It was announced today in the EA Earnings Call that Warhammer Online has pushed back its launch date from Q1 2008 to Q2 2008. Mark Jacobs, the VP of EA Mythic, spoke with MMORPG.com and told us that this decision was made in order to deliver a polished product at launch, and does not threaten the game's production.

A complete article concerning this announcement and the conversation with Mark Jacobs will be available at MMORPG.com at midnight server time.

Not to say this is a bad thing, but is it just me, or is that quote becoming rather overused in MMORPG's. Sounds exactly like what GnH said, AoC said, TR said, and quite a few others. I wonder what game developers think polish is. Seems the word is getting over used way to much these days.

Expected..........................

Mythic can take all the time they need. I want their game to succeed. It will give me time to try out POTBS.

I cant say i m really surprised, in the mmo world things tend to take longer than the devs always think they will

Well, yeah this is what the third time they have set-back? In the mmo world also do not forget time is money, each time to delay a opening is money lost in general terms overall profits might be slightly better due to better "quality" but some stuff can be fixed in a heavy beta stage. due to the increased tech of mmo, upgrades, improvements, and performances you update to meet the qualitys of A, when B passes you by as it has just appeared on the markets, I admire them taking time to improve gameplay, but i for one would like to see a active beta when they anounce this to SEE progress is still being made from a load/player base point of view.

Two thoughts. The VG disaster  really sent a message to producers about what will be accepted and what will be torn to shreds. Secondly the past beta showed the devs and producers there were signifigant elements that did not work well and  would jepardize the success of the potential returns on the game investment.These will be revised before the game sees the light of day.

/cry

.. but a good thing nonetheless.

Originally posted by Arawon

Two thoughts. The VG disaster  really sent a message to producers about what will be accepted and what will be torn to shreds. Secondly the past beta showed the devs and producers there were signifigant elements that did not work well and  would jepardize the success of the potential returns on the game investment.These will be revised before the game sees the light of day.

EA does not enjoy the good record of SoE in fixing broken games.  At least SoE fixed EQ2, for all the fiascos in the history of SoE publication.  We can only hope WAR make it out in flying colors.

IMHO, I doubt we'll see AoC or WAR before the November 2008.  No one wants to be the next big flop so they are in polish mode and we all should take stock in Kiwi.

maybe they are planning on a simultaneous release with Darkfall

sorry

couldn't help myself

Good to hear they pushed back. Worth the wait!

Originally posted by gatheris

maybe they are planning on a simultaneous release with Darkfall

 

sorry

couldn't help myself

 

Hehe, well... Maybe Darkfall will come out before those two (WAR and Conan) and provide us with some sandbox fun!

  It's EA's ultimate strategy near completion bush the release date back then two week later cancel it in favor of rehashing UO and DAOC instead then possibly buying out another burnt out mmorpg franchise.

No, but seriously it's not real surprise it got pushed back it looked way to demanding graphically for the average gamer and that situation just doesn't sell and neither does a piss poor release that isn't even beta worthy let alone let something people have to pay monthly for unless perhaps it's highly entertaining like UO was. People don't tolerate poor server stability, sluggish graphic performance, half finished content, and buggy unbalanced game mechanics the same way they use to they've developed measures to look up to now MMO's have evolved and if companies don't continue to do so along side it they get left behind in favor of the ones who do.

Soon: Warhammer WAR, Unleash the FURY, Age of Conan, Huxley & APB
Future: DARKFALL, Bioware, 38-Studios, World of Darkness, Red-5 Studios, Colony (Space), Warhammer-40k, Stargate Worlds, Heros Journey, Funcom (Earth)

Out of all those games the most likely actually be released and possibly not suck is Huxley if I were to guess.

Darkfall if I have little faith in being released this millinum

WAR is A) a EA product and B) a EA product I have less faith in it cause it'll C) be canceled or D) be a crappy rehash go figure.

As for some the others haven't heard of them, don't care enough to follow them, system requirements to high for the average player, or are just plain likely to self combust.

I wouldn't be too surprised if they pushed it back again, come January~March-ish.

Possibly, but with EA it's more likely they'd just can the project at that point they have track record of doing that after all.

i dont mind waiting, ppl get mad but id rather it come out fully complete then bugged to hell.  its better to wait and have a great finished product then to rush it out still in what is considered "alpha stage" if u look at games like vanguard(game seems great but had a bad start) ud see making sure its finely tuned is worth a couple extra months of wait........and hell as long as i get into beta....im all good lol

lameeeeeeeee

I'm getting very fed up with this obsession with "polish". Personally, if I'm interested in playing a game at all I'm happy to pay to play it while they build it around me. I might be run over by a truck before the "polished" version finally appears, if it ever does.

I've been playing Vanguard from Beta3. It was stable enough for me to enjoy it then, and I played it solidly for 6 months from launch and loved it. I only stopped because I topped out on new small-group content, and even then I only took a break for the Summer and am now back playing VG again until RoK comes out.

Yes, if they'd folded Sigil last December and SoE had taken over before launch and fixed the worst of the bugs, VG could have had a more successful launch. that would have been better for the developers. But better for me was that I got to play it and thoroughly enjoy it sooner.

Maybe MMOs should start considering using longer, larger Betas that charge a reduced subscription fee - say $5.99 a month to beta a game that plans to charge $14.99 a month after launch. I would certainly pay to beta a game I am interested in playing Live, even assuming all the beta servers would be wiped at launch.

I'd rather have that as an option than "wait til we think its "polished" enough to make us a ton of money".