Thursday, July 24, 2008

Would like to buy : Patience

A quote from Wiki

Development history
Warhammer Online game development began under the company Climax Online. The project was officially canceled in June 2004 when Games Workshop determined that the roll-out costs would be too expensive. However, work on the game never actually stopped as Climax Online continued the project using their own funds until the company reported in late 2004 that the Warhammer Online project was shut down due to difficulty in securing a publishing agreement.
With the license available again, Games Workshop was approached by Mythic Entertainment, who were interested in acquiring the license and starting a new project from scratch. A long-standing relationship between several Games Workshop managers and the CEO of Mythic Mark Jacobs ensured that a deal was quickly reached. The Warhammer Online license was acquired by Mythic on May 18, 2005.

And with regards Beta

Beta timeline
  • In the May 2007 newsletter, http://www.war-europe.com/ was announced live. It contained a beta signup section that allows players to sign up for a chance to enter the closed beta. According to the newsletter, the chance of entry is increased when the email address used in the sign up is the same as the address for the newsletter itself.
  • In the April 2007 newsletter, a guild beta application was launched which allowed guild leaders to submit their organized pre-launch guilds.
  • On October 10th 2007, the public beta servers were taken down and Mythic confirmed that the beta will return to alpha testing until December. Mythic will use this down time to incorporate community suggestions, rewrite code, finish work on character customizations, and polish the end game RvR content.
  • In the first week of February 2008, three waves of beta invites were sent out.
  • In June 2008 Beta 2 was officially closed, and preparations for the next phase, which would include the so called "Guild beta" begun.
  • On July 11th 2008, "Guild beta" keys were officially activated and the next phase of the Beta began

That's just a quick glimpse for any who don't know, just how long this game has been coming. Earlier in the year (or last year, my recollection is fuzzy) we heard of another Warhammer project. A Warhammer 40k MMO. Now that itself doesn't even have more than a blurb on the THQ site. It will be ages yet while they flesh out the art, the systems to be used, the graphics engine, everything. In the world of top notch games, that's life. Quality demands time and time costs money.

What had me thinking of this all is the upcoming Jim Butcher Novels "Princeps Fury" and "Turn Coat", from the Codex Alera and Dresden Files series respectively. I love Jim Butcher! I love the two styles he uses, the two totally different settings, the different characters. I accept that for quality reading like I've had from him, I must wait about a year between books. White Night was released in April, Princeps Fury will be December and then Turn Coat will be April again.
I get two fantastic books from that author every year.

If he went faster they'd be shite. No two ways about it.

On the flip side, there is another author I enjoy. Peter F Hamilton. I very much enjoyed his Nights Dawn trilogy, his Greg Mendel stuff, a few of his standalone and I loved the Confederation Saga. He is currently writing the Void trilogy which is set in the Confederation saga universe, but some 1000 years in the future.
My problem? Hamilton does space opera. While I do enjoy it and while each of his books are meaty, they apparently take quite a bit longer to write. I got the first Void book, the Dreaming Void, last year. I am not due part two until next year. As a result, I've rather lost interest. Too much was left hanging and will be left hanging for too long. I will still get the books when they come out, but more for the sake of completing the story than any remaining Fan-boy WAAAANT!

Going back to WAR, some of the cities and classes were removed. I've not played in the Beta so I can accept the official stance that it is for the best. After all, I have no information to the contrary and while in beta, games can and will change. Everything is a sandcastle before the tide in Beta. It may last, it may not, it may even melt into an unrecognisable lump.

People called for Mythic to take more time, to finish what they thought they were owed. Not wanted, but owed. Do I think they should take the time? Nope. I have patience, I can wait for the game, I just really don't want to.

Sooner or later the hype/hope/happiness would fade and I wouldn't be as ready for the game then as I am now. There is a balance to be had between time spent crafting and quality.

Am I a fanboy? Or do I just need more patience?

7 comments:

Werit said...

I happen to just have finished 'The Dreaming Void'. I am a big fan of Hamilton and his Commonwealth universe. Can't wait for 'The Temporal Void' :)

arbitrary said...

Ugh, am trying to find a way to link to this post, but it's being crappy about letting me. When I click on the title I get 'blog not found' or some similar retort...

Ardua said...

In Blogger I think the direct links are obtained by hovering over the timestamp at the bottom.

I got it in my email though, so I've cheated :P
http://echoesofnonsense.blogspot.com/2008/07/would-like-to-buy-patience.html

Ardua said...

I'm a huge fan of it too Werit, and I will enjoy the rest of the trilogy (maybe, I'm not too pushed on that Waterwalker subplot) it still is an awfully long time to wait.

Werit said...

Probably even longer over here in the US.

I am really interested in what happened to the old characters (Nigel and Ozzie), hopefully they will be in the new book.

I was lucky with the first two, as I found them after they both were published.

arbitrary said...

yay, thanks! Guess what, you'll be in my links ;p

Ardua said...

@Arbitrary, woohoo \o/
Thank you kindly :)

@Werit, try ordering from www.thebookdepository.co.uk It's an english site, comparable to prices on Amazon.co.uk and they've free worldwide shipping.