Personally, I think that mmos benefit when the developers step back, look at the content they offer, and ask themselves the question from the movie BIG, "what's fun about that?"

As an example, there is an early quest in WoW to kill 10 kobolds. This is about as generic a quest as there can be. In most games it would be bland and boring. But on this one, the kobolds have little candles on their heads (from being in a mine) and yell "you no take candle!' It's pretty funny stuff when you see it. By adding a little something extra , a bland quest becomes something entertaining.

Unfortunately, 99% of the time quests and other content don't get that something extra.  Most people don't even read the text anymore and just grind away.

I think a lot of what makes mmos successful could be even more fun if there was just more follow through on the content design and less paint by numbers.

I had never played a Mythic game before Warhammer, but I have played many other mmos and had heard mostly good things about Mythic. Mythic did a great job of promoting WAR pre-launch and they really convinved me this was going to be something special and , just as importantly, different.

When I bought the game it did not take long to see that this was just another generic fantasy mmo, and not a very good one.  All those promises about how it would not be another "kill 10 of x, collect 10 of y, escort Bob nonsense" -  siezmic fail.

The lessons learned here are that there is a huge market of players craving something new and different. But if you want to capture that market, slick newsletters and videos won't do it. You have to deliver the product.

Club Penguin is a much more valid inclusion than Vanguard, which is a complete piece of garbage.

Coming from a pen and paper background, what I found exciting in mmos like original EQ was the thrill of the transition to being "in" a fantasy world, as opposed to having to imagine one while rolling dice. Back in the day as I was first headed up to Crushbone Castle, my knees were knocking and I was completely creeped out.  Now,  8-10 mmos later (including WoW), that emotion is gone. I never feel anymore like I am "in" a fantasy world - instead, I am just moving a pixilated avatar through a series of obstacles in search of better clothes.

What will constitute the next generation of mmos, at least for me, is not a question of hard versus easy, fast versus slow progression, or any of the other hot button community board design issues, but one where it feels like I am in the game again. I see nothing on the table at the moment, either released or pending, that looks to offer that. But, it will come. Eventually games like WoW will be remembered fondly but will look like pong in terms of genuine player immersion.

Honestly, when your primary focus is how much damage you do on a damage meter or whether you have the latest tiered gear, does it even matter that you are in a fantasy setting? There's nothing wrong with loot and gear, but first and foremost I want to be in a world that fills me with awe and wonder and excitement and dread. If I'm not getting that, having great loot in a superficial and uninspiring world just doesn't captivate me.

The mmo genre has created a pre-fabricated set of player expectations that developers have to work against. There is a long list of features that large groups of players have enjoyed in previous games and expect to see again in new ones, or else they will complain. So the developers try to deliver on as many of those expectations as they can, such as:

Character appearance customization -  check

Crafting - check

PvP - check

Classes - check

Skill trees or similar choices - check

Loot - check

Pets - check

Auction house or trade method - check

and so on, and on, and on.

By the time a developer has satisfied enough of those expectations that they can persuade their investors that it is reasonable to believe the game will be popular - because games with those features have been proven to be popular before - how much time and money is really left to do anything new and groundbreaking? Not much.

That is why we keep getting the same thing over and over again. :/

More developers are going to have to find a way to break out of the mold, and we, the players, are going to have to be more supportive of those efforts when they do, if we are ever to hope for anything genuinely new and refreshing.

I raid in WoW and while the article, for the most part, is not technically wrong, it gives the impression that to raid you first have to spend 10 years in a North Korean hard labor camp. Of course this is not true. The article also fails to discuss why raiding is fun (which it is) and why anyone would want to do it. 

I've been saying this for years. Only recently they claimed they were going to start remarketing it. Devs came here to reassure people. Lies. Vaporware, as it has always been.

"If the game was dying, don't you think that you would've heard something about it? Doesn't the fact that there has been absolutely nothing like that leaked mean anything?"

- Agent_X7, staff writer (former?) for mmorpg.com

I guess the "as long as they never admit the game isn't launching it must still be launching" theory didn't work out after all.

I think what Warhammer shows (from its huge pre-release following and strong initial subscription numbers) is that there is a large market of players who want something fresh, new and different to play.  

But what Warhammer also shows is that the standard for quality has been raised by previous games to a level that - if it is not met - players will quit and return to games that do meet that standard.

I played WAR for a few weeks and my take-away was, hmm, it doesn't outright suck but I'm not getting anything here that I'm not already getting elsewhere, and the quality in many areas is much less. So I went back to what I was doing. Looks like a few other folks did the same.

Whether it will continue is all about how much money they sunk into development, and how much it would take to develop and maintain the game versus the much lower than expected continuing subscriptions. I don't have those numbers so I couldn't say. Sure, games with lower numbers of subscribers have held on, but I expect Warhammer's cost of production was much higher than some of those games mentioned.

Originally posted by Draq

 

it's right on schedule.

I told you so, over and over. Doesn't anyone want to say "ooooh this is just so they can make it absolutely perfect without even a need for a beta test because, well ,they're just that good." LMAO. Vaporware, then and now. Please all you so called HJ "Devs" who lied to everyone come and take a bow.

Another generic sales pitch by this website for how this disaster of a game is somehow wonderful now. My generic response, again, is "no".

I can remember when I was the only person in this forum who thought HJ was vaporware. 

Back in those days, saying the emperor has no clothes got you flamed by pitchfork and torch carrying fanbois.

Blizzard will not be satisfied until hunters have one button, "play hunter", that they can press and everything within 200 yards dies.

I am a card carrying, dues paying, registered and voting member of the SOE sucks club. We can start with the debacle that was SWG and move forward to EQII's condoned sales of items for real money. If you like their games, grats. I have a lifetime personal boycott and will never give them another dime.

This is very tragic. My condolences to her friends and family for their loss.

I plan to buy this game the day before they shut it down for good so I can be there to watch it die. Never have so many lies been foisted upon the gaming public by so miserable a development team, and no matter how many "oh it's better now" articles/ads come out, I'm not biting.

Very sad indeed. We will miss you Gary.

Bye and thanks for making a crappy game. Please don't work for any company that makes games I play.

First it has to hit the elusive 50 subscriber mark. Do they actually have more than one server now or did they merge them all?