EA Retiring Three More Warhammer Online Servers

[Logan Westbrook]

EA Retiring Three More Warhammer Online Servers

Players will receive free transfers to other servers when EA turns off the lights.

EA is closing the doors on a number of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning [http://www.amazon.com/Warhammer-Online-Age-Reckoning-Pc/dp/B000TD3IA2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1297164877&sr=8-1] servers in an effort to make the game more engaging and fun for its remaining players. EA is axing three servers, two for the US and one for Germany, and is integrating their populations into the remaining realms.

Players on the Iron Rock and Volkmar servers in the US will be able to transfer to the Gorfang server, while German players on Carroburg will be able to move their characters to Drakenwald. As this is going on, EA will activate the "multi-realm" function on the destination servers, allowing players to have characters from both factions on a single server, and increasing the character limit to 20. At the same time, the originating servers will be marked as "legacy" servers, preventing anyone from making a new character on them.

Players will be able to transfer their characters from the February 9th onwards and EA is hopeful that merging server populations will help players find others to play with - or against - regardless of the time of day. The original servers will remain open for three weeks, after which point they'll close down for good. Obviously, this isn't the best news in the world for EA, as these are just the latest in a long line of WAR servers it's had to shut down. It might prove to be a boon for WAR players, however, as the game is very heavily weighted towards PvP combat, and that's rather hard to do on a nearly empty server.

Source: Massively [http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/02/07/warhammer-online-offering-free-server-transfers-as-prelude-to-tw/]


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[Serenegoose]

It makes sense for the company and the players. Players aren't stuck in dead end servers thinking they represent the game, the company saves money and is less likely to just axe the game entirely. It makes sense for an MMO to have only exactly as many servers as it needs to sustain its population, inflating or shrinking as necessary. It's a little sad that WAR is mainly shrinking, but maybe people just want to give PEACE a chance?

Or, having played it, it really does feel like it's missing something other MMOs provide in the levelling experience.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Played that game when it came out.. Could not help but think that it was a good game but not good enough.

 

[deth2munkies]

Is it F2P yet? Thinking of giving it a shot in bored time.

 

[Littaly]

I feel a little sorry for WAR

It's not the best MMO out there, but it shouldn't have to struggle like it does. It really isn't that bad of a game.

 

[The Cheezy One]

Seems the best of both worlds really, as longas players actually want to have more people. EA saves money, and there are more populated worlds. I remember choosing a very sparce beginner world in WoW, and it did feel quite empty...

 

[Baron Khaine]

Long time WAR Beta tester and I said this from the start, they should have fixed all the instability and lag issues early on and started off with far less servers than they did. I was on the most populated EU server for about 3 months after launch, and there were days when I couldn't find anyone to fight in the Open World, which is by far the funnest part of WAR.

Is it F2P yet? Thinking of giving it a shot in bored time.

If I recall, its free till level 10, which tbh, atm are the best levels since thats where most of the PvP happens.

 

[Starke]

How many servers do they have left now?

 

[scw55]

This game is *very* boring with balance issues of numbers/having no people at all.
At the beginning, when they split realms to "deal with the surge of players", my mates and myself went to a quiet one. We'd queue up for a scenario (battleground) and the queue never, ever, popped.

On the flipside, when I started playing for a few months last year, I played Destruction on a Destruction heavily populated server. Leveling up RvR was sometimes awsome. But mostly boiled down to ganking the good guys at their Warcamp or playing Ring-A-Ring-A-Roses with "bases" and forts in the RvR lakes.

At end level it was in a sense worse. We'd steam roll through world RvR objectives, but if the good guys put up *any* resistance, 3/4 of Destruction would just afk to leach experiance and renown. And if we managed to get the city, PuG groups would always get raped when we would try and ransack it because it was a controlled enviroment. Equal number of Destruction vs equal number of good guys. Since there were less good guys, the chances of coming up against good players was increased.

It's also a piss take that a level 32 player can be in the same Scenario as a level 40 player will full PvP gear.

It's like a level 80 doing battlegrounds against level 85 in full arena gear (WoW).
Not only is it a gear difference, but a *huge* level difference.

 

[skywalkerlion]

Wow, they're closing Iron Rock? That's like the only server that still has people on it.

 

[uppitycracker]

This poor game had so much potential, but as others said, just fell short in a lot of aspects. It's a shame, really, because I want to see more games centered around open world PvP. it's a big reason why i just can't hang in the MMO market these days.

 

[Christemo]

this game was hyped to be the most epic thing of all time. i bought it on release day. was gripped by release hype and it had SOOOOO many good ideas, but the game was unpolished as fuck (not to mention they had 4-6 years to make it). but it turned out shit. it would take me 5 pages worth of writing to describe the flaws, glitches and the most lousy PvE of all time.

on topic, the game is already burning in the pit of overhyped games, so the player base is so small they should just cut it.

 

[Christemo]

Played that game when it came out.. Could not help but think that it was a good game but not good enough.

it had soo many good ideas like:

Tome of Knowledge (i tried the alpha at a gaming con where it was much smaller and more compact and didnt fill the entire fucking screen)
RvR leveling and PvE (RvR was fun but when i played Bright Wizard and Warrior Priests destroyed everything, and the PvE was piss lousy).
very unique classes (magus, marauder and loads of other classes were really cool).
Public Quests (that Rift picked up on and refined).

it couldve been one of the best games ever, but Mythic and GOA were piss lazy and released it 2 years or so early.

 

[The_Emperor]

I really enjoyed this game, PVP was awesome, Wasn't massively grindy, Classes were interesting, Community was pretty good. Design and Lore were good.

It was more innovative than most of the MMOs out there.

 

[fundayz]

I smell F2P.
Which is sad, that game had so much potential, yet they blew it through lack of focus and trying to differentiate themselves from DaOC(who knows why)

 

[Malkavian]

Long time WAR Beta tester and I said this from the start, they should have fixed all the instability and lag issues early on and started off with far less servers than they did. I was on the most populated EU server for about 3 months after launch, and there were days when I couldn't find anyone to fight in the Open World, which is by far the funnest part of WAR.

Actually, far the most RvR happens in Tier 4, which is the real problem. Playing through WAR it is an enormous chore to get renown points, until Tier 4. Problem is, you really need them there, since RvR is pretty damn intense their. To illustrate, when I first got to Tier 4, my computer which had so forth been running the game smoothly, ground to a halt the moment I joined RvR combat... So... Many... People... It was awesome, I had never experienced anything like it, and I had to lower my graphics a whole damn lot.


I played at beta + the first 6 months of the game. Then studies got too intense, and I had to give up on it. Then, 4 months ago, I picked it up again, and had a blast. Sadly, a busy christmas and exams meant I had to cancel it again. But I might resub in a month or two. It's a shame tha tthe game has to close down. Of the MMO's I have played, it is by far the best. Then again, I haven't tried WoW yet, and WoW is propably the problem...

 

[AceAngel]

Just make it F2P already, it will work out much better.

 

[KiKiweaky]

Long time WAR Beta tester and I said this from the start, they should have fixed all the instability and lag issues early on and started off with far less servers than they did. I was on the most populated EU server for about 3 months after launch, and there were days when I couldn't find anyone to fight in the Open World, which is by far the funnest part of WAR.

Is it F2P yet? Thinking of giving it a shot in bored time.

If I recall, its free till level 10, which tbh, atm are the best levels since thats where most of the PvP happens.

Most of the pvp in tier 1. Did you ever get a character to tier 4? Had a keep siege last week in which I was placed 202nd, yes I shit you not we had that many people attacking it.

I was pretty lucky with my choice of server always had a good population on it EU Karak Norn before you ask. I've been playing the game pretty solidly since it was released and it has been epic at times. Sadly it has also had its extremely boring moments.

The trouble with it is that as its a pvp centerred game, the end game content it: killing the king. Relies solely on your opostition staying in the instance and fighting. Which sadly they never do. I was in some great order guilds when the new city siege mechanic came in, it promised so much but only as long as the oposing realm played ball. 24 people on vent with characters between rr 70 - 80 vs 24 randoms is a massacre the like of which I have never seen before.

If they lasted 10 seconds they were doing well, after one or two wipes theyd realise it was hopeless and would log.

The sad thing is, is that this is one of many of its flaws. If it had more subscribers which it will probably never ever get, it could have been amazing.

I also think that many of the people who had left were playing it too much, got all the gear had no carrot to run for so just left (they have upped the rr to 100 now though, if you thought the gear gap was bad before o.o its like a chasm now).

 

[thiosk]

I said back when this game was announced... WAR and not WAR40k? seriously? You mean I get to level an orc\human\elf warrior\rogue\mage archetype again? SIGN ME UP.

Now I fear the work on the 40k mmo is just not going to do it for me either.

 

[LastDarkness]

Warhammer Online, I enjoyed this game and I still would had WoW expansions not pulled my entire guild back to that game leaving me high level with no established friends in the game world anymore.

I think this is a good step, but its not being taken far enough. Warhammer is a sinking ship and everyone knows it. It needs to take serious and drastic actions to keep itself afloat. As other have suggested they really should look at the Freemium service turbine has done that has not only increased their player base but also their finacial numbers significantly as well. This isnt a new concept either, there have been many minor MMOs that run more populations and more profits then this game. So it should be geniunly researched for them.

Also the player population is already a problem no matter what server you are on, and the cost of servers and bandwidth is a ever hemmoraging wound they should consolidate servers down to a skeleton crew list while working on ways to keep the ship afloat and the lights on.

The way the company has been presneting itself though and the state of the game screams to me like they are in heavy denial that theres anything wroung in the first place. -Sigh- I hope to the people who are currently working on this dont get near the Knights of the Old Republic MMO.