Warhammer Online Goes Out in "One Last Big WAAAGH!"

[IanDavis]

Warhammer Online Goes Out in "One Last Big WAAAGH!"

The MMO goes fully F2P for one last hurrah before closing for good.

Now that games exist in electronic states of flux, reports of them closing down happen as regularly as celebrity obituaries. Unlike aging stars, games get to announce their deaths in advance, which allows them to whip up a good and proper party before going dark. On its fifth anniversary, EA Mythic [a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/127933-Warhammer-Online-Closing-Down]announced the impending death[/a] of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. A game based around a world of violence will not simply go quiet into the night. Instead, [a href=http://ageofreckoning.warhammeronline.com/article/Parting-Gift]it's opening up the doors[/a] to previous players, becoming truly free-to-play and partying until the apocalypse comes.

Previously, Warhammer Online used the more restrictive "unlimited trial" model, rather than some sort of F2P monetization. However, that will all vanish for the next few weeks. Effective immediately, any account, past or present, will be welcomed back with full access. "We will be adding new NPC's to the game in order to power up your characters as well as other unique experiences for everyone to enjoy as we say goodbye to Warhammer Online over the next few weeks," EA Mythic proclaims, "So please join us and help say goodbye to Warhammer Online in one last big WAAAGH!"

If you're an MMO tourist who wants to wander through WAR's battlefields for the first and last time, you're out of luck, as the system to set up new accounts as been disabled. This will be a wake for veterans only. Meanwhile, the party will last until both Order and Chaos gods alike are consumed by darkness on December 18th.

Source: [a href=http://ageofreckoning.warhammeronline.com/article/Parting-Gift]EA Mythic[/a]

Permalink

 

[vallorn]

This is pretty much the best way they could have ended this game with the shutdown... It's a pity that it never truly took off but I guess that is what you get when you have a tumor like WoW in the industry.

 

[Worgen]

I'm tempted to throw it back on and see how my white lion is doing. It was a game with a lot of potential but they just released it too soon and before a wow expansion.

 

[GothmogII]

I'm tempted to throw it back on and see how my white lion is doing. It was a game with a lot of potential but they just released it too soon and before a wow expansion.

If anything they should have pushed out the 20K MMO, at least that way the wouldn't have been competing as much with the fantasy MMO market, not to mention that more people seem to know the 20K universe on account of all those smashing games Relic and kin did as opposed to the mediocre lot based on the Warhammer Fantasy setting.

Although, the 20K MMO is still in the works apparently, so hope that'll be good.

 

[faefrost]

WAR should be a cautionary tale for everyone in the industry looking to make an MMO. WAR, SWG, Lego Universe, Matrix Online, etc. MMO's are no place to be playing around with 3rd party IP's. There is no business win at the end of the road. You will never achieve the expectations of the original IP holders fans, they radically escalate the costs of the game to no real benefit in returns beyond some small spark of initial interest (that evaporates after 30-60 days) and you utterly limit yourself ultimately to the point of license renewal.The business case is horrible. Yet stupid developers and publishers keep trying it.

 

[Worgen]

I'm tempted to throw it back on and see how my white lion is doing. It was a game with a lot of potential but they just released it too soon and before a wow expansion.

If anything they should have pushed out the 20K MMO, at least that way the wouldn't have been competing as much with the fantasy MMO market, not to mention that more people seem to know the 20K universe on account of all those smashing games Relic and kin did as opposed to the mediocre lot based on the Warhammer Fantasy setting.

Although, the 20K MMO is still in the works apparently, so hope that'll be good.

I think you mean the 40k mmo. Anyway, it was being released by THQ and ended up getting axed when they went under, they tried changing it to a single player game but THQ went down too quick for it to be released. I think all assets had to be destroyed since it was someone else's IP.

 

[Lawyer105]

I think you mean the 40k mmo. Anyway, it was being released by THQ and ended up getting axed when they went under, they tried changing it to a single player game but THQ went down too quick for it to be released. I think all assets had to be destroyed since it was someone else's IP.

I think he's talking about http://www.eternalcrusade.com/# which appears to be a completely separate project.

 

[Scytail]

Also a bloody shame to see this go. Its really the only game I enjoyed the PvP in. Actual character collision in PvP gave anything that wasn't DPS a reason to do it...

Yeah it was nice being able to make an actual shield wall at choke points and not have the other team just walk right through you. Rogues not being able to walk through you to stab you in the back is also nice.

 

[Draconalis]

I almost want to fire up the old account, but downloading 25 gigs worth of data doesn't seem like a good time.

That being said... I kinda regret getting the collector's edition of this game.

 

[teebeeohh]

*engage snob mode*
this was one of those games i never enjoyed because it just wasn't as good as DAoC and because the funny british man with the silly glasses lied to me.
*disengage snib mode*

 

[Dr.Awkward]

I'm going to say this one more time, perhaps a hundred times, even a million times, every time I hear a MMO is going to close:

Release the server code.

If you would just make the server code available, your MMO, while now unsupported, would last much longer, and quite possibly could show the rest of the MMO development world that breaking this absolutely ridiculous taboo where private servers is a terrible, terrible thing to have for a MMO because it "defeats its own purpose" is completely ungrounded and is none whatsoever damaging to a game or its members. That is, if it is handled correctly, and even then sometimes letting the players make the rules causes very interesting events and stories to come out of a game, which is similar to EVE's setup.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I played this in Beta and at launch, and it was alright. The world event groups were an interesting addition, but the imbalances in PvP were a glaring flaw and the fact that it played pretty much like a Warhammer version of WoW pretty much put the nail in the coffin (anytime I hear or use that phrase I still hear the old school NBA Jam announcer's voice).
Good concept, poor execution. Still its sad to see it go because I did have fun during my limited play. I still feel that any MMO worth its weight should just follow Guild Wars' example and go pay once play forever.

 

[GothmogII]

I think you mean the 40k mmo. Anyway, it was being released by THQ and ended up getting axed when they went under, they tried changing it to a single player game but THQ went down too quick for it to be released. I think all assets had to be destroyed since it was someone else's IP.

I think he's talking about http://www.eternalcrusade.com/# which appears to be a completely separate project.

Aye, but whoops, did mean to say 40K x) Actually, they have very little info. on Eternal Crusade, but it does look interesting, they're apparently going to go the Guilds Wars method of payment, you buy the box and just play no messing with subscriptions, although they'll (according to the FAQ anyway) have a F2P mode and a cash store.

Two years away at present.

 

[Therumancer]

Meh, this game had some good ideas, but was a mess. It's a big part of why I was less than excited to hear that EA was putting people from Mythic on "The Old Republic". Simply put game balance was a mess, the so called forces of order were getting steamrolled when I played due to how overpowered chaos was despite the attempts to "mirror" things. Chaos also outnumbered the Order side, which is a big deal in a game where numbers can have such as big an impact as well, which was a problem that should have been noticed when they had that "Road to WAR" event pre-launch.

It's also one of those cases where the guys doing the game simply did not listen to the critics in beta, like happens with a lot of MMOs. In a lot of cases when I'm in Betas, especially closed betas, you have people who will spell out exactly what the problems with a game's design are. Rather than listening, the "toxic" elements are ignored, the game plugs along, gets released, and then comes to a bad end, probably after a mixed reception. WAR was one of those games.

Indeed this is one of the reasons why I knock the corporate mentality, and hold devs just as accountable as the publishers. The devs in many cases should have known better. Surprisingly it seems to be a common defense that the games "Tested well among focus groups". Honestly I've long wondered who exactly is on some of these focus groups and what they are shown, because oftentimes it doesn't match the reality of what's going on in beta... at least for a lot
of games.

It's sort of like how "The Secret World" has been viewed as something of a failure (despite being a game I personally really like). It got some pretty positive responses in beta when I was there, but also because it was supposedly being released as a niche title. Had anyone ever mentioned they planned this to be some major blockbuster the way they hoped Age Of Conan was going to go over (and never did) it would have been pretty obvious to all involved that the game as it was, would never succeed on that level.

 

[fix-the-spade]

I'm going to say this one more time, perhaps a hundred times, even a million times, every time I hear a MMO is going to close:

Release the server code.

Never going to happen with a third party owned IP, Games Workshop would personally litigate everyone involved to death before they allowed the Warhammer name to be attached to something they could no longer charge for.

Also, given EA's scorched earth attitude to turning off multiplayer games (seriously, the last games of theirs I remember being 'set loose' to the players were BF2 and 2142, that was in 2009!) I doubt very much that they would allow their product out into the wild for free.

It's my biggest dislike of MMOs and any game tied to an always online system (like bf3/4/all console games), it's separating your ability to play from your desire and handing control to the publisher, who will only allow you to play as long as they feel it monetarily worthwhile.

But hey, it could be worse, it could be a massive royalties dodge like when NCSoft killed Tabula Rasa.

 

[cricket chirps]

I'm going to say this one more time, perhaps a hundred times, even a million times, every time I hear a MMO is going to close:

Release the server code.

If you would just make the server code available, your MMO, while now unsupported, would last much longer, and quite possibly could show the rest of the MMO development world that breaking this absolutely ridiculous taboo where private servers is a terrible, terrible thing to have for a MMO because it "defeats its own purpose" is completely ungrounded and is none whatsoever damaging to a game or its members. That is, if it is handled correctly, and even then sometimes letting the players make the rules causes very interesting events and stories to come out of a game, which is similar to EVE's setup.

Soooo I am NOT a big MMO person, I just do not like them.

And I am now realizing that may be because of this. I don't like the idea of losing my stuff in the long term. On a similar but not great comparison, this is why I couldn't play minecraft with my friends until we had our own server running that we could control. All that work could be lost at any moment.

MMO's really need to do that in the future to become successful ._. that IS the key isn't it?
I mean look at minecraft, in all reality anyone still playing that game is playing with their friends on servers. Not some giant set of Mojang hosted servers, but privately owned ones. And the game is a nonstop growing success.

Now I know the two are monetarily different in a HUGE way, but keeping people playing and wanting to play your game is really the only way to be monetarily successful at all....sooooo yea wow, MMO's of the future need to do that.....I mean NEED to, especially when they think they are losing everything and just gonna shut it down. KEEP the fan base, and lose some money to make more money in the long term.

 

[katuysha]

I can't wait for the infinitely large download to finish, I'm going play the hell out of this game until the bitter end, it was my favourite MMORPG, although I'm in a minority there.