Electronic Arts To Aquire Mythic Entertainment 82
Pika writes "According to the Business Wire, Electronic Arts is to acquire Mythic Entertainment, makers of the popular MMORPGs Dark Age of Camelot and the forthcoming Warhammer Online.
With EA being well known for killing MMORPGs, even those with loyal and sizable followings, how does this bode for Mythic's titles?"
Oblig. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oblig. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oblig. (Score:1)
DAoC (Score:5, Interesting)
If Sanya is reading this: It's too late for DAoC, but for WAR, please actually use the Team Lead's input instead of blowing them off when they have a valid point. Especially when the team leads can show you where their class is very weak on. If Mythic is planning to deal with Team Leads like they have with DAoC, scrap the plan entirely. It's not fair to the team leaders to waste their time and efforts.
dammy
IceDrakes - Bors - Killibury
Re:DAoC (Score:2, Insightful)
The next expansion appears to be a half assed attempt at getting more money from their current subscribers and/or tempting those bored with thier wow level 60's to come back for a few weeks..
With EA now taking over Mythic I can now imagine an online LOTR on smack with a model very similar to WoWs...
look forward to losing your rank
Re:Oblig. (Score:3, Funny)
Doesn't quite scan.
Re:Oblig. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oblig. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oblig. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oblig. (Score:2)
They have a "screw the players, let's make a buck" mentality.
So how is this different?
Re:Oblig. (Score:3, Insightful)
EA has more of a, put the game out, get all the initial sales you can, then start over with a new game, mentality.
Re:Oblig. (Score:2, Insightful)
*cries* EA hasnt done almost anything right since acquiring bullfrog
EA Canceling SWG? (Score:2)
Re:Oblig. (Score:1)
Re:Oblig. (Score:2)
Re:Oblig. (Score:1)
In terms of sheer negative impact, Age of Shadows was far more significant. (Combat changes, at-will special moves rather than random, clunky nasty interfaces, etc.)
While I still think they should have left some shards with regular rulesets non-Trammelized, I think they would've rapidly emptied as "sheep" flock
Re:Oblig. (Score:2)
Re:Oblig. (Score:1)
However, if you look at the larger MMO picture, a game can be a success without non-con PvP/Grief play.
Maybe it wasn't your particular style (I prefered the sense of adventure of those times myself), but it kept a lot of the "easy mode" players happier longer, and so was hardly the "death" of UO.
AoS on the other hand was when EA really messed it up, NO
Re:Oblig. (Score:2)
Oh please...
Trammel was popular for a reason, not because people were "sheep."
I don't find it _fun_ getting PK'd. (If I wanted to be f--ing PK'd I'd play a FPS -- where I would actually have some fun, since the game was designed for it.) I have lost friends who quite UO over this exact same issue. If it wasn't for Trammel, I would of quite much sooner too.
The camped dungeons were bad enough, but when you had P
Re:Oblig. (Score:1)
I was merely referring to those that would be prey to "wolves" - those out hunting the sheep.
I don't mean they that were mindless herds so much as vulnerable prey to the jerks out there.
I'm a farily hardcore Trammie, and I definitely enjoyed the game Post-Trammel (Hell, I'm still playin' ain't I?) but something was definitely lost.
As I said before, my best known character is a beggar - that sort of thing didn't fly very well for me in Felucca.
Sheep wasn't
Re:Well (Score:3, Interesting)
Poor Mythic Employees (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing inherently wrong with working for a big company. There's just something inherently wrong with working for EA.
Re:Poor Mythic Employees (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm an EA employee, at the studio that the infamous blog was about, and I will tell you, that while it had truth to it at the time, 2 years ago, it's not true anymore.
I've interviewed at other places, and I know other studios are far worse - one Activision studio famous for it's skateboarding series has a mandatory 48 hour weeks, and every 4th week is a mandatory 60 hour workweek. Even during the crunch
Re:Poor Mythic Employees (Score:4, Interesting)
The only people who got any benefit from the changes made because of the law suites were the people who already had a ton of seniority. All the people who were still there on the lower rungs of the ladder or even worse those still considered "temp" after working there for over a year had no improvement at all. In fact some of the minor benefits they had were taken away.
The hours did change at all. In fact the last year I worked there was probably one of the worst.
Re:Poor Mythic Employees (Score:1, Informative)
Origin Systems in Austin, Texas - acquired in 1992, closed in 2004
EA Baltimore in Baltimore, Maryland - established in 1996 as part of Origin, closed in 2000
EA Seattle in Seattle, Washington - formerly Manley & Associates, acquired in 1996, closed in 2002
Maxis in Walnut Creek, California - acquired in 1997, closed in 2004 (moved to Redwood City location)
Westwood Studios in Las Vegas, Nevada - acquired in 1998, closed in 2003
EA Pacific (known for a time as Westwood Pacific) in Irvine, C
Great. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great. (Score:5, Insightful)
Doubt of Cancellation.. (Score:4, Interesting)
EA isn't dumb, just careless..
Re:Doubt of Cancellation.. (Score:2)
Damn. Mythic seemed to have something of a clue, although I was really looking forward to the game they killed, Imperator.
I doubt we will ever see Warhammer Online now.
Re:Doubt of Cancellation.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Doubt of Cancellation.. (Score:2, Funny)
Why would EA buy a company that does nothing but MMORPGs, just to cancel their projects and kill a profitable asset?
Clearly, they just want to change all the battle sound effects to the "Pow! Pow pow!," whistle noises, and Madden commentary featured in one of EA Games' many football hits, Madden '93.
Imagine these effects accentuating your battle: "Pow! Pow pow! He'll feel that one tomorrow!" *Whistle blows* "That's a way to hit him! Amazing! Pow!" *Whistle Blows over echoes of "Pow pow!" "Where'd that t
Re:Doubt of Cancellation.. (Score:2)
EA bought a company known for their online games and killed the company and all the games only two years later. Some fine games from Multiplayer Battletech [wikipedia.org] to Islands/Legends of Kesmai are no longer available to be played. You can read about these games, but will probably never be able to enjoy them.
The sad fate of Kesmai was one of the motivating reasons for my buying and preserving Meridian 59 [meridian59.com]. It may not be the prettiest game, but at least people can go play a game with some h
Perhaps.. (Score:1)
Re:Perhaps.. (Score:1)
Per year, or lifetime? SOE is able to screw up about 2 MMORPGs per year, however we still have not determined how many they will screw up in the future. Assuming the company lasts for 100 years, that would mean that one company can screw up 200 MMOGs.
Mythic, on the other hand, has never really screwed up since DAoC, IMHO. The game was not to everyone's tastes, but the fact that we are still talking about it today says someth
Confusion? (Score:1)
Umm... you mean SOE, don't you?
Re:Confusion? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Confusion? (Score:1)
E&B was trash.
Re:Confusion? (Score:5, Interesting)
There were territories you had to defend or conquor in matched battletech mech matches.
A few things that would have made it cooler:
-earning cash through wins and holding territories in order to customize the weapons / armor loadout of your mechs
-micropayments for this cash to subsidize the game and the servers (a la Bang! Howdy, or Gunbound)
-better graphics, more varied maps. Unfortunately, it looked fairly pre-mechwarrior4. The user interface for the lobbies was damn nice, though.
-people in leadership positions being able to set waypoints, like you can in single player mechwarrior games
-people in higher leadership positions being able to set daily goals, etc.
Re:Confusion? (Score:1)
Re:Confusion? (Score:1)
MPBT was supposed to get up to 16v16 (Score:2)
Would have been so sweet... I miss MPBT forever.
Re:Confusion? (Score:2)
Re:Confusion? (Score:2)
The sad thing about that is that Ultima X: Oddessy (the "another Ultima Online spinoff) visually, and in feature sets, looked a lot like Wor
Re:Confusion? (Score:1)
Big deal. (Score:5, Interesting)
Just like everyone then? (Score:2)
Just like everyone else, then? The same has happened to pretty much every single SOE game too, for example. Maybe with the exception of Planetside, where it's hard to squeeze in too many WoW ideas since it's a MMO-FPS. I mean, seriously, it's UT-2004 in a persistent world. Though I wouldn't be surprised one bit if anyone tried anyway.
And some WoW ideas aren't even bad, or at least they worke
Shades of Multiplayer Battletech:3025... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then I remembered that just five short years ago, EA killed my MMO dreams when they shut down Multiplayer Battletech: 3025 [mpogd.com]. I place much of the blame for the tepid and weak pool of current MMO offerings on the axing of MPBT:3025, which was bar none the finest multiplayer 'mech experience I've seen.
Damn you, EA. Damn you to hell for continually working to make MMO games suck forever.
Jane's Simulations, Westwood... (Score:5, Informative)
I remember when EA used to present these brands and logos with pride, as though it were simply a representative of them. That was a long, long time ago. I think I was still using my P166 back then, and Jane's Combat.net was still up. Those were the days.
Re:Jane's Simulations, Westwood... (Score:1)
The Current State of DaoC (Score:5, Interesting)
I LOVE DaoC and I wish I could plan to play with my good friends for 4 more years but I will be VERY surprised if I'm still playing in a year.
EA needs to burn in hell (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:EA needs to burn in hell (Score:1)
EA pretty much bought and killed all my favourite childhood game companies.
Bullfrog, Maxis, Interplay, Westwood, Origin Systems, I believe they also now own Blizzard. I'm sure there's others that I have forgotten about, lost to the 800lbs gorilla that is EA. May they rest in piece.
Re:EA needs to burn in hell (Score:1)
the old days (Score:4, Informative)
Now it's nothing more than Electronic Sports and goddamn if it has anything that tries to be anything else.
Re:the old days (Score:2)
Bizzarely though there was massive resistence to doing the first Madden game. Trip, an american football nut, bascially had to lead the entire thing himself.
Re:the old days (Score:2)
Re:the old days (Score:1)
Re:the old days (Score:2)
Re:the old days (Score:2)
Let's step over this again: "I remember was Electronic Arts was EOA
Did I say logo? did I say company name? No, so you assumed. Everybody who's been around immediately knows what era that is from without any misconception. I didn't have to draw any ascii text to represent what EOA looks like, and to immediately invoke my point.
You can't buy talent! (Score:3)
There's something about a company laying people off and then making aquisitions, makes one hunger for unions.
EA doesn't raise cash cows. They milk them dry (Score:5, Interesting)
Examples wanted?
The "Sims" series of games. Maxis created a lot of interesting "Sim XXX" games before the Sims, and even The Sims was a very entertaining game. It was games without a "goal", granted, but that was part of the entertainment value. They were made entertaining by their "what if" factor. You could tinker with parts of it and create new scenarios that way. You could even for most of them create some kind of add ons yourself.
This changed with EA's involvement. Now we get petty little add-on boxes every few months that don't really add jack to the game (save a few new toys that we used to get for free). The Sims Online bombed in a way that you could see the crater from the moon. Since, well, who's want to pay monthly for what is essentially an IRC client (or MUSH/talker) with graphics?
Westwood acquisition and the C&C line? Do I need to say more?
What personally hit me in the Westwood merger was Westwood's MMORPG Earth and Beyond, and how it changed after EA scooped it up. It had issues. It was still very young when EA got its milking hands onto it, and a LOT of effort would have been needed to make it soar. Balancing was still in the making, WW has made a lot of mistakes (understandably, being their first MMORPG pitted against a very experienced player base), but that could have worked out. EaB was one of the few MMORPGs with a VERY good and well developed storyline, that was its strong point, and its selling point.
The first thing EA did when they grabbed it was to strip the voice acting which was "too expensive". Unfortunately, a lot of players considered it critical for the involvement and the "feel" of the game. And it was. Balancing would have been very necessary and critical, and it would not have been easy, but it could have been done. It wasn't done. The Jenquai Explorer and even more the Progen Sentinel were until the very end very useless classes. Aggro management was NEVER fixed (the healer invariably had aggro, no matter what the warriors did). And a lot of other issues that simply were never fixed. EA milked it, without giving back to it. And the worse the game did, and the more player quitted because of it, the less EA was inclined to fix it. They simply let it die. Slowly and painfully.
I switched over to DAoC. And the game rocked back then. That was before the ToA expansion (which is still, IMO, the worst expansion in MMORPG history). But Mythic had the guts and smarts to realize it stinks and opened up new servers without it. Would it have happened with EA? Most likely not. They would've gone and milked the game dry, then toss it.
And my fear is, they will.
Now I'm playing EVE. Should EA decide to ackquire CCP, it will be a sad day in MMORPG history.
Re:EA doesn't raise cash cows. They milk them dry (Score:1)
Ok, they have a lot of work ahead if they need to start again, but at least they have the knowhow.
Re:EA doesn't raise cash cows. They milk them dry (Score:2)
I wonder what Freud would read into this...
Re:EA doesn't raise cash cows. They milk them dry (Score:2)
Re:EA doesn't raise cash cows. They milk them dry (Score:2)
Keep in mind that the guys at the top of CCP are the same guys who as MMO enthusiasts decided to make their own back in the day so they have a very real sense of personal ownership. With a very stable
So long, DAoC. (Score:2)
Why EA do this I don't know, but they're renowned for acquiring online games and shutting them down (sure to happen with this) - too much competition for them perhaps?
Game Sematary (Score:1)
Re:Game Sematary (Score:2)
Re:Game Sematary (Score:1)