And welcome to reality.

Mythic cut back on the release features for WAR today. Specifically they reduced the classes and capital cities.

The announcement and corresponding interviews were peppered with the usual cheery 'it's for quality' spin.

I'm not denouncing Mythic, while I don't think there was any bravery in the announcement, it was to be expected. It was either something like this, or a delay. At this point, with collector's editions pre-ordered, they cannot delay. EA would balk. They may even be contractually obligated to the retail chains for a Q4 release.

Mythic is trying to provide as much entertainment as they can within a sane timeframe and budget, two things which they've pushed pretty damn far.

It's too easy for fans to ask for something to be 'done when it's done'. The first time I heard that phrase it came from John Carmack, while leading a team of 8 talented developers at ID Software. It's a phrase for great games with limited scope. MMORPGs are on an entirely different scale of complexity, they can be great, but so much is involved in the process of getting them there. And it's far from an exact science yet.

Just a little while ago, MMORPG players were finally getting games that could be released without servers bouncing up and down for days, weeks and months. To ask for complete polish with full-and-lasting content on top of stability for launch-day, well we haven't seen it yet. It comes later, with patches.

I think we all have to swallow the pill sooner or later.

I hope to be proven wrong, eventually I will be, but not by the current crop of MMORPGs approaching release. There's an insane amount of pressure, the market has gone up and up and each game has investors that are hoping to catch onto that rocket and fly into the stratosphere.

When we do see it, I think it may be from a privately held company and not a big public corporation with shareholders to answer in quarterly reports and expectations of earnings on each dollar.

Make yourself comfy where you are, because Hyboria will be out of reach just a little bit longer.

Funcom has set the official release date of Age of Conan to May 20th, which is two months later than the previously expected release in March. It's a bit of a surprise after previous assurances that they'd given themselves ample development time with the last delay. Funcom has posted a official press release and explanations for the new delay, the magic word being "polishing".

Overall, it doesn't seem like much of a setback to me, so long as this is release date is solid. They need to hit spring / early summer though, if they want any sort of headstart on Mythic's and Blizzard's upcoming MMO releases. The sooner this game is out, the better positioned they'll be. I do understand though, their need to make sure the game's launch is successful to begin with.

I'm personally hoping the extra time will let them polish all aspects of the game for a complete and well-rounded MMORPG, not just the PvP highlights that the early adopters tend to be attracted to.

I'm really looking forward to this game.

As AFK Gamer and Tobold have both pointed out, EA/Mythic has oddly shut down the current Warhammer Online beta for at least 2 months. And now the rumours get to fly, the most obvious of which is a possible delay for the Warhammer release date.

Before EA scooped up Mythic, Warhammer Online was poised to grab a solid niche of the MMO market, but more and more it seems that EA has big hopes for WAR to challenge WoW for dominance. So far though, the leaks from the beta have been a mixed bag and my guess is that EA/Mythic is going for another round of polishing. Despite Mythic's pre-EA insistence that they would be happy as #2, I think they're shooting for the stars now.

Funcom has announced that Age of Conan will be delayed until March 2008 for release. The reason given is that due to feedback on their beta servers, they will be improving the combat system, to give casting a stronger presence and to make the combos (and combat in general) easier to learn.

This is both good news and disappointing. I had been concerned that the game has been so strongly melee-oriented so far, so it's good to see them focus on the fun factors associated with casting. Many folks have also been worried that AoC's combat may be too hard for the casual players, so the work they're putting into the learning curve is encouraging.

But overall myself and much of my guild has been ready to bounce from WoW to AoC soon. We'll have to stay put for a bit longer, but that's the risk with a new game in development.

As for March? That's no surprise, if there is a delay they're going to try to hit the next significant sales month and Jan-Feb are notoriously slow. If they can't release for the Christmas season then early Spring is the logical choice.

This is also going to put the releases of Warhammer Online, Wrath of the Lich King and Age of Conan very close together.

Mythic has delayed Warhammer Online again. This time they've attributed the setback to their buyout by EA, though they put it in a positive light.

So far, real competitors to WoW have been slow in coming, only LOTRO has actually seen the light of day at this point.