Comments on: LFG: Mythic and Bioware Merged By EA

By: Flimgoblin

Flimgoblin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:24:37 +0000

@Nick It has been pretty terrible (still is when two pairings are locked and the entire server is fighting over one keep) but for the most part it’s been improving since release. Too late for many.

@h4plo That’s Paul Barnett who’s still there afaik. (who some people seem to really dislike – his “the coders screwed up!” youtube video met the problem of “half the internet has no sense of humour” but he did come back with this, credit for that eh? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkGtWEOv47E )

Mark Jacobs did a couple of podcasts about crafting but nothing on the classes iirc.

By: GRIMDARK

GRIMDARK — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:39:15 +0000

wow they combine a Singleplayer RPG team and a MMO RPG team.

I wonder which side will get shafted.

The answer:

Both of them.

By: Hmm-Hmm.

Hmm-Hmm. — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:51:23 +0000

Interesting. I read this more as: Mythic failed to do well enough with WAR (in the eyes of EA overlords), so gets lumped in with Bioware. WAR and TOR being MMOs.

Why would this be bad for Bioware? I mean, other than being part of EA, which they were anyway. It’s not as if their games have been unsuccessful.

By: Subject 706

Subject 706 — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:50:15 +0000

Anyone surprised? All publishers who are on the stockmarket act like this. Maximum profit over good games anyday.

By: Lars Westergren

Lars Westergren — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:23:42 +0000

Every Bioware game since they went primarily console-oriented has been at best “meh” to me, this sounds like just the final nail in the coffin.

Go, go, go, Obsidian, our last great hope. Please be good, Alpha Protocol.

By: Lobotomist

Lobotomist — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:04:18 +0000

Just answering Serondal’s question:

LOTRO is probably the only serious contender to WOW so far.

I would say that Turbine is for MMO , what Bioware are for singleplayer RPG. And i am talking about PVE (quest oriented MMO , and not player versus player ones)

Mythic stands out as company that produced what is considered among best PVP MMOs

Something that was not reproduced in WAR

By: M.P.

M.P. — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:21:02 +0000

We are Minsc of Borg. Resistance is futile. Your eyeballs will be assimilated.

Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it… :(

By: ids

ids — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:45:38 +0000

Pretty much these means the end of Dark Age of Camelot. Because the game doesn’t break over 5,000 or if it does it a rareity. For War Hammer online it means that bio can or not do writing for the game give permission by games workshop. But also means that if you do a bad job you will get fired or laid off. Over only time will tell.

By: EA

EA — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:05:05 +0000

I don’t see what everyone’s complaining about. This sounds like good news to me!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:35:12 +0000

@ cjlr Too right. My stupid thoughs on the MMO market. Analogy time: WoW is like massive huge succesful supermarket. Like it or not it sells pretty much everything you want at a great price. Now every publisher on the planet wants a piece of Wows pie. So they set up smaller shops down the street selling pretty much the same things but not quite as good. And theres dozens of these smaller shops who all think they are gonna make tonnes of money and be as successful as WoW. It’s NOT going to happen any time soon. People think because of the number of WoW subscribers that theres a huge MMO market ripe for the plucking. There NOT sadly. Sure the better ones will draw plenty of people that are interested. But nothing can touch WoW. MMO’s are just another bandwagon for publishers to jump on. They all have to have one. Kinda like motion sensors for the consoles at this years E3. But yeah ranting sorry. Bioware, my favourite SINGLE PLAYER rpg developer….i hope this doesnt affect them too much. It would be a terrible loss to the gaming world to see them become “EA MMO or EA Canada” and become uninspired franchise milkers

By: cjlr

cjlr — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:56:41 +0000

I don’t know if I can even find it in my black and cynical heart to be disappointed. Once EA bought Bioware and Mythic, the writing was on the wall… I mean, I still remember what happened to Maxis and Westwood.

But, really, at this point nobody’s going to ‘beat’ WoW. Snowball effect, anyone? It’s damn hard to break into that much of a lead in the market. Especially when all the competitors are trying to duplicate instead of innovate – sound like any companies you know? Damned EA. It’s people like them who gave us Meet the Spartans, and if the mere thought of what that probably fortells for our precious gaming industry doesn’t send you crying for a bottle of your strongest booze, you’ve no heart.

Y’know, off the top of my head the most prominent non-WoW MMOs are Eve and LotrO, both of which are at least different enough to attract a slightly different audience. Plus, LotRO has a built-in draw for pre-existing LotR fans, which I assume accounts for a fair bit of the playerbase. Galaxies used to be the same for Star Wars fans, before SOE killed that one; maybe TOR will catch that wind. Obviously EA hopes it will.

By: Serondal

Serondal — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:19:08 +0000

I’m interested, how would you guys rate Lord of the Rings Online versus WoW and Warhammer ? I know they’re not related to what is going on here, but what do you consider to be the top contender to WoW. After all if the mmorpg is going to be a hit it at least has to beat out the second place mmorpg behind WoW