I thought it was the lack of a third faction coupled with only one capital city per faction. On an imbalanced server, which mine certainly was, they'd work their way to the city and then you could do fuck all with no place else to go. Also, while levelling through scenarios was fun, it got old real quick when there was only one per tier that people queued for.
Apart from that, endgame at the start appeared to consist of keep trading and I took one look at that excitement and resubbed to wow.
I liked the actual combat with clipping for players and good positioning required, but it wasn't enough for me.
From what I played at launch and what I've just played now, they game seem a little better.
I'm curious from this community, do think it was Mark Jacobs failure as lead designer that crumbled the game ?
Even as lead designer he still took orders from someone else over at EA/Mythic even if it strayed from his vision, he did not get final say. The suits have all the power.
In my opinion you are just trying to get a bunch of doomsayers to agree and flood these boards with yet another obsured belief.
My wise advice, stop dealing in "What if's" and only deal in absolutes.
The suits traditionally do not hold "all the power". A lot is left up to the leads as they tend to know more about what is actually going on than anything. While I agree that Dren is taking this a bit overboard, this is indeed a fair question. Based on what I have seen I would put most of War's problems on Mj's head since at worst he is the one who holds all of the responsibility as lead.
The leads do more facilitation than coming up with all the ideas and implementing them. That is a team of people. As a lead you are also pressured by suits more so as well.
Suits: So.... MJ.... when will the PvP be done that is the last component... when can we get this out the door?
MJ: Well I have this great idea on how PvP should work, but, it will delay the game by an extra 3 months.
Suits: That is not going to work whatelse you got?
MJ: Well I got the standard PvP that we discussed and the team came up with. We can have that ready in 3 weeks.
That is not generally how its handled. While the suits will often set deadlines, and make demands for certain kinds of features its rarely that cut and dried, and they tend not to move the goal posts too much. That is sort of the leads job, setting the overall vision and keeping it on track. If the game sucks its because he screwed up somewhere.
Lol, ain't nobody got time for you... I am done. For the record I don't think it is that cut and dry but I didn't feel like writing a whole scripted story. I felt any pleeb could grasp the point I was trying to make.
lol really? Pleeb? Seriously? It is the lead devs job to ship a workable product in the time provided. Yes, publishers can demand and have products shipped too early, yes they can demand that certain products have certain types of gameplay if they believe it will drastically increase sales, it still falls on the lead developer to make all of that work within the vision of the game, and they plan crunch time and side projects accordingly.
Trying to blame the Suits instead of the LEAD dev is pure foolishness.
It could be foolish, but when taking into account what WAR was, it was not the most terrible game to have launched. I was there on launch, and remember playing scenarios back to back consistently, having a ball in the PQs and enjoying the RVR lakes in the early gameplay, but as with most new games, the tier 3 and above content wasn't balanced properly and fairly unfinished.
There were other pieces of the game that were cut as well... and to believe that the Lead Developer was to blame for having to cut a large piece of content out for the game to ship on time is kind of pointless.
Like it or not, even with a Kickstarter campaign, Mark Jacobs will try and fulfill his end of what he wants to accomplish, but when the money runs out, you have a choice to either go live with an incomplete game, start cutting out menial pieces that don't work, or consider scrapping the project (which, in any developers mind is the last thing they want to do).
Considering we've seen a lot of games barely last a year or so, WAR is still running with much of the initial design still in place, so as far as a key vision goes, I think its been pretty successful. How CU will do ... if you're not the risk taking type, take a wait and see approach.
From what I played at launch and what I've just played now, they game seem a little better.
I'm curious from this community, do think it was Mark Jacobs failure as lead designer that crumbled the game ?
Even as lead designer he still took orders from someone else over at EA/Mythic even if it strayed from his vision, he did not get final say. The suits have all the power.
In my opinion you are just trying to get a bunch of doomsayers to agree and flood these boards with yet another obsured belief.
My wise advice, stop dealing in "What if's" and only deal in absolutes.
The suits traditionally do not hold "all the power". A lot is left up to the leads as they tend to know more about what is actually going on than anything. While I agree that Dren is taking this a bit overboard, this is indeed a fair question. Based on what I have seen I would put most of War's problems on Mj's head since at worst he is the one who holds all of the responsibility as lead.
The leads do more facilitation than coming up with all the ideas and implementing them. That is a team of people. As a lead you are also pressured by suits more so as well.
Suits: So.... MJ.... when will the PvP be done that is the last component... when can we get this out the door?
MJ: Well I have this great idea on how PvP should work, but, it will delay the game by an extra 3 months.
Suits: That is not going to work whatelse you got?
MJ: Well I got the standard PvP that we discussed and the team came up with. We can have that ready in 3 weeks.
That is not generally how its handled. While the suits will often set deadlines, and make demands for certain kinds of features its rarely that cut and dried, and they tend not to move the goal posts too much. That is sort of the leads job, setting the overall vision and keeping it on track. If the game sucks its because he screwed up somewhere.
Lol, ain't nobody got time for you... I am done. For the record I don't think it is that cut and dry but I didn't feel like writing a whole scripted story. I felt any pleeb could grasp the point I was trying to make.
lol really? Pleeb? Seriously? It is the lead devs job to ship a workable product in the time provided. Yes, publishers can demand and have products shipped too early, yes they can demand that certain products have certain types of gameplay if they believe it will drastically increase sales, it still falls on the lead developer to make all of that work within the vision of the game, and they plan crunch time and side projects accordingly.
Trying to blame the Suits instead of the LEAD dev is pure foolishness.
It could be foolish, but when taking into account what WAR was, it was not the most terrible game to have launched. I was there on launch, and remember playing scenarios back to back consistently, having a ball in the PQs and enjoying the RVR lakes in the early gameplay, but as with most new games, the tier 3 and above content wasn't balanced properly and fairly unfinished.
There were other pieces of the game that were cut as well... and to believe that the Lead Developer was to blame for having to cut a large piece of content out for the game to ship on time is kind of pointless.
Like it or not, even with a Kickstarter campaign, Mark Jacobs will try and fulfill his end of what he wants to accomplish, but when the money runs out, you have a choice to either go live with an incomplete game, start cutting out menial pieces that don't work, or consider scrapping the project (which, in any developers mind is the last thing they want to do).
Considering we've seen a lot of games barely last a year or so, WAR is still running with much of the initial design still in place, so as far as a key vision goes, I think its been pretty successful. How CU will do ... if you're not the risk taking type, take a wait and see approach.
I think the biggest problem was the Scenarios, their version of BG's, basically just copying WoW. They'd have been better off just sticking to the RvR pools and Keep battles, which were quite fun when they took place. The other problem was putting loot on Keep Lords, big mistake! Players just flipped keeps instead of fighting over them, which was basic design fault.
You can also blame the class imbalance, Bright Wizards anyone? And the lack of a full complement of classes at release.
As for the PvE, yeah you could argue that it was a bit spare at the level cap but if they'd done the RvR properly, then I think people would have been busy with that. I think this argument is very true given that MJ is making a new MMO which is designed from the ground up for RvR with no PvE included.
From what I played at launch and what I've just played now, they game seem a little better.
I'm curious from this community, do think it was Mark Jacobs failure as lead designer that crumbled the game ?
Even as lead designer he still took orders from someone else over at EA/Mythic even if it strayed from his vision, he did not get final say. The suits have all the power.
In my opinion you are just trying to get a bunch of doomsayers to agree and flood these boards with yet another obsured belief.
My wise advice, stop dealing in "What if's" and only deal in absolutes.
The suits traditionally do not hold "all the power". A lot is left up to the leads as they tend to know more about what is actually going on than anything. While I agree that Dren is taking this a bit overboard, this is indeed a fair question. Based on what I have seen I would put most of War's problems on Mj's head since at worst he is the one who holds all of the responsibility as lead.
The leads do more facilitation than coming up with all the ideas and implementing them. That is a team of people. As a lead you are also pressured by suits more so as well.
Suits: So.... MJ.... when will the PvP be done that is the last component... when can we get this out the door?
MJ: Well I have this great idea on how PvP should work, but, it will delay the game by an extra 3 months.
Suits: That is not going to work whatelse you got?
MJ: Well I got the standard PvP that we discussed and the team came up with. We can have that ready in 3 weeks.
That is not generally how its handled. While the suits will often set deadlines, and make demands for certain kinds of features its rarely that cut and dried, and they tend not to move the goal posts too much. That is sort of the leads job, setting the overall vision and keeping it on track. If the game sucks its because he screwed up somewhere.
Lol, ain't nobody got time for you... I am done. For the record I don't think it is that cut and dry but I didn't feel like writing a whole scripted story. I felt any pleeb could grasp the point I was trying to make.
lol really? Pleeb? Seriously? It is the lead devs job to ship a workable product in the time provided. Yes, publishers can demand and have products shipped too early, yes they can demand that certain products have certain types of gameplay if they believe it will drastically increase sales, it still falls on the lead developer to make all of that work within the vision of the game, and they plan crunch time and side projects accordingly.
Trying to blame the Suits instead of the LEAD dev is pure foolishness.
It could be foolish, but when taking into account what WAR was, it was not the most terrible game to have launched. I was there on launch, and remember playing scenarios back to back consistently, having a ball in the PQs and enjoying the RVR lakes in the early gameplay, but as with most new games, the tier 3 and above content wasn't balanced properly and fairly unfinished.
There were other pieces of the game that were cut as well... and to believe that the Lead Developer was to blame for having to cut a large piece of content out for the game to ship on time is kind of pointless.
Like it or not, even with a Kickstarter campaign, Mark Jacobs will try and fulfill his end of what he wants to accomplish, but when the money runs out, you have a choice to either go live with an incomplete game, start cutting out menial pieces that don't work, or consider scrapping the project (which, in any developers mind is the last thing they want to do).
Considering we've seen a lot of games barely last a year or so, WAR is still running with much of the initial design still in place, so as far as a key vision goes, I think its been pretty successful. How CU will do ... if you're not the risk taking type, take a wait and see approach.
It could be foolish, but when taking into account what WAR was, it was not the most terrible game to have launched. I was there on launch, and remember playing scenarios back to back consistently, having a ball in the PQs and enjoying the RVR lakes in the early gameplay, but as with most new games, the tier 3 and above content wasn't balanced properly and fairly unfinished.
WHAT?
He's right.
WAR was awesomely fun, at the time, in the early game at launch. So many people, all the PQs and RvR lakes and scenarios popping, great combat mechanics...
Just didn't have enough polish, and once you got high enough level the lack of polish and even completeness of content was SEVERLY lacking.
From what I played at launch and what I've just played now, they game seem a little better.
I'm curious from this community, do think it was Mark Jacobs failure as lead designer that crumbled the game ?
Even as lead designer he still took orders from someone else over at EA/Mythic even if it strayed from his vision, he did not get final say. The suits have all the power.
In my opinion you are just trying to get a bunch of doomsayers to agree and flood these boards with yet another obsured belief.
My wise advice, stop dealing in "What if's" and only deal in absolutes.
The suits traditionally do not hold "all the power". A lot is left up to the leads as they tend to know more about what is actually going on than anything. While I agree that Dren is taking this a bit overboard, this is indeed a fair question. Based on what I have seen I would put most of War's problems on Mj's head since at worst he is the one who holds all of the responsibility as lead.
Forget traditionally. What do you know about this situation? Do you have inside information? If not, your traditionally comment doesn't apply. BTW, many companies have top people who rule with a fist. You may not have experienced it but it happens.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
What destroyed this game was the imbalancing issues of classes ( Healers were killing everyone in the game, also they were tougher than tanks), even the mirrors.
There was no blance in scenarios with gear "RR 100 in with RR 60" just made the game un fun to people.
The PvE was lacking and the bugs /said exploiters started to become profound.
If i remember correctly MJ was rushed by a year and cut off by a faction from EA. Besides i agree with people who say War wasn't a failure, i had fun for months in that game.
Problem is the game never got any polish after its launch, its like EA wanted it to fail. For example think of Age of Conan, damn the blasted game was broken. But funcom keept improving it, releasing an expansion and many many patches. Or Rift, that game was pretty ... shallow ... on release, but trion kept working on it, addressing issues(like small landmass) and releasing an expansion.
But warhammer? Damn that game never stood a chance. First released early, then nearly the entire team that worked on the game send off to a different project pretty much the day the game went final. Do i blame MJ? No. I could see the fun in the game, the man tried and the things he had the most time to work on like public quests and tier 1 where among the most fun i had in any MMO. The stuff that was a failure, like endgame and gameengine/class polish are EXACTLY the kind of things someone screws up if he doesn't have enough time.
Maybe its just a make belief story about how MJ was wronged by EA suits, but its a plausible one looking at how the game launched and what kind of support it got since then(not to mention the fate SWTOR had eerily mirrors this).
hmmmm......EA had nothing to do with ether game. Instead of laying the blame on one or the other how about a new concept. The truth is always somewhere in the middle. In other words the fault most likely lies in all those involved. However, Ea has not shown the best track record since becoming involved in mmos
There were a few things that I didn't like about WAR, but overall I thought it was a really solid game. If it were to go F2P, I would definitely give it another go. The low population is just not worth the sub right now.
I thought WAR had a lot of potential. It definitely wasn't as bad as it's reputation precedes. It had balancing issues but I thoroughly enjoyed the player classes. 2 things stand out to me: 1. instanced PvP killed owPvP, which was the games strength. 2. It was released during the height of WoW's popularity, so people were quick to write it off and return to Warcraft.
Originally posted by maskedweasel It could be foolish, but when taking into account what WAR was, it was not the most terrible game to have launched. I was there on launch, and remember playing scenarios back to back consistently, having a ball in the PQs and enjoying the RVR lakes in the early gameplay, but as with most new games, the tier 3 and above content wasn't balanced properly and fairly unfinished.
WHAT?
He's right.WAR was awesomely fun, at the time, in the early game at launch. So many people, all the PQs and RvR lakes and scenarios popping, great combat mechanics...Just didn't have enough polish, and once you got high enough level the lack of polish and even completeness of content was SEVERLY lacking.
That was the weirdest thing about WAR for me. For all its faults and shortcomings, which were obvious to practically everyone who played the game, WAR was still entertaining to play overall. Probably thanks to interesting classes, even though it was missing a few at launch, and amazing RvR when it actually worked as intended when the game had enough players to properly support it.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
Originally posted by maskedweasel It could be foolish, but when taking into account what WAR was, it was not the most terrible game to have launched. I was there on launch, and remember playing scenarios back to back consistently, having a ball in the PQs and enjoying the RVR lakes in the early gameplay, but as with most new games, the tier 3 and above content wasn't balanced properly and fairly unfinished.
WHAT?
He's right.WAR was awesomely fun, at the time, in the early game at launch. So many people, all the PQs and RvR lakes and scenarios popping, great combat mechanics...Just didn't have enough polish, and once you got high enough level the lack of polish and even completeness of content was SEVERLY lacking.
That was the weirdest thing about WAR for me. For all its faults and shortcomings, which were obvious to practically everyone who played the game, WAR was still entertaining to play overall. Probably thanks to interesting classes, even though it was missing a few at launch, and amazing RvR when it actually worked as intended when the game had enough players to properly support it.
I actually get a urge now and then to go back to the game and play oPvP on the tier 1 humans map, the one where you fight in the city. Got some really fun times there, luckily it only takes a couple thoughts of what came AFTER that to get me grounded again.
From being in WAR beta i'd say...alot. Mark Jacobs wasn't as relevant in todays market as he thought for one. With each beta update the game became more and more like WoW. Did you know battlegrounds wasn't released until the last week of beta? That's because the WoW kids wouldn't shut up about it and low and behold world pvp was dead because of it, which they built half the game around.
So all and all I'd say it was three major issues:
1. Mark Jacobs was a 1 hit wonder, likely carried by his team with DAoC.
2. They listened to the WoW kids
3. Game wasn't unique, there was nothing about it that jumped at you. Wasn't a reason to play it over anything else due to dead world pvp and all other features carbon copied.
I had a lot of fun with Warhammer, when it came out it was fresh and "in your face" with the Warhammer universe so I geek'd out a bit. There were a lot of great ideas and some great ideas poorly executed, unsure if it's on the hat of MJ or the people above him. Either or the fixes didn't seem to come out fast enough, seemed the dev team was always focused on something else rather than fixes or overall improvements.
War is a pvp game straight up, you do not play it for pve.
PvE in this game is unfinished and does not give you the points(RR) needed to get pvp gear for end game. I have no idea why PvE was even put into this game with the amount of unfinished PvE work. (PvE in this game is meaningless)
If ppl understand the above then this game can be fun providing they know it is 100% about PvP.
Second to that there also has got to be other players in the RvR zones. This game is great when there is actual RvR goin on, trouble is the population is not there to allow for this other then maybe prime times depending on server.
I have to admit, i love this game and have subbed to it on and off over the years, there had been enough going on to get me 30 or 60 days of fun a few hours a day if others were on at the right times. Donno about now, their forrms do not make things promising now.
Well i seem to have gone off topic here so -----> If they ever finsihed the game PvE wise, then this game might have had a chance cause really, no game out there is 100% PvP that has any real success.
Comments
I thought it was the lack of a third faction coupled with only one capital city per faction. On an imbalanced server, which mine certainly was, they'd work their way to the city and then you could do fuck all with no place else to go. Also, while levelling through scenarios was fun, it got old real quick when there was only one per tier that people queued for.
Apart from that, endgame at the start appeared to consist of keep trading and I took one look at that excitement and resubbed to wow.
I liked the actual combat with clipping for players and good positioning required, but it wasn't enough for me.
It could be foolish, but when taking into account what WAR was, it was not the most terrible game to have launched. I was there on launch, and remember playing scenarios back to back consistently, having a ball in the PQs and enjoying the RVR lakes in the early gameplay, but as with most new games, the tier 3 and above content wasn't balanced properly and fairly unfinished.
There were other pieces of the game that were cut as well... and to believe that the Lead Developer was to blame for having to cut a large piece of content out for the game to ship on time is kind of pointless.
Like it or not, even with a Kickstarter campaign, Mark Jacobs will try and fulfill his end of what he wants to accomplish, but when the money runs out, you have a choice to either go live with an incomplete game, start cutting out menial pieces that don't work, or consider scrapping the project (which, in any developers mind is the last thing they want to do).
Considering we've seen a lot of games barely last a year or so, WAR is still running with much of the initial design still in place, so as far as a key vision goes, I think its been pretty successful. How CU will do ... if you're not the risk taking type, take a wait and see approach.
WHAT?
I think the biggest problem was the Scenarios, their version of BG's, basically just copying WoW. They'd have been better off just sticking to the RvR pools and Keep battles, which were quite fun when they took place. The other problem was putting loot on Keep Lords, big mistake! Players just flipped keeps instead of fighting over them, which was basic design fault.
You can also blame the class imbalance, Bright Wizards anyone? And the lack of a full complement of classes at release.
As for the PvE, yeah you could argue that it was a bit spare at the level cap but if they'd done the RvR properly, then I think people would have been busy with that. I think this argument is very true given that MJ is making a new MMO which is designed from the ground up for RvR with no PvE included.
Reason 1!
He's right.
WAR was awesomely fun, at the time, in the early game at launch. So many people, all the PQs and RvR lakes and scenarios popping, great combat mechanics...
Just didn't have enough polish, and once you got high enough level the lack of polish and even completeness of content was SEVERLY lacking.
Forget traditionally. What do you know about this situation? Do you have inside information? If not, your traditionally comment doesn't apply. BTW, many companies have top people who rule with a fist. You may not have experienced it but it happens.
This thread is flamebait.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
If I recall correctly, Blizzard actually rushed out one of their Expacs to beat WAR. Think it was Lich King.
What destroyed this game was the imbalancing issues of classes ( Healers were killing everyone in the game, also they were tougher than tanks), even the mirrors.
There was no blance in scenarios with gear "RR 100 in with RR 60" just made the game un fun to people.
The PvE was lacking and the bugs /said exploiters started to become profound.
That's what killed this game.
who else than the lead designer, I wonder?
I usually blame the SWTOR lead designer too for shortcomings in the game.
those guys are paid for, you know, "designing the game"
If i remember correctly MJ was rushed by a year and cut off by a faction from EA. Besides i agree with people who say War wasn't a failure, i had fun for months in that game.
Problem is the game never got any polish after its launch, its like EA wanted it to fail. For example think of Age of Conan, damn the blasted game was broken. But funcom keept improving it, releasing an expansion and many many patches. Or Rift, that game was pretty ... shallow ... on release, but trion kept working on it, addressing issues(like small landmass) and releasing an expansion.
But warhammer? Damn that game never stood a chance. First released early, then nearly the entire team that worked on the game send off to a different project pretty much the day the game went final. Do i blame MJ? No. I could see the fun in the game, the man tried and the things he had the most time to work on like public quests and tier 1 where among the most fun i had in any MMO. The stuff that was a failure, like endgame and gameengine/class polish are EXACTLY the kind of things someone screws up if he doesn't have enough time.
Maybe its just a make belief story about how MJ was wronged by EA suits, but its a plausible one looking at how the game launched and what kind of support it got since then(not to mention the fate SWTOR had eerily mirrors this).
<img src='http://lotrosigs.level3.turbine.com/0320200000031cd29/signature.png'></img>;
EA
I actually get a urge now and then to go back to the game and play oPvP on the tier 1 humans map, the one where you fight in the city. Got some really fun times there, luckily it only takes a couple thoughts of what came AFTER that to get me grounded again.
Oh easy: The developers are not listening to their community.
From being in WAR beta i'd say...alot. Mark Jacobs wasn't as relevant in todays market as he thought for one. With each beta update the game became more and more like WoW. Did you know battlegrounds wasn't released until the last week of beta? That's because the WoW kids wouldn't shut up about it and low and behold world pvp was dead because of it, which they built half the game around.
So all and all I'd say it was three major issues:
1. Mark Jacobs was a 1 hit wonder, likely carried by his team with DAoC.
2. They listened to the WoW kids
3. Game wasn't unique, there was nothing about it that jumped at you. Wasn't a reason to play it over anything else due to dead world pvp and all other features carbon copied.
I had a lot of fun with Warhammer, when it came out it was fresh and "in your face" with the Warhammer universe so I geek'd out a bit. There were a lot of great ideas and some great ideas poorly executed, unsure if it's on the hat of MJ or the people above him. Either or the fixes didn't seem to come out fast enough, seemed the dev team was always focused on something else rather than fixes or overall improvements.
War is a pvp game straight up, you do not play it for pve.
PvE in this game is unfinished and does not give you the points(RR) needed to get pvp gear for end game. I have no idea why PvE was even put into this game with the amount of unfinished PvE work. (PvE in this game is meaningless)
If ppl understand the above then this game can be fun providing they know it is 100% about PvP.
Second to that there also has got to be other players in the RvR zones. This game is great when there is actual RvR goin on, trouble is the population is not there to allow for this other then maybe prime times depending on server.
I have to admit, i love this game and have subbed to it on and off over the years, there had been enough going on to get me 30 or 60 days of fun a few hours a day if others were on at the right times. Donno about now, their forrms do not make things promising now.
Well i seem to have gone off topic here so -----> If they ever finsihed the game PvE wise, then this game might have had a chance cause really, no game out there is 100% PvP that has any real success.