And sometimes I should let other people’s words do the talking: ( http://www.igda.org/newsroom/newsletter_0908.txt)
If there is any linkage issues, I’ve added the full text at the bottom of this post. We had hoped to talk about this weeks ago but frankly, other things (like the launch of WAR) took precedence. As Jen’s letter made clear, Mythic had made this decision to amend this policy before Jen and I had a chance to talk, I’m sorry that that we couldn’t talk about it publicly before now.
There are a few lessons to be learned from this situation. Sometimes people are rather quick to rush to judgment on things. Along the same lines, I wish that some people had given me the benefit of the doubt before things got ugly or at least talked to me about things before getting out the tar and feathers. Jen, being the person she is, stood up and apologized not because she was totally off-base in what she said but rather, because she didn’t pick up and phone and call me before she sent out the call to action. If she had, I would have told her about N’Gai’s suggestion and that since that day, Mythic was determining whether and then how to move forward with it. The situation post-newsletter could have been avoided and I would not have had to go through some of the stuff I had to go through. We see this sort of situation play itself out again and again in our industry and others. In some cases, people’s lives are derailed and sometimes ruined by this type of stuff. Words can be very powerful weapons, especially in the wrong hands and I know that this situation has again reemphasized the importance of my long-standing policies not to call out other developers or to engage in some of the character attacks (assassination is way to strong of a word) that I went through. I am far from a perfect human being but I know I am a good human being who is always trying to become better at this game of life.
For the strength of character to apologize for the mistake and for the even greater display of honor she showed by doing so publicly, Jen has my thanks and my respect.
For the great suggestion at a time when I needed it, my thanks go out to N’Gai.
FYI, I’m not denying that our policy was as it was, I explained the reasons behind it in various interviews and we are still reserving in-game credits for the launch team as an extra way of saying thank you to them. However, we’ve also expanded the policy because it is a nice thing to do. I’ll leave other people to argue over whether it is right, necessary, just, etc. since nice works well enough in this case.
———
Originally Posted by IGDA Newsletter
Dear Members and friends,
In the August newsletter ( http://www.igda.org/newsroom/newsletter_0808.txt ), I criticized Mythic’s credits policy specifically, and the industry in general, for not adopting inclusive credit standards. I’d like to set the record straight on a number of things that have happened over the past month.
When the credits story first appeared, Mark Jacobs, the GM of Mythic, was in the middle of a series of interviews in New York. After an interview with N’Gai Croal of Newsweek and Level Up blog, Mark asked N’Gai for his thoughts on the subject. N’Gai suggested simply putting the full credits online. Mark is in the process of implementing N’Gai’s suggestion, and in doing so, Mythic will move towards a greater level of credits inclusiveness.
I’ve known Mark for more than 10 years now, and he’s always been a strong proponent of the online games industry and an ethical businessman. Mark was honest about a difficult subject and immediately after the interviews ended, he began a process of formulating new credit policies. Unfortunately, when the previous newsletter was sent out, Mark, unbeknownst to the me, was quietly continuing to work on a new credit policy for the studio. Mark, I regret that my comments caused you personal and professional distress.
The Mythic team is also taking the following steps to address credit policies:
- In-game and manual credits will be reserved for the launch team.
- Mythic will create an online database listing the name and title of everyone who contributed to a project, regardless of current employment status. Additionally, the studio will make best efforts to provide this information for its previous online games.
- Mythic has committed to working with the IGDA, leading game industry history and credit sites and other interested parties to establish a credits feed, listing all contributors, to promote fair and accurate credit reporting across the industry.
- Mark Jacobs will consult with the IGDA Credits Standard Committee to offer guidance on the issues and challenges posed specifically by MMOs.
Fair and accurate credits and transparent standards for crediting remain a pervasive problem in the industry, and I applaud Mythic for taking steps to address this issue. I’m personally looking forward to Mark’s involvement with the Credit Standards Committee, not only because of his depth of experience in online games, but because, more importantly, his personal commitment to fair and accurate credits sets an outstanding example for industry leadership.
My newsletter intros usually end with a call to action, and this one is no exception. We must continue the dialogue on credits, and on other topics like quality of life, that have a direct impact on the lives of game developers. Get involved, discuss these issues with your peers, and please join me in recognizing Mythic’s new crediting efforts.
Once again, the IGDA’s credit standards info is at:
http://www.igda.org/credit/
- Jen MacLean
Chairperson, IGDA
VP Business Development, 38 Studios
Filed under: Entertainment, MMORPGS, Technology, Warhammer, games, mmos, online games | Tagged: Entertainment, games, mmorpgs, mmos, online, Technology, Warhammer
nice to see people actually submit an apology where needed. sometimes i think corporate america forgot their mother’s teachings.
You know the more and more I read your public statements the more I am impressed with not only mythic but you as well. I have been gaming from pen and paper and the D&D blue dice to online games such as Warhammer. Out of all the companies I have delt with Mythic stand heads and shoulders above the rest. This has to do more with your leadership then anything else. You seems to listen and be fair about things and that is very refreshing to see.
Yeah, which is why I normally hate “newspaper corrections,” where they make it seem like it’s not really their fault or a correction.
Glad to see this, Mark. Thanks.
“So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
top notch.
Wait, people are complaining about their names not appearing in the credits?
GG
*goes off to play WAR*
Do people actually read the credits or is this just ex-devs trying to enhance thier CV?
It is only just to give credit where credit is due. I applaud Mythic’s and Mark’s decision to acknowledge those who contributed to getting WAR to my desktop. It takes a lot of maturity to recognize something could be done in a better way, and take the steps to make things better. Same to Jen, she corrected herself and apologized after making a hasty faulty conclusion.
Mark! Don’t worry overmuch about character pummeling. I’ve only become a Mythic fan recently, but it doesn’t take long to start seeing how your character comes out in Mythic, and its games.
Good to see Mark, as always a class act.
Baz,
Credits are very important to the people who poured their heart and soul into a project, regardless of how long they spent doing so. I know that if I spent six months of my life hammering out code or staring at wireframe models in the endless pursuit of perfection for a creative endeavor that would eventually be presented for (brutally honest) judgment by millions of people the world over I would want to be recognized for that time.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Having said that, I’m surprised that this situation blew up in the way that it did. I cannot help but feel that someone who had some sort of vendetta caused the entire mess. Nevertheless, I was one of the people who accepted MBJ’s call for patience at face value and, unsurprisingly, he made good on his word.
There are not many companies that can be taken for their word at something. Mythic, Bioware, Blizzard… the list is very sort and very few names come to mind (though I am sure that there are others besides those). Cheers to Mythic for doing the right thing only because it is the right thing to do.
missing names caused what again?
if i were the boss, i would have public spankings
now at least I got an idea of why they aren’t in the credits
i guess this is a shining example of why Mark is the boss and not me
then again, why take heat at all? i would make heads roll fast if people acted on things before thinking
its unbecoming – past kindergarden that is
I very much like your approach to games over that of many other VPs, CEOs, etc. But I have to say that I don’t think Jen’s apology was necessary. Just because you’d made a change before she spoke to you, the fact is that you had a different opinion not long prior to this – exactly the one she was tarring you with.
Your comments in the interview with Multiplayer MTV showed a pretty contemptuous view of the whole credit thing (your view appeared to be: “shrug… if someone else starts doing it, we’ll think about it”). I was quite sad to see it as I thought you were going to be different, judging by all the other stuff you’ve said.
Anyway, sorry to point fingers – it’s always easy to do when you’re on the outside of something and I know I would have my foot in my mouth most of the time with my outspoken opinion on things. I guess you learn to keep it shut after a few incidents like this, once you’re as “famous” as you are : ).
Additional: I posted the last comment because you appear to be taking the ‘wrongfully accused’ position in this post and I think it’s a bit disingenous to be honest.
MichaelW, Jen apologized not because of what she said but really, because she didn’t pick up the phone and call me first. She and I go way back (she used to work at AOL and I was doing games for AOL) and we worked together nicely. If she had called me first, the letter to the IGDA wouldn’t happened and I would have been spared a lot of name calling and some reasonably nasty comments on certain sites. That’s why she was apologizing which I think is quite fair actually. Interviews, as everybody knows, can sometimes be misleading even if the writer wasn’t trying to be misleading (Tracy was not trying to be misleading) and like the title of my post says, sometimes things aren’t what they seem to be. I’ve been misquoted a number of times as have friends of mine so I have always found it prudent before going off on somebody to check to make sure that the person really said what they are thought to have said. Jen agreed and that’s why she apologized and that’s also why I made a very strong point in this post and elsewhere that what Jen did, in terms of causing me grief, wasn’t intentional.
Mark,
Just wanted to say that coming from a PR background, your dedication to two-way symmetrical communication with your fanbase is outstanding, a true A+ case study if ever there was one!
I’m only a casual MMO player, but absolutely love your game and will continue to support it because a) it’s fun, and b) you actually listen and communicate with your fans – you guys at Mythic obviously just don’t blog for blog’s sake.
Congrats mate and keep up the good work
Tiresias,
I understand the reason and have no problem with it, but the question still stands “who reads the credits?”. I have played numerous games for many many years and the only credits I have watched are the one when I complete the game. I played DAoC for too many years and couldn’t have told you more than half a dozen names behind the scenes, all of those being visible forum posters.
Out of the 500k War players now I bet no more than a handful have read the credits and even less can remember them. Therefore I see this as a CV enhancement excercise, no more. And as an aside how do you justify someones contribution, a dev may have spent 6 months on a wireframe model and a year after they left it was trashed and remodelled by a different dev because it wasn’t up to standard, do they still deserve credit?
A storm in a tea cup……..
COmpletely off topic, I’de just like to say thank you to you and the members of your team for listening to the community and implementing the scenario Queue change. Please pass the thanks on around the office.
@Tiresias
The example contributing dev most likely provided inspiration in one form or another… don’t forget some folks are here to help us see what we should not do… :^)
In the grand scheme it costs little to add all the names in some form so people can reference works they’ve been involved in so I’m glad to see how this was worked out.
Also off topic……. Are you aware of the issues on the EU Eltharion server?
Do you intend to do anything about the 2.5 hour queues or frequent downtime?
Just wondering if your going to be blogging anymore? been awhile.
i have been wondering that one myself Dwright.
And to Theurgy he has talked about that sort of thing allready if you look at the section in previous entries about what this blog is and is not about.
Hey Mark! Been a bit since we’ve heard from you! Hope everything’s well on your end. Lookin’ forward to more blogs!
After reading your state of the game report today Mark you’ve solidified my desire to stick with the game for years to come.
You’ve systematically attacked the glaring issues with the game. You keep that up and I think your competitors are gonna have to start sweating more than they obviously are now.
So, this is entirely off topic, however as you haven’t posted in awhile I figured I’d ask it anyway.
Today one of my guildmembers was recently “permanently” banned from the game of Warhammer. The reason? Because he was accused of being a goldspammer/seller/solicitor.
The sad part is, two hours before the account termination, he was being harassed for his choice of character name by people who did not believe it was appropriate to the server.
However, the email he was sent claimed he was “was appealed by several people, and verified to be Soliciting the sale of in game money and/or services for real world currency.”
My guildmember was certainly no goldspammer. He has been gaming with us in previous games, is a RL family member and friend of several of our members.
And so now we have no choice but to begin wondering if perhaps the CSR’s aren’t getting a bit lazy. We all know that the report feature in WoW became more of a revenge tool than anything else.. I would hate to think of it being allowed to become such in WAR – people didn’t like his chosen character name. They reported the name. Nothing happened and he was not forced to change it. So they resulted to more drastic measures and reported him for goldselling. Because the CSRs get so many of these, one can see why they might get a bit lazy in actually verifying such things.
99/100 they’re likely goldsellers anyway. However, this was the unfortunate 1/100. My guildmember has already contacted customer service via email (was told he’d receive a response in 24 hours) and will be on the phone tomorrow. One hopes that the money spent on the game and the hours invested leveling his toon (who had just recently hit 21… when the heck do you see a goldseller [barring hacking or spoofing] who is over level 1?!) does not go to waste and this matter is rectified as quickly as possible.
I guess my point in posting this, off topic and all, is to respectfully request that, harried and swamped with reports and busy as they may be, the CSR’s should still be ACTUALLY verifying chatlogs etc of these things before issuing account terminations.
I truly, truly hope that the report feature and the fact that WAR is actually FIGHTING goldspammers doesn’t become the means to revenge etc on other players like it did in world of warcraft and other games.
Thanks.
You’re covered up I’m guessing since we haven’t seen any new updates… miss hearing these bits but from the other public forums thanks for keeping us in the loop on WAR status.
Dear Mark (thats my hubbies name too
)
i just wanted to let you know that i’m so amazed and pleased with your game and your response to the crowd on the forums.
best wishes to you and i hope your read this and start blogging again when you’re well
have a good weekend
Please fix the ghosting. It’s the #2 issue besides CTDs.
It degenerates the quality of game play considerably.
I hereby declare this blog officially dead at 1706 on November 20, 2008.
R.I.P.
Please come back :/
The whole zone crashing for destro during peak times will be the demise of the game if its not fixed pronto. So while destro is trying to capture the fortress, the phuckin zone crashes….x2. But order does it during the middle of the night and it works beautifully for them and they capture the destro fortress. Complete bullshit.
REM server…look it up 12/07/2008