After reading it over a couple times yes, but  I still had to post because there are people who will find some way of using your post sarcasm or not to defend Mythic in some way shape or form. It wasn't really an attack on you although I know it reads like it. Sorry for that.

I'm just so frustrated of looking for that next good game. I'm waiting for Darkfall but I don't have any faith that it'll be good, I'm just down to last resorts.

If Mythic instead of trying to distance themselves from DaoC, had  taken all the best of DaoC , combined it with the Warhammer lore, the new classes and the pq's with a more epic feel to them, they would have had a wonderful game.  I don't understand how they could have fallen so far and it's left me more than agitated. And to top it all off the Origins server will probably not come to fruition until the end of next year when they realize that they won't save a large part of their customer base no matter what they do to Warhammer.

No apology necessary Greenie, i totaly understand your frustrations and agree with you .

All sarcasm aside, they advertised a game concept and then sold something diffrent.

They made a game based on RVR with RVR as an after thought. The PVE is entirely too weak and dull, and the endgame is what? Ill explain what I mean here. Ok so it is a PVP / RVR based game who cares about the PVE.. Outside of a sandbox type of a game which still should have some kind of engaging PVE, Its key for a game of this type. The instances are the most basic and feature lacking additions to any game ever.  This is undisputable. The PQs do not work as advertised, and once folks did 1 or 2, they became empty. And the run of the mill quests were nothing diffrent than WoW, which as far as story goes, had nothing to do with war. War is supposed to be everywhere.

The inclusion of scenarios..Are you kidding? so people have a place to PVP in a RVR game? Scenarios belong in PVE games like WoW. All they did was think of the outline in terms of RVR how to get to the city sieges, but the journey is the important part of the destination. There is NO and I mean ZERO RVR in this game they catered it to the solo WoW player for instant gratification and personal gain. Yes you might fight a battle with other players, and you may even be in a group with them, because it was necessary to accomplish YOUR objectives in geting personal rewards. There is no realm pride. There are no realm rewards other than the chance to sack the enemy city. So once that's accomplished,  then what? 

The reason why DAoC took off the way it did was because people liked the idea of doing their part to work as a united front to  work for the greater good of the realm. The realm was rewarded, and through that the individual. I do belive in the growth of your character it is important obviously, to get get personal rewards, but not at the expense of the team in a team based game. Warhammer fails to do this on any level.

In warhammer its better to solo untill it fits your personal agenda to do other wise, which is why you go into a scenario or even an open RVR battle and its like having the A.I. from Star Wars Battlefront on your team. It's not in anyone's interest to perform as a team.

More on scenarios: Thats the fastest way to get renown/ xp? Are you serious? In an RVR game?? So lets assume for a moment  bitter enemies bent on world domination decide to play capture the flag games over and over  instead of dealling with the real important issues. One side has to lose. Thats ok too, because if you don't win you get second place. So again, its not in anyones interest to work as a team, because you will still be rewarded for bad behavior.

So now as I understand it, they have added an influence system to make RVR more appealling. Still no rewards to anyone but the individual. They have lost sight of what RVR means, and asking people to stick it out because they have things comming down the pike is rediculous. If they dont get it by now they never will. Whats funny is this is the same company that made DAoC for christ sake.

I don't know how many people will agree with me on this next point, but I cannot justify paying a monthly sub, which im sure partially ges to pay the salary of a Creative Director. The only thing Paul Barnett used creativity on was a clever way to basicly say "you are a fucking fruitcake retard if you do not play on the Destruction side."

The layout design is to blame. Players were spread too far apart. There were too many things to do across too many zones. You didn't need to visit every races' Tier to level, so players were all over the place. There was no realm pride.

I mean, look at all the good stuff this game has. PQs are nice despite what the haters say. Open Parties were another great idea. Battlefield Objectives. The Tome of Knowledge although it's sometimes TOO much. Leveling through PvP was another great idea. The game has solo quests, group quests, dungeons, PQ's, Keeps, Guild Levels, Renown Levels, EXP Levels, Guild banks, Guild Vaults, Guild Buffs, etc. etc.

This game has a TON going for it, but I think in the end the layout design just hurt it. Without any World Defense channel, and with people spread out all over the globe, it was hard to find action, and people got bored.

PS. It is getting alot better now though. With the ORvR Epic rewards, it's pretty easy to find a Keep to Siege or a BO to take now. That wasn't the case for the first few months.

Originally posted by oddjobs74

All sarcasm aside, they advertised a game concept and then sold something diffrent.

They made a game based on RVR with RVR as an after thought. The PVE is entirely too weak and dull, and the endgame is what? Ill explain what I mean here. Ok so it is a PVP / RVR based game who cares about the PVE.. Outside of a sandbox type of a game which still should have some kind of engaging PVE, Its key for a game of this type. The instances are the most basic and feature lacking additions to any game ever.  This is undisputable. The PQs do not work as advertised, and once folks did 1 or 2, they became empty. And the run of the mill quests were nothing diffrent than WoW, which as far as story goes, had nothing to do with war. War is supposed to be everywhere.

The inclusion of scenarios..Are you kidding? so people have a place to PVP in a RVR game? Scenarios belong in PVE games like WoW. All they did was think of the outline in terms of RVR how to get to the city sieges, but the journey is the important part of the destination. There is NO and I mean ZERO RVR in this game they catered it to the solo WoW player for instant gratification and personal gain. Yes you might fight a battle with other players, and you may even be in a group with them, because it was necessary to accomplish YOUR objectives in geting personal rewards. There is no realm pride. There are no realm rewards other than the chance to sack the enemy city. So once that's accomplished,  then what? 

The reason why DAoC took off the way it did was because people liked the idea of doing their part to work as a united front to  work for the greater good of the realm. The realm was rewarded, and through that the individual. I do belive in the growth of your character it is important obviously, to get get personal rewards, but not at the expense of the team in a team based game. Warhammer fails to do this on any level.

In warhammer its better to solo untill it fits your personal agenda to do other wise, which is why you go into a scenario or even an open RVR battle and its like having the A.I. from Star Wars Battlefront on your team. It's not in anyone's interest to perform as a team.

More on scenarios: Thats the fastest way to get renown/ xp? Are you serious? In an RVR game?? So lets assume for a moment  bitter enemies bent on world domination decide to play capture the flag games over and over  instead of dealling with the real important issues. One side has to lose. Thats ok too, because if you don't win you get second place. So again, its not in anyones interest to work as a team, because you will still be rewarded for bad behavior.

So now as I understand it, they have added an influence system to make RVR more appealling. Still no rewards to anyone but the individual. They have lost sight of what RVR means, and asking people to stick it out because they have things comming down the pike is rediculous. If they dont get it by now they never will. Whats funny is this is the same company that made DAoC for christ sake.

I don't know how many people will agree with me on this next point, but I cannot justify paying a monthly sub, which im sure partially ges to pay the salary of a Creative Director. The only thing Paul Barnett used creativity on was a clever way to basicly say "you are a fucking fruitcake retard if you do not play on the Destruction side."

You are so wrong on so many arguments, I can't even decide where to start .

Did you even play it recently? Think not.

No Im not wrong.. And you don't know where to start because you can't.

Originally posted by oddjobs74

All sarcasm aside, they advertised a game concept and then sold something diffrent.

They made a game based on RVR with RVR as an after thought. The PVE is entirely too weak and dull, and the endgame is what? Ill explain what I mean here. Ok so it is a PVP / RVR based game who cares about the PVE.. Outside of a sandbox type of a game which still should have some kind of engaging PVE, Its key for a game of this type. The instances are the most basic and feature lacking additions to any game ever.  This is undisputable. The PQs do not work as advertised, and once folks did 1 or 2, they became empty. And the run of the mill quests were nothing diffrent than WoW, which as far as story goes, had nothing to do with war. War is supposed to be everywhere.

The inclusion of scenarios..Are you kidding? so people have a place to PVP in a RVR game? Scenarios belong in PVE games like WoW. All they did was think of the outline in terms of RVR how to get to the city sieges, but the journey is the important part of the destination. There is NO and I mean ZERO RVR in this game they catered it to the solo WoW player for instant gratification and personal gain. Yes you might fight a battle with other players, and you may even be in a group with them, because it was necessary to accomplish YOUR objectives in geting personal rewards. There is no realm pride. There are no realm rewards other than the chance to sack the enemy city. So once that's accomplished,  then what? 

The reason why DAoC took off the way it did was because people liked the idea of doing their part to work as a united front to  work for the greater good of the realm. The realm was rewarded, and through that the individual. I do belive in the growth of your character it is important obviously, to get get personal rewards, but not at the expense of the team in a team based game. Warhammer fails to do this on any level.

In warhammer its better to solo untill it fits your personal agenda to do other wise, which is why you go into a scenario or even an open RVR battle and its like having the A.I. from Star Wars Battlefront on your team. It's not in anyone's interest to perform as a team.

More on scenarios: Thats the fastest way to get renown/ xp? Are you serious? In an RVR game?? So lets assume for a moment  bitter enemies bent on world domination decide to play capture the flag games over and over  instead of dealling with the real important issues. One side has to lose. Thats ok too, because if you don't win you get second place. So again, its not in anyones interest to work as a team, because you will still be rewarded for bad behavior.

So now as I understand it, they have added an influence system to make RVR more appealling. Still no rewards to anyone but the individual. They have lost sight of what RVR means, and asking people to stick it out because they have things comming down the pike is rediculous. If they dont get it by now they never will. Whats funny is this is the same company that made DAoC for christ sake.

I don't know how many people will agree with me on this next point, but I cannot justify paying a monthly sub, which im sure partially ges to pay the salary of a Creative Director. The only thing Paul Barnett used creativity on was a clever way to basicly say "you are a fucking fruitcake retard if you do not play on the Destruction side."

1. RvR is the biggest thing in their game with some of the best gear being get by PvE aswell but to get to that gear, you have to rely on RvR people and help them.
 

2. Scenario's belong everywhere and give the "being able to lvl to 40 through only PvP" unlike WoW as you have mentioned...

3. Solo is not the way to go especially when you are approaching Tier 4 and/or RvR heavily either Scenario's or ORvR.

4. Fastest way to earn expirience is BFO's, Keep taking, keep defending and keep taking while the enemy is there.

5. Their influence system was there to encourage ORvR and encouraging it did. Also it gave a foothold on those people who felt like there was no point to defending other than the "arpeez" , even though they will probably add more defensive rewards due to much feedback.

6. The monthly fee is there as an encouragement to the guys/gals working on the game and trying to finish what they started to create.

RVR is not the biggest thing in the game. this group of individuals vs this group of individuals is the biggest thing in the game. And I agree u need to rely on other people so YOU can get YOUR gear..No realm reward  or inscentive to really band togethjer with some real pride so no, there is no RVR is there?

How can you say scenarios belong in a game based on PVP, so that it take the RVR out of the game.. as if without scenarios, players would have no place to PVP? come on man..

again the influence system is for personal gain.. I could play WoW if I want a single player personal gain game.

Paying folks to just go more off target is silly.

Originally posted by neonwire

Originally posted by medafor

they started with way too many servers, people were screaming the game is empty, thats because their server was not populated, which lead to poor RVR. Because of that most didn't even stay past the first month. they don't advertise the game enough. i see WOW WOTLK banners all over the web, join WOW for 10 days banners everywhere. There is no trial, except for people who already have the game and want to invite friends (which came almost 4 months after release, way too late). the game released with way too many features missing (which have been added in 4 months of patching), too buggy on release.

the game is fun although i  hardly play anymore, wish it would have been released 4 months later, after the guinea pig stage i got burned out. they should have merged servers faster. too many empty servers turned a lot of people away really fast. My son is back into his wii again, we may close our subs on the next billing cycle.

if WAR cam out today in this state with only the med/med server it would be a great sucess. and as far a WOW , i would never go back to that as WARs PVP/RVR has really turned me off to PVE oriented MMOs. We will have to see what Darkfall holds.
 

 

You're reading far too much into it. The reason that WAR doesnt have a larger number of subscription numbers is really very simple. Its just not a very good game. If it was then lots of people would be staying but unfortunately many people just found it boring and ended up canceling their subscriptions. Dull PvE, meaningless "optional" RvR, bland cookie-cutter classes with very little variety, no working economy, useless crafting, run-of-the-mill levelling treadmill with very little room for variety, uninspired game design etc etc. It all adds up to be a pretty uninteresting game......fun for a while but certainly nothing to hold most peoples attention.

If WAR was a great game then advertising wouldnt matter at all. In fact I see quite a few adverts for the game all over the place. Problem is most people know that its just a weak immitation of WoW so most people just stick with the original instead. WAR cant even offer better PvP which is quite silly really considering that this is supposed to be its selling point. Mythic said they were not trying to create a "world" but instead wanted to create a "game".......and because it lacks the feeling of being a world many people just dont want to hang around in it......unless you enjoy flipping Keeps back and forth for eternity for no particular reason other than "they are there".

The game might get a bit better when it finally adds in the missing features like the 4 other cities and the 2 missing classes. I certainly wont be coming back to see them though. By that time though there will be other bigger and better games out so why would anyone want to bother with WAR by then anyway?

I think Neonwire pretty much summed it up nicely. I had played both closed and open beta, along with the first 90 days of release.  I am currently not a subscriber.

I will state some problems I had which made me believe that the game was released as an "unfinished product".

1. The game DID have some groundbreaking bugs that involved graphics and crashes (slightly similar to AoC) These did not affect everybody, but it forced me to upgrade my computer to play.

2.  The game had a HORRIBLE social/chat interface the first few days.  Typing things out to people was useless because the game would post all events in the chat panel, causing players to constantly try and scroll up to read what had been previously posted.  Vent/teamspeak was a must for guilds.

3. Mailbox system was EXTREMELY slow for many people.  I believe it depended on the server you played on, along with your faction.  It would also occur at awkward times, like 2:00 am but not 8:00 pm during prime time....weird.

4.The 4 classes/4 cities being removed prior to launch.  Like somebody said before, just because it was announced doesn't change the fact that it was previously planned for launch.

5. The shoddy warhammer website which was a failure at keeping tabs on the status of realms, players, and announcements.  I personally do not like to use third party websites in order to learn the status of the game and players/guilds.

6.  Animation bugs, animation bugs, animation bugs.  All classes/races had some quirks that needed to be ironed out.

7. Barren city.  You think people would want to hang out in their capital city to relax, trade, and chat.  Not here.  No people avoided the cities because there really wasn't any point to stick around one.

8. There were missing dungeon and lairs events.  I remember one instance where 6 guildies were running all across each tier to light 4 candles in hopes of unlocking something (i cant exactly remember what).  Once they had completed this task, they were met with a message that told them that the feature was not yet accessible.  (They were stuck as chickens half the time aswell)

9. The random weapons scattered throughout all tiers that could only be used by one of the 4 classes not in game.  I think the most common one I found was for Hammerers.

10. The complete dominance of brightwizards, followed by sorceresses.

11. The joke of Pve dungeons before level 40.

12. The joke of crafting

You know. The more I think about it the more strange it sounds.

They were pretty much planning on releasing a *year* before they did now. *With* the 4 cities and 4 classes? And a year later they still weren't done? 

And then supposedly they delayed to add more ORvR (which they did with keeps, granted) and "Polish".

Although I suppose they would probably have announced the cuts if they hadn't known they were gonna extend already.

... Some stuff really doesn't add up. Seems they really missed their mark (rofl) back then. If EA hadn't jumped in(giving financial means to delay for another year) I dread to think what state this game would have released in.

Originally posted by TheHavok

I think Neonwire pretty much summed it up nicely. I had played both closed and open beta, along with the first 90 days of release.  I am currently not a subscriber.

I will state some problems I had which made me believe that the game was released as an "unfinished product".

1. The game DID have some groundbreaking bugs that involved graphics and crashes (slightly similar to AoC) These did not affect everybody, but it forced me to upgrade my computer to play.

2.  The game had a HORRIBLE social/chat interface the first few days.  Typing things out to people was useless because the game would post all events in the chat panel, causing players to constantly try and scroll up to read what had been previously posted.  Vent/teamspeak was a must for guilds.

3. Mailbox system was EXTREMELY slow for many people.  I believe it depended on the server you played on, along with your faction.  It would also occur at awkward times, like 2:00 am but not 8:00 pm during prime time....weird.

4.The 4 classes/4 cities being removed prior to launch.  Like somebody said before, just because it was announced doesn't change the fact that it was previously planned for launch.

5. The shoddy warhammer website which was a failure at keeping tabs on the status of realms, players, and announcements.  I personally do not like to use third party websites in order to learn the status of the game and players/guilds.

6.  Animation bugs, animation bugs, animation bugs.  All classes/races had some quirks that needed to be ironed out.

7. Barren city.  You think people would want to hang out in their capital city to relax, trade, and chat.  Not here.  No people avoided the cities because there really wasn't any point to stick around one.

8. There were missing dungeon and lairs events.  I remember one instance where 6 guildies were running all across each tier to light 4 candles in hopes of unlocking something (i cant exactly remember what).  Once they had completed this task, they were met with a message that told them that the feature was not yet accessible.  (They were stuck as chickens half the time aswell)

9. The random weapons scattered throughout all tiers that could only be used by one of the 4 classes not in game.  I think the most common one I found was for Hammerers.

10. The complete dominance of brightwizards, followed by sorceresses.

11. The joke of Pve dungeons before level 40.

12. The joke of crafting

 

You forgot point 13: the most important one: the necessary code to make the big siege battles work... without crashes ...as being said by Mark Jacobs own targets for "the following weeks":

 "There are three initiatives that the dev team hope to put their focus on in the coming weeks.

One of these is simply to see how the new population threshold is working, to determine if and how it should be tweaked with respect to balance and design issues.

At the same time, they will be keeping an eye on the Fortress Lords to make sure that their difficulty aligns with the number of players attending a siege.

The third change will involve optimizing the code that deals with large-scale battles, in the hopes of being able to open up the population threshold some more."

Or to sum it up:

"Optimizing code to allow large scale battles ...in the hopes ...".

I hope you all are very happy paying for large fight beta testing.

Point 9 is also a great one and unthinkable in a polished product.

Originally posted by neonwire

You're reading far too much into it. The reason that WAR doesnt have a larger number of subscription numbers is really very simple. Its just not a very good game. If it was then lots of people would be staying but unfortunately many people just found it boring and ended up canceling their subscriptions. Dull PvE, meaningless "optional" RvR, bland cookie-cutter classes with very little variety, no working economy, useless crafting, run-of-the-mill levelling treadmill with very little room for variety, uninspired game design etc etc. It all adds up to be a pretty uninteresting game......fun for a while but certainly nothing to hold most peoples attention.

If WAR was a great game then advertising wouldnt matter at all. In fact I see quite a few adverts for the game all over the place. Problem is most people know that its just a weak immitation of WoW so most people just stick with the original instead. WAR cant even offer better PvP which is quite silly really considering that this is supposed to be its selling point. Mythic said they were not trying to create a "world" but instead wanted to create a "game".......and because it lacks the feeling of being a world many people just dont want to hang around in it......unless you enjoy flipping Keeps back and forth for eternity for no particular reason other than "they are there".

The game might get a bit better when it finally adds in the missing features like the 4 other cities and the 2 missing classes. I certainly wont be coming back to see them though. By that time though there will be other bigger and better games out so why would anyone want to bother with WAR by then anyway?

I agree with almost all what you say, particulary that the MMORPG has no "world" feeling to it and the RvR is pointless. But one huge selling point that WAR still has is that, to my knowledge, it is the only MMORPG that gives you the option to advance your character solely by PvP.

That alone is enough reason for me to stay and hope they make RvR meaningful and make you actually want to take over that keep and then defend it to the bitter end. However with the WoW casual feel that this game I am starting to have doubts that this will ever happen. Lets face it, WoW ruined MMORPGs and turned them into casual/instant gratification games with no other point than getting exp and gear. Maybe the times where you fought for the survival of your guild/faction is gone and all you got left is FPS style meaningless zerging.

Originally posted by Greenie

Originally posted by Kilmar

Originally posted by medafor

 

If Mythic had made the game they all made us believe they were making, WaR wouldn't be in this mess.

Exactly,

They promised us Warhammer Online and they gave us Scenarios Online instead.

Cheers

You forgot point 13: the most important one: the necessary code to make the big siege battles work... without crashes ...as being said by Mark Jacobs own targets for "the following weeks":

"There are three initiatives that the dev team hope to put their focus on in the coming weeks.

One of these is simply to see how the new population threshold is working, to determine if and how it should be tweaked with respect to balance and design issues.

At the same time, they will be keeping an eye on the Fortress Lords to make sure that their difficulty aligns with the number of players attending a siege.

The third change will involve optimizing the code that deals with large-scale battles, in the hopes of being able to open up the population threshold some more."

Or to sum it up:

"Optimizing code to allow large scale battles ...in the hopes ...".

I hope you all are very happy paying for large fight beta testing.

Point 9 is also a great one and unthinkable in a polished product.

>>>>>>>

The part that really cracks me up about his comments is that after saying all those things, he'll come back and say "  but we really haven't experienced any fort crashes in the last 2 weeks" or " Only one server has crashed last week because of population". 

The funny thing is he might be right on the last one. No "servers" crash due to the fortress issues.

When people broke out on the VNboards over it he didn't have a clue what was happening. No servers had crashed as far as he knew in the last few weeks(the statement people broke out over to begin with lol) when people were finding him evidence fortresses were crashing regularly all over the world.

No kidding, the servers weren't but the zones sure were. Seems a zone crash hadn't been considered important enough to report to MJ about even if it did happen consistently and on both sides of the world. (granted EU stuff probably doesn't reach his ear till much later).

Didn't take him long after that to focus on it though ^^

See, whining helps :p

Originally posted by medafor

they started with way too many servers, people were screaming the game is empty, thats because their server was not populated, which lead to poor RVR. Because of that most didn't even stay past the first month. they don't advertise the game enough. i see WOW WOTLK banners all over the web, join WOW for 10 days banners everywhere. There is no trial, except for people who already have the game and want to invite friends (which came almost 4 months after release, way too late). the game released with way too many features missing (which have been added in 4 months of patching), too buggy on release.

the game is fun although i  hardly play anymore, wish it would have been released 4 months later, after the guinea pig stage i got burned out. they should have merged servers faster. too many empty servers turned a lot of people away really fast. My son is back into his wii again, we may close our subs on the next billing cycle.

if WAR cam out today in this state with only the med/med server it would be a great sucess. and as far a WOW , i would never go back to that as WARs PVP/RVR has really turned me off to PVE oriented MMOs. We will have to see what Darkfall holds.
 

Darkfall?  You really are grasping at straws now...

---

Originally posted by Spaceweed10

---

Originally posted by medafor

they started with way too many servers, people were screaming the game is empty, thats because their server was not populated, which lead to poor RVR. Because of that most didn't even stay past the first month. they don't advertise the game enough. i see WOW WOTLK banners all over the web, join WOW for 10 days banners everywhere. There is no trial, except for people who already have the game and want to invite friends (which came almost 4 months after release, way too late). the game released with way too many features missing (which have been added in 4 months of patching), too buggy on release.
the game is fun although i  hardly play anymore, wish it would have been released 4 months later, after the guinea pig stage i got burned out. they should have merged servers faster. too many empty servers turned a lot of people away really fast. My son is back into his wii again, we may close our subs on the next billing cycle.
if WAR cam out today in this state with only the med/med server it would be a great sucess. and as far a WOW , i would never go back to that as WARs PVP/RVR has really turned me off to PVE oriented MMOs. We will have to see what Darkfall holds.
 

---

 
Darkfall?  You really are grasping at straws now...
 

---

Probably true, but this would describe a lot of people who played WAR and unsubscribed. Some went back to Wow, some went back to FPS, some went to consoles, some hoping for Darkfall and some went outside of the house for the first time in three months and saw some sunshine.

Lots of folks grasping at straws after this one...

For one thing, pvp/rvr etc has a limited audience.  I would wager that the largest number of players will hop in on occasion to break up the monotony of the pve game but very few are dedicated to it entirely.  WAR's pve is cookie cutter.  No better no worse than anyone else's out there.  The stories are just as bland as what you can find in any other game and are typically not worth the time to read apart from what needs to be killed or who needs to be talked to.  The PQ's are a nice thing but most people come from the WoW/eq2 mindset and do not understand how it works or just can't be bothered to utilize it.

I think that its far too early to start singing WAR's swansong by any measure.  WoW was far from today's so called measure of success at launch, apart from the warcraft name and the korean marketshare, it was by this psuedo definition of success an abject failure.  If I remember right it took close to a year for blizzard to get the raids working properly and to break the 1 million sub number, in the west.  People look at WoW's 11 or 12 million sub number and think its all US and EU subscribers when, in fact, the US/EU numbers are about 1/4th of the total number.

WAR is doing just fine and Mythic have made more improvements to the game in a couple months time than blizzard was able to provide given twice the time.

Originally posted by Size-Twelve

The layout design is to blame. Players were spread too far apart. There were too many things to do across too many zones. 

Without any World Defense channel, and with people spread out all over the globe, it was hard to find action, and people got bored.

PS. It is getting alot better now though. With the ORvR Epic rewards, it's pretty easy to find a Keep to Siege or a BO to take now. That wasn't the case for the first few months

I agree.  The zone design is terrible.   Too many annoying twisting switchbacks in the roads and some zones don't even have Flight Masters forcing you to run from a completely different zones to get to them.   It's like they were designed to deliberately keep players apart with needless running which strangles oRvR.

Perhaps this tedious zone travel was meant to delay players to prevent zerging.   This was taken too far and now only serves to prevent players from engaging in oRvR if they're stuck out in the middle of some PvE area and hear a call for a warband.   They're not going to bother if they're forced to try to run back through annoying twisting roads (many of which are covered with mobs that will delay them even further). 

Furthermore, the mixing of Order and Destruction camps/story arcs in the same zone only make the zones more confusing and keeps players from feeling like a zone is 'theirs' and instilling any pride.   It's impossible to feel connected to a zone when half of it is filled with PvE content for the opposing side.   

With other MMORPGs like City of Heroes and WoW, I grew to know and remembers the zones.   I could find my way around Atlas Park or Elwynn Forest without the map by the time I left them.    

WAR constantly moves you to a new camp every few levels so you never develop a sense of familiarity with a zone.     I have to rely on the map all the time because I never know where I am.  

This also relates to other people's comments about the world not drawing you in.   Zone navigation is so confusing it leaves a player not feeling like they know a zone, so they're not immersed in the world.  

Overall I think this could be the reason many people didn't feel drawn to WAR.  People may rag on Blizzard but they knew how to design a world that not only looked appealing but was able to draw you in (Note how easy it is to navigate their zones and how they usually have single camps, not mutliple ones in each)

But I also agree that oRvR is improving now that it offers decent rewards.    I just wish they would do something to give Keep Sieges more variety, they lack the different settings and tactics one finds in Scenarios.  

I'm still enjoying WAR.  I prefer the combat system over any MMORPG I've played and there have been many moments in PvP that have been truly entertaining.    But perhaps most people really do prefer PvE based games.

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Originally posted by severius
For one thing, pvp/rvr etc has a limited audience.  I would wager that the largest number of players will hop in on occasion to break up the monotony of the pve game but very few are dedicated to it entirely.

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Man, do you know how many Warhammer, L2, DAoC, Wow, Eve, people waiting for Aion, GW2, Darkfall, TCoS, Mortal Online, etc people would burn you alive at the stake for this piece of heresy? They claim PvP does NOT have a limited audience as you suggest, it's just spread out over many, many more games than PvE ones. They've even shown numbers to prove it with subscriptions.

Are you sure you want to claim Pvp has a limited audience or do you think you should clarify "limited" as to what scope you mean it in?

Originally posted by bodypass

Originally posted by Magter

The current state of the game is...i'm playing it.

no one cares about sub numbers...it's all about the quality of the game and it didn't get sub numbers because of AoC and those who play casually...WoW's expansion  but those who are hardcore ex-WoW players now are switching to WAR because my guildy has brought his brother.

I say that it's not about sub #'s but the server #'s but for me meduim is better than high server because you can have an organized group pwning a zerg that zerging vs zerging.

 

What even made you think that?

Ratio of Wow/WAr in player numbers on Xfire Sep 2008 was 6 to 1.

Ratio of Wow/WAr in player number on Xfire in Oct was 12 to 1;

Ratio of Wow/War in player numbers in Nov/Dec was 22 to 1:

Today that ratio is at 25 to 1/

Like I said I hope for you Warhammer players, Wow is at 5.000.000 western subs these days, because at 25:1 it means War is struggling to hold on to 200.000 players these days (add some sleeping subs and a few new players and it's holding on now... because EA said 250 K was the point of return on investment...

And of course these are Xfire players, but going from 6 to 1 ratio into 25 to 1 is not some little change in pops.

BTW These figures are also confirmed by lesser and lesser servers "full" and the ratio between LOTRO(not even a PvP game) which is only now 30% under War, while it used to be 400% under War in those stats.

So " a friend who joined" is not a good reference if you get a sample as big as150K PC players in our US/EU world (Xfire).

As to the guys hoping WotLK content is "finished". The PvP in Wow only started 3 weeks ago and 99.5% of Wow players is only beginning the PVE Raid content. Stats are clear on this.

The so called non-lifers are banging their heads now on the achievements -which some need about a good full year to accomplish (like Battle master title).

 

So lets see numbers that come from a program that everyone deson't use good job. Do just feel the need to troll in every other games fourms. I see you all over the place. Just go enjoy wow.

their design philosophy when it came to things like crafting was "who cares about crafting when you should be killing!"

turns out that wasn't a great idea

Originally posted by teiohFromSWG

their design philosophy when it came to things like crafting was "who cares about crafting when you should be killing!"

turns out that wasn't a great idea

My biggest complaint about crafting is that only talismans have any real value right now. I chose apothecary paired with butchering, I have both skills leveled to 200, but crafting potions is not ideal for PvP. Potions, while they offer a significant increase in stats over talismans, do not last if you are killed. So what incentive is there to spend the time for crafters of this trade to farm, or for people to want to buy potions from those who create them? It's just a major imbalance in its current state.

If they would make potions last for a duration, even when killed, rather than wipe the potion buff at death, you would see potions have a much bigger role in PvP and the rest of the game. This is a feature I hope they implement in the future.

As far as my opinion on WAR and its current sate: 

I would have to say, the server I play on is doing pretty good. Almost any time 24/7 you can find some PvP, and this was just not the case before they added Influence rewards to RvR lakes. Mythic does a decent job updating and fixing bugs, and I feel the game is going in a great direction.