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Microsoft Entertainment Games

Working At FASA After the Borg 49

Posted by Zonk from the that's-zapper-weisman-to-you dept.
amitlu writes "What's it like to be assimilated by Bill Gates' empire? Russ Pitts from The Escapist talks two game industry veterans, Bruce Shelly of Ensemble and Jordan Weisman of FASA, to contrast two hugely different opinions on the matter. While Bruce, still employed by Microsoft, has nothing but nice things to say, Weisman paints a much different picture. From the article: 'Let's say, part of what they wanted from us was our development culture, because we'd worked very hard to have this collaborative, effective team, and they wanted to kind of build those kinds of teams and kind of capture that. In reality, ... the machine of Microsoft, unintentionally, I believe, and inadvertently, ripped that apart. Rather than model itself around what we had done, our [culture] got forced into their model. ... We lost that special sauce that we had built.'" Speaking of FASA, if you're interested you can sign up for the Shadowrun Beta. They're only looking for 360 players, at the moment, and only ones with gold Live accounts.
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Working At FASA After the Borg More

Working At FASA After the Borg

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  • FASA and Activision were great (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Drakino ( 10965 ) on Tuesday November 28, 2006 @12:33PM (#17018102) Journal
    I really miss the days that FASA and Activision worked together on MechWarrior 2. The follow ups out of FASA/Microsoft just didn't quite ever live up to those older games, and MechAssault helped drag what used to be a fun mech simulator franchise down into "Halo with Mechs". True, it opened it up to a wider audience, but the fun of the franchise left for many people.

    • MechWarrior 3 (a Fasa + Microsoft collaboration) was a far more fun game than MW2, IMHO. The plot, and the gameplay elements (customization of 'Mechs, especially) made MW3 more fun to play than Mechwarrior2. The somewhat modernized graphics also helped.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by jythie ( 914043 )
        Are you sure you are not thinking Mechwarrior 4 here?

        Mechwarrior 3 was Activision.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by iCEBaLM ( 34905 )
          Mech3 was actually Microsoft/Microprose/Zipper. It was certainly not Activision.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by iCEBaLM ( 34905 )
        Being an old school mech pilot who has purchased every mechwarrior game since crescent hawks (and subsequently competitively played them online for over a decade) I have to really disagree. Customization in Mech2 far outweighed the craptastic hard point system in Mech3. In fact Mech3 was a joke. The single player was OK, the multiplayer was horrible, the customization aspects were junk and no real community formed for that particular game. Mech4 was lightyears better but still not as good as Mech2 would hav

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Danse ( 1026 )

          As single player games on their own, without having a vested interest in Battletech I can see people liking Mech3 over Mech2 but when all is said and done Microsoft screwed Battletech fans.

          I guess that's going to be the tradition from Microsoft, as now they're going to screw Shadowrun fans as well. I fucking hate what they're doing to the SR franchise with this retarded Halo/Unreal game that they decided to slap the Shadowrun name on. They call it creative license. I call it bullshit.

    • amen to that. Honestly, if Microsoft announced a Battletech game that was based more on a sim style approach like Mechwarrior 2, or even slightly more arcadey like Mechwarrior 3 for PC or/and Xbox360 I'd probably sploodge my pantalones.
    • It somehow asserts in it's opening paragraph the MS acquired code from Apple, which acquired it - in turn - from Xerox PARC.

      This is simple muddling of ideas: that imitating a technology and a design are somehow equivalent to acquring products and companies. It is a kind of intellectual laziness and shorthand, written by someone not particularly conversant in th edetails of either technology or business.

      It also demonstrates a mastery of opinion over knowlege of the subject at hand. In particular, of Micros
    • Even though Mechwarrior 4 (Microsoft) didn't have the customization that 2 and 3 had (activision), I found 4 to be the most enjoyable one, mainly due to good multiplayer and the fact that its customization though simpler, was still very powerful and more realistic (as realistic as huge walking robots can be anyway)

      i still hope the day soon comes where we'll get another mechwarrior, the mechassault games were just temporary distractions
  • Speaking of FASA, if you're interested you can sign up for the Shadowrun Beta. They're only looking for 360 players, at the moment, and only ones with gold Live accounts.

    Apparently they aren't looking very hard.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jandrese ( 485 )
      Is that the version of Shadowrun where you jog down the street blowing away monsters with your big guns?

      I think I have an idea why Shadowrun veterans might be hard to find for the beta.
      • .. you're thinking of Tomb Raider.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by BDZ ( 632292 )

        Yeah, this is an FPS with elves and magic in a "re-worked" Shadowrun universe...In other words, it has nothing to do with the actual pen and paper game. There was a story about this posted some months ago when Microsoft posted a promotional video. I saw things such as a raise dead spell and elves with guns running about. Apparently the key to the game is to be the team to get the most relics. The relics are the source of all (finite) magic in the re-imagined world.

        When I first heard they were making a Sha

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Kimona ( 1033034 )
      The "only looking for 360 players" bit is incorrect. We have not published specific numbers of invites we intend to issue. Expect a small number of participants to be invited in December, followed by significantly more in January and the coming months. More info on the forums at www.shadowrun.com -Kimona, lead producer, Shadowrun (FASA)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Kimona ( 1033034 )
      Ah, ok, I get it. Xbox 360 players. True, this beta is 360 only, and you need a Gold account. And thanks to all who are expressing interest in the beta - we have received many thousands of applicants in the last 24 hours. -Kimona, lead producer, Shadowrun (FASA)
  • Exactly why they are not able to adopt the collaborative and cooperative demeanor of fasa. Then, the post was quickly modded down by a microsoft zealot, apparently it was destined for this, it seems :

    Seriously, microsoft represents the opposite of what made the internet a civilization-wide revolution as of now : Cooperation, Collaboration, Coexistence, Friendly Competition, Sharing, Curiousity, Modesty.

    No surprise, considering the roots of this company was formed by 3-4 fledgling young geeks back at
  • Anyone else see "FAFSA" when they saw this headline?
  • Support a real Shadowrun game, one that is actually RPG. This FPS crap for Shadowrun sucks.

    http://www.shadowrun-online.com/sro/ [shadowrun-online.com]

    They are currently making a proof of concept to present to Microsoft for a MMO Shadowrun game.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )
      just what the world needs, another mmo...

      what i'd like to see is a solid single player shadowrun rpg. sort of a like the genesis version only made for this generation of hardware.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Shadarr ( 11622 )
        That's what I've been hoping for since the Genesis game came out. Doesn't look like it's going to happen though. Instead, we get CounterStrike with elves and Everquest with deckers. Oh well, time to move on. Resident Evil 4 was great last year, I'm sure more great games will come out next year.
    • Actually, what you should do, if you want a real Shadowrun RPG, is to hope this sells mildly well. That way, they'll see that the IP has legs and will develop more games in that "world". Otherwise, the thing will sell horribly, and you won't see another Shadowrun game for quite some time, if at all. I agree that the SNES and Genesis versions with just an upgrade would be worth buying, but you're not going to see that, unless the FASA division makes some cash on this one.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Qzukk ( 229616 )
        if you want a real Shadowrun RPG, is to hope this sells mildly well.

        With emphasis on the "mildly". If it sells like crazy, then you can bet we'll see 4 more FPSes before anyone even thinks about an RPG.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Danse ( 1026 )

        That way, they'll see that the IP has legs and will develop more games in that "world".

        I've seen this argument made a few dozen times on the MS Shadowrun forums. It really makes no sense. If the game they created sells, then they'll create more of the same. It's what they do. The "world" that they've created with this game bears little resemblance to Shadowrun. Yeah, it's got elves and trolls and technology, but so what? That still doesn't make it Shadowrun. I guarantee that if they'd gotten a group

  • I don't have time to beta a new game (Score:4, Funny)

    by BigBuckHunter ( 722855 ) on Tuesday November 28, 2006 @01:19PM (#17019028)
    I appoligize, but I do not have time to beta a new game. I am currently Beta-ing Oblivion IV for PC.

    BBH
  • They're only looking for 360 players
    And given the apathy towards it by the Shadowrun FANS (as well as FPS people who see Counterstrike-with-elves), I don't think they'll find that many. Maybe 200.

  • Not FASA, just FASA Interactive (Score:5, Informative)

    by mcvos ( 645701 ) on Tuesday November 28, 2006 @03:40PM (#17022172)

    Unlike what the article says, Microsoft did not acquire FASA. They only acquired FASA Interactive. FASA [wikipedia.org] itself still exists as a holding company, and still owns the paper versions of their games, which they license to a variety of other companies, including WizKids [wizkidsgames.com], who in turn license Shadowrun to the German company FanPro [fanprogames.com], who is currently publishing the fourth edition of Shadowrun. Earthdawn is licensed to Living Room Games [lrgames.com]. Other games have been licensed to other companies.

    FASA Interactive, and thus Microsoft, only owns the rights to computer games based on these settings.

  • If my coworkers were something along these lines [wikipedia.org], then I wouldn't mind working for the Bor^H^H^H^H Microsoft....

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