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f13.net General Forums => Warhammer Online => Topic started by: Soln on September 16, 2009, 09:59:18 PM



Title: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Soln on September 16, 2009, 09:59:18 PM
 Jeff Hickman doesn't get it  (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25285)

 Andy Belford tries to say this wasn't meant to be read by players (http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/111744919/p1/?20)

World keeps spinning.  Film at 11.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: columba on September 16, 2009, 11:13:08 PM
Here is the interview that reveals the cluelessness.  I apologize if this has been posted.  I could not find it.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25285


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Trippy on September 16, 2009, 11:14:27 PM
Jeff Hickman doesn't get it  (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25285)

 Andy Belford tries to say this wasn't meant to be read by players (http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/111744919/p1/?20)

World keeps spinning.  Film at 11.
I would agree that the Gamasutra article does take some things out of context. Jeff never said that the three things he talked about where the top 3 problems with the game, which is what the subheading implies. I.e. saying that those three problems "haunted" them for a year doesn't necessarily mean those were the top 3 problems.

On the other hand the statement that an RvR game "suffered immensely" because the early PvE was too easy shows just how out of touch with their own game they continue to be.

Here is the interview that reveals the cluelessness.  I apologize if this has been posted.  I could not find it.
It's the first link in the post above yours.



Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Arthur_Parker on September 17, 2009, 03:32:35 AM
Quote
Firstly, keep in mind that the target audience here is industry, not the playerbase. Secondly, also remember, GDC is an industry conference and Gamasutra is an industry site.

Wrong "target audience" sums WAR up.  War is everywhere, go pve.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: UnSub on September 17, 2009, 06:20:45 AM
Andy Belford tries to say this wasn't meant to be read by players (http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/111744919/p1/?20)

These are not the droids you are looking for.

Even post-launch, those aren't the three systems I'd have focused on for falling short.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: 01101010 on September 17, 2009, 08:05:02 AM
Here is the interview that reveals the cluelessness.  I apologize if this has been posted.  I could not find it.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25285

Not surprising in the least. Even the band on the Titanic kept playing. This is what happens when you censor your player-base - you get fed whatever information you want or are able to actually do something about.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: BitWarrior on September 17, 2009, 12:36:37 PM
Funny, I would have thought, "Pick the right fucking engine for your game" would have been a good industry protip.  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Venkman on September 17, 2009, 02:13:03 PM
Insightful article at Gamasutra (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25285), which I mostly found insightful because of how they still seem to miss the mark.

  • They think a problem was not making PvE challenging enough. Because people showed up to waauuggghhhh for PvE?! lolwtf?
  • They didn’t give enough reason for people to socialize. LOL. The old "players need downtime" debate. But applied to a PvP game. No, it wasn't the lack of socalization, it was that you spread the players too far apart!
  • They think PQs were a success. I understand the emotional attachment to this concept, about the only truly unique thing in WAR, but jeezus, get off the PvE. The best PvE in the world is only going to remind people of what they miss in WoW.

As they head into their Korean launch, I'll be curious to see how well it goes for them.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Arrrgh on September 17, 2009, 02:55:17 PM
Inability to learn from mistakes is job requirement for MMO devs.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Segoris on September 17, 2009, 03:03:12 PM
FYI, it's already in another thread http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=16052.msg706292#msg706292


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Soln on September 17, 2009, 03:36:16 PM
to summarize:

   1. Early PvE Too Easy
   2. No Incentive to Group
   3. Bad Economy

Cynically, I did notice these are 3 things that don't really make them look bad.  The Economy is not under their control; they can't control social behavior, they can only incent people to group more; and they just had a tuning problem with the levelling curve.  Ergo, the problems of WAR had nothing to do with MJ/PaulB/JeffH.

BS

Far more real and honest to say:

   1. we didn't understand the player base
   2. we didn't choose a good technical architecture
   3. we didn't design a credible end game and lifecycle for players

Really, I don't have any patience for Mythic anymore.  They are saying things to cover their jobs with EA/Bioware.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Kail on September 17, 2009, 03:49:33 PM

I gotta agree with Trippy's point that these weren't pointed out as the three main problems which Warhammer has, just that these are the three he decided to talk about that day.

I am a bit annoyed by the dev response, though.  A dev comes out and says "these three things are problems."  The playerbase explodes with cheeto-fueled rage because he didn't mention the "real problems."  Andy walks in and says "he's not saying these are the most important problems, we know what the most important problems are," but still doesn't say what they actually are.

I mean, I have no idea where this game is headed (obvious jokes aside).  Are they buffing healing?  Nerfing Archmages?  Removing stealth?  I have no idea.  I guess they're planning on making changes to stuns at some point, and there are a few ability tweaks for specific classes that I've heard are coming.  But if there are big changes incoming for the game, I don't know what they are.  For a dev to come in and say "Yeah, we've got our finger on the pulse!" when all I'm hearing is some changes for Marauder offhand abilities seems a wee bit disingenuous.

  • They think PQs were a success. I understand the emotional attachment to this concept, about the only truly unique thing in WAR, but jeezus, get off the PvE. The best PvE in the world is only going to remind people of what they miss in WoW.
On the one hand, they seem like a huge waste of a concept.  Epic, world changing (temporarily) quests, players scrambling to react to changing circumstances, no forced grouping, somehow translating to "kill 100 squigs, then kill 10 champion goblins, then a hero orc" is not really a success.  The vast majority of PQs being permanently deserted (because there's nothing to do there unless there's already a half dozen people around, which there won't be, because they're all thinking the same thing as you and avoiding the place).

On the other hand, I do think it's a good idea in theory.  It could work, it's interesting and unique.  It's also one of the few systems which seems to work fairly reliably.  So I can see it as kind of a success.  I'm hoping to see it in WoW: Cataclysm.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Soln on September 17, 2009, 03:52:22 PM
did the PQ's really work ?  or just about zone flipping?  Did they pop enough and predictable?  honest questions


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Kail on September 17, 2009, 03:56:11 PM
did the PQ's really work ?  or just about zone flipping?  Did they pop enough and predictable?  honest questions

I never had any problems with them, personally, and I was impressed by how nicely the contribution tracking seemed to work (though it was borked when they tried to port it to Keep Sieges).  The only problems I ran into were regular PvE issues (mob pathing and stuff) and holiday PQs (which are patched pretty quick, in my experience).

edit: clarification: PQs don't 'pop' in the same way scenarios do; they're part of the gameworld.  If you want to do one, you just walk there.  They aren't really populated these days (in the leveling zones, anyway), so they don't get run very often, but when they do, they tend to work, in my experience.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Ingmar on September 17, 2009, 04:15:30 PM
PQs are a good idea. Having 50 billion of them all over the place that spread your players too thin across them is not.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Arthur_Parker on September 17, 2009, 04:25:25 PM
Warhammer Online: Exclusive Interview with Producer, Josh Drescher (http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/74493)

Quote
Ten Ton Hammer:
So looking to the future, should we expect anything in terms of a boxed expansion coming anytime soon?

Josh:
If you actually look back through the past 10 years of Mythic's history, with Dark Age of Camelot, we released stuff in retail expansions and we released some live expansions. Philosophically, we look at our products and go, if we're coming back to the well so to speak, and asking for another $50 every 18 months, that becomes a burden on the players that I think, and we've always felt, is somewhat inappropriate. Certainly, a retail expansion is something that is on the table. It's a thing that we could do if we feel that it's appropriate.

At this point in time we're very happy with the live event, live expansion system, giving us the ability to drive new content and significant new content to our players. We've added four new careers, we've added an entirely new geographical region to the game, we've added new scenarios, we've added new dungeons, we've added new systems - all without asking anything above and beyond the initial cost to purchase the game and a subscription. Personally, if I thought we could do that indefinitely, that's the way I would rather move forward anyway.

Curiously, you mentioned a boxed retail expansion and I think if you start to look ahead 5 years from now, the dominance of boxed products at all for this industry is going to have significantly tapered off. People are starting to wise up already that the games we are delivering are actually not products; they are services, and like cable television or internet access, or electricity, water, gas, whatever, that is actually much more attractive to the consumer to not be expected to pay a ton of money up front in order to access what you have to offer and to instead, annuitize that over time by subscriptions or micro transactions, or some other payment model that's a little easier on the consumer and doesn't require them to take a risk by spending $50 on a game they're not sure they're going to like long-term.

I would say that five years from now you won't see retail expansions at all. You'll service expansions and live expansions and you'll see the kinds of things that we're doing now and I'm happy to be at the forefront of that. But yeah. A retail expansion is always a possibility, but for now, we're very happy with the way that we've delivered content to people for the last year.

Josh Interview from August (http://www.industrygamers.com/news/interview-mythic-on-the-future-of-ultima-online-warhammer-and-working-with-bioware)

Quote
IG: Switching gears for a little bit, I'm curious about Mythic's future plans for Warhammer Online- will there be an expansion?

Josh: Oh yeah.  It remains a priority for the studio, and we're working closely with BioWare to see where EA games logo wants to go with it.  Ray Muzyka from BioWare has a very long term plan for the future and we've had to think further into the future because of that.  Most of existence, our studio has been on a shoestring budget so we couldn't think far ahead, but we just finished up a major patch for Warhammer Online and there's a lot of stuff we're thinking about improving and enhancing the gameplay experience and guaranteeing that product lives up to the legacy of the Warhammer franchise.  You should expect an expansion in the near future.

So EA BioWare killed the expansion talk to not "burden" the players?


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Soulflame on September 17, 2009, 04:57:58 PM
The biggest mistake was spreading people too broadly across too much area, then running the game on servers that couldn't handle enough people to populate those zones at peak population.

I did not try out WAR for the PvE, I had WoW for that.  I tried it for the PvP, and was horrified to find that Mythic had learned just about nothing from seven years of DAoC.  So I canceled, and continued to play WoW.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Venkman on September 17, 2009, 05:56:09 PM
Ah, didn't see it in the other thread. Probably worth breaking out anyway since that's like 24, but I'll leave it to my betters to decide on merger-death-kill :-)

A dev comes out and says "these three things are problems."  The playerbase explodes with cheeto-fueled rage because he didn't mention the "real problems."  Andy walks in and says "he's not saying these are the most important problems, we know what the most important problems are," but still doesn't say what they actually are.

Gamasutra editorialized it with the "three biggest mistakes" heading to that section. But even without that, I would have taken them as Mythic thinking these were their three biggest mistakes from the quote "three things have haunted us for a year with Warhammer". You don't say "haunted" unless you really wish things had gone a different way. When put with what they think should have gone differently, people rightly come away with saying "wtf? better PvE?". So you can understand the cheeto-fueled rage.

WAR was filled with good theoretical ideas. And that has always been its biggest problem, above all other individual features. It's a patchwork of disjointed systems each represented far too numerously to do the most important thing the game needed to do: funnel players together. This was obvious even in the very original vision of eight factions vying over four strongholds. Yes, maybe you eventually grow that big (and somehow get much higher capacity servers, or even uniserver it). But you don't start by immediately compartmentalizing players you're trying to keep densely packed enough for the overlarge zones you've created.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: UnSub on September 17, 2009, 09:11:06 PM
did the PQ's really work ?  or just about zone flipping?  Did they pop enough and predictable?  honest questions

PQs were great, if you could get a team to stick around or have enough people do them. Or even knew what the hell you were meant to do. Sometimes an objective might not be that clear, so you could fail the PQ by not being in the right place at the right time, or because you stood over the spawn point for the next wave when it triggered.

So there were about 4 PQs per zone, and you needed the correct number / types of characters to do them and it was (at least in the early days) sometimes very trial and error in completing them successfully. If you could. The boss mob in some PQs could squash teams flat in seconds. Also, because there were so many per zone, they could end up feeling very repetitive.

ChampO has taken the PQ idea and made it work a bit better - only one PQ per zone, fairly rapid repeats and at this point it is fairly easy for a group to form to do it in my experience.

As for zone flipping: it was hidden under an arcane formula that didn't make sense even when players did figure it out. And at the end of the day the best zone defence was not fighting because then you didn't lose so the other team didn't get points.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: DLRiley on September 17, 2009, 09:41:30 PM
I don't think its a bad assumption that WAR failed due to crap pvp. A lot of players would have tolerated WAR if the pve was enjoyable. Instead you have all 500k (i don't believe in the 700k figure) running into the brick wall that was the games RVR. Eventually only a handful of players managed to scale that wall and those are the players still playing now, at least till Aion arrives. The vast majority of players didn't leave because of crap pve, they left because of crap pvp, which wouldn't have been much of a problem if the pve game mythic enough time to realize the rvr wasn't fun and fix it. Rather then assume the playerbase needed bells and whistles to get into rvr and totally miss the fact that it just wasn't fun. Even Funcom realized that improving AoC would require fixing the pve first. Which was a good idea considering that like Mythic, Funcom isn't smart enough to figure out what makes their pvp unfun in the first place.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: squirrel on September 17, 2009, 10:52:50 PM
I don't think its a bad assumption that WAR failed due to crap pvp. A lot of players would have tolerated WAR if the pve was enjoyable. Instead you have all 500k (i don't believe in the 700k figure) running into the brick wall that was the games RVR. Eventually only a handful of players managed to scale that wall and those are the players still playing now, at least till Aion arrives. The vast majority of players didn't leave because of crap pve, they left because of crap pvp, which wouldn't have been much of a problem if the pve game mythic enough time to realize the rvr wasn't fun and fix it. Rather then assume the playerbase needed bells and whistles to get into rvr and totally miss the fact that it just wasn't fun. Even Funcom realized that improving AoC would require fixing the pve first. Which was a good idea considering that like Mythic, Funcom isn't smart enough to figure out what makes their pvp unfun in the first place.

I'm sorry I really don't understand what you're saying. Are you suggesting that they should have spent their efforts improving the PvE so as to delay the userbase from reaching the PvP 'endgame' which was at the time crap? If so, I disagree. They should have realized that WAR appealed to DAoC, SB and other PvP players and completely forsaken the PvE and focused 100% on making the PvP better. More XP for open RvR, easier to find fights, better scenario rewards, no PvE cockblocks etc. I cannot understand saying that the game failed because of lousy PvE or even that they should have improved PvE to buy time. WAR was NEVER about the PvE and it's a sign of incompetence (or more likely, WoW envy) that Mythic thought it was. I think on some board somewhere there was even a thread about this.  :oh_i_see:

EDIT: Seriously - I've read your post 3 times now. I have no idea what you're saying. You seem to be saying that we all left cause PvP just wasn't fun but people would've stayed for the PvE if they had of worked on that? Really? Hint: There's already 3 awesome PvE games out there (WoW, LoTRO, EQ2). I don't think that would've made much difference.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: columba on September 17, 2009, 11:03:02 PM
I think one root cause was the original plan to make this an instanced pvp game.  Late in beta, I understand that Mythic changed to open rvr.  HOwever, someone forgot to check with the technical experts.  As a result, the lag and crashes contributed to the death of the game.  Further, the lame end game looks thrown together late in the process.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Nebu on September 17, 2009, 11:09:33 PM
WAR failed as soon as it tried to become a hybrid between DAoC and WoW.  I can't describe this in exact terms, but that's what WAR always felt like to me.  I'm sure that my DAoC fanboism is coloring my opinion, but I always enjoyed the sandbox feel of DAoC and hoped that WAR would provide a cleaner version of that.  Instead, I got a game filled with many different xp bars to fill, gear to grind, and RvR that was initially focused on killing NPC's. 


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: DLRiley on September 18, 2009, 02:35:18 AM
i really had a long post here but it didn't show up...geez...


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Typhon on September 18, 2009, 06:04:24 AM
WAR failed as soon as it tried to become a hybrid between DAoC and WoW.  I can't describe this in exact terms, but that's what WAR always felt like to me.  I'm sure that my DAoC fanboism is coloring my opinion, but I always enjoyed the sandbox feel of DAoC and hoped that WAR would provide a cleaner version of that.  Instead, I got a game filled with many different xp bars to fill, gear to grind, and RvR that was initially focused on killing NPC's. 

I got the same feeling.  I think they just kept looking at the WoW money hats with envy and convinced themselves that they could make a great PvE game and a great RvR game.

Then someone had the PQ idea, which is really good, which probably made them feel even more confident about their PvE game.  Too bad they didn't focus more on creating an RvR game where you could PvE if you wanted to, but it wasn't really recommended.

Another thing that bothered me about the PQs is that there is nothing on the map that tells a player what was going on in any particular area at any particular time.  Which is so very odd, because near the end of my stay in DAoC, when new frontiers was just coming out, they seemed to finally grasp that you had to let players know where the hot spots were so they could go join them.  So they created PQs, but forgot to create any mechanism to let players know where they were, or more importantly, if anyone was currently attempting them.  Maybe they've fixed that problem and made quick-grouping with people also doing the PQ easier?  Maybe they've made it so that you don't get credit for the PQ unless you join that group (or create a "PQ group" concept that you can be in at the same time you are in a regular group), and that the PQ itself scales to the size of that group?  Probably not, I'm thinking.  A shame.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: ghost on September 18, 2009, 07:05:29 AM
If you can't make solo-friendly PvP it will fail (particularly if your goal is to be wildly successful, e.g. WOW).  WOW learned the lesson that other MMOs didn't seem to be able to grasp prior-  people don't want to have to group for everything just because they are playing an online game.

The guy's point about PvE is a little bit valid for Warhammer, in my opinion.  Because you really need fairly sizable groups of people for the PvP action there is a good chance that if you log on during off peak hours that you aren't going to find PvP.  The idea of having an interesting world/game otherwise might have kept people interested longer. 

A huge mistake that I never hear the developers talk about is their insistence on linking everything in the game together.  Gotta run scenarios and quest to do city siege.  Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Arthur_Parker on September 18, 2009, 07:19:41 AM
The PVE was bland, making it harder wouldn't make it better, besides the PVE instances I saw were very buggy, buggy is hard.  They dropped 4 capital cities shortly before release and currently have zero plans to add them.  I wonder how much work went into those cities, hell they could have launched with just the Dwarf and Orc/Goblin factions present and they might even be in better shape than now.  I believe no retail expansion means EA intends to let this die and everyone involved knows it.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Ashamanchill on September 18, 2009, 07:36:02 AM
did the PQ's really work ?  or just about zone flipping?  Did they pop enough and predictable?  honest questions
So there were about 4 PQs per zone, and you needed the correct number / types of characters to do them and it was (at least in the early days) sometimes very trial and error in completing them successfully. If you could. The boss mob in some PQs could squash teams flat in seconds. Also, because there were so many per zone, they could end up feeling very repetitive.

ChampO has taken the PQ idea and made it work a bit better - only one PQ per zone, fairly rapid repeats and at this point it is fairly easy for a group to form to do it in my experience.

You know what the funny thing about this is? Even the failure games learned from Mythic's blunders. The only ones that haven't, are.....

Oh yeah, and there was actually nine PQs in any given zone, three per chapter. Hey PQs are a blast right? SO lets make 27 of them just in the first zones combined!!!!!!


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: ghost on September 18, 2009, 07:49:39 AM
The PVE was bland, making it harder wouldn't make it better, besides the PVE instances I saw were very buggy, buggy is hard.

I think one could say that they should have just done everything better.  Clearly harder doesn't mean better though. 


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Shatter on September 18, 2009, 08:26:45 AM
It wasnt just big things that made WHO tank, many small things that add up are equally annoying.  Yeah their Reknown system sucked, gear system sucked, leveling curve sucked, Keeps and forts sucked(1 ramp wtf), end game sucked, FPS sucked, populations sucked, etc. 

Small things that have irked me over the past while

1)  Getting caught on rocks, trees, sctructures, bridges, etc and stuck on fence posts making me have to port to my bind point
2)  Melee distance and any lag would cause you to fail to hit your target, although your abilities would fire anyhow
3)  Scenario objectives - some of them you spend more time running around then actually killing or getting reknown points.  Friends and I blacklisted Thunder Valley and Logrins forge cause those scenarios are 90% running, 10% killing
4)  Trinkets and pocket items they added into the game that negate other players defensive or offensive abilties or damage:
a) pocket item that absorbs 4000melee dmg
b) pocket item that prevents your opponent from blocking, parrying or dodging your attacks for 15 seconds
c) oathstones which proc a debuf that reduced armor of the target by 1200...and it stacked. 
5)  Borked the entire crafting system so making money through any craft/tradeskill was almost pointless. 
6)  Flying when a scenrio popped caused u to get bugged and not only not enter the scenario but you could re-que and had to log out
7)  Abilities that dont work like knockback...would miss and do nothing 95% of the time

I can add more but almost time for lunch :)


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Sir T on September 18, 2009, 09:44:52 AM
I have to admit the first thing that felt "wrong" was that there were 3 "lands". Personally in my world I would have had maybe one started land for each land but then everyone is funneled intot he same realm. It was fun starting in Ulthuan as a High elf and wandering around the Blighted Isle ( I wanted to go up and say hi to the Sword of Khaine, but the damn thing wasn't actually put into it) becasue of the lore, but after that they could have sent me off to the empire and I would have not complained rather having than the whole of bloody Ulthuan where I saw nobody. I love the high Elf backstory, but even I didn't give a rats ass about wandering through Ulthuan beating up dark elves.

The fact that everyone by themselves seemed to migrate to the Chaos-Empire war shows what a bad idea it was from the very start.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: schild on September 18, 2009, 10:19:53 AM
I wish I'd gone to that, I'd have stood up and called bullshit on him. (Him being Hickman).


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: UnSub on September 18, 2009, 10:52:39 AM
Oh yeah, and there was actually nine PQs in any given zone, three per chapter. Hey PQs are a blast right? SO lets make 27 of them just in the first zones combined!!!!!!

I'd forgotten the differences between zones, chapters and the like.

The Tome of Knowledge was another really good idea of Mythic's that I think they killed by over-doing it. I like achieving in-game rewards as much as the next guy, but as soon as I see things like "Kill 100 guys with four times more reknown rank than you while you are in chicken form" I realise that it just isn't going to be worth my time.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Shatter on September 18, 2009, 10:58:18 AM
The tome while a good idea was a major cause of zoning lag.  It would take forever to zone from x to y because the more tome unlocks you got the longer it takes.  If you start a new character its amazing how much faster it is to zone, but my RR77 WH takes FOREVER to load.  They admitted this is the case and said 2 months ago they have a fix already yet here we are...no fix implemented. 


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: UnSub on September 18, 2009, 11:13:04 AM
The tome while a good idea was a major cause of zoning lag.  It would take forever to zone from x to y because the more tome unlocks you got the longer it takes.  If you start a new character its amazing how much faster it is to zone, but my RR77 WH takes FOREVER to load.  They admitted this is the case and said 2 months ago they have a fix already yet here we are...no fix implemented. 

I'm split between "They say knowledge is a burden" and "That's just retarded" in response to that.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Soln on September 18, 2009, 02:47:50 PM
I wish I'd gone to that, I'd have stood up and called bullshit on him. (Him being Hickman).

They are Retcon'ing their careers.  What do you expect?  Worked for Paul, so far.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Kageru on September 19, 2009, 08:27:00 PM

I think you do need some PvE for those times when PvP isn't available, you want a change or you just want something a bit more relaxed and sociable than chaotic and frenetic PvP. And if you're going to do it at all then you might as well do it well, or at least decently.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Sir T on September 20, 2009, 09:02:21 AM
I've been of the opinion for a long time that you can either do good PVE or PVP. You cant really do both and attempts to do it always fall flat on their face.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Nebu on September 20, 2009, 11:03:34 AM
I've been of the opinion for a long time that you can either do good PVE or PVP. You cant really do both and attempts to do it always fall flat on their face.

Blizzard begs to differ.  While I agree that WoW pvp is pretty poorly implemented, there's no doubt that it has a significant following. 

I forgot.  We dont' get to use WoW as an example since it's a statistical outlier. 


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Sir T on September 20, 2009, 11:29:14 AM
WOW has a significant following becasue its from blizzard and its familiar. WOW could launch from a different company tomorrow and people would shit on it for waaa pvp.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Nebu on September 20, 2009, 11:39:21 AM
WOW has a significant following becasue its from blizzard and its familiar. WOW could launch from a different company tomorrow and people would shit on it for waaa pvp.

I agree 100%.  That doesn't change the fact that it disagrees with your earlier statement. 


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Sheepherder on September 20, 2009, 11:57:04 AM
WOW has a significant following becasue its from blizzard and its familiar. WOW could launch from a different company tomorrow and people would shit on it for waaa pvp.

Warhammer and Mythic are familiar to a fairly consequential number of people and we saw how far that got them.  What are the EU server numbers again?


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Arthur_Parker on September 20, 2009, 03:14:08 PM
I've been of the opinion for a long time that you can either do good PVE or PVP. You cant really do both and attempts to do it always fall flat on their face.

There isn't a good pvp game on the market.  PVE and PVP are both crap in WAR.  If they wanted to make a PVE game and fail at it, they were free to do so, no reason to try for pvp, miss the mark and then say, oh we should have concentrated on pve more.  No shit, maybe they should have concentrated on character generation more, WAR might be a better game as a result but still marketed with the tag "war is everywhere".

As for Blizzard, there's no pressure on them to drastically change WoW to make pvp a lot better, what they did works far better than they planned already.  Blizzards next game will be interesting, either they try to top the best pve game on the market or they try to top the best pvp game, the first is a safe bet (they did it before) the second is easy, I'd imagine they will go for whichever they think will be more profitable.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Redgiant on September 20, 2009, 10:33:19 PM
As someone on VN posted, the Brighthub (http://www.brighthub.com/video-games/mmo/articles/44427.aspx) article says it all, especially from the POV of someone who understands why DAoC worked.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Nebu on September 20, 2009, 11:20:33 PM
As someone on VN posted, the Brighthub (http://www.brighthub.com/video-games/mmo/articles/44427.aspx) article says it all, especially from the POV of someone who understands why DAoC worked.

This article focuses on the wrong things and in the wrong places. 

1) A third realm wouldn't have saved WAR.  I doubt it would have even helped.

2) Too much cc.  This point I agree with.  CC will kill a pvp game quickly.  Giving it to every class was a monumentally stupid idea. 

3) Class imbalance.  Not even close.  Class imbalance didn't kill the game.  It was the realm imbalance that may have.  Class imbalances are necessary and even nurtured.  They allow unskilled players a chance to succeed. 

WAR failed because it

a) Tried to be successful at PvE.  In attempting this, had a large portion of it's endgame be PvE in a PvP outfit.  Veteran gamers sniffed this out quickly. Too much grind focused at the wrong portion of the MMO market.

b) Promised massive PvP battles with an engine ill equipped to deliver.

c) Provided little to no incentive to participate in world pvp.  Castle/Zone swapping became the workaround for bad endgame design.

d) A general lack of stickiness.  There's no reason to keep playing.  No realm pride.  No "worldly" feel.  No sandbox aspects.  Nothing. 

Numerous other reasons: poor itemization, meaningless crafting, pointless economy, etc.

 


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Fordel on September 21, 2009, 12:29:03 AM
3) Class imbalance.  Not even close.  Class imbalance didn't kill the game.  It was the realm imbalance that may have.  Class imbalances are necessary and even nurtured.  They allow unskilled players a chance to succeed. 


What?


That logic only even begins to work if all the unskilled players magically pick the correct overpowered class. WarriorKnight rules the battle field but you picked WizardMage, have fun being rolled or re-rolling. For every person that sticks with their chosen class despite how crappy it is, there is another dozen that just goes "fuck it" and leaves.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: UnSub on September 21, 2009, 02:04:01 AM
WAR had some stupidly broken classes and powers at launch. It took a while to fix them, assuming they ever got fixed.

I disagree about the necessity of a third realm. Perhaps - perhaps - if things were originally designed differently with a third realm it might have been more involved, but if it had just been another realm along the same lines as the existing two, it would have been just another dull, meaningless environment.

I don't think WAR can be turned around. If it really did cost a bit south of $100 million and requires 500k players to break even then every month is adding to WAR's debt. Certainly, shutting down 64-odd servers and letting people go helps with the costs, but can they really drop WAR's costs to the point they are actually making headway into their development debt on a player base of less than 300k? 200k? Fewer than that? I don't think so.



Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Arthur_Parker on September 21, 2009, 02:24:14 AM
I don't think WAR can be turned around.

Even with the best will in the world I think that's very true.  The client just isn't up to what they wanted it to do, they would need to revisit the licensing agreement with GW and massively invest to replace the game engine.  I don't think they could do it without some far fetched situation like EA buying Turbine and using their engine. 

The whole realm balancing thing annoys me, it's a problem they made for themselves and the best idea, the very best they can offer is a 20% bonus?  Table top WFB doesn't have population balance problems, if two people turn up with Empire armies the IP allows them to fight each other (civil war whatever).  WAR needed cross realm scenario queueing, I also think going back to original comments we made on this when it was first announced, there was no point in having two sides, they could easily have had 6 six sides and put something interesting in that allowed temporary alliance packs between certain factions.  But Mythic couldn't even set the different scenarios to to rotate within a tier on one server so asking for cross realm scenarios seems like asking for the impossible.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: waffel on September 21, 2009, 12:27:30 PM
I think the biggest mistake is just bad developers that didn't understand how players would react and use their ideas. They were just so out of touch with what players wanted/would do. Multiple scenarios? Players are going to pick the play the one that offers fastest RPs and hour. Keep attacks and defense? Players going to pick the one that offers the biggest rewards (attacks and swapping) Unbalanced BWs throughout beta and into release? Players are going to flock to the class.

But I knew something was up with the devs when, in beta, mythic dicked around with its PQs. I remember players would form groups, sometimes 1 group, occasionally large 2-3 groups, at public quests. People would converse, finish the stages, level up together. It'd start out with a few people doing it, form into 1 group, and soon /regions were out and you had a nice party going. Mythic decided that players were leveling too fast, and completing the PQs with too few people (sometimes 1 group) and decided, randomly, to turn the final boss into god-mode killing machines and fuck around with the EXP.

The result? Players stopped looking for groups at PQs because they became way too fucking hard and not worth it. I tried to do various PQs with others after they fucked it up and everyone threw their hands in the air in disgust at how retarded it was. PQs you used to run by before that were being completed were now empty.

Then Mythic started pulling people out of the world with scenarios and solo questing became the norm.

The whole concept of working together was gone at that point and they never, ever got it back.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: March on September 21, 2009, 12:45:14 PM
While I agree that adding a 3rd realm would not constitute a fix for WaR.

I agree with Unsub that the absence of the third (or multiple) realm(s) demonstrated that the game had serious miscues before it even hit beta.  In fact, I think it is indicative that they set-out to build Guild Wars II, and belated switched gears to give us DAOC fubar edition.  Why they wanted to build GW2 is another topic altogether... but the fact that they fucked RvR stikes me as the convergence of massive design changes that did not match the engineering to support it nor the timeline to re-create what would be needed to support such a switch.  At the time I just shrugged and figured they know more about building games than I do.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Lantyssa on September 21, 2009, 01:14:34 PM
They wanted to build WoW: Arena Sports.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: HaemishM on September 21, 2009, 01:24:36 PM
i really had a long post here but it didn't show up...geez...

Thank you.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Arthur_Parker on September 21, 2009, 01:36:47 PM
Interesting thread on the official forums.

Contribution in City Siege (http://forums.warhammeronline.com/warhammer/board/message?board.id=bugs_general&thread.id=7684&view=by_date_ascending&page=1)

Quote from: 08-29-2009
Victory Point contribution in the City Siege is not being calculated correctly.
...
1) Order has a higher total VP in 1:46:32 - 1:43:44 despite the fact that the breakdown shows Destro holding more objectives and an equal amount of skirmish points.  Why does the side with less contribution have nearly twice the victory points?
 
2) The data suggests that scenario contribution far exceeds the suggested 5%.  In fact it suggests the true contribution of scenarios is closer to 50% when the bar is filled all the way.

Quote from: BryantC 09-01-2009
We have passed this issue on to the RVR guys to have them look into the issue.
 
Thanks.

Quote from: BryantC 09-16-2009
I forwarded this on to the RvR team after the OP posted this thread and I have not heard any new news on this issue since.  We have been testing this and trying to get the issue resolved but I have no news for you at thsi time.
 
I sent an email out to request and update and hopefully will hear some news soon.

Quote from: BryantC 09-17-2009
We are currently testing a fix for this issue.  Hopefully we can get this tested and out on the Live servers sometime very soon.  I have no ETA though at the moment though.

Quote from: Karina 09-18-2009
Hey all,
 
The feedback is appreciated and as it is confirmed to have a fix coming we'll close this to prevent it from getting sidetracked with non constructive input.
 
Thanks and locking

The entire end game has been broken for nearly a month and they lock the thread, before the fix is in, to avoid non constructive input on a 4 page thread?


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: tazelbain on September 21, 2009, 01:40:47 PM
They wanted to build WoW: Arena Sports.
Seriously, you think they made miles and miles of RvR territory because they wanted arena battles?

I think they fell in love with the romantic idea of a campaign to battle from your homeland to heart of your enemies territory and defeat their king.  So they tied quests, battlegrounds, RvR, raid to this goal.  It failed for many reasons: pvp mix with pve, player nature, design was too ambitious for their talent.  So they keep adding duct tape to hold the shambling monstrosity together and that's WAR.



Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Lantyssa on September 21, 2009, 01:59:18 PM
Yes, actually, I do.  Trying to understand their logic will only lead to madness.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: March on September 21, 2009, 03:21:39 PM
They wanted to build WoW: Arena Sports.
Seriously, you think they made miles and miles of RvR territory because they wanted arena battles?

I think they fell in love with the romantic idea of a campaign to battle from your homeland to heart of your enemies territory and defeat their king.  So they tied quests, battlegrounds, RvR, raid to this goal.  It failed for many reasons: pvp mix with pve, player nature, design was too ambitious for their talent.  So they keep adding duct tape to hold the shambling monstrosity together and that's WAR.

Actually, the early designs didn't have miles and miles of RvR... it just had the PvE candyland route with tiny little RvR lakes which were litterally holding grounds where you would go to sign-up for a PvP scenario-something like a GW lobby where you can get ganked?- No Keeps, belatedly a few Battle-ground objectives, but originally just a playpen where they thought some PvP would happen during scenario queuing moments (could only queue for Scenarios from the PvP lakes).

The ultimate reward was going to be some sort of Capital City RvR scenario... but the original design was definitively not open RvR.

So in fact they never fell in love with a campaign... the "campaign" they gave us was more akin to a hastily arranged blind date... there was little romance involved, of that I can assure you.  The romantics of the group who pined for DAOC2 were reminded ever so gently by MBJ that Mythic was definitively not making DAOC2, so get over it.

If you slot that in to your narrative, you can almost see the futile logic of trying to fragment the players in a desperate attempt to keep the game-engine from crashing and burning while knowing all the while that your success depended on funneling players into ever larger battles that your game engine could not handle without, you know, crashing and burning.

For my own sanity, I wish I could learn if the change of direction was based on mis-placed confidence in the game engine or mis-placed trust in the designer's ability to simultaneously fragment and unite the player base at critical moments.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: UnSub on September 21, 2009, 08:25:23 PM
I think they fell in love with the romantic idea of a campaign to battle from your homeland to heart of your enemies territory and defeat their king.  

My biggest complaint about WAR is that Mythic ignored a hell of a lot about how players behave, believing instead in the 'romantic' idea of how players would play. In Mythic's mind, players would do scenarios occasionally, as a slight diversion from the main game of RvR, while there would be players lined up to do PQs one after the other on their way to getting the wards that would then allow them to bash on the gates of the opposing capital.

Romantic is a fantastic way to describe it.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Ashamanchill on September 22, 2009, 04:02:51 AM
See, I'm not bashing them for failing to realize how the players would play their game, but failing to do anything positive once they realized what was happening. It took all of, what, half a month? to see that the largest chunk of the playerbase was either standing in warcamps, queueing for scenarios, having no impact on the world around them, or playing magical keeps. But did they make any meaningful changes to affect this? nope.

 Personally, they could have held my firends and I a few weeks more with the simple change of having random scenarios, instead of making us to Tor Annroc again. That's one of those small, simple changes that add up. But no, that didn't match with their ironclad vision of how their game should be played.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Mrbloodworth on September 22, 2009, 07:25:51 AM
Jeff Hickman doesn't get it  (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25285)

 Andy Belford tries to say this wasn't meant to be read by players (http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/111744919/p1/?20)

World keeps spinning.  Film at 11.

That's funny, because it has been published over at MORPG.com today, almost word for word.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Arthur_Parker on September 22, 2009, 07:50:05 AM
Link

Dark Age of Camelot: Jeff Hickman on WAR, DaoC and the Future (http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/11/feature/3534/Dark-Age-of-Camelot-Jeff-Hickman-on-WAR-DaoC-and-the-Future.html)

Quote
Jeff next talked about Warhammer and some of the problems they had when they launched the game. He listed three mistakes they made when designing the game early on. The first being easy of play, by this he said that the opening zones were too easy for players and did not add any risk or value. I can remember flying through the first ten levels without so much as a scratch on my character. This did not invest players enough in the risks of the dark and gritty Warhammer world.
Next Jeff explained that the game lacked certain social tools that worked to bring players together. While guild leveling was an important element, players still had very little reason to play together unless they joined a PvP scenario. Also, if you remember the mail system in Warhammer, it is one of the worst. Mail needed to be more fluid and easier to use for players. These failed efforts in social tools did not give players any reason for players to socialize.
The last place that the game had its problems right from the beginning was with its economy. Mythic was so extreme on getting rid of gold farmers that did not realize it made their economy pointless for the player. Jeff explained that commerce between o people can help build relationships between friends or guilds. With Warhammer's current economy there is very little need for gold. Right from the start this caused problems.

I know the mail system was in my top 2500 issues list.

Quote
Overall Jeff's presentation was a good one. It was afterwards though that I got the chance to pressure him about Dark Age of Camelot. Many players remember DAOC as having the best PvP experience in the online game space. It is often referenced as the prime model for PvP, oddly enough no one has captured its format again. The key to DAOC was that three factions, Albion, Midgard, and Hibernia were all fighting it out for control. Mythic put in some expansions that sadly diluted the experience over time. Trials of Atlantis and New Frontiers were two that many people say did the game in. When Jeff asked me if I would like to go back to DAOC the way it was in the beginning I got excited.

It is great when an Executive Producer says, what would you do with Dark Age of Camelot? Well I explained that maybe a sequel would be the way to go. Or perhaps revamp the game with an updated engine, new graphics and art, and keep the world in its old form with game play very close to the way people remember it. Jeff smiled, smirked is more like it, for a very long time. Jeff said that they are hiring right now on the Dark Age of Camelot team. We can only hope DAOC will see a rejuvenation back to its old awesome PvP self.

Even the interviewer is more interested in talking about DAoC.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Lakov_Sanite on September 22, 2009, 11:37:57 AM
It's funny because the mail system in warhammer was what made me quit.  Oh it wasn't by far the biggest issue the game had but it WAS the straw that broke my back.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Ashamanchill on September 22, 2009, 01:39:19 PM
God that mail system was brutal. It's like it had a GCD on using it or something.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: HaemishM on September 22, 2009, 01:42:04 PM
Dark Age of Camelot: Jeff Hickman on WAR, DaoC and the Future (http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/11/feature/3534/Dark-Age-of-Camelot-Jeff-Hickman-on-WAR-DaoC-and-the-Future.html)

Please tell me someone did not get paid to write that fucking badly.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Arthur_Parker on September 22, 2009, 03:42:27 PM
It's funny because the mail system in warhammer was what made me quit.  Oh it wasn't by far the biggest issue the game had but it WAS the straw that broke my back.

I remember as a WH, the two best weapons I had didn't even have the correct damage information in their descriptions.  WAR had to have a mail system and an auction house, because WoW had them, even though WAR itemisation was crap.  There was no reason to change weapons once you upgraded, Quake had different weapons, even AC had variation in the weapons you chose to carry due mob vulnerabilities cold, acid etc.  Mythic had to copy Blizzard, missing the point that Blizzard could make a game in which you only had access to a rusty stapler for 3/4 of the game and people would still be falling over themselves to play it.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: UnSub on September 22, 2009, 11:27:43 PM
Quote
It is great when an Executive Producer says, what would you do with Dark Age of Camelot? Well I explained that maybe a sequel would be the way to go. Or perhaps revamp the game with an updated engine, new graphics and art, and keep the world in its old form with game play very close to the way people remember it.

You can't wind back the clock. Especially a clock viewed through rose-tinted glasses.

Not that a DAOC Classic server won't probably try.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Arthur_Parker on September 23, 2009, 01:26:19 AM
Some people are being double billed by Mythic, no big deal.

link 1 (http://forums.warhammeronline.com/warhammer/board/message?board.id=server_bl&thread.id=15149&view=by_date_ascending&page=1), link 2 (http://forums.warhammeronline.com/warhammer/board/message?board.id=p2psupport&message.id=11937#M)

Quote
Ok, myself and a few others I know have been double billed by Mythic.
 
When we noticed the problem we called customer support to tell them the issue and our information was taken down.
 
Today we all received emails telling us there would be no refunds until we could prove we were double billed. Calling the customer support number provided in the email with our reference numbers we were told that this meant we needed to provide a bank statement.
 
Is this for real? I'm not about to send a bank statement to some random third party, even if I could(I'm paperless with my bank).
 
I thought no action would be required by the customer once this was investigated. The emails we received say otherwise, and the action required is a bit unreasonable.

 :drillf:


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Hawkbit on September 23, 2009, 06:18:03 AM
Not the first MMO (or company, for that matter) to need a cash infusion and suddenly there's a double billing situation. 


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Delmania on September 23, 2009, 07:11:00 AM
You can't wind back the clock. Especially a clock viewed through rose-tinted glasses.

Not that a DAOC Classic server won't probably try.

Truth.  It amazes me how people always call preToA DAoC one of the best PvP experiences ever, and yet, even then, many of the issues we're seeing in Warhammer were present:
 Class imbalances, which were worse than Warhammer because the game had 3 sets of classes.
 Crowd Control issues - Stunguard, anyone? 
 Extreme lagging with massive battles.
 Population imbalances.

Seriously, Warhammer's issues are many of the same issues DAoC had, combined with the whole "We want to be WoW" syndrome.  It's only in recent years that DAoC has improved.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: ghost on September 23, 2009, 08:49:47 AM
Anytime you have a situation where people can pick and choose sides at will there will eventually be a population imbalance.  In Warhammer it means so much more because it is particularly population dependent.  WOW PvP isn't liked by many due to the staged nature (Arenas, BGs) but they have actually targeted what most online gamers want-  PvP that is easy to pop into and out of and doesn't depend upon having a group of 6 or 24 together before you can really do anything.  In essence, they have created solo-friendly PvP.  Warhammer failed to grasp a major reason for WOWs success:  that the grand majority of people like soloing or duoing, and you really can't participate in War's PvP if that is what you want to do.

Seriously.............city siege? WOW already has this, in essence.  You can attack an enemy city at will any time for any reason.  Sure there are no rewards, but real PvP isn't about the rewards, right?  It is skill.  So at level 80 you should be good to go.  Problem is, hardly anyone attacks the cities on a regular basis.  Surely Mythic could have seen this train wreck coming.  Even if they implement city siege correctly (i.e., making it PvP, not PvE) it will fail to keep appropriate subs for the rest of the game. 


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Von Douchemore on September 23, 2009, 10:44:41 AM
me how people always call preToA DAoC one of the best PvP experiences ever, and yet, even then, many of the issues we're seeing in Warhammer were present:
 Class imbalances, which were worse than Warhammer because the game had 3 sets of classes.
 Crowd Control issues - Stunguard, anyone?  
 Extreme lagging with massive battles.
 Population imbalances.

Seriously, Warhammer's issues are many of the same issues DAoC had, combined with the whole "We want to be WoW" syndrome.  It's only in recent years that DAoC has improved.


Population imbalance in DAoC was usually fixed by temporal realm alliances, which only made the game more fun for everyone involved.

Also, pre-ToA DAoC was 8 god damn years ago, in that time period, instead of improving their successful game system of RvR and learning from past mistakes, they dismissed everything that made DAoC a "hit" and launched the piece of shit abomination everyone played and uninstalled around December 2008.

Still, I would pre-order DAoC 2  :awesome_for_real:





Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Delmania on September 23, 2009, 10:52:06 AM
Population imbalance in DAoC was usually fixed by temporal realm alliances, which only made the game more fun for everyone involved.

Also, pre-ToA DAoC was 8 god damn years ago, in that time period, instead of improving their successful game system of RvR and learning from past mistakes, they dismissed everything that made DAoC a "hit" and launched the piece of shit abomination everyone played and uninstalled around December 2008.

Still, I would pre-order DAoC 2  :awesome_for_real:

Why?  The company made several mistakes in DAoC, then tried to apply a series of bandaid fixes for years without understanding the root cause.  They then repeated those mistakes in Warhammer as well as added new ones, which is sad because in all cases, their design did indicate they learned the lesson but did not understand the reason.  While Mark Jacob's leave may indicate better management, the company hasn't really changed from DAoC to Warhammer, and DAoC is not quite as good as most people remember it to be.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Nebu on September 23, 2009, 11:26:18 AM
While Mark Jacob's leave may indicate better management, the company hasn't really changed from DAoC to Warhammer, and DAoC is not quite as good as most people remember it to be.

DAoC is better than any other pvp title out for sandbox style play IF you have a regular group and IF you have a good understanding of gameplay mechanics. If Mythic made a DAoC 2, I would play it for at least the first month purely because no other Fantasy MMO has pvp worth playing at the moment. 



Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Aez on September 23, 2009, 06:26:26 PM
DAOC sandbox???


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Nebu on September 24, 2009, 09:54:57 AM
DAOC sandbox???

Is there a question in there somewhere?


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Demonix on September 24, 2009, 11:20:50 AM
DAOC sandbox???

Is there a question in there somewhere?

No no, he just has to go feed the Rail sys...i mean horses now.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Arthur_Parker on September 24, 2009, 01:07:43 PM
DAOC sandbox???

Is there a question in there somewhere?

You mean sandbox as two thirds of the players spend most of their time hidden behind massive walls and you can only make objects using approved molds.  Not sandbox as the guy next to you is making a sand replica of his penis, right?


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Nebu on September 24, 2009, 02:04:58 PM
You mean sandbox as two thirds of the players spend most of their time hidden behind massive walls and you can only make objects using approved molds.  Not sandbox as the guy next to you is making a sand replica of his penis, right?

I meant sandbox as in "you can choose which type of pvp metagame to participate in".  Open RvR has the 1v1 and small group.  It had the 8v8 sport players.  It had zerg on zerg.  Keep takes, tower baiting, relic captures, DF opening, and even different games in the labyrinth.  DAoC was a lot less directed than the MMO games with a pvp component since.  Maybe Aion will change that?  I don't know.

I'm guessing that a lot of this existed due to the social interaction of the playerbase rather than game mechanics.  Perhaps this is a benefit of a niche game over a mainstream title.  


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Redgiant on September 24, 2009, 07:02:41 PM
You mean sandbox as two thirds of the players spend most of their time hidden behind massive walls and you can only make objects using approved molds.  Not sandbox as the guy next to you is making a sand replica of his penis, right?

I meant sandbox as in "you can choose which type of pvp metagame to participate in".

I'm guessing that a lot of this existed due to the social interaction of the playerbase rather than game mechanics.  Perhaps this is a benefit of a niche game over a mainstream title.  

This. This. And This.

Don't underestimate the power of player dynamics as a primary driver of what makes a game interesting and "different" each day you log into it. All content-reliant games get old, even WoW. Human interaction (you know, what the two M's are supposed to stand for) can enable a fresh feel indefinitely with the right attention and focus on making it so. Sure, those are the same keeps you took yesterday, and last week and last month. But in DAoC, it was the overall war effort and varying strategic and tactical considerations that were ever-changing that you cared about and noticed.

Early DAoC had that in spades. Everything was real-time, no instances, and all coordination with other people in large guilds and small groups mattered.

So yes, it was sandbox in the ways that really matter.


As for nich, for 3 years (2001-2004) it always had at least 200k and often 250k or more subs. Even by today's increased numbers expectations that is a lot, and back then it was second only to EQ (which it was actually sucking people away from early on).



Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Arthur_Parker on September 25, 2009, 01:24:09 AM
I wasn't knocking DAoC, but even in pvp what it allowed you to do was very defined by the overall design of the game.  The fact that DAoC worked fairly well compared to UO, AC1 darktide, SB etc is because it was less sandbox than those, not more.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Sobelius on September 25, 2009, 01:26:03 PM
I wasn't knocking DAoC, but even in pvp what it allowed you to do was very defined by the overall design of the game.  The fact that DAoC worked fairly well compared to UO, AC1 darktide, SB etc is because it was less sandbox than those, not more.

IMHO the early DAOC subs were not so much due to pvp but rather the PvE crowd that was not interested in EQs corpse-run "game-within-a-game", the spawn camping, the numbingly awful drop rates, the spellcaster "medding" interface, the mob trains, the ... you get the idea. Basically, the DAOC masses were looking for something PvE that wasn't a second job, as EQ was, or wasn't as oddly unfulfilling as Asheron's Call (though I played AC for 2 years and loved it).


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Venkman on September 28, 2009, 08:13:48 AM
This.

DAoC didn't open up a whole new world of PvP for people coming from UO and AC1, because the PvP in those games was so radically different than the eventual promise DAoC achieved. Rather, DAoC was a shot straight across EQ1's bow: better UI, less punishing game mechanics. This did more to push SOE to start migrating away from The Vision than anything else until CoH did so even more.

DAoC now is a PvP haven for the people that went that route, and stuck with DAoC long enough for Mythic to evolve it for the PvP audience.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Numtini on September 29, 2009, 01:42:29 PM
Quote
The company made several mistakes in DAoC, then tried to apply a series of bandaid fixes for years without understanding the root cause.  They then repeated those mistakes in Warhammer as well as added new ones, which is sad because in all cases, their design did indicate they learned the lesson but did not understand the reason.

I don't think you can possibly underestimate the danger of a sequel game repeating the same mistakes as the original. With a sequel game, you have a core who know your game. They might not play it anymore, but they know it. They've played it. They can form the core of a new game. But if you repeat the mistakes, you disproportionately irritate the very people who should be your most loyal customers.

See also EQ2 at launch.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Arthur_Parker on September 30, 2009, 02:59:34 AM
v1.3.2 PTS Patch Notes (http://herald.warhammeronline.com/patchnotes/index.php?id=2009_1-3-2#_59)

Quote
All new characters that join the Realm of Destruction will now begin the game in the Chaos starting area, no matter their race.
All new characters that join the Realm of Order will now begin the game in the Empire starting area, no matter their race.
...
New players will automatically be placed in a 'new player guild', one for each Realm, to facilitate communication among those new to the game, or those who are rolling up an alt character, and to make finding a group a bit easier.
...
* We are pleased to introduce the new Apprentice system. Apprenticeship will allow you to ask any groupmate to become your Rank, no matter whether you're higher-Rank or lower-Rank than they are, so that the two of you may adventure together. To Apprentice someone, just right click on the portrait of person you wish to Apprentice in the group or warband and select the "Make Apprentice" option. Their stats and gear will transparently scale to become appropriate for your Apprenticed rank! Please note that while under the effects of Apprenticeship, you will not be able to queue for scenarios that are not available at your natural Rank. Abilities which would be too high for your Apprenticed rank will become temporarily unusable.

Ok I normally say something just to avoid quoting a block of text, but there's nothing much to say about WAR at this point.

Vn thread (http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/111825087/p1/?25) about this got locked on the 2nd page despite two dev posts.

Quote from: Andy_Mythic
Let's be realistic here.

The most played pairing in T1 is EvC. Not EVERYONE plays EvC but the vast majority of players, new and old, play this pairing. Whether it's for the PVE experience or the RvR experience (the more likely of the two) more players pass through Nordland than any other T1 pairing.

For this reason we devoted development time to revamping and revitalizing the new player experience in this zone.

Now for the flip side, yeah, GvD is an great experience for some players, however more often than not, many players were simply hitting the Rally Cry button and heading straight into the fun in New Emskrank.

What we are trying to accomplish is to give new trial users and existing players alike a vibrant and lively Tier 1 experience.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Lantyssa on September 30, 2009, 10:04:21 AM
Shame, because Nordland was my least favorite of the zones.  Not even an option to start in the others?

Pretty sure this signals the end we knew was coming.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: ghost on September 30, 2009, 10:05:47 AM
Pretty sure this signals the end we knew was coming.

We are watching the caboose as the train goes off the cliff.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Sir T on September 30, 2009, 10:10:17 AM
They should have had one realm from the very begining if they were doing it at all.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Soln on September 30, 2009, 10:22:35 AM
I liked the Greenskin starting zone


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Soln on September 30, 2009, 10:25:54 AM
Also, does anyone give a shit?


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Delmania on September 30, 2009, 10:31:53 AM
Also, does anyone give a shit?

Some faint semblance of hope that post MJ Mythic can fic the game and make it fun?


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: ghost on September 30, 2009, 10:51:15 AM
Give a shit?  Sure, I love watching a train wreck.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Jherad on September 30, 2009, 11:14:52 AM
I know that they *need* to get people together, as without a critical mass of PvPers the game dies - but I cannot help but feel that this is like tightening a tourniquet around their own neck to a staunch a bloody head-wound. Cutting 2/3rds the starting content for alt re-rollers is going to hasten many departures. /obvious.

I'd been thinking that AoC's 'booby enhancement potions' smacked of desperation, but compared to this...


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Shatter on September 30, 2009, 11:25:44 AM
I dont even understand what they are trying to do with their game, sadly neither do they.  The biggest issues in the game dont stem from Tier 1 so how that became a priority for work/fixing I guess falls under the same stupidity as continually adding more PvE content to a PvP game while avoiding major issues.  I think its fun to watch this game, not for how fast its failing but to see what dumb decision the Dev's can come up with next. 


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: March on September 30, 2009, 12:23:54 PM
Not sure what to make of the newbie zone change...

But sidekicking is something that they willfully ignored during beta; I would even go so far as to say, contemptuously ignored, thinking that their end-game would be so kick-ass that nobody would ever leave it.

(nevermind that the original design <almost> required alts in each of the lower tiers; and that folks pointed out that PQ's require groups to complete... groups that will not be there when everyone is enjoying your kick-ass endgame; and that if your endgame is so shockingly kick-ass, then friends will want ways to help guildies make it to endgame quicker).

All early signs pointed to a need for some sort of sidekick system... now, who is there left to sidekick?  Is this going to bring folks back?  It's the right fix to a problem that doesn't need fixing right now.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Ashamanchill on September 30, 2009, 12:37:46 PM
This move is going to make one of the most railed MMOs, just that much moreso.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Sobelius on September 30, 2009, 12:38:38 PM
The 1.3.2 patch notes are a kitchen sink of everything that they've been doing for months that wasn't part of an Event patch or critical bug fix. As a result, of course, it looks like they focused on a lot of odd things. From the outside customer perspective, it looks like they worked on all of this between 1.3.1 and now. But those of us who've worked on complex software projects know that sometimes features get cut from a release cycle (for whatever the reasons) and wind up in a later update.

Frankly, I hate the bloated-monster-patch approach. Smaller incremental updates that can be traced/analyzed more easily if/when something unexpected breaks is a more reliable approach. And it would let each update stand on its own as far as "focus".



Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: raydeen on September 30, 2009, 12:43:52 PM
It's kinda funny as sidekicking was in the game from the beginning, just not used. How do I know? One day I rolled up new toon, queued up for one of the scenarios, and then something glitched. I was level 2 and suddenly was in a level 20-30 scenario running around at level 22. Of course I didn't have the armor and weapons to go along with the level, but I was dynamically scaled up to that level. And of course you could scale someone down. So many tears would have been spared if they had used this mechanic better. Fuck the chickening bit. If I was to enter a lower or higher level zone, just adjust me to within maybe 10 above or below that level. It solves the one shotting WoW mechanic and would still provide some fun fights for everyone involved. Oh well.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: 01101010 on September 30, 2009, 12:57:43 PM
Every time I visit the WAR forum, the game suddenly reminds me of meth addicts in the way those pictures regress from human to zombie...

ah la:
(http://mhough.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/methuse.jpg)


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: WindupAtheist on September 30, 2009, 02:16:42 PM
You know EA's MMO division is in trouble when the most vibrant-looking horse in it's stable is Ultima fucking Online. From this casual observer's point of view, WAR is giving off a worse stench than even SWG post-NGE.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Soln on September 30, 2009, 02:32:50 PM
wondering what the studio's costs might be.  Unlike Mythic-as-small-company, Mythic-as-EA-Profit/Loss-operating-unit can't rely on that huge amount of box sales to keep them going.  That cash is gone....   They need new 2010 revenue to cover all costs+profit.

I wouldn't doubt that MJ figured the box sales alone would save and sustain them.  Sadly, that wasn't Mythic's revenue anymore.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Von Douchemore on October 06, 2009, 09:18:59 AM
They should release a WAR+DAoC+UO sub pack for like, 20usd.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Soulflame on October 06, 2009, 09:40:03 AM
The only one out of those that even remotely interests me is DAoC, and there's no way in hell I'd pay extra for access to UO or Warhammer at this point.  Even though I've played all three, and played two of them (UO and DAoC) quite extensively.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Sir T on October 06, 2009, 09:45:47 AM
The European release of WAR came with a DAOC disk and a months sub for it.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: IainC on October 06, 2009, 09:49:02 AM
There was also a combined sub in Europe for DAoC and WAR. Not sure if it's still offered.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: WindupAtheist on October 06, 2009, 01:48:02 PM
They should release a WAR+DAoC+UO sub pack for like, 20usd.

I said this to Mark Jacobs on these boards a couple years ago and got some handjob response. But the fact is, if you offer multiple MMOs then a multi-sub deal only makes sense. Hoping someone is going to pay full price for more than one of your games simultaneously is just greed overriding sense, since if someone subs to two MMOs one of them is probably just going to be WoW anyway.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Redgiant on October 07, 2009, 03:37:48 PM
Carlin's mug fit your name better.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Ashamanchill on October 08, 2009, 04:31:15 AM
Seconded. That Data face is starting to creep me out lol. Damn Brent Spiner.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Lantyssa on October 08, 2009, 09:11:54 AM
Brent Spiner is :heart:.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: WindupAtheist on October 08, 2009, 04:01:35 PM
Seconded. That Data face is starting to creep me out lol. Damn Brent Spiner.

That isn't Data, it's his evil twin Lore. Someone was yelling at me on the WoW forum for blabbing about Warcraft lore in every thread, so...  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Lantyssa on October 08, 2009, 04:17:03 PM
You can tell, 'cause he's smiling.


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Soln on October 08, 2009, 04:17:50 PM
win WUA win


Title: Re: GDC Austin: Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
Post by: Ashamanchill on October 08, 2009, 04:39:50 PM
I never watched the episodes with Lor in them, so that's why I don't know.