Mark Jacobs postet auf F13.net

[Gryphus]

Mark Jacobs meldet sich im Forum von F13.net zu Wort und beantwortet einige Fragen der Community. Zusätzlich wird einmal mehr der Aussage von einigen Spielern widersprochen, dass Warhammer ein World of Warcraft Klon wird.

Folks, Hey all. Just some quick replies: 1) I´m also frustrated with the current state of MMOs. I think we *all* can do a lot better in the future than we are doing today. WAR is not intended to be Generic MMO # nor is it meant to be THE ONE GAME THAT CHALLENGES EVERYTHING AND MAKES YOU ITS B****! My jumping off point for it was the same as for DAoC, evolutionary game with some revolutionary features. Hopefully, there will be enough really cool stuff to get people excited but only time will tell. Truly revolutionary games will, as always, most likely be done by small studios, with small budgets and not by large companies, with large budgets and teams, much like the film industry. There are exceptions of course but as the budgets rise to heights that they have, the harder it is to get backing for something both revolutionary and expensive. That´s one reason I´ve always thought and spoken highly of guys who do games like ATITD and Puzzle Pirates. Maybe one day I´ll get to do a truly revolutionary game (I/Mythic) never had the chance in the past and prior to Mythic, getting money to do any online game was unbelievably difficult (as opposed to just incredibly difficult for Mythic), but I would like the shot at it sometime. Who knows, if WAR succeeds, maybe we get a shot at the title...

Klick hier um mehr zu erfahren

2) EA has not involved itself in the game design of WAR in any way whatsoever to date. I know you guys will find this hard to believe but so far, EA´s involvement in WAR has been only positive. We´ve gotten a larger budget, access to top technical resources (guys, gals and guides), lots of new hires (people aren´t as afraid of moving to Va. anymore and there are lots of people at EA who have been waiting to work on a MMO) and even more attention from the media. I´m not saying that everything is perfect but it wasn´t perfect when Mythic was an independent and so far, the acquisition has been a net positive for Mythic and for WAR.

3) As far as good ideas, we have always talked and listened to the community. Sometimes we heard the wrong thing, sometimes we listened to the wrong part of the community and sometimes we got it right. It´s a lot harder than anyone who hasn´t been through the mill a few times thinks to design, balance and then maintain these games but we will never stop talking and listening. It was for this reason we started WAR´s beta test months ago and are getting lots of feedback from hundreds of EA employees. Since it is, to some here, so easy, then why don´t we have a private forum set up here where you guys can talk about these ways to innovate for a game like WAR/WoW/EQ/etc. I´ll happily participate as long as three rules are followed: 1) No flaming. I don´t have the time nor inclination for that type of stuff anymore; 2) Any idea posted is posted with an acknowledgment that is given freely to the public domain; 3) That nobody expects me to post everyday or even that I respond to all posts/mail. Anyone is free to use it, not use it, get credit, not get credit, etc. I´ll tell you this though, any idea that someone posts there that I like and that I pass on to the design team, I´ll make sure that the person gets game credit for it as well as WAR swag. So, if you think you have some good ideas but nobody is listening, here´s your chance. I´ve always thought that there are lot of bright people here (as well as some who I would happily put in our of our catapults for a quick one-way trip just as some here would apparently love to do to me) and that´s why I´ve read and occasionally posted here forever (and I post almost nowhere these days).

4) I can also tell you that are intent is not to clone WoW or even do WoW 1.5. For some, that is hard to believe I know but that´s the last thing I would want to do for the same reason that I haven´t put a DAoC 2.0 into production. And let me tell you, given how many DAoC fans there are at EA, if I wanted to score brownie points with the new bosses, that would have been the first thing I did after the acquisition. I want WAR to stand on its own feet and have its own shot at fame/fortune. We´re not looking to get WoW sub numbers and that means we don´t have to do some things that would make the game more like WoW to achieve those numbers. WAR will be WAR and if anything, it will draw on DAoC more than WoW.

5) We have lots of new stuff that we will be talking about by the summer of 2007 that will show some of the different directions we are going in then some of the current MMOs. The nature of this industry is way to competitive and derivative to talk about them this early in the process and I´ve instructed marketing, design and community not to talk about them until much later in the process. I know this may sound like "Secret Tester Version and Features!" from some other games but it isn´t. We´ll talk about them when we can ensure that they appear in our game before somebody else´s game.

6) And no, there will not be RMTs in WAR, that was one of my ground rules going into the acquisition and EA, to their credit, didn´t want to see them in this game either. Just thought I would make this point again.

So, Happy New Year to all and to all, a good knight. Smiley

Mark

Link: Zum Betrag von Mark
Link: Kommentare im Forum