WAR in trouble???

[jschild]

I knew WAR's sales were dropping off fast, down to 8th in about a month of sales or so. But this looks really bad.

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/42854/Surviving-Warhammer-Online

Wow; Our entire guild has had to transfer from our original Warhammer Online server just to surivive... Barren populations? Check. Zero rvr combat? Affirmative. What does Mythic have to do to keep us here?
You tell me... I think that we are done.

[TPMdm]

Over promise -> unfulfilled expectations in your customers

I have a new immutable law of the Universe: Any game claiming to be the WoW killer, won't

That means blizzard only has to avoid calling WoW 2.0 a WoW 1.0 killer :)


P.S.
I do realize WoW is technically already at 3.0 bu y'all know what I mean.

[jschild]

Hear, Hear....

I hearby second TPMdm's Law.

[Cyberelf]

I have said this many time to many people:

Look at the recommended requirements to play WH. Its insane. I have a comp that meets that but you average player doesn't.

If they don't the game runs slow and the visuals are not very good.

WH gets what they deserve. You CANNOT try and sell a game to the masses when only a "few" can afford to play it.

[Elvyra]

Over promise -> unfulfilled expectations in your customers

I have a new immutable law of the Universe: Any game claiming to be the WoW killer, won't

That means blizzard only has to avoid calling WoW 2.0 a WoW 1.0 killer :)

Except that WAR didn't claim to be a WoW killer, the media did....

Elvyra
www.wanderinggoblin.com

[BlackLeaf]

I'd like to point out a some things here:

1. This time of the year is when many folks start to become very busy. Not just with video games, but with other activities that are coming up (i.e. Thanksgiving, Christmas/Hanukkah/etc, New Year's, and even Birthdays). Personally I have to buy Christmas Presents for my mom, my dad, my sister-in-law, and each grandmom. In addition to that I have to buy a birthday present for my mom's birthday in January. I'm sure this list is actually quite low compared to many people who have to shop for family members.

2. Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2 are just two examples of PC games that have recently come out and have been highly anticipated. A lot of folks are playing other titles like these at the moment. I've been playing Fallout 3 a lot myself. I haven't given up on WAR, I'm just taking a break from multiplayer gaming entirely right now, and enjoying some good single player gameplay.

3. WAR is about 1.5 months old right now. I don't think it's fair to link what amounts to a blog post of one person's guild having to transfer servers. Not to mention I don't see the person stating how big their guild was, so for all I know, the person is in a guild with 5 or so of their best friends. Besides that its no secret amongst WAR's playerbase that Mythic has acknowledged there are too many low pop servers and are offering free transfers off them to larger servers as they consolidate the playerbase. Yes I realize that's really just a PR way of saying "server merge", but before all of the WoW fans jump for joy at WoW "killing" another MMO (and I have no idea why they would as competition is a good thing), or proclaiming that doing server merges this early is a sign of death, let's see where WAR is in 6 months since at least then it will have been able to settle in a little bit. If WAR is holding steady, I would hardly consider that a failure. If it loses more players, then so be it.

5. Regarding the server situation, Mythic was in a catch 22. When it launched there were of course a select number of servers that became full leading to long queues. Many folks did not want to switch to a different server since it meant losing the progress they had made on their characters. Mythic could've either let it go or made more servers. Instead they tried to tread the middle line and cloned some of the full servers to try to help alleviate the queues, let players keep their progress, and provide more options for the player population that was starting out. Either way though, Mythic was in the "Damned if I do, damned if I don't" situation. I certainly wouldn't want to be in that situation since it's incredibly difficult to estimate how many players you'll get to stay vs. leave in that first month. In hindsight, perhaps they should've just held off on other servers and cloned as necessary, but then again, hindsight is always 20/20 right? Either way the good news is that they're trying to help players get the best bang for their buck, and they're not even charging them an extra cent. AoC on the other hand took longer than it should have before they decided that they needed to merge server populations to keep their subscribers on board.

6. The comment about system reqs in this thread makes no sense to me. If you compare the recommended system reqs for WAR to AoC you'll see that WAR is far below AoC, and I recall many people blaming part of AoC's lack of mass market appeal on being its high system reqs. Compare the recomended reqs to Left4Dead just for sake of an upcoming game example, and they're almost equal, with WAR squeaking out a little bit on a lower processor requirement. Valve typically makes sure their PC games can run on as many configurations as possible (similar to Blizzard), so if Left4Dead and WAR are nearly equal in that regard, I'm not seeing where WAR's system reqs are too high.

7. Even though WAR may appear to be struggling right now, I feel it's doing rather well considering all the other factors out there including points 1 and 2, as well as the bad state of the global economy. WAR is a niche game and to be honest, I kind of like it that way. Sometimes it's nice to have quality over quantity. While I feel Mythic could've waited on WAR's launch until 2009, what's done is done, and like I said before I find they're doing a nice job of continuing to make their game as good as they possibly can.

[elyxthaxzus]

Actually, if you read further on down, its doesn't seem like a death knell altogether. peeps are still playing WAR, as peeps are stil playing AoC and Evercrack 2, etc.

I don't think its fair to compare WoW to other games...its like comparing PC's to consoles...though they seem to fit in the same category, their different beasts. WoW is a game that appeals to the masses much like console games...there are still die hard PC fans out there, but the console industry has just grown huge, and attracted many folks that wouldn't otherwise play PC games ( and i think it actually brought a few of them over to PCs), but its a different category.

WoW, imo, is much the same. war will always appeal to the same small group of people who loved and stuck with evercrack, DAoC, and many of the other pioneering MMORPGs. WoW pulls allot of those people in, as well as a much broader populace.

I think WAR's issue, as many have said, was expectations. i personally have tried WAR, AoC, both for a few months, and neither had the same pull that WoW did. WoW brought you in and kept the attraction strong, where with most the other the attraction is strong at first, but eventually fades. I believe that has always been a strength of Blizz, and not really game or genre specific. so i would put the hat in Blizz's favor, rather then WoW.

I think WAR, just like AoC, will always be around, but you have ot compare them to previous MMORPG's. They fill a niche market extremely well, and have a following as a result. WoW is a mass market approach, and should be considered in a seperate category.

[TPMdm]

Several Good points in this thread. It was pointed out that WAR didn't itself claim to be a WoW killer. You could conservatively say their marketing has been aggressively "anti-WoW".

As to blackleaf's list...
1. WoW is operating under this same "time of year" and it's population is growing.
2. Again WoW is competing against those same FPS games.
3. Good point about it being one guild's experience, but who cares if it's 1.5 months old? If your subscriber base is declining at such a young age, it's starting to feel like Galaxies.
4. ???? you skipped number 4
5. Server capacity is always a thorny issue I agree.
6. The comment about system req's is that a 4 year old computer can run WoW (many kids in households use the parent's hand me downs). That same computer would deliver a very frustrating WAR and AoC experience. It's the reason why WoW has 11million subscribers and everybody else has far less. Most are sub 1 million IIRC.
7. Again I agree niche games can be fun and successful in their own right but that isn't what WAR claimed to be. There's enough discretionary money to support many players in the MMO world.

[BlackLeaf]

Several Good points in this thread. It was pointed out that WAR didn't itself claim to be a WoW killer. You could conservatively say their marketing has been aggressively "anti-WoW".

As to blackleaf's list...
1. WoW is operating under this same "time of year" and it's population is growing.
2. Again WoW is competing against those same FPS games.
3. Good point about it being one guild's experience, but who cares if it's 1.5 months old? If your subscriber base is declining at such a young age, it's starting to feel like Galaxies.
4. ???? you skipped number 4
5. Server capacity is always a thorny issue I agree.
6. The comment about system req's is that a 4 year old computer can run WoW (many kids in households use the parent's hand me downs). That same computer would deliver a very frustrating WAR and AoC experience. It's the reason why WoW has 11million subscribers and everybody else has far less. Most are sub 1 million IIRC.
7. Again I agree niche games can be fun and successful in their own right but that isn't what WAR claimed to be. There's enough discretionary money to support many players in the MMO world.

1. WoW has an expansion coming out, and with its previously established playerbase (active and inactive), a lot of the inactive players are resubbing to see what it's like. What will really be telling is how many of those resubs stick through the expansion about 6 months down the line, or the next quarterly report whichever comes first. If they still have the majority of those players, then that will be seen as a good growth for WoW.

2. WoW is viewed as a "safe" gamer investment. I read the other day because of the economy how it, Guitar Hero, Gears of War 2 and their ilk will fare better this holiday season because of how they're well known and established amongst regular gamers. WAR is a newcomer and thus many are more cautious about trying it. I know of folks who are also waiting to see how WAR shapes up after a few months since they were burned on AoC. Plus with the sheer number of titles being released many gamers, myself included, are making a "must have" list and then a "look into them later" list. I just happened to pick up WAR right away whereas others may be waiting to see what happens with the game.

3. Until the next quarterly report comes out, there is no hard data that WAR's playerbase is on a steady decline. It's kind of like how economists will sometimes have difficulty agreeing on when an economy is going into (or already in) a recession. They have to look at several months to see what the patterns are, and try to discern from that if there is a steady increase or decline in the overall picture. For all we know, WAR has hit a rough bump in the road. Maybe it'll survive this bump and keep on trucking, maybe not.

4. Yep, skipped accidentally. Kept renumbering my original list and lost count.:confused1:

6. My point was that the system reqs are a lot more accessible than Cyberelf made them out to be with my latter comparison against Left4Dead and how Valve will use surveys over Steam to gauge how far they can realistically go with their system reqs without keeping potential players out of the game. Plus if it means that I don't have a bunch of snotty people in WAR like there are in WoW (present company excluded of course!:heart:) , then I don't actually mind that as much as those people are among one of the many reasons I've decided to pass on WotLK. I found the same thing to be true amongst people who played EQ2 where they enjoyed playing with others in that game more because it wasn't full of people who gave the impression that they were just hitting their teenage years in mentality. It's the whole quality over quantity thing again for me at least.

7. All I know is that Mark Jacobs (Mythic CEO) stated that he never intended for WAR to be a WoW killer. He stated that he was interested in making a #2 alternative for players who prefer PvP competition. Regarding PvP they've succeeded in what they've built so far. If they can maintain and improve this, then they'll succeed at providing that viable alternative that Mark hopes for. At the very least let's hope it doesn't tank like AoC as that game really hurt the market overall by making investors less likely to invest in future developments.

BTW, I don't mean to give the impression that I don't like WoW anymore. I really loved it when I played for the past 4 years. However, I don't have as much fun playing it anymore, and the fact that I became bored of playing it after 2 months even though I had taken a 6 month break, told me that it was time to move on after I met my goal of finishing my FSW and Merciless Gladiator Staff gear rewards before Wrath came out. I compare it a lot to Diablo II, another game I played for 3 or so years. I loved my time in it, but there came a time when I felt I had accomplished all that I had set out to see and felt it best to set the game down and seek other gaming pastures.

[clevins]

I'm not going to do a point by point, but WAR was HIGHLY anticipated by players as well as media. You should see an inrush of people at launch, a fall off from there as some people try it and don't like it, and then increasing numbers. WE might just be seeing that initial dropoff and the next few months will start seeing increases... or not.

I'm somewhat amazed that there's no free trial. I certainly wouldn't try WAR without one unless a lot of my WoW friends were raving about it. But let me download a 10 day trial and see if I like it? Yeah, I'm down with that.

[WatcherZero]

I'm not going to do a point by point, but WAR was HIGHLY anticipated by players as well as media. You should see an inrush of people at launch, a fall off from there as some people try it and don't like it, and then increasing numbers. WE might just be seeing that initial dropoff and the next few months will start seeing increases... or not.

I'm somewhat amazed that there's no free trial. I certainly wouldn't try WAR without one unless a lot of my WoW friends were raving about it. But let me download a 10 day trial and see if I like it? Yeah, I'm down with that.

A lot of full price MMORPGS i.e. retail rather than internet distributed dont use free trials until several months into their life. They believe they can capture that original boxed retail sale where as in a trial if someone trys it and decided they didnt like the game they wouldnt get any revenue at all, so they wait until that first wave has dried up.

[TPMdm]

A lot of full price MMORPGS i.e. retail rather than internet distributed dont use free trials until several months into their life. They believe they can capture that original boxed retail sale where as in a trial if someone trys it and decided they didnt like the game they wouldnt get any revenue at all, so they wait until that first wave has dried up.

Indeed hence the steadily increasing numbers after the early adopters who didn't care for it leave. Once the free trials, refer a friends, and other promos kick in you get an increase in subs and IMO a more discerning player.