From QT3:

MYTHIC ENTERTAINMENT TO POSTPONE PRODUCTION OF “IMPERATOR” MMORPG

Company to focus development on “Warhammer” MMORPG and “Dark Age of Camelot”

FAIRFAX, VA – July 13, 2005 – Mythic Entertainment, developer and publisher of massively-multiplayer online role-playing games, today announced the production postponement of “Imperator,” the sci-fi MMORPG previously scheduled for a June 2006 release. The decision was made after a complete internal review of the project status.

“This was the most difficult decision that we have ever had to make,” said Mark Jacobs, CEO and president of Mythic Entertainment. “However, our tremendous success with ‘Dark Age of Camelot’ set the standard for Mythic of releasing nothing less than triple-A games, and ‘Imperator’ was simply not meeting that standard.”

There are no personnel layoffs planned as a result of this decision. Staff will be reassigned to the ongoing development of “Dark Age of Camelot” including the next expansion, “Darkness Rising,” scheduled for Q4 ’05. In addition some personnel have already been assigned to the new “Warhammer” MMORPG which Mythic announced at E3 in May 2005.

“Our team made a tremendous effort with the game and the praise it drew at E3 and in previews reflected their skill and dedication,” Jacobs continued. “But in the final analysis it just wasn’t great enough to be a Mythic game at this time.”

Mythic will perform an internal reassessment of the game’s features and make a decision on how to proceed with its development in the future.

The decision to postpone “Imperator” also means that the company’s plans to establish a European publishing office have been postponed. It is expected that those plans will resume as the company prepares for its 2007 worldwide publication of the “Warhammer” MMORPG.

Between the bloggers only Nerfbat noticed.

This while Sanya on the Herald announces that tomorrow will be a busy day (my account is up and ready to play), suggesting to check the page often. Maybe it’s something related or I’m seeing too much into this?

For now I cannot think of anything if not what I posted on the forums:

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It’s a fake?

Come on. Imperator is supposed to be nearly done and it fits WAY MORE with DAoC instead of having incestuous intercourses between the playerbases of games built with the same premises and marketed at the same audience.

Fact is that probably Mythic realized that they aren’t able to develop and maintain in the short term three big projects at the same time and hope they’ll go in a good way. So they probably decided to continue with DAoC (because it’s already there and is their reputation) and focus on Warhammer (because it’s a Big Name).

Now we really have DAoC and DAoC 2.

/me puzzles to figure out the consequences.

EDIT – Freakazoid’s comment on Corpnews is gold:

I knew it. They bit more than they could chew.