A player's perspective on top ten priorities for WAR in 2009 (updated)

by Kyle Horner Jan 9th 2009 at 1:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Warhammer Online, News items

The Greenskin blog has put together a top ten list of what they'd like to see for Warhammer Online in '09. Aimed at making sure the game finds continued success in the coming year, the list focuses on giving the game a lot of polish and fine-tuning. Specifically it calls for the death of bugs, CTDs and endgame performance issues. We don't think anyone would really disagree with these sentiments, because nothing is worse than suddenly seeing your Pretty Pretty Princess wallpaper right when you were about to capture The Inevitable City.

As for the expansion announcement in 2009, we do think it would be very nice to hear, but only if fixes and such have been plentiful by that point. The best thing to do, in our humble opinion, would be to get all the kinks out, massage some new features in and then make an announcement.

Update: Mark Jacobs has responded to the list, here was what he had to say,

"Folks,

Done. While I don't agree with everything contained within the paragraphs under the priorities themselves, I think that the top ten is just about dead on balls accurate. We have a number of other things I'd add to the list but I'll talk about them down the road.

Nice article.

Mark"

WAR has gone 1.1! Check out our full coverage of the 1.1a patch, along with our interviews exploring upcoming content and the open RvR changes. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!

Tags: bacon, diet-coke, ea, electronic-arts, endgame, mythic, the-greenskin, war, warhammer, warhammer-online

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

MightyIdle said on 1:35PM 1-09-2009

As someone who really enjoys WAR, I can't argue with any of it. The game is good but continued improvement is never a bad thing.

I think the author outlined everything accurately. I'm looking forward to seeing his suggestions come to pass.

JP said on 2:10PM 1-09-2009

I think we're going to see some great things for WAR this year.

For a game that's been out less then 6 months, they've made some great improvments so far, and keep trying to improve things.

Personally, while bugs are a constant in all games, here's my top 3 for Q1 of 09 -

1) A "pass" option for gold bags in forts and keeps.
2) Contribution system... get it gooder.
3) either nerf Destro's disarm AoEs, or give Order more.

DeathMutant said on 2:51PM 1-09-2009

I also agree with the OP's list and hope that many, if not all, of these features will be implemented by the time WotLK fans reach burnout and start looking for an alternative to WoW. That was one of the items on the list, increase server population, and a significant immigration from WoW would help WAR reach critical mass.

Wjowski said on 6:58PM 1-09-2009

Sorry, MMOs don't work that way.

Jack said on 4:53PM 1-09-2009

Next webcam video:

Mark Jacobs: No wonder this code failed. You ripped it off from some Japanese programmer. Look it even says "Made in Japan".
Poor WAR coder: What do you mean, MR Jacobs? All the best stuff is made in Japan.
Mark Jacobs: Unbelievable.

:)

Jack said on 4:56PM 1-09-2009

Add to that list complete the content we promise when we where trying to sale the game and add the other city's!

Nadril said on 10:54PM 1-09-2009

At this point adding in the other four cities would be a complete waste of time and hurt the game. Not only would it take away development from what NEEDS to be fixed (read: the OP's list) but there is no need to split up the battlefield even more so than it already is.

Really though , the list is dead on with the problems WAR has currently. Of course, for some people, (like me) those problems were deal breakers. The lag and lack of fun ORvR made me leave.

Kyoji said on 6:04PM 1-09-2009

Couldn't agree more, especially with the server merges. I'm on a med/med server right now, although i suspect it might be closer to high/med because it seems almost every zone is 3/4 to being capped by destro. But in any case, people are sparse. Even the bigger guilds only have 8-10 people on during the day. Of course that number increases during peak hours, but using WoW as an example, most guilds I've been in have had 20+ people on during the day. Mythic really needs to do something about this to ensure there is always a battle going on, and that no one side has a massive population imbalance over the other.

Vulturion said on 6:14AM 1-10-2009

As a now-former WAR player I was nodding along with that list, especially the server merge section.

However ; still not seeing any of the stuff that would lure me back personally...

* New item effects & new item VISUALS to introduce at least a modicum of individuality and a spark of interest in loot acquisition.

* Adding some intelligence/variables/flavor to PvE foes - it's only after returning to other MMOs for seasonal fesivities that I appreciate how direly dull it is to face monsters that each have only one-to-zero combat skills.
Nothing to counter, nothing to time, nothing to remedy, nothing to outmaneuver... map after map of foes who apply one (de)buff then do nothing but punch.

* Something - sadly I have no suggestion what exactly - to make the non-DPS careers more fun in PvE.
By T4 it always feels to me like half the careers are their to have fun and win the day, while the others are simply there to enhance the play experience of the fun half.

I don't think the first two are even on WARs radar though, so I won't be holding my breath for it to lure me back in 2009.