Holy Crap Stuff Happening, To The Blogmobile!

InterSlayer :How tragic for Bioware. 3-5 years before Bioware is in the same position and gets rolled into whatever studio EA has recently acquired.
Either that or their studio and creative IP goes into duplicative lockdown, and milked for yearly releases of the same game (EA Sports, EA Maxis).

I disagree. Granted, this is Bioware’s first attempt at an MMO, but that aside they have ALWAYS delivered the goods. I can’t say that about any other company. Rolling the gold standard of the Bioware brand into another division would be foolish.

Mythic? They did a nice job with limited fund on DAOC and provided answers to frustrations people were having with EQ. For some reason they seemed scared of making an improved DAOC with a Warhammer IP. Anyone that epic fails as badly as Mark Jacobs and co did on Warhammer deserves to be rolled into another division.

Raethys :Goddamn there’s always a lot of bashing about WAR around here. It’s a shame to see people who seem to be intelligent defaulting back to that least of all thoughtful assessments that lack of subscribers into the “millions” = fail.
I happen to think WAR is a great game, and that Jacobs and Mythic succeeded largely, and are *still* succeeding largely in what they are/have been trying to do. I happen to think almost everyone on that team is a quality person going up against the damned stupid widespread concept that “MOAR=BETTER” and “IF ITS NOT LIKE WOW, IT SUCKS, AND IF IT DOESN’T BEAT WOW, IT SUCKS”.
WAR isn’t and will never even try to be WoW. I wouldn’t recommend that for anyone, and if all EA cares about is subscriber numbers, then that’s their problem, and it will soon become clear. But if you’re using subscriber numbers alone to say Jacobs and Mythic “failed”, then you’re just as guilty of that same faulty mindset as EA, aren’t you? You’re just endorsing that kind of NUMBERS MEAN EVERYTHING thinking, aren’t you?
Jacobs is a decent guy. Paul Barnett is a decent guy. Jeff Hickman is a decent guy. And Mythic is a decent team. Just like Bioware. Just like Bethesda.
Mergers happen, especially in difficult economic times like these, and very seldom does it have much to do with “failure” or “success”. It just has to do with basic Economics 101 that you consolidate as much as you can when the chips are down and do with less until the overall economy improves. No one likes it, and it’s not any single individual’s fault. When mergers happen, usually it’s the top people who are cut and/or replaced, and that’s what EA is doing right now. It has less to do with “YOUR GAME FAILED HAHAHA” and more to do with “Now is the time to consolidate our resources, and get a little leaner, so that we can get through until the money starts flowing again.” That’s all it is. Mark just happened to be in the wrong position at the wrong time, and quite frankly, I would think that anyone at that level has to wonder just how secure they really are in this kind of economic recession.
I don’t think it’s good news for anyone, but I don’t think it reflects anything at all about the success or failure of Mark, or Mythic, or anyone. It’s business as usual, and sometimes that sucks in times like these for people at all levels.
I just hope at the end of this we’re not just left with WoW and Blizzard… that would be the biggest failure on everyone’s part.

Warhammer was not a very good game. YOU can like, that’s great, but Warhammer’s perceived failure has little to do with WOW and more to do with:

1.4 million boxes sold and only 200-350k subscribers remining.

Many of the hyped promises were never delivered.

The vaunted end game RvR was broken.

Terrible class balance in RvR.

I could go on and on here, and none of this has to do with WoW. My whole guild went to Warhammer, they had us at hello. A lot of us are old school Warhammer table top players. The game just failed to deliver and was launched too early, plain and simple.

I mean for the love of my great aunt petunia linking item in chat, a fairly standard feature, wasn’t even in the game until months after release.

Raethys : And Mythic is a decent team. Just like Bioware.

@Raethys

Fact check time. Bioware hits every game out of the park. I don’t need to read a single preview or review before I buy Dragon Age or Mass Effect 2. I KNOW they are going to be that good. I’ll even buy SWTOR based on that faith in their product.

Mythic at best had one decent hit, after that it was one giant swing and a miss.

EpicSquirt :
Cool.
I’ve waited for this day. It has been predicted by many when EA bought Mythic and once Warhammer came out it was pretty much clear that this would happen. Warhammer didn’t deliver anything. It was a fiasco. These are the consequences.

I will say this about Warhammer. It had some neat ideas. Sure the delivery of said ideas were either half assed or in varying degrees of being not completely polished, but they did have some good ideas.

Of course the greatest ideas in the world suck if you fail to deliver on them, thus someone is out of a job.

If there is any justice in this world Barnett won’t be far behind.

Cymbaline :

Raethys :if all EA cares about is subscriber numbers, then that’s their problem, and it will soon become clear.

Well, it would appear to me that it’s not just their problem, it’s Mark Jacobs’ as well now.

J. :Bioware has yet to make a failed game. They’ve got life in them yet.

Jeff :I disagree. Granted, this is Bioware’s first attempt at an MMO, but that aside they have ALWAYS delivered the goods. I can’t say that about any other company.

Well, I hope they’ve got life in them yet, though I fear the effect of EA ownership. They’ve pretty handily trashed every game studio they’ve gotten their hands on. And I would also say that another game studio that has always delivered the goods was the one that helped give Bioware its start – Black Isle. Assuming you stick to the games they developed, and not the ones that Interplay slapped the Black Isle logo on, that is.
More relevantly, and in reply to both of you, I’d dispute Bioware’s record being flawless. In my estimation, Jade Empire was a pretty average game: the RPG elements were solid, but the action core left much to be desired, which made the overall product feel rather uninspired. Similarly, the module creation engine that was Neverwinter Nights was great, but the game that Bioware made to show it off was certainly sub-par. Given the death of Black Isle and the inability of their various successors (Obsidian, Troika) to completely pull it together, I’d say that Bioware is probably the premier producer of western RPGs today, which is my favorite genre. They’re great, but neither their track record nor their titles are perfect.

Hmm.

Let me put it this way. I enjoyed both those games that you mentioned, but I still enjoyed them immensely. I think NWN was the one game where they have diverted from their “formula”, why I couldn’t tell you.

Still, in baseball terms I would say most of Bioware’s games are home runs. Especially these days, they have their formula perfected and are most working on their own IPs.

Jade Empire was a duoble, NWN was a single. Still better than most of the schlock on the shelves these days, which are strikeouts.

BG2 and expansion was epic Bioware. They strayed a bit after that but with KOTOR, ME they perfected their formula, and I have no doubts that ME 2, Dragon Age will rock.

SWTOR? I am hopeful. The doubt comes from Lucas Arts. Was hard to tell who REALLY botched SWG. Was it SOE or Lucas Arts? If it was LA, did they learn? Time will tell.