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

[AldUK]

You know, Warhammer Fantasy was a big part of my life growing up. I began with Wood Elves at the age of 10 and over 11 years until I finally packed it in, I owned a High Elf army, an Empire army and a Beastmen force. I think I spent around £2000 on this hobby over that time, every birthday it was straight down to Game's Workshop to blow it away on plastic and lead. Same for all of my friends.

I always wanted to try out this game. However everything I read repeated that it was a lesser WoW clone, like so many other failed MMO projects in the 6 years after WoW's launch. As someone who played WoW and found it lacking and honestly feels like it did enormous harm to the genre, I couldn't bring myself to fork out more money into Game's Workshop's hands. If I had any other way in, for example truly free to play with cosmetic micro-transactions... I would of played this game.

I agree with above posters, why destroy this and all that work of both developers and players alike, release the servers to your players and let it live on. Unfortunately I'm not so naive as to believe this will actually happen.

 

[Moloch Sacrifice]

I know this is Warhammer Fantasy, but it'd be just too epic if on december 18th the Imperial Inquisition launches a full scale exterminatus.

Spoiler

I doubt it, GW removed all but the most vague references to the 40k universe from the Fantasy fluff.

But it would be a glorious ending.

Glorious does not do it justice. The Warhammer setting has always been about the heroic deeds of individuals in the face of insanely powerful opposition; to stand defiant against assault and temptation even as hope crumbles away around your feet. Elves, Dwarves and Humans all fought a losing battle from the start; their enemies were more numerous, more insidious, and had far greater reach than any of them could ever hope for. Whilst they continue to resist to the very end, the forces of Order are doomed to have ultimately been worn down, reduced to a few small holdouts that slowly dwindled away or roared their final fury to the last second. For any hope to exist, there needs to be a game changer.

Exterminatus is considered by those of us who exist outside of the setting to be a bitter ending, and in many respects it is. The loss of a planet, a strategic resource, a billion souls, and a home. However, what we forget is that this option is to be taken only when everything is already stolen, and all is firmly clutched to the enemy's bosom. It is a final, desperate gambit, to sacrifice all that a planet is and will be to prevent the suffering of others many light years away.

I imagine the final days of the Warhammer World to be bitter for those who chose to resist. Fighting would be constant, and every day would leave many dead, and many more lost to madness as they struggle to defend what small patches of earth still belong to them. I would like to believe that as the unknowable ships clustered above, that someone held enough of a vantage point and enough sanity to see the vast writhing hordes of Chaos burn in the heat of the firestorms, and take solace in the knowledge that whilst they might lose their lives, the thieves who came to take their land and souls would leave that plane empty handed; denying the Dark Gods their playground and instead granting them a dry, charred orb in which their insane minds must find consolation. By denying the prize at the last second, an Exterminatus would bring a final humiliation to Chaos that would hold no peer.

 

[AldUK]

Glorious does not do it justice. The Warhammer setting has always been about the heroic deeds of individuals in the face of insanely powerful opposition; to stand defiant against assault and temptation even as hope crumbles away around your feet. Elves, Dwarves and Humans all fought a losing battle from the start; their enemies were more numerous, more insidious, and had far greater reach than any of them could ever hope for. Whilst they continue to resist to the very end, the forces of Order are doomed to have ultimately been worn down, reduced to a few small holdouts that slowly dwindled away or roared their final fury to the last second. For any hope to exist, there needs to be a game changer.

Exterminatus is considered by those of us who exist outside of the setting to be a bitter ending, and in many respects it is. The loss of a planet, a strategic resource, a billion souls, and a home. However, what we forget is that this option is to be taken only when everything is already stolen, and all is firmly clutched to the enemy's bosom. It is a final, desperate gambit, to sacrifice all that a planet is and will be to prevent the suffering of others many light years away.

I imagine the final days of the Warhammer World to be bitter for those who chose to resist. Fighting would be constant, and every day would leave many dead, and many more lost to madness as they struggle to defend what small patches of earth still belong to them. I would like to believe that as the unknowable ships clustered above, that someone held enough of a vantage point and enough sanity to see the vast writhing hordes of Chaos burn in the heat of the firestorms, and take solace in the knowledge that whilst they might lose their lives, the thieves who came to take their land and souls would leave that plane empty handed; denying the Dark Gods their playground and instead granting them a dry, charred orb in which their insane minds must find consolation. By denying the prize at the last second, an Exterminatus would bring a final humiliation to Chaos that would hold no peer.

Can I nominate this for post of the frickin' year? I almost teared up reading that, I swear to Zeus.

Beautiful. Stunning. Burn in fiery wrath, Chaos.

 

[Drizzitdude]

Glorious does not do it justice. The Warhammer setting has always been about the heroic deeds of individuals in the face of insanely powerful opposition; to stand defiant against assault and temptation even as hope crumbles away around your feet. Elves, Dwarves and Humans all fought a losing battle from the start; their enemies were more numerous, more insidious, and had far greater reach than any of them could ever hope for. Whilst they continue to resist to the very end, the forces of Order are doomed to have ultimately been worn down, reduced to a few small holdouts that slowly dwindled away or roared their final fury to the last second. For any hope to exist, there needs to be a game changer.

Exterminatus is considered by those of us who exist outside of the setting to be a bitter ending, and in many respects it is. The loss of a planet, a strategic resource, a billion souls, and a home. However, what we forget is that this option is to be taken only when everything is already stolen, and all is firmly clutched to the enemy's bosom. It is a final, desperate gambit, to sacrifice all that a planet is and will be to prevent the suffering of others many light years away.

I imagine the final days of the Warhammer World to be bitter for those who chose to resist. Fighting would be constant, and every day would leave many dead, and many more lost to madness as they struggle to defend what small patches of earth still belong to them. I would like to believe that as the unknowable ships clustered above, that someone held enough of a vantage point and enough sanity to see the vast writhing hordes of Chaos burn in the heat of the firestorms, and take solace in the knowledge that whilst they might lose their lives, the thieves who came to take their land and souls would leave that plane empty handed; denying the Dark Gods their playground and instead granting them a dry, charred orb in which their insane minds must find consolation. By denying the prize at the last second, an Exterminatus would bring a final humiliation to Chaos that would hold no peer.

Can I nominate this for post of the frickin' year? I almost teared up reading that, I swear to Zeus.

Beautiful. Stunning. Burn in fiery wrath, Chaos.

I don't know about all that. While its true that the denizens of the planet get one last "screw you" before the planet falls. The truth of the matter is no one knows what will happen. You can go through many a 40K book and find that small squads of space marines or even something as low as imperial guardsman can occasionally turn a battle around. I know the warhammer universe is all about the never ending harsh conditions of war but destroying a planet the forces of chaos have taken still seems like letting them win. And entire world and all of its resources and denizens have been wiped from existence, they are never coming back and the world is a husk. You keep destroying planets and eventually youll find that you running out of homes while Chaos laughs its ass off in the warp, and come on now, lets not even get started on the fact that while the planet is now inhabitable to humans, other races like necrons can have a giggle there.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

My fondest memory of this game, from the brief time I had with it, was with my small goblin character. I was given a quest which to me stands among the most original, brilliant and hilariously fun that I've ever encountered in a game, online or off. I was tasked with getting dwarves drunk so that they passed out asleep. Once unconscious, I collected their sleeping forms and moved to the top of their fort where I put them in barrels and rolled them over a waterfall.

I like the way PvP and PvE levelled separately and how they joined PvP open quest zones into the world at large. It was just a shame that there weren't any players against whom to compete in these areas. Mid-levels, odd hours, instanced zones (I think?) all came together to mean that unless opposing players happened to be at the same level and point in their storylines, you'd wander the entire zone alone, unable to complete any objectives requiring defeating opposing players.

 

[Jynthor]

I want to try it but I have no idea what my account name, password or even the email address I used are.
So no WAR for me I guess.

 

[DanielBrown]

Bought this game around 2008, or something, and really wanted to love it. However, I was after a PvE experience, so all I came across was empty zones that quickly became way to hard for me to solo. For example it took a full minute for my Warrior Priest to kill an enemy around level 15. During that minute the mob I had killed before had spawned again and was hitting my back. Could never progress anywhere with him.
Eventually attempted some PvP and thought it was tons of fun, though the exp gain was way too low and my side constantly seemed to be the losers which made me despise it. Left with neither PvE nor PvE there was nothing left to do.

Ugh, I don't know. Would be fun to check it out again, but I got a feeling it would just be a waste of time.

 

[Lyri]

I want to try it but I have no idea what my account name, password or even the email address I used are.
So no WAR for me I guess.

Make a new one?

 

[Ftaghn To You Too]

The real downside of it was the setting, Warhammer looked and felt like a WoW clone. now had they went the path of 40k, then there would of been more room for content and mechanics.

I think one of the biggest problems of WAR was that it didn't fit with the setting. Warhammer Fantasy is actually very unique, since it's essentially the Renaissance Holy Roman Empire in a fantasy world, surrounded by a bunch of other twisted versions of historical places. WAR warped the aesthetic from almost historical art and design to the WoW-esque aesthetic. And it's a damn shame.

 

[Moloch Sacrifice]

huge frickin' snip

Can I nominate this for post of the frickin' year? I almost teared up reading that, I swear to Zeus.

Beautiful. Stunning. Burn in fiery wrath, Chaos.

I don't know about all that. While its true that the denizens of the planet get one last "screw you" before the planet falls. The truth of the matter is no one knows what will happen. You can go through many a 40K book and find that small squads of space marines or even something as low as imperial guardsman can occasionally turn a battle around. I know the warhammer universe is all about the never ending harsh conditions of war but destroying a planet the forces of chaos have taken still seems like letting them win. And entire world and all of its resources and denizens have been wiped from existence, they are never coming back and the world is a husk. You keep destroying planets and eventually youll find that you running out of homes while Chaos laughs its ass off in the warp, and come on now, lets not even get started on the fact that while the planet is now inhabitable to humans, other races like necrons can have a giggle there.

I think you've made a faulty assumption about the nature of Chaos. Chaos is directly fed by the emotions and thoughts of mortals, and the Gods require this to sustain themselves. The entire motivation behind taking a planet is not to destroy, but to turn it into an insane farm of emotions, where the mortal experiences that feed the Gods (Anger, Hope, Despair and Pleasure, as well as minor emotions for minor entities) are concentrated and accentuated. If the planet is reduced to a withered husk, the insane breeding ground of emotion is destroyed along with all the mortals providing them, and what was once a valuable source of sustenance becomes a useless ball of rock.

 

[Littaly]

No surpirse they decide to shut it down, but a bit of a shame :-/

I've had some pretty decent times with that game. It never sucked me in or tied me up the way WoW did, but I think that's partially why I enjoyed it. I remember me and a real life pal used to play heavy damage classes and hide behind pillars in the 20-30 PvP zones and pick off stragglers who had fallen behind the main group assaulting the keep, that's actually one of my fondest MMO memories. Like people have said, it was a game with a lot of potential and a lot of flaws, it got some things right, but not enough to achieve what it aspired to be. I might pop in one last time just to say goodbye.

 

[Lawnmooer]

Ahh... Warhammer Online...

It really was a decent game and was actually quite fun, the Warhammer world actually being quite interesting and the classes all had niche roles. I spent a fair amount of time playing Warhammer during 2 separate breaks from WoW, making and playing different characters all the while.

The only things that really turned me away both times I played it was the horrible imbalance between certain classes (It was essentially a game of Glass Cannons (Bright Wizards/Sorcerer(ess) and later Choppa/Slayer) and healers. Since the GC's put out the highest damage in the game (To the point of insta-gibbing as a single target spec or combine a few AoE specs and decimate an entire group) and the healers kept them up. Everything else seemed irrelevant as it was all about high damage and DPS) and the lack of PvE content at higher levels (Not sure if that was ever addressed, but after about level 30ish leveling consisted of entirely PvP)

But it did do some things right:

Making tank classes feel viable in PvP (Outside of the few DPS builds for those classes such as the Chosen) via giving them Hold the Line and Guard (As well as Taunt giving a DPS boost to make you more of a threat) to make them actually have value in that they make other people harder to kill when left alive.

Level boosting in Scenarios, making them accessible while leveling (So you won't just get stomped by the characters towards the higher end of the level bracket) - Though usually the people who were infact top level in the bracket would still be able to dominate.

 

[MHR]

I played it from release to a few months after and it really was very unique and fun. An earnest, quality-produced PvP-focused MMO with a great IP behind it. Unique mechanics like player collision, alchemy that allowed you to design your own potions with herbs you can selectively breed(which I was obsessed with and everyone who knew me knew it,) not to mention the overall PvP-focus was something no other MMO was doing and really still isn't. It's such a shame to see something like this to go, but it was plagued with development problems. I saw it released too early and its poor opening reception just meant it skid along from there.

I played it as a healer and loved the PvP, but the flaws caused me to get depressed about it and stop playing. Class balance was atrocious, 'nuff said there; you can imagine. The overall PvP campaign was pointless and moved along too fast, partly because the faction imbalance was ludicrous. The content tie-in was hollow as there was nothing to do in the designated PvP zones besides fight other players or swap around objectives which made it very boring to me.

I'm not going to rejoin because I'm the slow-plodder type of player. I'm going to spend half my time re-familiarizing myself with everything just to have it depressingly deleted after. Also, I can't remember my password even though I could probably jury-rig my way into my own account if I tried.

But I really did have a lot of fun with it while the hype train lasted. Shame it bombed.