Oddworld Forums - The Brutal Ballad Of Fangus Klot

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- - The Brutal Ballad Of Fangus Klot (http://www.oddworldforums.net/showthread.php?t=11841)

Well, if a game company doesn't make the games that were promised it is a bit of a let down.

Yeah, that is true. It's still no reason to stop liking the entire series.

And we all know that the reason for the season is pleasn'.

Okay, that's it. I'm going to bed.

And as some of you ladies may know, I do some of my best work at night.

And by that, I mean sleeping. And sometimes farting whilst sleeping.

Heh, nice funny there, but you're wrong about one thing. I don't dislike the whole series now. I just find it rather pointless to discuss anything about them because, like, the entire company is basically gone. I mean, Oddworld is dead, pretty much, and it will never come back. Doesn't that discourage any of you? I feel like just taking a long assed haietus and then come back 3 years from now when the next Oddworld game is announced. Pfft, nevermind, it'll probably be just a real time strategy game, cutting off all the innovative fun with the 1st to 3rd person action. Why they let Fangus and Stranger loose I'll never know...

(In case you are wondering, I'm mentioning them in a lot of posts in the hopes that someone will correct me and say "Oh no, they're still being worked, said this article..." or something. SOMEONE CORRECT ME.)

How about: There's no real evidence to suggest Fangus is a dropped project.

That's a start. I suppose I'll just wait patiently until more news surfaces.

were did they say the game was droped

Hmmm, perhaps I was a bit rash on this subject. All signs seem to point that Fangus has been shelved - not dropped. It's just like Hand of Odd, SligStorm, etc.

However, my opinion is that the game will not see the light of day. With the information collected, and the history of these things, I just can't see it being developed further - by outsourcing, or not.

Alcar...

As I've said elsewhere, until OWI officially state that game production has been totally cancelled, I won't beleive it. A blog of a disgruntled ex-employee posted around the 1st of april is not proof as far as I'm concerned.

Disgruntled employee? As far as I've read, they are both very calm about it. Ignacio respects OWI for making the decision, because it will help OWI achieve their vision / ambitions. And Charles Bloom is so indifferent, which is actually a change from his previously more cynical view of OWI and its internal workings.

I wouldn't have said anything if I hadn't already weighed up everything I knew. And, since when does OWI give official announcement of anything?

Alcar...

I beleive they are very reliable, they are more likely to be truthful when they are no longer under pressure from the boss to stay quiet. Therefore, I too doubt Fangus will be made. An official word is a censored word, so I originally suspected the Gamespy article was a bit of a cover up of the real problems they are experiencing. Now that one of them corrected there's to be more optimistic, I am feeling better. Then again, maybe he was gotten two. Nah, that's stupid, all is well.

You gotta think that the Powers at OWI have known about this shake up for some time. This being the case, why would they leak info about a new adventure, days before they slam the door on it ? This makes no sense to me.
Just look at the thread about the GI article, man, it took on a life of it`s own.
The most action seen around here for some time. The folks on this forum are the most ardent supporters of Oddworld and all it stands for, to set them up with the hope of some new goods, than jerk the rug out from under them is not just disrespectful, it`s fu*king cruel. :fuzmad: :fuzmad:

I think we are missing the big picture:

What is Oddworld Inhabitants? Right now, it is a game company with some good titles but slow to release.
What was Lorne and Sherry’s vision? To tell stories in an Oddworld, with rich characters but related to modern day events or philosophical questions that are near and dear to their heart. Basically, Oddworld Grimm Fairy tails.

They are very good a telling stories, creating amazing characters and environments. But the gaming platform is very limiting in resolution. Look at their cut scenes verses the actual game play, while it is very good, it can’t hold a candle to the mini movies.

If they focus on bringing their world to a larger audience in TV or Theater, they can expand their base following. Larger following = more mullah, more mullah = expansion. This means they can create a story for a game and outsource the actual technical parts of programming, character renders, etc…..then they can focus on the next idea.

Look at Pixar, they make a movie for Disney and what do we get. A video game, DVD release, tons of Merchandise….and that is just for one movie, with characters that are completely unknown.

The Stranger opening movie is as good as anything out there today. I have played it for many people, and they all have loved it, but none of them play video games.

So in the long run, I think this will be a very positive thing for Oddworld.

On a side note, I am very sad that many of the people I have spoken with at OWI will no longer be working there. They are very nice people and I hope them much success in the future.

amen to Pzak, I completly agree with you
I hope every turns out as Lorne planned

Nicely put, Pzak. There are gargantuan potential advantages to this move which, hopefully, can overcome the apparent misfortunes. The best of luck and whole load of heartful support to Lorne's Oddworld.

i agree with you pzak. now the choas of this topic in my mind is calming down.

blog?...what blog? what disgrunted employee? what am I missing here?...why does everybody know what he's talking about whitout a link?

There's some quotes on a different topic about some employees who got fired, and they're very bitter.

Bitter? Er... I really do suggest you look over them again. They're far from bitter, they are very indifferent about it.

Alcar...

"Look at Pixar, they make a movie for Disney and what do we get. A video game, DVD release, tons of Merchandise….and that is just for one movie, with characters that are completely unknown."

yeah, but look at the quality of the games compared to the quality of the Oddworld games...

I would LOVE to see more from Oddworld, movies, shows, etc...

But I would hate to have the future games suffer as a result.

I think his point is, that if it were a movie, any publisher would be more interested in founding, and in OW's case it'd all probably go to increasing the quality of the games since they are a company already experienced with gaming, as opposed to pixar.

I really doubt Lorne would sign up for making thousands of useless shit with OW, I really dont think it depends on how popular OW is how whored it is, just on how well organized his control is, and apparently with the move he's made, his control is only optimizing, so I see no reason to worry.

BTW, I read the blogs

Oddworld has ceased game production operations. The official release is here . Now, I know you're all dying to send me job offers and condolences and such, but stop, I'm fine and I'm not really looking for jobs right now. If you'd like to offer jobs to the talented people at the company, please send mail to jobs@oddworld.com

I've been privileged to work with a great crew at Oddworld; I'm proud of the work we did. The games didn't ever work out quite the way we wanted, but at least we tried to do something creative and different, and mostly succeeded. It's a real tragedy that Stranger's Wrath is not getting any marketting at all; I think it's a pretty good game (and the reviews bear that out). It's also a shame that we aren't able to make another game on the XBox; I'm proud of the engine we made, and the pipeline and toolchain and process that we finally had set up for our new game (Fangus) was really smooth. Our overall development process is the best I've ever seen at a small developer; I feel like we just got the factory really humming, all ready to pump out widgets, and now we're closing the doors. It's a shame that the great team we have here is going to be broken up and spread around the industry. But, so goes the tide of the game industry.
Charles Bloom

OddWorld is shuting down their studio. So, I’m looking for a job again. I’m quite deceived by the game industry. I’ve worked on four different companies, but haven’t finished any game. That’s very frustrating. I’ve been thinking about changing my career direction. I think I will try to work for an IHV or for a tool development company like Alias/Discreet/SoftImage, but it seems that most of them are located in Canada. I enjoy SLO’s weather so much that I don’t really want to go north again. :-(
Ignacio Castaño

Today marks the end of Oddworld. I think I am more somber today, than I was when I resigned two months ago. My best wishes go out to the RT team(s) that broke their backs over the years to get Lorne's "Odd-vision" into tangible form.
Robert Brown

I dont really see anything that says "Fangus is canceled" and considering they're being written by someone who just got fired, they do not seem very bitter, just nostalgic.Bloom talks about a machine that got wrecked just when it was really hummin', I think that refers to the team at OWI, not to Fangus at all, I really belive that fangus could just be handed down for outsorced development once the outsorced teams are set up.

LL:There's a lot of talent around the world. We want to connect the dots between more of these opportunities and talents.

GS:When Lanning first said this, I had no idea how literal he was being. It turns out that he was chatting with me as he was driving to the airport to catch a flight to India to kick off a prospecting tour. He'll be hopping around different parts of Asia to scout animation houses, technology companies, etc., so that he and his team can focus on creative concerns while letting others leap the technological hurdles. Hopefully I'll get a chance to catch up with him after he's done globe trotting and learn more details about his company's new direction. He did want to leave a message for Oddworld fans.

Besides, Makes sense to think that the people most fit to bring his to vision to life are NOT all living in San Luis, but rather in many little-known countries and scattered around the world.

if you consider he's doing some kinda world trekking to reach the right companies for outsorcing, then you gotta admit the outsourcing would be as under his control as it can be, and I am actually pretty excited to see OW represented by all sorts of new talents from around the globe.

Hell who knows? considering I'm in 3rd world Colombia, maybe if I work hard enough I may end up animating one of the quintologers, I for one am looking fordward to what this radical change will bring.

I mean, look at his ACTUAL quotes, what's so scary?

This is a choice, not a necessity. The choice is a daring one, and not an obvious one to make. We see the excitement of what can be. We think that requires a new model. We want to stay focused on the creative content and taking that to new levels

It's time to take it to the next level and the way to do that is with a new model. New models are in order and new models are necessary. Let's build characters and stories that people will love. Let's put these characters in interesting gameplay. Let's feature them in new media. It's all about pushing that quality bar higher. We'll be doing this with outside parties and businesses. The options and excitement grows exponentially, the more people we work with.

I'm not scared at all. I probably would be if I was forced to go this way, but like I said, this was a choice. I'd be afraid if we had to keep going the way we have been going. Running the operation as we have been has limited the amount of opportunities we can pursue. We have no regrets, but to continue this way, we'd have to keep turning down opportunities we've always seen as the future.

There's a lot of talent around the world. We want to connect the dots between more of these opportunities and talents.

We love the games. We're proud of them. We're glad you've enjoyed them. We want to bring you more in the way we believe it can be done. We don't want to compromise on the quality and intensity. There's more to come.

what's not to love?

Sounds good if it's trustworthy. Unfortunately, he usually isn't.

I hope OWI keeps giving ideas to whoever will now be making the OW games.

We need moe platformers. All people want these days are shooters, that's why OWI had to make a change in the series.

But this game looks cool i guess. If it's anything like Stranger's Wrath i bet it will be great.

I still have Faith in Lorne... I'm sure he will continue to give us wacky world and twisted stories.

What the hell..? Let's hope it's just angry employees pulling our chains.

I don't think Robert Brown was expressing anger, but I have had the impression for ages that Lorne did expect a lot.

As for OWI shutting its games development studio in SLO, this Friday marks the day the SLO studio shuts.

Alcar...

anyway Oddblog found some early renders of Fangus developpement...
head over there to see them :p

anyway Oddblog find some early renders of Fangus developpement...
head over there to see them :p

where are they?

Can't you search something on a page? :p

Oddworld Stranger's Wrath game designer Jameson Durall has two interesting features on his personal site. “Design Process” describes the steps Oddworld Inhabitants go through to create a fun, interesting game level, while “Jo Momma Design” demonstrates the method used to construct the Jo' Momma boss encounter. Note that the first three images of the “Design Process” feature are actually taken from the development of Fangus! Thanks go to Mr Durall for permission to post about them.

Um... So what does that mean? That they were designing the stages already and just decided to quit it? Great, more good news...