Why did Warhammer mmo 'W.A.R.' never become big?

[Turing]

If you're a carebear nancy that doesn't know how to PvP beyond "Camp their grave kekeke"

Sure, WoW is just wonderful. *puke*

Personally it bores me to tears, but despite all its failings the numbers tell a different story. Hate it, love it or just don't care for it, its one of the few things in the gaming industry actually turning a profit AND financing all the shit Activision publishes that doesn't

 

[IamQ]

The part about WoW being the industry standard is a fact. Thats right. Not an opinion, a straight up fact.

Oh, it is? And you can prove this how?

http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart1.html

Glad I could help.

You judge quality by sales figures? So you must see Twilight as the industry standard for movies.

The industry standard is judged mainly by sales figures. He wasn't talking how he judges games, but rather how the gaming industry does.

It works in most industries.

Games: Cod, every fps tries to be it (hell, EA made direct references to cod when making both Medal of Honor and Battlefield 3)

Wow: Warhammer, mentioned in this thread, was compared both by gamers and the company to WoW. EA has made several references to WoW during the making of Old Republic. Every major MMO references it Because it is the industry standard of MMOs

Movies: Avatar. Since Avatar, now almost every blockbuster movie tries to be 3D just like it.

And do you know why? Because Avatar sold alot thus becoming an industry standard, because alot of people enjoy making money, just like it did.

 

[II2]

I prefer to judge success by achieving what I set out to do and in creating something I like.

What do you create? What are your creative outlets?

I've a couple things I turn my hands to. Why?

Why not? I'm curious; even if just in general. I'm not asking you to post links to invite critique or anything.

 

[Gralian]

The public quests were nice but i honestly never cared for the whole warhammer thing. I was prepared to overlook that if the game was good. Some aspects of it were, i liked the public quests for instance and the avatars looked distinctive because the races were so different. Those chaos guys looked vastly different to the elf guys for example, and that also made the gear look distinctive. However when i played it the combat was buggy and broken, a process of mashing buttons and hoping it actually does damage to the mob instead of glitching out and doing nothing. Not only that, but the pvp was an unorganised mess and it felt grossly imbalanced. I played a tank type chaos warrior thingy who got creamed by every spell caster that came within sight of me.

I suppose it would have helped if i enjoyed the lore and the world. While i did to some degree (those chaos guys quests are a stark contrast to the imperial normal human quests) i just can't get my jollies from anything as seemingly one dimensional as warhammer. I know wow is in a way, but at least you have some grey areas. Like not everyone is bad and they're not all fighting for the sake of fighting. (exception of this is early warcraft lore when Blackhand(?) sent orcs to azeroth for the sake of killing stuff and then they started killing each other when they were bored with nothing to do, lolwut) It just feels like the setup for warhammer is "FUCK YEAH KILL EVERYTHING" and that comes across as extremely weak narrative for story and motivation. Might be alright in tabletop games where you don't really need a story for each quest or motivation, but it's not great for MMO context. Not only that but the tabletop niche seems to be extremely small, at least here in the UK. Way back when i was at school i only knew a couple of people who did that sort of thing as opposed to the many people who played video games. Note that "played" doesn't necessarily mean they had a vast library, it just means they might only have an xbox and only play call of duty for one hour a week. Probably because video games are far more accessible than table top stuff and that turns people off, especially a video game of a table top game. People think, by association, it's going to be unfriendly.

 

[Mordwyl]

Warhammer, regardless of which, does not belong as a multiplayer single-entity game. The entire premise of the franchise is that you control an army. If you can't even have a group at minimum when you start and have that grow as you get better, I'm not interested.

 

[Zaik]

Because it was a poorer WoW clone.
You do not beat WoW at its own game.

Because WoW was the first MMO with quests, classes, PvP, different races and various crafting skills.

Oh wait... It wasn't.

Right..but Everquest and Ultima Online aren't really relevant anymore.

Just like in 20 some odd years people will neglect to mention anything being a "wow clone" instead opting to mention something a majority of people actually know and care about instead as being the source of all copycats.

 

[Normalgamer]

I played wow when it was new and had to deal with shitty ass game ruining bugs and downloading a patch to fix a couple of them every other day, WHY THE HELL WOULD I DO THAT AGAIN?! That said I personally decided not to play warhammer because it was like wow but based on an aspect of wow that was just NOT GOOD, which is to say PVP, namely open world PVP. The problem with open world pvp is that there is almost always a way for some douche to come over to your place and kill you a thousand times with out so much as giving you a chance to play, and IF that doesn't happen then what your playing to is a chance to get your face wiped in the floor a thousand times by someone who had a shit ton of free times on there hands and ended up managing to farm up enough gear that you might as well be level one and naked because your going to die just as easily, seriously, try working a full time job, doing school, having a social life AND playing a MMO enough to actually manage to compete with other players(THATS what it means to have a life, not to spend an hour hanging out a friends house every few days or to have 100 friends on myspace >_>)
Hell even if you don't have a social life, a job or any plans on furthering your education then the game would still consist of you either running into someone who's not as far along as you, and you killing them easily, or you running into someone who's stronger than you and them killing you without a fair chance, I mean this isn't a shooter where the game is based on skill, its an rpg, your power comes directly from how far along you are in it...
So really the question is why the hell would I buy a game that is essentially another game that is essentially a shittier copy of a game I already have, I mean seriously, class system isn't anything special, exploration isn't nearly as cool, looks are far worse (I'm not sure if those graphics are better or not because wow has such good aesthetics I hardly even notice its 10 year old graphics unless I'm comparing them to the relatively new Cata graphics >_>) general focus is awful, race selection is nothing to write home about, and it doesn't even have the social benefit of EVERYONE PLAYS IT that wow has.

Y'know, just speaking from personal experience here, but people who do have a life generally don't feel the need to spend a paragraph explaining what a life is and isn't. Generally people who do that are just whining because they lost to someone.

 

[spinFX]

I played Chosen from launch and for 9 months after that. Let me describe one FANTASTIC month of patching.

Patch 1: Take away Chosen's respectable single target dps. Give Chosen amazing AoE dps.
Patch 2: Take away Chosen's amazing AoE dps.

So yeah, Chosen ended up with nothing. No AoE dps, no single target dps.

That just basically sums up the ridiculous balancing tweaks Mythic made.

 

[Zac Smith]

I don't think the MMO's intentionality try to copy WoW's style, I think they just want to copy the success, unfortunately most MMO developers don't want to put too much risk in, so they end up flopping, and being exactly like WoW. Even if a MMO did have a unique hook, I think people would much rather want to play it safe

 

[Tim_Buoy]

snip

How does that make Avatar the standard? Because something sells well suddenly every artist is forced to compare their work to it? I'm fairly certain there are millions upon millions of films being made that A) have no interest in Avatar and B) are made with sales not in mind.

avatar is the new standard for 3d tech in movies making it the standard . but films use the 3d to draw in crowds films aernt like games they dont have to keep continually keep entertaining the people that watch them to draw a subscription fee

 

[BloodSquirrel]

I honestly love the game. The strong PvP feature and the world well made. I am wondering why it never became popular.

Here is a link: http://www.warhammeronline.com/

a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKOhzfkCdbY&feature=fvwrel

and gameplay vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ-pOAb5pJk

Because it's not World of Warcraft. People keep putting out new MMOs, trying to get WoW numbers, but nobody is even getting close.

By pre-WoW standards, many of them are doing fine, but it seems like there's only room for one 10M subscriber MMO in the market.

 

[Zaik]

Because it was a poorer WoW clone.
You do not beat WoW at its own game.

Because WoW was the first MMO with quests, classes, PvP, different races and various crafting skills.

Oh wait... It wasn't.

Right..but Everquest and Ultima Online aren't really relevant anymore.

Just like in 20 some odd years people will neglect to mention anything being a "wow clone" instead opting to mention something a majority of people actually know and care about instead as being the source of all copycats.

So anything that's similar is a copycat? I don't follow that logic. If one did, that would mean any game that took place in the first person had involved shooting would be a clone. That's absurd.

If every single FPS ever released used the exact same engine, content, setting, and played pretty much exactly the same except with the occasional added or missing feature, they would be.

 

[Tim_Buoy]

Because it was a poorer WoW clone.
You do not beat WoW at its own game.

Because WoW was the first MMO with quests, classes, PvP, different races and various crafting skills.

Oh wait... It wasn't.

Right..but Everquest and Ultima Online aren't really relevant anymore.

Just like in 20 some odd years people will neglect to mention anything being a "wow clone" instead opting to mention something a majority of people actually know and care about instead as being the source of all copycats.

So anything that's similar is a copycat? I don't follow that logic. If one did, that would mean any game that took place in the first person had involved shooting would be a clone. That's absurd.

actually if you strip anything down to its core everything is just copying everything else

 

[Cenequus]

1. It seems like WoW...

2. The 3rd video lacked... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO_QntXc-c4

3. (wikipedia) Collision detection
Warhammer Online features collision detection, a feature that is designed to prevent players from moving through other player characters. This feature works on enemy units as well as friendly units that are flagged for RvR combat. Collision detection enhances the role played by heavily armored characters known as "tanks", as it helps them become far more efficient at holding choke points and protecting weaker players in their group such as healers and casters.
Sounds like a massive griefer tool....

DDO always had collision detection(good to keep mages safe) but then again DDO is not your usual MMO