torak

Well I guess IMHO it goes like this

A) Gamers speak with their wallets. If the community has an issue, they will quit. It's happened in dozens of games.

B) ALL conventional MMO leveling sucks (when it comes to that "kill 10 rats" grind that many games still have)

C) in todays climate, companies are going to charge for whatever they can because the bottom fell out of the MMO frontier a long time ago and 90% of these games are on survival mode and they are ALL scrambling to salvage their investments with "new" business models.

D) I have no idea why WAR hasn't gone free to play. That move alone probably would have rescued the game.

E) let's be honest, who is going to pay 10 dollars for a level in a game that is easy to level in with a very small player base? I'll tell you... a very small group of people so WTF cares? They may as well charge a 1000 dollars because it will be an unused service.

How did that combat revamp go?

I played FE last winter and really enjoyed the gameworld and all but the combat was hideous (IMHO).

Its easy to rag on these games and I agree to a point but one must keep in mind there are a lot more considerations that go into making these things than adherence to "lore".

In the early 2000's the budding MMO genre was seen as the new cash cow frontier and everyone scrambled to find investors who all wanted promises of WoW scale success before they gave up the cash. Investors don't like too much "risk", they like money. So when designers and capitalist went at it, all it came down to was "make it more like the game that has millions of players or no money".

The dreams of living virtual worlds died in the span of minutes when WoW launched and GW close behind it. Millions of players killing 10 rats & slaughtering each other on repeating maps and loving it to this day.

Now that the fantasy of the "WoW' killer is behind us maybe we will start seeing the innovation and progress in the genre we should have seen 6 years ago.

"I think the answer comes down to the same reason why players can't be bothered to respect the IP themselves"

IMHO, that pretty much sums up the issue to some degree. The market delivers what is demanded.
Hollow level grinders with end game raids and map based PvP is what players howl for and that is what they got for about a decade now.

Hmmm... I'm very familiar with this but 3%?

Hardly seems like a fuss to me. Who would spend 10 bucks on 3%??? Are you sure that isn't a type and its 30%?

Am I just not understanding something about the mechanics of this game? (I admit I don't know much about it)

So don't play...problem fixed.

OMG! A game company...changing money for their game stuff! Preposterous!

In other words, don't use it if you don't like it.

There should never have been "factions"

Each race is a faction onto itself in Warhammer lore.

This and the world design is what screwed up WAR.

I can't really speak for how "picky" people are dudemanjac. That is a subjective guess on your part and can not be supported in any way what so ever.

The question is "are there jobs to replace the ones lost"

The answer is no.

If an IT professional making 50k a year gets laid off, picking up a part time job a McDonalds for 16k a year does not correct the problem if that is what you are getting at.

I agree on the faction thing.

IMHO, they should not have had "factions", each race is a faction onto itself in the lore. Warhammer is a racially based free for all. Dwarfs could fight Elves and Chaos would certainly fight Orcs.
I see why they did what they did, for the sake of ease & balance / accessibility...but it didn't workout that well anyway.
Also the linear map based world and leaving out a full crafting system was a huge mistake.
The IP of Warhammers wealth is in its diverse and rich 30 years of lore...which was totally overlooked by this game.

The problem with WAR is that it is a lot of fun in moment but it doesn't do enough to create a living world feeling. It's more akin to a persistent shooter and thereby, easy to walk away from once you feel like you've had enough just like the endless parade of copy cat shooters who's only real claim to fame is escalating graphic requirements.