Hey guys, Asaf here (AKA OP).

First of all, thanks for reading this and commenting, regardless of the positive or negative reaction in the comment.

A couple of points I wanted to clarify in regards to the article and some replies:

• LOTRO was amazing in it's respect to the lore. I said it in the article and I totally mean it. However, I think there HAS to be a balance between a good feeling of playing in the LOTRO world and feeling you're playing an MMO.
   
• AoC and content issues - Thachsanh, you hit the mark right there. I tried to level up a character in Conan. There were two main issues: First, I had to grind - a lot. I think the minimum would be to have quests that propelled you from 1 to 80. Second, all I did were quests, all the time. There weren't enough instance groups as there weren't enough people or maybe the instances weren't "attractive" enough. Combine it all and you get a feel like you're on an endless race to reach 80, while doing nothing but grinding on the way.
   
• WAR Fanboy? - Nope, not me. I play a game as long as I enjoy it. I enjoyed both LOTRO and AoC for the first few weeks, then got bored/tired of them. I play WAR and feel the same way I did when I first played WoW, that means a lot. I am currently writing another article about the balance or lack of between races in WAR - If you think I'm a fanboy, please read it and let me know if you still hold that opinion.
   
• Alienoverlord - I agree with you completely - The world built by GW was meant to support a game and it shows when you play WAR, that's a very valid point.

I played each of these games and I tend to disagree with the author.

First I think both LotRo and WAR fits their lore better than AoC.

Then In WAR you have the feeling of moving around Warhammer figurines and war but not so much as there is a story going on. In that LotRo does an awesome job to make you feel you are part of the story and not a peon as in WAR or some pseudo Conanesque "hero".

Where LotRo failed is where AoC was good and WAR excellent : marketing.  Lets say AoC, LotRo and WAR had the same marketing campaing I'd bet 1000 to 1 LotRo would be the #1 game now. And I mark my words even over WOW.

I'm having fun in WAR now and I think it's a very well polished game but I know this game will be boring in the long term.

About WAR the public quests sounds interesting but they still need a lot of tweaking like all players should be automatically grouped when participating in a PQ.

Same for the tome of Knowledge, fun but pretty boring when you have the same entry for the 10th time on your alts. Also it needs tweaking like right click to get back to last page instead of having to click back. Most annoying when browsing many entries. We should be able to disable some alerts or entries. I'm looking forward TOK unlock ding! : you earn the ability to mark all know entries read in one click!!!

Now for the mini scenarios, it's mostly a big mess as players don't group beforehand there should be way to enhance this. Also you can queue to different scenario zones but if you want to get the scenario bonus you have to be in the right zone near the right guy or you loose about 50% that you get form quest completion. Like 2 minutes before the launch of the scenario the players should be automatically added to a scenario chat so they could advise. Afterwards they would be optionally teleported to a neutral gound tavern where they would be able to chat with their last "ennemies" passing the door of the tavern would send them directly to the point they where before jumping into the scenario.

As a final note I disagree with the fact a player has to feel epic. It is mostly right for the younger people (no offense) but not for the majority of MMO players. For example check pre-cu and CU SWG, I knew many entertainers, cooks, meds that never even fired a weapon and where having much fun. Now I do agree players have to feel their character is unique, read different. That's where character customisation and skill trees comes into the line.

Originally posted by Arinas

A couple of points I wanted to clarify in regards to the article and some replies:

• LOTRO was amazing in it's respect to the lore. I said it in the article and I totally mean it. However, I think there HAS to be a balance between a good feeling of playing in the LOTRO world and feeling you're playing an MMO.
   
• Alienoverlord - I agree with you completely - The world built by GW was meant to support a game and it shows when you play WAR, that's a very valid point.

 

As far as your first point, I disagree.

There is a difference between adapting a particular IP to another medium so that it works. Yes, these are games and they do have to primarily entertain. Also, since there mmo conventions such as a means for players to trade, to acquire skills, to travel to places in a reasonable amount of time then you obviously have to have methods of doing this.

None of this has anything to do with adding things that just aren't in the world.

To that point, you also shouldn't take things away from that world that makes it what it is. An example is all the skin in Conan and those who comlained that it was sexist. Well of course it's sexist, it's Conan! So not touching that which is a part of the world is important.

But changing that world just becuase players think it's neat will sanitize the IP.

As far as the second point, that is very correct, the game world for warhammer supports the table top game and it's imortant to remember that.

Yeah I like ingored all the talk about it being a bad game or Aoc being the bad game, etc... blah blah blah...

Sure the Mythic used the ip well...  You less know your a dwarf or orcs & goblins...

Dwarfs got a lame tank, an okay range unit, and a class that just breaks the ip by casting spells.  Instead of getting Hammers, thunders, rangers, slayers, or heck warriors.

Orcs & Goblins are just as bad, they got black orcs, shaman, and a hunter(with a pet that doesn't really work).  No Savage Orc Boyz, no night goblins, no choppas, no arrers, and heck the shaman anit even orc or night goblin.

Originally posted by Thachsanh

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

I am gonna have to blow hole in your little write up here my AoC fanboy friend.

Considering Warhammer has 25 yrs of personalized, customized figures the game was a huge let down in this area. Everyone looks the same. limitations in colours, physical apperance and character creation. Nothing like the table top. What would of been neat is using different shades of colour for example. That is a failure to not use the full potential of the IP. I remember painting a figure when I was 10. I could choose how they looked. In warhammer its pretty limiting in this area. I have all the fighting fantasy books by Steve Jackson and Ian livingstone - when Games Workshop got up and running proper, there were some great idea's floating around, when i think back to the descriptive narratives to the lore and compare them with my bulk, 5 frame character online in 2008 can't help but be dissapointed..

I really doubt that you involved much with miniature painting. There are certain freedom to the painter while building their army but there are still guild line you have to follow to fit with the lore and the IP. The whole idea of Warhammer miniature painting beside building an army so you can play with is to make the miniature look alive. It has nothing to do with what color theme you pick. You see, it has little to do with physical appearance too because there are only limited amount of model you can have. If you go gung ho in converting, of course you may have something looks relatively different but still there are guild lines you cannot break.

Hmm.. I have been painting and playing warhammer for 15 years, on and off, and have to call a bs on your painting guidlines. You do not have to follow any basic guidlines when painting models, it solely up to you as a player to paint your army any way you like. It is one of warhammer major points is to make your own fluff and painting ideas. 

".......guide lines you cannot break"   

As for the OP; I disagree with you. Mythic totally failed on creating Warhammer IP into a MMO world. There is less than nothing enviroment, or lore to explore, even AoC felt more like a world to me. Restricted, comes to mind. If I want a PvP game with a shallow world, I rmight as well just play Rakion.

Originally posted by neonwire

Originally posted by JK-Kanosi

I'd like to preface this by saying I am a fan and paying subscriber of WAR. With that aside, I am worried about the future I might have in WAR for one reason: War is everywhere.

One might ask, "Gee...what is so bad about war being everywhere?" Well, if you are a part-time gamer who logs in an hour or two to advance your character, probably nothing. However, if you spend many hours a day or week in the world, or you have done all there is to do at max level or are bored with the RvR, there is no place to just "relax".

In real life, no one wants to live in a war torn nation. We like the tranquil plains, hills, and mountains. We love nature or perhaps the action of a bustling city. The point I'm making is that without an end to conflict, the game remains in a perpetual state of war, which means the players character can never relax.

The only solution to this is to actually have an end to the war or to release non-war torn areas in expansions that players can adventure, explore and make seperate lives in. I guess the difference between me and other gamers is why we PvP. I PvP to help my side achieve victory. If victory is nowhere in sight, fighting becomes dull and depressing. People not like me PvP, because they love the action. They don't care about the social aspects of a game really as I do.

Only time will tell how the game being in a constant war setting will effect the longevity of a player's subscription. The one thing I loved about DAoC is that the game was a world to live in. You could seperate the conflict of the war between the three realms and your characters' individual life. I could explore the Highlands one day, which are peaceful, but not without their own adventures and threats; the next, I could go into the frontiers to support my realm in the ongoing struggle. Every zone in WAR that I've encountered was full of war against your opposing faction. If not in PvE, it was warring in PvP. No where was it really safe to just adventure and let loose.

 

I have never really understood why a person would want to log on to an online computer game that is primarily all about killing things and then try and do something relaxing. If you want to feel relaxed then dont play a game that is about fighting a war. There are plenty of PvE games around that allow you to stand around in virtual taverns twiddling your virtual thumbs and imagining that you are soaking up the virtual atmosphere. They do that in EQ2 where they all gather in taverns and pretend to be doing stuff rather than playing the game.

I would rather be playing the game though and I am finding Warhammer rather good fun. I like the fact that finally I can log on to a game and actually encounter other players that want to cut my head off. Why the hell would I want to stand in a virtual tavern doing buggerall?

You mentioned real life. Why would I want to play a game that is like real life? Great so I can sit down in my room with a drink and some food and log onto an online game where I can sit down in a room with a drink and some food. Yeah that sounds like great fun! But yes your right in real life no-one wants to live in a war torn nation..........but Warhammer isnt real life.......its a game. Killing people in real life sucks but killing people in a computer game is great fun.

You want it to be possible to "win the war"? You want the war to end sometime? Well you can. You play through to the end content and then you stop playing it and go and do something else. Sorry but no-one can EVER complete the story in an mmo. You never beat the big bad guy at the end. You never save the damsel in distress. You never save the city from the forces of evil. You can never really achieve any major goal in an mmo because its static and it always will be. Thats the nature of an mmo. To complete it would mean the end of the game.......all the players would just go back home and live an ordinary life. How exactly would that happen in a game?

"Sorry guys the wars over now. Nothing to kill any more. We're shutting down the servers now cos its all over. We're working on extra content though in which you can all play peaceful characters and do things like baking bread, working the fields, running a shop......all the ordinary things you do in life basicly"

In WAR though you can enjoy the process of the big battle even though we all know it will never end because an mmo is simply a freeze-frame of a place in time. No matter what the game actually is there is always one background story that occurs that never gets mentioned and thats this: There is a little Wizard who sits in another dimension and he has cast a spell over the game world which causes time to freeze which is why no-one ever dies, all the npcs always give everyone the same quests and basicly the whole game world stays static. So no the war will never end in Warhammer because that pesky dimensional Wizard froze time. What a git.

You said a very odd thing at the end. "Nowhere was it really safe to just adventure and let loose". What the hell does that mean? Safe? Adventure? How do those two words fit together......and how do you "let loose"? You want to just wander around an empty landscape and jump about lots? Is that what you mean? Maybe every once in a while you encounter another player and you bow to each other, say "how do you do?", have a little dance, cook a bit of food or something, tell a few jokes and then resume the pressing of the W key as you "explore" the 3d modeled landscape safe in the knowledge that no-one will break the monotonous routine and the warm fuzzy feeling that nothing out of the ordinary is ever going to happen.

Yeah thats why I log on to online games with thousands of people.......NOT!

You loved DAoC because it had a world you could live in? Ermmm no it didnt. It had a 3d landscape populated with the graphics of monsters that waited for your avatar to walk up to them and kill them and then go up levels so you could walk to other areas and kill other graphics of monsters that allowed your avatar to do more of the same....just like every mmo has. The only "individual life" that your avatar had was in your imagination and that can be applied to any game.

This is Warhammer not Peacehammer. War is everywhere and thank god it is cos otherwise I would be bored. If you want a peaceful safe environement where nothing stressful or surprising ever happens then I would recommend a game like Vanguard or EQ2.

Man, i dont understand those people neither and I agree with your point of view.

BTW great article =)

Thanks to Arinas aka Asaf, Neonwire & Thachsanh for the kind comments on my earlier post!  

I'm sure eventually someone will figure out how to translate a novel into a decent MMORPG, we just haven't seen it yet.  It will just take more attempts like Hollywood has been figuring out how to translate some books and comic books into movies - but for every good one there are more bad ones.   MMORPGs will get it eventually. 

Originally posted by Deewe

Where LotRo failed is where AoC was good and WAR excellent : marketing.  Lets say AoC, LotRo and WAR had the same marketing campaing I'd bet 1000 to 1 LotRo would be the #1 game now. And I mark my words even over WOW.

I really have to disagree with that statement.  Whether you like WoW or hate WoW, you can't claim that only marketing gave Blizzard its incredible success.     No game - not LotRO, not AoC and not even WAR would have been able to do what WoW did even with 10 times the marketing.

Certainly much of the hype was the result of Blizzard's track record.   But there was more to it than that.  Hellgate London had an impressive pedigree and look what happned there.  Hellgate was hype with nothing to back it up.

The reason WoW was so successful was not due to marketing brainwashing players.   It was because for the first time ever, a MMORPG finally attracted mainstream gamers who refused to  touch the previous generations of MMORPG for nearly a decade.    Those gamers didn't play those MMORPGs simply because they didn't find them fun. 

Maybe WoW was not as much fun for hardcore, dedicated MMORPG players (like so many on these forums), but WoW was fun for a heck of a lot of gamers outside of the traditional MMORPG niche market.  

Blizzard knew this and they made certain to lift their NDA well before their release and let people play their game at conventions.    This was a marketing strategy but it never would have worked if WoW didn't have something to draw those players in.

I don't like the direction WoW has taken since it's release and I don't play it anymore, but ignoring the reasons WoW became successful is like ignoring the horrible failures of other MMORPGs we've seen.  The only way the genre will evolve is if everyone remembers the history of MMORPGs, both the successes and failures, and not try to make excuses for either.

Originally posted by Alienovrlord

 

I really have to disagree with that statement.  Whether you like WoW or hate WoW, you can't claim that only marketing gave Blizzard its incredible success.     No game - not LotRO, not AoC and not even WAR would have been able to do what WoW did even with 10 times the marketing.

Exactly what I was saying. LotRo has superior, wider diversity gameplay than WoW and with marketing on top it would beat it.

Certainly much of the hype was the result of Blizzard's track record.   But there was more to it than that.  Hellgate London had an impressive pedigree and look what happned there.  Hellgate was hype with nothing to back it up.

Hellgate isn't an MMO, comparison does not apply

The reason WoW was so successful was not due to marketing brainwashing players.   It was because for the first time ever, a MMORPG finally attracted mainstream gamers who refused to  touch the previous generations of MMORPG for nearly a decade.    Those gamers didn't play those MMORPGs simply because they didn't find them fun. 

So? I didn't say WoW is successful only because marketing. My statement is still it's what is making the difference in terms of subscribers between games of high quality.

Maybe WoW was not as much fun for hardcore, dedicated MMORPG players (like so many on these forums), but WoW was fun for a heck of a lot of gamers outside of the traditional MMORPG niche market.  

I'd say otherwise WoW is for hardcore gamers who like to grind for top end equipment. The casual par of WoW is very fast to burn, then you jump into the grin fest : raid, honor, PvP farming.

Blizzard knew this and they made certain to lift their NDA well before their release and let people play their game at conventions.    This was a marketing strategy but it never would have worked if WoW didn't have something to draw those players in.

I don't like the direction WoW has taken since it's release and I don't play it anymore, but ignoring the reasons WoW became successful is like ignoring the horrible failures of other MMORPGs we've seen.  The only way the genre will evolve is if everyone remembers the history of MMORPGs, both the successes and failures, and not try to make excuses for either.

I agree but Blizzard isn't the only one publishing well polished MMO. Even, it was the first to deliver a nearly bugless one. This was a big milestone in MMO evolution.

 

Originally posted by BesCirga 

Hmm.. I have been painting and playing warhammer for 15 years, on and off, and have to call a bs on your painting guidlines. You do not have to follow any basic guidlines when painting models, it solely up to you as a player to paint your army any way you like. It is one of warhammer major points is to make your own fluff and painting ideas. 

".......guide lines you cannot break"   

Well, right back at ya, my friend. You, of course have the freedom to do whatever you wanted to do. You don't have to follow anything. The important thing is, would people accept them like you do when you bring them to play in public? You see, everything will be ok to YOU. It's like a child, he can draw a dog looks like a cow, as long as he does not display it and expect people to accept that is a drawing of  a dog.

You have the freedom to be creative as long as it doesn't go against the IP and lore. You can't just paint the orcs red and go on without any explaination. People will laugh at you. There are guild lines, color theme that a unit traditionally painted with. If you break that, some people will not even let you field those units. If you go paint your Blood Angel unit black, will it still be a Blood Angel unit? You can make your own fluffs, of couse, but when you bring your army out to play with people, will they accept it?

Now, an MMORPG like WAR has to maintain those exact guild lines for the model because it has to have the images that were accepted by the public for so long. If you allow people to have the freedom to change everything like you have with the real model, Games Workshop would not be very pleased if there are giant pink rainbow body color goblins running around. Just like your own painting, you are free to make pink rainbow giant goblin but don't expect to bring them out to play in public and not get laugh at.

Originally posted by Thachsanh

Just like your own painting, you are free to make pink rainbow giant goblin but don't expect to bring them out to play in public and not get laugh at.

No, no! Wait! I want to see pink rainbow giant goblin! You cannot deprive me of that pleasure or I will set a battalion of Turkish horsemen mounted in Ford Escorts on you!

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by Alienovrlord

 

I really have to disagree with that statement.  Whether you like WoW or hate WoW, you can't claim that only marketing gave Blizzard its incredible success.     No game - not LotRO, not AoC and not even WAR would have been able to do what WoW did even with 10 times the marketing.

Exactly what I was saying. LotRo has superior, wider diversity gameplay than WoW and with marketing on top it would beat it.

We'll just have to disagree on that.     The gameplay of WoW is unique in that Blizzard was able to truly reach across gamers from dedicated fanboys to hardcores to more casual players.   Games from other genres like Civilization, Halo etc had managed to have that kind of broad appeal but the MMORPG genre never managed before WoW.

I don't think any of the newer generations of MMORPG could manage the same feat.   LotRO has decent gameplay elements, but I really don't think it would draw the numbers of WoW even with marketing.   WAR is the same way and Mythic knew that.  They've always said they're just trying to make a fun game, not a game to outdo WoW. 

A really good game doesn't rely on marketing as much in this day.     In order to 'beat' WoW you'd need a game that would re-write the entire genre once again and a game like that wouldn't be held back by mere marketing.   LotRO or WAR or AoC and the other newer MMORPGs have their own audiences, but to say that any of them would completely change the genre like WoW and bring in even more millions if only they just had more markting is inaccurate.     Any game like that would do it with or without massive marketing (as long as the game wasn't run by complete incompetents lol)