Hi,

What are your opinions about why Warhammer Online totally flopped?  Okej, not "totally flopped" perhaps since it's still a big game compared to many other MMO's out there but still...  

It was allways this talking about "the WoW-killer"  But what excactly happened along the way? The game seemed to be something extra, new ideas etc...

Nowadays from the "WoW-killer" I mostly hear:  -Houston, we got an empty server! 

So, what happened?

A moderate success doesn't equal a "flop".

it wasn't enough like DOAC to appeal to those fans yet not different enough from WOW to draw players from that.

It certainly wasn't a flop, but it didn't even come close to meeting the expectations of the developers, the fans or the industry.

I think their biggest problem is that they had so few classes or races and they were so narrowly focused.  With a very small range in skill sets.  Very early on, my characters felt like they had plateaued and had nothing but upgrades to look forward to, with so few new skills after level 20.  Or the fact that most classes were just a copy and past of another with different names and maybe a few very minor flavor differences.  The world was too small and too linear and lacked a lot of the complexity of their older game, Dark Age of Camelot.  I've played both and I liked DAoC much, much better. 

I like WoW casual game play, but WAR failed to do it right, so I found the classes boring, the quests interesting, the Tome of Knowlege amazing, the world clausterphobic, the travel speeds before mounts utterly atrocious, being forced to group for anything that had decent rewards sucked (dungeons, PvP / RvR, public quests), way too slow leveleing curve, everyone of the same class looked exactly alike in each level range, no housing to help you feel attached, RvR that failed to have real meaning and pretty lackluster rewards unless you were one of the rare people to get a gold bag from a keep raid and an economy that favored greed ( I never once bought anything from the AH because of ridiculous pricing), where the heck were all of the fun abilites that I enjoy so much in other games, things like levitate, flight, run speed, teleports (short range and long range), shape changing, water walking, water breathing, under water swimming, submerged temples, floating castles, invisibility, random world treasure chests, flying mounts, escape abilities other than flee, etc....

My opinion is:

Generally speaking, it tried to do stuff that other games did better.

....the definition of a "flop" is when a game doesn't blow wow out of the water...lol

Definately not a flop, just by no means a roaring success.

Basically, it's a "niche" RvR game .. and niche games just don't get the big subscription numbers.

WAR didn't flop.. perhaps it just didn't reached the quantity of subscribers compared to the hype.

Here are some reason in my opinion:

1. The game was too pvp oriented without enough PvE content. PvE content tends to be bland and repetitive. Character leveling up tends not to feel like they're stronger.

2. The quests are all about killing x or gather y or other types of fedex task.

3. The biggest attraction was also its biggest flaw. I'm talking about public quest. Apparently each map has several public quest which has pretty much the same reward. People were spread too much out in the public quest area. And just like the law of least resistance, people only do the public quests that are the easiest totally ignoring the rest. A change that I would recommend is that each public quest in an area should give out different rewards, that way people would try to complete almost all of them instead of just the select 1-2. It's such a crying shame that MOST of the public quests are soo under utilized.

4. The public quest are basically all the same, kill X mob or gather Y ingredients or interact with Z items then kill some elite mobs then kill the boss. It isn't really a big flaw except if it's gonna be the same for most public quest then people get bored of it. There's really isn't much variation. The higher lvl ones have more steps but its basically the same.

5. Keep battles are about zerging... which side has the most force will usually win.

6. The abilities of each class aren't much different from the their basic archtype. Unlike WoW.. there's no subclass distinction... soo each class kinda feels bland and unspecial.

That's it in my opinion.

It's hard to imagine how it could defeat a game which is almost exactly like it, but fully entrenched.

My own opinions btw are as follows;

* When I started to play them game, last Aug/Sept, it almost felt like a singleplayer game because of the horrible CHAT-SYSTEM! Maybe they worked that out by now, don't know.

*Alot of people who started to play camed from WoW where the "evil" side, the Hordes usually dominated.(not on every server ofcourse!) So folks choosed that "evil" side in hope for having an advantage and the population got imbalanced which was defenetly not a good thing for a game like WAR.

*Jeff from mythic said something like; We're making a game, not a world. And that's pretty much explain how the WAR's "world" feels like..... a game! (I play MMO's for my fantasy to be carried away for a few hours..., I want a new world!)

I dont know the subcription numbers and their trend, but I found WAR terribly boring. The soulless, ever-the-same-looking characters, the totally lackluster PVE quests and in the RVR every keep was exactly like every other - bash door 1, bash door 2, run up ramp. Just so boring and so not catching my emotional attachment.

Originally posted by nikle76

....the definition of a "flop" is when a game doesn't blow wow out of the water...lol

No definition of a flop would be if the game doesn't meet EA's internal expectations.. which nobody posting on this forums knows.. one way or the other.  At least for WAR this would be the definition.

So if the game has a many years long run.. it wasn't a flop for EA.

If it gets shut down by EA .. then no matter what any fan says.. it was a flop.

/shrug

Originally posted by Vrazule

It certainly wasn't a flop, but it didn't even come close to meeting the expectations of the developers, the fans or the industry.

I think their biggest problem is that they had so few classes or races and they were so narrowly focused.  With a very small range in skill sets.  Very early on, my characters felt like they had plateaued and had nothing but upgrades to look forward to, with so few new skills after level 20.  Or the fact that most classes were just a copy and past of another with different names and maybe a few very minor flavor differences.  The world was too small and too linear and lacked a lot of the complexity of their older game, Dark Age of Camelot.  I've played both and I liked DAoC much, much better. 

I like WoW casual game play, but WAR failed to do it right, so I found the classes boring, the quests interesting, the Tome of Knowlege amazing, the world clausterphobic, the travel speeds before mounts utterly atrocious, being forced to group for anything that had decent rewards sucked (dungeons, PvP / RvR, public quests), way too slow leveleing curve, everyone of the same class looked exactly alike in each level range, no housing to help you feel attached, RvR that failed to have real meaning and pretty lackluster rewards unless you were one of the rare people to get a gold bag from a keep raid and an economy that favored greed ( I never once bought anything from the AH because of ridiculous pricing), where the heck were all of the fun abilites that I enjoy so much in other games, things like levitate, flight, run speed, teleports (short range and long range), shape changing, water walking, water breathing, under water swimming, submerged temples, floating castles, invisibility, random world treasure chests, flying mounts, escape abilities other than flee, etc....

So few classes? Umm, World of Warcraft much?

Originally posted by admiralnlson

My opinion is:

Generally speaking, it tried to do stuff that other games did better.
 

Yep.

Originally posted by Antarious

Originally posted by nikle76

....the definition of a "flop" is when a game doesn't blow wow out of the water...lol

 

No definition of a flop would be if the game doesn't meet EA's internal expectations.. which nobody posting on this forums knows.. one way or the other.  At least for WAR this would be the definition.

So if the game has a many years long run.. it wasn't a flop for EA.

If it gets shut down by EA .. then no matter what any fan says.. it was a flop.

/shrug

I thought the publicly stated target was 500,000 subs.
 

Linear, limited gameplay.

Originally posted by mr.torrance

it wasn't enough like DOAC to appeal to those fans yet not different enough from WOW to draw players from that.

I've played WoW.

Why would I want to play it again?

Originally posted by Capn23

Originally posted by mr.torrance

it wasn't enough like DOAC to appeal to those fans yet not different enough from WOW to draw players from that.

 

I've played WoW.

 

Why would I want to play it again?

exactly. companies have this stupid notion that to get millions of subs you must copy WOW.....yet why would someone stop playing wow to play a wow clone with RvR? one day they will learn in order to get that level of success you must make the anti-wow.  the polar opposite of wow.

It was supposed to be the WoW killer? I posted in the WAR forums over a year ago that the game would be trash, and I thank those forums for introducing me to Aion.

The thing a LOT of critics miss when describing their disappointment with the classes is where the roots of the game come from.

From a design standpoint it is a Conversion to computer of a table-top game, it isn't built as a sandbox-style MMO, it's built as a competitive RvR wargame & the classes, races, weapons & a multitude of other things are all firmly & squarely rooted in that heritage, the more Warhammer Lore I find & get into the more that fact becomes apparent, Games Workshop were clearly intrumental & heavily involved in the games creation, & the game probably gives a table top player a fairly decent computer iteration of what they are accustomed to.

WAR is far from a flop, in fact I'd go so far as to say that it has been sucessful & will continue to attract players, but that I do not expect it to hit World of Warcraft subscription numbers because it is a niche-market game rather than a mass-market game, without many players realising it World of Warcraft makes a huge number of concessions to have such a broad appeal, & there is a lot of room in the market place for MMORPG's to co-exist & offer different "worlds" to play in, or experiences.

I don't think WAR sets out to provde a "world" or a sandbox environment, it sets out a tightly controlled arena for competitive play, & then bolts on many extra features "because it can" by virtue of it's computer platform, in my opinion it's a way to have table top games on the internet, but enriched & with a huge amount of backstory, I do think a "Warhammer World" game is possible in a "sandbox" format, but WAR is not it.

There are indeed things that can be improved, not yet has an MMO been released & not needed extensive (we are talking years here) development to bring it to maturity, hell UO & EQ are still around some 9+ years later & continue to throw up surpising developments.

Time will tell, but I have an optimistic outlook for WAR's future, & I think too much hype & pre-conceived expectations of it being a game it wasn't were flying around & that leads to inevitable disappointment for some, & surprising enjoyment for others.

To use an analogy World of Warcraft is like McDonalds, WAR, EQ DAoC are all specialist resaurants, I don't think we have a MMO Burger-King yet, none of the in-development will touch WoW, but I am quietly optimistic about the MMO 38Studios are working on.