BTW: On a related note concerning Mythic, I'm under the impression (and it could be very wrong) that plans were pretty much the same but other factors crept into the equation - maybe the BW purchase - I don’t know. Moreover I can also vaguely recollect reading somewhere that several key people were removed and some other simply moved on for whatever reasons. To me the end result is still the same - gutted...
Well, as long as you're "under the impression", and can "Vaguely recollect", it must be true, right?
Sorry, no. EA didnt touch Mythic, and they got to do exactly what they wanted...for *as along* as they wanted, until their game faileld to perform up to expectations when it was *eventually* released after multiple delays, and short previously announced content.
Shortly after which, some failed projections taken into account, Mark Jacobs "parted ways" with the company, and Mythic was put under the supervision of a proven developer.
You know...Bioware.
I know...Big companies suck...Blah blah blah...EA is evil...blah blah...a short cut to an actual appraisal of the situation...which is:
Bioware is one of the most Blue chip developers of western RPGs that there is. Bar none. Bioware has never done anything, but try to make gamers happy. Their leadership, who oversaw many of the games we love, remains intact, and has even been granted supervisory capacity over other development entities in the company.
Bioware has *always* been honest with its fans and community. I regret the financial realities that led Bioware away from being a company that made games and licorice rainbows for free, for everyone, but there you go...such is the world. In the meantime, I delude myself in taking solace that the Bioware leadership is entirely intact, and even given more power in the company, like overseeing the Warhammer MMO, which might even benefit.
Bioware is preparing to release a game that is considered the spititual succesor to Baldur's Gate 2 (which a paltry few people hold in high regard), designed around PC play, and not simply a console game ported to the PC, like Mass Effect. This time around, the consoles get the "port". Again, I regret the financial realities that make consoles such a lucrative game market...but what are you gonna do...apparently other people besides you *also* buy games.
And EA...OMG EA...theyre so "evil"...you know, because they are succesful and own everything. Always forcing their "evil" DRM on us. US...I mean the PC consumers that steal everything not bolted down, as opposed to the Console market where they not only make more money, but have vastly lower incidents of theft. How dare they not defy simple logic.
Except wait...apparently, in response to (completely jusitifietd) *consumer frustration* with increasingly draconian DRM on their products, theyve made the majority of their PC versions of current products availiable to the public with a far more benign (Securom-less) DRM model (Steam) that many, MANY people find preferable. No disk check even. But no...we can't acknowledge this, because EA IS EVIL (stop thinking now.)
Not to mention allowing Bioware to promise their consumers, that the box retail copy (remember when people used to buy PC games at stores?) be availiable with a simple disk check. You know, the token protection model that games have used for more than a decade, long before this whole debate ever started up, and before the more draconain schemes started in on us. HOW DARE THEY.
/snark off.
Seriously, Im sorry about this. You got my snark answer, because you accused me of trolling, when I thought of it as adults having a serious adult conversation with other adults. *Children* think of things in cartoonish shades of black and white, and use terms like "evil" to describe fairly obvious and predictable capitalistic behavior.
Bioware has never done anything...anything... to deserve the kind of advance derision some people are heaping on their efforts here. Their game might suck... it's entirely within the realm of mathematic possibility....but its not something that the odds favor. They're making a tactical squad based RPG...how 1) Jaded, or 2) Ignorant do you have to be not to be excited by that prosepect?
And if youre of the opinion that EA is behind the scenes pulling strings with sinister machinations, I gotta tell you, as far as Evil Empires go, they havn't been all that evil. Theyve made predictable mistakes , in a frontier market with evolving realities, and tried to offer alternatives. Their earlier efforts were offensive, they failed the consumer base, and I would not purchase those efforts.
But if they offer subsequent efforts with protections on the level of games released in the 90's , before every kiddie on the net new how to torrent, and had succeeded in playing a very real role in driving games off the pc platform, and if you still have nothing better to do than mount an agenda of "Gee, shucks...I dunno...EA..."...
...Then the problem is you, not them.
You know what Stardock is doing right now? Stardock, who has been such a shing beacon of consumer advocacy in the age of bittorrent? Theyre perfecting DRM. And it's much more involved than a simple disk check.
We must be willing to meet companies, and the realities that they face halfway. Games with limited online activations required, out of the box? Sure, unacceptable. Great sounding games with a protection no different that a game I bought in 1998? We reject that at our own peril.
