Mark Jacobs popped up on F13 and had the following to say
f13.net forums - Mythic-EA shuts down Warhammer beta, tells players to come back later
All,
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.
In terms of the Elves, they are being put in but they weren't supposed to be playable at this point anyway.
The reactions have been kinda funny. When we said we could do the game in about 2 years (we didn't even have a contract for WAR till the summer of '05), people said we should take more time, spend more money and do it right. When other companies take extra time to do it right, lots of people jump up and down and say that shows that they really care about making a great game. When we announced our delay last year so we could make the game even better than we originally planned (thanks to the level of competition from Blizzard and elsewhere), people said the game was doomed. When we don't invest enough time and money into the test/iterate cycle for DAOC (since we didn't have any extra money to do so with that game), people said correctly that it caused problems and that next time we need to do it right. Then, here we announce that we want to hold off on the next stage of beta, for among other reasons, because we want to fix what was broken before the next group of invites, some people again say it is a sign that we are doomed. We can't win, no matter what we do it seems, when it comes to some peoples' perception.
In terms of beta serving no purpose, not in our case. It's why I wanted it to start early even knowing that we would shut it down at some point (we've done this before, we just didn't talk about it). It is precisely because we knew that the guilds and lots of other people were waiting for admittance that we even talked about this publicly. The beta has been going extremely well but that doesn't mean that everything is perfect. We expected that the beta would point out both strengths and weaknesses of the design and now we are acting on what we've learned so far. Since we have more than enough to keep us busy over the next two months, nothing would have been served by opening it up to lots of lots of new people, many of whom would say that exact same thing as the groups that have gone before them. From a purely business perspective, that would make no sense at all. I want people to be excited by what they see in the game and not to point out the same bugs/issues/etc. that the group before them did. We also want our current crowd of testers to be able to come back in 2 months with fresh eyes to see all the things we've done in the interim. One other thing to keep in mind is that the game has been pretty much up 24x7 since we began letting in people so we really do have a ridiculous amount of data and private and forum feedback to work with. Most other games early on don't do that.
This last point may seem a little obvious or even self-serving but if we were really in trouble why wouldn't we simply say that beta is closed until further notice or until it's ready? We chose 2 months precisely because we have a good handle now on what needs to be done and how long we need to get ready for a really major infusion of players.
Mark
Beta Closed till Dec
