Former Warhammer Online GM gives perspective on game's decline
by James Egan 
Aug 7th 2009 at 7:00PM
Filed under: Real life, MMO industry, Warhammer Online
At Massively we must often report on declining subscription numbers and subsequent layoffs in the MMO industry, just as we do when the games we love are healthy and growing. When you look beyond the numbers though, such industry statistics are ultimately about people whose lives have been negatively impacted. They face uncertainty in their career and likely have tough times ahead.
Case in point: We've written about the Mythic Entertainment layoffs from the view of an outside observer of the MMO industry, but of course there's a side to this that only someone who's worked there can really convey. Some have a story they'd like to tell, like Jeremy Monken, former games reviewer for a D.C. newspaper turned Warhammer Online GM at Mythic Entertainment.
Jeremy explains how he found and lost his first job in the MMO industry, in his article at The Escapist titled "Casualty of Warhammer". It's written from the perspective of someone who, rather than being angry about having lost a job he really loved, laments the industry realities that led up to his separation from the Mythic team. "Casualty of Warhammer" is an excellent piece and a sobering reminder that Jeremy's experience is, unfortunately, shared with many people who have created and maintained our favorite games.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
mrblister said on 8:01PM 8-07-2009
He says Gold Farming, Cheat and Lich King are the reason that the game is doing poorly. Way to walk around with your head in the sand!
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Cedric said on 8:22PM 8-07-2009
Yeah, got to agree with that. My wife and I are both avid MMO players. We're both Mac users as well (primarily, we'll load up Bootcamp if a game feels worth it, and we own all consoles). We to be honest had no interest in Warhammer anywhere around it's launch. But with the recent announcement of the beta client for Macs we figured "What the hell?" and gave the 10 day trial a shot.
Which lasted one evening, before we just deleted the game and moved on with life. Nothing about it was able to grab our attention... not the gameplay, not the early quests (My god, talk about just dropping players in with no lead in to kind of push them in the right direction), not the graphics. Nothing. The UI itself is horrible.
We have more fun going back to FFXI, WoW, or LOTRO. Though LOTRO has it's own issues that keep us from playing for more than a couple of months at a time. LOL
So meanwhile we're back to waiting for the Aion retail launch (We have been having a BLAST in beta) and someday FFXIV.
primetime said on 8:33PM 8-07-2009
Wow, show the man some respect for christ sake! Not only did he work on the game many of us loved (albeit hated how it ended up), but he was thrown into a horrible economy without a job.
Zonji said on 5:00AM 8-08-2009
Cedric, you're a prime example of an institutionalized WoW player.
Quests? Warhammer has quests? Seriously, I'm not criticizing you for not liking the quests but the game isn't meant to be a PvE game... of course they're going to be pointless and boring. I leveled my Zealot to 40 only doing a handful or quests, probably less than 30 total. Mainly because its easier on yourself keeping your game rank and RR the same. I only did a few quests to grab that next level when I was near it so I could jump back in to an SC or do some ORvR. Even now, if I create a new character I go straight to Nordland and level to 12 strictly through the T1 RvR, as do most people.
I'm not knocking you for not liking the game, everyone has different tastes but if you only played for one evening in T1 doing quests then you didn't see the game in the way Mythic wanted us to see it.
Cedric said on 2:21PM 8-08-2009
Yes, it had quests. Which is why I expected a point to the quests. After all, I -still- after 6 years play FFXI. So believe me, I am happy to play games where the quests have no effect on my leveling and are provided for other purposes... but at least if they're there I expect a purpose and point.
And there is the point, I don't know -what- Mythic wanted me to see. But it certainly didn't provide any introduction to it. I have no trouble with PvP games either (mmmIcantwaitforAionretail), but a five second blurb on "You hate the other faction, now go fight", does not gameplay make. I've played deeper FPS's.
Now all the power to you if you love the game. But the article is about the failings of WAR to retain customers and after reading the reasons given in the article, I still feel it's missing the reality, which is that the game just isn't interesting to most. Not graphically, not lore wise, not quests, not PvP. Which I'm sure everyone that left the game had their own reasons for why it didn't grab them as customers. It still boils down to a lot more than "Wrath came out".
Archmage said on 12:20PM 8-10-2009
I'm not sure why you didn't give it more of a chance Cedric. A friend and I also gave it a shot for the first time due to the Mac beta client, and we love it. I spent most of the weekend doing Scenarios and oRvR -- honestly haven't had that much fun in an online game in years.
Merus said on 6:39AM 9-14-2009
I had a similar experience to Cedric, though I got up to the end of the second tier before deciding to pack it in. Now, I did do quests, but I also did a lot of scenarios and open RvR, in the basins, so I figured I was seeing what the developers wanted me to see. Honestly, I didn't enjoy it that much. Some of the scenarios were cute, but they had very little variety to them and so using them to level was incredibly boring. The RvR basins were an interesting idea, but most of the time it devolved into waiting for a wargroup to form and trying to take a keep, which involved a lot of waiting around and a lot of trying to direct people to take capture points (again, waiting around) instead of just charging straight for the keep and getting slaughtered. Adding to that was how useless the buff low-level players in a tier would get, the lackluster public quest system, the "achievements" system which involved grinding against a massive amount of identical mobs, which even WoW doesn't fall for (and to my horror, LOTRO does), the poor discoverability of the battle system (a trait WoW shares) and the worthlessness of the game when no-one else was around, and it didn't seem like fun times.
There were things that WAR did right - the chief one that impressed me was how PvE abilities worked more or less the same in RvR, including things like taunts and crowd control, in ways that encouraged enemy players to act the same way mobs would. But overall it wasn't the step up above WoW that I wanted.
What baffles me is why there isn't anyone who's decided that the secret to WoW's success was that it did PvE far better than its competitors with a shiny coat of cartoon paint, and try to one-up Blizzard on that score? There's lots of people who like the idea of MMOs but are horrified at how much repetition is required to get anywhere in a genre that prides itself on its massive, everchanging worlds.
alex said on 5:58PM 8-11-2009
@ Zolji
"...of course [quests are] going to be pointless and boring."
Did you really mean this? And you're calling the previous poster institutionalized? Why is it a matter of course that in a PvP game, quests suck and that's that?
Maybe it's crazy, but I'd like to see quality in exchange for my money.
Mike said on 8:25PM 8-07-2009
I know right NM the quest system sucks and at the end of the day, why are you even playing, to become the bestest? Not going to happen there is no bestest in ZERG. Goldfarmers didn't kill the game because gold was not important because is not an ingame asset heavy game, overall I spent 90 dollars on the collectors edition hadn't played an mmo in months, just got outta boot camp thought WAR was going to do the trick. Quit playing 1 week later, started playing EvE again. Now Im playing Darkfall and so far its the best thing in town. I wrote some bad reviews of darkfall when I couldnt get it working, I regret writing those in haste and anger. Its actually a great game and Im having the most fun in an mmo as I have hard in years. The best thing is I actually care about developing my character. WAR didn't have me give to crap about my character....
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Sayana said on 8:36PM 8-07-2009
Actually cheating a.k.a. exploiting damaged gameplay a lot. in WoW for example, botters / exploiters don't do you no harm. They may farm your mobs, but they don't kill you by using some damn never fixed "macro-exploit". And seeing them being rewarded for that makes it sour.
The Lich King did its part as well. Players who had tried warhammer shortly after release, with their one month subs running out, went back to check out the newest expansion of their all-time-favourite.
There are a whole lot of other reasons for the declining subs, but if you have worked as a CSR for warhammer (what I will have done for one year in a few days - my last days, before being laid-off actually), this is what sticks. Damn goldsellers, damn cheaters, damn release/information politics.
I knew every single line of Jeremys story before I read it, because the same bullshit happened to friends of mine / happens to me. But I don't feel too sad about it. Having experienced GM-Powers is quite cool. Especially flying with a cow on a manticore. That was funnny ;)
Greetings to the ones that know who is posting ;)
Pwnys rule!
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Hardy said on 9:12PM 8-07-2009
An article about a persons experience in an MMO world and people would still rather bash the game instead of talking about something productive.
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Sayana said on 9:17PM 8-07-2009
Maybe it is just because nobody gives a ....
Read the comments on escapist.com. You will find out that every single comment is in past tense. And that's for a reason...
nekoali said on 10:31PM 8-07-2009
The sad part is, I really wanted to love WAR. I love the Warhammer setting (all of them). I was in the beta, I pre-ordered the collector's edition. For months at the start I loved it when the place was packed with people in the same tier. But the problems started. Logging on started to be a chore, so I took a month off. By which time the rest of my guild had long past me and left me alone in mostly deserted tiers with no way to play with me. So I tried to solo grind in a game that is very unfriendly to solo grinding.. Loving an IP can only go so far. Much like with Final Fantasy IX, I love the world so much I want to love the game, but it's just painful to play.
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MCRaider said on 10:47PM 8-07-2009
Sad but true story, his last comment though put a good smile on my face.
"For now, I'll just have to equip my strongest resume, ready my suit and tie buffs and proudly broadcast "Looking For Job" in every public channel I can."
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Jack said on 11:10PM 8-07-2009
Really I feel sorry for this guy. But the real reason this PVP did lost subs is that the people playing it already did not where real happy with the end product. And the lag of content did not help this forever delayed and hyped up game.... And sadly many will follow and at some time even WoW will fall mostly for the reason that Blizzard late some much with updates and keep making the game more easy..... Oh and now many stick around to finally kill the lich king but if he is dead and they do not give the WoW players news of the next XP at the blizzard con WoW may be in lots of trouble soon....
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Kaamos said on 11:21PM 8-07-2009
Its a good read.
Evermore the Blizzard giant looms higher over all of the gamers in the world, ones who play games, and ones who make them.
This story basically says this:
Blizzard > EA
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Graill said on 12:09AM 8-08-2009
Failure starts at the very top. While reading stories of poor souls that lost jobs is interesting we never see the stories of the worker bee at the bottom going up to the man in charge of the project and telling them what they need to hear.
If i had simply agreed when some moronic buffoon happily took my job down the tubes i never would have retired as young as i did. Instead, people need to start using that spine they were born with. After all, only two things can happen, one they listen, or two they fire you, in which case "you" have an huge array of options.
And for the record, being let go and being fired are two totally different animals. knowledge is power, use it.
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pavelyeah2 said on 12:18AM 8-08-2009
Ridiculous..mabye WOTLK did contribute to some of the loss in subscribers..but gold farmers? Gold means nothing in WAR...
Example: Your first mount comes at 20, and costs 15g. By level 20, you probably have 20+ gold, and with nothing else to spend gold on...well there ya go, no reason to buy gold.
And cheaters? Anyone recall the vid of a csr reviving people as they killed the king in Altdorf?
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Ryall said on 2:14AM 8-08-2009
Mac users are populating the game en masse now. Log back on and join the fight!
It runs so nicely on my macbook pro, I'm just loving it!
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Holgar said on 11:21AM 8-08-2009
Considering there was a boom and bust with PC users both when the game launched and when land of the dead whent live why on earth should a bunch of mac users do anything else but swarm the game because then can and then get bored?
Unless the styeriotype Microsoft has been propagating is true and mac users really DO like crappy products........