Mythica MMORPG Cancelled By Microsoft

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.'"

Comments

Re:Bluster

[The12thRonin]

The company is called Sigil Games Online 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.

You mean the people that brought you Evercamp. Obviously you either didn't play or have forgotten what EQ was like pre-Kunark. Where the world was so mob-underpopulated and item-underpopulated that there were 120+ people in Lower Guk. Class balance was a joke (and still is to this day). Mage pets were broken for two+ years. Necros were more valued for their pets with fine steel daggers to tank than a warrior with full plate and SSoY's. Not to mention the broken quest system that made you camp for rare items for real life days on end.

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.

Truth is nice for once.

[shoolz]

Wouldn't it be nice if all other game companies were as forthcoming with game dev info (hello 3DRealms)? As much as I dislike MS, It's nice to see a company just come out and say it. "This game is toast, just letting you know"

Re:Bluster

[Nematode]

They also have ears directly connected to the online community and they listen to what people like and dislike.

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:Translation:

[dasmegabyte]

God, I wish there was a -1, Retarded.

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.

Re:MS's MMOGs

[Babbster]

I think Final Fantasy's astronomical growth rate demonstrates that the current MMORPG market is not saturated.

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. :)