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

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.

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.