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EA Mythic Delays Warhammer Online To 2008
by Jason Dobson
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April 26, 2007
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MMO developer EA Mythic, creator of the Dark Age of Camelot, has revealed that its forthcoming MMORPG Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has been delayed until early 2008.
In a statement included in the latest official Warhammer Online newsletter, originally reported by Voodoo Extreme, Mythic's Mark Jacobs comments that the game, which is based on Games Workshop's tabletop fantasy war game, has been moved from its fourth quarter 2007 release to an expected launch in 2008's first quarter. A release for the Asian market to be announced at a later date.
Though no critical reasons have been given for the delay, the company indicates that there exists some concern regarding the game's “racial pairing” as a driver behind the delay. In addition, the statement cites the company's acquisition by EA as an opportunity to extend the game's development cycle in order to address this concern and further polish the upcoming title.
"It's been an interesting year for us at EA Mythic, a year filled with new challenges, new opportunities and of course, a year filled with WAR,” the statement reads. “We have made the decision to move our ship date for the US and Europe to the first quarter of 2008. (Release dates for Asia will be announced at a later date.) Since our acquisition by EA, we have been afforded many wonderful development opportunities and we plan to take full advantage of everything that is available. This includes taking several additional months to make the best MMORPG possible.”
It continues, “At this time we have completed most of the work on our first racial pairing - Dwarfs and Greenskins - and the team is now building Empire and Chaos. These new zones really kick butt and the team did a fantastic job of incorporating the feel of war and Warhammer into these areas. This racial pairing is the embodiment of all that I hoped for when we made the decision to partner with GW.”
“However, when we looked back at our work on the Dwarf and Greenskin pairing, we could not say the same thing,” wrote Jacobs. “While these areas were good, they were not great and glorious. We have always said that WAR was going to be great and we will not settle for anything less.” Because of this, the developer has revisited this pairing, and has “implemented new ideas and applied all that they have learned over the past nine months.”
“By extending our development time,” concludes the statement, “we'll be able to do these in-depth reviews several times prior to launch to ensure all areas of WAR benefit from the experience of ongoing development. EA is totally supportive of our decision and are behind us 100%. We all believe WAR will be the next great MMORPG and being part of EA affords us the time we need to make it so. It is EA's ongoing commitment to quality that will allow us, and other EA studios, to deliver great games, now and in the future.”
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