In the latest of
an ongoing series of interviews with MMORPG.com, Mythic Entertainment VP and General Manager Mark Jacobs has dropped big news on the
Warhammer Online fanbase:
major features are being culled from the game in order to make their Fall launch deadline. In short,
the capital cities for the Dark Elf, High Elf, Orc, and Dwarf factions will not be in the game at launch. The Human city of Altdorf and the Chaos Inevitable City will be the only Capital cities in the game. This is an enormous change, seemingly changing
much of what we know about the game's core of RvR gameplay.
Additionally,
four classes are being removed, deemed to be in a condition unsuitable for launch. They are:
- The Choppa (Greenskin)
- The Hammerer (Dwarf)
- The Blackguard (Dark Elf)
- The Knight of the Blazing Sun (Empire)
As the website notes, all of these are melee classes and two of these
were intended to be the primary tanking classes for their race. This leaves the Empire and Dark Elf races without a dedicated tanking career, possibly limiting their contributions to
end-game PvE content. Jacobs moved immediately to try to curtail the obvious rumor-mongering:
"This has nothing to do with EA ... they had zero input in this ... They don't even know about it. It's not a discussion we would have with them." We've
previously expressed some reservations about just these issues. How do you feel about these major announcements for
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning?
Jul 11th 2008 at 11:45AM
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Steve said on 11:54AM 7-11-2008
I have long been following this series hoping for a decent MMO to play, and was encouraged by the developers delaying of the game to ensure its readiness,
Now they go and cut large portions of content out of the game, sorry guys but no, i will wait another year if i have to, but i won't play a half-finished game
They really should just delay for 6 months- a year and add it in, I'd prefer this to getting a half-baked game
And come on, its not as if they'll run out of funding with EA behind them
In addition if they wait a year Lich King buzz will have died down again and itll still be as good a market as it is now
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Dan said on 1:53PM 7-11-2008
I agree, I've been a Dawn of War fan for a long time and was looking forward to trying this mmo for a long time now.
How they justify cutting out 4 Major capitals and killing a bunch of classes is beyond me for saying balancing reasons.
Just that announcement alone make the game seem waay smaller compared to others out there..... Not cool at all guys....
bellevegasj said on 6:55PM 7-11-2008
Wow. I've been looking forward to playing this game for a very long time. I might have to pass. Sounds like it's just going to be another rushed POS MMORPG. I'm not paying $15/mo to be a beta tester.
Nostraphex said on 11:57AM 7-11-2008
Wow..that is quite an announcement to make, and something that will not go down well with the fans or potential fans of the games...
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Matt said on 3:45PM 7-11-2008
While this is disappointing, I am glad they at least issued a statement so that when players got the game they wouldn't be dumbfounded like with Funcom's Age of Conan.
That all being said I still think the game will do well, but it won't really shine until these cities and classes are allowed in the game.
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Theadrick said on 12:02PM 7-11-2008
Sounds like they are just trying to push it out the door to compete with Wrath of the Lich King. Bad idea.
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Animagnum said on 12:12PM 7-11-2008
It's a double-edged sword. If they cut the features then beta "testers" and fans will complain because it's not what they expected. On the other hand, if they leave them in and they are truly -- as Jacobs said -- unsuitable for launch, then the same people would likely complain that the game was rushed to release. Features get cut. It happens. I doubt that it was an easy decision for the developers to make.
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Thrakkha said on 12:21PM 7-11-2008
If you read the full interview Mark he explaines the rationality of these major decisions. I for one applaud these decions. Quality > quantity. As far as the cities go I would rather have two awesome kick ass cities at launch than 6 ok cities. This will also focus the importance on defending your city, and make it more grand when you take a city. Just take WoW for example. Who gives a crap about Under City, Darnassus or Thunder Bluff? When is the last time you even went to Darnassus? The other 4 cities will be introduced later. Everything will be all good.
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LaughingTarget said on 3:22PM 7-11-2008
Silvermoon and Exodar are also boring as sin cities.
You know, the funny thing about the whole quality over quantity thing is that WAR still has 20 unique classes, which is double what other MMOs tend to offer. WoW only has 9 (#10 coming later this year). Cutting from over double to double the offering isn't exactly what I consider a huge problem.
Ghen said on 9:39PM 7-11-2008
While I understand that quality is a big concern, aren't the races separated a lot more than in other MMOs? This is definitely going to hurt if different races can't get together on the chaos/order sides for grouping and RvR.
eric said on 12:22PM 7-11-2008
Just canceled my collector's edition pre-order. Maybe I'll buy it some day when they finish it, probably not. Not going to invest time in some half baked crap they shove out the door though. Would have rather seen a delay.
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Kaiallard said on 12:22PM 7-11-2008
In a year the game would be old and they would have to revamp a bunch of things. I still think the game will be fun...at least they told us a few months before release then the day before.
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Daniel Delorme said on 12:24PM 7-11-2008
As for the cities change, i think it is a good idea for now, there is nothing worse in an MMO than having content spread too thin. So now we will get 2 fabulous cities. and they will be adding the others at later dates, perhaps weaving them into a new fork of story line. The classes that are being cut does sadden me, but that being said this also plays in to future expansion packs. so now they have a lot of opening classes and 4 more for expansions. without reaching for new class ideas.
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Tony said on 12:25PM 7-11-2008
See, the thing is that if they released all of those features half-assed it would be a "half finished" game then. Instead of being upset now, you'd be even more upset when you start playing the game and realizing that most of the content is poorly constructed.
I mean, it would essentially be every complaint against Age of Conan all over again.
I don't want that. I'm hardly excited about these changes, but they have been clear that the effort that would have gone into making these cut items half decent is instead going into making what's there better than they originally planned for it to be.
Personally, I'd rather go with the latter. It's hardly a great situation, but I'd rather play something that has been properly polished. If they're literally doubling the amount of things going on in these cities than it's hard to say there will be a lot less to do. Certainly there will be a lot less places to go to, but that doesn't necessarily imply that these were going to be points of interest.
It reminds me of WoW and how everyone pretty much flocks to very specific cities, leaving others relatively empty. There's something to be learned from that.
I'm unclear on what will happen with these cities and classes, though. It doesn't sound like they've been completely shelved, but the interview doesn't say anything else about it. Will they be added in for sure later? Will they be stuffed in an expansion? Will it just be free content since they planned on including it before?
I'd like to know more about that.
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Lethality said on 12:42PM 7-11-2008
What people here don't seem to understand is that getting rid of cities completely changes the major RvR gameplay mechanic they have been working on all this time.
Which is fine, but it's a reactionary decision that affects a core gameplay mechanic that they've had since inception... now they have to gut it.
Not good.
mikejl said on 12:36PM 7-11-2008
WAR!!!
ohh yaa ..
What's is good for!
Absolutely nuthing!
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Pingmeister said on 12:39PM 7-11-2008
I love the justification: Well, we care SO much about quality we can't give you broken stuff...
...but we're willing to sell you 60% of the game!
I played DAoC for years and was a fan of Mythic but this is a bit much.
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pantognost said on 5:50AM 8-24-2008
60% of the game? Let's check this
4 classes out of 24...that's...1/6 of the classes approx 17% of the class system. I don't believe you consider 100% of the game classes. So let's consider them as half the game (it's not but just for the sake of your argument) So 1/2 of 17% is ...9%
Then you have the 4 cities. The 4 cities that were originally at the end of the tier 4 zones which included 5 (or is it 7 can't remember let's go with 5 in your favor) regions along with 2 for each lower tier. So...from a total of 33 regions they cut 4 zones leaving *only* 29 cutting 12% of the real estate of the game. We don't count the replacement castle region to compensate for the extended size of the city. Well since classes had to be half the game to accomodate favorable % for you consider the real estate to be the other half. So as far as the whole game is concerned the cities were 6% of it. Adding these % we get a terrible 15% feature cut in the game.
Remember that is considering not the overall game mechanics, the PQ innovations, the tome of knowledge, the non class specific loot tables, the new party and scenario system and all that. Frankly if you count them in I doubt you could consider more than 5% of the overall project being cut.
Now see what happens when you spit numbers out of the wrong end?!
Luckton said on 12:40PM 7-11-2008
RESPONSE FROM DEVS AT WARHAMMER ALLIANCE
====================
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?p=964485#post964485
Hey guys,
It's important to remember a few key facts:
A) The game is still in development, it's important that we make the right decisions to have a successful launch.
B) We want to make a great game, not a good game. I think we can all agree that playing a career that wasn't up to par with our standards doesn't accomplish that.
C) Capital cities require you to capture 2 of the 3 campaigns. We'll have a much more informative explanation of how city capture works but it's now even more challenging and requires the cooperation of the entire realm to march to the gates of your enemies city and conquer their king, which in the end was always our goal.
WAR, while now different, is more exciting and engaging then ever before and the cities and careers provide an experience to look forward too
====================
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?p=964546#post964546
PunkBuster cannot automatically do anything, including boot a user from the server.
It is purely for monitoring purposes and alerting CSR's of any suspicious activity.
It still requires a member of our Customer Support team following our guidelines for support to take any action against an account.
Many of us have played FPS's to be booted from the server for no apparent reason. This will not be the case here as any instance will still require an investigation, it simply allows us to hone in on possible troublemakers faster than ever and keep your RvR and PvE experience as fair as possible.
=======================
And nobody said that these classes won't ever see the light of day...just not the light shown on release. The capital cities, classes, all that can come back in future updates.
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GRT said on 12:40PM 7-11-2008
It's my fault, guys. Just this morning I pre-ordered the Collector's Edition, clearly causing this. :)
I dunno, I have mixed feelings. I'm glad they didn't leave in half-baked features and ship anyway. But at the same time, it makes me wonder what else might fall by the wayside between now and launch.
I wonder what a delay until, say, late next spring would've meant for them? It almost seems like that would've been best for the game, but maybe it was politically/fiscally impossible.
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