Winds of Change to blow through Warhammer

What's the worst case scenario for an MMO pitting hundreds of players against each other in epic large-scale RvR combat? Lag. Crashing. Rollbacks. Unfortunately, many Warhammer Online players have experienced all these issues while participating in open RvR. Mythic has been working on server stability since launch and now plan on taking a more aggressive stance by testing a new mechanic called The Winds of Change (WoC).

The WoC will basically teleport certain players to the nearest PvE safe spot (warcamp or chapter hub) when the server determines it is under enough stress to soon buckle. If people do not voluntarily leave once the WoC message is broadcast across the zone, dead players in the effected area will be teleported first, followed by the severely wounded. On the plus side, at least those players who qualify will still have a chance at rolling for rewards.

Some players believe the solution is not ideal because it forces people out of RvR, the game's bread and butter, but Mythic says the WoC only be a temporary fix until they can solve their server stability issues once and for all. One has to wonder if that is even possible given the game has been on the market for over 7 months already. Still, we remain cautiously optimistic. A more permanent solution may arrive with The Land of the Dead as we predict many players will flee the original open RvR campaign for RvR in the desert.

Update #1 - Mythic has released a server maintenance announcement.

Greetings!

Today, 4/29/09, all North American and Oceanic servers will be brought offline at 9:00 AM EDT for an update. We anticipate all servers to be back online by 1:00 PM EDT. This update will improve City Instances and server stability; in addition the Winds of Change feature will be removed from Dark Crag during this downtime.

Thank you and as always keep an eye on the Herald for the latest news and information during server updates!

Update #2 - GOA's Nilax has released this statement on the official European forums.

"After reviewing the metrics and community feedback Mythic have removed the Winds of Change feature from Dark Crag. As they will continue to look at this or similar options to improve stability I will leave this thread open for now."

Reader Comments (39)

Hrmm...sounds very similar to Asheron Call 1's 'Portal Storms'. It's not really a solution as much as it is an admission that they can't get condense areas right.

Yeh such a dumb change, the sorta one where you know when to jump ship.

I think it's fine, as long as there's a better fix in the future.

Wow, basically an admission of failure. Sounds more like a hack than a fix to me. Why even have the large scale battles then?

Bad design. The game is full of it. Good intentions, but bad design.

So does this mean when I walk into a major city and get lag from hell I will be ported out? Or is this for battles only, like in a city you're trying to defend?

Yeah this is a total cop out for bad code. I like the game, the game's look, some ideas behind the game, but not the fact that they designed the game to be played on a massive scale but didn't make the code able to handle said scale. I can tell you from being shut out of Keeps, that being teleported to a warcamp is super lame and almost breaks my spirit after the 2-6 hours it takes during a night of rvr to get to the Keep in the first place.

Yea… this isn’t encouraging to return.

Have they released any answers about the system? I mean, this is a harsh way to say to players “our hardware can’t handle what we sold you on”.

How is an already broken contribution system going to be effected?
How are players labeled as “teleported”?
Will both sides see an even number teleported or left not teleported out?
Will both sides see the same amount of mirror classes TP’d at the same time?
Will there be priority to keep WBs together?
Will players who have been, say fighting in the zone/fortress longest, be given priority?
What, if any, willt he teleported players be given, since they are beig removed from combat by absolutely no fault fo their own?

I mean, this is kinda ridiculous, and to make it a smooth transition for a hardware issue that’s caused by their design flaws they offer …. What? More free frustration?

Wait lemme get this straight...
Players have lag and crashing issues that won't let 'em do... what? Key tap spam in boring random brawls that make no sense? Farming back and forth the same boring keeps? Using the same 3 moves and tactics again and again and again and again?

Players should be thankful servers suck.

interesting that we are seeing more "restricted access" to rvr, when its supposed to be the main focus of the game. pity the folks that paid full price for the box and a monthly sub. i'm starting to like free games more and more, if they suck at least you aren't out any money. Puzzle Pirates ftw.

I hear the ticking of the end for WAR. This is just bad mojo, imo. I give it about 12-18 more months before EA pulls the plug on this one. Shame, too, since DAoC was so good in its day.

You kinda have to laugh at those calling this an admission of failure and how Mythic can't get it right; what would be better, Mythic pretending everything is fine and shoving its head in the sand like Blizzard did with Wintergrasp (and still does)?

What would be better, would be not advertising the game specifically for the very thing it can't handle worth a shit.

Really though a server can only handle so much. No matter the code or whatever servers have limits.

This is true, but were they so blind to the fact that their servers would have to handle the amount of players in one small space, that this was overlooked, and they have to continue to back pedal?

What exactly happened in this game's beta?

Good point JP.

Mythic originally built WAR to be a scenario-based RvR game, it was late in it's development that "Open-World" RvR was shoe-horned into the game & keeps added after an outcry from former DAoC players.

The problem is that you simply cannot have a game designed around large-scale battles that wasn't built for that from the ground up, Planetside was & did a far far better job of doing so than I believe WAR will ever be capable of, you can't turn a Mini-cooper into a Formula 1 car.

Personally I think all Mythic are doing now is trying to work around a fundemental design mistake, they should have either stuck with the original concept & fleshed it out, or gone back to the drawing board & rebuilt the game as a Open-World RvR focused game, building in from the ground up all the necessary elements be able to actually deliver that.

Maybe Mythic can prove me wrong, but I think they are running out of time, & the game will be dead in the water before they can get the game performing well enough to deliver.

"Mythic originally built WAR to be a scenario-based RvR game, it was late in it's development that "Open-World" RvR was shoe-horned into the game & keeps added after an outcry from former DAoC players."

Um...no it's the total opposite. it was ALWAYS supposed to be Open-world RvR. The scenarios were added to ease the WoW crowd into the game.

I'm wondering why you just made up a load of complete rubbish there? What was the point of that?

You CANNOT BE SERIOUS.

"HUGE OPEN WORLD PVP" was SCREAMED at us as the main selling point for WAR for hours on end before during and after release.

What rock were you hiding under??

WAR is everywhere!!!

...as long as there aren't too many people involved...doing what the game was advertised as being based around. So, what happens when a pvp-centric game, with abysmally mediocre pve content, can't deliver on it's sole selling point? Game boxes filling dumpsters, perhaps?

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Winds of Change to blow through Warhammer

Reader Comments (39)

Posted: Apr 29th 2009 10:39AM (Unverified) said

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