The Warhammer beta closes for two months. *cue despair and mayhem*
EA does what many businesses in this country (and others) do every year (and for decades) - layoff people, consolidate operations, and look to their bottom line to re-focus their business. *cue despair and mayhem*
So surely Warhammer is doomed and EA is going to screw up this MMO property, right? The sky has to be falling or we won’t have anything to blog about. Well, the sky is NOT falling when it comes to Warhammer and I don’t think I’m going out on even a tiny limb to say that. Especially after reading the most recent interview with Josh Drescher over at MMO-Gamer.com.
So first up, the beta closing spelled “doom” for Warhammer, right?
This is actually the second time we’ve done this, people weren’t aware of the first one because it was an internal beta for about a year. Partially it comes down to a matter of there’s a point where you kind of have to stop putting new things into the test and just decide it’s time to iterate.
We’ve taken all of this feedback in, we’ve gotten some hard answers in a lot of places, things that we put in that we were really curious about how people would react to it, and a lot of the time that’s been very positive, and we’ve gone, alright, we’re going to focus on the things people like.
Then, to be honest, there were things people didn’t like, or they just felt weren’t implemented well, or they didn’t feel quite right. As a result, Mark Jacobs, the GM of the studio, really wanted to make sure that built-in to our plan for development was going to be time to go back and iterate over everything that we’d already put out in public.
So, a great deal of the beta closure has basically revolved around taking positive and negative feedback, and making tough choices based upon that feedback to make sure that we’re not just belligerently running ahead with what we believe is right when we’re sometimes getting feedback saying, “We’d like it a little more if it was like this.”
*blink* O.k….so unless Josh and Mark are both liars and are willing to feed the public any line of bull, they actually closed the beta to make changes brought about by listening to their beta community. And they needed time to do it. Sounds like a pretty simple explanation to me. Oftentimes the truth is very straightforward - there is no conspiracy.
“O.k. O.k….so maybe the beta closing wasn’t the end of the world. But surely EA is going to screw it all up - there’s no debating that!!”. I know some people think that. To be honest, I’ve never worked for EA and don’t know anyone who does, so maybe that will turn out to be correct. But if that’s the case, they sure seem to have Josh fooled and he has never struck me as an idiot.
The MMO Gamer: Another subject there’s been a lot of talk about—I’m sure you’ve read a lot of it yourself—the EA deal.
Set the record straight for us: Has your day-to-day routine changed at all since the EA purchase? Have they altered production?
Josh Drescher: They’ve done nothing to alter anything about the make-up of the studio, how we do our development, or anything of the sort, other than to basically say, “Here are resources that are available to you to use as you see fit.”
So, for example, we can now draw on other studios for tech and wisdom. We can send our guys out to EARS—Redwood Shores outside of San Francisco—and say, “Alright engineers, go learn from these guys who have been doing different things, things that you haven’t experienced, and bring that back.”
So it’s meant more money, more time, more people, and more resources. Obviously that has significantly impacted production, but in a positive way.
It was absolutely not something like where they pulled the mothership up over the building, ripped the roof off, and went, “One out of ten of you must now be killed at Bing Gordon’s feet!”
Bing Gordon’s actually a really nice guy, he shows up at the studio every now and then, plays the game, hangs out with some of the devs, gives us his feedback, which is always an interesting combination of wisdom and creative genius stuff where you don’t even know where it comes from. So we certainly integrate that kind of feedback, but we definitely haven’t run afoul of the mythical evil EA machine. I’m not entirely sure it’s out there.
So…let me get this straight. There was NO MOTHERSHIP?? The “evil EA machine” is mythical?? Wow…either Josh is brainwashed, he’s lying (again!), or things are not quite as bad as the interwebs would lead you to believe.
But hey, I get it. Sensationalism and headlines sell papers, they sell news shows. People want to see the trainwreck. It’s edgy (I guess?) to be the one to say “the sky is falling - I told you sooooo!1!!!1!”. And to be honest, I have to point the finger at myself because I’m sure at times I’ve fallen into the trap of doing that. But I hate what I think of as the “Evil SOE EMPIRE” syndrome. Good grief. These companies aren’t there to ruin our lives. If you are genuinely concerned for people who lose their jobs, and the impact that will have on their lives - that’s entirely appropriate and I applaud you. I’ve seen that firsthand and it’s a huge deal.
Is this my first official “rant”? Maybe so. But when you see the reactions out there on fansite, message boards, blogs, etc., it’s really quite amazing. It reminds me of the “War of the Worlds” show when everyone thought it was real. People started jumping out of windows and fleeing their cities. But at the end of the day, it wasn’t reality at all. Is it because people are passionate? Zealous? Reactionary? Whatever the reason, it just seems like the “mmo community” is quick to react, and react vehemently, without knowing all the facts.
I have no high horse. I’m not speaking from a high hill of righteousness. I may have an old, beat up soapbox at best. I’m just trying to sound the bell of sanity in my own small way. I’m like everyone else - just a normal, everyday guy writing my opinion. And that’s fine. But everything I’ve seen (just so happens to be in regards to Warhammer) has been rubbing me the wrong way and I thought I’d turn it into a blog post of my own.
Is the sky falling for Warhammer? Absolutely not. And it’s probably not falling in a lot of other areas if we’re willing to take a moment and think about it.
Tags: EA/Mythic, Warhammer
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