Further details on Warhammer Online's new user journey

So it's not enough that they're server merging, they're also realm merging within the few remaining servers? Doooooom.

*sigh* And you know the funny thing about this? If they'd triaged the game this hard back when they first realized that there was no way to ship the game that they designed on schedule and within budget? This could have been a viable design. If they'd cut it down to a single realm pairing at launch, and added additional realm pairings as subscription money came in, Warhammer Online could have a long life of steady growth like EVE or Runequest. Now it's more like on the lifecycle of Neocron: cut developers, figure out what of the game can be left behind or ignored or cut based on the remaining developers, watch customers leave, cut more developers; the classic MMO death spiral.

This would have even been the pairing to start with, arguably. The Empire/Chaos pairing was, hands down, the busiest pairing because it has the best-designed open RvR zones (although after tier 1, not the best scenarios). I could make an argument that if they shut down the other two pairings *and* Land of the Dead altogether, promising to bring them back if or when subscription numbers warrant it, and concentrated all of their development manpower on making that one pairing the best it could possibly be, and on fixing all of the remaining combat-related bugs and class-related balance issues, they might have a stable, and dare I say fun and entertaining and unique, place to grow from. On some level, this may be as close as they can realistically come to a plan to actually save the game. And that'd be a good thing; there are things about this game worth saving.

I just don't see it as all that likely to work.

So, allow me to see if I can understand something here; though I'm quite sure someone will be more than pleased to jump down my respective throat should they or others deem my observations incorrect.

After all the hardships this came has suffered, from content bugs and errors to population difficulties, the team behind WAR made a precarious if not somewhat smart choice in merging servers so as to provide a more robust player base. With that at last accomplished their next 'smart' course of action is to completely seperate races from their starting zones and place them on a proverbial front line somewhere in their faction's respective territory, i.e. Everquest 2? (Sigh) Forgive me, but I must the share the views of others that of all the choices they could have made, cutting off races from some very well crafted starting areas (something that will likely 'not' be appreciated by the RP community) was not one of the better choices they could have agreed upon. It has been pointed out in more than a few sites and blogs, as well as within the WAR forums themselves, that the largest problems players were having aside from low population was Fortress and Seige battles and essentialy 'forced' PvP through the game's RvR content. Would it not have simply been more prudent to address those concerns as opposed to going with what is essentialy a 'New Player Island'?

Now, in regards to the Fortress and forced RvR content, I myself dislike PvP with a passion. I have nothing but respect for those who not only embrace the PvP likestyle but excel in it as well as I have more than a few friends who revel in said subject. However, there are many like me who wish to experiance an MMO, either alone or with ingame allies, without the concern of being litteraly stabed in the back (digitaly speaking) by a thirteen year old player half way across the country or world, respectively. Like me, they simply wish to enjoy the story content of the Warhammer Universe without being waylaid by players who care nothing for any of the ideals that drive players such as myself. Now, what I have always found frustrating is that more than one MMO, and not just the 'King on the Hill' have found ways to seperate PvE from PvP, where-as WAR almost insists that you participate to some degree or suffer to some extent, whether via a slight xp loss or lack of truly impressive Gear.


Now, I understand that the reigning arguement from the camp of the PvP/RvR diehards is that WAR is supposed to be just that, War. As such, fighting your respective enemy faction is only logical; and, well, I agree. However! I fail to see why those faction enemies 'must' be other players. There are no shortages of enemy NPCs with-in the game, why not keep it as such for PvE players, and for those who feel the burning need to destroy another Human being, in the digital sense, they can have their respective content kept seperate via instances and closed combat areas. And yes, of course WAR has the latter mentioned option, however many, many, quests that are procured in the PvE zones require one to traverse RvR zones to complete quests leaving a player such as myself to either go forward with content I do not enjoy in the least or skip said quests and suffer XP and equipment losses. I fail to see how this is good gaming or a good buisness model. Sadly, WAR's less than sufficent profit margin serves to prove my point far better than any of my own words.

In closing, it would seem that the WAR team is attempting to appeal to 'some' of the smaller concerns in the game without addressing the proverbial 'pink elephant' in the room, i.e. the aforementioned concerns. What I fail to understand is why? Yes, a substantial number of what players the game has are RvR oriented; however, those number would grow quite quickly if they made the game far more approachable for those who are not PvP/RvR centric.

Should they dumb down the game? No, not at all. Should they remove the RvR content? No, not at all? What I am asking is that the WAR team utilize established systems that have been proven in more than one MMO title to seperate the two while keeping the content for both rich and rewarding, not favoring one over the other. Also, there is always the simple solution of having RvR only servers, akin to the concept behind RP servers. Again, a staple of many other MMOs.

I have never seen a game so horribly managed. They took away major content before release and now they are rendering huge portions of content irrelevant. They might as well get rid of Greenskins, Dark Elves, Dwarfs, and High Elves cause what's the point if you are forced to start in the Chaos/Empire zones.

I have been popping back into WAR from time to time, subbing for a month here and a month there, hoping beyond hope that the performance would get better and eventually I would get to see the Greenskin Cap-city.

Now, I'm done. They get ZERO of my dollars. So long Mythic.

Oh yeah, one more thing. DO NOT ruin SWTOR with your mismanagement, dishonest business policies, ridiculous marketing strategies which include broken promises and week excuses.

Bioware, don't take Mythic's advice. Just plaster a picture of the GM and dev teams on the walls and look at them everyday to remind yourselves that they are the quintessential example of how NOT to develop, release, and manage an MMO.

A design that might have suited WAR far better than the 'standard' separate servers might have been the one used in Guild Wars. At least that way, the realms and zones could have been as full as they possibly could be.

Hmmm...they are now indirectly taking away something that was fun, unique and interesting to thier game. That is, it's start up areas which I always enjoyed when playing the game. They will be still there...but they will become ghost towns, like Silvermoon City in WoW on a Tuesday morning before maintenance. Especially if they only allow the option of going to those only accessible threw flight point and foot once your toon is rolled out...

...it seems to be a very sad and unimaginative solution to their vexing population problems.

Again, how is this game the Led Zeppelin of MMO's, Paul?

The saddest, most depressing part of all of this? T1 is very nearly the only part of the game that is fun, easily accessible, and has much of any life to it. So they're going to screw with it. Brilliant, just brilliant.

And PQs? Who the hell gives a flying rat dropping about PQs? They're boring, repetitive, often buggy as hell -- my favorite is a T3 PQ close to the Chaos WC where not enough items spawn to even finish the PQ, nice job Mythic -- and the only reason anyone bothers with them is when you need an extra percentage point or three to flip the zone.

First the Mac client -- Yeah, because there are sooooo many Mac gamers just waiting to play War, and none of them have bootcamp! -- and now this crap. As much as I'm having fun in War -- or, at least, was until most of my characters got to the ghost town that is T3 -- I'm seeing no indication that Mythic even has half a clue what's wrong with the game, let alone the interest or money it would take to fix it.

And that makes me a very, very sad panda.

I don't get their mindset at all. Last spring, they invalidated T4 RvR and city sieges by adding that silly PvE zone known as Land of the Dead, now they're killing starting zones for 2 out of 3 races for each faction in an attempt to make this easier for new players?

Guys, just pull the plug, there's obviously nobody behind the wheel anymore.

I had to double-read all this to make sure I was reading correctly; they're forcing you to start in Empire / Chaos??

LOL

As per the sentiments here, it's such a crying shame. I loved WAR for the first 3 months I played it at launch, and I've continued to want to love it ever since.
But, as others have said, Mythic deserve to be indelibly marked henceforth, for completely ruining a great franchise promise. In fact I'd go as far as to put them in the same boat as NCSoft and their handling of TR.

Boo, to you, Mythic.
Never again.

Population density is more important to the health of the game than your infatuation with orcish cockney.

You know. Deep down inside all of you people. The only reason why you don't like WAR is for the lack of Skaven PCs. And you all know this to be true.

I'm so glad EA Mythic never got a red cent of my money for WAR (I bought by copy on e-bay and cancelled before the free month was up. Boo-yah!). This butchering of the Warhammer world is a disgrace.

I just don't understand the reasoning behind it. Have more people to group up with for PQs? Really? REALLY? That's why you're going to cut out two great starting zones, and disable two open RvR lakes as well? So newbies can do PQs?

That'll last about 2-3 hours until they are in T2 and you run into the exact same problem...PvE is non-existent in this game. And I'm OK with that because the RvR is great, even in Tier 1.

If you want more people to fight with, why not merge more servers instead? I'm on Iron Rock which is supposed to be one of the busiest servers, and I can tell you that there's not enough people on to have a serious war. Many times we have one Order warband and one Destruction warband running around...for having 3 different pairings, 6 or more keeps (depending on the Tier), and dozens of Battle Objectives...there's room for TONS more people to attack and defend. There should be action going on at least 2 out of the 3 pairings at all times. Merging servers would fix that.

Will it fix PvE? Who cares!

I believe many of the challenges Warhammer faces are a result of feeling too much like a game and not enough like an MMO, and these upcoming changes further exacerbate the issue.

Fantasy MMO players, be they PVE/PVP/RP'rs all desire a sense of immersion, continuity, and purpose in their online virtual world and the new player herding into Chaos/Empire regardless of race diminishes this greatly. The thing that I first loved about Warhammer is that when I created my first Greenskin character, the starting area immediately made me FEEL like a GREENSKIN and got me into the flavor of the game. I am sure WOW players would feel similarly if all the dwarves started out in Silvermoon City.

I commend Mythic for their concerted attempts at improving the game but just think that their approach has focused on reactive survival changes and not making it great.