...why the fuck do I still follow MMOs ? :)

I love how every MMO thread is a WoW thread.

And every WoW thread is actually an EQ1 thread with an extra billion dollars thrown in.

You are not.  Rest easy, disenfranchised one.

Ok, so let me ask you this, i see we have some people with market knowladge.

Q: Why would an announcement like this, cause people to sell, and or why did the price of the stock drop.. What is this type of announcement an indicator to for investors?

From a purely financial standpoint there is no good news to that announcement. Christmas 2007 is missed. The funding that Funcom got will be used for more development instead of advertising and marketing. The initial release will more than likely have to compete head-to-head with WAR and possibly WOTLK.

Basically there is now more risk vs. upside, at least from the viewpoint of stock price.

My gut reaction would be that delays often cost more than they make back in added profit.  I'm guessing this is the reason most games get released in a rushed and buggy state and are fixed while collecting subscription fees.

...unless you're Blizzard?

WOTLK is a horrible acronym. It's unpronouncable. WOT L K. Not a chance. Why not just WLK? Pronounced WALK. So easy.

If investors thought a non-Blizzard MMOG would do well THIS CHRISTMAS (of all christmas'), well, that says a lot.

Conan would have been DOA.

This year is amazing.

Really? What MMOs coming out this year are so great?

Tabula Rasa: 10/2/07, but lets be honest, it'll crash and burn if not delayed
Hellgate london: 10/31/07, but it won't really compete in the MMO market
EQ2 kunark expansion: 11/13/07, and the 14 people that play EQ2 will be overjoyed and talk about how awesome it is and we'll all sign up for the trial then quit 3 days later
WAR: Q1 2008 (might make this date)
Conan: Q1 2008 (could slip again as it's STILL not in beta)
WOW: WOTLK expansion: Q2 2008, probably. Maybe 2009.
Aion: late 2008? Nobody really knows.
Star trek online: late 2008, if it's not cancelled first (which it will be)
Marvel online: late 2008, will probably slip to 2009
Guild wars 2: early 2009
Darkfall, Fury, Pirates, Lineage 3, various other KMMOs, etc: Who gives a shit?

You are 659 in the Queue...

Yeah, WoW launch was roses compared to some others but it had it's issues and quite a few server take downs and emergency patches in the first 90 days after live.

Sup. I was talking about non-mmogs.

WLK (like Guild Wars: Eye of the North is GW: EN) or just Wrath, considering that's what Blizzard themselves are using in the URL.

You really still think that MMOs and non-MMOs are in competition? They're entirely different experiences. I know people that just play WoW. That's it. They stopped playing everything but WoW.

I dunno, I don't see Halo3, Mass Effect, Lair, Hellgate, Bioshock, or Assassin's Creed impacting Conan's sales one way or the other.

Please take notice of the word "often" in my statement.

New rule.  You dont get to say things like that and bitch about the incest that gets passed as "creativity" in so-called AAA titles.  If all KMMO's are unworthy of any form of discussion then you made the bed the rest of us have to avoid for fear of face-eating crabs.  You know the one where WoW is king because its the same as everyone else just with less broken bits.

I hate white people?

Agree with Hoax - it's the MMOs that try to break out into somewhere new that are showing a bit more creativity than just the next fantasy MMO with a bought IP. If you only count what's been released to date as western MMORPGs as the 'true' face of MMOs, it's a genre that is always going to have the same problems.

schild, how do you pronounce MMORPG? Moprepug? :)

And I agree with Hoax somewhat. You can't want to see innovation in this genre at the same time as insulting everyone who's trying something different. And you can't expect to like all those different things either. You're the core audience for a reason.


That's why they're in competition. It's about gaming dollars and time, mostly time. Someone could have more money than Rowlings, but they still live in a 24 hour day.

More-pig.

Mor-porg

I know, I have some letters the wrong way around - but it has stuck in my head now.

You don't think they compete with eachother but know people who have completely stopped playing everything but WoW?  Do you understand what you just said?  Of course they compete with eachother, WoW has probably stopped the sale of millions of copies of other games because people are too engrossed in Azeroth to care.  Sometimes when a slew of good non MMOs come out people will take a break from WoW.

I don't think juice competes with soda drinks because I know people who like soda so much they stopped drinking juice.

Muh-mor-pug.

Yes, I pronounce both M's, cuz I'm goddamn thorough.

What I meant was that there's no competition in the same way that Bruce Lee would have no problem at all kicking my ass. MMOs would win.

I didn't mean to imply that all KMMOs are unworthy, just that most of them are. Aion wasn't on that list, for example.

KMMOs are worthless until it is proven otherwise.

I'm all about cultural diversity and what not, but lets face it; Asian MMOs cater to their own culture. Granado Espada, although really cool an innovative in its own right, had such astoundingly poor translation that its clear us 'westerners' are a secondary and neglected marketplace for the Asian MMO industry. If that changes, I'll give them another shot. Otherwise, any new Asian MMO is generally met with the same dubious enthusiasm as one of Signe's 'finds'.

I'm sorry, WOTLK is just ludicrous.  It looks like it has something to do with Linux and there's NOTHING fun about that!

em-em-porg is how all my RL gamer friends pernounce it.



Please refer to the following games:  Raycrash, Rumble Fighter, Infinity, Gunz, Gunbound, Rakion etc.

None were true mmoRPG's because they all use a lobby+gameroom system but they all did great new things with skill-based combat.

Meanwhile SilkRoad has an interesting pvp-centric faction system (thieves/hunters/merchants) though the grind is terrible.  While games like MapleStory and Ghost Online have brought tons of kids into the medium with grindy but addictive 2d gameplay.  Also there are tons of games that look/sound interesting that aren't even ported over.  This is esp true of Japanese MMO's which look like they have real budgets unlike the shoestring budget Korean games (like the ones I've mentioned) that are happy to sell localization rights to anyone willing to try to put together a NA/EU audience.

People pronounce these things?  It's like FBI, CIA, NSA.. if it's all in caps, you say the letters because it's not a word. Welcome to English.

Morepig. Not joking, that's how we pronounce it.

MMO = (http://hometown.aol.com/morganakamoe83/images/moe%20howard---7.jpg)

HUD. FISA. ASVAB. GUI. Shaddap! ;)

Lawl

Roffle

 :-o

GUI has a pronunciation? How lame.  What is it, "Gooy"?  Yeah just how I want to describe my interface.

HUD I've heard both ways. FISA and ASVAB you've got me on.

The default is letters, though.  You shaddap.

OK so here's a story.  Killjoy and I have a "friend"... we will call him Ingle because that's his real name and he's a bitch.  He's a total WoW whore.  He lost his job due to WoW and now lives on welfare in a trailer playing WoW all the time.  Now, Killjoy is a WoW whore too, but he told his guild that they would not see him for a while because of Bioshock so if they need any warlock help they need to use him now.  Today, as I was mobilizing him to get Bioshock ASAP, he called Ingle and says "Hey, I'm going to get Bioshock right now!"  Ingle says, "What's Bioshock?"  Killjoy hung up on him.

Goey. Like syrup.

Pah, MMORPG takes like five hours to say if you pronounce every letter.  MMO I do pronounce letter by letter, but for the full MMORPG I think some mutilation of the language is acceptable.  And Muhmorpug is fun to say.  I'm willing to accept a simple morpug/morpig, however.

Now, I take issue with anyone pronouncing a "porg" anywhere in there.  What is this, an anagram?

(All that said, whoever came up with the abbreviation to begin with probably needs to be smacked around a bit.  I welcome the "MMO" truncation.)

(http://www.thenonentity.com/arthaslinux.jpg)

Uhm. Hmm.

I call MMORPGS "M M Os" in real life. As in spoken. The Letters MMOs. As in MMOs suck, MMOs are derivative, MMOs are the opposite of fun. Or, I suppose "This movie is so bad, I'd rather be playing an MMO."

The only acronyms that I don't pronounce out in some manner are "GUI" and "FEMA." Maybe there are others, but I can't think of any.

Off the top of my head... SCUBA, HIPAA, MILF, UNICEF, and SWAT.

LASER, SONAR.

I'm calling shenanigans on this.

NASA, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit)

Sometimes you can do that. Sometimes you shouldn't. Like some podcasters who seem to think SWG should be verbalized as "SWG". It just sounds dumb. Call it "Galaxies". It's faster anyway.

Eh? I say "S" "W" "G." Always have. The dev team says "swig."

Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
SOund Navigation And Ranging

They chose acronyms that made good words and eventually people forgot they were acronyms.

I pronounce SQL, as in the database query language, "sequel" as do most other developers in Canada.  I don't know if this is true but apparently in the U.S. people sound it out as S, Q, L and if you say sequel they don't know what you mean.

WoW.

 :yahoo:

It is 'sequel' here too, but we are dangerously close the Canadian border.

I think there is a note in the O'Reilly book, or somewhere, that tells you it is pronounced "sequel".  I say Ess Que Ell because I'm not a Dee Bee Ay.

Then you are insane too. Nobody looks at you odd in conversation? :)

That's right. Nobody. Only you, sweet thing.

I work as a DBA manager and I tend to go back and forth between saying SQL and sequel. I mostly say sequel, I guess.

(http://okladki-divx.neostrada.pl/covers/d/derailed.jpg)

Oh, SQL, that's a good one.

Here's why:

Microsoft SQL is always pronounced out - M S S Q L.
MySQL is always pronounced MySequel.

Weird. It's all about flow.

No, no, no, no, no. Ugh, I really hate that "sequel" shit. Here's what the MySQL people say (http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/what-is-mysql.html):
And I'm Canadian, so none of that cultural difference crap either.

I pronounce it as 'my sequel' and postgresql really is.. 'postgres-queue-el'... I remember they have a wav on the website that asks.

Que? as in "K"? or 'cue', surely they mean cue.

While I know you guys went over this I can't pass up the chance to rag on the industry by saying there are no good MMORPG's yet.  Even WoW isn't good.  It's merely the first professional attempt in the entire genre with some decent redeeming points.  Kind of like a lot of AAA single player games that have good polish and quality but just aren't any fun for very long.

Of course some of them were fun but none of them were good.  I still love UO on many levels but that game was utter trash when it came out.  Their idea of a database was a flatfile that saved every 30 minutes.

That's not true. People say it both ways here in the US.

Edit: fixed quoting

Opinions, blah, blah.


Because that was the standard for the backgrounds of all involved.  DBs began seeing regular use in games long after UO came out.  Even EQ1 used flat files.  Hell, DAoC might have even done so, but I'm not sure.   To point back to 1995 and say "Ha ha you used flat files" is akin to pointing at 1974 and saying "ha ha, typewriters!"


Oh, and:

PSI, ADA, SPF, BTU, RPM, ROI, ATV, AQC, ESB, RIAA, PSF, CPU, DVD, DVR, VCR, BC, AD, AC, HVAC, BDOP, APA, AIA, VC, HD, DAT, PDA.

Like schild I also say "S-W-G" not "swig"

Let's not forget you also have the weird ones that are said as letters or the full phrase, but not some bastardization.  OC, HDD and BOP spring to mind. 

I laughed out my nose, being at work while laughing sucks.

I actually say "dat" like "that", but I also say "S-W-G" and "my S-Q-L". A guildmate says "swigie" (or "swigy" maybe) and I want to strangle him with my mind.

Come on. I know schild is giving you special privileges for calling SWG "S-W-G"  :evil:

I seriously don't know how it sounds right. But I'm thinking it's just me.

If schild realizes I'm even on this board, 90% of the time it's for quoting him directly.  :-D   :wink:

Jean-Claude Van Damme is underrated.  He's been relegated to shitty direct-to-video flicks for years now, but somewhere along the line he actually learned some acting.

I think it's because he learned that acting after Hollywood spent the big bucks on him. Sorta too late now. He needs to do a TV series.

MMOs (and I say Moes) and MMOGs (mogs - wow, wasn't that a fun game) are good enough for their time and the stage of the industry - there are some fun enough ones out there. Sure, there are more opportunities to expand into other areas, but they are fun enough to play for a while.

Here's what a lot of disgruntled MMOG players need to remember:

1) No game -ever- is going to be so good you are going to spend the rest of your life with it. You aren't marrying the damn game; it's not that kind of relationship. If you get 100 hours of fun out of MMO and quit - congrats, you had 100 hours of fun. If you had 98 hours of grind and 2 of fun, sucks to be you. If you are having fun, the game is good enough.

2) You play any game long enough, you are going to get bored with it. Unless you are playing MMOs like it's chess in Communist Russia and they'll kill your family if you quit, you are one day going to pull the plug on your subscription. MMOs aren't failures just because they don't entertain you for the rest of your natural life once you buy the box and log in.

YMMV.

You can say opinions but it has nothing to do with my personal prefs.  Those games simply were unprofessionally made.  Professionalism isn't as widely open to debate as "what game I like".

Who cares when they began seeing regular use in games?  DB's were well established for proper client/server long before UO came out.  I actually wasn't ragging on UO for that though.  The reason they used flatfiles is because UO was an experiment and they couldn't really hire a proper client/server software engineer that they might not need in the future.  But it doesn't change the fact that we ended up with a piece of software that was bad.  I merely pointed this out to say why it's been 10 years to get professional games though.

I'm not a disgruntled MMOG player.  I am a disgruntled software design consultant who's old enough that I was already doing this sort of work when MMO's started coming out. I'm not even commenting on fun which is what your whole post in counterpoint to mine seems to be about.   I also hate MMO's that expect me to play past the 2 month mark.  I want to finish the game and move onto the next one immediately. Your comments and stereotypes are something I heavily agree with but you've definitely pegged me wrong if you think I fit into that group of whiners who expect a game to be fun for 2-3 years.

I'm not a disgruntled MMOG player.  I am a disgruntled software design consultant who's old enough that I was already doing this sort of work when MMO's started coming out. I'm not even commenting on fun which is what your whole post in counterpoint to mine seems to be about.   I also hate MMO's that expect me to play past the 2 month mark.  I want to finish the game and move onto the next one immediately. Your comments and stereotypes are something I heavily agree with but you've definitely pegged me wrong if you think I fit into that group of whiners who expect a game to be fun for 2-3 years.
[/quote]

So why are you playing MMOs then?

Perhaps you'd like to expand on that by explaining why I shouldn't want to play MMO's?

I can come up with a couple of reasons.

But no one would EVER dare ask me that question. It would unleash a hellfire frenzy that would leave no survivors.

Well I didn't mean "why do you think MMO's suck to the point that I shouldn't want to play MMO's"?  I more meant he shouldn't be a prick and suggest that theres something wrong with me only wanting to play an MMO for a few months instead of quitting my job and becoming a loser in a basement for 3 years.  Since I'm pretty sure he was being a prick and suggesting something like that.

If you hate MMOs that expect you to play past the 2 month mark, you probably shouldn't be playing MMOs.  The whole point of an MMO, besides having fun (hopefully), is that you are going to play it for an extended period of time.  Sure, maybe not 2-3 years, but come on.  It's like saying, "I hate TV shows that expect me to keep watching them after the first 2 episodes."

Way to take a completely different topic and twist it around then.  They weren't talking about software design.  Most of the time we don't.  The majority of us couldn't give a rats ass about it, so long as it's fun and it works.

When they were speaking of design, they didn't mean the quality of how 'slick' the code was, but the fun it doles out and the way it engages the player.  Your "wow is bad" came across as a subjective opinion of fun, not a qualitative issue of code and professionalism.

 The entire discussion before you was  about fun and other subjectives, and you decided to jump in and say "Oh no, games suck (because they're unprofessional!)" without actually stating that's where you were coming from.  Here I thought that I communicated badly at times.

That said, nobody here argues that game creation is an unprofessional business. It's an unspoken and accepted fact.  It's one of the major failings of the industry as a whole.  Right along with the sexism, the man-children running things and the cronyism that keeps bad people in high positions.

Not sure anyone cares but since I did the work, I thought I would share.

Funcom the company has a USD160 million value. So what level of success for AoC does that imply? To be "cheap" with a $160MM value, Funcom would have to earn $16MM in cash earnings (after taxes, before non-cash items like depreciation of which a game developer has little.) Assuming 50% operating margins and a 35% tax rate, they need 300,000+ subscribers.

300k X $12/month X 12 months = $43.2MM annual revenue (using $12 because something will go to Eidos, the publsiher maybe).
50% to operating expenses = $21.6MM operating profit
35% tax rate = $14MM net income

I am obviously ignoring initial box sales because that is more of a one time lump cash infusion than an earnings stream.  I am also ignoring AO (which is insignificant at this point) and any other ongoing development of single player games.

So the cheat sheat version is that Funcom ain't cheap unless AoC blows away all expecations.

In addition to AO, don't they have some other game products? I thought they published some single player games.

I ain't buying them in any case, but just sayin' that might not be the entire picture.

How much do we think they spent on this project? $50MM?

Dreamfall, The Longest Journey

Yup. They actually got a grant from Norwegian Film Fund a while ago, for continuation of Dreamfall that's to be released in chapters. Part of "Norwegian government’s active endorsement of the Norwegian game development industry", apparently.

I am not claiming AoC is the entire picture but one would be hard put to argue that AoC isn't going to be the vast majority of company earnings in the next two years.

As far as how much they spent, they don't break it out by project but software companies put development expenses on the balance sheet and then bleed those expenses into the income statement over time as the games start generating revenues.

Date / Capitalized software costs

December 2006 / $20MM
March 2007 / $23MM
June 2007 / $27MM

Now, of course, other game develoment is in those numbers to some degree, but the vast majority has to be AoC. The you have to consider the $30MM they just raised. Where will that be spent? Once again I expect the vast majority will go to support AoC, either as development costs or marketing costs.

Because you expect to play a linear game with a start, middle, and end. You want an RPG. You're in a persistent world environment though.

But! if they put out a quality game (because of the delay) and it has an acceptable subscribe base....for the next 10 years.

I have always wondered how long it takes MMO to finally pay for themselves on an average.

The UK magazine PC Zone has a short article about the Age of Conan beta, saying readers can get beta keys from the PC Zone website. Sadly if you go to the website there are no keys, just this:


My point . . . well, none really, I'm just having a moan. But it looks like Eidos are pissing people off a bit.

The release date was 10/30 until last week. Their publisher really thought they'd be in beta by now. But they're not, so they can hardly hand out keys.

I think you've misunderstood me somewhat by me saying 2 months.   Take EQ1 for instance.  I got to 50 and consumed nearly all the content in the game (since there were no content updates or expansions by then) in 2~4 months then quit.  I did the same with WoW and so on.  Perhaps I should of said 3 or 4 months since indeed I sometimes play that long.  I was talking about certain BS practices in some games like SWG where they put in artifical real life time limits (like the monthly waits for the jedi quest and so forth).  Or for instance the RL limits in WoW put on the PvP honor system when it was first out.


True.  I have no problem with you saying I did this.  I'm glad you finally realized that was my intent in the first place.


I don't care if there is an end.  As long as there are no stupid real life restrictions on how fast I can play the game I'm fine with whatever.  Although I will say I don't think a slightly linear RPG in a persistent world would be a bad idea.   I get the idea LOTRO is trying something like this?  I haven't tried that game though so I'm probably mistaken.

You got to 50 in original EQ in 1999, no expansion packs, in 2 months? Unless you're a total psycho, I doubt that very much. It took me 39 days /played on my first character. I guess I could see someone doing it in 30 days /played on their first character at that time, but even that means 12 hours of EQ every day for 2 months straight.

I'm sure that's the reason, but they have started accepting people into the beta. Anyway, never mind, I guess the idea that I'd get in just from buying the magazine was always a bit hopeful

Actually, the way you explain it, you do care if there's an end. You just have your own definition for it. In the past it's been "level" or some other element, but your comment about not being asked to play beyond a certain amount of months means you approach these games as experiences to consume and then leave. You back into the game with an expectation of how long it'll take to reach some point. I'm not making a value judgment. That's just my interpretation.

None of these games are really designed for that. You're supposed to play until boredom or a massive nerf to your favorite class/template :)

LoTRO is little different from WoW except for it's stronger reliance on storyline. However, that really just translates into way many more multi-step quests than WoW has. The actual storyline in LoTRO, the "trademark" of Turbine that fans of both Turbine and LoTRO are waiting for, hasn't yet kicked in. That's one thing we're actually discussing in the LoTRO sub-forum here in fact. Right now the main focus has been on balance and more "things to do", like Monster Play. Nothing says DIKU more than features designed to ensure players stay on the advancement ladder. LoTRO's only hope of being more than a niche also-ran to WoW in my opinion is them actually moving the storyline forward in a consistent fashion.

Really? Well they might be accepted, but they're not playing yet.

No, I was not saying something like that.  I just wanted to see some reasoning.  I tend to see MMOs as games that one can never complete.   What is your idea of "finishing" these games.  The way you phrased your original complaint caught my eye.  I didn't mean to come off as an ass.

I had a another look at this game and I am interested - if executed as they claim - I would leave WoW for this game (I would still like to retain my title as a WoW fanboi however)

My cursory glance, there are some things I really like, especially given what we all learned from the problems of Shadowbane:

1.  City Seige PVE - an adjacent computer controlled city builds near your guild's - you must lay seige to it.
2.  City PVP SEIGE time windows - no more 3 AM raids on your fort like shadow bane - sounds like there will be certain hours for pvp Seige stuff - and a battle tent is set up to signal the impending attack in hours in advance of the assault.
3.  Feats / advancement - sounds like you have a lot more control over attribute and point allocation - which Shadowbane had - but WoW and EQ2 never offered.  That is awesome.
4.  Blood money pvp rewards and a separate parallel path for pvp rank advancement.
5.  The class line up - while pretty standard - looks cool - nice touch interpreting the Barbarian as a Rogue archetype damage dealer.
6.  Drunken pvp pub brawls.  Nuff said :)
7.  Their combat system - and some visuals - like actually seeing the rider mount the horse.
8.  Raid content info seem really sparse - but I gather they have it...

And so on. I am interested.  Glad to see they delayed the game - sounds like they know the lesson of bad first impressions.

He's bringing hope!  Break his legs!!

Seriously though...


You never played AO at launch, or you are a very funny and very sick little man.

To me that quote there is far more ominous than the announcement that AOC was delayed. Despite Gaute's damage control and veiled shot at WAR, fact is that Mythic is out doing gamedays and showing people there is an actual game and proceeeding smoothy with a closed beta. Meanwhile Eidos is welshing on Beta agreements. I think those who are expecting a smooth and polished game in March are going to be profoundly disappointed.

 Edit - Apparently Funcom is going to let people actually play the game at Leipzig instead of another "show". We'll see how that goes.   

But this time they'll have a secret client ready to ship that alleviates all the beta tester's concerns. Honest.