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Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning News - Hickman on WAR's Biggest Mistakes
Posted by Michael Bitton on Sep 17, 2009 | 37 comments in our forums
Speaking at GDC, Mythic Executive Producer Jeff Hickman detailed some of the biggest mistakes Mythic made with Warhammer Online.
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Mr. Hickman spoke about the major mistakes that haunted the developer for over a year, with the first of which being challenge of play. On this mistake Hickman states:
"There's a big difference between easy play and ease of use. And one of the lessons that we thought we learned from ourselves and other games, was that it's important to have ease of use, and it's also important to hit the right balance between easy gameplay, challenging gameplay, and too difficult. We thought we hit that, but Warhammer, in PVE, in the beginning, is too easy. It doesn't make you thrilled to do it."
The second issue ties into the first issue that the game was in fact, too easy. The developers built many social tools for the game, but there wasn't much of a reason to use them given the ease of play.
The third major mistake was that of the game's economy, or lack thereof. As many players can attest to, there simply isn't much to buy with your hard earned gold in Warhammer Online, and this fact has been a great detriment to Warhammer's success. Hickman elaborates on the issue, stating that a game's economy brings people together:
"Our economy... we just missed the mark. If you look at the reasoning behind the economy, you'll see things like, 'Hey, we're not going to let gold farmers in our game.' 'We're going to try to make sure we have controlled inflation.' We had all the best reasons in our game, but what it caused us to do was build a game where economy is not important enough. Economy brings people together."
The rest of the talk focused on a host of topics, ranging from the importance and future of digital distribution, some of the things Warhammer got right, an emphasis on the fact MMOGs should be designed as a service from the get go, and the issue of localization.
For all that and more, check out the full article over at Gamasutra.
social issues and economy? How fuggin out of touch can you be about your game? Forums are NOT thread after thread about that shiz. It may be a couple of threads about that, but it sure as shine ain't the "top 2 issues"
failhammer, indeed.
I beg to differ on the problems that existed. Dont get me wrong theres some *great* points to WAR but as I'm mostly PvE based it wasnt enough to keep me on its own. The issues I had with PvE are:
Yes they encouraged groups on one hand but on the other the quests were solo friendly not group. EG instead of say a quest update being for an entire party, it updated for only one person, with things like drops. Why group, which is equally as slow? Theres no incentive..... Given that however, some cant or dont want to group, so it cant be made so hard as they cant... theres many reasons for solo players.
The dungeons, at least the starter one, the sewers was very lack luster...... Oh I blinked..... You mean its over? X-P
Second issue for me was the crafting.... I'm a huge crafter but I'm sorry, innovation can be the best thing and can also ruin a game, to prove that just look at TCoS that recently got pulled back into redevelopment due to it. In the case of WAR crafting it was the straw that broke the camels back for me.... I'm more one for component list crafting.
However, I loved the PQs, the Campaigns and RvR, my only concern was what happens with an older server? Generally, at least PvP wise, it would mean lower players couldnt PvP (due to lack of non chickens) until they got to higher lvls.
Yes I know I'm likely to get the fanboi's coming from every side at me, no one seems to like their game criticized, even if what is said they know to be true, however it is important for Mythic to know where they went wrong..... yes they read boards but want to keep the player base, want to get old players back and have new players join.
Are the top issues listed in post below yours? I havnt played in a long time, Liked the game and wonder whats changed. It was way to easy to level up to cap, I do remember that. Also the PVP were instances playing games similar to ut's modes. CTF, King of hill type game, etc. Thanks. Again just wondering if its worth picking up again for a while.
Hickman doesn't seem to know really what made folks like myself stop playing the game.
1] Crafting was shallow.
2] Static rvr.
3] Everyone was playing instanced pvp battles for the faster xp to max their lvls.
4] Siege warfare in warhammer was on static pads, strategy played no role in the game. You were forced to play one way and that's the way they said it not the way i felt would work best.
5] Many aspects of the game have been done to death (cookie cutting, nothing new and exciting for much of the game experience.
6] Too close to being a WOW clone.. If we wanted to play WOW we would just go play WOW.
Instead we wanted to play Warhammer online instead we got something other then Warhammer online.
7] Why didnt you follow segas version of Warhammer online.... Or went with something more closer to DAOC 2 you should have. Shame on us for thinking you would have.
Of course I can't really give this idea to a developer myself in the way that I wish I could...
But why isn't there a much better crafting system in Warhammer?
I mean Mythic made one of the best games of all times with DAoC, why don't they take a look at what made it successful and incorporate it in Warhammer?
Get rid of scenarios and make frontiers for example *big smile* Let blizzard have their dumb instanced mini games, people don't like them I promise.
Create a very good crafting system. Allow people to make armor, weapons, enchantments and things like that, it will help to fix the economy, espescially if the items are good enough to be used at max level.
All I cans ay is, in DAoC thidranki was packed a lot of the time, and it was a blast. In Warhammer the lower level areas are pretty much just empty. You could actualy have more fun at low levels in DAoC than you can in Warhammer at max level, and that is a huge problem.
Warhammer has a lot of potential, and Mythic is a good gaming company. I am VERY sure that you can find solutions to make this game 100% better if you are willing.
If not, how about making DAoC 2? !!!!
I see no evidence that it is. It might have been at one time, but not now. Good companies don't release what Mythic released last September.
The single worst thing about Warhammer was leveling in the scenarios. It took people from the places that really mattered, like in the open world and really buggered the best part of their game, the PQ system.
I also agree on the game being to easy. It took all of the carebearness of WoW and multiplied it by 10. This combined with the excessive use of instancing really took away from making WARHAMMER a living, breathing world.
Originally posted by taurak
But why isn't there a much better crafting system in Warhammer?
As Mythic originally put it, they did what they did so that crafting wasnt so grindy..... It actually felt more grindy to me personally.
Get rid of scenarios and make frontiers for example *big smile* Let blizzard have their dumb instanced mini games, people don't like them I promise
Speak for yourself! Yes but how many "people" I know for a fact its not everyone.
For me it was the end game...
Fortress attacks were actually less exciting than keeps... a lot less, as they were almost impossible to take over.. The PQs in the city sieges were a mistake, and many beta testers told them (the few times we did test city sieges..)
I can deal with the instances to level up, a poor economy, an extremelly mediocre crafting system. But when your end game consists of taking over the enemy capital, and its almost impossible to make happen, (yet you say your game is easy... ) Your end game is severely messed up.
There was no realm pride at all (at least not on the three servers I was bounced around on. WAR seemed like just another gear grind.. Once again, not the end game a lot of your RvR types are looking for. imo of course...
1 - The game began like a fail when tried to copy WoW.
2 - Warhammer has a great universe. And i didnt see it in the game. aalthough I always will say that War is the best MMO ive played, it could be better. Nothing to do now, just play till my time card ends and move for other MMO. Maybe WoW, maybe GAyon...eeer... Aion, and wait for SWOR and DCUO.
Time outside of RvR didnt really help me in RvR. The best way to play was just play when primetime mass of people were on - ride the RvR zerg train, que for Sceners (scenerarios where a blast but got boring and they dont justify a monthly fee) Zerg surfing isn't the game I want to play. WHy not make a challenging tiem consuming craft system that gives you an advantage in a 3 way RvR? Why not try a 3-way like in DAoC? Sorry I know people bring it up all the time. Just wanted to throw my vote in for it as well.
For me the biggest issues were the lag fest that was end game due to rubbish servers, alot of broken skills that just kept getting more broken rather than fixed and the way Mythic wielded around the nerf bat, which in some cases led to certain classes being made absolutly useless.
LOL right..
Interview Mark Jacobs right now "off the record" and he will tell ya the truth..maybe..
eeeehhhh.. no. MJ is a big part of the problem, IMO. He was the owner, and he green lit the "quantity over quality" design choices that drove the game to the state it was in Dec-Feb. I think if MJ was "off the record" interviewed, we'd get some spoiled brat answer like "EA didn't show enough support"
People that are providing answers like instancing, too much like WoW, etc.; really? C'mon!
All these posts and not one person mentions class balancing? How about server stability, lag, etc? How about one-sided server zerg-fests stemming from the class balancing issues that pushed hordes of players out the door. And most importantly what about POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE! Nothing like completely ignoring your community for months on end!
With that said, the game itself has gotten better since Mark Jacobs departure IMO, aside from the now dying population that is still killing RvR on some servers.
If Mythic can figure out a way to truly entice players to come back the game may survive, but that is a big if. I hope they can as I truly enjoy the game, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
mrc ,what you ask is a very hard task ,they re stuck in a mold if they move too much they could be sued by the one giving them a licence
right now they need to change stuff but they re sketish on one hand its needed to acces korean market or they might as well not release it there at all on the other hand they go the company licencing it saying hold on dude you cant do that to hour franchsie
Been playing Warhammer since April, enjoying playing scenarios lots. Class balance could use work, but it is nowhere near as bad as awful players who scream about it claim.
For me, playing an hour or so of scenarios a day is sufficient, though I understand that a lot of people signed onto the game expecting big open PvP, which they ended up not delivering on. Very PvEish, RvDoor, etc, typically little strategy as someone said.
The game is still worth a ton of casual, alt-filled fun to me thanks to scenarios. $15 a month for 30+ hours of alt-friendly fun? Sounds good. But yes, they failed in designing open PvP.
Also, I have had none of the lag/stability issues outside of an attempted city siege. I suspect some people are playing with terrible computers/connections.
This is the one I agree with the most.
Aion combines Asian mmos and WoW...i say thats not a bad idea whys evryone flaming it for being like WoW , not to mention is plays very diffrent ...more like WoW. 1.0
Let me guess, you've played 1 or 2 classes on the order side, maybe a few more and that's it, right? Truly try leveling the majority of classes on each side first before talking about balance. I've been playing since beta and will gladly put my SC screenshots against yours any day. Try playing a WE to 40 then let's talk. I've leveled a WH and WE and there's a noticeable difference between the two. Also, when the best players on your server for a specific class are either rerolling or leaving, saying the class has been made useless, you have balancing issues.
Furthermore, look at the number of people playing each class and tell me that they're balanced.
Let me guess, you've played 1 or 2 classes on the order side, maybe a few more and that's it, right? Truly try leveling the majority of classes on each side first before talking about balance. I've been playing since beta and will gladly put my SC screenshots against yours any day. Try playing a WE to 40 then let's talk. I've leveled a WH and WE and there's a noticeable difference between the two. Also, when the best players on your server for a specific class are either rerolling or leaving, saying the class has been made useless, you have balancing issues.
Furthermore, look at the number of people playing each class and tell me that they're balanced.
I mostly play destruction, in case you're one of those who thinks order was purposefully overpowered.
I never said balance wasn't a big issue. I know that WE is significantly worse than WH, examining scaling and the ability/tactics/mastery trees reveals this. But there is really no reason to call classes "useless", and the issue is overstated, though there are instances like WP/DOK and SH/AM are obviously superior to zealot/runepriest due to the latter having underdeveloped design.
And please, demographics don't reveal balance off the bat.
I knew going into reading this article that they still would miss the point. THEY STILL DON'T GET IT.
ISSUE NUMBER MOTHER FRACKING ONE: They released a year too early, rushed development to meet an unrealistic EA enforced deadline. We told them in Beta "NO! You're not readeh the controls, the lag, the ai, no no don't do it! You're gonna ruin our beloved Warhammer! Please for the love of everything not WoW hold off another year, you need to!"
ISSUE 2: They put out way way way too many servers at launch. We told them in Beta "The population balance is key to the enjoyment of this game. People will overlook alot of crap as long as they're logging and playing on equal sides. Enforce caps on destruction until Order fills up, roll out servers on an 'as needed' basis, do not release a bunch of servers, you will kill your own game with no hope of recovery if you do this period." So what did they do? Released a shit ton of servers at launch, nailing the second nail down flat into the coffin, on the god damn day of the games release. A year later and it's not in the top two reasons why they failed? Arrogant, prideful fools. You still don't get it! The writing is on the wall and you can't read it because you're too damn pig-headed to admit your own mistakes and cope with them. Even a little child would get over his stubborness a year later and "fess" up to screwing over so many people by making such a huge mistake.
ISSUE 3: The controls. Should have been fine tuned to the bare minimum at least as good as WoW's at launch. It's been a year later and it's not even there yet. Do you know why Blizzard is so damn well-liked by their fans? Because they focus on Controls first, to the exclusion of everything else until the controls are dead-spot-on. It's no secret. Yet again, relates to number 1 on the list. Needed more time to fix the mess before it went live.
He addresses some of the other concerns in the article, but not even mentioning the top 3, 3 things that killed this game which had oh so much potential outright...is just unbelievable. Unbelievable but par for the course from these jokers.
Edit: And if I sound pissed in this little rant here, it's because I'm still pretty damn dissappointed and don't have a good mmo to play because they drove this one into the ground so quick. I had all my hopes pinned on this one as a huge fan of the IP. Just a massive let down that I'm still a little bit bummed about. So seeing an article like this where they still don't get it...so blatantly just clueless...rubs salt in a still open wound. Although it's not as bad as all that, just seems that way when mention of this game comes up time and again.
AMEM SO SPOT ON I THINK YOU ARE READING MY MIND!
The game had so much potential, but was basically broken at launch. Skills didn't work as advertised or in some cases, at all. Class balance was simply a joke. The whole "you have to fight to heal" thing never really worked out for most of the healing classes. There were multiple scenarios at launch for each tier, but only one or two would ever come up.
I hate buying beta software and having to wait for it to be patched into usefulness.
If Hickman would have clearly pulled his ass out of his head in early beta and listened to the lot of us testers things could have been a bit different. Now a year later, hes still got his head firmly jammed up his ass and fails to recognize what players are saying on his own forum board much less the internet as a whole. maybe he should go have tea and crumpets with the the asshats at SOE who keep thinking SWG is still a thing of beauty.
It's mind-boggling that he and Barnett are standing up in front of other devs and telling them how to make MMOs. The other devs have GOT to be laughing behind their backs.
You've pretty much touched on all the issues they seem oblivious to, and I most definitely agree.
As for the other issues people are bringing up "crafting, static RvR, etc.", that is actually what he was talking bout in the article. When he talks about failed social systems and a lackluster economy in WAR, he's not just talking about a good chat system. It's a huge part of MMOs to include the things he's talking about in this article, however most of the 'lessons' he learned from WAR should've been obvious. Like, game development 101 obvious. When he states that they are mistakes they 'should not of made' it's a huge understatement.
All of the other problems w/ WAR;
bugs, fluidity, mechanics, etc. are really subsidiary to the above. Yes, players will love or hate those aspects of the game, but most players cannot really get into a game that doesn't have a solid social network, a decent economy, and decent service. Every MMO I can think of, that has had at least those 3 things, has survived / done well for itself. Even the ones many people were turned off by. They are the fundamentals to the modern MMO (even MMOs which are heavily instanced).
what killed warhammer for me was everyone was in instanced pvp . the game world just seamed dead because you could access the scenarios from anywhere . i enjoyed the instanced pvp i must admit so the game does have some merrits but if i want something just like that i can play team fortress for free . i really cant see this game surviving with its current subscription model . it needs to do what dungeons and dragons online has done .
What killed WAR are the players.
They didn't play like Mythic envisioned it. Why are you still calling for Crafting? Didn't you listen to Mr. Barnett? ( THIS IS WAR. In war ppl don't build houses and grow flowers. In war people fight and kill and hack and slay all day long. Why? Because this is WAR!)
Lack of social system? For what. As Mr Barnett says in times of WAR people don't dance, they only fight, and kill, and hack and slay.
They never promised anything that they didn't deliver. We just didn't listen. Because we were still thinking about our grandma's MMORPG, which is not war, because there is so much else to do.
Oh, and we even disappointed Mr. Jacobs. Didn't he tell us that WAR cannot fail, or otherwise it will be very very bad for the MMO industry?
I think he was right. He is gone and recent MMORPGs steer away from the ultra-intense experience of war 24/7. Now they try to give us several things to do. What a pity.
Their new social tools were really good ideas, but their basic regional chat setup was utterly awful. The number of people who left after their first month simply because they had no way of connecting with the community will never be known, but I suspect it would account for many.
And fixing the economy? I don't see how this is even possible without a broader game design.
Yup. I'm sure it cost them many subs. I'm not exactly a chatterbox, but it bugged the hell out of me that the NPCs spammed the chat window and players said nothing.
Sheesh! They still don't know what the problem was.
Let me spell it out: the first priority, always, be it an MMO or a stand-alone game is STAMP OUT THE OBVIOUS BUGS! There are hundreds of examples in WAR of bugs that were ignored for months because their priority was the missing classes, fluffy monthly events and their so-called free expansion. I could point to any number of examples but I'll just mention one: The sneak through the back door of keeps ability.
This one was not in the game until this spring even though it was a core function of the stealth classes to spice-up the otherwise formulaic keep defences--and keep defenses are as core a part of the game as there is in WAR.
Instead, the 4 missing classes were developed and added with much fanfare while that one and umpteen other bugs remained untouched patch after patch after patch.
Take a look at any game review anywhere. Look at the positives and look at the negatives. Do you notice the mention of significant bugs or stability issues in the negatives? It's always there for good reason: bugs are obvious, noticeable, immersion-breaking annoyances that we ALL care about. Not being able to immediately track all of them down and fix them is understandable. Ignoring them and not even communicating with the users about them is piss-poor customer service.
Learn from that.
First of all, most -- darn near all of you bring up ALL of the many problems with this game. But after a while it gets a little stupid reading -- NO, the economy wasnt the problem -- it was horrible crafting that killed WAR -- then someone else rants it was the Scenarios that killed and then someone says it was the lack of living world and then someone stands up and yells it was...well you get the point --- seriously guys, it wasnt ONE reason -- stop trying to make it so simple -- the game had ALOT of issues/problems that caused it to fail.
It's mind-boggling that he and Barnett are standing up in front of other devs and telling them how to make MMOs. The other devs have GOT to be laughing behind their backs.
The 1st post by Sonicbrew I nearly pissed myself, then MMO_Doubter caused me to shart!
I Played this game in spring 09 for a 14 day trial on the destruction side. I played a Blackguard, a Squig Herder and a Zealot, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
PQs are brilliant - everybody participate, group or don't group, you still get xp and other rewards. You compete to be the most effective, but still you work together too. It's so smart it makes you wonder why other games haven't thought of it before - in those you either solo or you group, there's no tag along and help out and get credit for your actions. As my characters reached the level cap, the PQs got significantly harder, on one, a group of 5 got annihilated. Who's playing the game that's too easy? Thing is though, people were saying that the only reason there were lots of people in the low level areas doing the PQs is because of the free trial being offered, and once it was gone, the servers would go back to being dead at the lower level sections. So the question is, how do they make it rewarding enough that people will do PQs instead of scenarios? Currently it sounds like they've made a large portion of their game obsolete.
Scenarios kicked ass. I loved them. While not having the same level of strategy as those in WoW, they were still tons of fun and reasonably balanced with the two sides. If I wasn't in the mood for solo questing or PQs, it was a great alternative, especially since I could gain levels and upgrade my equipment. And you really got to see how your class and it's unique abilities stacked up against the others.
I think it takes too long to get into the talent system and start customizing your character. Too many of the ultimate abilities seemed to be "BIG AOE DAMAGE", not very creative. The regular abilities you get as you level are fun to use and interesting.
Crafting was a pain in the ass. Honestly, I have to be tops in a PQ to get one single-use item for crafting? Then I have to manually set up 5 items to make a talisman that will go poof after x amount of hours? Oh, and I'm also supposed to scavenge rare ingredients for a better chance to make something better, inventory overflowing with dice and four leaf clovers and glowing skulls like some demented version of Lucky Charms cereal. There was some satisfaction in making an extra good item and putting it to use, but overall I think the crafting system is very narrow, limited, and annoying. It has potential to be a lot better, like the rest of the game. Time will tell. I imagine the devs aren't idiots and it's on the to do list.
A big problem I had with the game, is that, they have all this cool lore and excellent characters, and that doesn't play much of a part in the game. A game I like to cite for excellent integration of lore, plot, location and characters is Diablo 2. You have a clear purpose, you go to awesome places, you meet really distinctive and memorable characters (like Tyrael, the prime evils, even regular monsters were quite memorable). In WAR, there are a few lore characters, but they just stand there - they aren't exactly inspiring. They aren't going around kicking ass and taking names. Your purpose is fighting the opposite faction, yet it all feels kind of random and haphazard. Some locations are cool and graphically impressive, yet it kinda feels thrown together, there isn't much to pull you in or make you feel like a part of it all. NPC enemies aren't fascinating or inspiring either, other than PQ bosses. The rest are overly simplistic and easily slaughtered, to the point it can become more of a chore to kill them all.
I still have high hopes for this game and believe eventually it will become the game it should have been, to some degree. Despite it's glaring flaws, there is still a lot of fun to be had.
I played WAR since beta and up until Land of the Dead launched (epic failure that was). My whole hardcore PVP clan quit after LoTD and are now waiting on the next MMO. I was on 4 servers total, none were my choice. We had to leave dead server after dead server, Mythic would keep merging us into new servers. The game was laggy and it had nothing to do with the PCs. I have a high end PC and so did my clan and they all got lag problems in large scale PVP. Large scale PVP is what WAR is about. But not when it runs like crap and you get 1 spell off every 10 seconds in fortresses. They had to scale back forts and put a population cap on them. Nothing like "yay time to take a fort" and getting kicked back to your warcamp, 10 minutes away from the fort.
Too many crowd control abilities, tanks felt worthless. Too many class imbalances. City sieges were boring and all about stupid PQs. PQs sucked while leveling because no one did them. You can't have a Public Quest without the public! Low populations, adding new scenarios or dungeons for a week then taking them out of game again. Too many stupid Live Events...i'll stop there. I had high hopes for WAR and spent lots of money on it in subscription fees. But we gave up, it was too little too late and LoTD was horrible.
Mythic has always been about ignoring the playerbase. They do it almost as well as SOE. Turn a blind eye to the real problems and introduce new things without solving the old issues.
This interview is classic. Makes you wonder how any intelligent human being can be so ignorant of what the real issues are.
When they introduced Trials of Atlantis years ago in DAoC, the playerbase screamed that all the new additions were extremely overpowered. One thing you don't want to do in a pvp game is disinfranchise a good portion of your playerbase to satisfy a few powerusers, especially in a pvp game. All they did was do a few minor changes that effected nothing. Warhammer is that all over again.
It is a wonder EA puts up with these yahoos.