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What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?

Written by:  • Edited by: Michael Hartman
Updated Oct 3, 2011 • Related Guides: Warhammer Online | Mmorpgs

With a rumored $100 to $200+ million dollar budget, Warhammer Online (WAR) was expected to give World of Warcraft strong competition. Almost a year later, WAR continues to perform well below expectations. Has Warhammer failed to reach its potential? Most assuredly the answer is a sad "yes."

Why Warhammer Failed - A detailed look.

(NOTE: This article was originally written July 31, 2009)

There are many ways to go wrong when making an MMORPG. Failure is easy.

EPIC FAIL
click to enlarge
MMORPGs are extremely complicated games. They need enough gameplay variety to entertain hundreds of thousands or millions of different people. They must be amused enough to either maintain a subscription or regularly purchase perks or premium features. This is no easy task, and there are many ways and opportunities to mess it up. Some MMORPGs mess things up worse than others. Warhammer Online messed things up pretty spectacularly. This article will go into detail as to Why Warhammer Failed and What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online.

Before We Begin... some parts of Warhammer are good and worth playing.

An article that discusses where WAR went wrong is obviously going to evoke a lot of anger from dedicated fans of the game. They will be tempted to accuse the writer of "barely playing the game", "being a noob", "crying about getting rolled", or simply "needing to learn to play." In an attempt to head off such easy, hackneyed accusations, I will say the following.

1) WAR is not a horrible game. It did many things right, and some things extremely right (Public Quests, for example). The problem is, a few critical mistakes can easily overshadow and overpower good things in an MMO.

2) I played WAR extensively. I absolutely loved Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC) and I am a fan of the Warhammer franchise. I wanted to love this game. I had four level 40 characters, and I had many characters in both realms and on multiple servers and server types. I believe I experienced most aspects of the game.

3) In general, I am definitely an MMO fanatic. I play tons of MMOs and I like to think I play them pretty well. The fact that I am the Managing Editor of the MMO channel here is no accident. I love MMOs. I make them professionally. I play them with great fervor.

4) When I say WAR failed, I mean it failed to meet expectations or reach its potential. Keep that in mind as you read on.

The Major Ways Warhammer Online Went Wrong (What killed Warhammer Online)

As already noted, there are many ways for an MMORPG to go wrong. In this article, the mistakes made by Warhammer Online have been broken down into two sections: Major and Minor. Within each of these divisions are additional sections for each of the specific mistakes.

1) Lack of a Third Realm Doomed Warhammer to Failure

daoc-logo-250
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If you were only allowed one reason why WAR failed, this would be it. A number of the subsequent failures hinge on the absolute disaster of a decision to go with only two realms. With two realms, the realm you hate most is always the same. The realm to blame for every unfair or cheap maneuver is always the same. If the other realm has an advantage, there is no recourse. The two weaker realms cannot team up to balance things out.

The net result of this is every player's hatred and disdain is always focused like a laser beam on the same realm, the same classes, and the same players. In a PvP/RvR oriented game, this amplifies misery and guarantees that players never have any relief from it. Social engineering is an important part of managing an MMO community. Allowing players to focus all of their hate in the same direction all the time is not healthy.

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Comments

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Jo_silverfck Jan 18, 2012 2:46 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
and might I add that this article and many others I've read only embolden the sense that to spend money on this game would be a complete and utter waste!
Jo_silverfck Jan 18, 2012 2:34 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
I really wish Warhammer Online would have been a better experience!! I downloaded the game, made my toon, and really started to enjoy it, even though it was 2011...(i know, i know, but I had been involved with several other mmos...yada, yada)...but seeing as how boredom, at times, can get the better of me, I decided to sate my curiosity, and what would you know?? NOT ONLY IS THE WORLD OF WARHAMMER DYING, BUT THE PLAYERS WHO SUB MONTHLY HAVE NO SOULS!! (Well, not all, I'm sure, but some.....for i.e.: I was told, point blank, by a veteran player how much of a loser I was for not subbing right away...<br><br>"wtf?" I said <br>"Well", he responds,"you're obviously poor." <br><br>God, I was irate! If anything I was frugal for checking it out first.  Granted, we don't always have that luxury and I've taken quite a few risks, but when free trials are offered it makes sense to take advantage of them.  <br><br>Pfft...i KNOW already, im trollin'...<br><br>(but, truthfully, how the hell are you going to sub to a dying game and then turn around and do everything in your power to make new players feel unwelcome! (and the last time i checked, thriftiness was a quality.)<br><br>
Mitersaw Jan 18, 2012 12:36 AM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
I think all of these points are valid but the big reason I quit was PBAoE. Why does Mythic keep adding this to casting classes.  I left DAoC because I got tired of bomber groups running in, bombing, then running off.   in Warhammer you don't even need a full group...just need a tank, a healer, and a Sorc/BW.  BWs and Sorcs are the best melee DPS in the game....why?
WARfailedhard Jan 10, 2012 10:52 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
All said above is truth and just pure truth! Sadly there is nothing to discuss about WAR anymore.<br>My hopes are with all Start Wars fans out there. My fears are with EA. They know how to screw up stuff.
Stu Gre Nov 30, 2011 10:56 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
Watch WAR close in January, if the remaining players are lucky they might get the offer of a special item or something in SWTOR.  Can only hope they aren't going to make such a mess of SWTOR as they did of WAR, looking back can hardly believe I stuck it out so long as I did.
Mayhem Nov 30, 2011 9:00 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
Well when we are speaking of totally messed up classes... Just look at the ArchMage! OMG, no one plays them as healers any more, only as DPS! That means if you are truly running as a warband then you better make certain that you have WarriorPriests and RunePriests if you want some one to heal. Mythic has gone above and beyond to make this game unbalanced and they keep flip flopping back and forth! One month everything is in Destro favor, then for the next two or three months everything is in Order favor. From the roming guards at the RvR camp entrances to the placement of the cannons lets say the programmers, designers and everyone involved went out of their way to make this game as unbalanced and confusing as possibel BTW, lets not forget the little hidden items that you can locate, pick up and have no clue whet it is for, as they gave no on-screen description and it is listed no where in the TomeOfKnowledge. I thought this was to be a useful tool that kept track of everything you did, what you picked up, things you needed to complete and so on? Well all I have found it is good for is the special events that are currently running... Like that Daemon Moon thing? I have been playing this for quite a while and I am always amazed at the things they do trying to increase game play, but they won't do the 2 most simple fixes (in my opinion) and that is fix the servers.... Nothing drives me or other players more insane than being in the middle of a siege, scenario or a PQ and getting a server kick because the server can't handle the number of people playing. The second thing would be to ad a 3rd class...I think that alone would help things in this game! Oh... and while I am on my tirade involving this game... What is with the free forever membership? OK.... I understand you thinking  that if they play and they like it they will join.... Not when they can build super characters that even as a solid lvl 15 you can't defend against. They can go to level 10.... they can go to
WARvoice Nov 14, 2011 5:42 AM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
To the writer of the article, you nailed it on the first two reasons, the need for 3rd realm and the CC fiesta, and i will add the third reason which is the hilarious gear gap that game has , oh and premade vs pugs too.Your other reasons are a joke. Bright wizard and sorc are the same dps wise. they differ in few abilities which are insignificant anyway. WP and Doks are similar, though, DOK outshines a WP in DPS mode. In class balance, yes there are plenty of Classes that are better than others, think of bright wizard vs shadow warrior, The problem is too many people get attached to their first toon when they get into t4 and they get shocked of how ineffective they are against well geared players, instead of rerolling a sorc/bw dok/wp they choose to play and stick with their ineffective toon and eventually they unsub.
Ehb Nov 5, 2011 12:58 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
Just surfing, big DAOC fan, had such high hopes for Warhammer also.  I agree with just about all  your comments and also agree a third realm would/could have been the balancer.  Had to laugh, my first character was a Marauder and I hung tough and hung tough. finally gave up.
Schmitt Oct 25, 2011 8:55 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
<br><br>First of all I<br>have to admit, that it you listed all reasons, why Warhammer failed. Yes it did<br>fail. Yes it only has a few players left. And yes, I quit Warhammer myself for<br>two times, but I always came back, because it has something no MMORPG can offer<br>and it improved itself every time… at the moment i am playing again Warhammer and this time i will stay.<br><br><br><br> You addressed all of Warhammer’s weaknesses,<br>but barely talked about the improvements, or the positive aspects of some<br>decisions the developers made.<br><br><br> <br><br><br>-------------------------------------------------------<br><br><br> <br><br><br>Let’s<br>start with 1) Lack of a Third Realm Doomed Warhammer to Failure<br><br><br>Totally true.<br>Biggest mistake ever (since this was a/the strength of DAOC).  But (nearly) no other MMORPG has more than<br>two factions. It is only a failure, when you can’t balance the existing two<br>realms. Together with your statement 3) Horrendous Lack of Class Balance you have to ask yourself: is it<br>TODAY really so unbalanced.<br><br><br>No. Just to<br>talk about your example the Warrior Priests. Keep in mind – balancing does NOT<br>mean that any class can beat any other class in any possible situation – that is<br>impossible. Are Warrior Priests in a 1 vs 1 situation damn strong? Yes, like<br>all Paladin classes in any other MMORPG. But in a MMORPG you should not focus<br>on the 1vs1 situation. <br><br><br> <br><br><br>Are they<br>overpowered as a healer or melee DPS? No. They have the strongest groupheal in<br>the game, but single heals are better, if one target is focused. Groupheal was<br>only “so imba” because a lot of the DDs out there were AE specced. It is not<br>surprising, that in a game with large amounts of players, i.e. a large amounts<br>of enemies, you specc for AE damage. <br><br><br>So what did<br>they do? They made a class with groupheals as counterpart to the AE dmg AND<br>they improved single damage in many pa
K. Rutkowski Aug 23, 2011 8:01 PM
This game could have been good
I think you hit on almost all the points about this game and why it it basically a failure.
What I find about this game is how close it could have came to being very good MMO with the right guidance.
They have a mix of great ideas tossed in with pure stupidity that remains to this day. Like you said from day one Destruction has always had favor, in design and in hype and to this day the game is still lopsided with an occasional Order good day.
The Devs seem clueless how to make a game balanced. or set up zones. It was poorly designed right off the bat with thinking all them different zones in all the different tiers would be filled with people fighting. No set up two major points per tier and leave it as that. This is why Tier 1 works because everyone gathers in one zone.

It is beyond repair I think and will die eventually. I would never pay any money to play this game again, only free play. Tier 1 is the best tier was and is about the best part of the game anyways.

Jeff and them others lied so bad about this game before it was launched it was pathetic. What a crock of sh*t they were selling. I remember one guild even called <WTF Jeff>. Nice slap in the face to one of the big hype guys. I won't even get started on that Paul guy.
Michael Hartman Aug 18, 2011 4:47 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
Thanks for the post. Though I'm not sure what errors you mean. Everything in your comment echoes points made in the article :).

This article was indeed written originally on July 31, 2009. I've taken some time to update a few sections with new information, but from everything I have read and heard from players, nothing is significantly different from what is written in this article.

Furthermore, the true failure point of Warhammer was when it fell from 1,000,000+ subscribers to < 100,000. The continued failure from that point that has resulted in it dribbling to whatever numbers it has now (~10,000?) is more of a death rattle than the true fatal blow.

Thanks for sharing your input on how things are going lately!
Doesn't Matter Aug 16, 2011 6:58 PM
Good Article - But Errors
Actually, this is a good summary article for Warhammer, but from some of your points, you can tell that you played early on, and didn't go back to start a 'low level toon' recently. Bright Wizards (BW's) are monster overpowered now, as are Warrior Priests (WP's), but don't forget over-ranged Shadow Warriors (SW's) and always 5-level to big Archmages (AM's). Notice a trend? They are all Order toons. Start a new toon today, a Destro toon, and you will see what outnumbered and underpowered really feel like. Mythic-EA have exacerbated most early problems, not fixed them. I am a paying customer, who gave up on his T2, T3 and T4 toons completely, set up a 'freebie' account, and simply mail stuff to my 'freeloader T1 guys'...I play ONLY in T1 now...because T2, T3 and T4 are terrible. In T2, you play 'doorhammer', running between three realms seiging keeps - if you are on the right side (otherwise you are the '1' in a 4-to-1 outnumbered slaughter). Battles are pitiful due to imbalance - you are dogfood, or a glorious hero (because the little victim you killed, you did with the help of your other 9-friends). Clearly, Mythic-EA gave up on Warhammer/doorhammer. Truly a shame, I wanted it so much, to be a good game. Because they won't fix it, I will work stridently to never return to a Mythic MMO again...nothing like taking a potentially awesome game, and destroying it with head-bashing constant RvR (thanks to WoW bail-outs...nothing like watching them come in, as noobs, and preach to everyone NOT to quest...to ONLY go RvR in the Lakes...or some troll saying you can't talisman for anything, etc. FYI - you can make 100-point armor talismans, and potions that yield 264-armor for minutes or hours.)

Regardless, it would take a complete redesign and balance to make this work now. You are right about three sides - possibly breaking out greenskins and rebuilding both Destro and the Greenies to expand them? BUT...Mythic doubtful will do such work...
goblin shaman Jul 28, 2011 9:07 AM
Amen to that
I never played DOAC but herd great things about it but before i went over to play it this came a along... i thought is would be DOAC on steroids in stead 4 months wasted and DOAC is looking like the better choice
Michael Hartman Apr 17, 2011 3:30 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
Tracy, thanks for dropping by and commenting.

I've heard the same thing from a few WAR blogs I still check occasionally. They increased the number of RR levels and so the power gap just keeps growing.

This really amazes me when you think about their supposed experience from DAoC. In DAoC:

1) Every stat had a cap that you could reach with crafted gear. Once you had all your stats capped, that was it. You could never be more powerful just from gear.

2) The one expansion they released that gave powers outside those caps, Trials of Atlantis, was an utter failure that cost them 2/3rds of their subscribers. They explicitly stated it was a mistake that they would never duplicate again. Oh well...
Tracy Apr 17, 2011 2:40 PM
Absolutely Spot On
I've wanted to enjoy WAR since it's release, but every reason you listed is exactly why I can't.

Every so often I'll sub just for month to see if things have changed and they've actually gotten worse.

On top of everything you've listed still being an issue, now we have the RR90+ gear which has stats that take a massive spike in stat scaling.

Anyone who's a RR40-70 is a sure fire one-shot against any RR90+. It seriously feels like you're a T1 toon going against them. You do 3% of their health pool with your largest attack, they literally 1-shot you.

I've wanted WAR to succeed from day one, but I don't see it happening. The Devs seems so beyond clueless on fixing the game. As it stands, they gave me a 14-day free return last month and I only played about 2 days of it before saying "forget this worthless junk" and logged back out for good.
Michael Hartman Apr 14, 2011 8:23 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
Firon: That probably only worked because I and most of my RvR buddies quit the game forever about 1-2 months into Atlantis. :)

The hibs on Percival were always the X factor. Rarely the dominant realm, but they always seemed to have some kind of trick up their sleeve. They were the first realm on our server to attack another realm. They basically just showed up at one of our (Midgard) frontier gates and we kinda poked at each other for a few hours. It was epic. Seeing THE ENEMY for the first time was a big deal.
Firon Apr 12, 2011 3:50 AM
Percival Forever
Good the see another Percival player, even if you were a dirty Mid. Defiantly right about the third realm factor. I remember when we Hibbies teamed up with the Albs right after New Frontiers to spank you guys.
Raykahn Mar 4, 2011 4:54 AM
not really daocish
If you talk to the testers from closed beta you hear that they went out of their way to avoid using ideas from daoc.

Other than the game being pvp based and opposing factions not having perfectly mirrored classes, not much resembles daoc.

Even keeps were begrudgingly put in because the feedback for them was overwhelming. Since the world was already created they stuck them in where they could, which was why so many terrain exploits for them existed.

The original schematics for rvr focused much more around BO styled points, and the original design for 'fortresses' was actually open field combat with 2 or 3 BO points to be captured.

As much as was wrong with the game I did have a ton of fun with it, and if their current development path is maintained I might just return to try it once more.
Michael Hartman Mar 4, 2011 3:45 AM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
J. Ray: Glad you liked the article.

You make a good point about the convoluted "story line" and the failure to give the game a real feel. I think that happens because they tried to be too many different types of games all at once.

They tried to be a little like DAoC, with some WoW thrown in, and maybe a little Ultima Online or Eve Online as well. That doesn't work.
J. Ray Mar 4, 2011 1:39 AM
Solution
I have several solutions and ideas to turn WAR around (or how it could have been turned around).
It would mainly involve scratching the old one though and try making WAR more of a crowd pleaser rather than just something different.
Great article by the way. You should have mentioned the fact of the lact of creativity and poorly constructed and mutated story line and the lack of 'feel' to the game. The things (besides the gameplay) that make the game really stick out.
Raykahn Jan 11, 2011 5:41 AM
What went wrong?
This article is definitely correct for the 2009 era, but its pretty outdated for the current version of warhammer.

CC really is not a problem anymore. Really. I'm not a fanboy, I quit the game in October. The amount and ferocity of CC just wasn't an issue.

BWs, while still one of the more powerful classes, really isn't much (if any) better than sorcs anymore. Theres actually very good argument as to why sorcs are now better.

WP/DoK just took a nerf to their healing. Unfortunately the nerf made them more of a 1 button archetype then before. At the very least DoKs can go offensive and still wreck (with the most OP heal debuff I have ever seen in a pvp game), but WPs offensive ability is extremely limited and weak (with one of the weakest heal debuffs I have ever seen!).

Mythic class balance isn't really about making each class well rounded, its just making sure each class can do ONE thing and then calling it quits and moving to a different item.

The big issue now, as mentioned in your posts here, is gear. With their latest patch the gear gap has widened to a near insurmountable difference.

On top of that gear gap, high RR players actually have their effective level increase, so at rr100 you are essentially level 46 (small balance issue in pvp!).

Mythic balances and expands the game like its a pve game, but since its pvp based they lose a chunk of players everytime they overhaul a system and do so in a fashion thats counter productive to pvp.

Even their recent campaign changes hurt open world pvp. Now the underdog really has no way of fighting back, where previously they could have blocked zone locks.

I had always had hope the dev team would get their act together and start making some meaningful changes, but the last patch really killed it for me. Its pretty clear they just have no idea which direction to take the game, theres no long term vision, and because of it the quality of gameplay has really suffered.
Abed092 Jan 10, 2011 6:05 AM
I disagree with 1 thing
The third Realm thing isn't right bro,ur talking about Warhammer as it's DaOC 2..No,as a Lore perspective(and as a WoW competitor) the game has 2 Realms/factions and putting a 3rd Realm(faction) won't make any sense,unlike Daoc War has it's own Story and Novels,not some made up Game Story and thus putting more Races means they will be either Order or Destro.
and i play WoW which has 2 factions and it's going great(12 millions Subs and still counting) and yes on some Realms Horde outnumber Allys and Vice versa.

But i completely agree that this Game had SO MUCH potential that it literally Hammer World Of Warcraft to the Ground.it's such a shame it died just too soon.
Best Of Luck,
Abed
Sacrx Dec 4, 2010 2:46 PM
warhammer online failed
I agree with all what was written here, it is pretty sad tbh, but ya.

and not much as changed over the last few months, as order you only need to field empire classes (totaly Over the top), which is just "lol".

And no nothing much changed after this new skaven crap. actualy it is so boring now, realm pride was totaly killed and the campaign is meanless.

I would say this game has like 30k to 50 k subscribers, dont think it has more.
Erik Nov 9, 2010 4:37 AM
You are right
You are right, its such a shame, the game had a lot of potential. But the lack of endgame/balance just killed it.

To the guys saying BW/WP were not overpowered, you guys have no idea what you are talking about. bw/wp bombsquads would kill a warband without much problems.

Anyways, its too bad, i still had alot of fun in warhammer with my friends for the time it lasted.
Michael Hartman Nov 8, 2010 1:39 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
Gear is still massively important, and the game does not cap stats the way DAoC did. The reason DAoC's RvR was not gear reliant (except ToA-DAoC) was that you could pretty reasonably get all your stats and resistances capped, at which point your gear was equal to everyone. You cannot do that in WAR. The upcoming expansion adds even more gear, and more RvR levels. This just adds to the RvR grind and creates an even bigger level and gear gap between RvR participants. That's a step backwards, not a step forwards.

Crowd Control was absolutely *NOT* fixed "within a few months of release." That's fanboy talk. CC immunities are a crutch, not a fix, and they never worked well or effectively. When you have many different types of CC all on different, short timers, that's not a remedy. CC Immunities are a bad fix because they create a situation where CC is either working far too well or not at all. That's not a good situation.

Population balance is still a brutal issue because there are only 2 realms. The only thing that even slightly remedies this is the fact that the population remaining is so hard core that people are willing to switch sides en masse to fix imbalances. That's evidence of players desperately doing what they can to fix a horribly flawed design.

There have been countless attempts to fix RvR and ORvR, and most of them have pretty much fallen flat.

I am glad you are enjoying and playing the game still, and perhaps the upcoming Skaven will breathe some life into the game.

> The way i see it WAR is starting to attract players again,

I don't see how you can say this, when more servers have been closed in the last 6 months, and none have been added.

> and with Cataclysm and other MMOs being close to release,
> the competition can't afford a WAR rebirth.

I think its far more accurate to say WAR cannot afford a Cataclysm release, but we'll see.
Michael Hartman Nov 8, 2010 1:39 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
Taipan: This article was written in August of 2009. It has been occasionally updated in minor ways, but you have to keep in mind what this article is about.

===> This article explains why a game that sold over a million copies in its first couple months utterly collapsed over the next year. The article still explains that very accurately and effectively.

I have often considered writing a followup article about things that have changed in the last year, but the problem is a lack of interest. Warhammer is down to what, 4 servers now from 70+? I have read estimates that the game has a couple ten thousand users and that's it. That makes it hard to justify the time and effort of writing a followup article.

Furthermore, as I continue to follow the game, I honestly cannot agree that everything has been solved to the extent you claim it has. I'll go into that in my next comment.
taipan Nov 8, 2010 4:52 AM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
I just noticed that the article is published Oct 13, 2010 while some comments are from April.

Talked about re-published anti-WAR propaganda just to help the competition.
taipan Nov 8, 2010 4:50 AM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
I'm sorry, but the person who wrote this article must have not played the game in the last year. Most of the aspects presented in the article are outdated and are no longer an issue.

Too Much Crowd Control? This was fixed a few months after release. The author seems to not even have heard about immunities.

Horrendous Lack of class Balance? This just got better and better in the last year. Horrendous is by no means a word to describe it. Not perfect maybe, i doubt any MMO will achieve perfect class balance, but no way it is horrendous.

Lack of Population Balance? I think most of the servers are quite well balanced.

Terrible Server Performance? This has only been a problem since 1.3.6 and the move from GOA to Mythic, when a lot of players seem to have returned to the game and the servers just can't handle the population. The lower population servers don't have any performance isssues afaik.

Too Much PvE, Too Much Emphasis on Gear, for a PvP/RvR Oriented Game? Again, a one year old argument. This is no longer a problem in war.

Too Much Focus on Adding New Content Rather Than Fixing Existing Content? Same as the above.

Terrible Crafting? Could be, but who cares?

All in all this a terrible article that just brings out the same anti-WAR arguments that have existed since release and from which many have already been fixed. The way i see it WAR is starting to attract players again, and with Cataclysm and other MMOs being close to release, the competition can't afford a WAR rebirth.

This whole article smells like "written on command" BS to me. They didn't even bother to do their homework and see how WAR is doing right now, they just recicled and 1-2 years old anti-WAR propaganda article.
Phil Oct 19, 2010 3:38 AM
Jish!
Hi Hub!
Great review, I think u might've killed it. I must admit that it had so much potential. I dropped wow for 3 months to check it out. The starting areas where (mostly) great. You could've seen they've really put some effort into it. Sadly enough this quality dropped somewhere midway tier II.

The bad press and rumours about the management really makes me wonder. Did the talented, inspired and motivated team get killed by their captains?
Mathias Björkman Oct 5, 2010 3:10 AM
What went wrong with warhammer online?
Bright wizards and warrior priest arnt overpowerd. it was in the first month they where quite overpowerd. id say now days that yes a bright wizard does a load of dps, BUT get a witch elf or a choppa up close to them and they are more or less dead.
Warrior priests arnt hard to kill of eather, they got heals yes but they are supposed to be melee healers but they still lose some healing power due to them beeing able to go upclose.


Also on most servers its only on the starting zones that destro outnumber order. the t4 i played, most of the time its order outnumbering desto.


Crafting isnt that bad, its unique and some people it seems does not like "unique".

Warhammer is by core a pvp game not a pve game. the elements of pve there is, there is also pvp around it.
herotanker Sep 7, 2010 5:23 AM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
Blizzard won all mmorpg in long term because they will release a game when it's really ready to play with a balance situation.
Sir William Paxon Aug 28, 2010 11:44 PM
Mythic, I have the solution...
Just make a DAOC II and watch the subscriber base blow through the roof...I mean, DAOC was and is still the best PVP/RVR game....the classes of DAOC are so much better than WOW and WAR classes...hell, everything is better just needs to be updated.

DAOC II now please, I miss Darkness Falls!!!!!!
Dr. MMO Jul 27, 2010 11:50 AM
Can Warhammer Online turn things around
No.

EA has yet to make or improve a decent MMO it has overtaken. The fact that Star Wars: TOR is being produced by EA scares the living S**T out of me.
Nate Jun 22, 2010 11:09 AM
wtf
DAoC was the $hit Mr. John enough said! If you were 2 years old when it came out of course you'll look at it now and say ....that sucked.... excuse me if that sounds rude but it truely is a classic, matter a fact im gonna go play it! HAHA! Been around for a long time and it still has a strong following, awsome stuff my friends....awsome stuff.
Diggah Jun 6, 2010 6:33 PM
All hype no ability designers
I feel the reason behind its downfall was the same reason the first attempt at warhammer online.e failed, namely bringing onboard an enthusiastic but talentless designer.
I worked on the first game (which had its own style and was definatly not a WOW clone) and part of its downfall was letting Barnett on the team. he had no mmo design experience other than a couple of text based MUDs but somehow landed an advisory role. our project dies, yet somehow he lands lead designer over such well known people such as Jake Thornton (who also worked on the original project)

rant over :)
Brian H A May 21, 2010 4:25 AM
XTREMLY well said
I just came back to war for the 2nd time- they promised me 2 way entry to the keeps - a new & improved Rauder and buttercookies... AND I GOT all 3 offem :D...BUT...butbutbut my dear friends-the joy stops there. I went away from the game 1+ year ago swering after number 4000 gankin BY A FREAKIN Warrior Priest , that id never be back. But here i am back n joyfull - only to see NOTHING has changed on the imbalanced parts- theres still WPs getting jumped by 4 rauders and running away hammer held high n laughing... theres STILL BWs groundbombing trough especially Scens- but also tru all open rvr. Today mythic says= bombsquads begone with the new patch... implementing now as i write this= but tis too late..My magus still blows bubbles compared to any other ranged dps- my rauder still dont stand a chinamans chance against a WP .. I still get bombed to oblivion by premade bombsqudas in scens. and that leaves me with..PVE :D- who in heavens name will ever pve - when u get only xp- and the best gear- botth lookinwise & effectwise is RR based??? not to mention pve- is still bugged, quests are more boring that spending a whole night awake in a cellar with a big cookingpot over your head. Its utterly mega fail to this game. Compared to Age of Conan ( also a hyped failure) - but by the gods they have tried- that game is completely changed to the better .. and now with an addon ... and one i must try out again just to see what they have done to it- so after my widespread flail at WHo. ( yes they deserve it for killing a supreme franchaise tru a game) - ill be off to cancel my sub again- Mythic- VENI VIDI FAILURE
Hal Apr 27, 2010 3:06 AM
No mention of EA
Great article, but too much blaming of Mythic and comparison with DAoC. The company Mythic as it was in the day of Dark Age does not exist. Purchase by EA means it will have been stripped, downsized and homogenized. EA caters to the lowest common denominator and is notorious for being a vicious and arrogant bottom-liner. The produce the games equivalent of "America's funniest home videos", so what did you expect? No matter how much the remaining post-acquisition Mythic devs wanted to succeed, the would have been hamstrung by one of the worst management teams in the world.
John Apr 19, 2010 11:50 PM
Great Review - 1 General Comment
Awesome review...I'm glad I didn't buy the game. Regarding CC in DAoC...would you buy a game I was developing if I told you my game would allow your opponent to completely disable your keyboard for 30 seconds at a clip and that one class would have an AOE version of said Crowd Control? Welcome to DAoC (And from what you wrote, WAR as well). DAoC wasn't all that great.
Gris Feb 23, 2010 5:01 AM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
Almost all problems that were mentioned have been fixed in last 3 months.
Problem is that they should have been fixed 1 year ago :/
Michael Hartman Feb 7, 2010 10:34 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
I'd like to hear comments from people actively playing Warhammer.

What has changed in the last few months since this article was written?
ReviewComment Jan 2, 2010 9:40 PM
Awesome Review
Excellent Review. All of these I agree with completely. Thus why I have quit WAR for a second time, today. Goodbye overpowered Bright Wizards!
sinisterporpoise Nov 29, 2009 10:37 AM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
One of the major things that went wrong with it is that it wasn't World of Warcraft.

I understand the game is still doing okay, but it doesn't have the same fan base Blizzard managd to build up.

Too many people focus on PvP without realizing most people don't like it. Even WoW follows the mistake of having more open PvP servers than normal ones.

Morgal Nov 24, 2009 1:09 PM
So sad
^^
Aye i was burnt out on wow, heard about AoC and was really excited for WAR.
Finally PvP with a purpose. I also love War lore.

I do think War had pontential as i liked collision as i thought it could potentially lead to more depth of combat. Also liked that tanks had a use and if you didn't kill the tank you did less dmg.

But the end game simply was not there. you hit 40 and said now what....do the same battle grounds again? and again? and again... there was nothing to do and taking zones was simply broken. Join the zerg or go home. after a while the zerg evaporated.

I had such high hopes and was shattered when it failed.

I tried EvE though....won't be looking at new MMO's, here is one that got it right....

Watch that learning cliff though..but rember the game is so worth it.
Stu Greig Oct 16, 2009 8:33 PM
Nail, meet hammer
Author is absolutely correct with virtually everything written (though I could argue that DoK, Chosen, Sorc etc are - or were - just as OP as his examples in class balance etc).

For the record Mara got some nice buffs in 1.3.2 but White Lions still await and kind of attention other than more nerfs.

Sad to say I'm already 50 in Aion and yes still following the fate of WAR... if only someone would buy it and make it the game it COULD have been.
Relayer71 Oct 8, 2009 12:03 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
They really should have emulated CLASSIC DAoC a bit more. What made DAoC enjoyable early on was that is was relatively simple - of course then ToA came out and arguably wrecked the game but the Classic servers came out and it was refreshing. Ultimately the servers died out due to age and other MMOs but it really was a near-perfect game as far as RVR/PVE balance, content, skillset, and gear (non-TOA of course).
Euthanaisia Sep 20, 2009 6:48 PM
Good points, but War still have a few things to it that could save the day
I always wait before jumping on a game. That to
avoid the bugs and whatsnots at launch. But I did check on development and screenshots before release with interest.

Now I played War for a month and 10 days, I can only say that Mr Hartman is quite on track for what went wrong with Warhammer.

I did not pick Chaos side for the coolness of the character types. I always go with the bad side in any game that have any type of Pvp built in.
I guess its some kind of subconsious excuse of mine that my char is born bad and have to kill others. :P

I soon did find a number of the same things as pointed out here, balance issues like the unkillable warrior priests, catastrophic lag (that after having addressed the matter on my own system. I have to add there's a memory leak - not mentioned here, but still a problem of the game that add to latency in responses.

The CC is my personal no 1of dislike, regardless how well you play you still get killed instantly. Those who go with the 10 day trials are bound to encounter it, as well as the weird jumpy motions and I think most will be discouraged.

This the problem of trying to launch a full fledged game at once, the developers simply took on too much. One evolutionary approach would have been much better, then again, it could never have happened under management of EA.

Yet there is a small glimmer of hope, just like Teefstompa I ended up leading a warband.
I am certainly no born leader and in just some weeks I had not gotten even a decent knowledge in T2 taking BO's and even a few keeps in Ostland, Marches of Madness and so on. We had great fun and in just some hours I seen to have gained quite some reputation. Amazingly fun for one who usually always takes the backseat in any group or team.

But for this to be viable, Mythic need to respond quickly, and even I felt some faction were missing in the game - I mentioned the Vampires in game chat more than once, that could be one race of that third side discussed here.
war bob Sep 7, 2009 3:19 PM
warhammer PVE was meaningless
seriously one of the biggest things tha led me to quit warhammer (twice) and my wife to quit once (and never come back). Was the meaningles PVE. the world is stagnant, boring and lame. When I do PVE quests it almost feels like I'm lagging out, the world is just poorly ran and doesn't feel real. The Dungeons BLOW. The new "Land of the Dead" was fun for about 2 days, and then I was done with it... boring...

I don't think this game can revover, and really, they should dust of DAOC and make a DAOC 2. IMO, it would be effort better spent.
Toejam Aug 25, 2009 1:28 PM
Next critical hit
I have to say...Mythic is doing what it can. I feel it is too little too late.

Aion is coming and very many players are going to jump ship for that game. Many in my alliance are.

This is not good for the server this Author is from. I know this cause I am on it. I log in every now and then but honestly the most important keystone to a game like this is its "Player Population"

And its already bleeding out....Aion is going to rip that wound open even more. Causing another great decline in activity..and from there it is a domino affect.

I have been there more than once in a MMO when you log in to lack of players around. Aoc ... Saga of Ryzom.... it's a terrible thing to see a population start to dwindle noticeably... eventually you want to quit to.

Terrible times for Mythic's Player base.
Teefstompa Aug 23, 2009 7:37 PM
A glimmer of hope.....
Howdy,

Like many of you, I've played WAR since the beginning and indulged in the usual whining, screaming and doomsaying that seems prevailent on WHA. The main source of this frustration came from playing my Magus in ther higher Tiers and the usual complaints of ineffectiveness and overpoweredness of certain other ginger haired classes. 1.3.1 went live without any major changes (lit: improvements) to my class and a whole host of bugs, etc. Heck, K8P even went down for a while this afternoon (and my sympathies to the Norn folks =/) and my character got scenery stuck on more than a few occasions.

Then something weird happened. I decided to try a change of character, a Black Orc in this case, and did a little roleplaying with it. Granted, it annoyed a few people but it reminded me why I was playing WAR and not World of Warcraft - for the IP. It then struck me that as I was playing this big bad Orc, he should be leading a warband somewhere. It started off slowly, with just a couple of guildies capping a T1 BO in Mount Bloodhorn, then more joined and we had a few random folks as well. We locked down Nordland & Norsca first and then decided to hit a nearby lair for some shinies. Nothing amazing dropped but the group was working well together, so after a brief skirmish with some Order folks in Nordland, we rolled on to Blighted Isle and proceed to lock there as well, clear the nearby lair while still being harassed a small, yet determined bunch of Order.

We finished up back in Ekrund, locking down our third zone of the evening and thanks to a kind bit of self sacrifice by a Sorceress in our warband, managed to open the final lair. 3 very lucky warband members (including my Black Orc) came away with some awesome new headgear and made a few new friends and guildies in the process.

Just when I was about ready to give up on WAR again, this evening showed me that beneath the bugs, class issues and other problems, there is actually a really fun MMO in there.
Andrew Aug 22, 2009 10:03 PM
Bright Wizards & Warrior Priests
I know Destro players that played Sorcs & Zealots & DoKs, They rerolled Bright Wizards & Warrior Priests, They had to admit that the order side was better, They did more damage & healing was alot easier, I've seen many times a single Warrior priest getting beat on by 5 & sometimes 7 or 8 people & manage to heal himslef through it & Why Mythic nerfed resistances down to 50% max i'll never know, It made Bright Wizards & Engineers hit that much harder, Then they wonder why people are quitting
Klinger Aug 21, 2009 8:51 PM
Open PvP
Open PvP will not help the game, nor would less PvE content.

I have never seen an instance of PvP players raiding into the PvE areas that was greeted with anything but derision. Also, there are a large number of PvP players who only PvP once they max out their toons.

On a side note: I think NCSoft's decision to shut down TR was made long before most people think it was. What's telling is that they never announced plans for Asian/Oceanic servers.
Michael Hartman Aug 19, 2009 3:53 AM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
> LoTD = DAoC ToA.


I totally agree with this. They pledged that they would never make the ToA mistake again, and less than a year after release they went and did the same crap.


And then they had the audacity to claim LotD was a spiritual successor to Darkness Falls? Really? Its like they didn't even play DAoC, much less WAR.
JimG Aug 17, 2009 4:15 PM
Good Article
Really enjoyed the read, however I think that the first reason, not have a third realm, may have been a minor issue.

Just cancel my account today, and I must say I am sad, waited 18 months for warhammer, played in the beta and stuck it out for 10 months, 4 servers, played both order and destruction to lvl 40.

I always thought threw beta that they were spending way to much time on T1-T2 content, and not allowing us access to T4 stuff (probably because it wasn't finished). What they failed to realize is that so many people breezed through those first two tiers that they quickly became frustrated when in T4 and at level 40.

LoTD = DAoC ToA. Why release a PvE expansion in a PvP centered game when T4 PvP endgame needed so much work? That only points to poor management and direction. I have respect for Marc Jacobs, I thought he was very involved in the community from a communication standpoint.

I also totally agree with the crafting. They had it right in DAoC, and they decided to completely rearrange it instead of maybe tweaking some things to fit with WAR lore or something, I don't know. Don't fix it if it ain't broke.

The one thing they got right is that you could level your character in PvP without the PvE content. Unfortuantely, this was only true if there were others to PvP with, and on some servers that wasn't the case.

/e waiting on the next great MMO to come out.
sunnykoda Aug 16, 2009 11:26 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
An official Epitaph for the game, well put.

I'm still playing (and loving it) but this is all truth. So much sadness and frustration. They didn't have to twist people's ears to play, rarely has a new title been so anticipated, but they did have to deliver more than they did and it hurts to be there rooting for it from day one. Normally when a game flops you just return it or toss it out, but I'm finding an MMO is completely different. I feel like I've invested heavily into something tangible and been sorely let down.

Oh well I'll have some more fun with my guild tonight and every night until the curtain falls, it's looking pretty stable at the moment but Australian servers are doomed.

p.s. White Lions are pretty fierce but Marauders and Magus have become extinct due to poor balance. Bright Wizards aren't so bad anymore but Warrior Priests are absolutely OP while Ironbreakers and Knights of the Blazing Sun do more damage than dps classes... waiting for patch :/
Lordofbones Aug 16, 2009 12:24 AM
Gear, balance, and Community
When you make a pvp game focused on "gear" for the power of its players, and when you squash all incentives for community building, and on top of that you introduce large imbalance issues that you refuse to address... you've signed the death warrant for a game. Everything else, players will put up with if.

Unlike a lot of people around here, I played Shadowbane rather than DAoC. Shadowbane had plenty of its own issues, but it got those 3 core concepts RIGHT. Gear was an accessory, your basic stuff was available, and your "elite" stuff wasn't necessary to compete. It made things easier, but you could be using crap and if your skills and build were good, you could have fun. Balance was solved by the simple expedient of making all politics player run. While this could lead to rather funny lore conflicts (Holy warriors teaming up with vampyres, anyone?) it meant that everyone had access to imbalanced classes, if they were THAT much of an issue. And the community! I've never experienced the sort of community I was part of in Shadowbane. I remember the politics of the world, the tight knit guild that built up after roaming in our warbands, the SIEGES! Even when faced by lag issues, having 200 people warring over a city, with worries about logistics, managing your siege train, tactics... WAR achieved none of this. And that made me immensely sad.
Tenorgamer Aug 13, 2009 11:54 PM
Too bad.
I was away for quite a while hoping they would fix the performance of the game. Not all of us gamers have the best machines. i don't have the money to get that awesome rig to play games so demanding on graphical performance.

This to me is the reason why WOW has been so successful. they always develop for the anyone in mind that wants to enjoy a game but doesn't have th cash to buy ans expenxive machine. sadly I think this is thew ay MMos are going to where its Graphically intensive (Maybe AION for example) that there will be some players left in the dust. Sadly I think that's where Champions can be headed. I hear that the performance is terrible. Although for game that looks like CO you shoudln't such a great machine.

anyway to a playher like me who has an older machine performance is a big factor and i will no play a game that's so frustrating to control even if I'm the only 1 around.
Caliga Aug 13, 2009 4:19 AM
Well said
I have to agree with most everything you've said in this article, having played WAR for 6 months, except the comment about too much PvE, though I'm starting to think that PvP and PvE games should perhaps be separate entities.

I enjoyed WAR's RvR for a while, until all those things you mentioned overcame me. Meaningless PvP, overpowered classes, zergs, too much CC; which left PvE. And the PvE was horrible. Horrible quests, horrible combat mechanics, horrible combat animations. And when you get to the level cap, horrible dungeons. I couldn't bring myself to level up any of my alts, and with such an awful crafting system, it was time for me to pack it in and move on.

I was also a DAoC fan and had such high hopes for WAR. It fell short of my expectations.
PissedoffBG Aug 12, 2009 7:14 PM
clueless T3 and below people
I keep coming across comments about CC wasn't that bad. not a lot but I have been reading this in here by commenting players.

Bomb Power T4 example: Irony Guild Phoenix throne uses this tactic. They bait in people and heal the bait so they get a lot of folks in one spot. They send in a BW that knocks down and drops AOE's like mad. By the time you can stand up...you are dead or a wind break away from death.

Over and over did I see this happen by that guild in scenario or in Open RvR. CC + AOE overpower =disgruntled players.

That is all I have to say on those who think CC wasnt so bad... Go through that repeated problem in scenario after scenario for months like I did.

Even with a set team on vent that group was near impossible to stop. All it took was one knock down and they would wipe 2 groups easily.
Barerdelcoam Aug 12, 2009 9:40 AM
SW/SH
They need to fix the SW/SH PvP against one another SH's can kill me even if i hit the one first.
Comrad Poopyhead Aug 12, 2009 5:02 AM
Other problems
Forgot the uber-bad engine it uses, while it was covered a bit in Server Performance area, overall you missed it.

All characters within WAR were buggy and ugly, animations weren't smooth, and so on. They used an old engine from what I know, one much worse then WoW's engine.

Also like people have noted above, an anti-community design. The game didn't bring people together and the chat was poorly designed (so was the whole UI TBH).

PQs were implemented poorly (as noted above), in a good game they could do well. In WAR they completely failed, even tho you gotta give it to them for establishing the concept.
Attila Aug 11, 2009 1:33 PM
On Destr/Order looks
I am sick and tired of people saying one side looks cooler than the other. Mythic has perfected the looks of Order looks and I don't see what people are complaining about.

Also the main thing that pisses me off is the Bald WP argument. If you aren't playing a class because your character is bald, you should do 2 things:
Go read some Warhammer novels, learns stuff about WPs before spilling garbage such as "I will not play a class because the doll is bald". They are bold because of a reason. It is LORE. Learn what LORE is. Learn why they don't wear helmets and shave bald.
Second thing you can do is stop being so damn picky. So what if you look like a red headed stepchild. You damage is through the roof. Why does it matter who casts the fireball? It might be a red ant for all I care, but if it can kill me, it's a worthy opponent I need to kill. Besides, BWs are once again lore based, hence the red color.

Clueless WoW fanboys and those who don;t appreciate mmorpgs based on lore should back the hell away from WAR. Now excuse me while I go play LOTRO and complain why I can't be a white Orc, blue mohawk, wielding a rubber chicken as a weapon.
James Aug 11, 2009 1:19 PM
Spot on!
You've hit the nail on the head here!

As a HUGE fan of the Warhammer tabletop and RPG games, I've been waiting for this since it was being developed by Climax 5 years ago....
I played in the Closed beta 3.0 (approx 6 months before launch) and the game was actually better then!
It is so sad for me to see something fail like this, but my subscription ran out on the weekend and I won't be renewing it, for about 5 of the major reasons you listed.


Perhaps in a year, once they've fixed the current issues and put back in the original design (capital city for each realm?), then I may return...
Rascal Aug 11, 2009 10:36 AM
Great Article
First i wanted to say that I don't comment much on blogs but this article was spot on and very well written. I'd like to add a few points:

First the postives:
----------------------------------
1) War is/was fun. Leveling from 1-31 was probably one of the best pvp experiences in any MMO. Scenarios were well done and a nice little break from PVE.

2) Unique classes like melee healers are a nice twist to the standard healer/tank/dps trio.

3) PQ's and player tactics are good concepts which we will probably see in future mmo's

The negatives
-----------------------------------
1) Server perfomance is one of the reasons this game died. If you're not in t4 you probably have no clue. Spells take 10 seconds to cast and AP ticks are just as long.

2) Class imbalances. If I were to point my finger at one department for the reason of war's failure it would be the c & c department. I'm sure that BW's and Sorc bomb groups probably wiped over 100,000 people from subscribing to this game. Our 6 men party once wiped 42 people by attacking order from behind while they were engaging a keep lord. Party was 2 sorcs, 1 choppa, 1 chosen, dok and zealot.

Not to mention all the l2play comments by the c&c department. When the customer base and high rank bw's like flaming are saying "Hey we're overpowered and killing your subs" ... you better listen.

3) Lack of a balance mechanism. Like the author pointed out.

The rest i could live with.

Again great article. Loved the read.
K Aug 10, 2009 10:00 PM
No real insight here
This seems more like a jumbling of all the whining people have done about Warhammer without any real insight or even a coherent opinion.

How can you blame class imbalances such as the WP and BW who are both order and then in the next line blame the games failure on too many people playing destruction?

Sounds to me like a little faction bias here. Why would they nerf the OPed classes of the underpopulated faction? They want more people to play them obviously.

Warhammer did fail but next time please focus no something a bit more insightful then just common internet arguments with no merit.

P.S. Adding a third faction would just have screwed up balance even more especially since there is no guarantee both under populated sides would have worked together.
Zoom Aug 10, 2009 8:14 PM
Completely wrong
Article is just DAoC nostalgic jibberish. The game was already dead before the things mentioned in this article became problems.

The real problem was a bad game engine that made gameplay clunky and poor.
Positron Aug 10, 2009 7:31 PM
Magus vs. Engineer
Absolutely correct article, but you left out the magus/engineer in your balancing section. It's not as big a deal I guess, but on release the magus couldn't compare to the engineer. I thought maybe it was just me, maybe just my skill was at fault, so after I got my magus to 40 and got tired of being instagibbed by BW I went to another server and started an engineer.

There was no comparison. The engineer had (at the time) far better survivability, knockbacks, range, and damage. 6 of us fought a warband (yes, an entire warband, 24 people) of destro at a battlefield objective in T2, elf land. The BFO was up on top of a cliff, so we would knock half of them off the cliff, kill the other half, then wait for the rest to climb back up and kill them. We defended the objective no problem. 6 v 24. As the engineer, I had pretty much infinite knockback capability and we had a few tanks w/ aoe kb as well. After that stupidly easy fight, I knew the heresay of order being imba was completely true.
Nollind Whachell Aug 10, 2009 6:49 PM
Meaningless Emotionless RVR Combat
Excellent article Michael. Your point #5 was what sealed the WAR coffin for me. To me the game's core focus was on these RVR keep battles. Therefore if they sucked, nothing else really mattered. Thus after attacking a keep for the umpteenth time and going through the "choke point" motions I gave up due to boredom. As many have stated on the Warhammer Alliance forums, they needed keeps to be much more dynamic and interesting in nature (like those in Planetside and Tribes), with multiple attack points and multiple ways to achieve victory.
Frank Aug 10, 2009 5:36 PM
WAR gets a Bailout?
What would you do if EA handed you the keys to empty office of Mark Jacobs?

- You got 6 months to revive this game or you are back on the streets.
Chris Aug 10, 2009 9:19 AM
WoW
I hate when people make up WoW subscription numbers. Everyone assumes, "oh let me take the last known number (11 million) and add a few million because I assume it's grown" and then we get the 13 million number in this article.

Fact of the matter is, WoW's Chinese subscription loss brings the game down somewhere in the range of 6.5 to 7.5 million subs. Doubling that number is insane.
Wilsoros Aug 9, 2009 12:15 PM
A new horizon?
I have been downloading WAR for the past 14 hours and as some other posters have stated, started to worry about these types of comments. I did stumble across

http://www.examiner.com/x-8040-Salt-Lake-MMORPG-Examiner~y2009m6d26-Warhammer-Online-faces-big-changes-down-the-road

which is an interesting, if vague, promise of things to come. As a long time WoW player, and a long time Druid player, before Burning Crusade, I can tell you playing the weak class sucks really bad, and really takes a lot out of you.

All errors are forgiven it seems with WoW, they had so many problems, so many imbalances, raids would down a boss and no one wanted the gear, but it is all forgiven when the content is fixed. I hope that WAR follows the same path, if they fix the problems, then hopefully fun will heal the wounds.

Roac Aug 8, 2009 2:06 AM
Sadness here, too
There seems to be a sizable contingent of Camelot refugees that had put a lot of hope in WAR being a return to Camelot of olde, Milawe. When I logged on, there were names and guilds that were familiar and it was old home week. But sadly it didn't last - the mechanical difficulties, as identified above, were just too daunting. The PvE was all so terribly linear. The segregation by level made it so difficult to form bonds and work together over extended periods. The restricted maps made exploring unfun as well. The lack of substantial crafting took away my favorite activity, arming the new arrivals, which built community and realm loyalty. (I also support class by nature, and was a terrible Archmage.)

The only hope left is for Mythic to fall on their sword, and give us Camelot Origins.
David Aug 7, 2009 2:46 PM
Well as a new subscriber this is pretty depressing
I just started playing WAR and just my luck I happend to stumble on your article.

My experience so far has been pretty good, I played the trial and decided to subscribe. Its a big deal for me since this is the first MMO I've actually bought since Asheron's Call. I like the PvP focus (for anyone who knows anything about AC I played on Darktide) and the fast gameplay. Thats really what hooked me, being able to do some PvE while waiting for a scenario, the PQs and RvR. At least so far I don't feel like all I'm doing is grinding (tried the free trial in WoW and couldn't stand it).

I'm new to this type of MMO (AC was way different, no classes, skill based, a lot older came out in 1999 afterall) so I'm still learning the ropes.

I'm playing as WP (love the art design of these guys the Armor looks great IMO) and a Sorceror. I don't really feel like my WP is overpowered I die constantly. Having more than one guy on me is almost certain death, its really hard to heal in the frontlines like I'm supposed to with all the Choppa trains and targeting from sorcs my heals hardly ever keep me alive. But I'm having fun and as a healer you have to expect getting targetted.

I'm still in teir 1 with my sorc, but so far its been a lot of fun. Just seems that the server I'm on has a really low T1 pop. And it can take upwards of 30mins of an sc to load up (a lot faster on the last server, but afteral its the mandatory trial server) and generally T1 areas feel empty.

I'm a causual player, between work, school, family, friends I don't have the time to sink into this game like I used to, but thats why this game is working for me. I feel like I can still advance and participate in what the game has to offer. Most of the complaints I hear are centered around T4, which I hope will be fixed by the time I finnally get there.

Snappahead Aug 7, 2009 3:03 AM
Catering to the "anti-social jerks" was one of the things they got right
Gisli, have to disagree with your point. Not wanting to participate in the drama of guild politics is what many players want. Being able to advance by yourself was a great feature of WAR, as it give the casual players a chance - unfortunately they messed up so many other things that others have already highlighted. It's a shame, because they got a lot of it right....
Angelsandarmor.wordpress.com Aug 6, 2009 8:00 PM
WAR tried to do too much...
This was a great artilce, and a good summary of some of the things that went wrong. The lack of a third faction is critical. Even WoW has NPC faction - Burning Crusade, Arthus - in their game for "balance".

IMHO, WAR tried to do too much. They tried to be both innovative and capture the PVE market. I play WoW, but was excited by WAR's promise of more PvP. A few things come to mind about it's failure:

- PvE servers with RvR lakes a mistakes, I think the whole thing should have been open world PvP
- End game that was a turn off. After the more casual, ALT friendly play style up to T3, suddenly you have this enormous challange of locking zones to capture cities. City fights a boring PvE grind fest.

Agree in the art work as well. My Witch Elf was just, well hot. I mean hot. My Dward, less attractive.

It's a given that players will play the prettier/cooler looking avatars.
Daman Aug 6, 2009 12:30 PM
I really wanted to like WAR
100% spot on; well done, sir.

however, and I don't think that I am alone in saying this, the biggest reason for WARs failure is the synergy of these four issues:

1. faction imbalance (i.e. world pvp zerg)
2. OP classes (BW and WP especially)
3. rewards for winning (i.e. gear)
4. penalties for losing (i.e. locked out of content)

when you combine all four of these issues together, you get an avalanche that continues to grow and becomes unstoppable.

faction imbalance and OP classes result in lots of winning which results in more renown ranks which results in more and better stats and much better gear and so in the next cycle, the team that already has the numbers and the OP classes now also has a gear advantage as well and higher stats so that they can take more damage and last longer in pvp... while the 'losing' team remains relatively static. The cycle then repeats itself only this time the underrepresented faction is now even deeper in hole. This is a negatively reinforcing cycle that continues to get worse and more one-sided as time goes by.

I went out and bought two computers just so I could play WAR (an investment of over 3,000 dollars). I was intending to play Greenskins with my kid. We were having a fairly good time playing until we hit T4. At T4, our progression came almost to a complete standstill. We would play SCs for 3 days and get a grand total of 5 medallions. Now do the math, our shoulder upgrades cost 130 medallions so that's 60+ days to get a minor shoulder upgrade... no thanks. In addition, our EXP crashed in T4 as well. We averaged less than 1K exp per SC. It was very common for us to get ZERO exp from and SC. Usually we would get less than 300 exp. When it takes 600,000 Exp to raise a level, it makes it difficult to rationalize continued participation.

Still, if the games were close I would probably suffer through it but that's the problem, it's just a massacre. They should change the title to MASSACRE ONLINE, that's all it is.
exMarauder Aug 6, 2009 8:53 AM
All is sad but true...
Yes, the game was VERY promising, and as huge fan of warhammer history i was waiting this game to come out with excitement. I dont beleve we need 6 months to see what will happen with WAR. I could give 6 weeks, maybe bit more. There is no way to please players who have quited this game becouse with every patch more and more issues came out. As a Marauder i was expeting major tweaks to this class and with every new delay my will to continue play was cut in half. And las expansion killed game. Its just unacceptable what Mythic have done to warhammer. To sad... (sorry for bad english)
Mike Aug 6, 2009 2:20 AM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
Wow, you listed just about every problem I had with the game. I played WAR in beta and played up until about 1.25 months ago. My whole alliance and clan quit. I was on my 3-4th server and right after I quit, they transferred again so if I was still playing i'd be on my 5th server.

And for anyone who thinks the game is great and your in Tier 1-Tier 3, wait till you get to Tier4. That is when it all goes downhill. I am not going to go over everything you've already mentioned in your article but it was spot on. Anyone who disagrees is just blind to the facts or hasn't reached T4 yet.

WAR went from 800k+ to 300k (confirmed) and is probably down to 100k at this point. None of my friends play anymore, it was so boring once you hit 40. You had to grind reknown points like crazy so you just did mind numbing BOs and Keeps over and over.
Nick Aug 5, 2009 7:40 PM
in a PvP game balance is everything
Great article.

As above i think that they simply failed to deliver on their own promises:

1)no heal bots : healers in general are phenomenally OP , specially WP are immortal and even with skills that reduce their "heals" (not hots, not drains, only cast heals) they hardly have a problem overhealing everything. If i wanted to play a game where everything gets down to who has more healers i would stick to WoW , and even WoW made some progress in that part.

2) balance : "black guards are over powered, ask any IRON BREAKER". need i say more ?, the people responsible at mythic really do deserve to loose their jobs, i am sorry but having a god (BW) for ages, buffing nearly every order tank to be Unkillable tank/heavy damage dealing hybrid while having destro tanks nerfed time and again and making them either medium/good dps OR medum/good tanks just aint balance. I am sure they are not biased but i simply fail to see why good order classes became great , bad order classes became good ones while good order classes became medium classes and bad destro classes became worthless (look at black guards).
Adding magic resistance CAP at less than 50% while 3 apply/forget dots can easily kill anything in sight ? ... sorry to say that but ... are those people retarded? i dont think that any player no matter the faction he chose to play, hasnt died time and time again from 3 dots even while playing a tank.
And whats up with all the crits? even with stacked initiative?

3)more promises : "black guards will put a halt to BW opnes and will be anti magic tanks that eat casters for breakfast" .... RIGHT, if you fail to deliver on your own promises you are bound to loose subs.

4) communication : everyone, i mean EVERYONE said and used feed back time and again : too much cc(to have every single class run at me and disable me,disarm,stun,knockdown,knockback,root me to death is not fun) mythic /ignored us all, we all felt the lag, we all used feedbacks for it, we all where ignored
Justin Aug 5, 2009 5:08 PM
Another two cents. You now have a nickel.
Michael: I play a swordmaster primarily. I also play a 27 Shadow Warrior, 31 Chosen, 24 Disciple of Khane, and 15 Archmage. I know tanks get the juggernaut ability, but to be completely honest by the time I think to use it I'm no longer affected by the CC. I think Juggernaut is a crap ability anyway because it only breaks roots and snares. When I get hit by CC I'm normally flat on my back.

mh: I'm going to check out Darkfall. You got me curious.

Even though the overall atmosphere of WAR is mostly filled with people standing around yelling, "The End is Near!" (or some variation) I am still having a blast with the game. I love the graphics, I love the simplicity in leveling, I love the fact that twinking is simply not possible, and I love the over-abundance of kickback (Punt) abilities. Even when I'm on the recieving end of a particularly nasty punt (example, being launched off a narrow bridge and falling three miles and somehow not cratering, then spending 20 minutes figuring out how to get back to the bridge) I am having fun. Call me crazy but I find it hilarious sending people, and getting sent, flying through the air. I have my own sound effect for it. It's quite silly.

If WAR eventually gets shut down I wont be too broken hearted. Yes it will suck, but there are other games out there. Hopefully there will be another pvp focused game for me to pick up. And hopefully (ducks the incoming flames) it wont be based on that fictional train wreck Star Wars.
Fongsolo Aug 5, 2009 4:49 PM
For the most part, I agree
The problem I had from the beginning, and I was very vocal, was the lack of polish and lack of effort to do so. That is the problem all new MMOs face in relation to WoW. You need to bring your A game at release and developer after developer is showing us D+s from the get go. You can not release a game that should still be in beta to paying customers, and expect to take customers from WoW and sustain them. Who wants to pay for something that has comparatively poor quality? I will concede WoW had issues at release but Blizzard was not up against a genre juggernaut like developers are today.

Couple of examples. AoC was unplayable by a huge number of folks at release and was released with a foot in the grave. Some would argue that foot is still there. Vanguard closed beta crew warned them on the eve of relase not to go gold. I was there. Now look. They were born dead. We had broken quest lines in the tutorial zones. Now WAR. 10 months in and there are still gamebreaking issues. Unacceptable.

Bad press and word of mouth is almost impopssible to overcome nowadays. It didn't take long for gaming stores to start pointing people away from WAR's shelf. And they haven't made a good enough effort to fix their name. Sure the game may live on but with nowhere near the base it needs to continue long term.

I hope Bioware has been placed on notice after the failure in family. I hate WoW/Blizzard with a passion and desperately want someone to knock them off. But it will take quality.
Nnyan Aug 5, 2009 4:06 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
While I think you and Gisli bring up some valid points I disagree with some of your other points. Before I go into that I have to say that IMHO you both come off as anti-casual gamer.

Having played a number of WAR toons to 40 (including a BW) I had no issues with having plenty of PvE content (I concede they may have gone overboard) or the casual grouping, etc... Having a game that is casual player friendly is not bad per se. WAR really disappointed in in poor excecution of too many of their ideas and what seems to be lack of forethought.

Even during closed beta most of us were at the very least concerned with the state of the game and what we were not shown (or shown all to briefly like end game content) . While disappointed we took the release delay as a boon to give them time to fix things. But it was quickly evident that even with the reduction in cities and classes the devs totally underestimated how difficult getting these innovative ideas to "work" would be.

Even though I was in a large guild the game design was not really community friendly. I did not feel as part of a community. In that aspect I think WAR could have used some inter-character "needs" to encourage team work (anyone have SoW?). I have to say that outside the early days of Everquest no game that I've played (and there have been many) has ever fostered a sense of community as that game. Even after all these years I'm still in contact with most of my original guild.
Squishem Aug 5, 2009 3:45 PM
Yes, yes and more yes!
I agree with pretty much everything in this article as to what went wrong with this once promising game. Some I agree more then others but overall, YES!

Mark Jacobs I still think was the main cause of why things would not get done. Management is the one who tells the drones what needs to be changed and what stays in. I believe he alone was the reason a lot of vital player feedback from the community went untouched. Why CC was kept the way it was. Why new game content would make players return rather then fixing old content. And specially why EA saw that the guy in CHARGE of a "voted most anticipating MMO" 2008 Blew Up in their faced and virtually Crapped all over its subscribers.

They did it to themselves. Now they have a spokes person saying, "hey, somethings things don't get fixed because we are only human." This may cut it in some industries like restaurants or sales but when your dealing with "WHEN YOU CAN RELEASE" content, its your damn Fault!

good read.
mh Aug 5, 2009 3:34 PM
Darkfall
While I think the order is wrong, the article gets all the points right.

Like many others, I loved DAOC's frontier, and to this day I think Darkness falls was the best dungeon ever.

More than anything, WAR for me failed because it blatantly copied WOW instead of providing an alternative to it.

For all you ex-DAOC players, I highly recommend trying out Darkfall, a little-known PVP-centric MMO made by a small independent studio. It took 7 years to make on a tiny budget and as a result it has a few rough edges but the core game - PVP/conquest in a sandbox world - is awesome.

For me it is the closest thing we have to a spiritual successor to DAOC in the PVP department, albeit a much more hardcore/brutal version of it.
Rondaror Aug 5, 2009 1:40 PM
Sad but true
It's a very good summary of the biggest flaws of WAR.
Gisli already gave some comments of the anti-socialising factor of the game, which I can fully agree to. RvR without an exisiting community creates no feeling of accomplishment/success within WAR. Meaningless RvR lakes do enhance this problem even more.
One issue that I would like to add, is that the battles in the RvR lakes lack of any strategic or tactical element. The lakes are so tiny that a killed player/group/warband returns within such a short time, that it is a war of attritition (read AOE Zerg-fest). I miss the feeling of winning or losing a battle. The RvR concept in WAR is dull and pointless. The carrot for playing is gear (individual rewards) only, which most of the players that I know of are not interested in.

It's really a shame what Mythic did with WAR. They tried to copy WoW by making the game solo-player friendly, but they forgot to give players a goal/carrot to go for. There is not one player that I know of, who has some fun in fortress fights or city fights. Even when you take out the terrible PQ PvE/PvP instance endgame, there is simply no meaning to capture the king (besides some items).

The basic game design is so screwed, that it is almost impossible to redisgn (even if there were enough funds/trust at EA)
Bigger RvR zones, so that there is strategy or tactics involved would mean, that they had to redesign all the T4 maps.
Non-instanced and no player limited endgame would mean a complete redisgn of fortresses and city captures. And even then it is highly unlikely that they can get the engine handle more then 100 players without lagging.

I am really disappointed, because I wanted WAR to succeed. I contacted long lost friends from DAoC and brought people from WoW...a revival of good old times. Fun PvP after years of suffering. It's really sad and I don't see Mythic doing anything against the flaws or even being aware of them.
Sorry for bad English. It's not my mother tongue.
Michael Hartman Aug 5, 2009 1:25 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
Justin: What class are you playing? I am glad you have not been worn down by the CC train, but believe me, the general WAR population considers it an absolute excessive plague.


El Dude: Too late. I am already a successful online game developer with 18 years of success and multiple successful shipped games. I was a game designer long before I wrote about MMOs. :) The article is already 5 pages long. How is that over simplified? Believe me, I could discuss each and every point in excrutiating detail, but I really doubt most people would read it. They'd get bored and move on. I write to an audience, and most people reading game analysis want short and pithy. At 5 pages, I was already pushing the envelope.


Heinrich Bimmler: Well, I'm sorry you stopped reading, but the terrible art design of the Order classes is a very widely reported problem that contributed to severe population imbalance. I'm not sure if you have a relative who designed the dwarves or their roflcopter mounts, but I am putting forth an extremely common opinion. The high elves look poncy, the dwarves look terrible, and the empire avatars are bald (WP, BW) or poncy as well (WH). That really got WAR off to a bad start, with Destruction having 55-60% pop on most servers (or more).


Heinrich Bimmler Aug 5, 2009 11:51 AM
HMm
Stopped reading when you started showing bias based on how each realm character looks. Obvious you play destruction, and your biased opinion shows in this article.

Try to be less of a victim next time, and more of a reporter.
El Dude Aug 5, 2009 11:02 AM
Over simplified and many points just as bad as WAR's designers ideas
Please don't try and become an mmo designer we dont need more fail train mmos.

It really came down to designers who thought that because they like mmo's,play them alot that they understand what makes them good. Its like thinking if you eat fast food enough you will eventually understand the biochemistry that makes you like fast food and make your own great fast food. This is not the case which is why the vast majority of mmos are not successful.

The ones that do well copy good ideas and are very cautious about introducing their "new" ideas. WAR designers were arrogant in this regard and most of their ideas were flops which basically showed the emperor had no close which is why MJ was fired.
Justin Aug 5, 2009 10:56 AM
I disagree with one point.
While your overall post was spot on there is one thing I have to argue. If other posters feel I'm wrong then so be it, this is simply my opinion and experience.
You stated that CC is too overwhelming and to some extent it is. There are quite a few different types of CC and it can get a little annoying, but I dont see it as the game killer that you describe. I play a level 34 character and as such am constantly playing against level 40 RR (infinity) enemies. In any given scenario/battle I expect to be CC'd every time the opposing force has the ability to toss one out, but it has never kept me from taking part in the fight before I get killed. I'd say that at most I am being locked by CC for 3-4 (average) seconds every 45 seconds or so. Being CC'd at all is annoying, but it isnt enough to kill the game for me.

I played DAoC and ended up quitting after getting repeatedly nailed with a 30-45 second mez followed by a 10 second stun, followed by another mez, followed by a root. I've never seen anything close to that in WAR.
Throttle Aug 3, 2009 8:14 PM
Re: MMOs too complex to not fail
[quote]What makes me particularly sad about Warhammer is if they fail, can we expect anyone to succeed[/quote]

That's the slightly scary part. Accomplishments and failures in his industry tend to influence the future choices of the developers of newer games. With a failure as earth-shattering as Warhammer's, I have to wonder if anyone will even attempt to make a PvP-oriented game for quite some time. There will always be some element of PvP in virtually every MMORPG, but many players had been waiting for a game that was actually -about- PvP (or RvR, call it what you will) and were expecting WAR to be it. I certainly would think twice about making the attempt after this.
Thornz Aug 3, 2009 7:48 PM
Its was like he read my mind !
Not to compare WAR to DAoC, but the 3rd faction made a WORLD of differance.

Not mentioned was silly things in WAR like jumping into water and taking damage from a meer few feet from the water, haveing the collision ON for everyone in the RVR area was just plain STUPID. To be blocked by the enemy yes, but to try and run and your blocked by your own team NO. Getting hung up on just about all the graphics was over annoying.

The other one that ALWAYS made me scratch my head was 1 vs 1 with a healer and the healer would nickle and dime you to death. ITS A CLOTH WEARING CLASS FOR THE LOVE OF PETE !

If I remembwer right Mark Jacobs made the DAoC sequal ToA and thats about the time DAoC started to sink. With Mark Jacobs gone, not sure of the ship he scuttled (WAR) will stop sinking in time.

I feel WAR is over, Mark got his cash in hand and left for the next MMO he can ruin.
Nissl Aug 3, 2009 7:36 PM
A couple of other things...
...as someone who played at release. The incentives for RVR were terrible compared to PVE and scenarios at launch so nobody was doing much of anything. Wind up on the overpopulated faction (because your guild wants to roll there) and you could have an hour or more between scenarios. So you are left with thoroughly mediocre PVE to level in what is supposedly a PVP game. God help you if you're a healer with absolute garbage for damage like I was.

The other problem with the lakes is that they're so small. Add that to the incentives and you wind up with zerg vs. zerg, or more likely zerg vs. environment keep trading. The small group encounters are mostly gone from the game.

Finally, keep design. I never saw T4 but I heard it doesn't improve that much and I saw enough in T2 to lose interest quickly. Single chokepoints with tank walls and tons of AOE spam. A handful of defenders are enough to hold a keep. Is it really that hard to put in multiple access points?

And then add in the unplayable amounts of lag. Really I might put lag and server performance in first, but then I did not play long enough to experience being on the underpopulated side and notice the massive imbalances.

I hear the mail system is still broken.
Nelson Aug 3, 2009 12:43 PM
MMOs too complex to not fail?
Very thoughtful article, thank you. I'm still relatively new to Warhammer (R28 Warrior Priest), but so far what I'm seeing is confirmed by your article. The two biggest problems I see are server lag and a bunch of balance issues which you suggest could have been solved by a third faction.

What makes me particularly sad about Warhammer is if they fail, can we expect anyone to succeed other than Blizzard? There's a whole lot of great things in Warhammer, a very strong team, and a lot of funding and game development. It's sad to see that undone by a few mistakes. I can't think of a single non-WoW MMO that you can't say the same thing about. Are we doomed to only have one successful MMO to play?
Gwargh Aug 3, 2009 10:12 AM
Sad Gwarghie
Sad Sad day for Warboss Gwargh. Oi! Right at da launch I gathered em Gits to go bash them stunties. Many good gits heardz my warcry and came for da waaagh. But afta a little timez Gits started to grunt, no skillz no real fight for em greenskins only food for kerosine brighties. Now my horde died wandered off to distant landz looking for new fightz, only a few loyal gits remain.

Itz was not much fun being a warboss in this game much of whining much unhappy gits. Oi, i wanted this game to succeedz badly havin great respects for Warhammer lore, best place for greenskinz ever.

At my cave somewhere in tha Netherlands there is standing as many as 1600 citadel miniaturez proudly on display. Even grannie gits and firebreathing bats. Them nastie humies screwed up tha in potential greatezt Waaaghhhh eva, So im a sad sad Warboss.
Longasc Aug 3, 2009 6:04 AM
Beyond salvation?
I wonder if a MMO can survive such necessary massive changes to gameplay without alienating the remaining players even more at all.

Does anyone think WAR can be saved at this point???
Kyan Mehwulfe Aug 3, 2009 3:47 AM
Very accurate article
Mythic was simply too adamant about making a RvR game that wasn't DAOC.

So much so that they so worried about being 'different' that their leadership never figured out if it was actually 'better.'

Hell, they didn't even want Keeps and Seige at first. What a joke months 1-3 would have been without that. We had to rant for 1-2 months in beta, so badly that Mythic took their ball and went home for a month and shut down beta. But we got Keeps finally (and to Mythic's credit, they really opened up to the elder testers).

But nonetheless, they were so busy trying to make WAR 'different' than DAOC that they didn't really have time to figure out if it was 'better.'

It also didn't help that they exibited amateur ability to choose a game engine, create netcode, and animate.Or, to be fair, manage said technical talent. There's a very strong lack of cohesion in many of WAR's technical elements.

Between what I think may have been poor management of tech teams, and also a very poor management of the creative Vision or Spirit of the RvR game WAR was to be, it's seems more obvious as to why Mark Jacobs was fired.

In truth, I like Mark. Read his posts since early DAOC beta and I've talked to him personally a few times, albeit briefly. But I have to assume there was a massive failure in leadership with WAR considering the resources WAR's development had, yet how badly both the 'tech' and 'design of WAR failed.

It's disapointing. WAR should have been easy 500k success. Huge budget. Awesome template (DAOC). Classic IP. 1. Copy/paste Warhammer onto DAOC; 2. Add a few evolutionary features like PQs and TOK. 3. Savour and enjoy.

You'd have to outright try with great intent to somehow make a RvR game yet utterly miss that. Sadly, that's what Mythic did with WAR. They tried to reinvent the RvR wheel when it really did not need to reinvented.
Michael Hartman Aug 2, 2009 11:10 PM
RE: What Went Wrong with Warhammer Online? Is it a failure?
What always amazes me is the fact that Mythic is not a bunch of noob developers. They made multiple MUDs that were commercially successful, and then DAoC which was a big success (a bigger success than WAR, honestly).

So you have to wonder how they made so many titanic mistakes.

Something happened to Mythic right around the time of Trials of Atlantis. From that point forward, the company seems to have made one bad decision after another.

ToA itself was a disaster. They lost half their subscribers by trying to add PvE/raiding to DAoC.

Then they had Imperator... aka Romans in Space. It never even got launched because it was such a failure of an idea.

Then you have Warhammer, and well... you can read the article. :)

So what happened 6-12 months before ToA? Who left the company that was clearly so incredibly important to the decision making tree that his or her absence ruined the company?
visrage Aug 2, 2009 10:59 PM
100% accurate
A spot on article of what a shame and failure Warhammer was (is). The Land of the Dead expansion added even more inbalance and bugs which were not covered in the article.
Milawe Aug 2, 2009 10:46 PM
Beyond Fixing at This Point?
The realm unbalance and Mythic's penchant to do AoE nerfs rather than look at specific classes has made me wonder if it's far too late for this game. When BWs were able to run amok slaughtering groups of 30-40 in their bomb groups, so many of them gained RRs at a phenomenal rate. Whatever balancing that Mythic does simply cannot take this into account because you cannot punish a character for what is ultimately a mistake made by your company. I don't think I can ever go back to my server simply because, by now, there are at least 6 RR80 BWs who still actively play while almost all my friends have quit. If I went back, I'd be going back to getting bombed by RR80 BWs- which means dead before I can even get a heal off or run to a better place to heal.

I can detest these BWs as much as I want, but ultimately, it's not their fault for being RR80. Who wouldn't want the glee of being able to run around in a small group and wipe out 30-40 players with little to no risk? Heck, hubby and I went and made a WP/BW combo just so we can have some glee ourselves. In the end, I didn't WANT to play a WP/BW because I wanted to play Warhammer for its lore. That left me with no choice but to quit, and I feel that many, many, many others had no choice but to do that also.

It's a shame. You can see the potential hidden in so many aspects of this game, and I think that's what ultimately will make it unrecoverable. To go back, I would have to know that the realms were balanced, and at this point, I'd have to have something new to do. I've already leveled up more than one character. PvE has never been my thing, so I really have no interest in doing it again without any entirely new realm to play with. Yet, EA will probably not throw them the money they'd need to fix this game. Who wants to throw good money after bad? I'm not even confident that they have someone who can fix this game. Afterall, Bioware's never put out an MMO.
Throttle Aug 2, 2009 9:00 PM
An unbelievable failure
All the points in this article are true (and some might feel that there are more factors) but one question remains with me. I am no longer indignant at the loss of a potential pastime, I no longer feel cheated, but the one question will not stop bothering me.

How did it go so wrong? How did Mythic manage to screw up on so many (virtually every) level? Practically nothing was done right, and you could point at massive, unacceptable flaws with every single aspect of the game. Everything went wrong. How did this happen?

If this had been some small, independent studio trying their luck with their first MMORPG on a small budget then alright, nice try, better luck next time. It's not exactly the first time that would have happened. This, however, was so big, so promising, and was supposed to have finally been the sweet relief to all of those very many people who have been craving, pleading for an actual PvP game for years.

Such immense development costs, supposedly the greatest in MMORPG history. Such an infallible base to build on with one of the largest, most succesfu, oldest and most well-known fantasy settings in existence. So many fans both of MMORPGs in general, of DAoC, and of Warhammer, all ready and eager to play this game. Look at the former success of Mythic, a game that remains one of the genre-defining triumphs right up there with Everquest and Ultima Online.

As time passes, I grow more and more suspicious. How could they possibly have believed their own words, their own hype and expectations? All these now disgraceful quotes of what determines whether WAR has been succesful, or promises of GOA's performance for WAR-EU. It all went so wrong that I cannot fathom how they would not have known from the start. Maybe they were just hoping for the best, perhaps realizing too late that the game had too many problems but unable to do anything about it due to time and funding constraints. I suppose we'll never know.

I just can't let go of those questions.
Michael Hartman Aug 2, 2009 5:45 PM
Great comments.
Jim Ziegler: Thanks for the feedback on Marauders, WLs, and population balance. Sounds grim. :(


Mike Hammer: Glad you like the article. I think you are spot on about CC. CC is too powerful of a thing to be spread around so many classes. It should be a major specialty of a few select classes. Great point about the lockout of all other forms of RvR when a city siege is active. Having all the RvR zones and thus all the scenarios shut down is pretty lame when the city siege mechanic itself is terrible at best.


royale: Very interesting point about super fast AP regen. It does seem like the game got to a point where worrying about AP was at best a minor hassle or a speedbump. Related to that is the reason WPs and DoKs became such dominant healers. Once their soul essence/righteous fury regen got so big, they basically had "unlimited mana."


Gisli: Brilliant points. There is not much more I can add to that. An MMO with poor community and communication tools is doomed.

Gisli Aug 2, 2009 4:10 PM
Lack of community is a major factor
A major failure of Warhammer is lack of community infrastructure, and a game design that consistently hurt instead of helped community.
Here are a few ways that Warhammer is anti-community throughout its design.

* No mechanism for communicating in large-scale RvR. Even /2 is broken (it doesn't reach the warcamps), and nothing in Warhammer compares to a DAOC BG channel.
* You can easily solo your way to L40. No reason to group up *ever*. In most MMOs, really antisocial jerks tend to get weeded out by the leveling grind, because in most MMOs, you better make at least a few friends to progress. In Warhammer, there is only one thing that you really need to get along with anyone to do in this game, and that is dungeons. There isn't really a reason why someone even needs to join a guild, let alone a strong one. So nothing filters out people who can't function socially in an MMO.
* You don't really need any help to do crafting.
* PQs get held up as a great innovation. In practice, PQs were pretty much a failure in Warhammer. There are about 200 PvE PQs per side. Except during the first week or two of launch, in T1 and T2, there was never the population base to sustain this. Almost never will there be enough people to do any given PQ. And there is no real need to do PQs. You don't need them for XP or gear. The idea might be good but the implementation was terrible, in retrospect.
* Open groups and the open PQ mechanism just added to the lack of realm cohesion. Instead of adding to the opportunities for people to meet each other and interact, they just added to the sense of anonymity and isolation. You pop into a group, do something real quick, and pop back out. Even in RvR, generally speaking you don't need to get invited into a group to participate, like you did in DAOC.
* There are many incentives for perverse behavior. For example, rewards for defending turned out to be a bad idea. Many actually wanted the enemy to hit their fort or city for the low-effort rewards.
royale Aug 2, 2009 2:35 PM
absolutely right on all points
As someone who wanted SO BADLY to love this game and followed its development for years before release, I think you've hit the nail on the head in this article.

One thing you left out: Super-fast AP regen and too many similar skills make combat nothing more than unfun button-mashing ability spam. Unfun combat in a game based around combat... fail.
Mike Hammer Aug 2, 2009 4:00 AM
Awesome insight
You have hit the nail, on the head with this article. The points you covered summons up Warhammer.

IMHO CC needs to be virtually wiped out and only some class's possess it to a limited degree. AoE needs to be addressed and again only some class's should have the ability to AoE, not every class. It just turned the game into an AoE frenzy with no real tactic except to zerg.

A third realm is needed and it might help and attracting players back to the game with all new races.

Also the long lock out hours once the enemy realm is attacking your king is absurd and leave the realm with nothing to really to do. A Third realm would have alleviated this problem.

I just hope Mythic wakes up and before its too late or is it?
Jim Ziegler Aug 2, 2009 2:44 AM
marauders/white lions
White lions have received some fixes and upward modifications of their skills, etc, atm their pet is bugged to kill within 2-4 secs in most cases...marauders however have only been further nerfed and their "improvement patch" has been indefinitely postponed...realm balance is at it's worst ever and I honestly think subs will dip below 100k by september if not august...BTW, the realm balancing is also TBA, nothing scheduled atm, only bug fixes...
Milawe Aug 2, 2009 12:13 AM
I Read This Article with Much Sadness
Strangely enough, I felt a lot of sadness after reading this article. My husband, the person who wrote this article, was extremely burned out on MMOs for a while when Warhammer came out. We'd just tried Age of Conan which miserably failed for me and then for him. I'd held on faithfully to wait for Warhammer for several reasons: 1) I was ready to go back to a PvP heavy game and play with my husband, 2) I play Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy. I've always loved Games Workshop's lore, and 3) I never enjoyed an MMO as much as I enjoyed DAoC even with all its frustrations.

We still tell stories of events that happened in DAoC, something that I never really experienced in WoW. In WoW, I mostly had stories of friends goofing off but only one or two stories about events that happened because of the world. (The only one I can really think of is when we didn't clear the Scarlet Monastery and pulled a boss.) Whereas whenever I ran into someone who played DAoC with us on WAR, we'd immediately had tons and tons of stories to share. "Remember when a ton of skellies came out and chased us? We got on our boat and went to sea, and they were still running after us!" Actually, I didn't remember that story until Issigri reminded me, but it all came rushing back. The point is that there were so many stories that I couldn't remember them all.

Needless to say, I waited for WAR with a lot of anticipation. Within a few months, we were already afraid that the balance issues would kill the game, but a lot of us stubbornly held on simply because we were playing with a lot of the same crew that we got to know in DAoC and wanted to explore the world. The PvP, while not up to DAoC level, was still far more interesting than WoW's PvP. I'm worried WAR is going down the road of Tabula Rasa, and it's a complete shame since so many things that we identified at the beginning as major problems simply never got fixed. The death of an MMO can be extremely sad for its players.
 
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