I woke up this morning and went straight to the computer to find out what Mark Jacobs’ news was going to be regarding a few major announcements for Warhammer Online. He dropped several bombs on the community today, that’s for sure.
Punkbuster
The first announcement is that Mythic will be partnering with Punkbuster. I guess I called this one several times over the past few months? I’ve been saying that a mmorpg should partner with Punkbuster but I never really thought it would happen. I guess if a mmorpg is going to use an anti-cheat program then Punkbuster is as good as any. I trust Punkbuster enough to have it on my system already for games like Battlefield and Call of Duty. I will be REALLY interested to see how effective this will be in a mmo as are Even Balance Inc. (the guys behind Punkbuster) and Mythic I’m sure.
Speaking of past problems in Dark Age of Camelot, Mark Jacobs had this to say to mmorpg.com:
“As you know,†said Jacobs in an interview, “we have fought a long battle against hackers, cheaters and other assorted slimeballs who think that it’s both fun and fair for them to have an advantage over other players.â€
“We obviously did a lot of things in Dark Age of Camelot that worked,†he continued. “ We banned cheaters whenever we found them. We made a tremendous effort to sort out and deal with hackers and companies or individuals who promote this sort of stuff. Did we do a perfect job? Absolutely not, nobody does, but we did a pretty good job.â€
Capital Cities … or the lack thereof
This one bothers me.
“we decided to focus our energies on two capital cities; one for Order and one for Destruction, and make them fabulous, said Jacobs. “Not good, not great, but fabulous.â€
“We wanted to make our Capital Cities the best cities in any MMO. We think we’re doing that, but it came at a price and that price is that the other cities aren’t going in the game right now.â€
I won’t lie. I’m rather frustrated that there will be only two major cities in the game. I wanted there to be several cities to explore, siege, and overall enjoy. Seeing the projected number cut down by 66% is a huge cut! I don’t hold their decision to make the content “fabulous” against them, I simply feel disappointment for the lack of content I will have at my fingertips in-game. Truly unfortunate that city sieging will not be as enjoyable as it could be due to a lack of diversity.
Careers … /facepalm
Words do not describe, guys. This is Graev and I at this very moment. I’m the one in shock, more than anything.
“Four of the classes that we’ve been working on, we just couldn’t get great,†he continued. “We looked at them and we said these careers are just not great… and we tried, and they weren’t coming out well.â€
“We tried,†Jacobs said, “we tried to see if we could make them better and we just couldn’t make them great. So we had a choice. Do we put in some non-great careers just because they are iconic, or we cut them out and put them in post-launch if we can get them right, or do we not put them in at all?â€
Choppa (Greenskin)
Hammerer (Dwarf)
Blackguard (Dark Elf)
Knight of the Blazing Sun (Empire)
The above will not make it into the game. Choppa… one of the most intrigueing classes to me won’t be in the game… Hammerer – the only interesting Dwarf class (in my eyes) gone. Blackguard and Kotbs are two tanks that a lot of people were looking forward to but now will have to rethink their class decision. It’s nauseating really to see so much content being abandoned. I’m not sure if I’m ready to accept Mark’s line of reasoning fully yet. I obviously have not been apart of the development process so I have no clue how bad off these classes truly are or if they were even given much thought at all.
My true feelings, on all of this, are that the game should be delayed again until such time that the full Warhammer Online experience can be had by the players. But, it won’t be. The game will launch in a state of completion – but with some heinous baggage attached. I wrote just a few days ago how I felt a mmorpg should not be released until it is “done”. On one hand they’re releasing it “done” because they’ve cut the fat but on the other hand the game is now lacking a part that makes it taste oh so good.
I’ll have to think on this one some more.
ARGHH!!
I think you are not seeing the big picture in terms of the cities. I was especially concerned about Mark’s point #3, where players for the first few months would be very split up between the three major fronts. In order for these city sieges to be great, you need your whole population end game. Until that point is reached, with six cities, it would have been way too spread out. Having just two cities to start will allow for the early levelers and raiders a focused area with large scale battles, the way it should be.
I said this on Syp’s blog and I’ll say it again here:
I don’t mind the cuts, but the stuff that was “supposed” to be there at launch, better be a free content update, and not added into a future expansion pack.
I don’t see that as the “big picture”, Perce. I see that as a good side to a downside. Cutting 2/3 the content of a feature vs. having more people focused in one area… I’ll take the content.
@Across: I’m in complete agreement with you there.
I also want the content, but I want to play it as it was meant to be played. I am not sure that having three 25×25 city “sieges” a month into retail is better than one 75×75 fight, just for the sake of “content.”
I think you are overreacting a bit much, probably due to how recent the news is 🙂
The classes seem pretty trivial to me, as we went from 24 to 20. 20 is a lot of classes. I’m sure I’d be disappointed if the Engineer was booted, but then I would go play Witch Hunter, Squig Herder, Black Orc, Shaman…. there are loads of interesting classes.
The cities could work out for the better. I had always wondered how 3 concurrent fronts would. Having to control 2 out of 3 before being able to siege the city sounds like a good compromise.
As for when and if we see them again. I would buy them in an expansion pack. This isn’t Oblivion horse armor we are talking about here.
All in all, it is an unreleased game. When the NDA comes down it will become clear if the game is a winner.
Whether or not he made the right choice I can’t say, and no one probably can unless we could split the world into two different realities and see how the game would be with and without the content. However, he had the balls to tell everyone this. So even if I disagree I can at least respect the man.
So the game has 3 battlegrounds (greenskin vs dwarf) with 4 tiers in them, but only 2 siegeable cities?
The other 2 battlegrounds wont have rvr in them?
Wtf?
i totally agree with you.
i was really sure that mythic won’t release this game till it’s completely done. even it takes an extra half-of-a-year or whatsoever.
my personal impression on this one is caused by EA.
I’m not pointing them as the bad guys, Mythic had included great stuff to the game just because of them, like fully orchestrated score, perfect voice acting, and best of all, huge marketing oppotunities. I could actually find collectors edition preorder box in a local store in Turkey, which i’ve never seen happening in my lifetime. That was impossible without EA’s huge network.
Also i want to add that, EA can easily finance Mythic for the rest of the year for a “fully” packaged product. To be honest hat had to be another benefit that Mythic should acquire from EA.
I just have to reject this kind of decision from a “financially secured”, “independent” company.
I’ll still play the game when it’s out anyway, but it better be really good.
@Werit: I’m not overreacting at all. My reaction is rather calm (and justified) compared to how I feel under these circumstances.
Cutting classes is never trivial. These 2 tanks being cut hurts. For example: Classes like the Bright Wizard need to be countered by Tanks and now two the of the tank classes in the game are gone.
@Alex: I agree. It took balls to come out and say this. That’s more than I can say for a lot of other developers. And it’s really a double edge sword, all of this is. WAR will be great, but not as great as it could have been. At least we’re not going to see another AoC though.
@Kyyeva: You need to control 2 out of the 3 fronts to be able to siege the city.
I wasn’t planning on playing any of the classes cut from the game, however the cities being cut is EXTREMELY disappointing to me. I don’t care how grand they can make the 2 cities.
They should of dropped this big of a bombshell in an official podcast or something, not in some interview with a third-party site. This is huge news, I don’t understand why they wouldn’t try to completely explain it.
After this though, I’ll have to hear very good things inorder to pickup the game now most likely. Pains me to say that, but I don’t want to purchase another MMO that entertains me for about a week, then have to wait 6+ months for the real game to begin.
@Keen: I know you aren’t going crazy, but the news was just posted and most people reactions, including mine, are usually overstated and settle with some time.
I understand the class implications, they are probably what initiated this change to begin with. So I doubt that removing them will be like toppling a house of cards, as it was all ready toppled.
Okay that clears it up =)
Jacobs also just responded, and is pretty negative about the future of those classes. That is not a good sign.
Well, regarding the cut classes, I guess they felt they could cut them since they’ve been missing from the beta all this time, and people in the beta are still able to get by. The advantage of so much duplication of class types I guess. VERY disappointing however.
With the decision regarding the captial cities, Altdorf and the Inevitable City better be really, amazingly, over-the-top awesome. If they’re not, if we just have Orgrimmar and Stormwind with a bit more stuff, then they’ve completely dropped the ball here.
My guess is that this announcement on the heels of the changes between EA and Mythic are not coincidental.
This is entirely fictional, but I’m thinking it went something like this:
MJ: “We may have to delay again.”
EA: “No, it has to be out for this Christmas season.”
MJ: “Then we have to cut some content.”
EA: “No, get it done.”
… MJ to the rest of Mythic: “Guys, I think we may have to push for some independent thinking from EA.”
This imaginary but-possibly-the-case scenario demonstrates the kind of thinking I expect from EA. Regardless of how it went, this is obviously a compromise they’re making for a timely release.
I’m a little jaded on the “we’re doing this so we can have quality” speeches. They’re just so common, but hey, what else could he say?
There is one thing a lot of you guys are forgetting. Though there are still ’20 classes’ in the game, there are really only 10. Even from the inital design there were really only 12. Every class has it’s mirror on each side. So there were originally 12 classes on Order side and the 12 classes on destruction side were the same 12 classes just with different names and the abilities named differently but the same mechanics.
Choppa and hammerer were basically teh same class. Same with blackguard and knight of the blazing sun. So yeah they like to talk it up as 20 classes, but it is really only 10.
It’s just like if in WoW the horde shaman was named a shaman and the alliance one was named a naturalist or something and their abilities did the same but just had different names.
You also have to wonder:
Did Mythic bite of more than they could chew?
Are they just trying to push it out before Wrath of the Lich King?
I think a little of both.
I think that if they don’t get it out before Wrath, then they’re really going to suffer. They’ll still do okay, but they’ll be losing a lot.
@Rog: Yeah, If I had a nickle for every time. This is such a damned if you do damned if you don’t situation to be in though. Release the game with the content but have it feel unfinished or release the game without the content and have it feel incomplete.. They took the lesser of two evils, that’s for sure. It’s still a disappointment for those following the game for so long.
But now we get to hold them to that quality speech though. The content in the game is now promised to be “fabulous”. 😉
@Mordiceius
I complete agree on both points, however I think getting it out before WOTLK is the bigger issue here. I’ve always seen it as they ‘need’ to get it out before WoW’s expansion or face having to wait much longer to release. I think this proves they don’t want to wait for people to grow tired of the WoW expansion so, they feel the game will be completed enough to release without all that stuff.
It seems one of my E3 questions was answered in what they would cut to make release. 😐
What bothers me about KotBS and BG being cut is that their mirrors are still in the game. I can almost understand cutting the Hammerer/Choppa if they don’t like their mechanic, but not classes that are effectively in the game.
What are they going to do about the other two battlefronts if there is only one city to siege? I mean is it worthless to play the Greenskin area if there is no city at the end?
The game is probably going to be congested, laggy, and interesting for the first couple months.
In regard to the cities, the scenario Perce suggests makes sense to me. I’m not sure, but I can imagine that it might be more fun initially to have just the two cities, with more cities added when the high-end population increases. But as someone who is not well versed in Warhammer lore, I have to wonder how much story sense it makes for the races of Chaos or Order to cooperate.
In any case, I would think they have to rearrange a hell of a lot of content so that all races meet in the same place. What I mean is… How does the geography work now?
The class changes are the bigger deal. They’re obviously standing up for quality, because to abandon those races at this point is to abandon an obscene amount of development time and money. But now four of the six races are short one class. It’s simply not possible to replace them with new classes by the end of this year and balance everything.
If they eliminate those classes, it’s all but certain that the game will get pushed back. If it does get released this year, it will be blatantly incomplete, unfair in the eyes of many gamers, and lose a significant chunk of its potential audience. They will have shot themselves in the foot.
Either way, this is not the sort of thing you announce at E3. Mythic’s in for a rough ride.
RE: delaying the game to finish this content
It seems to me that the message given in the interview this morning is this: WAR is nearing its final stage of completion, the only things not ready for primetime are the 4 cities and 4 classes. Everything else looks good.
The entire team was not and can not work on these bits of the game. You cannot delay a game because 5 percent of the developement is not done.
I dont understand what people wanted from Mythic on the career issue. If they said the classes were not fun and they could not figure out how to make them fun what are they supposed to do?
That is my question as well, Railith.
@Keen: You must control 2 out of 3 campaigns to be able to siege the city.
Also some people say how they would rather have a couple huge 75vs75 rather than a lot of 25vs25. Isn’t it like a 30vs30 cap for battles anyway?
only have 2 cities is horseshit. they need to delay the game at least 6 months to a year.
i am in the beta, and if they release the game is gonna fucking tank 🙁 its such a shame. i really wanted this game to be fantastic.
I have a feeling that this is dumbing the game as much as possible,you do realize that Praag will be new Emain now?
@Werit: But part of me wonders if people will flock to the battlefronts tied to a capital city “just because”. See, that’s the downside to the consolidation of content.
@Mordiceius: It’s like 75v75 per instance of a city siege. Keeps around the open-world are unlimited to my knowledge. Scenarios are like 15v15.
I think someone mentioned somewhere that 2 of the 3 battlefronts will need to be controlled before the city can be sieged. I don’t know if that was speculation or known fact, though.
Oh yeah… And if they pull 2 tanks and 2 melee DPS classes, racial balance is destroyed. It’d be like playing rock-paper-scissors without the rock. They simply can’t pull out those races, however mediocre, and keep the game going without Orcs, Dwarves, Elves, and Empire players feeling like they’ve been given the shaft. Their races will be at a disadvantage in PvP. If they remove those races, they’d be fools not to push back the game’s release.
Bah, must learn to refresh before posting.
Do you guys think Mythic is going to slow the leveling curve because they cut endgame content?
they should wait 6 to 8 months after WOTLK is released. i know there trying to release before WOTLK, but if it sucks and is missing tons of content people will just leave for wow anyway.
put out a quality product after WOTLK comes out, and people have burned there way through it.
@Railith: Hope not.
@Aaron: My thoughts exactly. Racial pairings are rather skewed now for the races missing tanks.
@Keen: I wish I knew how the battles would play out. I have no idea, but I suspect guilds will keep up their fights in all areas, so they can capture keeps. The rest will likely go where the major action is.
As for racial balance, this is indeed a concern. I can’t imagine that Mythic has not considered it in their plans though or have not seen it in the beta thus far. Time will tell.
Well, the concerns I’m mostly hearing are to do with the timing of the announcement (once people have pre-ordered their CEs and that’s almost sold out – ie. bait & switch arguments) and the fact that missing two capital cities and all their content is hammering the overall content of the game. And what has Mythic therefore been up to? And will we all suffer because of the content being just not there.
If they go in as a paid expansion.. I’ll be pretty disgusted.
Mark Jacobs answered my Punkbuster questions here.
That pretty much settles my concerns about PB. Sounds like it will be pretty cool.
i actually brought up the very comment on the beta forums about only having 2 cities about a month ago, and was shouted down by rabid fan boys.
looks like i was correct 🙁
Anyone else starting to think that the Lich King is going to ahve less of an impact than we originally thought? I know that for myself and most of my immediate gaming circle, we’re not planning on going back to WoW, regardless of WAR. If you’re not an end-game raider, there’s nothing to go back for in WoW.
I’m definitely not saying more people will play WAR than WoW. Mythic isn’t saying that either. I do think there are plenty of people bored with WoW, or who didn’t play WoW, who want to play a game with an endgame similar to DAoC.
Regarding the news: I’m bummed about classes being dropped. I trust their opinion that the classes weren’t where they wanted them to be. I’m disappointed they couldn’t figure out how to make the classes compelling, though. I’m surprised at that admission.
Keen, for what it’s worth, there are a couple of other really enjoyable dwarf careers. They got rid of the one I enjoyed the least, to be honest.
No-one has brought this up yet, but have fun seeing any pure Greenskin, Dwarf, Dark Elf, or Empire guilds anymore. Without these key classes, you can’t even begin to hope to function as a well-rounded group.
I think the cuts are 100% because they want to release before WotLK.
@ arbitrary – totally agree. I can’t believe they would drop an xp and make people pay even more money just to play the four deleted classes. That would be a massive error.
I don’t mind so much that four of the classes will be temporarily delayed. I don’t like only having two capital cities, however. When WOW launched each side had at least three capial cities that I can think of. So today’s news upsets me.
I look at myself at being in the game for the long haul (assuming no massive problems, bugs, etc.) But if we see content added over the course of, say, six months in which we get the classes added and more capital cities added, this will be acceptable to me.
If the game never has more than two capital cities, I think this will be a grave error. Imagine WOW in which there was no Stormwind and no Ironforge, but only Darnassus. /shudder.
Let me state first I’ve been really looking forward to WAR. It seems to offer, on paper, a pretty ideal MMORPG for me. E.g. with WAR I can PVP only, instead of having to PVE to level to endgame, then being able to PVP. I quit WoW for good last November and am playing LOTRO, but I’ve been eagerly awaiting the launch of WAR.
And, I am a long-time software developer (although not game developer), so that will influence what my take on this news.
On the one hand you can argue that it takes guts to come out and make the public decision now to cut content and esp to cut classes. Without question, it takes guts.
For software / product development, it’s critical to set and manage expectations. You set the expectation of what people will get, when, and how much it will cost. If there is “bad” news, it’s always better to deliver it ASAP along with contingency plans.
But the timing is what concerns me.
It’s July. Theoretically 2-3 months before launch, after many months of development and testing. How could a game developer come to the conclusion, this close to launch, that 4 of the 6 capital cities are not ready?
This close to a launch, my expectation is that the bulk of the code, content (maps, quests, etc), and assets (graphics) should have already been completed. What’s left is testing and polishing them.
Maybe the content for the 4 cities getting cut is 80% done and Mythic is just not happy with the state they’re in. But that isn’t the impression I get from reading MJ’s comments. It sounds like they’re still developing the 2 capital cities they are going live with.
That throws up red flags for me.
As far as cutting the classes: this is due to poor scope planning by Mythic. Designing 24 classes (6 races x 4 classes) was a decision fraught with risk, esp because a given category of class (e.g. ranged DPS) was implemented differently by race. It’s hard enough to design 6 or 12 classes well, let alone 24. And now we see the risk of spreading so thin: Mythic deemed 4 classes basically sucked.
Again, more red flags.
From a personal perspective, I don’t care if they go live with 2 capital cities or 6. Or 20 classes instead of 24.
These cuts won’t impact me personally. I wasn’t planning on playing any of the 4 classes that just got whacked. And I can deal with playing in the Empire vs Chaos RVR if I am a non-Empire player (currently Warrior Priest and White Lion are the classes I’d try out first).
But Mythic just took a pretty big credibility hit with me, in terms of my having confidence that they know what they are doing.
I am still very much looking forward to this game, but this news has tempered my “irrational exuberance”. I have the impression some folks, such as Keen, are probably in the same boat.
Maybe there is no silver bullet out there for a “great” PVP-based MMORPG. I didn’t play AoC but there is enough bad stuff coming out (LOL @ tying DPS to animations…what a moronic technical decision) that I will probably never try it.
@ Keen (#10)
Bright Wizards arnt countered by Tank classes like you said, however they are countered by the Melee DPS which is also getting cut.
According to my brilliant use of deduction it would appear that the tank class just became the worst class to play in RvR with this information and the Melee DPS the best. According to:
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?FEATURE=2018&GAME=239&bhcp=1
Mythic is going for a WoW style approach to class balance I.e. rock/paper/scissors and seeing as according to my charts Tanks are only strong vs Melee DPS (4) and are weak to Ranged DPS and Ranged Healers (10)
I don’t think this is EA. This is Mythic leadership. Does anyone not beleive MJ has huge PERSONAL bonus dollars tied to a q4 2008 release from whenthe acquisition happened?
What about the stuff like the pride statues for the different races best players and such? I recall that stuff was gonna exist in your racial city. I’d hope they’ve figured out how to transition this over to the two existing cities in the interim till they add the future cities.
Yeah, I think at this point, it might almost be better to delay.
They could avoid competition with WotLK, and when it wears off the game will be more completed.
*sigh*
I still have a lot of hope for WAR. I just don’t want it to be any less than it should be. They have every intention of doing this right. They are not cheap, they don’t seem to be all that greedy, and Mark sounds like he’s trying to do the right thing here.
But its still a bit underwhelming.
A bitter pill to swallow
Cutting 4 classes is really bitter. But some, if not all of them, may make it post-release. I can live without 4 additional vanilla classes. Hopefully a spark of genious will breathe new life into the stillborn classes and make them fun and original to play.
All the capital cities will be in at some point. As equals. The two cities, that are in at release, are great. ‘Best capital cities in a MMO ever’ is what most people say.
We will be overwhelmed with this two cities. Six cities of this magnitude right of the bat would definitly be too much. We would all be lost and miss out on lots of the little things. Because of the multiple stage release of the capital cities, we will get to know each city much better. Everytime cities are released, most will focus on the recently released cities and get to experience them to their fullest.
Focusing on 2 capital cities for release sounds right to me. It doesn’t bother me. More focus in the early days won’t hurt my warhammer experience. Rather than being crushed by the multitude of choices, we will grow up in a simple, clear cut and easy to understand environment. The big content patches will be awesome. The adding of new capital city pairings will just rock our socks off. Great stuff for content cycles.
This does not suck! It’s the perfect scheme for the perfect ‘content patch’ cycle. I predict the best ‘content cycles’ ever! After thinking about it, the capital city ‘bad news’ is more of along the lines of ‘good news’.
My headline reads as follows ‘Mythic announces their scheme of keeping me hooked on fresh and worthwhile content, while growing horizontally instead of vertically’
Now, that this is out of the way, it’s time to get to the good stuff. Guild Beta is about to start. E3 will be news packed. NDA will be dropped soon. WAR is coming!
That’s a good question Gali. I’d be curious to hear the answer also.
Re: #44, comparison to WoW capitals at LAUNCH isn’t terribly apt, as WoW capitals are hubs for all levels, whereas WAR capitals are supposed to be hubs at Tier 4. You won’t really see the capitals that much (if at all) until you’re high level.
Hopefully this means Mythic will work on finishing the cities while people are leveling and have them in place by the time most people need them (hardcore players will level too fast no doubt, but for the rest of us). If the cities just get cut entirely, then yeah, I’d call DOOOOOM on that.
No….Choppa….
That was the class that held my interest more than anthing.
I dunno anymmore. I just….don’t know….
🙁
yea im a melee dps at heart and I will only play Destruction since every single shred of evidence has shown that Order will be just like WoW Alliance and Albs in DAoC I want to play a side that actually is good and organized and the only class that piqed my interest was the choppa.
If only there were Male Witch Elves 🙂
No more of this… 🙁
I think they are not wanting to follow in Vangaurd’s foot steps. I think having “incomplete” content (aka the four other capitals) would cause more damage then not having them all.
There are most likely solid business reasons for making the Fall 08 release. Namely to make money. (I am all for making money.) It is sort of a simple cost analysis. I really doubt that there is a sizable number of players that will not play this game because of these changes. Personally, I am more interested in the world as a whole and the other concepts (PQs and RvR)
I suspect they have the cities and classes on a schedule for implementation after release. And they would be really foolish to charge for them. MJ has already hinted that they have their “five-year” plan for expansions, so they don’t need to create any more for their business plan.
The real eye opener for me is the inclusion of Punkbuster at this late stage. Is anti-cheat software required in MMO’s? Yes. Do you try and test and implement it a few months before launch? No way. If Mythic get PB wrong there is going to be huge repercussions for them in the gaming community and I’m very surprised they are taking this big a gamble so late in the day.
I’ve used PB in league competition from way back; Quake, SoF2 etc right through to CoD4 and although the software is good it is a royal pain in the arse. I do not know anyone who has not had PB problems at one point or another. Unless the PB updater is radically changed people will end up becoming very familiar withe the Punkbuster folder, uninstalling, reinstalling, task manager (to kill PunkbstrA.exe) and manual updating.
And god forbid WAR clients have to authenticate when launched or at regular intervals during play. If that happens and the performance is the same as current users experience well then all I can say is good luck with that. Mythic will be doing some serious firefighting right from the getgo and end up shutting the whole PB system down.
Players being locked out of all servers because the PB Master servers are down just wont do. FPS players have been plagued with that problem for years. And who will people turn to when those servers do go down? Mythic? Punkbuster?
Don’t forget the FPS scene is much less vocal then the MMO one. I dread to think what the backlash will be like if they don’t get it right.
It’s a serious recipe for disaster unless some major changes take place. And what’s this about including PB auto-updater in the Mythic auto-updater. Bad move, real bad move. Users know the PB auto-updater is unreliable so why dump that in with your own software?
Sure it’s understandable to want to use anti-cheat software and the PB software (when it works) is good but this type of co-operation between companies takes months and months, especially as a first foray into MMO land, to get right. Infinity Ward and PB still didn’t get it right in CoD4 and they worked together since CoD2!
I hope they get it right I really do (although from using PB extensively for years I’m at an advantage to most users) but imo it’s one hell of a gamble to take at this stage.
Sad news. I really wanted to see all those other classes and the capitals of just one racial pairing will bottleneck zone populations after release. You have to give Mythic credit for not blowing smoke up our bums and taking our money on false pretenses. How fraudulent would that have been?
Im not sure what im going to do. I hate the feeling of having to choose a second or third choice instead of getting to play what I really wanted to.
Black Orc? I refuse to play another tank class…evar. Marauder? There be be thousands upon thousands of them now. Without the other DPS melee class, all of the Choppa players will go to Chaos. No one with any sense wants to play elves.
/facepalm
This really stinks for me. There aren’t any other classes I wanted to play. :/
I feel your pain bartlbe, I dont play tank classes, I play 2h Weilding Armsman, DW’ing DPS godly Fury Warriors, Stealth ambushing Rougish classes, and Barbarian type classesl ike in AoC/Diablo.
Now this game offers me no classes that just make me say “yup thats for me”
After playing AoC at launch and experiencing some truly broken features, I’m actually happy that Mythic decided to keep them out for release. Playing a broken or incomplete class in AoC was seriously frustrating, and the horrible state their PVP was just as bad.
I think this is a much more preferable route.
@ Bartlebe
I’ve got the opposite problem. All careers are very attractive to me. I can’t decide, what I want to play the most.
I’m looking forward to put as many careers as possible to test in open beta. I have a very hard time to wait. I just can’t wait any longer.
I’m glad they made these ‘launch cuts’, because, frankly, I just want to play already!
@Ian: Those are my thoughts as well. If there is any light at the end of this dark tunnel today it’s the hope that this will all make for a better game – and one very unlike AoC. Finished classes, finished and now polished gameplay are all to be expected.
I’ll probably collect my thoughts and write a nice blog entry tomorrow on how I see things after taking a step back. My initial “Well, crap” feelings still stand. I’m more disappointed about what I won’t get to see (like the Greenskin capital) in-game than I am worried about balance or frustrated about things being removed.
Thats a good way to describe it Zederok.
The Choppa class stood out to me because it was a rowdy, keenly intelligence, unfettered killing machine. No fancy stances (Marauder), NOT a chick (Elves) and not one of the Order. What is there for me now?
Spell casters have never, TRULY been my bag. I have always liked holding large weapons and getting in peoples faces.
*salutes*
You will be missed.
I have the answer to my E3 question and I’m rather disappointed with the bomb they dropped on us and I see some nerfing coming soon after to fix the unbalance among the 2 factions 🙁
Saddest thing was that I was thinking about rolling a KotBS for my first eva tanking char 😀
Well that is out of the window. Anyone here that will not buy the game, because of these changes?
For me the changes dont matter that much even tho theyre clearly negative (except punkbuster).
2008…the year of the MMO!!
Fudge that…………….
Well, ok, there is always Aion, SG Worlds, and Guild Wars 2 in 2009?
(Takes out Liquid paper…a few swipes…)
2009…the year of the MMO!!
(There, send that to the presses)
@Taugrim: Well said.
I wonder if those two cities are at risk of overpopulation now. I’m reminded of the original EQ’s Freeport market zone, with my computer gagging while it tries to draw the characters and gear of sixty players. I’m sure Mythic would instance the cities if populations were too dense, but I wonder how the design of those cities will change now.
I’d like to hear if Mythic’s going to move content from the abandoned cities into these capitals. Or are they going to save the capitals as they for inclusion a year down the line? Gali mentioned the pride statues. What about dungeons and locales? What about NPCs?
These are such huge changes to make this late in development. I feel bad for all the artists and designers at Mythic whose good work might never see the light of day now (when specific objects, NPCs, quests, etc are scrapped).
@ Kyyneva: This doesn’t deter me from the game at all because it has no impact on the game being “done”/”complete”/”ready” for launch. Just disappointed in what I won’t get to see.
Yeah big question is will they commit to putting the classes in later, and how long until the other capitals are put in. Also until then, how they plan to deal with the population bottleneck into the empire vs chaos zone.
I am sure that all of these will be upated in content patches. What I find funny is that Funcom did the same thign and all of you whined about it. However, when Mythic does it it’s OK? Keen, you said you won’t buy the game if major game content was missing, well it is.
I still plan to buy the game, I figured this would happen. I told you all, I work in this field. There are so many more factors than just having the best game. I am betting their main reason for this is WotLK. They are seriously screwed if they don’t release before that expansion, and a good time before that expansion to boot. You have to give your players time to get caught up in your game otherwise they will turn tail and return to the game they already have end game characters on.
In any case, this will probably drop there sales around 10%. Not that much at all. Most people that will be buying this game don’t even know enough about it to miss the removed content.
Finally, Punkbuster… This to me is the WORSE news ever. I don’t think any of you understand how horrible Punkbuster is. There are two services, PnkBstrA and PnkBstrB. One of them runs in the background even when your not playing. They have to have specific ports forwarded on many machines or you get kicked instantly. I mean, I know anyone that has played a game with Punkbuster has been kicked for no real reason at all before. It is going to be obsessively annoying on an MMO. Even after all that, Punkbuster is a joke, it doesn’t work well at all. Goto http://www.artificialaiming.net/. Almost all of those games use Punkbuster, but if you pay for that software it is updated every time Punkbuster is, you pretty much never get caught.
It makes no sense that a company as big as EA has not developed their own anti-cheat system by now…
Do you guys think anything else will be cut for release? It looks like there was supposed to be 4 crafting and 4 gathering professions, but the podcast only mentioned 2 crafting professions.
Ohh and BTW. More news. http://pc.ign.com/articles/888/888312p1.html?RSSwhen2008-07-11_110900&RSSid=888312
GUILD BETA IS LAUNCHED!
@Railith
There were always only going to be 2 at launch, the others were supposed to be content patches, at least that’s what I always got from the videos.
By the way, I’d just like to go on record saying I’m not a fan of PunkBuster and their history not only of false-positives, but attacking sysadmins who’ve brought it up as if they were supporting cheaters. Very much “if you’re not with us” types, they’re like the Homeland Security of gaming.
I was very happy when Valve dumped them from their products.
Maybe they’ve improved over the years, but I’ve been avoiding them for awhile now.
PB has issues. No doubt about it. I’m hoping the integration into Mythic’s patching system solves a lot of these problems. *shrug* The only thing we can do is hope.
@Hawkie007: Mythic has some experience with PunkBuster though, I think it’s been in usage for Ultima Online since 2006 and as part of their EA-Mythic duties they were in charge of UO.
I still think it stinks though, I’m really not interested in having it running on my PC again. =/
Without question the community is generally ignorant of Punkbuster, it’s history and the potential impact it will probably have on their game. To me the integration of PB is the single biggest threat to date to WAR’s success.
What’s more Mythic are putting a hell of a lot of responsibility onto PB and their infrastructure. I’ve experienced PB master lists being down for 2-3hrs at a time on multiple occasions per week (as a player and as a server admin streaming pbbans etc)and if the WAR client has to authenticate on launch (or during gameplay at intervals) then that means thousands of people being LOCKED out of WAR until the PB servers are ok.
Who will you turn to even your client cannot authenticate and you cant log in? Mythic can’t help you. GoA or whoever? Nope. You will have to go to Punkbuster and you will get nowhere with that.
I challenge anyone to find someone who has used PB for any length of time and NOT had problems with it. With so much else that could damage WAR why risk serious reputation on software that doesn’t work properly in FPS after years and years and has never even been used before in MMOs? It doesn’t make sense as it’s not a CORE need.
We haven’t even touched on the firewall problems PB has and how much potential whining there will be over that. The PB announcement today is the big shadowy thing standing in the corner that no one notices until it’s too late 🙂
@Rog: I have punkbuster on my PC right now for multiple games and I have had only a few issues that were limited to the game being able to run without PB kicking me. These issues were quickly resolved. It has definitely come a long way over the years.
@Hawk: You should definitely read Mark Jacobs’ post here. He says: “So, that’s the basic scoop on Punkbuster. We truly believe that it will be a net addition for our game but again, if it isn’t or there are lots of problems with it, we’ll take it out. Frankly, based on our willingness to go so far as take out some classes, I hope you understand how taking out Punkbuster if it doesn’t work the way we hope would be a very easy thing for us to do. “
Well if we all learned one thing from this entire episode it is that K&G needs a forum.
@Keen: Yeah I’ve read it before and the get-out-jail-free card Mark has played. Even if it makes it into launch my money is on them switching it off anyway. Maybe as a server admin and gamer using PB extensively for @10 years I’ve had one too many headaches with it 🙂
Like I said hopefully they can do something special and get it working as it should. Working properly it would be a fantastic addition in the MMO war on terrorists!
Unfortunately my confidence levels are rather low on that front 😉
LOL. I’ve contemplated the pros and cons of a forum before. I’ll think about it again. 😉
I have been skeptical all along that there could be healthy end game PvP with players split among 6 capital cities. It also seemed to detract from the idea that the three races on each side actually are allied. If a greenskins and dwarves have a linked level one to end game city raid game, wouldn’t most greenskins and dwarves stay on that track? I know as a dwarf I wouldn’t stick my neck out to help some girly elf.
The classes on the other hand, I’m really disappointed to hear about. The Choppa and the Crazy Hammer Dwarf both ranked pretty high on my list of classes I was hoping to try out. I really wonder what was so wrong with them.
A week before Warhammer release, can you PLEASE do a excel spreadsheet or something on the pros and cons on all MMO’s? I want to know if Warhammer will be better than WoW after all. Since I got bored with WoW after 3 months after first release, then bored again and again. I don’t like being bored. MMO=Never beat the game. So it better always have something to do.
The cuts hurt the vision, not the game!
The cuts hurt the vision, not the game!
1. Capital city cuts
4 out of 6 captial cities are cut from release. They will be added in pairs as free content patches. So 2 out of 6 capital cities are in at release.
2. Class cuts
4 out of 24 classes are cut from release. Probably they’re scrapped entirely. That leaves us with 20 classes. All 20 classes are playable in the upcoming ‘guild beta’.
3. In current beta and most likely tested and ready for the fall release:
3x Tier 1 areas (2 zones each, 6 in total)
3x Tier 2 areas (2 zones each, 6 in total)
3x Tier 3 areas (2 zones each, 6 in total)
3x Tier 4 areas (5 zones each, 15 in total)
2x Capital Cities
Total of (33 zones, 2 capital cities)
*no loading screens between zones, only between tiers, zones are about 10min travel on foot to cross
-Every zones has lots of quests, public quests, lairs, warcamps, battle objectives, scenarios and keeps.
-There is a multitude of realm instanced dungeons throughout the tiers (essentially zones full of ‘group only’ champion and hero mobs, public quests and group instanced bosses).
-Every capital city has 3 unlockable group instanced dungeons. So at release, at least 6 group instanced dungeons will be ingame.
-All feature will be ingame at release. Every annouced gameplay feature is in beta now. WAR delivers on its promises.
Mythic wants to make the fall release. The game will be ready by then. Betaleakers feedback is overwhelmingly positive. It already is an amazing game and it only gets better. We will be playing a feature complete, polished and most likely very fun and addicitve game this fall. WAR is a full game now and will be even better at release. That’s the upside.
The downside of the fall release is, that they can’t deliver all the content on time. The vision Mythic promoted included 6 capital cities and 24 classes. They will be short 4 capital cities and 4 classes at release.
We will play a full game in the fall. The vision will just have to catch up. And honestly. I can’t wait to get to play WAR. It will be awesome! But see for yourself. NDA will be lifted very soon. The game speaks for itself.
News!
Now we have an exciting expansion!
New cities!
New classes! The new and exciting choppa or the batshit crazy Dark Elf thing!
Mudkipz!
And more!
Buy now for only $50 more dollars.
@ Bartlebe
You don’t really believe that yourself… that’s just plain griefing and venting! Get a hold of yourself – man!
Bartlebe may be exaggerating there for comic value but he is hitting on something that is at the back of our minds. Will they charge for it or give it for free? and when? maybe you can ask them at E3 Keen n Graev?? (hint hint, wink wink, know what I mean, know what I mean?) 🙂
P.S. I will not buy an unfinished game.
@bowman -1. Capital city cuts
4 out of 6 captial cities are cut from release. They will be added in pairs as free content patches. So 2 out of 6 capital cities are in at release.
I haven’t read a bunch of these comments or looked anywhere, but is this something official or just something you made up?
Don’t let all this get you down. Check out this Dawn of War 2 E3 preview!
http://pc.ign.com/articles/888/888046p1.html
This will sound selfish no doubt but I personally really wanted to roll a Witch Elf. I’ve loved the Dark Elves in Warhammer for a long, long time but never ever got around to creating a table top army of them, being distracted constantly by other things. Finally having the chance here is great… except I figured there would be a low number of Witch Elves compared to other melee because of the whole female/light armoured thing. I was like ‘large numbers = orcs/chaos’ which is also fine because it fits in with the lore etc. It seems with the reduction of melee/tank classes we may see a higher number of Witch Elf players and well, I prefer just being… you know, a named individual amongst a select few rather than a guy amongst the horde. Am a bit worried i’m going to get ‘carried under’ the rogue horde now, hmmm. Apologies also for the big paragraph, my enter key is broke :/
@ SwS
Quote Mark Jacobs (MMORPG.com announcement)
“A number of months ago,†Jacobs began, “we sat down and looked at where we were with our Capital Cities and we looked at what we were doing with Altdorf and Inevitable, we looked at the Greenskin home, the Dwarf home and we went ‘there’s an awful lot to do here and there are some issues‘.â€
There was something missing. It wasn’t enough fun, it wasn’t interesting enough, it wasn’t “alive†enough. From there, the team was faced with a choice. They could either keep going down that path, working on all six cities and trying to get them finished before launch or make the hard decision to shelve four of the cities until post-launch and make sure that Altdorf and Inevitable were as full and rich as their design had intended. Mythic chose the latter.
“we decided to focus our energies on two capital cities; one for Order and one for Destruction, and make them fabulous, said Jacobs. “Not good, not great, but fabulous.â€
“We wanted to make our Capital Cities the best cities in any MMO. We think we’re doing that, but it came at a price and that price is that the other cities aren’t going in the game right now.â€
End quote.
The statement above and all I know about MMOs in general and specifically WAR, leads me to the following conclusions. It’s a very well educated guess. It’s good business for everybody involved, especially for the playerbase.
-missing capital cities will be added
-missing capital cities will be added for free
-missing capital cities will be added in pairs
-added capital cities will be equal or better to Altdorf and to the Inevitable City
Adding capital city pairings is great stuff for content patches. It’s the WAR equivalent to adding elitist raiding treadmills.
I got suckerpunched by this news like everybody else and it hurt like hell at first. But thinking about it, adjusting my vision of WAR to this new information, I don’t see this cuts as a problem, I see them as a chance!
We will get the better content at launch. Will will get more satisfying content patches. Will be more focused at all times and less lost. The result I predict is, that I will have more fun with WAR at any given time, than without this ‘launch build cuts’. This is true for release, as well as further down the line.
So cheer up! WAR is as amazing as ever and it only gets better. I look forward to it.
Who says taking all this out will leave an unfinished game? Everyone seems to think taking out some cities will leave great holes in the game.
Don’t you think Mythic will do anything about making sure that you don’t notice these changes? You don’t even know what it was like, how can you say that the game is going to be rubbish without it?
Mythic are not as completely stupid as you think; they know taking out this content will effect the game a lot, and so they will do all they can to make sure that you do not even think about it. Saying this, it will be hard for all those who will need to start thinking about their new class.
Decipher:
…shelve…until post-launch…aren’t going in the game right now.
No offense Bowman, but you sound like a horrendously blind warhammer fanboy.
Also, I have a few friends in beta, all of them hardcore PvPers and I have heard nothing but negative things about the game.
That’s funny Mordiceius, I’ve got more than my fair share of contacts in the beta, and all of them love the game… gee, what do we call this phenomenon?
Oh yeah, OPINIONS.
People need to step back, take a breath, and relax until you see the game for yourself before crying foul.
Must admit Mordiceuis I’ve heard nothing but good comments and positive outlooks for Warhammer, from a variety of my friends involved within the WAR beta, who are also huge WoW fanboys. The only guy to post something negative was a chap obsessed with the Hammerer and well – that’s being removed 😛
It also depends (and apologies for the double post) what you mean by ‘hardcore PvPers’. How hardcore we talking, what previous experience to that. I’ve heard no end of people claiming to be ‘hardcore PvP’ yet they’re main focus of that is centered around WoWs delightfully awful system.
@ Mordiceius
No worries. I am a fan, but not a boy. I want WAR to be good.
I doubt your friends have an attitude befitting of a beta tester. Closed beta is about the negative things, and not about enjoying a free rollercoaster ride. Since the last delay, the game has made huge progress. Mythic is now confident, that the fun parts are good enough to open up closed beta to entire guilds. The server population on the ‘guild beta’ server is rather of the size, that we will see at launch and starts to represent ‘fun factor’ of the launch build.
Once NDA drops (very soon), and the beta switches from closed to open, the beta will start to be about fun and enjoyment. I will be in open beta and I will do my best, to enjoy it to the fullest. I don’t think it will be hard to fall for WAR. Everything about it, makes wanna love it.
If you believe, all I write is BS, because I am a fan, go ahead.
@Bowman
I’m happy that you are really optimistic, and of course the cities will be added. I hope for the sake of the game it’s for free and within the first few months of the game.
@Chappo
A lot of people base it off everything that has been laid out to this point. Taking out the cities isn’t a very good sign to a lot of people, where raiding capitals was supposedly a major part of the game.
Do I know how complete the game is? Of course not, but I can tell you it certainly seems like a large portion of RvR will be missing because of this move. Am I right? Who knows.
I want the game to be great, I do. I’m just seeing red flags now and todays announcement is a major one.
@Bowman: I’d like WAR to be good too, but it’s a game I really wanted to play awhile ago and more and more it seems to go in directions that leave me feeling less enthusiastic. I’m not calling you a fanbois, I just think your excitement is carrying you while I’m a lot more hesitant. I don’t count beta as high an indicator as some, that’s for sure.
Am I being harsh on WAR? I don’t think so, for me, it’s main appeal is that it’s supposed to have some meaty content.
One big issue I see here is that with less cities and class choices overall to spread things out, it’s going to make the faction imbalance even worse. From what I can tell, Mythic is too busy scrambling for release to address that and it’s going to be a huge problem. It’s something I think beta-testing is not going to inherently solve, testers have a much different approach to a game than customers.
One side point is I think in general we should stop just giving MMOs a pass on broken or missing content just because it’s an MMO. I know an MMO is never ‘finished’ but saying ‘we have to remove content to make a release date’ is unacceptable in my opinion. I’m not a blizzard fanboi but I do believe strongly in the ‘release it when it is done’ methodology.
I don’t like hearing “oh it’ll be there… eventually” for content that was supposed to already be there. If you say something is going to be there, put it there or don’t release it until you can put it there. I don’t see why MMOs are given such a pass for this when you would never allow it for a single player game.
Ill be honest, I would gladly take these classes even if they were underpowered, as I am a melee lover, and Hammerer, Choppa, and Knight of the Blazing Sun were all classes I would have happily played.
I would take them weak and broken and have them get fixed as the game went, just so id have the option to CHOOSE them, Armsman and Warrior being incredibly gimp in DAoC never stopped me! and neither would this… I can understand the first 2, but leaving out 4 classes, especially a melee/tank lover like myself just hurts.
The Hammerer! nooooooo!
I should note, this doesnt change my desire to play the game one bit, im just incredibly dissapointed that they feel the need to leave out classes… youll notice 3 of them are tanks.
I really hope they reconsider this and leave those classes in, I for one would play 3/4 of those careers in a heartbeat, and in fact, Choppa, Hammerer, and Knight were 3 of the 5 classes I was most looking foreward too, the other classes being Chosen and Witch Hunter.
I still trust Mythic, and the game is still a long ways from release, but although I believe in a well polished game, I dont care for them having to leave out so many well loved classes just because they are not “as great” as others.
Now I will mention that the Hammerer and Chopper seemed similar, and both are being left out, as well as Blackguard/Knight, go figure.
Danath: would you still play them if they where extremely boring classes to play? Cos thats the reason they where cut, not cos they where underpowered spesifically, but cos beta testers gave feedback that these classes just aint fun to play.
I love irony…
You said you wanted things done..we technically it won’t be done, and so all the WAR fanboys are going to say. Oh well its an MMO, things shouldn’t be done.
@ Rog
Even with 4 capital cities and 4 classes short, WAR will have lots of content at release.
Everything, except for the cut content, is included in the current ‘closed beta 3’ aka ‘guild beta’ client. They take the 2-3 months to focus on what they got right and polish it.
I’d rather have a little less content at release, than having all content I expected, but of a lesser quality. Quantity, even with the cuts, is more than enough.
NDA will be lifted soon. Just wait and see. Most of us can’t imagine how great a game WAR already is and how much it does offer. It’s a full game, no matter, how this ‘content cuts’ read to you.
@ Sylar
WAR is way more ‘done’ than not. Every gameplay feature is in the current beta client.
WOW still doesn’t deliver on its initial proposal of meaningful faction warfare.
WAR actually does deliver all the ‘game’ it has proposed. It’s in the current beta client.
The cuts are only for ‘release build’ and it aren’t cuts to the game, but to the vision. They will be 4 capital cities and 4 classes short of their initial vision.
Adding more content is core to the MMORPG genre. Adding more ‘game’, on the other hand, doesn’t happen. As all the ‘game’ is in as proposed, I just got one thing to say…
No worries!
The addition of PB is what worries me the most tbh. Not only is it a truckload of poor code that has caused me hours of headaches in my previous times as a FPS gamer, but it also pretty much rules out the possibility for WAR to work in Wine on Linux totally. And this saddens me, a lot… =(
Well I guess I get used to that info. After hours of thinking, you know what you are right I want to have less but better. But now Mythic no slacking off, deliver us a great game!
And this is my guessing on reasoning:
Cities : Simply too late
IMO they started working on them too late and run out off time. So they had to make that decision to add them later. I wouldn’t be suprised if they are ending 2 cities and starting others.
Classes:
Choppa/Hammerer : No basic mechanic. They didn’t know what mechanic could this berzerkerz have although it was great on paper.
Black Guard: Grudge is excellent but obviously Hate was good only on paper.
KotBS: Shouts problem maybe, also IMO this class sucks in Empire, I would make a Knight but of diffrent Order (One of Ulric maybe?)
Don’t get mad at me that is something I though about it all It obviously can be totally wrong. Still I’m sorry for people wanted to roll on these classes. 🙁
Hirokana makes a good point to be fair – of all the knightly orders, why in the world WOULD you pick the Blazing Sun? It’s very odd. I was expecting something more along the lines of the White Wolves or the Reikguard, something a bit more ‘closer to home’. But then there’s the problem of course that both those units are unlikely to be too different from others.
Personally I reckon they’ll introduce the classes at one point or another. Or I hope so at least :p
More detailed response from Mark here:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?p=967545#post967545
All in all I like that they had balls to tell about it, not like AoC that suddenly was missing key features at launch without notice.
@Bowman
I just love it when fanboys come up with this kind of response. They are cuts to the game, they said there would be captial cities for all races. hence why this game is not finished.
Go on with your excuses…MMOS are dead. I’m sure people will be saying the same thing about the next leet MMO coming out.
Would like to see a ChaosCast episode discussing that problem. Really good podcast by the way.
its AoC all over again, they are just telling us about it sooner, does not change the fact they are taking core things out of the game, this is a major blow to me, the only class i like is choppa, i have played them all, but always come back to choppa.
AoC needed 6 months in beta, it was not ready, and people did not stand for it, look at the state of the game now, War is going the same way it seems. i know its all about money in the long run, but how many people are going to give AoC another chance now ?.
@ Sylar
Excuse what? Mythic was ‘done’ with Altdorf and took a look at it. It didn’t fell right yet.
‘We have to do more, to make this city as great, as we want it to be’, was their conclusion. The more love they poored into Altdorf, the less likely was the implementation of all other capital cities for release.
The upside: Altdorf and the Inevitable City get all the love and care, they possible could get, setting the standard for all further WAR content. This two capital cities will be unique and awesome from the get-go. They have to be as good as Mythic intends them to be and they will be.
The downside: At release, we ‘only’ get the two necessary cities to get the core RvR mechanic to work and not all six, as initially envisioned.
And Sylar… stop calling me a boy.
@ Dave
Choppa wasn’t in BETA for a good year now. I have a really hard time to believe, that out of the 20 classes ingame (all 20 of ’em are playable in beta right now), you don’t like any of ’em. I have a very hard time to decide, what class I want to play first. Are you even in beta or are you just venting?
WAR isn’t a broken game like AoC. Everything WAR proposes in terms of gameplay has been in a focus test already and it works. Everything to be released is in the current beta phase client. Everything comes together really well. The game is more awesome than ever. It only gets better.
I do understand the hurt. I don’t understand the reactions.
i have yet to find a class that comes close to the fun i had with choppa, its what i planed playing from the start, yes i am in beta i have been in since very early on, i am downloading the elder beta client right now.
maybe it was not fair putting next to AoC, but i do feel if the stuff they tell us about is not there then they should hold on, dont rush it, the game will be better in the long run for it, i think AoC could have been great, they messed up, i dont want to see the same thing happen with War.
@Dave
I’m confused. In post #118, Bowman says Choppa hasn’t been in BETA for a year, and you said in post #119 that you “have yet to find a class that comes close to the fun i had with choppa”.
Was Choppa originally in the Beta a long time ago, but taken out since then?
I’m unfortunately not in the WAR Beta, so I have no idea how well the other 20 classes are designed.
I understand folks have concerns that the races without tanks may have an issue with having meatshields to protect them in PVE and PVP.
For launch, if Empire v Chaos is the focal point, there may be a sizable number of players from the other 4 races involved, in which case there would be tanks.
Question for anyone:
Will RVR for the other 2 matchups be featured at launched? I mean, would it just be the T1->T3 RVR fighting but no T4 (capital fighting)? Or will there be no RVR aside from Empire v Chaos? It hasn’t been clear from what I’ve read from Mythic wrt that yet.
I’m not sure I’m using the terms correctly, but hopefully my question makes sense.
Wow! I just read 120 comments. A lot of good comments too. I remember when WoW told us about Hero classes, housing, siege equipment and epic PvP. Hero classes cut, housing cut, siege equipment cut, and epic PvP lol. After 1 year PvP was introduced into WoW the had a purpose (honor points now changed for the 3 time). Hero class in now comming with WotLK but not same vision as it was back before relese. Housing will never happen. Siege equipment coming soon too (4 years later). Epic PvP? kind of now but for 3 years it has been changed over and over again. MMO’s change. In 3 years WAR won’t be WAR today. My WoW account had over 3 months of free days because of the screw ups but for 3+ years I loved the game and its changes. WAR will change that is why we pay $14.99 a month.
I will say this tho, If WAR delays again or more is cut, I am cancelling my CE and playing WotLK until WAR can get it’s act together. I’m not paying $80 to wait longer for more cuts
I think this is proof positive that they’re not delaying the game. They would have had zero need to announce these cuts right before E3 if they were delaying.
And the big difference between Mythic and Blizzard here is that Mythic is forthcoming and Blizzard kept stringing us along for years until we just didn’t care anymore.
@Keen
And that is why I am still on board. Intergity!
People are really missing what’s forcing the removals. I was interested in other MMOs underdevelopment but the turning point in gaining sustained interest for WAR came about when they introduced their city mechanics.
Cities that level up and as a result change their composition is a massive undertaking noone here has wrapped their heads around. Cities levelling up was only announced a few months ago and prior to that I’ve never seen cities aside from Chaos and Order. The removal of the 4 cities tells me what happened concerning them is that Mythic changed the scope of what cities would be like after this year began. There’s no way they could really deliver what needs to be implemented if they were working under such a short time frame.
As for the classes it’s obvious it takes awhile to really tweak things to perfection. Starcraft wasn’t fixed until patch 1.08 and that took two years of patching and even then there are still issues with certain unit compositions.
Atleast Mythic isn’t repeating past mistakes they made with DAOC. They deserve for listening to their beta testers and making a judgement call of not letting the public experience crappy content instead of giving us the opportunity to complain about being given weaksauce garbage.
On a final note I would’ve preferred if 4 cities would’ve been worked on instead of 2 but since key classes are being cut it plays into Mythic’s and our interests to be forced to defend the same city because our races or deficient in tanking or melee dps.
Just read the news. I’m not terribly concerned about the classes, because I thought some of them were redundant with other classes and could have their roles combined (Choppas and Black Orcs, for instance).
The capital cuts disappoint me greatly, though. Even World of Warcraft has multiple capital cities. I know Warhammer’s capital cities are a lot more than World of Warcraft’s, but that’s what players are going to notice in their comparisons between the games.
Somehow, I’m hoping they’re able to finish them and slip them back in time for release. But that probably won’t happen now.
World of Flophammer!
Hey here’s an Idea! Instead of taking out content so the battles are bigger in certain areas, why don’t they just release the game out on less servers until they fill them up?
Brilliant!
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