What went wrong.

[McSteak]

the Darkness Falls thing from DAOC sounds like shitloads of fun

I wonder why they didn't put it in the game?

It actually was pretty cool.

First 10 minutes meant clearing out the enemy, then the rest of the time killing monsters for seals. The seals would buy you armor and junk. But most of the people sold the seals to crafters so the crafters could get the armor and tear it down into materials for higher end crafts.

[Venkman]

I never understood why they didn't do more DF in DAoC.

There are a few vocal critics: we get it WAR is not for you.There are problems (I agree with Nebu's asessment) but it is still fun enough for most folks to keep playing.

When the majority of players say they won't re-sub,that is the time for this thread.  Until then reports of WAR's demise are greatly exaggerated,

You're doing the same thing we're doing in reverse though. You're assuming the modicum size of BC in WAR speaks volumes to the intentions of the majority of the player base. That is no more representative than this outsider thread is.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I get the sense that most of the critique isn't about the game sucking or not being for us, but rather that it's about lost potential. The emotional element is similar to the early SWG days, though slightly less vitriolic because WAR only promised to do one thing well (relevant PvP) in an IP about combat anyway whereas SWG was trying to do the everyman thing. So we're passionate about dissecting what could have been done differently in beta and what could be done differently now. A lot of people are not likely to return though, so there's only vested interest in the conversation, not really the outcome.

Which is the reason why threads like this can largely be ignored by Mythic. Mark's always been about talking to and about the customers he has, and less so about the ones he lost or may get someday. This is why I said early on that WAR is going to evolve into whatever the community at that point expects, not what the early adopters who have a track record of quiting anyway demand.

And yes, that latter group includes me.

[trias_e]

When the majority of players say they won't re-sub,that is the time for this thread.  Until then reports of WAR's demise are greatly exaggerated,

Look, I might be resubbing for one month, but that sure as hell doesn't mean I'm super happy about this game.  I'm not really having that much fun right now, though one main reason I'm not having fun is because no one seems to ever be online  : /.  I suppose it might be time to start an alt on a high population server. 

I figure that when WoTLK comes out it will utterly destroy this game, even for the people who want to play it, unless they deal with population/RvR issues.  If 50% of the population goes away...the 50% that stays has a significantly worse time.  That's not good for Mythic.  Epic fail potential.  They need server merges and to improve RvR incentive and gameplay for everyone asap.  Right now they are in a very bad spot.  Yes, I'm doomcasting.  Too bad, cuz I love the game. 

[Shatter]

Mythic needs to put some heavy focus on End game/T4 and stat.  I don't know 1 person playing today who's level 40 that isn't bored. What goes with bored Mythic....cancelling that's what.  Not to mention you have WOTLK on your ass so get a move on.  Im level 37 and finding even my interest to login lessening daily.  There is no incentive to RvR, while the increased gains are a nice little fix it's far from fixing the problem cause if there is no one out there what good is it?  Most people just pound out scenarios all night for better reknown/xp leaving half your game world empty all day long.  None of this is news. Alts are fun and all but I'm basically doing the same thing I have already done. 

Once they fix end game/RvR stuff and provide people a reason to not leave they need to balance the crap out of classes.  BW's can suck me hardcore, nerf that crap or make my DoK about 3 times better to give me a fighting chance.  I wish I could dot from range at 700 / second..yeah that's fair compared to my +400 HP every 3 second heal.  Let me do the math real quick....oh yeah this = me screwed.  Yeah I know they said they will fix this crap, but make that a high priority as in cant fix fast enough. 

Lastly, fix loot cause getting purples that are worse then greens is like playing AOC and as a DoK I don't need fricking intelligence on my gear.  To go along with this is fix your dam algorithm on PQ's and keep sieges cause seeing random bozo (a) run into a keep just as the Lord dies and win a gold bag makes me want to stab something.  Oh and its also nice to see me heal a raid for 15 minutes straight to get +85 bonus when some dude in the corner half afk got +500 because they do damage...good times.  I guess anytime I feel like simulating my RvR experience in Warhammer is to go take my bike seat off and go for a ride on a dirt road. 

[ghost]

Actually this thread may be a bit premature. According to the poll of bat country most folks are staying.

... because they hope to see fixes come in, not because they are OMG WOW AWESOME about WAR.

To repeat, WAR's biggest mistakes were:

 - a beta test that (mostly) examined gameplay one sector at a time and missed finding out that the whole thing didn't have any synergy when put together

 - a number of systems (sides, classes, population caps, large world) that saw players spread far and wide from each other, when for PvP you need to gather them together

It is quite possible that their biggest mistake was a biased sample population for the test servers.  The way they did it it was pretty secretive and selective, so probably only the people that really wanted to do it were in the beta.  So they could have made a pile of warm stinking garbage and the test server population would have been into it.

For the population numbers they were looking for they should have piped in a few WOW addicts and some folks from FPS type games too.  

[tazelbain]

I never understood why they didn't do more DF in DAoC.

They have said repeatedly that we will see a DF like dungeon in post release.  T3 DF would be awesome and very helpful.

Also I am a customer they have and I really don't see the game any different than most around here.  I am just more tolerate of the downsides than most.  Mostly I am just pissed off that they added a pointless grind to the game to drive away the people I wish to hang out with.

[UnsGub]

This is at heart a problem with this generation of MMO gamers. WoW trained us for much faster action, and Scenarios give that too us. It's why I keep going back to wondering whether RvR even has mass potential. This is the latest and best test case of it and it ain't working so far. Some argue the solutions are easy, but we're not the ones accountable for that It may be possible in the same way a Raph-world may actually work. But you still need to be able to get the resources and talent to do it right. If you lack either, then yes, it is impossible.

Planetside, while not a mass appeal game, as solved getting people together to PvP.  It took them a few years.  You can login to find the zerg, medium, squad, or solo PvP and get there in minutes.  They have highlights on the maps, queues to go to fight quickly, but most importantly a world layout that funnel players together, they changed many base links to get to that point.  Warhammer starts the game with three different canyons to spread players out and never recovers.

[Falconeer]

Lakov has a pattern.

This is the same thread he started 40 days after Age of Conan's launch. Now, 40 days after Warhammer's launch here we are again. He has a point now as he had one for Age of Conan. Gaming Graveyard is the next step and there's a fair chance it'll hit these boards in a few months.

I will spare you my list of Warhammer's faults. Let me just say that MMORPG's audience has grown up so quick I doubt an out-of-time World of Warcraft hitting the shelves in 2008 would be spared the short-tempered fate of ultra-churning, and not because of the outdated graphics.

Both Age of Conan and Warhammer are very good MMORPGs, just not polished (the former) or evolutionary enough (the latter), and both share too many design flaws when it comes to what they really want to be (PvP? PvE? Open? Battlegrounds? Casual? Hardcore? Skill based? Item based?). Once again I honestly think they'll both be great in like 20 months, much better than whatever will be coming out by then.
But this, once again, is the problem with the MMORPG industry: games are released in uncertain, doubtful, despicable stages of design and polish passes. Not many want (to pay for) a piece of that anymore.

[waylander]

When the majority of players say they won't re-sub,that is the time for this thread.  Until then reports of WAR's demise are greatly exaggerated,

A lot of the polls I've seen indicate around 25% of the initial players won't resub after the 30 free days. Then there are a lot of people who are giving the game another 1-2 months (a full 90 days since release) to show major improvement. The more Mythic resists making big changes and just does small ones that don't really help, the more likely the people giving them 90 days might choose just to give them 60.

It is easier to keep a customer than lure new ones or win back old ones. In 14 years of online gaming I have only returned to 4 games (AC1, CoV, DAOC, WoW). The vast majority of the times that I cancel my sub, its a permanent deal.

People are screaming about the PVE exp curve, itemization, and lack of RVR. Mark can't snap his fingers and fix it overnight, but 97% of all their servers being Medium Population during prime time should light a fire under someone's ass over there to get things going. There is NO game without players PVP'ing, and without a good PVP element this game can't compete with WoW........period. They are staring a 50% churn rate in the face, with little time to turn it around.

They can make 750k, 800k like AOC did, type sales announcements all day long but what will keep boxes selling and subscriptions paid is going to be players and internet word of mouth. Just like Funcom got lableled "Failcom" over the AOC debacle, Warhammer is starting to be labeled as "War is Nowhere". Go to the major sites (Vault, MMORPG.com, etc) and you'll see public opinion is already souring on the game due to the problems with the core mechanics of the game (PVP, items, RVR, PQ's).

This isn't 2001 when DAOC released and you had a year to fix your problems. Its 2008 where you have to move faster, or lose a massive chunk of your players to someone else in the blink of an eye.

[tolakram]

They can make 750k, 800k like AOC did, type sales announcements all day long but what will keep boxes selling and subscriptions paid is going to be players and internet word of mouth. Just like Funcom got lableled "Failcom" over the AOC debacle, Warhammer is starting to be labeled as "War is Nowhere".

I disagree with that.

If you look over the AoC threads you can find a very small number of defenders and a lot of people claiming bait and switch.  For WAR you find a lot more people saying some tweaks and adjustments are all that's needed.   I find war every night I've played, though last night (which ended up fun) started off with 20 minutes of running to find a flight master.   That's 2001 design dumb, but fixable.

Does anyone recall the standard retention rate of most games.  Is it much above 75% of box buyers?

[insouciant]

I feel a little bad piling on with the WAR hate, but this was too much.  Today I recieved this from Mythic:

"Greetings and thank you for contacting Warhammer Online In-Game Support.

We attempted to contact you in regards to your appeal, Ticket#: (XXXXXXX) and unfortunately, found you to be offline."

This was from a ticket submitted three weeks ago and was in regards to my character being unable to interact with quest items.  Were I still playing this would be the kind of straw that breaks the camel's back.

[tazelbain]

See, you need to keep playing so you have the option of quitting in disgust.

[Falconeer]

Just like Funcom got lableled "Failcom" over the AOC debacle, Warhammer is starting to be labeled as "War is Nowhere".

Borehammer is my favourite.

[Signe]

See, you need to keep playing so you have the option of quitting in disgust.

I have actually resubbed to games just so I could tell them something else in the "why did you quit"  box that I forgot the first time.  I don't know why I think they read that.

[Shatter]

Where AOC failed Mythic has a chance to not fall into that same hole.  AOC had major bugs and every class had broken abilities at launch.  End game in AOC was broken and almost non-existent and don't get me started on AOC PvP which pretty much didn't exist.  What AOC failed to do was listen to the players and make the needed changes quickly.  Keep in mind that 5 months after AOC launched many of the problems that plagued that game the first day are still there and their development team doesn't have an understanding of their own game. 

So far from what I have seen from Mythic is a good understanding of what people want fixed and they appear to be trying to make the changes in a relatively fast amount of time.  I have hope for Mythic still and if they make the changes most have posted here they still have a chance to make Warhammer an outstanding game.  Ill give them 2-3 months of subscription time to make those changes (basically until end of 2008) and if I don't like what I see by then I won't stick around.  IMO they have so far done a reasonable job of fixing problems only 1 month after launch(IE mailboxes) but they need to make these top issues the highest of priority for this game to survive.  Mark's state of the game addresses many problems but talk is cheap and action means more then words.  Time will tell

[waylander]

tolakram l
Does anyone recall the standard retention rate of most games.  Is it much above 75% of box buyers?

AOC sold over 800,000 copies and within 4 months had greater than a 50% churn, which is abysmal for a new game. Its core features, massive sieges, simply did not work, and there was virtually no end game content. A guild city took close to 500,000 in game resources to build, and my guild was one of the first to build a full Tier 3 guild city in North America but it still took us nearly 4 months of daily work. Once one got to level 80 in AOC you basically sat on your ass because sieges were so laggy that 75% of the attacking or defending forces would crash out.

The end result was that there was hardly any meaningful PVP, the arena system was horrible, and PVPr's left because the game didn't cater to their needs. The August report had AOC with 415,000 subscribers as of August 15th, but I'd be surprised if the next quarterly report shows AOC with more than 200,000. That isn't a total failure, but it doomed them to the realm of MMO mediocrity, damaged their product's reputation, and short of a miracle they'll never pass the 400k mark again.

Who knows what War's churn rate will be, but a lot of the 55 servers have gone from high populations to medium or low populations. PVP players who expected "War to be everywhere" are mostly not seeing War anywhere.  PVP players who expected to be able to level and gear out via PVP are finding out that they have to PVE grind for the best gear, and having to PVE to even level efficiently due to population imbalances or low rewards for losing scenarios.

Warhammer hasn't damaged itself too bad yet, but the AOC example is a good modern example of what will happen to your game if you don't deliver what you promised. PVPr's by nature are not a patient customer, and they won't sit around for a year waiting on you to fix your game. They'll just leave, call it a piece of shit to anyone who will listen, and move on to something else.

[Morfiend]

See, you need to keep playing so you have the option of quitting in disgust.

I have actually resubbed to games just so I could tell them something else in the "why did you quit"  box that I forgot the first time.  I don't know why I think they read that.

That might work if WAR had a why you quit box. 

[Signe]

I. O. U.  $15

[Strinan191]

Here's what went wrong for me.

1. Scenarios > oRvR. This was advertised as an RvR game, not a WoW bgs clone. It wasn't fun in wow, its not fun in WAR. I fail to see how they could've even THOUGHT this was a good idea. Stop babystepping this, and do some real work.

2. The leveling GRIND, not just the speed. Max level in 5-6 days isn't so bad, its the GRIND that makes it not fun. For me to level at a decent speed, I have to grind the same scenarios over and over and over. If I lose, it makes me mad because of how little xp you get unless you win or come close to winning, it was a waste of time. I can't help that my team might suck(or that I might suck -.-) but I don't like being penalized all because my team didn't do their job or because the other side has too many of one class that is just decimating us. If I do quests to level, I have to go in all the racial pairings through all the tiers and do every single quest I can to avoid running out or having to leave my tier early. UNLESS I grind scenarios repeatedly, I will run out of quests and influence to grind, and its not fun. The grind SUCKS, not necessarily the speed.

3. The population imbalance doesn't bother me so much, IMO(NOTE IMO) destruction is severely favored over Order. I will admit, BWs and IBs pwn face, but without those two classes, we've got nothing. WE> Witch Hunter, Marauder > White Lion, BLORC > Swordmaster, DoK > WP, Shaman > AM.  Also, it doesn't help that almost every scenario has 4-5 chosen or blorcs in it, and a lot of times, if we don't have BWs, we get slaughtered. Come 1.1 nothing will change, soooo many people want to roll Blackguard. Why? Because its probably the coolest looking tank in the game aside from Chosen. Destruction tanks are much cooler than any of the Order tanks(even if IBs are so much fun).

I could go on, but those are the 3 main points for me.

EDIT: Actually, I'll give my 4th point.

4. The fact that Mythic seems to be trying to slow us all down from hitting 40. Some people hit 40 in a couple days, Mythic nerfs it. Players hit 70 in WoW in 2 days, Blizzard acknowledges them and gives them a pat on the back. It's obvious that Tier 4 and end game raiding wasn't ready for release. I've heard many level 40s saying that city sieges super buggy and all people do in tier 4 is scenarios anyways. They shouldn't have rushed the games release before Lich King(even though EA might've made them)

[Nebu]

There's no reason to rush to the end of WAR as it exists.  Players are just trained by other MMO's to think that they need to as a matter of course. 

The grind isn't so much about the fact that it takes too long to get to 40. It's an issue that the trip to 40 is repetitive and largely uninteresting.  The lack of itemization and rate of giving fun/useful abilities is similarly slow.

[Mrbloodworth]

There's no reason to rush to the end of WAR as it exists.  Players are just trained by other MMO's to think that they need to as a matter of course. 

This.

[Numtini]

There's no reason to rush to the end of WAR as it exists.

For me that would be the most incredible indictment of the game possible because I saw nothing while I ground through T1 and T2 that was all that much fun. Scenarios were at first, but only for a level or two. They wore out their welcome just before I got out of T1 and I quite a level before I'd have left T2 and running Morkains one more time was one of the things I just couldn't conceive of doing. They would have been better off breaking up the levels more and having one BG per level range, so you escaped before you got sick of them.

If there is no reason to get to the end, no great end game of RVR waiting, then I don't see a reason to play the game at all. And really that's why I dropped out, I lost faith that there was anything waiting at the end and what I was doing really wasn't very much fun.

[Seanzor]

There's no reason to rush to the end of WAR as it exists.  Players are just trained by other MMO's to think that they need to as a matter of course. 

As a counterpoint: there's *always* a reason to rush to the power ceiling: you have more strategic options available to you in combat.  I obviously can't speak for everyone, but I always have more fun in combat when my opponents and I have access to every ability our classes offer.  Low level PvP is only fun because of how fast leveling is - aside from that, it's overly simplistic and thus inherently dull after a couple of rounds.

In addition, any dev team worth its salt will prioritize class balance at the power ceiling over class balance prior to that point.  Thus, another reason to 'rush' to cap.

[Nebu]

Rushing to the cap means one of two things:

a) the 1-40 game isn't as fun as the cap game. 

b) We're preprogrammed to race to the cap. 

Maybe both?

[Vinadil]

Or, it means that since this is a level-based game they had to create level-based content.  Since everyone will eventually reach the Cap they created More content focused on the Cap levels.  So, to enjoy the bulk of the game you Have to reach the Cap.  This is defintely true of WAR.  It was designed to have tons of players running around in T4 killing each other and doing PQs and such.  The Cap is somewhere between 28-31 for most people (meaning you have access to T4 and most Mastery abilities), the rest of the levels being Icing.

The problem is that people are getting stuck well before they reach the Cap, even the "reduced cap".  XP should literally Fly until people hit at least 28, if not 30.

[Seanzor]

While my above points are a factor, for me, to be honest, it's mainly:

3) I rush to cap because I'm preprogrammed to HATE HATE grinds, so anything I can do to cut down the grind is great.  Thus why I leveled exclusively via doing scenarios, dropping group once in them, and topping DPS as an Archmage who didn't heal anyone but himself (no xp for healing).

4) Rushing up lets me make early informed calls as to whether or not a game is dog shit.  If I find a super-grind of doom approaching level cap, I'm done.  WoW did that to me and I quit for like half a year, AoC did that to me at ~50, EQ did that to me at, like, level 12.  I'm kinda surprised I stuck it out to 32 in WAR - I blame peer pressure (hell, my friends and I all, as if telepathically linked, just stopped logging in permanently within one day of each other without any discussion of the game at all).

[Achaiah191]

Agreed. I don't see whats wrong with wanting to hit level 40, I want my new skills/tactics/morale abilities. I also want some better armor and I want to do city sieging. As it is right now, what you do at level 1 is not much different from level 30.

[Wershlak]

There's no reason to rush to the end of WAR as it exists.  Players are just trained by other MMO's to think that they need to as a matter of course. 

For me the only rush is that I bought the game late and played around with classes before settling in. Guild members were already in T3 or T4.

No mentor or sidekick system left me unable to play with friends so I'm stuck trying to catch up.

I'm really sick of the whole concept of levels. With so many other advancement mechanics around, talent points, AA systems, rep grinds, even something like quests to unlock new skills/abilities I just don't see the point. In a PvP game your just spreading your playerbase over 4 tiers for no reason. Then your forced to add in the "bolster" buff to eleviate some of the problems it causes. I just think they had no balls. /rantoff

[Mrbloodworth]

Thus why I leveled exclusively via doing scenarios, dropping group once in them, and topping DPS as an Archmage who didn't heal anyone but himself (no xp for healing).

A grind of a diffrent name, is still player induced. There is a difference between player made grind, and Game forced grind.

[Righ]

Rushing to the cap means one of two things:

a) the 1-40 game isn't as fun as the cap game. 

b) We're preprogrammed to race to the cap. 

Maybe both?

Its a bit of both. Insert form tirade about levels in multiplayer computer games here. If the developers are copying bad designs you can't really blame player behaviour when they are copy 'grinding' practices from other games. You could make the 1-n9 experience as wonderful as you liked, but people will still want to circumvent it because your decision to use levels set a certain expectation based on prior games.

[Nebu]

4) Rushing up lets me make early informed calls as to whether or not a game is dog shit.  If I find a super-grind of doom approaching level cap, I'm done.  WoW did that to me and I quit for like half a year, AoC did that to me at ~50, EQ did that to me at like level 12.  I'm kinda surprised I stuck it out to 32 in WAR - I blame peer pressure (hell, my friends and I all, as if telepathically linked, just stopped logging in permanently within one day of each other without any discussion of the game at all).

You can decide if a game is shit far sooner than that.  There's any number of examples to choose from. That really isn't a good reason.  Rushing to the endgame gets you to the endgame content faster, but ultimately your retention will depend on the quality of the game at the endgame.  

I'd say that MMO's force people toward the endgame more because of the status quo than any other reason.  It's as if people don't really stop to enjoy the trip to the endgame until they've already made it there at least once.  MMO's have a definite arms race appeal to them for many achiever types.


Edit: Righ beat me to the punch.

[Seanzor]

Thus why I leveled exclusively via doing scenarios, dropping group once in them, and topping DPS as an Archmage who didn't heal anyone but himself (no xp for healing).

A grind of a diffrent name, is still player induced. There is a difference between player made grind, and Game forced grind.

Well, I got to pick which grind I wanted to do - I chose the one that was simultaneously the most fun (I *love* to compete, and I think PvE is misery) and the fastest (averaging, I'd say 22k xp for each Tor Anroc, losses included).

My 'player made grind' was a lot more fun than any other grind the game offered.  It was also much shorter.

Edit: Also - what else would I do?  It's either do scenarios (fun and fast), do quests (awful rehashed crap), or siege keeps (I did that about three times, then realized that it's either a PvE raid where you stomp a couple of enemy players along the way, or it's a stalemate that transitions to loss via attrition, and either way I don't advance my character at all).

Yeah, we are on the same page, Bloodworth.

[Mrbloodworth]

Oh, i just posted that to make sure we are all on the same page. I think most here are talking about the Game forced grind (out of necessity, not want).

[Lakov_Sanite]

When I was playing I can't really say I was rushing to the cap but I certainly wanted it over with. I felt war's pve experience just gets very stale and people want to be done with it more than it's their nature to rush to an endgame.  Scenario's are fun and I think if they were less xp/reward per hour than rvr that even staunch anti-wow people might enjoy them as something fun to do.  As it is though they are being overused, people are getting sick of them but the alternative is equally boring and repetitive PVE.

If people could just level 1-40 on their pairings quests alone it wouldn't have been so bad but once you have to start doing chapter 10 orc,chaos,dark elf your quests per level triple and then you can see the giant hamster wheel around you. Not only is it a grind, it's also a pain in the ass to have to fly to the different pairings and grab all those new quests. It breaks your rhythm and the storyline of your character and takes you out of the Immersive environment they try and create.

It's clear the whole flow of the game was disrupted by the exp nerf pre-release and honestly I can't think of one fix that could have solved all these woes more than that.

[Kamen]

Fuck levels.

If you need a grind crutch then make capping out skill/ability wise impossible - Eve.