Tag Archives: mark jacobs

Mythic’s confirmed Warhammer Online’s to get its own forum, to be run by the developer.

There’s a large post from Mark Jacobs on the matter on the official site. Apparently this is the first Mythic game to get a properly hosted forum.

Mythic boss Mark Jacobs has essentially confirmed the EA-owned developer has seen some lay-offs as part of the publisher’s cost-saving plan.

Said the exec, speaking in a forum post on Warhammer Alliance:

1) Our CEO JR has publicly stated the need to cut costs across all of EA. This statement is old news and applies all throughout EA.

2) As part of EA, all studios are expected to do their fair share to meet the expectations of our CEO.”

EA declined to comment to VG247 on the subject this afternoon.

Joystiq rumoured last night that Mythic had shed 21 customer service staff.

Jacobs points out later in the post that more than 400 people were working on Warhammer Online – the firm’s ongoing MMO – at launch, and that a large team still remains on the game.

EA is currently in the throes of dropping 1,000 staff in an effort to cut costs.

In an interview with Ten Ton Hammer, Mythic boss Mark Jacobs said that he welcomes Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO and has a profound respect for the BioWare team.

“I obviously know what the title is – and have known for quite awhile,” he said (interview was conducted before Star Wars: TOR announcement.

“You’ve got a great bunch of guys working on this title. My respect for Bioware runs VERY deep. I’ve said this before in a number of interviews that they are absolutely one of the premiere developers in the industry.

“I have also gotten to know Ray and Greg better since they’ve been a part of EA and my respect for them has only grown,” added Jakobs.

“I think that given their expertise and talent – and all the guys that are involved with it, whether they’re in the North or South studio – I think the game is going to be a good thing no matter what they announce it as being.

In this industry, we need more successful games,” he explained. “The more successes we can have, the more the industry will expand. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a fantasy, sci-fi, horror, or whatever they are, we need more successful titles period. I really look forward to what they’re working on.”

More Mark Jakobs through the link. Thanks, Blue.

By Mike Bowden

Speaking with GI, Mythic boss Mark Jacobs said that the changes to player-versus-player combat in World of Warcraft are taken directly from the changes made to Warhammer Online.

“You have a game that’s been out for four years, they’ve never put in world PVP like ours, they’ve never been able to level through PVP like in ours,” said Jacobs

“I think it’s absolutely a reaction to Warhammer. It wasn’t like all of a sudden the idea of open world PVP or levelling through PVP came into their heads and went ‘nobody’s ever done this before’.”

However, Jacobs wasn’t upset about it at all. “I think imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” he added.

More through the link.

By Mike Bowden

Mythic’s just put out a press release claiming Warhammer Online now has 750,000 registered players.

“Thanks to our players, the war between the Realms continues to escalate at an incredible pace,” said company boss Mark Jacobs. “The battlefields are alive with three quarters of a million players fighting for the forces of Order and Destruction in truly epic and unparalleled Realm vs. Realm battles!”

The developer said that more than 500,000 players had signed up for the game in the first week of launch, as reported at the end of September.

Full thing after the link.

More »

Mythic’s confirmed that more than 500,000 players have created WAR accounts, and is claiming the MMO to be the fastest growing in history.

“In just one week we have a half a million people playing WAR online, and the ranks of Order and Destruction are growing at a record-breaking pace for a new MMORPG,” said company head Mark Jacobs.

“We spent years working to provide players with the most stable, epic, and polished online world we could, but it is the players that have truly brought the Age of Reckoning to life.”

If you haven’t got involved yet, do. It’s a great game, no question. Half a million people can’t be wrong, right?

More Mark Jacobs this morning, this time from an interview with MMORPG.com. WAR isn’t the game EA wanted to make, apparently: it’s Mythic’s.

“In the end we got to make the game that we wanted,” he said. “Not that game that EA wanted, not the game that Blizzard wanted, it’s the game that we wanted.

“We got two delays out of it with EA where we said, ‘we need to delay it again’. EA didn’t rush us out the door. They could have said to us in June, ‘no guys, you’ve gotta ship it, patch it afterwards.’ They didn’t. And I don’t mean that I threatened so they didn’t, they never said that.”

More through the link. Thanks, Destructoid.

Mythic head Mark Jacobs isn’t frightened of anything. No sir. And World or Warcraft definitely doesn’t bring on the sweats.

“We’re not saying we’re going to beat [Blizzard], but we’re not afraid of them,” Jacobs told Gamasutra.

“We have our own hook; that’s [realm versus realm combat], and we’re pushing it and we’re pushing it, just as we’re pushing other innovations in the game. Blizzard is number one; we don’t mind being number two, especially if it’s a competitive number two.”

Played it yet? You should. More through the link.

Mythic boss Mark Jacobs has confirmed that content cut from the launch of Warhammer Online – namely character classes and capital cities – is to be reintroduced at a later date as part of the subscription charge.

“Are we going to put [the pulled content] in a paid expansion? No,” Jacobs told 1UP.

“What I’ve told the users point blank is that we want to give it to you as part of subscription content. We don’t have a schedule penciled in for when that will be coming, but we’re going to release it without any additional charge to players.”

More through the link.

Undecided? Mythic boss Mark Jacobs isn’t. Warhammer Online has now launched and he reckons World of Warcraft players should try it. Here’s why, courtesy of MTV:

If you’re looking for the best RvR [Realm vs. Realm] in any online game, you come to “Warhammer.” This is what we do well. This is the most core reason to play our game. If you’re looking for the latest and greatest RvR of any MMO, you come to play our game.

Our number-one focus is RvR, but we have spent so much time and resources on PvE [Player vs. Environment]. We’ve put so many things in there, that if you’re a casual player you should come here. One of the things that certain games have done — and we won’t mention names — is that they’re trying to go back to an old school, we-want-people-to-work-harder-to-level [style of gameplay] and make it less fun. No, we’re not going to do that. We want you to have fun in our game, and we want you to feel like you can accomplish something. You won’t come in and go, “If I can’t get four hours in straight, I’m going to feel awful.”

There’s more reasoning through there. Loads more. Mark can talk. We’re installing WAR right now. Are you?

Speaking to Gamespot, Mythic boss Mark Jacobs has said he sees the recent Ensemble closure as a “terrible thing,” but that his studio has been careful to guard against “mistakes.”

“I look at Ensemble closing as being a terrible thing,” he said. “I love their games. But it should be no more of a message, I think, to the development community than an external developer shutting down because they ran out of money. And [there's] an old cliche about those who don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it. But if you look at the history of developers, even successful ones, a lot of them that do get shut down have forgotten the lessons–that nothing lasts forever, and you are going to screw up no matter how smart you are.

“You’re going to screw up, and if you haven’t prepared for that day, you’re going to be in deep trouble. And we will always prepare for that day. Maybe I’m paranoid or just very cynical, but I believe we will make more mistakes going forward, and we prepare for that day. And if you’re going to do that and you have success and you still remember that, you’ll be OK. You can weather a storm or two.”

Lots more through there. Well worth a read. WAR, as if you didn’t know, is out today.

Following a comment yesterday from WAR creative director Paul Barnett regarding EA knowing “nothing about launching MMOs in Europe,” Mythic boss Mark Jacobs has clarified the situation by calling Barnett “sarcastic” and “irreverent.”

“Well first you’ve got to understand that Paul is Paul,” Jacobs told Eurogamer. “He’s very sarcastic. He tries to be very funny – he usually is. He can be a bit irreverent. And so you need to look at anything he said in the interview from that perspective.

“Second, in terms of GOA: we had done a deal with GOA before EA bought us. So the idea that we went with GOA because supposedly EA doesn’t know anything about doing online games is just not true. There was no EA in the picture. So that was one part of it.

“What Paul said about EA not knowing anything about launching MMOs: you know, Paul likes to exaggerate – of course EA knows things about launching MMOs. EA is responsible, certainly, for one of the most important MMOs of all time, and that was Ultima [Online]. And that had people in Europe playing, people in Japan playing – it was really the first MMO to have any success in Japan. And it was the first one to break 100,000 subs.”

Loads more through there. WAR launches tomorrow. Order or Destruction? The million dollar question.

Speaking to MTV, Mythic boss Mark Jacobs has admitted that the release of WoW expansion The Burning Crusade pushed back Warhammer Online’s release thanks to its “water cooler quests.

“We obviously had a major bump when ‘Burning Crusade’ came out,” he said. “When [Blizzard] released that expansion, they raised the expectations of the player; they put in some of what we call ‘water cooler quests,’ the things that you talk about around the watercooler.

“We looked at the amount of content they put in that and said we need more time if we want to add some of those things, if we want our own water cooler quests or more water cooler quests. So our choice was to delay the game and spend more time on it. It was a major bump.”

Warhammer Online releases on September 18.

Mythic’s Mark Jacobs has trashed Bobby’s Kotick’s estimation that it would take $1 billion to compete with World of Warcraft, describing his posturing as “nonsense.”

“When certain people throw out ridiculous numbers, you know they’re throwing out ridiculous numbers because they want to scare off competition or they want to make themselves seem invincible and that sort of nonsense,” he told MTV.

“Realistically, if you’re going into this space for the first time, and you want to compete with WoW and you want to compete with us — because we’re going into that same space — you’ve got to make sure that you have at least 100 million dollars.”

Warhammer Online has now gone gold and will ship in September. More through the link.

EAs Mythic studio has said that it is unable to credit the full development team for MMO Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, writes Shacknews.

“Over the years, we’ve had hundreds of people work on the game, and we thank everyone who helped us bring our Warhammer passion to life, but only current employees that have continued until the end will be credited in the final game,” Mythic VP Mark Jacobs told the site.

A member of the Warhammer Online team is quoted, saying: “I spent three years on WAR and I, including many other people who spent just as much if not close to the same amount of time, will not be credited in the game.”

More through the link.

By Mike Bowden

Mythic’s announced that that WAR open beta will begin in the US on September 7.

“For three years we have been saying that ‘WAR is coming’ and the team has been working hard to deliver on this promise,” said company boss Mark Jacobs.

“In just a few weeks, we are going to throw open our doors and invite more players into the game than ever before. They will have a chance to delve into the open beta and see for themselves that WAR has arrived and it is glorious!”

Press release here.