The game was supposed to be ultimate RVR experience. Yet they added instanced scenarios that yielded much more experience than anything else in the game. Than they were suprised that scenarios was all anyone ever played, leaving the game desolated.
Simple fix. Either remove scenarios , or make the rewards much much smaller.
There are posts in Warhammer forums from Beta testers who claim that it was the opposite. That the scenarios were prominant and that RvR was always secondary.
I don't know if that's true or not. i do know that I found the scenarios a blast and had some of the most fun pvp that I've had in a longtime while playing them.
Before keeps RvR was going to be pretty much a large arena to run around in killing each other. They threw in keeps late to please the DAoC crowd ( which explains the seige pads ).
SCs are a good idea but they are to rewarding for somethiinng that was supposed to be ffor casuals. They buffed it up so much over time that the " hardcore " guys starting running premades for freenown from pick up groups.
I just got done playing the game again for 2 months.. I would still rate the game a 4.5.
It addressed almost none of the serious problems the game faces, and touched upon none of the good points within the game.
Yes, free-trial twinks are annoying, however they aren't unbeatable and the game doesn't center around them. Tier1 is a very small part of the game to this day, and anyone seriously giving this game a try would be done with tier1 within a week or two tops.
As for keeps and city events not happening, that is not true anymore for the majority of the servers in WAR. For example on Iron Rock, some weeks there is a city siege every night. Fortressess and keeps now also have a second ramp which makes sieges less painful. Yes, premades still have an advantage, but name one RPG with competitive pvp in which this is not true. That's the benefit of grouping with people you know. However, it is still easy to get renown if you solo play. it will just be harder to do from scenarios.
If I'd focus on anything wrong in the game, it would be some of the glitchy mob AI, or bugs. The balance isn't perfect, but it's not as horrid as most people say (i play both). The biggest issue is population balance. Most servers one side dominates due to numbers; and order is currently the more populated side.
I'd say the number is close, and should be somewhere between the number given and an 8.0. The content of the review is really shallow, though.
Sadly I think the score is far too high. The game was good and it was fun for about the first 20 levels before the class imbalances became too much of a problem. Bad in a PvE based game, game breaking in one that is sold on RvR.
Not to worry though, with luck we would see much needed relief arrive in the form of a third faction. Thereby helping whichever side is getting its ass kicked in RvR and bored in PvE as there is little to none to be done. But it turned out this is not to be, EA made it clear that their priorities would be Dragon Age, Mass Effect2 their new MMO SWTOR and then look into WAR. With TOR's release sometime in 2011 we can't expect any serious love to be out for WAR till 2012 and I don't think any but the most hard core fans want to wait that long.
I really would have liked to see the game work, it was one of the few that I have really enjoyed PvPing in but ultimately the zerg fests and incredibly one sided fights left little to log in for. By the time EA get round to releasing an expansion it will be far too little far too late. Though the few skaven players that are drawn to it will have fun picking over the bones.
whoever wrote this review has less of a clue about WAR then Mythic/GOA.
"The current Tier 4 End-Game events rarely occur, as they literally require hundreds of players to ‘lock in’ the four racial parings in order to conquer the opposing realm’s Capital City. "
are you kidding me? on Karak Norn we have constant city sieges, up to 6 times a day! I could lock to Altdorf with a random PUG and a bunch of drunk guildmates. then there is the mythical 4th pairing consisting of Narnia's legions and LOLcats... was this guy high when he wrote the review?
"On a personal note, I would love to see the inclusion of the Vampire Counts and Empire, for the sake of variety."
ehh... I might not be a WHFB buff but I am pretty sure that say Reikland, Praag or bloody Altdorf is part of the Empire. maybe even this Emperor Karl Franz I've been hearing about knows where it is.
seriously, if you plan on writing a re-review, don't let the trained monkey do it by cut n' pasting random blogs together.
I'm sorry but compared to DAOC, Failhammer's RVR was a suckfest. On top of that players were forced apart because unless you were exactly the same level as your friends, you couldn't play together.
They screwed the pooch bigtime on WAR and I don't think any amount of "fixing" is going to improve things.
I hate to say this. But all the debate and arguement on this thread is moot, and the reviewer missed the biggest con of all.
This is an EA game. Now love or hate EA, it is real apparent the game did not come even close to meeting their expectations. EA has a long bloody history of cutting and shutting down games that do not meet there expectations in a fairly sudden manner. Often completely regardless of what other resources thay may have been promising to fix them. If they are still triming content/removing scenario maps, it means that the numbers are falling. Period. No other interpretation. It is simply an attempt at shoving what players there are closer together to try and mask that fact.
There will be no magic Xpac. There will not be a huge rework or massive redevelopment. Chances are best that EA will shutter WAR shortly after the first negative company earnings statements is posted for 2010. They will close it simply to try and bolster the impression to stockholders that they are taking action to fight the red ink. It's what they do. It's what they always do. It's what they have done to pretty much every MMO game they have ever released save UO. (Anybody else paranoid about KotOR/Bioware these days?)
My vegas like prediction, If the numbers are awful for Q1 WAR is gone by the end of June. If they aren't awful it may make it to thanksgiving. But it will not go much beyond it's 2 year aniversary
Here you have a wonderful IP in Warhammer and the chance to break ground on so many great creative ideas
only to run them into the ground after only a year of operation.
THe PQ quests were creative and innovative but many were BROKEN and REPETETIVE.
THe TOmb of Knowledge was also a very creative and fresh Idea in MMO's that was my favorite part of this game.
Review this game all you want and I think the OP has generously given this game a respectable Score which actually deserves a much lower lower one.
Like most games that didn't become successful Warhammer was able to retain the most loyal fans....and I do mean MOST LOYAL because we know they lost thousands and thousands of SUBS due to many unfortunate reasons. Oh many Warhammer developers still blame WOW and the LItch King but we all knew they FUBARED this game from the beginning.
But I guess I'll talk about one of the most glarring issues that this game had....or should I say did not have...BALANCED Classes.
Here is Mythic Developers statement to beta testers....."no, no, your wrong just play the game and tell us what's broken we'll fix all the balancing issues later and that's not really a class balance issue your just not playing the class correctly"
I wonder how long it took Mythic to develop the look for the classes of Order like 10 minutes...while the development of the style and feel of Chaos took the rest of the time. In the beginning most people flocked to Chaos side only because their characters were more cool looking but once clever gamers started to figure out the skill sets the popular choice became the ORder side hence the "balance issue" in Warhammer.
And before you tell me that this game is not an EPIC FAILURE lets talk about some of those failures.
Warhammer started from 74 servers to a handful...last time I checked if a game is successful you open more servers....not shut them down and merge them.
Warhammer's top guy Mark Jacobs FIRED just like Brad McQuaid and all those other Game Guru's that claim they have all the answers to their "beloved" mmo's yah thanks for nothing......
Fanboys enjoy War while it lasts once the money starts rolling in with SWTOR this game will be SHUTDOWN...count on it.
note to Mythic: quit making games your just losing money for EA
Wish they would make the game $5 a month and I would resub just for the fun RVR it has. Other than that, the game is completely dead and not worth the time right now.
The article says it was unbalanced gameplay that resulted in so many people quitting. That was certainly a factor but it overlooks the more fundamental problem.
The game was released buggy and unable to cope with players gathering in RvR zones. It would take over a minute to send a single piece of mail, if it got sent at all. The DAOC engine had not been upgraded nearly enough to actually perform to anything near acceptable standards.
It was those players who were willing to put up with the horrendously unresponsive engine and tried to stick with the game that were driven away later by the class imbalances.
I'm told that many of the bugs have been fixed but fixing them doesn't fix the sub-par PvE, the inaccurate and often wrong zone maps or the horribly designed zones either.
I really did enjoy WAR's PvP gameplay, but when I think about what else I'd have to put up with in the game and the complete lack of any kind of storyline to draw me in, I just can't bring myself to resubscribe.
There are posts in Warhammer forums from Beta testers who claim that it was the opposite. That the scenarios were prominant and that RvR was always secondary.
I don't know if that's true or not. i do know that I found the scenarios a blast and had some of the most fun pvp that I've had in a longtime while playing them.
There was public podcast during development with Paul Barnett where he talked about how WAR's original PvP concept with Scenarios was like a pogo-stick - Fun to do but not really effective at getting you anywhere. And he talked about how great WAR would be now that the focus was on real RvR gameplay. So there was a switch of emphasis on the PvP game mechanics.
The change seemed to occur after EA bought Mythic and there seemed to be assurances that DOAC would continue to be supported. Suddenly RvR became a focus for WAR over Scenarios.
For being out as long as it has, War is lacking in almost every perspective. When I went back for the 'call to arms' awhile ago I was pleasantly surprised to see my guild was still there. The only problem was, noone was on. For a week I logged on here and there and not once did I see a guildy log on. Their were still over 30 accounts on the roster, but the game had been completely abandoned.
If they are even trying to do anything now it is too little too late. Goodbye WAR.
Our spirit was here long before you
Long before us
And long will it be after your pride brings you to your end
There are posts in Warhammer forums from Beta testers who claim that it was the opposite. That the scenarios were prominant and that RvR was always secondary.
I don't know if that's true or not. i do know that I found the scenarios a blast and had some of the most fun pvp that I've had in a longtime while playing them.
This is true. Warhammer was originally focusing on Scenarios as the main form of PvP gameplay. Things changed and RvR became the focus later.
There was public podcast during development with Paul Barnett where he talked about how WAR's original PvP concept with Scenarios was like a pogo-stick. Fun to do but not really effective at getting you anywhere. And he talked about how great WAR would be now that the focus was on real RvR gameplay. Unfortunately, fans like myself listened to him.
The change occurred after EA bought Mythic and there seemed to be assurances that DOAC would continue to be supported. Suddenly RvR became a focus for WAR.
Apparently hanks to a business deal with EA things got turned around Mythic thought they could add on RvR gameplay because they were such experts and we've seen the results. That's often what happens when business deals are allowed to direct what should be a creative processes.
I don't think EA had anything at all to do with the change of direction of the game - I think the timing is somewhat coincidental but if memory serves (which it may not) the announcement of EA taking over was made after the change in direction in early beta (iteration 2 I think). Of course they were likely in talks before that but still I doubt any influence over game design.
It was pretty much universal on the beta forums that the game was not much fun and that ORvR was a COMPLETE dud in it's first incarnation. All you had were the Battlefield Objectives being locked - once locked ORvR in the zone was dead. The majority of the early beta testers were either current DAoC players or old DAoC players so it is no surprise they were quite vocal in their damnation of the game that was supposed to be RvR that actually contained no RvR.
Why the hell Mythic did not have keep sieges and open areas like the frontier that had been proven successes in DAoC as part of the core design is just mindboggling. It would be a real coup for a games journalist to interview Mark Jacobs and ask him what the design decisions behind WAR were. If you set yourself up as a king of game design and you are willing to take the credit as the guy who makes all the key decisions then you take your lumps - I don't think he was surprised when EA cut him loose and basically put Bioware in charge of Mythic.
Jacobs was so scared of being dubbed as making DAoC 2 that he ended up making a craptastic game that still doesn't really know what it wants to be. A game with no core identity is never going to be successful.
Mythic never really put any thought into their actions, it's why we have people avoiding conflict in SC's now. AFKing, getting their tokens for the new RvR weapon's win or lose, and only can be gotten by doing SC's. That's just one of the many, many examples of Mythic not realizing wtf their doing.
It never helped, they released a game that had numerous lag, and bug issues.. that caused a lot of players to quit. Anyone really remember doing T4 Fort take over's .
It also never helped, they released one of the most linear fricken games to come out in the last couple years. Playing the game the last year and half, I always thought.. this game would be a lot better if it had a big open world sandbox to battle in, to battle over land. Rather then making it feel like a goddamn assembly line.. in which they did.
We still have job's that are still broken. Plus they never wanted... to help matters of keeping server population balanced. They never gave incentives for people, to help grow good communities in the game. It's why half the time you'll end up messing with guild's who rather stroke their e-peen, then help their own side win.
I could keep going on, but Mythic seemed like chickens with their head's cut off. They never put any real thought into whatever they did, and it's why they are in the mess their in now. Time to time, they did get some thing's right, but they could never win.. because the blanket of bad thing's... still covered all the good.
I can't really commend them, for what they have done recently... because they still don't get, and they never will. It's why i quit, about a week ago, i rather give my $15 to someone who's certain on the direction they are taking, and a company who honestly gives a crap about their players.
This is currently the only game with RvR, most likely next being SWTOR - many of the players of WAR are ex-Daoc and don't really care about PvE at all.
Instances are actually fun and there is enough of them if you really want to do them and you will benefit from doing so.
Everything in this game is built toward RvR and thus you see bit less people in cities as who wants to sit in a city and RP when you can do scenarios or rvr anyhow, I remember in WoW you had to stay in city to accomplish everything you needed to do crafting, get new quests and such - in WAR focal point is Warcamp(s).
Mythic dropped a bollock with this 1 plain and simple, they had an awesome IP to work with n they screwed it.
For a start as people have said doing a 2 faction RvR game is begging for trouble, the SC's for me just killed the RvR in the game 1st week of release there was mass kick offs in the RvR lakes castle siege n all sorts, then maybe about 2 weeks into release all it ended up as was ppl at warcamps qeuing for SC's.
People looked at it as well why bother spending ages runnin round an RvR lake when we can do SC's for treble the xp and honour yes they did sort it out after by adding the Lake rewards but by that time it was too little too late, they had some good ideas with the PQ's and the Tome but the rest ended up as god awfull.
This coming from the supposed masters of RvR aswell i mean jesus DAoC worked well and as they say if it aint broke don't fix it but they tried to anyway n screwed what should've been an awesome game, n lets face it now it's way too late to get the customers back with new MMO's coming out all the time they might get the odd few curious players back but no where near the ammount a game like that needs, should just let it die n brush it under the carpet to be forgotten.
A RvR game without PvE has never worked before, RvR with PvE has, it seems an odd way to go. In effect they are removing content, which has never been a recipe for MMO success.
I remember beta testing this game. It is part of a trend to do what I call funneling into shell game instead of investing in an actual progressivly dynamic virtual mmorpg. It looks like an mmorpg but it fizzles out after a short while and your stuck grinding repeated task and/or pvp battles over and over for some kind of exchange currency or faction/influence that gets you upgraded. While pvp can be really fun most players really just want to escape the stresses of real life and zone into a fantasy and maybe pvp part of the time if they so choose.
They also fizzled out early on before launch with character models. They have great designs true to the warhammer history but there was some polish and bug issues of course and I think they got rushed at the end and didnt smooth them out as much as intended. It had that feel anyway after I went back after launch and checked it out.
I don't feel the reviewer has actually got the issues with this game.
Pros
Actually the graphics aren't bad (which is what I thought was going to be the biggest problem in the game).
Very stable game, I have had about three crashes in 1.5 years; and lag only occurs in very large battles, but there are zone limit to cap things (can be annoying though)
Huge intellectual property, and done with great attention to detail and reverence.
Nothing is overpower, I don't get mezzed and stunned without fighting or having options; nor do I get killed in one or two hits.
Right from the word go, you feel like a hero - no bug killing for this gobbo
What server were you playing on? Everywhere appears to have players, T1 is insane at times (although there are only a few servers these days).
Tome of Knowledge, Public Quests (some can be done with two players, and they show on a map when players are there), Scenarios.
Cons
Lack of class and races; choppers, slayers, black guard and Knight were good additions but nothing for over a year and nothing in the pipeline that they have told us about.
PvE content (and to certain extent Public Quests) is limited, and dungeons (although I haven't tried Hunters Vale in fairness).
Scenarios are both a pro and con, depending where you sit; they draw players away from PvP but give players who only have 20 mins a quick fix. Solution is to me PvP lakes better (there are good rewards for being in this area, but maybe better XP ratio)
No new content since LotD (and to the review to said this was rubbish - did you play it?)
The biggest is: ONLY TWO REALMS - why oh why oh why - Mythic's biggest and stupidest mistake.
City sieges promised so much - but delievered it so badly (oh this could have been epic)
Crafting and player economy - they put nothing into this but half-ass effort; and it show. They thought that it wasn't important to an MMO, but they were so wrong on this.
To conclude, most of the problems face long term players, new players log on and have fun - it is a good game (if not the excellent game we all wanted)
I generally like WAR. I know that is an unpopular thing to say on this forum but I do.
I enjoy the classes, the art style, the pvp from level 1, the tok, pqs and I really enjoy Orvr with keeps(up until tier 4).
I honestly wish that Mythic would have given at least a little thought to what pve players would want out of the warhammer Ip.
Events are nice, the handful of dungeons or average at best, ToK is good and the quests are standard.
With that said This game could really use more leveling dungeons, an actual raid progression system, Real crafting.
Right now I feel the devs are totally out of touch with what the players that arent playing right now want. They continue to listen to the 25-50k+ subs that they have that are happy farming SCs for weapons while the rest of us wanted a more fleshed out game.
When I log into WAR I get this depressing feeling that it wont be around much longer.
For this I blame the morons that decided Pve should have been an after thought. I mean come on even DAoC had fun pve.
How do you try to cater to both DAoC and WoW players and fail at both?
Mythic have no idea what to do, when Daoc was awesome they try to make the game wow like raid pve crap and since then they killed daoc and then they make WAR to be wow like they shoot themselfes in the foot 2 times
also SC should be completly removed from WAR and RVR death should have the same penalty like PVE death
I don't feel the reviewer has actually got the issues with this game.
Pros
Actually the graphics aren't bad (which is what I thought was going to be the biggest problem in the game).
Very stable game, I have had about three crashes in 1.5 years; and lag only occurs in very large battles, but there are zone limit to cap things (can be annoying though)
Huge intellectual property, and done with great attention to detail and reverence.
Nothing is overpower, I don't get mezzed and stunned without fighting or having options; nor do I get killed in one or two hits.
Right from the word go, you feel like a hero - no bug killing for this gobbo
What server were you playing on? Everywhere appears to have players, T1 is insane at times (although there are only a few servers these days).
Tome of Knowledge, Public Quests (some can be done with two players, and they show on a map when players are there), Scenarios.
Cons
Lack of class and races; choppers, slayers, black guard and Knight were good additions but nothing for over a year and nothing in the pipeline that they have told us about.
PvE content (and to certain extent Public Quests) is limited, and dungeons (although I haven't tried Hunters Vale in fairness).
Scenarios are both a pro and con, depending where you sit; they draw players away from PvP but give players who only have 20 mins a quick fix. Solution is to me PvP lakes better (there are good rewards for being in this area, but maybe better XP ratio)
No new content since LotD (and to the review to said this was rubbish - did you play it?)
The biggest is: ONLY TWO REALMS - why oh why oh why - Mythic's biggest and stupidest mistake.
City sieges promised so much - but delievered it so badly (oh this could have been epic)
Crafting and player economy - they put nothing into this but half-ass effort; and it show. They thought that it wasn't important to an MMO, but they were so wrong on this.
To conclude, most of the problems face long term players, new players log on and have fun - it is a good game (if not the excellent game we all wanted)
Thanks dude, this is my exact thoughts about the state of the game right now; except 'the lack of class diversity'-part I can fully agree with you. Cheers!
Mythic have no idea what to do, when Daoc was awesome they try to make the game wow like raid pve crap and since then they killed daoc and then they make WAR to be wow like they shoot themselfes in the foot 2 times
also SC should be completly removed from WAR and RVR death should have the same penalty like PVE death
War doesn't have enough people to support Orvr in three pairings. SC's are fine they need to just chill with the rewards.
Imo they dropped the ball with the pve. they should have put in world encounters in the Orvr zones that the factions fought over.
Beta testers and fans of the Warhammer franchise said it 10.000 times before launch.
These days (last 3 years) you get one and only shot at the mmorpg market and that's at launch.
Blow it and you're screwed.
Mythic blew it.
We could cite dozens of things, but to be brief: that was the case. Having lost worldwide almost 120 servers in 1 year time speaks volumes. You pick any reason why ... and you have a good chance you picked the right one.
Too mnay problems to even synthesise.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Comments
Before keeps RvR was going to be pretty much a large arena to run around in killing each other. They threw in keeps late to please the DAoC crowd ( which explains the seige pads ).
SCs are a good idea but they are to rewarding for somethiinng that was supposed to be ffor casuals. They buffed it up so much over time that the " hardcore " guys starting running premades for freenown from pick up groups.
I just got done playing the game again for 2 months.. I would still rate the game a 4.5.
my biggest concern is balancing destro and order classes. The game itself does show sign of potential but there is still alot of work to be done.
My biggest gripes.
They dissed all the PVE players to keep the few PVP players.f
U ran through levels so quickly you could not enjoy any of the content. LITERALLY!!
Faranthil Tanathalos
EverQuest 1 - Ranger
Star Wars Galaxies - Master Ranger
Everquest2 - Ranger WarhammerOnline - Shadow Warrior
WOW - Hunter
That's right I like bows and arrows.
I've got to say, what a horrid re-review.
It addressed almost none of the serious problems the game faces, and touched upon none of the good points within the game.
Yes, free-trial twinks are annoying, however they aren't unbeatable and the game doesn't center around them. Tier1 is a very small part of the game to this day, and anyone seriously giving this game a try would be done with tier1 within a week or two tops.
As for keeps and city events not happening, that is not true anymore for the majority of the servers in WAR. For example on Iron Rock, some weeks there is a city siege every night. Fortressess and keeps now also have a second ramp which makes sieges less painful. Yes, premades still have an advantage, but name one RPG with competitive pvp in which this is not true. That's the benefit of grouping with people you know. However, it is still easy to get renown if you solo play. it will just be harder to do from scenarios.
If I'd focus on anything wrong in the game, it would be some of the glitchy mob AI, or bugs. The balance isn't perfect, but it's not as horrid as most people say (i play both). The biggest issue is population balance. Most servers one side dominates due to numbers; and order is currently the more populated side.
I'd say the number is close, and should be somewhere between the number given and an 8.0. The content of the review is really shallow, though.
Sadly I think the score is far too high. The game was good and it was fun for about the first 20 levels before the class imbalances became too much of a problem. Bad in a PvE based game, game breaking in one that is sold on RvR.
Not to worry though, with luck we would see much needed relief arrive in the form of a third faction. Thereby helping whichever side is getting its ass kicked in RvR and bored in PvE as there is little to none to be done. But it turned out this is not to be, EA made it clear that their priorities would be Dragon Age, Mass Effect2 their new MMO SWTOR and then look into WAR. With TOR's release sometime in 2011 we can't expect any serious love to be out for WAR till 2012 and I don't think any but the most hard core fans want to wait that long.
I really would have liked to see the game work, it was one of the few that I have really enjoyed PvPing in but ultimately the zerg fests and incredibly one sided fights left little to log in for. By the time EA get round to releasing an expansion it will be far too little far too late. Though the few skaven players that are drawn to it will have fun picking over the bones.
whoever wrote this review has less of a clue about WAR then Mythic/GOA.
"The current Tier 4 End-Game events rarely occur, as they literally require hundreds of players to ‘lock in’ the four racial parings in order to conquer the opposing realm’s Capital City. "
are you kidding me? on Karak Norn we have constant city sieges, up to 6 times a day! I could lock to Altdorf with a random PUG and a bunch of drunk guildmates. then there is the mythical 4th pairing consisting of Narnia's legions and LOLcats... was this guy high when he wrote the review?
"On a personal note, I would love to see the inclusion of the Vampire Counts and Empire, for the sake of variety."
ehh... I might not be a WHFB buff but I am pretty sure that say Reikland, Praag or bloody Altdorf is part of the Empire. maybe even this Emperor Karl Franz I've been hearing about knows where it is.
seriously, if you plan on writing a re-review, don't let the trained monkey do it by cut n' pasting random blogs together.
I'm sorry but compared to DAOC, Failhammer's RVR was a suckfest. On top of that players were forced apart because unless you were exactly the same level as your friends, you couldn't play together.
They screwed the pooch bigtime on WAR and I don't think any amount of "fixing" is going to improve things.
I hate to say this. But all the debate and arguement on this thread is moot, and the reviewer missed the biggest con of all.
This is an EA game. Now love or hate EA, it is real apparent the game did not come even close to meeting their expectations. EA has a long bloody history of cutting and shutting down games that do not meet there expectations in a fairly sudden manner. Often completely regardless of what other resources thay may have been promising to fix them. If they are still triming content/removing scenario maps, it means that the numbers are falling. Period. No other interpretation. It is simply an attempt at shoving what players there are closer together to try and mask that fact.
There will be no magic Xpac. There will not be a huge rework or massive redevelopment. Chances are best that EA will shutter WAR shortly after the first negative company earnings statements is posted for 2010. They will close it simply to try and bolster the impression to stockholders that they are taking action to fight the red ink. It's what they do. It's what they always do. It's what they have done to pretty much every MMO game they have ever released save UO. (Anybody else paranoid about KotOR/Bioware these days?)
My vegas like prediction, If the numbers are awful for Q1 WAR is gone by the end of June. If they aren't awful it may make it to thanksgiving. But it will not go much beyond it's 2 year aniversary
Ahh Warhammer or should I say WAGGHHHH right???
2 words...EPIC FAILURE
Here you have a wonderful IP in Warhammer and the chance to break ground on so many great creative ideas
only to run them into the ground after only a year of operation.
THe PQ quests were creative and innovative but many were BROKEN and REPETETIVE.
THe TOmb of Knowledge was also a very creative and fresh Idea in MMO's that was my favorite part of this game.
Review this game all you want and I think the OP has generously given this game a respectable Score which actually deserves a much lower lower one.
Like most games that didn't become successful Warhammer was able to retain the most loyal fans....and I do mean MOST LOYAL because we know they lost thousands and thousands of SUBS due to many unfortunate reasons. Oh many Warhammer developers still blame WOW and the LItch King but we all knew they FUBARED this game from the beginning.
But I guess I'll talk about one of the most glarring issues that this game had....or should I say did not have...BALANCED Classes.
Here is Mythic Developers statement to beta testers....."no, no, your wrong just play the game and tell us what's broken we'll fix all the balancing issues later and that's not really a class balance issue your just not playing the class correctly"
I wonder how long it took Mythic to develop the look for the classes of Order like 10 minutes...while the development of the style and feel of Chaos took the rest of the time. In the beginning most people flocked to Chaos side only because their characters were more cool looking but once clever gamers started to figure out the skill sets the popular choice became the ORder side hence the "balance issue" in Warhammer.
And before you tell me that this game is not an EPIC FAILURE lets talk about some of those failures.
Warhammer started from 74 servers to a handful...last time I checked if a game is successful you open more servers....not shut them down and merge them.
Warhammer's top guy Mark Jacobs FIRED just like Brad McQuaid and all those other Game Guru's that claim they have all the answers to their "beloved" mmo's yah thanks for nothing......
Fanboys enjoy War while it lasts once the money starts rolling in with SWTOR this game will be SHUTDOWN...count on it.
note to Mythic: quit making games your just losing money for EA
Wish they would make the game $5 a month and I would resub just for the fun RVR it has. Other than that, the game is completely dead and not worth the time right now.
The article says it was unbalanced gameplay that resulted in so many people quitting. That was certainly a factor but it overlooks the more fundamental problem.
The game was released buggy and unable to cope with players gathering in RvR zones. It would take over a minute to send a single piece of mail, if it got sent at all. The DAOC engine had not been upgraded nearly enough to actually perform to anything near acceptable standards.
It was those players who were willing to put up with the horrendously unresponsive engine and tried to stick with the game that were driven away later by the class imbalances.
I'm told that many of the bugs have been fixed but fixing them doesn't fix the sub-par PvE, the inaccurate and often wrong zone maps or the horribly designed zones either.
I really did enjoy WAR's PvP gameplay, but when I think about what else I'd have to put up with in the game and the complete lack of any kind of storyline to draw me in, I just can't bring myself to resubscribe.
There was public podcast during development with Paul Barnett where he talked about how WAR's original PvP concept with Scenarios was like a pogo-stick - Fun to do but not really effective at getting you anywhere. And he talked about how great WAR would be now that the focus was on real RvR gameplay. So there was a switch of emphasis on the PvP game mechanics.
The change seemed to occur after EA bought Mythic and there seemed to be assurances that DOAC would continue to be supported. Suddenly RvR became a focus for WAR over Scenarios.
For being out as long as it has, War is lacking in almost every perspective. When I went back for the 'call to arms' awhile ago I was pleasantly surprised to see my guild was still there. The only problem was, noone was on. For a week I logged on here and there and not once did I see a guildy log on. Their were still over 30 accounts on the roster, but the game had been completely abandoned.
If they are even trying to do anything now it is too little too late. Goodbye WAR.
Our spirit was here long before you
Long before us
And long will it be after your pride brings you to your end
I don't think EA had anything at all to do with the change of direction of the game - I think the timing is somewhat coincidental but if memory serves (which it may not) the announcement of EA taking over was made after the change in direction in early beta (iteration 2 I think). Of course they were likely in talks before that but still I doubt any influence over game design.
It was pretty much universal on the beta forums that the game was not much fun and that ORvR was a COMPLETE dud in it's first incarnation. All you had were the Battlefield Objectives being locked - once locked ORvR in the zone was dead. The majority of the early beta testers were either current DAoC players or old DAoC players so it is no surprise they were quite vocal in their damnation of the game that was supposed to be RvR that actually contained no RvR.
Why the hell Mythic did not have keep sieges and open areas like the frontier that had been proven successes in DAoC as part of the core design is just mindboggling. It would be a real coup for a games journalist to interview Mark Jacobs and ask him what the design decisions behind WAR were. If you set yourself up as a king of game design and you are willing to take the credit as the guy who makes all the key decisions then you take your lumps - I don't think he was surprised when EA cut him loose and basically put Bioware in charge of Mythic.
Jacobs was so scared of being dubbed as making DAoC 2 that he ended up making a craptastic game that still doesn't really know what it wants to be. A game with no core identity is never going to be successful.
Mythic never really put any thought into their actions, it's why we have people avoiding conflict in SC's now. AFKing, getting their tokens for the new RvR weapon's win or lose, and only can be gotten by doing SC's. That's just one of the many, many examples of Mythic not realizing wtf their doing.
It never helped, they released a game that had numerous lag, and bug issues.. that caused a lot of players to quit. Anyone really remember doing T4 Fort take over's
It also never helped, they released one of the most linear fricken games to come out in the last couple years. Playing the game the last year and half, I always thought.. this game would be a lot better if it had a big open world sandbox to battle in, to battle over land. Rather then making it feel like a goddamn assembly line.. in which they did.
We still have job's that are still broken. Plus they never wanted... to help matters of keeping server population balanced. They never gave incentives for people, to help grow good communities in the game. It's why half the time you'll end up messing with guild's who rather stroke their e-peen, then help their own side win.
I could keep going on, but Mythic seemed like chickens with their head's cut off. They never put any real thought into whatever they did, and it's why they are in the mess their in now. Time to time, they did get some thing's right, but they could never win.. because the blanket of bad thing's... still covered all the good.
I can't really commend them, for what they have done recently... because they still don't get, and they never will. It's why i quit, about a week ago, i rather give my $15 to someone who's certain on the direction they are taking, and a company who honestly gives a crap about their players.
This is currently the only game with RvR, most likely next being SWTOR - many of the players of WAR are ex-Daoc and don't really care about PvE at all.
Instances are actually fun and there is enough of them if you really want to do them and you will benefit from doing so.
Everything in this game is built toward RvR and thus you see bit less people in cities as who wants to sit in a city and RP when you can do scenarios or rvr anyhow, I remember in WoW you had to stay in city to accomplish everything you needed to do crafting, get new quests and such - in WAR focal point is Warcamp(s).
Mythic dropped a bollock with this 1 plain and simple, they had an awesome IP to work with n they screwed it.
For a start as people have said doing a 2 faction RvR game is begging for trouble, the SC's for me just killed the RvR in the game 1st week of release there was mass kick offs in the RvR lakes castle siege n all sorts, then maybe about 2 weeks into release all it ended up as was ppl at warcamps qeuing for SC's.
People looked at it as well why bother spending ages runnin round an RvR lake when we can do SC's for treble the xp and honour yes they did sort it out after by adding the Lake rewards but by that time it was too little too late, they had some good ideas with the PQ's and the Tome but the rest ended up as god awfull.
This coming from the supposed masters of RvR aswell i mean jesus DAoC worked well and as they say if it aint broke don't fix it but they tried to anyway n screwed what should've been an awesome game, n lets face it now it's way too late to get the customers back with new MMO's coming out all the time they might get the odd few curious players back but no where near the ammount a game like that needs, should just let it die n brush it under the carpet to be forgotten.
A RvR game without PvE has never worked before, RvR with PvE has, it seems an odd way to go. In effect they are removing content, which has never been a recipe for MMO success.
I remember beta testing this game. It is part of a trend to do what I call funneling into shell game instead of investing in an actual progressivly dynamic virtual mmorpg. It looks like an mmorpg but it fizzles out after a short while and your stuck grinding repeated task and/or pvp battles over and over for some kind of exchange currency or faction/influence that gets you upgraded. While pvp can be really fun most players really just want to escape the stresses of real life and zone into a fantasy and maybe pvp part of the time if they so choose.
They also fizzled out early on before launch with character models. They have great designs true to the warhammer history but there was some polish and bug issues of course and I think they got rushed at the end and didnt smooth them out as much as intended. It had that feel anyway after I went back after launch and checked it out.
I don't feel the reviewer has actually got the issues with this game.
Pros
Actually the graphics aren't bad (which is what I thought was going to be the biggest problem in the game).
Very stable game, I have had about three crashes in 1.5 years; and lag only occurs in very large battles, but there are zone limit to cap things (can be annoying though)
Huge intellectual property, and done with great attention to detail and reverence.
Nothing is overpower, I don't get mezzed and stunned without fighting or having options; nor do I get killed in one or two hits.
Right from the word go, you feel like a hero - no bug killing for this gobbo
What server were you playing on? Everywhere appears to have players, T1 is insane at times (although there are only a few servers these days).
Tome of Knowledge, Public Quests (some can be done with two players, and they show on a map when players are there), Scenarios.
Cons
Lack of class and races; choppers, slayers, black guard and Knight were good additions but nothing for over a year and nothing in the pipeline that they have told us about.
PvE content (and to certain extent Public Quests) is limited, and dungeons (although I haven't tried Hunters Vale in fairness).
Scenarios are both a pro and con, depending where you sit; they draw players away from PvP but give players who only have 20 mins a quick fix. Solution is to me PvP lakes better (there are good rewards for being in this area, but maybe better XP ratio)
No new content since LotD (and to the review to said this was rubbish - did you play it?)
The biggest is: ONLY TWO REALMS - why oh why oh why - Mythic's biggest and stupidest mistake.
City sieges promised so much - but delievered it so badly (oh this could have been epic)
Crafting and player economy - they put nothing into this but half-ass effort; and it show. They thought that it wasn't important to an MMO, but they were so wrong on this.
To conclude, most of the problems face long term players, new players log on and have fun - it is a good game (if not the excellent game we all wanted)
I generally like WAR. I know that is an unpopular thing to say on this forum but I do.
I enjoy the classes, the art style, the pvp from level 1, the tok, pqs and I really enjoy Orvr with keeps(up until tier 4).
I honestly wish that Mythic would have given at least a little thought to what pve players would want out of the warhammer Ip.
Events are nice, the handful of dungeons or average at best, ToK is good and the quests are standard.
With that said This game could really use more leveling dungeons, an actual raid progression system, Real crafting.
Right now I feel the devs are totally out of touch with what the players that arent playing right now want. They continue to listen to the 25-50k+ subs that they have that are happy farming SCs for weapons while the rest of us wanted a more fleshed out game.
When I log into WAR I get this depressing feeling that it wont be around much longer.
For this I blame the morons that decided Pve should have been an after thought. I mean come on even DAoC had fun pve.
How do you try to cater to both DAoC and WoW players and fail at both?
What a shame.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Mythic have no idea what to do, when Daoc was awesome they try to make the game wow like raid pve crap and since then they killed daoc and then they make WAR to be wow like they shoot themselfes in the foot 2 times
also SC should be completly removed from WAR and RVR death should have the same penalty like PVE death
BestSigEver :P
Thanks dude, this is my exact thoughts about the state of the game right now; except 'the lack of class diversity'-part I can fully agree with you. Cheers!
War doesn't have enough people to support Orvr in three pairings. SC's are fine they need to just chill with the rewards.
Imo they dropped the ball with the pve. they should have put in world encounters in the Orvr zones that the factions fought over.
Think old EQ pvp server.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Beta testers and fans of the Warhammer franchise said it 10.000 times before launch.
These days (last 3 years) you get one and only shot at the mmorpg market and that's at launch.
Blow it and you're screwed.
Mythic blew it.
We could cite dozens of things, but to be brief: that was the case. Having lost worldwide almost 120 servers in 1 year time speaks volumes. You pick any reason why ... and you have a good chance you picked the right one.
Too mnay problems to even synthesise.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.