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Why I think WAR will serve a huge untapped market (besides tabletop gamers)
BattleFelon
Member UncommonPosts: 483
Reading the general forums, I get the impression that too many MMOG fans are writing off WAR as a niche title for DAOC fans and those who like the tabletop wargame. I've heard longtime MMOGers predict that AOC will be the next game to attract several million players, while WAR will be doomed to languish in WOW's shadow with 200-300,000 subscribers at most.
But then I read an article on The Escapist magazine talking about WOW's effect on the MMOG community. The article asks the following questions: How has WOW helped grow interest in MMOGs? Do former WOW players seek out new MMOG games, or do people quit the MMOG genre after they quit WOW?
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/103/13
Considering that few other MMOGs even come close to a million subscribers, the article suggests that gamers who tried and liked WOW are not necessarily flocking to other MMOGs. Part of the problem is so few other games on the market offer a similar experience to WOW. Just because someone likes WOW doesn't mean they want to try a sci fi title like EVE or jump into a more complicated, "traditional" MMOG like Vanguard. LOTRO seems to have a decent following, but that game lacks a robust PVP system.
So what does any of this have to do with WAR? Well, I'd argue that WAR will be the first big title to entice large numbers of former WOW subscribers back into playing MMOGs. What I'm not trying to do here is say that WAR will succeed because it looks like WOW (when I know the game doesn't) or has similarities with WOW's fantasy setting (similarities that only exist because Blizzard ripped some ideas off wholesale from Games Workshop's IP).
Rather, I think WAR will tap into this large market of WOW refugees because
1. WAR seems to be a very accessible game with an easy-to-learn interface that former WOW players can quickly pick up
2. WAR puts an emphasis on creating fun, interesting quests and a fleshed-out world as opposed to an open "sandbox" environment
3. WAR offers a "alliance versus horde" style PVP conflict, only better. WAR seems to offer cooler battlefields and rewards for world pvp. Also, the good guys aren't namby pamby do-gooders and the bad guys are truly evil instead of misunderstood.
I'm also not going to make a judgement call on whether or not large numbers of former WOW players would be a good thing. I'm just trying to point out that WAR stands to gain many of the former WOW players who want a new experience but don't want radically different game mechanics, sandbox play, or free-for-all PVP.
Comments
Hmm, who knows, that just might be possible - I remember, when I cancelled my WoW account months ago, I saw a lot of bored players talking about "sticking around till WAR" or "quitting, hoping to see some of you folks in WAR"....
Though one should keep in mind that an overwhelming part of WoW's player base was new to the whole genre; some of them may be hooked for life, but some of them may just have decided to jump the MMORPG ship itself and be looking for some different stuff.
Anyone who is saying that war will have 2-300k subscribers is just trolling. Seeing how vanguard managed to have 200k+ at launch, even with all the problems it had, I can't imagine war not getting 500k in first month unless they have some bad technical problems.
Also, you are correct that war has the best chance of getting players from wow. It looks somewhat similar (since wow copied gw and blah blah) and has an easy to understand interface and soem other futures that made wow good (like ease of getting into the game etc) I'd disgaree that it's untaped market though =p since they are/were playing wow
They do have a chance to get tabletop players as well as general warhammer fans to get into war/mmo's though, which is indeed an untapped market. And likely just like with daoc, they may get some of the fps players to play war as well. I actually met quite a few fps players whose first mmog was daoc, kind of strange, but that's how it is. Granted fps players migth be more interested in aoc, but who knows.
PS: AoC, imo, has a chance to make it big if/when they release on xbox, I wouldn't expect aoc to be more popular on pc though.
Yes, WAR seems to smelt the best parts of WoW's Accesibility, Fluidity and Ease of Control with DAoC's RvR, PvP and general Conflict together to a huge behemoth of pure fun carnage.
However, many former WoW Players will swarm to WAR, be disappointed (because of whatever reasons, all boiling down to "but, that isn't like it's in WoW..."), many will leave WAR again shortly after.
I think most, if not all DAoC Players will at least try WAR, and I guess most will stay, though some will leave and stick to DAoC again.
Then come the TT Gamers, and I can't even guess how many of them will finally stick to WAR.
Then of course come former Warhammer-Game players (Dawn of War, Mark of Chaos, and so on), MMO Fans, PvP Game Fans, and entirely new People.
In the end I think WAR will ultimately lack the absolute Polish and "perfection" of World of Warcraft, thus it won't reach the fantastic subscriber numbers of WoW, but it'll be a big MMO nonetheless.
Just my assumption, and I will guaranteed stay at WAR for well over a Year :-)
I agree with most points.... however if we are talking about WAR at launch..... and someone mentioned WoWs perfection..... probably doesn't remember the instability of WoW servers at launch.
I'm not not saying WAR will beat WoW in subcribers.... too many fanbois for that..... However I am most intrigued by the quest system in WAR and that alone is 100% better than WoW if they deliver the goods.
I totally agree with you Solarine, but I think more former WOW players would be willing to stick around in the MMOG genre if other games could offer a similar gameplay experience.
For example, let's say for a minute that WOW is Quake, and that millions of gamers who were formerly into arcade games decided to try this new "First Person Shooter" genre because of Quake. After these new shooter fans get tired of Quake, they go looking for another shooter that offers the same fast-paced running and gunning PVP action. They turn to the latest Tom Clancy Ghost Recon game but get fed up with the emphasis on stealth and realistic tactical movement. They try America's Army but get fed up with the stiff death penalty and unforgiving PVP. Then they try Half Life 2 and love the single player campaign but miss PVP action (yes, yes I know the new Counterstrike is coming out but let's not worry about that in this scenario).
Is it true that these shooter fans now hate the FPS genre? Or is it more the situation that should say Halo come on the scene, then they would be willing to come back to shooter games?
So what's the point here? Well, just like the hypothetical "Quake" fans, people who came into the MMOG genre are stuck with few options for a similar experience. Perhaps these WOW players don't want a complicated crafting system, sandbox player-run cities, or extremely difficult combat. Perhaps these WOW players don't want a hardcore game like Vanguard where there are stiff death penalties. Perhaps these WOW players still want a good balance between PVE and PVP, something LOTRO hasn't been able to provide.
That's why I think that WAR will succeed over AOC in actually growing the MMOG market and finally tapping into the market of relatively new MMOGers.
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Personally I never could get into wow. Oh I played the beta and i tried again some months ago got both characters to level 20 and just quit. Wow just doesnt seem to have that pizzazz that can hold my interest. Warhammer is looking to have better game mechanics and it seems they have the right idea as far as high level end game items. , i.e., you don't have to go hunitng the same stupid raid boss over and over again. I love the idea of they are doing with the quests, fonally quests where it says get me 20 bear paws and they actaully all drop from 20 bears not 2000.
PVP system is looking just as awesome. Finally I can actually pvp with characters that are equivalent to my level and I do not have to worry about a high level character coming in and ganking me just because he can. Hahah I finally get the last laugh!
Overall I will definetely be playing WAR for a long time when it releases, and I think someone has finally got a game going on the right track!
Well I only witnessed the European (German) Launch, the first ~3 Hours were Lagfest Galore, with Pings reaching the 100.000 and up, then the server went down, I and my LAN People gone eating, came back ~30 mins later, and everything went more or less smoothly, no pings above 200 ms anymore.
Of course there were quite many downtimes, and when subscribing from launch you probably got a month or so of free play time through all the free days you got from server downs.
BUT what I meant with perfection was, it had no big glitches. The Animations were set, the Envoirement didn't have blank spots you could see from a certain angle, the Skills all worked fine, Quests weren't broken, Bosses respawned on time and in the right place. It simply looked and felt finished right from the start (my experience). This isn't too common.
Haha, BattleFelon, you probably have no idea how well that Quake analogy resonates with me... I was a pretty hardcore Quaker (the first one, only) in the mid-90s... And after that, I turned into one of those uneasy, looking-for-the-next-Quake players. I kept missing the whole underlying mechanics: seeing no grenade+rocket jumps, no U-turns gave me cold feet. I'm not sure on this, but the Quake engine might even be the inventor of bunny-hopping! (diagonally jumping all the time made you go faster than normal, a la Quake Done Quick runs).
After Romero's Daikatana clicked with only very few (though I remember liking it more than most), and especially with Counterstrike taking the genre in a direction I did not like, I just moved on to my other, eqully well-liked genres (like adventure and space sims - both of which were of course on the brink of death, heh).
Not to totally wander off, I should state that I and a lot of my real-life friends (more than 20 of them!) played WoW together for well over a year. Among them, I was the *only one* who had any sort of MMOG experience from before. Now all of them have quit, but most of them are OK with the idea of a new MMO... Though I won't step deep into the guessing game and try to pick a winner here
As for myself? Hey, what do you know, the genre of space sims seem to actually have pulled a double-whammy while I was wasting away in caves
Call me an optimist but out of all the up-and-coming MMOs I think if WAR keeps in the direction it's going it's going to be huge, to the point of unseating WoW within a year or two in number of subs (at least in NA and Europe).
I still play WoW, mostly because there's nothing else that really interests me out there, and almost everyone I play with regularly is planning on at least trying it. The arena is substandard, people are tired of the raiding BS (TBC didn't really solve it, if anything it made raiding even *more* hardcore), people are tired of GEAR GEAR GEAR being all the game is about when all is said and done, and at this point the burnout level among the general WoW population is pretty high. Also Joe Random hasn't even heard of AoC and thinks LOTRO is a WoW clone, but Joe Random has heard WAR has a lot of promise and great PvP even if he's never heard of Mythic or DAOC or Warhammer.
Basically WAR is in the same position WoW was in before launch - people want something different & yet familiar at the same time. WoW delivered and look where it got it. If WAR has the goods I can see a big shift happening, similar to the EQ (and former EQ) -> WoW exodus a few years ago.
over 200k people signed up for beta the first week? Ya, game will be huge. A month or two after release they should have 1mil + subs unless theres something terribly wrong. IT would be fantastic if they stole half of WoWs subs lol. I hate market giants (glares at windows logo) and I'd love to see wow have real competition. They made enough money off it already and SC2 is on its way. Damn.. i need to get a job for blizzard, a new car every month sounds nice.
Really interesting article. I think it hit the nail on the head when it talks about companies needing to move the design away from the core MMOG playerbase if they want to be very successful, however the problem with doing that is if you fail to get the new players in then you end up with a product that completely fails. Making a game for the MMOG player is safe and will guarantee a games viability but it wont get you millions of subs.
WAR has a lot going for it, great marketing and covereage and now backed by EA, massive fan base from the tabletop/PnP games, PC accustomed players base from the successful RTS games and a good sized following from MMOG fans. If that article is right WAR has all the ingredients to do extremely well.
It's a safe bet WAR has much more broad appeal,catering to a wide audience.and will be commercial success.AoC is more of a niche game that is only being released in US/EU.Its basically shadowbane2 with safe zones.The content and dynamics of the player controlled areas are totally opposite of WAR.
Personally I could care less what game you play.But personally I prefer more niche style games.Whether or not a company makes a lot of money on a game has little bearing on how I will enjoy it.
Unfinished PvP system, horrible server stability for the first 5 months, no character custimization, etc. etc.
WAR does have huge potential, but a lot of it's success will depend on marketing. To reach out beyond people which trawl gaming websites and are hardcore MMO players which will pick it up through word of mouth and already know about it to those which don't and might buy the odd gaming mag and buy stuff from Wal-mart and EB....Get those people (which WoW did), and you'll break through the 200-500k subs and into the millions.
For Mythics sake, I hope they get close to the numbers WoW has gotten over the years.
For the veteran player base sake, I hope it only gets half of that.
I think WAR although wont have as many subscribers as WoW I think it will have a longer lifespan for a few reasons:
1. Blizzard have a way of being ignorant to their players, you can see this through their GMs, and that everytime theres a patch or expansion there seems to be a large part of the community that are miffed by its changes that are being implemented. Whereas Mythic* can learn from their mistakes, they had a lot of people who wernt happy with a expansion so they released Classic server/s for them to play on so they didnt lose them players.
2. I dunno about Mythics* servers but Blizzards where AWFUL!!! in europe. Always having downtimes and things just going generally wrong, I knew guilds that deliberatly didnt arrange raids/events on patch days as it was certain that the servers would be unplayable. Only so long that people can put up with that.
3. Tabletop players are remarkably loyal! Hey alot of them have been playing for many years, and read the books and play the pc games, so I think if any of these people happen to play a MMO they will automatically go to WAR, and will migrate from anygame for this reason.
4. I work in customer services and theres one thing I know: The average customer who has a problem with a service tells 9 or 10 people about it. Thirteen percent of the people who have a problem with an organization recount the incident to more than 20 people. If even 1% of WoW Subcribers are Disatisfied they are telling aprox 900,000 other people about their disatisfaction. (and with my experience.. i think thats pushing about 10%)
5. I had more points than this but the wife started talking to me and now i forgot EVERYTHING! Anyone remember my name?
* I know its EA Mythic now but Im guessing the people who work there are mostly the same people.
There were intermitent crashes, as well as whole zone crashes due to having a ton of people in one area, but they were a very young company back then and with the backing/funding from EA, i'm sure they have most certainly learned from their mistakes.
Personally I hope WAR will be able to keep the numbers and NOT do as Vanguard. Using Vanguard as example is a tad misleading I think, simply the numbers at launch and now are so different. 'The Vision' was just hype, I sure as h*ll hope WAR is not hype, but for real.
Besides in todays world 200-300k stable subs is actually rather good, it's really nothing to sneeze at.
To the OP, thanks for sharing the article, it's an interesting read.
Very interesting article. I didn't realize the rest of the MMORPG genre was doing so poorly. Also a very good point about some games get such high ratings on sites like MMORPG.COM, most current players just don't log onto places like this - they just play.
We know the engine is solid enough for Mythic to bring it around to the public and let them play it and run around zones. That's more than could be said for Vanguard so I don't think we have to worry about seeing another empty "Vision"
Also remember that half of WoW's current 200+ servers are classified as PvP. Now WoW isn't a PvP-oriented game but that seems to indicate that there is a large interest in PvP.
The problem is reading MMORPG forum or asking an MMORPG player what they really want in a game is like asking a woman what she really wants in a man.
You get a laundry list of things that can't possibly go together and some things like the classic "I want a nice guy" that they actually believe but is in fact completely the wrong thing to do. Yeah they want to be treated well and made to feel special, but if you actually act like a nice person they will never date you.
Just look at arguments about grind. No one likes the grind itself, but they like the feeling of accomplishment it instills. Thus you get people advocating for grindless games which when they play they say there is nothing to do.
Its funny how guys think woman are stupid or crazy and then go and do the same thing woman do to men but they do it to game developers instead.
We know the engine is solid enough for Mythic to bring it around to the public and let them play it and run around zones. That's more than could be said for Vanguard so I don't think we have to worry about seeing another empty "Vision"
Also remember that half of WoW's current 200+ servers are classified as PvP. Now WoW isn't a PvP-oriented game but that seems to indicate that there is a large interest in PvP.
The engine isn't made by Mythic.They licensed Gamebryo 2.2 from emergent technologies,it's been used for well over 20 PC/console games.DAoC ran on the 1.5 version.Oblivion is one of the more popular titles using the 2.2 version atm.