The WHA Waaagh - Mythic's Information Magic Show

[Kier Rhonwen]

I do agree that technical details and features that are not 100% certain should not be mentioned, but I also find the lack of new 'fluff' marketing quite astonishing.

At this point in time it would seem very likely that a lot of character & armor models are completely finished and polished to perfection - yet the official websites are full of concept art and antiquated screenshots.
Simple touches are also curiously absent - such as someone thowing together a page of lore and art for Blackguards, taking down the dual-wielding Swordmaster concepts, putting up anything to show the careers open to both genders.

Possibly the entire current websites are going to be replaced when open beta starts, but as the current 'public face of WAR' the passage of time is surely turning much of their content from asset to liability.

[Browncoat-WHA]

Hey guys,

Great to see all the dialogue here. I do want to take a minute to pimp out a couple places with responses to this particular article, as there's a tack taken there that might be interesting to read about:

-Waaagh!'s response
-War Noob's response

Both bring up some good points.

I do want to clarify and say that I completely recognize EA Mythic's already existing committment to the information flow. That much is clear in all the stuff we've been given. That's what makes my criticism all the more apparent - that the company has been giving some good detail but obscures some topics that can't be passed off as "not done" or "unfinished" with the amount of time left to develop.

I also know that Marketing's just doing its job, and lots of people brought up a point about how "this the way Marketing is supposed to be". I definitely see that, but just as in a previous article regarding the "when it's done" syndrome, I'm trying to challenge the status quo. My criticism comes partly from using the "tease" too much, as opposed to the meaty information and ability to address issues, which is Mythic's obvious strength.

[Karelian]

Originally Posted by Browncoat

I also know that Marketing's just doing its job, and lots of people brought up a point about how "this the way Marketing is supposed to be". I definitely see that, but just as in a previous article regarding the "when it's done" syndrome, I'm trying to challenge the status quo. My criticism comes partly from using the "tease" too much, as opposed to the meaty information and ability to address issues, which is Mythic's obvious strength.

I agree and I will repeat myself by saying I don't really mind not sharing everything since most balance issues for example are still being tweaked or straight up reworked, what bothers me is the fact that in the past three months or so I have noticed that Mythic keeps talking about the exact same things over and over again.

Every interview, all the questions that have been asked before get the exact same answers, even with Paul Barnett doing the same jokes he did before. Mind you, I really like Barnett, but you have to admit the jokes lose a lot of their power when you hear the exact same one for the third time.

The new questions however don't even get answered. Either they say "we are still talking about it" without even hinting at the possibilities on what the answer could be, or they say "we aren't allowed to talk about it".

The newsletter is the biggest thing they release for obvious reasons. So let's look at that a bit.

The April newsletter didn't have a single bit of new information and no real content of any kind really.

The May issue had a video on crafting, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but which didn't actually tell us anything at all. It was fun to watch sure, but it was so general that we really know absolutely nothing new about it. Oh but they announced the White Lion you say? Who didn't know that was the final career like 6 months ago?

How about June? Magus will be the engineer's mirror. Well ok, we didn't KNOW the magus would get "pets", but we did know he would mirror the engineer and thus it was easy to guess. I still have to admit it was nice to get confirmation. Info on standards? The same info we already knew before.

Really the last time they released new information was the announcement of what the Collector's Edition includes. And that was in March I believe.

So to sum up, is it just me or has EA Mythic released absolutely no new information in the past few months? And hasn't the NEWSletter been rather light on actual NEWS lately?

P.S. I really gotta try to start writing shorter posts since I'm rather sure not a single person will actually read this.

[Valkyron]

Originally Posted by Karelian

P.S. I really gotta try to start writing shorter posts since I'm rather sure not a single person will actually read this.

Some of us read the long posts .

[Karelian]

Originally Posted by Valkyron

Some of us read the long posts .

Awesome ^^

[Fiale]

Originally Posted by Karelian

P.S. I really gotta try to start writing shorter posts since I'm rather sure not a single person will actually read this.

The day we get a TLDR on this forum is the day I hope the Mod's step up from banning and add assination to their options, kidding but I find it really annoying, if your not going to read something why go to the bother of informing everyone of your ADD

Anyway back on topic, yes I agree with you... it would appear if we are on track for a September/October release we will be bomarded with to much information to look at / discuss and it will goto waste as opposed to a ramping up information gradually over the next 8-12 weeks to grab the interest if those outside of the current "already converted" crowd.

[Nergalus]

The podcasts, q&e's and whatnot have been great and has made me exited about the game, as they portrait a game with backbone,content and a funfactor while also kind of hammering in to our heads what the ideology of this game is.

All of this of course blows the expectations in to almost stellar proportions.

EA Mythic, because of this, needs to deliver at release day. And the pressure i would assume is high now, seeing that a certain other game just released that in my opinion only delivered on the graphics, and a big part of their customers are killing it further. And im pretty sure the last thing EA Mythic wants is for the same to happen with them.

Now the information flow about WAR has lately stagnated and whatever is released is the same old same old. This of course will not be enough for the people who had followed this games development a long time. But for the new comers its ideal, because they probably don't want to know about this and that about a certain mastery or career right of the bat.

The new comers will maybe want to know what its all about before they start digging in. And atm there is a lot of stuff new comers can dig into if the first impressions they get from the game development are positive to them.

So i reckon this is one reason why we're seeing the same old being repeated a lot lately.
And maybe we can blame this on the "evil" marketing, as they probably want every new person who sees what they release to be hooked instantly.

However this is bad for us who have seen it all before. Do they have anything new in store for us? Every now and then there is.
But now as we're coming close to open beta, nda lift and release, how much new stuff can we really expect?

Sure we haven't had much info on a couple of careers. And this might be a bad thing for all we know. And there are other things too ofc which has already been mentioned. Its worrying, but i have a feeling its worrying maybe only to us who have seen everything before.

Though a clear earlyish statement on server rulesets is something i think should have been brought forward for the benefit of the new people looking in to the game and the people whos been around a while. I know personally i will be disappointed if i don't get an Open rvr server to play on. Not the end of the world though, but still.

The marketing for WAR seems to have done a good job getting people hooked. And its a constant struggle between the marketing and fanbase on what marketing wants us to hear about and what the fanbase wants to hear about.
I for one is one of those fans who wants to know pretty much everything before release. Especially since im not in beta.

I can see where Browncoat is coming from, but i feel as maybe what was wented may have been a little too late, in terms on how near release we are. That is if the purpose of it was to get a reply in the forms of new exiting info from EA mythic. It might just be too late if that was the case.

I feel somewhat satisfied, though a bit critical now after my experience with AoC, with what ive learned about the game so far from the official development. But that is not to say i dont want more.

E3 is coming up soon, and while i expect the same old same old, I hope some new tidbits be released that keeps my excitement as a long time follower maintained.
Maybe we even get bombarded with a lot of new stuff. But i kind of dont expect that to happen, as what theyve released so far pretty much covers the whole game.

If new stuff would be released i suspect it would be to cater the hardcore fans for a while. But i dont suspect a lot of that kinda info as it would be to much to swallow for anyone new to the game. The nda lift i assume is what we hardcores whos not in beta needs to be waiting for. And this is a good thing for me at least, knowing that AoC for example is still under nda. (I was in beta for that game late 2007, but quit right after new years. And i regret leaving too soon hoping it would turn out good. And with the nda not being lifted before release either, I really had no clue what i bought.)

Iv'e certainly been wow'ed from the magic show and because of that i have my expectations for EA Mythic to deliver on release day. And if they're not able to deliver I feel sorry for them and sorry on my behalf too.
My recent experience with AoC gave me a lesson on that. And because of that my exitment for WAR is still high but its now teamed with a thought in the back of my head that tells me to wait and see what info released next..

I do have concerns, but not really much doubt about WAR based on what ive seen so far. But one thing is for sure WAR will need to deliver regardless of what state the game is in right now. If its means a pushback, so be it. I can wait. Ill still be around advertising the game to the people i want with me in the game.

One of the longest posts ive made in ages...hope it made sense

[Mbj]

Folks,

Hmmm, not sure how to respond to this piece. It is wrong on so many levels it's kind of hard to know where to begin. A number of years ago I probably would have responded with a frothing-at-the-mouth kind of reply but I'll keep it nice and civil in deference to WHA's contributions to the growth of WAR over the last few years and the fact that I know that Browncoat is a fan of the game and not someone looking to take potshots at us for fun and frolic.

First, and I've said this before, do not blame "The Evil Marketing Guys" ever for any perceived issues with the flow of information. Those decisions start and end with me. I'm happy, thrilled and overjoyed to freely admit (as I have before) that we haven't revealed all aspects of our game yet and we don't intend to do so immediately. We have a long summer coming up and we will be releasing a lot more information over the next 2 months. Between E3, Leipzig, etc. we have a lot of ground to cover and we need things to talk about in these various places. if we released all the information now not only would we have nothing new to talk about there ('natch) but then we would hear complaints along the lines of "I came all the way to XXX and there was nothing new there to see!!!" or "Thanks Mythic for wasting my time, I'm not buying your game now!" and journalists would also have nothing new to report over the next few months. That would be a terrible marketing decision. By the end of the month there will be a whole lot more to talk about and by the end of August, even more. Besides, since I'm currently working on the latest "State of the Game" message I kinda know this to be true.

Second, I really resent the usage of the word "tricks" in a manner to suggest that we are, gee, trying to trick someone. If we wanted to trick players, that would be easy, we would talk about all the things that the players can look forward to being in the game at launch, pretend that they will be in at launch, promise them the earth, moon and sky and get them all excited even though we know that they won't be in at launch. That's been done too many times in MMO history and we aren't going to do that. That's a real trick and we don't play those kind of games, period. We have done a lot of things to help promote WAR over the last 3 years and these things have helped take WAR from a game that few people really cared about (or thought would be successful) to one of the most anticipated MMOs of all time. Whether it is our closed-beta test signups, our pre-sales of the Collector's Edition (should be sold out soon), Internet traffic, etc., WAR has more buzz than just about any other MMO to date. However, we have never resorted to trickery to get this buzz. My teams have worked their tails off helping to promote the game and I'm mighty proud to say that we've always done it honestly, without tricks or deception.

Third, the fact that we have "skeptics" as we get closer to launch. OMG, who would have thought that would happen? Well actually, me three years ago on this site and on other places. It's been going exactly the way I expected it would based on our experience with DAoC's launch as well as the launch of other games. As we get closer to launch and while the NDA is still in place, we get both people who are nervous as well as people who want to grief us on these forums. Nothing new here, please move on.

Fourth, at the end of the article Browncoat makes it seem like we don't either understand our hardcore fans, don't care about them and that somehow we don't have a plan going forward. Let me tell you something, we have a plan and we are following it to the letter. Now, maybe some still think even after reading my post that it's the wrong plan, that we should immediately open the floodgates today. Well, you would be wrong. We still have a number of months to go and we will continue to release information throughout the remainder of the development cycle. Oh, and if we were being so nefarious, clever or even sneaky we wouldn't be opening up guild beta would we? After all if you are worried about the hardcore fans, well, a whole heck of a lot of them are going to be playing WAR very shortly. Talk about dissemination of information to the hardcore fans! In the next few weeks more people will have access to WAR than have had access to WAR to date. If there really was something to worry about, we would have delayed Guild Beta (again). Inviting some of your key hard-core fans to play your game is not a good idea unless you think that they will actually enjoy it right?

Fifth, things change all the time in beta. We're not afraid to put systems/ideas in to see how they work and we are equally not afraid to pull them if they are not working. We will continue to do this throughout beta and if it means that we cannot talk about something now, so be it. As I've also said before, I'd rather have people disappointed with us now (or soon) rather than at launch. Talking about things that aren't 100% fully cooked is almost never a good idea especially when we are this close to launch.

Finally, Browncoat admits that we have put forth an impressive array of information. As he says, we really have done a fine job of disseminating a ton of information to date. Well, if we've done that already why would we resort to tricks or that kind of nonsense? Would anybody reasonably think that somehow things have miraculously taken a nose-dive here and somehow "Evil Marketing" or worse, EA corporate has somehow messed with us. In life, the simplest answer is usually true and in our case, the simplest answer is that much more is coming and nobody is messing with us.

In the end, just as I've said before, we will release information about the game on our schedule and nobody else's schedule. Also as I've said countless times before, I have no doubt that we are going to piss some people by some of the decisions we made/make/will make but that's the price of doing business. However, I can't help but think that based on every metric we can track that interest in WAR continues to grow. Frankly, if it wasn't, I would have instructed marketing to open the floodgates ahead of schedule to help stem the tide. Fortunately, that is not necessary.

By the time the Summer ends one of two things should happen. First, either I will be made out to be a liar and very little information will be disseminated or everything will happen just as I've said. In the first case, I'll be here to say that I fibbed or I hope that in the second case, I hope that Browncoat will write a nice apology piece. We'll just have to sit back a bit and see what happens...


Mark

[Oyjord]

Originally Posted by Fiale

- June newsletter has not long been released, look at the new posts on this forum and only 5 are about WaR the rest either guild banter, last person to post type threads, RP baiting and TT / LOre info. There is hardly anything about the game ( only 5 out of 25 first page posts). This suggest that even a few days after newsletters people are talking about anything but WaR, this is on the biggest WaR site, and suggest a boredom factor setting in. Now as we are a captive almost gauranted sale for Mythic and are finding the whole WaR thing getting dull - then what must those neautral "I am happy with x,y, you will need to convince me" players be thinking.

I think this is a poignant observation that shouldn't be dismissed.

Oyjord.

[Browncoat-WHA]

Mark,

Thanks for the reply. It's good that you see I'm here to present an opinion, and also, to create feedback that the company and the developers can do with as they wish. As if it wasn't apparent already, no disrespect is intended. I knew when we started putting out these pieces that sooner or later, we would elicit a response. It won't be the first time, nor the last, as these are opinion pieces and sometimes an opinion isn't always positive.

That being said, you can bet that as much as I will give constructive criticism, I will also give positive props as well, so by end of summer you can expect an update on my feelings on the situation.

I won't break my "defense of the topic" policy, even for a response from Mythic, as it's an opinion, but I will say it's great to get more information on the cogs and wheels that, as we are not employees of the company, we'd never get to see. Sometimes perception creates an opinion, and it's nice to see that we now have more information to base that opinion on. Thanks!

[Karelian]

Originally Posted by Mbj

By the time the Summer ends one of two things should happen. First, either I will be made out to be a liar and very little information will be disseminated or everything will happen just as I've said. In the first case, I'll be here to say that I fibbed or I hope that in the second case, I hope that Browncoat will write a nice apology piece. We'll just have to sit back a bit and see what happens...


Mark

To keep this short and sweet, I don't think the complaint here was that you haven't shared a lot of information with the community.

It's actually a tricky little thing, you see, for a long time the newsletter showed new things every time and at events you showed off new features of the game.

Then about 3 months ago or so, the newsletters started being the same thing you said before. When showing the game off, the things you talked about were the same without showing a single new thing. Someone asked you a new question and you can't answer it either because it's still being worked on, which I do understand, or you aren't allowed to talk about it.

So the problem isn't that you haven't been forthcoming, it's that you suddenly seem to have stopped being so.

I understand why you'd use the same speeches and the same jokes to show the game off at conventions or in interviews, it's obviously for the new fans and now IS the time to get new fans aboard since the game is getting closer to launch.

The thing is, the hardcore fans who have been following the game for a long time are getting nothing now. While we have already made the decision to buy the game (that is if it runs on our computers), that doesn't mean you don't still need to give us something.

So to sum up, the problem isn't that you haven't been forthcoming, the problem is you seem to have stopped being so. I realize marketing isn't simple, just thought I'd share my opinion on what is causing the doomsaying and such.

Ok, the short and sweet part didn't work out. Drat.

[Kahlua]

Originally Posted by Mbj

We have a long summer coming up and we will be releasing a lot more information over the next 2 months.
Mark

so it's 2 months countdown to ...?

[Karelian]

Originally Posted by Kahlua

so it's 2 months countdown to ...?

Most likely to the NDA dropping.

[Gunter]

Originally Posted by Kahlua

so it's 2 months countdown to ...?

The end of summer in 2 months. do not read into it. Mark said in an earlier post to ecpect NDa lift sooner than later if all goes well in Guild beta.

[Etelka Herzen]

Thanks Mark !

I really enjoyed reading your comment and I think that you have all done a superb job so far (that coming from someone who has worked his entire life in marketing) Keep up the good work