Fan Mail From Some Founder

Folks, tonight’s FM will be rather short due to a rather busy day and the fact that I already posted an entry tonight.

Nekomieu says “I was wondering, is there any plans of release those jobs that didn’t make it in final release eventually?” Jobs, we don’t need no stinkin’ jobs! This game is supposed to be about fun, not work. Oh, you meant careers? I do hope so!

RomanStoic says “Mark, you sound like a fun, sensible and straight-talking guy — precisely the rare type of boss one would be glad to work for.” Oh, I have my share of not-fun, angry and loud-talking guy moments but I try to keep those down to a minimum.

Brian says “Any chance in the future of you guys doing another fps-esque game like those?” I’d love to. Magestorm – Rebirth sounds good to me.

Yunk says “I will ask what’s on everyone’s mind: What kind of noodles do you enjoy?” I don’t think I’ve had a noodle dish that I haven’t liked.

Hepahestus says “How do you feel about the way GOA is handling European players? They are trying hard, they really are but I know that’s not good enough. Trying != Doing I know but I think that they will do better as time goes by.

Owenlars says “what are your thoughts on more social features in order to enable the players to feel like they have a place in the game. Im talking player housing, player created content, being able to actually BUILD things like keeps (dig, gather, build, finish).” Love it. We had housing in DAoC and I would love to have some system like that in WAR at some point.

Evalissa says “Be seeing ya” Oh god, what’s my number I’ve forgotten it. Should I be looking around for some men dressed in black?

Don says “Thought I would give you a heads up. There is a massive, growing need for MMO gamers. It’s called a Sandbox game. If you read messages boards such as the one on mmorpg.com you will see that a growing number of players don’t want character levels, they want skills. Players want a lot of things but in the end what most of them want is simply great games whether they are skills or levels. Sadly we don’t have enough of them.

Since Ultima Online, there still have not been a proper true sandbox games other than a few. I know for a fact, if done right, it can be successful. And who other than Mark Jacobs to do it in the future?” Oh, just about any other great, talented, smart, funny, amazing and humble guy! Seriously though I would love to see a great sandbox game hopefully someone will build one soon.

Andreiv says “I also agree with a previous comment. Perhaps you could take the idea that Blizzard has with Blizzcon and do something similar for Mythic / WAR / DAoC out here on the east coast! The DC or Baltimore region would be an excellent spot!” Oh, you mean like the Round Tables we’ve been running for DAoC like forever? Hey, and guess what, we’ve had them in Virginia!

John says “I would really LOVE it if you could just talk about UO for a few minutes. What do you think of the game? What are your expectations? Where would you like to see it go?I feel like since Mythic took over UO there hasn’t been any kind of top-down communication coming from you. The Mythic site doesn’t mention UO. The new accounting system doesn’t include UO.” That’s a fair point. In terms of the accounting system we wanted to get it incorporated but it turned out that doing so was nightmarish. In terms of UO’s future, well, once we get past WAR’s launch we’ll be able to spend more time looking at both UO and DAoC.

Cedia says “Will you be adding some nice fluffy stuff that is meaningless to the HARDCORES for us?” Nope, no pillows and fluffy bunnies in WAR but we’ll see what we can do to make more interesting things for the non-hardcore RvR players post-launch.

Amantia says “ToA was really beautiful in a lot of ways. Swimming underwater, being carried off by a harpy during ML2, being changed into a mummy in ML5, the lava in Volcanus, the Phoenix, the armor and weapon designs, etc. were amazing. It was just too buggy, too difficult to meet all the requirements for getting MLs and leveling artifacts, and the abilities gained were too powerful. It’s really kind of tragic that it was so flawed.” Yeap, I agree. The problem with ToA was in its execution not in its concept and design. And I’m not saying this because ToA was my concept, it wasn’t.

Biggrich76 says “Long time DAoC player and fan. I know this has been covered before but I would like to know if there is any chance of DAoC 2 seeing the light of day if WAR is a success?” Ever, like in the rest of human history? A lot does depend on both WAR’s success and our long-term relationship with GW. I love the Warhammer IP and I’d love for us to keep WAR running longer than DAoC but that is not totally up to me as in any case in which there is a license. I love DAoC, it was my baby and the game that put Mythic on the map but making a DAoC 2 to compete with WAR doesn’t make a lot of sense in the short-term especially when there are lots of other interesting ideas out there.

So, sorry for the shortened section, time for me to watch the Yankees probably lose to the Angels (ain’t DVRs great?).

Mark