f13.net

While a number of World of Warcraft users dropped the widely popular MMO to play EA's recently released Warhammer Online, more than half of those gamers have already returned to Blizzard's market-leader.

That's according to COO Paul Sams, who said the pattern of players leaving and then returning to Warcraft follows that of any major MMO release.

"We've certainly had some of that happen, which is the same thing we experienced with Age of Conan and each time an MMO has come out we've seen some amount of reduction of use," he said in an exclusive interview published today.

"The good news is that we've seen a significant number of people, well over half, that cited Warhammer as their reason for leaving - they've already returned."

Sams said he was surprised that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning had a rocky start in Europe, but server troubles and registration hiccups are part and parcel of the MMO business.

"It surprises me because Mythic is a very good company and it doesn't surprise me at the same time because it's really hard, what they're trying to do and what we've done," commented Sams.

"We respect those guys over there a lot and certainly wish them well to succeed but having registration troubles, having server troubles, these are things that come with the territory when you're talking about managing a game as big as World of Warcraft or Warhammer or anything like that. So, it's not a surprise because it is really difficult."

It's not just respect for the team that Sams has – he's was keen to point out that if any other game can come close to the success of Warcraft, it's Warhammer Online, a game that has already notched up 750,000 registered users.

"I think Warhammer is best positioned to succeed out of the various products that have come out thus far since World of Warcraft has come out," he offered.

"It seems to be a good game, certainly a great company, Mythic and Mark [Jacobs] over there and his team, they're very, very talented.

"But I think without EA they would have struggled as well, because EA fortunately for them has a lot of money and so they were able to put forward a lot of marketing dollars and were able to support the huge infrastructure that they require for these kinds of games," added Sams.

The full interview with Paul Sams, where he discusses the challenge of MMO start-ups, Blizzard products on consoles and more, can be read here (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/blizzard-wizard).

Allegedly Blocked From Beta, ‘World Of Warcraft’ Designer Plays ‘Warhammer Online’ Anyway

...

Now that “Warhammer Online” has been out for almost a month, I wondered if Kaplan had gotten a chance to try it. Even though he’s been busy working on “Wrath of the Lich King,” he revealed he has spent a little time with it.

“My character is like level 13 right now, and I’m playing Destruction on a server that’s imbalanced,” he said, referring to the factions in the game. He also said leveling his character has been going a bit slowly. “I’m at the point where I’m thinking about quitting because it feels like the best way to level up is in the battlegrounds,” he explained.

“But it takes me 30 to 45 minutes to get in the battleground queue. And then when I’m not in the queue, I’m trying to do the Public Quests. But I find that I’m either griefing other people in the Public Quests to try to get influence, or that there’s just nobody there.” Kaplan said he’d switch servers but all his friends were on that server. “I just feel like we picked wrong, unknowingly.”

...

Oo, snap!

Well, not really. This is a gamer talking about his gamer concerns (valid, btw). But unfortunately when your business card says "Blizzard" and the topic is about the most recent and biggest competitor, things are more muddy.

Sams said he was surprised that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning had a rocky start in Europe, but server troubles and registration hiccups are part and parcel of the MMO business.

"It surprises me because Mythic is a very good company and it doesn't surprise me at the same time because it's really hard, what they're trying to do and what we've done," commented Sams.

I figured if WAR wanted to compete with WoW, it would waited until WAR was done.  They didn't so obviously they don't.  I will continue to WAR because there is nothing else for me, but I am niche.

Wired: Warhammer Online just came out. It's the first MMO since you guys released World of Warcraft four or five years ago that has really had the kind of fan reaction and critical praise to compete with World of Warcraft on, at least, a content level. Does that change how you guys approach the game, or approach your own game anyway?
J. Allen Brack: Um, not really. We are interested in making WoW the most fun game that we can make it and that’s sort of been our philosophy for the last four years, it’s going to continue to be our philosophy. So, as far as Warhammer, I’m excited to see more games come out, I’m a gamer, I love playing games ...
Wired: Have you played it?
Brack: I have a copy. I’m going to play it over Thanksgiving. I haven’t actually played it yet.
Wired: It takes a bit of time to get into.
Brack: Right. We have a couple of people on the team who play it.
Wired: Really? And they aren’t immediately fired for blaspheming against the company?
Brack: No, not at all. Quite the opposite actually.
We’re gamers. We wanna play fun games. So, if it’s a good game and they’re enjoying it, great. We’ve had people play D&D Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan -- we’ve got lots of people who play lots of different types of games, both before WoW came out and after.
And not just MMOs either. I’m very personally excited about what Valve is doing and I play a lot of multiplayer games. A lot of Team Fortress.

It's not Mythic who were running the European servers, so it shouldn't surprise him because "Mythic is a very good company" it should be fairly obvious that its going to happen because having communication between several corporate entities - GOA, Mythic, EA - in the launch of a major MMOG puts a whole new level of complexity into the picture. I don't think The9 had quite as smooth a time with WoW in China when they launched as Blizzard did (database lag excepted) even though they had a longer time after the initial Blizzard game launch than GOA did with Warhammer.

And lastly, Mark > that guy from blizzard. :P He would have never worded it so stupid

LOL, thanks. But I have my moments, I'm not surprised at all by what Paul said. Of course Blizzard is worried about us just as they should be worried at some level about every other MMO that might come out, that's his job. Frankly, what got me steamed is a piece at MTV multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/10/16/world-of-warcraft-game-director-on-warhammer-online (http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/10/16/world-of-warcraft-game-director-on-warhammer-online) where the guy talks a bit of smack about WAR, our Beta policy and stuff like that. My reaction to that was, interesting. 

I've always said nice things about WoW as I thank Blizzard for expanding the market, bringing more attention to this space, most important MMO of this generation, etc. But for Kaplan to shoot off his mouth about our beta policy, lack of confidence or criticism about WAR is just BS and it's wrong. And so, I deviated from my long-standing policy of not criticizing other developers, especially on subjective issues. It will be an interesting read.

Mark

MJ's questionable judgement continues with picking a fight he has no way of winning.

.....99.9% of the time I have taken the high road publicly. But right now, I'm going another route. We have worked way too hard on WAR and have too many great things coming to have a competitor dump on us (whatever their motivation is). Especially when it is a company like Blizzard who we had enough respect for and friendship with to allow them to come and visit Mythic and look at how we do things when they were still in development for WoW. I even had a conversation with the Vivendi CEO when WoW was about to miss its release date about how they need to give Blizzard additional time to complete the game because I knew back then how important WoW was going to be for VUG and for the online industry. I'm for all competition, love it but I think that Kaplan and to a lesser extent Sams, were way out of line.

Mark

As to history with Kaplan, none that I am aware of, which makes it even more surprising since I don't even know the guy personally. I have no problem getting down and dirty when I need to but I hate doing so even when I feel its deserved. If either of these things have happened in a different time frame, I would have handled it differently but for both of them to break now and with the tone and tenor and undercurrents of their statements, I have no problem reacting and responding to them. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised, I remember one interview with Pardo prior to WoW's launch where he saud that WoW's PvP system/realm point/honor point/etc. would be, unlike DAoC, useful. Hmm, how many times have they redone that system? Developers should stick to worrying about their own games and companies as none of us are perfect. People who live in glass castles and all that.

Mark

Bit of back and forth going on now, I believe there's going to be "something big" released in a Mythic statement tomorrow about WAR version 1.1, just have to wait and see what it is I guess.

I don't see how it is "dumping on WAR" when it is an assessment that a large portion of the players feel exactly the same way.  Even better, the key decision makers for the top dog just told you exactly what areas you need do better compete against them.  You can't get better advice than that.

Developers should stick to worrying about their own games and companies as none of us are perfect. People who live in glass castles and all that.

Mark

Mark, why would you stoop to getting in this type of argument with people at Blizzard? Nothing good comes to Mythic by pursuing such a contest of words. All that MTV interview did was make Kaplan look like a smug little asshole - which is what he is to many. Why lower yourself to his level?

Because I'm angry and given that his position at Blizzard, I think he should have showed more class. You can argue that I should have as well but I'm tired of this type of BS, especially coming from Blizzard. They have made billions off WoW and they really don't need Kaplan dissing, in any way, a competitive product. That's just wrong, period. I didn't diss EQ/AC/UO when we were developing DAoC and that's always been a standing rule of mine. If another developer doesn't want to play by the same rule, I reserve the right to respond, which I did. In Kaplan's case, talking about "his issues" with WAR during it's first 30 days is laughable especially since WoW had plenty of issues of their own at launch and considering that they spent 2x as long working on WoW as we did on WAR, some of their issues were just as bad or worse than ours. And his nonsense about our Beta is even more laughable considering Blizzard runs internal-only (NDAed by employment agreements) alphas at the same point where we would already be inviting thousands of regular people (under NDA) into our game.

I'm not normally a conspiracy kind of guy but within a few days of each other the COO and the Game Director of Blizzard both diss our game (though Paul did damn us with faint praise) does make me wonder.

Mark

J. Allen Brack also had some nice comments in the wired interview...

Ummm, Mark. That whistling sound? It's the fucking IRONY TRAIN.

I retract my prior staement, this nerdrage is fucking hilarious.

But in any case, this sort of thing, properly managed, can be good PR  :grin:

EA Mythic Defends ‘Warhammer Online’ From ‘World Of Warcraft’ Designer’s Criticism

Earlier today we published an interview with “World of Warcraft” game director Jeff Kaplan where he shared his thoughts on competing MMORPG “Warhammer Online.”

We reached out to EA Mythic head and lead “Warhammer Online” designer Mark Jacobs to clarify about his company’s beta policies. He responded after the story was published.

In doing so, Jacobs also wanted to respond to some of the comments about “Warhammer Online” that Kaplan had made. Here’s his defense via a phone call to MTV Multiplayer this morning:

– Referring to Kaplan’s mention of the 30-45 minute wait times for battlegrounds (called “Scenarios” in “Warhammer Online”), Jacobs said that “World of Warcraft” also had long queues just to get into the servers to play the game when it first launched in 2004.

– Responding to the user interface similarities, Jacobs said that “World of Warcraft” wasn’t the first game to feature customizable interfaces. While he credited them for polishing it, he also said that it should be pointed out that “World of Warcraft” learned from Sony Online’s “EverQuest” and Mythic’s “Dark Age of Camelot.”

– Jacobs explained that while as developers, they evolve games by learning from each other, many design decisions made for “Warhammer Online” were done consciously to differ from the industry leader: “If you look at ‘Warhammer,’ there were so many points [where] we consciously made the decision not to be like ‘WoW’ and to try to push the envelope. I think you’ll find that if you’re actually going to compare the two products, I would say ‘WoW’ is certainly a more polished game now than ‘Warhammer is — of course they’ve had four years and billions of dollars — but if you look at the innovations in ‘Warhammer,’ you’d be hard-pressed to find as many in ‘WoW.’”

– In the end, Jacobs said that this is only the beginning for “Warhammer Online”: “This is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. We are in this for the long haul and the real test of how great ‘Warhammer’ and ‘WoW’ are will sort themselves out, and that won’t be in the next three months. It’s going to be a lot longer.”

– For now, the Mythic head said that they’re enjoying their current success and see it continuing down the road even past the launch of the “WoW” expansion “Wrath of the Lich King” next month: “In our first three weeks post-launch, we’ve sold more than anyone else. The game stability has been unbelievable and it blows away any other online games. The amount of downtime we’ve had is negligible. The number of crashes we’ve had is almost non-existent. And we’re going to be continuing to be doing a lot for the game over the next six months, or nine months, or six years.”

Obviously both designers have vested interests in their own games. MMO gamers, you’ve now heard from both sides. What do you think of their criticisms?

  I wouldn't be surprised if he has a pop at Blizzard's paid character customisation (http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/46323) plans next. 

I dunno, when I am happily killing some mob in a PQ and someone comes and steals some of MY INFLUENCE OMG it kind of feels a little bit like being griefed. I mean, I understand intellectually that it isn't really, but my initial emotional response is the same. I can see why it would feel like griefing someone to do that.

Pointing out all the flaws is fine, well maybe not fine, it's not professional but whatever, from distant memory I think Mythic were guilty of that long ago.  But leaving that aside, there are a couple of minor points that could have been clearer and I'm sure provoked Mark.

Firstly there weren't any server problems at release in Europe.  Then the other guy talks about "griefing" players in a PQ, now correct me if I'm wrong but that's means he's not on a CORE ruleset server doesn't it?  If so he didn't make that clear and "griefing" is one of those trigger words to a potential mmorpg subscriber.  The mention of AOC in the same context as returning subscribers from WAR, the irrelevant (to us players anyway) mention of internal Beta policies for employees.

Lastly it's the day before Mark's big state of the game statement that he's been mentioning for a couple of days. 

Taking it altogether while considering the very real problems that WAR has, I'm not sure what else Blizzard could have done to annoy him more, maybe hire Eldin as a Blizzard community rep?

MJ just isn't that smart. If you want to get into a fight about something you have to make decent points. If your comback is restricted to "I'm always turning the other cheek. I'm nice and awesome! But:" and then you follow up with "It's not fair for them to be mean", "4 years ago their game had some problems", "in the future we'll be awesome" then you're better off saying nothing and actually being that nice and awesome guy you misguidedly think you are.

You want to get into a bitch fight over this then you assert why your game is better NOW, why your game is more fun NOW, why their game isn't as good NOW.

Which he is not doing.

"WoW is a work of flawed genius. This means that when you dismantle [it], you can never be too sure if you got the genius or the flaw."

Actually I've been waiting for this, I chose my character features on a crappy computer with low rez settings and didn't realize I picked the "old man face" i'd gladly pay a 1 time fee to change this asshole's face. The paid features are pay only to seperate them from gameplay features and prevent abuse of character changes.

sorry if that was a tangent... back to war

WoW is not even slightly the Fab Four. Right now the state of development of MMOGs is roughly akin to two people hitting sticks together in time in a cave.

I fully agree with tazelbain.  The dev didn't say anything a good number of people haven't said, and they're all issues that if fixed would make us stick around.  He wasn't dumping.  He flat out said what he wanted to see improved.  For Mark to take offsense at it is very silly.  And those quotes show he's raging about it instead of thinking about why someone might say those things.

As for the other stuff, he probably played on the US servers.  So that's what he saw.  It is possible to grief in PQs.  A lot of the Dwarf and Greenskin PQs are competative.  Flag yourself and it's quite likely the other side accidentally smacks you at some point.  Or he could not be grouping so he feels sharing the kills takes influence from them.  (I don't know if he felt it was an active role on his part, or something about the design.)

Regardless, he seemed to be asked his opinion of things from playing the game.  That's what he gave.  Had he been asked about how did he see the state of the game from an in-depth analysis it would have been a very different answer.

It's almost like you didn't read my post, I wasn't saying they were "dumping on WAR", hence my "couple of minor points that could have been clearer" comment.  You explaining what he might have meant about "griefing" when you aren't really sure yourself, or that he might have played US servers, hence his confusion when talking about WAR Europe, when again you aren't really sure, none of that really contradicts what I said, does it?

It could have been clearer, which is why I was filling in some information, but I didn't see anything in there which was particularly antagonizing.  Other than maybe it came from someone who works at Blizzard rather than the thousands of other customers saying the same thing.  I got the impression you felt he was poking the bear.

I dunno, when I am happily killing some mob in a PQ and someone comes and steals some of MY INFLUENCE OMG it kind of feels a little bit like being griefed. I mean, I understand intellectually that it isn't really, but my initial emotional response is the same. I can see why it would feel like griefing someone to do that.

Yeah, the same thought struck me.  MJ speaks his mind, that's normally not a great thing but in this case I don't see much of a downside for him.  He's acting as if Blizzard were bang out of order, how do they respond to that?  Any response is more publicity for WAR, it's difficult for them to go the "unprofessional" route now, and the "we got more subs, fool" isn't exactly a secret.

Honestly I think in the big picture it's not going to make a lick of difference. Most people who play either game probably won't hear about this or even care if they do.

They did the same thing in DaoC, just soon after launch.

And yeah, it's wierd. I stopped playing WoW quite a while ago, but I'm tempted to pick up WotLK now.

Having the same effect.  For whatever reason I feel like some quest based advancement.  GYAH.  I thought that damn urge was dead. WoW's PVP direction still makes me nauseous.

I don't care what the devs have to say if the game is good. However, by all accounts, WAR is not worth me starting up my subscription at this stage, and what concerns me about MJ's rantings is that he appears to be taking an "it's all good, dammit" approach rather than a "we will fix it" approach.

I can actually alt-tab with no fear of a crash.

However, I'll be just running around and poomf - CTD.

The number of crashes has diminished with each patch for me. But they are still happening, and I still suspect that its related to memory handling. The odds of surviving an Alt-Tab to change Ventrilo channels are better which is nice.

That's the one I get. Usually somewhere about hour 2.5 - 3 of concurrent playtime, my performance will go to shit. Within about 15 minutes of that, I just drop to desktop. That's usually my queue to just log the fuck off for the night.

1. First double click on 'My Computer'
2. Find the Warhammer Online program folder (could be in ‘C:\Program Files\Warhammer Online’ or ‘C:\Warhammer Online’)
3.Once inside open the 'User' folder
4. Right click on 'UserSettings.xml'
5. Choose 'Edit'
You will get a notepad with xml code
6. At the top you will see the following:

</Graphics>
<Performance>
<perflevel level="custom1" />
<perfcustom1 drawDistance="0.43" textureCache="0.00" effects="high" abilityEffects="all" animation="medium" shadows="medium" specular="true" lightmaps="true" grass="false" waterRef="true" waterWakes="true" />

7. Change the two red highlighted 'True' entries to read 'False' as seen above (basically make sure the two false entries seen above match those in your file)

8. Go File > Save

9. Load the game and go to 'Settings'
10. Choose 'Custom 1' as your preference in the graphics options
11. You should now see 'Specular' and 'Lightmaps' are now unticked
12. Once you have selected 'Custom 1' select 'Apply' and 'Ok'
13. Play the game and give it a second to load once you enter the game
14. Play as normal and see if you get less stuttering.

Again, it's only after about 3 hours that this happens to me. Which means a memory leak, one of the hardest bugs to root out in an MMOG AFAIK.

Doesn't a copy of Purify cost around a grand? Not exactly cheap for a sole developer, but well within Mythic's tool budget, I would think.