MMO Weekly page 2

22 Sep 2009 at 11:34:02 by Jeff Hollis

I have to admit, I'm just one gamer. I'm also a bit of a Mythic fanboi, having played (and loved) DAoC back in the day. I had very high hopes for Warhammer, and I really want the game to succeed, but I recognise that the game has a number of flaws that still need fixing. Here's my take on things.

Problem #1: The "Y Curve" rule was badly broken. Here's how/why that rule works. There needs to be a good amount of content in the early game, but within limits. Players need to be channeled together. Most of the players who are at a given level/rank in the early to midgame should be running around in the same vicinity (hopefully a very fleshed out vicinity, full of content). They meet, they hang out, they form guilds, they make friends. The huge volume of content needs to be at the endgame, so endgame folks have lots of variety and things to do with these friends. WoW, for example, does this very well, as does Dark Age of Camelot. Warhammer pretty much turned this one sideways, and it turned people off. Specifically:

•Everyone is waaaaaay too spread out. Many of the races/classes have unique starting areas, and the game has a way of keeping everyone spread out. You feel alone often, and this simply isn't fun. Bottom line? You don't see many (or any) other players running around, you don't meet anyone, and people aren't brought together enough.

•On a related note, the PvE is a bit generic. Instead of a limited number of well-crafted low/mid level zones, Mythic opted for a lot of generic ones. Most of the zones "feel" the same. They're grey, they're war-torn, they're burning, and a random NPC needs you to kill x number of those guys over there.

Problem #2: The developers made a classic error when they launched: the end game content was NOT in a fully complete, working order on launch day. They figured they'd have a few months before the players go to the endgame, so this was no big deal. They, like so many other MMOs before them, were very wrong about this, and it drives people away.

Problem #3: The game is buggy and laggy. This is a particular problem, in that WAR's endgame is supposed to be about huge, epic player vs player battles. Due to lag, Mythic actually put a *population cap* on number of people that could participate in a given fight. In some cases, the game auto-ported you back to your warcamp if this cap was exceeded. This simply isn't fun at all. Epic battles were what this game was all about (supposedly) and this really needs to be fixed.

Problem #4: Class imbalance. Some classes are super powerful (*cough* the Bright Wizard *cough*) while others are quite weak. (This is a particular issue for me, as I've never been of the opinion that balancing classes is difficult.) This is still an ongoing issue.

Problem #5: The rewards for playing are meh. Loot drops? They often seemed weak. RvR rewards? Same problem. Part of the fun of an MMO is getting epic loot and, in most cases, I was repeatedly underwhelmed by the loot I got, as well as the loot the loot others around me got. (Honestly, I didn't hear other people complaining too much about this, so this may just be me.)

Of course, everything above is all my highly subjective opinion, and other WAR players may feel a bit differently. I have to say, however, that the issues with the game were not, as Jeff Hickman says, that the game was too easy, or with the in-game economy. Are those problems? Perhaps. But fixing the server lag and the class imbalance issues are a higher priority, aren't they?

Having said all that, WAR isn't a bad game. It's actually quite a good MMO, but it does have problems. It's a fun game, you can get in, play for a short while, and log back out without a problem. The RvR is, at times, awesome. In fact, I'd even recommend WAR to friends; while not perfect, it's a good game with a few lingering issues that need to be resolved.

That is all we have for this week, kiddies. As always, come and visit us over at Wandering Goblin.com, where we dissect a lot of MMOs, and engage in all manner of geekery, each and every day. For now, ciao!

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