Mark Jacobs on Warhammer Beta Close

The rumor mill is spinning about Warhammer’s imminent beta pause. The intrepid Mark Jacobs, Giant Head at EAMythic, breathes fire on it dismissing some of the more laughable conjectures. I pressed the pause button man, chill. Jacobs is straight up and his discourse isn’t the more typical crap thrown around by other Giant Heads. Here’s a glimpse, for the full dialogue: (F13) - The largest Warhammer fan community. My thoughts below.

It’s really simple. We got lots and lots of data (some great, some good, some not so good) and we are going to act on what we got. That’s one reason we started beta as early as we did so we could gather that data now, not later, when we have a chance to fix/change/improve things. As an FYI, the tools we are using now I would have killed for with DAoC, if we had then what we have now, a lot of dumb stuff would not have happened. In terms of possible reasons (raised here) for the delay:

1) Making it more like WoW: Nope, if anything the exact opposite is true.

2) That we are yanking out whole systems: Nope, we are adding new systems (as planned) and balancing the existing systems. Here’s a shocking bit of news, the game isn’t balanced yet. Thanks to the tools we have now, we are able to identify what is messed up and we can now fix it ahead of time, as opposed to the past. Trying to fix these things while we have lots of beta testers running around is not conducive to getting a game out on schedule.

3) In terms of whether this move was EA-induced: Not a chance. They have not been involved in the design of the game at all and still aren’t so I can’t blame them for this.

4) That it was caused by lots of people fleeing Mythic: Umm, no. Last I looked all the key members of the *Warhammer* team are still there and very few people have left that team to go elsewhere. People come and go, probably at a higher rate than when we were independent but we are also a heck of a lot bigger than we were in those days.

5) That we are now on a death march: Hardly. If you look at most of the great games that have been done by other developers, they usually are delayed or a date isn’t announced as early as we did with WAR or DAoC. If we were putting this game in “turnaround” mode, then it’s time to play taps. For now, we are simply taking a break from the beta testers so we can focus on the game with as few distractions (inaccurate or conflicting reports, build/debug/test time before a version goes to the players, etc.) as possible for the next couple of months. This is a critical time in our development cycle and we want to make sure that we are doing it the right way.

What I don’t get is, normally the developers have their own servers where they play God. Once they pump out enough new content and the coders slave away non-stop and cry out before collapsing, “Hey boss, we have enough for a patch!” The beta servers where everyone is congregated and happily slaying each other and picking daisies download all that jazz and pick it apart. Why close down the beta realms when you don’t have to because all the developer working and trapping is on their own realm? If they don’t have their own realm, that’s just dumb and I don’t think that is the case. It could be logistics. You know, we really don’t need you right now so buzz off.