Originally posted by buegur

 It made me laugh when critics said War was nothing more than a WoW clone, a poor one at that, they just didn't understand War wouldn't/doesn't appeal to that crowd.  WoW is what it is and I'm happy that crowd enjoys their game, now please leave War to the RvR crowd and not try to "fix it" to match the WoW mechanics! 

That makes me laugh a little inside.  Its like "hey look over there" (makes random comment about WoW crowd)...

I am a DAoC fan.. you know the RvR game.  My personal opinion is pretty much what your quote said.  To much like WoW and poorly implemented.  I don't want WAR to have WoW mechanics .. so what an odd implication.  I wanted WAR to have mechanics more like DAoC (you knwo the RvR crowd game) with the various fixes Mythic said they wouuld have "from learning from mistakes made in DAoC" (ya you know the RvR "crowds" game).

All of that and your post.. has nothing to do with how EA feels the game is doing.. If EA decided to shut the game down (this is what we call a "hypothetical") then it doesn't matter what "you" or "I" think.  That is why the only thing that matters is what EA thinks.

If you like WAR then I'm glad for you.  However, I don't really understand trying to imply that the "hate" comes from soime WoW crowd that wants the game to be more like WoW...

My personal opinion was most of the disappointment came from the fact it wasn't more like DAoC with all the various fixes Mythic mentioned over time (aka things like Crowd Control, Stealth and Anti Greifing system ala The Chicken.. among others).

If you like the game.. I'm glad for you (why wouldn't I be)

I'm not happy with the game (there are other mmo's to play WAR doesn't have to change)

If EA is happy with the game.. you can be happy for a long time (even happier for you).

Oh noes, buegur...

I didnt mean to discuss my tag INSIDE another thread! You'll hijack it!
Please ignore it as a normal course during a thread, but feel free to make a new one after^^

Why would they remake DAoC with a warhammer skin? That makes even less sense than remaking WoW. Warhammer has some things that are unique and it's been a mild sucess. Looking for games that are just like other games is a fool's errand. Look for the differences and concentrate on what each game has to offer.

This is a game that launched in the post-TS, post WoW, and post multi-game clan era and it shows.  It's just a very unfriendly atmosphere there.  Nobody says anything, probably because everybody is too busy running around doing quests and talking with their guild mates on TS.

The manual isn't all that explanatory, which means a lot of the things have to be learned on the fly; real basic things like: how do you buy your gear?

All of this adds up to a game that isn't really friendly to anyone who isn't a hardcore MMO player.  For example, while all of us here knows what a "DPS" is, and what a "Tank" is, the average Warhammer fan who logs into this game is faced with a description of the The Knights of the Blazing Sun as "Melee Tank," and is baffled by the description.  Same with "DPS," or any of the other highly technical terms elite MMO players use that are standard nomenclature in this game.  It gives the impression that this game isn't going to be immersive before you even enter the game world.

I've only been playing since yesterday, got to LvL 6, and already I'm probably not going to last the free month. It feels too "WoWish" and not "Warhammerish" enough.

Originally posted by Beatnik59

This is a game that launched in the post-TS, post WoW, and post multi-game clan era and it shows.  It's just a very unfriendly atmosphere there.  Nobody says anything, probably because everybody is too busy running around doing quests and talking with their guild mates on TS.

The manual isn't all that explanatory, which means a lot of the things have to be learned on the fly; real basic things like: how do you buy your gear?

All of this adds up to a game that isn't really friendly to anyone who isn't a hardcore MMO player.  For example, while all of us here knows what a "DPS" is, and what a "Tank" is, the average Warhammer fan who logs into this game is faced with a description of the The Knights of the Blazing Sun as "Melee Tank," and is baffled by the description.  Same with "DPS," or any of the other highly technical terms elite MMO players use that are standard nomenclature in this game.  It gives the impression that this game isn't going to be immersive before you even enter the game world.

I've only been playing since yesterday, got to LvL 6, and already I'm probably not going to last the free month. It feels too "WoWish" and not "Warhammerish" enough.

I agree with most you said - the game does pressupose some mmo experience.. Some people might be overwhelmed with all the technicalities - it is not as easy for the beginner mmo player at start like WoW. Someone completely new to mmos might get completely swamped with RvR experience, right out at rank 1. ("just press that little scenario button" lol)

However, the chat comment is completely counter to my experience... Since the transfers and open RvR started on my server there is almost constant chatter in /1 channel. Hmm - you're either playing on a low-pop server or I simply don't know. Could be you're in elf zone? At T1 most players congregate in Empire/Chaos and then spread out later on - fly to Nordland/Norsca and you're bound to find someone to  chat with. I play on Karak Norn which is med/med to med/high and there's a lot of talk here. Hmm - if you're on a low pop server then reroll - you still have the time. Playing on low pop or simply bad server does not do the game any justice.

Title ask : Yes for me

Mythic stated they expected 1 million subs in the short term and maybe 3 million long term:  So far, yes the game is a major flop when put up against these expectations.

Mythic also said their break even was around 250k:  Not a major success, but not a flop either. 

1.2 million copies sold, 800k users and then merging over half of the servers in north america and a complete disater in europe:  A very big flop there.

I think it is very clear this game is not doing anywhere close to what Mythic expected.  In a business sense for Mythic that makes it a flop.  The game isn't going to explode and go away, but it is a far cry from the behomoth that Mythic thought it would be.

In order for this game to reach 1million subs one of two things would need to happen (or a combination)

• Massive amounts of people would need to resbuscribe
• New game boxes need to be printed and sold to retailers

I can't think of any game that has had a massive resurgence of old players coming back and since the game is already being discounted I doubt new boxes will be ordered by retailers.  That is the major hurdle Mythic has to overcome for the long term health of the game.

Originally posted by Daffid011

In order for this game to reach 1million subs one of two things would need to happen (or a combination)

• Massive amounts of people would need to resbuscribe
• New game boxes need to be printed and sold to retailers

I can't think of any game that has had a massive resurgence of old players coming back and since the game is already being discounted I doubt new boxes will be ordered by retailers.  That is the major hurdle Mythic has to overcome for the long term health of the game.

Yes I think it's pretty much impossible to make a dramatic comeback and become a major success after a mediocre first 3 months.  The initial hype has petered out, if the game was going to get bigger the hype would have kept growing after release fueled by very positive player feedback and general furor from the gaming community, I think that it is very difficult to restart momentum once it's started declining.  It will probably level out at x number of subs and stay there.  Other new games are always on the horizon and people will get hyped about those and are not interested in already released games.  The only way that I can see this happening is if there is truely stellar expansion that basically makes it into a new game that people absolutly love, that is quite far fetched though.

Originally posted by Alandora

Originally posted by BattleFelon

I keep hearing from fans of a certain other game cough WOW cough that WAR is a total flop and financial disaster.  This post is not to start a fanboi flamefest, but only to point out that WAR actually did very well in total box sales - .1.2 million and had 800,000 subscribers in the month after launch.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6200329.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1

Now, I recognize that WAR may not have 800K today, I think part of that is they launched at the same time as Blizzard's latest big release. I have nothing against Blizzard, but let's face it - they are the top name in PC Gaming. If you compare WAR sales to other AAA PC titles, it's actually been a major success. And the estimated 600K current subscribers makes it one of the biggest MMOGs behind WOW in North America/Europe. That means WAR is far from an "epic fail" or a "dying game."

Personally, I think if Mythic can keep improving the game as quickly as they are doing, subs will surpass 1 million as people get burned out on WOTLK.

 

I don't think box sales really determines a flop or not (for mmorpgs).   Developers only get about 20% of the proceeds of box sales.   So Warhammer cost about 40M to make, and they got back about 8M from box sales.   Maintaining subscribers is what makes money.

I'm not sure where Warhammer will come out.  It's clear that they lost over half of that 800k so far.  They have merged well over half their servers and a large portion of the 'destination' servers are still very inactive.  Warhammer has also fallen off the sales charts, so don't expect an influx of new players any time soon.

I think it fits in well with the Eve, Lotro, EQ2 area of the chart.   But I do think Warhammer is in a much more precarious situation from those games because it is almost purely based on endgame pvp that requires a large amount of players to make it fun.  The 'fun-factor' of Warhammer drops off quickly as populations drop.

and where did you get your facts from?
 

Originally posted by Daffid011

Mythic stated they expected 1 million subs in the short term and maybe 3 million long term:  So far, yes the game is a major flop when put up against these expectations.

 

Mythic also said their break even was around 250k:  Not a major success, but not a flop either. 

 

1.2 million copies sold, 800k users and then merging over half of the servers in north america and a complete disater in europe:  A very big flop there.

 

 

I think it is very clear this game is not doing anywhere close to what Mythic expected.  In a business sense for Mythic that makes it a flop.  The game isn't going to explode and go away, but it is a far cry from the behomoth that Mythic thought it would be.

 

In order for this game to reach 1million subs one of two things would need to happen (or a combination)

• Massive amounts of people would need to resbuscribe
• New game boxes need to be printed and sold to retailers

I can't think of any game that has had a massive resurgence of old players coming back and since the game is already being discounted I doubt new boxes will be ordered by retailers.  That is the major hurdle Mythic has to overcome for the long term health of the game.

 

 

Show me your proof where Mythic stated they 'expected this game to be a behemoth...'

Okay, thanks.

Originally posted by snowchrome2

Originally posted by Alandora

Originally posted by BattleFelon

I keep hearing from fans of a certain other game cough WOW cough that WAR is a total flop and financial disaster.  This post is not to start a fanboi flamefest, but only to point out that WAR actually did very well in total box sales - .1.2 million and had 800,000 subscribers in the month after launch.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6200329.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1

Now, I recognize that WAR may not have 800K today, I think part of that is they launched at the same time as Blizzard's latest big release. I have nothing against Blizzard, but let's face it - they are the top name in PC Gaming. If you compare WAR sales to other AAA PC titles, it's actually been a major success. And the estimated 600K current subscribers makes it one of the biggest MMOGs behind WOW in North America/Europe. That means WAR is far from an "epic fail" or a "dying game."

Personally, I think if Mythic can keep improving the game as quickly as they are doing, subs will surpass 1 million as people get burned out on WOTLK.

 

I don't think box sales really determines a flop or not (for mmorpgs).   Developers only get about 20% of the proceeds of box sales.   So Warhammer cost about 40M to make, and they got back about 8M from box sales.   Maintaining subscribers is what makes money.

I'm not sure where Warhammer will come out.  It's clear that they lost over half of that 800k so far.  They have merged well over half their servers and a large portion of the 'destination' servers are still very inactive.  Warhammer has also fallen off the sales charts, so don't expect an influx of new players any time soon.

I think it fits in well with the Eve, Lotro, EQ2 area of the chart.   But I do think Warhammer is in a much more precarious situation from those games because it is almost purely based on endgame pvp that requires a large amount of players to make it fun.  The 'fun-factor' of Warhammer drops off quickly as populations drop.

and where did you get your facts from?
 

Which facts are you questioning?

It's a pretty much 'industry' norm that retail boxes pass on between 15-20% to the developer.  You can look at Funcoms, Blizzards are a variaty of other gaming companies to see this number come up over and over.   It's usually 15% in EU and 20% in the US... the overall average depends on where the sales come from.

Xfire is down 75%.    60% of servers have been 'abandoned'.     Stating a 50% loss in max populations is a reasonable guess.   Read the Vault forums, just today there was a nice thread of people talking about thier 'destination' servers being very low pop now.

Originally posted by BattleFelon

I keep hearing from fans of a certain other game cough WOW cough that WAR is a total flop and financial disaster.  This post is not to start a fanboi flamefest, but only to point out that WAR actually did very well in total box sales - .1.2 million and had 800,000 subscribers in the month after launch.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6200329.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1

Now, I recognize that WAR may not have 800K today, I think part of that is they launched at the same time as Blizzard's latest big release. I have nothing against Blizzard, but let's face it - they are the top name in PC Gaming. If you compare WAR sales to other AAA PC titles, it's actually been a major success. And the estimated 600K current subscribers makes it one of the biggest MMOGs behind WOW in North America/Europe. That means WAR is far from an "epic fail" or a "dying game."

Personally, I think if Mythic can keep improving the game as quickly as they are doing, subs will surpass 1 million as people get burned out on WOTLK.

I may be able to look at this topic without judgement since I quit WOW some time ago, I would have to say it's easy for WOW fans to feel threatened and those who are not happy with WAR now but it isn't a flop (obviously).

I do think it failed to meet some folks expectations as I had expected it would, especially after having to remove so many classes and cities but I think they did enough that they will be able to find a market and survive how big that market is obviously depends on what they do from here. One thing for certain is they didn't mess up as bad as funcom which shows the guys at the top aren't completeley insane like too many shot callers in this industry have been.

Originally posted by Sidereus

nah...it's the second most played P2P...game released yet in US...aion will change that I believe...yes WAR is an economical success...now if u dont like it that's another story...XXXXXXX number of costumer cant be wrong

woot AION ftw!!!

War is a good game but.. its just to small. You know I have played wow off and on for years and I still have not seen most of it and I am not talking about the expansions. Yet lol I have in War. There is just not enough stuff to do it gets old very very fast. Try or taking the main city .. my GOD how many times .. it just gets old. The game is easier than WOW. Yet 99% of the time there is NO CHAT.

So a flop no.. just not a hit.. like a B movie.

I don't really get why anyone thought WAR was going to be anything other than a small hit the games just to niched to appeal to the mass market just like DAOC before it.

well after beings subbed for several months to WAR i figured out why its not a huge succuss (moderate success, enough to stay in the market and do well),

the game is really solid and only becomes more so after each frequent patch, but its problem is that theres nothing that sets this game apart, nothing that makes it truly its own, nothing that makes it unigue, yeah its a solid mmo but i didnt find anything too interesting in this game so far, just the fact that everything was working well. i mean its got some features like PQs (not as many ppl doing them though, they were really active around launch, atleast on my server which is highly populated too) and its got some solid pvp but these features just werent enough to really buy ppl more ppl into the game. like for example this upcoming mmo called Aion will probably attract alot of players, why? becuase not only is a very solid from wat i hear, but it has some very unigue features that gives gamers a real good reason to sub to it, like flying... everywhere, anytime, even during pvp, as long as u got ur wings, just go search some videos its awesome, i know another mmo Perfect World has this but their flying feature is poorly input and slow unless u invest enough time to get ur flying abilities upgraded enough, but Aion flying i mean ur like a damn eagle soaring through the skys, pretty neat, and the enviorments are the neatest ive ever seen in an mmo i mean they must have some pretty talented dev artists working on this game, WoW? well its solid, i dont think theres alota features that are truly unigue to wow itself but whats there is designed very well, more so than WAR, AoC? Darkfall? realtime combat ofcourse, AoC's combat is great and it was a fresh experience its a great and unigue feature for the game and it was the main reason alota ppl bought it arent i right?

but anyways WAR isnt a flop and it isnt that bad of an mmo, just look at all those proffesional critic review scores, theyre mostly good, but it aint going to hit the real big sub numbers unless its got something truly unigue to offer gamers

no i don't consider War a flop at all, there was just NO WAY any game that was hyped as much as War was (by themselves more than anyone) could ever live up to the hype.seems anymore every game thats come out post WoW they feel the need to hype the hell out the games.

I remember i was playing eqoa and i only heard of wow through word of mouth from a friend that had quit eqoa to play wow and had been playin since beta. he described the druid class to me, sounded very cool so i gave it a try and liked it. was nothing to live up to for me, granted the game had only been out less than a month when i started but still.only started playin based on a vague discription of a single class o and also being told didn't require a full group to exp.so if i couldn't find a group i could still play and have fun.

so in short i REALLY hope game companies stop OVER OVER hyping their games.i don't think any other game in MMO history was ever hyped as much as War was.remember the feeds with that lil hyper ass english dude goin nuts just talking about the game? seeing that guy just talk about it made you think "damn this game is going to be awsome" then you play it and you just wanna smack that guy up side his head.

Originally posted by abyss610

no i don't consider War a flop at all, there was just NO WAY any game that was hyped as much as War was (by themselves more than anyone) could ever live up to the hype.seems anymore every game thats come out post WoW they feel the need to hype the hell out the games.

I remember i was playing eqoa and i only heard of wow through word of mouth from a friend that had quit eqoa to play wow and had been playin since beta. he described the druid class to me, sounded very cool so i gave it a try and liked it. was nothing to live up to for me, granted the game had only been out less than a month when i started but still.only started playin based on a vague discription of a single class o and also being told didn't require a full group to exp.so if i couldn't find a group i could still play and have fun.

so in short i REALLY hope game companies stop OVER OVER hyping their games.i don't think any other game in MMO history was ever hyped as much as War was.remember the feeds with that lil hyper ass english dude goin nuts just talking about the game? seeing that guy just talk about it made you think "damn this game is going to be awsome" then you play it and you just wanna smack that guy up side his head.

lol yeah never really noticed that but ur right that english dude really hyped his own game aliitle too much, he made it seem like it was going to be incredibly kick-ass, but isnt that wat hes supposed to do anyway?

Originally posted by Xavierxx

Originally posted by abyss610

no i don't consider War a flop at all, there was just NO WAY any game that was hyped as much as War was (by themselves more than anyone) could ever live up to the hype.seems anymore every game thats come out post WoW they feel the need to hype the hell out the games.

I remember i was playing eqoa and i only heard of wow through word of mouth from a friend that had quit eqoa to play wow and had been playin since beta. he described the druid class to me, sounded very cool so i gave it a try and liked it. was nothing to live up to for me, granted the game had only been out less than a month when i started but still.only started playin based on a vague discription of a single class o and also being told didn't require a full group to exp.so if i couldn't find a group i could still play and have fun.

so in short i REALLY hope game companies stop OVER OVER hyping their games.i don't think any other game in MMO history was ever hyped as much as War was.remember the feeds with that lil hyper ass english dude goin nuts just talking about the game? seeing that guy just talk about it made you think "damn this game is going to be awsome" then you play it and you just wanna smack that guy up side his head.

lol yeah never really noticed that but ur right that english dude really hyped his own game aliitle too much, he made it seem like it was going to be incredibly kick-ass, but isnt that wat hes supposed to do anyway?

yeah hyping the game was his job but if you over hype it, its deffinitly going to be a let down to all players.hell that guy made it sound like war was gunna cure cancer,get us laid, and end world hunger.

Originally posted by Spaceweed10 

Show me your proof where Mythic stated they 'expected this game to be a behemoth...'

Okay, thanks.

You can read it right there if you like.

www.massively.com/2008/09/17/warhammer-online-director-expects-three-million-subscribers/

If that doesn't show you how big Mythic expected the game to be, then how about them shipping 1.5 million copies at launch.  That number dwarfs just about every single MMO out right now.   They launched somewhere close to 100 servers between the 2 continents.  Also dwarfing just about every MMO currently.

I think it is pretty clear Mythic was expecting a huge success.