Nov 17
The WAR Backlash
We all knew it would come, of course. Folks who have … perhaps not experienced the full heartbreak of MMO after MMO … psyche themselves up and get ready and raring to go. From optimistic post-launch experiences at K&G’s site to this enthusiastic one-month lookback at Waagh!, the mood has turned and it has turned quickly.
I think the good still outweighs the bad - barely
“I must admit that WAR is turning a bit dull for me. Days has gone past without I felt the old urge to log on and play a few hours, and that’s pretty bad considering that feeling grew in my mind first after months and months in World of Warcraft. Tier 1 was fun, tier 2 was also fun, but somewhere in tier 3 it all went wrong.”
“The end result of WAR’s stupid mobs is another weak link in their PvE chain. I know PvE can’t be expected to rise to the challenge or complexity of PvP, but c’mon. We can try a bit harder than this. How the enemy mobs act, react and fight goes a long way to making me feel as though world PvE combat actually means something and has context — that I can strain my believability to the point where I accept that these mobs have an identity of their own. (And not to pile on or anything, but can I put a vote in that WAR needs a bit more in terms of death animations?)”
This is probably my favorite example, wherein Keen essentially espouses the viewpoint that Mythic should dump most of Warhammer’s core design concepts.
Drastic changes needed for Warhammer Online
“All around me my friends, brother (yep, Graev quit a little while ago), and guildmates are calling it quits and either hanging up their mmorpg hats until the next ‘next best thing’ or closing the door on mmorpgs altogether. WAR -has- lost a decent number of people to WotLK, although the game is holding up remarkably well I must admit, and it’s really caused me to stop and look at the game as a whole. Drastic changes are needed in WAR if the game will survive. It’s time to pick up the hatchet; the time for using a scalpal has come and gone.”
Read on for a few thoughts on this snapback.
Me and Warhammer:
I want to start by reiterating my thoughts on the game. As I said on a few podcasts before the title launched, I think WAR is a very well-made game. I think it’s a lot of fun, and when it launched I had a blast playing. As you’ve probably gathered from the last few weeks, my time away from MMOs and then my immersion in World of Warcraft has kept me quite a ways away from the Empire of Karl Franz. Just as I said I would before launch, I’ve stepped away from the game so that I can have fun in Lich King. I full expect to be playing again sometime in 2009, but right now I’m enjoying WoW so much that seems quite a ways off for me.
On Expectations:
I really don’t want to come off like a jerk here, but posts like the above just make me giggle. What in the Nine Hells did you guys expect? If you’ve played any other MMOs, you have expectations for quality based on a released, patched, polished game. If you’ve played WoW in the last six months to a year, you have brushed up against the pinnacle of diku-MUD based MMO gameplay. Taking those expectations, taking those ideas and comparing them to a real physical game that had to be made by people is craziness. WAR has been out for less than two months! And if you compare WAR’s launch to the launches of other games, it had a really great kickoff.
In fact, I still stand by what I told the Post. WAR will be the #2 subscription MMO in the US … eventually. The deal, though, is that you’ve got to give it time. This whole Heavy Metal event sounds fantastic, the new classes sound like they’ll bring a lot of goodness into the game, and they’re already working on their first expansion.
These are all signs of a game that’s doing really quite well. Mythic had to know they’d take a hit from Lich King over the late fall / early winter months. In interviews, Jacobs seemed to know it was coming and didn’t seem overly worried about it.
Why would he? Lich King is going to keep people solidly invested for 4-5 months, just like Burning Cruade. After that, folks will start wandering again. This is, I think, the new way of things. WoW is the backdrop against which the MMO industry operates; it’s something you can’t overcome. It’s just something you deal with. Ultimately the way to deal with this isn’t to abandon your design principles or make a bunch of will-nilly changes. The way to hit that #2 slot is to continue carefully and consistently updating the game, tweaking the play experience, and adding more content.
If there’s anything ‘radical’ for me to suggest about Warhammer, it’d be the following:
- Consider releasing some portion of what’s planned for the expansion sooner rather than later as a free update. Folks seem to be looking heavily for an alternative to the Scenario grind. Some chunk of goodness given out for free might be a balm to soothe that ache.
- Definitely work to get the playerbase as ‘concise’ as possible - make mergers and population combinationa as often as neccessary to get that PvP balance going.
- Stick to your guns. Don’t let the crazy fringers get you to make any changes you’ll regret later.
18 Comments so far
“Why would he? Lich King is going to keep people solidly invested for 4-5 months, just like Burning Cruade. After that, folks will start wandering again. This is, I think, the new way of things.”
I wonder though, will the players that have wandered in the past after fully exploring the content of an expansion head back to Warhammer Online? Will some wanderers get tired of their own MMO ADD and say, “I’ve bounced around and keep coming back. I’m staying this time.”?
Also, I know in your SWUT#37 discussion you say that MMO bloggers aren’t representative of the typical MMO gamer. Fair enough, I say. However, do these same bloggers represent or have influence over these wanderers?
Also, I know in your SWUT#37 discussion you say that MMO bloggers aren’t representative of the typical MMO gamer. Fair enough, I say. However, do these same bloggers represent or have influence over these wanderers?
nope.
I completely disagree.
The backlash on Warhammer is entirely different. There was no way for the majority of players to anticipate how the game would pan out in the longer term.
Mythic “demoed” the game in a great way. The rank 1 to 20 experience was amazing with a lot of players around and PQs, Scenarios, ORVR active.
Some of us figured out that the structure was flawed and that the fun of the game was dependent on some premises that were in doubt. Mythic did basically nothing to support that structure and the game fell apart.
I repeat: the game fell apart. Problems that increase in their impact the more the game goes on.
The enthusiasm at the start was justified because they demoed a good, promising game. But it was a game whose foundation was too dependent on a balance that was obviously flawed and that wouldn’t stay in the longer term.
The game isn’t fulfilling its promises and the players are reacting accordingly.
Come on, Zenke! You should know better than anyone that MMO Bloggers are a very fickle bunch. :)
Abalieno has the just of it, but it hurts to admit that maybe Brent was right all along.
What I still am struggling to figure out is why Mythic let Paul Barnett speak so much and then follow absolutely none of the ideas he presented.
WAR is a terrible game, but I’m going to stick it out a few months and see where it goes. They turned beta around, maybe they can turn the entire game around.
1-20 is golden, now they just need to make 20-40 as well… which we don’t know if they can actually do yet.
Wait WAR is terrible now? Haha that’s funny. What is so different in T3 from T2, other than a more complex RvR model and more scenario choices? PvE is the same, itemization is the same, grouping dynamic is the same…
This is a typical MMO launch. A bunch of players jump on the bandwagon, fall off after the first month, and troll forums for the next 2 months bitching about having their fantasy of an MMO game shattered, repeating the ‘this is broken’ mantra of issue that have long since been resolved (only one scenario pops for instance)
Nothing new, but entertaining as always.
[...] from the MMO bandwagon MMOG Nation today has a post with some pre and post WAR launch reactions, which as expected go from unrealistic [...]
I wouldn’t go so far as to say WAR is terrible, but I will say that it isn’t playing out as advertised.
Firstly, when the RvR is hopping, it IS immensely fun, but it isn’t always hopping - mainly because of faily incentives, especially in keep/BO defense.
Secondly, game stressed an emphasis on oRvR and yet scenarios rule the day. This is hilarious to me considering the game’s early beta focus on instanced, scenario RvR that was demonized by the testers which caused Mythic to refocus to keeps, battlefield objectives, and RvR lakes. And yet here we are at release and most folks focus on scenarios…
Thirdly, the PvE is nowhere near what they promised us. They promised us that they would redefine how we experience PvE. Instead, we were given a brutal grind of kill ten rats/collect ten foozles quest over and over and over.
Finally, they promised us that “War is everywhere.” I dare you to show me how this is the case…
Mark Jacobs had the brass balls to make some pretty lofty statements leading up to the release of WAR. Statements about how a game is in trouble if they’re not adding servers in the weeks after launch. How they’re in trouble if they aren’t forthcoming with their subscriber numbers. Well folks, Mythic has been merging servers, not adding them. Also, when’s the last time you’ve heard a number of current subscribers?
Of my guild, 37 of 69 members have quit since day 1 of WAR’s launch. Having recently spoken with Keen, he had 150 guild members, of which there are only about 20 left with active accounts. During the past week, I’ve seen at most 3-5 players online during primetime. Keen has seen about the same…
Please… tell me why you think this game is in great shape.
If you’re releasing a product you’re damned right I’m going to compare it to another established product in the market. If you launch something that doesn’t compare in terms of quality, why should people give you the benefit of the doubt, especially as paying customers? We don’t do it with automobiles, restaurant food, or clothing. Why do MMOs get a free pass?
Snafzg said:
“If you’re releasing a product you’re damned right I’m going to compare it to another established product in the market. If you launch something that doesn’t compare in terms of quality, why should people give you the benefit of the doubt, especially as paying customers? We don’t do it with automobiles, restaurant food, or clothing. Why do MMOs get a free pass?”
This has to be about the most spot on and realistic a comment I’ve read in a while.
[...] a comment to my post yesterday about Warhammer, Snafzg said: “If you’re releasing a product you’re damned right I’m going [...]
Dead community. Bored me silly.
[...] Backlash Against Backlash November 18, 2008 So Michael Zenke over at MMOG Nation has a somewhat insightful, somewhat snide little piece about the apparent transition between the over-hype of WAR to the pendulum swing to negative [...]
I have to admit, I have never read your blog before. All these serious comments kind of make me sad in side. I love WAR but I’m not addicted to it like WoW. Yeah it has problem and other technical stuff I can’t think of but it is fun. I lost my point…. Oh yeah, good blog but it looks like you made people mad. I’ll check back from time to time when the angry mob goes away.
I feel like WAR is a pretty decent WoW knockoff - not up to WoW’s standards in most respects, though it does have a bit more thought put into PvP. Of course, that’s not what we were sold by the hype machine, and it’s hardly fair to blame people for being a bit disappointed by what’s really in the box. WAR is everywhere, hah!
I’m thinking, primarily, of sites like Massively, which ran dozens upon dozens of previews talking about how awesome the game would be. Never once in all those previews did Massively give the real bottom line: that WAR is like WoW, with a bit more “meh.”
And you know what? Massively et al. did the same thing with AoC, another famously hyped game that failed to deliver. AoC’s failure is certainly more complete than WAR’s, but its pre-release coverage on Massively was just as overwhelmingly positive.
It’s starting to look like a trend, and the lesson to the reader is clear: don’t trust the “professional” blogs and simply ignore all the hype until real players have real opinions.
[...] Posted on November 19, 2008 by spinks I was reading with interest the to and fro of posts between Michael@MMO Nation and Syp@Waaagh about the WAR ‘backlash’ that they see among bloggers at the [...]
[...] Michael Zenke over at MMOG Nation has a somewhat insightful, somewhat snide little piece about the apparent transition between the over-hype of WAR to the pendulum swing to negative [...]
I think it boils down to expectations.
While I knew WAR was coming, and I did read some about it, I did not watch the videos or pour over every piece of information I could find.
So I wasn’t expecting anything revolutionary. I was expecting a new iteration on the same game we’ve been playing since EQ came out, and that’s what I got. The same basic gameplay as WoW, EQ2, and LoTRO. With some rough edges from the previous games sanded down, some new annoyances, and some new ideas.
So is it fun? Yup. Is it the best game ever that’s going to suck me in for the next year? Nope.
But I got what I wanted, and it’s enough to keep me subbed through the next three months to see how things go.
For now though, I’m heading into Moria.
[...] Zenke Stirs the Pot Syncaine adds a dash of spices Zenke Stirs the Pot some more Syp Throws in some Eye of Newt Spinks gobbles it all up [...]