GS: Obviously, the next question is: Why?

MJ: Easy. The short answer would be that it's hard to make this kind of game. Now, for a more detailed answer. It really boils down to this: Our game is going to live and die by two things. One is realm-versus-realm (RvR) gameplay. The second is overall quality. This is not 1999, 1997, or even 2001. This is 2007. We have to be able to release a game that, in terms of quality, without even going into game systems or RvR, is top-notch. We've seen too many games in this industry, and in this space, release without that, and we're not going to do that.

In terms of RvR, the game's motto has always been "war is everywhere," so this game has always been focused on that aspect of gaming. One of the things that we found during beta was that certain aspects of our RvR system weren't everything that we wanted them to be. So we added open-field RvR. We've been looking at certain rulesets for different RvR servers. And that takes time.

The other thing is, and it really encompasses the entire game's development, is what the team's been doing--and doing a tremendous job with, by the way--is meeting all their milestones in terms of the amount of material to add to the game, whether it's content, quests, or systems. What they didn't meet in the milestones was the date. So, they'd get everything in, but it took a little longer, and as it took a little longer, we were faced with two obvious choices: we cut some polish, or we cut some features. And we made the decision, backed by EA, to make sure that all that polish is in there, and all those features are in there. And that's it.

Our goals for Warhammer Online are not easily met. The game includes many new and innovative ideas, a feature set that is going to blow players away, and, most importantly, the best RvR system in MMORPG gaming. These things take time to implement and test properly. During the last phase of beta testing, we received valuable feedback from our testers that will help make these features even better. When we looked at our options, two paths lay before us: 1) Ship the game on time with fewer features and less polish, or 2) Extend the development cycle and spend the needed time and money to make WAR great. We chose the latter path - to invest additional time and effort in implementation and polish to make WAR great. Fortunately, we have the resources and support of EA behind us to extend our development cycle; time that will be used to make sure the game is everything we want it to be. WAR is coming, and it will be glorious.