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Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning: Status Update
MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh spoke recently with WAR producer Destin Bales about the current status of the game and what Mythic is working for for the future.
Interviews By Carolyn Koh on September 16, 2009
Producer Destin Bales of Warhammer Online was on hand at PAX this year to provide a brief update of the game and what Mythic Studios has been doing. No big reveals, no sneak peeks, but a lot about their one-year anniversary and what they were doing for it. At PAX, they had an area with comfortable couches and coffee tables with the WAR logo on them, covered with buttons, which disappeared quickly into swag bags.
"It's our one-year anniversary and we are celebrating all through the month of September," said Destin, "and the Wild Hunt is the largest live event we've ever done."
advertisement "Live" in Mythic's lingo is a scripted event that runs only for a short period of time, and this one is no different except that it is larger than anything they have attempted before. It runs all through the month of September to celebrate their one year anniversary and features XP and Renown bonuses all month, as well as a new dungeon that's open to all tiers. "The dungeon scales," said Destin. "There are four different versions for each of the four tiers and will only be available for ten days." Three-day weekend events will also be running during the month of September. One of their most popular events, the Northern Watch which is a Tier 1 event will be scaled to all four tiers and will be repeatable over the weekend.
Beyond that, the studio has been working on improving the current game and concentrating on career balance as well as improving the Tier four experience. "We've been doing internal and external focus groups and making sure that the game experience is good for our current players," Destin informed me. Players felt that the capital city raids were too PvE-centric and they are currently refining the experience. We also chatted about what seemed to be an easy fix but in actuality, took countless hours of programming; the bottleneck in Keeps. There was only a single ramp to the top and is a choke point. The addition of a second ramp to provide two ways in and out of the Lord Room took six months to complete and was rolled out in the last update. "It's not just architecture to consider. There are pathing points, adjustment of AI, etc. Just making sure everything works that as it should!"
In the works is also a Hireling system. "The goal is to help players play with each other," said Destin. "It's a level up / down system and one player becomes the other's hireling for a period of time while they are playing together."
Destin also spoke of the opportunities they have now, being under the EA umbrella. "We're rolling out the 8th Ultima Online expansion, the Stygian Abyss and it's got a new career, Gargolyes." Not that they take away too much from them, but it is still a learning experience and the benefits of cross-pollination with a company such as Bioware that is also under the EA umbrella is immense. Some of that is sure to rub off for the Warhammer Online expansion in the works.
;)
What else was in the works then? I wanted to know. There was a list:
- Crowd control. Every career has some form of it. Whether it is single target or AE.
- Making sure every aspect of RvR is interesting and varied. A delicate balancing act for sure.
- New user initiative - looking at quests and encounters. Some love for the newbies.
- Tier 3 could still use some love
Players that came to see them at PAX also got some nice goodies:
- Razored Skinning Knife - Sharp as a harlot's tongue and twice as dangerous.
- Shroud of Imrathepis - Linens taken from the burial shroud of Prince Imrathepis, protecting its owner from harm by regenerating minor wounds and injuries.
- Chompin' Teef - Exclusive Steel Jaw customization option for Orc Choppas.
- Snorri's Spikes - Exclusive Spike Mohawk customization option for Dwarf Slayers.
Continuing game improvement, some love for the PAX attendees, bonus XP and Renown for the month of September, lots of passion for the game and opportunities with EA to be incorporated, things look rosy for Mythic and we gamers can hope for better and yet better things to come.
"Things look rosy for Mythic and we gamers can hope for better and yet better things to come."
LIES. Pure PR BS.
Also:
Perhaps someone could explain why they take the time and effort to create new instances, only to rip them back out of the game after a week. The 'Hunt' event lasted a week, not all month.
They have created two new scenarios and a new dungeon which are no longer in the game. Idiocy.
So eeerr...ok, but what are the news for the future? Really, Warhammer is needing something very cool to bring back the players.
Oh, they have 'lots of cool things coming' they just can't tell us yet.
Yeah, right.
Nothing can bring back the players. The engine will never be fixed or they would have already long ago.
The only thing that is left and coming out of Mythic is cheap carrot after cheap carrot. In a desperate attempt to keep the current players in the game and paying their monthly fees as long as possible.
You will never see an expansion pack nor will the other capital cities ever be added to the game again. Simply because they don't have enough subs anymore and sure as hell EA not gonna give them any funding for that.
They are just squeezing out a smuch as posssible from the current left players to cut their losses.
Cheers
Quoted For astounding Truthiness.
Is that a new record in how fast a game had to provide hirelings to make grouping for a dwindling population more feasable?
GOOOOO WAR.
I am not sure there is anyway to fix this game. It went /fail so very quickly. WTG MYTHIC!
hirelings are NPCs? I thought it was just their term for mentoring?
Quoted For astounding Truthiness.
I cant believe I am saying this. But I also agree. All the time and effort they put in new content they can fix issues. But they want new people to come to the game instead of keeping the ones they have.
I also agree with that. Was in there from the beta an omg it was fun...hoping there was a real fix coming soon...
I did my part and retry it once more with the welcome back offer they had some time ago, and this time I stopped the account for good. Never going back there.
hirelings are NPCs? I thought it was just their term for mentoring?
Reading comprehension FTW. You are correct. Snarlingwolf is not.
Yay for finding drama where there is none!
(Mind you, I don't play WAR and don't care. But really, if you're not going to comprehend what you read, you shouldn't post about it.)
So much potential, so little delivered.
It's a real shame. One year ago I was so excited. I had two accounts in our household and it started off to be a good month (September) but by early January I had cancelled both accounts. :(
I keep coming back to threads like this to look for a ray of hope because there was a lot I enjoyed about the game! It's a crying shame that it went in the direction it did...
I wanted to repost what I wrote in another thread as it's just as fitting here and I really didn't get any feedback, considering it was perhaps posted a bit too late in the original thread. (Sorry for the wall of text.)
Originally posted by MrcdesOwnr
Well, I was going to start my post off with a quote from one of you above posters, but with there being so many posts that touched upon items that were quote worthy, it becomes a moot point. Matter of fact, I might go as far as saying this thread is probably one of the most productive, constructive and/or purposeful I've seen at this site. However, I would like to quote the following from Jeff Skalski of Warhammer, from the interview:
"Will players concerns be addressed? Of course not 100% completely, but I want to be more transparent with our community with where we're at and where we're going. I play the game and I'm still not fully satisfied. We have more work to do."
For months now, I've been preaching the importance of the above statement (in regards to being more transparent with the community) to anyone at Mythic that would listen, including a couple of long winded letters to the powers that be. Unfortunately, their follow through in that one critical area may have come a little too late. I believe that of all of Mythic's blunders with this game, that may have been the absolute, most catastrophic. In business, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with your customers thoughts, wants, needs, wishes, etc., it's never a good thing to ignore them without acknowledging the fact that at the very least that customer matters and that you are at least somewhat concerned with their needs. This is all the more important when the very success of your business is riding on the success of one sole product and your customer base is directly held together and dependent upon the content of their fellow customers.
It kind of reminds me of when I used to work for the government and most of those around me would walk around with their nose stuck up in the air due to the fact that they held a position within an important function of the government, yet it seemed that I was one of very few employees there that would shrug my shoulders with the thought of the job I held, feeling that it wasn't my job that defined who I am. Needless to say I left that job amidst many people telling me I was stupid for giving up that job, even though I was working with a bunch of pompous people I couldn't stand and hating the work that I did. Point being, with the way Mythic seemed to treat it's customers, I couldn't help but envision those at Mythic walking around with their noses stuck up in the air after acquiring the rights to the WAR ip, all the while thinking that they were more important to the equation than they actually were.
Maybe I'm completely wrong in feeling that way. Maybe that wasn't it at all, but I am a paying customer however and Mythic has in some way caused me to feel this way. Like I said, I may be way off the mark, but for some very strange reason, players concerns, complaints and cries for answers, for the longest time seemed to fall on deaf ears at Mythic. Be it the rumored stubbornness of Mark Jacobs or maybe those he answered to, none of us outside of the Mythic family truly knows.
What I do know however, is that you don't go from having close to a million plus subs, down to around 200k as fast as they have without something very truly wrong outside of the typical MMO growing pains. Most of you I'm sure have been asking the very same thing I have been the last couple of months, "how do you screw something up THAT BADLY?" It is quite apparent given some thought, that Mythic may know a thing or two about game development for the most part IMO, but severely lacks in the area of business development. As I know from reading many posts, I'm not the only one that has shaken my head at some of the business decisions Mythic has made during the last year of this game. I can't ever remember doing that with Blizzard in regards to their direction with WoW as a business model, while personally, I despise that game.
Furthermore, when a large portion of your customer base has been giving you feedback that your Chef's Special tastes terrible, you don't keep feeding your customers the same dish thinking the recipe is fine. This is exactly what has happened with class balancing in WAR as players have been screaming for months that the game has needed balancing and yet we were witness to other severely less important areas of the game being addressed while balancing issues were either being pushed to the back of the line or sometimes getting no mention at all. That (pardon the pun) is a recipe for disaster and if this game does fail, it will become the poster child alongside SWG as to what not to do with an MMO.
I've been a WAR sub from the very beginning and still have an active account currently as my intent was to stay on until Aion's release. I truly love the WAR ip and like a lot of others have had more fun in this game, specifically with RvR than with any other MMO I've played to date. I believe that the game has made some good progress as of late and I do hope it not only survives, but succeeds. It certainly will have a huge mountain to climb. It can start that steep climb by excepting that some of their customers do have some valid points and great ideas that could help make the slope a little less slippery. If only Mythic could put their pride in check and reach out their hand to grasp those trying to help them up.
So true. If only they had let it cook another year, it might have been worthy of all the excitement.
Good post.
I think the attitude can be summed up in two words: Mythic seconds.
No need to look for a clearer sign of the devs' arrogance and contempt for their customers.
MMORPG.com has always been a cheerleader for the mmo's (my opinion) but this is a little over the top even for you guys.
The concept that they were able to be at PAX without having to avoid angry players amazes me. (just look at the responses to this article to see the angry reaction of players)
Why not talk about the serious issue the game has (or at least many servers have) with population balance. People leaving the game in droves after the 1.3.1 patch (purely based on how many of my friends have left and reading the official forums. To the best of my knowledge WAS does not release subscriber numbers). Current subscriber numbers.
Reports like this makes it hard to see MMORPG.com as anything but a place where games can push their special Kool-aid.
I have been hoping for some news to come out of MMORPG.com on WAR and all I get is a press release.
I do understand that it is difficult to bite the hand that feeds you but how can you be so calm about a game that so many of the people who are still playing are so upset with without doing an article about that.
I have tried my best to follow the forum posting rules in this post.
I know what you mean. I eventually got banned from Warhammer Alliance. I just broke from reading their 'don't worry - be happy' announcements. i just couldn't take it any more.
Sometimes you just have to yell "Shenanigans!"
No gaming site has journalistic integrity. They are cheap advertising for the companies.
I honestly see two options for WAR:
1) Die in the success or failure of SWTOR. - either way, makes WAR, EA and the RPG mash-up group look bad.
Or
2) Figure out a viable F2P Western/European module that will actually work.
That's essentially the only thing they can do. Mediocre improvements and delusional changes (armor looks? seriously? least of you worries here, Mythic) will not bring players back after the (even more mass exodus then we’ve seen) Aion launch.
Time to put up, shut-up or shut down.
"" No big reveals, no sneak peeks, but a lot about their one-year anniversary and what they were doing for it"" ...laughing/crying?
""We're rolling out the 8th Ultima Online expansion, the Stygian Abyss and it's got a new career, Gargolyes."" ...COOL!!!! huh???
Next thing they'll announce is that they helped Bioware create a new dungeon like instance in their MMO.
Mythic need to look up "Content" and understand it's meaning... without it games die horribly. Like WAR, there's been nothing new (we knew [see what i did there] they'd add in the classes they PROMISED as from launch - that wasn't new).
The engine is awful though... i mean it isn't bad to look at considering the look of WAR they went for, but... it handles like Rosie O'Donnell on ice skates trying to eat a pizza while raping the mermaid man.
Don't worry next month we'll probably have a "live event" celebrating WAR's 13th Live Event... it bloody feels as if that's all the game does....
Took them a while to see the writing on the wall.
Ppeople had to leave in droves and de-populate most servers before they came-up with "focus groups" ...too little too late for those of us who already experienced their arrogant disregard of valid concerns for months while they wasted time on fluff and junk no one wanted.
I wish them better luck with the next batch of suc... err, gamers.
Yeah, I got upset when i realized their answer for unbalanced server populations was to make the classes on the cronically underpopulated side OP.
I think Aion had a much more logical answer, too many Asmodians? NO more can be made till the population balances out. That seems like it will keep the population alot more balanced, but hey what do i know, I'm not a high and mighty mythic game designer. I'm just a voter who took my wallet elsewhere.
GEE WILLICKERS, WAR looks to be looking up now! WELL I guess I'll cancel my Fallen Earth sub and go back... Not going to happen. Farewell, War: you won't be missed.
I played for the first brokien month. It seems in the eleven months after they have accomplished...nothing.
Tier 4 STILL needs work? Are they for real?
Very, very, sad.
I rarely look at more than WAR article titles and it seems after reading a year one talk that I haven't missed anything. I loved DAoC but this game stinks. I tried so hard and had fun but it felt more like hit and run for the most part. Large battles were chaotic and laggy. I still remember everyone talking about not moving but just tapping forward because of not knowing when game would catch up and you appear in the middle of opposing army. I guess they might have fixed that.
A new expansion to expand on that atrocious and offensive game engine? Mythic, you dunce!
I think main problem with War is that is PvP oriented. Same problem with any other game that is PvP based. Despite many players feels like Rambos ... you know, we pvp, we do not "play" with PvE, which is for small kids ... good PvP-ers are rare, for many PvP is simply endless ganking, .... 5 gankers (=wankers) on 1 player .... wow ... real heroes.
But anyway ... gankers or not .... while for game to be successful PvP game you need a LOT of players CONTEMPORANELY online, for PvE this is never problem, unless for elite quests.
So ... on long run, imo, pvp games do not have future ... at least not in big sub numbers.
There were some good things to come from WAR.
1. PvE was simple and quick. PvE (in a PvP-oriented game) should be little more than learning how to play your class on a rudimentary level and exploring the landscape. I thought they accomplished that well.
2. Tier-based RvR and RvR lakes. I love PvP, but I don't like griefing and I get no thrill being level 50 killing a level 10. (I'm not a 100% hardcore PvPer, and I didn't play on an Open PvP server.) The way they separated the zones by tiers and the RvR lakes was a very fair way of providing a balance between the PvP and PvE. Although, as an after thought, I do wish the RvR lakes were a bit larger and the PvE areas a bit smaller.
With any luck, they'll bring this concept to SW:TOR and allow us some good PvP there.
I finally decided to quit WAR after playing DoorHammer for nearly a month. Scenarios are a diversion, but I like open PvP and it became hard to find. No one would fight if they couldn't have the bigger Zerg. There was no point to grind Renown when the gear I have now is better thean the gear I'm grinding.
I completely disagree. This debacle has shown that people DO want an RvR-based game. That as many stuck it though the terrible flaws show that there is a market for one of these games done right.
Been playing Warhammer since April, class balance is an issue but not as game breaking as people who shit and cry whenever they lose control for 2 seconds would say(such people need ot stay far, far away from WoW which has even more CC) or simply declare MY CLASS IS BROKEN! because they had a bad scenario run and/or suck at PvP.
Open RvR(RvDoor is pretty accurate) still needs work, but I am thoroughly enjoying leveling multiple characters through scenarios. Good class variety. Scenarios are good fun. I play it a bit more like an FPS than WoW. Play for a few hours, get some action, log off till the next day.
Being able to have fun in scenarios starting at level 5ish makes the game very alt friendly.
Haven't bothered with city sieges directly, though the scenarios for them are rather mediocre. I guess this is disappointing, but the game is not the wreck that all the people who think they are objective analysts would claim.
That says it all right there. I started at the end of beta. April I still had a tiny bit of faith left... quit during their inane balancing attempts in 1.3... have fun as long as you can. In the meantime, Fallen Earth is a blast.
And to the person above saying the problem is that it's PvP... totally wrong, that's WAR's strength not its weakness. Way back when Mythic invented organized RvR with DAoC they had a really fun creative MMO--they did eventually f__k that one up too, but that's a diferent story.
There are lots of people like me that would like nothing better than a well-executed RvR game.
That says it all right there. I started at the end of beta. April I still had a tiny bit of faith left... quit during their inane balancing attempts in 1.3... have fun as long as you can. In the meantime, Fallen Earth is a blast.
And to the person above saying the problem is that it's PvP... totally wrong, that's WAR's strength not its weakness. Way back when Mythic invented organized RvR with DAoC they had a really fun creative MMO--they did eventually f__k that one up too, but that's a diferent story.
There are lots of people like me that would like nothing better than a well-executed RvR game.
Yeah, I can understand that frustration. While I don't care much for open RvR and 5-15 minute scenarios are a perfect fit for me, I can understand people being disappointed by their failure in the former.
And yeah, I don't go near most MMOs until months after launch.