Philoscifi

Like many others, I had high hopes for Warhammer Online, but I ended up disappointed and reluctantly going back to World of Warcraft (WoW). From what I could gather, here were the 3 biggest things that contributed to its downfall. Hopefully future developers will learn and have more success.

The Elusive World PvP

*PvE = player vs. environment
*PvP = player vs. player

WoW’s PvE is great, but its PvP is rather dissatisfying. My specific problems with WoW PvP are covered in another article. The main issue here is that win or lose, nothing you did impacted the world. PvP is just a sandbox you play in on the side.

What I and others like me wanted was meaningful PvP, or so called “world PvP.” The kind that had consequences like sacking the other faction’s town and taking it over for a time. Something that motivated player to care enough to defend. After all, the key to great PvP is spirited competition.

Warhammer was supposedly designed around world PvP, and that was exciting. Top that off with an experienced development team (same guys who did Dark Age of Camelot), and you had PvP enthusiasts frothing at the mouth. Unfortunately, poor implementation and planning doomed it from the very beginning.

Too much hype

Hype can be good, but setting the bar too high means people will almost always be disappointed. Warhammer was touted as a potential WoW killer, and that was suicide. It took 6 years for WoW to grow into the multi-billion dollar, 11 million account juggernaut it is today. When it first came out in 2004, I don’t recall it immediately being hyped as the Everquest killer. Under promise, overachieve is better than the reverse.

Too ambitious

Obviously EA/Mythic was going all out for Warhammer, but it was too much in this case. There were too many servers at launch, and the game world was too big. The PvE areas were too large, and there were too many levels to grind in order to feel remotely competent for PvP. The rewards were not distributed well enough to give you a sense of progression. For a purportedly world PvP oriented game, I spent most of my time in sandbox scenarios and PvE zones, and I wandered the world without seeing a soul most of the time.

Sometimes less is more. I think Warhammer would have been better served with a few, highly populated servers to start. Smaller PvE areas, fewer levels, and fewer scenarios. Push people into the world PvP faster and reward them smartly for it. Emphasize what makes your game unique rather than try to compete with WoW’s strong suit, PvE. Focus on putting out a smaller, quality product with a promise that “more is coming” rather than a sprawling, mediocre one.

No margin for error

EA/Mythic choked by biting off more than it could chew and giving itself no time to do it in. It seems painfully obvious that Mythic was forced to rush the game out a month before the highly anticipated new WoW expansion, Wrath of the Lich King.

I really wanted Warhammer to succeed, and I tried hard to enjoy it. But ultimately, the flaws were too much. Warhammer is still around. According to Wikipedia, it had sold 1.2 million copies and had 800,000 registered users as of Sept 2008. As of Dec 2009, it had 7 servers and maybe 300,000 users. A mere shadow of a dream.

I’m sure that most of the bugs are fixed and the lag is gone by now. Class balance is probably better. Unfortunately, you rarely get a second chance to make a first impression, both in life and games.

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