dark-age-of-camelot posts

With the exception of the GoG.com news it's been a pretty slow day. Maybe everyone is still too busy playing Civilization V.

• Steam has new bug fix patches for Supreme Commander 2 and Garry's Mod.
• The official web site for The Ball says that the game will be released three weeks from today.
• A new patch for the MMO Dark Age of Camelot has gone live.
• The first issue of the Telara Chronicles comic (based on the upcoming MMPO Rift: Planes of Telara), out in stores today, will include a beta card for the game.

Mythic Entertainment has reportedly suffered through yet another massive amount of layoffs as part of the plan by its owner Electronic Arts to cut its work force by another 1,500 team members. Fans have already express their worries that Mythic will no longer actively support their MMO game projects, particularly their most recent game Warhammer Online.

Not so, according to Mythic's executive producer Jeff Hickman. In a post on the official Warhammer Online web site he states that the game and the two others under Mythic's wing (Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot) are still alive and well and that Mythic will "continue to improve our games with an exciting schedule of patches, live events and new content." In particular, Hickman states that Warhammer Online's recent "Endless Trial" program has brought in "a flood of new players" to the game. The big question? Will those efforts be enough to get people to sign up for the game?

Remember Dark Age of Camelot? Developer Mythic Entertainment and publisher Electronic Arts certainly want you to reconsider the long running fantasy MMO that launched in 2001 but has perhaps lost some of its luster since the launch of Mythic's other MMO Warhammer Online. This week they are making a big PR push to folks to reconsider the game. EA has now allowed the last two commercial expansions for the game, Darkness Rising and Labyrinth of the Minotaur to now be played for free.

EA has also launched a new 14 day trial version of the game that adds the original title and all five expansions. Finally players who have old accounts of 90 days or older can reactivate that account and play the game for 10 days for free.

In 2006, Electronic Arts purchased MMO game developer Mythic Entertainment and changed the name of the developer to EA Mythic. That was then but this is now. With EA under new management they apparently want to give their dev studios a little more freedom and MMORPG.com now reveals that EA Mythic is no more.

According to a chat withthe developer's founder Mark Jacobs, EA Mythic has now gone back to being labeled Mythic Entertainment. Jacobs states that the new management at EA is allowing more of its developers to keep its original names (as an example both Bioware and Pandemic have retained their names since their purchase from EA earlier this year) but that Mythic is still owned by EA. Mythic is finishing up work on Warhammer Online which is due for release this fall.

As you sit their reading this, sipping your caffeinated beverage of choice... an online battle rages. Subscription-based MMOs versus the microtransaction business model. Cage match. Fight to the death. Gamasutra conducted a round table about this battle royal with SOE's John Smedley, Three Ring's Daniel James and EA Mythic's Mark Jacobs. What unfolds makes it clear that the payment scheme for MMOs is evolving. Into what exactly is anyone's guess.

Most of the MMOs in the United States are subscription based. Almost everywhere else they are microtransaction based. The mentality here in the States however is starting to change. So much so that many developer are waiting until the last possible second to decide which route to take. For instance SOE has taken a "wait-and-see attitude" for their spy game, The Agency. They're waiting to see how another of their soon to be released MMOs -- Free Realms -- fairs, which uses something they call "freemiums." You can play for free, but you can also sign up for a club in game that gives you extras (for a fee, which is not unlike some other MMOs). They have built the flexibility into The Agency so they can go in either direction.