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

[Ivaneeh]

I tell u what boys, I was in the closed Beta, AND I played Dark age of Camelot for some years, so I'm not a prejudiced fanboy or something, quite the opposite, I really looked forward for this game. Mainly because a) I thought well Mythic is quite capble of making a game, daoc was very successfull and fleshed out, b) I love, yes i admit it i LOVE the Warhammer franchise and I would love it to see in a good mmo, and c) I Liked the videos of Paul Barnett and I believed the hype they were genrating. God how wrong i was...

They told you they wouldnt release the game until its done!! and good and fleshed out and wotnot. The reality: 4 capital cities missing, 4 (!!) classes missing, the character-distinction missing ( the more lvls u get, the bigger your muscles and beard is etc..), MASSIVELY unbalanced classes and so on.

They told you no stupid fetch quests, that the game will let you explore the world and reward you for it, that they'll have good Music and Voice acting. NONE of it true!!
There are ONLY fetch and Kill quests, just even dumber then in wow. now not every third bear drops a bearpaw, no, EVERY bear drops a bear pow, yay,you just dumbed an already system even more down. There is NO music in the game besides one or two 1-minute tracks, the Voices are RUBBISH!! they made a whole newsletter praising how cool the voices would be and the music, NO THEY ARENT!! Just some "oi oi" sounds and "bugger!" because its supposed to be british.

The game world is the most linear world ive seen. there is no, really, NO value in exploration! you go to hub A , make the quests there, the mobs conveniently in 20 metres distance, done, go to hub b just down the road, make some more quests there, then hub c and so on with absolutely no distinction between the hubs, no great architecture, no notable NCPs NOTHING!!

As I said, I was in the closed beta. There the people were dumbstruck how BAD the game was! "the combat is crap to the point of sillyness!" they said, "Please Mythic, you need at least a YEAR or two until the game is finished" they said, and what did they reply? "that is not constructive critisism" said Marc Jacobs, the most squishy and nerdy Yay-sayer ever! "Everyone on the closed beta forum praised the game" they said in newsletters, NOONE PRAISED THE GAME!! It had no soul, no content, no dungeons, no crafting system, no good quests, nothing what made it even a little better then other games, and they charged full price for it.

As I said, I love Warhammer, and I liked Mythic back then, and believe me when I say that the game failed because its BAD! Not because of WoW, not because the game is a gem like Beyond Good and Evil or Shadow of the Collosus and noone bought it because it is unfamiliar, no, its the Brink kind of game, massively overhyped, promised content it never had, just plain bad game.

For those who don't believe me, the game is free for the first ten lvls, go on and try it

 

[RSparowe]

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.

 

[trigger1992]

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.

By my definition I already have. Thank you for reading my posts before commenting.

"My opinion is right because I have compared it to my personal definition of what is correct"

A sound argument well argued, thank you

 

[elvor0]

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.

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.

Yes, but you are not the industry, and you have little to no bearing on it aside from the 1 copy of a game you will buy. WoW is the industry standard whether or not you use Everquest as your PERSONAL standard, and your PERSONAL standard doesn't suddenly make WoW not the INDUSTRY standard.

Yes personally, I like to judge things by quality rather than sales, however that is not how the industry works, whether you like it or not. The Industry makes it's decisions by and large based on units sold, and when it comes to MMOs, WoW leads in that respect, it also has the largest player base ever, controlling 60% of the market. Those are facts, you can't dispute them whatever you say, because they are all true, and you know them to be true.

Therefore, as I'm quite sure you know from using this site, a large majority of MMO designers and publishers want a piece of the WoW pie, Rift going so far as to use "You're not in Azeroth anymore", people use the expression "WoW killer" whenever a new MMO comes out, current MMOs all ape WoW to a certain degree, I know WoW isn't the first, but it's what is the leader in terms of general consciousness, with some MMOs essentially just being a re skinned WoW.

Your personal feelings do not effect the industry, you are merely one man being obtuse and arrogant about his opinion. And believe you me, opinions can be WRONG. Like yours being "Everquest is the current standard", it may be for you, but for the industry it is just wrong, I don't care if it's an opinion (that I can hide behind and I don't have to justify because it's utter bollocks and "just my opinion!!11!") it's still wrong.

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.

This isn't the Movie industry, it's the game industry, they're different things.

 

[Hawgh]

I've tried to get into it a number of times. Really like the Warhammer universe. But each time there's been balance problems, or just too few people around for it to be a stellar experience.
Also don't have any friends who play it. Although that's hardly the game's fault.

 

[Vrach]

From what I heard, it failed because of an incredibly awful launch (and it's not much better today). A game that focused on PvP was completely imbalanced (I'm not talking "omg, he's 10% stronger", I'm talking "it's not even funny how useless this entire class is") for a long time and past the first 10 levels or so, there was literally no content to speak of.

So yeah, really, the usual reasons. No end game, no polish, shitty launch. It's what pretty much every failed MMO failed for, it's remarkable so many of them went through the experience without noticing what the problem is, hopefully now with Rift, TOR and GW2, we'll have more successful MMOs following suit.

 

[Cowabungaa]

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!

Maybe, but then again, the proper definition of industry standard is what matters here, as Warhammer Online did not reach the industry standard's level in more than one way, animations being one of them. And if you at least partially want to compete with WoW, as WAR wanted to do, you have to reach or raise the bar the industry's standard set. WAR did not do that.

I think though, and this is more on-topic, that WAR had the possiblity to do just that if they hadn't rushed the launch. Thanks to WoW MMO's can't get away with a crappy launch like WoW itself had. It needs to take it's time and polish itself really well before it can survive properly in the MMO market. It seems that investors, whom no doubt are the ultimate cause of launches being rushed, don't really realise that. It's why I hate it when people outside of the videogame industry basically take charge of the developer.

 

[trigger1992]

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.

Twilight?? No. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films

Rank↓ Title↓ Worldwide gross↓
1 Avatar $2,783,165,628
2 Titanic $1,843,201,268
3 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King $1,119,110,941
4 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest $1,066,179,725
5 Toy Story 3 $1,063,165,731

Arguably, these ARE the industry standards for 3D, shit romantic films, fantasy action, pirate and animated films respectively, so yeah, it appears that the most popular things are held to be industry standards, and I think youre the only one surprised by this

 

[RSparowe]

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.

For its demographic, it's the epitome of success. I don't think you understand business.

 

[trigger1992]

By my definition I already have. Thank you for reading my posts before commenting.

Could you do me a favor and change your avatar to something other than what I presume to be your face? I'm worried I'm going to punch a hole in my monitor every time you post.

You sir, win

 

[RivFader86]

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.

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.

You really don't get it do you? We are talking about the gaming INDUSTRY not about individual players or the developers, a publisher doesn't give two craps about whether or not a developer liked making his game and thinks it's nice it is about sale figures as in any other industry. You can decide you like the word blue better than red it still won't change the fact that red is red.
And please do cut the broken tool "look at me i don't conform" crap it's getting so old, don't get me wrong like what you like and dislike what you don't like, that's what a normal person does but stop trying so hard to get people to recognize it (you for it) that just makes you look like you are running with the masses like any other tool...just the other way...hence broken ;P

 

[Anjel]

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!

Maybe, but then again, the proper definition of industry standard is what matters here, as Warhammer Online did not reach the industry standard's level in more than one way, animations being one of them. And if you at least partially want to compete with WoW, as WAR wanted to do, you have to reach or raise the bar the industry's standard set. WAR did not do that.

I think though, and this is more on-topic, that WAR had the possiblity to do just that if they hadn't rushed the launch. Thanks to WoW MMO's can't get away with a crappy launch like WoW itself had. It needs to take it's time and polish itself really well before it can survive properly in the MMO market. It seems that investors, whom no doubt are the ultimate cause of launches being rushed, don't really realise that. It's why I hate it when people outside of the videogame industry basically take charge of the developer.

Completely agree with you on the polishing bit - I, too, hate rushed games. But when we say industry standard are we talking about the game as a whole or individual aspects of the game? WoW doesn't have any feature that I can compare to WAR's public quests or Rifts invasions and I do not consider WoWs lore anywhere near as good as Lord of the Rings lore therefore, in the industry, WoW is surely trailing behind with these two individual aspects of the game even if it is still considered the industry leader.

Or am I now the one looking like a muppet? :/

 

[Smokej]

strictly speaking from a pvp point of view, it looked good on the paper but after a few weeks into the game you realized that:

1. the game was patched to the death very quickly (as every MMO i played; and i'm playing since UO...)

2. the whole RvR experience lacked in comparsion to the early Daoc (for later Daoc, see point 1)

3. the Zerg was strong,even with top notch Gank Squads you had no chance, and every attempt for creating a "gentlemans agreement" for a Daoc inspired 8vs8 zone failed (this is of course server/community related)

4. the PvP was too much dependent on PVE Gear and Dungeon Grind, as a PvP guy i want to hit max lvl and be geared up for the real deal as quickly as possible and avoid those hourslong raids a against the AI

 

[Entreri481]

Because It was poorly balanced and my computer couldn't handle it. ... do you know what it was like playing a white lion... with lag... almost went insane. BTW did they fix the inbalance between casters and melee?

 

[RSparowe]

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.

For its demographic, it's the epitome of success. I don't think you understand business.

I don't judge quality by sales figures. If an artist is striving solely for the latter, they are irrelevant.

Too bad it's not art; it's business. At this point I'm stuck in a "not sure if trolling or just extremely stupid" moment.

 

[Tim_Buoy]

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*

now ive played my fair sahre of mmos. and like you i compare the ones i play by far wow has been the one able to hold my attention the longest. heres a list for reference
W.O.W 8 months, city of heros/villains/rouge 1 month, kitsu saga 2 hours, ragnorok online 2 years
actually now that i think about ragnorok held my attention longer but wow is a close second
quick edit: forgot runescape with the quickest got sick of it rate of 10 seconds