The biggest news in MMO gaming last week might have been Mark Jacobs' departure from Mythic, as we reported earlier. At the height of the story's frenzy, we also featured a story on Jacobs' explanation of his departure. The Jacobs story pretty much overshadowed everything coming out of Mythic around that time, including this substantial announcement about Warhammer Online from Jeff Hickman (Mythic's new exec), titled "Executive Producer's Letter - Part 3."

"We're looking at some fairly radical approaches on how to best bring the population together," Hickman said. "We want to ensure everyone is having fun, but we need to do so in such a way that further imbalances aren't created overnight as we have seen in the past. There are a lot of ideas on the table, but your satisfaction is our top concern."

It seems like Mythic is finally rethinking a few of its previous strategies and paradigms, specifically the issues of population (im)balance, stability and sieges. But that's not all. Hickman lists off quite a few other issues that Mythic recognizes as problems or player concerns, structured in a series of concise bullet points. The icing on the cake for some fans, however, was Hickman's acknowledgment that Mythic is still committed to Dark Age of Camelot, among its other games.

"We are committed to Warhammer, Ultima Online, and Dark Age of Camelot, and have solid plans for each game," Hickman said. "I look forward to discussing our plans for of all of these games with you in the near future." It's not a whole heck of a lot, but it's something. At the very least, it tells us that Mythic's new executive producer hasn't forgotten about its Ultima and DAoC fans, and that the company still has plans in store for them.

The rest of the letter deals only with Warhammer Online and the issues Mythic recognizes as priority concerns. But there's quite a bit of good info packed in there; just a few of the topics covered are crowd control and area-of-effect abilities, game performance, Tier 4 experience and improving itemization of in-game rewards. Check out the full post for details.