its interesting the way mmo gamers dissect and pick over new mmo's these days. I've recently started playing Warhammer onine. I have a 13 runepriest and a lvl 7 disciple of khaine. Done a few scenarios along the way, done a few public quests and its been pretty decent thus far.

Then I remember what WoW was like when it was released:

No PvP. Honor system and battlegrounds didnt come out until well into 2005. THere was some World pvp on PvP servers but if you were on a Normal server thats it. You were stuck with PvE only.

Only endgame 2 raids for 8 months.

Broken classes for almost a year. Warlocks and hunters were broken until their talent reviews in patches 1.6 and 1.7 in the 2nd half of 2005. Until their talent reviews paladins werent even good healers let alone dps or tanks. All a paladin did until their talent review was cleanse and redo 5 minute blessings. Thats it. And even the better classes only had 1 decent talent tree.

Once you got to lvl 60 all you had to do was raid or if you were on a PvP server raid crossroads or join the tarren mill/southshore zergs.

Thats it.

Quite simply if WoW was released today, as it was back in late Nov 2004 it would be receive a savage mauling. But if you look at the subscriber numbers WoW actually increased  the rate of new players in the 2nd half of 2005 which, funnily enough, was when Blizzard really started to polish the game with talent reviews and releasing massive amounts of content.

People just have unrealistic expectations. The veteran mmo players have become ultra critical and cynical and the new players blind and stupid.

Originally posted by Slampig

 I re-installed the game a few days ago and was tooling around the starter areas, there was a good amount of people there playing low level toons. I don't expect to see the starter areas filled to the brim as I am sure most players are at the top tiers but there seemed, to me anyway, that the game had a good number of people, at least in the starting zone. I still wish the game was doing much better though...

Simple reason for this.  T1-T3 is fun, T4 is a failure of Biblical proportions.  You can only roll so many alts with no endgame to look forward to.

Just another loot treadmill.

Originally posted by Scyris

You wanna know what went wrong with it? this was why.

 

Rule#1 - MMORPGs are PVE games with PVP elements, not the other way around.
Rule#2 - Any MMO that forces PVP fails.
Rule#3 - Enticing PVEers to PVP is different than forcing them to. NO scenario/idea that forces it has succeeded.
Rule#4 - The same as Rule#3 can be applied to RP - you cannot force it.
Rule#5 - Before you get lippy, remember Rule#1.

 

It failed rule number 1 and 2 and also 3. Warhammer online has a very poor pve part to it. and the fact it forces pvp to get decent gear that should be availble as mob drops is another reason it failed. Devs need to learn that pvp based mmorpg's just won't get the casual players. I like pvp myself, but I still have a retail warhammer online cd-key I haven't used. Thought the game sucked when I was in the early access part. Even though world of warcraft is a crappy game by most peoples standarts, its a mmorpg setup for the casual mmo player, that and the fact its by blizzard is why its doing so well.

 

 

Absolute rubbish.  The game failed because there was no balance,  conflict could be avoided but the rewards were still there, and most of all, the performance of the game engine in mass PvP was abysmal.

Originally posted by chunky_slice

Quite simply if WoW was released today, as it was back in late Nov 2004 it would be receive a savage mauling. But if you look at the subscriber numbers WoW actually increased  the rate of new players in the 2nd half of 2005 which, funnily enough, was when Blizzard really started to polish the game with talent reviews and releasing massive amounts of content.

People just have unrealistic expectations. The veteran mmo players have become ultra critical and cynical and the new players blind and stupid.

 

Are you so sure?

The word "polished" was not something used to describe mmos until wow released.  It did not receive savage mauling in the state it released, because it was a huge step up from what the market was used to.  Yes wow raised the bar even if is was as bad as you claim it was. 

The problem with games today and even prior to wow, is that the players can overlook problems if one condition is met.  If the game is fun and not a total train wreck as far as performance and coding goes, then people are willing to give a game time to mature.  No one expects prefect balance, massive endgame content and the polish of a five year old game.

However they do want a game that offers fun now, not the potential to be fun 12 months down the road based on developer promises of things they are hard at work on, because their core design is tragically flawed.  A game doesn't need 500 endgame raids at release.  It only needs enough endgame content to occupy the majority of players until they can add more content to the game.  Bottom line is that any game releasing now needs to measure up to the current market if it wants people subscription dollars.   It is useless to compare 2009 with 2004, because new games are not competing with the market 5 years ago.  They are competing now and that is all that matters.

People will give a good game the time it needs to resolve its release issues, but it better offer a compelling reason for players to stay.  If they can have more fun playing their old game, what reason is there to stick around and hope something changes.

Originally posted by Scyris

You wanna know what went wrong with it? this was why.

 

Rule#1 - MMORPGs are PVE games with PVP elements, not the other way around.

No. The majority of MMORPG's you have been seeing SO FAR have been PvE games with PvP elements. That doesnt mean its a rule which all mmo's must follow. MMORPGs are online games shared by thousands of players so they have the capability of being PvE focused or PvP focused games.....or a mixture of both. It depends purely on the design of the game. You cant apply a simplistic rule to the entire genre as every game can be something totally different. Also single player games are PvE games with optional online PvP elements. Why make mmos like single player games? Take a look to the future and the way mmos are now beginning to shift towards PvP gameplay.

Rule#2 - Any MMO that forces PVP fails.

No let me correct you. Any BADLY MADE mmo that hasnt been designed to deal with the problems that can arise from forced PvP fails. A well made one has every chance of doing well. It also doesnt fail at all for all the people who enjoy player conflict and the varied and changing gameworld that can come from it......something you dont really get when playing against a computer with limited AI and scripted encounters. Considering there are hardly any PvP games around at the moment, any pure PvP game that comes out is a good thing as it adds variety to the PvE saturated mmo market.

At the moment I can only think of 5 games which have forced PvP in them and two of those games have been great successes. EVE and Ultima Online have been doing very well, better than most PvE focused games actually....although EvE doesnt really have forced PvP in it but it is the focus of the game. Darkfall came out fairly recently so we cant really judge whether it will fail or not. I'm sure the people currently playing and enjoying it couldnt care less. Shadowbane failed.......but then did it? The game was up and running for 6 years. Hardly a short run of time......but then it simply wasnt a very well made game which was why it failed (not because it was a PvP game). Fury also failed rather quickly I believe but I dont know anything about that game. Sorry but I cant think of any more mmos with forced PvP in them. Ok so thats 5 games that have been made. Its hardly a lot is it and certainly not enough for you to be able to say "Any mmo that forces PvP fails", especially considering 2 out of those 5 are actually still going and doing rather well. Compare those 3 failed games to the list of failed mmos with forced PvE in them. Vanguard isnt doing very well. Tabula Rasa has closed. Star Wars Galaxies is dieing a slow death. AoC isnt doing brilliantly. What do they all have in common? Oh they are all games with forced PvE. That must mean that mmos with forced PvE are doomed to fail right? Oh hang on.....no thats a silly thing to say isnt it. They have not done very well because they were not particularly good games. Its not because they have forced PvE in them is it.

Of course games like WAR which copy the game design of previous PvE games (WoW) and then simply dump a bunch of playpens on the map and call it a PvP game is asking to fail.

The point is that you are basing your judgement on a very tiny number of games. Just because a tiny handful of games that got made eventually failed doesnt mean that forced PvP = failure. If hundreds of PvP games got made and all of them failed then yeah you might have a point. But thats not the case is it.

Games dont fail because they have PvP or PvE in them. They fail because they are badly made games or lack support. When more PvP games have been made then people will be able to judge their success accurately. Until then you're just speculating.

Rule#3 - Enticing PVEers to PVP is different than forcing them to. NO scenario/idea that forces it has succeeded.

You're just repeating Opinion#2. See above.

Rule#4 - The same as Rule#3 can be applied to RP - you cannot force it.

Kind of true.....but then it depends on the design of the game. If players can actually interact with npcs in a more meaningful way then actually players CAN be forced to roleplay to a certain degree if they are put in situations where they have to communicate with others to get something done. Here is an example.....

A player has created his character. He chose roleplaying features during the character creation process which the game recognises and responds to. This particular player chose additional "qualities" such as being an [Artist], he comes from [Nobility] and he has an [Aggressive appearance]. He approaches the npc and talks to him....a merchant whose wagon has broken down. The npc recognises that the player does not have the appropriate background traits to help him, so he asks the player if he knows anyone that could fix his wagon. The player then asks around to see if anyone knows how to fix a wagon......or maybe he already knows someone who can. He finds the person, returns with him to the merchant and the wagon is fixed and they get a reward. Hurrah!

The person may never have roleplayed in their life and yet the game managed to "force" them to roleplay to a certain degree. The problem with the mmos we have been seeing so far is that NONE of them are actual roleplaying games. Having the word "roleplaying game" in its description doesnt mean it actually is one. The only "roleplaying" people can do is to type silly pretend stories into the chat channel which has nothing to do with game itself and isnt really roleplaying at all. If games are designed with roleplayers in mind then yeah I think roleplaying can be enforced to a degree.

Rule#5 - Before you get lippy, remember Rule#1.

Actually its Opinion#1......but its ok I have refrained from getting lippy even though I dont agree with any of your opinions. 

It failed rule number 1 and 2 and also 3. Warhammer online has a very poor pve part to it. and the fact it forces pvp to get decent gear that should be availble as mob drops is another reason it failed. Devs need to learn that pvp based mmorpg's just won't get the casual players. I like pvp myself, but I still have a retail warhammer online cd-key I haven't used. Thought the game sucked when I was in the early access part. Even though world of warcraft is a crappy game by most peoples standarts, its a mmorpg setup for the casual mmo player, that and the fact its by blizzard is why its doing so well.

Actually Warhammer didnt fail at Opinion#1. It stuck to it rather well because it actually is heavily based on a PvE game. It was closely modeled after WoW afterall. It failed because like you said the PvE was very poor and yet the PvP aspect was also really dull and pointless. It was advertised as a PvP game and yet the first half of the game which I played through was nearly all PvE areas. I had great difficulty in finding any players to fight and even when I did I couldnt really see any reason to fight them apart from personal level gaining. Oh there were some empty patches of the map where players could go and have a fight if they wanted to.......big deal. Most people just wandered by and carried on ploughing their way up the level grinding ladder like a flock of sheep (WoW style) by grinding through the boring PvE or hopping into scenarios. I'd hardly call that forced PvP. In fact because it wasnt forced it meant that the player population was so thinly spread over 3 different play styles (PvE, PvP playpens and scenarios) that many of the servers seemed like ghost towns. No wonder the game was boring. It tried to cater to everyone and ended up being weak and crappy as a result.

If the game actually WAS a pure PvP game where the entire map was open to player conflict, with control points that could be taken and lost then I think the game would have done much better. It would have been like a real Warhammer game instead of being Wowhammer. PvE elements would still be needed to flesh the world out, such as npc guards and civilians to protect, and npc heroes that could be set upon the enemy by activating certain events but players wouldnt have had to focus on them to "level up". They would simply gain experience by defeating the champions of the enemy realms (other players) which is how it should be in a supoosed PvP game. The game could have been great.....but instead they stuck to your Opinion#1 and made it like any other mmo where PvE must come first with PvP as an afterthought. Will devs who want to make a PvP game ever learn? Well Mythic probably wont but other games companies certainly could, judging by the pvp games on the horizon (Global Agenda, Earthrise, Fallen Earth etc).

PvP games wont get the casual players? Errr what? You've heard of console games right? Those things where groups of people sit together and CASUALLY blow the living crap out of each other or log online and do the same thing. LOTS of people love competing against each other and would really enjoy the chance to hop online into a virtual world for a little while to engage in a little bit of harmless conflict. Shouldnt it be the other way round anyway? PvE games wont get the casual players? But then of course that isnt true either is it.....because "casual players" arent defined by PvE or PvP. Every individual has their own preference and plays whatever they feel like regardless of whether someone has placed them into a meaningless bracket.

Like I said before, PvP mmos have every potential to be successful. Devs just need to stop attaching PvP elements to PvE games as an afterthought and then falsely advertising them as PvP games.

ps. Apologies for the essay.

Originally posted by Daffid011

The end result is that warhammer was a great mmo on paper, but a very flawed game in execution.

The list of flaws is long.  The lack of forethought is even longer.  The lack of viable resolutions is long. 

 

Warhammer is just a big example that throwing loads of money and developers at a project cannot speed up the process.  Quality takes time and 2-3 years development time is unrealistic for a game of this size.

 

 

As to the pve content of the game, who cares if it is a pvp focused game.  That is not an excuse to have terrible pve content.  Why even have pve content in the first place if this was the attitude taken?

I agree with all of that but I especially agree with your last statement. If its supposed to be a PvP game then whats the point of having crappy PvE quests in it just like every other mmo around? Mythic were just too scared to actually do something new and instead tried to appeal to everyone by churning out something that all the WoW players would feel familiar with.

Warhammer is supposed to be about armies of men and monsters marching around and waging war on each other. It should have been a gigantic open tactical war game.....where players would have to rush and defend their cities, forts and villages while trying to take over enemy control points. PvE elements should have been used to provide events that players could activate, such as a Dwarven priest being able to do something to a particular shrine that summons a bunch of rock golems to go and attack an enemy castle. It should not have been used as a source of level grinding. There should never have been any over-arcing story elements for players to follow like dumb robots.

The public quests were a good idea and could have been used well but like you said it looked good on paper but the execution was terrible. Kill 100 mini monsters, kill 10 medium monsters, kill the boss and his henchmen. Repeat. Yawn. 

What I would like to know is what 3rd faction you would add to WH without breaking the canon that Games Workshop has built?

Warhammer online has 2 groups, the evil (chaos, orcs) and the good (elves, empire) so there really isn't a third faction. But what Warhammer the world has is that all the races and political groups really only ally when it is conveinent and then hack at each other the rest of the time.

But how do you impliment this in an MMO?

I found that, with WAR, I really enjoyed the lower rank game.

One thing that the game did right was that RvR was there at every step of the way from rank 1 whereas most MMOs pretty much require you to be fully skilled/levelled up to be even remotely competitive.

It wasn't until the later ranks that I found that the game devolved into a mind-numbing chase from keep to keep to keep and whilst seiges were initially fun, it all got very samey.

World RvR was little more than zerg vs zerg or blatant keep switching (frequently arranged in advance).

It was often a case that, at the time that I was playing, there was little reason to defend anything as exploits to bypass the keeps defences (wall-hopping, postern-breaking et al) were common on both sides.

Originally posted by chunky_slice

its interesting the way mmo gamers dissect and pick over new mmo's these days. I've recently started playing Warhammer onine. I have a 13 runepriest and a lvl 7 disciple of khaine. Done a few scenarios along the way, done a few public quests and its been pretty decent thus far.

Then I remember what WoW was like when it was released:

No PvP. Honor system and battlegrounds didnt come out until well into 2005. THere was some World pvp on PvP servers but if you were on a Normal server thats it. You were stuck with PvE only.

Only endgame 2 raids for 8 months.

Broken classes for almost a year. Warlocks and hunters were broken until their talent reviews in patches 1.6 and 1.7 in the 2nd half of 2005. Until their talent reviews paladins werent even good healers let alone dps or tanks. All a paladin did until their talent review was cleanse and redo 5 minute blessings. Thats it. And even the better classes only had 1 decent talent tree.

Once you got to lvl 60 all you had to do was raid or if you were on a PvP server raid crossroads or join the tarren mill/southshore zergs.

Thats it.

Quite simply if WoW was released today, as it was back in late Nov 2004 it would be receive a savage mauling. But if you look at the subscriber numbers WoW actually increased  the rate of new players in the 2nd half of 2005 which, funnily enough, was when Blizzard really started to polish the game with talent reviews and releasing massive amounts of content.

People just have unrealistic expectations. The veteran mmo players have become ultra critical and cynical and the new players blind and stupid.

 

WoW vanilla releasing today would still get better rating than all the MMO that have come out in the last 5 years. Listing the past shortcomings of WoW wouldnt change the fact that the journey from 1-60 (especially the first one) was the greatest thrill in videogames history.

The article was ok.

I definitely agree about the crafting.  Worst crafting I've ever seen in any game.  Seriously...what were you thinking MJ?

The other huge thing that no one seems to point out directly...

Before the later stages of closed beta...Mythic had no intentions of having RvR.  All of the PvP was suppose to be done through scenarios, and when one side accumulated enough points or whatever...they would get to siege the other sides capitol.

That is why there were origionally suppose to be 6 cities or whatever.  They cut the other cities at launch because they didn't fit into the hastily constructed siege warfare mock up.

This is mostly what sank WAR.  They only included RvR style warfare at the last minute due to beta tester outrage.

Originally posted by daelnor

The article was ok.

I definitely agree about the crafting.  Worst crafting I've ever seen in any game.  Seriously...what were you thinking MJ?

The other huge thing that no one seems to point out directly...

Before the later stages of closed beta...Mythic had no intentions of having RvR.  All of the PvP was suppose to be done through scenarios, and when one side accumulated enough points or whatever...they would get to siege the other sides capitol.

That is why there were origionally suppose to be 6 cities or whatever.  They cut the other cities at launch because they didn't fit into the hastily constructed siege warfare mock up.

This is mostly what sank WAR.  They only included RvR style warfare at the last minute due to beta tester outrage.

Yeah it is strange isnt it how everyone ignores or forgets the fact that WAR was originally so completely lacking in any form of open PvP and the beta testers had to actually point out to the devs that maybe they should include some open pvp zones with keeps in them. How the hell can a games company claim to be making a pvp mmo and then forget to include something so blatantly obvious as the actual pvp itself?! When I first read about this I was gob smacked. Its no wonder the game is so terrible. They had no idea of what they were trying to make. Its seems that the staff who originally worked on DAoC no longer work at Mythic and had no real involvement in WAR.

Exactly what daelnor said.  Many people are under the assumption that the warhammer rvr warfare was designed around fighting over keeps and forts in the open world.  It should have been however. 

How Mythic couldn't not include keep warfare after daoc is rather strange. 

Originally posted by Daffid011

Exactly what daelnor said.  Many people are under the assumption that the warhammer rvr warfare was designed around fighting over keeps and forts in the open world.  It should have been however. 

How Mythic couldn't not include keep warfare after daoc is rather strange. 

Well yeah its because the staff at Mythic have obviously completly changed from when they worked on DAoC. Its simply not the same company any more even though it carries the same name. I think people seem to forget that these companies probably lose and gain new staff all the time. Its funny that people lose and gain faith in various companies depending on whether their games succeed or fail when actually its got nothing to do with the "company" and is actually purely down to pot luck with who happens to be working there at the time.

I wonder where the people who made DAoC are working now? Lets keep our fingers crossed that the real talent that left Mythic will form their own company and make DAoC 2......or its equivalent with a new name lol

Originally posted by neonwire

Originally posted by Daffid011

Exactly what daelnor said.  Many people are under the assumption that the warhammer rvr warfare was designed around fighting over keeps and forts in the open world.  It should have been however. 

How Mythic couldn't not include keep warfare after daoc is rather strange. 

 

Well yeah its because the staff at Mythic have obviously completly changed from when they worked on DAoC. Its simply not the same company any more even though it carries the same name. I think people seem to forget that these companies probably lose and gain new staff all the time. Its funny that people lose and gain faith in various companies depending on whether their games succeed or fail when actually its got nothing to do with the "company" and is actually purely down to pot luck with who happens to be working there at the time.

I wonder where the people who made DAoC are working now? Lets keep our fingers crossed that the real talent that left Mythic will form their own company and make DAoC 2......or its equivalent with a new name lol

Both times I have interviewed at Mythic, pre- and post-EA, I have seen the same people. And those same people never gave me the job...*sniffle*

I remember following the IGN vault Warhammer forums leading up to release and afterwards. MJ posted there a lot. The series of events that occurred was actually very sad.

With the head start servers bulging at their waists, he panicked and opened up ALL their servers for when the general public came. This was because there was pressure on them from people complaining about server queues. Thus the low-pop server distribution, pretty much from day 1. Regarding this issue, over the following weeks he would report to us that the servers were slowly filling up and that they were pleased with the result. We were calling for merges within the first month. It wasnt a population issue at this time, it was just that there was a huge mistake made in opening up so many servers under fear of players whine.

The second sad tale was how our complaints about oRvR lacking results in XP and RP were dealt with. He kept saying they were taking baby steps so as to not make the same mistakes as with DAoC. So instead of making oRvR anywhere comparable to the XP gain in scenarios or questing, they gave us a joke of an improvement by giving about 1500 XP for a flag capture and 5000 XP for a keep. It took TWO MONTHS of weekly updates containing more and more baby steps that didnt get us anywhere fast enough.

EDIT I would also like to add that along with the XP change baby steps there was the same issue in class balance. They kept taking baby steps that didnt get anywhere in time for the population to stick around.

We tried to be optimistic and take note that these steps were going in the right direction. But it was just too slow. It is for these reasons that I believe WAR lost most of its pop.

Afterward, for the some 300k subscribers that played through all these babysteps, there just werent enough people left in game for them to enjoy the massive RvR or PQ experience. Here a lot of people complained about how the PvE and RvR were linked and how it was a pain in the arse. I believe if WAR hadnt lost all their subs initially, they wouldve had the confidence and funding to tweak the end-game to accomdate all the players. Instead, they were running around with their heads cut off because the game had FAILED.

Originally posted by Scyris

You wanna know what went wrong with it? this was why.

 

Rule#1 - MMORPGs are PVE games with PVP elements, not the other way around.
Rule#2 - Any MMO that forces PVP fails.
Rule#3 - Enticing PVEers to PVP is different than forcing them to. NO scenario/idea that forces it has succeeded.
Rule#4 - The same as Rule#3 can be applied to RP - you cannot force it.
Rule#5 - Before you get lippy, remember Rule#1.

 

It failed rule number 1 and 2 and also 3. Warhammer online has a very poor pve part to it. and the fact it forces pvp to get decent gear that should be availble as mob drops is another reason it failed. Devs need to learn that pvp based mmorpg's just won't get the casual players. I like pvp myself, but I still have a retail warhammer online cd-key I haven't used. Thought the game sucked when I was in the early access part. Even though world of warcraft is a crappy game by most peoples standarts, its a mmorpg setup for the casual mmo player, that and the fact its by blizzard is why its doing so well.

 

 

Your rule list is a load of nonsense and nothing more than personal generalizations, it has no bases in fact. There are a number MMO's that break your number 2 rule and are doing perfectly fine, it's clear your MMO of choice is more Carebear.

Anyone who knew of Mythics previous work with DAOC, pretty much knew that the pve would be ok, but not great.  Everyone expected epic keep sieges and frontier warfare like DAOC had before Trials of Atlantis and New Frontiers.

The fact that Mythic wasn't going to have any of that originally, because they didn't want to mimic DAOC too closely was a tragic mistake.  Add in MJ's weird obsession with growing plants for crafting instead of anything useful...and it was a total bust.

The frontier in DAOC mattered.  The best XP and loot was out there (until they messed it up.) It was large enough for small groups to run around and skirmish each other, it was big enough that you could hide a large force if you were careful until it was too late to prevent them from getting to their goal.  The third faction kept any one side from getting too big.

WAR had none of this.  When they added it in...instead of a big dangerous frontier you ended up with a small playground instead.  It was no fun after a month or so, because it took no effort to get to an enemies keep...it was a short walk from your keep.  It didn't matter if you took it because the other side would take it back as soon as you left.  If you were out numbered you simply went elsewhere.  This happened in DAOC also, but the frontier was so large, and enough effort had to be put forth to succeed that keeps simply didn't flip every thirty minutes.

The system they came up with in WAR was adhocked BS. Top that all off, when people got to the "big city siege" it was lame and broken.  I'm guessing it was broken due to the fact that they reconfigured their entire endgame process in the last couple months of development when they suddenly realized (due in no small part to the mob of beta testers bearing torches and pitchforks at their door) they had totally screwed up their entire game.

If they would have done it right from the get go...had three factions, an epic frontier like DAOC and a PVP endgame that didn't turn into a pve snooze fest (when it worked) they would have done better. 

Seriously...how can the people that masterminded DAOC completely FUBAR the very parts of the game that made their name to begin with? I'm still boggled at that part.

p.s.  Matt Firor(sp?), former mythic dev from DAOC works for Bioware or blizzard  now, for whoever it was that asked about that earlier. I can't remember which though...I'm sure someone else will clarify that one.

Originally posted by Goob

I remember following the IGN vault Warhammer forums leading up to release and afterwards. MJ posted there a lot. The series of events that occurred was actually very sad.

With the head start servers bulging at their waists, he panicked and opened up ALL their servers for when the general public came. This was because there was pressure on them from people complaining about server queues. Thus the low-pop server distribution, pretty much from day 1. Regarding this issue, over the following weeks he would report to us that the servers were slowly filling up and that they were pleased with the result. We were calling for merges within the first month. It wasnt a population issue at this time, it was just that there was a huge mistake made in opening up so many servers under fear of players whine.

I have to really disagree with the notion that Warhammer launched with to many servers and that caused any of the problems.

If you look at the numbers mythic was posting, 100ish servers was a good number.  They claimed over 800,000 subscribers shortly after release.   That averages around 8,000 accounts per server which is far more than enough players for a healthy server and some room for growth.  I'm not saying there was a perfect distribution and some servers may have been ligh, but overall there were enough players to fill the majority of servers.  Furthermore the total landmass of the game was small enough to concentrate that number of players into the same area.  It wasn't so large that it thinned out even a large playerbase. 

Also at release there were multiple servers with login ques, several server splits to help over crowding and additional servers added after the game was release.

Combine the population claims with the growth of servers and you can see there was not an over abundance of servers at release and in fact not enough servers to handle demand.

What makes it appear that there were to many servers was the steep subscriber drop off.  For a game to go from 800,000 current players [ files.shareholder.com/downloads/ERTS/452995675x0x245319/f0a58760-2c38-408f-8779-2782cf681255/Q209%20ER_10.30_10am.pdf ] by end of Quarter 3 to 300,000 players by end of Q4 is the source of servers being under populated. 

When a game loses 2/3 of its playerbase if such a short time the result will be empty servers.  The cause wasn't to many servers, that was the result of to many players leaving which is still the problem and the same result is more server mergers right now. 

Originally posted by Dedthom

What I would like to know is what 3rd faction you would add to WH without breaking the canon that Games Workshop has built?

Any of them really, they could have had a dozen or more factions easily. Workimg just from what is there though: split orcs and chaos - they were never really "allied" in any of the warhammer canon anyways. Or they could have gone with Elves+Bretonnians, Empire + Dwarves and Orcs+ Chaos etc...there were many many solutions they could have used.

Also, no one is saying they had to have 3...it could have been 4,5,6, whatever...just not TWO. Only two sides results in the binary "winners and losers" problem that others have explained.

WAR bombed for 4 reasons.

1. Too many servers: The world was empty and boring. The arrogant, overconfident dev team added 10x too many servers at launch. Public quests are pointless if the world is empty.

2. Unfinished: The game looked like ass AND it lagged on even the best PCs. Bugs were abundent and big content like the Keep system, cities, and other classes were unfinished.

3. Combat: The classes and combat were terribly dry, boring, and buggy. The global cooldown fiasco, plus the overall blandness of the classes.

4. Incentives: The item system for RvR was crap... and there really wasn't any incentive to not do scenarios non-stopped.

Originally posted by chunky_slice

its interesting the way mmo gamers dissect and pick over new mmo's these days. I've recently started playing Warhammer onine. I have a 13 runepriest and a lvl 7 disciple of khaine. Done a few scenarios along the way, done a few public quests and its been pretty decent thus far.

Then I remember what WoW was like when it was released:

No PvP. Honor system and battlegrounds didnt come out until well into 2005. THere was some World pvp on PvP servers but if you were on a Normal server thats it. You were stuck with PvE only.

Only endgame 2 raids for 8 months.

Broken classes for almost a year. Warlocks and hunters were broken until their talent reviews in patches 1.6 and 1.7 in the 2nd half of 2005. Until their talent reviews paladins werent even good healers let alone dps or tanks. All a paladin did until their talent review was cleanse and redo 5 minute blessings. Thats it. And even the better classes only had 1 decent talent tree.

Once you got to lvl 60 all you had to do was raid or if you were on a PvP server raid crossroads or join the tarren mill/southshore zergs.

Thats it.

Quite simply if WoW was released today, as it was back in late Nov 2004 it would be receive a savage mauling. But if you look at the subscriber numbers WoW actually increased  the rate of new players in the 2nd half of 2005 which, funnily enough, was when Blizzard really started to polish the game with talent reviews and releasing massive amounts of content.

People just have unrealistic expectations. The veteran mmo players have become ultra critical and cynical and the new players blind and stupid.

 

Alot of players say this. WoW was buggy when its release, unfinish, blah blah blah.

That is 2004.

But remember, mmo release to day is fighting against the current WoW or any other mmo now, not WoW back in 2004 or mmo of other date.

If mmo companies continue to ignore the impact that WoW have, whether you like it or not, than we will truly not see a WoW killer until Blizz release their next mmo, or shut down WoW...