Jeff Hickman speaks... Let the speculation end

But we know it won't... Every little word and phrase will be digested, picked apart and used now... No matter what Jeff would say he was in a no win situation with the doom sayers. But still, sod 'em.. I'm happy in WAR and will continue to support it for years to come as it's a gud (if amazingly frustrating at times) game!

http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=980

".... At Mythic, we remain committed to our games and the passionate people who play them – we’re going to continue to deliver the content and service that keeps you playing. We want to assure our community that we will maintain the same high level of customer support you’ve come to expect and continue to improve our games with an exciting schedule of patches, live events and new content.

... -Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has had a solid first year despite some issues that we’re working to address every day. We’ve seen a great response to 1.3.2, which introduced tremendous performance improvements. A flood of new players are discovering the game every day thanks to the recently released Endless Trial and New User Journey. Moving forward we remain committed to releasing more great patches, continued performance improvements, and changes based upon your valuable feedback!..."

The day after....

I have to admit, I was expecting to wake up to some sort of post apocalyptic MMO world this morning. As I sat in work first thing (the joys of being the only one in the office at 7am) I hit a few websites and forums to see if there had been any response, any news, perhaps a sign of the end times or a pulse of life. Instead all I found was the world moving on, Destructions king had been killed again at silly AM, the odd website had made mention of the layoffs but things seemed to be moving along with no change.

It's only a day after the news broke, but I honestly feel that if we were at panic stations for WAR then it would have been noticeable by now, not just from the layoffs at Mythic but in general. I still see more and more people returning from Aion or from elsewhere to visit the old world.

A days thought about it makes me believe that EA might be putting Mythic on 'maintenance mode' but this doesn't mean a halt to production, simply that the game is focused on how it stands rather than adding more to it and at this point it's what WAR needs. A good solid focus on removing those pesky bugs and working out performance issues.

There's many games out there with less subscribers that are surviving fine, many are planning expansions and are staying afloat nicely. Yes, WAR has lost subs, but it is in no way a non profitable game, EA wants to make money. You don't get rid of something which is making money, no matter what the profit margins.

Personally, I'm looking at it as stage 2 of the Mythic/Bioware team. I can see Mythic being fully Incorporated into Bioware over the next few months with Ultima and DAoC also coming under the Biowa(aaagh)re banner.

The Waaaagh might be quieter right now, but the green tide is rising...