IG: Are there any Origin Systems veterans left on the Ultima Online team?
CC: Yes! All of them work for me, and that's really cool because the community members remember them by name, so when they log on there's a celebration.
IG: Incidentally, I know that EA has made a push towards original IP of late, but I feel like they already have an expansive lineup of great original IP that they own that have simply been dormant for a number of years. From Origin Systems alone, there are series like Wing Commander and System Shock just dying to be given a modern release.
CC: There are some folks that feel exactly as you do about Origin Systems. I have Crusader: No Remorse on a shelf on my desk and there's tons of stuff that could be done with it; we have some people that are very passionate about these games.
JD: We feel strongly about protecting the history of this industry - when they shut down the Origin office a few years ago, they shifted all of this Origin Systems stuff to us. Some person had taken a lot of Origin's artifacts and we have things like source code and concept art for all sorts of stuff, even unreleased games. Oh, and we have one of the Kilrathi suits they used for the live action movies, and sometimes someone runs around with the Kilrathi head on!
IG: Switching gears for a little bit, I'm curious about Mythic's future plans for Warhammer Online- will there be an expansion?
JD: Oh yeah. It remains a priority for the studio, and we're working closely with BioWare to see where EA games logo wants to go with it. Ray Muzyka from BioWare has a very long term plan for the future and we've had to think further into the future because of that. Most of existence, our studio has been on a shoestring budget so we couldn't think far ahead, but we just finished up a major patch for Warhammer Online and there's a lot of stuff we're thinking about improving and enhancing the gameplay experience and guaranteeing that product lives up to the legacy of the Warhammer franchise. You should expect an expansion in the near future.
Don't look so surprised that a Warhammer Online expansion is coming!
IG: Final question, what do you see for the future of EA and Mythic?
JD: One of the things [CEO] John Riccitiello's done is the return EA to artisan game development. Last year was a watershed year for the company, putting out several games with Metacritic of over 80 despite the economy, and we've been proud of the progress we've made. That means developing great new properties and engaging IPs from the past and I wouldn't be surprised to see those resurrected down the line.
As we move away from this idea of gaming alone in a dark room in your underpants, a lot of these games that are legacy products may find new avenues. We published Orcs & Elves and it doesn't matter that its graphics are of the Wolfenstein 3D era – it's still fun. The great part of doing this is that you can have legacy games on newer platforms. Philosophically, we're looking to the next 20 years of gaming, considering how people are starting to play games in different ways. MMORPGS are on the leading edge of that with new stuff month after month – I think that's ahead of the curve and we're lucky to work for EA who sees the difficulties that the magazine, TV and music industry has had in the Internet age.
7 Comments
August 17, 2009
Do you have any proof for your claim of 300K Warhammer Online subscriptions? Many forum people don't believe you. I don't personally know whether to believe you or not (this is the first of your articles I've read). Having a source to show that you're legit and don't just throw around guesses would make me think of you as a credible journalist in the MMO arena. Thanks for the article.
August 17, 2009
I assume you're referring to this: http://www.industrygamers.com/news/mythic-you-should-expect-a-warhammer-online-expansion-in-the-near-future/
The 300k subscription figure was something mentioned by EA during financial report: http://news.ea.com/portal/site/ea/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090203006591&newsLang=en
That was in March: it could be more or less since then. The conversation with the Mythic guys was great, but they weren't at liberties to discuss subscription numbers on UO or WAR.
August 17, 2009
Thank you very much. And yes, I apologize for posting in the wrong article. The main reason I ask is that people have heard 300K for a long time, yet most claims are that subscriptions have plummeted (xfire numbers reject that, in my opinion).
In one forum that I visit a couple posters took your statement to mean definitively that subscriptions are still at around 300K, as opposed to a greatly reduced number that many people say is currently the case, due to canceled subscriptions over the past 6 months.
Again, thank you for the clarification.
August 17, 2009
No problem, sorry for any confusion caused by the mentioning of the 300k subscriber number. I wouldn't be surprised if it was lower, but EA is keeping those numbers close to their chest right now. The Xfire numbers aren't great (I just checked), but that only gives an incomplete picture at best, so I wouldn't draw any solid conclusions from it.
August 24, 2009
Alright, as someone who's been playing the game since the beginning of 2009 I can tell you that the number of subscriptions is nowhere near 300k. I play on numerous servers and the amount of people unsubscribing each day is spectacular. Besides that, there are at least a couple hundred people who are just waiting out another month until other games come out. I've heard people even mention that their whole guild consisting of dozens of people is moving to Aion once it comes out. Bottom line, Warhammer will not survive after all the subscriptions they will lose in mid September.
August 24, 2009
Oh and this is by far the worst game I have ever incountered. The amount of broken features, lag, nightly server crashes, lack of customer support, lack of testing, horrible character imbalance, horrible maintenance, overall horrible coding, disregard for their customers and lack of good judgement are the reasons this game if a total failure and is losing the remaining handfull of their subscriptions.
September 8, 2009
I'm sad to see this, i love Warhammer and the big big problem mythic made was creating to many servers, they feel empty and deserted, they need to reduce the number of servers so you won't feel like your playing a RPG instead of a MMORPG