Warhammer Online's realm imbalance fears

by Kyle Horner Jun 7th 2008 at 11:00AM

Filed under: New titles, Warhammer Online, News items, Opinion

When Warhammer Online releases later this year do you think there will be a skewed realm population? The GREENSkin blog seems to think so, but history would disagree with them. Whenever a game has been faction-based the "evil" races tend to be popular during the beta period. This fear of imbalance was a issue in Dark Age of Camelot and in World of Warcraft. During both of those instances beta testers expressed worry that the more evil of the realms would be entirely overpopulated post launch. However, the exact opposite happened to the complete befuddlement of beta testers everywhere.

Everyone was left wondering why this had happened but the truth is that there's no simple explanation. It's not simply a matter of players liking the good guys more than the bad ones, as many would guess. In the case of World of Warcraft, many players would also argue that Alliance 1-60 content was simply paced much better than the Horde side. Of course with WoW there was only one class specific to each side (Paladin and Shaman) until a patch much later. In Warhammer Online each side has a bevy of classes all to their own. While all of these classes share similarities mechanically, they do differ in terms of flavor. So you can see how even these two games have different factors affecting realm balance.

That's only scratching the surface as there are lots of worries to have with any MMO beyond even realm balance. There's even the possibility that players coming from WoW to WAR might decide to break tradition and flood the evil races over the good ones. All we know is that we'll be in the thick of it playing our Gobbos, Orcs, Chaos and Dark Elves.

Tags: activision-blizzard, alliance, blizzard, chaos, dark-age-of-camelot, dark-elves, destruction, ea-mythic, electronic-arts, gobbos, horde, mythic, orcs, order, the-greenskin, war, warhammer-online, world-of-warcraft, wow

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Ghen said on 11:36AM 6-07-2008

Casual players are more likely to pick up a 'good guy' character IMO. And casuals don't join betas.

Innk said on 1:06PM 6-07-2008

Maybe the Dwarf likes to be outnumbered!?

Kadathwack said on 1:58PM 6-07-2008

I don't think there'll be a huge Order vs Disorder imbalance in the game. The fact that the classes differ so completely from side to side is going to make people a lot more interested in rolling across that faction line. Furthermore, both sides will have elves right from the start, and if causal players like one thing, it is sexy, sexy elves.

I'm interested to see the balance within the factions though. Empire vs High Elves vs Dwarves, and the Chaos vs Greenskin vs Dark Elves. And what kinds of troubles might arise from that.

Carrie said on 1:58PM 6-07-2008

White Lions are going to be the new night elf hunter, everyone is going to be one, which is a shame cause the class looks really cool.

I'm going Black Orc. WAAGH!

Ohnam said on 8:18PM 6-07-2008

Wait a minute, in DAOC where it had three factions there were servers where there was a 3rd faction that had less population than the other two.

Didn't Mythic have to give these under populated realms buffs? I left right before they said they were going to implement them. Does anybody remember if this was true?

hal said on 5:59PM 6-07-2008

This is false. Please document your sources.

WOW did have an imbalance with characters on the alliance side, it was not until the release of the burning crusade (the "patch" mentioned above) that the sides started to even out. Even then, when you look at sites like WOW census, servers do have even numbers, BUT when you look at hours played it is unbalanced. For instance, on my server it is 3 to 1 alliance to horde, though there is an even number of characters on each side.

please do your research and document it... not that hard with links.

Mia said on 8:41PM 6-07-2008

1. No mention is made of the "pretty" factor. Many, many people chose Alliance in WoW because the human/elf character models were much more attractive. (As numerous guys playing female toons have told me - "If I have to look at my toon's arse for thousands of hours, it should at least look hot.")

And especially for women gamers, the Ally races were more appealing, and men playing with their women tagged along for the ride. This did not begin to right itself until Blood Elves became available to the Horde.

WAR will not have this problem, as there are physically attractive elves on both sides. Mythic was not stupid enough to repeat that mistake Blizzard made, and it was a whopper.

2. Mythic has already said that if a server pop is unbalanced, they will buff the side that's less populated in PVP areas, if I recall.

3. To the person who mentioned WoW Census as a reliable source, you can't take that stuff for truth. It's aggregate data that's been compiled for so long now that it's no longer remotely accurate. Between server transfers and North Americans quitting the game, overall server pops are neither as high as that site claims, nor are they balanced in the same way it shows. I mean for my old server, whose raiding guilds imploded in late winter and many raiders transferred off, it still shows guilds that are long gone as being Top 50. Which means it is still counting those players as present on the server when they are not.

ScytheNoire said on 1:02AM 6-08-2008

A lot of good points already made in the comments.

I will say that if you look at the guild listings at WAR fansites, you will see a ton more for Destruction. But I don't think this means Destruction will highly out number Order. In polls I've seen on fan sites, the classes are rather even across the board.

Plus I think it's hard to call the Horde evil. Only a non-Warcraft player would make a comment like that. If you know your lore, you would know that is false.

I don't think there is anything to worry about, and it seems like Massively is spending a lot of time being negative about WAR just to stir the pot. How about a nice long 50 page article on all that is wrong with WoW? That would take up a full weeks worth of content.

pappabearbasher said on 9:11AM 6-09-2008

seems very true i see alot more negatives bout WAR on this site then positives but yet on other sites i see more balanced opinion bout the game kinda think massively is more world of warcraft bias maybe considering the fact blizzard is pushing there third expac along in hopes of keeping there title in all honestly burning crusade killed it for me got too repetitive and all good game titles gotta end sooner or later just think WoW's time is up besides i love warhammer been playing the table top game for 10 years and the white lions and squig herder classes look like they will be the new hunter/noob classes which is a shame cause i love high elf white lions

sleepygiant said on 7:01AM 6-08-2008

first Idd like to say that the comments make more sence then the article (infomation wise) so go comunity!!

but the reason I write this is becouse all that jibba jabba about the good and evil side, wich is in both MMO's not etirely true,

its just called the good side becous its the human side
(and the other goody's from the tolkine books are their to)

but when you look at WOW you can hardly call taurons evil right? they just joined a movment that can protect their tribe!

and if we look at WAR, and our precious human kind, and you only look in the job prescription of a wich hunter (under others) you see that the "good side" isnt as good as one might think!!

just like a real war, their ar no good and wrong, just those who win and write history, and those who lose and are labled bad

(ps to get back to the game, I will be a greenskin !! WAAAAG!!)

Von said on 12:19PM 6-09-2008

I think it is pretty safe to say that Chaos is evil.

There should be little room for debate on the question of who is good and who is evil in Warhammer, yet someone always has to try and play the "there is no good or evil" card (in pretty much any topic like this on any game) in order to justify their personal preference.

Embrace evil, if that is your way, just don't kid yourself, the gods of Chaos don't want half hearted followers.

As for the comment on the witch hunter, if you think about it, even though they are uncomfortable, they are necessary. Read up on the history of various chaos worshipping cults and see what kind of damage and treachery has come of them. It's dark, it's messy, and that is part of what makes it all so intriguing.

Dug565 said on 10:01AM 6-08-2008

Just a point about WOW Census to Mia:
The Wow Census IS accurate, it only uses data gathered in the last 30 days, it might be skewed for guilds, but for overall Realm populations, balance, and activity, if enough people update their counts within 30 days, the stats should be fairly accurate

pruettjohn said on 11:51PM 6-10-2008

I actually will play on 2 servers. I love dwarves and am intrigued by the white lion and engineer classes.

That being said I play evil mostly and will play a black orc and all the chaos classes. Going to be a lot of long nights.

Laocorne said on 3:35PM 6-19-2008

Sorry Sleepygiant, but the lines are more clear-cut in WAR. Chaos and Dark Elves are undeniably evil. Chaos seeks to conquer and corrupt, Dark Elves to conquer and enslave.

Orcs...well...They just live to fight. Hard for me to call it evil, it's just what they are.

With WoW races too, the Forsaken and Blood Elves are definitely your D&D definition evil as well. Undead quests tend to involve testing new plagues in the starter zone, and Blood Elves are stealing holy power from an imprisoned being. 2/5 may not make up a majority, but that's still a chunk 'o evil in their ranks.