they started with way too many servers, people were screaming the game is empty, thats because their server was not populated, which lead to poor RVR. Because of that most didn't even stay past the first month. they don't advertise the game enough. i see WOW WOTLK banners all over the web, join WOW for 10 days banners everywhere. There is no trial, except for people who already have the game and want to invite friends (which came almost 4 months after release, way too late). the game released with way too many features missing (which have been added in 4 months of patching), too buggy on release.

the game is fun although i  hardly play anymore, wish it would have been released 4 months later, after the guinea pig stage i got burned out. they should have merged servers faster. too many empty servers turned a lot of people away really fast. My son is back into his wii again, we may close our subs on the next billing cycle.

if WAR cam out today in this state with only the med/med server it would be a great sucess. and as far a WOW , i would never go back to that as WARs PVP/RVR has really turned me off to PVE oriented MMOs. We will have to see what Darkfall holds.
 

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Originally posted by medafor
they started with way too many servers, people were screaming the game is empty, thats because their server was not populated, which lead to poor RVR. Because of that most didn't even stay past the first month. they don't advertise the game enough. i see WOW WOTLK banners all over the web, join WOW for 10 days banners everywhere. There is no trial, except for people who already have the game and want to invite friends (which came almost 4 months after release, way too late). the game released with way too many features missing (which have been added in 4 months of patching), too buggy on release.
the game is fun although i  hardly play anymore, wish it would have been released 4 months later, after the guinea pig stage i got burned out. they should have merged servers faster. too many empty servers turned a lot of people away really fast. My son is back into his wii again, we may close our subs on the next billing cycle.
if WAR cam out today in this state with only the med/med server it would be a great sucess. and as far a WOW , i would never go back to that as WARs PVP/RVR has really turned me off to PVE oriented MMOs. We will have to see what Darkfall holds.
 

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Well when they released, the game wasn't empty. There were long lines for stuff to try. The PQs, Scenarios, everything was running good. Most of the servers weren't struggling, they were doing really well.

The oRvR problems didn't begin to pop up until people starting hitting level 20s and got bored. Not everyone but about 30-40% left. The majority of what was left lived in only one scenario each Tier. People played that one scenario until they wore the letters off the "Nordenwatch" button trying to get in the first one. Each tier had one that did this. It was really the most fun there was, and the best exp.

Then you had the level rushers to endgame Level40 (minority), while quite a few were constantly rerolling alts after hitting 20 and repeating the same fun Scenarios (majority), so there developed a gap. A huge hole happened for 25-35ish and that got old fast. They lost about 500k subscriptions over all that time until about now. Again, most were probably splitting the game from this level as they didn't have many people to play/kill on either side.

That's what happened early, but many things happened later to present day that affect the current state. Right now its in a REAL precarious position due to the endgame crashing (fortsieges) as lots of people are now hitting that level40. The first wave to leave were the mid 20s/low30s. The next wave that looks as though they might bolt is the 40s, most of the people who've been gear grinding with little results for the good stuff, and too much Renown to earn to wear it when they find it. There's reports that on Dark Crag, one of the highest pop servers, all but one high-ranking Order guild has quit. (named Ruin) It's supposedly being overun by Destro and the big Order guilds just couldn't take it anymore, imploded and are trying to reform from the stragglers. (so says the VN boards)

Mythic really has a LOT of work to do from now until six months from now just to stabilize things.. Mark Jacobs admitted as much just today. If you list the amount of things Mythic has on its whiteboard right now, your head would probably spin. And that's just stuff to fix, not implement.

Thats why it appears it didnt get higher subs and its current state.

I can't comment on the initial server populations in the US, but I can remember being very surprised at how many servers they allocated at launch in Europe.

I initially rolled on an RP server, but not the one used in Beta as I thought it might be better to choose the other one & be in at the start. After a while It was so deserted that after a while I re-rolled on a normal server that got good ratings on one of the forums.

Whilst the population has dropped a bit since then, it has been pretty good & there is frequently decent RvR going on. The PQs area a different matter though as groups are quite rare. Given that it was fairly predictable that the population would be biased to Level 30+ after a while, it seems odd to make so much of the lower level content dependent on Group activity. 

Like most people I like trying other classes & a lot of the population in levels 1-20 seem to be people trying to level Alt characters as quickly as possible so that they can get to the good stuff. I soloed one of the new 'Easy PQs' yesterday with a Level 7 Magus & got a nice piece of equipment, but I don't understand why Mythic only have one per Tier at the lower levels when no-one at all seems to be doing the 'Hard PQs'. Scenarios are still fun at Low level though & I even got to play one other than Nordenwatch yesterday.

At higher levels on my server at least there seems to be a lot of RvR, but at lower levels a large proportion of people seems to be soloing apart from Scenarios. Maybe if Mythic acknowledged this & introduced better solo content & quests for equipment or made more of the PQs soloable it would make the game a bit less frustrating at lower levels.

Just an idea though.

Originally posted by medafor

they started with way too many servers, people were screaming the game is empty, thats because their server was not populated, which lead to poor RVR. Because of that most didn't even stay past the first month. they don't advertise the game enough. i see WOW WOTLK banners all over the web, join WOW for 10 days banners everywhere. There is no trial, except for people who already have the game and want to invite friends (which came almost 4 months after release, way too late). the game released with way too many features missing (which have been added in 4 months of patching), too buggy on release.

the game is fun although i  hardly play anymore, wish it would have been released 4 months later, after the guinea pig stage i got burned out. they should have merged servers faster. too many empty servers turned a lot of people away really fast. My son is back into his wii again, we may close our subs on the next billing cycle.

if WAR cam out today in this state with only the med/med server it would be a great sucess. and as far a WOW , i would never go back to that as WARs PVP/RVR has really turned me off to PVE oriented MMOs. We will have to see what Darkfall holds.
 

The server park was full in September 2008 on prime time. In prime time you had at least 20 full Chaos/ 15 full order in EU. Only very few low/low servers.

I was there I noted it. Xfire had a 6 to 1 ratio Wow/War as proof.

Then the same flow AoC had (but less pronounced) : the guys who came in just to have a "one month look" left. October had a 12 to 1 ratio. Servers became empty - even on prime time.

Then WotLk launched, it dropped to 20 to 1 ratio on Xfire users. They could hold this up thanks to cutting prices on the package (up to 50% sometime), this drew in new players tx to the Christmas season.

Latest Xfire shows again a fall in players ratio, making a ratio of 25 to 1.

So we will see what wil happen in March/April, mostly all MMO's loose players at that time because of the spring season. A game that dependant on server pops will face hard times IF sales are not going up again. So expect again a lot of cut prices on War. Both in basic boxes as in prices of sub cards.

And server merges, because the game is too dependant on healthy pops.

Originally posted by medafor

[...] the game released with way too many features missing (which have been added in 4 months of patching), too buggy on release [...]

I have no idea what game you are talking about, surely not WAR. It relased feature complete and with no gamebreaking bugs. It was one of the smoothest releases in MMORPG history.

I will agree if you say that end game was not well thought through and needed changes to make it more attractive and exciting but saying the game released buggy and with way too many features missing is simply not true.

Please let us all know what feature was missing at launch and what game breaking bugs you experienced in the first 3 Tiers.

KJ

The problem is that most of the people who bought Warhammer were hoping for a better version of DAOC, with lots of RvR.

What we got was nearly everyone queueing for Scenarios and empty Orvr areas.

Now that have finally toned down scenarios and buffed Orvr.. but it's too late.. a lot of people didn't last the first two months.

Now that they've finally fixed Orvr as a viable way to level and get renown, people are realizing that the locking mechanisms are broken...  that Forts can't be 200v200, and that cities 'sieges' are mostly a pve grind.

It's almost like they initially wanted people to grind scenarios because then it would take players to realize how broken locking and Forts are.

It's kinda like now.. because forts are mostly broken.. not many people have seen the city seiges.. once they do, another bunch of people will quit.

1.  Leveling should have been about oRvR (fixed already
2.  Locking mechanisms should make sense (not fixed)
3.  Forts should be 'epic'  (not fixed), instead they are getting closer to making forts insances
4.  City seiges should be massive pvp battles, not pve grinds.

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Originally posted by taus01

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Originally posted by medafor

[...] the game released with way too many features missing (which have been added in 4 months of patching), too buggy on release [...]

---

 
I have no idea what game you are talking about, surely not WAR. It relased feature complete and with no gamebreaking bugs. It was one of the smoothest releases in MMORPG history.
I will agree if you say that end game was not well thought through and needed changes to make it more attractive and exciting but saying the game released buggy and with way too many features missing is simply not true.
Please let us all know what feature was missing at launch and what game breaking bugs you experienced in the first 3 Tiers.
KJ

---

I think the feature he's talking about is balance. There wasn't much at launch.

Other than BW's, Order didn't have much early on. Destro was loaded for bear with just about every type of class outshining it's counterpart, which might help account for the huge Destro imbalance today on the majority of servers.

He also might be referring to the four missing classes at launch, which were planned all along and touted but VERY close to the release, Mythic said they'd have to put them in later because they weren't ready. Two still are not in game at present. Same with the extra cities which are not in the game yet, and still aren't as of today.

If you are talking more "generic" features of skills, abilities and that kind of thing, that was mostly there on release.

Originally posted by taus01

Originally posted by medafor

[...] the game released with way too many features missing (which have been added in 4 months of patching), too buggy on release [...]

 

I have no idea what game you are talking about, surely not WAR. It relased feature complete and with no gamebreaking bugs. It was one of the smoothest releases in MMORPG history.

I will agree if you say that end game was not well thought through and needed changes to make it more attractive and exciting but saying the game released buggy and with way too many features missing is simply not true.

Please let us all know what feature was missing at launch and what game breaking bugs you experienced in the first 3 Tiers.

KJ

Not being able to capture fortresses for weeks without crashing comes to mind as "gamebreaking" 

If they hadn't mentioned it a month before everyone would probably have argued "4 cities 4 classes" would be "missing content".

Wonder if the next MMO close to release will announce a month before the game comes out what features are all not going to be in the release after all. That way that game can be feature complete as well.

Originally posted by medafor

they started with way too many servers, people were screaming the game is empty, thats because their server was not populated, which lead to poor RVR. Because of that most didn't even stay past the first month. they don't advertise the game enough. i see WOW WOTLK banners all over the web, join WOW for 10 days banners everywhere. There is no trial, except for people who already have the game and want to invite friends (which came almost 4 months after release, way too late). the game released with way too many features missing (which have been added in 4 months of patching), too buggy on release.

the game is fun although i  hardly play anymore, wish it would have been released 4 months later, after the guinea pig stage i got burned out. they should have merged servers faster. too many empty servers turned a lot of people away really fast. My son is back into his wii again, we may close our subs on the next billing cycle.

if WAR cam out today in this state with only the med/med server it would be a great sucess. and as far a WOW , i would never go back to that as WARs PVP/RVR has really turned me off to PVE oriented MMOs. We will have to see what Darkfall holds.
 

You're reading far too much into it. The reason that WAR doesnt have a larger number of subscription numbers is really very simple. Its just not a very good game. If it was then lots of people would be staying but unfortunately many people just found it boring and ended up canceling their subscriptions. Dull PvE, meaningless "optional" RvR, bland cookie-cutter classes with very little variety, no working economy, useless crafting, run-of-the-mill levelling treadmill with very little room for variety, uninspired game design etc etc. It all adds up to be a pretty uninteresting game......fun for a while but certainly nothing to hold most peoples attention.

If WAR was a great game then advertising wouldnt matter at all. In fact I see quite a few adverts for the game all over the place. Problem is most people know that its just a weak immitation of WoW so most people just stick with the original instead. WAR cant even offer better PvP which is quite silly really considering that this is supposed to be its selling point. Mythic said they were not trying to create a "world" but instead wanted to create a "game".......and because it lacks the feeling of being a world many people just dont want to hang around in it......unless you enjoy flipping Keeps back and forth for eternity for no particular reason other than "they are there".

The game might get a bit better when it finally adds in the missing features like the 4 other cities and the 2 missing classes. I certainly wont be coming back to see them though. By that time though there will be other bigger and better games out so why would anyone want to bother with WAR by then anyway?

Originally posted by Pheace

Originally posted by taus01

Originally posted by medafor

[...] the game released with way too many features missing (which have been added in 4 months of patching), too buggy on release [...]

 

I have no idea what game you are talking about, surely not WAR. It relased feature complete and with no gamebreaking bugs. It was one of the smoothest releases in MMORPG history.

I will agree if you say that end game was not well thought through and needed changes to make it more attractive and exciting but saying the game released buggy and with way too many features missing is simply not true.

Please let us all know what feature was missing at launch and what game breaking bugs you experienced in the first 3 Tiers.

KJ

 

Not being able to capture fortresses for weeks without crashing comes to mind as "gamebreaking" 

If they hadn't mentioned it a month before everyone would probably have argued "4 cities 4 classes" would be "missing content".

 

Wonder if the next MMO close to release will announce a month before the game comes out what features are all not going to be in the release after all. That way that game can be feature complete as well.

Yeah its really odd that people genuinely seem to believe that WAR was released in a complete state. 4 missing cities and 4 missing classes. Thats a pretty major gap in its content. Just because they announced it doesnt make their game complete. Oh but they had a smooth release.....well of course they did! Massive gaps in the content, big empty featureless tracks of land that were labeled as open RvR areas where the silence is deafening, extremely basic AI for the mobs, only 2 weak and broken crafting professions on release. Its hard to have a rough release with such a bland and empty product. I mean what could possibly go wrong with it?

Originally posted by medafor

Because of that most didn't even stay past the first month. they don't advertise the game enough. i see WOW WOTLK banners all over the web, join WOW for 10 days banners everywhere.  

That's what makes wow so popular. Advertising, advertising, advertising

Originally posted by Kilmar

Originally posted by medafor

Because of that most didn't even stay past the first month. they don't advertise the game enough. i see WOW WOTLK banners all over the web, join WOW for 10 days banners everywhere.  

 

That's what makes wow so popular. Advertising, advertising, advertising

Except the real advertising didn't begin till the game had grown well over a million. (here in the netherlands, MMO advertising is pretty much nill yet MMO(WoW) players were popping out of the ground left and right where *before* people just gave you an ugly face whenever you even mentioned you paid monthly for a game... MONTHLY! Are you crazy!?

Originally posted by Kilmar

Originally posted by medafor

Because of that most didn't even stay past the first month. they don't advertise the game enough. i see WOW WOTLK banners all over the web, join WOW for 10 days banners everywhere.  

 

That's what makes wow so popular. Advertising, advertising, advertising

I really hope this was sarcasm because WoW wasn't on commercials and banners like the above poster said until it became a huge hit. The difference is, WoW  delivered a game based on their advertisement where WaR advertised one product and delivered another.

If Mythic had made the game they all made us believe they were making, WaR wouldn't be in this mess.

Originally posted by Kilmar

Originally posted by medafor

Because of that most didn't even stay past the first month. they don't advertise the game enough. i see WOW WOTLK banners all over the web, join WOW for 10 days banners everywhere.  

 

That's what makes wow so popular. Advertising, advertising, advertising

Maybe recently. But think about it, do you think WoW always had celebrity commercials, spam 10-day free trial banners on websites, and the rest? Nah! WoW got so popular just like any other MMO would at its start: by word of mouth. People brought their friends in, and then they brought their friends in, etc., etc. Even nowadays I'd wager that word of mouth still brings in way more people than advertising. I mean you look at WoW and it looks like a nerdy fantasy game, but then you get someone you know who plays it and your opinions might change.

I will add to the OP however, that a lot of players are now done with WOTLK. It was a faster paced expansion that allowed players to reach their goals in a small amount of time. The change to an 'invite a friend' policy is a smart move by Mythic. I expect them to pull away a few players

WAR needs to completely redesign its endgame. Forts are laggy and unplayable for loads, City seiges are a PvE PQ, RvR consists of 2 sides running around separate pairings PvE'ing keeps/bo's.

At the moment it feels like i'm on a RvE gear grinding merry-go-round and i want off.

Originally posted by Kilmar

Originally posted by medafor

Because of that most didn't even stay past the first month. they don't advertise the game enough. i see WOW WOTLK banners all over the web, join WOW for 10 days banners everywhere.  

 

That's what makes wow so popular. Advertising, advertising, advertising

There are alot of things that make wow so popular.  ALOT.  None of them make wow a good MMO however.
 

You can start off with the game can run on a Commdore 64 and that it can be played (and played quite well) by a 5 year old kid.  The STEEP gold/equipment grind leads to greedy gamers relying on asian gold farmers which results in 7 million + asian gold farmers who sell gold to the western wow gamers.  I could go on, but why ?

Originally posted by Czzarre

I will add to the OP however, that a lot of players are now done with WOTLK. It was a faster paced expansion that allowed players to reach their goals in a small amount of time. The change to an 'invite a friend' policy is a smart move by Mythic. I expect them to pull away a few players

lol.  it takes Blizzard 2 years to make an expansion that its players burn thru in 18 days.  Funny stuff.
 

The current state of the game is...i'm playing it.

no one cares about sub numbers...it's all about the quality of the game and it didn't get sub numbers because of AoC and those who play casually...WoW's expansion  but those who are hardcore ex-WoW players now are switching to WAR because my guildy has brought his brother.

I say that it's not about sub #'s but the server #'s but for me meduim is better than high server because you can have an organized group pwning a zerg that zerging vs zerging.

Originally posted by Magter

The current state of the game is...i'm playing it.

no one cares about sub numbers...it's all about the quality of the game and it didn't get sub numbers because of AoC and those who play casually...WoW's expansion  but those who are hardcore ex-WoW players now are switching to WAR because my guildy has brought his brother.

I say that it's not about sub #'s but the server #'s but for me meduim is better than high server because you can have an organized group pwning a zerg that zerging vs zerging.

What even made you think that?

Ratio of Wow/WAr in player numbers on Xfire Sep 2008 was 6 to 1.

Ratio of Wow/WAr in player number on Xfire in Oct was 12 to 1;

Ratio of Wow/War in player numbers in Nov/Dec was 22 to 1:

Today that ratio is at 25 to 1/

Like I said I hope for you Warhammer players, Wow is at 5.000.000 western subs these days, because at 25:1 it means War is struggling to hold on to 200.000 players these days (add some sleeping subs and a few new players and it's holding on now... because EA said 250 K was the point of return on investment...

And of course these are Xfire players, but going from 6 to 1 ratio into 25 to 1 is not some little change in pops.

BTW These figures are also confirmed by lesser and lesser servers "full" and the ratio between LOTRO(not even a PvP game) which is only now 30% under War, while it used to be 400% under War in those stats.

So " a friend who joined" is not a good reference if you get a sample as big as150K PC players in our US/EU world (Xfire).

As to the guys hoping WotLK content is "finished". The PvP in Wow only started 3 weeks ago and 99.5% of Wow players is only beginning the PVE Raid content. Stats are clear on this.

The so called non-lifers are banging their heads now on the achievements -which some need about a good full year to accomplish (like Battle master title).