f13.net

Friday, December 9th, 2005: Spoonbender recieved an email from one of the former developers of Mourning a few months ago asking what had happened to the game. At that point the game had been taken offline and the forums were down. Spoon sent off an email detailing his experience with the developers and with the game itself, and the former developer replied with a few stories of his own. Spoon forwarded the email to Shintuk, Shintuk to Jdodger, and JD showed it to me. JD then conducted an interview with the former developer. His insights and personal stories about the behind-the-scenes events during his time working on the project constitute the best and most accurate picture we have of who was to blame for the mismanagement that Mourning suffers from. He will talk at length about Ado's 'unconventional' game designing style, Ego's tragic inability to grasp the true problems until it was too late, and even individual incidents with the development team that illustrate both the potential Mourning had and how that potential was, with almost criminal negligence, squandered.

I feel that it is nessecary that those that followed Mourning and devoted time and money to its success see where their time and money went. In short, they should know the truth.

You can read the interview and draw your own conclusions.

Thursday, December 8th, 2005: The forums are back up after an extended hiatus. Dantufy, adonys, and Draakan (the new 'community manager') are all posting, so the re-opening of the boards appears to have been legitimate and not just an accident.

The only noteworthy post thus far comes from Draakan, in this thread, where he claims that there will be another closed beta starting in a few weeks. I'm not holding my breath, but its a start.

Q: Thanks for agreeing to talk with me today. Let's start with some basic questions. What position did you hold in the development of Mourning/RoT?

A: I was one of the RoT's programmers.

Q: About how long did you work on the RoT staff?

A: I prefer not to answer, since that would compromise my anonymity, but long enough to know and undestand the mechanics of the RoT development.

Q: Over the course of your employment with RoT, how many individual people worked on the staff?

A: OK, let's see....... At least 4 people in game design, more than 10 programmers, and about 12 artists. Or maybe more, I barely knew some of them.

Q: So that's a total of roughly 26 people, does that sound about right?

A: Maybe more... but not at the same time. The official game 'credits' (if I can call them that, since RoT is not something you can be very proud of) were pretty accurate.

Q: Sounds about right. So, out of the people who were working on RoT while you were on the staff, how many have since left the team?

A: Let's see... 2 game designers, 3-4 artists, and about 4 programmers.

Q: So you would say that RoT's staff presently has about fourteen people?

A: I'd say that the RoT's staff has presently no people... but towards the very end, less than 10 people were working for RoT.

Q: OK, I see. Who were some of the key people that left the team?

A: I guess that most of the beta testers knew Fenrir. He was one of the key people, since he was the server programmer. And we all know how important is the server in a mmorpg, right?

Q: Of course. What problems were created when Fenrir left the staff?

A: Fenrir was one of the few people that was actively resisting against Ado's worst ideas. He was a pole of stability and consistency in many ways. Since he left, the server had more then 3 different programmers working at it, so it became quite a mess, since none of the persons working on it had so much experience with Unix. They also had the bad idea of re-writing the server somewhere at the end of 2004.

Q: So you would say that the problems with the server were because of Fenrir's leaving? As the beta testers and even those who played after release know, the servers were extremely unstable and had an overly slow and complicated login method.

A: I can say that if Fenrir wouldn't have left, there wouldn't have been so much server problems at release. Some of the problems with server's stability were because this game never had more then 10 testers online at the same time.

Q: So why do you think he left?

A: He left twice.

Q: Twice?

A: Yeah, first at the very end of 2003. He came back about an year ago, and left again after about 2 months or so.

Q: Did he give a reason for leaving?

A: He had public reasons. The second time he left to a major game company located in norway.

Q: And was that simply because it was a better opportunity, or because he was having problems in the RoT staff?

A: But it also had some more... personal reasons, that were shared by most of the people that left RoT.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about those reasons?

A: The game was going nowhere, no one really believed in its success. We all knew it was going to fail, but we were kind of reluctant in admiting it. Those who realized this and had better opportunities, left. Those who were blinded by different reasons or had no other choices, remained till the end (or maybe had different reasons.) It's not that we didn't try to change this direction the game was heading to... We did, but no one was listening to us.

Q: Let's get back to that point a bit later. That's something I'd like to discuss in more detail. So why did you, personally, decide to leave the RoT staff?

A: Because I realized the game was heading in a wrong direction and there were no signs of getting better. There was nothing I could do to help it.

Q: OK, well before we get into the problems with the game that you referenced before, I'd like to get into some specifics about some of the more publically recognized team members. Let's start with Andrei "Egomancer" Gireada: who is he and what was his role in the development of RoT?

A: Andrei Gireada was the project manager of RoT. He was also the owner of one of the two companies that developed it. He was also its first game designer. Q: Which company is that?

A: Newrosoft R&D.

Q: What previous experience did Egomancer have before starting the RoT project?

A: Hmmm... not much. He was also developing small games for a british client, but I'm not really sure of the time frame.

Q: Do you know what platform they were for?

A: PC. But as far as I remember he and Adrian Licuriceanu had built their companies and started working on RoT shortly after they got their bachelor degree.

Q: Were they single player, or multiplayer games?

A: Those games were .... of gambling type, I guess. They were destined for casinos. But most of them were 3D and more complicated then "striptease poker" or "blackjack".

Q: But RoT was Egomancer's first experience with anything remotely resembling an MMORPG?

A: Exactly. It was a hat too big for him.

Q: So that begs the question: how competent do you feel Egomancer was as a project manager?

A: Well.... He said it himself on the forums: "this was our limit of competence". When a project is delivered after 3.5 years of development, with less than 50% of the promised features, everyone knows it is always the manager's fault. No question about that. But I wouldn't call him "incompetent" but rather "inexperienced". He underestimated the complexity of this project and he underestimated the market (clients). And maybe there was some ignorance involved, too.He was a man of reason, though. You could have a normal conversation and he was listening you. You could convince him you were right. I can't say the same thing about Ado.

Q: Let's get to that point a bit later. What do you mean when you say that Egomancer "underestimated the market"?

A: He used to say that any mmorpg is just a chat with graphics, and it's not that complicated after all. And it's really funny that he was making fun of Blizzard 2 years ago, "look, they have the game in development for three years and it's still not ready, our game will be ready in 2 years and it will be much better". Isn't life ironic?

Q: That is pretty ironic, especially considering the RoT staff played WoW a lot after it released. So what were some of the problems that you faced personally in working for Egomancer?

A: Mostly project management issues. We didn't have a clear schedule. The tasks were assigned by Egomancer one by one, without us knowing the "master plan". I have my doubts he even had one. Plus the game was always due in six months. This situation had slightly changed in better toward the end of the development period, but it was too little and too late. There were team meetings every monday, but they were not very... efficient.

Q: Ego used to tell me "all I care about is results". Do you feel that this is an accurate description of his management style?

A: Well, I'm thinking very hard to find anything else he cared about. He did not appreciate his employes much.... So I think you're right, he was only caring for results.

Q: And yet, how effective was he in getting those results?

A: A good manager should be a good judge of people's characters, so he can make them work at their very best. Ego was not very interested in such "minor" details. He wanted results and he wanted them instantly.

Q: And yet the game was constantly delayed, and deadlines were not enforced. How did he expect to gain results?

A: I have no idea. I guess he was caring so much for results, he didn't have time to care about the ways to gain them.

Q: Last question on this topic: how did Egomancer respond to the growing problems in his staff?

A: Growing problems?

Q: When people were losing faith and leaving, how did he try to deal with that problem?

A: Unfortunately only by hiring other people. He did not do much to change the people's opinions and to change the course the game was heading.

Q: So essentially, he treated his employees as if they were disposable?

A: Mostly, yes. But toward the end, he began to raise some salaries. This project didn't have much money... The funding was pretty low. But I must appreciate him for obtaining even that much.

Q: Salaries were raised? I had heard that Mourning's employees went without pay for the easter holidays this year.

A: Well, I said 'towards the end", not "towards the very end". At the very end, there was no budget, no source of finance.

Q: OK, well let's talk about the man behind the money. Who is David Jasinski and what was his role in the development of RoT?

A: Well, David Jasinki was "the man behind _some_ of the money". He had "hired" Ego and Licu to make him a mmorpg so he can get rich.

Q: And what was his overall role in the development of RoT?

A: He financed some (I don't know exactly what percent) of the game development. He also was holding all the publish rights. He was.. like a producer I guess.

Q: Sounds about right. What previous experience did Dave have prior to starting the RoT project?

A: In what area? Adult or entertainment industry?

Q: In the area of entertainment, first.

A: As far as I know, none. From what I know, he had no experience whatsoever in producing a game.

Q: So where did Dave make the money to finance the game?

A: Well.. here is where the "adult" word comes into my mind, but I can't really justify why. I've heard only rumors... And the choosing of that billing company did not do much to contradict them.

Q: CCBill, you mean.

A: Yes.

Q: So what did you hear Dave's business was before Mourning?

A: See, I don't know exactly. I heard something of adult sites, but nothing more specific.

Q: So what you're saying is that Dave was involved in the pornography business.

A: Well, I'm not certain, as in I cannot prove it. Maybe it was only managing adult sites, among others.

Q: Well, the use of CCBill would indeed suggest that. But anyway, let's move on.

Q: How competent do you feel Dave was as a producer?

A: Not very. If we judge him by his actions, he was a complete disaster. He destroyed the fanbase ....

Q: How did he do that?

A: He put himself into awkward positions...but I guess he didn't know what to do. He didn't know what a producer should do, because I don't think he had any experience in the game industry. But I guess you know him and his facts better then me or most of the RoT' team members. Dave was in direct contact only with Ego, Licu and Ado. And since reading Rot' forums was 'forbidden'.....

Q: Reading the RoT forums was forbidden? Why? A: Well, not really... But in the work hours we had to work, not to browse the internet, even if it was to find a documentation or some textures or to read our own forums. Like you said, Ego was interested in results, not in us reading forums. Do you remember there was a time Ado was spending a lot of time on the forums with the community?

Q: Well, yeah. I think we all remember that.

A: He had some fights with Ego, because he wasn't doing his game designer job, instead he was 'managing the community' all day long. So, Ego said he would hire a community manager. And he did, ..... there was this guy... Athos? and he managed the community for... 1?2 weeks?

Q: But all in all, the staff was essentially kept ignorant about the state of the public image of the game?

A: Basically Yes. I don't know if that was the exact purpose, but yes.

Q: Do you think that the forums being "forbidden" was a result of Dave's behavior on the forums?

A: No. not at all. Ego did not have a very good opinion about Dave and he did not hide it. He knew Dave was a pain, but he could not do much about it... because, afterall, Dave was giving him money, even after he was in breach of the contract, because of the delays. The game was initially supposed to be finished in 1 years. Of course, this never happened, and Dave had to accept all the delays. So Ego had a weak spot, and Dave knew how to rub it.

Q: They honestly thought they could fully create an MMORPG in one year?

A: Dave, yes. Licu, no. Ego, I'm not sure. They did find alternative funding, though, from publishing deals in europe and asia. But money has always been scarce. Dave did not have the financial power to produce a mmorpg...not even a single player.

Q: So how did Dave respond to the delays in development?

A: We did not know such specific details. Only Licu and Ego can tell exactly how he responded. But the fact is he accepted them up to point. Remember he did not fund the whole development though.

Q: Right. Well, let's move on to another subject, everyone's favorite developer. Mr. Dan "Adonys" Antonescu. AKA Tiamat, AKA Cothyso, among other names. So who is Adonys and what was his role in the development of RoT?

A: Ado was the RoT's so called lead game designer. And Egomancer's friend.

Q: What previous experience did Ado have before coming to work for RoT? A: As far as I know, none. I don't know where he worked before (if he did), but I'm pretty sure it was not in game industry.

Q: That's interesting. So how was Adonys hired?

A: There was this.. contest.

Q: A contest? To hire a lead designer?

A: Well, at that time it was a contest to hire the only game designer.

Q: How did this "contest" work?

A: There were 2 candidates: A QA guy from Ubisoft in the first day, and Ado, the next day.

Q: And what happened?

A: The QA guy came prepared with 2 quest examples (printed on 5 or 6 pages), like Egomancer requested. He described the quests (the whole team was gathered), they were fine, but Ego, very upset, noticed that they were single-player quests, not suitable for a mmorpg (like there are no single-player missions in todays mmorpgs). BUT he (Ego) had never ever told him (QA guy) to write a quest for a mmorpg. He'd only told him to write a quest. any quest.

Q: Well, most quests I know of in MMO's are single player... so what happened when Ado came in?

A: Ado came with his hands in his pockets, an hour before the meeting, spent some time browsing the internet then hand-wrote about 1 page of so-called "lore". There was some ... story or description without much meaning. BUT Egomancer hired him, because he said he personally knows him and has the the confidence he will get the job done.

Q: But Adonys was hired, and became lead game designer.

A: Yeah, he led himself for more than a year.

Q: How competent do you feel Adonys was in his role as lead game designer?

A: Well, that's a sensitive question. I won't give you a direct answer, because I'd have to use some very harsh words. So I'd prefer to just tell you some facts and you can judge for yourself.

Q: That sounds fine.

A: First of all, and most important, he did not write a game design docs. Yeah, we were working on a game without game design! For some of the team members with more experience in game industry that was unacceptable. But Egomancer chose to ignore them. Ado declared (somewhere towards the end of development) he did not write a game design documentation because he was afraid others would still his precious ideas. I guess that included the rest of the team as well, because no one knew the game design of the game they were developing! We learned many of the promised features from the forums and interviews. He never bothered to present us his ideas.

Q: So what sources did Ado draw on to get his ideas?

A: Well, the internet is full of ideas. If you read a couple of mmorpg forums, you get ideas for a dozen of mmorpgs. A good game designer knows how to combine these ideas into solid game mechanics... that's something he never learned.

Q: What were some of the problems you faced in working for Adonys?

A: Well, theoretically I worked "with" Adonys, but I guess you are right, because he did consider the other team members as his employees...

Q: Yeah, I got that feeling.

A: But, let me get to the point. He was a very difficult person to work with. Like I said, he didn't have the habbit of writing things down.

Q: And what problems did that create?

A: That created a huge mess in his head. He has so many "great ideas" in this head, and many of them were fighting each other, so he was a little bit confused. He was changing his mind very often. And most important, he (apparentely) did not remember. He claimed "it's not true". That was a source of many fights with other team members. It's not very pleasant when someone tells you to do something, and a week later he claims he didn't. That's the reason why many team members left.. it's very frustrating. And he was also changing his mind even in the middle of a conversation. And not only changing his mind, but also claiming he "always said that". His logic was very.... non-euclidean.

Q: What kind of problems did Ado create in the workplace?

A: In fact, I don't have knowledge of any problem in the workplace that was not related to Ado. He got into fights into most of the team members, and two of them even got physical.

Q: What kinds of things did he fight about?

A: There were basically 2 kinds of fights: fights with programmers/artists (mostly with artists) for reasons concerning specific programming/art issues; fights with programmers/other lead designers/Ego about game design. Not lead designers, game designers. The first kind had to do with his sudden loss of memory described above, but also with his all-knowing attitude. He was the best at everything: architecture, drawing, etc.

Q: Yet, those things were not his job.

A: Exactly, and he was not giving delicate suggestions. He was requesting that all the things are done his way.

Q: What was Adonys' attitude toward other members of the staff?

A: He had no respect for others, he was very arrogant.... and probably he thought of himself of beging much smarter then the rest of the team members. There was this small incident... small, but it tells much about is character. He was a smoker, and he used to smoke in the office. One day he changed his desk and got near another team member, a non-smoker(he didn't have his own office)

Q: And then what happened?

A: The non-smoker asked him politely to stop smoking at his desk, because it disturbs him and he should smoke in the balcony (in romania smoking in public places is forbidden, and an office shared by more members is public space) So Ado blows some smoke toward the other man, direction and suggests him that if he has a problem with the smoke, _he_ should go on the balcony. Because it was his desk and he does what he likes..

Q: Were there any other examples of Adonys' disrespectful attitude in the office?

A: Yes, there is what I call Ado's Internet Fetish. He had these... urges... to read forums, spend time on irc and most important, downloading things. This had some good part - he was doing managing the community. Bad- he wasn't doing his job as game designer. And most of the downloads had nothing to do with RoT - they were just games and demos for him to play at home, and most of them were not related to our game's genre.

Q: And what problems did that create?

A: Anyway, the worst part about his bandwith needs was he was acting like whole of it was his. He was acting like the owner of our Internet connection, like he was acting as the owner of the game in the other aspects of our work. So his most frequent line was "everyone, stop your downloads". If that didn't work he was going personally to that person's desk and was repeating his demands... he wasn't accepting any "excuses". And that is not all. He went as far as disconnecting other people's LAN cables from the switch.

Q: And did anyone ever confront him about his attitude?

A: Many times. But you couldn't argue with him, like I said he was not a man of reason. And he was Ego's best friend, so he had his seat secured.

Q: So he had the ability to do whatever he wanted?

A: Basically, yes. He was eager for power.

Q: And how did the rest of the team feel about that?

A: None of the other team members felt very good. And that did not do much to improve the already decaying relations between Ado and the rest of the team.

Q: Well, you mention "the decaying relations between Adonys and the team". What do you mean by that?

A: Ado had many conflicts with the rest of the team. I gave you some examples earlier. Ado didn't care about other people's opinions or emotions; in a "word", he was not a team player.

Q: Yet, everyone always seemed to think that Adonys was the one who really cared about the opinion of the community. Is this true?

A: You could say that, but keep in mind that he was the only one working with the community. We were discouraged from browsing the forums during the work hours. And Ego did not care much about community, so, if you refer only to Ego and Ado, your statement is completely correct. But speaking of the whole dev team, it is questionable... We didn't work for money, we worked for the pleasure of developing games.

Q: So given the opportunity, the rest of the team would have talked with the community as well?

A: With a different project manager and lead game designer, most definitely. There was a mix of "unfortunate events". At some point, we didn't know what to say, because, like I said yesterday, we did not know the design of our own game. That's why the devs (mostly the programmers) have been most active in the beta bugs section... because there they knew what they were talking about.

Q: So did Adonys usually bring up the concerns of the community in meetings?

A: I don't remember such a case, but he was saying something like "they are all crying for _specific_features_here_". Oh, yes, he brought up some of the most important beta bugs, like the selection radius, and put pressure on programmers to fix them. But I don't think I ever heard him talk about more general "concerns".

Q: So Adonys was indeed listening to the community, yet so many problems never got fixed. How can you explain that?

A: Can you give me an example of a specific problem?

Q: There's almost too many to count, let me think of a big one... Well, how about the unbalanced combat? High skilled characters could kill anything in the game with one attack, and there were tons of overbuffing exploits. Why was combat never balanced?

A: Well, that is a very interesting subject. Despite the other game designers' and even Ego's opinions, Ado was against the idea of combat balancing. He was saying that "any game can not be truly balanced, look at DAOC, they are re-balacing it all the time. So why should I balance it now, if I'm going to re-balance it again later?" That is like the "why should I clean the dust [when it will just get dirty again]" dilemma.

Q: So no attempt was made for combat to even work properly?

A: Never. He asked the programmers to give him the posibility to do it himself at a later time by having files with tons of "constants". You know, most of the combat was working with the constants generated by Fenrir like 1,2,3,4,5.... Ego tried to do some balancing himself, but I'm not sure Ado did any, not even after release. He was always asking for the most abstract and generic tools, so he can decide what to do with them later, he was never sure. Most of the implemented features were designed by Ego (who was using DAOC as a source of inspiration) and Ado was agreeing with the condition that he can change them later. If it wasn't for Ego, the game would have had maybe less the 50% of the _existing_ features. Even a month or too before the release, one of the programmers showed him a tool for political regions... many kinds of regions, to be exact: political, economical, etc. But Ado said it's not good, because he wanted something more generic. Just to draw an outline and be able to define its properties at a later stage.

Q: So what did he do with all these generic tools?

A: He did nothing, that's the point. He was always postponing his duties. He never knew what he really wanted, and that is partly because he never tried to write down and organize his ideas into a complete game design document.

Q: So to get back to an earlier point, you said Ado's fights even sometimes get physical. Can you tell us a bit more about that? A: Well, not much. There were 2 fights that got to the "flying fists" stage. First of them, with one of the artists. I guess the motive was Ado's constant loss of memory, but I'm not absolutely sure. It could also have been his usual insults. And that is the reason for the second fight, he called another game designer stupid repeatedly for the last time.

Q: What do you mean by "his usual insults"?

A: He wasn't always insulted you directly... he did, but not all the time. He was a master of making you feel low and insignifiant, his attitude...the way he looked at you .. the way he talked down at you...

Q: Can you give us an example of that?

A: I can't, really. There is something you must experience.

Q: Well, what would a typical case be like where he would act like that? Would there be any reason for him to act that way?

A: Yes, someone did not agree with him. That's the typical case, and that was his reason. It was very hard to reason with him, he was the kind of man who always thinks he's right and cannot accept that he isn't.

Q: So what was the reason for Adonys' medical leave a few months ago?

A: He pushed his luck. One of the other game designers could not stand the humiliation any longer. He managed to restrain himself for a longest time I would have had, because he had to talk to Ado every day. This designer was the best game designer RoT have (that's my personal opinion), but he was not allowed to do much things. The other game designers beside Ado did not do much "game design", they put monsters of map, introduced items in the database, named the spells, etc., because Ado could not accept other person's opinions. Q: So you said that one of the game designers "could not stand the humiliation any longer." What exactly happened between him and Adonys? A: Ado was mistreating other people, especially the other game designers. It depended on how much he thought he knew on a given domain. He could not say much to programmers for example (but he did nevertheless), because he was aware he did not know much. But in game design areas... he considered himself to be the best, and he had no respect for others. So... by humiliation I meant the fact that he was working for someone who had no respect for others, who had poorly done his job, but considered himself to be the best in the world. And someone who was verbally abusing his interlocutors to show his superiority.

Q: So how did that lead to his medical problems?

A: In the heat of an intense conversation, Ado (repeteadly) called the other gamedesigner stupid, who lost his temper and broke Ado's nose. At least that's what I heard, because I was not in the room. Of course that costed him his job.

Q: Well, that does shed some light on a few things.

Q: Well, lets turn now to the topic of some of the more general problems RoT was plagued with. What were some of the problems with the public image of RoT?

A: I think most of the problems were created by Dave, Ado and Ego, in that order. Dave because all the banning and his ridiculous lawsuit threats. Ado because this spring's banning festival, and his "nazi" public behaviour. And Ego because his unprofessional public behaviour. Oh, and Dave and Ego because they did not hire someone to handle the game's public image. That's what I think. We may discuss in detail now... Dave was not a professional.

Q: What do you have to say about Dave's professionalism?

A: He was driven by emotions, and these emotions were not very pleasant because of the constant game delays and the nightmarish perspective of losing a good amount of money: He was a regular Joe, not a professional publisher. Like I said, I didn't work with Dave, so my opinion is mostly based on what I read on forums. Even Ego was saying "what can I do? this is Dave".

Q: We discussed this a bit before, but lets go into more detail. Why were so many features missing from RoT when it "released"?

A: We had no game design and Ado was constantly postponing his duties. Of course, there could also be some lack of experience and lack of money (hiring better developers).

Q: Were these things going on for a long time?

A: Basically they went on in the entire development period. But even the best developers in the world could have not done much better without game design and without a good project manager.. that's the real problem, I think. Some of the developers were true professionals. One of the artists textured Gothic 2, and another was involved in the development of Lion King, the animation movie. Some of the programmers had several released games in their background (published by activision value or ubisoft) but many of them left, because the game was heading in a wrong direction.

Q: You've said that a few different times. What exactly did the staff see as the "wrong direction" in which the game was headed?

A: We had no game design and no hope we're gonna have any at all in the future... Ado was not doing his job and he was mistreating other team members and Ego (our "boss") was not doing anything about that. That's wrong enough for me.

Q: So, basically, the staff realized that RoT was destined for a bad release.

A: Exactly. And, the people were losing their initial enthusiasm they had when they started working for RoT, so many started looking for better oportunities and just left.

Q: But let me get this straight- you're telling me that Adonys, the man who promised the community all these features, was responsible for those same features not being in the game?

A: Ado did not know what he wanted. He was not organized. He was constantly postponing features because he needed time to think about them.

Q: And eventually they were postponed all the way until after release.

A: Exactly. There may also be the project manager's fault, because he did not enforce a list of priorities. Ado was not listening even to Ego, even if they had many fights, most of them about Ado not doing his job.

Q: So why was Adonys never fired?

A: He was Ego's friend.

Q: Even when they had all these fights? And even after the delays were costing Ego money?

A: I guess Ego didn't have the guts to put a stop to all this. I really don't know what went on between them.

Q: We're almost done. Did Mourning ever really have the potential to deliver the "groundbreaking features" it promised?

A: Well, that's a good question... The team sure had the potential to deliver a good mmorpg, with nice and interesting and new features. Groundbreaking.... that's discussible. Most of the "groundbreaking features" had no real base.

Q: What do you mean "had no real base"?

A: Ado promised them without knowing how to actually implement them...not only Ado, but Ego too. Like I said on many ocasions, there never was a game design document, there were only words. Even the combat hadn't been implemented completely. But, the rest of team had many professionals and with a better management it could have delivered a finished mmorpg, with good features.

Q: So if the team had that potential, what prevented them from releasing a finished, good game? A: Mainly, lack of experience at management level and the lack of game design. Ado has been a good community manager maybe, but that was it.

Q: So who was responsible for those shortcomings? A: Responsible? The management is always responsible is this kind of situations, I think. When any project goes wrong, the management is responsible.

Q: Well, thank you for your time, this has certainly been informative.

A: You're welcome

Q: Best of luck to you.

A: Thanks, and to you too. I know how disappointed the fans of this game must have felt, and I'm very sorry for that. But most of the team members have been very disappointed themselves, when they discovered thay had bet their money on a dead horse. A failure like this doesn't help you much in your career... Someone who had bought Mourning may have lost 30$, but some developers lost 3 or more years of their career, without gaining much. No one stayed for money.

Q: Yeah, that has been something that some of us have been aware of for a while now... there's definitely some people in the community who understand that and respect your commitment. I'm sure all the fans will appreciate your honesty as well. Hopefully this will allow a lot more people to understand what really happened with Mourning.

A: I really hope so. I just wanted the people to undestand there was no "scam plan", and it could have been happened to a company in any other country in the world.

Q: So thank you again for your time.

A: Ok, thank you again for listening.

The best game designer in the world wouldn't have helped if they weren't able to implement their designs. It sounds like that was more the critical problem.

The best game designer in the world wouldn't have helped if they weren't able to implement their designs. It sounds like that was more the critical problem.

tiamat
Administrator

Registered: Mar 2002
Location: Bucharest, Romania
Posts: 5
   Time for a little winter holidays clean up..

I'm sorry I have to do this, but it sems to be the only way remaining to stop the things some people are doing.

Spoonbender, Jdodger and Pajari will get their permanent diploma, on forums and on our chatrooms too.

You conducted and put online a certain "interview" claiming that you did it in search of the truth regarding Mourning. We received it sometime during the summer, and we replied that we will not comment on it until it will be put online, yet at the time, you all failed to mention that you were the ones behind it, you just presented it to us "under cover". That again says enough about it's validity.

The second thing people should know about you, is that all three of you were accepted as volunteers for our game (as mods or loreteam members), and you accepted our volunteer agreement, yet you all broke it, had conflicts with us and were removed from the volunteer position you had at that time. Moreover, two of you even dared to ask us for money regarding the lore "you" created during your volunteer time, even if you knew very well that all your work as volunteers was based on our concepts and on the work of all the previous lore team members combined.
Not to mention the fact that you know at the time you joined our volunteer teams that our volunteer agrement stipulated that all the work done under that agreement would be our property. This is a good example of what kind of people you are!


The third thing is regarding that little "interview" you're hosting and spreading around the net in the your "pursuit of truth about Mourning" quest. I'd say I think of myself as a better person than to answer to this lame concocted fantasy story and defend myself at the cost of bringing myself down to the level of the people behind that, and I guess the "interviewed" person knew this, and took advantage of it when he created his "honest" view abut what happened.

Still, there are a few things I'd want to say about it.

Firstly, whoever the person was which was interviewed wished to keep himself anonymous. Well, that in itself says a lot about the integrity of this person (not to mention commenting on some private things for a business he worked for) who did it, he names a lot of people there, but he's not forthright enough to mention himself.

Secondly, the "interview" is full of biased views, half truths and even pure lies, with the obvious goal of making some people look bad and guilty for everything what has happened. Also, he failed to mention that a large part of what he presents there as "personal" experiences are in fact things he heard from some other people, as there are VERY FEW people who worked on the project from the very beginning until the very end of it. If he would have had some decency and morality, he would have presented the truth as he experienced it and as it was (including the bad things and mistakes he, as we all, made), but I guess some people just can not be objective.

And lastly, many of you worked personally with me during all these years, and know me as a developer, community manager and even as private person, and I guess you should know me pretty well, not to mention that you also do know a lot of things that happened with the game during this period. So many of you can judge this "interview" for yourself, regardless of what it is said in it.



Why are you doing this? I guess it's simply a form of freeing your frustations and revenge upon us or perhaps you simply have nothing better to do with your lives. Well, please feel free to go and continue your anti-Mourning campaign in some other place, we have had enough of your nonsense here.

A: He had public reasons. The second time he left to a major game company located in norway.

Could it be Funcom perhaps? Only game company which I can recall being from norway hehe.

Greetings!

This letter is being sent to provide you with updated news and information regarding the status of Age of Mourning , previously known as "Mourning".

Previously the project had been developed by three companies: Limitless Horizons Entertainment LLC, Quad Software and Newrosoft R&D. Currently only Newrosoft R&D will be involved in the development of the game with a discrete presence from Limitless Horizons Entertainment LLC. There is also currently talks underway with many interested additional outside investors for Age of Mourning.

We plan to start full development once again sometime in February/March 2006.

Since May/June Newrosoft R&D has been working with Sony Pictures developing a casual game called Bewitched ( www.sonypictures.com/games/bewitched/ ) that has been nominated for the casual game of the year. We are currently working on a new project for Sony Pictures that will be released by the end of March 2006. More details about that...soon!

We also have a new web based MMO that may launch sometime in February/March 2006. The web-based MMO will use the Age of Mourning license and will be free to play. More news regarding this will come at later date.

All previous pre orders to "Mourning" which were taken earlier this year will be receiving first access to beta as well as 6 months free play time for the North American version upon commercial launch of the product. We will be contacting individuals via information on file associated with their past orders.

We understand some of this contact information may be out of date when this happens and will work with the individual people to verify their past order.

This does not include orders which were successfully refunded.

Best Regards,
Andrei Gireada
Producer
Age of Mourning
http://www.ageofmourning.com

Secondly, the "interview" is full of biased views, half truths and even pure lies, with the obvious goal of making some people look bad and guilty for everything what has happened. Also, he failed to mention that a large part of what he presents there as "personal" experiences are in fact things he heard from some other people, as there are VERY FEW people who worked on the project from the very beginning until the very end of it. If he would have had some decency and morality, he would have presented the truth as he experienced it and as it was (including the bad things and mistakes he, as we all, made), but I guess some people just can not be objective.

There's some truth to that interview. Bold mine.

Mourning to Dawn Again [December 27, 2005, 12:17 pm ET] - 2 Comments

The Age of Mourning forums (thanks Frans) has word that the MMORPG formerly known as Mourning that sort of launched in May (story) before (apparently) shutting down. The Age of Mourning forums indicate that development of this project is to resume shortly, with plans to launch the game under the title Age of Mourning. There are new Age of Mourning screenshots on the Official Website (and more and more), and there's more info in the Age of Mourning FAQ. Here's word on the resumption of development, which also includes plans for a web-based game:

We plan to start full development once again sometime in February/March 2006.
...
We also have a new web based MMO that we may launch sometime in February/March 2006. The web-based MMO will use the Age of Mourning license and will be free to play. More news about this will come at later date.

All previous orders to "Mourning" which were taken earlier this year will be receiving first access to beta as well as 6 months free play time for the North American version upon commercial launch of the product. The individuals will be contacted via information on file associated with their past orders.

We understand some of this contact information may be out of date when this happens and will work with the individual people to verify their past order.

This does not include orders which were successfully refunded.