What do we want?

Warhammer is a beautiful game with many original features..but by general consensus it is still lacking something..or else the population would not be decreasing.

I have not played the game for 2 months and although I had some great times, I did not feel that 'addictive' quality that I have felt in other games.

Is it the community that is lacking?

Is it the lack of end game content?

Is it poorly balanced?

Is it too easy?

I am only bothering to post this because I have seen what they can do. The best gaming moments of my life have been courtesy of Mythic, but I feel they could have done better with WAR.

I think they tried too hard  to cater for everyone, but if I put it like the kid in the fairy tale..The Emporer isn't wearing any clothes.

It's just not that great.

So what DO we want? Maybe if we told the powers that be, they wouldn't think we wanted fucken WOW clones..

If you want ALOT of people in your game, you gonna have to make a game that almost everyone can enjoy, that means:

- Easy Pve

- Hard Pve

- places worth exploring

- Economy and crafting in some form

- as much customisation as possible

- PvP in various styles

If you want a niche game you only need few of these.... simple as that....

themeparks is where the money is at... the hardcores can cry all they want, but its all about making money ;)

Sadly I bought the CE eddition of WAR hoping for a NON-WoW clone but it basically is anymore. With the new 1.3 patch is just sadly a cover to get some subs back like 1.2 it will just die down again shortly after. why well I feel there is a few reasons why that is...

I ask myself what really makes a game go day by day and keep it as kink free as possible? CUSTOMER SUPPORT which WAR has the worst I have ever ever seen in my gaming life. It seriously makes me think it is just 1 man answering all questions with only a few answers on a note card like " opps sorry nothing we can do cannot verify it since the server crashed sorry you lost all that cool stuff" or " I cannot discuss that with you please submit a question to the DeV grab bag" Lame when all you are is a Sub and not a player anymore.

So what does war lack, well depends where you start out and what server tbh on some issues like the following;

1. Lack of middle tier player base to do rvr with

2. Seriously imbalanced sides ( ah don't worry mystic always tells you stuff is balanced )

3. The community of said servers some are plain rude some are great.

4. end game....hard to master one which keeps players going but seriously is all WAR could come up with is hey lets do level base xp, renown based, and inf. So it goes easy on lower tiers, most never are able to cap tier 3 as just lack of population. But end game is lesser wards ah get them from keeps not so hard if a smaller group, still need better greater wards ah forts not so easy on some servers, then you got the higher gear drops from cities and high renown players around 70 renown on some for warlord I belive.

What that means is once you hit about 60 renown it gets so repetive and boring most just reroll or quit. ( 80 is cap ) because day in day out you are just doing the same thing it's pretty much a, b, a, b.

It could be alot better if they change a few things and add some stuff but 1.3 sadly I am letting my account laps and finding a different game as it just lacks bad.

WAR's stuck between a rock and a hard place, because the mechanics will not allow it to cater to everyone effectively. Think about it. If you choose RvR as your focus, that means you need people doing it. It also means you need specific ways of doing it, in order to keep those ways populated and active, rather than multiple ways, which spread out the population. They tried to do this through Zone Captures and Keep taking - it's only one of two options to effectively gain Renown (the other being Scenarios). When that gets boring, though, people are going to complain - but if Mythic offers more variety, people will say that "Keeps/Scenarios are deserted", etc., etc.

Frankly, I think at this point, people don't want to do only RvR (even though they know it's the game's focus). If Mythic takes a chance by adding it more variety gradually, and continuning to combine PvE and RvR through things like Land of the Dead, they'll start finding that happy balance.

Still, it's not a good position to be in.

I have no clue what the person above me is talking about but you can count me among the few 100 thousand that are playing Warhammer and love it to death ;)

We learned that PvP needs to be part fo the very core of a successful mmorpg ( imho ).

When you make a MMO based on an existing RPG/tabletop, remember to use as many rules from the original IP as possible.

The problem here is that mythic changed the game so much that the millions of people that love Warhammer didn't recognize their game at all.

When I was in Edingburgh, Games workshop had the best placed shop in town, just below the castle on the old main street. Not something any other gaming company could affaord, not even Blizzard. Warhemmer have so many fans and still I only know one guy that like both Warhammer and WAR (I know around 50 Warhammer players).

The big problem with WAR is that Mythic tried to take Wows fans instead of aiming for Mythics and Warhammers fans.

The game in itself aint that bad but it aint Warhammer so I don't see the reason to play it, there are other games that are better around.

Also they could have added more fun stuff, like a Bloodbowl/snotball tournament once in a while. And why cant characters mutate?

I found WAR to be very... dull. I didn't feel any excitment once I got in game. I got the feeling that it was a game I had already played and grown tired of. I can't put my finger on anything specific that I really disliked, I just found the game as a whole to be, well, not very fun or exciting. It was just mediocre all around.

I found that WAR failed to be a Warhammer MMO and that Mythic is still struggling with the stability of their servers and performance in general.

Q: So what have we learned from Warhammer?

A: Mythic isn't a very good at what they do.

Originally posted by TheHavok

Q: So what have we learned from Warhammer?

 

A: Mythic isn't a very good at what they do.

good one.

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Originally posted by Loke666
When you make a MMO based on an existing RPG/tabletop, remember to use as many rules from the original IP as possible.
The problem here is that mythic changed the game so much that the millions of people that love Warhammer didn't recognize their game at all.
When I was in Edingburgh, Games workshop had the best placed shop in town, just below the castle on the old main street. Not something any other gaming company could affaord, not even Blizzard. Warhemmer have so many fans and still I only know one guy that like both Warhammer and WAR (I know around 50 Warhammer players).
The big problem with WAR is that Mythic tried to take Wows fans instead of aiming for Mythics and Warhammers fans.
The game in itself aint that bad but it aint Warhammer so I don't see the reason to play it, there are other games that are better around.
Also they could have added more fun stuff, like a Bloodbowl/snotball tournament once in a while. And why cant characters mutate?

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I do agree with the main point of this post. Warhammer just isn't Warhammer, it's trying to battle other MMO's with the same tactics MMO's have been trying to do since WoW, not saying WoW is the most spectacular game but it took something and made it theirs in a sense, I was EXCITED beyond belief when I got in game of Warhammer and had a great time leveling my character to 40 but as I took that journey it was just like playing every other basic MMO out there, I say basic because everything in the game was broken somehow or just not implemented correctly.

Mythic has great ideas, but they implement them poorly. I am sad to leave Warhammer (cancelled my account last month) because I had really high hopes for the game but after trying 1.3 I know there is no hope (for me at least) because with the new slew of games on the horizon I don't think Warhammer will last.

For the people who are still playing and enjoying it, keep enjoying it. For the rest of us I wish you all the best in future MMO's that can satisfy us.

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Originally posted by Amafi
What do we want?Fun.
Warhammer is a beautiful gameNo. with many some original features..but by general consensus it is still lacking something Fun...or else the population would not be decreasing.
I have not played the game for 2 months and although I had some great times, I did not feel that 'addictive' quality that I have felt in other games.
Is it the community that is lacking? Yes, they don't talk over chat. Everything feels dead without Ventrilo or Teamspeak, unlike other games.
Is it the lack of end game content? Not lack of- repetitive, boring and broken endgame content
Is it poorly balanced? "Always play Order, that would be my bet." -- Paul Barnett.
Is it too easy? Which part?
I am only bothering to post this because I have seen what they can do. The best gaming moments of my life have been courtesy of Mythic, but I feel they could have done better with WAR.Most who played WAR felt that.
I think they tried too hard  to cater for everyone No, they didn't., but if I put it like the kid in the fairy tale..The Emporer isn't wearing any clothes.
It's just not that great. QFT
So what DO we want? "FUN! When do we want it? NOW!" Maybe if we told the powers that be, they wouldn't think we wanted fucken WOW clones.. Well known they went after the WoW crowd from the get-go, so telling them that would not have mattered. They saw $$$ signs.
 

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Originally posted by Amafi

What do we want?

Warhammer is a beautiful game with many original features..but by general consensus it is still lacking something..or else the population would not be decreasing.

I have not played the game for 2 months and although I had some great times, I did not feel that 'addictive' quality that I have felt in other games.

Is it the community that is lacking?

Is it the lack of end game content?

Is it poorly balanced?

Is it too easy?

I am only bothering to post this because I have seen what they can do. The best gaming moments of my life have been courtesy of Mythic, but I feel they could have done better with WAR.

I think they tried too hard  to cater for everyone, but if I put it like the kid in the fairy tale..The Emporer isn't wearing any clothes.

It's just not that great.

So what DO we want? Maybe if we told the powers that be, they wouldn't think we wanted fucken WOW clones..

 

Simple. The WAR that was promised never materialised. The intro gave you the impression that something important is at stake but in game nothing is at stake. Losing your capital city means, almost, nothing and flipping keeps back and forth just seems lame and pointless.

The game has many good features, as you point out, but they completely failed the end game by turning it into a grindfest for gear instead of an actual war.

On very basic level - setting and interactivity is wrong. Feedback to your actions does not feel right and the setting is unnecesarily dark all over the place.

Then they put in unfinished features vocal minority demanded - like keeps and PvP servers.

And lastly they tried too hard to make the game fun. Yes, that's right. It is too tiresome to play for long.

It is a sad story of MMO. It could be an incredible game. Maybe next year. MMOs can attract new players for years so there is still hope the heads of Mystic realize what is really wrong with their game and fix it eventually. WAR is one MMO I can imagine joining late and not feel left out.

Scenarios ruined the game.

Take out the scenarios, and you will have functioning game.

And make PVE quests in contested areas

I think that WAR did alot of things right.  I feel where they dropped the ball was in implimentation of the servers.  To many at launch, spread the player base out way to much.  Then when people started losing interest for lack of others to play with they waited to long to start consolidating the population.  When they did start pushing people together it was after many had leveled to the cap and were now bottlenecked in T4 and all trying to stand on top of one another in the keeps and forts, which Mythics hardware cannot ,to this day, handle. 

So what DO we want? Maybe if we told the powers that be, they wouldn't think we wanted fucken WOW clones..

You have WoW to thank for that, or rather WoW players.

"More than 11million players? I want a bit of that!" is what goes on in their minds, so they create a WoW clone, much worse than Blizzard's game, and there you have it. Devs cash in at the beginning, but most of these games are considered failures as they lack a lot of things, including lasting appeal. Most of the developers don't take any risks and take the tried and trusted route.

We don't want WOW clones, everyone knows that, but who's going to listen to us? Even If you add up all the active subs of the most successful games (bar WoW) I doubt they would get to half the numbers WoW has.

We're a minority, they don't care for us, Devs want more cash, and creating WoW clones is, in their eyes, the safest way for a quick buck.

I think there were 4 big mistakes, that stand out from my view;

1) Part of the success of DAoC was 3 realms, by making it only 2 balance issues become greater.

2) Scenarios, great up to a point, but the high XP from them was a mistake, the bigger mistake was continuing them to the end game.

3) Itemisation was and is crap. Meaning that a whole raft of PvE players find themselves at odds.

4) War camps too close to the battle. If people can die, jump up, run straight back in, then no thought goes into the PvP and you end up with war camp camping. These camps should have been some distance apart.

Originally posted by Electriceye

So what DO we want? Maybe if we told the powers that be, they wouldn't think we wanted fucken WOW clones..

 

You have WoW to thank for that, or rather WoW players.

 

"More than 11million players? I want a bit of that!" is what goes on in their minds, so they create a WoW clone, much worse than Blizzard's game, and there you have it. Devs cash in at the beginning, but most of these games are considered failures as they lack a lot of things, including lasting appeal. Most of the developers don't take any risks and take the tried and trusted route.

We don't want WOW clones, everyone knows that, but who's going to listen to us? Even If you add up all the active subs of the most successful games (bar WoW) I doubt they would get to half the numbers WoW has.

 

We're a minority, they don't care for us, Devs want more cash, and creating WoW clones is, in their eyes, the safest way for a quick buck.

Why blame 11 million people for the failures of other companies? I think it is safe to say that even wow players don't want another wow clone (diku/eq/etc).  My fear is that it has been such a long time since a decent game has released even a well made clone of the same old stuff will do well, which will just continue they cycle. 

@original poster

I think the one thing that should be learned from warhammer is that you cannot rush a product.  It doesn't matter if you spend $100 million dollars and have a staff of over 400 people, you simply can't plan to rush an mmo out the door in 2 years, or even 3 after delaying it twice.  The core concepts of the game were not even properly tested to see if they were fun, let alone refined to the point they could compete with games already on the market that offer a much higher level of polish and attention.

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Scenarios ruined the game.

Take out the scenarios, and you will have functioning game.

And make PVE quests in contested areas

Well, then you start making it more like DAOC, which is what Mythic should have done, make it more like DAOC than it actually turned out.

But they followed the path of other games, which appears to make some folks happy as evidenced in this thread. (and 300K subs)

Just not me.

I hope what was learned is that you cannot design your community.

WAR has its problem, but the biggest is that it attracted a crowd that simply does not actually wish to play WAR, it just wishes to progress all the time, and win a lot in PvP.

Lesson?

Don't release a game 6-12 months before it's ready.

I think the what we learned is that there is a flaw in how we judge the success of a game. If an MMO is a success we give credit to the players, i.e. WoW. "Oh 11 million people woo hoo" but when a game does not do as well we blame the company. Mythic added things the players asked for and bitched for. The last week of WAR beta mythic announced the server list within 12 hours there were 200 posts bitching about that 12 servers was not enough, There was even a poll and the community voted that 36+ was what we wanted. That is why I hold hope for TOR Bioware has a pretty good rep for doing what they want to do and ignoring forum whines.

War is just to similar to every other mmo's on the market.   I just grew tired of the same old old.   Add to that Mythic big screw up on launch, opening too many servers leaving a few overcrowded and most under....    Anyway i played at launch and it sucked compared to what we experienced during the open beta.   TONS of peoples everywhere, when game launch within a week it was impossible to do PQ's.

WAR wasn't all bad,  the open groups and warbands are pure genius, and should be copied into as many other games as possible. The public quests could have been good as well, but were implemented in a way that made them repetative and boring after reaching level 10.

The most important lesson however is that it takes more than some basic rvr to make a game popular. A sandbox pvp game can get away with having very little pve content, but if the game is as linear and restricted as WAR it will need something more.