WAR (Warhammer Online)

The game isn't being developed by EA...

EA's only chance so for MMO success in this decade... well, unless they buy someone else.

Originally posted by Silverthorn8

Why do you think they will? My understanding is they gave Mythic nearly full autonomy on this production.

The only danger thus far is the game being held back further than the Q4 schedule slated for this year-placing the game into a near vapourware status (think most of us are praying this won't happen).

Hope that answers your one dimensional question.

No, I don't think the game will be hindered by EA at all. As a matter of fact, its only benefitted from EA's deep pockets. EA knows the score here and will definitely let Mythic do their own thing.

By the way, I'm in closed beta.

Originally posted by Cryptor

 

boy oh boy is there going to be alot of disapointed people around.  Its a good thing not too many of you are able to play the beta or you woud have already moved on to new games.

Oh really? Thats funny because I'm in closed beta right now and I've already quit AoC to devote full time to beta'ing this game.

I think a better question is, why do you think EA will ruin WAR. I've never had much of a problem the way Mythic ran DAoC, including the infamous ToA expansion. I have a lot of faith in Mythic and they've always been honest in my experiences. Hell, they even have phone support, which is rare among MMORPG companies. I've never had a bad experience with EA either. The only EA products I recall buying were sports games and I've not had a bad experience with them.

So being a critical thinker, I have to ask if the hate for EA is gamer induced or EA induced. I think I've heard something about EA changing UO and shutting down another MMORPG as examples of EA being bad. I for one agree with the changes made to UO, since UO was a haven for griefers, which I loathe. There are many reasons why a company may shut down a MMORPG and EA has every bit of right to do so. Lack of substantial profit is a great reason to shut down a game. I think gamers can be a bit biased in their judgements, because having a game taken away provokes strong emotional reactions. EA after all did provide players with a choice of servers in UO. You cannot blame UO for players choosing a non-griefer server. That is the fault of the anti-social players driving social players away.

Personally Ive never had too much beef with EA either. Even though like most corporations they are pretty much a soulless bunch of people out to make a buck, they still deliver relatively solid games and they are no where near the scum of lets say, SOE. If theres one company you can trust to break something its SOE.

But EA, even though they may be a bunch of soulless pricks, they didn't get to the top without any measure of intelligence; they see alot, and I mean, ALOT of potential in WAR. And I dont blame them. WAR is a game that can appeal to many people, *cough cough* the MASSES and is indeed a potential "WoW killer." EA arent slouches, so they say:

--Okay Mythic, you guys got a hot game going on here, so we'll just give you guys more juice to make it even better--

EA from as I recall is pretty much just all hands off. Theyve gotten smarter and realized that they should just stand back, hand Mythic the money they need and then reap most of what Mythic sowed.  Why not? Mythic from what I know is a great developing company and EA probably looked back on DAOC and saw a game that has lots of potential. All EA is, as Paul B. put it, "The Moneybag". Its brilliance, really.

Oh yeah, and we have a third player here: Games Workshop. And those guys are gonna make sure the game is good, too. Games Workshop adds a bit more dynamic into the whole business deal, so EA isnt entirely alone here.

Honestly, I think EA has some good and bad companies under their management.

Mythic isn't one of the bad ones. DAOC is doing insanely good game-wise now, and that is all because of Mythic and the fact that they listened to the players (probably gonna head back and play it again if/when classic old-style RvR is re-instated). They may not have a huge playerbase, but the game itself is very polished and has been for a year now.

The flip side is that EA has some high profile idiots on tap as well.  DICE for instance, is a crappy company, and makes continually buggy games which make EA a lot of money thanks to their awesome advertising alone, but do nothing for EA's rep because of how phenominally buggy and crappy the games tend to be.

I've learned to wait and see. And so we will.

Where there is a will there is a way. When EA puts it's hands on any project mayhem spreads all over the place and it never ends. What makes people think it will be any different this time. Why, because it's Warhammer ? I see the same trend this game is going through just like AOC did. Push back after push back and when asked how well them game is going the answers always were  "the game is fine and right on track". Well Mythic is singing the same tune and when asked if this push back was the final one the answer was " no it is not definite"  Which leads me to believe this game is far from even being close to finished. Just pray Mythic can finish the game on time before EA and GW hit the eject button too soon.

The game has already been in developement for about 3 years. On May 18 2005, Mythic acquired the license and been working on the game ever since. EA doesn't like long developement and Games Workshop expects quality so Myhtic has much to do in a short period of time.

Oh I love to see the haters make no sense what so ever. 

EA doesn't ruin developers and EA doesn't ruin games. 

Ultima Online which is almost a revered game here on MMORPG.com was owned by EA the entire lifespan of the game.  The President of EA gave Garriot the funding to make UO. 

What screwed UO was Origin's inability to manage their department.  They started and stopped so many projects and were way behind on schedule with nothing to show for it that EA finally had to move in and take charge. 

Same thing has happened in a lot of the developers they have taken over. 

Really and truthfully all the proof you need to show that EA doesn't ruin games or stifle creativity is Sims, Sims 2, Spore, etc.  Will has been working on Spore for years and EA doesn't and has never done anything to him.  He has been a part of EA since before The Sims came out (which they took a big risk on) and still stays with the company.