If Hickman would have clearly pulled his ass out of his head in early beta and listened to the lot of us testers things could have been a bit different. Now a year later, hes still got his head firmly jammed up his ass and fails to recognize what players are saying on his own forum board much less the internet as a whole. maybe he should go have tea and crumpets with the the asshats at SOE who keep thinking SWG is still a thing of beauty.
It's mind-boggling that he and Barnett are standing up in front of other devs and telling them how to make MMOs. The other devs have GOT to be laughing behind their backs.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I knew going into reading this article that they still would miss the point. THEY STILL DON'T GET IT.
ISSUE NUMBER MOTHER FRACKING ONE: They released a year too early, rushed development to meet an unrealistic EA enforced deadline. We told them in Beta "NO! You're not readeh the controls, the lag, the ai, no no don't do it! You're gonna ruin our beloved Warhammer! Please for the love of everything not WoW hold off another year, you need to!"
You've pretty much touched on all the issues they seem oblivious to, and I most definitely agree.
As for the other issues people are bringing up "crafting, static RvR, etc.", that is actually what he was talking bout in the article. When he talks about failed social systems and a lackluster economy in WAR, he's not just talking about a good chat system. It's a huge part of MMOs to include the things he's talking about in this article, however most of the 'lessons' he learned from WAR should've been obvious. Like, game development 101 obvious. When he states that they are mistakes they 'should not of made' it's a huge understatement.
All of the other problems w/ WAR;
bugs, fluidity, mechanics, etc. are really subsidiary to the above. Yes, players will love or hate those aspects of the game, but most players cannot really get into a game that doesn't have a solid social network, a decent economy, and decent service. Every MMO I can think of, that has had at least those 3 things, has survived / done well for itself. Even the ones many people were turned off by. They are the fundamentals to the modern MMO (even MMOs which are heavily instanced).
what killed warhammer for me was everyone was in instanced pvp . the game world just seamed dead because you could access the scenarios from anywhere . i enjoyed the instanced pvp i must admit so the game does have some merrits but if i want something just like that i can play team fortress for free . i really cant see this game surviving with its current subscription model . it needs to do what dungeons and dragons online has done .
They didn't play like Mythic envisioned it. Why are you still calling for Crafting? Didn't you listen to Mr. Barnett? ( THIS IS WAR. In war ppl don't build houses and grow flowers. In war people fight and kill and hack and slay all day long. Why? Because this is WAR!)
Lack of social system? For what. As Mr Barnett says in times of WAR people don't dance, they only fight, and kill, and hack and slay.
They never promised anything that they didn't deliver. We just didn't listen. Because we were still thinking about our grandma's MMORPG, which is not war, because there is so much else to do.
Oh, and we even disappointed Mr. Jacobs. Didn't he tell us that WAR cannot fail, or otherwise it will be very very bad for the MMO industry?
I think he was right. He is gone and recent MMORPGs steer away from the ultra-intense experience of war 24/7. Now they try to give us several things to do. What a pity.
Their new social tools were really good ideas, but their basic regional chat setup was utterly awful. The number of people who left after their first month simply because they had no way of connecting with the community will never be known, but I suspect it would account for many.
And fixing the economy? I don't see how this is even possible without a broader game design.
Originally posted by badgerer Their new social tools were really good ideas, but their basic regional chat setup was utterly awful. The number of people who left after their first month simply because they had no way of connecting with the community will never be known, but I suspect it would account for many.
Yup. I'm sure it cost them many subs. I'm not exactly a chatterbox, but it bugged the hell out of me that the NPCs spammed the chat window and players said nothing.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Sheesh! They still don't know what the problem was.
Let me spell it out: the first priority, always, be it an MMO or a stand-alone game is STAMP OUT THE OBVIOUS BUGS! There are hundreds of examples in WAR of bugs that were ignored for months because their priority was the missing classes, fluffy monthly events and their so-called free expansion. I could point to any number of examples but I'll just mention one: The sneak through the back door of keeps ability.
This one was not in the game until this spring even though it was a core function of the stealth classes to spice-up the otherwise formulaic keep defences--and keep defenses are as core a part of the game as there is in WAR.
Instead, the 4 missing classes were developed and added with much fanfare while that one and umpteen other bugs remained untouched patch after patch after patch.
Take a look at any game review anywhere. Look at the positives and look at the negatives. Do you notice the mention of significant bugs or stability issues in the negatives? It's always there for good reason: bugs are obvious, noticeable, immersion-breaking annoyances that we ALL care about. Not being able to immediately track all of them down and fix them is understandable. Ignoring them and not even communicating with the users about them is piss-poor customer service.
Learn from that.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
First of all, most -- darn near all of you bring up ALL of the many problems with this game. But after a while it gets a little stupid reading -- NO, the economy wasnt the problem -- it was horrible crafting that killed WAR -- then someone else rants it was the Scenarios that killed and then someone says it was the lack of living world and then someone stands up and yells it was...well you get the point --- seriously guys, it wasnt ONE reason -- stop trying to make it so simple -- the game had ALOT of issues/problems that caused it to fail.
If Hickman would have clearly pulled his ass out of his head in early beta and listened to the lot of us testers things could have been a bit different. Now a year later, hes still got his head firmly jammed up his ass and fails to recognize what players are saying on his own forum board much less the internet as a whole. maybe he should go have tea and crumpets with the the asshats at SOE who keep thinking SWG is still a thing of beauty.
It's mind-boggling that he and Barnett are standing up in front of other devs and telling them how to make MMOs. The other devs have GOT to be laughing behind their backs.
The 1st post by Sonicbrew I nearly pissed myself, then MMO_Doubter caused me to shart!
I Played this game in spring 09 for a 14 day trial on the destruction side. I played a Blackguard, a Squig Herder and a Zealot, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
PQs are brilliant - everybody participate, group or don't group, you still get xp and other rewards. You compete to be the most effective, but still you work together too. It's so smart it makes you wonder why other games haven't thought of it before - in those you either solo or you group, there's no tag along and help out and get credit for your actions. As my characters reached the level cap, the PQs got significantly harder, on one, a group of 5 got annihilated. Who's playing the game that's too easy? Thing is though, people were saying that the only reason there were lots of people in the low level areas doing the PQs is because of the free trial being offered, and once it was gone, the servers would go back to being dead at the lower level sections. So the question is, how do they make it rewarding enough that people will do PQs instead of scenarios? Currently it sounds like they've made a large portion of their game obsolete.
Scenarios kicked ass. I loved them. While not having the same level of strategy as those in WoW, they were still tons of fun and reasonably balanced with the two sides. If I wasn't in the mood for solo questing or PQs, it was a great alternative, especially since I could gain levels and upgrade my equipment. And you really got to see how your class and it's unique abilities stacked up against the others.
I think it takes too long to get into the talent system and start customizing your character. Too many of the ultimate abilities seemed to be "BIG AOE DAMAGE", not very creative. The regular abilities you get as you level are fun to use and interesting.
Crafting was a pain in the ass. Honestly, I have to be tops in a PQ to get one single-use item for crafting? Then I have to manually set up 5 items to make a talisman that will go poof after x amount of hours? Oh, and I'm also supposed to scavenge rare ingredients for a better chance to make something better, inventory overflowing with dice and four leaf clovers and glowing skulls like some demented version of Lucky Charms cereal. There was some satisfaction in making an extra good item and putting it to use, but overall I think the crafting system is very narrow, limited, and annoying. It has potential to be a lot better, like the rest of the game. Time will tell. I imagine the devs aren't idiots and it's on the to do list.
A big problem I had with the game, is that, they have all this cool lore and excellent characters, and that doesn't play much of a part in the game. A game I like to cite for excellent integration of lore, plot, location and characters is Diablo 2. You have a clear purpose, you go to awesome places, you meet really distinctive and memorable characters (like Tyrael, the prime evils, even regular monsters were quite memorable). In WAR, there are a few lore characters, but they just stand there - they aren't exactly inspiring. They aren't going around kicking ass and taking names. Your purpose is fighting the opposite faction, yet it all feels kind of random and haphazard. Some locations are cool and graphically impressive, yet it kinda feels thrown together, there isn't much to pull you in or make you feel like a part of it all. NPC enemies aren't fascinating or inspiring either, other than PQ bosses. The rest are overly simplistic and easily slaughtered, to the point it can become more of a chore to kill them all.
I still have high hopes for this game and believe eventually it will become the game it should have been, to some degree. Despite it's glaring flaws, there is still a lot of fun to be had.
I played WAR since beta and up until Land of the Dead launched (epic failure that was). My whole hardcore PVP clan quit after LoTD and are now waiting on the next MMO. I was on 4 servers total, none were my choice. We had to leave dead server after dead server, Mythic would keep merging us into new servers. The game was laggy and it had nothing to do with the PCs. I have a high end PC and so did my clan and they all got lag problems in large scale PVP. Large scale PVP is what WAR is about. But not when it runs like crap and you get 1 spell off every 10 seconds in fortresses. They had to scale back forts and put a population cap on them. Nothing like "yay time to take a fort" and getting kicked back to your warcamp, 10 minutes away from the fort.
Too many crowd control abilities, tanks felt worthless. Too many class imbalances. City sieges were boring and all about stupid PQs. PQs sucked while leveling because no one did them. You can't have a Public Quest without the public! Low populations, adding new scenarios or dungeons for a week then taking them out of game again. Too many stupid Live Events...i'll stop there. I had high hopes for WAR and spent lots of money on it in subscription fees. But we gave up, it was too little too late and LoTD was horrible.
Mythic has always been about ignoring the playerbase. They do it almost as well as SOE. Turn a blind eye to the real problems and introduce new things without solving the old issues.
This interview is classic. Makes you wonder how any intelligent human being can be so ignorant of what the real issues are.
When they introduced Trials of Atlantis years ago in DAoC, the playerbase screamed that all the new additions were extremely overpowered. One thing you don't want to do in a pvp game is disinfranchise a good portion of your playerbase to satisfy a few powerusers, especially in a pvp game. All they did was do a few minor changes that effected nothing. Warhammer is that all over again.
Comments
It's mind-boggling that he and Barnett are standing up in front of other devs and telling them how to make MMOs. The other devs have GOT to be laughing behind their backs.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
You've pretty much touched on all the issues they seem oblivious to, and I most definitely agree.
As for the other issues people are bringing up "crafting, static RvR, etc.", that is actually what he was talking bout in the article. When he talks about failed social systems and a lackluster economy in WAR, he's not just talking about a good chat system. It's a huge part of MMOs to include the things he's talking about in this article, however most of the 'lessons' he learned from WAR should've been obvious. Like, game development 101 obvious. When he states that they are mistakes they 'should not of made' it's a huge understatement.
All of the other problems w/ WAR;
bugs, fluidity, mechanics, etc. are really subsidiary to the above. Yes, players will love or hate those aspects of the game, but most players cannot really get into a game that doesn't have a solid social network, a decent economy, and decent service. Every MMO I can think of, that has had at least those 3 things, has survived / done well for itself. Even the ones many people were turned off by. They are the fundamentals to the modern MMO (even MMOs which are heavily instanced).
what killed warhammer for me was everyone was in instanced pvp . the game world just seamed dead because you could access the scenarios from anywhere . i enjoyed the instanced pvp i must admit so the game does have some merrits but if i want something just like that i can play team fortress for free . i really cant see this game surviving with its current subscription model . it needs to do what dungeons and dragons online has done .
What killed WAR are the players.
They didn't play like Mythic envisioned it. Why are you still calling for Crafting? Didn't you listen to Mr. Barnett? ( THIS IS WAR. In war ppl don't build houses and grow flowers. In war people fight and kill and hack and slay all day long. Why? Because this is WAR!)
Lack of social system? For what. As Mr Barnett says in times of WAR people don't dance, they only fight, and kill, and hack and slay.
They never promised anything that they didn't deliver. We just didn't listen. Because we were still thinking about our grandma's MMORPG, which is not war, because there is so much else to do.
Oh, and we even disappointed Mr. Jacobs. Didn't he tell us that WAR cannot fail, or otherwise it will be very very bad for the MMO industry?
I think he was right. He is gone and recent MMORPGs steer away from the ultra-intense experience of war 24/7. Now they try to give us several things to do. What a pity.
Their new social tools were really good ideas, but their basic regional chat setup was utterly awful. The number of people who left after their first month simply because they had no way of connecting with the community will never be known, but I suspect it would account for many.
And fixing the economy? I don't see how this is even possible without a broader game design.
Yup. I'm sure it cost them many subs. I'm not exactly a chatterbox, but it bugged the hell out of me that the NPCs spammed the chat window and players said nothing.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Sheesh! They still don't know what the problem was.
Let me spell it out: the first priority, always, be it an MMO or a stand-alone game is STAMP OUT THE OBVIOUS BUGS! There are hundreds of examples in WAR of bugs that were ignored for months because their priority was the missing classes, fluffy monthly events and their so-called free expansion. I could point to any number of examples but I'll just mention one: The sneak through the back door of keeps ability.
This one was not in the game until this spring even though it was a core function of the stealth classes to spice-up the otherwise formulaic keep defences--and keep defenses are as core a part of the game as there is in WAR.
Instead, the 4 missing classes were developed and added with much fanfare while that one and umpteen other bugs remained untouched patch after patch after patch.
Take a look at any game review anywhere. Look at the positives and look at the negatives. Do you notice the mention of significant bugs or stability issues in the negatives? It's always there for good reason: bugs are obvious, noticeable, immersion-breaking annoyances that we ALL care about. Not being able to immediately track all of them down and fix them is understandable. Ignoring them and not even communicating with the users about them is piss-poor customer service.
Learn from that.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
First of all, most -- darn near all of you bring up ALL of the many problems with this game. But after a while it gets a little stupid reading -- NO, the economy wasnt the problem -- it was horrible crafting that killed WAR -- then someone else rants it was the Scenarios that killed and then someone says it was the lack of living world and then someone stands up and yells it was...well you get the point --- seriously guys, it wasnt ONE reason -- stop trying to make it so simple -- the game had ALOT of issues/problems that caused it to fail.
It's mind-boggling that he and Barnett are standing up in front of other devs and telling them how to make MMOs. The other devs have GOT to be laughing behind their backs.
The 1st post by Sonicbrew I nearly pissed myself, then MMO_Doubter caused me to shart!
I Played this game in spring 09 for a 14 day trial on the destruction side. I played a Blackguard, a Squig Herder and a Zealot, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
PQs are brilliant - everybody participate, group or don't group, you still get xp and other rewards. You compete to be the most effective, but still you work together too. It's so smart it makes you wonder why other games haven't thought of it before - in those you either solo or you group, there's no tag along and help out and get credit for your actions. As my characters reached the level cap, the PQs got significantly harder, on one, a group of 5 got annihilated. Who's playing the game that's too easy? Thing is though, people were saying that the only reason there were lots of people in the low level areas doing the PQs is because of the free trial being offered, and once it was gone, the servers would go back to being dead at the lower level sections. So the question is, how do they make it rewarding enough that people will do PQs instead of scenarios? Currently it sounds like they've made a large portion of their game obsolete.
Scenarios kicked ass. I loved them. While not having the same level of strategy as those in WoW, they were still tons of fun and reasonably balanced with the two sides. If I wasn't in the mood for solo questing or PQs, it was a great alternative, especially since I could gain levels and upgrade my equipment. And you really got to see how your class and it's unique abilities stacked up against the others.
I think it takes too long to get into the talent system and start customizing your character. Too many of the ultimate abilities seemed to be "BIG AOE DAMAGE", not very creative. The regular abilities you get as you level are fun to use and interesting.
Crafting was a pain in the ass. Honestly, I have to be tops in a PQ to get one single-use item for crafting? Then I have to manually set up 5 items to make a talisman that will go poof after x amount of hours? Oh, and I'm also supposed to scavenge rare ingredients for a better chance to make something better, inventory overflowing with dice and four leaf clovers and glowing skulls like some demented version of Lucky Charms cereal. There was some satisfaction in making an extra good item and putting it to use, but overall I think the crafting system is very narrow, limited, and annoying. It has potential to be a lot better, like the rest of the game. Time will tell. I imagine the devs aren't idiots and it's on the to do list.
A big problem I had with the game, is that, they have all this cool lore and excellent characters, and that doesn't play much of a part in the game. A game I like to cite for excellent integration of lore, plot, location and characters is Diablo 2. You have a clear purpose, you go to awesome places, you meet really distinctive and memorable characters (like Tyrael, the prime evils, even regular monsters were quite memorable). In WAR, there are a few lore characters, but they just stand there - they aren't exactly inspiring. They aren't going around kicking ass and taking names. Your purpose is fighting the opposite faction, yet it all feels kind of random and haphazard. Some locations are cool and graphically impressive, yet it kinda feels thrown together, there isn't much to pull you in or make you feel like a part of it all. NPC enemies aren't fascinating or inspiring either, other than PQ bosses. The rest are overly simplistic and easily slaughtered, to the point it can become more of a chore to kill them all.
I still have high hopes for this game and believe eventually it will become the game it should have been, to some degree. Despite it's glaring flaws, there is still a lot of fun to be had.
I played WAR since beta and up until Land of the Dead launched (epic failure that was). My whole hardcore PVP clan quit after LoTD and are now waiting on the next MMO. I was on 4 servers total, none were my choice. We had to leave dead server after dead server, Mythic would keep merging us into new servers. The game was laggy and it had nothing to do with the PCs. I have a high end PC and so did my clan and they all got lag problems in large scale PVP. Large scale PVP is what WAR is about. But not when it runs like crap and you get 1 spell off every 10 seconds in fortresses. They had to scale back forts and put a population cap on them. Nothing like "yay time to take a fort" and getting kicked back to your warcamp, 10 minutes away from the fort.
Too many crowd control abilities, tanks felt worthless. Too many class imbalances. City sieges were boring and all about stupid PQs. PQs sucked while leveling because no one did them. You can't have a Public Quest without the public! Low populations, adding new scenarios or dungeons for a week then taking them out of game again. Too many stupid Live Events...i'll stop there. I had high hopes for WAR and spent lots of money on it in subscription fees. But we gave up, it was too little too late and LoTD was horrible.
Mythic has always been about ignoring the playerbase. They do it almost as well as SOE. Turn a blind eye to the real problems and introduce new things without solving the old issues.
This interview is classic. Makes you wonder how any intelligent human being can be so ignorant of what the real issues are.
When they introduced Trials of Atlantis years ago in DAoC, the playerbase screamed that all the new additions were extremely overpowered. One thing you don't want to do in a pvp game is disinfranchise a good portion of your playerbase to satisfy a few powerusers, especially in a pvp game. All they did was do a few minor changes that effected nothing. Warhammer is that all over again.
It is a wonder EA puts up with these yahoos.