Subs, lay offs and spin

[Roo Stercogburn]

Reading Sanya and Jennings thoughts
Apparently thats a negative

Interesting. Both are ex Employees of Mythic and I've not followed the careers of either to know well enough if they have their own agenda in this, perhaps as disgruntled former workers there. I am not saying they are wrong, lying or misguided, just that I've not seen anything to make me start pointing blame at Mythic directly. I may simply not have read enough.

stop being a tit, you know exactly what i meant smart arse.

I went for brevity, I disagreed with nearly all of what you wrote and the only sentence I'm sitting on the fence regarding is the first in your post.

The last sentence didn't even make sense to me

 

[Irowynn]

Mark Jacobs is a COCK.

Whats the one thing that stood out in DaoC, that sets it apart from all the rest ?

3 factions.

reduce it to 2, and sorry your just a wow clone.

^^ This.

When taking into account the ultra-developed Warhammer Lore (30+ years of TT gaming says something about background I'd guess) there was so much scope for success. But, oh-no, lets ally Greenskins with Chaos, and Dark Elves too, because it'd be handy for this game if they were friends...

Zede QFT.

 

[Aiteal]

Interesting. Both are ex Employees of Mythic and I've not followed the careers of either to know well enough if they have their own agenda in this, perhaps as disgruntled former workers there. I am not saying they are wrong, lying or misguided, just that I've not seen anything to make me start pointing blame at Mythic directly. I may simply not have read enough.

Very true
There are always going to be people with axes to grind
But iirc, Sanya's husband still works at Mythic and I've never seen her bad mouth Mythic in any of her blog posts before.

I dare say it's a reaction to both knowing the people involved who are losing their jobs and the transparent "we always intended to downsize" spin that Jacobs is trying to put on it.


I wouldn't be as charitable as yourself to give Mythic, and by that I mean Jacobs the benefit of the doubt.
Personally I've always found his posts to be a sickening mix of equal parts arrogance and a man out of his depth.

The guys reminds me of Bush tbh

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

Aye I'm not defending Jacobs. Not many rise to CEO through clean living and perfect morals.

Mythic are a bit between a rock and a hard place, albeit one of their own making. They need to keep EA happy and do the Corporate-Speak and at the same time deal with an online community that their ex-employees are very likely to talk to. Sitting calmly on the outside its easy to play Armchair Corporate Leader, its a whole different ballgame when you're in the middle of it. Since falling out with EA Would be a more immediate and terminal threat they're going to be very unlikely to do anything thats less than 100% towing the company line. They may even have been told this.

I found the Youtube video you linked Aiteal quite interesting too. I would bet if you got Paul Barnett alone over a beer (nearly spelled that 'bear' which would be an altogether different kind of meeting) you'd probably find he's not happy about the redunancies. When making the offical video blog though he'll be caught by the scrote and has to project positive Mr. Company Man stuff. Perhaps the throw-away quip wasn't appropriate but I don't think it was exactly a prepared speech. Of course he could be a complete dick, I don't know. I'm not going to judge from the daily video blog when they're trying to push the Russian launch. You'd need an on-topic conversation with the man.

 

[Flimgoblin]

well losing 60-120 colleagues is never going to be rosy (including two of Paul's friends - Justin and Angie Webb aka that one that dressed up as the sorceress)

However I doubt having Paul Barnett dwell on it in as morose a youtube video as the layoffs probably deserve is going to help make anyone feel any better.


My thoughts on the subs numbers

 

[Tetley]

The argument about 3 realms making DAOC different is one that stands out for me. It did spice things up and make a difference. The trouble is with Warhammer lore it would be difficult to have just 3 realms, and 6 would be too many.

The bad state of the economy may not do MMO's much harm overall, as people may spend more on entertainment in the house rather than go out as much to pubs, clubs etc. I know that Sky TV have said their subscriptions have risen since the economy crashed and so have a few other cable firms. An MMO is cheap entertainment if you look at it compared to most other things.

Good or bad start I like the game and I hope it continues to run for a long time yet. I waited years for it to appear and need to play it as many years to work off the anticipation of waiting for it.

 

[Raven]

The bad state of the economy may not do MMO's much harm overall, as people may spend more on entertainment in the house rather than go out as much to pubs, clubs etc. I know that Sky TV have said their subscriptions have risen since the economy crashed and so have a few other cable firms. An MMO is cheap entertainment if you look at it compared to most other things.

Exactly, using the economy as an excuse is a cheap lie, people are spending more on entertainment at home these days, Sky are employed a load more engineers because demand has gone through the roof. WoW subscriptions are still going up. Just because people aren't buying new cars or houses does not mean that the whole economy is going backwards.

WAR had so much promise, as someone mentioned above 30 years of lore to use, countless things to play with. What do Mythic do? Copy the worst bits of WoW, the god awful scenarios and water down the best bits of DAOC the open warfare, sieges, 8v8, solo and whatever. All the time having that grinning clown bang on about how GREAT! everything is. The more I see of him the more he reminds me of the guy from the office.

Its a shame that people have had to lose their jobs over it, I have been there and its a horrible place to be, I was lucky enough to be made redundant when the economy was still strong so pretty much walked into a new job. It must be frightening to be in that situation at the moment though.

The fault lies firmly at the feet of that muppet, if he was shown the door in the early stages it could have turned out as it was hoped.

 

[TheBinarySurfer]

EA is not known for leniency with their sub-corporations and are more then used to closing stuff down they do not consider profitable.

That big influx of cash Mythic got for developing this IP came directly from their coffers. I'll bet pennies to pounds it came with a sword on a silken string above Mythic's place at the EA table.

The sad thing is looking at those sub numbers, I bet they're actually significantly lower based on many people subbing into Jan but no further. Considering Mark Jacobs said 500k subscribers would be a success (which I would translate to mean "significant profit and all contractual obligations to EA fufilled") that does not bode well for Mythic

I really wouldn't be surprised if they were to be acquired by one of the large media corps...

It's almost happened twice before when they screwed up and overextended themselves.

That aside, assuming we see a continued dip in subscriptions, the Due Diligence prior to acquiring them would flag up Warhammer and the developer as a serious risk.

That alone would be enough for EA to flush Mythic before any Due Dil/Valuation imo.

 

[Sharkith]

Fight fight fight!

apparently you have to loose a few banners to win a war

dick

You have to admit - that guy is funny as fuck.

 

[Raven]

...the Due Diligence prior to acquiring them would flag up Warhammer and the developer as a serious risk.

That alone would be enough for EA to flush Mythic before any Due Dil/Valuation imo.

I am not sure that it would, on paper a Warhammer online RPG would blow anything out of the water, there is a deep well of story and structure already in place, decent classes, towns, factions etc already established. It would take a very special talent to fail at making a workable MMO out of it and they found him.

 

[Sharkith]

Fight fight fight!

Broken Toys Rituals Of The Betrayed

Seems Sanya and Scott Jennings are a bit angry

That is the everyday reality of the credit crunch from what I can see. It is hitting very hard over the shuck.

 

[TheBinarySurfer]

I am not sure that it would, on paper a Warhammer online RPG would blow anything out of the water, there is a deep well of story and structure already in place, decent classes, towns, factions etc already established. It would take a very special talent to fail at making a workable MMO out of it and they found him.

As an abstract concept it looks great i agree, but due diligence is about market research and financial statistics. WAR's can't be very good on either right now.

If a company thinks something will interfere with a buyout (which in this context would be a life-saving measure), they'll cut it in a heartbeat. If it's any consolation, should EA be pushed into this position i doubt Mythic will be alone in it's fall from grace.

 

[`mongoose]

layoffs are shit for everyone. There's very few people in the world who can tell someone they've got no job and not feel like a cock for it, even when they know the person deserved it.

I agree barnett's flippant quip demeans the loss and I'm surprised to see it if I'm being honest but then he has his orders like everyone else. I don't think those blogs are half as spontaneous as they're made out to be.

I think Mythic tried to do the best of WoW and DAOC in this game. They saw the success of WoW scenarios and instances so went with scenarios and instances. They then remembered the success of oRVR and forts and tried to add those along with a twist to give us more war in the oRvR landscape.

I don't think they're a million miles away from the end product tbh. The main issue (imo) is that they've never resolved the issues with LOS for Pets or GTAOE in keeps. They've overcooked the egg on CC abilities and quantity of classes with them and they've made scenarios far too rewarding making them the best way of getting Reknown in the game.

If they manage to fix you two of those three I think you would see a resurgence in the success of War.

I would have loved there to be three factions tbh. You could have had Order on one side with Empire, Dwarves, Elves. Destruction on the other with Ogres, Orcs, Goblins & Dark Elves and then Death on the final side with Vampire Counts, Undead, Skaven and possibly Nurgle Chaos

We may even have had a 4 way battle with Order, Destruction, Undead & Chaos all as different sides. I think they felt two sides were easier to balance and that they already had enough work to do.

Either way - it's shit, I hope mythic pull through because whilst people might say the game's broken I think the structure of the game is fine, the bones are good - it's just the odd pimple here and there than needs sorting out.

M

 

[Flimgoblin]

It's a shame it's happening to EA now and not two/three years ago. Lately they've been making moves towards new IP and new games rather than focusing everything on GameYouPlayedLastYear 2009 ...

Then the world economy goes to pot and they get screwed over - anyone not looking at the bigger picture will see this as "Stop focusing on quality/fun games and go back to making clones like you did in the boom years."

 

[ford prefect]

I would have loved there to be three factions tbh. You could have had Order on one side with Empire, Dwarves, Elves. Destruction on the other with Ogres, Orcs, Goblins & Dark Elves and then Death on the final side with Vampire Counts, Undead, Skaven and possibly Nurgle Chaos


M

I think this is a very good point. One of the reasons DAoC was as good is that it is very difficult to balance three factions and give them equal population. You had the choice of playing the underdog in oRVR, that gave an extra dimension to the game. I don't see that challenge in WAR

 

[pikeh]

The game needs a third faction, but I see Lizardmen as being the natural choice.

 

[Killgorde]

I see parallels between Mr Ego and a certain "One-eyed Scottish Idiot" (cue Jeremy Clarkson) not being able to concede when they got it so very wrong, and employing smoke and mirrors to try to convince an increasingly sceptical audience (and probably themselves) that everything is rosy in the garden of Eden. If players were sold on Mr Jacobs narrow-minded vision of the end-game they would stick around, bugs or no bugs. They aren't, and month by month the player-base is dwindling. To dress up what has happened to Warhammer since release as anything other than an unmitigated disaster makes him look stupid - a bit like McBroon.

A serious issue I have with MJ (and Mythic in general) is that they (arrogantly) think they know whats best. As a result there is no trust between the devs and wider community. What happens when there actually is trust? Players do stick around (even when the game is bugged) because they have faith that the devs are taking heed of their concerns and addressing them, and the potential end product is worth forebearance.

A classic example is Eve-Online - at launch 6 years ago there were maybe 5k online at peak, the game was buggy performance-wise and content-lacking. The players could see the massive efforts the devs were making, enjoyed a warm relationship with them, and as importantly could see where the game had the potential to arrive at. Now its +45k players online at peak and within 3 years that figure will probably be +100k (on one server). If you check the MMOG charts you can see what happens (specific to Eve) when there is a very good relationship between the publisher and community over a period of time, because the devs take on board critisism and have the humility (a quality non-existant at Mythic) to go back to the drawing board when what they are serving up is not well received. The difference between Mythic and CCP is that the CCP devs actually take on board what the majority of players say - Mythic don't.

It will be a shame if Warhammer disappears in time, because it has the potential to be a great game, but Mythic will only have themselves to blame for screwing it up if they continue on the path of "We know what's right" when "whats right" has hardly grabbed the imagination of a majority of subscribers. There are too many quality MMO's out there for them to stick around in the hope that things (might) improve.

I feel sorry for the GOA guys. Word from the inside is that the relationship between Mythic and themselves is one-directional, and they are just as frustrated as the subscribers at what MJ and his happy clappy band are delivering, but any concerns and ideas they voice are discarded at Mythic's front door.

 

[GReaper]

I thought they just said it was the smoothest launch, not the most successful?

Sorry, got the wording slightly wrong, but I think the same thing still applies. Can they claim it's the smoothest launch ever just because their servers didn't crash and burn under the load? There were still far too many bugs and other annoying issues.

I think both WAR and AoC show some important lessons for any new MMORPGs in development - don't rush your unfinished product and expect players to be happy. If players encounter endless bugs and problems whilst they're supposed to be building up a fondness for the game, they're highly unlikely to stay around to see any improvements.

I played WAR for a bit, found far too many annoying problems and went back to DAoC and various other games for a bit. I assume a huge chunk of WoW players did exactly the same thing. The recent MMORPG releases have shown me that you can either play the newest games filled with bugs, or perhaps have fun in some of the older and more established games where they still add new content on a regular basis.

 

[Flimgoblin]

They aren't, and month by month the player-base is dwindling.

Screenshot or it didn't happen..

More seriously, we don't have any over time subs data - obviously less are playing than in the first month - but you coulda told that from the server not-really-merges.

But are they still going down? It feels like they're going up on my server (certainly in my guild) - maybe not rocketing skywards but going up - but I've as much evidence for this as you have that they're dwindling.

Patches, fixes and a big ass 'expansion' seem like a pretty sensible thing to help numbers grow to me... I dislike the smash mouth 'everything is rosy' talk as well but saying that 'everything is doomed! we're going to do drastic things to fix it!' would be less accurate, less fair and probably damaging if it came from official mythic folks.

(there are some admissions of "this bit is fooked, we're fixing it" on paul barnett's youtube videocasts but this isn't Tabula Rasa or anything)

300k is less than they wanted - presumably less than EA wanted - but it's still more than a number of games ever got and bear in mind all the pre-WoW MMOs tended to peak after about a year of operation.

Too early to say what WAR's subs numbers will do in the future but it's a fun game, the bits that are wrong are getting attention from Mythic (faster would be better ) and they're adding in new content.

To paraphrase Mark Twain: Rumours of WAR's demise have been greatly exaggerated

 

[Sharkith]

I agree with you Flim (I think I can recover though so don't panic ). Its a good game - just not at the end stage which is a bit borked right now. Each and every night we have tons of fun down the tiers, the potential of the game is really good.

There can be no doubt some of it is awful but there is really no point calling it the end of the world. Maybe they had too big expectations for the game but it is by no means doing badly.

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

i agree with you flim (i think i can recover though so don't panic ).

medddiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiic! Man down!

 

[Gahn]

I agree with you Flim (I think I can recover though so don't panic ). Its a good game - just not at the end stage which is a bit borked right now. Each and every night we have tons of fun down the tiers, the potential of the game is really good.

There can be no doubt some of it is awful but there is really no point calling it the end of the world. Maybe they had too big expectations for the game but it is by no means doing badly.

While i do agree to some extent with ya Shark, the game has its flaws regardless of the Tier, the fact that we can sqeeze out of it some fun cause of our Daoc mentality and the tight Guild approach, it's another pair of shoes imo.
Still am facepalm with most of the playerbase attitude towards the game (here Mythic (or EA?) has its fair share of blame cause of the game mechanics) that we see day in day out.
Just for the record on T2 runie i had my full set of Obliterator after 4 keep takes, on my Sm after (well i lost count after the 20th or so) way more i still have only 3 pieces, case is that it rules me out of some content / renders me less usefull and i don't wanna fucking have to run 1000 dungeons runs on the other hand to have the last bits.

That's just an example mind ya, and if i'm bothered about equipment in a game which it was supposed NOT to be a grind for equipment ...

 

[Turamber]

Maybe they had too big expectations for the game but it is by no means doing badly.

I know you are talking about the designers of the game but I think I had high expectations, and feel very disappointed about the quality of the game. I'd be happy with an RvR based end game but the RvR is so badly implemented it is a joke.

The game is a travesty of what it could and should have been, I am not surprised it is losing players hand over fist. It just isn't very good.

 

[Flimgoblin]

I know you are talking about the designers of the game but I think I had high expectations, and feel very disappointed about the quality of the game. I'd be happy with an RvR based end game but the RvR is so badly implemented it is a joke.

The game is a travesty of what it could and should have been, I am not surprised it is losing players hand over fist. It just isn't very good.

Are you still playing? if not when did you stop? What tier are you in/were you in and which server?

Don't mean to sound facetious here btw - these are honest questions. For me, some nights RvR absolutely sucks, other nights it's bloody fantastic on my server in the tiers I happen to be in at the time (t2 and t4 mostly lately). It's been improving steadily since release - especially the higher tiers - and I'm seeing more RvR and less RvKeepDoor for the most part...

The T4 campaign needs work - hopefully the zone domination system will take it some way towards being somethign fun, and I hope they're still looking at fortresses as there's little room for tactics/strategy/anything on the push up the ramp to the lord room. It's a case of "more than X defenders and you might as well go home".

 

[Turamber]

Are you still playing? if not when did you stop? What tier are you in/were you in and which server?

I was playing on Burlock, my sub was up for renewal early in January but I hadn't logged in for about a week before that. There is plenty of action on Burlock but I really don't like the way things play out in tier 4.

High DPS classes with crowd control abilities, hell everybody has crowd control and there is very little in the way of immunity. I found RvR a complete pain in the butt.

Add in the preference of people to move around undefended targets, the imbalance in numbers between the two sides and the very poorly implemented PvE and it just didn't have enough to keep me interested.

 

[Raven]

Are you still playing? if not when did you stop? What tier are you in/were you in and which server?

Don't mean to sound facetious here btw - these are honest questions. For me, some nights RvR absolutely sucks, other nights it's bloody fantastic on my server in the tiers I happen to be in at the time (t2 and t4 mostly lately). It's been improving steadily since release - especially the higher tiers - and I'm seeing more RvR and less RvKeepDoor for the most part...

The T4 campaign needs work - hopefully the zone domination system will take it some way towards being somethign fun, and I hope they're still looking at fortresses as there's little room for tactics/strategy/anything on the push up the ramp to the lord room. It's a case of "more than X defenders and you might as well go home".

You are right, some nights its ace. You think, here we go, this is what its all about. Then the next night its toilet and the night after that and the night after that.

Its a great game when the people (the players) make it a great game but then everyone just start getting lazy and fighting NPCs or farming scenarios because it makes more RP.

I think everyone wants a good time for their money, I just can't understand why people want to spend that time in scenarios or farming empty "keeps" what the fuck is the point in RPs and levels when all you want to do is get more cheap RPS.

Disclaimer - I used to be a soloer in DAOC and on more than one occasion got accused of being an RP whore, even though you got less from soloing than zerging! I still maintain that soling (or 8v8) is the best way to make RPs, you make less over time but the entertainment factor is 1000s better, every RP is earned through team work or personal skill vs other real players. You come away with a sense of respect for your enemy, you either think "yeah, good job lads" or "dammit, good fight we will get them next time" I never had a problem with zerg vs zerg or 8v8 I had a massive problem with zerg vs 8 or 8 vs 1 as it was cheap and nasty RPs which werent earnt.

Its the same shit, you get less RP from fighting real enemies that you do from farming empty keeps and boring scenarios but its a fuck load more fun to fight real enemies than it is to fight NPCs. I really don't understand why people want cheap RPs when all they are going to do is use those abilities gained from RPs to farm more easy RPS. Get the fuck out and fight properly, earn your RPs against other players in equal combat, you will feel better for it and a ton more fun along the way!

Its not totally Mythic's fault but they made it to easy for the knobs to get cheap RPs and far to hard for the people that want real PvP to get the PvP and the related reward. The game really needs a shake up. Half the rewards in scenarios, remove all rewards for taking an empty objective. Double the reward (for now) for killing an enemy player (outside of a scenario)

This game is supposed to be all about the PvP, why the fuck are people rewarded for avoiding real PvP?

2nd disclaimer, polished off a bottle of glenfiddich so it probably doesnt make a lot of sense but I hope you get the general point

 

[Raven]

Anyway, this is besides the point.

They basically marketed a game that wasn't ready for general release. The adverts they did produce were cheap and nasty. People (close to a million) bought the game expecting decent PvP with very little fuss. What they found was a god awful grind fest which had no real goal (aside from reach level 40) There was no real narrative, it was just kill X deliver Y then do the same again for no reason but delaying the end game. Either put some content in for the lower levels or skip them!

 

[TheBinarySurfer]

That's just an example mind ya, and if i'm bothered about equipment in a game which it was supposed NOT to be a grind for equipment ...

Agreed totally. I'm at 50+ keeptakes now (all actively participating) and i've won ONE piece of loot. Which of course locks me out of a lot of content as you describe.

Anyway, this is besides the point.

They basically marketed a game that wasn't ready for general release. The adverts they did produce were cheap and nasty. People (close to a million) bought the game expecting decent PvP with very little fuss. What they found was a god awful grind fest which had no real goal (aside from reach level 40)

Yup. As i believe I've described it before - it's like picking up a gorgeous woman and taking them home for a night of borderline illegal sex, only to find out they have a cock, and it's bigger than yours.

Crude but the beer speaks, not me.

 

[Tagatha]

Simple facts are the PvE isn't as good as World Of Warcraft and the RvR isn't as good as Dark Age Of Camelot.

you summed it up so perfectly.

even if the global economy was a-ok, this statement is still true.

 

[Sharkith]

While i do agree to some extent with ya Shark, the game has its flaws regardless of the Tier, the fact that we can sqeeze out of it some fun cause of our Daoc mentality and the tight Guild approach, it's another pair of shoes imo.
Still am facepalm with most of the playerbase attitude towards the game (here Mythic (or EA?) has its fair share of blame cause of the game mechanics) that we see day in day out.
Just for the record on T2 runie i had my full set of Obliterator after 4 keep takes, on my Sm after (well i lost count after the 20th or so) way more i still have only 3 pieces, case is that it rules me out of some content / renders me less usefull and i don't wanna fucking have to run 1000 dungeons runs on the other hand to have the last bits.

That's just an example mind ya, and if i'm bothered about equipment in a game which it was supposed NOT to be a grind for equipment ...

I have to say I agree with you a lot of ht eplayerbase are to blame for the way the game is played - and most of the problems are not design issues.

The loot system is silly and it does need some tweaks - that should be easy to do though since it is most likely an equation. However this is not game breaking in any way for me. In the main it remains basically a good game.

Keep takes are interesting but like Flim I think they could be improved somewhat for example at times I wish the doors would not close on the keeps because you can thin out a large defenderbase over time. When the doors close you end up having an epic defence on the bottom floor and then dying horribly. Having the chance to win despite their numbers defending would be nice.

Maybe having the chance to trigger a hidden stairway using some sort of find ability would be nice so you can get around the choke point and attack from a position where the lord doesn't go stir crazy on you? Many of the keeps have little towres - why can't we spill out from those?

I do think they should think of these options you know things to vary it a bit.

I hate the way the lords behave as well - all this running about backwords and forwards is silly. In my view these are flaws but they are not desperately game breaking.