Mark Jacobs on the Warhammer beta shutdown

No one likes it when their favorite MMORPGs server shuts down for two months; closing servers fuels much negative speculation. That is why Mark Jacobs, CEO of Mythic Entertainment, took the time to address player concerns and to explain the company’s reasons for the announced October 10 shutdown of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

Mr. Jacobs summed up his reasons in three major points. First, he admitted that the current version of the game itself was imbalanced, and that the very purpose of the shutdown was to address the issues that beta testers had with the game.  Second, the development team knew early on that they would eventually have to shut down the servers at some point. Lastly, they wanted everyone, beta testers included, to be able return to the game with a fresh perspective, and not just report the same old bugs and issues to them over and over again.

Mr. Jacobs also responded to various players’ comments about WAR development possibly grinding to a halt, something that has already happened once before. He reassured players that the key members of the WAR development team were still there, that the team wasn’t yanking out whole systems, that the shutdown was not induced by Electronic Arts (EA), and that they weren’t shutting the servers down in order to make WAR more like World of Warcraft. If WAR were really in danger of being shut down for good, Jacobs argued, then Mythic would simply have announced that the servers would be closed until further notice.

Furthermore, Mr. Jacobs mentioned that they deliberately limited the hiatus to two months because they know exactly what needs to be done, and exactly how long it will take them to do it. According to him, the game is now at a critical point in its development, and they would like to focus on making the game even better than it already is without being distracted. As it is, the WAR development team already has a wealth of data with which to keep themselves busy during the two-month break.

Game developers like Mythic Entertainment sometimes receive criticism no matter what they do, and Mark Jacobs knows this. Nevertheless, the important thing for him, at least as far as WAR is concerned, is for everyone to take one step back in order to take two steps forward.

No one likes it when their favorite MMORPGs server shuts down for two months; closing servers fuels much negative speculation. That is why Mark Jacobs, CEO of Mythic Entertainment, took the time to address player concerns and to explain the company’s reasons for the announced October 10 shutdown of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

Mr. Jacobs summed up his reasons in three major points. First, he admitted that the current version of the game itself was imbalanced, and that the very purpose of the shutdown was to address the issues that beta testers had with the game.  Second, the development team knew early on that they would eventually have to shut down the servers at some point. Lastly, they wanted everyone, beta testers included, to be able return to the game with a fresh perspective, and not just report the same old bugs and issues to them over and over again.

Mr. Jacobs also responded to various players’ comments about WAR development possibly grinding to a halt, something that has already happened once before. He reassured players that the key members of the WAR development team were still there, that the team wasn’t yanking out whole systems, that the shutdown was not induced by Electronic Arts (EA), and that they weren’t shutting the servers down in order to make WAR more like World of Warcraft. If WAR were really in danger of being shut down for good, Jacobs argued, then Mythic would simply have announced that the servers would be closed until further notice.

Furthermore, Mr. Jacobs mentioned that they deliberately limited the hiatus to two months because they know exactly what needs to be done, and exactly how long it will take them to do it. According to him, the game is now at a critical point in its development, and they would like to focus on making the game even better than it already is without being distracted. As it is, the WAR development team already has a wealth of data with which to keep themselves busy during the two-month break.

Game developers like Mythic Entertainment sometimes receive criticism no matter what they do, and Mark Jacobs knows this. Nevertheless, the important thing for him, at least as far as WAR is concerned, is for everyone to take one step back in order to take two steps forward.