On EA’s New BioWare/Mythic Division…

Mythic Entertainment’s Jeff Hickman and Joshua Drescher bring us up to speed on what impact their merger with BioWare into EA’s new MMO/RPG division might have on the future of the company.

Jeff’s latest letter to the community focuses primarily on changes coming to Warhammer Online:

It is a time of change and progress here at Mythic. As we move forward, I want you all to know that our love of MMOs, our passion for the games we create, and our commitment to our fans is stronger than ever. Our studio’s strength has always come from its talented and dedicated team; Mythic is full of passionate, committed people who love MMOs and the games they make. I, personally, have been with Mythic for almost 10 years and look forward to what the studio will build and offer fans over the next 10 years!

We are committed to Warhammer, Ultima Online, and Dark Age of Camelot, and have solid plans for each game. I look forward to discussing our plans for of all of these games with you in the near future. This month, as promised, I’d like to start by sharing some more details from our plans for Warhammer’s continued development over the upcoming months.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve reached out to many individuals and guilds to share their thoughts, and we’ve been digging down into all of the feedback we have received. As I stated last week, these discussions led us to five key goals which will act as our compass in the months ahead.

While Josh’s personal blog entry clears up some confusion:

1) No one else is leaving the studio. Apparently, someone was spreading nonsense rumors earlier about Paul or Adam or Carrie or myself being sent to Austin. Lies, lies and damn lies. I haven’t been able to find any such rumors myself, so who the hell knows – maybe the rumor ABOUT the rumor was a lie. Always remember – there are a limitless number of people online with comparably limitless free time and a weird love of just making things up.

2) We’re all really excited about working alongside BioWare as part of the MMO/RPG division. While we’ve got a lot of experience ourselves and have learned a lot of lessons (some harder than others), it’s exciting to know we’ll have the folks at BioWare right there with us as we move forward as a company. I’ve been lucky enough to meet Ray and Greg a few times in the past and they are clearly passionate about MMOs and games in general. Their affection for us was very clear today and I think they really made the team feel comfortable and supported. And, for the record, that attitude is nothing new. When we launched, BioWare was the only other studio that sent us something as personal and cool as this.

3) While we are working alongside BioWare and with Ray as our group GM, we are still Mythic. Our core operational leadership remains the same, our production and development staff remains the same. Our plans for WAR remain the same (and you’ll hear more about them shortly). Speaking of which.