So it's official, NCSoft just decided to shut down Tabula Rasa forever. Similar to Hellgate: London (by the way also hosted by EA) whose servers will  be closed in January '09.
Both games were highly anticipated while still in development, had big names in their dev teams, big companies to host 'em.
And both had very unimpressive launches, gameplay issues *very* similar to WAR (although to be sure WAR at its core probably still is a far superior game) and both hardly survived more than a year before shutting down forever.

We all know the issues WAR has. Pure boredom, lack of communication, an empty world VOID of virtually any living soul (simply because 99% of all players are bunched up in warcamps to queue up for instanced minigame-scenarios), tons of bugs/glitches, and severe population issues (first server merges/mass transfers 1 month after release are anything but glorious, and CLEARLY show that WAR has FAR less subscribers than expected by EA Mythic).

Some argue that WAR needs more time to be a great game. Others rather think that the game design is so poor that it can't be fixed (an engine that simply CANNOT handle 100vs100 battles without giving EVERYONE in the zone a 10 second delay on every action, only 2 instead of 3 factions, an endgame map layout that doesn't really encourage open RvR, mechanics that don't encourage keep defending or realm pride in general, too heavy focus on instanced PvP etc.)

But let's just assume that things *could* be fixed, and the game just needs more time. Isn't it still doubtful that a company like EA would just drop WAR all along?
It was supposed to be the WoW-killer, now it's an army of low/low servers that need to be merged. The population-trend is a steep downward-slope, the pace at which Mythic is implementing counter-measures anything but impressive. What will it be like... 1 year from now? I haven't seen any major MMO that unimpressed players at launch, dropped to a low population as a result, but then miraculously recovered to healthy numbers of players (aside from AO with its froob program, probably).

SOE would just cut down the dev team to 1-20 people and add another game to their Graveyard Of Failed MMOs, which will be funded by the Station Access MMO-socialism.
But what will EA do once revenues hardly (or not at all) excceed the costs for feeding developers and keeping servers up anymore?
I kinda fear they are not the type of company to feed a starving child.

(Hah, I just hope they will sell it to SOE as an addition to their Failyard instead of closing down servers.)

Do a little research

Motor City Online
Earth and Beyond
UXO
UO2

All games from EA that were closed down either late in development or while being live and fairly stable.   Earth and Beyond is a great example (and a game I played).  It had a pretty decent launch, was stable at about 75,000 subscribers and had a really enthusiastic development team.  They pulled the plug even though people would have stayed for another year without a development team.

UXO was months away from being launched after 2+ years of development and was yanked at the last minute.

WAR doesn't deserve more time. If the game wasn't ready, they shouldn't have launched.

the game was ready for scenarios

Originally posted by Aethios

WAR doesn't deserve more time. If the game wasn't ready, they shouldn't have launched.

I got sick of waiting for the game to launch.  As it is right now, I am enjoying the game and plan on staying for a long time.   MMOs do need time to develop -- with the right team, patches, content and expansions, the game will evolve and grow.  there comes a point in time, that many of you ignorant people do not realize where a company needs to pay the bills -- it cant stay in development as long as it maybe should for the simple fact, that money dictates all.  Another year of beta does not pay the bills.  Now with the cash from subs rolling in, the dev team can work with a game that is making money and add to the game accordingly.  

Hate to break it to you, the servers are maintaining 20+ med/med and Mythic has a chance to win people back and get new players with the Dec patch.

Originally posted by Tyvolus1

Originally posted by Aethios

WAR doesn't deserve more time. If the game wasn't ready, they shouldn't have launched.

 

I got sick of waiting for the game to launch.  As it is right now, I am enjoying the game and plan on staying for a long time.   MMOs do need time to develop -- with the right team, patches, content and expansions, the game will evolve and grow.  there comes a point in time, that many of you ignorant people do not realize where a company needs to pay the bills -- it cant stay in development as long as it maybe should for the simple fact, that money dictates all.  Another year of beta does not pay the bills.  Now with the cash from subs rolling in, the dev team can work with a game that is making money and add to the game accordingly.  

Hate to break it to you, the servers are maintaining 20+ med/med and Mythic has a chance to win people back and get new players with the Dec patch.

what level are you? 8? 10? 12? maybe 18?

Originally posted by Brone87

Originally posted by Tyvolus1

Originally posted by Aethios

WAR doesn't deserve more time. If the game wasn't ready, they shouldn't have launched.

 

I got sick of waiting for the game to launch.  As it is right now, I am enjoying the game and plan on staying for a long time.   MMOs do need time to develop -- with the right team, patches, content and expansions, the game will evolve and grow.  there comes a point in time, that many of you ignorant people do not realize where a company needs to pay the bills -- it cant stay in development as long as it maybe should for the simple fact, that money dictates all.  Another year of beta does not pay the bills.  Now with the cash from subs rolling in, the dev team can work with a game that is making money and add to the game accordingly.  

Hate to break it to you, the servers are maintaining 20+ med/med and Mythic has a chance to win people back and get new players with the Dec patch.

 

what level are you? 8? 10? 12? maybe 18?

Im level 40 and think the guy you are responding to had a pretty good post. I feel the same. Was there a point to you asking his level?

Originally posted by Brone87

Originally posted by Tyvolus1

Originally posted by Aethios

WAR doesn't deserve more time. If the game wasn't ready, they shouldn't have launched.

 

I got sick of waiting for the game to launch.  As it is right now, I am enjoying the game and plan on staying for a long time.   MMOs do need time to develop -- with the right team, patches, content and expansions, the game will evolve and grow.  there comes a point in time, that many of you ignorant people do not realize where a company needs to pay the bills -- it cant stay in development as long as it maybe should for the simple fact, that money dictates all.  Another year of beta does not pay the bills.  Now with the cash from subs rolling in, the dev team can work with a game that is making money and add to the game accordingly.  

Hate to break it to you, the servers are maintaining 20+ med/med and Mythic has a chance to win people back and get new players with the Dec patch.

 

what level are you? 8? 10? 12? maybe 18?

Tyvolus, Warrior Priest. Rank 26, Renown Rank 21.   Server Praag.  Now you can stop guessing my level.  You threw 4 numbers out there, and really were not even that close.
 

Originally posted by Tyvolus1

Originally posted by Aethios

WAR doesn't deserve more time. If the game wasn't ready, they shouldn't have launched.

 

I got sick of waiting for the game to launch.  As it is right now, I am enjoying the game and plan on staying for a long time.   MMOs do need time to develop -- with the right team, patches, content and expansions, the game will evolve and grow.  there comes a point in time, that many of you ignorant people do not realize where a company needs to pay the bills -- it cant stay in development as long as it maybe should for the simple fact, that money dictates all.  Another year of beta does not pay the bills.  Now with the cash from subs rolling in, the dev team can work with a game that is making money and add to the game accordingly.  

Hate to break it to you, the servers are maintaining 20+ med/med and Mythic has a chance to win people back and get new players with the Dec patch.

I'm sorry companies do not have enough money to put out a complete product.  I'm sorry they cannot keep their deadlines or set unreal expectations.  All those things suck, but it does not make people ignorant.

It is not the customers problem that a company did not manage itself properly or set unreal goals.  It is not the responsibility of customers to stick around and pay for the post release completion of a game just because a company failed to deliver what they set out to make or ran out of money.   If a games only chance at survival is to have enough people put blind faith in its eventual completion and funding through subscriptions then I'm sorry it should fail.

In fact people who continually make excuses, apologize for and place blame on other customers for the failures of a company are the people who empower companies to get away with this sort of crap.  Whatever happens to Warhammer it will not be the fault of the customers.

Mythic said over and over they wouldn't release the game until it was awesome.  Not good, but GREAT!  I even remember them considering charging more than the standard $15 monthly sub fee. 

Great that you like the game, but don't lash out at people because Mythic didn't do their job.  The condition and state of Warhammer is 100% Mythics fault. 

"ready" doesnt mean "finished"

 I don't trust EA but as long as they see profit I'm sure they'll don what they consider best to keep the money rolling in.

1) If you say that 99% of the pop is on the scenarios then why would EA sht it down as the pop is there , Just not playing the right thing

I myself play a scenarios a lot not becoz its a grind or to level because its more fun that way.

2) Yes the game should nt have been launched without the cut classes and capital cities but they are getting there with 2 classes coming in Dec

3) Server merge and character transfer I dont view this as a failure but a correction.They opened too many servers too soon, WAR requires high pop to suceed.AOC should have done it long time ago.

4) abandon immediately low populated servers , I rerolled on a then high (now medium ) pop server and ever day I face non stoop action

Its easier to get in any scenarios a minute or 22 max, Always RVR action going on YEsterday we guarded a keep and completed several battle objectives for over 2 hours non stop fun.

I am on a OPEN RVE server anfd every time I venture to do my quest some destro starts attacking me .But many a time I find that Order member are around an they help so lot of ganking action also.

5) the problem lies in the tiers .Tier 1 and 2 are nicely populated but tier 3 and 4 are empty .so many a time we see people from tier 3 most of the time in tier 2 .

6) Luckily on medium server if you join a good 70+ guild guild members help u out PQ But i see lot a time people in Chat LFG for PQ chapter 7 or 8 and lot of people answer back and join in.

7) Mythic actively listens to the community, The patchh 1.05 they looked at user feedbaack on healers and held it back.Also with the live event users had issue with the task to have them completed within 24 hours .Mythic fixed it now it can be done till end of the event.

8) People try to join the band wagon and not plaay what they like.I rolled a Destro why coz I knew they were going to outnumber and thats what happened.

After trying few classes i realised that the best class i like is Bright Wizard I like its play style and I have never palyed a ranged mage class in any MMO before.

9) This game will not dies out like Hellgate and TR.TR had concept and design problems in its core .WAR people are favaorable in general they have gripes abiout imbalance and no RVR action and teh pop spread out too thin accross all servers.

10) I reactivated my AOC for 2 months but realised that WAR was more FUN for me in the end. I know that its not perfect , crafting is crap and PVE is weak, graphics are not in PAR but somehow at the end of the day I am having lots of fun and thats why I wanted to play mmo in 1st play , lots of fun and group play.

I don't see how no one called this out. The game was poorly developed because it has 2 factions instead of 3??? What game were you expecting , DAOC??

Originally posted by winter

 I don't trust EA but as long as they see profit I'm sure they'll don what they consider best to keep the money rolling in.

 

I don't mean to burst your bubble, but I dont think many, if any games companies design games with the customers intrests in mind.

Originally posted by Mampi

Originally posted by winter

 I don't trust EA but as long as they see profit I'm sure they'll don what they consider best to keep the money rolling in.

 

 

I don't mean to burst your bubble, but I dont think many, if any games companies design games with the customers intrests in mind.

Valve....well not really valve... but all the half-life modifications were made nonprofit and for people to enjoy and have fun. Then valve took over those projects and hired all the people that created them, gave them huge monies and profited off of them. But, those people still work for valve and have helped develope newer games for the intentions of the customers. Like the creator of Counter-strike helped make source.

But ya, it's not about the customers, it's about the money. EA is a corporation, a business, like all business it's about money. The only game developers that give a shit are the ones that haven't been corrupted by money. So first time developers or small studios. But when you're as big as EA, you just want money.

Originally posted by Mampi

Originally posted by winter

 I don't trust EA but as long as they see profit I'm sure they'll don what they consider best to keep the money rolling in.

 

 

I don't mean to burst your bubble, but I dont think many, if any games companies design games with the customers intrests in mind.

 Not exactly sure were you read in "customers intrests" but ok I'll play. it is in part in the conpanies interest to keep "customers interests" in mind, at least as far as it involves keep revenue. Anyone saying the companies gonna tell all their customers to F*ck off and do the the exact opposite of what the customers want with no forseeable way of recomping lost revenue is silly. only example that comes to mind being perhaps SWG NGE in which case someone actually thought they'd gain more customers to make up for the ones they would lose.

what a stupid thread. war is in every aspect better than wow, plus has some additional features. its more buggy though. how come you dont complain on wow?

dont waste your time posting such crap and making people wasting their time reading it

[quote]Originally posted by Servase

---

Originally posted by Aethios

WAR doesn't deserve more time. If the game wasn't ready, they shouldn't have launched.

---

 
[/quote]
LOL, great post & I agree with you entirely.
For some reason though I heard the voice of 'Samuel L Jackson' in my head as I read it. 

Originally posted by Servase

Originally posted by Mampi

Originally posted by winter

 I don't trust EA but as long as they see profit I'm sure they'll don what they consider best to keep the money rolling in.

 

 

I don't mean to burst your bubble, but I dont think many, if any games companies design games with the customers intrests in mind.

 

Valve....well not really valve... but all the half-life modifications were made nonprofit and for people to enjoy and have fun. Then valve took over those projects and hired all the people that created them, gave them huge monies and profited off of them. But, those people still work for valve and have helped develope newer games for the intentions of the customers. Like the creator of Counter-strike helped make source.

 

But ya, it's not about the customers, it's about the money. EA is a corporation, a business, like all business it's about money. The only game developers that give a shit are the ones that haven't been corrupted by money. So first time developers or small studios. But when you're as big as EA, you just want money.

I don't personally think EA is as evil as everyone states them to be. Remember, they started out making games for the sega genesis and such so they know what its like to be part of the video game industry. 

Some people do indeed make games for the joy of it but unfortunately games that focus on one specific type of gamer usually end up selling badly. People nowdays expect too much from developers so they won't ever find a game that suits them.

Originally posted by deathtripp

I don't see how no one called this out. The game was poorly developed because it has 2 factions instead of 3??? What game were you expecting , DAOC??

I was expecting ALOT  more DAoC and ALOT less WoW, well actually I was not expecting it, I was hoping it.

I and many others told Mythic to shift the focus more on World RvR and make it the most important, but they didnt, and they got hurt, cause who wanna play scenarios in WAR when they can play / played BG's in WoW ...

The game at it's core is not bad, and even tho I would have preferred 3 factions, it is ok with 2.

Just need to keep pushing the focus on RvR ( which is actually the easiest to develop imho, creating PvE content takes more work imho ).

And ofc for Europe, there needs to be TRANSFERS NOW ! Servers are dying, people are leaving !

For the US, the fast transfers meant keeping alot of players happy and having good medium populated servers. WAR Europe will see alot more people leaving because it took so long for the transfers AND because the REALM WAR PAGES are still NOT UP !

I won't be back soon, because WAR EUROPE sucks ( wether it is because of GOA or Mythic or EA, I don't care ), I do hope WAR will do well, because it desrves it.

Greetz

--------------------

EA will unplug War when it will hit 150K subs. Will it come to this point? Perhaps they can level out at 200 K subs, but wait until summer time and other hyped up MMO's will launch.

The game is still selling  copies in the holliday season, they camouflage the real retention rates so the spring and summer of 2009 will be a struggle between EA and Mythic and the lack of a Director's attitide of MJ these last few weeks didn't please some EA bosses at all...

The end of Hellgate London and Tabula Rasa shows the limit for present day costs is 100K subs. But EA is in dire need of money cutting measures for its share holders. So their limit is certainly 150K, in view of the over investment they had on War's server park and various infrastructures.

War missed its target goal by 2/3 it seems (as that is the number on low/low during average gameplay).

And as HL and TR proved, investors aren't jumping to acquire MMO's these days of economic depression.

Conclusion: we wait until april 2009 and the chances it will close lay at 40/60.

Expect a lot of other MMORPG's - based on subscriptions - to close down in the following months.

The state of the economy is too dramatic.

Originally posted by Azrile

Do a little research

Motor City Online
Earth and Beyond
UXO
UO2

All games from EA that were closed down either late in development or while being live and fairly stable.   Earth and Beyond is a great example (and a game I played).  It had a pretty decent launch, was stable at about 75,000 subscribers and had a really enthusiastic development team.  They pulled the plug even though people would have stayed for another year without a development team.

UXO was months away from being launched after 2+ years of development and was yanked at the last minute.

I had 2 accounts for EnB and used to run two machines.  I LOVED THAT GAME!

When the game stops making money thats when EA will be concerned. Though I am curious how many actual subs this games has.

But will EA be patient?

 Could not careless, i am a patience man, meanwhile, i`ll rather stop my sub and not waste those euros.

Originally posted by deathtripp

I don't see how no one called this out. The game was poorly developed because it has 2 factions instead of 3??? What game were you expecting , DAOC??

Actually, I agree with him that there should have been 3 factions (not that it makes the game poorly developed though). They should have had Law, Chaos and greenskins instead of 2, that would have made the RvR more intresting. When you have 3 sides the games kinda balances it self, if one side is doing to good the other 2 will bind together. Also the lore that bind greenskins and Chaos together is kinda weak.

But currently I don't think EA will close the game down. If however the game continue to lose players and start to get down under 150K players, then there is that chanse. I don't know the current numbers but as long as it is at least 250K then there is nothing to fear, as EA is at least not losing money on the game.

And the issue here isn't really if the game are bad, I don't think so, but if EA could/would kill it. And there is always that chanse, Mythic should never have sold out to them. I'm am sure that it is EA that forced Mythic to launch the game as early as they did.