Mythic founder Mark Jacobs will be the first guy to tell people that a publishing relationship with Electronic Arts is not a terrible thing. In an interview with MMORPG.com Jacobs related that Warhammer Online is a title that rests on its own unique merits and every decision that went into the development of the game was of Mythic’s choice. Mega publisher EA actually turned out to be a great partner in the process of development and allowed delays and changes throughout the development process to occur without penalty.
In the end we got to make the game that we wanted. Not that game that EA wanted, not the game that Blizzard wanted, it’s the game that we wanted. That’s what it is … We got two delays out of it with EA where we said, ‘we need to delay it again’. EA didn’t rush us out the door. They could have said to us in June, ‘no guys, you’ve gotta ship it, patch it afterwards.’ They didn’t. And I don’t mean that I threatened so they didn’t, they never said that.
This is a growing sentiment among developers under the EA parachute and it still feels foreign to write about. It’s good that EA has come to grips with the fact that great games take time. Makes you wish that
NBA Live or
Madden could go on a slight hiatus to iron out the kinks, doesn’t it?
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Contest:
5:23 PM on 09.23.2008
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Would you rather have the game delayed indefinitely while they perfect everything? Would you rather have an unbalanced, choppy, bugged game? Would you rather have no alternative to WoW (assuming either of you play MMO's in the first place)?
Is the game as it stands now ideal? No. The server populations are completely unbalanced, Chaos is clearly preferred against Order, and mobs are still buggy at points. I'm sure there are other gripes, but I've tried a number of classes and races, and so far I've been having a blast. Despite the flaws (which are still normal for an MMO at launch) the game is an absolute blast. The races and classes are fairly well balanced and unique, and the two cities are absolutely massive and very entertaining to run around in. Despite what they had to cut to get the game out the core is extremely solid.
This is just bullshit PR. No two ways about it.
Have you played the game?
So they had to make some cuts to get the game out, big deal. This is the real world and you can't develope a game forever. Mythic does have bills, you know. The fact is if you're a fan of MMOs you're doing yourself a disservice by not buying this game.
I don't have faith in EA at all, but I do have faith in Mythic. I honestly think that there is truth to what they've said, they got to make the game they wanted. They made a PvP centric game, which is not exactly kosher with the "casual" MMO player. They made the professions very interdependent, unless you have alts that are keeping the pace with your main profession and level wise, advancing in a crafting profession on your own without the auction house or other players would be a big challenge. The game across the board is a lot deeper and more intricate than WoW, the battle system alone requires a lot more work and consideration than what the "casual" MMO player would want.
EA could've easily forced Mythic to dumb the game down and release the game in a condition far worse than it's in now, and made a lot more money off of the casual crow. They could've gone into direct competition with WoW and probably made more money on game sales. Instead, they let Mythic make a game for the people who found WoW lacking. A lot of the complaints about server and faction population, and smaller bugs, are pretty much par for ANY MMO at release. Even with more time in beta it wouldn't have been 100% polished and ready.
No game and I mean NO game has EVER released how the developer wanted. When you make anything with that sort of scope there are sacrifices that you just have to make. In the end though they knew they couldn't delay the game anymore.
Eventually you push a game back so much that you lose your hype. Not to mention your new features might be added to another game and not seem so new.
Even with 4 classes pushed back there's still 20 friggin classes people! Still more than 98% of the other MMO's out there. And as far as the cities you won't be missing them and in fact it works out because it concentrates the endgame pvp.
The fact is that people love to hate EA for no real reason. There a company who went from being almost nothing to being top dog. Now that there at the top they have the time and moeny to actually make quality games.
But lets face it, not all quality games make money.
Psychnauts, Beyond Good and Evil, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus. All AMAZING games. None of them ever receive Madden/Battlefield type sales.
Games are a business in the end. There's always a fine line between making a great game and making a game that returns your investments.