Thursday, April 26, 2007

Warhammer Online wins Existential Brownie Points

From the WAR April 2007 Newsletter (via Ethic at the KTR Forums)

It's been an interesting year for us at EA Mythic, a year filled with new
challenges, new opportunities and of course, a year filled with WAR! We have
watched Warhammer Online become one of the most highly anticipated MMORPGs in the world as it garners praise from the press, earns kudos from the community
and receives enthusiastic support from our partners and friends at Games
Workshop. I’m happy to say that the task of bringing WAR to life is going well
here at EA Mythic. However, we have important news to share and as always, we
want you, the WAR community, to be the first to know.

We have made the decision to move our ship date for the US and Europe to the first quarter of 2008. (Release dates for Asia will be announced at a later date.) Since our
acquisition by EA, we have been afforded many wonderful development
opportunities and we plan to take full advantage of everything that is
available. This includes taking several additional months to make the best
MMORPG possible.
I admire any company that cares more about the quality of the product than they do about their artificial time lines. This shows that they have a serious belief in their game, and its eventual success, or else they would just pump out an unfinished product and hope for the best. They are learning from the 'Blizzard model' and recognizing the failure's of the Sony style of production.

Warhammer Online is certainly on my radar screen, and has been for some time, but PR like this makes my participation in their release almost a certainty. If they keep up the good work, they may just have a game worth playing.

2 comments:

Vastori said...

EA dipping in is a good thing for you?

Run Luke, Run!

Cyndre said...

Honestly, if WAR had been pushed out unfinsihed, I may have lain blame on the talking heads and suits at EA, but in fact they can be creited to some degree for their willingness to get the job done right, no matter the financial burden it causes.

If WAR is released in a solidly polished state, and they continue with the 'its ready when its ready mentality', you and quite a few otehr are going to have to rethink your EA as the devil mentality.

I choose to reserve negative judgement until a company has shown repeated disrespect for the industry and the process, as SOE has done. EA has some shady dealings, but hasn't really trancended the 'instant distrust of anything they invole themselves with' line yet.