Last week Jeff Hickman, the executive producer of Warhammer Online, gave a speech at the Austin Game Developers' Conference. The speech itself wasn't exactly ground breaking, and most people who weren't there didn't seem to notice it. There were bits in his speech that discussed the future of digital downloading as a distribution medium, and other parts about how all games will have an online component in the future, blah blah blah. There was a rather large chunk of his speech, however, that really rang my bell, probably because I played (and rather liked) Warhammer. Hickman spoke honestly and forthrightly about the successful parts of WAR, as well as the parts in which he felt the game failed. As the guy who was the most directly responsible for the game, Hickman should know more about this, from an insider's perspective, than anyone else in the universe.

The problem is, when I read Hickman's comments, I thought he was waaaaaay off base. Don't get me wrong; I really like Jeff Hickman. In fact, I really like every single member of the WAR development team. However, the problems Hickman felt were most serious were ones that weren't even on my radar, and the problems I felt truly troubled Warhammer didn't even get mentioned. Reading Hickman's post mortem gave me a very curious sensation.

Apparently, I'm not alone. Many WAR players obviously feel the same way. In the interests of, well, keeping things interesting, let's take a look at a few specifics.

Problem #1: According to Hickman, Warhammer is too easy. In particular, Hickman pointed to the early levels of the game. There wasn't enough challenge, and players breezed over the content solo.

Problem #2: There were a lot of social tools built into the game, but because of problem #1, there aren't any real reasons for people to group up, form social bonds, and otherwise interact. Again, they were soloing all the content.

Problem #3: The economy is too restrictive. This was primarily put in place to curtail gold farmers, but ended up separating players. The game economy, according to Hickman, brings people together.

Hickman also went on to point out two things that Warhammer did very, very well. He called this "breakthoughs", and feels these are the game's primary strengths. Hickman also stated that, in the future, all MMOs will probably incorporate these features.

Breakthrough #1: Public quests. In WAR, players can enter areas in which PvE public quests are underway. The quests go on, reloading themselves, 24 hours a day, and players can jump in at any point. At the end of the quest, players are rewarded for their contributions, either in terms of their DPS or their healing. If they want to, players can simply play the quest over again in an effort to do better, and thus get better loot at the end.

Breakthrough #2: Hickman felt that the "open grouping" system used in Warhammer was another major success. This system allows players in certain situations (like big realm vs realm battles) to simply enter or exit groups at will, without ever asking to be invited, or ever bothering a raid leader.

Again, let me restate that I really like Jeff Hickman. However, I have to really disagree with him. Warhammer's problems aren't that the game is too easy, or that the economy is borked. I never met anyone that bailed on the game for those reasons.