213: Casualty of Warhammer

[Byers]

Took me about 20 minutes of gameplay to figure out that WAR having any lasting success wasn't going to happen. The gameplay, controls, class mechanics and animations were all of vastly inferior quality than WoW. And I say that as someone who was - and is - sick to death of WoW.

How the developers weren't critical enough of their own work to catch some of the problems and mediocrities that plagued the game from the start, before the actual release, is nothing short of astounding.

 

[Wandrecanada]

Why try and create ANOTHER fantasy mmo on top of the already existing million of them? Why not go with War40k? I still personally want to try the game. Though I'm at least 4 months away from being able to, time will tell.

Because THQ and Vigil Games are already in the process of making a Warhammer 40k MMO.

http://www.massively.com/2009/04/03/warhammer-40k-mmo-gets-a-release-date/

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6166560.html

Don't get too excited just yet though. It isn't scheduled to be released until 2012.

Yeah the issue was essentially that THQ owned the production rights to the 40k MMO so it was bust for anyone else to try. It's too bad THQ is so often fail...

I was a closed beta player, collecters edition owner (still am and the artbook is sweet), and a longtime player. I recently canceled after the botched job that was the 1.3 and 1.3b patch sets. If you were playing up until then you'll know why I dropped out (Shaman/Magus were my mains >.< ).

The game failed for a number of reasons and are likely far too numerous to list off in one post. Generally it was a failure to roll with their initial plan for how the endgame would look, in favor of caving to outcry from players who had no real far sighted vision on how the game would look once populations started to mass in the endgame areas.

First major patch dealt with mostly bugs but it did the one thing that started the decline of the game. It removed the normalization of all game item sets to prevent stat stacking and unbalancing their original career abilities. See in the beginning all your gear, especially set gear, had all kinds of stat distribution on them. It prevented anyone from amassing too much power while keeping everyone on a level playing field where using your abilities properly is how you won a fight.

After this first big patch they retooled all the gear stats (except a few blue staves that retained wep skill...) so they dropped a lot of the normalizing values like toughness/wep skill/initiative/WP and allowed for primary stat stacking. Suddenly we saw certain careers who relied heavily upon one stat jump far ahead of the pack, while leaving those other classes who were really balanced around this normalized idea behind (dual role classes like healers, tanks and utility classes like marauder and white lion).

This caused the first nerf waves to roll in. Witch Elf was neutered in favor of more "line busting" or AoE and melee was pretty much left to rot. For the single stats AoE RDPS this was to shape the rest of the game from then on. Melee would not see a shot in hell at being effective again until the Choppa/Slayer patch about 6 months later.

It took them 8-10 months to realize why the AoE idea wasn't so grand even though the decline in subscriptions can be easily mapped by using those patches to determine where the problems first occurred. Even now the Bright Wizard and Sorceress are still considered the most powerful and hard to kill classes in the game (no foil to them was ever provided after the AoE patch).

Add to this the increase of AoE CC effects that people complained about having too much of already. Ineffectual ways of trying to keep these mechanics in the game instead of just moving away from what was clearly antagonizing their user base. It's pretty much the story of Warhammer from it's inception.

Cave to public pressure on the first patch you do and break your entire concept from the 2nd week of it's release but then refuse to listen to them for the rest of your game's lifespan because you know better than they do if your game is 'fun to play' or not.

The article clearly states the obvious problem with Mythics internal view of the game and the view that the players have. They can't understand what they are doing wrong so it must be an external source, while players leave in frustration after spending weeks writing massive thesis' on why the game is not working.

 

[Jupsto]

sad story.

 

[Credge]

For anyone that remembers the reason why Choppas were removed from the game, along with their counterpart on the other side, it was fairly obvious the game wouldn't work.

They had plenty of time to get the Choppa to work, but they didn't. Instead of actually getting the concept balanced and working, they said "Fuck it, lets just not include it at launch." That is a sign of a development team that doesn't know what they are doing.

 

[Lord_Jaroh]

It's too bad too many of these developers try to steal WoW's thunder by making the same game with a different skin, and so many fail. Newsflash: People want something different than WoW. Otherwise they will continue playing WoW! Do you think people want to pay monthly to level up another toon in the same kind of game that they just quit playing in the same way? To beat WoW, you're going to have to do something different to grab the subscriber base that's bored with the game. Don't do the same thing, with a little PvP trappings tacked on...

All I need to say is it's no wonder why it failed.

 

[theultimateend]

It's too bad too many of these developers try to steal WoW's thunder by making the same game with a different skin, and so many fail. Newsflash: People want something different than WoW. Otherwise they will continue playing WoW! Do you think people want to pay monthly to level up another toon in the same kind of game that they just quit playing in the same way? To beat WoW, you're going to have to do something different to grab the subscriber base that's bored with the game. Don't do the same thing, with a little PvP trappings tacked on...

All I need to say is it's no wonder why it failed.

That's what I've been saying . WoW has created a paradigm where people need to innovate. I like that. I just wish someone with the resources would step up to the plate (IE any game company large enough to make a game).

 

[Lord_Jaroh]

It's too bad too many of these developers try to steal WoW's thunder by making the same game with a different skin, and so many fail. Newsflash: People want something different than WoW. Otherwise they will continue playing WoW! Do you think people want to pay monthly to level up another toon in the same kind of game that they just quit playing in the same way? To beat WoW, you're going to have to do something different to grab the subscriber base that's bored with the game. Don't do the same thing, with a little PvP trappings tacked on...

All I need to say is it's no wonder why it failed.

That's what I've been saying . WoW has created a paradigm where people need to innovate. I like that. I just wish someone with the resources would step up to the plate (IE any game company large enough to make a game).

It's also ruined the bar of the industry as any game that doesn't do as well as it is considered "a failure" by any other respects. Thus, developers look at it as big, fat dollar-signs and try to emulate it, hoping they'll "fool" people into playing their game instead of WoW, apparently being too stupid to realize that if a person already has a maxed out character on a game, they probably won't play another one like it just to do the same thing.

Developers need to do something different. They need to stop concentrating on combat means everything and actually create an online "world" where you can be and do anything you want. Focusing on combat ruins the game, from not having enough content to satisfy players to worrying constantly on balancing classes to be equal. The game that comes closest to this is EVE, and it's one that more games should look to when pulling ideas from.

 

[hansari]

Getting video game industry insight from a guy who was an in game mod...Oh my!!!

Such details on the downfall of Warhammer from a guy who wasn't even in the lower tier of developers...

Hahaha...I hope Time magazine calls me back to setup my interview. My brief time mopping the floors at Burger King should provide vital insight into the complex workings of the Fast Food industry...

The article clearly states the obvious problem with Mythics internal view of the game and the view that the players have. They can't understand what they are doing wrong so it must be an external source, while players leave in frustration after spending weeks writing massive thesis' on why the game is not working.

Thats awfully kind..

The way he goes on about "Rock Band" parties, you would think they all kicked their feet up once the game launched...

 

[Skinnick]

This story is all too common in the current state of the industry. I was recently working as a QA engineer for a major mmo and was laid off not because of budget cutbacks but to free up the position for foreign contract workers. Apparently the industry as a whole has stopped staffing their own QA departments and have outsourced these jobs to companies in Canada and India. A lot of companies are also changing their development strategies to make the developers themselves handle QA. This makes it impossible to get a foot in the door unless you have a 4 year degree. What ends up happening is a damaged state economy and very weak quality especially for an MMO. A foreign team of testers does not have the fluid access to the developers that they need to assure quality. It's a sad sad state of affairs and if it doesn't stop and reverse, we're going to lose the industry to Asia and Europe. As for WAR, I played since launch and just recently cancelled my account. Around January there was an insane amount of character transfers which seriously tipped the balance race wise. On some servers there were just way too many order and on others too many destruction. Add that to various balance issues that hadn't even been touched since launch and it's no wonder why it's a dying game.

 

[Christemo]

Why try and create ANOTHER fantasy mmo on top of the already existing million of them? Why not go with War40k? I still personally want to try the game. Though I'm at least 4 months away from being able to, time will tell.

Because THQ and Vigil Games are already in the process of making a Warhammer 40k MMO.

http://www.massively.com/2009/04/03/warhammer-40k-mmo-gets-a-release-date/

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6166560.html

Don't get too excited just yet though. It isn't scheduled to be released until 2012.

Yeah the issue was essentially that THQ owned the production rights to the 40k MMO so it was bust for anyone else to try. It's too bad THQ is so often fail...

THQ? FAIL? they have created BRILLIANT games. Dawn of War, Titan Quest, Company of Heroes, etc. they have already nailed RPG hard in the bum with titan quest, so i see no problem in their skills at making an MMORPG.

 

[Candlejack DANZA]

It's simple: We Kill the Warcraft

 

[Wandrecanada]

Why try and create ANOTHER fantasy mmo on top of the already existing million of them? Why not go with War40k? I still personally want to try the game. Though I'm at least 4 months away from being able to, time will tell.

Because THQ and Vigil Games are already in the process of making a Warhammer 40k MMO.

http://www.massively.com/2009/04/03/warhammer-40k-mmo-gets-a-release-date/

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6166560.html

Don't get too excited just yet though. It isn't scheduled to be released until 2012.

Yeah the issue was essentially that THQ owned the production rights to the 40k MMO so it was bust for anyone else to try. It's too bad THQ is so often fail...

THQ? FAIL? they have created BRILLIANT games. Dawn of War, Titan Quest, Company of Heroes, etc. they have already nailed RPG hard in the bum with titan quest, so i see no problem in their skills at making an MMORPG.

Notice I didn't say always fail. I just said often fail. Look to none other than Starcraft: Ghost. The project was so badly bungled that Blizzard just pulled the title from them after (I seem to recall) 4 years. THQ literally killed Starcraft: Ghost with their failure.

Not to mention a long list of mediocre or terrible titles. Summoner 2 is a great example of why they shouldn't come near anything remotely RPG. The Red Faction franchise had plenty of potential as well, but every game past the first one was either blah or bad.

If someone is finally going to make the Warhammer 40k MMO that everyone has been DYING to sink their teeth into, I would prefer we had a company who was truly a master of their craft. Someone who won't just make a good game but a fantastically awesome game.

This was a job for Bioware...

Addendum: Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of THQ titles I find good. I really enjoyed the original Summoner and Red Faction. I am fairly surprised by how much I like THQ:ICE's new title Dragonica. Destroy All Humans was a blast (despite the unfinished last game due to THQ's shutdown of the company). I'm also a fan of Frontlines.

 

[Anonymous1123]

I can say there are some truth to this article but also some false claims. As many have already commented, gold farming and Lich King did not lead to the downfall of Warhammer Online. A decline in subscriptions was expected with the Lich King release, the key was to maintain with content and a superior PvP system.

As for the CSRs being developers in a year, yeah, that's not true. That's something they spoonfeed when you're hired. I doubt that even 10% of the newly hired CSRs would have become Devs in 2 years time. It's sad, but true.

Mythic was always good with taking care of the CSRs when working on holidays. It was the right thing to do. No one wants to work on Christmas or Thanksgiving. Same thing with the Warhammer development team with catered dinners every night. That was a waste of money in my opinion. If you have a deadline to make then you make it - catered dinners or not. This went on for months. Once a week would have been enough.

As for War's failures, I'm not going to go too much into that for unmentioned reasons. I will say say that those who were laid off across the company were not the ones responsible for the bad decisions. Those people, for the most part, still work there.

Lastly, it was made clear early on that Warhammer would not be a DAOC 2. DAOC was seen as a failure after TOA (internally higher up), eventhough the game maintained a great many subscribers for years. DAOC became the red headed step child and Warhammer was the coddled newborn from a different mother.

 

[Catdevil]

So much talking and braging about this game, to bad they couldn't live up to it.

 

[sunnykoda]

I'm still playing warhammer, have been since beta, and would like to say a couple of things.

First the fact that a CSR that was employed to handle user complaints blames WoW and goldfarming? for the 800k -> 300k drop shows that it really is ignorance that's afflicting the game. It was forced out too early (there are still so many bugs that they don't even have time to address because there are more serious problems) so when people's first month was up they had to decide if they were going to subscribe based on what they had seen in the that time, and I can freely admit that it could barely even be called Beta at that point. You only get one first impression and they balled it so badly they lost everything their hype campaign created. The fact that they constantly ignore the realities here is perhaps the truly sad story.

The game is fairly solid now, although Mythic continue to stumble slowly forward, and I've as recently as yesterday had some fantastic experiences playing (in the near abandoned tier 3 no less!) but a PvP based MMO needs more than anything else a Population and some Class Balance and this they do not have. While classes will hopefully be balanced and the game will continue to be great fun I fear they really blew their shot with the population. Although I have seen quite a few WoW converts in the last month so hopefully more people will be able to appreciate the game as it should have been at launch.

PvP is great! While organising any large group of gamers online is a challenge I've seen the power of gear, skill and co-ordination overcome all manner of odds. Be it 2v2 counterstrike or a Guild Warband in an MMO nothing beats the rush of organised game play.

I've never gotten into an MMO before because PvP seems to be the only good thing about them (besides immersive worlds of which only the huge lore of Warhammer has caught me) and the addition of Australian servers meant that I could actually compete. But people won't pay for an ideal, hopefully the lesson has been learned. It seems those AU servers will be closing and I'll be done. I Don't think I'll play another MMO either but I'll keep in touch with my guildies

 

[TheNumber1Zero]

I wish I could care.

Promising game? Yeah, it was promising. And I still can't forgive them for ripping me and 700k people out of $50+ for beta testing a game that was supposed to be after a beta test. They didn't balance the classes, they didn't make end-game rewarding or interesting.

I wish I could get my $80 back from them, because I had more fun in Open Beta than in the whole retail.

Don't blame WoW for people leaving. You promise people a PvP/RvR game, they pay you, you fail to deliver a good PvP/RvR experience, they go to a better PvE game.

Also, I doubt the numbers of WAR were because of WoW's expansion pack release. - it's more of ignoring the community.

More about this here:

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=304136


edit: Lol, one sentence didn't make sense.

statement number 1:was it the first sentence,because you lost me there

statement 2:I like this guys input,I'd give cookie,but I has no cookies,so you get boom

and warhammer,you get this

next time,do it better,or not at all

 

[13thforswarn]

This was depressing. I knew WAR was being overshadowed by WoW, but I didn't know it was that bad.

 

[Anime Annie]

Oh please, blaming EA for Mythic's problems makes about as much sense as blaming WoW for Mythic's problems. Many of these studios are already teetering on the edge of insolvency. It's incredibly naive (or intellectually lazy) to think that any of the studios who get purchased aren't running with open arms to the table and it's usually arms rushing to scoop up "the cannibal's" money. Being purchased by a big developer or publisher gives them a needed cash boost to prove themselves. Some fail, some don't. It's a damn shame when they do fail because the people working there get hurt. But continually blaming it on some "evil empire" really misses the point.

I feel for the author, but c'mon, its EA. They're the anti-christ of gaming and one of the roving cannibal companies that eats the talent of other companies and tries to pretend the games made after that are as good as the original, and that endless microtransactions are totally worth it.

 

[Anime Annie]

It's too bad too many of these developers try to steal WoW's thunder by making the same game with a different skin, and so many fail. Newsflash: People want something different than WoW. Otherwise they will continue playing WoW! Do you think people want to pay monthly to level up another toon in the same kind of game that they just quit playing in the same way? To beat WoW, you're going to have to do something different to grab the subscriber base that's bored with the game. Don't do the same thing, with a little PvP trappings tacked on...

All I need to say is it's no wonder why it failed.

A couple of years at the Austin Game Development Conference one of the WoW developers said something similar: "if you're rebuilding WoW you're already 4 years and millions of dollars behind" and he was right. It's a shame more developers don't listen. I think new game innovation will happen, but I doubt it will happen in the MMO world. It's just too expensive to build something and then throw it against the wall to see if it sticks.