Warhammer Online to shut down

[Deleted]

A shame. A real freaking shame.
The game had potential and fell victim to "we don't care that it's not ready, we want money!"-syndrome.

The only MMO to date that, in my opinion, had the potential to overthrow the giant. But oh well, too many bad decisions ruined it.

[wombinator04]

Hell even the Warhammer forum mod hates the people who ran the game.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/Game...7346827-1.html

[Intrepid1]

I met a lot of great people in that game that I still play with in other games. It's time for it to end but it could have been so much better.

[Edge-]

Hell even the Warhammer forum mod hates the people who ran the game.

http://social.bioware.com/forum/Game...7346827-1.html

So is that mod like, an official employee? Because if they are, that's horribly unprofessional to do.

[Valeron]

So is that mod like, an official employee? Because if they are, that's horribly unprofessional to do.

He is a volunteer,

[wombinator04]

He is a volunteer,

Yup, I would've lashed out even more if I was him.

Also I'm guessing they didn't turn WAR F2P because it would cost money to do so. Which is ridiculous, but understandable.

[Edge-]

He is a volunteer,

Interesting. Curious as to how much they actually even talk with the dev team, because most volunteer mods for games like that don't really have much interaction (if any) with the actual developers.

Reminds me of the whole WarZ fiasco with the mod who made outrageous claims and then backtracked and admitted he lied about them.

Though I'm not doubting the incompetence of the Warhammer devs. Mythic is kinda a shitty developer : /

Also I'm guessing they didn't turn WAR F2P because it would cost money to do so. Which is ridiculous, but understandable.

How is it ridiculous? EA is a business, and if the costs of a business model transition outweigh the potential revenue, then they'll do the smart thing and not bother. The game needed a lot of work before they could even start with the monetization scheme for it, so it would have been very expensive as they'd also need to hire back on a proper dev team.

They did try the Wrath of Heroes F2P game, but that was equally terrible. So bad that it didn't even make it out of the beta.

[Angarin]

The game wasn't good, but the ideas were fantastic.

[Spraxle]

I own the 'collectors box' but yeah... I think I only subbed for maybe a month. I loved the beta but when it went live they had watered down a lot of the stuff that had made some of the classes fun (like the real risk in the Sorc/Fire mage). Couple that with the just absolute terrible server stability for the first few weeks and it was hard to keep playing.

[Deleted]

They pushed this out too fast at launch still full of bugs and without the content they wanted, capital city's missing, for example. EA wanted their own WoW and screwed it up by being impatient demanding a launch instead of getting it right with quality code. Warhammer remains a great table top game from the past. I hope the next time GW release anything Warhammer digital it's not a rushed out botch job so they should avoid EA.

[Flaric]

I have the inside track on a lot of problems with why this game failed - a friend of mine worked as one of the GMs for Warhammer, sat in on a lot of meetings and talked extensively with a lot of other people in the company especially in QA. I'll do a further writeup in a bit (an hour or so) when I have some time.

[vindicatorx]

Played this for the first 2 months it was out and never played it again. I just didn't feel as fondly as others did about it I guess.

[Faulted]

Even though I haven't played in quite a while, I will still miss this game. At least I still have my Collectors Edition stored away under my bed to look at from time to time.

[wombinator04]

I have the inside track on a lot of problems with why this game failed - a friend of mine worked as one of the GMs for Warhammer, sat in on a lot of meetings and talked extensively with a lot of other people in the company especially in QA. I'll do a further writeup in a bit (an hour or so) when I have some time.

Well whatever you know, most people know a lot of the reasons on why WAR failed. Game wise of course.

[SirRobin]

Well they gave WAR longer than they gave TOR. EA waited a year before starting the purge at Mythic. They didn't give BioWare six months. Not to mention that just about everyone senior at Mythic is long gone. Last time I checked, a couple of years ago, the lady in charge of the in-game help menu, during development, was running the whole studio.

EA probably left WAR running because it didn't cost much to leave the servers on. But, like with SWG, GW may feel like there are better opportunities coming so chose not to renew the license.

[Edge-]

EA probably left WAR running because it didn't cost much to leave the servers on. But, like with SWG, GW may feel like there are better opportunities coming so chose not to renew the license.

I wouldn't be surprised if EA decided not to renew the license from GW. They weren't making any money off the game and what little money it took to keep it running would better be spent elsewhere.

[wombinator04]

GW gives the Warhammer license to bad companies all the damn time, so expect them to make more bad choices.

Hell they already did. Look who they handed the 40k license to, to make an MMO. http://www.bhvr.com/en/games/

[Edge-]

GW gives the Warhammer license to bad companies all the damn time, so expect them to make more bad choices.

Hell they already did. Look who they handed the 40k license to, to make an MMO. http://www.bhvr.com/en/games/

Oh, I know. The second I saw the announcement I looked into the devs and then proceeded to slam my face through my desk.

[Telwar]

How is it ridiculous? EA is a business, and if the costs of a business model transition outweigh the potential revenue, then they'll do the smart thing and not bother. The game needed a lot of work before they could even start with the monetization scheme for it, so it would have been very expensive as they'd also need to hire back on a proper dev team.

They did try the Wrath of Heroes F2P game, but that was equally terrible. So bad that it didn't even make it out of the beta.

My understanding (possibly faulty) is that the contract with GW forbade any sort of conversion to F2P.

Now, why the contract couldn't be altered, I dunno. Obviously it'd be in GW's interests to make as much money as they could. Though probably by the time the F2P revolution started, the game was already circling the drain?

[Locruid]

On that note, Dark Age of Camelot is still alive and well. Been only 3k people playing the last 8'ish years but still going strong.

http://www.darkageofcamelot.com/