Warhammer Online Sees Massive Content Removal To Make Launch 397
Zonk is reporting that the Warhammer Online team has decided to keep their launch deadline firm. Unfortunately, in order to do so, they are pulling quite a few things from the game. Four of the six capital cities are being removed, as well as four of the character classes (two of which were considered the primary "tanking" classes for their race). The team emphatically claims that this has nothing to do with EA. Does this hurt their chances for success more than simply delaying the launch date?
This is why Blizzard is so seuccesful (Score:4, Insightful)
They know it's the game that counts, not some deadline.
It seems to me Warhammer is effectively castrating themselves.
TO which I say: "Good, I hate those bastards."
EA, most likely (Score:5, Insightful)
I am skeptical, to say the least.
Re:INCOMING FAILGATE! (Score:4, Insightful)
Becasue they are loking at the numbers, and not the realities of the game market.
Blizzard is successfull becasue they release quality titles.
Blizzard has what, 3 titles? And they practically print money.
Can you say expansion pack? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Can you say expansion pack? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exclusion of the capital cities ruins the whole race vs race war aspect of the game; it turns something that could have been really deep into a WoW clone. Sigh. Hopefully it'll add back in later.
Pushed the pre-order a bit early (Score:4, Insightful)
Feels like a bit of a bait and switch for the folks that pre-ordered.
Re:This is why Blizzard is so seuccesful (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. They don't give out a "deadline" and have always stated that it will be done when it's done.
Yes, it may be frustrating to people waiting for a Blizzard game, but at least they don't pull this crap.
Rushed Releases have killed MMORPGs in the past (Score:5, Insightful)
While no MMORPG is ever complete, and thus never completed when released, releases like this in the past have caused major problems in getting people to accept the game in the past. Vanguard was released with major elements of the game incomplete, Pirates of the Burning Sea had similar problems (although it was mostly feature complete and the changes made after release were tweaking that could only be made after large enough populations were logging in).
The missing elements and poor gameplay in Vanguard resulted in a mass exodus of players after release, and a similar thing happened in POTBS (eventually resulting in a server merge that took the game from 12 servers down to 4 I believe). Its always important to make a good impression when selling a product, and its doubly so for MMORPGs I think.
Given that WAR is considered the next likely candidate to challenge the supremacy of Warcraft (a daunting prospect for the developers I am sure), I can't help but think that this is a very bad idea generally speaking. The game needs to be as complete and ready to play as possible in order to attract the required playerbase. Taking the game live in a partially developed manner is no longer a viable option I think. Prior to Warcraft this might have been possible - Dark Age of Camelot went live with many features missing, but what it had was enough to attract people away from Everquest (which was its only major competitor at the time), but with Warcraft being such a complete product and so well designed (I may dislike it but 8m+ people disagree with me), any game that comes out now needs to be able to put its full featureset into gameplay right from release or it risks losing the majority of players who are pretty jaded and expect *everything now*. The time for incomplete products has passed, thanks to Blizzard.
Not only that, but if its missing the Tankers on all sides specifically thats a very bad decision as well. This will undoubtedly slow PvE leveling and thats usually the focus of any MMORPG early in its history as players build up their characters in preparation for the end game (yes I know you can PvP at any level in WAR, but realistically people will want to race to the end levels first and likely avoid PvP as they do in so many other games, even though the game attempts to balance it at all levels).
Since Jacobs has stated this is nothing to do with EA, its most likely an internal decision based on lack of development time and a desire to make a November release date that is key to getting Christmas sales for the game. It may also be a reaction to the success of Age of Conan (which is doing well by reports, although I didn't keep my subscription going so I am out of touch), or to some other major release thats coming at the same time. MMORPGs and their expansions tend to be timed to coincide with releases from other companies and that often seems to shift dates.
Mythic had an extremely successful product with Dark Age of Camelot, although they blew it in the long run, overdeveloping the game in some areas and inconsistently designing it in many cases. I have high hopes they can produce an excellent game with WAR but we shall see.
Re:This is why Blizzard is so seuccesful (Score:5, Insightful)
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing to do with EA. Yeah, RIGHT! *Bridgesell* (Score:3, Insightful)
"The team emphatically claims that this has nothing to do with EA"
Right.
EA, who essentially turf all projects that aren't their beloved sports games.
EA who has gone out of their way to buy healthy, actively developed games and kill them just shy of release.
Likely the WHOL guys got an ultimatum of "Ship or we shut you down". That's pretty much par for the course with EA.
Re:This is why Blizzard is so seuccesful (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just that Blizzard holds back their games until they are ready, it's that they have fans that will WAIT until Blizzard's games come out. That is a luxury that most other studios don't have. That said, Warhammer Online better have its features ASAP, first impressions are extremely important in MMOs.
Perhaps the reason their fans are willing to wait until their games are ready is their track record, which is a direct result of said practice?
Re:EA, most likely (Score:2, Insightful)
Spore is being developed under EA, but has been delayed many times. This is not EA's doing, as they claim.
Yes, but even EA cannot stand up to the might of Will Wright when it comes to release dates.
Re:Warhammer Forever (Score:1, Insightful)
It's not the same people complaining in both situations, doodoo-head.
Just like Vanguard (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is why Blizzard is so seuccesful (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't take a genius... (Score:3, Insightful)
to figure out they have to have *something* to release for the all-important fourth quarter.
Launch it any other time of year and you won't get the same sales bounce out of a new release.
Re:This is why Blizzard is so seuccesful (Score:1, Insightful)
The real castration happened when Games Workshop stopped funding Mythic, which eventually led to them being bought by EA, who essentially told them flat out "Re-work this into a WoW clone". The game Mythic had when funded by GW was *nothing* like the current WHO. What was once essentially Mythic's vision of Warhammer Fantasy RP brought online, is now a shell of its former glory. I saw it at Comic-Con shortly after they were bought by EA, and the complete overhaul was astonishing. Every possible detail that could be copied from WoW, was.
It's quite pathetic that the MMO segment is so absolutely and abysmally stagnant right now, with publishers grabbing anything that has popular IP and throwing a crappy Everquest-inspired gameplay clone behind it.
Re:This is why Blizzard is so seuccesful (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm, moderate or educate.
It has absolutely nothing to do with people who will wait for a Blizzard game. Those waiting on Warhammer will continue to wait indefinitely, just like how those who were waiting on World of Warcraft waited indefinitely for it too.
The same applied for the Burning Crusade expansion. They announced a release date, and then pushed it back ~2 months, if I remember. The forums lit up with complaints, whining, and many large capital letters. People had scheduled their jobs around this release date, and now suddenly they had all this free time and no game to play. And what happened? They bought the game anyway.
People will wait on games because they're looking forward to them. Blizzard's reputation of pushing quality games out the door was built on people getting pissed off that they were taking so long.
You say that "that is a luxury that most other studios don't have." And I disagree entirely. There is nothing stopping a studio from pushing their dates back. The only reason they don't is that they feel if they don't make their release date, then they will miss out of customers.
Which is entirely wrong. The entire MMO market is saturated right now, with WoW. Those who want to play other MMOs, such as Age of Conan or Warhammer Online will wait indefinitely for one simple reason: they are dissatisfied with Blizzard for one reason or another, and these are the people who are not only just dissatisfied, but will also remain dissatisfied indefinitely.
The thing that the Warhammer Online people are missing, and to some degree this applies to Age of Conan too ("hey guys! Let's launch a game where a core stat, strength, does entirely nothing!"), is that their playerbase consists almost entirely of people who are pissed off at WoW. Those people are not pleased with how Blizzard has taken WoW, and no degree of talking with them will change that.
The name of the game is "the grass is always greener on the other side." The vast majority of people who want to play Warhammer don't want to play it because it will be awesome, they want to play it because they are sick of WoW, and likewise, Warhammer suddenly becomes awesome.
The Warhammer devs saying "let's cut a huge amount of content" is ultimately what is going to kill them, at least in the short term. The people who are pissed at WoW will remain pissed, and they will always have that one shiny, better game out on the horizon. Why anyone would cut content and quality for release dates when almost their entire fanbase will be ex-WoW players who will join them the moment that games comes out - be it tomorrow or in two years - boggles my mind.
Does this hurt them more then postponing the game? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm getting so angry for no reason at all! RAWR (Score:3, Insightful)
I really don't see the problem here. It's an MMO, they can and it's expected that they add this content later and much more.
I also don't see what the purpose of a release date, it's just marketing bullshit. The game could have been 'released' a long time ago, and if they honestly let people know that it wasn't ready for typical gameplay then anyone who felt hurt was expecting the wrong thing.
They could have just arbitrarily chosen any point in it's development to say, "Hey, this is good enough, let's stick it in a box."
I hate terms like 'alpha' and 'beta' and 'release' things like, especially when they're used so glamorously. Do you really ever want to call something a finished product? When something's 'out of beta' it's probably not going to get the same attention it had before. If something's still being called beta, someone's actively working on it, and it already kicks ass, then what wouldn't I have to look forward to?
It's just philosophical ideas made official, and it's useless. All that matters are version number. It's not like software becomes perfect when it's released or there's some magical point where it's instantly ready to be marketed.
Release dates are also stupid. It's more marketing bullshit about holidays and stuff. What's so bad about "We're working on it, it'll be done when we say it is and if you care you'll know when we say it."
If it wasn't for that kind of garbage, no one would have any reason to squeal over bugs in the 'final product'. The problems are there and they're expected to be there, and it's getting about time for the idea of software as a tangible object to come to an end.
Re:This is why Blizzard is so seuccesful (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not just that Blizzard holds back their games until they are ready, it's that they have fans that will WAIT until Blizzard's games come out. That is a luxury that most other studios don't have.
Did you actually read what you just wrote? Read it again. And then think about it.
Who besides fans will wait on a game? And if you have good fans, they will wait. If you don't have an established fan base yet, it doesn't matter how soon you release - no one's waiting.
No matter how you cut it, it's always best to wait to release the game until it's ready for primetime.
Nothing to do with EA
Yeah right. Because EA has never done anything ever to screw over a good franchise they bought. Nope.
Re:Warhammer Forever (Score:3, Insightful)
"it just happens BEFORE the marketing, rather than after."
Yep. Thats also why they don't announce release dates.
People flip out if you promise the moon and fail to live up to your own hype, even if the game is fun. Take away the promises, and people may find that the game is fun without thinking about some missing feature.
Of course, Blizzard's marketing department is a good deal more intelligent then that of most other game developers.
Re:This is why Blizzard is so seuccesful (Score:5, Insightful)
The exact release details are beyond me, yes. If it was never set in stone then I'll take your word for it. :)
And you're right, WoW launched without some *features* such as the honor system. They did, however, launch with all six capital cities, every single one of their classes, tens of hundreds of spells, and over 60 (or so? Exact numbers are beyond me) individual zones. WoW was largely content complete from the day it launched, just not feature complete.
When you compare this to Warhammer cutting 4/6 cities and 4 classes, things look quite a bit more bleak for Warhammer than they ever did with WoW.
Cutting a very large chunk of content just to make a release date is nothing good for the future of Warhammer.
Re:This is why Blizzard is so seuccesful (Score:4, Insightful)
Money is the only reason I can see for keeping a hard release date in exchange for major content cuts.
Re:Rushed Releases have killed MMORPGs in the past (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is why Blizzard is so seuccesful (Score:5, Insightful)
2 new player races
Since Burning Crusade came out:
something like 10 new zones
15 new 5 man dungeons
2 new 10 man dungeons
7 new 25 man dungeons
Arena pvp combat
100s of quests
If this is lame, I wonder what you would call a good expansion.
1 expansion since the game launched 4 years ago. How is this similar to the Sims with 10+ expansions?
Re:This is why Blizzard is so seuccesful (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is why Blizzard is so seuccesful (Score:3, Insightful)
Well. For many smaller studios they have very little funding, so not shipping now may mean not making the paychecks next month, so shipping an incomplete product is the lesser of two evils. Blizzard is sitting on top of a veritable mountain of money, they have the ability to wait.
Yes, but that fails on two points: 1) Blizzard was a small company once too. Everybody has to start somewhere. 2) These guys have EA behind them, so funding shouldn't be an issue. That is, if EA doesn't mind providing additional funding to finish the game properly...
Re:This is why Blizzard is so seuccesful (Score:4, Insightful)
"There is nothing stopping a studio from pushing their dates back. The only reason they don't is that they feel if they don't make their release date, then they will miss out of customers."
As a former computer game engineer, I'll have to disagree with this part. They reason most game companies run into a hard release date is that they're physically out of money right *now*, to the extent that they can't afford payroll or rent the next month.
Re:EA, most likely (Score:1, Insightful)
I've been having a lot of fun playing Age of Conan lately. Don't let the haters tell you it sucks. It really is a pretty good game, even though it has bugs. What MMO doesn't?
Wait... isn't that just the reason you criticized Warhammer?
Yes, that DOES hurt in the long run (Score:3, Insightful)
Another stillborn in the making.
Why so gloom? Well, look at the recent MMORPGs, all of which were dubbed "the one that kick WoW off its throne". And? None did. Why? Were they too complex? Too hard for the everyday player?
No. They just were not finished.
Now, no MMORPG is ever "really" finished. But WoW was to the point of being good enough for release, and that made it king. It wasn't so much its "noob appeal", it wasn't the comic style graphics, it wasn't the "rich" story (what rich story, btw?). Was it because it needed no insane box to play it (it did, just because it doesn't anymore doesn't mean it didn't).
It was simply and plainly that WoW was released when it worked.
I was in the WoW Beta. It was one of the longest betas I've ever experienced. And I was incredibly amazed how polished the game was already when it went into beta. Basically, WoW was when beta started (almost) as "finished" as many MMORPGs are now when they get released. And when they finally went into release, the key problems were resolved and you could play it. Namely:
CTDs: Rare.
Classes: All finished.
Skills: Worked (almost, but generally they did).
Quests: Worked (almost all).
Raid content: Existing (not a lot, but it was there).
Basically that's WoW's "secret". When you look at the failed MMORPGs, you'll notice a sharp pick up, especially when the hype was running rampart around it (and believe me, the WHO hype is), then an equally sharp decline and a slow and painful death. Either they kill their userbase by being as stable as a pig on stilts, they have classes that are unplayable, they got bugs all over the place, to the point where you can't even finish the newbie area without the intervention of GMs, or they simply have no high level content whatsoever. Many combine a few of those "features".
Essentially, this means WHO will be a stillborn, too. I predict a crispy start with many, many people wanting to play, then turning away in disgust after less than three months and the game being milked for as long as it's profitable, then shut down in a whimper.
Another WoW killer out of the game. Ok. NEXT?
Re:This is why Blizzard is so seuccesful (Score:3, Insightful)
If Warhammer needs six more months too "cook", then what's stopping you from buying it six months after its release when all the cities and classes have been included?
Unfortunately (Score:3, Insightful)
It probably will not fail regardless. Maybe if MMOs started failing, companies would work harder in to making sure they were good. However, to the best of my knowledge, no MMO has yet failed. Even games that were disasters seem to have been able to get enough players to maintain profitability. It seems there are currently enough players to sustain pretty much any MMO and that is part of the reason there are such quality problems. While games may fail to achieve the success that World of Warcraft has, they are still making money and that's really all that matters. Every company would like to make billions on a game, but so long as they can make back more than they spent, it is a worthwhile project.