Reinventing WAR?
I admire Keen's persistence and passion, he so badly wants WAR to be the game he imagined it would be. He's created a map and an outline for what he hopes the Land of the Dead update will be.
The past few months WAR has seen a lot of changes, big and small. Some of it goes with the territory for any MMO release. The more game-changing stuff has been accoladed while my mouth is agape. If the game didn't need the changes so much, the playerbase might have revolted, but like Keen they're a persistent lot: They want their RvR that bad. And it still has a long ways to go.
WAR is so obviously broken to me. It can be fixed and it probably will be fixed, possibly over and over again. I'm not predicting any sort of gloom and doom, but there are frustrations and those will continue. Let's face it, this game hasn't just been beta-tested while we play, it's still being designed. Or redesigned, depending on how you'd like to look at it.
There's a school of thought prevalent in the community, that DAoC (Dark Age of Camelot) was closer to the mark in RvR goodness. In that case, this community is even more stubbornly sticking with Mythic, because that taste is still with them and they want it again.
It does beg the question though, why didn't Mythic just upgrade DAoC? Aside from the updated graphics engine (with many of its own problems), is WAR a downgrade from their previous game? DAoC v0.9?
I burned out waiting for the outcome, but I find myself ever curious where this game is going to end up.
(Related: I Has PC has an article up regarding incomplete MMOs and the possibilities of commercial betas.)
Feb 3, 2009 12:31pm
I'll remain persistent and push for the changes until Mythic comes out and makes it clear that the changes will never come; or fails to make changes within a timely (read: 6 months) manner.
The fact of it is that DAOC is/was a vastly superior "RvR" experience. The game was just done better. Why they decided to go to Warhammer instead of DAOC eludes me from a game design perspective, but makes perfect sense fiscally. Warhammer and EA meant $$$ beyond what a DAOC2 would have brought in. It would have certainly been a far better game though. I don't forgive easily when a developer chooses a payday over a better game.
Maybe they will, one day, make a DAOC 2. Until then, while they're still touting WAR as an RvR game, I will continue in my persistence to bring to light what RvR is truly supposed to be about and how they got it right many years ago.
Feb 3, 2009 4:06pm
Fun you used the term "Commercial Beta", I just made a post saying devs should have an offical 6 month period termed something along those lines.
As Keen said, DAOC was niche. I mean, all the cool MMO's are now built upon existing IP, not fresh and new exciting ones! DAOC2 would have been viewed as the same. I played DAOC for 3 years, for the record, and loved it. By wrapping in the Warhammer IP I am certain they were trying to capture both the DAOC market past and present, as well as War enthusiasts. I don't think they have managed to have done either yet - we'll see what happens at the end of commercial beta.
Also for the record, in beta I was a huge fan of WAR, it just didn't play out retail like it did beta, unfortunately. I'm going to wait for more changes and see where the dust settles before investing again.
(on a side note, it won't let me save my homepage www.ihaspc.com when I post - is there a special format?)
Feb 3, 2009 4:55pm
@Chris F: I had read that post too and I think the term was in my mind subconsciously when I added that tag to this post. I'll post a comment on your blog, because I have specific thoughts in regards to that that.
The IP probably is the clincher. I was going to argue that the name, setting and lore shouldn't have made a difference (I still don't see why Chaos couldn't have been a third faction), but I know after years with the Warhammer MMO property changing hands and being essentially in development limbo-- I'm betting Mythic had pressure from both Games Workshop and EA to just get the thing out the door and making money.
It feels like Mythic threw in a barebones architecture for the game and appended this-and-that feature onto it. But I'm repeating myself at this point.
Regardless of the DAoC fanbase, there are also the players who are just damn happy to have a game where classes are designed with PvP in mind and very few PvE compromises. Double-edged sword though, because they're limited, even if Land of the Dead becomes Darkness Falls 2, will it work within the PvP corner they've painted themselves in. This is why I see the game requiring even more redesign to "get it right".
(On the page link, it may be picky for a full URL, does http://www.ihaspc.com/ work? I'll edit it in for your comment above. On that note, I should really get around to switching back to Wordpress, this Drupal setup is a bit particular on some things.)
Feb 4, 2009 2:49am
Sad part about this is (for me), I really did like the setting. I mean, it was something I could get into, considering I was primarily a SP gamer. But the more that I did play the game the less I began to like certain feature. It got so bad with the uninspiring and often frustrating live event I gave up on the game entirely. It royally sucks to as I still have 4 months of prepay time left on my account.
Oh... hello there Rog. :)
Feb 4, 2009 6:31am
Testing putting in the http. It really isn't that important but kept giving me a posting error unless I removed it!
I suppose where WAR went wrong was that they tried to put in all features expected in today's MMO, instead of just focusing on making a kickass PVP/RVR game. In DAOC you could /level yourself (since levels are a barrier in PVP games) and having such a big server, with such a small server cap meant RVR/PVP was hard to find - hence the server merges, etc. Basically they took all the profit making design of WoW, and tried to cram it into their game - instead of staying focused and working on their own design.
Like I said, I will give it a chance one day, but I don't have high hopes - only because I will be starting off fresh to see what has changed, which will most likely lead to me soloing up the first 20+ levels in a PVP game (which is just wrong).
While we look at it as opportunities missed they still have a solid base to work from. 300,000 subscribers announced yesterday which is a far cry from where they started.