Warhammer Online Server Dead Pool

[Ratman_tf]

Who was the guy who cancelled The Sims Online / EA Land?

Or Asheron's Call 2?

Or Tabula Rasa?

No-one gets named for cancelling a MMO - it is just a company decision.

Nobody gave a shit about those games except the 12 people playing them.

[fuser]

Two more dead

Phoenix Throne will be able to transfer to either Iron Rock OR Badlands

Dark Crag will be able to transfer to either Gorfang OR Volkmar

Edit:
So that's four US servers left 

[ghost]

That makes 5 servers.  3 months until it's completely dead.

[Nebu]

I really think that they would have been better served by just making the announcement.  When I read all of the explanation it came off as rather insincere.  The few remaining players, while a bit bummed, will be fine as long as they have a place to log on and fight.  By the looks of it, that may not last very long.  

[Lantyssa]

Did they ever lift the restriction about having characters of both sides on the same server?

[Trippy]

That makes 5 servers.  3 months until it's completely dead.

3 months would tie it with Tabula Rasa

[BitWarrior]

How many European servers are left now, exactly? (Including French, German, etc)

[fuser]

That makes 5 servers.  3 months until it's completely dead.

I thought warpstone was the test realm?

[Bismallah]

That makes 5 servers.  3 months until it's completely dead.

Ouch

[UnSub]

In related news, ex-Mythic Lance Robertson ends up at NetDevil on Jumpgate Evolution.

[Rondaror]

Did they ever lift the restriction about having characters of both sides on the same server?

No.

I don't think that's a problem for the remaining players. As long as there are 2 servers left.

[Arthur_Parker]

How many European servers are left now, exactly? (Including French, German, etc)

Don't think it's worth the effort to find out.

November 18, 2009
After consulting the players of Eltharion and following the ensuing discussion we have now concluded that we will grant free character transfers to other servers starting (Monday the 23rd of November), Eltharion players using the Character Transfer option in the "My Profile" section on our website will be able to transfer to:
Karak-Norn (EN Core)
Karak-Azgal (EN Core)
Carroburg (DE Core)
Drakenwald (DE Core)
Athel Loren (FR Core)

Last EU open RVR server is now closing as well.

[waylander]

http://pauser.com/warhammer/popmon/

There's a population monitor site still going apparently, so it is at least a way to sort of see how active the game's population is on what servers.  War just waited too long to make changes, and the only thing IMHO that can save that game is if they did like D&D online and went F2P.  Instead of RVR tokens, they could open up a store and let people buy things they need for their characters.

Because of the population issues, as well as realm imbalances, I don't see how people are going to want to pay a monthly fee to come back to this game.

[tazelbain]

After EA's attempt at RMT with BF:H, I don't think EA has it in them.

[Nebu]

War just waited too long to make changes...

This says it all.  WAR had potential.  The classes were interesting and the initial pvp and PQ's were fun.  They failed when they insisted that the customer adapt to their game rather than redesign the game to better cater to the customer.  Anything they do now would be too little, too late.  I doubt even F2P would revive this game without a major system revamp.

[Soln]

the very sad irony will be as Mythic they could have survived with their current sub base (probably 100k?), but being part of EA that is in doubt.  Whether they could've launched as Mythic, I don't know.

[Nebu]

the very sad irony will be as Mythic they could have survived with their current sub base (probably 100k?), but being part of EA that is in doubt.  Whether they could've launched as Mythic, I don't know.

They sold almost 1 million boxes.  There was plenty of interest.  The push for mass market appeal diluted this game into zero appeal, even among the most devoted Mythic fans. 

[01101010]

And somewhere on some tropical island, Mr. Jacobs is manically giggling to himself wearing his money hat. 

[ghost]

He may even be wearing a money thong.

[Montague]

And somewhere on some tropical island, Mr. Jacobs is manically giggling to himself wearing his money hat. 

I doubt it. Jacobs struck me as the type that wanted to be the man. He wanted to be the next Brad McQuaid. Despite protestations to the contrary, I think he wanted to be known as the man to take down Blizzard. To do so he made a deal with the devil, but he apparently forgot to bring his proverbial long spoon to dinner.

[Soln]

He wanted to be the next Brad McQuaid. Despite protestations to the contrary, I think he wanted to be known as the man to take down Blizzard. To do so he made a deal with the devil, but he apparently forgot to bring his proverbial long spoon to dinner.

I think that's correct.  Again, I find it sad, but I think this is accurate. He lost sight of the real imperative -- make a fun game, not compete with Blizz.

[Fordel]

Jacobs was never about making a fun game, even back in DaoC, it was always a calculated move to make the most profitable game possible. It wasn't even a 'vision' thing or anything, just that if he thought ball breaking grind would result in longer subs and more money, then so be it.

[Ingmar]

All these problems should have been clear in beta, but Mythic has always handled player testing pretty badly, right back to the Pendragon board days in DAOC. They wall everything up behind multiple tiers of NDAs and such to the point where no real communication can take place. Maybe a post-MJ Mythic will be smarter about that kind of thing.

[tazelbain]

Umm, Mythic is dead.  So I am guessing not.

[Ingmar]

Yes, yes, I just didn't want to type out EABiowareMythicFrankenstein'sMonster Studios.

Point being hopefully the people behind the completely wrongheaded customer relations/testing strategy Mythic always had have either left, changed their minds about it, or are no longer calling those shots.

[Kageru]

I doubt it. Jacobs struck me as the type that wanted to be the man. He wanted to be the next Brad McQuaid.

Well I guess he achieved that then. Both of them received possibly too much credit for one game that worked then crashed and burned trying to reproduce the magic. Along the way indicating maybe they didn't have magic answers.

Warhammer badly needed a "is this fun?" pass early on in the design process and then use beta to refine and extend it. Far too many of the base game-play mechanics just didn't seem to add anything to the game. Combine that with force-feeding and ignoring warning signs from the beta test, trying to shoehorn in an entire new gameplay mechanic (world RvR) very late in development. Then when things start falling apart after release add more classes and a new zone with new mechanics as if that's going to fix fundamental issues.

[Fordel]

WAR has more or less followed DaoC's general development path, but at an massively accelerated rate.


Don't actually fix anything, just keep slapping on more tape, it'll hold!

[Arthur_Parker]

It's funny playing LOTRO after WAR.  Turbine just added an instance skirmish system that's like a PVE only, bastard child of WAR scenarios and public quests.  I'll quote from a lotro thread on it for laughs at WAR design expense.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=305266

In one of the skirmish diaries, they said that each skirmish has a daily quest attached to it to encourage players to do all the skirmishes, not just stick with the one they feel is most profitable and do it over and over and over and over.... and get bored. So the daily quest gives you almost as many marks as the skirmish itself, making it more advantageous to do them all instead of repeating one.

[Sir T]

Dosent seem like that bad an idea to me.

[Arthur_Parker]

Um yeah, if I was being too subtle, that was the point, I was contrasting lotro to WAR.

[Sir T]

Ahh, sorry. With you now. 

[UnSub]

WAR had some design issues certainly, but its biggest issue was one of expectation. "War is everywhere!" and the promises of incredible PvP killed WAR just as dead as any mistake in design.

[Nebu]

WAR had some design issues certainly, but its biggest issue was one of expectation. "War is everywhere!" and the promises of incredible PvP killed WAR just as dead as any mistake in design.

I don't think most people believed the hype.  I think the box sales were a sign that gamers wanted something new to mess with that wasn't WoW.  WAR delivered a bad version of WoW.  That was the primary downfall. 

[tazelbain]

I don't give Turbine much credit here.  When you remove PvP from the equation thing are allows much simpler.

[Sir T]

I don't give Turbine much credit here.  When you remove PvP from the equation thing are allows much simpler.