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

[Still Life]

Presumably because they chose the wrong Warhammer franchise to make an MMO out of.
They should've gone with the futuristic one. You know, the good one. The popular one.

The one that's getting all the other games.

But then how would they convince their investors that it would have been as popular as WOW?

Yeah the whole idea was bad from the start.

I get the feeling that nvestors want a so called 'WOW killer' and ignoring a few key facts, such as market entrenchment and the fact that the nature of social gaming is slowly morphing into a more diverse and competitive market.

I guess time will tell.

 

[Canid117]

Presumably because they chose the wrong Warhammer franchise to make an MMO out of.
They should've gone with the futuristic one. You know, the good one. The popular one.

The one that's getting all the other games.

But then how would they convince their investors that it would have been as popular as WOW?

Yeah the whole idea was bad from the start.

I get the feeling that nvestors want a so called 'WOW killer' and ignoring a few key facts, such as market entrenchment and the fact that the nature of social gaming is slowly morphing into a more diverse and competitive market.

I guess time will tell.

I never said they were smart for caving to their investors. I just said that is what they did.

 

[Yoh3333]

I'm guessing it's partly because of what everyone else have said that the game itself wasn't "amazing" and that the marketing for the game must've been quite bad.
This is the first time i've realy heard about this game. I've heard about a Warhammer MMO but i didn't know the name, didn't see any trailers or any gameplay of any sort.

 

[Still Life]

Presumably because they chose the wrong Warhammer franchise to make an MMO out of.
They should've gone with the futuristic one. You know, the good one. The popular one.

The one that's getting all the other games.

But then how would they convince their investors that it would have been as popular as WOW?

Yeah the whole idea was bad from the start.

I get the feeling that nvestors want a so called 'WOW killer' and ignoring a few key facts, such as market entrenchment and the fact that the nature of social gaming is slowly morphing into a more diverse and competitive market.

I guess time will tell.

I never said they were smart for caving to their investors. I just said that is what they did.

I think you missed my intention. I was further supporting the point you were making. I agree that many investors in the Gaming industry are rather detached from the 'pulse' of it, and this is leading to some sub-standard products and a squeeze on creative risk.

 

[Jandau]

Because it wasn't very good.

I intially started writing a post about what was wrong with it, but in truth nothing was "wrong" with it as much as nothing was "good" about it. The game was simply unspectacular and didn't do anything new or interesting. It used the RvR system from DAoC, but dumbed it down. It used basic WoW gameplay, but the controls were less responsive. The visuals were not bad, but they were bland and boring. It goes on like this for a while - nothing truly broken, but nothing to catch the players.

 

[Jessta]

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.

 

[Canid117]

Presumably because they chose the wrong Warhammer franchise to make an MMO out of.
They should've gone with the futuristic one. You know, the good one. The popular one.

The one that's getting all the other games.

But then how would they convince their investors that it would have been as popular as WOW?

Yeah the whole idea was bad from the start.

I get the feeling that nvestors want a so called 'WOW killer' and ignoring a few key facts, such as market entrenchment and the fact that the nature of social gaming is slowly morphing into a more diverse and competitive market.

I guess time will tell.

I never said they were smart for caving to their investors. I just said that is what they did.

I think you missed my intention. I was further supporting the point you were making. I agree that many investors in the Gaming industry are rather detached from the 'pulse' of it, and this is leading to some sub-standard products and a squeeze on creative risk.

Ahh I think the failed Italicized word screwed up your post there buddy. Yeah investors really should get to know the market they are investing in better before forcing decisions on the industry. Could have been worse though I am pretty sure W.A.R did make a profit.

 

[MasterV]

OK I'll bite

Obviously if you assert your opinion intensely and with great fervor, it becomes true.

Oh wait...

You do realise that what you accuse others of doing is EXACTLY what you are doing yourself? You are the only one trying to get his opinion across as fact. When, in fact, it's just your opinion. You seem to think that there's nothing but opinions but there is. Seriously, there is and this is not an opinion. It's a fact. But that must be an unknown word for you eh? I already know your answer. In your opinion this is my opinion.

Learn to differentiate. The people you're quoting (trolling one could say, I certainly feel this way right now) never stated that what they write are their opinions. It is the widey regarded truth. Actually, their opinions may greatly vary from the facts. If you want to feel different and intellectual by going against the norm, sure go ahead. But ,stop trying to ignore anything and everything that disagrees with your highly opinion-based line of thought.

On topic, W.A.R. never made it big because it was a broken mess, and still is. The game universe offers no customization options (I can't have a long-haired warrior priest for instance) and is not female friendly. Females, believe it or not, are the movers and shakers of the MMO industry (I'd go as far as to say the entire industry). If you can't capture them, you'll never make it big. Apart from that, it applied to PVP players and Warhammer enthusiasts who already liked online PC gaming. It was already a niche market. And then the game was broken which made matters worse.

 

[rabidmidget]

It was pretty fun, if it ever goes free2play, I might go back. The main problem I had with it was that the combat simply wasn't as fun as it is in wow. The PvP was kinda fun, although I recall getting annoyed whenever there was a horde of enemies approaching and my team wouldn't charge, in fear of getting killed, which of course just pushed my team back to our own flag.

 

[Sean Kenyon]

words

I like to think for myself and not rely on sales figures to decide what is good.

I fail to see how your decision of what is considered good changes industry standard...

 

[Cowabungaa]

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.

It polished them to a tee and popularised them. Since then, WoW's work in those areas is the standard. WAR tried to take them on in certain areas, but failed to do so. For instance, WoW's combat animations feel very smooth, responsive and connective. WAR's combat animations were a lot more sluggish, things like that.

In a way it's unfair, WoW got about 4 years to where it was before WAR came around. By then it had a lot of bugs and kinks ironed out of it. WAR had to start from scratch, and competing with a big player that has already been refining itself for years is a mammoth task.

Other than that, WAR had a lot of cool features that just weren't implemented that well. Keep sieges sounded cool, but it ended up being a tacticless Mob-The-Keep-Door fest, which is a shame because the few tactical battles I did have were mindblowingly awesome. Public Quests looked like an interesting feature as well, until you were swamped by them and they bogged down to boring grindfests in which you just had to hope you got some gear, or just grind them solo.

But the fact is, the game released too quickly and needed a lot more refinement. What they had in spirit they lacked in execution. I just hope Mythic learns from it and uses those lessons in the making of SW:TOR.

 

[trigger1992]

Another day in the life for dulcinea, professional troll. I think ive seen him comment in 5 or 6 threads in the last 2 days, all of which have been to misinterpret or generally be a dick.

Rant over, back on topic I thought it looked good, and captured the feel of the tabletop game quite well, but it wasnt a good idea to go up against wow for the first game in the warhammer series. If the new spacemarine game is good (which i really hope so) then i think a 40k mmo might be much more sucessfull off the back of that and dawn of war.

 

[Sean Kenyon]

In a way it's unfair, WoW got about 4 years to where it was before WAR came around. By then it had a lot of bugs and kinks ironed out of it. WAR had to start from scratch, and competing with a big player that has already been refining itself for years is a mammoth task.

Frankly WAR should be getting a relatively absurd amount of recondition just for trying.

 

[Kakujin]

I would say the main problems were rigid class structure, dull quests, lack of overarching goal, predictable loot experience and a high focus on group based questing without features to facilitate that.

 

[Still Life]

Ahh I think the failed Italicized word screwed up your post there buddy. Yeah investors really should get to know the market they are investing in better before forcing decisions on the industry. Could have been worse though I am pretty sure W.A.R did make a profit.

Don't worry about it I'm not being snide, or anything untoward.

With the capitalization of "" in investor, I was being subtly satirical towards investors and their notions of capital. A criticism on the way the industry is being overrun by 'moneybags'.

I hope to see more Warhammer licensed MMOs. I'm not likely to get involved in an MMO, however it has such potential based on the strength of the license in the consumer psyche (especially 40k) that it could turn over a very nice profit. There are also some great MMOs coming up which I'll be watching closely to see the effect they have on the industry.

These are exciting times to be a Gamer!

 

[Cowabungaa]

It polished them to a tee.

That I would disagree with. I can't think of a feature in WoW that wasn't as good or better in past MMORPG.

Then do explain why in many regards WoW is the industry standard. Blizzard's ability to polish is the only available reason, as indeed many of the basic gameplay elements they used existed before WoW. Yet they became huge where others didn't, they polished the long-available MMO elements in such a way that it connected with a lot of people, a lot more than any MMO before.

You might disagree, but no game will please everyone. WoW just did it with a lot of people, and that's what matters. I reckon their art departement helped as well, but that's more of a personal guess.

That would be because I didn't say it did. I did, however, say I don't think WoW is the standard of quality.

Your opinion in that regard is irrelevant here. It's a fact that in certain areas WoW is the industry's standard.

 

[smeghead25]

People need to learn to stop feeding the troll...

Industry Leader = WOW, because it is the most successful MMO out there with more fans than any other MMO. This is not debatable

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.

People IN the industry agree. They also agree this is a bad thing: http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/interviews/4863-State-of-the-MMO-Industry-Luminaries-On-The-Genre-Its-Future

But until some highly polished MMO comes out with amazing gameplay that is better than WOW across the board, they don't stand a chance and WOW will continue to be the industry leader and the standard that the majority of MMO developers attempt to achieve.

 

[Sean Kenyon]

It polished them to a tee.

That I would disagree with. I can't think of a feature in WoW that wasn't as good or better in past MMORPG.

words

I like to think for myself and not rely on sales figures to decide what is good.

I fail to see how your decision of what is considered good changes industry standard...

That would be because I didn't say it did. I did, however, say I don't think WoW is the standard of quality.

It's heavily implied to the rest of us... and that's exaclty what I mean.