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DAoC's birthday gift
While most news surrounding Mythic these days has the words "Warhammer Online" somewhere in the title, today we spend a little time to celebrate their other great fantasy MMO: Dark Age of Camelot. DAoC has recently hit the six year mark, as was recently acclaimed by the game's producer Chris Rabideau in a letter to the readers. The game still has quite a following after all this time, and it is for that reason that he also took the time to talk about a few changes coming into the game in the coming months. Think of it as a DAoC birthday gift from the devs to the players, rather than the other way around. The devs are adding in an experimental test environment to their server structure. While this isn't the most medieval item to bring to a birthday party, it will enable the dev team to test some more robust technical elements that their current test server isn't capable of working with. I was hoping for some party favors and perhaps a hat or two, but I guess a new test server will do, at least for now. But where's the party, Mythic? Where's the party?
Warhammer closed beta going offline until December
If you're lucky enough to be involved in the Warhammer Online closed beta, get ready to not be in it for two months-- TwoTonHammer reports that Mythic is shutting down the reported WoW-killer for an extended period, from October to December.Bad news for WAR fans? Maybe, maybe not. An extended vacation could mean that Mythic isn't happy with what's happening so far (though obviously they haven't given any public indication that that's the case). Or it could mean, as TTH notes, that this is just what the doctor ordered to turn WAR from a good game into a really great game.At any rate, we're not finding out which it is anytime soon-- the servers are reopening in December 2007, and if there is in fact an open beta (there will be, won't there?), it obviously won't happen until after that. More like Waithammer, amirite!?[ via Keen and Graev ]
Mythic founder: WoW "will be in its decline" in a few years
You could probably fill a library with the number of stupid things game developers say about their competitors, but here's one more. In an interview with Shacknews, former Mythic co-founder Matt Firor, charged with putting together a brand-new MMO, says this about World of Warcraft: ... Any MMO starting development today isn't going to have to worry too much about competing with WoW--it'll be in its decline by the time any new game launches.Think so? From what we've heard from Blizzard, they don't. Even if Blizz only goes two more expansions (and Everquest, the most popular MMO until WoW, went for fourteen), WoW is sticking around for five or six years. And yes, there are those folks who are done now, but Azeroth's population hasn't stopped going up yet-- does Firor really think they won't be a competitor in just a few years?That doesn't mean Blizzard is unbeatable, but it does mean that they're competition. As Firor's former employer says (EA Mythic is now working on Warhammer Online, which some say is WoW's biggest threat in the MMO market), you have to play a different game.WoW is The Beatles, who changed music forever. You can't be the Beatles; they already exist. You can't copy them. If you try, you become The Monkees. You've got no chance. We're not The Beatles. We're Led Zeppelin.Staking your new game on WoW's decline is a bad idea, and predicting that decline to be just a few years off is a worse one. WoW won't last forever, but Blizzard's monster MMO isn't done yet.[ via WorldofWar ]
EMotion FX 3.5 character animation SDK now available for PS3
It looks like programming for complex real-time character animations just got a little easier, thanks to Mystic Game Development's EMotion FX 3.5 SDK release for the PS3. MysticGD's website shows a laundry list of current clients using EMotion FX, such as Sigil Games Online, Mythic and Piranha Bytes. The specs on the newest release are quite technical but a few highlights include "tight integration with 3D Studio Max and Maya," with "high quality automatic lip-sync generation" and "multiprocessor and multicore support." John van der Burg, Development Director at MysticGD says clients have been, "wanting next-generation performance, memory efficiency and cross-platform support, as well as clear focus on reducing the artist effort required to deliver high-quality next-gen character content in their games." New toolsets are certainly a welcome addition for PS3 programmers. Anything that makes their job easier and allows us full-on visual eye candy is a good thing, right? Lets hope this leads to exciting breakthroughs for those sometimes complicated port jobs.
Warhammer Online starts beta with 200k signed up to play
EA Mythic wants to show they're off to a good start with Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning by letting everyone know that 200,000 players are currently signed up to play their closed beta. The beta started on May 30 and the 200,000 mark was reached ten days after launch. What's the average amount of time that normally takes? Who knows, but they put it in the release so it must be an interesting fact. The Halo beta ended up having 820,000 players (that's actual players, not "signed up"), but that's an apples to oranges situation, and yet, also an interesting fact. There are still spots open for the beta and EA Mythic is taking applications at the WAR site. WAR was recently delayed from this year until sometime in 2008. EA Mythic is looking to have this dog ready for the show by that point. We're sure to get the first tidbits of how the game is sometime soon and we're definitely going to get our first real taste for the game when EA shows it off at E3. [Via Press Release] Update: Oops, EA Mythic has 200k players signed up for the beta, they don't give an actual number of people who are playing.
Warhammer Online seeks beta testers
EA Mythic is starting beta registration today for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. The game, which was recently delayed until 2008, will begin an invite-only beta in the relative future. To sign up you just click here or there is more information on the Warhammer site. We've got the nagging suspicion that Warhammer Online is going to follow the same route as Lord of the Rings Online in terms of polish. EA Mythic is holding on to the title for longer than necessary to tweak and get that game to shine when it goes gold. Remember, entering the fantasy MMO market, games can't go in fresh, they have to feel like they've got two years of battle under their belt to compete against World of Warcraft. Where's Tabula Rasa already for those done with fantasy and need an MMO sci-fi fix? [Via Press Release]
Warhammer Online delayed until 2008
EA Mythic's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has been delayed to 2008. The game was originally expected this fall, the statement was made in a newsletter stating the delay was caused by Mythic's acquisition by EA and they've been "afforded many wonderful development opportunities" which they plan to take advantage of, which "includes taking several additional months to make the best MMORPG possible." Warhammer Online is EA's ticket into the MMO market and they aren't releasing this game until it's perfect. Mythic is best known for creating the successful (by pre-WoW standards) Dark Age of Camelot and EA purchased Mythic in an attempt to have a successful MMO in their portfolio following the colossal epic ginormous mythic failure of Earth and Beyond and The Sims Online. When we saw a very early version of Warhammer at last year's E3 it looked perfectly fine and was moving along with some interesting innovations to the genre. We're sure to get a better idea of the final game and what to expect by E3, followed by months of tweaking by the developer. If the Warhammer Online team follows the lead of the Lord of the Rings Online then they know that an MMO can't enter the market without being well-done. MMO's can't feel like they're just starting, they need to feel like there's been two years of extra content built into them -- it's one nasty genre to get involved in at the moment.
THQ announces Warhammer 40k MMO
From Gamespot, the same people who brought you the fake World of Starcraft, comes the announcement of a Warhammer 40,000 MMO -- this sci-fi MMO based on a popular franchise is real though. The Warhammer MMO should also not be confused or compared to the orcs and humans Warhammer: Age of Reckoning MMO by EA Mythic, expected this holiday season.THQ will develop the game with Austin, Texas-based Vigil Games. All of this Warhammer 40k MMO stuff is just in the talking stage at the moment, so expect the game sometime near the next decade. By then we should have hoverboards and Duke Nukem Forever.
EA Mythic loads up Ultima Online and Dark Ages for road trip
Are you an old-school Ultima Online or Dark Ages of Camelot player that has yet to be consumed by World of Warcraft or other modern creations? Have you always wanted to put your rant about Dread Lord status to the test against the developers who stole it away back in high school? Are you just looking for an excuse to break out that custom set of chain mail armor you had crafted? Well, load up the van with Cheetos and don't forget your +2 silver kryss! You've got a fan gathering to attend!Littered across nine US cities, the two games will be sharing venues albeit holding their own respective events. Players will finally have an excuse to make a trip to visit guild mates while the developers behind the titles will be hosting panels and generally picking at the brains of their fan base. Schedules for both the Ultima Online and Dark Ages of Camelot events are available and east coast heavy.
Rumorang: Warhammer Online heading to consoles
A recent EA Mythic job listing has renewed speculation that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR) is being co-developed for consoles, likely Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The listing calls for a 'Warhammer Console' producer who will lead the production and design of a "title being developed across next generation console platforms for the online MMORPG market." While WAR is not explicitly named, it's certainly implied. With this revelation, comes a mess of questions: what effect, if any, would console versions have on WAR for PC? Would the projects be wholly separated? Or would bits and pieces from each version be sacrificed to simplify cross-platform development and keep the overall budget down? [Thanks, Ves]
WoW at PAX (or lack thereof...)
Hey everybody! I'm back after a long weekend away (did anybody miss me?) in Bellevue, WA, visiting the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX, for those of us in the know). Joystiq did a great job of covering the whole event (and I wrote up my own PAXperience), but they left one question unanswered: where was WoW?Not at PAX, apparently. MMO makers Mythic and NCSoft made a nice showing (more on that in a second), but Blizzard didn't have any official presence at all at what is quickly becoming one of the bigger public gaming events. I did see a few neat t-shirts (and one awesome guy who pinned his name and server on his back, but walked away before I could snap a picture), and hear a shoutout during a Q&A panel to the PA guild on Dark Iron (last item), but Blue and the Burning Crusade were nowhere to be seen. Maybe that means that six million players is enough for Blizzard, or maybe it means they really do want to get the expansion out before the year ends.But while WoW was missing, there were plenty of WoW competitors there. I got to play Guild Wars, Lineage II, and Auto Assault at the NCSoft booth (and got free copies of each, thanks!), D&D Online from Turbine, and I was able to check out and play an early alpha of the WoW clone (or killer, depending on who you talk to), Warhammer Online. I asked a guy from Mythic exactly what the difference between WHO and WoW will be, and he said they'd like to make a game that lets a player completely focus on PVP, rather than having PVP as just one element. Unfortunately, playing it seemed to me to be a little too much like Dark Age of Camelot (which Mythic is also responsible for), and it just didn't have that polished and shiny Blizzard magic, early alpha or not. So, is it possible to surpass World of Warcraft? From what I saw at PAX, not yet.
