To the person below this post who said those that pre-ordered were more concerned about getting the game sooner than later... I happen to be one the of the CE pre-order folks. Obviously I'd rather have it complete than have it 'sooner'.
Ditto. This cannot be spun in a positive light no matter how delusional folks are being about it. Big deal, so they aren't lying to us about the content. Pretty poor consolation for the removal of key content, especially the 4 classes.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Wow get a grip people it s a game. It s a good game that they decided to take some things out. Is your life changing because of it. The game works as intended as is and will just get better. Calm down, take a deep breath and maybe get some sun. Amazing so stirred up over a game.
well untill a few hours ago i was sure the system was something like "go through tier 1-4 and in the end we'll have those HUGE cityes you can raid for each side"... now they say "we wont have 6 but only 2 cities" and i'm thinking "who with a sane mind would want to make 6 insanly huge CCs..."
compare that to AoC... that had almost NO city siege when it launched... or WoW that had almost nothing to do on 60.... TR that STILL has nothing to do on 50... hello kitty online that... um... ok... hello kitty will be a perfect game and the next wow killer
well when people saying wow class are all better than warhammer and stuff.. I know wow got more years and more time on there class all .. but this one thing for sure.. they never ever had too balance 24 classes in there life.
even tho 4 classes got cut.. doesn't mean the other 20 are still unbalance.
wow has only 9 but 10 soon.- pallidan, warlock, druid, warrior , mage, hunter, rouge, shaman, priest, and death knight.
there easy to think of.. skills, etc.. like if you think.. pallidan.. holy and shiz.. same with other classes in wow.
When it comes to warhammer 24
you got all these diffrent named character.. that like really hard to think of.. what talents, skills, etc they got. not like wow.
with these 4 out.. they were not fit yet to be fighting in warhammer.. they will be back but intil then mythic needs to work on them more so there able to be standable to ranks of thousands.
But atleast there's another 20 classes still able to fight.
I was sad that blackguard are out.. but I'll just play chosen.. At least the big fights will still be in the game
I just told you what was advertised. Now why the hell, and what reasonable person, would think they were actually cutting out 2/3 of the cities and 4 of the classes? These are not minor changes, if I had suggested that this might happen before today I would have been burned at the stake for being crazy and delusional.
... Again, I'd like to see exactly WHERE it promised an exact number of capital cities to invade. Show me a number, or at least, a clear statement that says, "Every race will have it's own unique capital city".
.. Again, show me where it says, "We WILL have 24 classes available the day this product launches."
You ASSUMED everything would be there. On WHAT you based those assumptions is my question.
They may have said they wanted 24 classes at launch. Blizzard stated they wanted hero classes too, and that sure as hell didn't happen.
And I don't know WHAT you assumed 6 capital cities from. Honestly, in all seriousness, I'd like to see SOME kind of link on that stating the 6 cities.. I had never heard of it prior to this announcement. I always thought there were only 2.
[EDIT]
Ok. I now see where it lists the classes. I'll eat my crow with mustard on that one.
... Again, I'd like to see exactly WHERE it promised an exact number of capital cities to invade. Show me a number, or at least, a clear statement that says, "Every race will have it's own unique capital city".
.. Again, show me where it says, "We WILL have 24 classes available the day this product launches."
You ASSUMED everything would be there. On WHAT you based those assumptions is my question.
They may have said they wanted 24 classes at launch. Blizzard stated they wanted hero classes too, and that sure as hell didn't happen.
And I don't know WHAT you assumed 6 capital cities from. Honestly, in all seriousness, I'd like to see SOME kind of link on that stating the 6 cities.. I had never heard of it prior to this announcement. I always thought there were only 2.
Simple answer: The podcast videos from the WAR site.
Longer statement: Notice how people are not going "wow I had no idea any of those things existed in the first place". There are a few, like you, but they are the exception.
___________________ Sadly, I see storm clouds on the horizon. A faint stench of Vanguard is in the air.-Kien
What does it say about the game? I think that it says a lot about the Integrity of Mythic to come out and say hey this is fucked up and not working to our liking, let's make an executive decision and cut out the crap, make the best game possible and put content in later. I seem to remember it took six months after launch for WOW to even have an end game, and for those of you former Beta Testers' you will remember the last minute changes(unnannounced by the way) that happened in the 24 hours from the end of beta to launch when decent classes(paladin, warrior, warlock) woke up in Launch as ghosts of there former selves taking nigh on a year to get a minor fix and almost 2 years for the classes to be playable in anything but cookie cutter role. And to refer to the Games Workshop/Blizzard relationship, its always been love/hate since the early 90's when orc vs. humans (Warcraft the original) and has continued as Blizzard has continuously pillaged from GW's IP (Starcraft{Space Marines vs. Tyranids with a splash of Eldar}, Warcraft2{more of the Orcs vs Humans with a splash of Highelves}) for material to use in its own games. Games Workshops own material in its most simplistic form is a commentary on English Society and is inherently unoriginal when distilled down to its most basic parts.Regardless of who stole what from who I think the game will be fine albeit a little smaller then what I had hoped for, but nonetheless it will be enjoyable. My brother is in the beta and said that the patch released today had a whole slew of changes in it, most if not all for the better. Lets just hope that Mark and his team at EA continue to be honest and forthright. I fully intend to play this game and be there from the start. Hopefully with a smooth launch (I still shutter when I think of SWG's Launch) and with no queues! Its just my opinion but here it is.
well games workshop is lucky they don't have someone like you in charge of them for being so irrational and not looking at all the positives that the news brings.
Games Workshop turned down Blizzards proposal to make a Warhammer game. They tried to put their positive spin on that one too. Forgive me if LAWL at that again, and witness history repeating itself.
how do you figure games workshop made a mistake? warhammer is all about rvr and going with mythic was the right choice since they already have a better understanding of rvr and what people want. What has blizzard done for pvp? their honor system was so craptastic they totally revamped how it worked pissing alot of people off in the process.
By the way synn a lot of your other comments, especially about being able to take over an enemy town, are wrong. I'm sorry you guys. I'm not being sarcastic, I'm really sorry for those of you who have been following WAR so closely. Like I said before, this is awfully cruel to their most dedicated fans. It seems like a totally unnecessary blow.
Folks,
Okay, here's the second of the topics I will create today in which I'll explain in more detail, why we made the decisions we made. It's going to be a rather busy day so please don't expect me to respond to every question asked in response or to get into long debates. Obviously, I won't respond to any questions that are off-topic as that's why I'm creating these separate topics.
So, why did we make the decision to have 2 capital cities versus 6 capital cities and what impact will it have on the game?
1) The capital cities are the jewel in our RvR crown. If we mess up with them, WAR will not be anywhere near as successful as it could have been. These cities are unlike any other cities in any MMO that I have seen or played. The amount of true content that revolves in and around them (and not just sticking a quest-giver NPC in a city) is unlike any other game. Both RvR and PvE happens there in a way that also has never been done in any other MMO's cities. Each city has 12 PQs and almost 100 quests (RvR and PvE) that either lead to the city, take place in the city or lead out of the city as well as 3 dungeons.
2) Because we are focusing on just 2 cities, the team has been able to pour more time into each city and really make them great. They truly are living cities and what you will see and experience in them would not have been possible to do if we had to get 6 cities ready for launch even if we had a lot more time.
3) Each CC takes a tremendous amount of time to design, iterate and release. No matter how much time we spend on the cities during development and beta, once the game is released everything changes. The history of MMOs has shown all of us that no matter how smart the developer or experienced the team, mistakes are made. Given the complexity of our cities, we can expect the same thing to happen to us.
4) Keeping (1) and (2) and (3) in mind, if we had made the decision to keep in all 6 cities, the chances of things going horribly wrong at launch and post-launch would have increased tremendously no matter how long we worked on them. The last thing that we would want to happen is to launch a great game but when players actually got to the city siege part, things were not working. We will not go down that path. By focusing on 2 cities, we lessen the chance of that happening considerably.
5) One of our most troubling concerns was what would happen post-launch in terms of each side's ability to take a city. Having in all 6 cities would mean that the focus of each side could have gotten distracted, the player base more spread out. If this happened, city sieges may have taken a lot longer for each side to accomplish and that would not have been pleasing to anybody. I'm reminded of the line from Jurassic Park where Jeff Goldman says "Now eventually you might have dinosaurs on your, on your dinosaur tour, right?" If players said to us "Now eventually you'll have capital city siege in your RvR game" to us, that would be very bad.
6) We expect over the months post-launch we will learn a lot about how our cities actually function in a truly LIVE environment. We will apply these lessons to the new cities and look at possibly rotating cities in and out of RvR to not only spice up the RvR experience but to allow us to tweak and improve the older cities. This will be both in the short- and long-run to be a major win for the players.
In the end, I'm not sorry at all that we are delaying the release of the other cities. Even if we had an unlimited budget and unlimited time and believed that we could do 6 awesome cities at launch, we know that starting with two capital cities is the best way to ensure a great experience for the players no matter whether their focus is on PvE, RvR or a combination of both.
Mark
hmm...#5 sounds an awful lot like players can take over a city. Probably because thats exactly what it says
so where did you get your info from? btw don't feel sorry for those of us that have been following the game fo so long. I'm sure a majority of us still plan on playing on release. Just feel sorry for people like you that are going to miss out on a great game just because you feel mythic let you down.
Originally posted by AgtSmith Originally posted by Flute What this says about the game is they are not prepared to ship unfinished content, which of course more than a few companies are more than happy to do.
You have to be looking at things through a pretty rosey set of glasses to come to that conclusion. More than half of the RvR is cut, so that is unfinished elements being pushed to live just to meet a deadline. Additionally, several races are incomplete and unfinished but also being pushed to live to meet a deadling.
Originally posted by Flute What I want to see is Mythic's time estimate of how long it will be until the cut-from-release features are intended to be added back in, and a commitment that they will be patched in, not sold to players as expansions.
Why would you take thier word for such a thing anyways? If in 5 years of development, without the pressures and issues of a live game, they couldn't get it out then how can they get mroe stuff out in live?
The Warhammer Online license was acquired by Mythic on May 18, 2005 so thats currently 3 years and 2 months of development.
Obviously they have been given a hard release date by EA. So the options are:
- Push back the release date - obviously this isnt going to happen - cancel the game and never release it - again this isnt going to happen - Remove content that cant be got ready in time and release it later. - release game with
So the game will release with 2 sides order & destruction, 20 classes, 6 races, Public Quests, Tome of knowledge, RvR with 2 capital cities (instead of 6).
Frankly I would rather they pulled the content that wont be ready in time and spent the time now polishing the content that will make release.
So content not being in at release is 4 of 6 tier 4 (endgame) areas.
Originally posted by AgtSmith Originally posted by TheSheikh I really see no point in arguing with you over this, you seem to have already made up you mind as to whether you trust Mythic or not. If you don't trust Mark Jacobs, head on over to the VN boards and tell him. See what I mean? You read the entire post, where Mark talks about wanting them to be of quality and polish before they are put into the game. Yet after reading, you feel it is obvious he doesn't care. I'm sorry, but you are just too damned bull-headed to convince otherwise.
Actions speak louder than words. If the priority was getting it right above all else they woud delay to make it right. Despite thier words it is clear they are about getting to the payday nto getting the game done right. In short, good enough is what drives development and I don't think it is unfair to question that.
Obviously release date is fixed, and EA wont fund endless development. And yes at some point games have to release or be cancelled.
I think it speaks volumes about quality that they are pulling things they dont think will be complete/fun rather than pushing them out half-arsed.
To awnser the OP's question (before I go on a tiny rant) the balance will be fine. By taking these out now it gives them time to polish/adjust what they need to. The posts on VN by Mark jacobs clearly states this. It also states the reasons, and verry valid reaons why things where pulled. Yes I am a fanboy of WAR and that hasnt changed. Yes I am verry upset about the changes and yes they are major. I still have confidence that they will still release a verry solid, fun game.
Now to the rant. Its funny how alot of people are screaming and crying that these where pulled. Plenty of time in advance mind you AND they told us about it and where verry open about the reasons why. I seem to remember starting about a month ago all the screaming about a certain developer who lied and decieved its community/players on the state of the game and what was/was not in at release. I also seem to remember the masses here at MMORPG saying its not that things are bugged or didnt make it in at release that bugged them so much as it was the lies and deception. Now there is a developer who is extreemly open about the going on in there game and yet still there is whining and crying the sky is falling blah blah blah. MAKE UP YOUR FREAKING MINDS. Do you want to be lied to and have half assed releases or do you want things pulled that would be half assed AND know about them before release.
I guess Mythic could be another FC though and blow smoke up our asses, keep the NDA under lock and key untill release day, refuse to give any info. Keep many key features out (in war it would be the same as saying "Sorry, the whole RvR system is turned off for now. Mindlessly kill eachother for no reason or do broken unfinished PvE") Lets also release completely unbalanced classes and change them nearly every patch 2 times a week for the first month+.
What this says about the game is they are not prepared to ship unfinished content, which of course more than a few companies are more than happy to do.
You have to be looking at things through a pretty rosey set of glasses to come to that conclusion. More than half of the RvR is cut, so that is unfinished elements being pushed to live just to meet a deadline. Additionally, several races are incomplete and unfinished but also being pushed to live to meet a deadling.
Originally posted by Flute What I want to see is Mythic's time estimate of how long it will be until the cut-from-release features are intended to be added back in, and a commitment that they will be patched in, not sold to players as expansions.
Why would you take thier word for such a thing anyways? If in 5 years of development, without the pressures and issues of a live game, they couldn't get it out then how can they get mroe stuff out in live?
The Warhammer Online license was acquired by Mythic on May 18, 2005 so thats currently 3 years and 2 months of development.
Obviously they have been given a hard release date by EA. So the options are:
- Push back the release date - obviously this isnt going to happen
- cancel the game and never release it - again this isnt going to happen
- Remove content that cant be got ready in time and release it later.
- release game with
So the game will release with 2 sides order & destruction, 20 classes, 6 races, Public Quests, Tome of knowledge, RvR with 2 capital cities (instead of 6).
Frankly I would rather they pulled the content that wont be ready in time and spent the time now polishing the content that will make release.
So content not being in at release is 4 of 6 tier 4 (endgame) areas.
Features missing are 4 out of 24 classes.
In addition to this, each capital city will have around 100 quests as well as 12 public quests.
You see, I personally think the ideal to cut the "extra cities" is a good one. The concept means that players wanting a large PvP experience will get to have one. Having an, as of yet, undetermined amount of initial players spread across so many fronts would only equal a very small PvP pool in certain areas, and large ones in others. What this means is that players from the most popular caste will get to enjoy a broad PvP experience that others won't. By cutting them to two cities...it funnels each of both sides into a both larger, and more even front.
The trouble with games like this is that there is ALWAYS a massively popular race or choice. By having tons of "battle fronts" they ensure to encounter the same initial issues PoTBS had...if not worse. Imagine playing a greenskin army against dwarves if most players are playing dwarves. Now imagine that scenario played out in varying degrees against all 3 fronts. Its bleak, to say the least. Even under the most ideal launch conditions...there WOULD be problems. These problems would be greatly worsened if the balance of numbers was matched with an UN-balance in terms of overall zone polish, and unit design.
in short....they would guarantee themselves a failed game. I understand the math in this matter, and greatly approve of the solution.
HOWEVER
Cutting classes is a no no. The problem with that comes in when you realize that nothing is ever really balanced. WoW suffered this...and its why hero classes are just now showing face. You enter into such a thing thinking you will roll it out soon...but then get caught up in the treadmill of having to constantly rebalance your current classes as players uncover new things you hadn't thought of. To be most fair, they should cut the zones...and really try their best to get ALL the classes out NOW. At least then they can be rebalancing them all at the same time...instead of trying to fix things up and then toss another "unfinished class" (which all are, inevitably) into the mix. Its problematic, and foolish...and frankly, I'm surprised they are even considering such a thing.
That said, I appreciate their honesty here. AoC basically fooled everyone into thinking the game was super ready, and ended up having glaringly obvious game bugs which would have made a novice game designer scratch his head at the sheer stupidity being displayed at allowing it to be in the game. This team IS letting you guys know whats up...and making sure that what DOES get in meets the QA standard.
Trust me, friends....while I do not approve of some of whats going on here, in the end the honesty they have given and the focus on the lessened load WILL provide a better overall game than trying to shove just anything out the door. It will be a smaller game, and thus....less a success than it could have been to battle the tyrant WoW. Content is always king in these games...and its sad they will have much less of it. Having not played the game...I cannot say as to whether or not the content that remains will be enough to really reach out to us as a whole. I truly hope they have a very large world, and hope it is vibrantly alive.
If not....even all the polish in the world won't save a small MMO. MMO's can never be small, it doesn't work. Part of being massively multiplayer (to us, the gamer) is in having that massive world. We expect it, we demand it. If it is too small...we burn through it, and grow tired far too fast for the game to be profitable enough to churn out content to keep the fire alive. Look at the tyrant WoW...they have to regularly release expansion sized patches (for free) just to keep their fire alive. It takes millions monthly to pay for that kind of programming and development work. If they don't stand tall on release...they perhaps never will.
The days where we all looked upon an MMO with "new eyes" are long gone. The genre has become mainstream, it has had its bar set...and the expectations of it are writ in stone. Those who want to thrive here must meet that bar, those expectations, or be left dawdling about in the dark to wither and die. I think that many of the posters in this thread are overplaying this matter, trolling for attention. I also think that this matter IS a show of weakness we have not been shown yet by this team. An annoying crack in, what was, a previously solid foundation. Mythic has a very small window here to patch this crack up, and step back into their powerful stance they had until now. Until then, I will approach this from here on with care....leery of what might be a structural issue hiding deep beneath the soil.
If not....even all the polish in the world won't save a small MMO. MMO's can never be small, it doesn't work. Part of being massively multiplayer (to us, the gamer) is in having that massive world. We expect it, we demand it. If it is too small...we burn through it, and grow tired far too fast for the game to be profitable enough to churn out content to keep the fire alive. Look at the tyrant WoW...they have to regularly release expansion sized patches (for free) just to keep their fire alive. It takes millions monthly to pay for that kind of programming and development work. If they don't stand tall on release...they perhaps never will.
Are you kidding me? While I respect most of what you said our idea's of expansion sized patches differ greatly. Lets look at the most recent patch 2.4 They add a verry small zone. In that zone is 15 or so Daily quests and more rep. All simply done, nothing special, alot of copy/paste code. There is one regular instance (again the whole thing is a copy/past in layout) and one raid, again copy/paste.
Again overall what you said was somewhat right on spot but even WoW is getting old for longtime fans of it simply because they do they same thing over and over and call it "new content". From what I have gathered through a few sites between Mark Jacobs and people who have played at things like gencon ect, even with the 4 cities out there is still a massive amount of content.
If not....even all the polish in the world won't save a small MMO. MMO's can never be small, it doesn't work. Part of being massively multiplayer (to us, the gamer) is in having that massive world. We expect it, we demand it. If it is too small...we burn through it, and grow tired far too fast for the game to be profitable enough to churn out content to keep the fire alive. Look at the tyrant WoW...they have to regularly release expansion sized patches (for free) just to keep their fire alive. It takes millions monthly to pay for that kind of programming and development work. If they don't stand tall on release...they perhaps never will.
Are you kidding me? While I respect most of what you said our idea's of expansion sized patches differ greatly. Lets look at the most recent patch 2.4 They add a verry small zone. In that zone is 15 or so Daily quests and more rep. All simply done, nothing special, alot of copy/paste code. There is one regular instance (again the whole thing is a copy/past in layout) and one raid, again copy/paste.
Again overall what you said was somewhat right on spot but even WoW is getting old for longtime fans of it simply because they do they same thing over and over and call it "new content". From what I have gathered through a few sites between Mark Jacobs and people who have played at things like gencon ect, even with the 4 cities out there is still a massive amount of content.
You are welcome to disagree with me on that small matter. Its not something I'm terribly attached to as far as opinions go, so I won't muddy this matter by debating it with you (besides, it was only to illustrate a point anyway...and so far as I can tell, you caught the point very well).
I hope you are right about the size. I agree with their choice, but was worried that it would downsize them too greatly.
fanboys, please stop. to cut that much content this close to release is showing that the game i not ready for launch. the same thing that happened with conan. actually the content in conan was never there, i played beta for at least 5 months. AOC players were lied to. i havent played the war beta so i cant really elaborate too much, but common sense should tell you from past mmo starts, it will not be the perfect launch all these fanboys are preaching about. you WAR fanboys remind me of the fanboys in the conan forum who got defensive when negative things were said about the game pre launch. Now those defensive fanboys are ripping apart conan in anger because the spent all this time defending it and it turned out to be garbage. i hope the game does well cause i would like to play it, but if it is not balanced dont be suprised.
It's mythic. They are known for slow, but great game development. An underdeveloped game for them will probaly be an overachieved release for anyone else. Besides, WAR is just another MMO. I haven't see anything yet that will make it any more of a mold-breaker than any other MMO out there.
fanboys, please stop. to cut that much content this close to release is showing that the game i not ready for launch. the same thing that happened with conan. actually the content in conan was never there, i played beta for at least 5 months. AOC players were lied to. i havent played the war beta so i cant really elaborate too much, but common sense should tell you from past mmo starts, it will not be the perfect launch all these fanboys are preaching about. you WAR fanboys remind me of the fanboys in the conan forum who got defensive when negative things were said about the game pre launch. Now those defensive fanboys are ripping apart conan in anger because the spent all this time defending it and it turned out to be garbage. i hope the game does well cause i would like to play it, but if it is not balanced dont be suprised.
Since I am never fully invested in anything enough to be a fanboy...I think I shall take the time to take apart some of what you said.
First, read my first post in this thread. Its the one at the top of the page. I address several things in it, and am not going to repeat any of it just to suit my need to debate this with you.
Second, cutting this kind of content does not show any of the things you mentioned. It shows that the content cut was not ready for launch...that is very true. It shows that they were overly ambitious with their initial design...and that they realized they stood a good chance of facing down the same gun AoC did by trying to run that path as it was. As for the game as it is now (the game sans the content aforementioned), I would highly suspect that what they left in was the very material they felt WAS ready for launch. The material which they felt was polished and tested far enough along that they could make it excellent by launch time.
I fully expect what is left to be greatly balanced and polished. Thats not the issue here at all....only a fool would bother thinking that. The real debate here (and the one that is masked in many of the posts similar to yours) is in whether or not we are happy at all about losing so much content, and whether or not there was just cause is cutting some of the fat away. Obviously, no one is happy to hear that things are going to be missing. Assuming you have, by now, read my first pot....I'm sure you understand that I believe that they SHOULD cut the zones, but should leave the classes. I won't bother repeating WHY I feel that way, I'm assuming you already know that now.
The problem here is that, in comparing to AoC, you understand more clearly WHY its necessary for them to make these choices now. You see...AoC isn't being trashed because of the content they cut out. Indeed, I've not heard anything about the lost bar fights or hell-prison in virtually any of the hate threads there. AoC is being trashed because, not only was the content left in horribly buggy and unfinished, but that they were outright lied to about what content was actually fully implemented in the game. At the end of the day, Mythic isn't lying to you about what they feel they can't pull off yet. They aren't "secretly gating" content from you to hide how broken is it, like AoC has done with its sieging. A fat chunk of the game needs some hefty work, and they are telling you very directly about it. Instead of trying to shove it out the door on you, and stealing your money on a lie, they are pushing it to the side and making sure that what you get is well done.
I'll admit, the above is purely speculative. What they leave in COULD be bad. The beta reports I hear tell me a very different story, though. I'm also more inclined to believe in the quality of what is left based on how much the openly cut. These aren't small things...not like some "meaningless bar fights". They are very large parts of the world. I can see very easily how removing them would open the team up widely for smoothing the edges on the content they have already sailed through on the initial phases of testing. Basically, you test each area separately. Each phase is either a new layer of testing over an area already tested....or a new area to test entirely. By removing the extra areas of testing, they allow more time for layers of testing over existing areas. Its fairly simple stuff, really. Extra layers of testing means more polished results.
They simply didn't feel like they could devote a proper amount of layers to the other areas to suit the amount of polish they felt current gen MMO gamers require. Furthermore, they worried that having so many fronts for PvP would break the population into far too many chunks...and as I've already described in my earlier posts, doing so IS dangerous for a fledgling game (see PoTBS)
In closing, you're wrong. If you want something to complain about, and actually be spot on, you need to join me in being worried about the class cuts. Cutting classes pretty much means (for a PvP game) that they will NEVER see the light of day. Again, I've already explained why I think so on this matter as well.
i don't agree with your point on cutting classes and then arguing the point based on WoW. First, WoW imo has always been a terrible game for pvp. The devs focus on raid content and put pvpers on the backburners...its fine since raiding is the bread and butter of WoW. Mythic cut the a tank and a dps class from each realm because they felt the classes were not up to their standards. I personally can't blame them for this decision since leaving them in at launch would probably cause more turmoil on the forums cause one of those classes aren't on par with other classes of the same archtype. I do believe that mythic will get those classes right or provide some sort of substitute in their stead. I also doubt this will have any effect on RvR since each realm still has 2 tank and 2 dps classes to choose from.
As far as the announcement goes i think we can all admit yeah it sux but in the same token its understandable in regards to thier deadline and at least thier being upfront and honest with thier customers wich is sadly rare.
In regards to the 4 classes missing the cut is far from permanent and we will probably only be foreced to wait a few months at most to have them implamented into the game the reason why thier cutting 4 classes is due to balancing issues for each side and in all likelyhood only 2 of those classes are in need of fine tuning (most likely black guard and choppa) if they released with one said being complete and the other still lacking 2 of thier classes the realm balance would be attrocious.
The lack of the 4 main cities at release is frustrating however in that it defeats alot of the incentive for a race whos city is not released to play in his own zone since the ultimate goal is to gain ground so u can sack the enemies capital. So they will very likely see those zones deserted for the most part until thier cities are patched in. That being said the devs have mentioned they wish for the lvling process to take a few months so if they can complete thier work on the final cities with 4 to 6 months most players wont even notice it was missing. These cities dont work the same way as most games do (such as WoW or EQ2) they are meant to be enterd and get alot of interaction once a character has come close to reaching the max lvl.
Mythic realy just needs to shoot us some deadlines that they expect/hope to have the missing content patched in. By giving us some kind of deadline i think it will releave a little bit of the tension and fear from the playerbase.
i don't agree with your point on cutting classes and then arguing the point based on WoW. First, WoW imo has always been a terrible game for pvp. The devs focus on raid content and put pvpers on the backburners...its fine since raiding is the bread and butter of WoW. Mythic cut the a tank and a dps class from each realm because they felt the classes were not up to their standards. I personally can't blame them for this decision since leaving them in at launch would probably cause more turmoil on the forums cause one of those classes aren't on par with other classes of the same archtype. I do believe that mythic will get those classes right or provide some sort of substitute in their stead. I also doubt this will have any effect on RvR since each realm still has 2 tank and 2 dps classes to choose from.
I would be very much amazed if those classes DO see the light of day anytime soon if they do not at least TRY to get them in now. The sheer amount of development work that has to go on post release is staggering...nearly as staggering as the amount needed just to make the game as is.
Also, the discussion of classes isn't really relevant to either PvE or PvP. The thing is...Hero classes did not get in the game for YEARS, and its entirely because it took them so long to finally get the foundation classes in perfect balance (I'd still not call it perfect, either....but its definitely in a better state to add a new one now). Regardless of whether the game has a PvE or PvP focus...lots of balancing must go on for both outlets.
In fact.....
PvP balancing takes far longer than PvE balancing, and the fact that WAR is a PvP focused game leads me to think it will be even HARDER to get those lost classes back into the game if they aren't pushing the envelope now. Now, I'm not saying I think they aren't choosing the right path. You do what is best for your game, and what is best for release is having a solid, polished, foundation. I am saying that I think they need to do whatever it takes to get those classes in now, because adding them later will be a headache the likes of which they can probably never imagine.
It tells me they either: don't know what the hell they want to do/ what the hell are doing, or are in such a huge hurry that they don't care. Seriously who drops 4/6 of their content right before launch?
How about they do what they said they were going to do, fulfill their promises, sell me what was advertised with the pre-order, and just delay the game? They have delayed the game a couple of times for 'polish', made people wait nearly a year inbetween, but this flies?
I reckon the people who pre ordered would argue that keeping the promise to release sooner rather than later is more important than this.
please...i mean its not like they are getting rid of RvR and only keeping in the Battlegrounds...
they are not getting rid of anything of anykind just waiting till they are finished and they will be release a game to keep us happy untill then.. and my god it will be a damn good game.
Comments
Ditto. This cannot be spun in a positive light no matter how delusional folks are being about it. Big deal, so they aren't lying to us about the content. Pretty poor consolation for the removal of key content, especially the 4 classes.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Wow get a grip people it s a game. It s a good game that they decided to take some things out. Is your life changing because of it. The game works as intended as is and will just get better. Calm down, take a deep breath and maybe get some sun. Amazing so stirred up over a game.
I will hold my opinion until I try the final product. Heck maybe it's a good thing..
well untill a few hours ago i was sure the system was something like "go through tier 1-4 and in the end we'll have those HUGE cityes you can raid for each side"... now they say "we wont have 6 but only 2 cities" and i'm thinking "who with a sane mind would want to make 6 insanly huge CCs..."
compare that to AoC... that had almost NO city siege when it launched... or WoW that had almost nothing to do on 60.... TR that STILL has nothing to do on 50... hello kitty online that... um... ok... hello kitty will be a perfect game and the next wow killer
well when people saying wow class are all better than warhammer and stuff.. I know wow got more years and more time on there class all .. but this one thing for sure.. they never ever had too balance 24 classes in there life.
even tho 4 classes got cut.. doesn't mean the other 20 are still unbalance.
wow has only 9 but 10 soon.- pallidan, warlock, druid, warrior , mage, hunter, rouge, shaman, priest, and death knight.
there easy to think of.. skills, etc.. like if you think.. pallidan.. holy and shiz.. same with other classes in wow.
When it comes to warhammer 24
you got all these diffrent named character.. that like really hard to think of.. what talents, skills, etc they got. not like wow.
with these 4 out.. they were not fit yet to be fighting in warhammer.. they will be back but intil then mythic needs to work on them more so there able to be standable to ranks of thousands.
But atleast there's another 20 classes still able to fight.
I was sad that blackguard are out.. but I'll just play chosen.. At least the big fights will still be in the game
... Again, I'd like to see exactly WHERE it promised an exact number of capital cities to invade. Show me a number, or at least, a clear statement that says, "Every race will have it's own unique capital city".
.. Again, show me where it says, "We WILL have 24 classes available the day this product launches."
You ASSUMED everything would be there. On WHAT you based those assumptions is my question.
They may have said they wanted 24 classes at launch. Blizzard stated they wanted hero classes too, and that sure as hell didn't happen.
And I don't know WHAT you assumed 6 capital cities from. Honestly, in all seriousness, I'd like to see SOME kind of link on that stating the 6 cities.. I had never heard of it prior to this announcement. I always thought there were only 2.
[EDIT]
Ok. I now see where it lists the classes. I'll eat my crow with mustard on that one.
However, still haven't foudn 6 cities yet.
[/Edit]
Simple answer: The podcast videos from the WAR site.
Longer statement: Notice how people are not going "wow I had no idea any of those things existed in the first place". There are a few, like you, but they are the exception.
___________________
Sadly, I see storm clouds on the horizon. A faint stench of Vanguard is in the air.-Kien
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/12/13/
What does it say about the game? I think that it says a lot about the Integrity of Mythic to come out and say hey this is fucked up and not working to our liking, let's make an executive decision and cut out the crap, make the best game possible and put content in later. I seem to remember it took six months after launch for WOW to even have an end game, and for those of you former Beta Testers' you will remember the last minute changes(unnannounced by the way) that happened in the 24 hours from the end of beta to launch when decent classes(paladin, warrior, warlock) woke up in Launch as ghosts of there former selves taking nigh on a year to get a minor fix and almost 2 years for the classes to be playable in anything but cookie cutter role. And to refer to the Games Workshop/Blizzard relationship, its always been love/hate since the early 90's when orc vs. humans (Warcraft the original) and has continued as Blizzard has continuously pillaged from GW's IP (Starcraft{Space Marines vs. Tyranids with a splash of Eldar}, Warcraft2{more of the Orcs vs Humans with a splash of Highelves}) for material to use in its own games. Games Workshops own material in its most simplistic form is a commentary on English Society and is inherently unoriginal when distilled down to its most basic parts.Regardless of who stole what from who I think the game will be fine albeit a little smaller then what I had hoped for, but nonetheless it will be enjoyable. My brother is in the beta and said that the patch released today had a whole slew of changes in it, most if not all for the better. Lets just hope that Mark and his team at EA continue to be honest and forthright. I fully intend to play this game and be there from the start. Hopefully with a smooth launch (I still shutter when I think of SWG's Launch) and with no queues! Its just my opinion but here it is.
Remember when you were a kid and did somthing really bad - and your dad was like "I'm not mad, I'm just really disapointed"...
Thats how I feel right now.
Games Workshop turned down Blizzards proposal to make a Warhammer game. They tried to put their positive spin on that one too. Forgive me if LAWL at that again, and witness history repeating itself.
how do you figure games workshop made a mistake? warhammer is all about rvr and going with mythic was the right choice since they already have a better understanding of rvr and what people want. What has blizzard done for pvp? their honor system was so craptastic they totally revamped how it worked pissing alot of people off in the process.
By the way synn a lot of your other comments, especially about being able to take over an enemy town, are wrong. I'm sorry you guys. I'm not being sarcastic, I'm really sorry for those of you who have been following WAR so closely. Like I said before, this is awfully cruel to their most dedicated fans. It seems like a totally unnecessary blow.
Folks,
Okay, here's the second of the topics I will create today in which I'll explain in more detail, why we made the decisions we made. It's going to be a rather busy day so please don't expect me to respond to every question asked in response or to get into long debates. Obviously, I won't respond to any questions that are off-topic as that's why I'm creating these separate topics.
So, why did we make the decision to have 2 capital cities versus 6 capital cities and what impact will it have on the game?
1) The capital cities are the jewel in our RvR crown. If we mess up with them, WAR will not be anywhere near as successful as it could have been. These cities are unlike any other cities in any MMO that I have seen or played. The amount of true content that revolves in and around them (and not just sticking a quest-giver NPC in a city) is unlike any other game. Both RvR and PvE happens there in a way that also has never been done in any other MMO's cities. Each city has 12 PQs and almost 100 quests (RvR and PvE) that either lead to the city, take place in the city or lead out of the city as well as 3 dungeons.
2) Because we are focusing on just 2 cities, the team has been able to pour more time into each city and really make them great. They truly are living cities and what you will see and experience in them would not have been possible to do if we had to get 6 cities ready for launch even if we had a lot more time.
3) Each CC takes a tremendous amount of time to design, iterate and release. No matter how much time we spend on the cities during development and beta, once the game is released everything changes. The history of MMOs has shown all of us that no matter how smart the developer or experienced the team, mistakes are made. Given the complexity of our cities, we can expect the same thing to happen to us.
4) Keeping (1) and (2) and (3) in mind, if we had made the decision to keep in all 6 cities, the chances of things going horribly wrong at launch and post-launch would have increased tremendously no matter how long we worked on them. The last thing that we would want to happen is to launch a great game but when players actually got to the city siege part, things were not working. We will not go down that path. By focusing on 2 cities, we lessen the chance of that happening considerably.
5) One of our most troubling concerns was what would happen post-launch in terms of each side's ability to take a city. Having in all 6 cities would mean that the focus of each side could have gotten distracted, the player base more spread out. If this happened, city sieges may have taken a lot longer for each side to accomplish and that would not have been pleasing to anybody. I'm reminded of the line from Jurassic Park where Jeff Goldman says "Now eventually you might have dinosaurs on your, on your dinosaur tour, right?" If players said to us "Now eventually you'll have capital city siege in your RvR game" to us, that would be very bad.
6) We expect over the months post-launch we will learn a lot about how our cities actually function in a truly LIVE environment. We will apply these lessons to the new cities and look at possibly rotating cities in and out of RvR to not only spice up the RvR experience but to allow us to tweak and improve the older cities. This will be both in the short- and long-run to be a major win for the players.
In the end, I'm not sorry at all that we are delaying the release of the other cities. Even if we had an unlimited budget and unlimited time and believed that we could do 6 awesome cities at launch, we know that starting with two capital cities is the best way to ensure a great experience for the players no matter whether their focus is on PvE, RvR or a combination of both.
Mark
hmm...#5 sounds an awful lot like players can take over a city. Probably because thats exactly what it says
http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/107896043/p1/?77
so where did you get your info from? btw don't feel sorry for those of us that have been following the game fo so long. I'm sure a majority of us still plan on playing on release. Just feel sorry for people like you that are going to miss out on a great game just because you feel mythic let you down.
Why would you take thier word for such a thing anyways? If in 5 years of development, without the pressures and issues of a live game, they couldn't get it out then how can they get mroe stuff out in live?
The Warhammer Online license was acquired by Mythic on May 18, 2005 so thats currently 3 years and 2 months of development.
Obviously they have been given a hard release date by EA. So the options are:
- Push back the release date - obviously this isnt going to happen
- cancel the game and never release it - again this isnt going to happen
- Remove content that cant be got ready in time and release it later.
- release game with
So the game will release with 2 sides order & destruction, 20 classes, 6 races, Public Quests, Tome of knowledge, RvR with 2 capital cities (instead of 6).
Frankly I would rather they pulled the content that wont be ready in time and spent the time now polishing the content that will make release.
So content not being in at release is 4 of 6 tier 4 (endgame) areas.
Features missing are 4 out of 24 classes.
Actions speak louder than words. If the priority was getting it right above all else they woud delay to make it right. Despite thier words it is clear they are about getting to the payday nto getting the game done right. In short, good enough is what drives development and I don't think it is unfair to question that.
Obviously release date is fixed, and EA wont fund endless development. And yes at some point games have to release or be cancelled.
I think it speaks volumes about quality that they are pulling things they dont think will be complete/fun rather than pushing them out half-arsed.
To awnser the OP's question (before I go on a tiny rant) the balance will be fine. By taking these out now it gives them time to polish/adjust what they need to. The posts on VN by Mark jacobs clearly states this. It also states the reasons, and verry valid reaons why things where pulled. Yes I am a fanboy of WAR and that hasnt changed. Yes I am verry upset about the changes and yes they are major. I still have confidence that they will still release a verry solid, fun game.
Now to the rant. Its funny how alot of people are screaming and crying that these where pulled. Plenty of time in advance mind you AND they told us about it and where verry open about the reasons why. I seem to remember starting about a month ago all the screaming about a certain developer who lied and decieved its community/players on the state of the game and what was/was not in at release. I also seem to remember the masses here at MMORPG saying its not that things are bugged or didnt make it in at release that bugged them so much as it was the lies and deception. Now there is a developer who is extreemly open about the going on in there game and yet still there is whining and crying the sky is falling blah blah blah. MAKE UP YOUR FREAKING MINDS. Do you want to be lied to and have half assed releases or do you want things pulled that would be half assed AND know about them before release.
I guess Mythic could be another FC though and blow smoke up our asses, keep the NDA under lock and key untill release day, refuse to give any info. Keep many key features out (in war it would be the same as saying "Sorry, the whole RvR system is turned off for now. Mindlessly kill eachother for no reason or do broken unfinished PvE") Lets also release completely unbalanced classes and change them nearly every patch 2 times a week for the first month+.
/sarcasme on
That sure sounds great to me!
/sarcasme off
/rant off
Why would you take thier word for such a thing anyways? If in 5 years of development, without the pressures and issues of a live game, they couldn't get it out then how can they get mroe stuff out in live?
The Warhammer Online license was acquired by Mythic on May 18, 2005 so thats currently 3 years and 2 months of development.
Obviously they have been given a hard release date by EA. So the options are:
- Push back the release date - obviously this isnt going to happen
- cancel the game and never release it - again this isnt going to happen
- Remove content that cant be got ready in time and release it later.
- release game with
So the game will release with 2 sides order & destruction, 20 classes, 6 races, Public Quests, Tome of knowledge, RvR with 2 capital cities (instead of 6).
Frankly I would rather they pulled the content that wont be ready in time and spent the time now polishing the content that will make release.
So content not being in at release is 4 of 6 tier 4 (endgame) areas.
Features missing are 4 out of 24 classes.
In addition to this, each capital city will have around 100 quests as well as 12 public quests.
STOP WHINING!
My opinion is uniquely divided.
You see, I personally think the ideal to cut the "extra cities" is a good one. The concept means that players wanting a large PvP experience will get to have one. Having an, as of yet, undetermined amount of initial players spread across so many fronts would only equal a very small PvP pool in certain areas, and large ones in others. What this means is that players from the most popular caste will get to enjoy a broad PvP experience that others won't. By cutting them to two cities...it funnels each of both sides into a both larger, and more even front.
The trouble with games like this is that there is ALWAYS a massively popular race or choice. By having tons of "battle fronts" they ensure to encounter the same initial issues PoTBS had...if not worse. Imagine playing a greenskin army against dwarves if most players are playing dwarves. Now imagine that scenario played out in varying degrees against all 3 fronts. Its bleak, to say the least. Even under the most ideal launch conditions...there WOULD be problems. These problems would be greatly worsened if the balance of numbers was matched with an UN-balance in terms of overall zone polish, and unit design.
in short....they would guarantee themselves a failed game. I understand the math in this matter, and greatly approve of the solution.
HOWEVER
Cutting classes is a no no. The problem with that comes in when you realize that nothing is ever really balanced. WoW suffered this...and its why hero classes are just now showing face. You enter into such a thing thinking you will roll it out soon...but then get caught up in the treadmill of having to constantly rebalance your current classes as players uncover new things you hadn't thought of. To be most fair, they should cut the zones...and really try their best to get ALL the classes out NOW. At least then they can be rebalancing them all at the same time...instead of trying to fix things up and then toss another "unfinished class" (which all are, inevitably) into the mix. Its problematic, and foolish...and frankly, I'm surprised they are even considering such a thing.
That said, I appreciate their honesty here. AoC basically fooled everyone into thinking the game was super ready, and ended up having glaringly obvious game bugs which would have made a novice game designer scratch his head at the sheer stupidity being displayed at allowing it to be in the game. This team IS letting you guys know whats up...and making sure that what DOES get in meets the QA standard.
Trust me, friends....while I do not approve of some of whats going on here, in the end the honesty they have given and the focus on the lessened load WILL provide a better overall game than trying to shove just anything out the door. It will be a smaller game, and thus....less a success than it could have been to battle the tyrant WoW. Content is always king in these games...and its sad they will have much less of it. Having not played the game...I cannot say as to whether or not the content that remains will be enough to really reach out to us as a whole. I truly hope they have a very large world, and hope it is vibrantly alive.
If not....even all the polish in the world won't save a small MMO. MMO's can never be small, it doesn't work. Part of being massively multiplayer (to us, the gamer) is in having that massive world. We expect it, we demand it. If it is too small...we burn through it, and grow tired far too fast for the game to be profitable enough to churn out content to keep the fire alive. Look at the tyrant WoW...they have to regularly release expansion sized patches (for free) just to keep their fire alive. It takes millions monthly to pay for that kind of programming and development work. If they don't stand tall on release...they perhaps never will.
The days where we all looked upon an MMO with "new eyes" are long gone. The genre has become mainstream, it has had its bar set...and the expectations of it are writ in stone. Those who want to thrive here must meet that bar, those expectations, or be left dawdling about in the dark to wither and die. I think that many of the posters in this thread are overplaying this matter, trolling for attention. I also think that this matter IS a show of weakness we have not been shown yet by this team. An annoying crack in, what was, a previously solid foundation. Mythic has a very small window here to patch this crack up, and step back into their powerful stance they had until now. Until then, I will approach this from here on with care....leery of what might be a structural issue hiding deep beneath the soil.
Are you kidding me? While I respect most of what you said our idea's of expansion sized patches differ greatly. Lets look at the most recent patch 2.4 They add a verry small zone. In that zone is 15 or so Daily quests and more rep. All simply done, nothing special, alot of copy/paste code. There is one regular instance (again the whole thing is a copy/past in layout) and one raid, again copy/paste.
Again overall what you said was somewhat right on spot but even WoW is getting old for longtime fans of it simply because they do they same thing over and over and call it "new content". From what I have gathered through a few sites between Mark Jacobs and people who have played at things like gencon ect, even with the 4 cities out there is still a massive amount of content.
Are you kidding me? While I respect most of what you said our idea's of expansion sized patches differ greatly. Lets look at the most recent patch 2.4 They add a verry small zone. In that zone is 15 or so Daily quests and more rep. All simply done, nothing special, alot of copy/paste code. There is one regular instance (again the whole thing is a copy/past in layout) and one raid, again copy/paste.
Again overall what you said was somewhat right on spot but even WoW is getting old for longtime fans of it simply because they do they same thing over and over and call it "new content". From what I have gathered through a few sites between Mark Jacobs and people who have played at things like gencon ect, even with the 4 cities out there is still a massive amount of content.
You are welcome to disagree with me on that small matter. Its not something I'm terribly attached to as far as opinions go, so I won't muddy this matter by debating it with you (besides, it was only to illustrate a point anyway...and so far as I can tell, you caught the point very well).
I hope you are right about the size. I agree with their choice, but was worried that it would downsize them too greatly.
fanboys, please stop. to cut that much content this close to release is showing that the game i not ready for launch. the same thing that happened with conan. actually the content in conan was never there, i played beta for at least 5 months. AOC players were lied to. i havent played the war beta so i cant really elaborate too much, but common sense should tell you from past mmo starts, it will not be the perfect launch all these fanboys are preaching about. you WAR fanboys remind me of the fanboys in the conan forum who got defensive when negative things were said about the game pre launch. Now those defensive fanboys are ripping apart conan in anger because the spent all this time defending it and it turned out to be garbage. i hope the game does well cause i would like to play it, but if it is not balanced dont be suprised.
It's mythic. They are known for slow, but great game development. An underdeveloped game for them will probaly be an overachieved release for anyone else. Besides, WAR is just another MMO. I haven't see anything yet that will make it any more of a mold-breaker than any other MMO out there.
A tiny mind is a tidy mind...
Since I am never fully invested in anything enough to be a fanboy...I think I shall take the time to take apart some of what you said.
First, read my first post in this thread. Its the one at the top of the page. I address several things in it, and am not going to repeat any of it just to suit my need to debate this with you.
Second, cutting this kind of content does not show any of the things you mentioned. It shows that the content cut was not ready for launch...that is very true. It shows that they were overly ambitious with their initial design...and that they realized they stood a good chance of facing down the same gun AoC did by trying to run that path as it was. As for the game as it is now (the game sans the content aforementioned), I would highly suspect that what they left in was the very material they felt WAS ready for launch. The material which they felt was polished and tested far enough along that they could make it excellent by launch time.
I fully expect what is left to be greatly balanced and polished. Thats not the issue here at all....only a fool would bother thinking that. The real debate here (and the one that is masked in many of the posts similar to yours) is in whether or not we are happy at all about losing so much content, and whether or not there was just cause is cutting some of the fat away. Obviously, no one is happy to hear that things are going to be missing. Assuming you have, by now, read my first pot....I'm sure you understand that I believe that they SHOULD cut the zones, but should leave the classes. I won't bother repeating WHY I feel that way, I'm assuming you already know that now.
The problem here is that, in comparing to AoC, you understand more clearly WHY its necessary for them to make these choices now. You see...AoC isn't being trashed because of the content they cut out. Indeed, I've not heard anything about the lost bar fights or hell-prison in virtually any of the hate threads there. AoC is being trashed because, not only was the content left in horribly buggy and unfinished, but that they were outright lied to about what content was actually fully implemented in the game. At the end of the day, Mythic isn't lying to you about what they feel they can't pull off yet. They aren't "secretly gating" content from you to hide how broken is it, like AoC has done with its sieging. A fat chunk of the game needs some hefty work, and they are telling you very directly about it. Instead of trying to shove it out the door on you, and stealing your money on a lie, they are pushing it to the side and making sure that what you get is well done.
I'll admit, the above is purely speculative. What they leave in COULD be bad. The beta reports I hear tell me a very different story, though. I'm also more inclined to believe in the quality of what is left based on how much the openly cut. These aren't small things...not like some "meaningless bar fights". They are very large parts of the world. I can see very easily how removing them would open the team up widely for smoothing the edges on the content they have already sailed through on the initial phases of testing. Basically, you test each area separately. Each phase is either a new layer of testing over an area already tested....or a new area to test entirely. By removing the extra areas of testing, they allow more time for layers of testing over existing areas. Its fairly simple stuff, really. Extra layers of testing means more polished results.
They simply didn't feel like they could devote a proper amount of layers to the other areas to suit the amount of polish they felt current gen MMO gamers require. Furthermore, they worried that having so many fronts for PvP would break the population into far too many chunks...and as I've already described in my earlier posts, doing so IS dangerous for a fledgling game (see PoTBS)
In closing, you're wrong. If you want something to complain about, and actually be spot on, you need to join me in being worried about the class cuts. Cutting classes pretty much means (for a PvP game) that they will NEVER see the light of day. Again, I've already explained why I think so on this matter as well.
i don't agree with your point on cutting classes and then arguing the point based on WoW. First, WoW imo has always been a terrible game for pvp. The devs focus on raid content and put pvpers on the backburners...its fine since raiding is the bread and butter of WoW. Mythic cut the a tank and a dps class from each realm because they felt the classes were not up to their standards. I personally can't blame them for this decision since leaving them in at launch would probably cause more turmoil on the forums cause one of those classes aren't on par with other classes of the same archtype. I do believe that mythic will get those classes right or provide some sort of substitute in their stead. I also doubt this will have any effect on RvR since each realm still has 2 tank and 2 dps classes to choose from.
As far as the announcement goes i think we can all admit yeah it sux but in the same token its understandable in regards to thier deadline and at least thier being upfront and honest with thier customers wich is sadly rare.
In regards to the 4 classes missing the cut is far from permanent and we will probably only be foreced to wait a few months at most to have them implamented into the game the reason why thier cutting 4 classes is due to balancing issues for each side and in all likelyhood only 2 of those classes are in need of fine tuning (most likely black guard and choppa) if they released with one said being complete and the other still lacking 2 of thier classes the realm balance would be attrocious.
The lack of the 4 main cities at release is frustrating however in that it defeats alot of the incentive for a race whos city is not released to play in his own zone since the ultimate goal is to gain ground so u can sack the enemies capital. So they will very likely see those zones deserted for the most part until thier cities are patched in. That being said the devs have mentioned they wish for the lvling process to take a few months so if they can complete thier work on the final cities with 4 to 6 months most players wont even notice it was missing. These cities dont work the same way as most games do (such as WoW or EQ2) they are meant to be enterd and get alot of interaction once a character has come close to reaching the max lvl.
Mythic realy just needs to shoot us some deadlines that they expect/hope to have the missing content patched in. By giving us some kind of deadline i think it will releave a little bit of the tension and fear from the playerbase.
I would be very much amazed if those classes DO see the light of day anytime soon if they do not at least TRY to get them in now. The sheer amount of development work that has to go on post release is staggering...nearly as staggering as the amount needed just to make the game as is.
Also, the discussion of classes isn't really relevant to either PvE or PvP. The thing is...Hero classes did not get in the game for YEARS, and its entirely because it took them so long to finally get the foundation classes in perfect balance (I'd still not call it perfect, either....but its definitely in a better state to add a new one now). Regardless of whether the game has a PvE or PvP focus...lots of balancing must go on for both outlets.
In fact.....
PvP balancing takes far longer than PvE balancing, and the fact that WAR is a PvP focused game leads me to think it will be even HARDER to get those lost classes back into the game if they aren't pushing the envelope now. Now, I'm not saying I think they aren't choosing the right path. You do what is best for your game, and what is best for release is having a solid, polished, foundation. I am saying that I think they need to do whatever it takes to get those classes in now, because adding them later will be a headache the likes of which they can probably never imagine.
It tells me they either: don't know what the hell they want to do/ what the hell are doing, or are in such a huge hurry that they don't care. Seriously who drops 4/6 of their content right before launch?
I reckon the people who pre ordered would argue that keeping the promise to release sooner rather than later is more important than this.
they are not getting rid of anything of anykind just waiting till they are finished and they will be release a game to keep us happy untill then.. and my god it will be a damn good game.