Originally posted by Bastioni

Originally posted by Hrica

I smell Sigil with a hint of Sony.

 

No problem, I build a shelter with 40 inch walls, I have food and enough drinks to last a few years.

Wow..really? can you put up a pick?

Just as long as Bioware look at the EU market and decide to run the show themselves rather than farm it out to some 3rd party who just screw it up totally.

Either that or just let us all play on global servers.

Well as somebody else stated the writing is on the wall with mythic, just look at Westwood and Earth and Beyond.

"Holy Shit".

My first and only reaction to this.

I love both companies. Too bad they're sitting under EA's flag. Oh well.

P.S.: What's with all the lightsabers? Baldur's Gate is what its about, not the frikkin Star Wars.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NO NO NO!!!!

(cries openly)

Wait... why is this shocking?  I mean both companies are owned by EA as it is...

The mainly shocking part is Mythics CEO leaving >,<    that sucks.

oh well EA is an evil mega corp, what did you expect?

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Originally posted by brostyn

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Originally posted by protoroc

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Originally posted by Magnum2103

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Originally posted by Scalebane

Once again EA the destroyer of game companies rears its ugly head....*sigh*
When will companies learn to stay away from them.

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Sad days.
Hard to stay away from money though and EA has way too much of it.
Now with Valve's L4D2 debacle and this the only decent companies left are a bunch of Japanese ones, a few indie devs, and Blizzard. :(

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You mean ActivisionBlizzard, makers of 4 Guitar Hero games in 1 year, a ruined Tony Hawk franchise, so many Call of Dutys (which only some of them are good and I prefer battlefield or tf2 anyways) they had to split the franchise? The company that wants you to spend $500 on periphials in the next gen? The company that dropped Brutal Legend due to it not being a title they can put yearly editions and now trying to sue EA after they picked it up and it turning into a game that has a lot of hype going for it now? Yeah Blizzard is in bed with some really stand up guys.
/ontopic
This just proves that EA considered WAR to be a failure.

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Activision Blizzard isn't Blizzard. In 2008 Activision merged with Vivendi to become Activsion Blizzard. Since, Blizzard was Vivendi's game developing arm. Activision Blizzard is still headed by Activision's former CEO not a Blizzard employee. What exactly do you think Blizzard did with Guitar Hero and Called of Duty(which all of them are awesome, btw). Blizzard has nothing to do with those franchises. Its a division of Activision Blizzard just like NBC is a division of GE.

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Divisions and parent companies dont get involved in the development process. Yeah, EA is blamed for Warhammer Online but EA gave Mythic a lot of money and more time for development. Mythic screwed up and that screw up was headed by Mark Jacobs.

Originally posted by BizkitNL

"Holy Shit".

My first and only reaction to this.

I love both companies. Too bad they're sitting under EA's flag. Oh well.

P.S.: What's with all the lightsabers? Baldur's Gate is what its about, not the frikkin Star Wars.

Wake up and get your head out of the ground. Star Wars: The Old Republic is where its at. The game if they do all, what they say they are working on. Will save the dying MMO industry.  It is the industry's only hope. When SWTOR comes out it will be the game to beat, but first it will be the game to copy. Mark my words.

You know, there's a really easy way to stop this kind of thing from happening.

Stop buying bad games from massive only-motivated-by-profit-no-vision-or-innovation publishers like EA. Vote with your wallets.

Easy.

Sadly, while simple, I can't really see this happening.

Bleh,  nevermind

Originally posted by Elikal

Originally posted by Teiman

I love EA..  the way I love Darth Vader. Hahaa...  another studio that byte the dust.

But maybe is a good thing?  I suppose this mean the style of mmo represented in WAR has died, to fuel the development of TOR.  

Or maybe this is temporal.  Or maybe the join of both groups could mean better things?.  IMHO  WAR was a really innovative game, with lots of very good ideas and implementations and art. Joining forces could produce better things here? 

We need a game analist or something, to clarify if this is some horrible bad news  or very good news.  

 

 

 

Holy F*** Batman!... Yeah... like Darth Vader indeed. So much to "EA changed and learned". Well changed my ass.

It is always bad news, because divsersity is better for creativity, as if everything is under one, centralized roof. Bad bad bad.

Generally it is more that Mythic is under Bioware control now. Could be good for WAR in the long run, who knows. But this studio destroying never was good. It wasnt good with Origin, with Bullfrog, with Westwood, with ANY OTHER studio gone. With it, everytime a big part of gaming died.

Agreed. The ability of EA to kill good franchises is unmatched. Dungeon Keeper for references.

I never had huge hopes for TOR anyway so the news didn't affect me at all.

Originally posted by Routver

Originally posted by Elikal

Originally posted by Teiman

I love EA..  the way I love Darth Vader. Hahaa...  another studio that byte the dust.

But maybe is a good thing?  I suppose this mean the style of mmo represented in WAR has died, to fuel the development of TOR.  

Or maybe this is temporal.  Or maybe the join of both groups could mean better things?.  IMHO  WAR was a really innovative game, with lots of very good ideas and implementations and art. Joining forces could produce better things here? 

We need a game analist or something, to clarify if this is some horrible bad news  or very good news.  

 

 

 

Holy F*** Batman!... Yeah... like Darth Vader indeed. So much to "EA changed and learned". Well changed my ass.

It is always bad news, because divsersity is better for creativity, as if everything is under one, centralized roof. Bad bad bad.

Generally it is more that Mythic is under Bioware control now. Could be good for WAR in the long run, who knows. But this studio destroying never was good. It wasnt good with Origin, with Bullfrog, with Westwood, with ANY OTHER studio gone. With it, everytime a big part of gaming died.

 

Agreed. The ability of EA to kill good franchises is unmatched. Dungeon Keeper for references.

I never had huge hopes for TOR anyway so the news didn't affect me at all.

But what you fail to realize is that Bioware has been making games under their parent company (EA) for 2 years now and I still enjoy top quality Bioware games....

Originally posted by Ramonski7

Originally posted by Routver

Originally posted by Elikal

Originally posted by Teiman

I love EA..  the way I love Darth Vader. Hahaa...  another studio that byte the dust.

But maybe is a good thing?  I suppose this mean the style of mmo represented in WAR has died, to fuel the development of TOR.  

Or maybe this is temporal.  Or maybe the join of both groups could mean better things?.  IMHO  WAR was a really innovative game, with lots of very good ideas and implementations and art. Joining forces could produce better things here? 

We need a game analist or something, to clarify if this is some horrible bad news  or very good news.  

 

 

 

Holy F*** Batman!... Yeah... like Darth Vader indeed. So much to "EA changed and learned". Well changed my ass.

It is always bad news, because divsersity is better for creativity, as if everything is under one, centralized roof. Bad bad bad.

Generally it is more that Mythic is under Bioware control now. Could be good for WAR in the long run, who knows. But this studio destroying never was good. It wasnt good with Origin, with Bullfrog, with Westwood, with ANY OTHER studio gone. With it, everytime a big part of gaming died.

 

Agreed. The ability of EA to kill good franchises is unmatched. Dungeon Keeper for references.

I never had huge hopes for TOR anyway so the news didn't affect me at all.

But what you fail to realize is that Bioware has been making games under their parent company (EA) for 2 years now and I still enjoy top quality Bioware games....

Top quality? Seriously? Mass Effect had one of the most unfulfilling and bland RPG systems I've ever seen. The combat was hectic and uncontrollable and even the basic thing, like the assortment of weapons was off. The only things, that kept me going were the competent plot, interesting characters and dialogue, and even THIS was botched in the ending.

KOTOR wasn't much better, honestly. You know WHY people loved those games? Because there is nothing on the market like it, right now. The traditional western RPG genre is DEAD and semi-decent products are lauded like the second coming of the bloody Christ.

Like it, or not, Bioware lost their edge after BGII. SERIOUSLY lost their edge.

Originally posted by krityc

 Very interesting.

I'll be interested to see if they can revive WAR, it has a lot of potential.

Yeah they are working on the Lazarus project

Originally posted by Goronian

Top quality? Seriously? Mass Effect had one of the most unfulfilling and bland RPG systems I've ever seen. The combat was hectic and uncontrollable and even the basic thing, like the assortment of weapons was off. The only things, that kept me going were the competent plot, interesting characters and dialogue, and even THIS was botched in the ending.

KOTOR wasn't much better, honestly. You know WHY people loved those games? Because there is nothing on the market like it, right now. The traditional western RPG genre is DEAD and semi-decent products are lauded like the second coming of the bloody Christ.

Like it, or not, Bioware lost their edge after BGII. SERIOUSLY lost their edge.

The little green part there you mentioned means you enjoyed SOMETHING as you finished it. I don't know too many people that play a clunky, crapfest of a game to the end just to read the story. I got a newflash for you Sherlock....next time pick up the book:  Mass Effect: Revelation and save your fingers the workout.

Well, I just deleted my wall of text so I will try to make this quick.

Warhammer's main problems were the less then stellar work of their from their programmers and developers.  Those are the true artist and creators of any game.  Whether they ran out of money, were forced to rush their work, or just plain suck in unknown to me.  But Mark Jacobs managed them and apparently, EA managed Mark Jacobs.

Mark Jacobs is an ass.  This is the man who claimed that Warhammer's success was essential for the survival of the mmorpg community.  This is the same man who has/had a fixation on Blizzard's success with WoW.  Dont believe me?  Read up on some of his interviews he did before Warhammer's release. Here is one.

My gut feeling tells me that Bioware, who are great with single player games, will not be successful with mmorpgs.  I hope I am wrong because im really starting to get into the star wars books (which are amazing-read each one in order).

Finally, EA isn't so bad.  They ranked 1st on Gameinformer's 2008 top game companies.  People say they dont put out innovative games, well, what about spore?  What about skate and mirrors edge?  There clearly is innovation there.

Originally posted by TheHavok

Finally, EA isn't so bad.  They ranked 1st on Gameinformer's 2008 top game companies.  People say they dont put out innovative games, well, what about spore?  What about skate and mirrors edge?  There clearly is innovation there.

Part of the style of EA is to make  9000 versions of a game. Say Sims or ... Spore.

And Spore got nerfed and dumbed down for the casual market. Is a simulation game with all the simulation parts removed, added cute eyes and added forced linearity.    The Spore you can play is a shell of itself..    

Originally posted by Bekkr

You know, there's a really easy way to stop this kind of thing from happening.

Stop buying bad games from massive only-motivated-by-profit-no-vision-or-innovation publishers like EA. Vote with your wallets.

Easy.

Sadly, while simple, I can't really see this happening.

 

Yea..like that would work

Did you see how many people flamed me when I sugested that we boycott L4D2 ?

Its obvious people would buy anything.

And companies like EA know this very good

Cant say I a surprised. Look at DaoC's history. They got lucky at the beginning that they made a game that promoted community and awesome PvP fun and then the people around MJ began to break it down year after year until they left DaoC for WaR and only then were it possible for a new team to turn the game around and make it half decent again. Too bad that it at that stage was old. 

In WaR MJ and his friends had utterly forgotten what it was that made their former game entertaining and instead kept on with their vision that more or less broke all the good stuff DaoC had initially and the result was the boring mess that is WaR today.

Add in lack of basic coding skills and inability to listen to anyone around their circle and I mean REALLY listen instead of just talking their behind off, and you could see this comming.

I dont believe that WaR can be turned around. Its the fundamental elements of the game that is broken, the very word "WaR is everywhere" is the basic for the game's failure.

Clearly this can't be left up to the consumer who can be sold with a simple CG trailer that shows no gameplay.  No, more drastic measures are needed.  I know 3 EA employees scattered around the US.  They are extremely disgruntled at almost all times.  There must be someway to defeat the EA with so many unhappy workers.  We must find the EA's heart and pierce it with a copy of the Sims 3.

Seriously though it sucks and there is nothing we can do about it.

Our whole culture is commercial, that is a good thing. We live our lives around the concept of Value.  Value of life, value of trading gods, value of our time.    We set some standards for corporations:  Quaterly *profits*,  and we set standards for out politics:  4 years "do whatever you want".   And the result is... what we have.  If we want to fix this, or improve this, we have to change our standards.    Maybe change the law for corporations, so long term is more important than shorterm, and remove some powers  (original intented for real people, not legal people)  so small firms can compete with moguls like EA. 

And.. is not that bad.  EA can destroy a billion game studios. Is not the studios that are important, but the people behind. If EA destroy your game studio, create another one.  EA can't "own" people, only  buildings and computers, and these are easy to replace,  people is more hard to replace. 

And EA, even evil,  Is able to delivered.  There are some evil "profiennt" "eficient" on his evilness. And I will buy any good game that EA delivered, since I put that value on work. If you make good games, I will buy then. 

This is like a dream come true, im so glad that tosser got fired.

But does this mean now that the new Star wars mmo is going have retarded Ai , bad animations , shit code , and a souless feel to it ?

Originally posted by templarga

It seems like most doomsayers are missing the big picture.

EA created an MMO/RPG (note, not just an MMORPG) branch or section of the company.

That branch will be headed by a Bioware manager.

Bioware itself will be headed by another Bioware manager.

Mythic will be headed by one of the founders of Mythic.

The new head of Bioware and Mythic will report to the MMO/RPG branch manager; that person, will in turn, report to EA I guess.

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On a side note, I am not worried at all. Bioware is still technically in charge and in control or so it seems. EA has always seemed to me to be a company that will leave good, thriving studios alone. However, one that studio or game or whatever begins to struggle (as Mythic has with WAR), EA will get involved.

WAR is a failure going by what was said before its launch and what they needed to be deemed a success. EA is not happy and things change. SW:TOR will be fine and Bioware will be fine as long as TOR is a success. If not, then EA will do something about it.

This is the part I'm really afraid of...

I want SW:TOR to kick ass, I want to go days without eating so I can enjoy playihng the hell out of it when it comes out.  However, I think I am a bigger fan of the Mass Effect series then I am of SW.  I don't want anything to happen to BioWare in case SW:TOR doesn't live up to expectations.  I'm also afraid EA might have the bar set too high, like SW:TOR needs to maintain a million subs it's first couple of months, it could happen yes, but to tell you the truth, I don't see it happening with the current number of MMOs out on the market today.

This makes me worried for Bioware, they already have EA on their heads, another loser might actually hurt the SWTOR. I hope they won't use GOA for SWTOR or I will be pissed. Seriously, GOA should burn in hell.

Wake up call! The development studios ARE NOT MERGING! There is a new organizational unit the 'MMO/RPG' unit in EA that incorporates both studios and being spearheaded by top brass from Bioware.

Again, there is no merge.

Originally posted by Hrothmund

Wake up call! The development studios ARE NOT MERGING! There is a new organizational unit the 'MMO/RPG' unit in EA that incorporates both studios and being spearheaded by top brass from Bioware.

Again, there is no merge.

I think most people here know this already

Originally posted by m240gulf

Originally posted by Hrothmund

Wake up call! The development studios ARE NOT MERGING! There is a new organizational unit the 'MMO/RPG' unit in EA that incorporates both studios and being spearheaded by top brass from Bioware.

Again, there is no merge.

 

I think most people here know this already

Well judging from all of the posts about the 'merge' and 'will TOR become WAR with lightsabers' they don't.