I thought the publicly stated target was 500,000 subs.
Well, if you read my sig quote, it'll give you a better idea what the heads of Mythic and Warhammer thought the numbers would be. They both were predicting those.
But I don't agree Warhammer is a flop. It will always have nice niche game numbers, especially in 2009 as several competing MMOs are released with a strong PvP focus added this year. 250k subscriptions will be a fine number for them to report officially at some point. But they won't reach 500k subs ever, that much you can be sure of.
It's been said that the reason Warhammer didn't catch on was it is too complex for most players; that they simply don't understand a lot of things about Warhammer. I used to say that's not true, but from reading forums over the internets, I'm starting to agree.
It appears that most people who quit Warhammer don't understand a lot of things.
Apparently the quitters:
Don't UNDERSTAND the point four hours of grabbing zones, heading to the Fortress lord then... crash. Server fall down and go boom.
Don't UNDERSTAND why there is so much lag still persisting server to server and why guilds have to set alarm clocks for 3am to finish things because that's when the game won't crash. (less people, less crashing)
Don't UNDERSTAND the point of PvP endgame when a part of it is PvE battles for the gear to go get other gear.
Don't UNDERSTAND why Mythic is nerfing classes so quick and leaving the WE's to run free and disembowel people in seconds.
Don't UNDERSTAND why it's four months now and two classes still missing from the game, why the UI greys out too long and along with the "YOU ARE DISABLED" tag, is out of synch with actual player disables.
Don't UNDERSTAND.. are these the same people who made DAoC?
Don't UNDERSTAND why there are no official Warhammer boards.
Don't UNDERSTAND all those wild claims and spotty delivery.
Don't UNDERSTAND why this game was pushed out the door still in a beta state without proper endgame testing like parents pushing out a recently graduated high school teenager.
Don't UNDERSTAND why the EU servers are such a public embarrassment and why Mythic is powerless to fix any of that mess over there and instead just hopes GOA can work it all out someday.
Don't UNDERSTAND how they have allowed zerg groups to rise and take over Mythic's planned methods of battle strategies with no idea how to keep them from doing it.
Don't UNDERSTAND taking a spot, leaving it, letting it get conquered without defending it. Then going back to rinse/repeat again until dizzy.
I guess I am starting to believe that people who quit don't understand Warhammer and that it really is a complex game. It seems as though the Mythic heads don't understand a lot about it either.
No depth, crappy combat engine, crappy RVR that's almost as Bad's as WoW's, crappy PvE, falling woefully short of sales and subscription expectations... It's a fucking flop; ok?
I think WAR flopped (yeah thats my opinion and I'm sticking to it) for a load of reasons.
It tried to appeal to such a wide range of players by dividing itself into three different types of game which worked independantly of each other and ended up splitting up the player population which was already severely split up by the fact that players were funneled into the tier relative to their level. So the fragmented player base could play......
Warhammer the PvE game
Incredibly easy and very bland. I thought WoW was the king of easy gaming but WAR actually managed to simplify it even further. They really were trying to appeal to EVERYONE by making it so simplistic that absolutely anyone could play it including the extremely young and the mentally retarded. After a little while I just gave up reading the quest text because it was just meaningless drivel and was completely uneccessary for me to complete the quests. Click NPC, accept quest, go to glowing red spot on map, kill easy target/click object, walk back and select boring reward. Next.
The monster AI was dreadful as everyone is aware so not only was the game simplistic but the monsters didnt react properly at all and never helped each other even when their mates were attacked right next to them. As Mythic so desperately wanted to make their game like WoW they could have at least copied this part properly.
Warhammer the mini-battle game
This was actually fun at first but it got very boring very quickly. The battlegrounds (oh lets call them scenarios so that it wont look too much like we have copied WoWs battlegrounds idea.....yeah whatever) were very small and limited and after I had seen the same bloody battleground for the billionth time I just couldnt be bothered with it any more. Also the fact that the classes were so dull and uninspired really didnt help much. Although WoW has less battelgrounds than WAR they are definately a lot more fun in my opinion. In fact I enjoy the PvP in WoW (even with the twink issue) a lot more than WAR which is sad really considering it is supposed to be WARs selling point.
Also because the battlegrounds were easily accessible from anywhere it obviously led to the scenario which everyone is aware of in which the players just simply leveled up in scenarios only because the PvE was boring and it took too long to find any decent battles in the open RvR areas.
Warhammer the open RvR game
Mythic plonked a PvP playpen into each tier where the players could fight meaningless battles and called it open RvR. Yeah whatever Mythic. There really is no incentive for even bothering with trying to take a keep other than the fact that you get to kill other players which is fun for a while. Mythic could have done so much with this aspect of the game but they just didnt bother which was such a shame. Unfortunately many people need more of a reason to do something that they could be doing for free in various other PvP games. This is an mmorpg so simply saying "Go on players......go and fight each other.....its fun!" just isnt good enough. The fact that Mythic actually forgot to make the open RvR interesting and meaningful meant that they were empty half the time because people just couldnt be bothered with it. I get more meaningful PvP battles in the Battlefield games. So you take over a keep......and? Whats next? Oh thats right......thats it! The fact that Mythic had to throw stupid meaningless rewards at players to entice them into the open RvR areas said it all about WARs terrible game design. How about putting meaningful objectives and goals into the game which the players HAD to fight over to make progress through the game or is that too much for you to comprehend Mythic? Oh no no we cant have that because then you wouldnt be appealing to EVERYONE then would you........geez what a joke!
Basicly Warhammer Online is so casual-friendly that it just didnt feel worth playing to me. I like to feel immersed in my games but unfortunately with WAR I just couldnt help but see through its weak game design at every turn. I would see a keep that was taken by the enemy and yet I knew it didnt matter if I tried to take it back or not so I just ignored it and moved on. All the items I picked up looked the same and there wasnt anything I hadnt already seen in WoW anyway. The story was just completely uninteresting and didnt make me feel like I was in the gritty Warhammer world at all. I was extremely limited in the ways in which I could develop my sorry excuse for a "character" - my character was identical to every other character of the same class.
I think the only thing it managed to achieve with any vague level of success was its public quests as they were quite a good idea but unfortunately Mythic just didnt bother to do anything interesting with the idea. They had plenty of opportunity to force the opposing factions to clash with each other in interesting ways but it hardly ever occurred. Instead it was nearly always the same old "kill a billion of these" over and over again just to farm the rewards. Boring.
Warhammer is simply a space filler for bored mmo players as they wait for a better game to come along......and quite a few promising titles are on their way. I cant see Warhammer doing particularly well in the future. As Tyvolus mentioned above somewhere this actually isnt a good thing because a failed game leads to less games being made in the future. For this reason I'm a bit annoyed with Mythic because their poor product hasnt helped the genre at all. They shouldnt have focused so heavily on trying to cash in on WoWs success and should have instead focused on simply making a good game.
....the definition of a "flop" is when a game doesn't blow wow out of the water...lol
No definition of a flop would be if the game doesn't meet EA's internal expectations.. which nobody posting on this forums knows.. one way or the other. At least for WAR this would be the definition.
So if the game has a many years long run.. it wasn't a flop for EA.
If it gets shut down by EA .. then no matter what any fan says.. it was a flop.
/shrug
I thought the publicly stated target was 500,000 subs.
And EA has published the active sub numbes for the current time where? and this is how many months from release?
How about a year from now?
You do realize that an MMO doesn't start making a profit the month it launches right?
Back when UO and EQ came out with what a game cost to produce then they needed 100,000 subs to start making a profit after around 3 years. That's recovering development cost. So in a sense its making a profit every month but you have the development cost to recover before you actually make a profit.
If they wanted 500,000 subs how long did they need that to hit the profit mark.. what if it was 2 years and 1 year in they are at 100,000 subs.
That's why I remain more or less neutral on the topic.. the subscriber numbers after 3 months aren't a long term indication. Tho I would have to say from my point of view rentention is much lower than they expected.
Regardless after its been live for a year if they will release numbers we'll see how its done. I honestly don't expect them to ever release numbers again unless they get things where they should have been and get an increase.
They are carrying a lot of debt right now (not because of war and its EA in general I am talking about). So we'll see what happens.
To be honest a failed game is NOT good for any game player.. I don't feel any vindication if they don't do wel. Even if I don't like the game it needs to do well so that investors will fund games I might enjoy.
That's why I don't really like the entire forum fights we get into here. Any true game player needs every game to succeed even if they don't like it.
I was only trying to define "flop" and I still stand by what I said.. and I don't know what EA projected or where they really are at. So EA may be happy .. I don't know one way or the other.
Anybody read Mark's blog right before warhammer's release? Remember him stating that the survival of the mmorpg community will be determined based on warhammer's success...to show that other gaming companies (besides blizzard) can make a popular game? Right, Mark...
Maybe you need to concentrate on making a GOOD gaming before worrying about it being successful enough to broaden the mmorpg playerbase market.
This is about the closest thing I think Mark Jacobs said regarding a 500k number. He wasn't actually giving a prediction here though if you read it, he was saying he just thinks it needs to be 500kish to be #2. This was from an 8/29/08 MTV interview he did. The most interesting part is he says in order for Warhammer to be "successful", they'd have to be "north of half a million" subscriptions. Everyone knows they aren't at that, because they'd announce it already as a vindication of this goal.
I still don't think it's a flop, but it's obvious based on what he says here, Mark Jacobs does not think Warhammer is successful today (unless he has since redefined what he thinks "success" is). Still it's half a victory: Warhammer is #2 behind his dreaded Wow as he wished, right?
With EA and the resources backing Warhammer Online, I asked Jacobs how one would measure a successful MMO in the age of WoW with its 11 million worldwide subscribers. I would say we dont have to get anywhere near that number to be considered successful, he said. Would I like us to be number one? Well, of course. Do we have to be number one to be successful? No. I want us to be no less than number two; that would make me very happy. For the number two spot, Jacobs reasoned that Warhammer would need at least a half-million subscribers, which he guessed was close to what Final Fantasy and EverQuest 2 have now. Lets just say north of half a million would mean were successful. Now how a far north? I wouldnt mind being a little bit cold.
YAY, EA, you made another crappy game to sit on our shelves after a week...
People wonder why EA is in such a hard time? It's cause they have to remake the same damn sports games each year with recycled material. I've stopped viewing EA as a professional company since this and more as a joke. Congrats, EA, I think you guys just hit an all time low...WAR was probably their last chance to really "wow" the gamers. It's just "meh, this is ok" and definitely not "this is better than wow"
This is about the closest thing I think Mark Jacobs said regarding a 500k number. He wasn't actually giving a prediction here though if you read it, he was saying he just thinks it needs to be 500kish to be #2. This was from an 8/29/08 MTV interview he did. The most interesting part is he says in order for Warhammer to be "successful", they'd have to be "north of half a million" subscriptions. Everyone knows they aren't at that, because they'd announce it already as a vindication of this goal.
I still don't think it's a flop, but it's obvious based on what he says here, Mark Jacobs does not think Warhammer is successful today (unless he has since redefined what he thinks "success" is). Still it's half a victory: Warhammer is #2 behind his dreaded Wow as he wished, right?
With EA and the resources backing “Warhammer Online,” I asked Jacobs how one would measure a successful MMO in the age of “WoW” with its 11 million worldwide subscribers. “I would say we don’t have to get anywhere near that number to be considered successful,” he said. “Would I like us to be number one? Well, of course. Do we have to be number one to be successful? No. I want us to be no less than number two; that would make me very happy.” For the number two spot, Jacobs reasoned that “Warhammer” would need at least a half-million subscribers, which he guessed was close to what “Final Fantasy” and “EverQuest 2” have now. “Let’s just say north of half a million would mean we’re successful. Now how a far north? I wouldn’t mind being a little bit cold.”
Which is why I said it was based on what I recalled. That doesn't mean perfect recall. Got it?
If somebody could toss me a trial key, i'd really appreciate it. Because ive been going crazy trying to find one, and i want to try the game out before i start paying for it. Thanks in advance!
....the definition of a "flop" is when a game doesn't blow wow out of the water...lol
No definition of a flop would be if the game doesn't meet EA's internal expectations.. which nobody posting on this forums knows.. one way or the other. At least for WAR this would be the definition.
So if the game has a many years long run.. it wasn't a flop for EA.
If it gets shut down by EA .. then no matter what any fan says.. it was a flop.
/shrug
I thought the publicly stated target was 500,000 subs.
And EA has published the active sub numbes for the current time where? and this is how many months from release?
How about a year from now?
You do realize that an MMO doesn't start making a profit the month it launches right?
Back when UO and EQ came out with what a game cost to produce then they needed 100,000 subs to start making a profit after around 3 years. That's recovering development cost. So in a sense its making a profit every month but you have the development cost to recover before you actually make a profit.
If they wanted 500,000 subs how long did they need that to hit the profit mark.. what if it was 2 years and 1 year in they are at 100,000 subs.
That's why I remain more or less neutral on the topic.. the subscriber numbers after 3 months aren't a long term indication. Tho I would have to say from my point of view rentention is much lower than they expected.
Regardless after its been live for a year if they will release numbers we'll see how its done. I honestly don't expect them to ever release numbers again unless they get things where they should have been and get an increase.
They are carrying a lot of debt right now (not because of war and its EA in general I am talking about). So we'll see what happens.
To be honest a failed game is NOT good for any game player.. I don't feel any vindication if they don't do wel. Even if I don't like the game it needs to do well so that investors will fund games I might enjoy.
That's why I don't really like the entire forum fights we get into here. Any true game player needs every game to succeed even if they don't like it.
I was only trying to define "flop" and I still stand by what I said.. and I don't know what EA projected or where they really are at. So EA may be happy .. I don't know one way or the other.
"To be honest a failed game is NOT good for any game player"
good to see someone understands that PC gaming as a whole does not need its games to bomb. As for gamers who revel or delight in games that fail or bomb it is only hurting the PC gaming market. The more MMOs that bomb, the less studios will risk making games for this genre -- and PC gaming as a whole suffers. It really is quite simple, but sadly there are so many who lack common sense --
I would love to see more MMOs hit the 1 million mark or better as this will benefit PC gamers.
This mentality has been the root problem of PC gaming for far to long, specifically mmos.
Paying money to a company for a half finished, untested poorly designed game doesn't do the market any good. It doesn't send a positive message and somehow inspire other companies to raise the bar. What it does is tell companies they can serve whatever plate of cold turds they can push out with their given budget and people will not only buy it, but empower themselves to defend it for the greater good.
PC gaming only deserves to live if the game makers can get their act together and make better games. I'm sorry, but it doesn't make sense to pay money for a sub par product. That is the exact reason one game came in and not only stole nearly the entire market, but also brought in more players than just about everyone else combined (including people who had given up on the market).
Sorry for not reading the hole discussion .. I just read about mmo's putting out have finished games.... Then i wonder why people get mad at darkfall for taking so long.. If it takes that long so be it..I'd rather play a well thought out game then, a thrown together game. But most dev's probly think that the can get subscribers with a half game, because alot of poeple are looking to jump ship from WOW.
Maybe I should tell the other 23 players in the Open RvR pickup group I'm in right now, at 1AM on a Sunday.
Old DAoC players...remember the feeling you got when doing relic raids? 40-100 random people running across the lands towards the same target? I didn't get that feeling in any other game, except now I do with WAR.
The game is still fairly new and has its issues, but what game doesn't?
Why did it fail? Because they forget the R in RVR and instead they went for the S for scenarios with an even further stripped down wow formula, and then proceeded to design the game around it. Resulting in MMO that doesn't have any appeal to play longer than a couple months.
WAR flopped? News to me. Maybe I should tell the other 23 players in the Open RvR pickup group I'm in right now, at 1AM on a Sunday. Old DAoC players...remember the feeling you got when doing relic raids? 40-100 random people running across the lands towards the same target? I didn't get that feeling in any other game, except now I do with WAR. The game is still fairly new and has its issues, but what game doesn't?
Yeah this is news to me as well. I was at my local Best Buy recently, and I was curious which games were selling. YOu can always tell which ones are selling by the number of boxes on the shelf.If a game isn't selling well, the retailers won't bother stocking it. If it's selling really well, then they'll continue to stock it and even add more.
When I got to the MMO aisle,WOW by far had the most.They could have just stuck a sign on the four rows and labeled it WOW country from all the boxes.WAR was second with a good number of boxes. Both games also had numerous of their respective strategy guides for sale. The only other MMO game that had more than a one box available was AOC. There was about four of those available.SWG and other flops only had their game cards available. The results are pretty much the same everywhere else I go.
I think it flopped on this website. It didnt flop on all the gaming review sites, in which WAR has been one of the best reviewed MMO's ever.
War is a fun RvR game, far from perfect. But calling it it a flop is ridiculous. Dark and Light was a flop, Tabula Rasa was a flop. WAR is doing ok.
The posters on this website are mostly all vets who cant find a game to suit them because they dont realize they are completly burnt out on the genre as a whole, yet they play each an every MMO that gets released for a few weeks then pop up to tell you how bad the game was, for months. Not realizing that they will probably never catch that magic feeling they got from their first MMO when everything was new.
WAR will be just fine, since they combined some servers almost none are low/low unless its real late at night. No game that I can see on the release meter will be a WOW killer, and the sad truth is the on[y WOW killer might be another MMO from blizzard maybe WOW 2,
According to the OP and many posters WAR is a flop, yet the reviews say other wise. And so do a lo of fans who are having fun playing the game
--------------------------These Scores Represent WAR the Flop------------------------------------------
Yea seriously. The only reason a store would have a TON of game boxes on their shelves would mean that they are selling it.
Do you see a TON of old moldy bread in the bread isle in your supermarket? No you don't, you see a TON of fresh tasty bread. Why? The old moldy bread tastes yucky and could make you sick.
Only one store out of the 5-6 that sells pc games near me still stock war and that shop sells it at a highly discounted price hell they even have 4 collectors editions sitting gathering dust at the bargin bins.
I liked WAR, but unfortantly, I have never been a big fan of the Warhammer Fantasy universe. So the game didnt stick with me. I played it off and on since beta, and only just recently unsubbed. I guess a old time sim player and sci-fi fan just doesnt want another fantasy game taking up space on his HDD.
But I wouldnt call Warhammer Online a flop... it had a nitch market to start with. This is why Gamesworkshop has been around for YEARS. longer than most of the other gaming companies. And it will continue to be around long after its online games fail.
Well first of all we can tell this is a troll post. Second of all , i don't see how WAR flopped when it is number 2 on MMORPG's list of current MMO's out.As for the reason it didn't kill WOW? Money. Simply advertising... maybe if WAR had Mr. T and Ozzy the kids would want to play it more. Thank you have a nice day.
----------------------------- Real as Reality Television!!!
Comments
Well, if you read my sig quote, it'll give you a better idea what the heads of Mythic and Warhammer thought the numbers would be. They both were predicting those.
But I don't agree Warhammer is a flop. It will always have nice niche game numbers, especially in 2009 as several competing MMOs are released with a strong PvP focus added this year. 250k subscriptions will be a fine number for them to report officially at some point. But they won't reach 500k subs ever, that much you can be sure of.
It's been said that the reason Warhammer didn't catch on was it is too complex for most players; that they simply don't understand a lot of things about Warhammer. I used to say that's not true, but from reading forums over the internets, I'm starting to agree.
It appears that most people who quit Warhammer don't understand a lot of things.
Apparently the quitters:
Don't UNDERSTAND the point four hours of grabbing zones, heading to the Fortress lord then... crash. Server fall down and go boom.
Don't UNDERSTAND why there is so much lag still persisting server to server and why guilds have to set alarm clocks for 3am to finish things because that's when the game won't crash. (less people, less crashing)
Don't UNDERSTAND the point of PvP endgame when a part of it is PvE battles for the gear to go get other gear.
Don't UNDERSTAND why Mythic is nerfing classes so quick and leaving the WE's to run free and disembowel people in seconds.
Don't UNDERSTAND why it's four months now and two classes still missing from the game, why the UI greys out too long and along with the "YOU ARE DISABLED" tag, is out of synch with actual player disables.
Don't UNDERSTAND.. are these the same people who made DAoC?
Don't UNDERSTAND why there are no official Warhammer boards.
Don't UNDERSTAND all those wild claims and spotty delivery.
Don't UNDERSTAND why this game was pushed out the door still in a beta state without proper endgame testing like parents pushing out a recently graduated high school teenager.
Don't UNDERSTAND why the EU servers are such a public embarrassment and why Mythic is powerless to fix any of that mess over there and instead just hopes GOA can work it all out someday.
Don't UNDERSTAND how they have allowed zerg groups to rise and take over Mythic's planned methods of battle strategies with no idea how to keep them from doing it.
Don't UNDERSTAND taking a spot, leaving it, letting it get conquered without defending it. Then going back to rinse/repeat again until dizzy.
I guess I am starting to believe that people who quit don't understand Warhammer and that it really is a complex game. It seems as though the Mythic heads don't understand a lot about it either.
"TO MICHAEL!"
The class are all boring... Period. Its a simple tic tac toe game.
Take a look into the WARhammer RPG book games.
Its full of awsom Classes wit really amazing and creative things.
This game would have Been a huge hit if they had used 6 base archtype And 3 Huge Skill tree each.
Ya sure that would have been hard to balence?
Gess what It wasent balenced anyways.
No depth, crappy combat engine, crappy RVR that's almost as Bad's as WoW's, crappy PvE, falling woefully short of sales and subscription expectations... It's a fucking flop; ok?
Youknowhowcookin
Yehai-do
I think WAR flopped (yeah thats my opinion and I'm sticking to it) for a load of reasons.
It tried to appeal to such a wide range of players by dividing itself into three different types of game which worked independantly of each other and ended up splitting up the player population which was already severely split up by the fact that players were funneled into the tier relative to their level. So the fragmented player base could play......
Warhammer the PvE game
Incredibly easy and very bland. I thought WoW was the king of easy gaming but WAR actually managed to simplify it even further. They really were trying to appeal to EVERYONE by making it so simplistic that absolutely anyone could play it including the extremely young and the mentally retarded. After a little while I just gave up reading the quest text because it was just meaningless drivel and was completely uneccessary for me to complete the quests. Click NPC, accept quest, go to glowing red spot on map, kill easy target/click object, walk back and select boring reward. Next.
The monster AI was dreadful as everyone is aware so not only was the game simplistic but the monsters didnt react properly at all and never helped each other even when their mates were attacked right next to them. As Mythic so desperately wanted to make their game like WoW they could have at least copied this part properly.
Warhammer the mini-battle game
This was actually fun at first but it got very boring very quickly. The battlegrounds (oh lets call them scenarios so that it wont look too much like we have copied WoWs battlegrounds idea.....yeah whatever) were very small and limited and after I had seen the same bloody battleground for the billionth time I just couldnt be bothered with it any more. Also the fact that the classes were so dull and uninspired really didnt help much. Although WoW has less battelgrounds than WAR they are definately a lot more fun in my opinion. In fact I enjoy the PvP in WoW (even with the twink issue) a lot more than WAR which is sad really considering it is supposed to be WARs selling point.
Also because the battlegrounds were easily accessible from anywhere it obviously led to the scenario which everyone is aware of in which the players just simply leveled up in scenarios only because the PvE was boring and it took too long to find any decent battles in the open RvR areas.
Warhammer the open RvR game
Mythic plonked a PvP playpen into each tier where the players could fight meaningless battles and called it open RvR. Yeah whatever Mythic. There really is no incentive for even bothering with trying to take a keep other than the fact that you get to kill other players which is fun for a while. Mythic could have done so much with this aspect of the game but they just didnt bother which was such a shame. Unfortunately many people need more of a reason to do something that they could be doing for free in various other PvP games. This is an mmorpg so simply saying "Go on players......go and fight each other.....its fun!" just isnt good enough. The fact that Mythic actually forgot to make the open RvR interesting and meaningful meant that they were empty half the time because people just couldnt be bothered with it. I get more meaningful PvP battles in the Battlefield games. So you take over a keep......and? Whats next? Oh thats right......thats it! The fact that Mythic had to throw stupid meaningless rewards at players to entice them into the open RvR areas said it all about WARs terrible game design. How about putting meaningful objectives and goals into the game which the players HAD to fight over to make progress through the game or is that too much for you to comprehend Mythic? Oh no no we cant have that because then you wouldnt be appealing to EVERYONE then would you........geez what a joke!
Basicly Warhammer Online is so casual-friendly that it just didnt feel worth playing to me. I like to feel immersed in my games but unfortunately with WAR I just couldnt help but see through its weak game design at every turn. I would see a keep that was taken by the enemy and yet I knew it didnt matter if I tried to take it back or not so I just ignored it and moved on. All the items I picked up looked the same and there wasnt anything I hadnt already seen in WoW anyway. The story was just completely uninteresting and didnt make me feel like I was in the gritty Warhammer world at all. I was extremely limited in the ways in which I could develop my sorry excuse for a "character" - my character was identical to every other character of the same class.
I think the only thing it managed to achieve with any vague level of success was its public quests as they were quite a good idea but unfortunately Mythic just didnt bother to do anything interesting with the idea. They had plenty of opportunity to force the opposing factions to clash with each other in interesting ways but it hardly ever occurred. Instead it was nearly always the same old "kill a billion of these" over and over again just to farm the rewards. Boring.
Warhammer is simply a space filler for bored mmo players as they wait for a better game to come along......and quite a few promising titles are on their way. I cant see Warhammer doing particularly well in the future. As Tyvolus mentioned above somewhere this actually isnt a good thing because a failed game leads to less games being made in the future. For this reason I'm a bit annoyed with Mythic because their poor product hasnt helped the genre at all. They shouldnt have focused so heavily on trying to cash in on WoWs success and should have instead focused on simply making a good game.
Errrm.....sorry about the wall of text. I shouldnt type this stuff when I'm tired
No definition of a flop would be if the game doesn't meet EA's internal expectations.. which nobody posting on this forums knows.. one way or the other. At least for WAR this would be the definition.
So if the game has a many years long run.. it wasn't a flop for EA.
If it gets shut down by EA .. then no matter what any fan says.. it was a flop.
/shrug
I thought the publicly stated target was 500,000 subs.
And EA has published the active sub numbes for the current time where? and this is how many months from release?
How about a year from now?
You do realize that an MMO doesn't start making a profit the month it launches right?
Back when UO and EQ came out with what a game cost to produce then they needed 100,000 subs to start making a profit after around 3 years. That's recovering development cost. So in a sense its making a profit every month but you have the development cost to recover before you actually make a profit.
If they wanted 500,000 subs how long did they need that to hit the profit mark.. what if it was 2 years and 1 year in they are at 100,000 subs.
That's why I remain more or less neutral on the topic.. the subscriber numbers after 3 months aren't a long term indication. Tho I would have to say from my point of view rentention is much lower than they expected.
Regardless after its been live for a year if they will release numbers we'll see how its done. I honestly don't expect them to ever release numbers again unless they get things where they should have been and get an increase.
They are carrying a lot of debt right now (not because of war and its EA in general I am talking about). So we'll see what happens.
To be honest a failed game is NOT good for any game player.. I don't feel any vindication if they don't do wel. Even if I don't like the game it needs to do well so that investors will fund games I might enjoy.
That's why I don't really like the entire forum fights we get into here. Any true game player needs every game to succeed even if they don't like it.
I was only trying to define "flop" and I still stand by what I said.. and I don't know what EA projected or where they really are at. So EA may be happy .. I don't know one way or the other.
I was going from my recollection about something I read. http://www.gamespot.com/news/6197690.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6197690&tag=nl.e513
No. No you shouldn't.
Anybody read Mark's blog right before warhammer's release? Remember him stating that the survival of the mmorpg community will be determined based on warhammer's success...to show that other gaming companies (besides blizzard) can make a popular game? Right, Mark...
Maybe you need to concentrate on making a GOOD gaming before worrying about it being successful enough to broaden the mmorpg playerbase market.
Hey Freddyno,
This is about the closest thing I think Mark Jacobs said regarding a 500k number. He wasn't actually giving a prediction here though if you read it, he was saying he just thinks it needs to be 500kish to be #2. This was from an 8/29/08 MTV interview he did. The most interesting part is he says in order for Warhammer to be "successful", they'd have to be "north of half a million" subscriptions. Everyone knows they aren't at that, because they'd announce it already as a vindication of this goal.
I still don't think it's a flop, but it's obvious based on what he says here, Mark Jacobs does not think Warhammer is successful today (unless he has since redefined what he thinks "success" is). Still it's half a victory: Warhammer is #2 behind his dreaded Wow as he wished, right?
"TO MICHAEL!"
summary=
YAY, EA, you made another crappy game to sit on our shelves after a week...
People wonder why EA is in such a hard time? It's cause they have to remake the same damn sports games each year with recycled material. I've stopped viewing EA as a professional company since this and more as a joke. Congrats, EA, I think you guys just hit an all time low...WAR was probably their last chance to really "wow" the gamers. It's just "meh, this is ok" and definitely not "this is better than wow"
Hey Freddyno,
This is about the closest thing I think Mark Jacobs said regarding a 500k number. He wasn't actually giving a prediction here though if you read it, he was saying he just thinks it needs to be 500kish to be #2. This was from an 8/29/08 MTV interview he did. The most interesting part is he says in order for Warhammer to be "successful", they'd have to be "north of half a million" subscriptions. Everyone knows they aren't at that, because they'd announce it already as a vindication of this goal.
I still don't think it's a flop, but it's obvious based on what he says here, Mark Jacobs does not think Warhammer is successful today (unless he has since redefined what he thinks "success" is). Still it's half a victory: Warhammer is #2 behind his dreaded Wow as he wished, right?
Which is why I said it was based on what I recalled. That doesn't mean perfect recall. Got it?
If somebody could toss me a trial key, i'd really appreciate it. Because ive been going crazy trying to find one, and i want to try the game out before i start paying for it. Thanks in advance!
Cloudx1987@hotmail.com
Whoaaaa... slow down pardna^^
Just put the posts for definite clarification from the horse's mouth, not to battle.
"TO MICHAEL!"
No definition of a flop would be if the game doesn't meet EA's internal expectations.. which nobody posting on this forums knows.. one way or the other. At least for WAR this would be the definition.
So if the game has a many years long run.. it wasn't a flop for EA.
If it gets shut down by EA .. then no matter what any fan says.. it was a flop.
/shrug
I thought the publicly stated target was 500,000 subs.
And EA has published the active sub numbes for the current time where? and this is how many months from release?
How about a year from now?
You do realize that an MMO doesn't start making a profit the month it launches right?
Back when UO and EQ came out with what a game cost to produce then they needed 100,000 subs to start making a profit after around 3 years. That's recovering development cost. So in a sense its making a profit every month but you have the development cost to recover before you actually make a profit.
If they wanted 500,000 subs how long did they need that to hit the profit mark.. what if it was 2 years and 1 year in they are at 100,000 subs.
That's why I remain more or less neutral on the topic.. the subscriber numbers after 3 months aren't a long term indication. Tho I would have to say from my point of view rentention is much lower than they expected.
Regardless after its been live for a year if they will release numbers we'll see how its done. I honestly don't expect them to ever release numbers again unless they get things where they should have been and get an increase.
They are carrying a lot of debt right now (not because of war and its EA in general I am talking about). So we'll see what happens.
To be honest a failed game is NOT good for any game player.. I don't feel any vindication if they don't do wel. Even if I don't like the game it needs to do well so that investors will fund games I might enjoy.
That's why I don't really like the entire forum fights we get into here. Any true game player needs every game to succeed even if they don't like it.
I was only trying to define "flop" and I still stand by what I said.. and I don't know what EA projected or where they really are at. So EA may be happy .. I don't know one way or the other.
"To be honest a failed game is NOT good for any game player"
good to see someone understands that PC gaming as a whole does not need its games to bomb. As for gamers who revel or delight in games that fail or bomb it is only hurting the PC gaming market. The more MMOs that bomb, the less studios will risk making games for this genre -- and PC gaming as a whole suffers. It really is quite simple, but sadly there are so many who lack common sense --
I would love to see more MMOs hit the 1 million mark or better as this will benefit PC gamers.
This mentality has been the root problem of PC gaming for far to long, specifically mmos.
Paying money to a company for a half finished, untested poorly designed game doesn't do the market any good. It doesn't send a positive message and somehow inspire other companies to raise the bar. What it does is tell companies they can serve whatever plate of cold turds they can push out with their given budget and people will not only buy it, but empower themselves to defend it for the greater good.
PC gaming only deserves to live if the game makers can get their act together and make better games. I'm sorry, but it doesn't make sense to pay money for a sub par product. That is the exact reason one game came in and not only stole nearly the entire market, but also brought in more players than just about everyone else combined (including people who had given up on the market).
Sorry for not reading the hole discussion .. I just read about mmo's putting out have finished games.... Then i wonder why people get mad at darkfall for taking so long.. If it takes that long so be it..I'd rather play a well thought out game then, a thrown together game. But most dev's probly think that the can get subscribers with a half game, because alot of poeple are looking to jump ship from WOW.
WAR flopped? News to me.
Maybe I should tell the other 23 players in the Open RvR pickup group I'm in right now, at 1AM on a Sunday.
Old DAoC players...remember the feeling you got when doing relic raids? 40-100 random people running across the lands towards the same target? I didn't get that feeling in any other game, except now I do with WAR.
The game is still fairly new and has its issues, but what game doesn't?
Why did it fail? Because they forget the R in RVR and instead they went for the S for scenarios with an even further stripped down wow formula, and then proceeded to design the game around it. Resulting in MMO that doesn't have any appeal to play longer than a couple months.
Yeah this is news to me as well. I was at my local Best Buy recently, and I was curious which games were selling. YOu can always tell which ones are selling by the number of boxes on the shelf.If a game isn't selling well, the retailers won't bother stocking it. If it's selling really well, then they'll continue to stock it and even add more.
When I got to the MMO aisle,WOW by far had the most.They could have just stuck a sign on the four rows and labeled it WOW country from all the boxes.WAR was second with a good number of boxes. Both games also had numerous of their respective strategy guides for sale. The only other MMO game that had more than a one box available was AOC. There was about four of those available.SWG and other flops only had their game cards available. The results are pretty much the same everywhere else I go.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
I think it flopped on this website. It didnt flop on all the gaming review sites, in which WAR has been one of the best reviewed MMO's ever.
War is a fun RvR game, far from perfect. But calling it it a flop is ridiculous. Dark and Light was a flop, Tabula Rasa was a flop. WAR is doing ok.
The posters on this website are mostly all vets who cant find a game to suit them because they dont realize they are completly burnt out on the genre as a whole, yet they play each an every MMO that gets released for a few weeks then pop up to tell you how bad the game was, for months. Not realizing that they will probably never catch that magic feeling they got from their first MMO when everything was new.
WAR will be just fine, since they combined some servers almost none are low/low unless its real late at night. No game that I can see on the release meter will be a WOW killer, and the sad truth is the on[y WOW killer might be another MMO from blizzard maybe WOW 2,
According to the OP and many posters WAR is a flop, yet the reviews say other wise. And so do a lo of fans who are having fun playing the game
--------------------------These Scores Represent WAR the Flop------------------------------------------
Gamers Temple 92 / 100
UGO A
IGN 9 / 10
Gameplayer 8.5 / 10
1UP B
GameShark A-
G4 - X-Play 5 / 5
GameSpy 5 / 5
Cheat Code Central 4.7 / 5
Gameplanet 8 / 10
PC Gamer UK 88 / 100
Eurogamer 8 / 10
PC Gamer 86 / 100
GamersHell 8.5 / 10
PC Format UK 87 / 100
Game Informer 8 / 10
PC Zone UK 92 / 100
Fragland 90 / 100
GamingTrend 89 / 100
gamesTM 8 / 10
Computer Games RO 85 / 100
Total PC Gaming 8 / 10
Gaming Target 8.8 / 10
PALGN 8 / 10
Game Chronicles 9 / 10
GamerNode 8 / 10
GameZone 8.8 / 10
AceGamez 9 / 10
Jolt UK 8.7 / 10
AtomicGamer 88 / 100
Armchair Empire 8 / 10
Gamervision 8 / 10
Game Revolution A-
Just because a game gets good reviews doesn't mean a games going to be successfull or not.
Yea seriously. The only reason a store would have a TON of game boxes on their shelves would mean that they are selling it.
Do you see a TON of old moldy bread in the bread isle in your supermarket? No you don't, you see a TON of fresh tasty bread. Why? The old moldy bread tastes yucky and could make you sick.
Its retail sales 101
Only one store out of the 5-6 that sells pc games near me still stock war and that shop sells it at a highly discounted price hell they even have 4 collectors editions sitting gathering dust at the bargin bins.
I liked WAR, but unfortantly, I have never been a big fan of the Warhammer Fantasy universe. So the game didnt stick with me. I played it off and on since beta, and only just recently unsubbed. I guess a old time sim player and sci-fi fan just doesnt want another fantasy game taking up space on his HDD.
But I wouldnt call Warhammer Online a flop... it had a nitch market to start with. This is why Gamesworkshop has been around for YEARS. longer than most of the other gaming companies. And it will continue to be around long after its online games fail.
So much crap, so little quality.
Well first of all we can tell this is a troll post. Second of all , i don't see how WAR flopped when it is number 2 on MMORPG's list of current MMO's out.As for the reason it didn't kill WOW? Money. Simply advertising... maybe if WAR had Mr. T and Ozzy the kids would want to play it more. Thank you have a nice day.
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Real as Reality Television!!!
WAR is far from a flop, although yes I can say that they were a little optimistic with their expectations for the game.
For me, Dark and light would be a flop, Tabula Rasa and maybe Age of Conman.