Color me surprised... no, not really.

[Nebu]

Mythic Entertainment, developer and publisher of massively-multiplayer online role-playing games, today announced the production postponement of "Imperator," the sci-fi MMORPG previously scheduled for a June 2006 release. The decision was made after a complete internal review of the project status.

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I actually think that this may be a solid move on the part of Mythic.  Their real strength to date has been the development and attempted balance of a viable realm vs. realm type system. To create a game with a questionable setting that is PvE only seemed like a horrendous move. Especially when PvE has been anything but enjoyable in their initial title.

As the last surviving DAoC player on these boards, I'll be keeping my eye on this.

[Shockeye]

Wow. I just called schild about it and he's dancing the dance of "I told you so".

[tazelbain]

Lum's been slacken.

[Shockeye]

Lum's been slacken.

I'm sure he's already working on Warhammer.

[Llava]

"Screw Imperator, we have a game that will actually sell copies now!"

Can't blame 'em.  Just hope they're not planning on any downsizing as a result.

[Tige]

I'm sure he's already working on Warhammer.

Imperator will soon be Warhammer.  It will sell a hell of alot more copies than Romas in Space.

[Shockeye]

There are no personnel layoffs planned as a result of this decision. Staff will be reassigned to the ongoing development of "Dark Age of Camelot" including the next expansion, "Darkness Rising," scheduled for Q4 '05. In addition some personnel have already been assigned to the new "Warhammer" MMORPG which Mythic announced at E3 in May 2005.

...


The decision to postpone "Imperator" also means that the company's plans to establish a European publishing office have been postponed. It is expected that those plans will resume as the company prepares for its 2007 worldwide publication of the "Warhammer" MMORPG.

Seems things are just getting reshuffled for the moment along was a postponement of a European office.

[Nebu]

As I stated above, I think the refocus is a good move.  Use a small staff to milk the remaining drops from DAoC and the remaining force to focus on Warhammer.  I'm very interested in seeing how things go with Warhammer and was glad to see that the move to delay Imperator wouldn't cost anyone their job.

[Paelos]

Wow. I just called schild about it and he's dancing the dance of "Il told you so".

I've heard of this dance. Is it similar to his PSP dance? 

[Strazos]

Aww, and I was looking forward to biting the bullet for everyone and playing Imperator.

[WayAbvPar]

I think this is good news. Hopefully the good folks at Mythic can get it rerailed and make something worth playing.

[stray]

Hopefully the good folks at Mythic can get it rerailed and make something worth playing.

In other words, making Warhammer "Warhammer", and not "DAOC"?

Doubtful.

[Dren]

Lum's been slacken.

I'm pretty sure Lum has said he isn't working on either Imperator or DAoC.  Vague, but there you have it.

[schild]

Glad people got reassigned instead of canned. That said:

heh.

[Johny Cee]

As the last surviving DAoC player on these boards, I'll be keeping my eye on this.

You aren't the only DAoC player left...

DAoC Classic (no ToA,  limited buff ranges) went live yesterday.  Server pops were capped at 3,000 and bumped to 3,500 today.  Server population has been at cap pretty much constantly the last two days.

I popped on to observe the Crazy.....  Place your bets on how long it takes people to get bored/distracted....

It's the perfect time to give DAoC another chance, though,  if you have interest.  People actually might group below 50......

[HRose]

I'm a player "back".

[schild]

I'm a player "back".

Backstroke of the West?

[Nebu]

Some real issues with the new servers.

1. NF was created with ToA balance in mind.  Many of the RA's will wreak havoc in the absence of ToA counters.
2. PvE is still a grind and it still sucks.
3. Many of the Catacombs areas were built with ToA in mind (Darkspire and the overthere without a FoP or ML9 pets will be interesting).
4. The powergamers will still dominate the servers and the casual player will still be rp cows for the ventrilo-coordinated power gank groups.
5. I'm still waiting to see if legendary weapons will be made possible without ToA component drops.

I give the enthusiasm about 2-3 months until people a)  realize that the PvE is still a painful entry fee for "teh fun" and b) realize that ranged buffs and no ToA will still render the casual player as a second class citizen.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but unless they really alter the current rule set there are some serious problems waiting to happen.  At least one good thing has come of the new servers: you won't see zergs of 20 Albion stealthers leaching off of every battle.

[sinij]

How hard is it to make PvE game... just add for more re-hued moongbats and ship on time.

[squirrel]

I actually think Mythic is a pretty savvy company, despite the hangover that DAoC induced. I have absolutley 0 insight to the MMORPG business but i do know that Mythic wants

a). to make money
b). to make reasonably good games

I think this decision supports both goals.

ps. and fuck you mark - i'm not resubbing just cause you retracted 'teh suck'.

[Trippy]

I wonder how much of this has to do with the juggernaut that is WoW. I.e. if WoW wasn't such a massive success would they still be working on Imperator?

[AlteredOne]

Genius, this continues Mythic's recent trend of admitting and reversing horrible ideas.

These 2 no-ToA servers are accounting for around 40% of the online players at any given time, and undoubtedly there are many more trying to log on since both are capped at 3500.  Meanwhile the existing "clustered" servers are showing maybe 400 players apiece during primetime.

It is entirely possible that Mythic will need to merge and decommission many of those low-pop servers, replacing them with the "Classic" model.  ToA could easily become the ruleset on a minority of servers.  Of course server merges could be incredibly complex, with the housing model and duplication of names.

[HRose]

These 2 no-ToA servers are accounting for around 40% of the online players at any given time, and undoubtedly there are many more trying to log on since both are capped at 3500.  Meanwhile the existing "clustered" servers are showing maybe 400 players apiece during primetime.

Sadly, it was the same with Andred and Mordred.

My opinion is that these new server will continue to be popular in the long run, but not as popular as they are now and the choice to launch already a third server (Ector) may be a mistake.

I only wish Mythic would try to address the real and radical issues with the game instead of backtracking. The fact that these servers are popular isn't the confirmation that this choice is a good one. But just that they should have started to move the game in that direction long ago.

Solving at the core problems like the buffbots and without seconding them as they always did.

If games like WoW are so popular it's also because other games have stopped trying and decided that a conservative development was sufficient.

[AlteredOne]

True, Andred and Mordred had a rush, but I'm seeing a much different type of rush here.  My guild has seen probably a dozen people reactivate for this, and I'm seeing similar from other ex-Lancelot guilds that I've seen on Lamorak. 

As for whether this solves all the game's problems, certainly not.  People who love ToA and their toons on ToA servers could legitimately have a beef.  But with some creativity, it should be possible to further cluster or merge those servers, giving the existing players a better experience.  Meanwhile the "Classic" population can enjoy themselves without caring about whether they are ruining anybody else's gaming.

Overall though, what I'm hearing from both hardcore and casual players on the new servers is this:  "we are having fun, it's enjoyable doing the Catacombs content from level 1, and the level curve is so short that we don't care about restarting."  As for the endgame being dominated by Ventrilo groups or whatever -- this is acceptable.  If you want to be casual about RvR, New Frontiers is on these servers, and you can hide in towers.  If you loved the old-school RvR before it was dominated by artifacts and MLs, you can have it again.  And yes, realm ranks will give superiority, but it will again be possible to get to Realm Rank 5 or so fairly quickly, then be competitive with a decent guild group and some coordination. 

Short story: for those who love RvR, the time to roll up a guild group and get them decently equipped at level 50/RR5, is probably a couple weeks or less, compared to a couple months with ToA.

[tazelbain]

Voice chat is here to stay for team PvP.

[HaemishM]

Good for Mythic. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, that they discovered a PVE-only game of Romans in Space wouldn't make money in the post-WoW world.

If you are going to come out with a new MMOG, you better damn well have a good hook. PVP is one good hook, but they decided against that. Without PVP, the PVE better be good, but if it's anything like DAoC, it wouldn't have been. In the wake of no PVP and boring PVE, the hook better be your setting, and Romans in Space? Not even close to being popular enough to make up the money it would have taken to launch.

I'm also happy to see they didn't lay off anyone, just pushing them onto projects that Mythic thinks will be profitable. Congratulations on having a fucking conscience.

While I may dog the shittastic treadmill in DAoC, I have always and continue to respect Mythic as a company that wants to do the business side of things right, including not shitcanning entire teams of people because of bad design decisions.

[Johny Cee]

Andred and Mordred had the exact same rush.

Hell,  there was a similar rush when Alb/Bors was the only server that /level 30.  How many of the hundreds in the level 30-35 bg stuck around?

The major reason why most people don't more regularly jump servers is the massive sunk costs.  On an established server,  you have cash,  contacts, spare gear, established crafters, etc etc etc.  At some point,  you have to do the farming, grinding, crafting, and assorted other unfun shit in order to establish yourself on a new server.  I remember the days when leveling one crafter needed an entire guild....

When people start hitting the wall,  they will either cancel again or head back to their old established servers.  Besides,  the next big expansion will just piss off those that are mad at Mythic adding grind a bit more.

I think the best thing to come out of the Classic servers will be Mythic slapping ToA with another round of serious fixes.  I wouldn't be surprises if scroll drop rates got bumped a huge amount,  while further nerfing the difficulty of Master Level encounters/time.

[Soln]

Mythic is a great company.  It has some of the best netcode I've seen pre-CoH battles.  They also have savvy support via PvP stats.  However, the design blows and I can't return to such a prohibitive PvE grind, so I'm unfortunately not a sub anymore.  Let's hope this is the end for what I thought at the time was just a bad reaction to SWG coming.  Let's hope this helps them along.

[Fargull]

Viva la Warhammer!

[Xanthippe]

I'd so be there if I could move my toons.  But I don't want to level up another one, not with 2 50s and a almost 50.

Meanwhile, downloading EQ2 free demo.  Should be done in oh, 3 or 4 hours.  Shoot me now?

[WayAbvPar]

I'd so be there if I could move my toons.  But I don't want to level up another one, not with 2 50s and a almost 50.

Meanwhile, downloading EQ2 free demo.  Should be done in oh, 3 or 4 hours.  Shoot me now?

Done with the download or done playing it?

[Strazos]

I'd so be there if I could move my toons.  But I don't want to level up another one, not with 2 50s and a almost 50.

Meanwhile, downloading EQ2 free demo.  Should be done in oh, 3 or 4 hours.  Shoot me now?

Done with the download or done playing it?

ba-ZING.

[Hoax]

Stupid gamesworkshop...

No online Bloodbowl
No plans to turn Epic40k into a Myth-style Strat game
No support for things like Necromunda, Inquisitor, BFG, Epic or Mordheim...

I the love and hate for them is so strong, only eclipsed by my love of the battletech universe versus my hate for all things Wizkids.

[Trippy]

Meanwhile, downloading EQ2 free demo.  Should be done in oh, 3 or 4 hours.  Shoot me now?

If you insist:

           

[Samwise]

Why is the smiley on the right bleeding blue?