Fallen WoW-killer could rise from the ashes
Posted by: Snafzg
On: Jul 02, 2009 at 08:53am
Hey folks. I know I haven't been writing a lot on my personal blog lately. Sorry about that! There are only so many hours in a day and between family, work, play, and my other writing gig, it's been a bit hard to maintain things around here. I'm still searching for that happy medium.
One of the great things about working at Massively is that on top of more traditional news commentary they also want original and interesting features. Many of the best ideas I've had for big posts that could have been written on this blog have actually become posts over at Massively lately. Here's a new one I'd like to share.
http://www.massively.com/2009/07/01/what-audiences-should-mythic-have-targeted-with-warhammer-online/
The basic idea behind it is that I believe WAR really could have done well if they focused entirely on RvR. Unfortunately, putting all their eggs in the RvR basket would have never produced an MMO capable of competing with WoW no matter how good it was (by sub numbers). There simply aren't as many of those kinds of players out there. Instead, Mythic went with the wide-appeal WoW-killer model that tried to perfectly balance PvE and RvR. Unfortunately, trying to please too many people diluted the quality of their feature set because they spread themselves too thin.
I believe WAR can be salvaged in two ways:
- Continue to strive toward the perfect balance of high quality PvE and RvR content (that doesn't mean 50/50 btw). Basically, PvE shouldn't take anything away from the RvR experience and vice versa. Depending on your mood of the evening, you should be able to focus on either aspect of the game (or maybe even both) without feeling like you're missing out. This is the hardest approach
- Totally shun PvE and focus entirely on RvR (i.e., War is everywhere - design the game like a giant WoW PvP server with several refinements). This will totally limit your audience and growth potential, but it will easily make your MMO the most badass PvP/RvR option on the market. Heck, you could even go with a six-way realm WAR model.
In both cases, Mythic should reduce the overall grind so that players don't feel completely locked in to one character. Of course, bugs, performance, blah blah blah need to be fixed too.
One of the great things about working at Massively is that on top of more traditional news commentary they also want original and interesting features. Many of the best ideas I've had for big posts that could have been written on this blog have actually become posts over at Massively lately. Here's a new one I'd like to share.
http://www.massively.com/2009/07/01/what-audiences-should-mythic-have-targeted-with-warhammer-online/
The basic idea behind it is that I believe WAR really could have done well if they focused entirely on RvR. Unfortunately, putting all their eggs in the RvR basket would have never produced an MMO capable of competing with WoW no matter how good it was (by sub numbers). There simply aren't as many of those kinds of players out there. Instead, Mythic went with the wide-appeal WoW-killer model that tried to perfectly balance PvE and RvR. Unfortunately, trying to please too many people diluted the quality of their feature set because they spread themselves too thin.
I believe WAR can be salvaged in two ways:
- Continue to strive toward the perfect balance of high quality PvE and RvR content (that doesn't mean 50/50 btw). Basically, PvE shouldn't take anything away from the RvR experience and vice versa. Depending on your mood of the evening, you should be able to focus on either aspect of the game (or maybe even both) without feeling like you're missing out. This is the hardest approach
- Totally shun PvE and focus entirely on RvR (i.e., War is everywhere - design the game like a giant WoW PvP server with several refinements). This will totally limit your audience and growth potential, but it will easily make your MMO the most badass PvP/RvR option on the market. Heck, you could even go with a six-way realm WAR model.
In both cases, Mythic should reduce the overall grind so that players don't feel completely locked in to one character. Of course, bugs, performance, blah blah blah need to be fixed too.
You answered it already "This will totally limit your audience and growth potential.."..
So the question remains.. is 300k subs a success.. is it enough to pay the bills or make a more focused title with maybe less subs and point out that this is a niche product, but a high quality niche product.
In the way people complain about WAR I don't see a greater scheme how to improve the game without a total makeover... This is something that WAR could need, but would of course not be done. I don't even think that many people want to PvP or RvR in a fun way, other than defining fun by loot and (renown) points... they seek the easy way.. the zerg.. the warcamp-camping waiting for the lock of the zone (with a +renown standard *eyeroll*) .. The latter I actually see often on the server I am playing on and this makes me lose confidence in the gaming community to accept a fun game because of the actions done and not the "numbers" earned.
My disappointment about WAR is only to a small degree because of Mythic's design decision, but mostly of how the players play the game.
The whole point of the PvP is to unlock PvE content (when they finally add it). Sound familiar?
There is also no incentive/reward to defend anything, so keep trading is rampant on existing servers. Sound familiar?
And finally the PvP currency is obtainable by purely PvE means in the Abyss.
It is just perplexing while players (not you in particular) think Aion will have the PvP they want. All signs point to it being more RvE than WAR.
That said, I think a lot of WAR players will still give Aion a try (maybe 10%+). How many will stick with it? I'm not quite sure, but I think it will definitely put a dent. Heck, even Darkfall had a temporary affect on WAR when it released and we all know how good that game was/is! :P
Its really a sad truth.
One of the guildies last nite said he read on the official forums a suggestion to just remove the 'flipping' mechanism of LOTD and just make it a full open RvR/PvE zone. The only thing that changes when one side gets 'ownership' of LOTD is access to the final dungeon. Seems to make sense given how stupid ORvR is right now, as its mostly just ORvE.
Damned PvE'ers and their RvE demands.
There's a lot of mechanics in WAR that just simply require PvE to exist. Take the guards and Lords from Keeps/Forts/Cities, and you have entirely undefended objectives. There's no good way around it that would work, and that's not a mistake in my mind. A solution to this has yet to be found, therefore one does not exist. It just cannot be a mistake, merely unfortunate.
I think Nazgum had an idea that was on the right track, further splitting up the consolidation of players to create more competition on smaller scales. A breakdown of the Order and Destruction alliances leading to an all out Race vs Race war would be VERY interesting, though it would break a lot of the existing guilds into hundreds of fragments. It's very unlikely that it would happen a year into the game. Forcing players to disassociate with the groups they've spent the past year would be bad juju.
There needs to be a third faction. It needs to come with fresh faces, and a whole new angle. Mythic had thought about implementing it before, but the Dogs of War as a F2P faction would be the wild card of RvR. I did a full post about it at my blog. If subscription numbers hold steady until September, and there's no further interest in new players paying for the game, this would be a great way to get them into the RvR experience and draw them to the fully paid experience.
http://grimnir.mmofansites.com/posts/1406-let-loose-the-dogs-of-war
Creating new servers with a specific game mechanic is a poor idea too since this splits the development team into fragments.
The only way to salvage WAR is to release new content in the form of new factions. An expansion with one or even two new factions will revolutionize the game without the stigma of "starting over" or changing the game's fundamentals.