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

[MasterV]

Now this is an interesting post

Industry Standard = Debatable. Thought the vast majority of developer's attempt to compare themselves to WOW, and they assume WOW is the industry standard. I don't think it should be of course. I think EVE Online should be the industry standard. I think the standard needs to be BETTER than WOW. But at the moment, the standard all MMO's aim for is WOW, and in some aspects they do well, but in other aspects they are not as polished, buggier, graphically inferior (or too graphically powerful) and end up losing to the standard simply because WOW has polished the aspects so that they work well and reliably, even if they are not the best.

In reality, the industry leader becomes the standard. There's a reason he became the leader, and that reason is that he did many things right. So no, I don't think having WoW (or anything) as a standard is a bad thing. Others can lern form the leader, see his strengths and weaknesses and strive to become better. The standard is there for people to surpass, and that's where everyone fails. WoW is out there, saying "Look people, THIS is how you do MMOs". People say "Hmmm...we'll be better in that one aspect and much worse in every other". In this way, you (as a developer) are not even CLOSE to the standard, how can you expect people to play your sub-par game, when there's a far, FAR better alternative?

 

[Anjel]

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

Because of the giant that is World of Warcraft. I played WAR for a good 6 months or so after it was launched and found it to be quite enjoyable. The problem with MMO's is that they can either mimic World of Warcraft - in which case the gaming community slate it for being a WoW-clone, or they can do something different which WAR did - in which case the gaming community slate it for "not being good enough" even though they may not be giving it the benefit of the doubt.

In my opinion, for a game to draw attention from World of Warcraft it needs to beat it in every way possible, not just by adding some features considered 'better', it would also need to be extremely polished at launch, and even in doing so there is no guarantee that it can draw people away from World of Warcraft. It's called brand loyalty, I guess.

 

[Still Life]

In reality, the industry leader becomes the standard.

I thought this would be a self-evident fact. You just have to look at other major franchises, COD being the most obvious.

However, I would like to note that WOW has had the benefit of continuity leading to its current entrenchment. It came out at a time where the MMO genre wasn't as diverse and competitive as it is today.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Because the popular majority compare other MMOs to it? I won't accept something as a standard simply because other people choose to. I compare every MMO I play to Everquest, simply because that is the first game of its type I played. So do most of my friends for the same reason. So the industry standard to me is Everquest.

Unless you can somehow come up with a way to objectively prove what is pure subjection, I don't think there is anything to gain by our continuing to debate.

I think we have a case of different definitions causing some confusement here. With industry standard, or technical standard [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_standard], we mean the standard the industry uses, not you the user. And fact is, certain aspects of WoW are the industry's standard.Just ask BioWare [http://www.vg247.com/2011/02/10/bioware-world-of-warcraft-established-the-mmo-standards/], not a small player in the game industry.

Also, ignoring the fact that it's popular is just silly, that statement of yours could've come from a hipster It means that it does something that connects with a lot of people, something that previous MMO's, including your loved Everquest, did not manage to do. Whatever the reason is, that's a fact. And if another MMO wants to do even better, it obviously has to improve on the areas that made that game so popular in the first place; it has to raise the standards.

Any MMO developer is going to look at WoW, compare their game to WoW, see how they can differentate on it to reach a different, untamped, audience or emulate it and improve upon it to get WoW players to play their game instead. That's what being the industry's standard means.

 

[RivFader86]

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?

By using my rare powers of common sense and looking up which game has the largest player base, most profitable and is most widely recognised for its type. And guess what the winner is?
HOLY FUCK! No surprise here that its WoW with roughly 60% of the MMO player base.
And when other games actively market themselves as "the WoW killer" or make reference to WoW in their commentaries (which most did and Aion even marketed itself as) then its pretty obvious to those with common sense that even they consider WoW to be the MMO base standard.

So you judge the standard by which all others are measured in quality by sales figures and followers?

See, I prefer to think for myself and judge things based upon how I feel they perform. Murdering homosexuals was pretty damn popular once. Twilight is really popular now. Do I like either of them? Do I think either of them are good? No.

See how I judged things based off my own subjective opinion, rather than looking at what is popular to define what is good? It's a rare skill.

It's not about if it's good or not...gaming is an industry so the most popular game with the highest sales is the standard by which you have to measure your own game if you want to be sucsesfull. Individual player's opinions don't mean anything a game is popular if most people like it...that's just common sense

 

[mordordevil]

People fail to realize that WoW isn't original at all. Most of it was taken from other MMO's. (Besides the story, which can be argued mostly.) One of them being DAoC. Which the people who was ORIGINALLY making W.A.R. made.

 

[MasterV]

However, I would like to note that WOW has had the benefit of continuity leading to its current entrenchment.

And this is where you bang the nail dead center on the head with the "benefit of continuity". There were other MMOs before, but none as successful. That's why the genre wasn't as diverse and competitive. One must wonder why.

And the reason is that Warcraft had set up its roots deeply within the world of PC gaming long before the birth of WoW. PC gamers knew the world, the characters the game. World of Warcraft gave them the opportunity to explore it. It expanded upon it exponentially, and it did so with universal appeal.

It wasn't based on semi-obscure tabletop wargames, it didn't have anime-style graphics. Thus, it alienated no potential buyers, PC gamers were used to complicated, time-consuming games. It just brought the Warcraft theme to an open world MMO, and this is why it took the world by storm, problems and all.

But Blizzard didn't rest on thir laurels. They didn't want to sit comfortably in their niche (as most developers do), they wanted to expand further. And they did, by making the game more interesting, improving constanty upon ther foundation and keeping the system requirements low, so you don't have to buy a new PC every 1-2 years when there's a new expansion and in this way not only they still didn't alienate people, they kept growing and growing their userbase. Not bad for a geeky PC MMORPG eh?

EDIT: Not to mention that internet connections have improved drastically, another reason allowing this blooming of MMOs.

 

[Anjel]

Because the popular majority compare other MMOs to it? I won't accept something as a standard simply because other people choose to. I compare every MMO I play to Everquest, simply because that is the first game of its type I played. So do most of my friends for the same reason. So the industry standard to me is Everquest.

Unless you can somehow come up with a way to objectively prove what is pure subjection, I don't think there is anything to gain by our continuing to debate.

I think we have a case of different definitions causing some confusement here. With industry standard, or technical standard [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_standard], we mean the standard the industry uses, not you the user. And fact is, certain aspects of WoW are the industry's standard.Just ask BioWare [http://www.vg247.com/2011/02/10/bioware-world-of-warcraft-established-the-mmo-standards/], not a small player in the game industry.

Also, ignoring the fact that it's popular is just silly, that statement of yours could've come from a hipster It means that it does something that connects with a lot of people, something that previous MMO's did not manage to do. Whatever the reason is, that's a fact. And if another MMO wants to do even better, it obviously has to improve on the areas that made that game so popular in the first place; it has to raise the standards.

I don't think he was ignoring the fact that it is popular, at least how I read it is just that he compares MMO's he plays to something other than what the majority do. Personally I don't compare MMO's I play to World of Warcraft either, because it is the leader in the industry and is just that addictive. I compare MMO's I play to other MMO's I've played - for example Rift has a 'public quest' system like WAR does, in it's Rift invasions, which is something that I did enjoy about WAR.

This argument seems to have escalated simply because two people have different opinions - well folks that is the point of a forum/message board, so you can put your opinions across. Not everyone has to agree with other peoples views but if I got into an argument each time I disagreed with someone I'm sure it would never cease *facepalm*

 

[blackdwarf]

the times i played i thought it was pretty boring. and the fact that you still got 2 factions. but i'm looking forward to the warhammer 40K MMO and the hack&slasher.

 

[MasterV]

Success is defined by the person seeking it; someone could make an MMO that sells terribly and cal it a success if they enjoyed making their product and feel it is of the quality they set out to reach. If your only measure of success is income, I find that sad. I prefer to judge success by achieving what I set out to do and in creating something I like.

With this mindset, I think you should never get involved in any business. For someone to make an MMO, money are needed. You think the creator will consider his product successful if it was "artistically" excellent and praised, but left him broke and on the road? I think not.

 

[Cowabungaa]

I don't think he was ignoring the fact that it is popular, at least how I read it is just that he compares MMO's he plays to something other than what the majority do. Personally I don't compare MMO's I play to World of Warcraft either, because it is the leader in the industry and is just that addictive. I compare MMO's I play to other MMO's I've played - for example Rift has a 'public quest' system like WAR does, in it's Rift invasions, which is something that I did enjoy about WAR.

This argument seems to have escalated simply because two people have different opinions - well folks that is the point of a forum/message board, so you can put your opinions across. Not everyone has to agree with other peoples views but if I got into an argument each time I disagreed with someone I'm sure it would never cease *facepalm*

Ah, but that wasn't my main point. My main point was that he apparently did not understand what being the industry's standard means, I think a case of using different definitions.

Regardless, it's fine what you personally use to compare new MMO's with. I don't compare all my shooters with CoD either. I do use WoW myself to compare any future MMO with, mostly so I can see how it differentates from it. I mean sure, I love(d) WoW, and it's my favourite MMO to date, but any MMO that wants to pull that much money out of me better not be a WoW clone. After playing WoW for years, I want something different.

But again, that ain't what being the industry's standard means, and that was the core of that little discussion.

 

[weker]

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

You mean EQ clone
OT: War failed due to bad design in terms of balance and playability. you can level up a pvp rank to the same level as you current level however at 30 its extended to 100 meaning you can have up to 98 separating you and another player making pvp really harsh towards you, also the combat is so reliant on healing. Rift copies much of wars pvp design but allows players to swap specs at any point to a healer/ support spec.

 

[Trolldor]

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?

"Can you disprove it?" as you so strongly stated on another thread.

 

[Anjel]

I don't think he was ignoring the fact that it is popular, at least how I read it is just that he compares MMO's he plays to something other than what the majority do. Personally I don't compare MMO's I play to World of Warcraft either, because it is the leader in the industry and is just that addictive. I compare MMO's I play to other MMO's I've played - for example Rift has a 'public quest' system like WAR does, in it's Rift invasions, which is something that I did enjoy about WAR.

This argument seems to have escalated simply because two people have different opinions - well folks that is the point of a forum/message board, so you can put your opinions across. Not everyone has to agree with other peoples views but if I got into an argument each time I disagreed with someone I'm sure it would never cease *facepalm*

Ah, but that wasn't my main point. My main point was that he apparently did not understand what being the industry's standard means, I think a case of using different definitions.

Regardless, it's fine what you personally use to compare new MMO's with. I don't compare all my shooters with CoD either. I do use WoW myself to compare any feature MMO with, mostly so I can see how it differentates from it. I mean sure, I love(d) WoW, and it's my favourite MMO to date, but any MMO that wants to pull that much money out of me better not be a WoW clone. After playing WoW for years, I want something different.

But again, that ain't what being the industry's standard means, and that was the core of that little discussion.

Yes, it was the core of the discussion, but what started it was Dulcinea stating that he does not compare his MMO's to WoW as, for him, the industry standard is another game. Wrong choice of words with 'industry standard', yes, but any eejit with half a brain could understand what he meant... or is that just me? Oh God, am I the freak here?!

Anyway, I disagree with you, let's have an argument now!