General Discussion

MMORPG.com Warhammer Online Correspondent Asaf Yonsian writes this interesting piece about Mythic's use of the Warhammer IP in an MMO compared to both Turbine and Funcom's handling of their IPs.

In 2006, Turbine launched Lord of the Rings Online – The MMORPG that was destined to topple WoW using Tolkein's Intellectual Property (IP). The world was beautiful, the settings were as grand as Tolkein's books, but not all was well in Middle Earth.

Lord of the Rings launched with 7 classes, none of them wielding real magic due to lore restrictions (a mistake Turbine will fix in their next expansion release – Mines of Moria). Turbine was also bound by various laws and prohibitions to keep the original lore of the game, thus hampering the ability a player had to feel really epic and like a unique character in the world.

Read the article here.

I liked the article and I think Warhammer is a rich and interesting IP, regardless of what I think of the game. I don't think they could ever run out of stuff to build off of as Warhammer has been around for 20+ years. I think it is up to 25 years now?

Yet, I do not agree.

WAR was boring and still repetitive.

Right now the genre as a whole has no new ideas. So, the fact that such a clone of WoW could be considered so "innovative" due to changing some mechanics really shows how far we have sunk for entertainment.

The reason Mythic got it right is they took no bold steps, no major moves to try and be different. But, as a whole they do capture the IP's visual style, though slightly muddy and gritty, and not very hi-res.

But mechanically, it is still the same grind gameplay underneath a new "slightly different" shell

Just an alternate view of a game that does not suck, yet does nothing to excite either.

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Originally posted by openedge1

Yet, I do not agree.

WAR was boring and still repetitive.

Right now the genre as a whole has no new ideas. So, the fact that such a clone of WoW could be considered so "innovative" due to changing some mechanics really shows how far we have sunk for entertainment.

The reason Mythic got it right is they took no bold steps, no major moves to try and be different. But, as a whole they do capture the IP's visual style, though slightly muddy and gritty, and not very hi-res.

But mechanically, it is still the same grind gameplay underneath a new "slightly different" shell

Just an alternate view of a game that does not suck, yet does nothing to excite either.

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There are no WoW clones. There are only Ultima Online and EverQuest 1 clones.

It becomes tiresome that everyone nowadays bashes down games of being WoW clones.

That's simply not true! WoW was nothing new either. Blizzard just took the right bits from previous MMO's and used that as foundation for their MMO. Nothing more, nothing less.

And WoW isn't perfect either! There are plenty of flaws in WoW as well. Especially today.

No game is perfect! Just like WAR isn't perfect either!

Cheers
 

To the OP: Well said and well written. I totally agree.

There are so many MMO's to chose from, and they all try to use the "best" features that make the top MMO's great. Therefore, they're all similiar in some ways in that they have a quest journal, factions at war, the archetypical classes, etc.

Therefore I pick my MMO's by the IP, or "which world do I want to be a part of?". I thoroughly enjoy the Warhammer IP so I relish the chance to live in that world, even in its early stages.

For those familiar with Warhammer, they've only implemented about 30% of the actual content of the IP. Give this game time to grow, and it'll have FAR more content than WoW.

Plus it doesn't look like a #$% $#^& cartoon haha.

That's what good about this game you don't feel like somebodies sidekick, you do really feel more powerful as it goes on and if you learn and read up on the lore you start gaining alot from it, ofcourse I play on an RP server so I look at the world different and not just endgame but a process. I saw a video where Paul says it's more than just an mmo it's entire hobby the way you get into it and what they are aiming for and I'm finding this to be true and fun more and more everyday.

Originally posted by openedge1

Yet, I do not agree.

WAR was boring and still repetitive.

Right now the genre as a whole has no new ideas. So, the fact that such a clone of WoW could be considered so "innovative" due to changing some mechanics really shows how far we have sunk for entertainment.

The reason Mythic got it right is they took no bold steps, no major moves to try and be different. But, as a whole they do capture the IP's visual style, though slightly muddy and gritty, and not very hi-res.

But mechanically, it is still the same grind gameplay underneath a new "slightly different" shell

Just an alternate view of a game that does not suck, yet does nothing to excite either.

There are no huge things left to innovate. Only small things.

Much of that is handled through addons the community provides. If they prove good enough, or necessary, the next MMO implements them.

Zoning and Scenarios are perhaps the next barriar... but if you want accessible battlegrounds from anywhere in the world... you will keep those instances and scenarios.

WoW is seamless, but at a cost of detail. AoC is high detail, but at a cost of seamlessness.

Even being seamless isn't true in WoW's case. Zones are still loaded as needed, and a whole world isn't actaully made ready. Loading a whole world into Ram/Vram would be handy I imagine.

The innovations in MMOs have pushed up to, and even past what our current hardware can handle.

I think, without new technology, we won't see too many changes. All of that will be code, and even that will be slow as they need to do a test-fail-test-fail process. An MMO will try something, fail, then the next MMO will get it right... or fail... then the next....

Don't expect any new innovations in our lifetime...

Unless technology gets improved out of necessity... like a major war.
The gears of progress are greased by blood, sweat, and tears.

There is far too much "Fanboy" in this particular article for me to give it any credence whatsoever.

Anyone who tries to talk about IP and suggests in the first few paragraphs that sticking to the IP is a bad idea is well off base.

I played LotRO - I quit because there was very little to do once you'd completed the leveling process (it's the only game where I've heard fans say the best way to play it is to not play as much).  I however did greatly respect the choice to make the world "feel" authentic.  The mistake Turbine is making is compromising their product with the introduction of a generic lightning-bolting wizard class into the game - all to try and entice the "oooh shiny particles" crowd.

I play WAR now - I keep playing because the game is feature complete from start to finish.  There is an end-game that I am working towards, whereas with LotRO there was nothing past the top level.  WAR left some things out - sure, but what's there appears to work correctly and has many things to do at all levels.  What's there suits the IP - particles and all.

Oh - and epic?  Because you can change the world?  What MMO is this?  I'm pretty sure Arthas (or whoever) is still standing in the same place as when you were last there.  MMOs by definition cannot have epic stories in the vein of high fantasy books or movies.  Everyone has to go through the same gates.

In many respects, LotRO's use of instanced storytelling gets a lot closer to granting an epic feel than any other game before it.  The sporadic chapter instances (though poorly laid out in terms of progression) did certainly succeed in bringing the experience into a more personal realm than most other games I've played - WAR included.

Originally posted by jakin

There is far too much "Fanboy" in this particular article for me to give it any credence whatsoever.

MMORPG.com Warhammer Online Correspondent Asaf Yonsian writes this interesting piece about Mythic's use of the Warhammer IP in an MMO compared to both Turbine and Funcom's handling of their IPs.

It's the Warhammer Correspondent. Of COURSE it is going to biased.

You don't send a Sony fanatic to review an Xbox event...

The correspondents are going to advocate their