Warhammer Online Should Now Be Single-Player Museum, Mythic Dev Says

[Karloff]

Warhammer Online Should Now Be Single-Player Museum, Mythic Dev Says

There's an executable in the recently shuttered Warhammer Online that could change everything.

Warhammer Online is dead and gone [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/129271-Warhammer-Online-Goes-Out-in-One-Last-Big-WAAAGH]. The servers are offline for good, and with them went the world. "It's one of the cruel realities of MMORPG development," says developer Josh Drescher. "You can't just load up your old work years later and show it off to your kids." Except, points out Andrew Meggs, formerly of Mythic Entertainment, this time you can and, in an open letter, he asks EA to do just that.

There's a single player executable hidden away in the code. It was never intended to run the game, and all it can actually do is let players into the world without a server. That means no NPCs, no goals, no gameplay of any kind. It wouldn't compete against future releases, since it can't be played, not in any meaningful sense.

"It's not a game any more," Maggs says. "It's a place for the die-hard fans to visit by themselves." Watch a sunset, see the campfires eternally burning. But, more importantly, see the creation that all those developers poured heart, soul and countless hours of labor into, building something that no longer exists.

Warhammer Online is nothing without the players, but that wouldn't be the point. The version Maggs envisions is a kind of museum, in which a little bit of gaming history is preserved for as long as gamers still have it installed on their drives.

"I can't do this; I left behind the code when I left EA," says Maggs. "But there are people inside EA who can easily make this happen. Please do."

Source: Shiny Toys Blog [http://shinytoys.org/blog/war-in-a-bottle]


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[Eiv]

This is fantastic. I would love it if they did this with more MMOs (City Of Heroes comes to mind). Imagine being able open a literal Museum (or exhibition)that catered only to dead MMOs. Hrmmmm, one can dream.

 

[tmande2nd]

Oh lord that was funny.

EA do something nice and free for gamers?
Hey they might still...NO cant finish that sentence.

Thanks for the morning giggle though

 

[Irridium]

I would love this. I really hope they do it. There's just... something about wandering old, dead battlegrounds yourself. I routinely pop in Halo 2 and wander around the maps.

Yeah, hope EA allows this. And I hope MMO's as a whole allow more of this in the future.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

I know most people are laughing saying EA is a bunch of wanks and won't do this if they can't profit off of it, but if they're looking for good PR, and it costs them zilch, they just might do it.

 

[Ickabod]

There is probably a market to be had here if EA released the world for single player allowing it to be moded. Seems like it could have license revenue potential.

 

[Tactical Pause]

This is actually a pretty neat idea. Games do tend to have a bit of a preservation problem, and MMOs seem like they get the worst of it. If EA agrees to do this, I wonder if it will become more commonplace for dying MMOs.

 

[ron1n]

They should have just released the code and let people play it on private servers.

Not sure I'd want to go on a virtual tour of the game though. Would just make me nostalgic, sad and angry over what should have, nay, what could have been a much better game.

If nothing else, it should be remembered for being one of the only (if not THE only) MMO in history to have Oceanic (Australian) hosted servers at launch. Was the best MMO PvP experience I've ever had because of that decision.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I doubt it will happen, but not for the reason people might think.

Games Workshop, the creators of the Warhammer universe are very very zealous at protecting their IP.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Shall we dare to dream of EA being philanthropical?.

Also I love that one of the devs was able to stash this code away in the game without anyone else realising it. Kinda shows how much autonomy game devs actually have in their coding (and probably why there are so many bugs and problems with game code.)

 

[Sanunes]

I just wonder if Games Workshop has any say in the matter for something like this? For with something like this I would think permission would be needed from both EA and Games Workshop.

 

[Worgen]

Just being able to run through a level and see the creatures and even some of the player animations would be cool, it would be most awesome if it was a half playable thing, like you still had monsters that you could attack to relive some of the gameplay.

 

[Absolutionis]

I know most people are laughing saying EA is a bunch of wanks and won't do this if they can't profit off of it, but if they're looking for good PR, and it costs them zilch, they just might do it.

EA is not a gaming company. Why would they care about earning good PR amongst gamers?

EA is a social rights group. They constantly uphold gay rights and donate to charities and should be commended for their accomplishments.

They clearly won't do it because such a PR move is gaming-related while EA is not a gaming-related company. Regardless, as a charitible social rights group, EA is at the top of the best company in America.

 

[Hazzard]

I was just thinking that they could use the world made to make a cheap single player game. They have a world the size of Skyrim that could be split down into a few different games. What if the chaos content was made into a single-player RPG with Dark Souls-esque content?

 

[exobook]

I doubt it will happen, but not for the reason people might think.

Games Workshop, the creators of the Warhammer universe are very very zealous at protecting their IP.

IT would really depend on the small print of the contract when Games Workshop signed the deal to create the MMO.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I doubt it will happen, but not for the reason people might think.

Games Workshop, the creators of the Warhammer universe are very very zealous at protecting their IP.

IT would really depend on the small print of the contract when Games Workshop signed the deal to create the MMO.

You misunderstand me, when I say they are 'very very zealous' I mean that they are almost par with friggin Disney, a corporation who have been pushing legislation that extends control over copyrighted works for at least 70 years past the creators death.

Warhammer Online would have never have come about if the contract meant that GW's grip on its IP would have been loosened. Besides when THQ when under all the Dawn of War and Space Marine IP (whose copyright wording is similar to Warhammer Online) reverted back to GW and wasn't a part of the asset auction.

 

[Auberon]

I know that GW is unbelievably zealous over 40k, but that's to my knowledge main source of their revenue. That extends to WHFB too?

 

[UltimatheChosen]

They should have just released the code and let people play it on private servers.

I don't know if they could have, since they were licensing the game from Games Workshop. I assume that there were periodic licensing fees they had to pay.