Mythica MMORPG Cancelled By Microsoft 223
Ivan writes "Microsoft announced that it has cancelled Mythica, its internally developed massively multiplayer PC RPG with a Nordic twist. The official website has the formal cancellation announcement, but additionally, 1UP spoke with MS reps who gave a few more details, noting 'the company had two MMORPG projects in development -- Mythica, and an as-yet-unannounced title. Rather than support the development and eventual maintenance of two MMORPGs in an already crowded and highly competitive market, Microsoft cancelled Mythica to make room for its other game.'"
In other words... (Score:5, Funny)
The 'as yet unannounced title" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The 'as yet unannounced title" (Score:2)
They're talking about Sigil's [sigilgames.com] game. The original creator of EverQuest and a bunch of people that worked on EQ created a company to create a MMORPG due probably around 2006.
Wonder What MS First Item to Change Will Be. (Score:2, Informative)
SigilGames.Com is hosted on a Linux server.
I suppose they will want to change that.
Re:Sadly not (Score:2)
'job eliminations', 'may be impacted'... these are people we're talking about - people who've worked hard and poured their talent into something - now they're being 'impacted'.
Disgraceful, they could at least publicise redundancies in a sensitive manner. Have we really sunk so low?
Best wishes,
Mike.
Re:Sadly not (Score:2)
I know a good oral surgeon who could help you out.
Re:Sadly not (Score:2)
I think he needs a proctologist.
M$ Games? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:M$ Games? (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, I allways looked at hardware installation in the early days as a roll of the dice.
Microsoft's most profitable game (Score:2, Funny)
MS's MMOGs (Score:5, Informative)
Sigil Games, founded by Brad McQuaid, one of the original creators and producer of Everquest before leaving for Sigil, is working on a 3rd generation MMOG as he calls it.
Say what you will about EQ, but it's still the market leader for MMOGs here in the US. He's hired a ton of talent from the original EQ team to build his game.
Can't say I blame Microsoft at all for betting their chips on Sigil instead of Mythica, considering Turbine already bought Asheron's Call 2 back from Microsoft and running a MMOG isn't cheap, though you can make most of it back over time.
Re:MS's MMOGs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:MS's MMOGs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:MS's MMOGs (Score:2)
Re:MS's MMOGs (Score:2)
Of course WoW has so nutcase expectations built up by now that either Blizzard guys are Gods and pull it off, or it'll be the most spectacular trainwreck launch of our time. I'm currently betting on the second option, based on their track record wit
Re:MS's MMOGs (Score:5, Informative)
Re:MS's MMOGs (Score:2)
I really hope that Brad McQuaid has learned something from that, and applies it to any new games he is involved with.
Then again, maybe that was the goal all along, given how much static content makes up EQ...
Re:MS's MMOGs (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:MS's MMOGs (Score:2, Informative)
Re:MS's MMOGs (Score:2)
Re:MS's MMOGs (Score:5, Insightful)
No. It demonstrates that the worldwide MMORPG is not saturated. For English speakers, though, there are plenty of MMORPGs available (I'll leave the question of whether they're good or not to others).
Unfortunately, the MMORPG market seems to be locked into a painful, stagnating track. Specifically, everyone sees the success of Everquest and wants to attract the people who like that game. Thus, every game seems to be emulating EQ with relatively minor tweaks (probably inspired by reading threads written by people who are angry about something in Everquest). The problem with being on this track is that people who didn't enjoy, or got tired of, Everquest see little reason to try the latest, greatest MMORPG given how much they all tend to resemble each other.
Me, I'm just going to bide my time until they get about two years into Star Wars Galaxies. With spaceships and the inevitable balancing/tweaking/content additions, I'm pretty sure I could enjoy it. :)
Re:MS's MMOGs (Score:5, Interesting)
The Sims Online tried to tap some of this market. Despite its failure, the game managed to draw in something of a new crowd; people who weren't big on RPGs or online gaming.
I see two opportunities for MMORPG companies:
1) Market expansion a la Sims Online: attracting more of the mainstream crowd. That doesn't mean writing a game that everyone likes; it means writing a game that has appeal outside the current MMORPG player base.
2) Separation and rationalisation of the graphics engine, game world functions, support, and billing function. As the player base widens, I think it will be increasingly hard to develop a game that has appeal to everyone. Instead, if you have a generic (but evolving) game world engine, a single billing and support entity, and flexible graphics engines, then you will be able to develop and run multiple MMORPGs at a lower cost. You may be able to profitably run a niche-market game for perhaps 20.000 subscribers, if you have 10 such games. That way, you'll be able to tailor each game to the wants of a small group of players, rather than being forced financially to write a game that tries to be everything to everyone.
Re:MS's MMOGs (Score:2)
Listen, I'm no hater...but I beta tested Everquest back in 1997, and I've had more fun in bus stations than I did playing that game.
I enjoyed the challenge at first -- I am a P&P guy at heart and the idea of a massive immersive world really shook my dodecahedral dice. But I'm afraid it rolled a fumble...I couldn't take the waiting for monsters to respawn, or the guys who insisted on talking out of game (or even worse, the guys who tried to talk in game but only know the dialogue from "Lady Haw
Re:MS's MMOGs (Score:3, Interesting)
From what I remember, McQuaid's "vision" was what stifled EQ development and gameplay for many years.
I've had quite enough of his "vision" to l
Re:Lineage2 is world leader. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Lineage2 is world leader. (Score:2)
Chrikey (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chrikey (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chrikey (Score:2)
mobile-capable? wtf? (Score:3, Informative)
Unless their new MMORPG is a MUD (which I *HIGHLY* suspect is not the case), I doubt you'll be able to play it on any PocketPC. You can't even run the most recent version of EverQuest on a 500mhz Pentium II with 512 megs of ram, and PocketPCs aren't even close to being able to support that much RAM. (Don't believe me? See for yourself. [microsoft.com])
Re:mobile-capable? wtf? (Score:2)
MS Game Development Strategy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:MS Game Development Strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
Smart move! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Smart move! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm betting between the lawsuit and the promise of Sigil they figured this wasn't worth it and just stopped.
Re:Smart move! (Score:3, Interesting)
Metaverses are not simple.
A metaverse paradigm requires a completely different way of designing the rules and content for the game. The "engine" for a metaverse has to be designed to work completely dynamically -- textures, sounds, shapes, and behaviors have to be loaded from the server whenver they change, *as* they change.
Currently, most all MMORPGs come with one or more CDs to dump pre-generated content onto your drive when you install it. This content is slowly unlocked
Re:Smart move! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Smart move! (Score:2)
They just announced [anarchy-online.com] second full-fledged expansion on the game. Shadowlands supposedly sold pretty well, and their subscriber numbers are slowly creeping upwards. I don't think they'd keep on investing towards new expansions and continued development of the game if they didn't get profit out of the game. Yes, AO is not a runaway hit, but I'd wager a bet that it's profitable. Now it's questionable will it survive the upcoming onslaugh of New Shiny Thingy
Bad Day (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Bad Day (Score:4, Insightful)
Another fine shining example for a society with a 50% divorce rate.
Should also make a great cultural addition to "The Apprentice" (keep your own job by abandoning your neighbor), "Survivor" (let's all get together and decide who to ostracize) and "American Idol" (let's make sport of human cruelty).
What a joyful day indeed.
Re:Bad Day (Score:3, Funny)
We should require parents who get divorced to eat their children.
Re:Bad Day (Score:4, Funny)
Ah, thanks for clearing the confusion surrounding the marital status of Barbie and Ken for us geeks. I can understand why you're posting anonymously.
Re:Bad Day ... The Obvious Move for Barbie (Score:3, Funny)
Title for the other MMORPG ? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Title for the other MMORPG ? (Score:2)
And like in that movie, our hero yells "don't look at it...don't look at it"... and the bad guys who do look at it have their faces melt off.
Source Code Leaks (Score:4, Funny)
MS makes a brilliant move to preemptively kill projects, in an effort to stem any further source code leaks.
"No source code here to leak, project's axed, move on."
GBA = The new home for turn-based strategy games? (Score:3, Interesting)
In a perfect world that is. While this is true in the long run, you won't see these results any time soon.
As well... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not sure what the status of that suit was but with no game MS doesn't have to worry about taking a lawyer from their crack team of legal-ninjas scouring the globe for teenage website operators to sue.
The plot of the unannounced MMORPG: (Score:3, Funny)
To be released in 2004^H5^H6^H7...
to make room for its other game (Score:2)
You think the streets of Seattle are tough, try going out in the woods.
Release the Code! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Release the Code! (Score:3, Funny)
When AC2 was released it had two major code problems, chat and authentication. Both of theses section were written by microsoft and given to Turbine, the developers of the rest of AC2. It was said that the code came from an in house MMORPG that was in development, the name Mythica was not yet out.
Later it was found that the problem with chat was that it was using
A Sad Day (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me start this off by saying I'm not a big fan of Microsoft in General.
But that game was amazing. I got to play it ( An Alpha or Pre-Beta ) at GenCon, and it was really fun. I can't remember alot of details, so mod me as you will, but from what I remember gameplay was very intuitive for an RPG, let alone a MMORPG, and battles were face-paced and quick, and very heartpounding.
This is coming from a 3 year EverQuest addict. I'm sorry to see this game going.
Instead of MMORPG mythology... (Score:2, Funny)
MS-MMORG: The Borg (Score:3, Funny)
This is becoming too common :( (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems like there just aren't enough gamers interested in paying a monthly subscription to make it profitable for game makers. That, and the fact that a lot of willing customers are still stuck with dial up internet access and can't enjoy these games anyways. Maybe when everyone can get easy, inexpensive access to broadband these games will garner more interest. In the meantime, I'll just keep hosting my lan parties.
-Pat
Re:This is becoming too common :( (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is becoming too common :( (Score:2)
Re:This is becoming too common :( (Score:2)
I think MMO games would get a lot more subscribers if they could find a model where they bring people in for a flat one-time fee, and then give the player more when they're already comfortable with the game and are ready and willing to upgrade to a monthly fee. This will inject a consant flow of new players into the game, who subsequently get hooked and upgrade.
I think the bigge
Re:This is becoming too common :( (Score:2)
Evidence seems to point to entirely the opposite conclusion. There's a massive glut of extremely similar games, and most of them are still succeeding to some degree (EQ, AO, DAoC, AC, SWG...). The fact that they don't even have to branch out to be successful makes MM games look like safer ripoffs that RTS used to be.
Take into consideration that this is a new genre, and with n
Re:This is becoming too common :( (Score:2)
If you have a dev team who *does not have direct, immediate control over what is pushed to the servers/client updates*, and instead you have publisher deciding/lagging with 'implementations' of fixes, you are DEAD IN THE WATER. DOA. RIP.
While URU Live prolly had no such issues due to mechanics, think what would happen when the latest L33t Xpl0it is found? Live game CSRs find out. They report to their masters (publisher side). Someone finally decides to call in the de
Official Announcement (Score:5, Funny)
Truth is nice for once. (Score:5, Insightful)
On a roll... (Score:2)
Screenshots (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
I For One.. (Score:3, Funny)
Duke Nukem Forever Online... man. This is gonna be great. Anyone know when it'll be out?
Oh no (Score:2)
-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
so sad... (Score:2)
Re:Bluster (Score:5, Informative)
The company is called Sigil Games Online [sigilgames.com] and is made up of the creative minds that designed the original Everquest. Sigil has hired up a lot of the Everquest talent, (which may account for the odd ball expansions that have been released. ie PoP, LoY, GoD, and Luclin). Also, Sigil has only hired experienced people. Expect a good game out of these people. They are MUD players, Pen and Paper Players and people who suffered the problems of the original MMoRPGs. They also have ears directly connected to the online community and they listen to what people like and dislike.
Re:Bluster (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, ok, ok... they spent about $500 million dollars and it's got like, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Independence Day and X-Men all on the same, like, team and it's an MMORPGEFPSSIMPAR so it's got these really cool controllers on wheels and stuff, and then there's like 50 different screen resolutions and it runs on Macs and stuff too. It's going to be sooooo cool.
Re:Bluster (Score:5, Insightful)
Brad McQuaid, John Smedley, and most of all Abashi/Absor never listened to the players. They had "The Vision(tm)" and all other views be damned.
It is a trait of these developers... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hell even Jessica Mulligan, who wrote Biting the Hand - a sometimes hard look at the gaming industry, turned into what she/he claimed was the problem. After taking the helm of AC2 and now AC1 she seemed to operate in a manner completely opposite of what she was preaching beforehand. Granted turing around the Turbine ship wasn't going to be easy but its moving.
The problem comes down to the fact they hit on success and suddenly feel as if they are the only ones with opinions that matter. Which probably explains why most are fearful of doing another game or if they do it it never lives up to expectation.
Re:It is a trait of these developers... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem isn't the developers, the problem is the customers. You have two choices. You try to make a game you think would be fun and entertaining to play, and hope that lots of other people will too, or you can listen to all the crybabies screaming about nerfs and see-saw the game back and forth on a weekly basis.
Half the people that make MMORPGs such a pain are the ones who play 3 accounts 20 hours a day, exploit every bug, min-max every character, and then bitch like crazy when developers close loo
Re:It is a trait of these developers... (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is what SOE has been doing with EQ for the past 2 years. End-result is that cry-babies just cry harder when they don't get their way, and the griefers run rampant because everything is open to re-negotiation. (It's now a lot like dealing with a bunch of spoiled 5-year olds who are accustomed to always getting their way.)
The other problem that the SOE developers have is when they do
Counting Magic Beans (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that, in the market that these games live in, the bean counters must be involved. SOE cannot afford to issue a major expansion that only caters to (and will only be purchased by) a fraction of their player base. While this makes it rather difficult to issue a proper expansion, it's economically required by the business model. Saying they should just pick a segment and cater to that segment would be suicidal.
That said, they have tried to release expansions targetted to certain segments, with stuff put in for the rest. Planes of Power was virtually all for high end characters, with one VERY important and game-changing low-end addition (the Plane of Knowledge, which virtually eliminated the market for porters and made spell acquisition much simpler). I take that as an example of a well done expansion, that targetted one group but didn't leave everyone else out in the cold, and people who were not of a sufficient level to enter the experience areas still went out and bought it for access to the PoK. Then came the Legacy of Ykesha, which was also meant to be a high end expansion with some low end content and benefits. I take this as an example of a badly done expansion, because the "try to please" reach was much broader in LoY than it was in PoP. Since the high end content wasn't high enough to draw people out of the Planes of Power zones, the low end zones were still too high for the weekend gamers, and extra bank space wasn't sufficient to drive people to buy it if they didn't also want the zone content, not many felt the need to buy it.
So, in short, I don't think that trying to please a broad segment of the gamer base is a bad idea, and in fact it's necessary to the survival of the game. When it's done well, it really works, and I disagree that it can only be done well by focusing on small portions of the player base.
Virg
Re:Bluster (Score:2)
Translation: (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft has bought another MMORPG. Buy, buy, buy: that is all they are capable of.
Mod me down if you want, but what have they to do with the project except for the money they put in and the recognition (oh, and money) they'll get out? In my mind, it's Sigil Games Online's MMORPG, funded by Microsoft, who is using capital obtained by being a monopoly.
OK, I'm done. I'll go back to my corner of Slashdot now.
Re:Translation: (Score:5, Insightful)
Listen. Good software takes three things: time, talent and money. Microsoft has the money, the developers have the time and the talent. Sorry the developers took the money and didn't just build an RPG on their own time for the sheer love of it, but babies like to eat and landlords like to crack the skulls of deadbeats. I think the developers at Sigil aren't hurting because their money came from the "evil giant" who brought such horrors into the world as a workable ubiquitous operating system, a fast-enough web browser and a homogenous, interconnected office suite.
What do they, Microsoft, have to do with the project? Well, they selected the team, they put up the money. They've done the production work even if they haven't directed the fool thing. It is Microsoft who said, "There shall be an MMORPG" instead of "There shall be Yet Another Inferior Space Simulator from Chris Roberts."
Microsoft wanted to make a game, and wisely chose not to micromanage the project because their strong suit is not game making, it's writing the world's number one operating system (and office suite (and browser (and a shitty web server))). They do the same for the Macintosh version of MS Word -- loan the core code to a non-MS team, who make a good program rather than a shitty one that looks like Microsoft did it.
How does paying programmers to produce a game make them an evil company? And what are they supposed to do with their "monopoly capital," sit on it until it turns into a golden fucking egg?
I'm not going to play this game. But not because it's from Microsoft. I'm not going to play it because I want to raise a puppy and some kids and finish restoring my 1973 Super Beetle, three things you can't do when you're playing an MMORPG.
lisp programmer (Score:2)
Must be a lisp programmer
Re:Translation: (Score:2)
Re:Translation: (Score:2)
Re:Bluster (Score:5, Insightful)
So did Shadowbane, and Horizons, and Asheron's Call 2, and Star Wars Galazies, and Neocron, and Anarchy Online, etc. etc.
There are two problems here. What online RPGers -say- they like and what they will play are two different things. Everyone claims to hate camping and level grinding, and yet...you build an online Skinner box and you'll get players camping ph4t l3wtz that they have a 10% chance of getting once a month.
Second, the ideal MMORPG is basically not possible with current technology. Developers aren't able to make a living, breathing world with millions of independent intelligent NPCs, a game world that adapts on the fly to player behavior, deformable terrain, meaningful political systems, and so on. In the real world, the best you can hope for is a sort of virtual Disneyworld, which is able to move thousands of players through scripted encounters and quests. The notion of a gameplay experience truly unique to any particular player is just not going to happen....yet.
Whatever Microsoft and Sigil games may offer, it's not going to change the world.
Re:Bluster (Score:2)
Re:Bluster (Score:2)
In WoW, they're using a variation of the Diablo 2 drop system. Meaning the level
Everquest (Score:2)
As demonstrated here, people complain about every aspect of everquest. They complain that it doesn't listen to the players. They complain it listens too much to the players. They complain it ballences too much. They complain it ballences too little. They complain it caters to the casual gamer too much. They complain it caters to the end-game player too much.
Obviously Everquest is not unsuccessful, so the well-roundedness of the complains demonstrates that everquest real
Re:Everquest (Score:2)
Re:Bluster (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bluster (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hmmmmmmmmmm (Score:5, Informative)
FYI, Microsoft just released [microsoft.com] the source code to Allegiance, a multiplayer game that was years ahead of its time but died due to lack of publicity and players.
As for this project, since it isn't finished I don't quite see the point in releasing the source. It wouldn't be quite so useful, and modding a MMORPG is not on the top of my list.
Re:Hmmmmmmmmmm (Score:3, Funny)
Hell, they just released the source code to NT and Windows2k! Man, give them some credit!
Re:Good thing this isn't the Matrix (Score:2)
Doesn't the lameness filter catch such horrible attempts at jokes?
Re:Wow this news is really surprising. (Score:4, Informative)
"Their big programming project"? Game developers working on Longhorn? Not likely. Microsoft has a bunch of big programming projects going on all the time, and there's little sharing between them. People working on Visual Studio are not going to be pulled off to work on SQL Server, and game developers are not going to be put on Longhorn (unless the developers in question are looking to change jobs within the company and go through the proper interview loops in the new groups and get accepted, of course).
Assuming the Mythica developers were internal to Microsoft and not part of an external company that Microsoft publishes for (Bizarre Creations, Gas Powered Games, etc), the team may be parceled up across different games in the MGS division, or they might be developing a different game. They're certainly not working on Longhorn.
Finally, cancelling projects in any company, not just Microsoft, doesn't happen overnight. Whether or not the NT source was leaked likely had no bearing on this decision at all, as it was surely made weeks ago.
You foil hat might be just a bit too tight, I think.
Re:I just hope (Score:3, Informative)
Turbine purchased AC back from MS. With rights to Middle-Earth and D+D Online, Turbine pretty much has a lock on MGORPG. (Massively Geek Online Role-Playing Games)
With those two titles and WoW on the horizon, MS is probably correct in assuming that Mythica would be largely ignored.
http://ac.turbinegames.com/index.php?page_id=136
Re:So... (Score:4, Funny)
i see you do like the microsoft model
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Funny)
I mean, why not just give them shit for Microsoft Decathalon, or Hyperterminal, or Microsoft Works?
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
Like all the Windows incarnations, Office, Internet Explorer and Xbox you mean? The market sure killed those off...
I hate a lot of their products and business strategies as much as the next geek but if you're going to attack them, at least use some semblence of a plausible argument.
Re:New game titled announced (Score:3, Funny)
On The Other Hand... (Score:2)
Just because some of the competition is stiff doesn't mean its not marketable. After all, why should Blizzard bother making World of Warcraft if hundreads of thousands are playing EQ?
World of Legend 2 (Score:2)