Originally posted by BruceYee

As much as I want to see this game get better it most likely won't due to the recent Mythic layoffs and lack of players. It's very hard to believe that this game has anywhere near the 100k player base that's mentioned in some threads here.

I feel that the game that's being played right now is the game that should have shipped on release day. But that's just my opinion.

I can hardly believe the game is sustaining 100k players, paying or not, considering there are how many servers?  6 in total or something to that effect?

Originally posted by Angorim

I can hardly believe the game is sustaining 100k players, paying or not, considering there are how many servers?  6 in total or something to that effect?

Four active in NA. Two others are being shut down. I think the European numbers are similar.

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

Originally posted by Angorim

I can hardly believe the game is sustaining 100k players, paying or not, considering there are how many servers?  6 in total or something to that effect?

Four active in NA. Two others are being shut down. I think the European numbers are similar.

Definitely not able to sustain that kind of population on 8 servers.  Even if you factored in different players at varying play times, it just doesn't seem feasible considering how small the world is.

Originally posted by Angorim

Originally posted by BruceYee

As much as I want to see this game get better it most likely won't due to the recent Mythic layoffs and lack of players. It's very hard to believe that this game has anywhere near the 100k player base that's mentioned in some threads here.

I feel that the game that's being played right now is the game that should have shipped on release day. But that's just my opinion.

 

I can hardly believe the game is sustaining 100k players, paying or not, considering there are how many servers?  6 in total or something to that effect?

It's somewhere around that number of servers

The servers I play on(until my sub runs out) are Iron Rock & Badlands. T1 & T4 have the most players(which is still not a lot) and T2 & T3 are desolate most of the time.

Warhammer, as a game, took MMO's & streamlined them down & tried to concentrate purely on creating a combat game, the problem inherent in that "no-frills" approach led to there being very very little actual content in the game, it has the weakest PvE of any released MMO and almost no "side-gaming" thanks to it's incredibly basic tradeskill system.

In short content-wise this game just doesn't support or warrant a subscription model, the millions of dollars spent developing this game was wasted & squandered & doesn't show itself in the product.

This game is far too "short-lived" in it's attention-span holding qualities, as a free-to-play game it would rock because it would really play to the "drop-in & drop-out" combat of the game, it would be a fabulous second-game to any other MMO but as a "Main-game" MMO it is just far far too weak of a game.

As I see it, Mythic need to turn this game to a F2P model, let it flourish as that & build up some income to use to redevelop the whole PvE, tradeskill, side-game aspects of this title before re-entering a sub model, or even offerring the combat side as the F2P part & once the PvE is totally revamped opening that a sub-model, they could add a lot to the combat but that just wont "hold" players very well by itself, it needs a revolutionary meta-game to work as a pure PvP title, but nobody has made one yet, so a better, solid, PvE aspect would secure it's long-term future better.

I want so much to see this game rise, phoenix-like, from it's barely glowing embers & ashes, but it's got the spectre of EA looming over it, which could mean death pretty soon, I don't have faith that EA will give it time to live, I'm surprised it's been kept on life-support this long.

Originally posted by marcuslm

 I've said it before and I'll say it again...

WAR needs to go F2P.

It revived DDO and I think it could do the same for WAR. The unlimited trial was step in the right direction, but I think they need to go further. DDO opened a new server after they went F2P.

I hate to see WAR close, but if something doesn't happen very soon then I think the writing is on the wall.

Actually DDO increased by only 20% based on xfire since it went F2P. And it keeps going down to where it was before. From my personal experience, it made me quit DDo, because all EU servers got deserted. It's easy to assume that they all left to U.S. to pay less than what they paid before. Even 20% increase in activity, might actually mean less overall revenue when certain portion of the playerbase is not paying anything or less than before.
 

The fact that Vanguard and SWG are still going shows just how hard it is to kill a game.  WAR will follow the exact same path that Vanguard has walked over the past 2 years.

That is

1. fix bugs (Vanguard had a hell of a lot more than WAR ever did so they took ages to get anywhere with their bugs)

2. retain a somewhat healthy small player bas (this is out of the devs control as its up to the community to form nice guilds and be involved in content from 1-cap

3.  add new content (this is the big one, the one that keeps the game going.  Vanguard has been slow (due to the bugs) at fixing this issue but it already had plenty of content.  WAR is the opposite...it NEEDS more content if it wants to survive)

Ultimately WAR needs to get those 3 things right to keep going and not struggle.  It will however slip off the radar (like Vanguard) and will need one hell of a comeback campaign if it wishes to gain a signifigant number of subs in the future (but it needs the content first).

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by marcuslm

 I've said it before and I'll say it again...

WAR needs to go F2P.

It revived DDO and I think it could do the same for WAR. The unlimited trial was step in the right direction, but I think they need to go further. DDO opened a new server after they went F2P.

I hate to see WAR close, but if something doesn't happen very soon then I think the writing is on the wall.

Actually DDO increased by only 20% based on xfire since it went F2P. And it keeps going down to where it was before. From my personal experience, it made me quit DDo, because all EU servers got deserted. It's easy to assume that they all left to U.S. to pay less than what they paid before. Even 20% increase in activity, might actually mean less overall revenue when certain portion of the playerbase is not paying anything or less than before.
 

I'd put the blame for EU servers falling down to Codemasters dragging their heels, which is a stupid & ignorant decision on their part, the ease of getting onto the US servers for euros made it inevitable that many EU subs would try out the F2P model there, though Codemasters would probably lay the blame on Turbine's shoulders for not putting in an IP block.
 

I don't know the numbers, neither do you unless you are a Turbine employee, x-fire numbers are unreliable even for subbed games & for F2P titles I would argue a strong case that they are even more irrelevant, so I can't comment on the overall, global population increase/decline but the US servers are very healthy indeed now, which is what this game's structure requires to make it viable.

Originally posted by Skuz

Originally posted by Thillian

Actually DDO increased by only 20% based on xfire since it went F2P. And it keeps going down to where it was before. From my personal experience, it made me quit DDo, because all EU servers got deserted. It's easy to assume that they all left to U.S. to pay less than what they paid before. Even 20% increase in activity, might actually mean less overall revenue when certain portion of the playerbase is not paying anything or less than before.
 

I'd put the blame for EU servers falling down to Codemasters dragging their heels, which is a stupid & ignorant decision on their part, the ease of getting onto the US servers for euros made it inevitable that many EU subs would try out the F2P model there, though Codemasters would probably lay the blame on Turbine's shoulders for not putting in an IP block.
 

I don't know the numbers, neither do you unless you are a Turbine employee, so I can't comment on the overall, global population increase/decline but the US servers are very healthy indeed now, which is what this game's structure requires to make it viable.

I do think xfire is pretty accurate in most cases. DDo is no exception. Xfire is a huge sample size and represents around 1-2% of the whole gaming population. Sure, the xfire community might have a little bit different preferences than other gamers, however it's the most accurate tool we have available. DDo was around 2200-2500 hours played before going F2P. At F2P release it jumped to 10.000, and since then it's going down - now around 2500-3200 hours played. So it basically returns to the point where it was before.

Sure US servers might be more populated when a large portion of the EU playerbase went there.

I don't put a blame on Turbine nor on Codemasters. Fact is, Codemasters didn't see the F2P model to be the right step, so they sticked to P2P, while Turbine kinda "risked" it.

/agree

WAR has a brighting future if they add some side-game features and a consistent PvE that enhances the WAR experience to a new level, making it more inmersive and more appealing to the PvE crowd who likes the well-written stories. An economy based on good crafted/custom gear would drive the game in the good direction too.

The best PvP MMO with a full of adventure world. That's the port where the vessel has to arrive.

I said this before too and it's WAR only needs Tier 4... delete all the other shit and delete scenarios too.

Well last night on the PTS QA they basically said they'll be no new content for at least 6 months and they currently aren't working on an expansion.

Originally posted by gauge2k3

I see a ton of media and forums posts surrounding the demise of this game.  I cannot see what you people are talking about.  I pride myself in being a realist and some things do point in a sour direction, but please let me show you what I see.

The game IS much better than it was when it released.  Everyone who plays enjoys the updates, for the most part.  New users are flocking to the game like crazy now, and loving it on top of that.  I know it's an endless trial,but they are moving on to T2 and subbing to the game.  I think the strategy of fixing the major downfalls of the game and the endless T1 trial after was a great move.

The developers have acknowledged the layoffs and have said that they are dedicated to the success of this game.  I know much has been put on the war failing side of the scale, but no one is mentioning the things that are going on the war succeeding side.

Just my opinion.

We don't worry about the developer but of EA. SOE can have games with small crews and a low player base but EA seems to be closing down their games fast if they don't get the subs they hoped for.
 

To make T1 free was a great idea and it will earn WAR some players.

But they still have the problem that it is very little Warhammer in the game, alienating millions of GW fans from it. And they don't really have the resources anymore to change the game enough to get that feeling.

They also really should dust off the old greenskin city they never finished and make them their own faction, that would balance RvR a lot better but I wonder if they have enough devs to pull that off either.

I can easily see Warhammer stay as a steady game with a 100K players for many years, but I have the feeling that EA might not allow it and can the game like they did with some other games.

No new content and no working in rehashing features that need it sounds as the Swan Song. A pity.

Originally posted by Eridanix

No new content and no working in rehashing features that need it sounds as the Swan Song. A pity.

Well, Vanguard seems to be alive, but they don't have EA for publisher.
 

That's the main problem. SOE will keep it as a steady game with a low dev budget but EA is merciless.

Originally posted by Loke666

I can easily see Warhammer stay as a steady game with a 100K players for many years, but I have the feeling that EA might not allow it and can the game like they did with some other games.

I seriously doubt WAR has 100k subscribers. It's below AoC on xfire, and WAR has unlimited T1 trial. AoC is rumoured to be around 75k counted off grossly from the Funcom financial report. WAR is even 10% below that, and as I said, part of that are unlimited free-trialists. 50k for WAR and still going down would be more accurate.

 Well two things to remember. SOE is a Online gaming company and they have the station pass. So any game they can keep running and add to the station pass is more money to them at the end of the day. But they also have min numbers they play by. They closed down MXO not too long ago because it could not maintain that min number of players. As long as the game meets the min requirements and SOE can pay the licenses and/or owns the licenses they can just tag it onto the station pass and win $$ out of the deal.

EA is not much of an Online Gaming company. Most of there profits come from there sports titles and there new custom IP's they come up with. EA has already shown that they have no problems shutting down a game that doesn't meet there bottom line. (Heck they have already shut down more MMO's then just about any other company out there that makes MMO's.)  EA's bread and butter MMO has always been UO and thats more so because the game has held over 100k+ players even after 10 years. The cost to run the UO servers is next to nothing since the server software was designed to run on computers from 10 years ago. The development team has always remained a small team and there customer support for the game can be managed by a team of 10 people. The costs for operating UO is next to nothing compared to what they make off of the game.

So I would say WAR has everything to be worried about. WAR runs on high end servers that costs alot more to keep running then UO and WAR only barely seems to be managing the subscription numbers UO has held onto.

Originally posted by gauge2k3

 

The game IS much better than it was when it released.  Everyone who plays enjoys the updates, for the most part.  New users are flocking to the game like crazy now, and loving it on top of that.  I know it's an endless trial,but they are moving on to T2 and subbing to the game.  I think the strategy of fixing the major downfalls of the game and the endless T1 trial after was a great move.

Opinion noted.

But if the game is much better than it was, I can't imagine what it was, even though I had tried it in beta.  I tried it a couple weeks back with free tier 1 as a Witchhunter, and the thing was bugged to Bermuda.  I was shooting at things that were point blank that were "out of range".  the second public quest I was in, none of the landscape was showing, I had literally fallen of the face of the planet.  Every time I'd jump, I'd float higher in the air.  So I just took to picking off bad guys from above.

All games have little, annoying bugs(AoC with its floating weapons).  I wouldn't call an entire landscape not loading and being able to float higher and higher into the air a little, annoying bug.

I tried it first in beta and seemed like a decent, solid game, and I defended it as such.  Having come back, I can no longer defend it.  My experience was substandard in almost every way.

If people are joining in droves, I didn't see them.  Maybe 3 or 4 people were in the starter zone I was in, during EST prime time.  For a game that gives you unlimited play in those areas for free, that doesn't seem encouraging.

I suppose I should say at least one nice thing... the landscape designs seemed nice(the ones that would load, anyway).  Public quests are a good idea, IMO.  There ya go.

Warhammers furture ?

Thought WH died 1 year ago , and i meen literary, server was down and caceled.

You learn something new everyday.

Originally posted by Ztekan

Warhammers furture ?

Thought WH died 1 year ago , and i meen literary, server was down and caceled.

 

You learn something new everyday.

That weed is good. Keep on it.

The game is far better than Aion and is sad that is going to close.

The two strengths of the game for me were the scenario's and public quests.  Unfortunately both ended up lacking due to small populations and the open RVR taking most of the peeps instead of the scenario's.  Really liked leveling doing pvp only.  I thought the game was mostly bug free and didn't have the graphic problems some of the others complained about, maybe that is a graphic card specific problem.  I think the problem the developers are having today is not understanding there needs to be more things to do in the MMoRPG's than they are including.  People want varity (crafting/community/dungeons/strong sense of purpose/etc) even if they don't plan on using whatever from the the start.

Originally posted by buegur

The two strengths of the game for me were the scenario's and public quests.  Unfortunately both ended up lacking due to small populations and the open RVR taking most of the peeps instead of the scenario's.  Really liked leveling doing pvp only.  I thought the game was mostly bug free and didn't have the graphic problems some of the others complained about, maybe that is a graphic card specific problem.  I think the problem the developers are having today is not understanding there needs to be more things to do in the MMoRPG's than they are including.  People want varity (crafting/community/dungeons/strong sense of purpose/etc) even if they don't plan on using whatever from the the start.

Specific to a Radeon 3870, perhaps?

My experience couldn't have been a mere gfx problem.  Otherwise I wouldn't have been floating in the air, and WAR actually thought I was up in the air; my distance horizontally and vertically was applying toward my attacks for range considerations.

And, when I walked back to actual ground I fell and was injured.  Doesn't sound like gfx to me.

I wish MMORPG kept more archives.  I'd like to revisit some of those WAR will kill WoW threads...

Originally posted by gauge2k3

The game IS much better than it was when it released.  Everyone who plays enjoys the updates, for the most part.  New users are flocking to the game like crazy now, and loving it on top of that.  I know it's an endless trial,but they are moving on to T2 and subbing to the game.  I think the strategy of fixing the major downfalls of the game and the endless T1 trial after was a great move.

Hmm, yet only within days of you making this post they decided to merge & close servers AGAIN.  Dark Crag being one of them, the server that I used to play on and that was one of the top servers for a long time.  Quite a good sign, huh?

They are concentrating population to have a real RvR going on. It's a tactical move from Mythic, not a "we are just closing servers". They know the flaws that RvR mechanics bring out with low population ~its like a single player game with no action if there is no a strong concentrated population~ & maybe it's a right move ~though I can't say that for sure ~ to breed the game purposes to new and returning players.

The only option B to WAR would be DarkFall if you want intense action. Or Mortal Online. No real PvP game is left, besides them.