Believe it or not, not every Warhammer Online image we get has a glitch in it. It just seems like more people snap screenshots of funny glitches than normal life. We figure they're too busy trying to kill each other for that. That's why even if this guy's face is scary-looking, we're glad to see it today on One Shots - and glitch-free! Without further ado, here's today's contributor: This is my Warrior Priest, Serathor, from the Phoenix Throne server of Warhammer Online. As I [was] waiting for me and my warband to finish defending a battlefield objective in the Shadowlands, I turned around to capture an amazing lightning strike hitting one of the spires.

When you're out and about in your favorite MMO, why not snap some screenshots and send them our way? It's always appreciated as we love to have lots of different worlds to show off. Just email them to us at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name and the game the image is from. Be sure to add in your name, the name the game is from and a brief description so we can credit you properly.

This is an original opinion piece written by someone who has been following Warhammer Online since November 2007. Comments are open on page three.

Many people claim WAR is a total fail-whale of an MMO. I can see sides of their argument, but I don't believe it's completely true. The "fail" perception mostly comes down to the expectations that were set by Mythic and EA and then never fully delivered upon. It's no secret they were aiming for 500k+ subs and then missed the mark (by about 200k), but it got me wondering... Who is/was WAR's target audience? Was their potential audience actually big enough to support their aspirations?

Let's go back. Waaaaaaaaaaay back. Let's pretend we were a fly on the wall in a Mythic/EA/Games Workshop boardroom as they were discussing the original vision and design direction for WAR. One of the first steps you take before developing any product is to define your target audience or demographic. Knowing your audience gives you better direction and allows you to focus your efforts and design decisions more clearly.

Like I said before, Mythic screwed up royally in implementation. By broadening their appeal to too many people they diluted the quality of their feature set and in the process made some really odd design decisions (e.g., Let's ramp up this huge RvR campaign and then put a bunch of city PvE at the end of it - an attempt at balancing RvR and PvE content that failed abysmally).

What are the two biggest complaints leveled at WAR by ex-WAR players? One: The RvR endgame is meaningless, boring, and repetitive. Two: The exact same thing can be said about PvE - except all the way through.

How can you make RvR the main focus of your game without pissing off PvE folks and vice versa? You can definitely try and balance them 50/50, but let's be real here. Mythic can barely balance their classes, let alone entire aspects of an MMO. Let's also be fair -- it's a pretty damned hard task to achieve.

Make PvE gear 5% easier to get than RvR gear and you're going to start a civil war within your community. There's already latent animosity between both camps to begin with.

So, who is left playing WAR these days? Oddly enough, a friend and I were discussing this a few nights ago over the phone (which inspired this post by the way). We think the people playing WAR these days are made up of hardcore RvR folks who have had their fill of DAOC, other PvPers, Warhammer tabletop fans happy to experience the IP in a new medium, and a number of disgruntled ex-WoW folks (and other MMOs).

Those aren't actually bad audiences to work with and they can definitely be built upon. Target content to these players while fixing performance issues and WAR may start growing rather than holding steady or potentially even shrinking.

On the other hand, we feel these audiences are also prime candidates for a couple upcoming MMOs.

First, we have Aion. This is the next big RvR-focused WoW-clone (Yes, I said it!) coming to market. We think the Abyss concept will appeal to many WAR players interested in PvP because the combat is just as refined (maybe even more so) and the PvP is slightly more meaningful and hardcore. We also think it will appeal to many WoW players who choose to play on PvP servers.

Next, we have Warhammer 40K. Sure, it's a ways off yet, but we have a feeling this game will grab many WAR players who call themselves hardcore tabletop fans. It's worth mentioning that WH40K will also feature PvP and that it may even be more advanced, including vehicles and destructible terrain. That said, a lot can happen between now and release. It's risky business to bet on an MMO based on pre-beta feature lists.

WAR's biggest audience right now is made up of people interested in RvR/PvP, but we think many of these players could easily jump to one or several upcoming RvR/PvP MMOs in search of their next thrill. The titles include: Aion, Global Agenda, Mortal Online, Earthrise, and maybe even Darkfall once it releases its NA-1 server. Options for PvPers are growing in the MMO genre.

In conclusion, I don't actually think Mythic made a mistake in trying to take the widest appeal approach. At its core, WAR was and is an RvR game, but to only appeal to PvP players would have severely limited Mythic's potential for massive subscriber numbers. To compete with WoW, they truly needed to have a strong PvE component to their game. Where they failed to meet expectations of course, was in the execution of both areas.

Shortly after release, Mark Jacobs released a State of the Game announcement. In it, he said that Mythic would spend more time and resources on improving RvR. This was when he announced RvR influence and a number of other RvR-centric features. He drew a line in the sand that day and said WAR was an RvR game first and foremost. By doing so, I believe he turned off many PvE players interested in WAR. The pendulum began to swing.

Apparently Land of the Dead is really appealing to the PvE crowd since its release, which is great, but there are many accounts that it is hurting RvR. This effect may only be temporary due to LotD's newness, but it just further highlights my point about the difficulty involved in balancing for different audiences in your MMO.

Where does Mythic go from here? I think they need to focus more energy trying to steady that pendulum. If they ever can achieve that perfect balance of RvR and PvE, WAR may be one of the best MMOs with the widest appeal in history.

Does that mean they'll ever achieve WoW's numbers? Hell no. Accessibility alone gives WoW a huge advantage, not to mention it has now become a pop culture phenomenon.

That said, a more balanced WAR with strong PvE and RvR design could easily hold north of one million subscribers. How far north? *Ahem* I'm sure Mythic wouldn't mind feeling a bit chilly, especially after all the heat they've drawn since release.

The Call to Arms live expansion for Warhammer Online was over six months in the making. It gave WAR players the Choppa and Slayer classes, RvR tokens, keep upgrades, and culminated last week in the arrival of The Land of the Dead mega-zone. Massively wants to know if you're enjoying it.

We've been keeping tabs on various WAR bloggers who have shared their thoughts. Keen feels that the zone flips a bit too easily but is happy with the new content overall. LotD isn't the mecca of RvR that Bootae had hoped for, but he's still quite pleased with the quality of it (over the quantity). As for Thulf, well he was actually drawn back to WAR after a couple months' absence to give it a shot. It's too early for him to tell whether or not he'll keep his subscription open for it.

This writer is still waiting for the dust to settle. I don't know if there are any major issues with the zone or its effect on RvR, but I'm hesitant to jump in head first and have my experience spoiled by anything. The ancient undead can wait a little longer for this explorer.

Gamasutra and BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka sat down to chat about EA's first genre-focused group, aptly named the RPG/MMO Group. The original announcement was kind of vague, which really got people speculating over what it meant. ("RPG" before "MMO" in the group title? That must be a sign! Of what, who knows.)

In the interview, Muzyka finally explains just what exactly the new Group entails: "It's a collaboration opportunity. Each of the groups continues to make the same thing in their [own locations]. But it's fuelling and enabling more communication, collaboration, best practice sharing, encouraging each other to play each others' games -- but no formal change per se in what anybody's doing."

There do not appear to be any plans for co-development or tech-sharing between Mythic and BioWare just yet, but it is something the group is looking at. "We're all part of the same company at the end of the day. We're studios within the same organization, which is a group now within the EA Games label."

Tech-sharing could really be to Mythic's benefit right now as they're still grappling with server stability and client performance issues nearly a year after release. It has gotten to the point where they are even considering stripping fortresses, the primary culprit for such issues, from Warhammer Online.

Warhammer Online is celebrating the fourth of July and summer in general by offering some in-game bonuses, and providing some explosive incentives for participating in RvR. WAR's James Nichols announced the event's official opening yesterday, saying, "It's our way of saying thanks, have fun, and enjoy the start of summer with a BANG!" As part of the event, all players can now take advantage of a 10% bonus to experience and renown gain. On top of this, slain enemy players will drop fireworks that can be used to revel in your victory -- we imagine large skirmishes will end with a whole bunch of colorful explosions for the duration of the celebrations.

These bonuses will be in effect for about a week and a half, ending on the 7th of July.

We've had comments and opinions flying in from all over the internet regarding Mark Jacobs' departure from Mythic and EA, but finally we get to hear from the man himself, in a new post with the heading "All Things Must Come to an End" on his personal blog. Much of this post is devoted to thanking and farewelling his former co-workers, and he mentioned that there will be more thanks to come -- there's no doubt he would have built a great many relationships throughout his journey with Mythic and EA.

As for Jacobs' comments on the reasons for him leaving, we don't find it out too much, but he did have have this to say:

Early in May, Electronic Arts let me know that they wanted to make some changes within the Games Label and as a result of those changes I have been out of the office (and out of touch with the team, game, etc.) since that day.

and:

However, if you are looking or expecting me to damn EA or anyone there, you will be sorely disappointed. Over my 23 years of making games professionally I have refrained from attacking the competition, former and/or current partners, other game developers, etc. except on a few very rare instances. I have no intention of breaking with tradition at the present time and I hope my track record in this regard remains unchanged for the rest of my career.

We will be keeping an eye on Jacobs' blog for the additional posts he has promised.

We've been keeping our eyes on various blogs and forums discussing yesterday's big news that Mythic and BioWare are being restructured under EA's new MMO/RPG gaming division and that Mark Jacobs is no longer working for EA. Here's a summary of what we've found so far.

Many people are under the false impression that Mythic and BioWare have merged. One of Mythic's developers made this clarification: "We're still Mythic Entertainment, an Electronic Arts Studio, as we have been. I've posted this elsewhere, but we're not 'merging.' We are still a completely separate entity within EA, just as Bioware is, simply now grouped under the same MMO/RPG grouping and reporting to one person, collectively."

With today's surprising news that Mythic's Mark Jacobs is leaving EA to join a new studio, we wanted to run a screenshot from Warhammer Online. Of course, when we ran across this one in the queue of shots to be posted from Warhammer Online, we couldn't resist, even though the story has nothing at all to do with today's news. This screen actually comes from way back when the Ostermark server transfers happened, and comes to us from Rumil Silverdawn, a Rank 40 player who is on Phoenix Throne. He wrote in at the time: [Some time] ago you reported on the server transfer of Ostermark to the remaining roleplay server of Phoenix Throne. Here is the last in-Ostermark screen shot of my rank 40 Swordmaster, Rumil Silverdawn of <Prophecy>, waving goodbye to Ostermark. Or is it waving hello to Phoenix Throne?

If you've got a screenshot from your MMO travels, we want to see it! The more off the beaten path, the better! Just email it to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and your story. We'll post it here and let the community know. (Timing is purely a matter of how many of that type we have, and chance in terms of a match like today's!)

Mark Jacobs, the former General Manager of Mythic Entertainment and Lead Designer of Warhammer Online, has left EA on 23rd June, the company announced today. This comes as part of restructuring plans within EA which includes both Mythic and BioWare and have culminated in the formation of a new, as-yet-unnamed, studio which will focus on RPGs and MMOs.

The new studio will be led by BioWare co-founder and General Manager Ray Muzyka, who will become Group General Manager. BioWare's other co-founder Greg Zeschuk will become Group Creative Officer while Rob Denton will succeed Jacobs as General Manager.

You can certainly expect more from us as this story develops.

[Via The Examiner]

Hot sun. Sandy beaches. Exotic creatures. It almost sounds like a great vacation spot until you realize the heat is unbearable, the beaches run alongside a poisonous river, and the creatures are determined to kill you and then mutilate your corpse. The Land of the Dead may not be for your average snowbird but courageous adventurers will find treasures and excitement in great abundance - and it all starts today.

Game Update 1.3 launched exactly one week ago and introduced a special Live Event called Rise of the Tomb Kings. The event pitted the realms of Order and Destruction against each other in a massive resource-race to determine who would gain first access to the Nehekharan desert via airship. That race ended this morning and Mythic just released a patch that grants the winners 24-hours of uninterrupted dungeon access.

The Land of the Dead was a massive undertaking by Mythic that began shortly after launch in September 2008 and it will change the way Warhammer Online fans play the game from now on. How will it affect open field RvR, city siege, scenarios and other raid instances? Only time will tell (and we'll keep our eyes on it for you).

While NCsoft prepares to invade the West with Aion this September, Mythic has their own preemptive RvR strike planned for the East. Both Mythic and Gigamedia are bringing Warhammer Online to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on June 25th. This means people can now play WAR in North America, Europe, Oceania, and Asia. That's quite a global presence.

It will be interesting to see what impact this has on WAR's subscriber count in the next quarter. When WAR originally launched in September 2008, they sold over 750,000 copies. That number dropped to 300,000 by December 2008. After a couple big marketing campaigns (recruit a friend and re-enlistment) and a launch in Russia, WAR's numbers held steady at 300,000 in March 2009.

Could this Eastern launch propel them beyond the 300,000 mark again? Based on all the Land of the Dead coverage and impressions we've seen, the new live expansion should have some sort of positive effect on the game as well. I guess we'll have to wait until the next EA earnings call to find out, which should take place in August.

Those of you stalwart enough to bore through Jeff Hickman's most recent Executive Producer's letter, which incidentally reads like a list of 1.3 patch notes conjured by the PR department, may have picked up on the mention that Mythic is assembling focus groups to determine the current concerns and issues with Warhammer Online.

I can actually confirm this for you since I'm a card-carrying focus group member. The below list of top priorities is entirely accurate based on what I've been hearing as part of this group and in conversation with many current and ex-WAR fanatics.

1. Addressing concerns related to Crowd Control and Area of Effect abilities.
2. Continuing to improve client and server stability and performance.
3. Strengthening and improving the Tier 4 experience.
4. Improving server population distribution – both in terms of overall population and realm balance.
5. Improving itemization and the overall distribution of "carrots" (rewards) throughout the game.

It's easy point out that many members of the WAR community have been vocal about these "Top 5" issues since release. We can only hope that the time and resources freed up by the launch of Land of the Dead will finally erase them from the game. Erasing them from memory may prove slightly more difficult.