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Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning News - Producer's Letter Assuages WAR Fears
Posted by Michael Bitton on Nov 13, 2009 | 60 comments in our forums
Executive producer Jeff Hickman responds to the recent news of major layoffs at Mythic in a producer's letter addressed to the WAR community. Naturally many fans of the game are concerned, and Hickman writes to ease the fears centering around WAR's future due to recent developments.
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On the matter of WAR, Hickman had this to say:
-Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has had a solid first year despite some issues that we’re working to address every day. We’ve seen a great response to 1.3.2, which introduced tremendous performance improvements. A flood of new players are discovering the game every day thanks to the recently released Endless Trial and New User Journey. Moving forward we remain committed to releasing more great patches, continued performance improvements, and changes based upon your valuable feedback!
Read the full letter here.
UPDATE: WAR Producer Jeff Skalski added to Mr. Hickman's comments in a new letter published on the WAR Herald yesterday. Mr. Skalski takes some time to highlight some of WAR's more recent accomplishments such as the launch of the Mac client, the New User Journey, and the Endless Trial, while also pointing ahead to the future with an update on version 1.3.3:
1.3.3 brings with it a focus on continued polish and bug fixes, enhancements to RvR as well as other features to improve the quality and enjoyment of your experience. We’ll be sprucing up graphics with improved lighting options and bloom to make the skies pop to life and create some spectacular sights, in addition over the course of 1.3.3 you’ll get to enjoy three live events including the return of the Battlebrew Backpack in Keg End and the much beloved Night of Murder event in addition to an all new event in the new year…yarrrr. We’re anything but bored as you can see and we can’t wait to open the gates on PTS to hear your feedback. Your feedback is vital to ensuring 1.3.3 is a hit so make sure you share it!
Read Jeff Skalski's letter here.
[Thanks Comnitus!]
What was he supposed to say?
Anyone was hoping for him to say the game is on it's last breath and closing down in six months? Offcourse not, even if it is true =P
No, none of us expects the truth.
Too many of us are fine with comforting lies.
While it is good that a company/producer takes actions to calm down any possible panic, this is nothing more than some buzzwords. Passionate, commited, exciting.... Jeff should have brought something that players can look forward to instead of promising to have exiciting plans in the future.
On a sidenote, he sure does resemble another game designer.
Looks nothing like him.
I don't see the plug being pulled from Warhammer anytime soon. As long as there are subscribers the will continue to move on.
VG has a much smaller player base than WAR and SOE hasn't pulled the plug yet.
This letter is like the great halftime speech of a football game to get your guys playing better but realizing you aren't that good at the end of the game, losing 42-0.
Looks nothing like him.
I don't see the plug being pulled from Warhammer anytime soon. As long as there are subscribers the will continue to move on.
VG has a much smaller player base than WAR and SOE hasn't pulled the plug yet.
It seems you forget that SOE has many other sources or income, EQ2, EQ, Free Realms, SWG, etc
Some of them are also on the verge of closing but still, they have more titles providing income than Mythic, i mean, only Free Realms probably generates more income than all of Mythic nowadays
What does Mythic have to do with Ultima Online aside from the fact that they were both bought by EA games?
Just because MMORPG.com doesn't link something doesn't mean you don't have to take 5 seconds to look at the Herald.
*Ahem*:
Hey Fellow Waaaghers,
Just wanted to drop a few lines to follow up where our fearless leader, Mr. Hickman, left off reaffirm that our support and dedication to making WAR the best RvR experience in the market has not changed. We're just a few weeks past the launch of 1.3.2 and heavily testing 1.3.3 as we speak to get it ready for PTS.
1.3.3 brings with it a focus on continued polish and bug fixes, enhancements to RvR as well as other features to improve the quality and enjoyment of your experience. We’ll be sprucing up graphics with improved lighting options and bloom to make the skies pop to life and create some spectacular sights, in addition over the course of 1.3.3 you’ll get to enjoy three live events including the return of the Battlebrew Backpack in Keg End and the much beloved Night of Murder event in addition to an all new event in the new year…yarrrr. We’re anything but bored as you can see and we can’t wait to open the gates on PTS to hear your feedback. Your feedback is vital to ensuring 1.3.3 is a hit so make sure you share it!
Till then, we are continuing to actively monitor how the RvR campaign is playing out across the servers and making adjustments as we develop the Underdog system which we look forward to sharing the details about with you soon.
In case you haven’t heard the news we’ve now made WAR more accessible than ever! We’ve brought RvR to the Mac for the first time ever so you don’t even need Boot Camp to play (It made me a Mac user!). Additionally your friends and family can play the intense, fast paced action of Tier 1 forever with the new Endless Trial and Windows users only need a quick 1GB download to get into the action while the rest of the game downloads as you play. PQ's are full, scenarios are popping and there are plenty of players scouring the RvR lakes looking for revenge – so why are you still reading?
See you on the battlefield,
Jeff Skalski
That's certainly something we can all look forward to, right?
Edit: By the way, nice use of vocabulary in the article title, MMORPG.com. Assuage! You could've used "calms" or "alleviates", but you chose a more exotic word.
Edit 2: He doesn't look like McQuaid. He looks exactly like my Paladin from Dark Age of Camelot.
EXACTLY!
Looks nothing like him.
I don't see the plug being pulled from Warhammer anytime soon. As long as there are subscribers the will continue to move on.
VG has a much smaller player base than WAR and SOE hasn't pulled the plug yet.
How much is Sony paying for the IP rights for Vanguard? Zero, right?
How much is EA paying for the IP rights to Warhammer?
LOL no answer there at all. That guy has no clue whats going to happen.
How much is Sony paying for the IP rights for Vanguard? Zero, right?
How much is EA paying for the IP rights to Warhammer?
EA already paid for the rights. Games Workshop gets % of the revenue. EA bought the rights to the IP for x amount of years. Thats how it works.
I had never played a Mythic game before Warhammer, but I have played many other mmos and had heard mostly good things about Mythic. Mythic did a great job of promoting WAR pre-launch and they really convinved me this was going to be something special and , just as importantly, different.
When I bought the game it did not take long to see that this was just another generic fantasy mmo, and not a very good one. All those promises about how it would not be another "kill 10 of x, collect 10 of y, escort Bob nonsense" - siezmic fail.
The lessons learned here are that there is a huge market of players craving something new and different. But if you want to capture that market, slick newsletters and videos won't do it. You have to deliver the product.
Just because MMORPG.com doesn't link something doesn't mean you don't have to take 5 seconds to look at the Herald.
I was talking about the producer letter and what was lacking in the producers letter. Not some other letter, by someone else, posted somewhere else. More people are going to see the producers letter as it will be linked and reported on by many media sites, not just this one. I doubt if any will link or report on what one of jeffs underlings post.
What I could do doesn't alter what was missing in Jeffs letter.
Thing is it isn't. Unlike other mmo's you don't have to level that way you can level almost as fast doing open rvr quests, killing people, scenerio/quests, and so on. You don't have to do any of the pve quests that involve kill 10 of x and so on.
LOL
"1.3.3 brings with it a focus on continued polish and bug fixes, enhancements to RvR as well as other features to improve the quality and enjoyment of your experience."
Yet another reason why the MMO with one of the biggest budgets of all time has done so poorly. Over a year down the road and the game is still full of bugs and shows a lack of polish.
So, so, very true. It's a shockingly amateurish production for something released more than a year ago.
That is true. The options for leveling make it an excellent game for alts.
This game needs a major change, a major new element in order to have a revival.
Such as
New/expanded T4 experience
3rd Faction/new races
Cleaning up the bugs and polishing is nice, making incremental changes and adding small amounts of content is good, but that is the status quo, the bare minimum. If that continues the game will fade away and even the hardcore diehard fans of this game who stay subscribed through thick and thin (and keep this game afloat) will eventually give up and more on.
This game needs an expansion, give us the bread loaf instead of a trail of stale bread crumbs. Hopefully with the performance issues being improved and the bugs being cleared up that can pave the way for some major additions that can save this game, bring people back who gave up, bring in new people.
Im afraid that even a letter from GOD would not save this title. Be that Mork or Gork or whatever.
Polish... Thats ppl from Poland right ? At least it seems like Mythic doesn't know of any other polish stuff - Not for the past year at least.
A solid year? C'mon, man - words mean things. A game that went from 50+ NA servers down to 6 medium and low pop servers is a "solid year"? Only in the Bizarro-world of Mythic's reality, perhaps....
And a few of those last remaining servers are ghost towns. I also loved the excellent customer service comment which is blatantly untrue. One of the biggest complains with WAR was the nonexistant CSRs, plus they had no power to do anything really. This is the THIRD round of layoffs for WAR and the word is WAR will be going into "maitenance mode".
I'm sorry, I can't take anything from Mythic seriously unless it comes out of the mouth of an obnoxious British guy with WAR crap air-brushed on his pants, while he prances around like some half-assed wanna-be rockstar.
*just found this again*
"its not a computer game, it's a TOTAL HOBBY EXPERIENCE! We want you to buy this game, and never buy another one"
www.youtube.com/watch
Anyone else think they should get rid of t1-t3 zones for the DE's, Greenskins, Dwarfs and Elf's and instead focus the player leveling in the Empire/Chaos zones? Very few people level up in these zones and the content goes to waste, especially the RVR and Public Quest content which very few people do in non-Chaos/Empire zones.
After removing these zones they can work on giving reasons as to why these races have appeared in these zones. After all they already butchered Warhammer lore to begin with so why not go further and actually do so in order to enhance the player experience?? Hell they already have players starting off in these 2 zones (Empire/Chaos) to begin with anyways now. Might as well go full blast and ensure people are playing together and not further spread out and that they are not wasting content and server bandwidth keeping dead zones alive.
beta tester.. player.. officer...guild leader.. left - pitty the game I've loved and so much longed for since 2006 went to the sleazey motörbreath gutter. Which I could still conitnue bashing hippie Empire heads - went to RR 73... oh wait insatnce City in Altforf? oh nvm.. we can go past the 2nd stage - oh wait some other guys in some shitty overcroweded server did... hey..... bet your mom's ass it was bugged"
Oh wait the didin't even got the title for it?!
Oh problem was "solved"... yeah candy for your nerd leprichaun...
sorry to be harsh but I just won't buy it .. not anymore... it's actually sad.....
Ex-stupid fan-boi that's what I was.... still a fan from RPG, TT, etc.. GW never failed me at least...
Sorry double psting.. make it 3 factions
Chaos Vs Order
Neutral-> Fimirs\lizard men Vs wood elves (they don't even getalong with High elves) well something like that - upons up the IP world of Warhammer.. got better? Post it - just what I could remember..
Dieing race Femirs with Wood Elves-> Vs <-Skavens
basically 3 factions like DAoC.... it's limited but might bring something new and it's something in par with the IP
Cheers Mythic... no seriously.. . you're the men and women.. but please do something clever...
PS - ooh yeah this might be bringing some flame (thing is don't bother coz most sure thing I won't even care and come back to this "democracy" of foolishness - let us be honest with this w.g.a.f. about what we might say here? - wel about the flames, dunno about you US guys, I actually never had (actually found it to be weird) any complain about CSR - what we call another name is here for no matter and irrelevent - always got my stuff answered...
It's like being an IT proffesional.. most problems aren't drom the applications but from the users... can we deal with the uber awefull reality that we're just humans and that we suck - without being too much misanthropic?
Yes, indeed - why not ?
Nice post, might have been too hasty on my last two....
Cheers mate
(funny bit of nothingness - was actually listening to "Walk Among Us")
It is a real shame. I really wanted to see this game turn into something aside from a p2p beta that never managed to get it right. The game had so much potential.
Now, after reading the article I really want to believe this game still has a shot, unfortunately I will likely just end up throwing away more money just to play a game that had potential.
Which is all Mythic wants you to do, and the purpose of the letter to begin with. "Stay subscribed."
Lots of people played in those zones. Now Mythic has diminished that by limiting trial accounts to the one pairing.
Dwarf/Greenskin was the best of the starting areas.
The game should have started as just Empire/Chaos, but what is done is done. Concentrate polish and fixes in E/C, but leave the other pairings in. Making it a smaller game now, isn't going to attract anyone.
An alternate end game is a very good idea. City sieges still aren't working right. Time to admit it, and try something else.
Boring combat and producer that always lies, its called Epic Fail.
Looks nothing like him.
I don't see the plug being pulled from Warhammer anytime soon. As long as there are subscribers the will continue to move on.
VG has a much smaller player base than WAR and SOE hasn't pulled the plug yet.
Have you played VG lately? Huh? Well have you? ...Didn't think so ! It's prob the best game on the planet too bad SOE has not a clue of this fact!
Mythic runs UO...that's what they have to do with it...
Are you being sarcastic? Because they already did that, new players all start in the E vs C zones.
When in Galactus's earth did Mythic start running UO? Think you must be mistaken.
When in Galactus's earth did Mythic start running UO? Think you must be mistaken.
They have been running UO since EA bought them and moved the game here to Virginia.
Months, if not years, back...
http://www.mythicentertainment.com/
They run those three - try the one on the right.... there was quite a long saga about how EA wanted to drop UO, but Mark Jacobs persuaded them to let Mythic run it when they were absorbed into EA - who wanted DAOC a bit and WAR a lot.
Have you played VG lately? Huh? Well have you? ...Didn't think so ! It's prob the best game on the planet too bad SOE has not a clue of this fact!
What was the point to your post? I wasn't bashing VG.
Exactly ... I am one of the most loyal MMO players out there. Once I choose an MMO I stick with it for far longer than any of my friends. When I first started playing WAR, we went there with our entire guild of over 40 players, all ramped up and ready to make that game our new home of the next couple of years.
Last month I canceled my subscription ... there were three of us left in the guild; my brother and his wife. And they were staying only because they didn't want to give up on me.
WAR now falls into that category of "one of the greatest games that never was" for me.
No I am not and there is a difference between what I am suggesting and what they've done. All they did was shift the starting point for players to level their race in the empire/chaos zones for each side. They still have the DE, Greenskin, Elf, and Dwarf, content in the game rotting away and sucking up server space and bandwidth. Very few if any people run these zones as everyone from the beginning of the game launch always gravitated to the Empire and Chaos zones. Those zones are also further useless because you'll never see the cities for those races implemented into the game. This is a game of 2 factions but the setup for zones makes it feel like you have 6 different factions gameplay wise when you look at the zone setup.
They should go all the way and remove the zones that very few people are playing anymore to refine down the gameplay experience and rewards. This just makes it more streamline leveling wise and story wise. Its redundant to have content no one plays once they've outgrown the RVR and PVE levels for those zones currently rotting. This is especially true for open RVR content. They've also further compounded the uselessness for those zones by forcing players to start in the 2 most popular zones in the game Chaos and Empire. Again they might as well go all the way.
yay more live events, because there hasn't been enough of those.....
sigh
WTB ACTUAL content, then maybe people will come back, although if you keep shrinking the team (with mythic in charge of UO and some of the team with bioware) then... probably not.
Dead by end of next year, you betcha !
And this is why I hate reading threads that have ANYTHING to do with WAR, because it's mostly made up of people who played when the game first came out, were disgusted by it, canceled their subscription, and want to preach to everyone else how the game didn't satisfy them.
I didn't play WAR when it fist came out, and from how bad everyone made it sound I'm glad I didn't. I became a subscriber in August of this year and have been thrilled with the game. Classes are somewhat balanced now, instead of a Bright Wizard being able to kill off an entire Warband, and Choppa's can't spam AoE anymore. I've played for both teams too on what is now one of the highest populated server, Iron Rock, and no one faction dominates any tier.
I agree that Mythic made some fatal mistakes at launch that put WAR on life-support (100 servers in NA alone is a prime example) but just in the time I've played I have noticed drastic improvements. Not all of their promises are empty when new patches are released and you have to acknowledge the fact that with such a low budget now with such a smaller playerbase, they can't do everything warp speed.
I have noticed a lot of new players in T1 thanks to the New (User) Journey and 1.3.2. Hopefully these people actually subscribe and realize it is still a diamond in the rough. While it will never live up to the hype that was created for it, it can still be a damn good game.
Bottom line, like DAoC and UO, WAR is a niche MMO that won't satisfy everybody. It's impossible to satisfy everybody.
i went back for thier 10 day welcome back offer . i always did enjoy the scenarios in this game and had great fun with my squig herder . unfortunatly they d deleted him which put me off for a start so i was left with my t4 runepriest . which i did nt mind too much i did manage after quite a wait each time to get into a few scenarios . but roaming around the game world was quite a lonely experiance . i always felt warhammer had great potential but sadly these days it lacks one vital element . enough people to make it work .
Looking back, it's actually kind of funny the way this guy hypes up what turned out to be a pretty bad game. What's even more funny is how we (myself included) fell for it all. All the podcasts, the overly excited speeches, the sunglasses. We fell for all of it...hook, line and sinker.
As a side note, here is kind of an interesting take of that video with a bit of Star Trek thrown in. Note the brainwashing theme.
www.youtube.com/watch
I see two options.
1) combine all NA servers into one, so it's packed with action all the time
Or
2) Tabula Rasa the game.
Exactly ... I am one of the most loyal MMO players out there. Once I choose an MMO I stick with it for far longer than any of my friends. When I first started playing WAR, we went there with our entire guild of over 40 players, all ramped up and ready to make that game our new home of the next couple of years.
Last month I canceled my subscription ... there were three of us left in the guild; my brother and his wife. And they were staying only because they didn't want to give up on me.
WAR now falls into that category of "one of the greatest games that never was" for me.
Took the words right out of my mouth, for the most part.
I was part of a group of more than 10 RL friends that always played together and I was the last to leave, finally canceling my sub a couple of months ago as enjoying this game was no longer feasible, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself.
When the loyal, die-hards are heading for the exit...
I really feel bad for those that have lost their jobs and pray that they land on their feet and find other work soon. But, they can blame the pig-headed stubbornness of the ego-maniacs over at Mythic. Like a stubborn, spoiled brat that refuses to listen to it's mother and/or father until it's too late; it wasn't until just recently that they started paying attention to their customer base. Meanwhile, we had been shouting for months about what needed to happen to retain us as players, while they went ahead with their own agenda.
It's ironic that I just happened to be reading an article in this month's Maximum PC in which Norman Chan interviews Craig Zinkievich, the executive producer at Cryptic Studios, about Star Trek. Norman Chan asked an excellent question that very much pertains to this very thing:
MPC: How do you determine the long-term plans for an MMO, given the uncertainty of success?
CZ: We don't have life spans on our games, and we go into the first year with an expansion and update plan. That being said, though, from our experience, the longer you plan ahead, the more likely the plan is useless, because the subscribers will tell you what they like and dislike, and what they want to see more of. So, even though we put a plan out there, we have to be flexible and listen to our captive audience. Which is kind of the cool part about making MMOs. [Once it's released] it's not just us making the game -- everyone contributes.
Would someone please relay this message to those over at Mythic, as I believe they missed the memo!
The opposing of this very thing is why Warhammer has failed up until this point and until those over at Mythic get off their high-horse and realize this one ideal, this game is hopeless and unfortunately, it may already be too late.
I actually think Mythic did a good job at listening to what players said what players were asking for. You can see them trying to address those issues in patch notes or making mention of them in producers letters, etc.
The problem seems to be their inability to resolve the problems. Seeing how the team has been through several rounds of layoffs, I don't see how that will improve in the upcoming year. Especially when they should be talking about the first expansions right now and not struggling with launch problems.
Yeah, now they are listening! It only took the majority of their population leaving, for them to do so! If I can recall, it wasn't until Jeff Skalski's first letter that they stated that they would do so.
It's like your ex promising to change only after you've dumped her, even though you were telling her months before hand that you were unhappy with the relationship in it's current state.
You'd start to listen too if you lost the majority of your customer base and your game was a ghost town that just forced layoffs of almost half of your staff, regardless of how stubborn you were.
I had been preaching to them (along with others) to strive for better communication and be more open with their player base, since soon after the game's release. Anyone that played the game and/or frequented the forums could see this coming for months now. For months, they just wouldn't listen or acknowledge us as a community and the major contributing factor for this game's success. Sure, you occasionally got a response from a forum moderator, but it was rarely an answer or solution to the problems we were concerned about.
Furthermore, the grab bag's were a joke for awhile, up until recently. They were a bunch of softball questions regarding the game, that you almost felt were being asked by nonexistent players and were completely out of touch. They were far from the real questions that the community was pleading for answers on.
I'm not sure how much response you expect from an official game forum, especially one under siege by the players. The forums mods can't run back and forth all day between developers getting answers for the players for every post made. Keep in mind mythic didn't intend to have forums and created them in response to players wishes. A) listen to players and create forums B) do a poor job of resolving the forum issue. The forums are STILL listed as beta testing if that tells you anything.
I still believe Mythic was very active in listening to players and creating plans of action based on that feedback, even if they didn't respond to every thread. What they could not manage to do was achieve those goals. Not for lack of trying, but for lack of talent.
It isn't as if Mythic was not aware of the massive population decline from the first month of releas and only noticed it now. The problem is the first year of the game basically resolved none of the games major issues. In some cases they made it worse.
Still not excited enough to come back
C'mon! No offense, but it's fairly obvious that you weren't paying attention for the many months leading up to this. It was far from a post here or there, nor was there hundreds of posts asking hundreds of different questions. It was the same 3-4 questions over and over, along with threads filled with players teaming up to get answers to those same 3-4 questions.
One big one that is quite simple to answer was, "hey, I'm on a dead server with nothing happening. When can I expect a server transfer so I can actually enjoy the game (as was intended), that I'm paying $14.99 a month for?" Even if Mythic was unsure as to the direction they wanted to take in regards to server merges, COME OUT AND SAY IT! Instead what we got was *sound of crickets chirping.
Not sure about you, but logging in repeatedly night after night to a ghost town, not being able to do any SCs, PQs, or keep sieges, and being left with nothing put PVE in a PvP centric game, is not something most people will continue to tolerate especially when they are paying for it.
That is exactly what drove every one of my friends away! Most of them enjoyed the game and would have stayed if Mythic even acknowledged that they cared. I know that my friends were not alone in that feeling. I unfortunately stuck around as I really love the IP. But to say that Mythic treated their customer base wrongly for the majority of Mark Jacob's tenure would be a complete understatement and I wouldn't be surprised if that were one of the reasons they decided to go in a different direction. Jeff Hickman takes over and suddenly there is this whole new, completely different way of dealing with the community. Coincidence, I think not!
C'mon! No offense, but it's fairly obvious that you weren't paying attention for the many months leading up to this. It was far from a post here or there, nor was there hundreds of posts asking hundreds of different questions. It was the same 3-4 questions over and over, along with threads filled with players teaming up to get answers to those same 3-4 questions.
One big one that is quite simple to answer was, "hey, I'm on a dead server with nothing happening. When can I expect a server transfer so I can actually enjoy the game (as was intended), that I'm paying $14.99 a month for?" Even if Mythic was unsure as to the direction they wanted to take in regards to server merges, COME OUT AND SAY IT! Instead what we got was *sound of crickets chirping.
Not sure about you, but logging in repeatedly night after night to a ghost town, not being able to do any SCs, PQs, or keep sieges, and being left with nothing put PVE in a PvP centric game, is not something most people will continue to tolerate especially when they are paying for it.
That is exactly what drove every one of my friends away! Most of them enjoyed the game and would have stayed if Mythic even acknowledged that they cared. I know that my friends were not alone in that feeling. I unfortunately stuck around as I really love the IP. But to say that Mythic treated their customer base wrongly for the majority of Mark Jacob's tenure would be a complete understatement and I wouldn't be surprised if that were one of the reasons they decided to go in a different direction. Jeff Hickman takes over and suddenly there is this whole new, completely different way of dealing with the community. Coincidence, I think not!
Oh, and I probably should have mentioned that a lot of these players questions and concerns took place in The Developer Roundtable forum, which by Mythic's own definition is:
"Join in on regular discussions direct with developers. Share your insight and suggestions to help make WAR an even better world!"
If you read many of those threads, you can clearly see where major questions or concerns are avoided while there is adequate effort on Mr. Jacobs part to answer the questions or concerns that fit his agenda.
amen this was more "look at all we've done so far"
fans: "what about the future of the game? Is it closing?"
Blinks, vacaent stare "look at all we've done so far"
Oh, and I probably should have mentioned that a lot of these players questions and concerns took place in The Developer Roundtable forum, which by Mythic's own definition is:
"Join in on regular discussions direct with developers. Share your insight and suggestions to help make WAR an even better world!"
If you read many of those threads, you can clearly see where major questions or concerns are avoided while there is adequate effort on Mr. Jacobs part to answer the questions or concerns that fit his agenda.
I think you are misunderstanding a few things.
I am not saying Mythic was awesome with feedback. If you felt they were not I will not argue it.
However we can see that Mythic was indeed reacting to what players were asking for, even if they did not constantly post about it. If people keep asking the same 3-4 questions over and over, then they need to use the search function to see if those questions have been answered. It is not the forum mods job to repeatedly answer questions IF they were already answered. From what I saw, Mythic addressed most concerns in their producer letters and patch notes. It really seems that they did not want to use the forums (again a case of addressing player concerns, but failing in execution)
As for you example of people asking for server mergers and trying to conclude that mythic didn't listen, you could not have chosen a worse example to support your theory. I actually lost count at the number of server mergers/transfers that mythic offered. There were at least 7 separate instances of servers moves and numerous others with server closures. No other game in mmo history has been this responsive with server mergers. Honestly I don't think any new game launches with tools built to handle server closures and mythic had them up a running in a few months. That is FAST, even if it was to late to resolve the problem and their solution only shattered the communities that had built up.
So maybe mythic did not run around and answer every thread to give an exact timeline, but they did address the issue, over and over again. Players asked, mythic answered to the best of their ability.
I still support my claim that mythic was listening to players and trying to address those concerns, but they lacked the ability to resolve those issues. You may be right that mythic doesn't have great communication and feedback, but they certainly understood what players were complaining about. You can see almost every issue being addressed all year long. Not resolved, but addressed.
They made a lot of server merges, but they waited something like 4-6 months before doing the first one. That was the problem - along with poor control over where the players went. Population imbalance was a major issue in players leaving the game, and the mergers sometimes caused new imbalances.
They NEVER put in a balanced login cap which would have fixed population imbalance. That was one of their biggest failings.
They never really fixed the keep-trading fiasco, either. Just more reward systems, rather than rewarding the realms for OWNING the keeps (which would have made tradign them pointless).
Thank you! Apparently you and I were playing the same game as I'm not quite sure what game Daffid011, is referring to?
Players: "When can we see an answer to crowd control abilities?"
Mythic: "In the next patch, but never mind that instead feast your eyes on this!"
Next patch comes out.
Players: "We still don't see an answer for CC. When can we expect this to be addressed?"
Mythic: "In the next patch, but never mind that instead feast your eyes on this!"
You can replace the question above with server merges, server issues (lag), and especially class balancing!
No offense Daffid011, but there were hundreds, if not thousands of players that left because those issues went unanswered for too long.
Oh, and I probably should have mentioned that a lot of these players questions and concerns took place in The Developer Roundtable forum, which by Mythic's own definition is:
"Join in on regular discussions direct with developers. Share your insight and suggestions to help make WAR an even better world!"
If you read many of those threads, you can clearly see where major questions or concerns are avoided while there is adequate effort on Mr. Jacobs part to answer the questions or concerns that fit his agenda.
I think you are misunderstanding a few things.
I am not saying Mythic was awesome with feedback. If you felt they were not I will not argue it.
However we can see that Mythic was indeed reacting to what players were asking for, even if they did not constantly post about it. If people keep asking the same 3-4 questions over and over, then they need to use the search function to see if those questions have been answered. It is not the forum mods job to repeatedly answer questions IF they were already answered. From what I saw, Mythic addressed most concerns in their producer letters and patch notes. It really seems that they did not want to use the forums (again a case of addressing player concerns, but failing in execution)
As for you example of people asking for server mergers and trying to conclude that mythic didn't listen, you could not have chosen a worse example to support your theory. I actually lost count at the number of server mergers/transfers that mythic offered. There were at least 7 separate instances of servers moves and numerous others with server closures. No other game in mmo history has been this responsive with server mergers. Honestly I don't think any new game launches with tools built to handle server closures and mythic had them up a running in a few months. That is FAST, even if it was to late to resolve the problem and their solution only shattered the communities that had built up.
So maybe mythic did not run around and answer every thread to give an exact timeline, but they did address the issue, over and over again. Players asked, mythic answered to the best of their ability.
I still support my claim that mythic was listening to players and trying to address those concerns, but they lacked the ability to resolve those issues. You may be right that mythic doesn't have great communication and feedback, but they certainly understood what players were complaining about. You can see almost every issue being addressed all year long. Not resolved, but addressed.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. These were issues being repeated by the majority of players within a forum that was devoted to PLAYER FEEDBACK! The forum's title is DEVELOPER ROUND TABLE!
Once again, no offense, but It is quite apparent to me that you're either new to WAR or were in a coma or living under a rock for the majority of WAR's first year.
I think you are misunderstanding a few things.
I am not saying Mythic was awesome with feedback. If you felt they were not I will not argue it.
However we can see that Mythic was indeed reacting to what players were asking for, even if they did not constantly post about it. If people keep asking the same 3-4 questions over and over, then they need to use the search function to see if those questions have been answered. It is not the forum mods job to repeatedly answer questions IF they were already answered. From what I saw, Mythic addressed most concerns in their producer letters and patch notes. It really seems that they did not want to use the forums (again a case of addressing player concerns, but failing in execution)
As for you example of people asking for server mergers and trying to conclude that mythic didn't listen, you could not have chosen a worse example to support your theory. I actually lost count at the number of server mergers/transfers that mythic offered. There were at least 7 separate instances of servers moves and numerous others with server closures. No other game in mmo history has been this responsive with server mergers. Honestly I don't think any new game launches with tools built to handle server closures and mythic had them up a running in a few months. That is FAST, even if it was to late to resolve the problem and their solution only shattered the communities that had built up.
So maybe mythic did not run around and answer every thread to give an exact timeline, but they did address the issue, over and over again. Players asked, mythic answered to the best of their ability.
I still support my claim that mythic was listening to players and trying to address those concerns, but they lacked the ability to resolve those issues. You may be right that mythic doesn't have great communication and feedback, but they certainly understood what players were complaining about. You can see almost every issue being addressed all year long. Not resolved, but addressed.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough. These were issues being repeated by the majority of players within a forum that was devoted to PLAYER FEEDBACK! The forum's title is DEVELOPER ROUND TABLE!
Once again, no offense, but It is quite apparent to me that you're either new to WAR or were in a coma or living under a rock for the majority of WAR's first year.
That's why I said over a year ago that "This Game Failed, Fire Mark Jacobs". If they had taken my advice then, maybe this game could have been saved www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/206502
Thank you! Apparently you and I were playing the same game as I'm not quite sure what game Daffid011, is referring to?
Players: "When can we see an answer to crowd control abilities?"
Mythic: "In the next patch, but never mind that instead feast your eyes on this!"
Next patch comes out.
Players: "We still don't see an answer for CC. When can we expect this to be addressed?"
Mythic: "In the next patch, but never mind that instead feast your eyes on this!"
You can replace the question above with server merges, server issues (lag), and especially class balancing!
No offense Daffid011, but there were hundreds, if not thousands of players that left because those issues went unanswered for too long.
Ok let me try this again.
First lets understand that there is a difference between mythic giving players feedback on forums and mythic actually understanding the problems of the game. I am not disputing that mythic may not have communicated with players well. Maybe they did and maybe didn't. I have read mythic specifically addressing many complaints that have been seen over and over again on the forums through their producers letters and patch notes. Maybe many players did not see those on the herald. I have never liked their method of giving out information on warhammer.
Second, lets understand that there is a difference between mythic TRYING to fix something and mythic ACTUALLY fixing something. I am saying mythic has repeatedly tried to fix issues that players were complaining about. I am NOT saying they actually did fix anything. In fact that is the biggest point I am trying to make: that mythic did understand the problems of the game, tried to address them, but failed at doing so.
I think this is where our major disconnect is happening. You keep coming back to mythic not fixing things, but that is not what I am saying they did. In your latest example you cite mythic "never" addressing crowd control issues (or class balance, server populations, etc) and thousands of players leaving because those issues were went unanswered, as you state it.
Now go look through that patch notes and you are going to see some MASSIVE attempts by mythic to balance classes, close to 10 server moves, etc to address these problems? Mythic has given answers, but people left due to those answered not fixing the problems. Here is a patch from nov/dec with some pretty big class balancing Patch1.0.5 Patch1.0.6 I'm not saying it fixed the problems, but you can clearly see mythic knows there are problems and are trying.
Does that clear up what I am saying?
MMOdoubter
Mythic was offering server moves in October. It was their first ATTEMPT at server problems LINK The game released in September and by October they were already working on a transfer system. By November they were offering full blown server moves. LINK Now 2 months after release seems like someone at Mythic was well aware of the problem and TRYING to fix it. Not quite the 4-6 months you remember is it?
They also offered realm XP bonuses to try to balance the realm sides. Another example of mythic trying to address an issue that players were complaining about, but a failed attempt at how to fix it.
Furthermore, warhammer was already CLOSING 60+ servers at the 6 month mark, which was well after they implemented the character server moves to try to address population problems. LINK
I fully agree that those character moves did not help the stability of the game and IMHO created as many problems as it solved. As I have been saying, mythic identified the problem, tried to fix it, but failed (and sometimes made things worse).
In the end I stand by my opinion that Mythic was well aware of the games problems, tried to fix many of them, but they lacked the whatever to get the job done right. I say whatever, because I don't really know exactly what mythic lacked.
Ok let me try this again.
First lets understand that there is a difference between mythic giving players feedback on forums and mythic actually understanding the problems of the game. I am not disputing that mythic may not have communicated with players well. Maybe they did and maybe didn't. I have read mythic specifically addressing many complaints that have been seen over and over again on the forums through their producers letters and patch notes. Maybe many players did not see those on the herald. I have never liked their method of giving out information on warhammer.
Second, lets understand that there is a difference between mythic TRYING to fix something and mythic ACTUALLY fixing something. I am saying mythic has repeatedly tried to fix issues that players were complaining about. I am NOT saying they actually did fix anything. In fact that is the biggest point I am trying to make: that mythic did understand the problems of the game, tried to address them, but failed at doing so.
I think this is where our major disconnect is happening. You keep coming back to mythic not fixing things, but that is not what I am saying they did. In your latest example you cite mythic "never" addressing crowd control issues (or class balance, server populations, etc) and thousands of players leaving because those issues were went unanswered, as you state it.
Now go look through that patch notes and you are going to see some MASSIVE attempts by mythic to balance classes, close to 10 server moves, etc to address these problems? Mythic has given answers, but people left due to those answered not fixing the problems. Here is a patch from nov/dec with some pretty big class balancing Patch1.0.5 Patch1.0.6 I'm not saying it fixed the problems, but you can clearly see mythic knows there are problems and are trying.
Does that clear up what I am saying?
MMOdoubter
Mythic was offering server moves in October. It was their first ATTEMPT at server problems LINK The game released in September and by October they were already working on a transfer system. By November they were offering full blown server moves. LINK Now 2 months after release seems like someone at Mythic was well aware of the problem and TRYING to fix it. Not quite the 4-6 months you remember is it?
They also offered realm XP bonuses to try to balance the realm sides. Another example of mythic trying to address an issue that players were complaining about, but a failed attempt at how to fix it.
Furthermore, warhammer was already CLOSING 60+ servers at the 6 month mark, which was well after they implemented the character server moves to try to address population problems. LINK
I fully agree that those character moves did not help the stability of the game and IMHO created as many problems as it solved. As I have been saying, mythic identified the problem, tried to fix it, but failed (and sometimes made things worse).
In the end I stand by my opinion that Mythic was well aware of the games problems, tried to fix many of them, but they lacked the whatever to get the job done right. I say whatever, because I don't really know exactly what mythic lacked.
Its simple, really. Mythic lacked the leadership to get the job done right the first time and lacked the leadership to fix the problems that arose from not getting the job done right in the first place.
I could not agree more. Silently I still hope that warhammer somehow has a turn around, but I have to be honest with myself about that being a near impossibility.
Just because MMORPG.com doesn't link something doesn't mean you don't have to take 5 seconds to look at the Herald.
*Ahem*:
Hey Fellow Waaaghers,
Just wanted to drop a few lines to follow up where our fearless leader, Mr. Hickman, left off reaffirm that our support and dedication to making WAR the best RvR experience in the market has not changed. We're just a few weeks past the launch of 1.3.2 and heavily testing 1.3.3 as we speak to get it ready for PTS.
1.3.3 brings with it a focus on continued polish and bug fixes, enhancements to RvR as well as other features to improve the quality and enjoyment of your experience. We’ll be sprucing up graphics with improved lighting options and bloom to make the skies pop to life and create some spectacular sights, in addition over the course of 1.3.3 you’ll get to enjoy three live events including the return of the Battlebrew Backpack in Keg End and the much beloved Night of Murder event in addition to an all new event in the new year…yarrrr. We’re anything but bored as you can see and we can’t wait to open the gates on PTS to hear your feedback. Your feedback is vital to ensuring 1.3.3 is a hit so make sure you share it!
Till then, we are continuing to actively monitor how the RvR campaign is playing out across the servers and making adjustments as we develop the Underdog system which we look forward to sharing the details about with you soon.
In case you haven’t heard the news we’ve now made WAR more accessible than ever! We’ve brought RvR to the Mac for the first time ever so you don’t even need Boot Camp to play (It made me a Mac user!). Additionally your friends and family can play the intense, fast paced action of Tier 1 forever with the new Endless Trial and Windows users only need a quick 1GB download to get into the action while the rest of the game downloads as you play. PQ's are full, scenarios are popping and there are plenty of players scouring the RvR lakes looking for revenge – so why are you still reading?
See you on the battlefield,
Jeff Skalski
That's certainly something we can all look forward to, right?
Edit: By the way, nice use of vocabulary in the article title, MMORPG.com. Assuage! You could've used "calms" or "alleviates", but you chose a more exotic word.
Edit 2: He doesn't look like McQuaid. He looks exactly like my Paladin from Dark Age of Camelot.
EXACTLY!
Assuage is the right word.
You can't calm or alleviate fears.
You can only calm people and alleviate problems.
You assuage fears or doubts. :)