Long-time followers of Paul Barnett are likey familiar with his occasional misquotes of the past. If you've not paid much attention to the resident "Crazy British Bloke" of Mythic Entertainment, all you need to know is that he's a joyous, entertaining and sometimes abstrusely sarcastic fellow. However it's hard to take something like, "They [EA] know nothing about launching MMOs in Europe, unless it's spending lots of money closing them down I suppose." as purely sarcastic in nature. Still, we're all familiar with how text doesn't exactly convey tone and body language all too well. So we're willing to give Paul the benefit of the doubt here, as is Mark Jacobs who has recently said of the whole thing, "What Paul said about EA not knowing anything about launching MMOs: you know, Paul likes to exaggerate - of course EA knows things about launching MMOs. EA is responsible, certainly, for one of the most important MMOs of all time, and that was Ultima [Online]." Clearly Mythic is doing some damage control here, but on the eve of launch they can't really be blamed for it. It seems that as great as Paul Barnett is for creatively directing a game (Warhammer Online is filled with bits of creative awesomeness) and helping to excite people about his game, he's also a double-edged sword that sometimes swings the wrong way. Regardless, we all love him for speaking his mind, even if it means that sometimes we all cautiously glance sideways at one another.
