Lack of Dev in Stratics during this fiasco

[Lady Storm]

I have noticed the Dev over the weeks of this major fiasco and a few weeks prior not poping in. Oh i have seen Surpreem and Bleek for a few minutes then nada not one word from the man who really should be in here talking us through this mess.

I am not happy with the Whole Dev team at this moment. Cal and the rest of their group have stayed quiet. While we the test mice run the maze called billing.

Why didnt they give us a heads up over view of the comming system for billing? They must have had at least a few screen shots they could have filled us in on....

How hard would it have been to say UO gets to test out the new billing system so lets get you up to speed of how its going to go down and what you need to have ready for the migration.

We should have had all the info for this ready for the migration. I see no reason we would have given EA any hastle to put our emails in order for the change over and would have has billing set up correctly. And it would have been nice for we who have multi accounts (this includes other EA game accounts) over the 9 alloted to have known that limit so the top accounts would have been linked first.

I feel EA and Mythic staff let us down. CS though were somewhat helpfull but very limited and too easy to pass the problem to the 3rd tier who you couldnt talk to but only through email... left it very cold and one sided. Their's!!!!

If your gunna hide behind EA skirts just remember who pays for the games.
WE DO.

We need help Cal. There is so much wrong at this moment and so little ledership shown by your team that my trust in you is faltering greatly.

 

[Viper09]

I'm going to go out on the obvious limb and suggest that they have much more important work to do, such as the chaos with account management, etc, than spending it here reading and posting.

 

[Lady Storm]

Viper09 sugar it takes a few minutes to gather up the screen shots of the new billing this could have been done by a intern for Cal and the write up by him a few minutes of his time just to give us the heads up weeks before the billing was to go in.

We got left out... I think so we coudlnt protest the implamenting of it. Before it was finished.

Being a leader means taking the step up and standing for what you do. This covers informing the troups of the impending battle. We were not let know anything other then poof its here!

We could have avoided all this hastle and made it a smoother entry to the new billing, but we were not given that option to help ourselfs.

 

[Picus at the office]

As the people who run this game it is their job to come to the masses and speak to us. However I suspect that since there in no additional revenue to pad up the year end bonus and no option to add on a next to useless upgrade it's not in Cal or team best intrest to bother with us.

Oh and I suspect I will be in before the lock, so yea for me.

5 minutes of posting would go along way. Something as simple as "this is all borked, what a fiasco and I'll update you all as soon as I can" even if it took a day to post again it would be better then what we get fed.

 

[Lady Storm]

Yes when I was entering this I knew Petra might lock it up but I hope she lets it run a few.

Petra the people need to outlet their fustrations on this. Let them do so here. It might knock down all the anger and fustration they feel trying to get things to work.

 

[Woodsman]

I'm going to go out on the obvious limb and suggest that they have much more important work to do, such as the chaos with account management, etc, than spending it here reading and posting.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they have to be extremely careful about what they say, because whoever had the power to push this through UO/Camelot/Warhammer in August after problems popped up with the Star Wars migration in July probably has the power to fire people.

You have to have a lot of power to have problems with the Star Wars migration and not be told to stop and fix those problems and issue tutorials before migrating millions of more accounts from other games. You're pretty much bulletproof if you can pull that off.

Most normal companies, when you start doing migrations of databases, if you run into problems or confusion, you stop, you fix it, you issue tutorials, and after everybody is satisfied, you move on.

I'm looking at accounts.eamythic.com right now and I don't see any tutorials.

I don't see squat on the helporigin.secure.force.com website either.

There also doesn't seem to be much in the way of educating EA customer service in the wake of the Star Wars/Origin.com linking problems. Given how big Star Wars will be, and that there are probably more pre-orders for Star Wars than there are active customers for UO, Camelot, and Warhammer, there should have been some kind of instruction given out about Origin.com and Master accounts and the like to the CSRs.

 

[Viper09]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they have to be extremely careful about what they say, because whoever had the power to push this through UO/Camelot/Warhammer in August after problems popped up with the Star Wars migration in July probably has the power to fire people.

That too, yes. The devs don't exactly have a lot of freedom when it comes to sharing.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

I'm going to go out on the obvious limb and suggest that they have much more important work to do, such as the chaos with account management, etc, than spending it here reading and posting.

Well, it might be an "obvious limb" ...
IF it was obvious and/or suspected that Either of the "Producer class"
had some familiarity with "accounting" ...
*shrugs*

Just saying ... More "obvious" that a higher up told them to hold off on "updates of status" (producers "job" of interfacing with the masses re: state of the game)
and FOCUS on their new task: intro to accounting software 101 ....

I mean ... it is not unreasonable to call down to the supervisor of the crew that is pumping out my basement, that was flooded by a natural disaster and Say:
How's it going down there?
It Wouldn't be unreasonable >For Me to assume< IF there was no reply

That the water is getting deeper ...

 

[Theo_GL]

I have noticed the Dev over the weeks of this major fiasco and a few weeks prior not poping in. Oh i have seen Surpreem and Bleek for a few minutes then nada not one word from the man who really should be in here talking us through this mess.

I am not happy with the Whole Dev team at this moment. Cal and the rest of their group have stayed quiet. While we the test mice run the maze called billing.

Why didnt they give us a heads up over view of the comming system for billing? They must have had at least a few screen shots they could have filled us in on....

How hard would it have been to say UO gets to test out the new billing system so lets get you up to speed of how its going to go down and what you need to have ready for the migration.

We should have had all the info for this ready for the migration. I see no reason we would have given EA any hastle to put our emails in order for the change over and would have has billing set up correctly. And it would have been nice for we who have multi accounts (this includes other EA game accounts) over the 9 alloted to have known that limit so the top accounts would have been linked first.

I feel EA and Mythic staff let us down. CS though were somewhat helpfull but very limited and too easy to pass the problem to the 3rd tier who you couldnt talk to but only through email... left it very cold and one sided. Their's!!!!

If your gunna hide behind EA skirts just remember who pays for the games.
WE DO.

We need help Cal. There is so much wrong at this moment and so little ledership shown by your team that my trust in you is faltering greatly.

It is official. You now have a post on UO Billing for every one of your 53 accounts.

 

[Woodsman]

That too, yes. The devs don't exactly have a lot of freedom when it comes to sharing.

I think it's incredibly telling that the Camelot and Warhammer devs are being quiet as well about the migration. Somebody has told them to be quiet about it.

The fact that the account center maintenance announcement that was posted on both Camelot and Warhammer about yesterday's maintenance included mentions of UO's next anniversary and pub 72 means they are just posting what they are told and not even bothering to remove UO-specific stuff.

Just look at the bottom of the notices

http://darkageofcamelot.com/article/860
http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=1620

 

[soze]

i agree with the above poster that the devs need to be careful what they say/post

i kind of doubt EA has given the ok for them to say anything of substance to us regarding the migration issue, and remember,,,they work for EA (yes, I know we pay a montly fee and all, but EA signs the paychecks)

I agree the lack of communication has been noticible and frusterating...but, they may have their hands tied on this one. I'm sure we will hear from them after the dusts settles some.

Hopefully they are currently working on a story arc, and new event or Spring (Fall) Cleaning.

 

[Capn Kranky]

Okay - I am not a fanboi by any means, however it is not the Dev Team who should be held accountable. Other than Cal who IMO should have been around for the flak-fest I feel keelhauling Mesanna and crew is not right. (Thank you Petra for pointing that out earlier)

Yes, it would help if we knew for sure that they understood the frustrations, however I would like to point out some stuff that has been written here.
1. SWTOR had issues when they were migrated a month or so back. I believe they are still somewhat FUBAR. WHY?
2. Knowing there were issues with one migration, 3 were tackled in one pass - with the prior migration still having issues. WHY?

I'm sure there are more ... but having been on projects dealing with sensitive data (personnel info, security data, etc) this migration is not right, was not thought out properly with an eye to the age of some of the data involved.

It also seems to me that migrating only ONE game at a time, ironing out kinks and then proceeding would be the better way to avoid customers getting messed over all over the EA-verse. Then again, that would require a longer project duration to achieve better results ... something I think "upstairs" did not wish to do.

Oh well ...

 

[Capn Kranky]

<chuckles> This ... absolutely.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

It is official. You now have a post on UO Billing for every one of your 53 accounts.

http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys.php

Best observation of the year.

All under One Master Persona

 

[Sevin0oo0]

I think Dev involvement has pretty much ended.
Wanna hear Mesanna? "That ain't us, that's them, we don't have anything to do with them". I've already heard that before, don't need the echo.
They might know game databases, but why would they know about sql ones involving accts and such. Their only involvement in the past in similar matters was to just play middle-man, and pass on concerns. Besides, with the attitudes in All the forums, why would they come hang out? The atmosphere might start making them eat their own, then we'd Really be bad off.
They need a spokesman for sure, but what are they gonna say? "it's still broke, tune in tomorrow"? How often do people wanna hear that? Daily, hourly?

Personally, I think we need a single daily update, and an eta to completion - even if it's 2weeks, least its Something/Anything

 

[Lord Frodo]

I have noticed the Dev over the weeks of this major fiasco and a few weeks prior not poping in. Oh i have seen Surpreem and Bleek for a few minutes then nada not one word from the man who really should be in here talking us through this mess.

I am not happy with the Whole Dev team at this moment. Cal and the rest of their group have stayed quiet. While we the test mice run the maze called billing.

Why didnt they give us a heads up over view of the comming system for billing? They must have had at least a few screen shots they could have filled us in on....

How hard would it have been to say UO gets to test out the new billing system so lets get you up to speed of how its going to go down and what you need to have ready for the migration.

We should have had all the info for this ready for the migration. I see no reason we would have given EA any hastle to put our emails in order for the change over and would have has billing set up correctly. And it would have been nice for we who have multi accounts (this includes other EA game accounts) over the 9 alloted to have known that limit so the top accounts would have been linked first.

I feel EA and Mythic staff let us down. CS though were somewhat helpfull but very limited and too easy to pass the problem to the 3rd tier who you couldnt talk to but only through email... left it very cold and one sided. Their's!!!!

If your gunna hide behind EA skirts just remember who pays for the games.
WE DO.

We need help Cal. There is so much wrong at this moment and so little ledership shown by your team that my trust in you is faltering greatly.

Outstanding post.

 

[Flutter]

lol
They probably don't have permission to comment.

 

[Capn Kranky]

Exactly this ... the Devs are dealing with the game stuff, not accounting, etc. Keep in mind, however Cal is in the position of advance-man for EA to us, thus should have been around somewhat (IMO).

 

[Storm]

they are working on pub 72

 

[canary]

Lady Storm, three things:

1) Please for the love of god stop opening up THREAD after THREAD of accounting issues posts. It gets tiresome.

2) Stop referring to posters as 'sweeties', 'sugars', 'darlings', etc etc. People have told you before they hate it when you do it. They think it is obnoxious. I don't care if your excuse is that it is a term of endearment. If people ask you to stop it, then please STOP IT.

3) Invest in a computer program with some sort of spell check ability. If you can afford 53 accounts, you can easily afford spellcheck.

I honestly think a moratorium needs to be invoked for your constant creation of threads on this issue. PLEASE keep it to one thread and one thread ONLY.

 

[DevilsOwn]

I mean ... it is not unreasonable to call down to the supervisor of the crew that is pumping out my basement, that was flooded by a natural disaster and Say:
How's it going down there?
It Wouldn't be unreasonable >For Me to assume< IF there was no reply

That the water is getting deeper ...

water......?

 

[Viper09]

2) Stop referring to posters as 'sweeties', 'sugars', 'darlings', etc etc. People have told you before they hate it when you do it. They think it is obnoxious. I don't care if your excuse is that it is a term of endearment. If people ask you to stop it, then please STOP IT.

Yes yes and yes. I absolutely hate it when people do that and it is beyond obnoxious when people do that in forums.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

lol
They probably don't have permission to comment.

Well, Cal I can understand, but are YOU gonna stand up and tell Bonnie No?
Cal's military trained, and we see him cower all the time

 

[Woodsman]

they are working on pub 72

It's already tuesday and they promised us pub 72 details this week.

When can we start threads complaining that we aren't getting pub 72 details fast enough

 

[Viper09]

Well, Cal I can understand, but are YOU gonna stand up and tell Bonnie No?
Cal's military trained, and we see him cower all the time

Yes, how dare he follow orders from his superiors...

 

[Cetric]

If i migrated databases (specifically ones that messed with peoples money) and it didn't pan out as i would have hoped (assume the worst, prepare for it, but plan ahead and see wtf you are getting into) i'd atleast keep people updated daily or have someone update them for me.

If i didn't i'd prolly get fired..

You don't screw with peoples money.

 

[Woodsman]

If i migrated databases (specifically ones that messed with peoples money) and it didn't pan out as i would have hoped (assume the worst, prepare for it, but plan ahead and see wtf you are getting into) i'd atleast keep people updated daily or have someone update them for me.

EA is controlling this thing very tightly.

They pushed out the same account maintenance notice to all three teams, and the Camelot and Warhammer teams didn't even bother removing the references to UO at the bottom.

Notice the issue wasn't raised at Gamescom (Germany) last week even though EA executives and BioWare Mythic employees were there, and you can be damn sure it won't be raised this week at PAX (Seattle), where again, EA executives and BioWare Mythic employees will be traveling to talk about games.

Keep in mind that the games they are promoting, both at Gamescom last week, and PAX this week, rely on the new accounting system. The Warhammer arena game relies on it, Star Wars relies on it and at PAX this week, they are talking about the future of Dragon Age, and Dragon Age II is/was being migrated from Steam to Origin.

They are renting out an entire theater at PAX this week to promote Star Wars. Wouldn't you love to ask them about the Origin.com accounting fiasco?

EA is on the ball in regards to keeping the lid clamped down on this. The media is sniffing around the Battlefield 3 Origin.com issues, but so far that seems to be all they are doing. EA is going to ride this thing out and if they can get things sorted by the time Battlefield goes live in October, then it's a success in their eyes.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

water......?

Yep! w a t e r ... the wet stuff ...
Whatare you wondering about?
(^^ see whut i did thar? )


Oh CALVIN !! Where art thou?

Are thee become a man of Constant Sorrow?

OOOOOOOOOO
[youtube]GDA708XlFIo[/youtube]

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

Shocking that when the poop hits the fan that Cal disappers and general communication from Mythic falls into the toilet. Its not as if there are several years worth of this sort of behavior...

Oh, wait, there is. Mythic sticking their head in the sand is nothing new, at this point it should be considered SOP.

While some EA suit may be despotically pulling the migration strings, threatening the jobs of any employee who speaks out, it doesn't excuse the lack of a reassuring voice from Mythic. Without going against his evil overlord(s), Cal could very easily calm the community by simply saying their concerns have been heard and forwarded to the right people. Sadly, a post on the Herald from one of the "faceless" community reps isn't going to cut it.

Expect nothing.

 

[HD2300]

Viper09 sugar it takes a few minutes to gather up the screen shots of the new billing this could have been done by a intern for Cal and the write up by him a few minutes of his time just to give us the heads up weeks before the billing was to go in.

We got left out... I think so we coudlnt protest the implamenting of it. Before it was finished.

Being a leader means taking the step up and standing for what you do. This covers informing the troups of the impending battle. We were not let know anything other then poof its here!

We could have avoided all this hastle and made it a smoother entry to the new billing, but we were not given that option to help ourselfs.

This billing project started 9 months ago. And just when you think it cant get any worse, it does. It is pretty obvious the UO part of it has been phoned in for the last 9 months as even gametime codes work for WAR and DoAC and not for UO.

 

[Woodsman]

Shocking that when the poop hits the fan that Cal disappers and general communication from Mythic falls into the toilet. Its not as if there are several years worth of this sort of behavior...

Oh, wait, there is. Mythic sticking their head in the sand is nothing new, at this point it should be considered SOP.

While some EA suit may be despotically pulling the migration strings, threatening the jobs of any employee who speaks out, it doesn't excuse the lack of a reassuring voice from Mythic. Without going against his evil overlord(s), Cal could very easily calm the community by simply saying their concerns have been heard and forwarded to the right people. Sadly, a post on the Herald from one of the "faceless" community reps isn't going to cut it.

Expect nothing.

The fact that all three producers are remaining silent, plus the management of the Star Wars group, tells you everything you need to know - somebody from Mythic must be managing their communities And I'm sure the Battlefield 3 PR guy that was tweeting about the Origin.com account changes and restrictions that pissed off the BF3 community is wishing he had shut up.

Somebody does not want people talking about it other than in brief cut-and-paste messages on the game sites from the community people.

Any of you people living anywhere near Seattle seriously needs to go to PAX, BioWare has three sessions scheduled, one on Warhammer arena, one on Dragon Age, one on Star Wars:

http://prime.paxsite.com/schedule.php

If the questions are screened in advance and have to stay on topic, then simply ask why Star Wars players who had problems linking their pre-orders to their main accounts under the new system haven't heard anything back from customer service, whether from EA support, Origin.com support, or BioWare support (the support group in Ireland for Star Wars). Also ask about the Star Wars players who found themselves with multiple accounts and no way to link them, with their pre-orders on one account, and their main/forum stuff on another. They are similar to the problems some in UO are facing. Also ask them about the 9 account limit since that will affect us all.

EA is doing a good job of keeping this quiet.

 

[Goldberg-Chessy]

I have noticed the Dev over the weeks of this major fiasco and a few weeks prior not poping in. Oh i have seen Surpreem and Bleek for a few minutes then nada not one word from the man who really should be in here talking us through this mess.

I am not happy with the Whole Dev team at this moment. Cal and the rest of their group have stayed quiet. While we the test mice run the maze called billing.

Why didnt they give us a heads up over view of the comming system for billing? They must have had at least a few screen shots they could have filled us in on....

How hard would it have been to say UO gets to test out the new billing system so lets get you up to speed of how its going to go down and what you need to have ready for the migration.

We should have had all the info for this ready for the migration. I see no reason we would have given EA any hastle to put our emails in order for the change over and would have has billing set up correctly. And it would have been nice for we who have multi accounts (this includes other EA game accounts) over the 9 alloted to have known that limit so the top accounts would have been linked first.

I feel EA and Mythic staff let us down. CS though were somewhat helpfull but very limited and too easy to pass the problem to the 3rd tier who you couldnt talk to but only through email... left it very cold and one sided. Their's!!!!

If your gunna hide behind EA skirts just remember who pays for the games.
WE DO.

We need help Cal. There is so much wrong at this moment and so little ledership shown by your team that my trust in you is faltering greatly.

Just a guess but maybe they currently have more important things to do?

No offense but isnt the OP constantly posting for the Dev's to address her specific issues?

As if maybe her $13 a month entitles her to personal Dev support? To hell with whats stated in TOS. Wouldnt that be nice though lol?

 

[Taylor]

I share your lament, but let's be frank: when developers post about problems on Stratics, they're immediately crucified. Genuine concerns get swallowed up by personal attacks, which leads to moderator intervention, which subsequently leads to dozens of PMs calling moderators ban-happy nazis, and so forth. It happens every time.

I hope we can coax the developers back. We really benefit from their time and insight. Unfortunately, before this can happen, I think some sort of culture shift needs to take place. Just sayin.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

I share your lament, but let's be frank: when developers post about problems on Stratics, they're immediately crucified. Genuine concerns get swallowed up by personal attacks, which leads to moderator intervention, which subsequently leads to dozens of PMs calling moderators ban-happy nazis, and so forth. It happens every time.

I hope we can coax the developers back. We really benefit from their time and insight. Unfortunately, before this can happen, I think some sort of culture shift needs to take place. Just sayin.

This. Well, I guess this and basically everything else posted in this thread as to why they are not/shouldn't posting/post.

 

[Muu Bin]

I share your lament, but let's be frank: when developers post about problems on Stratics, they're immediately crucified. Genuine concerns get swallowed up by personal attacks, which leads to moderator intervention, which subsequently leads to dozens of PMs calling moderators ban-happy nazis, and so forth. It happens every time.

I hope we can coax the developers back. We really benefit from their time and insight. Unfortunately, before this can happen, I think some sort of culture shift needs to take place. Just sayin.

Agreed. This is exactly what a COMMUNITY COORDINATOR/ MANAGER does. They communicate to the players. Developers, well... develop. Cal, as the producer, really has dropped the ball here and seems to be alienating the customers. If this is because his bosses have neutered him then so be it. But then hey Bosses of Cal... here's a novel idea... how about YOU guys actually comment on this fiasco?

 

[Viper09]

Agreed. This is exactly what a COMMUNITY COORDINATOR/ MANAGER does. They communicate to the players. Developers, well... develop. Cal, as the producer, really has dropped the ball here and seems to be alienating the customers. If this is because his bosses have neutered him then so be it. But then hey Bosses of Cal... here's a novel idea... how about YOU guys actually comment on this fiasco?

Ha! That will be the day. I'd love to see one of the EA heads post here. Doubt that will happen though.

 

[Muu Bin]

Ha! That will be the day. I'd love to see one of the EA heads post here. Doubt that will happen though.

That's why they call me a dreamer! After seeing how these clowns at headquarters allow their ship to be run, I'd love to see what their Q3 reports or even Q4/ yearly reports look like if this fiasco continues to run on much longer.

 

[Woodsman]

That's why they call me a dreamer! After seeing how these clowns at headquarters allow their ship to be run, I'd love to see what their Q3 reports or even Q4/ yearly reports look like if this fiasco continues to run on much longer.

It'd be nice to ask who is responsible for not slowing down the migration after Star Wars had problems in July and fixing those problems and issuing tutorials.

Pushing on through to migrate three games at once a few weeks later while previous problems and confusion were (and are) still in existence has probably cost EA hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in additional support and developer costs. It also has pissed off a lot of players. Seems like EA stockholders would be a little pissed at that.

Imagine if Oracle or IBM went to a large customer, started migrating a huge database to a new system, found problems and confusion, and rather than stopping and fixing and clearing things up, a few weeks later they made the problem even worse by migrating three large databases to the new system. The tech media would go to town on them, and they would potentially lose some business from customers who would be wondering what was going on.

But somebody at EA had the power to keep on pushing the migration through, and all of the expenses associated with not fixing or clarifying things after Star Wars and before UO/Camelot/Warhammer, those expenses are going to eat into EA profit, which won't help stock prices. This migration could have easily cost $8 - $10 million, possibly more. EA is not that far removed from a few years ago when they were hurting and every million counted.

 

[Zosimus]

Well the Head of EA that made this decision may not have a job anymore. May be the reasoning of all the silence because nobody else at EA knows what to say.

Or.....

He/she is on a long vacation and doesn't have any idea what is going on until his/her expense account goes dry when players close their accounts.


I should quit exaggerating on the first part because his/her job is safe. Now for the second part I went a little overboard and should correct myself......his expense account will not go dry because EA has been doing this for years and players still give them money for it


Cal and Mesanna put out the fire now while you have a chance.....people are waiting and need there fix for the next batch of new and shiny item based pixels to forget this mess.

 

[Tina Small]

Well the Head of EA that made this decision may not have a job anymore. May be the reasoning of all the silence because nobody else at EA knows what to say.

Or.....

He/she is on a long vacation and doesn't have any idea what is going on until his/her expense account goes dry when players close their accounts.


I should quit exaggerating on the first part because his/her job is safe. Now for the second part I went a little overboard and should correct myself......his expense account will not go dry because EA has been doing this for years and players still give them money for it

Does anyone think there's a possibility the account migration and the emphasis on the "Origin" name might be for the purpose of grooming the company to get it in shape for a merger or sale?

 

[Theo_GL]

Does anyone think there's a possibility the account migration and the emphasis on the "Origin" name might be for the purpose of grooming the company to get it in shape for a merger or sale?

Would not surprise me to see EA 'spin off' this part of the business.

In other news the devs are working on spring....er....summer....er winter cleaning.

 

[Woodsman]

Does anyone think there's a possibility the account migration and the emphasis on the "Origin" name might be for the purpose of grooming the company to get it in shape for a merger or sale?

Would not surprise me to see EA 'spin off' this part of the business.

I don't think they would sell everything being pushed through Origin.com - remember, they just bought PopCap for like a billion dollars, and they are shifting everything to online/social games when they can. Plus Battlefield 3 and Star Wars are directly tied to Origin, and the EA Sports stuff is starting to tie into it somehow. Those are their biggest games/franchises. If they got rid of everything that is being driven through Origin, they'd be left with nothing.

They might be modifying their EULA/TOS for Origin in the near future after some people panicked over EA collecting info through Origin, but EA claims they aren't keeping anything that identifies individuals.

I don't think people realize just how big Origin is for EA. Five years from now, expect to see all new EA games having Origin.com features. Origin is another late attempt at EA to catch up to everybody else - Ubisoft was already putting this stuff in place last year and the year before, and Activision has been doing this for years, with the Battle.net update from a few years ago showing that they are once again in front of the major companies. This is from Wiki:

The new Battle.net (unofficially known as Battle.net 2.0) contains three unique sections. The first allows players to connect all Battle.net accounts, World of Warcraft characters and friends list together and integrate them into a unified single Battle.net account. Players can also unlock achievements in-game which would in turn unlock avatars and decals which would be shown on the player's profile, the decals can also be seen in-game on the player's units.

Connect all accounts, World of Warcraft characters, etc into one unified account. EA is trying to do with the Origin/EA account unification in late 2011 what Blizzard was doing in early 2009.

The second section consists of making Battle.net into a competitive arena for players which involves a new improved matchmaking system which simplifies the process of players locating their friends and organizing games. The ladder system has also been revamped so that it will not be dominated just by the most hardcore players instead after a short period of play, the system would classify players into certain leagues according to their level of competitiveness. Within each league, players would compete against other players who have a similar skill level to that of the player. There is also a special practice league for the casual players to practice and hone their skills, this league slows down the gameplay using "anti-rush" maps to allow players to get used to the game. The party system works similar to that of World of Warcraft where players with friends would join together and enter games as a party.

If you read what EA executives, especially the sports executives, as as well as some of the Star Wars and Battlefield 3 producers have been saying they desperately want this for a lot of games. It helps keep people playing.

The final section makes it easy to locate and stay connected with friends. This involves the new chat system which involves a new system similar to Instant Messaging across games. Players would also be able to stay together in groups which allow them to remain together when new games are released. This is done by allowing players to communicate with friends across games, servers, and characters.

Both the rankings/ladders and chats are things that many of the EA groups want, especially the EA Sports and Battlefield groups because the more you drag your friends into all of this or have an incentive to play, the more likely you will be to play, and with a good chat/connect/messaging system, it feeds into it.

Another new element is the use of an online marketplace which allows player or map makers to create and sell their maps online through Battle.net, players can also browse and search through maps online and rank them by player ratings as well as download both free and paid maps.

I don't think EA is doing this with Origin, at least not yet, but given how much of this whole Origin.com thing is based on Battle.net, it would not surprise me.

On May 5, 2010, Blizzard revealed that Battle.net 2.0 would be integrated with social networking site Facebook, "linking the world's premier online gaming platform with the world's most popular social platform".

EA definitely/desperately wants this. We probably dodged the bullet with UO/Camelot/Warhammer, but I wouldn't be surprised if Star Wars has this crap at some point. They are definitely going to be pushing this hard with EA Sports as well, because it goes back to the more your friends are engaged or playing, the more likely you are to be playing, and if they see you playing or you see them playing, you or they will more likely play.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

I hope we can coax the developers back. We really benefit from their time and insight. Unfortunately, before this can happen, I think some sort of culture shift needs to take place. Just sayin.

Not to belabor the point, but if Mythic was putting out a better product for the money their customers are investing and if there weren't so many clear-cut issues of lack of quality assurance, the atmosphere might have a chance to change.

At this point, even the traditional pom-pom wielders are foaming at the mouth.

*shrugs*

No game forum will ever be 100% positive, but... sadly, Mythic's almost beyond the point of being saved by a crisis management team.

 

[Tina Small]

Thanks for the analysis, Woodsman. Very interesting information! But you didn't say whether you think EA might be trying to clean up some stuff to make themselves look more attractive to a potential buyer. Any thoughts on that? I guess I'm just kinda hung up on why use the Origin name and not "Electronic Arts."

 

[Woodsman]

Thanks for the analysis, Woodsman. Very interesting information! But you didn't say whether you think EA might be trying to clean up some stuff to make themselves look more attractive to a potential buyer. Any thoughts on that? I guess I'm just kinda hung up on why use the Origin name and not "Electronic Arts."

All of the companies that would be capable of buying EA or its biggest franchises are companies that are already competing head-to-head in most of the categories that EA is in. They are better off spending the billions that would be required developing their own franchises. EA Sports is the only attractive thing that EA has to offer another game company, because no other company has anything approaching that division.

EA does have a back catalog that could be revived (including Origin), but then again, so do many other companies and most are not doing too much with them. Activision isn't in a rush to revive any of the Sierra titles, etc.

As for Origin, I personally think that it was used because EA owned the rights to the name and because EA wants to get away from EA branding on such a service if it wants to truly compete with Steam. I read something a while back that EA is wanting Origin to have offerings from other companies, and EA already works in partnerships with smaller game publishers as it is. As for why Origin in particular, I don't know. Catchy and simple?

EA is desperately trying to go all out on the online and social networking stuff and Origin is key to it, just like Battle.net is key to everything that Blizzard is doing.

 

[Fayled Dhreams]

Thanks for the analysis, Woodsman. Very interesting information! But you didn't say whether you think EA might be trying to clean up some stuff to make themselves look more attractive to a potential buyer. Any thoughts on that? I guess I'm just kinda hung up on why use the Origin name and not "Electronic Arts."

All of the companies that would be capable of buying EA or its biggest franchises are companies that are already competing head-to-head in most of the categories that EA is in. They are better off spending the billions that would be required developing their own franchises. EA Sports is the only attractive thing that EA has to offer another game company, because no other company has anything approaching that division.

EA does have a back catalog that could be revived (including Origin), but then again, so do many other companies and most are not doing too much with them. Activision isn't in a rush to revive any of the Sierra titles, etc.

As for Origin, I personally think that it was used because EA owned the rights to the name and because EA wants to get away from EA branding on such a service if it wants to truly compete with Steam. I read something a while back that EA is wanting Origin to have offerings from other companies, and EA already works in partnerships with smaller game publishers as it is. As for why Origin in particular, I don't know. Catchy and simple?

EA is desperately trying to go all out on the online and social networking stuff and Origin is key to it, just like Battle.net is key to everything that Blizzard is doing.

heheheheh ... *nods to tina*
Woodsman, /agreed with tina. Nice analysis for a Hyopothetical analysis.

Missed covering Whom Could "buy" EA outright ...
Amazon.com and China Inc. >could be two< amongst MANY others.

diversification and "synergy", by any other euphemism ... still drive the buyers market.

did you know? The new jobs panel czar (ceo of GE) is working a deal with the Chinese to "do aircraft" that will compete with Boeing?

did you know, that IF our devs are "one in a million" ...
China Inc. has 1,600 >just like them< ? >each of them< 1,600 clones.
hmmmmmm ... India maybe "only" 1,200


Just saying ... /agreed with tina. Nice analysis for a Hypothetical analysis.

 

[Woodsman]

Missed covering Whom Could "buy" EA outright ...
Amazon.com and China Inc. >could be two< amongst MANY others.

diversification and "synergy", by any other euphemism ... still drive the buyers market.

It's an interesting thought - Amazon is a publisher of books, in addition to being a seller of books.

But Amazon.com would probably just buy a few small studios and or make their own games. They don't like reinventing things or buying big companies when they can do it on their own cheaper and more efficiently or building upon smaller companies. They didn't go out and buy any major established e-Readers, they developed the Kindle. They didn't buy up a major book publisher that many people are familiar with, they bought up some smaller companies, went into self-publishing, and created a system where authors could directly sell through them. You don't see Amazon churning out a lot of TV shows and movies, and those can be more profitable than the videogame business, and Amazon already has a huge business model revolving around selling and renting/streaming TV shows and movies.

I would see Amazon buying up a bunch of mobile or social gaming companies and trying to use a future Kindle to compete with the iPad or to drive people to Amazon.com before they did something like buying EA.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

Not to belabor the point, but if Mythic was putting out a better product for the money their customers are investing and if there weren't so many clear-cut issues of lack of quality assurance, the atmosphere might have a chance to change.

I don't think this point can be belabored enough... It's only heightened by the whole professionalism thing that Mythic so blatantly lacks in everything they do.

 

[Woodsman]

I don't think this point can be belabored enough... It's only heightened by the whole professionalism thing that Mythic so blatantly lacks in everything they do.

While there are a lot of things I liked about the Mythic of old, and not just the games or some of the personalities, both before and after the EA purchase, Mythic's infamous lack of communication about problems is something I had hoped was long since purged.

Especially in light of how much the Star Wars team is out there selling a game that won't be out for a few months at minimum.

Man I wish a player would show up at one of the BioWare events during PAX this week and talk to some of the BioWare PR people about this thing, because the Mythic PR people won't comment unless it's just to let us know when some fix is being installed.

I know that they are supposed to be one and the same - BioWare Mythic, but I'm sorry, I look at the PR for Star Wars, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, etc. and I look at the PR for UO, Camelot, and Warhammer, and it's like two different companies. One is promoting its products and engaging its customers, the other is doing an imitation of Baghdad Bob.

It's especially irritating when you have Mythic PR/community people inviting Warhammer players to meet-and-greets at breweries in Germany last week, but they won't take the time to talk to players of the three Mythic MMOs about problems. Yeah, nice, you're promoting a free game that is supposed to help Warhammer Online, but how about talking about your existing paying customers. At least those that are able to pay.

 

[Tina Small]

I would see Amazon buying up a bunch of mobile or social gaming companies and trying to use a future Kindle to compete with the iPad or to drive people to Amazon.com before they did something like buying EA.

Amazon offers several EA games for the Kindle. The more expensive Kindle versions with global wireless coverage (as opposed to Wi-Fi) might present an interesting opportunity for a company like EA.