Warhammer Online's Phase IV experience enhancements
by Kyle Horner 
on Oct 30th 2008 12:00PM
Patches, Warhammer Online, News items
21
Reader Comments (21)
Posted: Oct 30th 2008 12:50PM (Unverified) said
um, yay,
where are my linkable items?
official game forum?
why are scenarios still laggy as all-get-out even on a nice machine?
when is mail getting fixed? (yea, fixed... waiting 10-15 secs to open a mail does not count as functional in my book)
speaking of mail, when will i be able to send more than 1 item type at a time?
yes, this is not WoW. yes, Mythic is further along than Blizz was at this stage of the game. yes, the game is fun.
but holding this game to 4 year old standards is just defending it for the sake of defending it. gameplay IS clunky, i don't care what the fanboys say. there's a polish to really great games from WoW (hate it all you want, it's true) to other gems like the stuff from Dice or ID or any other Blizzard product, that is present at the outset, even if features or balance is missing. these things may come in time for the Mythic crew... but filling initial patch and hotfix content with minor balance fixes instead of improving basic gameplay is only going to prolong the process and expedite the game's public demise.
personally, my 2 month odyssey with WAR is over, and I'm glad to have spend the time downloading Blizz's 3.0.2 patch and reinstating my account this wee. it's good to be home. see you in Notherend.
where are my linkable items?
official game forum?
why are scenarios still laggy as all-get-out even on a nice machine?
when is mail getting fixed? (yea, fixed... waiting 10-15 secs to open a mail does not count as functional in my book)
speaking of mail, when will i be able to send more than 1 item type at a time?
yes, this is not WoW. yes, Mythic is further along than Blizz was at this stage of the game. yes, the game is fun.
but holding this game to 4 year old standards is just defending it for the sake of defending it. gameplay IS clunky, i don't care what the fanboys say. there's a polish to really great games from WoW (hate it all you want, it's true) to other gems like the stuff from Dice or ID or any other Blizzard product, that is present at the outset, even if features or balance is missing. these things may come in time for the Mythic crew... but filling initial patch and hotfix content with minor balance fixes instead of improving basic gameplay is only going to prolong the process and expedite the game's public demise.
personally, my 2 month odyssey with WAR is over, and I'm glad to have spend the time downloading Blizz's 3.0.2 patch and reinstating my account this wee. it's good to be home. see you in Notherend.
Posted: Oct 30th 2008 1:16PM Dudgeon said
A forum, item links and the mail system seem so totally minor that i wouldn't care if I ever saw these things.
Now the slight clunkiness is frustrating and my main issue but I would never expect the fix for something like that to be just a hotfix. I hope that it is fixed in the next major patch though. It is not game breaking but it does highlight the one thing I see that wow has over this game.
It is still a fantastic game so far.
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Now the slight clunkiness is frustrating and my main issue but I would never expect the fix for something like that to be just a hotfix. I hope that it is fixed in the next major patch though. It is not game breaking but it does highlight the one thing I see that wow has over this game.
It is still a fantastic game so far.
Posted: Oct 30th 2008 3:36PM Arashikou said
Your post might have been a more effective critique had you not chosen examples that Mythic has already said they have heard people's requests for and will be implementing. (Well, except for official forums, but judging by this thread, many people LIKE that decision.) Or, perhaps your complaint is that these things aren't here YET, now that it's been a whole two weeks since they announced them. But I think you're going to find "Mythic doesn't fix things or implement changes fast enough" a hard sell, given their rate of minor patches and hotfixes.
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Posted: Oct 30th 2008 1:02PM (Unverified) said
This is not WoW. I can tell because Mythic listens to players and make changes. I posted week or so ago I like to get better rewards for open RvR. And after patch I got 1,980 XP and 800 Renown for taking one T3 objective last night. Good stuff.
Mythic is further along than Blizz was at this stage of the game. And is makes lots of changes .. things are good now and getting better.
Yes, the game is fun. And the future looks good.
Mythic is further along than Blizz was at this stage of the game. And is makes lots of changes .. things are good now and getting better.
Yes, the game is fun. And the future looks good.
Posted: Oct 30th 2008 1:27PM (Unverified) said
you're kidding me right? Blizzard maintains not only "an official forum" but they moderate one of the most complex and heavily used general software forums on the Net. and where do you think they get most of their ideas for new features or balance tweaks? yep, you didn't guess it... on these forums. don't tell me Blizz isn't reactive, because they've benchmarked corporate responsiveness in this area. i work for a software company with a significantly more sophomoric approach to the problem and I can appreciate their forums for what they are... think tank... brain trust... whatever you want to call it.
great that you got your one thing tweaked, but from an incentive standpoint, people are going to provide different kinds of feedback from generating an in game ticket than they would in a more casual forum-type setting. e.g. brainstorming.
as for Mythic, yea, they're doing a decent job of reacting and i'm not trying to take away. like i said, the game IS fun. i just question the long term viability of a product that has all its eggs in one big RvR basket and doesn't do what it can at every given opportunity to appeal to a wider audience. but then again, there's a reason no one will ever top Blizz in today's paradigm... no one will ever spend the obscene amounts of R&D cash they have on listening to their devs, testers and users at every level as an idea generator FOR appealing to a wider audience. MMO's are now formulaic as far as challanger brands like Mythic go, which is unfortunate since Blizz didn't crawl to the top by being formulaic in their approach (mimicking general MMO game facets aside)
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great that you got your one thing tweaked, but from an incentive standpoint, people are going to provide different kinds of feedback from generating an in game ticket than they would in a more casual forum-type setting. e.g. brainstorming.
as for Mythic, yea, they're doing a decent job of reacting and i'm not trying to take away. like i said, the game IS fun. i just question the long term viability of a product that has all its eggs in one big RvR basket and doesn't do what it can at every given opportunity to appeal to a wider audience. but then again, there's a reason no one will ever top Blizz in today's paradigm... no one will ever spend the obscene amounts of R&D cash they have on listening to their devs, testers and users at every level as an idea generator FOR appealing to a wider audience. MMO's are now formulaic as far as challanger brands like Mythic go, which is unfortunate since Blizz didn't crawl to the top by being formulaic in their approach (mimicking general MMO game facets aside)
Posted: Oct 30th 2008 1:17PM (Unverified) said
It's all a matter of priorities.
Why do people play WAR? For the loot? crafting? lore? grinding away in instanced scenarios? No, there are better more polished games that do that better.
The differentiating feature in WAR is the strategic RvR. Mythic is focusing on making it the primary reason to play because they cannot significantly improve *everything* simultaneously so they concentrate on what makes WAR special. All of the other features are important too, of course, but a lower priority.
I'm happy with their progress and, eventually, it will have all of the features we have come to expect from a AAA-title MMOG.
Why do people play WAR? For the loot? crafting? lore? grinding away in instanced scenarios? No, there are better more polished games that do that better.
The differentiating feature in WAR is the strategic RvR. Mythic is focusing on making it the primary reason to play because they cannot significantly improve *everything* simultaneously so they concentrate on what makes WAR special. All of the other features are important too, of course, but a lower priority.
I'm happy with their progress and, eventually, it will have all of the features we have come to expect from a AAA-title MMOG.
Posted: Oct 30th 2008 10:15PM (Unverified) said
Gotta say, I'm absolutely impressed at how quickly they're adding content and updating the game. These guys took note from the guys who made Sins of a Solar empire. The people who know whats best for your game are the ones who play it.
As for the laggi-ness that still exists, When you get that many people running around in one spot all casting spells that use effects, and constantly syncing with every computer, I'm suprised it runs as well as it does. Not to mention that each scenario has a time limit so you don't end up with those 3 hour long capture the flag events because no-one is able to get the flag. My only gripe is the amount of grinding required in PvP to level, but I think thats just me.
But yea I hope they add a forum soon, also integrate the account management into the main site.
As for the laggi-ness that still exists, When you get that many people running around in one spot all casting spells that use effects, and constantly syncing with every computer, I'm suprised it runs as well as it does. Not to mention that each scenario has a time limit so you don't end up with those 3 hour long capture the flag events because no-one is able to get the flag. My only gripe is the amount of grinding required in PvP to level, but I think thats just me.
But yea I hope they add a forum soon, also integrate the account management into the main site.
Posted: Oct 30th 2008 1:30PM (Unverified) said
I'd ask if I can have your stuff, but your Tier 1 gear does me no good in Tier 4.
Posted: Oct 30th 2008 2:13PM (Unverified) said
If they don't play War for those things, what do they play for? It's sure not the oRvR stuff that RARELY happens. Or what about the horrible faction imbalances? I was pretty much paying for a scenario grind, not exactly my idea of fun. There was a lot promised, but not a lot delivered. Also, anyone who thinks the WoW official forums isn't a great idea, they obviously have NO clue about development.
If I wanted to pay 15$ a month for what is basically team death match, I would simply play my FREE Team Fortress 2... actually, not a bad idea!
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If I wanted to pay 15$ a month for what is basically team death match, I would simply play my FREE Team Fortress 2... actually, not a bad idea!
Posted: Oct 30th 2008 2:32PM (Unverified) said
Cap'nIdle...
i'll remember that the next time i see press releases for major corporations adopting a social networking or forum models to their own business practices.
yep, there are trolls, pundits and fanboys all over the place and they're the time wasters, not the sites themselves. it's just and unfortunate byproduct that 99% of feedback content is garbage or has some ulterior motive. but that 1% can be priceless in the hands of those who will 1. listen and 2. react.
but hey, don't take my word for it...
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2004/07/64332?currentPage=1
http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurstechnology/2008/07/10/facebook-social-network-ent-tech-cx_kw_0719whartonsocialnetwork.html
i'll remember that the next time i see press releases for major corporations adopting a social networking or forum models to their own business practices.
yep, there are trolls, pundits and fanboys all over the place and they're the time wasters, not the sites themselves. it's just and unfortunate byproduct that 99% of feedback content is garbage or has some ulterior motive. but that 1% can be priceless in the hands of those who will 1. listen and 2. react.
but hey, don't take my word for it...
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2004/07/64332?currentPage=1
http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurstechnology/2008/07/10/facebook-social-network-ent-tech-cx_kw_0719whartonsocialnetwork.html
Posted: Oct 30th 2008 2:43PM Purkit said
No one forces players to play WAR like they play WoW. That seems to be the main complaint people have with WAR. The argument goes something like this:
"I'm going back to WoW because I spent all my time grinding Scenarios because that's the fastest way to level".
Ok, so maybe its faster to level in scenarios, but (and I know this is asking quite a lot from players) you could try doing something else instead. Ok so maybe its not as fast, but its going to be more fun. I mean god forbid you have fun in an MMO. After all, this is a job people! We have to work at this, grind for the WIN!!! GRIND I SAY!!!
Sorry...
Or you could have fun with friends doing the odd PQ, do a little RvR when a few like minded people stop grinding the scenarios and take a look at the RvR areas. Or maybe do some quests. Simply put, WAR is what you make it. If you play it like WoW you may as well go play WoW. However if you find WoWs play style not to your liking then maybe WAR is the answer.
Oh and Blizzard do not innovate, they enhance. They take other MMOs ideas and make them better. That's not a criticism, that's just my honest observation from playing the many MMOs that WoW has borrowed from in the past.
"I'm going back to WoW because I spent all my time grinding Scenarios because that's the fastest way to level".
Ok, so maybe its faster to level in scenarios, but (and I know this is asking quite a lot from players) you could try doing something else instead. Ok so maybe its not as fast, but its going to be more fun. I mean god forbid you have fun in an MMO. After all, this is a job people! We have to work at this, grind for the WIN!!! GRIND I SAY!!!
Sorry...
Or you could have fun with friends doing the odd PQ, do a little RvR when a few like minded people stop grinding the scenarios and take a look at the RvR areas. Or maybe do some quests. Simply put, WAR is what you make it. If you play it like WoW you may as well go play WoW. However if you find WoWs play style not to your liking then maybe WAR is the answer.
Oh and Blizzard do not innovate, they enhance. They take other MMOs ideas and make them better. That's not a criticism, that's just my honest observation from playing the many MMOs that WoW has borrowed from in the past.
Posted: Oct 30th 2008 2:48PM Solidkjames said
So all of you attacking Mythic and saying you pay for scenario grinding. What exactly do you pay for to play WoW? Arena's? Do you pay to run BG's? If its raiding then have fun with your 6 hour runs through the same content over and over and over and over just to get a phat piece of loot. It's all the same thing over and over for every game but some of us like the RvR conflict and some of us like the Raiding. WoW is such a horrendously boring game to me that nothing they can do would make me want to play it again. Not even adding 1 new class in 4 freaking years.
The only thing that was said in here that I would fight to the death over is that Blizzard listens, they don't and never will listen to their players as they have the huge heads in this industry. Get a bunch of Asian people to play your game and you are MMO Gods. That doesn't mean jack in my book and until they provide a game that has meaning other than Phat Lootz it will stay that way. Most of you bashing WAR haven't even played the damn game you just want to come on here and slam it. In the mean time have fun pvping death knights for the first 3 months of WoTLK, I know I won't.
The only thing that was said in here that I would fight to the death over is that Blizzard listens, they don't and never will listen to their players as they have the huge heads in this industry. Get a bunch of Asian people to play your game and you are MMO Gods. That doesn't mean jack in my book and until they provide a game that has meaning other than Phat Lootz it will stay that way. Most of you bashing WAR haven't even played the damn game you just want to come on here and slam it. In the mean time have fun pvping death knights for the first 3 months of WoTLK, I know I won't.
Posted: Oct 30th 2008 3:38PM (Unverified) said
lulz, phat lewtz. i thought we were (generally) talking about corporate responsiveness to a gamer community.
WoW people wanted arenas. they got them. then they wanted global rankings across the largest user base in the genre's history. they got it.
so fine, take out the 6 million players in China, Japan, Korea and points East who play. you're left with 20-24x the number of people who play WAR now, and probably more so once WotLK drops. hardcore PvPers wanted back the gear that was unique to their gameplay style. they got it. dual wielding 2Hers. done. increased character appearance options. done. more pets. done. i could go on since they've been listening and reacting for 4 years.
the 2 things WAR has over WoW aren't even things folks here are mentioning... open parties and PQs. for the 2 months i played WAR fairly heavily (over 10 hrs a week, probably closer to 20), those were the things i by far enjoyed the most with the diversity in scenarios being a close 3rd. fortunately Blizz will probably mimic this by xpac 3 and certainly by the time their next MMO IP drops.
but it all comes down to community. WAR is still a very limited community and my original point was just that Mythic would do well to create more ways for that community to grow and develop quickly based on user feedback. WoW, as much as you want to pigeon hole it, has the largest community on the planet, especially in-game. i'm bored with arenas, so what, i hit an instance. bored with PvE, i go do BGs with a pool of players 3 servers large. no friends on, i engage in tradeskills that actually have an impact on my gameplay and contribute to the uniqueness of my characters. (e.g i took up talisman making only to find that every 3rd quest in T3 gave you a choice of a talisman for completing it).
but for 2 months in WAR, not once did i enjoy a PvE experience other than PQs. no intricately scripted boss fight that left me feeling like i'd lived through a scene in a fantasy movie. no epic 45 min BG struggles. nothing but a few giggles at dwarves getting punted into lava at 9fps as the game engine struggled to handle syncing my warband metrics. i could care less about the phat lewts.
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WoW people wanted arenas. they got them. then they wanted global rankings across the largest user base in the genre's history. they got it.
so fine, take out the 6 million players in China, Japan, Korea and points East who play. you're left with 20-24x the number of people who play WAR now, and probably more so once WotLK drops. hardcore PvPers wanted back the gear that was unique to their gameplay style. they got it. dual wielding 2Hers. done. increased character appearance options. done. more pets. done. i could go on since they've been listening and reacting for 4 years.
the 2 things WAR has over WoW aren't even things folks here are mentioning... open parties and PQs. for the 2 months i played WAR fairly heavily (over 10 hrs a week, probably closer to 20), those were the things i by far enjoyed the most with the diversity in scenarios being a close 3rd. fortunately Blizz will probably mimic this by xpac 3 and certainly by the time their next MMO IP drops.
but it all comes down to community. WAR is still a very limited community and my original point was just that Mythic would do well to create more ways for that community to grow and develop quickly based on user feedback. WoW, as much as you want to pigeon hole it, has the largest community on the planet, especially in-game. i'm bored with arenas, so what, i hit an instance. bored with PvE, i go do BGs with a pool of players 3 servers large. no friends on, i engage in tradeskills that actually have an impact on my gameplay and contribute to the uniqueness of my characters. (e.g i took up talisman making only to find that every 3rd quest in T3 gave you a choice of a talisman for completing it).
but for 2 months in WAR, not once did i enjoy a PvE experience other than PQs. no intricately scripted boss fight that left me feeling like i'd lived through a scene in a fantasy movie. no epic 45 min BG struggles. nothing but a few giggles at dwarves getting punted into lava at 9fps as the game engine struggled to handle syncing my warband metrics. i could care less about the phat lewts.
Posted: Oct 31st 2008 2:29AM (Unverified) said
@Bass
Actually, people DID NOT want arenas. That was something they added in and were hugely surprised by the success of. What arenas did do, however, was give people the ability to get the best gear possible at the lowest possible time investment. It's a base instinct and it has almost completely ruined LARGE aspects of the game, but it will keep going because the masses are stupid sheep. So go Blizzard for being the shepard that wants to do nothing more than increase the size of its flock.
On the topic of official forums...you really might want to rethink that statement if you want ANY chance at all at considering yourself correct. Go read shaman forums, or warrior forums...right now. See what they've done that people want. They have done NOTHING for the PvP realm of that game except cater to all the whining, crying, little children that are there for nothing other than min/maxing their way to victory and the overall achievement of their favorite class. What that is is NOT carefully researching and sifting through all the BS to find out what really needs done, what they are doing is finding the loudest voices, and listening to those. Are they doing what some people want? Absolutely, but is that really good for the game in the long run or are you only going to piss off more people by flavor of the month style tactics. Very reminicent of Diablo 2, several classes/specs change entire play styles when expansions come out.
And finally on WAR, if you went in looking for epic raid content....you most obviously went to the wrong place. That was NEVER the point of that game. Now I'll agree that the PvE grind could certainly be lessened, but adding raid content and epic instances is definitly not the answer. The company needs to stick to what it's good at, which in Mythic's case is PvP. Just like WoW has excellent PvE content, but probably has the most imbalanced splatter-fest that's ever had the misfortune of being called a PvP system.
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Actually, people DID NOT want arenas. That was something they added in and were hugely surprised by the success of. What arenas did do, however, was give people the ability to get the best gear possible at the lowest possible time investment. It's a base instinct and it has almost completely ruined LARGE aspects of the game, but it will keep going because the masses are stupid sheep. So go Blizzard for being the shepard that wants to do nothing more than increase the size of its flock.
On the topic of official forums...you really might want to rethink that statement if you want ANY chance at all at considering yourself correct. Go read shaman forums, or warrior forums...right now. See what they've done that people want. They have done NOTHING for the PvP realm of that game except cater to all the whining, crying, little children that are there for nothing other than min/maxing their way to victory and the overall achievement of their favorite class. What that is is NOT carefully researching and sifting through all the BS to find out what really needs done, what they are doing is finding the loudest voices, and listening to those. Are they doing what some people want? Absolutely, but is that really good for the game in the long run or are you only going to piss off more people by flavor of the month style tactics. Very reminicent of Diablo 2, several classes/specs change entire play styles when expansions come out.
And finally on WAR, if you went in looking for epic raid content....you most obviously went to the wrong place. That was NEVER the point of that game. Now I'll agree that the PvE grind could certainly be lessened, but adding raid content and epic instances is definitly not the answer. The company needs to stick to what it's good at, which in Mythic's case is PvP. Just like WoW has excellent PvE content, but probably has the most imbalanced splatter-fest that's ever had the misfortune of being called a PvP system.
Posted: Oct 30th 2008 2:55PM (Unverified) said
In the end .. its all a grind. I guess it just what flavor you enjoy. The real battle is then these forums... RARR!
Posted: Oct 30th 2008 3:42PM (Unverified) said
thank jebus for you mike.
or
...in a WAR vs. WoW game in about 4 years à la Image vs. Marvel back in teh day.
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or
...in a WAR vs. WoW game in about 4 years à la Image vs. Marvel back in teh day.
Posted: Oct 30th 2008 3:43PM Arashikou said
This post probably has no place in this increasingly-off-topic flamewar, but-
Thank you, Mythic, for putting experience on battlefield objectives. :) You made my day when I saw that little entry tucked away in the patch notes with far less fanfare than it deserved. That was my #1 request for improving participation in RvR Lakes.
With the Witching Night event drawing everyone and their cousin to the lakes already, it's hard to tell if this will finally get people properly RvRing, but I'm hopeful. (Not to dis the event, which is also awesome and also doing good things to advertise the RvR Lakes.)
Thank you, Mythic, for putting experience on battlefield objectives. :) You made my day when I saw that little entry tucked away in the patch notes with far less fanfare than it deserved. That was my #1 request for improving participation in RvR Lakes.
With the Witching Night event drawing everyone and their cousin to the lakes already, it's hard to tell if this will finally get people properly RvRing, but I'm hopeful. (Not to dis the event, which is also awesome and also doing good things to advertise the RvR Lakes.)
Posted: Oct 30th 2008 4:39PM (Unverified) said
On the official forum idea, just because they don't own one themselves does not mean they are unable to visit the ones they link to and read those ones.
I really think if Mythic keeps up this amazing support and constant updates that it will become one of the best mmorpgs out there today, that has always been a problem in the past, never listening or updating quickly. I say grats to Mythic!
I really think if Mythic keeps up this amazing support and constant updates that it will become one of the best mmorpgs out there today, that has always been a problem in the past, never listening or updating quickly. I say grats to Mythic!
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