Isn't this the crowd that hypes up every game?

;)

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Originally posted by meddyck

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Originally posted by azzamasin Actually Matt Firor was the brains behind DAoC.  Coincidently he is also producing an RvR focused MMO called Elder Scrolls Online.

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I'd say TESO is more of a PvE focused MMO that also has RvR. For instance in TESO your PvE gear is also used in RvR which means inevitably you will be forced to raid in order to remain competitive in RvR. Also it sounds like TESO will be similar to WAR and GW 2 in that it will be heavily focused on keep taking. It also has an unusual mega-server system where all players will be on one server then you choose which RvR sub-server to play on. Draw your own conclusions about how well all that will work. For me, those design choices make it appeal to me much less than CU although I'll certainly take a look at it (in beta).

http://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en/game-guide/the-alliance-war

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Yea i cant say i understand the megaserver and how you are meant to have meaningful RvR with that.

Originally posted by Xobdnas

How many game heads have come here to get direct feedback from the most bitter MMO place on the net? That says a lot about him and his mindset right their.

If you also look at his project goals, he isn't trying to generate a million subs, he wants a small niche old school MMO.

Lastly, if you listen to his talk, or read his posts, I can't tell you how many times he has said he is trying NOT to hype it. Naturally this being the net, and most of us desperate for any remotely old school MMO we all went crazy at the notion, despite his efforts ;)

The way Kickstarter works is that basically, 'fans', are your investors. So you have to appeal to those people. Coming on this site is a direct way of pitching to those who can fund he's project.  Obviously if you want to gain the support of people sick of hype, you do your best to encourage the idea your not hyping anything.

Jacobs clearly has a lot of experience pitching and knows how to talk the language of he's audience. I'm pretty sure 10 years ago when he was talking about WAR to investment firms he was mentioning, 'increased revenue projections', or, 'cross branding potential', which would be music to those sorts of people ears as they have the money. It's a useful trick to have in life.

As for the OP yes this guy did hype up WAR.  Many of the devs and their videos did.  Paul Bartnett was the front man,(and the last of the people employed by a company just for their, 'ideas'), but plenty of the people their did hype the game a hell of a lot, which worked as they sold a lot of boxes, (even after they mentioned 4 of the capital cities were cut 6 months before launch), but didn't retain many subs when the problems became apparent.  As head of the studio the buck stops with Jacobs and if he was just reiterating what others told him then he should have spent more time tracking the progress of the project.

Originally posted by Slapshot1188

I think that was Paul Barnett...

 

...greatest hype job ever.  Will never believe a word he says again, but he did a GREAT job whipping up excitement for WAR.

This^

Originally posted by Satarious

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Hi, not trying to bash the game, but isn't this guy that is speaking for the game to the community, the same exact person that did the massive hyping of Warhammrr Online?

To me, that indicates that he is somebody that knows how to use and exploit hype, to mislead the masses, and paint them a false image of a product based on hype, and exploit many people.

 

You all should be careful. This should be a big Red Flag. But I am just pointing this out, so that maybe people who are interested in this game would look at it more realistically and no get exploited once again by a MMO developer/publisher....

:-/ 

He's also the legend behind Dark Age of Camelot, which many consider the best pvp mmo.  You can't completely condemn  a man for mistakes he's made, especially when he's upfront and honest about it all and seeking to redeem himself.  Nobody is perfect.  The greats at anything have made mistakes.

No, he is not. The legend behind Dark Age of Camelot is Matt Firor and the core development team that left the company when EA acquired Mythic Entertainment. Marc Jacobs stayed and produced Warhammer.

The number one reason for me to most likely stay away from Camelot Unchained is Marc Jacobs himself. I remeber Marc Jacobs letter to the community short after Warhammer release. The community was raging due to certain balancing issues such as DoT stacking of fire wizards. He claimed that they listen to the community and will address the balancing issues etcpp. After a while the first update was released. They increased dmg of almost every class and did not fix any problems that were reported by the community.

Thats a big minus and I prefer sticking to the upcoming Bethesda/Zenimax MMO that concept-wise seems to be like DAoC when it comes to endgame and rvr.

P.S. Best hype job ever was performed by that Aion producer. Unfortunately I can't remember his name. He rolled that big Westerinzation machinery, telling that they put great effort into changing the game to better suit the western playerbas. One year later, in aforum post he said that westernization simply meant to translate (localize) the game ^^

Originally posted by Asariasha

Originally posted by Satarious

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Hi, not trying to bash the game, but isn't this guy that is speaking for the game to the community, the same exact person that did the massive hyping of Warhammrr Online?

To me, that indicates that he is somebody that knows how to use and exploit hype, to mislead the masses, and paint them a false image of a product based on hype, and exploit many people.

 

You all should be careful. This should be a big Red Flag. But I am just pointing this out, so that maybe people who are interested in this game would look at it more realistically and no get exploited once again by a MMO developer/publisher....

:-/ 

He's also the legend behind Dark Age of Camelot, which many consider the best pvp mmo.  You can't completely condemn  a man for mistakes he's made, especially when he's upfront and honest about it all and seeking to redeem himself.  Nobody is perfect.  The greats at anything have made mistakes.

 

No, he is not. The legend behind Dark Age of Camelot is Matt Firor and the core development team that left the company when EA acquired Mythic Entertainment. Marc Jacobs stayed and produced Warhammer.

The number one reason for me to most likely stay away from Camelot Unchained is Marc Jacobs himself. I remeber Marc Jacobs letter to the community short after Warhammer release. The community was raging due to certain balancing issues such as DoT stacking of fire wizards. He claimed that they listen to the community and will address the balancing issues etcpp. After a while the first update was released. They increased dmg of almost every class and did not fix any problems that were reported by the community.

Thats a big minus and I prefer sticking to the upcoming Bethesda/Zenimax MMO that concept-wise seems to be like DAoC when it comes to endgame and rvr.

Originally posted by MarkJacobs

Originally posted by azzamasin

Originally posted by Satarious

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Hi, not trying to bash the game, but isn't this guy that is speaking for the game to the community, the same exact person that did the massive hyping of Warhammrr Online?

To me, that indicates that he is somebody that knows how to use and exploit hype, to mislead the masses, and paint them a false image of a product based on hype, and exploit many people.

 

You all should be careful. This should be a big Red Flag. But I am just pointing this out, so that maybe people who are interested in this game would look at it more realistically and no get exploited once again by a MMO developer/publisher....

:-/ 

He's also the legend behind Dark Age of Camelot, which many consider the best pvp mmo.  You can't completely condemn  a man for mistakes he's made, especially when he's upfront and honest about it all and seeking to redeem himself.  Nobody is perfect.  The greats at anything have made mistakes.

Actually Matt Firor was the brains behind DAoC.  Coincidently he is also producing an RvR focused MMO called Elder Scrolls Online.

Umm, no. Matt was a key member of the team that produced Dark Age of Camelot. Nobody, even me should take credit for that being the "brains behind DAoC" because that would be an insult to every member of the Mythic team that worked long hours for truly crap pay, weekends, etc. to build the game. As Matt would be the first to tell you himself, I'm sure, Dark Age of Camelot was a game that every member of the team contributed a lot to, everyone. Matt was a great producer, did some fine design work and without him Dark Age of Camelot would not have happened. But, as the story below shows, it was my idea and I was the CEO of the studio as well the guy who brought in the investors, signed the checks, put his name on leases, etc.  And like I said, I won't take credit away from everyone who made Dark Age of Camelot the game it was by simply saying "I was the brains behind DAoC!" no matter how much I did on that game that isn't talked about. Hey, sounds like a scene from Spartacus, the Camelot Years! "No, I'm the brains", "No, I'm the brains!" All we need is some zombies now.:)

Matt Firor is an honorable and honest man, a great guy and he was a fabulous producer/designer/etc. and I'll let his own words tell part of the story.

Link here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131418/postmortem_mythic_entertainments_.php

Also, there are names that Matt did leave out that also played a big role in Dark Age of Camelot's success, names such as Lori & Darrin Hyrup, Scott Jennings, Sanya Weathers, Marty Brown and many more who also played major roles in that game's success. Please don't do them a disservice by giving all credit to Matt or anyone else, including me.

You really should read the thread before posting, that way you can contribute with something which has not already been discussed and corrected.

I actually met PB back in 2008 I think it was at the NEC in birmingham, just before the release of Warhammer online, was a genuinely interesting bloke to talk to and his enthusiasm was bordering on obsessive. 

My personal views on it all though were Mythic were and are a fantastic studio that know how to make MMO's and the only and sole reason Warhammer failed was almost certainly down to the "investors" and publisher wanting a return on the investment immediately.

Had there been no one in the background pulling the strings and had Mythic had the time to polish WAR properly then I'm sure the game would have been a greater success. I really enjoyed the game in beta and saw great potential when release was announced I knew it wasn't ready and low and behold the game tanked.

The same thing happened with SWTOR, it was pushed out the door by greedy investors and publishers before it was even close to be ready.

Originally posted by Boldyn

Isn't this the crowd that hypes up every game?

To be fair, hypes, tries to destroy, or ignores, all three happen fairly regularly. For all that Camelot Unchained (along with ArcheAge and Age of Wushu, to name three) is on the hype train, TESO is the current target for orbital bombardment, and Defiance is nearly entirely ignored.

The interesting thing is to try and figure out why each new game ends up where it does on the list, as well as track the trends -- because, trust me, after battle reports always involve a ton of rewritten history around here.

Usually anything PvP focused or even vague promises of "sandbox-like" play -- the two redheaded step children of MMOs, and for good reason -- guarantees a seat on the hype train, no matter how clear the warning signs that the tracks are out up ahead -- thus Camelot. But TESO is, bizarrely, focusing on PvP (with much talk of the second most rose coloured of all fossilized MMOs, DAoC) and still is mostly on the "savage at all costs for any reason real or imagined" list. I suppose there's a "treading on rose coloured memories" clause in there somewhere, which explains why D3 is a "failure" (lol) around here and ToR closed shop long ago. As for Defiance, I would think that the current NDA would have something to do with it, nothing really you can talk about if you're actually in the know, but I've never really known that to slow people down around here. It's third-person shooter mechanics (not to mention healing) are different, at least for an MMO, something people claim to want around here (never mind that a lot of MMOs that have been very different have come and gone with little note by the denizens of these environs), and Trion has a generally good (if, IMHO, more than a tad inflated) reputation, while, granted, the console-port nature of things weighs heavily on the opposite side of things.

I dunno, it's an interesting exercise, though, watching the hype train leave the station, the inevitable crash, and trying to guess whether the herd will turn on their former precious, ignore all faults and continue to defend it to their dying breath, or move on quietly and pretend they never even heard of it.

Were things just a tad faster paced, it'd make a great drinking game.

Interesting that a lot of you here ether did no know or simply ignoring the facts that 

this guy went to Warhammer Alliance fan forum (the biggest Warhammer Online forum back then) and requested that the MODs 

there would ban and block any negative talk about Warhammer Online.

the mods refused, and he pulled Mythic support from the forum. 

Anybody remember that event? I do, because it was my first taste of this current massive hype train brainwashing trend we have now days.

that seem like some really evil greedy corp level BS, and the community seems to want to forgive and forget and just throw money at these same people that would exploit you in a heartbeat.

who would trust somebody like that again and again, after they have a historic record of exploiting the fans of their product?

I am starting to get the feeling, that MMO consumers enjoy being exploited and seek the pleasure of being exploited time and time again. It's the only reason I can see for somebody to continue down the same path of exploitation.

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Interesting that a lot of you here ether did no know or simply ignoring the facts that 

this guy went to Warhammer Alliance fan forum (the biggest Warhammer Online forum back then) and requested that the MODs 

there would ban and block any negative talk about Warhammer Online.

the mods refused, and he pulled Mythic support from the forum. 

Anybody remember that event? I do, because it was my first taste of this current massive hype train brainwashing trend we have now days.

that seem like some really evil greedy corp level BS, and the community seems to want to forgive and forget and just throw money at these same people that would exploit you in a heartbeat.

who would trust somebody like that again and again, after they have a historic record of exploiting the fans of their product?

I am starting to get the feeling, that MMO consumers enjoy being exploited and seek the pleasure of being exploited time and time again. It's the only reason I can see for somebody to continue down the same path of exploitation.

What shall you have us do Mr. Exposed? How long shall we hold this grudge?

It sounds like you were effected by what this "company" did several years ago...  should approch Citystate with bitterness because one member of the development team worked for E.A Mythic?

They do have programs nowdays that assist with Battered Wife Syndrome.. after all, these are just video games right?

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Interesting that a lot of you here ether did no know or simply ignoring the facts that 

this guy went to Warhammer Alliance fan forum (the biggest Warhammer Online forum back then) and requested that the MODs 

there would ban and block any negative talk about Warhammer Online.

the mods refused, and he pulled Mythic support from the forum. 

Anybody remember that event? I do, because it was my first taste of this current massive hype train brainwashing trend we have now days.

that seem like some really evil greedy corp level BS, and the community seems to want to forgive and forget and just throw money at these same people that would exploit you in a heartbeat.

who would trust somebody like that again and again, after they have a historic record of exploiting the fans of their product?

I am starting to get the feeling, that MMO consumers enjoy being exploited and seek the pleasure of being exploited time and time again. It's the only reason I can see for somebody to continue down the same path of exploitation.

Don't forget the other half of the story:

1) WHA became a huge site because I started posting there every day, sharing information, talking to the players just as I am doing now. Did that have a huge impact on their traffic? Oh yeah and you could check the forum activity to prove that just as you could simply see the number of page hits CU is getting here. Massively said the said thing on their site as well in regards to CU's impact on their traffic/page hits. FYI, I really liked the WHA guys at the time and was happy to help them boost traffic (which is one of the reasons they were later bought by Curse) at the same time provide an outlet for me to talk to players.

2) I never, ever asked WHA to cut out all negative posts. I asked them the same thing I asked the Vault and stated here publicly as a ground rule for my posting, cut out the personal attacks, harrasment, etc. I don't engage in flame wars (certainly not anymore) and generally (not always, I did have a couple of bad moments back in the Vault days which I do regret and haven't repeated since) my most sarcastic comment back in the Vault days was "Have a cookie, trolls like cookies!" or to ask if somebody was bashing us because our success threatened their favorite game or because they were *asked* to by the game's staff. Nobody should have to read the stuff I've had to read over the years especially when the accusiations are being made by anonymous posters and/or have no idea how things were/are/etc. In WHA's case, I asked them to actually mod the forums as we agreed especially since we were generating so much traffic and revenue for them. Oh, and BTW, I never asked for a cut of that revenue just as I wouldn't here, I simply asked them to do what they said they would do.

3) Curse gaming bought WHA and during beta, there were also some issues relating to certain activities in our beta and with Curse that, at the time, upset us greatly.

4) Curse was also sued (after I left) by Games Workshop just as an FYI. So factor that into your thinking as well.

In all the years that I have been doing games I have never asked any site, whether the IGN Vault, WHA or here to remove all negative posts, not ever and not even on our own forums. What I will always ask is that personal attacks, flames, breaking of NDA, harrasment, constant posting/reposting of the same criticism by the same person again and again and again, etc. be moderated. If that makes me a villain, so be it. I won't allow myself or my team to have to put up with that stuff and I've always instructed them never to flame back at people and, as everyone who has read my posts know, I have always asked posters who support CU never to go out and flame/criticize other developers' games.

You certainly may choose to believe what you wish but if you are going to flame me, at least report the whole story.

Originally posted by Asariasha

Originally posted by Satarious

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Hi, not trying to bash the game, but isn't this guy that is speaking for the game to the community, the same exact person that did the massive hyping of Warhammrr Online?

To me, that indicates that he is somebody that knows how to use and exploit hype, to mislead the masses, and paint them a false image of a product based on hype, and exploit many people.

 

You all should be careful. This should be a big Red Flag. But I am just pointing this out, so that maybe people who are interested in this game would look at it more realistically and no get exploited once again by a MMO developer/publisher....

:-/ 

He's also the legend behind Dark Age of Camelot, which many consider the best pvp mmo.  You can't completely condemn  a man for mistakes he's made, especially when he's upfront and honest about it all and seeking to redeem himself.  Nobody is perfect.  The greats at anything have made mistakes.

 

No, he is not. The legend behind Dark Age of Camelot is Matt Firor and the core development team that left the company when EA acquired Mythic Entertainment. Marc Jacobs stayed and produced Warhammer.

The number one reason for me to most likely stay away from Camelot Unchained is Marc Jacobs himself. I remeber Marc Jacobs letter to the community short after Warhammer release. The community was raging due to certain balancing issues such as DoT stacking of fire wizards. He claimed that they listen to the community and will address the balancing issues etcpp. After a while the first update was released. They increased dmg of almost every class and did not fix any problems that were reported by the community.

Thats a big minus and I prefer sticking to the upcoming Bethesda/Zenimax MMO that concept-wise seems to be like DAoC when it comes to endgame and rvr.

 

P.S. Best hype job ever was performed by that Aion producer. Unfortunately I can't remember his name. He rolled that big Westerinzation machinery, telling that they put great effort into changing the game to better suit the western playerbas. One year later, in aforum post he said that westernization simply meant to translate (localize) the game ^^

As to the balancing of the BW, guilty as charged and here was my thinking at the time and the same thing I said publicly:

During the Camelot days, we got a lot of grief for "nerfing" classes as our response to balancing issues. While other games certainly did the exact same thing, I wanted us to take a different path (whenever possible) with WAR. My instructions were that when a class was imbalanced, our first response must not be "Gut the pig" but rather see if we could make changes to other classes/spells/etc. to bring things into balance. I thought it was the right approach because frankly, reaching for the nerf bat made it to easy for the system's designers to react to problems on a micro level rather than the macro level.

Was it the right approach? Who knows but I do know that if we had immediately reached for the nerf bat, there would be have an equally strong (or stronger) reaction of "Mythic NERFED my BW!!! Lame!" just as we and every other developer had heard in the past. It really was as simple as that.

Originally posted by Myria

Originally posted by Boldyn

Isn't this the crowd that hypes up every game?

To be fair, hypes, tries to destroy, or ignores, all three happen fairly regularly. For all that Camelot Unchained (along with ArcheAge and Age of Wushu, to name three) is on the hype train, TESO is the current target for orbital bombardment, and Defiance is nearly entirely ignored.

The interesting thing is to try and figure out why each new game ends up where it does on the list, as well as track the trends -- because, trust me, after battle reports always involve a ton of rewritten history around here.

Usually anything PvP focused or even vague promises of "sandbox-like" play -- the two redheaded step children of MMOs, and for good reason -- guarantees a seat on the hype train, no matter how clear the warning signs that the tracks are out up ahead -- thus Camelot. But TESO is, bizarrely, focusing on PvP (with much talk of the second most rose coloured of all fossilized MMOs, DAoC) and still is mostly on the "savage at all costs for any reason real or imagined" list. I suppose there's a "treading on rose coloured memories" clause in there somewhere, which explains why D3 is a "failure" (lol) around here and ToR closed shop long ago. As for Defiance, I would think that the current NDA would have something to do with it, nothing really you can talk about if you're actually in the know, but I've never really known that to slow people down around here. It's third-person shooter mechanics (not to mention healing) are different, at least for an MMO, something people claim to want around here (never mind that a lot of MMOs that have been very different have come and gone with little note by the denizens of these environs), and Trion has a generally good (if, IMHO, more than a tad inflated) reputation, while, granted, the console-port nature of things weighs heavily on the opposite side of things.

I dunno, it's an interesting exercise, though, watching the hype train leave the station, the inevitable crash, and trying to guess whether the herd will turn on their former precious, ignore all faults and continue to defend it to their dying breath, or move on quietly and pretend they never even heard of it.

Were things just a tad faster paced, it'd make a great drinking game.

The REASON for the serial hype trains is pretty easy to figure out.  People are desperately thirsty for a well designed, well executed massive PvP focused MMORPG (I tacked on RPG to filter out all the E-Sports type pvp systems).  It's a lot like a person wandering through the desert... they see mirages.  Unfortunately, every single one of those hyped up games have been poisoned by the HUGE success of WoW.  When investors put that much green into a project, you can bet your ass they're going to demand what has already worked in the past.  Which basically means watering it down with a whole lot of WoW crap (like instances, etc.).  It's the same problem you see in the film industry when they dump all kinds of second rate  formula type movies that worked in the past onto the masses.   Profits and the money game can choke the life out of creativity, sometimes.

Originally posted by MarkJacobs

"During the Camelot days, we got a lot of grief for "nerfing" classes as our response to balancing issues. While other games certainly did the exact same thing, I wanted us to take a different path (whenever possible) with WAR. My instructions were that when a class was imbalanced, our first response must not be "Gut the pig" but rather see if we could make changes to other classes/spells/etc. to bring things into balance."

 

It is ironic really, that is always how most players want their games to be balanced rather than the nerf bat. Then, when that approach is used, they whine just as much. You just can't please everyone and i am glad with the direction you are taking CU you are not trying to. Kudos. It seems like you are garnering a lot of support from the ex DAOC crowd anyway Mark, keep it up and stay true to the target audience you have.

Originally posted by Lore84

Originally posted by MarkJacobs

"During the Camelot days, we got a lot of grief for "nerfing" classes as our response to balancing issues. While other games certainly did the exact same thing, I wanted us to take a different path (whenever possible) with WAR. My instructions were that when a class was imbalanced, our first response must not be "Gut the pig" but rather see if we could make changes to other classes/spells/etc. to bring things into balance."

 

It is ironic really, that is always how most players want their games to be balanced rather than the nerf bat. Then, when that approach is used, they whine just as much. You just can't please everyone and i am glad with the direction you are taking CU you are not trying to. Kudos. It seems like you are garnering a lot of support from the ex DAOC crowd anyway Mark, keep it up and stay true to the target audience you have.

Thanks, I intend to do just that. I hope our KS will fund but if it doesn't, at least I tried to make the game that I believed a lot of RvR players want/wanted to see. Making a PvE/RvR game simply costs too much, takes too long, etc. and if we can create a game that appeals to RvR fans we have the possibility of doing something special with RvR. Over the last few weeks I've gotten so much interesting feeback and some of it has affected some aspects of the game (like a class vs. skill based system) that I am genuinely excited about what the backers and CSE can do over the next few years.

Oh and tomorrow's blog post will also answer some questions about how I want to do some things differently than Dark Age of Camelot and WAR should garner some interesting reactions. :)

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Interesting that a lot of you here ether did no know or simply ignoring the facts that 

this guy went to Warhammer Alliance fan forum (the biggest Warhammer Online forum back then) and requested that the MODs 

there would ban and block any negative talk about Warhammer Online.

the mods refused, and he pulled Mythic support from the forum. 

Anybody remember that event? I do, because it was my first taste of this current massive hype train brainwashing trend we have now days.

that seem like some really evil greedy corp level BS, and the community seems to want to forgive and forget and just throw money at these same people that would exploit you in a heartbeat.

who would trust somebody like that again and again, after they have a historic record of exploiting the fans of their product?

I am starting to get the feeling, that MMO consumers enjoy being exploited and seek the pleasure of being exploited time and time again. It's the only reason I can see for somebody to continue down the same path of exploitation.

This from the same person that said games/companies/producers/devs do not hype things, just people......Now they hyped something?  Curious.  Do you mean what you say, or just say things to apply them to a situation, and have no commitment to it?

Originally posted by MarkJacobs

I am genuinely excited about what the backers and CSE can do over the next few years.

Well, we will create the best RvR experience in the most immersive world ever, of course! *looking around* No, I see no hype here :-)

Originally posted by Storm_Fireblade

Originally posted by MarkJacobs

I am genuinely excited about what the backers and CSE can do over the next few years.

Well, we will create the best RvR experience in the most immersive world ever, of course! *looking around* No, I see no hype here :-)

LOL, if you ever see me say that, please feel free to throw things at me. :)