Mark Jacobs has some interesting things up his sleeve as witnessed by recently released teaser videos hinting at...something. We caught up with Mark to chat about what he's been up to lately. See what he's got to say before discussing the interview in the comments.

MMORPG: It’s been a while since we chatted, Mark. How’ve things been going over at City State Entertainment since Oz launched?

Mark Jacobs: Things are going great; thanks for asking. March on Oz was released for the iPad in October and we’re in the middle of a major content and platform push (iPhone, Kindle, Android and PC) that we hope to have completed by spring. So, not so bad for a small studio’s first game, eh?

Read more of Bill Murphy's Catching Up with Mark Jacobs.

Jacobs... just like the cracker.. crumbles easy and soon as you have taken a bite you realise how dry and lumpy it really all is..

no im not bitter about warhammer online :)

Mark, you probably don't remember me (using this same name), but you launched into a personnal and scathing attack on me in your forums when I pointed out that DAoC was going to lose subs because you said the world was going to be zoned, and many others were agreeing. Then a month later you were talking about your new "bubble" techology to remove zones.

But I don't hold grudges. Just wanted to say that DAoC was one of the better Themepark games, and some aspects of it were very well done. If it hadn't been Themepark and force marched me past zones I liked very much, I would have considered it one of the great games.

The PvP system was a good one, the best I've seen for a game that isn't "open world". Even in a Sandbox game, it's a solid option to control the brutal outcome of ganksquads such as UO had. Just not the best option, IMO.

Your customer service was the best I've seen in all of MMOdom. Both in-game as well as on the boards, you guys had this nailed!

The bigges shame was the Themeparkiness, the zoning of content. You guys had a great world, and I didn't want to be forced to move on from many areas. Would much rather have done that by choice, when I wanted to, and return to a "home zone", if you will. Of course, that would mean alternate game play to keep things interesting while staying put in an area. I really wished DAoC had done that. The lore was a fantastic choice, and in this it could have been more developed to accomodate it. I'm sure I'm ot the only player that spent a lot of time trying to figure out meaning to the runes, looking for deeper mysteries in the game.

From what it sounds like, you seem to be in a good place. Congrats, and best wishes. Maybe all of the past challenges has done some good, eh?

Originally posted by Black-Dog

Jacobs... just like the cracker.. crumbles easy and soon as you have taken a bite you realise how dry and lumpy it really all is..

no im not bitter about warhammer online :)

Blame hickman for warhammer online and his clown like sidekick paul barnet.

Originally posted by Istavaan

Originally posted by Black-Dog

Jacobs... just like the cracker.. crumbles easy and soon as you have taken a bite you realise how dry and lumpy it really all is..

no im not bitter about warhammer online :)

Blame hickman for warhammer online and his clown like sidekick paul barnet.

Well yes I can agree there, but....

Mark made a ton of videos praising the game, and how things were going to be, only to then have the hype he geared up shattered from under everyone suckered in... You at all remember the crafting waffle and info he gave out how it was going to be and it ended up nothing like it?

I just think he would do really well in marketing alone and nothing more.

Originally posted by Iceman8235
Anyone who played warhammer knows that the game was ruined by two things, bright wizards and zone crashes.  The company's failure to listen to the community that repeatedly told them bright wizards were stupidly overpowered cost mark jacobs his job.

Yea, nevermind the poorly implemented RvR, the bug ridden PvE, the over abundance of rewards from scenerios (levelling), the lag so bad they had to take out that end castle siege (forget the name), the PvE instanced capital sieges...

 i could go on...

it was a lot of things, not taking anything away from what you said.

The game had a ton going for it pvp wise but again left in the hands of the non listning types lol..

running around looking for battles with my green gobo healer was fun though, I have friends that tend to just log in for the free low level stuff to do some pvp fix now and again.. I stopped playing mainly when i started seeing people floating in the air at one of the pvp spots on the coast, forgotten what it was called, but the low level 10 ish area, and firing shit at us from 100ft up..

Those messing about with hacks and then the devs would not pay attention like it was not really happening was the final nail in the coffin.

Trials of Atlantis expansion was one of the worst expansion in the history of MMOs and probably led to the destruction of DAOC, and Marc Jacobs was primarily responsible for it. It's not like he didn't have plenty of feedback about how bad it was going to be and how it would ruin PvP....Oh no, they were going with it regardless.....well congrats.

Then of course, we have the wonderful hit known as Warhammer.  Oh, you say you have tons of tools this time around to help with class balance in PvP......and then you see the army of Bright Wizards approaching and everyone runs and quits the server.  Yeah, wonderful job there. Those must have been some great class balancing tools you developed. 

Laugh. 

How you keep getting employeed in this industry is amazing.