Yet the #1 thing I want a game to copy for PvE comes from WAR. the Tome of Knowledge is the best handling of achievements the genre has seen (and ever will see I bet) because it tied them into lore. It was absolutely birlliant in concpet and the execution was good.
And has any MMO feature had a greater impact than public quests? WAR will be known for its PvP, but its legacy is PvE. Without WAR, Rift and GW2 are much different games.
That's very true! PQ's were revolutionary back in the day!
I really wish GW2 had looked into why WAR's RvR battlegrounds were successful, instead of making the gigantic open area fields that is WvW. Giant open fields are great and they have their place on the battlefield, but strategic points, one of the highlights in WAR, should have been utilized more and better than they were in GW2.
A lesson to all developers, beware using someone else's IP, because the licensing fees will eventually be unprofitable to keep the game running.
Secondly, only a fool works with Games workshop, one of the worst IP owners out there.
Whoever said greedy EA has it all wrong, it is greedy Games Workshop
They're both greedy as hell. Sadly, the game was destined for failure. Especially when they yanked the war team off to make that DISASTER known as 'the old republic'
Two reasons why they never would try and go the freemium/f2p/b2p route instead of letting it die or at least trying for the past year to fix and revive it... EA of course, and Games Workshop. As a game store owner I have worked with Games Workshop for literally decades, carrying their products and running their games. I have not dealt with a more draconian and close-minded company in my life, at least business-wise.
I am frankly surprised that they even allowed what little they did to be free with WHO. Regardless, it is always sad to see an MMORPG with potential be squandered and get shut down.
------------------------- "Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places..." ~ H.P.Lovecraft, "From Beyond"
I am sad yet happy to see this game unfortunately come to a close. I choose this game to be the greatest I have had to privilege to play. Never have I been so immersed in a world. The game could have truly continued to live on with development support. But I'm sure they had their reasons for selecting to not put more money into it. I wish the Warhammer fantasy will live on in another game some new day.
The fault lies with the development team and Games Workshop for the games failing. They concentrated trying to make a WoW beater and basically tried to put a commical play style from table top battles into the mmo world.
If they had followed the old pnp RPG of Warhammer Fantasy Role Play Game, with its careers system and much darker theme then I think this game would of succeeded with open world pvp between those who joined chaos cults and those who followed the divines.
EA/Mythic would never make this free to play as EA also owns DAoC and UO as well and they are still subscription based games. And GW is like the EA of the table top wargamming world.
It's always sad to hear that a MMO is shut down for whatever reason. But from the start I have said that Warhammer online is nothing like Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Warhammer (both FB and 40K) is about armies and units, not about one single character. For that reason I think a MOBA of any Warhammer game would do better than a MMORPG as it's presented now. I also fear for the upcoming Warhammer 40K MMO if they stick to one character as well instead of a unit for the player.
R.I.P. Warhammer Online, Phane, and Elysium/Server Police, i will miss everything about this game despite its failure. Warhammer was a glorious PVP MMORPG next to a legend, DOAC.
Rest in Peace. You were a great basis for what could have been the best RvR game ever made. Unfortunately your glaring design mistakes (2 factions instead of 3) and engine limitations killed you before you really got off.
I hope other games will learn from your mistakes and become what you could not (I'm looking at you, Camelot Unchained and Mark Jacobs, it will be your last chance).
It is a shame to see this game closing down. I haven't played it in many years anymore but i have the most fond PvP memories of it. The game did a few things right that no other MMORPG managed to bring to their games:
- Great PvP in the overworld even on PvE servers with the PvP zones. Fighting for castles was a blast. And if you didn't want to PvP you just avoided the PvP zones, it had the perfect mix for those like me who love PvP, love world PvP but don't like gankers who keep stalking low lvls just because they can (but flee like cowards when higher levels show up to defend the lower levels).
- Those public events that spawned. Everyone participating where in the same group, fighting some special mobs in different stages. I rather liked them. Sure other games have brought that to their games now but still they feel much different then in War.
- Fun/interesting classes to play. Sure some where dull and standard but the Maraurder with his morphing arms, Witch Hunters fighting with pistol and sword, etc etc where really fun to play.
- A immersing world, i really liked how the world looked like. Had a real sense of desperation and often a village looked like a village. The whole mood was set right and it was very differce. It was also very fun to explore the maps and that is something i really miss in today's MMORPG's, they feel so small and linear (not saying WAR wasn't linear but it just felt so much bigger).
Sadly Warhammer had a few fatal issues:
- It was a great PvP game, but the PvE was rather dull and boring. After two months most people had left the game. This meant world PvP was very hard to find (atleast on my server), one of the bigger attractions and the wait time to get into those instanced battles became very long on the lower levels so your only means to lvl up was doing the quests, who where dull and boring. At the lower levels the whole PvP element seemed to just have vanished completely.
- Worst time to release your MMO ever. They should have waited half a year to a year (and use that time to fix a few things more). Warhammer came out between Age of Conan and WoW Wrath of the Lich King. Especially in those days you didn't want to release shortly before WoW's expansion. Warhammer managed to steal a few players away from AoC who suffered much from it (or maybe it was the many game breaking bugs that did most of the work still for AoC). But 2 or 3 months after Warhammer's release WotLK came out. Warhammer at that point already had lost a great deal of players, but WotlK took away most of the remaining players. Had they waited till half a year after WotlK then they would have had a much higher survival rate when WoW players had explored the new expansion again.
- Biggest problem of WAR wasn't game mechanic related though. The biggest problem with the game was EA. EA had set one goal, and one goal only. Cash in on WoW's success. They saw how much money WoW produced and wanted that as well. However you know how EA is (or rather most of the publishers these days), they want to earn as much money with spending as little as possible. They rather released a game too early then spend another dollar in development. Lacking any grand vision for the future, something that is a must with MMORPG's, cause unlike shooters you don't release a new one every year.
I'm really sorry for those who still play. It's sad to see a mmo get shut down, but at least there's some finality to it instead of just limping along like it had been.
R.I.P. Warhammer Online; I wanted to love you, but alas could not.
They managed to make Warhammer Online one of the flop of my life. Congratulations. You did it again! Atlantis was so stupid. Labyrinth of the Minotaur was beyond contempt, and then you made Warhammer. Well done fellows! Next time, try to mess up some other favorite license of mine like Lord of the Rings. Wait they did it already! Or Conan. Wait, they did it already. Or D&D. Wait they did it already! Well, at least we've got Blizzard. Best to play cool games with stupid pandas and stupid gnomish technology than some cool license fucked up by incompetent people like you. My apologies to the fans, not to you, of course.
The Tome of Knowledge is/ was the best idea they ever had...it lead to plenty of great moments in the game for me, I is a sad day so see a game go down but one that had so much promise...
Maybe if they game was running on a newer engine they wouldn't have had the launch problems...it is still the thing that erks me the most, how they expected to get away with that awful engine....I love Warhammer, I have my huge cd box, with my beautifully drawn Comic stashed away with my pre order box, my shaman had a lot of chararcter, almost as much as the broken promises...for all its faults, which it had many, and balance issues (mirriored classes would have been better not these classes tied by machanics but given different skills) It had so much character in the world, the random places you could find and the public quests were great, the story told through the ToK per zone was amazing
I played the game through the eyes of a goblin shaman, and from the first time i jumped into the gates of Ekrund I knew something special was here, I had leveling experience that was not matched even with GW2 (still wished they brought the arenas from gw) filling the Tome was something of a treasure, like finishing the last page of a good book, only to start working on the next one in the series because you just needed to know what happens next.
DAoC, SWG, Tabula Rasa, GW and GW2, three will be gone now, games with true character will die. Games who's players created better content for me then the dev ever did., and while a tear will not be shed for WAR, there will be certainly be a Reckoning of my emotions.
Why would GamesWorkshop not like to sell 2 licenses ? It is a deal for a fixed amount of years, so it is obvious that they want to sell more of them if they can.
The licensing argument is just an excuse. It is something to say if you want to shut down a MMO without too much reputation loss. The 5 year deal just happens to be convenient now that Mythic/EA wants to get rid of it.
Elder Scrolls Online next? Better ask them now when their license deal needs to be renewed
It is always sad news for any game. No matter how low player base, many still enjoy. As for War ... despite a lot of problems at release, have been playing for some time, even returned, but later lost interest. Main problem actually was silly fast respawn rate of mobs that plagued game at time I quit. Was virtually impossible to move through some areas with a lot of mobs. Before one was able to kill 3rd or even 2nd mob in the way ... 1st was already respawned.
Originally posted by MikeB Depressing. Despite all its issues, there still isn't a PvP MMO out there that does it for me the way WAR did. I wish they would have done more to rescue it.
This is very said. I still think that WAR was the best pvp game out of all the sandbox games. I had a lot of fun in it back in 2008-2009. But Mythic and EA failed to make it a beast - they just tried to saturate the project and did not spend anything on it to improve the game.
Now I hope someone will make new Warhammer Darkomen.
Real shame. This game was unfinished and had its bugs but my god was it fun. Its to bad that Mythic and EA waste yet another great franchises potential. This game still had lots of opportunities including F2P conversion.
Its sad to see one of my favorite MMOs of all time finally be put out of its misery. Oh well looking forward to 40K MMO and hopefully a warhammer MMO under another studio.
Comments
That's very true! PQ's were revolutionary back in the day!
I really wish GW2 had looked into why WAR's RvR battlegrounds were successful, instead of making the gigantic open area fields that is WvW. Giant open fields are great and they have their place on the battlefield, but strategic points, one of the highlights in WAR, should have been utilized more and better than they were in GW2.
It would be fascist to not use knowledge or code and then also prevent others from using for no real reasons other than selfish ones.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
They're both greedy as hell. Sadly, the game was destined for failure. Especially when they yanked the war team off to make that DISASTER known as 'the old republic'
Two reasons why they never would try and go the freemium/f2p/b2p route instead of letting it die or at least trying for the past year to fix and revive it... EA of course, and Games Workshop. As a game store owner I have worked with Games Workshop for literally decades, carrying their products and running their games. I have not dealt with a more draconian and close-minded company in my life, at least business-wise.
I am frankly surprised that they even allowed what little they did to be free with WHO. Regardless, it is always sad to see an MMORPG with potential be squandered and get shut down.
-------------------------
"Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places..." ~ H.P.Lovecraft, "From Beyond"
Member Since March 2004
I am sad yet happy to see this game unfortunately come to a close. I choose this game to be the greatest I have had to privilege to play. Never have I been so immersed in a world. The game could have truly continued to live on with development support. But I'm sure they had their reasons for selecting to not put more money into it. I wish the Warhammer fantasy will live on in another game some new day.
Good night sweet prince.
The fault lies with the development team and Games Workshop for the games failing. They concentrated trying to make a WoW beater and basically tried to put a commical play style from table top battles into the mmo world.
If they had followed the old pnp RPG of Warhammer Fantasy Role Play Game, with its careers system and much darker theme then I think this game would of succeeded with open world pvp between those who joined chaos cults and those who followed the divines.
EA/Mythic would never make this free to play as EA also owns DAoC and UO as well and they are still subscription based games. And GW is like the EA of the table top wargamming world.
Rest in Peace. You were a great basis for what could have been the best RvR game ever made. Unfortunately your glaring design mistakes (2 factions instead of 3) and engine limitations killed you before you really got off.
I hope other games will learn from your mistakes and become what you could not (I'm looking at you, Camelot Unchained and Mark Jacobs, it will be your last chance).
It is a shame to see this game closing down. I haven't played it in many years anymore but i have the most fond PvP memories of it. The game did a few things right that no other MMORPG managed to bring to their games:
- Great PvP in the overworld even on PvE servers with the PvP zones. Fighting for castles was a blast. And if you didn't want to PvP you just avoided the PvP zones, it had the perfect mix for those like me who love PvP, love world PvP but don't like gankers who keep stalking low lvls just because they can (but flee like cowards when higher levels show up to defend the lower levels).
- Those public events that spawned. Everyone participating where in the same group, fighting some special mobs in different stages. I rather liked them. Sure other games have brought that to their games now but still they feel much different then in War.
- Fun/interesting classes to play. Sure some where dull and standard but the Maraurder with his morphing arms, Witch Hunters fighting with pistol and sword, etc etc where really fun to play.
- A immersing world, i really liked how the world looked like. Had a real sense of desperation and often a village looked like a village. The whole mood was set right and it was very differce. It was also very fun to explore the maps and that is something i really miss in today's MMORPG's, they feel so small and linear (not saying WAR wasn't linear but it just felt so much bigger).
Sadly Warhammer had a few fatal issues:
- It was a great PvP game, but the PvE was rather dull and boring. After two months most people had left the game. This meant world PvP was very hard to find (atleast on my server), one of the bigger attractions and the wait time to get into those instanced battles became very long on the lower levels so your only means to lvl up was doing the quests, who where dull and boring. At the lower levels the whole PvP element seemed to just have vanished completely.
- Worst time to release your MMO ever. They should have waited half a year to a year (and use that time to fix a few things more). Warhammer came out between Age of Conan and WoW Wrath of the Lich King. Especially in those days you didn't want to release shortly before WoW's expansion. Warhammer managed to steal a few players away from AoC who suffered much from it (or maybe it was the many game breaking bugs that did most of the work still for AoC). But 2 or 3 months after Warhammer's release WotLK came out. Warhammer at that point already had lost a great deal of players, but WotlK took away most of the remaining players. Had they waited till half a year after WotlK then they would have had a much higher survival rate when WoW players had explored the new expansion again.
- Biggest problem of WAR wasn't game mechanic related though. The biggest problem with the game was EA. EA had set one goal, and one goal only. Cash in on WoW's success. They saw how much money WoW produced and wanted that as well. However you know how EA is (or rather most of the publishers these days), they want to earn as much money with spending as little as possible. They rather released a game too early then spend another dollar in development. Lacking any grand vision for the future, something that is a must with MMORPG's, cause unlike shooters you don't release a new one every year.
I'm really sorry for those who still play. It's sad to see a mmo get shut down, but at least there's some finality to it instead of just limping along like it had been.
R.I.P. Warhammer Online; I wanted to love you, but alas could not.
The way EA handles their MMO's it is rare now a days... the same goes for NC soft and Tabula Rasa game...
Games that were fun die out, and they get thrown into the vault, so many people wish it would come back, but they wont.
They managed to make Warhammer Online one of the flop of my life. Congratulations. You did it again! Atlantis was so stupid. Labyrinth of the Minotaur was beyond contempt, and then you made Warhammer. Well done fellows! Next time, try to mess up some other favorite license of mine like Lord of the Rings. Wait they did it already! Or Conan. Wait, they did it already. Or D&D. Wait they did it already! Well, at least we've got Blizzard. Best to play cool games with stupid pandas and stupid gnomish technology than some cool license fucked up by incompetent people like you. My apologies to the fans, not to you, of course.
The Tome of Knowledge is/ was the best idea they ever had...it lead to plenty of great moments in the game for me, I is a sad day so see a game go down but one that had so much promise...
Maybe if they game was running on a newer engine they wouldn't have had the launch problems...it is still the thing that erks me the most, how they expected to get away with that awful engine....I love Warhammer, I have my huge cd box, with my beautifully drawn Comic stashed away with my pre order box, my shaman had a lot of chararcter, almost as much as the broken promises...for all its faults, which it had many, and balance issues (mirriored classes would have been better not these classes tied by machanics but given different skills) It had so much character in the world, the random places you could find and the public quests were great, the story told through the ToK per zone was amazing
I played the game through the eyes of a goblin shaman, and from the first time i jumped into the gates of Ekrund I knew something special was here, I had leveling experience that was not matched even with GW2 (still wished they brought the arenas from gw) filling the Tome was something of a treasure, like finishing the last page of a good book, only to start working on the next one in the series because you just needed to know what happens next.
DAoC, SWG, Tabula Rasa, GW and GW2, three will be gone now, games with true character will die. Games who's players created better content for me then the dev ever did., and while a tear will not be shed for WAR, there will be certainly be a Reckoning of my emotions.
Why would GamesWorkshop not like to sell 2 licenses ? It is a deal for a fixed amount of years, so it is obvious that they want to sell more of them if they can.
The licensing argument is just an excuse. It is something to say if you want to shut down a MMO without too much reputation loss. The 5 year deal just happens to be convenient now that Mythic/EA wants to get rid of it.
Elder Scrolls Online next? Better ask them now when their license deal needs to be renewed
I guess we were all hoping for the F2P conversion but they had to disapoint us even with this last move. Such a terrible company.
I paid so many subs on this game and i am a fan of the pvp systems here, too bad they didnt commit to the game nor to its community.
SHAME!
I absolutely agree...
This is very said. I still think that WAR was the best pvp game out of all the sandbox games. I had a lot of fun in it back in 2008-2009. But Mythic and EA failed to make it a beast - they just tried to saturate the project and did not spend anything on it to improve the game.
Now I hope someone will make new Warhammer Darkomen.
Its sad to see one of my favorite MMOs of all time finally be put out of its misery.
Oh well looking forward to 40K MMO and hopefully a warhammer MMO under another studio.