No other subscription-based MMORPG that I am aware of has ever added 4 new careers to its game as part of a regular update/addon/free expansion.
– Mark Jacobs
City of Heroes came out in 2004. They added four new archetypes to the game before Warhammer released. They also never cut them during beta.
: Zubon
Hat tip to The Common Sense Gamer for the quote.
It’s fairly easy to add classes to a game – making sure they’re balanced additions is another story. Please don’t be one of those that judges a game by how many classes it has… a sin comparable to judging a game by the highest damage numbers quoted on its high end weapons.
I guess he might consider CoV an add-on you had to pay for, thus only 2 classes for free, trumped by his 4 (cough 2 mirror classes cough). Kind of a stretch, but I do find it funny he’s hyping up something that’s only being added because it wasn’t ready at launch as if it’s brand spanking new, given only from the good of his heart. I guess you can at least give him some applause for not shoveling it into an expansion and making us pay for it.
Melf, you missed the topic, sorry. This is about having PR BS that is not just puffery but actually false. If we were talking about numbers of classes, WAR is finishing careers 23 and 24, while CoX officially has 12 archetypes … which would be an idiotically shallow comparison on many levels, as you suggest.
Lufia, CoV is now a free add-on. Rejoice!
CoV is now free? *I* paid for it! Dammit if only I could have waited…
He’s not a lying hypocrite. He’s the lead dev of a multi-million dollar MMO. Tooting his horn is part of his job.
Don’t get pissed at a duck when it quacks.
Way to change the culture there. Accept that the games are buggy and the PR is shady. Carry on with the games you deserve.
In the grand scheme of things, this is so minor that I find it hard to get very upset about. NGE, “no nerfs,” and many others I can think of over the years were upsetting. Saying that WAR is the first MMO to add new classes for free post launch when technically it isn’t true…are you kidding?
It would be one thing if he said that they were adding the classes and then didn’t, or claimed they would go in for free and then charged for them. But the semantic debate over whether the classes are “new” and whether it’s been done before I find a bit overblown.
I’m no WAR apologist. I don’t even play the game, the PVE frankly bites. I’m just cynical, unsurprised, and frankly a bit amazed that some find such a minor infraction so offensive.
To clarify a bit:
I think the PR will always be shady. It’s the nature of the beast. That’s why they call it PR, and not journalism. And a lead dev is at least 1/3 a PR guy.
As for games being buggy at launch, I’m 100% with you. It’s well past time we stopped giving PC games a pass on this.
The clue is in the phrase “No other subscription-based MMORPG that *I am aware of*”
MMO devs don’t pay attention to CoH, which is why they keep getting wrong the things that CoH has got right for years.
(yes, before you say it, CoH has got plenty wrong too)
Well spotted Zubon.
Jacobs statement could mean one of two things: he lied (not likely); or he’s not aware of City of Heroes/Villains. Either way, not good. WAR could learn a bucket load from CoX (starting with the UI…).
And to the apologists populating these comments – I, for one, am not going to just accept that a lead dev is one third PR guy. For crap’s sake, he should be three thirds lead dev! Accept nothing less!
And Yeebo, next time you’re bitten by a spider or eaten by a shark (hey, it happens all the time here in Australia), no point getting pissed.
@Tim: Hah, good point. Actually I wouldn’t blame the spider or the shark, I would blame my own stupidity or lack of awareness if I did get bitten. I once came very close to getting mauled by a tiger (true story), and my take home from it was “Man, that was stupid of me.” Not to say that I don’t smash things that bite me (and are small enough) flat :-)
I guess for me the deeper issue is whether we should accept lead devs being PR guys. Obviously many think we should not. However, the fact of the matter is that on big MMOs they often do function in that capacity to some extent. Is this a bad thing? I tend to think so, but mainly because I think devs should be developers and let the PR guys and community guys do their thing. However, ask fans on a message board whether the devs should interact with them, and you’ll get a pretty different answer.
Given the variety of behaviors we see from different developers, it follows that there is no widely accepted consensus. Maybe we should be having that discussion instead of simply getting pissed every time a developer crosses lines that haven’t been established.
In my mind “look, MJ lied!” doesn’t do much to advance the dialogue that I think should be happening. Of course my snarky devil’s advocate OP in this thread didn’t either, I will allow :-)