Did anyone catch this post ?

---

Quote:

The entire Myth III team was terminated on November 2, 2001. The basic reason was that there was no next project lined up and funded, nor was there expected to be in the near future, it's expensive to keep a team of salaried people around doing nothing, and Mumbo Jumbo was not a huge business with infinitely deep pockets. There's a tangled web between the Mumbo Jumbo Irvine project team, its parent company United Developers, and the game's publisher Take 2. I wouldn't blame anyone specifically for the collapse -- call it everybody's fault if you're the angry sort or nobody's fault if you're charitable.

There are obviously still some things that need to be taken care of. Those of us who devoted the last year of our lives to this game want to see it succeed and find a way to address those issues. In the last two weeks people have been forced to devote their time to finding other jobs or projects and generally figuring out how to feed themselves and their children. Very little work has been done on anything Myth-related in the past two weeks because of that. The lack of computers, desks, and net access has also been a contributing factor for many former team members.

Most of the complaints surrounding the PC version were already fixed in a patch that was almost ready to go when the shutdown occurred. That will probably make its way through the proper channels by sometime next week, but there are no absolute guarantees at this time because in many ways the dust is still settling.

---

I saw it, but I wasn't sure how legit it was.

>The entire Myth III team was terminated on November 2, 2001

They were exterminated? How horrible.

I wonder what this does to "Vengeance", Myth III's map making editor that was supposedly getting released in December/January. One of Mumbo Jumbo's lead level designers dropped by my Mac gaming chat room the other day and mentioned something about those remaining devs still plugging away at Vengeance. Hmmmm... considering the current circumstance, could this be an unrealistic projection?

For those of you who don't know, Fear and Loathing, Bungie's Myth II map editor, was the driving force behind its continuing popularity. Three years later, and peeps are still slugging it out on bungie.net's Myth II servers. Basically, the map making community preserved Myth II's value and success.

Raphael

It's all true. Mike Donges, Mumbo Jumbo's producer, told me they were all let go, but they had the patch and a demo pretty much done by that time. They are finishing it on their own time. Next time I talk to him, I'll ask him about Vengeance. Too bad. The series (and game) had such promise. Take 2 will take over game support.

You know, I'm thrilled that we've seen guys finish patches in their spare time for various games over the past year or two. That sort of committment to a product and to gamers is admirable.

That said, though, you almost have to wonder if developers/publishers will factor this in when choosing whether to fund dev teams. "We can't fire them all, the version we released isn't stable." "It's okay, they'll finish it at home."

Myth III was an inexcusable mess. Take2 owes it to their customers to get it working. The company should have funded keeping part of the dev team around to fix their product. (I thought the mob took care of their clients?)

I've never been in favor of "user lawsuits." Due to the nature of software, OS, and drivers, there are going to be problems with games on some sysems. But when a company puts out a product as defective as Myth III and then refuses to support it themselves, they should issue a recall and return the money to their customers.

---

Quote:

"We can't fire them all, the version we released isn't stable." "It's okay, they'll finish it at home."

---

A lot of the GOD games seemed rushed. I don't know if Take 2 was pressuring GOD or what, but along with Myth III both Heavy Metal and KISS had short development cycles.