It failed because during the first week they created way too many servers which eventually kept everybody seperate. They also released without an endgame so powerlevelers started complaining in weeks. They never released all of the cities and the city seiges were never as good as they could've been.
Basically they released too early and then did everything wrong in the first month and then Wrath of the Lich king was released during the second month which basically screwed them completely and they never got a chance to recover it's reputation as everyone went back to WoW. Subs dropped 50% in two months.
If they would've properly finished the game and released after lich king or somewhere not like one month from one of the most anticipated expansions ever, they would've done a lot better.
It was a great game at the core. The endgame potential was the greatest of any game I've played if they did city seiges properly.
I had tons of fun with the game and subbed to it off and on for more months than any other.
The lead dev was super passionate and it was clear the devs wanted to take WoW head-on and thought for sure they could do it, probably planning to steal all of WoW's players and ruin the lich king expansion. That could've happened if they had released with an endgame and didn't do everything wrong they possibly could during the first month. They were clearly extremely overconfident.
I think the failure had a lot to do with following MMOs being basically WoW-clones. Because Warhammer failed so badly (directly following the failure of AOC), everyone was afraid of trying something different than WoW. That's a real shame because Warhammer had a lot of innovations, and if it had been successful, it would've encouraged other Dev teams to create their own innovations. What happened was everyone just stole from Warhammer (PQs, which are like rifts), the book of knowlege (accomplishments), instant queing for scenarios and leveling through scenarios, and then everything else they tried to make as much like WoW as possible. Nobody's touched open world PVP though because first of all Warhammer never got it quite right and secondly it's often cited (incorrectly) as to why the game failed.
tldr: Horrible timing for release, horrible response to problems during the first month, and they basically gave up (or were told to give up or were fired)
EA pushed the release of the game before it was anywhere near balanced, not all the races has tanks available which made PQ's for those early starting areas rather tricky, even discouraging for some players. Not all mirrors were created equal, see Magus vs Engineer, or Warrior-priest vs Disciple of Khaine, and even Witch Hunter vs Witch Elf.
Now I believe that there was also an issue with one of the tactics for Bright Wizards, I believe that it was something along the line of close quarters or similar to that name, which allowed the Bright Wizard to do 25% more damage to targets within the range of 45 feet. This was the back bone of a team known as bomb squads(I think), the bomb squads comprised of two KotBS, two Warrior-Priests, and two Bright Wizards slotted with CQ. The tanks would use as many auras as possible and rotate guard on the appropriate ally, the Warrior Priests spammed their op AOE heals, and the Bright-Wizards would spam AoEs namely Scorched Earth without any fear of dying due to being guarded and healed.
Mythic was so slow to respond to the glaring imbalance for so long, so much so that many players jumped ship, it became so bad that only one server contained competitive destro players.
Warhammer online is the perfect example of what happens when you release a game too early. The game furthered into decline because Mythic refused to do anything about the issues until 2 years later.
I don't know if they ever fixed the combat issues or game engine issues. These were one of the reasons I quit playing. It was at times painful though I knew this going into the game. I beta'd it, I bought it anyway. I love the Warhammer universe. But then I realised one day I actually could care less if I reach the next level. That's always the best sign that this game is not for me.
1. As has been said, balance. My Chaos Chosen had no chance in PvP vs. anything ranged. I understand the group vs. group concept but when the mage-types are powerful enough to melt you before you can get halfway to them it's a bit much...
2. Scenarios. Why would you put instanced PvP in a open world RvR game? I could never find anyone to PQ or siege with because everyone was Scenario grinding to level cap.
2. Scenarios. Why would you put instanced PvP in a open world RvR game? I could never find anyone to PQ or siege with because everyone was Scenario grinding to level cap.
I has been suggested that the game was never to have open world pvp and that the scenarios were originally the main thrust of the game.
I've seen a few people say that so I wonder if it was that way in closed beta.
I would say that the RvR sections were really horrible. The scenarios were the better part of the game because at least those were fun.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Oh and another reason it failed was that Paul Barnnet (sp?) overhyped the game so much in videos and blogs that absolutely no game in the world could've lived up to it.
I remember him saying things like, "MMO gaming is a hobby, and we know that once you start playing Warhammer it is going to be the only hobby you will need for the rest of your life."
If you notice nowadays when devs do promo videos, they're generally monotone and low key when they showcase what the game has to offer.
Paul created a lot of the super-hype surrounding the release, but that totally backfired when the game wasn't perfect.
Oh and another reason it failed was that Paul Barnnet (sp?) overhyped the game so much in videos and blogs that absolutely no game in the world could've lived up to it.
I remember him saying things like, "MMO gaming is a hobby, and we know that once you start playing Warhammer it is going to be the only hobby you will need for the rest of your life."
If you notice nowadays when devs do promo videos, they're generally monotone and low key when they showcase what the game has to offer.
Paul created a lot of the super-hype surrounding the release, but that totally backfired when the game wasn't perfect.
While Barnetts insanuty really didn´t help it had very little to do with the failure. The key to success for a MMO is more basic than so: Know your players.
WAR choosed between 3 types of players:
1. Warhammer fans. These people love Games workshop and want a MMO close to either the tabletop or the fantasy RPG game. These are people you need to convert the P&P mechanics into a new mmo mechanic for.
2. Mythic fans. These people love DaoC and want a game as similar to it as possible.
3. WoW fans. These people love Wow and basically want WoW (not a game like WoW, they want WoW).
In a moment of insanity did Mark Jacobs get the brilliant idea that instead of focusing on one of the 2 focus groups that actually wanted the game they should instead take all WoWs players from WoW, because they are so many. Of course the millions of Warhammer fans were forgotten here but frankly does it seems to me that noone at mythic really know much about Warhammer anyways.
The whole thing reminds me about a misstake the automobile company SAAB did in the 90s. They decided to make a car specifically for the US market. They knew that their customers were often lawyers and similar well to do people so they decided to make a large expensive flashy car. What they missed was that people who bought SAAB did so because they didn't want a flashy expensive car and the whole thing failed.
When you make a product you must first find out what the people you try to sell the product to want and give them that or at least something similar. The problem here is that Warhammer and Mythic fans wanted a very different game and the WoW fans wabnted WoW, not a similar game.
WAR was doomed already when they decided this. They did some other bad decisions, like cutting out the entire endgame (battle between the 6 main cities) and a third of the content, but it mattered little when they failed before they even started making the game.
While Barnetts insanuty really didn´t help it had very little to do with the failure. The key to success for a MMO is more basic than so: Know your players.
WAR choosed between 3 types of players:
1. Warhammer fans. These people love Games workshop and want a MMO close to either the tabletop or the fantasy RPG game. These are people you need to convert the P&P mechanics into a new mmo mechanic for.
2. Mythic fans. These people love DaoC and want a game as similar to it as possible.
3. WoW fans. These people love Wow and basically want WoW (not a game like WoW, they want WoW).
In a moment of insanity did Mark Jacobs get the brilliant idea that instead of focusing on one of the 2 focus groups that actually wanted the game they should instead take all WoWs players from WoW, because they are so many. Of course the millions of Warhammer fans were forgotten here but frankly does it seems to me that noone at mythic really know much about Warhammer anyways.
The whole thing reminds me about a misstake the automobile company SAAB did in the 90s. They decided to make a car specifically for the US market. They knew that their customers were often lawyers and similar well to do people so they decided to make a large expensive flashy car. What they missed was that people who bought SAAB did so because they didn't want a flashy expensive car and the whole thing failed.
When you make a product you must first find out what the people you try to sell the product to want and give them that or at least something similar. The problem here is that Warhammer and Mythic fans wanted a very different game and the WoW fans wabnted WoW, not a similar game.
WAR was doomed already when they decided this. They did some other bad decisions, like cutting out the entire endgame (battle between the 6 main cities) and a third of the content, but it mattered little when they failed before they even started making the game.
Oh and another reason it failed was that Paul Barnnet (sp?) overhyped the game so much in videos and blogs that absolutely no game in the world could've lived up to it.
I remember him saying things like, "MMO gaming is a hobby, and we know that once you start playing Warhammer it is going to be the only hobby you will need for the rest of your life."
If you notice nowadays when devs do promo videos, they're generally monotone and low key when they showcase what the game has to offer.
Paul created a lot of the super-hype surrounding the release, but that totally backfired when the game wasn't perfect.
While Barnetts insanuty really didn´t help it had very little to do with the failure. The key to success for a MMO is more basic than so: Know your players.
WAR choosed between 3 types of players:
1. Warhammer fans. These people love Games workshop and want a MMO close to either the tabletop or the fantasy RPG game. These are people you need to convert the P&P mechanics into a new mmo mechanic for.
2. Mythic fans. These people love DaoC and want a game as similar to it as possible.
3. WoW fans. These people love Wow and basically want WoW (not a game like WoW, they want WoW).
In a moment of insanity did Mark Jacobs get the brilliant idea that instead of focusing on one of the 2 focus groups that actually wanted the game they should instead take all WoWs players from WoW, because they are so many. Of course the millions of Warhammer fans were forgotten here but frankly does it seems to me that noone at mythic really know much about Warhammer anyways.
The whole thing reminds me about a misstake the automobile company SAAB did in the 90s. They decided to make a car specifically for the US market. They knew that their customers were often lawyers and similar well to do people so they decided to make a large expensive flashy car. What they missed was that people who bought SAAB did so because they didn't want a flashy expensive car and the whole thing failed.
When you make a product you must first find out what the people you try to sell the product to want and give them that or at least something similar. The problem here is that Warhammer and Mythic fans wanted a very different game and the WoW fans wabnted WoW, not a similar game.
WAR was doomed already when they decided this. They did some other bad decisions, like cutting out the entire endgame (battle between the 6 main cities) and a third of the content, but it mattered little when they failed before they even started making the game.
Yeah pretty much this. They did a huge, massive misstake to try to cater to the WoW playerbase rather than the Warhammer and/or DAoC one. A misstake which has been done in many games, SW:TOR is the latest one.
It didn't exactly fail, they made their money on the initial box sales, like everything else this company puts out. MMOs aren't run by this company, they are just there to take sub fees while the CS remains largely for Pogo, their real online money maker.
In short,
EA
the list of games and gaming companies destroyed and eaten by them is long indeed.
It didn't exactly fail, they made their money on the initial box sales, like everything else this company puts out. MMOs aren't run by this company, they are just there to take sub fees while the CS remains largely for Pogo, their real online money maker.
In short,
EA
the list of games and gaming companies destroyed and eaten by them is long indeed.
With the development of this game having been said by MJ to be somewhere short of a 100 million (more likely between 50 and 100 somewhere), I wouldn't be so sure they recouped their costs on initial box sales alone, in fact I'd say they probably didn't come close. But the subs will have recovered it over time yeah. That said, EA just bought them, no idea for how much.
Many, many reasons combined together, as basically everyone have said.
I so wanted this game to work. I do not understand the logic behind pushing 2 factions when the Warhammer lore already has 3 factions in it (Order, Chaos, Netural).
While I concede that Mythic was pushing new territory going into PQs, they were done illogically by not linking PQs together so individuals would see and feel the natural progression between them.
Removal of various classes and cities at launch.
Overall performance of the engine.
MMOs Played: I can no longer list them all in the 500 character limit.
It didn't exactly fail, they made their money on the initial box sales, like everything else this company puts out. MMOs aren't run by this company, they are just there to take sub fees while the CS remains largely for Pogo, their real online money maker.
In short,
EA
the list of games and gaming companies destroyed and eaten by them is long indeed.
EA said it cost them 80 million dollars to make the game. They sold 1,2 million boxes the first month (almost all of them the first 2 weeks). There is no way Mythic got all the money people paid for the boxes in their hand, $30 each would be high.
If we say they did earn $30 for each box they got in 36 million dollars, which isn´t even close to $80M.
Also, Mythic fired almost all their employees, do you think that would have happened if EA got it's money back?
It didn't exactly fail, they made their money on the initial box sales, like everything else this company puts out. MMOs aren't run by this company, they are just there to take sub fees while the CS remains largely for Pogo, their real online money maker.
In short,
EA
the list of games and gaming companies destroyed and eaten by them is long indeed.
EA said it cost them 80 million dollars to make the game. They sold 1,2 million boxes the first month (almost all of them the first 2 weeks). There is no way Mythic got all the money people paid for the boxes in their hand, $30 each would be high.
If we say they did earn $30 for each box they got in 36 million dollars, which isn´t even close to $80M.
Also, Mythic fired almost all their employees, do you think that would have happened if EA got it's money back?
Why so argumentative, Loke? They did in fact recoup their money in the first month, for the subs they gained put them over (also additional sales in the first month+subs). Regardless, as with every EA game, the game wasn't designed to go past 1 month of attention from EA. It was designed to make their money from the advertising hype and move on to the next project....rinse/repeat.
You say they fired the entire Mythic crew, but that would further verify what I had said if it were completely true. The Mythic crew were absorbed into BioWare which has been running EA's MMO division for the last 3 years. The only actual firing I recall was the outspoken Marc, who didn't want to be part of BioWare. Everyone else was working under contracts meant to expire, which again, goes back to my previous statement, the games are developed to sell boxes, nothing more. The cost to keep them going with a skeleton crew and continuing to take in monthly subs was proven profitable with DAoC, so EA does that with a ton of their titles. All EA's MMO CS runs through their actual money maker...POGO, online gambling.
MMO box sales are the only thing that could briefly draw the attention away from their POGO sales. MMOs monthly subs/cash shops profits are miniscule vs online gambling profits. I can't tell you how many homes I have gone into to fix/setup computers to elderly families just to play POGO. It's damn scary.
I mean it brought alot of nice features to the MMORPG genre. Such as ability to viably level from level 1 to cap by doing just PvP, PQ, defensive and offensive targetting, interesting mechanics like that of the BW and Disciple of Khaine.
Yet it recently announced merging of yet another round of servers to a total of two or three, globally, and probably will shut down completely before the end of the year.
But why is that? I for one spent 400+ hours playing it so it isn't that bad. Reason I left was because the end-game was/is junk, maybe that is it?
I feel you m8, i played WAR too and altough i am not a HC fan of pvp i realy loved it.....alot.
IMHO they went bad by having just 2 and not 3 factions + the brightwizzards where OP and never got nerfed (while i played it anyways).....i played the magus (man that class was cool) and most of the time i got owned bcause the brightwizz had way too much DPS compared too the magus (altough my dot's could keep you busy )
Quality overall, I've heard this from everyone I know who tried the game. From some Warhammers nuts too, I'm somewhat a Warhammer nut my self. Lagging mobs, sliding mobs, lagging UI, UI bugs, animations overall, effects, overall very unfinished and un-polished feel to almost everything in the game. There's much I loved in that game, which got totally buried under the shit avalanche of problems and low-quality.
Many, many reasons combined together, as basically everyone have said.
I so wanted this game to work. I do not understand the logic behind pushing 2 factions when the Warhammer lore already has 3 factions in it (Order, Chaos, Netural).
While I concede that Mythic was pushing new territory going into PQs, they were done illogically by not linking PQs together so individuals would see and feel the natural progression between them.
Removal of various classes and cities at launch.
Overall performance of the engine.
Warhammer lore has a lot more than 3 factions in it. There's many armies to choose from that are not aligned under some certain "faction" like Order or Chaos, not in the long term at least.
Quality overall, I've heard this from everyone I know who tried the game. From some Warhammers nuts too, I'm somewhat a Warhammer nut my self. Lagging mobs, sliding mobs, lagging UI, UI bugs, animations overall, effects, overall very unfinished and un-polished feel to almost everything in the game. There's much I loved in that game, which got totally buried under the shit avalanche of problems and low-quality.
yeah i keep hearing about it.....but never experienced it except in rvr sometimes (even then the lag was mild).
At launch some rubberbandng yes but that got fixed so a mild lag in rvr aint actually a failure imho.
maybe some people need to lay of the porn surfing on their game-rigs hehe
And yet, the game you continually like to take cheap shots at, even in threads that aren't about said game, seems to be doing very well. Much better than Warhammer did. Go figure.
Bad client performance, incohesive graphics, massive rubberbanding/atrocious server performance. Craptastic world layout, horrendous PVE. PVP grind was acceptable until you went into the last BG bracket. BGs were good but too many, mostly unfinished and defninitely pumped out at the expense of developing the RVR which while touted as the best ever, was pretty much horrendous and never got finished. There were suppsoed to be like 3 or 4 world combat areas that consisted of huge multimap conquest between faction cities, at launch we only had the 1 and that is probably all there is still. General content lack across the board, get past level 20 in PVE and you are really scraping the barrel, stories and quests are written by monkeys past this point, so is the zone layout.
But worst of all (although pretty good for the average consumer) the infinite free trial let you do everything that was good about WAR, free, forever. And they even changed the battlegrounds once in a while to it stays fresh. There is literally no reason to buy this game. Low level RVR is fantastic.
Quality overall, I've heard this from everyone I know who tried the game. From some Warhammers nuts too, I'm somewhat a Warhammer nut my self. Lagging mobs, sliding mobs, lagging UI, UI bugs, animations overall, effects, overall very unfinished and un-polished feel to almost everything in the game. There's much I loved in that game, which got totally buried under the shit avalanche of problems and low-quality.
yeah i keep hearing about it.....but never experienced it except in rvr sometimes (even then the lag was mild).
At launch some rubberbandng yes but that got fixed so a mild lag in rvr aint actually a failure imho.
maybe some people need to lay of the porn surfing on their game-rigs hehe
I keep my machine very clean, and visit only sites I trust (not many "porn" sites there). I also have quite up to date system all the time, I recently built a new one just for the heck of it and my old machine is for guests, which runs perfectly well any game released to date. Just saying that it's not me, it's the game, I doubt people I play with lie to me about it either. You propably just have lower standards than me and many others, or maybe you just think that other non technical stuff is more important in a game. I know people who dont give a crap about graphics, effects, animations etc, could be something like that? :]
Heck, I think TOR is a nice game for what it is even with so much bashing it gets, it runs smooth, very little -animation bugs, -UI lag, -lag overall, no "fake casts", no sliding mobs, no crappy sprite like effects etc, all of that was a problem for many in WAR, and the reason why I stopped playing it with pretty much any friend that tried it with me. Good for you if you didnt have any of that, I envy you tbh :P
Warhammer lore has a lot more than 3 factions in it. There's many armies to choose from that are not aligned under some certain "faction" like Order or Chaos, not in the long term at least.
Agreed, instead of decreasing numbers of sides Mythic should have increased it to 5 sides.
Warhammer lore has a lot more than 3 factions in it. There's many armies to choose from that are not aligned under some certain "faction" like Order or Chaos, not in the long term at least.
Agreed, instead of decreasing numbers of sides Mythic should have increased it to 5 sides.
+ ∞
I think they could have taken a "Build it organically" approach to Warhammer/40K
Start with a few races with a few classes and slowly build in based off some underlying logic that connects them all and then see how to vary from this bauplan to add flavor/emergent tactics.
Instead they went for the money-spinner approach, which did not earn the amount they hoped but was financially passable albeit not an investor's dream or a player's either.
Warhammer lore has a lot more than 3 factions in it. There's many armies to choose from that are not aligned under some certain "faction" like Order or Chaos, not in the long term at least.
Agreed, instead of decreasing numbers of sides Mythic should have increased it to 5 sides.
I'm wondering why they didn't take a cue from Games Workshop's miniatures board game. They have 15 factions available to play.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
Comments
It failed because during the first week they created way too many servers which eventually kept everybody seperate. They also released without an endgame so powerlevelers started complaining in weeks. They never released all of the cities and the city seiges were never as good as they could've been.
Basically they released too early and then did everything wrong in the first month and then Wrath of the Lich king was released during the second month which basically screwed them completely and they never got a chance to recover it's reputation as everyone went back to WoW. Subs dropped 50% in two months.
If they would've properly finished the game and released after lich king or somewhere not like one month from one of the most anticipated expansions ever, they would've done a lot better.
It was a great game at the core. The endgame potential was the greatest of any game I've played if they did city seiges properly.
I had tons of fun with the game and subbed to it off and on for more months than any other.
The lead dev was super passionate and it was clear the devs wanted to take WoW head-on and thought for sure they could do it, probably planning to steal all of WoW's players and ruin the lich king expansion. That could've happened if they had released with an endgame and didn't do everything wrong they possibly could during the first month. They were clearly extremely overconfident.
I think the failure had a lot to do with following MMOs being basically WoW-clones. Because Warhammer failed so badly (directly following the failure of AOC), everyone was afraid of trying something different than WoW. That's a real shame because Warhammer had a lot of innovations, and if it had been successful, it would've encouraged other Dev teams to create their own innovations. What happened was everyone just stole from Warhammer (PQs, which are like rifts), the book of knowlege (accomplishments), instant queing for scenarios and leveling through scenarios, and then everything else they tried to make as much like WoW as possible. Nobody's touched open world PVP though because first of all Warhammer never got it quite right and secondly it's often cited (incorrectly) as to why the game failed.
tldr: Horrible timing for release, horrible response to problems during the first month, and they basically gave up (or were told to give up or were fired)
September 18th 2008.
EA pushed the release of the game before it was anywhere near balanced, not all the races has tanks available which made PQ's for those early starting areas rather tricky, even discouraging for some players. Not all mirrors were created equal, see Magus vs Engineer, or Warrior-priest vs Disciple of Khaine, and even Witch Hunter vs Witch Elf.
Now I believe that there was also an issue with one of the tactics for Bright Wizards, I believe that it was something along the line of close quarters or similar to that name, which allowed the Bright Wizard to do 25% more damage to targets within the range of 45 feet. This was the back bone of a team known as bomb squads(I think), the bomb squads comprised of two KotBS, two Warrior-Priests, and two Bright Wizards slotted with CQ. The tanks would use as many auras as possible and rotate guard on the appropriate ally, the Warrior Priests spammed their op AOE heals, and the Bright-Wizards would spam AoEs namely Scorched Earth without any fear of dying due to being guarded and healed.
Here is a video from the point of view of a poor Black Orc tank, he stood no chance.
Mythic was so slow to respond to the glaring imbalance for so long, so much so that many players jumped ship, it became so bad that only one server contained competitive destro players.
Warhammer online is the perfect example of what happens when you release a game too early. The game furthered into decline because Mythic refused to do anything about the issues until 2 years later.
I don't know if they ever fixed the combat issues or game engine issues. These were one of the reasons I quit playing. It was at times painful though I knew this going into the game. I beta'd it, I bought it anyway. I love the Warhammer universe. But then I realised one day I actually could care less if I reach the next level. That's always the best sign that this game is not for me.
the poster formerly known as melangel :P
My opinion:
1. As has been said, balance. My Chaos Chosen had no chance in PvP vs. anything ranged. I understand the group vs. group concept but when the mage-types are powerful enough to melt you before you can get halfway to them it's a bit much...
2. Scenarios. Why would you put instanced PvP in a open world RvR game? I could never find anyone to PQ or siege with because everyone was Scenario grinding to level cap.
I has been suggested that the game was never to have open world pvp and that the scenarios were originally the main thrust of the game.
I've seen a few people say that so I wonder if it was that way in closed beta.
I would say that the RvR sections were really horrible. The scenarios were the better part of the game because at least those were fun.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Oh and another reason it failed was that Paul Barnnet (sp?) overhyped the game so much in videos and blogs that absolutely no game in the world could've lived up to it.
I remember him saying things like, "MMO gaming is a hobby, and we know that once you start playing Warhammer it is going to be the only hobby you will need for the rest of your life."
If you notice nowadays when devs do promo videos, they're generally monotone and low key when they showcase what the game has to offer.
Paul created a lot of the super-hype surrounding the release, but that totally backfired when the game wasn't perfect.
While Barnetts insanuty really didn´t help it had very little to do with the failure. The key to success for a MMO is more basic than so: Know your players.
WAR choosed between 3 types of players:
1. Warhammer fans. These people love Games workshop and want a MMO close to either the tabletop or the fantasy RPG game. These are people you need to convert the P&P mechanics into a new mmo mechanic for.
2. Mythic fans. These people love DaoC and want a game as similar to it as possible.
3. WoW fans. These people love Wow and basically want WoW (not a game like WoW, they want WoW).
In a moment of insanity did Mark Jacobs get the brilliant idea that instead of focusing on one of the 2 focus groups that actually wanted the game they should instead take all WoWs players from WoW, because they are so many. Of course the millions of Warhammer fans were forgotten here but frankly does it seems to me that noone at mythic really know much about Warhammer anyways.
The whole thing reminds me about a misstake the automobile company SAAB did in the 90s. They decided to make a car specifically for the US market. They knew that their customers were often lawyers and similar well to do people so they decided to make a large expensive flashy car. What they missed was that people who bought SAAB did so because they didn't want a flashy expensive car and the whole thing failed.
When you make a product you must first find out what the people you try to sell the product to want and give them that or at least something similar. The problem here is that Warhammer and Mythic fans wanted a very different game and the WoW fans wabnted WoW, not a similar game.
WAR was doomed already when they decided this. They did some other bad decisions, like cutting out the entire endgame (battle between the 6 main cities) and a third of the content, but it mattered little when they failed before they even started making the game.
Spot on Loke!
the poster formerly known as melangel :P
Yeah pretty much this. They did a huge, massive misstake to try to cater to the WoW playerbase rather than the Warhammer and/or DAoC one. A misstake which has been done in many games, SW:TOR is the latest one.
My gaming blog
Edit: sorry wrong game.It didn't exactly fail, they made their money on the initial box sales, like everything else this company puts out. MMOs aren't run by this company, they are just there to take sub fees while the CS remains largely for Pogo, their real online money maker.
In short,
EA
the list of games and gaming companies destroyed and eaten by them is long indeed.
With the development of this game having been said by MJ to be somewhere short of a 100 million (more likely between 50 and 100 somewhere), I wouldn't be so sure they recouped their costs on initial box sales alone, in fact I'd say they probably didn't come close. But the subs will have recovered it over time yeah. That said, EA just bought them, no idea for how much.
Many, many reasons combined together, as basically everyone have said.
I so wanted this game to work. I do not understand the logic behind pushing 2 factions when the Warhammer lore already has 3 factions in it (Order, Chaos, Netural).
While I concede that Mythic was pushing new territory going into PQs, they were done illogically by not linking PQs together so individuals would see and feel the natural progression between them.
Removal of various classes and cities at launch.
Overall performance of the engine.
MMOs Played: I can no longer list them all in the 500 character limit.
EA said it cost them 80 million dollars to make the game. They sold 1,2 million boxes the first month (almost all of them the first 2 weeks). There is no way Mythic got all the money people paid for the boxes in their hand, $30 each would be high.
If we say they did earn $30 for each box they got in 36 million dollars, which isn´t even close to $80M.
Also, Mythic fired almost all their employees, do you think that would have happened if EA got it's money back?
Why so argumentative, Loke? They did in fact recoup their money in the first month, for the subs they gained put them over (also additional sales in the first month+subs). Regardless, as with every EA game, the game wasn't designed to go past 1 month of attention from EA. It was designed to make their money from the advertising hype and move on to the next project....rinse/repeat.
You say they fired the entire Mythic crew, but that would further verify what I had said if it were completely true. The Mythic crew were absorbed into BioWare which has been running EA's MMO division for the last 3 years. The only actual firing I recall was the outspoken Marc, who didn't want to be part of BioWare. Everyone else was working under contracts meant to expire, which again, goes back to my previous statement, the games are developed to sell boxes, nothing more. The cost to keep them going with a skeleton crew and continuing to take in monthly subs was proven profitable with DAoC, so EA does that with a ton of their titles. All EA's MMO CS runs through their actual money maker...POGO, online gambling.
MMO box sales are the only thing that could briefly draw the attention away from their POGO sales. MMOs monthly subs/cash shops profits are miniscule vs online gambling profits. I can't tell you how many homes I have gone into to fix/setup computers to elderly families just to play POGO. It's damn scary.
I feel you m8, i played WAR too and altough i am not a HC fan of pvp i realy loved it.....alot.
IMHO they went bad by having just 2 and not 3 factions + the brightwizzards where OP and never got nerfed (while i played it anyways).....i played the magus (man that class was cool) and most of the time i got owned bcause the brightwizz had way too much DPS compared too the magus (altough my dot's could keep you busy
)
Quality overall, I've heard this from everyone I know who tried the game. From some Warhammers nuts too, I'm somewhat a Warhammer nut my self. Lagging mobs, sliding mobs, lagging UI, UI bugs, animations overall, effects, overall very unfinished and un-polished feel to almost everything in the game. There's much I loved in that game, which got totally buried under the shit avalanche of problems and low-quality.
Warhammer lore has a lot more than 3 factions in it. There's many armies to choose from that are not aligned under some certain "faction" like Order or Chaos, not in the long term at least.
yeah i keep hearing about it.....but never experienced it except in rvr sometimes (even then the lag was mild).
At launch some rubberbandng yes but that got fixed so a mild lag in rvr aint actually a failure imho.
maybe some people need to lay of the porn surfing on their game-rigs
hehe
And yet, the game you continually like to take cheap shots at, even in threads that aren't about said game, seems to be doing very well. Much better than Warhammer did. Go figure.
Bad client performance, incohesive graphics, massive rubberbanding/atrocious server performance. Craptastic world layout, horrendous PVE. PVP grind was acceptable until you went into the last BG bracket. BGs were good but too many, mostly unfinished and defninitely pumped out at the expense of developing the RVR which while touted as the best ever, was pretty much horrendous and never got finished. There were suppsoed to be like 3 or 4 world combat areas that consisted of huge multimap conquest between faction cities, at launch we only had the 1 and that is probably all there is still. General content lack across the board, get past level 20 in PVE and you are really scraping the barrel, stories and quests are written by monkeys past this point, so is the zone layout.
But worst of all (although pretty good for the average consumer) the infinite free trial let you do everything that was good about WAR, free, forever. And they even changed the battlegrounds once in a while to it stays fresh. There is literally no reason to buy this game. Low level RVR is fantastic.
I keep my machine very clean, and visit only sites I trust (not many "porn" sites there). I also have quite up to date system all the time, I recently built a new one just for the heck of it and my old machine is for guests, which runs perfectly well any game released to date. Just saying that it's not me, it's the game, I doubt people I play with lie to me about it either. You propably just have lower standards than me and many others, or maybe you just think that other non technical stuff is more important in a game. I know people who dont give a crap about graphics, effects, animations etc, could be something like that? :]
Heck, I think TOR is a nice game for what it is even with so much bashing it gets, it runs smooth, very little -animation bugs, -UI lag, -lag overall, no "fake casts", no sliding mobs, no crappy sprite like effects etc, all of that was a problem for many in WAR, and the reason why I stopped playing it with pretty much any friend that tried it with me. Good for you if you didnt have any of that, I envy you tbh :P
Agreed, instead of decreasing numbers of sides Mythic should have increased it to 5 sides.
+ ∞
I think they could have taken a "Build it organically" approach to Warhammer/40K
Start with a few races with a few classes and slowly build in based off some underlying logic that connects them all and then see how to vary from this bauplan to add flavor/emergent tactics.
Instead they went for the money-spinner approach, which did not earn the amount they hoped but was financially passable albeit not an investor's dream or a player's either.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
I'm wondering why they didn't take a cue from Games Workshop's miniatures board game. They have 15 factions available to play.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville