WAR to be released...

[Oban]

Would you buy a new computer to play this game?

[Kirth]

Would you buy a new computer to play this game?

Depends what you are using now. I think I might ug my video card. but thats it.

[Mrbloodworth]

You don't really need much to run it. Run it well? That may be a diffrent story depenging on how the whole keep/king raiding thing goes. isn't the largest group anything 25? I don't know.

[Vinadil]

I wouldn't buy a new computer to play ANY game.  But, anyone who could get AoC to load will be able to run this game VERY smoothly.  Mythic was at least smart in that they went with the WoW-model of "don't make people buy a new machine to play your game smoothly."

I remember a while back seeing some report on the number of people who carry multiple MMO subscriptions.  I know for a long time I did, between Shadowbane, WoW, EVE, and maybe one other.  The most I ever had was 2 at the same time.  Honestly I could see that happening again here.  I will be playing WAR at release.  In 4-5 months when WoTLK releases, I will re-up my WoW subscription... probably for 2 months until I level cap and get see the content I want.

WoW = my fun, casual solo PvE game.
WAR = my PvP, group/guild game.  That is what EVE used to be, but honestly it just stopped being casual friendly.

I am probably one of the few people who does not own/play console games, so $15/month for a MMO I only play 10hours or so is a good deal in my book.

[HRose]

WoW = my fun, casual solo PvE game.
WAR = my PvP, group/guild game.  That is what EVE used to be, but honestly it just stopped being casual friendly.

Eh, if only WoW didn't have that shitty PvP design.

They kinda left the door open for Warhammer to exist.

[Brogarn]

Eh, if only WoW didn't have that shitty PvP design.

They kinda left the door open for Warhammer to exist.

I quit WoW pretty much right after BGs came out. I fucking hated them. I think WAR has a far more serious opportunity for strong numbers than they're being given credit. WoW broke the PvP ice with die hard PvE'ers like my mother and her husband. They're in BGs all the time now. But they hate how imbalanced it can get when you're randomly put up against a hardcore 5 man guild group. The zerg is where they belong and from what I've read, WAR will have it. Mythic knows what they're doing when it comes to large scale PvP regardless of their occasional fuck ups. From the sounds of it, they have a winner here and will get plenty of subscriptions for their effort and it will be because of RvR.

[Ingmar]

Depending on how awesome Lake Wintergrasp and the daily PVP areas are in Lich King, WoW may still end up eating everyone's lunch here.

It is a bit of a wonder to me that they didn't steal the frontier model from DAOC until now, since they stole the good features of every other game.

[kildorn]

Man, I dunno where all the "there has to be mudflation in here somewhere!" stuff came from. DAOC had no mudflation. Hell, it had level based stat caps. Even if there was a 2h axe of +800 str, you'd not get 800 str out of it. Then it had TOA. Years later they understood what a horrible mistake that was in a pvp game, and make very popular servers without it.

You act like they haven't learned shit from their prior pvp MMO which is nearly identical in pvp design, and would suddenly make the TOA mistake from day 1 again.

Sadly, we're into realm as far as factually discussing top end gear and it's relation to the stuff you see on pvp vendors or pve PQs.

[Dren]

DAOC had no mudflation.

Why do you guys keep bringing this up?  How many play DAOC?  What was its max player base back in the day?

All this love for DAOC begs the question:  Why did you stop playing it?  Why weren't they more successful?

THAT is the point.  They may not have had mudflation, but they certainly don't have the numbers or staying power WoW seems to have.  I'm happy that you guys were happy with the game.  I hope you round up a whole lot of people just like you and boost the numbers for WAR this time around.  They are going to need it.

[Khaldun]

Of course we act like they haven't learned shit, because with the exception of Blizzard (so far) every other multiple-MMO designer has made some of the same mistakes on their second product. Or they've made novel mistakes that they didn't make on their first one but that some of their competitors made on other MMOs in very documented ways.

And the reason in part that TOA happened wasn't just "Mythic briefly went into the retard booth". TOA was a response to the basic design issues that come with the evolution of a diku-style MMO. It was an extreme and horribly flawed response, but it didn't happen just because the designers were stupid. It happened because they were trying to figure out how to give an otherwise static gameworld some sense of evolution, movement, change in order to keep the gameplay interesting to the players, to make it something more than just "fairly complex multiplayer shooter with no twitch". Every single commercial MMO built on a diku model has had to do the same thing, and many of them have gotten themselves into a bind because they've had to choose between "real" progression of character abilities or gear or purely cosmetic progression, both of which create difficulties.

It's silly to say that it won't happen. What you really want is intelligent management of this dynamic that's sensitive to the game's real hook or central appeal. For example, when Blizzard finally put the brakes on the EQ-ization of future content that reached its apex in the development time that went into making Naxx--that was a smart realization that they were well down a path in progression that would alienate most of the playerbase that the initial design of WoW had won for them. So what you want here is Mythic continuously recognizing that however they progress (and inevitably inflate) their design, they keep in mind that relatively undifferentiated characters with an equal shot at RvR performance is probably going to be their bread-and-butter.

It's not just your own stupidity as designers that you have to guard against, also--it's highly mobilized constituencies of players who will relentlessly try to push the game in a direction that benefits themselves. If you don't think there are going to be poopsacking catasses in Warhammer who are going to constantly demand that their poopsackery be recognized and rewarded, you haven't played many MMOs: it's a very stable if small player culture which often knows how to get the ear of developers.

[Lum]

I strongly suspect Warhammer will break 1 million subs. A large percentage of them will be European.

(BTW, TOA was, totally and completely, "let's make DAOC like those raids in EQ I enjoyed so much". Any other supposition is overthinking the problem. And yes, they learned their lesson.)

[kildorn]

DAOC had no mudflation.

Why do you guys keep bringing this up?  How many play DAOC?  What was its max player base back in the day?

All this love for DAOC begs the question:  Why did you stop playing it?  Why weren't they more successful?

THAT is the point.  They may not have had mudflation, but they certainly don't have the numbers or staying power WoW seems to have.  I'm happy that you guys were happy with the game.  I hope you round up a whole lot of people just like you and boost the numbers for WAR this time around.  They are going to need it.

We bring it up because people seem to be insisting that WAR must = WOW's gameplay exactly without learning any of the lessons the WAR staff already showed they learned. Mudflation in a pvp primary game is HORRIBLE. Game killingly bad.

Why did I stop playing? I'd been playing for years, got tired and left. I'd probably have come back for the classic servers but by then I was having fun in a few other games.

Why weren't they more successful? They did okay for themselves given the time and the total market back then. They were the best alternative to diku raid type pve endgames. Instead they had a pvp based endgame that relied on a relatively even (player per player) balance. They never really figured out population balance, That is what you should be hitting them on with WAR. They learned that mudflation in pvp is a horrible idea, as are pve raids to get said new mudflated items.

[Ingmar]

DAOC had no mudflation.

Why do you guys keep bringing this up?  How many play DAOC?  What was its max player base back in the day?

All this love for DAOC begs the question:  Why did you stop playing it?  Why weren't they more successful?

THAT is the point.  They may not have had mudflation, but they certainly don't have the numbers or staying power WoW seems to have.  I'm happy that you guys were happy with the game.  I hope you round up a whole lot of people just like you and boost the numbers for WAR this time around.  They are going to need it.

I played DAOC for years. The main reason I left was because the game had gotten old - everything was so dated, and it was impossible for them to rework it to catch up with the new games. DAOC had a lot of staying power, I think. Games kept coming out and being described as the DAOC-killer and then failing at doing so, until WoW. It would have had more if Mythic hadn't had the twin missteps of TOA and putting that Mackey dude in charge of class balance. I looked up all the changes they made after I (and he) left the game and it was tons of stuff that TLs had been asking for for years. Apparently he was the roadblock for positive change there.

As for numbers, no pre-WoW game is going to have had a lot. For the time, DAOC had a pretty good sized population.

[amiable]

This concept that "there has to be progression and that progression has to unbalance the game" is flawed.  I think it is possible to institute progression without the degree of crazy that is so prevalent in WoW, where a tier of difference in gear is equivalent to a dozen character levels.  Progression can exist in a game (as it did in pre-toa daoc) without completely unbalancing it for casual/new players.  Just lower the power differential between tier classes of gear.

Since there is no pve progression cockblock to compete with (where gear checks are often used as a stagegate) the increase in relative power on gear attainment can be a lot more subdued.

[Sjofn]

That fuckin' Mackey dude. Everytime I read anything from him I couldn't really get over how he came across as a giant dick.

[ffc]

Would you buy a new computer to play this game?

I kind of upgraded my clunker for AoC to an AMD 5000+ oc'd to 3GHz with 2GB RAM, keeping my x850xt 256MB vid card, and it runs WAR real smooth at 1920x1080 with the default "high" settings in all the crowded starter areas.  I'll see how it holds up in PvP later.

Also, male elves look like ugly women.  I expect to get a Maury he-she quest any second now.

I quit WoW pretty much right after BGs came out. I fucking hated them. [...]

Getting tired of AB is what did me in.  There were only so many times I could ride up to the mill before I wanted to jump off the cliff instead.

[WindupAtheist]

I strongly suspect Warhammer will break 1 million subs. A large percentage of them will be European.

I'll be pleasantly surprised if it even breaks peak EQ1 numbers.  The Warhammer IP means jack shit in a world where Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons, and Sims all meant basically nothing.  You guys are gonna go on about mudflation and PVP design and how it's great, and it's going to flop because the eleventy-billion non-MMO people who play WoW and don't know the meaning of the word "mudflation" think Warhammer elves are too ugly.

[fuser]

Crash to desktops are wearing thin 

[Soln]

so does the Beta on now allow you to keep yer toons after launch?

[Simond]

Why do you guys keep bringing this up?  How many play DAOC?  What was its max player base back in the day?

Less than Verant-era Everquest.

[Lum]

I strongly suspect Warhammer will break 1 million subs. A large percentage of them will be European.

I'll be pleasantly surprised if it even breaks peak EQ1 numbers.  The Warhammer IP means jack shit in a world where Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons, and Sims all meant basically nothing.  You guys are gonna go on about mudflation and PVP design and how it's great, and it's going to flop because the eleventy-billion non-MMO people who play WoW and don't know the meaning of the word "mudflation" think Warhammer elves are too ugly.

All of those save the Sims had pretty hefty box sales (and LOTRO is still one of the most popular MMOs not called WoW). The Warhammer IP *does* mean a lot to gamers, especially in Europe (I can see it being competitive with WoW there; not so much in the US). Whether or not it will keep retention is up to the game itself (and from what little I've seen this weekend it does seem significantly more polished than AoC) but the boxes *will* sell.

[Vinadil]

so does the Beta on now allow you to keep yer toons after launch?

Not that I have heard.

[HRose]

I strongly suspect Warhammer will break 1 million subs.

Oh, oh, oh. I'm gonna quote you on this.

I seriously doubt it, even if things go well. We''ll see who's King of Guesswork.

[MuffinMan]

so does the Beta on now allow you to keep yer toons after launch?

I'm sure they will do a wipe between the beta and the head start/launch. My question is will they wipe characters between the preview weekend and the open beta.

[Numtini]

The Warhammer IP means jack shit in a world where Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons, and Sims all meant basically nothing.

I'd say it just proves that a mediocre or outright poor game can't be saved by a strong IP.

[Draegan]

The Warhammer IP means jack shit in a world where Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons, and Sims all meant basically nothing.

I'd say it just proves that a mediocre or outright poor game can't be saved by a strong IP.

This is my opinion as well.

I just spent last night playing a Warrior Priest with a few friends (6 of us).  We played order and did scenarios over and over and over all night and I got a set of gear and level 10 basically on just pvp and doing a few quest inbetween queues.

The whole queue wherever you are and go right back to where you left is AWESOME. 

[Triforcer]

Scenarios are fun, but 180 degrees different than WoW- in that nobody on either team ever actually dies. 

I've been doing Gates of Ekrund.  As far as I can tell, each attack by a player on an enemy takes away roughly 1/10,000th of that player's health.  After anyone is randomly alt-tabbed upon and gets hit for awhile (roughly the time it would take to move a piano up a few flights of stairs) they run to the back and get healed.  The team that wins is the one with the most will to push their zerg on the center point, then they never move and eventually win.  The last three scenarios, I was constantly in the thick of battle, constantly shooting arrows, but died once and maybe contributed to five deaths. 

We're probably dumb newbs doing it wrong, but the whole experience was strange.  Maybe a WH or WE stealthing to the back and taking out healers would break this sort of situation.   

[Kirth]

Focus fire...

[amiable]

Focus fire...

This.

If the team you are facing is all squishy healers you may need 4-5 to break the healing train, but it can be broken.  Don't even bother attacking tanks until their healers are dead, it is an exercise in futility,

[Falwell]

Focus fire...

This.

If the team you are facing is all squishy healers you may need 4-5 to break the healing train, but it can be broken.  Don't even bother attacking tanks until their healers are dead, it is an exercise in futility,

Witch Hunters will shine in these situations. Silence alone would be fine, but Excommunication will cornhole a knot of healers right quick.

[FatuousTwat]

I'm not going to go into details, but the customer support is just as fucking shitty as it was back in the DAOC days. UGH.

[eldaec]

Why do you guys keep bringing this up?  How many play DAOC?  What was its max player base back in the day?

Less than Verant-era Everquest.

Which unfortunately tells us almost nothing.

If WAR gets the same proportion of WoW subs that Daoc got of EQ subs, then Mark Jacobs, Mark Jacobs children, and Mark Jacobs grandchildren never need work again.

DAOC had no mudflation

This is wrong to a shockly extreme degree.

Mudflation in ToA shortened the life of DAoC by around two years. If ToA hadn't mudflated, it would have been ignored.

The Warhammer IP means jack shit in a world where Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Dungeons & Dragons, and Sims all meant basically nothing.

I'd say it just proves that a mediocre or outright poor game can't be saved by a strong IP.

Actually this just proves that you both lack critical reasoning skills.

SWG proved beyond doubt that a good licence will keep a game afloat even if PISTOL DAMAGE DOES NOT STACK WITH RIFLE DAMAGE, and if a game is called Star Wars but lacks both Stars and Wars.

SWG is still running, SWG attracted thousands upon thousands of subscribers. It does not show that poor games fail, it shows that poor games can succeed.

Also, male elves look like ugly women.

Male elves look like ugly women in every single IP that has elves.

Have you not seen Orlando Bloom?

Anyhow, this is warhammer, all races and genders are ugly nazi bastards, if Warhammer has a point, this is it.

[Sjofn]

Male elves may look like ugly women, but so do the female elves. 

[Fordel]

DAOC had no mudflation

This is wrong to a shockly extreme degree.

Mudflation in ToA shortened the life of DAoC by around two years. If ToA hadn't mudflated, it would have been ignored.

I'm going to be 'that guy' for just this one post:

Man, I dunno where all the "there has to be mudflation in here somewhere!" stuff came from. DAOC had no mudflation. Hell, it had level based stat caps. Even if there was a 2h axe of +800 str, you'd not get 800 str out of it. Then it had TOA. Years later they understood what a horrible mistake that was in a pvp game, and make very popular servers without it.

It's almost like he addressed the point in his original statement, but you quoted one line out of context!   

[Trippy]

Male elves may look like ugly women, but so do the female elves. 

Sadly this is true now.