It's not very many things, but I think the leading figures at Mythic pretty much ignored the community founding factors.

What they need to do is make things more challenging, NOT harder. Just force people to group for quests, add an LFG channel, add an help channel, remove the map quest markers, limit scenario participation to once every 15 minutes. Increase rewards for grouping in RvR and PQs, so that you gain actually MORE renown and influence by joining groups.

These are simple things (cept the quest bosses) and would change a LOT into a community generating direction.

M

Originally posted by Meridion

It's not very many things, but I think the leading figures at Mythic pretty much ignored the community founding factors.

What they need to do is make things more challenging, NOT harder. Just force people to group for quests, add an LFG channel, add an help channel, remove the map quest markers, limit scenario participation to once every 15 minutes. Increase rewards for grouping in RvR and PQs, so that you gain actually MORE renown and influence by joining groups.

These are simple things (cept the quest bosses) and would change a LOT into a community generating direction.

M

 Bloody hell, I NEVER want to play a game designed by you. Besides, I think it quite obvious that mythic wanted to, and has done, the complete opposite of what *you* want by choice.

People are missing one very important point, the makers and publishers of these games want to make lots of $$. They don't do it simply to provide 50,000 hardcore masochistic players a "2nd life". I will go back to one of my points I made a while ago and elaborate...

mmoRPG burnout, apathy, immunity. Some of you, perhaps most, have consumed mmos like a drug, and like all drugs, if you take them often enough your body becomes accustomed to them and you no longer get that buzz.

How many other forms of entertainment would you expect to partake in for HOURS, for some as much as 6, per day and not grow tired of? The TV? Perhaps, but the TV is like many different games, this is more like watching the same show day in day out and expect it to be fun and fresh for years, even the Simpsons is tiresome for some now! 

MMOrpgs have been mainstream for 10-11 years now and some of you are simply looking to relive that first high, that first night in town drinking and dancing, sadly they have gone, you can not relive the past.

WAR has made it's choice of target audience and it's style. Don't like it? Tough, be a man and admit it's not for you but others may enjoy it, grow up and move on.

People who don't like burgers don't eat burgers. They do not write to Birdseye telling them to replace the beef, the seasoning and shape and change them to ressemble a banana.

Just like to point out:
 

You dont have to return to other areas in other games once you have out levelled them.

In WAR there are Tome Tactics to unlock which will require you to go back to starting areas. I am sure i have heard that there are other things that can be discovered if you look for them, away from the beaten quest paths.

Communication will come when doing things that need communication, i dont need to talk to anyone to do my quests or PQs, whereas i do when dungeon running or if i want to be effective in RVR.

I do agree that the game is highly accessable, some peeps love that, as they don't have enough time to play a non-accessable MMO.

While the OP is well-written and thought out, I'm going to have to disagree on all three points actually.  And in doing so post my experiences, since they seem to contradict.

1. While I agree the "chapter" theme gives the game a straight-forward, linear, themepark feel to it, there are actually several reasons to explore that I feel are overlooked by some.  Lairs, high level encounters hidden in each zone, are one reason.  I found one of these in Nordland and it was filled with rank 40 HERO mobs.  Which means it's designed as end-game content, yet it was in the starter zone.  ToK unlocks, and City Quests.  I picked up a couple City Quests in the Inevitable City that had me traveling to several zones, thus not on the path of the chapters.

My ideas to improve this are also pretty simple.  Lead people to the City Dungeons for one.  Just have a quest or several that requires people kill something in the City Dungeons that rewards them with a trophy or something else.  Most people don't realize that there's a City Dungeon available at Rank 9.

2. Open RvR.  I think this is honestly just a play style, and I think since most people come from WoW, they look at the Scenarios, and think that they are what Mythic intended RvR to be, not knowing about the importance and fun of Open World RvR.  This is all about presentation.  They've already made a change that ups the xp for player kills in Open RvR zones.  I think further tweaks would bring this inline with their original goal of Open RvR everywhere.

3. At rank 16 I've already run across several quests as a healer that I needed a group for.  The lack of communication is due to no community YET.  I say yet because a lot of people have come into this game expecting a community to be waiting for them like in other games that have been out. 

The bottom line is, YOU are the community that will be waiting for other people.  You're the ones that have to build it.  I've already seen community start to form with the addition of Region Chat.  There has already been people asking questions in Region Chat and getting helpful answers on my server.  Not to mention I was using it to form up groups for RvR.

So with this wall of text my point is mainly that the tools to do everything you desire are there, you just have to discover them.  If you want to explore, there are reasons.  There are quests off the beaten path.  There are hidden quests that have no quest giver (I've already found one or two of these).  There are lairs.

If you want Open RvR, just start typing in Regional chat that you're forming up a warband for Open RvR.  Back when it was Chapter Chat, I physically ran to all the chapters and recruited people.  It took me about 10 minutes to have a full warband sieging a keep.  The tools are now even easier with Region chat.  But YOU the budding community have to do the leg work.  You have to start recruiting people and inviting them.

And with quests.  While all are pretty much soloable, and PQs are some times desolate.  Again, just use the functionality that's there.  It's easy to form a group for PQs.  Really easy.  Most people will come down from higher chapters and group up with you to help you run through them.  And they're a blast when you get a group together doing them.  Just make an Open Group and broadcast in region chat what you're doing, and see if you don't get responses.

I hope this offers a different perspective, and maybe some ideas for bettering people's playing experience.

Originally posted by nikoliath

 Bloody hell, I NEVER want to play a game designed by you. Besides, I think it quite obvious that mythic wanted to, and has done, the complete opposite of what *you* want by choice.

People are missing one very important point, the makers and publishers of these games want to make lots of $$. They don't do it simply to provide 50,000 hardcore masochistic players a "2nd life". I will go back to one of my points I made a while ago and elaborate...

mmoRPG burnout, apathy, immunity. Some of you, perhaps most, have consumed mmos like a drug, and like all drugs, if you take them often enough your body becomes accustomed to them and you no longer get that buzz.

How many other forms of entertainment would you expect to partake in for HOURS, for some as much as 6, per day and not grow tired of? The TV? Perhaps, but the TV is like many different games, this is more like watching the same show day in day out and expect it to be fun and fresh for years, even the Simpsons is tiresome for some now! 

MMOrpgs have been mainstream for 10-11 years now and some of you are simply looking to relive that first high, that first night in town drinking and dancing, sadly they have gone, you can not relive the past.

WAR has made it's choice of target audience and it's style. Don't like it? Tough, be a man and admit it's not for you but others may enjoy it, grow up and move on.

People who don't like burgers don't eat burgers. They do not write to Birdseye telling them to replace the beef, the seasoning and shape and change them to ressemble a banana.

There is something missing in your reasoning.
 

And that's the number eating War's hamburgers....even when they are giving it out for free during 30 days.

http://www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/

Today it will be posted at 34K something, that's way down the initial release weekend and 5 days before the US free play will be done (EU can still play a week longer for free tx to GOA).

So your reasoning would be viable IF they reached "hamburger wise" subs, but apparently even "new blood" of 250K hyped up buyers doesn't stop the bleeding

Just reread the excellent orginal post and come back. I think Columbo would have understood it already after 3 weeks.

What all this obsession with number of subs and xfire?

The game will have as many subs as it will have, if it requires server mergers than that will happen. That has no reflection on the game design that is being discussed here.

End of story

Originally posted by VultureSkull

What all this obsession with number of subs and xfire?

The game will have as many subs as it will have, if it requires server mergers than that will happen.

End of story

 

I was just pointing out that if you want to do a "hamburgerwise" MMORPG you need to have "hambergerwise" subs.

Now I am the FIRST one to dislike these "food" to MMO talk, but it was in answer to Professor Columbo above.

If you want to do something popular and the massive reaction of "millions" is not attained (read Mark Jacobs own words - 2 to 3 million over 2 years time), than that means the stuff just wasn't good enough for the mass market.

People are mostly more intelligent than game developpers think they are.

Originally posted by bodypass

Originally posted by VultureSkull

What all this obsession with number of subs and xfire?

The game will have as many subs as it will have, if it requires server mergers than that will happen.

End of story

 

 

I was just pointing out that if you want to do a "hamburgerwise" MMORPG you need to have "hambergerwise" subs.

Now I am the FIRST one to dislike these "food" to MMO talk, but it was in answer to Professor Columbo above.

If you want to do something popular and the massive reaction of "millions" is not attained (read Mark Jacobs own words - 2 to 3 million over 2 years time), than that means the stuff just wasn't good enough for the mass market.

People are mostly more intelligent than game developpers think they are.

 

I think it's a bit early to talk about success, failure, and whether this game will be accepted by the masses to reach a 2 million mark in two years.
 

The game is obviously going to go through changes and iterations until it starts looking like they originally intended.  Some ideas take tweaking once you see that people are using those ideas as intended by the developers.

750,000 in 2 weeks, even if it drops to 500,000 or below after the first month is a good starting point for hitting a 2 million mark by two years.  Especially if they add in the cut classes, add in the cut cities, add content, continue refining the game, etc.  the game "could" be successful.

But again it's too early to say whether any of those things will happen, so it's still too early to tell.

Originally posted by checkthis500

Originally posted by bodypass

Originally posted by VultureSkull

What all this obsession with number of subs and xfire?

The game will have as many subs as it will have, if it requires server mergers than that will happen.

End of story

 

 

I was just pointing out that if you want to do a "hamburgerwise" MMORPG you need to have "hambergerwise" subs.

Now I am the FIRST one to dislike these "food" to MMO talk, but it was in answer to Professor Columbo above.

If you want to do something popular and the massive reaction of "millions" is not attained (read Mark Jacobs own words - 2 to 3 million over 2 years time), than that means the stuff just wasn't good enough for the mass market.

People are mostly more intelligent than game developpers think they are.

 

I think it's a bit early to talk about success, failure, and whether this game will be accepted by the masses to reach a 2 million mark in two years.
 

The game is obviously going to go through changes and iterations until it starts looking like they originally intended.  Some ideas take tweaking once you see that people are using those ideas as intended by the developers.

750,000 in 2 weeks, even if it drops to 500,000 or below after the first month is a good starting point for hitting a 2 million mark by two years.  Especially if they add in the cut classes, add in the cut cities, add content, continue refining the game, etc.  the game "could" be successful.

But again it's too early to say whether any of those things will happen, so it's still too early to tell.

Problem is that there are 20% (and I am moderate here) LESS players now than in the launching week, DESPITE an extra 250 K of "accounts created".

A few weeks ago 14.500 Xfire members were playing, now it was 10.100. Huh ??? For a new game in its FREE period of play ???

You may always hope of course, but sales are down and even 250 K extra players wasn't enough to hold on to the number of people playing.

Enter next week's subcription requirements and Nov 13th.

Those still dreaming of millions should asap wake up.
 

Originally posted by bodypass

Originally posted by checkthis500

Originally posted by bodypass

Originally posted by VultureSkull

What all this obsession with number of subs and xfire?

The game will have as many subs as it will have, if it requires server mergers than that will happen.

End of story

 

 

I was just pointing out that if you want to do a "hamburgerwise" MMORPG you need to have "hambergerwise" subs.

Now I am the FIRST one to dislike these "food" to MMO talk, but it was in answer to Professor Columbo above.

If you want to do something popular and the massive reaction of "millions" is not attained (read Mark Jacobs own words - 2 to 3 million over 2 years time), than that means the stuff just wasn't good enough for the mass market.

People are mostly more intelligent than game developpers think they are.

 

I think it's a bit early to talk about success, failure, and whether this game will be accepted by the masses to reach a 2 million mark in two years.
 

The game is obviously going to go through changes and iterations until it starts looking like they originally intended.  Some ideas take tweaking once you see that people are using those ideas as intended by the developers.

750,000 in 2 weeks, even if it drops to 500,000 or below after the first month is a good starting point for hitting a 2 million mark by two years.  Especially if they add in the cut classes, add in the cut cities, add content, continue refining the game, etc.  the game "could" be successful.

But again it's too early to say whether any of those things will happen, so it's still too early to tell.

 

Problem is that there are 20% (and I am moderate here) LESS players now than in the launching week, DESPITE an extra 250 K of "accounts created".

You may always hope of course, but sales are down and even 250 K extra players wasn't enough to hold on to the number of people playing.

Enter next week's subcription requirements and Nov 13th.

Those still dreaming of millions should asap wake up.
 

That's actually  not very accurate.  That drop of 20% in players is according to Xfire numbers.  Those extra 250k accounts were probably from your average person that goes to the store, sees it, and buys it. 
 

That person is more than likely not going to be using Xfire.

And again, millions at the end of 2 years is what people are dreaming about.  It's been 1 month.....  I hope you have some idea of how much can change in an MMO in 2 years.

Originally posted by checkthis500

Originally posted by bodypass

Originally posted by checkthis500

Originally posted by bodypass

Originally posted by VultureSkull

What all this obsession with number of subs and xfire?

The game will have as many subs as it will have, if it requires server mergers than that will happen.

End of story

 

 

I was just pointing out that if you want to do a "hamburgerwise" MMORPG you need to have "hambergerwise" subs.

Now I am the FIRST one to dislike these "food" to MMO talk, but it was in answer to Professor Columbo above.

If you want to do something popular and the massive reaction of "millions" is not attained (read Mark Jacobs own words - 2 to 3 million over 2 years time), than that means the stuff just wasn't good enough for the mass market.

People are mostly more intelligent than game developpers think they are.

 

I think it's a bit early to talk about success, failure, and whether this game will be accepted by the masses to reach a 2 million mark in two years.
 

The game is obviously going to go through changes and iterations until it starts looking like they originally intended.  Some ideas take tweaking once you see that people are using those ideas as intended by the developers.

750,000 in 2 weeks, even if it drops to 500,000 or below after the first month is a good starting point for hitting a 2 million mark by two years.  Especially if they add in the cut classes, add in the cut cities, add content, continue refining the game, etc.  the game "could" be successful.

But again it's too early to say whether any of those things will happen, so it's still too early to tell.

 

Problem is that there are 20% (and I am moderate here) LESS players now than in the launching week, DESPITE an extra 250 K of "accounts created".

You may always hope of course, but sales are down and even 250 K extra players wasn't enough to hold on to the number of people playing.

Enter next week's subcription requirements and Nov 13th.

Those still dreaming of millions should asap wake up.
 

That's actually  not very accurate.  That drop of 20% in players is according to Xfire numbers.  Those extra 250k accounts were probably from your average person that goes to the store, sees it, and buys it. 
 

That person is more than likely not going to be using Xfire.

And again, millions at the end of 2 years is what people are dreaming about.  It's been 1 month.....  I hope you have some idea of how much can change in an MMO in 2 years.

Off topic here: but Xfire players are living on the planet earth and not on Mars or Jupiter.They are the guys like you and me and it's a part of the gaming world, like you and me.

Besides it is off topic and we are going back to the original OP and his very good post.

And indeed I AM afraid we will have even more easy things on future MMORPG's and expansions - like the dreadfull "enter a BG from anywhere in the world" and "XP by only doing ONE thing "all over again.

That was the point of this thread and the distraction from the last 10 posts is strategic perhaps for War fans, but going away from the real problem.

Originally posted by bodypass

Off topic here: but Xfire players are living on the planet earth and not on Mars or Jupiter.They are the guys like you and me and it's a part of the gaming world, like you and me.

Besides it is off topic and we are going back to the original OP and his very good post.

And indeed I AM afraid we will have even more easy things on future MMORPG's and expansions - like the dreadfull "enter a BG from anywhere in the world" and "XP by only doing ONE thing "all over again.

That was the point of this thread and the distraction from the last 10 posts is strategic perhaps for War fans, but going away of the real problem.

What was it again you add in value to the discussions going on in WAR -forum? Your trackrecord until today is zero, so you aren't doing much intelligent here. if you're just after universal-MMO discussion, feel free to go to www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/forum/51 which is dedicated to that.

OP: War is no victim. Everything successful has it's nay-sayers. Why is it so, it's because some think it's intelligent to "be against the stupid mass".

Some of these are just getting their kicks from forum-fights, but some are the searchers of the Graal. They take best practises from every game developed and use those as arguments when they deny every title there is.

Just observe them for awhile, and it's so obvious you find it amusing.

Originally posted by Yunbei

Now before you take out the Flame Thrower pls hear me out. My interest is to debate this impression. Maybe I am wrong, its just an idea, no need to start a war over it. ;)

What I saw in the last weeks was quite a lot of people reporting the same thing: WAR is a good game in theory, but they feel a letdown in it's reality. Now like many I was excited to see WAR come live when all those cool ideas were presented to us in videos: Public Quests, Scenarios, whatever. I will admit WAR really has successfully established some great concepts, some who will certainly stay in the MMO world, like the symbols over quest givers heads once were established by WOW.

I tried to think about my own reasons why I felt less and less compelled to play WAR, compare it with those of others and tried to find some common things.

An idea I had was, maybe WAR is the victim of its own success. In a way. Let me explain.

We all know WOW is a huge success by subscription numbers. (No quality vote here from me!) So one of the things many gamers and companies expressed that led to this success what how easy accessible WOW is. It established the symbols over quest givers head, promoted the fast travel mode, the guided experience where quests were sorted in some kind of theme park, asf. Not all of these were invented by Blizzard, but perfected. You could reach the "fun" places faster and it had less "waiting for the fun to start" times than any MMO before. If you recall the EQ1 days, were your character just had to sit and meditate ever so often, you see its those kind of things WOW wanted to eliminate.

WOW has the sam kind of wait time you find in most other mmo's. You wait in BG ques for quite some time. AV is the fastest and thats because its just a staright up zerg fest. You wait on Mobs to respawn so I don't get where your coming from with this statement. WOW is not the 1st game to establish symbols over the heads of quest givers either. Ive seen it done in many mmo's long before WOW. How is do you figure you get to places faster in WOW, use to be couldn't get a mount till lvl 40 and now its level 30 from what I read. So you go hop on those gryphon rides that take 10 - 15 minutes to get from here to there...Yeah thats fast.

I think it was THIS aspect which Mythic tried to improve, and the entire game breathes this ideology. People should never wait for the fun, have to seek the fun or have any sort of "downtime". A Blizzard dev, when asked what their idea for success was once said: "we checked every feature, and if it wasnt fun, it was out". Now IMO Mythic tried to perfect this idea, and what was supposed to be a formula of succes may now prove to be a receipe to mediocity. Some examples:

1) The entire world is build like a theme park: you advance from zone to zone and you never have to return to any place you have been before. Its like one long tunnel. The good side is, you dont have to seek the "fun", but what greatly suffers from this is the feeling of a living, diverse world you make some 2nd life in. There is little need to roam, to explore. It just does not feel like a world in the sense other MMOs did. Even the zones of WAR are not to be located on the world map. You never have a real inner map of the world, just of single "event zones".

Uh again your wrong, I an many others in our guild campus the entire map in each zone and run across tons of things to do. Compared that to WOW's zones WAR zones are much bigger. Theres is much more interaction with mobs and NPCs in WAR versus WOW. 

2) While there is Open RVR, most people tend to go to scenarios for obvious reasons: you always get people of the equal number, no waiting  for a battle with the risk to face a much greater number. All the possible odds are balanced out. Its the perfection of taking away all need to talk to players, to cooperate, to form social communities, because the game takes care of everything. The downside is, the RVR zones are depleted. This is even strengthened by the fact that quests give much less XP than scenario grinding. A very, very easy way to PVP is offered, but it comes with a price: people are getting too lazy to organize anything outside of scenarios.

Cmon im still waiting for any validation behind your obvious rant.. The RVR zones make it possible to get xp, renown points and loot drops while waiting for a Scenario to pop, thats the  so called wait for fun that you claim doesn't exist in WAR. I have yet to be in any RVR where there wasn't any fun happening, hell even keep and post sieging is happening. I just don't see any logic in your post.

3) Since practically all quests are soloable and PQs automatically add people, and since you can join open groups without exchanging a single word you get a perfectly running machine. There is not a single obstacle which forces you to converse with other people. Having been in SWG and EQ2 the longest time I find this way to show the quest goal on the map in such an exact way always as a letdown in immersity. And as humans function, they almost all take easiest way. I always felt a game should enforce grouping and cooperation to some degree, because only then communities are formed. I vividly recall in EQ2, when in its older days there were much more heroic mobs, those mobs were the root of my first online friendships. I only say Scarecrows in Antonica. They were heroic once, and thus there the first groups formed, because they were impossible to solo. Now they are solo mobs and people all solo there in silence anonymity. WAR is streamlined like this all the way. The player is prevented from ever really needing to cooperate, to plan, to organize, its all laid out in one path you can always do it at ease.

Bad news for you all quests are not solable, especially when it involves champions..You can turn off auto PQ invites.

Im starting to wonder, have you even tried the game out? it doesn't seem like it to me.

WOW doesn't have any major grouping or coop occuring either, thats obvious in AV, AB, WG, EOTS. From what ive experienced its a free for all farming sessions 90% of the time.

So your saying WAR doesn't have any organization or coop? So I can solo my way into taking a keep.

I will refrain from adding too many examples and leave it with those. One of the things people find exciting is the need to have to find things by themselves. In a way I cant help to feel that WAR went way too far with making this game playable without any need of conversation, of waiting and seeking of any thing that creates ingame communities and gives a feeling of accomplishment. Its like a simplified PVP-WOW version. They meant it well: no more downtime, no more seeking the fun, no more "I dont know where to do something that is fun". All is perfectly led and organized for you. And the result is similar to as humans devolve in the movie "Wall-E". When the system does everything for you, you loose some sense of accomplishment, of making a world your own. Its just a shot, but I somehow get this feeling that many of those aspects of WAR which were meant well and supposed to make it easier to get into the fun may prove to be those mechanics to keep WAR a niche game.

Now before you start a flame-war: you are entitled to love those simplification. As you see I dont. Lets just try to be polite still. ;)

/discuss ^^

Your post is full of false facts and "I love WOW rants" I read the entire thing and it was quite obvious that you either never played the game, played the game for 5 levels or just love WOW so much that your worried because a game that beats WOW in many ways is alive and doing well.

Originally posted by woody1974

 

Your post is full of false facts and "I love WOW rants" I read the entire thing and it was quite obvious that you either never played the game, played the game for 5 levels or just love WOW so much that your worried because a game that beats WOW in many ways is alive and doing well.

http://www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/

Doing well in its free play period?

I very much doubt this. It has now reached a status where the same number of people play as in .... open Beta.

Originally posted by bodypass

Originally posted by woody1974

 

Your post is full of false facts and "I love WOW rants" I read the entire thing and it was quite obvious that you either never played the game, played the game for 5 levels or just love WOW so much that your worried because a game that beats WOW in many ways is alive and doing well.

 

http://www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/

Doing well in its free play period?

I very much doubt this. It has now reached a status where the same number of people play as in .... open Beta.

Final xfire response, and then I'll be on topic again.  If you take those xfire numbers to be relevant and you compare them to WoW's numbers, WAR has roughly 1/9th of WoW's xfire users.

4.5 mil WoW customers in NA and Europe.

500k subs isn't a bad thing at all, and is much more than what was in Open Beta.  So I'm not sure what you're trying to prove?

To be on topic...

The OP made some good points, but I think they're slightly skewed, since the appearance isn't necessarily all there is.

For instance, he states that the world is a theme park and there's no reason to go back to previous tiers. 

As others have stated, there are reasons to go back, and people are going back.  Just yesterday I had someone who was level 21 help me with a level 16 quest, just because I asked for some help in Region chat.  Whenever any of my fellow guild members make an alt, I go back and level with them for fun, because I enjoy the content.  There are high level things to discover in the early tiers, people just haven't done them yet.

And like I attempted to start a discussion about in a topic, the community hasn't been developed yet, and it needs the players to develop it.  This will be seen in the coming months as more people start chatting and grouping, and figuring out the game.

Originally posted by piquet

I play mmos like singleplayer games. I play them as long as I think they're fun. When I get bored I quit, simple as that. I never understood the "it's my second job" mentality. The approach a previous poster took, wanting to suffer and be punished while playing, I find downright disturbing. I don't understand how that can be a driving force to play a videogame?

I agree with you 100% on why I play games, but I'll say this; To each their own. Some people like to play games like they are full time jobs. It gives them a sense of responsibility I think, or maybe I'm completely wrong =P

This thread is amazing in that so far most of the replies have been very well written, and un-trollish. Grats OP at finally making a potentially negative thread that came out with a positive spin.

Now, on topic, I agree that some of the hype is actually causing people to be unhappy with the game as it stands, but I think that is what always happens now. Since MMO's have gone main stream, thank you WoW for bringing this genre to the real world, it's opened up a plethora of advertising options and as such games get hyped WAY more than they did prior to WoW. What I mean to say is this, due to the growth of the genre the hyping of these games has gotten massive as well. This leads to people having unrealistic expectations, and hopes that every new game will be a WoW killer. But who really needs anything to kill WoW? Why does every new game have to be the be all end all of the genre? Why not just enjoy these games for what they are individually?

That, in my opinion, is the problem with the current crop of fans in the MMO world; They want every game to be everything, and thats just impossible.

Those are all pretty much valid points. I especially agree with #2. Sadly, Open RvR is NOT there yet... I'd much rather join a scenario because of the GUARANTEED renown and very little risk (along with very little reward). However, I truly, truly hope Mythic fixes this and gives a huge increase of rewards for Open RvR. That's the way they designed this game... not as a scenario-grinder :(.

Well thought out and constructive post, Mr. OP.

Originally posted by bodypass

Originally posted by woody1974

 

Your post is full of false facts and "I love WOW rants" I read the entire thing and it was quite obvious that you either never played the game, played the game for 5 levels or just love WOW so much that your worried because a game that beats WOW in many ways is alive and doing well.

 

http://www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/

Doing well in its free play period?

I very much doubt this. It has now reached a status where the same number of people play as in .... open Beta.

Shut up and go away Bodypass. You are taking what was shaping up to be an actual discussion about this game, and derailing it into yet another Xfire numbers thread.

Nothing in the OP's post has anything to do with Xfire, nor does anyone care about xfire. Honestly, you seem to do this in EVERY post on these forums. This thread, while negative in it's views on WAR, has been very objective up to the point where you entered....that seems to be a trend with you. You come to threads, start bashing or posting xfire numbers wantonly, and ruin everything.

Like I said before...you are a cancer.

Originally posted by nikoliath

Originally posted by Meridion

It's not very many things, but I think the leading figures at Mythic pretty much ignored the community founding factors.

What they need to do is make things more challenging, NOT harder. Just force people to group for quests, add an LFG channel, add an help channel, remove the map quest markers, limit scenario participation to once every 15 minutes. Increase rewards for grouping in RvR and PQs, so that you gain actually MORE renown and influence by joining groups.

These are simple things (cept the quest bosses) and would change a LOT into a community generating direction.

M

 Bloody hell, I NEVER want to play a game designed by you. Besides, I think it quite obvious that mythic wanted to, and has done, the complete opposite of what *you* want by choice.

People are missing one very important point, the makers and publishers of these games want to make lots of $$. They don't do it simply to provide 50,000 hardcore masochistic players a "2nd life". I will go back to one of my points I made a while ago and elaborate...

mmoRPG burnout, apathy, immunity. Some of you, perhaps most, have consumed mmos like a drug, and like all drugs, if you take them often enough your body becomes accustomed to them and you no longer get that buzz.

How many other forms of entertainment would you expect to partake in for HOURS, for some as much as 6, per day and not grow tired of? The TV? Perhaps, but the TV is like many different games, this is more like watching the same show day in day out and expect it to be fun and fresh for years, even the Simpsons is tiresome for some now! 

MMOrpgs have been mainstream for 10-11 years now and some of you are simply looking to relive that first high, that first night in town drinking and dancing, sadly they have gone, you can not relive the past.

WAR has made it's choice of target audience and it's style. Don't like it? Tough, be a man and admit it's not for you but others may enjoy it, grow up and move on.

People who don't like burgers don't eat burgers. They do not write to Birdseye telling them to replace the beef, the seasoning and shape and change them to ressemble a banana.

The best post in this thread so far, imho.

The problem is many people in this community want games that are tailored specifically for them.  If they're not, they'll bitch, moan and complain because it wasn't what THEY wanted or expected.  Instead of moving on to another game that might possibly be what they're looking for, they'd rather pursue a personal vendetta against the game and the developers for not giving them the game they wanted.

Look, there are many  games I played and didn't like.  Most recently was AoC.  I played CB and OB and by the time the game launched, I knew it wasn't for me.  I made a few comments as to why and MOVED on to another game, one that I liked.

I don't care about xfire numbers or server merges or subscriptions falling.  As long as there are enough people on my server for me to enjoy the game, I'm happy.  I don't need 10 million subscribers to WAR to like it.  And when the time comes that there aren't enough people or I stop enjoying the game, I will move on to another one!

Obviously the game isn't for everyone and some people were disappointed, but for crying out loud, let people enjoy their game.  Complaining about how much WAR sux, predicting doom and gloom based on xfire numbers or how the game will fail does absolutely nothing... it certainly wont change my mind on how I feel about it.

If you don't like the game, MOVE ON to another one... maybe you'll actually LIKE it and have less time for complaining about something you didn't like!

Originally posted by checkthis500

Originally posted by bodypass 

Final xfire response, and then I'll be on topic again.  If you take those xfire numbers to be relevant and you compare them to WoW's numbers, WAR has roughly 1/9th of WoW's xfire users.

4.5 mil WoW customers in NA and Europe.

500k subs isn't a bad thing at all, and is much more than what was in Open Beta.  So I'm not sure what you're trying to prove?

Your assumption is that a roughly percentage of WoW players use Xfire as do Warhammer.  Xfire is dominated by people who enjoy PvP, so you can't really compare a PvE games xfire users and extract data from that in regards to users in a PvP game.  I can only assume there is a much higher percentage of people using xfire in Warhammer than in WoW.

Even ignoring the trend that is happening in Xfire you can see a steady decline in the server selection list.  Last night peaked at 4-6 destruction servers at full and only 2 order servers at full.  Every single other server was at medium or below.  That wasn't the case a few weeks ago and there were certainly less than the advertised 750k accounts created back then.  

I regards to the original posters comments, I think he is mostly correct.

Some other things that really hurt this game is the direction Mythic took as far as community building tools given to players.  It is almost as if they made every avenue of comminication as hard as they possibly could.

-No official forums.  People love to read and share information and despite all the whiners say, most official forums have lots of great information.  That is part of the reason most people have no idea about lairs, dungeons, the open world PvP system, etc.  Personally I find this move to be very cowardly.  Boo fucking hoo people might complain about the game and make Mark Jacobs cry.  They are your customers, listen to them and deal with it.

-The chat system was designed to confine players to small areas [changed in last patch].  I can only assume Mythic was afraid people would talk to each other or something and didn't want zone wide chat spam?  In any event the ability to communicate with your realm about real time events is crucial to a game that relies so heavily on population and player vs player combat.  It is beyond reasoning that they left this out.

-Many of the reasons to communicate were eliminated or just not introduced to the game.  There is little reason to group in PvE quests, they play like a single player game.  Public quests, just walk on in and contribute to a larger verison of the solo "kill 10 rat" quests, but only this time it is kill 100. 

-There is no LFG tool which would be awesome for starting RvR groups.  I cannot believe they didn't do something like this.  This makes the chat problem (now fixed?) even worse.

-There is also little reason to get involved in the community outside of RvR battles.  The economy is rather useless.  Tradeskills don't seem to do much.  There are so many ways to solo grind gear, most people don't even sell items in the auction house. 

-The chicken mechanic is the opposite of what it should be and make most of the game disposable.  They should have made the mechanic revert your character to an appropriate level.  They already do something similiar with raising character levels to 8/18/28 etc, so why not here?   People could group with friends who just joined the game.  T1-3 might not just be mostly ignored when people level out of the range. 

-Scenarios... well there has been enough about this.  Instant PvP with semi balanced teams versus wandering around hoping to find some action that is more than likely going to be uneven teams.  Who didn't see this coming?  That isn't even taking into account the huge disperity between PvE/RvR character advancement and that offered by scenarios.

-Server caps are to small, there are to many servers or both.  I think this is the biggest point of Mythic being a victom of their own perceived success. 

All in all most of the reasons that a normal player would/could every want to communicate with another player are absent.  It is such a strange design path to have taken for a game that is absolutely dependant upon having a healthy population.

End result is the game can feel rather lonely for being a massive muliplayer game.

Originally posted by altairzq

Well I hope many people will realize now how absurd is to seek fun in a MMO. I have been saying this for some time now, MMOs don't have to be fun, they have to make you suffer because this is what makes them epic in the end and last for years. And what builds a strong community. That is all what MMOs are about.

Hmmm... I wouldn't say it's "absurd to seek fun".. I mean, why would you play a game if you weren't enjoying it? Why would you do *anything* you didn't have to unless you got some sort of satisfaction/enjoyment from it?

I would say that perhaps it's the cost of players having the fun "handed to them" in a pre-packaged manner.

I do think that's a set-back in post WoW MMOs. They really do make things quite trivial to do. I know people say "well we have to work in real life.. why would we want to in game", etc. etc. And well... I can see that point-of-view.. but I don't agree with it because it comes from a perspective that I don't share about MMOs in general.

If you take up a hobby... like say Fishing.

Outside of sheer beginner's luck, do you expect to cast out your bait and catch a prize fish on your first try? Do you not have to work at getting better?

Is it not effort being put forth and a degree of trial and error to learn and apply all those things? The fish don't just come to you and jump in the boat or conveniently hook themselves for you.

Learning the best spots, the best lures or bait to use for what fish, the best conditions to go in, when to use a bait-casting reel versus a spin-casting reel, what pound test line to use, how to successfully land the fish, and so forth... Those are all things that require time, repetition, effort and patience to get good at.

You wouldn't call it a "job", though, would you? (unless of course you're doing it commercially.. but I'm not talking about that here :-p)

While catching that prize fish is the eventual pay-off - the ultimate goal, perhaps - you're putting in all that time to get there because you enjoy the activity itself... The process is, typically, as enjoyable as the result.

The same can go for, say, bowling... or golfing... or any kind of recreational activity that requires time, repetition and patience to improve at. You don't only do it for the pay-off... You do it because you enjoy the activity itself.

That's how I view MMORPGs, and it's why I don't feel that the "older-school" style MMOs, such as FFXI which I play (as you can tell by my sig banner) are some horrible, terrible thing that are designed to punish the player because they "take so long". It's all in how you approach it.

They all take time and all the goals I've set for myself require their own degree of practice, trial and error and patience to achieve. It's the eventual pay-off that I'm going for.. But I'm also enjoying my time playing it, interacting with other players (the occasional idiot notwithstanding), setting new goals and working at achieving them, etc. It's why I can go a week without gaining a single level and still enjoy myself. Because I enjoy simply playing the game.

I don't consider it a "job". I don't consider it a "race" and I don't want it "handed to me". I consider it a hobby; something I can do with my spare time that I enjoy.

I rather like the way it was stated by a guest on one episode of Limit Break Radio, when speaking of the FFXI community's take on the game:

"The community has said 'We do not want a game on a plate. We want to work for it'."

I agree with the OP on many respects. The game to me was somewhat of a letdown but still a great game. Aspects of it need work. I think its because i played the tabletop game and read the novels and therefore I expected a more open world type of enviroment. The concept of what they did was cool though. I expected more from the open world rvr and crafting blows.

I still enjoy the game and look forward to updates and expansions as they come out. Im gonna stick with it and see where it goes.

Originally posted by bodypass

Originally posted by woody1974

 

Your post is full of false facts and "I love WOW rants" I read the entire thing and it was quite obvious that you either never played the game, played the game for 5 levels or just love WOW so much that your worried because a game that beats WOW in many ways is alive and doing well.

 

http://www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/

Doing well in its free play period?

I very much doubt this. It has now reached a status where the same number of people play as in .... open Beta.

Hi Bodypass, "professor" Columbo here.

Can I just say that Xfire figures are pretty useless IMO, here's why I think that.

I have Xfire on my machine. How often do I use it? Not often. I might use it when I start a new game, as dfo other users I know. Often within a week my Xfire is off. Xfire, you see, is a 3rd party non compulsory tool. If the WAR client had xfire built in, and it launched by default then the Xfire figures would have much more meaning, IMO.

Trends you say? Dedicated user networks? Nah, sorry I believe Xfire to far too vague to give concrete claims for subscription figures. Maybe the dedicated Xfire users who religously boot it up are exactly the sort of people who are a bit tired of the offerings from this genre?

Either way, it is clear to anyone who frequents this forum that you are a dedicated WoW nut. 

Good day.

Niko,

I don't want to get dragged into the whole 'bodypass is a ____' discussion, but what he is posting just might be true. 

Everyone said the same thing about Xfire and Age of Conan with a myriad of excuses why it wasn't valid.  People turn it off, it doesn't represent enough people, you personally don't use it, no one you know uses it, etc etc. 

In the end though it turned out to be pretty accurate for a games launch and they are already talking server mergers.  For Warhammer, Xfire shows a decreasing trend, software sales list show similar, server populations on the selection screen are down across almost all servers.  While not hard evidence it does share a very scary similarity to how AoC started.  Even the way Mythic is reporting "accounts created" is similar to how Funcom was greying subscriber numbers.

Before you jump all over me for mentioning Conan, I am not making a comparison to the quality, functionality or anything like that between Warhammer and Conan.  Just that things which trend populations seem to be traveling down a similar course.

Originally posted by Yunbei

Now before you take out the Flame Thrower pls hear me out. My interest is to debate this impression. Maybe I am wrong, its just an idea, no need to start a war over it. ;)

What I saw in the last weeks was quite a lot of people reporting the same thing: WAR is a good game in theory, but they feel a letdown in it's reality. Now like many I was excited to see WAR come live when all those cool ideas were presented to us in videos: Public Quests, Scenarios, whatever. I will admit WAR really has successfully established some great concepts, some who will certainly stay in the MMO world, like the symbols over quest givers heads once were established by WOW.

I tried to think about my own reasons why I felt less and less compelled to play WAR, compare it with those of others and tried to find some common things.

An idea I had was, maybe WAR is the victim of its own success. In a way. Let me explain.

We all know WOW is a huge success by subscription numbers. (No quality vote here from me!) So one of the things many gamers and companies expressed that led to this success what how easy accessible WOW is. It established the symbols over quest givers head, promoted the fast travel mode, the guided experience where quests were sorted in some kind of theme park, asf. Not all of these were invented by Blizzard, but perfected. You could reach the "fun" places faster and it had less "waiting for the fun to start" times than any MMO before. If you recall the EQ1 days, were your character just had to sit and meditate ever so often, you see its those kind of things WOW wanted to eliminate.

I think it was THIS aspect which Mythic tried to improve, and the entire game breathes this ideology. People should never wait for the fun, have to seek the fun or have any sort of "downtime". A Blizzard dev, when asked what their idea for success was once said: "we checked every feature, and if it wasnt fun, it was out". Now IMO Mythic tried to perfect this idea, and what was supposed to be a formula of succes may now prove to be a receipe to mediocity. Some examples:

1) The entire world is build like a theme park: you advance from zone to zone and you never have to return to any place you have been before. Its like one long tunnel. The good side is, you dont have to seek the "fun", but what greatly suffers from this is the feeling of a living, diverse world you make some 2nd life in. There is little need to roam, to explore. It just does not feel like a world in the sense other MMOs did. Even the zones of WAR are not to be located on the world map. You never have a real inner map of the world, just of single "event zones".

2) While there is Open RVR, most people tend to go to scenarios for obvious reasons: you always get people of the equal number, no waiting  for a battle with the risk to face a much greater number. All the possible odds are balanced out. Its the perfection of taking away all need to talk to players, to cooperate, to form social communities, because the game takes care of everything. The downside is, the RVR zones are depleted. This is even strengthened by the fact that quests give much less XP than scenario grinding. A very, very easy way to PVP is offered, but it comes with a price: people are getting too lazy to organize anything outside of scenarios.

3) Since practically all quests are soloable and PQs automatically add people, and since you can join open groups without exchanging a single word you get a perfectly running machine. There is not a single obstacle which forces you to converse with other people. Having been in SWG and EQ2 the longest time I find this way to show the quest goal on the map in such an exact way always as a letdown in immersity. And as humans function, they almost all take easiest way. I always felt a game should enforce grouping and cooperation to some degree, because only then communities are formed. I vividly recall in EQ2, when in its older days there were much more heroic mobs, those mobs were the root of my first online friendships. I only say Scarecrows in Antonica. They were heroic once, and thus there the first groups formed, because they were impossible to solo. Now they are solo mobs and people all solo there in silence anonymity. WAR is streamlined like this all the way. The player is prevented from ever really needing to cooperate, to plan, to organize, its all laid out in one path you can always do it at ease.

I will refrain from adding too many examples and leave it with those. One of the things people find exciting is the need to have to find things by themselves. In a way I cant help to feel that WAR went way too far with making this game playable without any need of conversation, of waiting and seeking of any thing that creates ingame communities and gives a feeling of accomplishment. Its like a simplified PVP-WOW version. They meant it well: no more downtime, no more seeking the fun, no more "I dont know where to do something that is fun". All is perfectly led and organized for you. And the result is similar to as humans devolve in the movie "Wall-E". When the system does everything for you, you loose some sense of accomplishment, of making a world your own. Its just a shot, but I somehow get this feeling that many of those aspects of WAR which were meant well and supposed to make it easier to get into the fun may prove to be those mechanics to keep WAR a niche game.

Now before you start a flame-war: you are entitled to love those simplification. As you see I dont. Lets just try to be polite still. ;)

/discuss ^^

I think a lot of what you said here is very interesting and mostly on the spot.  If you havent yet you might wand to also post ths over on : http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/p1

I have seen MJ post there so it seems he reads those as well.

Cheers!