Mythic may take radical approaches with Warhammer Online

by Brooke Pilley Jun 26th 2009 at 7:30PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Warhammer Online, News items

As Warhammer Online fans wait for a post-BioWAAAGH! pep talk from Mythic's new General Manager, Rob Denton, they'll have to make due with part three of an Executive Producer's letter from Jeff Hickman.

The letter primarily discusses the ways Mythic plans to resolve the top 5 issues identified last week by various focus groups. Warhammer Alliance has an excellent summary in bullet form for those unwilling to wade through the whole article (though we suggest you do for full context).

Jeff makes a few really interesting comments in his letter that jumped out at us.

He states that Mythic is still committed to Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online and will be sharing their plans for both titles in the near future. We know about the new UO expansion but haven't heard much about DAOC lately. Where oh where are you, Origins?

It appears Mythic is "looking at some fairly radical approaches" to address server population issues in WAR. Maybe we'll finally see that realm queue system they had working pre-release...

Finally, it sounds like fortresses may be on their way out if Mythic can't find some way to fix them. Andy Belford had this to say: "How do we make it a fun encounter while not diminishing the epic feel of it? At what point do we say, enough is enough, and cut off the offending appendage?" Radical indeed.

Tags: andy-belford, dark-age-of-camelot, jeff-hickman, ultima-online, war, warhammer-online

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Keen said on 7:51PM 6-26-2009

"The Winds of Change are upon us, but the ship and crew remain the same." - Jeff Hickman

Uhh, no.

Interesting information, but I want to see tangible change before I believe a word of it.

Sharon said on 9:24PM 6-26-2009

I agree with Keen. I'm not going to hold my breath. I'd want to believe we'll see big substantive changes, but at this point, the whole thing just makes me sad. :(

Nadril said on 7:55PM 6-26-2009

I would like nothing more than to see some sweeping changes of what I consider to be problems within the game. Of course some of them are pretty damn difficult to deal with which means I won't be really waiting on anything. If something drastic happens I'll pay attention though, sure.

CCon99 said on 8:09PM 6-26-2009

Incoming trolling post by Abriael in 3...2...1

wolfsterne said on 8:44PM 6-26-2009

One of my good friends Dave Parker who works for Mythic made an interesting observation last week. The overwhelming feedback they got from the survey was to fix and add more to the PVE game, and it was summarily ignored by the brass.

So we can pretty much assume the "crew" is deaf at this point.

Blackanchor said on 7:55AM 6-27-2009

I sure hope Dave Parker doesnt exist at Mythic because you just basically told the gaming world that your friend shares inside information. You may not see it but you just put your friends job in jeopardy. Think before you type!!!

wolfsterne said on 9:12AM 6-27-2009

It's the gaming industry dude...everybody blabs to ever one else anyway. If you want to know exactly whats happening in MMO's for the next Five years just show up to an after party at one of the Cons, a few Cornonas and they will tell you damn near anything.

Dethgar said on 9:06PM 6-26-2009

They'll just come up with some more locking mechanics, attach reward tokens, give it a nice buzz name, and bam! Everything is better, please come back! :(

Celestian said on 9:46PM 6-26-2009

Fortress might as well not exist anyway. I've yet to be able to fight in a fortress fight yet due to "over population" in the fort. No I'm not below 40. After spending a few hours locking zones it's a major pisser to not be part of the fort fights.

So good riddance to bad rubbish.

Goonja said on 1:04AM 6-27-2009

Words,words,words are all that we have heard from Mythic since launch and each time they promised something that will bring fun to the game and we all know how it always ends.

InfamousBrad said on 1:18AM 6-27-2009

Some of the first feedback they were given was that the Fortress Lord encounters just plain weren't fun. And a whole bunch of us argued, even after the first couple of successful Fortress sieges, that they'd be better off with a complete redesign. And what we suggested sounds suspiciously like what they're proposing for phase 2 of a city capture: instead of one Fortress Lord to defeat, or perhaps as part of it, spread out a series of capture points, where if you can capture and hold enough of them, it's easier to capture the Fortress. Spread the encounter out, in other words, because frankly, there is no way to crap 100+ players from each side into a single tiny little room and have any of them have fun.

I think I'm still too ticked off over how lenient EA's referees have been about blatant Keep Lord and Fortress Lord exploits in the past, and I probably don't want to go back to a game that was, when I left, completely and entirely overrun by cheaters of all stripes. But the part of me that still thinks that /if they hadn't been bugged in exploitable ways and nakedly repeatedly exploited/, keep sieges were, along with public quests, the greatest features ever added to the MMO genre, could imagine going back some day ... if they ever get the bloody thing fixed, if they develop a zero-tolerance reputation for exploiters (not just a policy or a statement, but an actual reputation), and if I suspect EA isn't going to drop the ball again, /then/ I could easily imagine going back.

InfamousBrad said on 1:19AM 6-27-2009

Oops, typo: that was supposed to be "no way to CRAM 100 players into" etc. Although I'm not sure it doesn't make as much sense the way I accidentally typed it. *wry grin* Sorry.

Pedro said on 6:38AM 6-27-2009

I believe that fortresses are the feature that is choking WAR.
It's mainly because of them that people speak about zerg vs zerg since loads of people are cramed in a tiny area. It's in them that performance issues are really noticeable because of the lag associated of having so many people concentrate in the same point and it is because of theem that some controversial measures were taken as puting a cap on the population that can participate in the sieges.

crsh said on 7:35AM 6-27-2009

Good to hear, I wish they would've worked on resolving that stuff before bothering with superfluous content like LotD (which I have yet to "get").

The server I play on has seen a weird split since LotD went live; whichever realm is busy farming easy loot in LotD when they have zone control, the other realm will be locking T4 zones. The twist is that T4 RvR has turned into RvE because there's no one to kill except NPC guards; very boring.

Fenriz.Conquests said on 9:21AM 6-27-2009

For god sake.
Is everyone insane or just hypocrite? 5 problems? The PvP is simply boring, the problem is ONE.

MF said on 2:16PM 6-27-2009

The actual pvp combat is fine.

Fenriz.Conquests said on 2:20PM 6-27-2009

Fine?? how is it fine? It's just bashing people silly for hours, what's fine about it?

MF said on 2:17PM 6-27-2009

A queue sounds like a bad idea for a game that doesnt have enough
people in the first place.
I do hope they do something about forts, but like others, not gonna hold my breath.

Cicadymn said on 4:11PM 6-27-2009

Here are the top 5 changes I want to see:

1. Stability in large oRVR
2. Keep System overhaul: destructible keeps/better designed keeps/keeps that change depending on who capped them
3. Fort system ovehaul: Forts are just terrible. Zone opens, outer wall is capped in 3 minutes, 57 minute slideshow style push to the keep lords floor. There's no strategy, there is hardly any luck. If the attackers have a larger zerg they win. They need to scrap keeps and forts and start from the ground up.
4. A third faction. It's needed. Too often one faction completely dominates the server, even the the population is close to the same. Having a third faction will help balance it and let the other two gang up on the one that was dominating everything.
5.Overhaul of Trophy/gear system. Everyone (of your class) looks the same. Dyes help, but not enough. 9/10 trophies clip mostly or completely into the character so you see everyone running around with the same 5 trophies, or having all their trophies collected on their shoulders. It's just bad.

my2cents said on 4:54PM 6-28-2009

The #1 thing I want from them at this point is a way to run the game without a high-end rig. LotRO is a gorgeous game and yet it can be run on nearly any system by adjusting the graphics settings. I love that I can play it on fairly high settings on my desktop and low-medium on my laptop and enjoy a smooth framerate on both. With WAR it's playable on the lowest settings on my desktop in wide-open spaces and nearly unplayable elsewhere. I can't even run it on my laptop. I'd stay with WAR just for the scenarios if I could run it decently...