A WoW Player's Guide To Warhammer

With Warhammer Online just around the corner, Zonk wrote up a guide which compares it to the current top dog of the MMO market, World of Warcraft. He highlights the fact that despite the appearance of "War" in both names, Warhammer is much more focused on the struggle between factions, in gameplay and artistic style. Warhammer's open beta started on Sunday, doing well in the US but stumbling in Europe. The full version launches on Sept. 18th, but people who pre-order the game will be able to access live servers up to four days before, thanks to Mythic's head-start program. Mythic CEO Mark Jacobs recently launched a blog to answer questions about the game.

Comments

Attention developers;

[B5_geek]

Guild Wars got my money because it works on Linux.
Savage got my money because it works on Linux.
Defcon got my money because it works on Linux.
NeverWinter Night got my money because it works on Linux.

There are many more but you get the idea.

If you want my money, make sure it works on Linux!

Re:Attention developers;

[Anonymous Coward]

Same message but replace Linux by Mac, and add "real Mac port, not some lame Cider bullshit". I don't care what you think, Cider sucks on low-end Macs (which is half the Macs, all stuck with GMA950 and X3100).

Re:Attention developers;

[edremy]

WoW got 10 million player's money without Linux[1]

The rest of the MMO market in total doesn't add up to WoW's subscriber numbers. Guild Wars is a distant also-ran to WoW.

The MMO makers don't care about you.

[1]; Yes, yes, I know you can run it under Wine. Any guesses as to how many people actually do this?

Re:Attention developers;

[JCSoRocks]

Seriously... the cost / benefit ratio there has gotta be something like - Costs a ton / gains us almost nothing. If I'm trying to run a profitable business I'm going to say... don't bother. It's the same reason you don't see the newest WWII FPS's marketed for people over 80. It's a tiny market segment... you won't make enough money to make producing the product worth your time. Sorry!

Re:Attention developers;

[Lulfas]

So .0006 of Wow players. Aka: insignificant.

Another game that doesn't get it...

[ivan256]

"PvP is a much more important part of..."

Ok, so they got a focus group together, and looked on the internet, and people said "More, better PvP!"...

Too bad the niche hardcore players are the only people who speak up in those forums. Here's a big hint to everybody making this type of game: All those casual players that make Warcraft and Diablo crazy, stupid successful.... They play for the co-op and social aspects. They don't PvP. People who post on internet forums and create feature wishlists for these types of games (probably 90+% of the people who read this) aren't representative of the bulk of players no matter how vocal they are, or how important they think they are. If you cater to those players, and "being the next WoW" (in terms of paying playerbase) is your goal, you will fail.

Re:Another game that doesn't get it...

[CodeBuster]

Please MOD the parent up.

I also played DAoC right up until the ill-fated Trials of Atlantis (TOA) expansion (Mythic made the mistake with TOA of tying PvP success directly to PvE and by the time they realized their mistake and done something to correct it they had lost too many players and now it is only about 50,000 or so really hard core PvP players left) and it really did have some great features and good ideas. For a while there back in 2001-2003 they really had the best game going in the MMORPG space.

WAR will be more successful if they can successfully differentiate themselves from WoW and Realm vs Realm (RvR) and PvP, which WoW has basically fumbled, is the best way that they can do that. I will probably give WAR a try not because I am huge Warhammer fan, but because I remember the good times in DAoC and hope that Mythic will get it right from the start this time (using the lessons that they learned from DAoC).

Although, personally I would have preferred a more open ended and generic MMORPG type game where pre-conceived storylines and areas (from the Warhammer world in this case) do not intrude upon the gameplay. It would be far more interesting to start with an original world, drawing upon classic fantasy elements but not completely out in left field (i.e. use classic fantasy gaming elements and memes established by LOTR, D&D, and other popular fantasy novels but in a new setting) and let the actions of the players actually build the world as the game progresses.

It is not always necessary to have a pre-existing brand tie-in and it can infact hurt more than it helps (by drawing in lots of Warhammer fanbois who are just playing because its Warhammer and not because they are really interested in a good MMORPG experience). Plus, the publishers (EA\Mythic in this case) have to pay licensing fees or cut in the creator for a share of the profits (Games Workshop in this case) for the use of their copyrights. It seems like every MMORPG is a brand tie-in these days (Star Wars, Warhammer, World of Warcraft, etc) and sometimes (most times? WoW being a notable exception) the brand tie-in actually hurts rather than helps the long term viability of the game.

Yep

[Sycraft-fu]

While there is certainly nothing wrong with developers targeting Linux, Linux heads need to stop pretending like they are a major market. Linux on the desktop isn't all that common, and Linux on the desktop in a gaming situation is extremely rare. Thus this idea that developers really need to be targeting Linux is silly. To me it seems Linux is finding it's stronghold in business type markets. That's wonderful, but not a target for games.

Re:What I want is more simulation

[PlatyPaul]

Allow player actions to affect the world. If I kill all predators from an area I expect the ecology to be ruined. If you donÃ(TM)t want players ruining the ecology, make it difficult to genocide.

As long as it is possible, someone will do it, if only for teh LoLz.

simulation != game

[WinPimp2K]

And your laundry list of "features" pretty well demonstrates the difference. People play MMOs to have fun with other players. What you would make a good solo game for a micromanager.

Just consider your "ecology"
So what happens when a griefer guild shows up and slaughters all the wolves and bears in your forest? How do prevent this or can they even?

economies: much as I hate to admit it (I like the idea of a player economy as well), player based economies are actually very destructive to game enjoyment. The "Auction Hall" global market with instant results just provides massive encouragement for goldselling services and the resulting rampant inflation. The more resources and money supply is controlled by the publisher, the more the econommy winds up in control of the goldsellers.

If it is so darn "not difficult", why haven't you written your own game and have a few hundred thousand subscribers already?

However, the idea of allowing players to have a real impact on the game world is a good one, but once again darn near impossible in an MMO. Making real changes requires that new content be constantly generated to replace that which is no langer valid. Example: THe players have finally ended the zombie chicken infestation at Farmer Brown's. No longer will zombie chickens trouble the farm. Ever. So what new content do you propose for the beginning characters? Perhaps they could work on the rat infestation over at Farmer Smith's? What if someone gives Farmer Smith a pregnant cat(reproducing)? Oh the ecological horrors - plus the destruction of more content intended for beginning players.

Just ramp up those examples for "end game" content and you get a glimmer of the problem. It just takes too long to come up with new storylines/adventures. So players making real changes in games like this will be best done as solo games.

Or the games will have to have multiple "sub-games" built into them to keep folks occupied. (See Eve Online) which does have a failry robust and involved (although unfortunately corrupt) economy and PvP system.

Re:simulation != game

[Jack9]

Another thing is that they would attract attention from local police, then armed militia, and in most places armed militia is more combat-effective than any civilian organization.

If you want players to be forest rangers, how do they keep track of how many of each animal is left and what do they care since they have to go to bed sometime?

Right, so they better be invincible super-intelligent NPC guards defending those bears to:
1. Not be kited with a snare or against a sprint
2. Kill in a single blow
3. Never miss
4. Know which animals to protect and adjust their pathing accordingly ... Fuck it, if(bear.isLastBear){ bear.invincible = true; }

I don't think you have thought this through or played enough MMORPGs. Not sure which.

If the players managed to ruin the whole world, why not have creator gods come up with a new one?

Once it's announced or discovered that a world can be reset, there will be entire guilds dedicated to doing it as fast as possible. If you can get hundreds of people playing in Battlegrounds for fun, or 160 ppl for a single epic dragon in WoW, how long would it take for a couple guilds to exterminate every living thing within the majority of zones? (or whatever the reset trigger is) Oops reset! Your base evaporates as the casual players realize their playtime is effectively wasted at random intervals that are ever shortening.

It's much more fun to think about how other people are doing it wrong, when you don't understand why other ways don't work. No offense.

Re:What I want is more simulation

[Dutch Gun]

Like others have intoned, the real problem with this sort of dynamic and open system is people. A percentage of players in online games feel free to act in ways they would never think about in the real world because there are no real consequences for negative actions (worst that can happen is a ban). As such, they feel free to perform actions which, if done in the real world, would merit anywhere from a punch in the nose to lengthy jailtime.

Until this fundamental problem is addressed in some manner, online games will and must remain fairly tightly controlled affairs. Otherwise, chaos will reign and the vast majority of gamers will leave for greener and more pleasant pastures. With the enormous cost of developing MMOs, that's just not something most developers are willing to risk.

Compelling PvP

[nate nice]

Compelling PvP cannot exist without these 3 things:

Conflict, consequence and subjectivity.

Players must have a struggle and fight for something in the game. This creates a conflict that players will get involved in and fight over.

Players must feel repercussions for their decisions. Jumping and ganking the wrong people will result in total destruction of everything you and your friends have built by the community you have violated.

Finally, the sides must not be clearly defined at the beginning of the game. Your allies shouldn't be a gameplay decision based on what side of a coin you flip. Alliances need to be built out of a common desire to survive. You cannot possibly have a real hatred for an enemy just because your predisposed to them. But more importantly, you are forced to ally with those you may not want to because you are on the same side.

These static gameplay issues are the same reason WAR will be as interesting as WoW in terms of PvP and that is to say it won't be. Well, it will be fun objective based, tactical PvP.

But the game lacks *real* conflict, any type of consequence and subjectivity.