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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.'"
Translation: All you Mythica developers, we have a few NT bugs to fix... (fp) :-)
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
I always looked at windows as an RPG - well, at least a good fight engine.
Considering Microsoft's "other MMOG" is a as yet unannounced game from Sigil Games (sigilgames.com) I can't say I'm suprised.
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.
Microsoft is putting out yet another MMORPG in an already way too crowded marketplace? I understand the 13$ a month business model is good, but not spread as thin as it will be with all this competition.
I've never been a fan of MS games, but wouldn't it make more sense for them to focus attention on cross-platform games that they would be able to market both for PCs and for their XBox system? Perhaps the second MMORPG mentioned in the article meets this critereon while the cancelled game doesn't.
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
For once I agree with something MS did. There are already too many mediocre MMORPGs floundering around in the marketplace. It's only a matter of time before some of them are forced to close their doors. As I understand it, there are a bunch of them (like Anarchy Online) that are caught between having too few subscribers to make a significant profit, but too many to pull the plug without facing a significant backlash. Aside from pure financial considerations, though, I wonder how much Mythic's lawsuit played into the decision (that's Mythic, developer of Dark Age of Camelot, as opposed to the just-cancelled project Mythica).
First Barbie breaks up with Ken and now this! Augh!$@, my fantasy word is crumbling to pieces. :((((
my blog
Inspired by real life events...Raiders of the Lost Code.
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. 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.
I do security
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."
I used to have a good sig...
Microsoft was sued by Mythic (makers of Dark Age of Camelot) over the similarities between the names "Mythic" and "Mythica". I guess Microsoft thought they'd lose and decided to scrap the project.
No sig for you.
In a perfect world that is. While this is true in the long run, you won't see these results any time soon.
I'm really glad to see you're not a bandwagon Microsoft smasher... [/sarcasm]
FYI, Microsoft just released 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.
webpage
This avoids any possibility of continued legal action by the makers of "Dark Age of Camelot".
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.
To be released in 2004^H5^H6^H7...
A pride of lions.
A gaggle of geese.
A murder of crows.
A vista of bugs.
Microsoft is funding what will be a VERY high profile game. It will most likely announce by the end of the month.
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.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Please sir, could I have some more?
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.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
The new game is tenatively titled "Vaporquest."
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
They really should do MMDOWXP, massive multiprogrammers debugging of Windows XP, yeah. Otherwise Windows become a mythology itself in few years.
There you are, staring at me again.
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.
To MS, _life_ is a MMORPG, one in which you WILL be assimilated.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
[So very sory for being in a vehement anti-MS mood, but step aside: I have some bitching to do.]
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.
SigilGames.Com is hosted on a Linux server.
I suppose they will want to change that.
From what I understand, Lineage 2 doesn't have a real subscription user base. Since it's based in South Korea, where internet cafes are more popular, not everyone who is playing the game is paying a monthly fee to do so; rather, the internet cafe gets Lineage licenses and anyone can make an account, counting as individual subscribers. I *think* this is how it works, but again, don't quote me on it :)
Cyan and UBI just cancelled URU live as well. They gave excuses that not enough people signed up for the game to make it viable so they pulled the plug and promised a bunch of expansion packs instead...which sucks IMHO.
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
SEATTLE - Microsoft said late Thursday that it would immediately halt development of "Mythica", an online roleplaying game that was scheduled for release in the second half of 2004. A Microsoft Studios spokesman stated, "After reviewing similar titles in the massively multiplayer Online gaming genre, we determined that our game was too stable. It is a disappointment given the talent, experience, and track record we have here at Microsoft at creating buggy software. Unfortunately, the competitive market did not allow us time to include enough crashes or exploits in our game to make it competitive for a launch this year."
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
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"
"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.
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
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.
Some early screenshots of the game that will no longer be. Looks pretty good, nothing fancy, but of course there is much more to a game than just the visuals.
I.O.U One Sig.
If I am going to invest in a game where i pay fees to pay
i see you do like the microsoft model
Bob? BOB?!? You bring up a failure from TEN YEARS AGO when they didn't have a desktop monopoly and the only people who had computers were smartass teenagers and stock brokers?
I mean, why not just give them shit for Microsoft Decathalon, or Hyperterminal, or Microsoft Works?
Hey freaks: now you're ju
speaking as someone on the inside, the name lawsuit had nothing to do with the cancellation. Microsoft had resolved to change the name and that process was well under way when the axe fell. If Mythica was going to be killed because of the lawsuit, the decision would have been made weeks ago.
The sequel, Linux Command Console, where you pile through random character combinations to figure out how to get it to work was also announced today.
-]Phreak Out[-
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.
.. can't wait for the new MS game!
;-)
Duke Nukem Forever Online... man. This is gonna be great. Anyone know when it'll be out?
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
All of them, from Brad McQuaid, Raph Koster, to Lord British, they all have egos the size of planets. Reading their posts to various forums and industry sites it is evident that they cannot learn. Well I will be nice, I have seen much from Brad recently, but Raph proves time and time again his disconnect.
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.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
is called "Monopoly" :-)
If the MMORPG is mobile-capable, e.g. PocketPC (which I *HIGHLY* suspect) then it is not a crowded marketplace anymore...even at $3 a month it'll remain pretty lucrative.
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.)
>FYI, Microsoft just released the source code to Allegiance
Hell, they just released the source code to NT and Windows2k! Man, give them some credit!
> Here's where the bean counters get involved. A player-oriented decision would be to make a high-level expansion, realize that you will only sell it to half the playerbase, and make it a no-holds-barred high-level expansion. Instead, they try to add low-level features to market to the LCD so that the majority of the playerbase will buy it.
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
If I were Barbie, I would've dumped Ken's ass a long time ago too! Jeez, this many years ... he gives her the Barbie Ferrari, the Barbie Mansion, the Barbie Ranch ... but no Barbie Engagement Ring. Meanwhile Ken's out with his buddies, out on the scene being a major player ... doing things WITH and TO interns ... plotting his candidacy for President ... and states around the nation are legalizing same-sex marriage. It's EASY to see why Barbie would give him the boot. Think of it ... Skipper lives so close ... Ken's never home .... How did Ken not see this coming?