Looking ahead to WAR's second year

by William Dobson Sep 21st 2009 at 6:30PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Events, real-world, Events, in-game, MMO industry, PvP, Warhammer Online, News items

Although we've seen celebrations for some time now, with the Wild Hunt event and a couple of special scenario weekends, Warhammer Online's actual birthday came and went at the end of last week. Executive Producer Jeff Hickman took the opportunity to sum up some of the things that the development team will be focusing on, moving forward into year two:

"In addition to the four new careers, numerous Live Events, the medallion system, Keep upgrades, city siege improvements, and other new features, we're now turning our focus to improving balance, performance, and the Tier 4 game play experience."

Also on the cards for improvement is the "new-player experience", an area that many MMOs have fine-tuned later in their life with excellent results. The birthday celebrations haven't quite wrapped up yet either, with the "Isha's Sorrow" event taking place over the coming weekend in the Temple of Isha scenario. It may have been a bit of a rocky first year for Warhammer Online, but we'll hold out hope for year two. Happy Birthday WAR!

Tags: anniversary, birthday, ea, electronic-arts, executive-producer, first-birthday, ishas-sorrow, jeff-hickman, mythic, mythic-entertainment, new-player-experience, one-year-anniversary, scenarios, temple-of-isha, war, warhammer-online, wild-hunt

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Mr Angry said on 6:48PM 9-21-2009

His letter was pretty underwhelming wasn't it?

I just don't see enough here to make me think they are going to turn it around.

Four 'new' careers --> Think these didn't make the live release and were patched in later?

Also weren't there other capital cities too, or did the population issues mean that new content couldn't be added?

I won't go and tear WAR a new one, as right now, I think it's imploding as it is.

Very sad really, great IP too!

Jack said on 6:51PM 9-21-2009

WAR I wish I never got to known you!

C said on 6:54PM 9-21-2009

They should have made this Warhammer 40k, as opposed to fantasy. At least they'd have something unique compared to other MMO's (war-torn sci-fi in a gritty environment). Fantasy is way too generic, despite having established many modern day standards of aesthetic.

I can't imagine how much better this would have performed if it was 40k. That feels like Game Workshop's real IP, this always felt like a red-headed step child compared to the bigger, and better 40,000.

Anticrawl said on 7:07PM 9-21-2009

I agree, 40k has always been better. Atleast since Blizzard came around and stole the Warhammer fantasy look/style/lore and made it their own. Mythic would have done so much better with a 40k MMO rather than a clone of a Warhammer clone that wasn't so good to begin with.

ColdCoffee said on 9:24PM 9-21-2009

They couldn't get the license you dum dum. Mythic would of stilled failed because they can't organize their self out of flipn paper bag. Loud mouth racist aka Mark Jacobs would of piled that one to ground just like he did this one. That why he quit, hes a coward and couldn't figure out how to fix the game. Think of it like a big guild and this guild can't lead and everyone is fighting that is what Mythic is. I bet the Mythic HQ is filled with drama these days.

Sam said on 5:22AM 9-22-2009

"Loud mouth racist aka Mark Jacobs " "That why he quit, hes a coward and couldn't figure out how to fix the game"

Amazing. Are you normally this silly, or does the need to vent needlessly cause you to say things like that?

Of all the things i've seen Jacobs called, a coward and a racist are probably the strangest.

LordLoki said on 6:05PM 9-28-2009

I do agree that this would have been different, maybe even better, if it were set in the 40k universe. The thing I'm going to disagree with you on is the Games Workshop real IP. Games Workshop started out with the fantasy based game back in 1984. They released 40k in the mid 90's. So, 40k is/was based off the initial fantasy game. All the specialist games are spun off of one of these two products. The only game not derived from these is there Lord of the Rings game. Just wanted to set you correct. That is all.

Danny said on 11:37PM 9-21-2009

I srsly have been kicking around reactivating my account b/c I need some casual large-scale pvp. Argue what you will, I enjoyed it (and the last time I went back to DAoC, I died a little inside, so WAR's next best).

It's just sad reading T4 "needs attention" from one of the game producers. One of the original things that sent me for a loop was that the 4 careers they added were supposed to be in at release, and there were supposed to be six capitals to siege, not 2.

Can anyone still playing give me a heads-up about which server has a more active pop? It's terribly difficult to find these things online and I've yet to judge if the $15 is worth it for 40 days.

JP said on 9:51AM 9-22-2009

I'm not playing, but Iron Rock.

Myria said on 10:33AM 9-22-2009

Badlands, in my experience, is the only one with any non-prime time population at all, and that's heavy to the lower tiers. Gorefang and Ironrock only ever seem to reach med/med during prime time, for prime-time it doesn't seem to matter much which.

I've yet to see any of them go above med/med :(

SicJake said on 10:52PM 9-21-2009

Harsh comments,

Anyway I liked WAR, subscribed for a few months. The classes are quite unique and unlike what you have in other MMO's. Squiq hearder's get eaten by their pets so they have extra armor, I mean come on, neato stuff and unique.

The gameplay wasn't bad, the Public Quests is something I believe they started and something that is taking off in other MMO's. They were great fun, and casual friendly. The RvR was 'ok' but really I haven't seen PvP that was great in any game outside of WOW. WOW only wins due to player base, more than enough people to support a PvP system with tourney's and what not. WAR doesn't have the player base for their PvP plans.

Why did I quit? Content, very little to do once it's all said and done. In a few short months I hit Tier4, did the rounds, a city siege, and ... ? Not much else.

I really wish they had gone back and made the missing cities, and instead of new classes I wish they would add more abilities to the existing ones. Anyway it was the lack of content that killed it for me. Had alot of promise tho.

Danny said on 11:46PM 9-21-2009

Not trying to be rude, but did you PvP in any games outside of WoW? I played DAoC for years, WoW, and WAR, and I loathed WoW's pvp personally. I felt it really lacked much strategy, aside from Areans, but then arenas, at most there were 10 players. Wintergrasp was a nice effort in Wrath, but the timer kinda killed it for me.

I agree with you completely that T4 was a flop, but I had far more fun in DAoC and WAR's lower tiers than I ever did in Arenas, BG's, or WG in WoW. WoW's PvP really felt like it was just included so Blizz could say there WAS PvP.

I appreciate your vantage point though. Much different than mine.

reudey said on 9:59AM 9-22-2009

I started at launch and I still enjoy the game and play a few hours a day.. sometimes several. As much as I enjoy RvR just for the fun of it, I am starting to worry what will happen to the game with no new content AT ALL on the horizon. If they are working on it, they haven't mentioned it yet. Seems to be in full on maintenance mode now... just balance and bug squashing. :(

Neil said on 3:53AM 9-22-2009

The game was ok, enjoyable enough but the customer service in Europe, provided by GOA is the worst I've ever experienced in an MMO and it's for this reason alone I will not resubscribe.

GOA are the worst shower of miserable, rude prats.

Sporkboy said on 4:21AM 9-22-2009

The game certainly isn't perfect, but it does have a lot of charm and provides things perhaps lacking in other MMOs.

My wife has been hyping Aion for months now, but after playing WAR (with its rapid leveling through RvR) the thought of yet one more PvE grind before she can PvP, along with not being able to level doing what she does best, has cooled her enthusiasm somewhat.

For my own part, playing in the Warhammer world beats that *other* game I play hands-down, as I have always considered its lore to be Saturday morning cartoon Warhammer-light. Being able to play a side which is properly baby-sacrificing *evil*, or a side which is fighting desperately to preserve the very races which make it up, is a much more dramatic setting than the confused geo-politics of Azeroth.

In reference to an earlier poster, having played a lot of WoW PvP, my wife and I both had the feeling WAR was superior by about level 6. This feeling has only been strengthened in the levels since then. PvP-wise, there is nothing we can think of where WoW beats WAR.

Does it need more end-game content? Yes. Could it do with a bug-spray? Yes, though nothing I have encountered makes the game unplayable or makes me want to wail and gnash my teeth on forums. A paid expansion that simultaneously introduces the much-hyped content we never got to see while giving us a few more MMO staples a lot of players miss (duels, insanely inane crafting for my wife and her ilk, vanity pets) wouldn't be a bad idea either.

And EU-wise, are GOA about as much use as a chocolate tea-pot at the Devil's own tea-party?

Hell yeah.

Myria said on 11:13AM 9-22-2009

I have to disagree with you on lore. While neither has much depth, the whole "smashing babies whilst twirling a mustache (on a stuntie's head they carry around, of course) and laughing manically" thing strikes me as depressingly lacking in depth and very Saturday morning cartoonish. I prefer a lot more grey, it allows for more storytelling depth.

As for bugs, really the game doesn't need bug spray, it needs to be carpet bombed with bug spray. For weeks. And then bombed again from orbit, because it's the only way to be sure. I'm seriously stunned at the condition of War's engine a year after release, it's only barely beta-worthy.

I will agree that most of the bugs aren't show-stoppers, just terribly annoying and sometimes unbalancing. The exception is the unit-frame bugs. I mostly heal -- zealot, DoK, and a little Archmage (Order, bleh, Dark Elves' "we're so evil, Mwahahahaha!" bit may get boring, but the High Elven globular cluster-sized stick up their bum is just plain annoying) -- and my god are the unit frames bad. Not only are they limited as to what they'll tell you -- No auto-range indication on friendly units (you have to click on each unit to check range/LoS)? Why in god's name would you not have that? -- but what they do tell you is often wrong. Very often. I routinely try and rez people who are 'dead' on my unit frames, but notice after I start casting that they're standing next to me and quite alive. I often run into my group unit frames showing low health for someone who is full, or full health for someone who's dying. Worse, sometimes I see my wb unit frames show something different from my target unit frames, which shows something different from the bar that pops up over someone's head if they're hurt.

You'd probably never notice any of this if you weren't a healer, but if you are it's a bloody nightmare. Healing in War can be exhausting as it is, keep assaults can be non-stop healing/rezing for pretty extended times (albeit the longer, the less likely to be successful), and to add poor and often wildly inaccurate unit frames on top of that is just adding insult to injury. Worse, there are numerous threads about this in the bug forum, it's been going on for some time now, and no official response or hope for a fix in sight :(.

I want this game to do well, I'd like to hope that the cleaning house they did not so long ago would result in changes that bring people back. But communication from Mythic still seems near non-existent, they move at a pace that can only be described as glacial, and oddly seem to think they've produced a game where PvE is, or even should be, something other then buggy boring stuff people do between waiting for an SC to pop or a warband to form.