by Jeff Woleslagle on Jun 25, 2009
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Yesterday's big announcement - that Electronic Arts is creating an MMO/RPG "group" from BioWare and EA Mythic and that longtime EA Mythic Studio Head Mark Jacobs had stepped on - created a whirlwind of speculation. I'll break down what we know and don't know at this point and look at the possible effect this could have on WAR and Star Wars: The Old Republic's development in Loading... EA BioMythic?
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The Pulse
You vote with what you view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the result is the Ten Ton Pulse (What is The Pulse?).
Here's today's top 5 Pulse results for today:
World of Warcraft Aion EverQuest 2 Age of Conan Warhammer OnlineBiggest Movers in the Top 20 this month :
Global Agenda (UP 42 to #19) Guild Wars (UP 14 to #10) Ultima Online (UP 6 to #17) Recent MMO Releases 6/12 - Neo Steam (release date) 6/16 - EverQuest 2 GU 52 (patch) 6/24 - Age of Conan Update 5: Gangs of Tarantia (patch) 6/25 - WAR "Land of the Dead" live (patch)Important Dates
7/3 - 7/5 - Aion Beta Event #3 Upcoming Releases 8/25 - CrimeCraft (release date) 9/1 - Champions Online (release date) 9/22 - Aion (release date) Early 2010 - APBLoading... Daily
Since the big announcement yesterday, everyone is wondering what what the future will hold for EA Mythic's games. In case you haven't heard, EA made the decision to fold two of its major studios, EA Mythic and Bioware, into a new MMO/RPG group under the EA Games Label under Bioware's storied veteran Ray Muzyka. This is not a studio merger, at least in form; all the official types have been careful to point out that the two studios will remain separate but united. Sort of like PB & J.
Whatever your feelings about EA (and I've personally talked to plenty of staff that tells us that EA has come a long way from its heavy-handed EA wives days), this makes nothing but sense for EA as well as BioWare and EA Mythic in terms of collaboration, shared assets, and shared talent. I'm hopeful that many of the faces we've come to know on the WAR team can smoothly transition into BioWare roles if the situation warrants, especially since future developments on the EA Mythic side are cloudy at present.
Now that WAR 1.3 is out, EA Mythic has no announced projects beyond Ultima Online's Stygian Abyss expansion. Since this announcement of an MMO / RPG group, it seems unlikely that EA Mythic will go into more casual games, as was rumored at E3. Is a WAR expansion still on the horizon with the host of class balance fixes players seem to want? If not that, maybe EA wants SWTOR out the door ASAP and EA Mythic's Falls Church studio is being enlisted to help in a big way. That, to me, seems the most likely scenario.
But perhaps an even bigger question mark is what happened with Mark Jacobs, EA Mythic's longtime studio head. Mark has always been a favorite of ours and the player community, because whether or not you respected his game design decisions, he always told it like it is, no matter who he was talking to. Not to eulogize him - he'll be back, for sure - but the EA Mythic team will be poorer if not for his decisions, than for his passion for the games themselves. We don't know if Jacobs left voluntarily or involuntarily (as Massively is hinting), one way or the other he wasn't on board with EA's decision.
Have some insight into the EA groupification? There's already an epic forum thread stirring on that front, so take your thoughts there. But I'm anxious to know what you think about the other side of the equation: what could SWTOR pick up design-wise from the WAR team? Could WAR staples like public quests and keep siege RvR fit into the SWTOR universe? Have your say in the Loading... forum, or email me!
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