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Rotating Turbines
Jeff Anderson, Turbine’s CEO, leaves days after giving an interview.
Walt Yarbrough, longtime Mythic producer, surfaces as executive producer on a new Turbine project.
Interesting times in Hobbiton. Turbine’s made a solid choice in snapping up Walt; not only is he an excellent project manager, he also has a keen understanding of world conquest.
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about 2 years ago
One more out for Mythic. Now convince me how the environment became so much more pleasant to work in, after EA’s acquisition.
Even if probably the poor performance of DAoC was a factor.
about 2 years ago
By the way, who’s producing DAoC now?
about 2 years ago
In my opinion the funniest part of this is seeing Asheron’s Call players confuse new CEO Jim Crowley with Dave “Crowley” Javier, current AC Producer.
about 2 years ago
FWIW – EA has had little if anything to do with any of the departures that I am aware of.
No one believes me, but that doesn’t make it less true.
about 2 years ago
Correlations have a funny way of being causations, sometimes.
So, is this project AC2 2? Because I can’t imagine it being anything else.
about 2 years ago
And random anonymous people on the internet always know more about the situation than ex-employees.
Come on, dude.
about 2 years ago
Did Copper just jump over there, or had he been gone from Mythic for a while? It’s somewhat disturbing to see this much churn this close to WAR’s release- hard to believe it doesn’t make a difference.
about 2 years ago
Here’s the problem with rotating turbines… They suck up a lot of air, blow out a lot of heat, and chew up anything that gets in front of it.
Wait… What were we talking about again?
about 2 years ago
Did Copper just jump over there, or had he been gone from Mythic for a while?
Started a week ago, Monday.
about 2 years ago
Jim Crowley previously worked for a company that sold out to VeriSign. Makes me wonder if Turbine’s looking to sell out to someone.
about 2 years ago
[i]So, is this project AC2 2? Because I can’t imagine it being anything else.
[/i]
Doubt it… they already made that abortion and the AC community rejected it. From what I heard… AC2 was finally fixed, fun and playable when they pulled the plug on it. What the AC fanbase would really want is an AC 1.5 where they have the same old systems and lore and all that but thrown into a much more modern graphics engine. In all honest… AC really is extremely different from most MMO’s in the way they do things.
about 2 years ago
It takes more than the say-so of even the most prestigious ex-employees to sway me from such an obvious correlation. There needs to be another reason, and they need to take at least one moment of their life to elaborate on it, rather than just spout “OMG NO IT WASN’T WHY WON’T ANY1 BELIEVE ME
“.
When Lum left, he insisted it didn’t have anything to do with EA and had more to do with wanting to be closer to family. I think Sanya also elaborated on her leave not having to do with EA, either.
All it takes is a good reason, any reason, to convince me EA wasen’t the main cause, and it has to come from Walt. Being silent about it is as good as saying it was EA’s fault.
about 2 years ago
Yeah, because there couldn’t possibly be any other reason in the whole wide world that someone couldn’t post something on the internet.
about 2 years ago
HR is such a mushy subject. I rather doubt any one person has left Mythic specifically because of EA. On the other hand, mergers are HARD. I find it highly likely that people that might have stuck it out have not due to changes associated with the merger. On the gripping hand, I do not (and have not) work for either company, and therefore cannot speak from personal experience.
Full disclosure: I have worked for three different small companies that got subsumed by $GIANT_MULTINATIONAL_CORPORATION. People fear change. Changes instigated by faceless corporate overlords are really scary. Even if it is For Your Own Good ™ and Really Not As Bad As You Were Expecting ™.
about 2 years ago
Lum (before the storm), Matt Firor, Sanya and Walt. And that other community girl whose name I can’t remember who moved somewhere I forgot.
These being ALL people I knew at Mythic with the exception of Jacobs himself. And they all quit for a reason or another.
It’s not just rant and angst byproduct. It’s just a legitimate suspect. We know about those guys because those guys are public, but it’s also a legitimate to suspect that more left without press releases or blog announces.
So, either it is just an improbable “case”, or there’s something not optimal going on at Mythic that caused the desire to move on elsewhere because working at Mythic wasn’t anymore as desirable. And in this last case EA is a guess, the best guess. Or Mark Jacobs becoming impossible to work with, which is another best guess.
While these are just suspects, it’s also reasonable to not expect the truth being revealed, ESPECIALLY by those involved, if the problem is Mythic and not various kinds of personal reasons.
If there IS a problem, then you can be sure that those involved can’t speak about it. It’s legitimate to suspect that Mythic is not anymore a desirable place where to go work if so many people prefer to quit the job, sometime even without a ready replacement.
P.S.
Warhammer’s lead designer left too, I was forgetting.
about 2 years ago
“Warhammer’s lead designer left too, I was forgetting.”
Eh? Who was that? Richard left, but he was a Community guy, not a “lead designer”.
about 2 years ago
Steve Marvin, former WAR lead designer (and ironically, costar of the Hearts of Iron transcript), left for Iron Lore earlier this year.
http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=559
I think what this teaches us is that EA Mythic should not allow anyone to play Hearts of Iron 2.
about 2 years ago
So from Freakazoid’s perspective “Being silent about it is as good as saying it was EA’s fault.”
As far as Abalieno’s concerned “it’s also reasonable to not expect the truth being revealed, ESPECIALLY by those involved, if the problem is Mythic and not various kinds of personal reasons.”
So even if people SAY it’s personal reasons it’s still reasonable to conclude that it’s not personal reasons.
I wish I had a tin-foil beany franchise.
about 2 years ago
Man.. Who’s left of the original Mythic team that I grew to love from DAoC?
Scott – Gone
Matt – Gone
Sanya – Gone
Walt – Gone
The only one I really remember from those days who still works for them is Jeff..
Is it really “Mythic” anymore, just because of MJ and Jeff?
/shrug
Sounds to me like it’s a whole new generation. Won’t be long till they drop the “Mythic” part of the name and it becomes EA… Probably after MJ finds greener fields.
about 2 years ago
Congratulations, Walt. I’m very happy for you- I whine only from my own selfish desire to see WAR be all it can be.
about 2 years ago
The departure of Lum and Sayna from mythic were both mandated by the fez.
about 2 years ago
Eww does this mean poor Walt was forced to move to the cesspool of Massachusetts?
about 2 years ago
“FWIW – EA has had little if anything to do with any of the departures that I am aware of.”
“but it’s also a legitimate to suspect that more left without press releases or blog announces.”
Both of these statements are true. MANY more devs have left then you are aware of and EA has nothing to do with it. One only need look at Mythic’s most recent history to determine where the weaknesses lie. The Camalot EA paid for is all but an empty shell and after WAR stumbles out the gate and assuredly performs under expectations what do you think John “destroyer of MMOGs*” Riccitiello will do?
*see Earth and Beyond, Motor City Online, UO2, UOX, Majestic, Westwood, Origin, EA.com, etc, etc, etc…
about 2 years ago
Earth and Beyond was crap.
Motor City Online was crap.
Majestic was HIGHLY INSPIRATIONAL crap.
EA has way deeper pockets these days, and are coming out with a whole slew of games you’d never expect from them. Granted, most of them are direct competition to innovation that came elsewhere (“skate,” “Boogie,” “Army of Two,” etc. etc.)