Why do you think that WH Online (Mythic) didn't was successfull?

[anarchypark]

PvP games have winners and losers. making both happy is key IMO.
dead, defeat, wipe is not fun and its negative exp. is keep building up until players leave.

but losers wouldn't even notice their lost if battle was so epic/exciting.
there are many ways to reduce negative exp. fun game, rewards, tricks etc.

AoR failed to make both happy.

[Grunklestank]

Piss poor community management and absolutely incompetent (in the beginning), if not outright malicious (at the very end) developers.

Didn't realize this thread was about Uthgard 2.0

In all seriousness though, a lot of these same thoughts have run through my mind for years regarding another MMO that's already been mentioned here - Age of Conan.

I realize I'll probably be flamed a bit for saying this, but I absolutely LOVED that game... And it's a prime example of what you get when you have an amazing (PvP)MMO run by a complete sh!t company. It's so sad that something so unique and interesting (e.g. melee combat combos were AMAZINGLY fun, classes were diverse and great, lore was "cool", etc.) was released in a pretty bad state, and Funcom just continued to run it into the ground HARD...

(P.S. Can I interest you RoR devs in doing a AoC freeshard? )

[tazdingo]

stage 1 - buggy, unfinished release + overcharging fiasco

stage 2 - renown increase. for a fresh T4 player it was already barely worth showing up to fight rr80s. when it went to 100 i quit

that and the lifesteal proc on mdps defensive sets, we complain about WLs here, god damn... i once saw a WH repeatedly coming through postern during a huge keep siege just to laugh emote at the 20+ people beating on him to no avail

the balance was just all over the place and for anybody entering T4 the game was just flat unplayable. those who has already attained the highest ranks vehemently defended this state of affairs and the official forums and mythic seemed content to pander to them

[Arteker616]

stage 1 - buggy, unfinished release + overcharging fiasco

stage 2 - renown increase. for a fresh T4 player it was already barely worth showing up to fight rr80s. when it went to 100 i quit

that and the lifesteal proc on mdps defensive sets, we complain about WLs here, god damn... i once saw a WH repeatedly coming through postern during a huge keep siege just to laugh emote at the 20+ people beating on him to no avail

the balance was just all over the place and for anybody entering T4 the game was just flat unplayable. those who has already attained the highest ranks vehemently defended this state of affairs and the official forums and mythic seemed content to pander to them

Gotta admit i was a victim of t4 war aswell .

[wargrimnir]

stage 1 - buggy, unfinished release + overcharging fiasco

stage 2 - renown increase. for a fresh T4 player it was already barely worth showing up to fight rr80s. when it went to 100 i quit

that and the lifesteal proc on mdps defensive sets, we complain about WLs here, god damn... i once saw a WH repeatedly coming through postern during a huge keep siege just to laugh emote at the 20+ people beating on him to no avail

the balance was just all over the place and for anybody entering T4 the game was just flat unplayable. those who has already attained the highest ranks vehemently defended this state of affairs and the official forums and mythic seemed content to pander to them

Gotta admit i was a victim of t4 war aswell .

Same. We won't get to that level of insanity here.

[Sedok]

> Why do you think that WH Online (Mythic) didn't was successfull?

There are 3 components, but the 2 main ones are EA and Mythic.

EA back in 2008 was where developers went to die. They were (and still are really) the worst company to go to for money, as they use their leverage to force themselves into every aspect of a project. They forced Mythic to launch one of the most unfinished and broken MMORPGs ever, they continually hamstrung Mythic's attempts to fix the game by withholding both monetary and personnel resources, they poached the already thin resources Mythic had and sent them to work on other projects, they sent their "Commissars" in the form of Eugene Evans that destroyed the company's cohesion and social environment, and they started turning them into a mobile gaming studio in the last 3 years of WAR's life. Their totalitarian control over development kills games and they still haven't learned to this day (see Battlefront's development).

Mythic itself was also a big problem. Their upper management became a power struggle between MJ, Jeff, and Rob, their middle management was out of control and completely incompetent, and the grunts were of average talent at best that seemed capable of only fixing things that required numerical value changes. The personnel they had just didn't seem to work well together either, something Andy hinted during one of his interviews for Dawngate. The company as a whole seemed to be torn as to what the overall direction of WAR should have been, some opting for DAoC 2 and others for WoW with ORvR, and we ended up getting this Gordian Knot somewhere between the two.

The third thing that, while a small part overshadowed by the others, is still important: the players themselves. They approached the game with the wrong mindset. Mythic listened way to much to the player-base and never put their foot down with them. I will be the first to say that WAR's class balance was and still is fine. Yes, you heard me right, fine; its no better or worse than any other MMO. I know this because whenever you hear a reviewer on YouTube or the like talk about WAR's "infamous class imbalance" they never talk about the actual balance issues that occurred, instead choosing to rant in general over the BW, WP, or Choppa. They never talk about pre-nerf Cave-In, One Thousand And One Dark Blessings, Mountain Spirit, Ruin and Destruction, Inevitable Doom, Whispering Winds + Divine Mend (has every really forgot that Mythic launched DM without that restriction and didn't hotfix it for a week?), or Burn Away Lies.

You can still see this mindset on RoR and here its a major problem. People complain endlessly about population in T2/T3 but never go start some fights themselves, they whine about whatever class just killed them instead of asking what they can do to beat them, they bitch that PuGs are mindless zergs but never take on the mantle of leadership, they'll lament the loss of the old DAoC community but do not take the steps to rebuild it, and they demand changes from the developers to change this behavior instead of changing it themselves.

[Penril]

I will be the first to say that WAR's class balance was and still is fine. Yes, you heard me right, fine; its no better or worse than any other MMO. I

Yeah... no. BW and Sorcs were ridiculously OP at one point. I don't blame people for leaving the game after being obliterated by these idiotic classes while devs just watched and said "hurr durr balance is fine". It wasn't until devs themselves were completely stomped in a city instance that they said "uhmmm ok, maybe we have a problem here". It was too late though.

[peterthepan3]

You'll be the first and last to say WAR's class balance was fine. There was a reason certain classes NEVER got a look in in a group, while others were mandatory.

[Grunklestank]

whenever you hear a reviewer on YouTube or the like talk about WAR's "infamous class imbalance" they never talk about the actual balance issues that occurred, instead choosing to rant in general over the BW, WP, or Choppa.

Yeah... no. BW and Sorcs were ridiculously OP at one point. I don't blame people for leaving the game after being obliterated by these idiotic classes while devs just watched...

Peril you just did exactly what Sedok posited... interesting.

But more to the point, I'd like to know what exactly was different about BW/Sorc "back then." Can you tell me what made them so ridiculous? I'm not arguing that you're wrong, I'm truly asking out of ignorance. I don't think that I played Live long enough to even remember the state of balance.

[Arteker616]

I will be the first to say that WAR's class balance was and still is fine. Yes, you heard me right, fine; its no better or worse than any other MMO. I

Yeah... no. BW and Sorcs were ridiculously OP at one point. I don't blame people for leaving the game after being obliterated by these idiotic classes while devs just watched and said "hurr durr balance is fine". It wasn't until devs themselves were completely stomped in a city instance that they said "uhmmm ok, maybe we have a problem here". It was too late though.

Not just that . war undergo alot of early stupid nerfs wich angered alot of population wich had seen the nerf and balance of blizard each 3 months .
sorc main example was the direct lifetap , but im not sure who can remember wich bw actualy was the one they used to replicate icy spikes so they could run full combustion mode on . or when their snare had no cd .

Then healers . taking down a healer was so frustrating when u started at war release than it become realy troublesome for alot of players . healers in war release was like fighting a everquest paladin but worse .

in my personal experience with mmos i have tend to play classes underplayed become kinda powerfull over time and rised in popularity due to people watching a non loved class to suddenly be considered op and being subject to a serious hammered season by devs , in everquest was my paladin , from being a walking joke to see epic rants from Alex Afrasiabi aka furor when we begin to step and shine and make staples classes to not be alpha god mode ( furor warrior and his rants about paladins wich he actualy transfered to wow), and when played vanilla wow a enhacement shaman( when most people played warriors or rogues as dps ) wich i used for quite a while, and in the case of War a chosen . i saw my picked class taking more and more nerfs and i got upset , then played a choppa when they released it and it aswell got the hammer . so eventualy said **** war . and that was all for me with the game .