WITTGENSTEIN wrote:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/05/world-of-darkness-the-inside-story-mmo-ccp-white-wolf

For the coders there was a constant state of flux. “Almost every system in the game was designed, built and tested at least once, most of them multiple times,” says one gameplay programmer. “Some of the systems were reportedly pretty cool; they had never been seen in MMOs before. The problem was that, without a cogent vision, none of it gelled. There was no clear path towards ‘done’.

"So the team just ended up building stuff and throwing it away, over and over again. It's something I saw on Eve and Dust as well - the teams would build a feature, then be told by management to make ‘small changes’ which necessitated a full, back-to-square-one rewrite.”

One manager couldn't answer questions on gameplay or focus. I remember him standing over the shoulder of a programmer putting his finger to his lips and saying 'No - make it more... psssshhhh’

This constant build and rebuild approach meant massive issues in the development process. Features that were good enough to retain in one build had to be redesigned from scratch for the next because so many other interconnected parts had changed. Even when there was enough to play, internal testing revealed a confused and unfocused experience.

Most of the sources spoken to for this piece identified the same problematic CCP manager, who had little vision for what the finished game would look like.

“Not once could he answer any question about moment-to-moment gameplay or areas of focus,” says one source. “Instead, he preferred to deliver buzzword-laden rambles… It was not uncommon for him to communicate in onomatopoeia.

"I once saw him looking over the shoulder of a programmer at some bit of User Interface the poor guy had hacked together. He straightened up, put fingers to lips and said, ‘No, this isn't it at all. Make it more... psssshhhh’ He hissed on his fucking fingertips, like the air coming out of a bicycle tire, and then just walked away.”