pushed-back
Latest
The Daily Grind: Should companies announce release dates?
This weekend brought us news of a new announced release date for Warrior Epic after having the game go through three iterations of closed beta. We also got news that Champions Online has been pushed back as well. Of course, these two companies are far from the only ones who have wound up pushing release dates back after announcing them. Blizzard has done it several times, Aventurine did it for Darkfall, the list goes on and on and on. While we appreciate it when time is extended to continue polishing the games, we're left to wonder - would it be better just to avoid naming a date at all to anyone outside of your own employees and shareholders? Do you think it would be better if companies didn't announce release dates, instead just saying "when it's ready"? Or do you prefer some advance notice - even if it keeps getting changed around on you? Does it impact your interest in a game when a release date is pushed back repeatedly?
Champions Online pushes release date back
It looks like the message of "Don't release it until you're done" has been heard loud and clear in the MMO industry - at least by the crew over at Cryptic Studios, anyway. This morning Tara "IronAngel" Jennings announced that they have decided to push the release date for Champions Online back from July 14th to September 1st to allow for more development time on their highly-anticipated upcoming superhero MMO.According to Bill Roper, Design Director and Executive Producer for the project: "It is critically important for an MMO to be as good as it possibly can be at launch. Through our constant dialogue with our vocal and supportive community of beta testers, we quickly realized that in order to implement certain features that we all considered important the development of Champions Online would require more time. So that's what we're going to give it. Cryptic has a proven track record of releasing solid games and we want to maintain that with Champions Online." Frankly, we're thrilled that Cryptic is opting to take more time to polish the game to a mirror shine first. We also hope that this heralds a new mindset from all MMO companies; don't release until it is done.[Via Twitter]
Waiting for Warhammer Online? Keep waiting
Warhammer Alliance have gotten their hands on the October State of the Game for Warhammer Online, and it contains some news that you may have suspected, but didn't want to believe would come true. Yes, the game has been pushed back, and is now expected in the second quarter of 2008. Okay, so that's really not too bad if we're being honest. If EA Mythic want to take a little extra time to make sure that the game lives up to people's enormous expectations, then that's fine with us. Mark Jacobs, VP and general manager of EA Mythic, said that they could either release the game with fewer than planned features, or push back the release and complete development to their satisfaction.There's also confirmation in the State of the Game that the beta will be reinstated in December, with new content for testers to experience. They are hoping to introduce more people to the test too, so if you haven't signed up yet -- go now!
