f13.net

According to Eurogamer (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=55854) a certain evil company bent on turning youth into paint-sniffing zombies who spend all their money on miniatures and related produce (http://www.gamesworkshop.com/) has halted development of the MMOG based on one of the best - nay, THE best - fantasy PnP RPG. (http://www.warhammer.net/)

It hurts - I think.

DND online is being made by Turbine.  I expect much suckage.  I have a bad feeling it will be as fun as AC2.  Just a bad gut feeling.  Same goes for MEO, which is an awful fucking idea in the first place.  Worse than Star Wars for a mmog world.

I still don't think EQ2 is coming out this year.  WoW, maybe.  EQ2 is way too hush hush and have not started beta yet.  The only way to get that out is a huge rush job.  Unless their internal testing is second to none and they debut beta with an almost finished game.  This to me is about as likely as duke nukem online coming out this year.

I was thinkign about that as well the other day. How in the hell can they do a full beta if their game is like 10 cds long. Unless they are charging and shipping the disks out I am not sure how they could really give eq2 a full test.

As for ship date I only say this year cause thats what the goons are saying I think they will be lucky to make it by december and very likely it will slip into next spring.

WOW should ship this year it has already been in a pretty huge beta already for a good while I doubt the money men would let them not kick it out by this fall come hell or high water.


kaid

That was at Fat Babies I think

games many people would play if it wasnt for the absurd costs, massive amounts of work, and incredibly ambiguous rules, .

We do NOT need another fantasy MMO.

I disagree with you on this basis. We DO need another fantasy MMOG, we need a fucking good one. All the rest of these stinkers suck ass or have been played out. I'd kill for a good fantasy MMO that isn't just another EQ clone.

It's resequenced game DNA made from the puddle under the leaking dumpster where they throw all the aborted fetuses of game design.

by Sarkhan @ 21 Jun 2004 11:36 pm   
My heart has stopped.
My brain has shut down.
I think babies are crying in the background.

What has happened? Why was there no warning? Why has it gone for the worse?
We had the greatest Online community ever built! Ever! And it's torn to shreds by 2 paragraphs by Robin Dews on the home-page!

Let us go the way of Seademond, let's find some means of replacing that wonderful site!

Climax CEO Kar Jeffery has suggested a sum of around $30 million to launch a new massively multiplayer online (MMO) game in today’s market, with the upfront investment in servers and support teams proving too much for Climax and Games Workshop.

As we walk forth into this new world without the sunny tommorow of Warhammer Online looking out for us.
Remember the times you've had. Whether it be with guildmates or by yourself. Remember the fun and the laughter. The jokes, and the mods.
Warhammer Online wasn't just a game. It was a spirit. A community of differen indivuals of all ages and ethnicities, who came together to weave a delicate fabric.

"I worked on WO and it was apparent from the start that all they were telling the public was 50% bollocks. "

That'd be the MD and the Exec producer then at the start of the project? Matt Sansam has a reputation for it apparently. Working inthe industry you hear these things.


"The basic trouble was it was 2 years into development before GW turned round and said "erm that not what we had in mind" to which Climax said "well werent you looking at the weekly progress reports we were giving you?" "

Oh so true!

""After that new design staff were brought in on the GW side who were inexperienced (read "had only ever worked on MUDs before) yet were given free reign and Climaxs design team had to get approval for everything they did (which often took a week or more). ""

http://www.thatbarnettbloke.com/
some of the reasons that are being described I fear. Clueless don't ever hire them. I think you can tell by the site but hey.

""It could have been good and the tech was reasonably sound but its a simple case of too many cooks and some crap management (mostly on the design side) with both GW and Climax. Dont believe the hype. This thing was floundering 6 months ago...""

Partially true, mainly from the GW side, although the Management never helped. However the fact that GW believe they make good games and they thought they could transfer this to the computer games market has obviously misguided to say the least.
Hireing people that want to make a mark in an industry they have no idea in ALA thatbarnetbloke, believeing them Mr Priestly, Mr Dews, can only lead to disaster at 2 years into a project. The concept of the publisher coming along and saying actually we've paid you to make a game but now we want to consistantly meddle with it because we can. But we don't understand that it takes time to change code and change art assets, we thought it was like writing a text based mud.
However with a game at almost beta stage even with all this to can it is just a simple statement of the lack of belief in their own IP and its position in the marketplace. Get back to making lead figures little boys and stop playing in things you don't understand. Its 3D in every sense not 2D like your simple games.
A note to anyone working with GW as a third party don't let them get involved in any sort of design!

I take offense to that thread.  People who only ever worked on MUDs before ARE experiened... where do you think many of today's industry verterans got their start?

GAMES WORKSHOP GROUP, PLC
ONLINE GAMING DEVELOPMENT PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT
JUNE 21, 2004

Today we have made the following announcement to our shareholders:

“Games Workshop Group PLC (“the Company”) announces that its board has resolved to terminate its online gaming development project. This decision was taken following a full review of the progress, costs to date and future costs of the project. As a result both the Company and Climax Development Limited, the computer games developer, have agreed to terminate the development project."

The online team has been working for some time to prepare a detailed project report which examines the current status of this project, the work still to be completed, how long the game will take to finish and to get it to market, and how much all this is expected to cost. The board has reviewed this report and has decided that the team’s reassessment of the project shows that it is more risky and very much more expensive than expected and therefore no longer attractive enough for us to continue to commit the group’s resources. While the opportunity to have an online game set in a Games Workshop universe still looks very exciting, this project was always a step into the unknown. We now know much more about online games than when we began this venture, but there remain substantial risks associated with this project, and the potential future rewards are still uncertain.

We will be winding down the project immediately, although a small, specialized team will continue to examine whether online games remain a serious business opportunity for Games Workshop.

Let us all remember that this project was well worth while, and it very nearly worked. No-one involved should feel despondent. It was a valiant effort. Gallantry does not always lead to success.

- Tom Kirby

whether online games remain a serious business opportunity for Games Workshop.

They started seeding the US with their own stores, pushing out other retailers who sell other products.

GW should have stuck with the original plan and made an mmog version of their most popular licenses as they are. That is gone the Wizards of the Coast route and implemented their rules in an online game, made at matchmaking service and make people buy virtuel miniatures.
If they did it without the stupid ass pricing scheme that WoTC adobted, they could have made a bundle.

But Stateside they are up against another company with license to print money: Wizards of the Coast, with Magic: the Gathering. In the UK, however, I seem to recall the Borg, er, Games Workshop have assimilated all gaming stores.

In the U.S. the "Borg" are up against the "Dominion", to further the inappropriate Star Trek analogy. I don't think they have the same chance there. If i'm not too mistaken, even the MageKnight/HeroClix/whatever lines of plastic prepainted miniatures sell better than GW's creations there.