Everyone always forgets about Kesmai. I miss Air Warrior.vallorn said:The fine folks at KnowYourMeme have added the updated roster:Soviet Heavy said:
May those brave warrior souls rest easy in Valhalla...
Warhammer Online Studio Mythic Entertainment Shuttered By EA
- Thread starter Steven Bogos
- Start date
For those wondering.
Dark Age of Camelot WILL NOT get closed, it is now running under a new studio founded by Mythic co-founder Rob Denton.
No doubt EA told them that this would happen a few months ago allowing them to do this.
Dark Age of Camelot WILL NOT get closed, it is now running under a new studio founded by Mythic co-founder Rob Denton.
No doubt EA told them that this would happen a few months ago allowing them to do this.
I just don't get EA. Why would you buy a dedicated MMO developer in order to make shitty mobile games? I know some people think EA gets more hate than they deserve and that claims they're evil are way overblown, but how else can you describe this kind of systematic butchery and pissing on the graves of developers for absolutely no reason? I might not like a company that makes business decisions I don't like, but usually it's at least possible to understand why they make them. But EA seems to delight in ripping studios to pieces for absolutely no reason.Steven Bogos said:
Case in point:
From the article linked there:
Just a year later, Pandemic was gone.
Not quite. Mythic was renamed Bioware Mythic as part of a restructuring that put both Bioware and Mythic in new RPG/MMO division, but they didn't actually become part of Bioware. They were later separated back out and renamed back to just Mythic Entertainment again. So it's not that they moved all the people over to Bioware and then closed what was left over, this closure includes all the people who were associated with the Bioware Mythic name as well.Rellik San said:
Dont know why people remind warhammer online so fondly.. it was a quivering mess of bugs ,unfinished code, cut content and horrid class balancing. Not to mention Paul Barnett....
The writing was on the wall thought when they kicked out the former head staff of mythic when warhammer was tanking only 6 months after release and reduced staff to a skeleton crew, putting warhammer online on maintanance mode.. loosing over 500k subscribers in its first months kinda does that.
The game was unsalvagable too.. the PVE was crap the PvP highly depended on zerging or who had the most Firemages/Dark elf mages, War priests/Blood acolytes... and usually order would get the shit kicked out of them in world RvR cause everyone was rolling the far more cooler looking destruction chars. The intiial RvR was so bugged that when the first time destruction pushed back order to their capital... the entire server crashed and only resetting the RvR solved the problem. Then they had to cut out the final fortresses before the city siege and never put them back in.
The art style thought was a perfect match of the warhammer table top game and if they hadnt chopped up the world like they did and made it more of a traditional one it could have been even more awesome.
Also EA Mythic brought us that hilarious blog of EA spouse if i remember correctly that painted a rather bad picture about managment at their studio.
The writing was on the wall thought when they kicked out the former head staff of mythic when warhammer was tanking only 6 months after release and reduced staff to a skeleton crew, putting warhammer online on maintanance mode.. loosing over 500k subscribers in its first months kinda does that.
The game was unsalvagable too.. the PVE was crap the PvP highly depended on zerging or who had the most Firemages/Dark elf mages, War priests/Blood acolytes... and usually order would get the shit kicked out of them in world RvR cause everyone was rolling the far more cooler looking destruction chars. The intiial RvR was so bugged that when the first time destruction pushed back order to their capital... the entire server crashed and only resetting the RvR solved the problem. Then they had to cut out the final fortresses before the city siege and never put them back in.
The art style thought was a perfect match of the warhammer table top game and if they hadnt chopped up the world like they did and made it more of a traditional one it could have been even more awesome.
Also EA Mythic brought us that hilarious blog of EA spouse if i remember correctly that painted a rather bad picture about managment at their studio.
I think it makes more sense than first look.Kahani said:
Mythic remained an dedicated MMO company EA for about six years, it was really only the last two years in which they've been made into an mobile developer.
I think the reason was that they lost of staff over time and with EA losing the licence to Warhammer (and thus the closure of "Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning" and the canceling of the MOBA "Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes" they weren't left with a lot.
Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online while profitable, I don't think they're profitable enough to sustain Mythic.
EA was left with four options.
A. Develop another MMO.
B. Keep Mythic only as a means to keep two old MMOs.
C. Close the studio.
D. Restructure the studio.
Option A was never going to happen.
After the lackluster response to "Star Wars: The Old Republic" and overall underwhelming life of "Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning", there was no way EA was going to spend millions in creating a new MMO.
Option B seems like a waste of time and now is happening anyway under a new company which isn't EA, but EA is working with in order to make it happen.
Option C would have been an easy one for EA considering their history, but they didn't.
Option D was the most logical choice, they have a studio and developers, instead of wasting them, why not get them to work on new games? Mobile two years ago seemed a lot more profitable than it is now.
And to be fair, while Dungeon Keeper is pretty horrid, their other mobile game "Ultima Forever" is a pretty damn good game.
It seems that EA did try, they tried to make it work.
Besides, it seems quite a few of the employees will transfer to other EA studios or to Broadsword.
Well, I'm sure a lot of Mythic's talent will find employment elsewhere. To be honest looking at the last "Dungeon Keeper" game I can't say I'm sorry to see them go, I mean sure, EA was largely to blame for that, but that product kind of showed they had turned into "anything for another day of employment" developer and had lost it's soul since they were basically throwing their name and reputation behind a ridiculously money gouging product that was intended to exploit good will and nostalgia. It's sad that EA killed them, but they really did need to be taken out behind the shed after that, and while lacking financial security for the moment I'd imagine a lot of the workers will probably be happier, and develop a better product wherever they wind up.
As far as Mythic helping Bioware out, to be honest I've kind of wondered if they were responsible for some of the problems and balance issues that got into the game and stayed even long after the launch of "The Old Republic Online". "Warhammer Online" was a mess right from day #1, and as much as I loved the world I didn't stick with it very long because I found it kind of painful after a while. The way they tried to "mirror" the classes in "Old Republic" seemed a lot like what they tried to do with WAR, and it had the same kind of balance issues for example, and I wondered for a while if Mythic had a hand in that in rushing to get them finished up.
Overall while DAOC was apparently something special, they had that one success, and then one big failure in terms of WAR. That makes their batting average 50-50, with their influence on TOR being questionable since you don't know what they did/finished. If I was EA I probably wouldn't be trusting them with another MMO property, and after the failure with their mobile game, it seems like their demise is a matter of common sense.
As far as Bioware hitting the corpse pile, I think they have a lot of life in them yet. Bioware is a developer famous for focusing on one project at a time, and polishing it to a high shine. Their failures largely came about due to EA forcing them to juggle multiple projects it seems. Bioware has a chance if it can focus on one project at a time (like they are apparently doing with DA3) and turn it into a major success. If they pull that off, and can convince EA to let it remain fairly focused, they can probably stay off the chopping block until they score more failures. Of course working against them is the bad blood they have engendered. After "Dragon Age 2" and "Mass Effect 3" I'm not likely to rush right out for "Dragon Age 3" and I imagine a lot of other people won't be either. This means that even if DA3 turns out to be great, it might not be a huge day #1 success.
As far as Mythic helping Bioware out, to be honest I've kind of wondered if they were responsible for some of the problems and balance issues that got into the game and stayed even long after the launch of "The Old Republic Online". "Warhammer Online" was a mess right from day #1, and as much as I loved the world I didn't stick with it very long because I found it kind of painful after a while. The way they tried to "mirror" the classes in "Old Republic" seemed a lot like what they tried to do with WAR, and it had the same kind of balance issues for example, and I wondered for a while if Mythic had a hand in that in rushing to get them finished up.
Overall while DAOC was apparently something special, they had that one success, and then one big failure in terms of WAR. That makes their batting average 50-50, with their influence on TOR being questionable since you don't know what they did/finished. If I was EA I probably wouldn't be trusting them with another MMO property, and after the failure with their mobile game, it seems like their demise is a matter of common sense.
As far as Bioware hitting the corpse pile, I think they have a lot of life in them yet. Bioware is a developer famous for focusing on one project at a time, and polishing it to a high shine. Their failures largely came about due to EA forcing them to juggle multiple projects it seems. Bioware has a chance if it can focus on one project at a time (like they are apparently doing with DA3) and turn it into a major success. If they pull that off, and can convince EA to let it remain fairly focused, they can probably stay off the chopping block until they score more failures. Of course working against them is the bad blood they have engendered. After "Dragon Age 2" and "Mass Effect 3" I'm not likely to rush right out for "Dragon Age 3" and I imagine a lot of other people won't be either. This means that even if DA3 turns out to be great, it might not be a huge day #1 success.
Relatedly, stories like this one always remind me of the article that first brought me to the Escapist. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/issues/issue_14/87-The-Conquest-of-Origin]
I sit and wonder if this new company, risen from the ashes of Mythic, will ever create a DAOC 2 or something similar. As far as I'm concerned, and despite its flaws, DAOC was the best MMO ever made (and I've tried A LOT of them.) Losing Mythic feels like losing a good friend, but maybe this spin-off company will have now have the freedom to go back to doing what it does best. WAR was a failure of course, but I never felt it was a failure in quality. It was a failure in its approach and its timing (new WOW expansion launched at nearly the same time) but was very well put together and had a ton of great ideas. I've just got to hope they can bring back the magic.
I tend to agree but it's not DAI that will decide their fate, it'll be the next ME. And they already took a big hit with Swtor, almost 800 people worked on the game, they're less than 20 now (the last expansion was made by 4...). So they're no closing but not really far to. In fact it's almost the case.Mirrorknight said:
IMO one of the reason that push EA to let Bioware live is two simple fact: first closing them will destroy their rep (what is left of course) and they can't justify this closure to their shareholders after putting more than one billion of dollars in the studio (860 millions for buying them and 300 or more in Swtor).
ME will decide their fate because DAI have almost no marketing budget and too much competitors at launch (Arkham Knight, Borderlands or the Sims 4 for examples).
DAOC isn't relevant anymore, and Warhammer Online was a dying game for years - that new Dungeon Keeper tripe isn't even worth mentioning really. People ***** and moan about "EA killing studios", when Mythic hasn't made anything worthwhile in years. Should one keep studios around simply on the merit of their name? Seems like a really brilliant way to make money.
GamesWorkshop probably was part of the problem with them going F2P and not having any kind of system that might translate well into a F2P system would mean it would either becoming feeling mandatory or a tacked on money grab. When the game finally did close it wasn't because of EA closing the severs, but GamesWorkshop not renewing the licensing agreement (or pulling the license).Fdzzaigl said:
If BioWare is costing them money they will close the studio, but if BioWare makes them money they will keep open the studio.Rodolphe Kourkenko said:
Actually I can't think of a better time to release Dragon Age: Inquisition for if they delayed the game it would be in conflict with The Witcher 3 which I think is bigger competition then anything being released in October or another year which means expectations for the games success would be that much higher and then they could run into the same issue with a lot of major franchises being released at the same time.
As much as people wish to say how the recent BioWare games have been bad, they still have made money which is all EA is allowed to care about because they are a public traded company. If some of the articles I have read are even remotely correct all previous BioWare games have made EA a lot of money, there was a Destructoid article saying Mass Effect 3 has $200 million in sales and that was in the first half of 2012. Right now I think there is a better chance of the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises being abandoned then BioWare disappearing, unless the next two games have really poor sales.
The rendering engine and netcode were simply not sophisticated enough for the mass battles ... the engineering was rotten at the very core.Rellik San said:
As far as I know no Troika game ever lost money either, but games which have to depend on long term sales are not very popular with publishers.Therumancer said:
PS. if they announced horde mode multiplayer for DAI I'd preorder it, I have faith in the single player this time (unlike with DA2) but I had that too with ME3 and in the end only multiplayer made that worth my money.
A lot of people would argue that it was because of EA that Mythic wasn't making good games anymore. Ignoring the fact that Warhammer Online was made under EA, of course, but still.Karathos said:
Let's face it. Mythic is known for three things: Dungeon Keeper, Warhammer Online, and Dark Age of Camelot. Of the three, one was post-EA purchase, one was a post-EA title that wasn't even originally Mythic (DK was done by Bullfrog, except for Mythic's mobile version), and Dark Age of Camelot has done quite well.
One notable game pre-EA purchase does not exactly scream of "EA vampirizing studios".
As a note, the last three games they made pre-EA were Dark Age of Camelot, Independence Day Online, and Spellbinder: The Nexus Conflict. Considering that the most recent game they had actually finished prior to EA had been released 5 years prior to their buyout (they had a game called "Imperator Online" in the works, but it was cancelled in 2005, a year before the buyout), I think EA may be the only reason Mythic lasted this long.