Memories of the Reckoning

This days while looking at some old files in one drive, I did found out that back up of thread I created in a old forum (which was closed down long time ago, but allowed users to back up stuff) about the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning MMO. The thing most people more likely remember of this mmo was the Public Quests, which other mmos have adopted.

In the Empire Capital.

It was fun readying this old posts and see how much I was hyped for this game, specially knowing how the things went down in the end (and bits of self denial at stuff happening). I could not share the whole thing here, since it is a long thread anyway and maybe lot of things there aren´t interesting, however I had the idea of sharing some thoughts about about I think happened in the end along with a few screenshots which I did kept for some reason.

I try to keep things in small topics, please this are just my thoughts about WAR mmo while I compare part of what a did write and what I did see. Also note that I played around a year, since the launch in 2008, so there might be events or things which I would be unaware.

Character Creation

Progressive Campaign

The original system and the game main feature, was a RvR of of two factions divided in the three fronts, linked together. The concept was a progressive campaign, with each side making a push toward the enemy main capital, the more the push goes, the more the winning side capital gets better and the losing side gets worst, until a final showdown with a siege followed by a "sack" phase in case the city feels, where some quest and rewards would happen. Once this as all done, the cycle restarts.

It was a impressive concept, I remember that I was quite amazed by the concept. But looking now isn't hard to see that it also a bit convoluted. To explain with bit more detail, you had to factions - Order and Chaos, each faction was split in three fronts, for Order it was Empire, High Elves, Dwarves, for Chaos it was Orcs, Chaos and Dark Elves). Each group was paired with another, so you got Empire vs Chaos, Dwarves vs Orcs, High Elves vs Dark Elves. Begin that Empire and Chaos where the main fronts and the other acted as support (but they also had their capitals too).

I won´t enter now on the subject of why Orcs won´t work with Chaos in the Warhammer lore, we all know that.

Problem of this system is that not only would require player to spread out (and would require a rather large number of players) and perform a very exact set of things, which by itself isn´t impossible, but they have keep doing every single moment. Sure there was some nice ideas they used, having warning messages send when one place was under attack and the ability to teleport to the front line as necessary.

But you see, in the end Mythic had to scrap the secondary capitals, along with other stuff before the game release (again, we talk about this later). The system, if I remember right, didn´t change much, but simple would not work very well. They had to perform several patches and revamps which in the end changed the whole thing to just a push toward either the Empire or Chaos, the other fronts still there and maybe had some role, but it was way less. The also had to revamp rewards with the renown system to make the player go forward, because there was very little reason to go to the RvR, which in the first days of the launch where often quite empty.

From 1 to 40

Maybe on thing that WAR did that was quite interesting for the period, but I don´t think it gained much appraise, was the concept that players would be active in progressive campaign from the very first level. Before that (and maybe even after that), joining in pvp/rvr or whatever was something often locked (some times not intentional) behind having higher level and gear, this often lead to strange job/experience thing, where to have them you need by in a large clan which performed raids/rvr/pvp/what ever but to be on it you often need have higher level and gear that you would only have if you where in a large clan....

Not in WAR, where there was this concept and the actual need of everyone working together, your UI would warn you when somewhere was under attack and with a simple click you could teleport to the area to join the fight.

Screenshot of Public Quest

Career perspectives.

WAR with it´s front system, feature a equal number of classes for each side, over all, each race got four careers (WAR´s classes). Many of them had very cleaver concepts, based on the concept that all player should be active in the fight. The most iconic example (and the one they most use) was the Warrior Priest of Sigmar, which had to attack enemies in melee in other to power up his spells, which for the period (and maybe from the game you where coming from, in my case Ragnarok Online) was rather new (in my case, I really liked this idea, previous mmo I had played often had you play in a fixed way).

Other cleaver ones include the Witch-Hunter, that dual wield a pistol and a sword and use both of them at the same time; the Marauder, whose arm could mutate in several different ways; the Archmage, which had to balance the winds of magic, where when he cast attack spell his energy for healings grows while his attack spells lose power and when he heals his energy to attack grows, but the healing diminish.

My Marauder character with one of the potential mutationsAnd here is he with another one

The rest of the careers however had mostly bar which fill when something happens while other where just mirrors of some other carrier. As I said early and it is well know, some classes where cut off from the game and later added again. Fun thing is, the Knight of the Blazing Sun, was my favorite class back there, but now I just can´t remember their gimmick...I guess they had auras our something like that....

...Of Beattles and Monkeys and Led Zepellin...

Sometimes even the most well laid plans can be lead astray if something unexpected happens very far away, in WAR case, they clearly didn´t had well laid plans and to add to that, something did happen elsewhere – Age of Conan had a not very good release, which meant lots of player complaining in forums (at least I remember seeing this a lot in MMO site forums) and lots of doubt and pessimism in the horizon toward War. And to make this worst, WoW announced the Rise of the Lich King for release a couple months after War launch. That meant that WAR was caught between Age of Conan not going well and the Rise of the Lich King release, while they had to announce the cuts of the Capitals and Classes.

They had a curious relationship with they way the promoted the game, at first there was this very strong hype-esque approach, with Paul Barnett and Mack Jacobs, doing very hyped video on youtube (funny note, this kind stuff wasn´t that usual as it was today, so seeing that had quite impact with me back there), where maybe unintentionally they reenacted every PA style comic, withe Paul begin the more enthusiastic and shouting figure and Jacobs begin the more calm figure.

Later they changed approach, suddenly there was all this talks of if you try to beat the Beatles, you might became the Monkeys, but how they where aiming to be Led Zepellin. Which was a clear analogy toward WoW (maybe around this time, the WoW killer idea was becoming clearly it was bad or impossible idea), this was followed by announcements of several cuts they made in the game such as the Capital and Classes. Now to be fair, there was a genuine attempt to communication and to clarify stuff (I had quoted large part of the original text they did in the old thread).

Strange decisions start to happen a bit before this, out of nowhere they simple give up having a official forum making the Warhammer Alliance forum the official one (reading my old post I remember for vague reasons I tried to rationalize this somehow back there, but I could not remember how).

Eventually they released the game in 2008, while, overall the the game launch was OK for it´s period, the same could not be said on Europe, where things are going very bad and was handle by GOA (which I have no idea who they are). The clearly expect a unreal number of players, I can´t remember how many severs, but there was simple too many – and they only got, close to the launch around 750.000 players at the best expectations (strange thing, in my thread I found I write 500.000 players which was based in stuff post during that time, but in a gamespot article, written close to the servers begin shut down, mention 750.000 players, maybe in my thread I got only players in the US servers...).

Still it was no small number, however I think, and lets be clear, this my humble opinion, WoW pretty much messed up our perception of MMO success beyond recognition. What should maybe look as exception became the rule, and this rule is simple unreal – but for some players and maybe even critics, anything which didn´t made the WoW numbers was looked down and decided it was fated to die. Problem is: MMOs don´t need gazillion players to work out, it need enough player coming in to keep its systems working (such pvp, matchmaking, party search), if as long they got this and this is enough to keep things running, you might say it is success. But it is kind hard to convince people about this when WoW reach unheard numbers.

But back to WAR, this so said 750.000 player where divided in lots of severs, and later in factions and races, which meant the whole thing at first days looked strangely empty, RvR din´t work very well (it was a bit empty in some servers) and the strangest thing which I had only a vague memory about, I don´t think global chat was implemented or something like that.

This number however wasn´t meant to last, in early 2009, the number was around 300.000, while Mythic suffered lay offs and later server closings. Things got worst as even worst for Mythic later, after a certain point Marc Jacobs left, and later EA merged Mythic with Bioware and later dismerged them from what I could remember.

Despite this odds, WAR last for longtime - around five years without any major expansions and very little support, something myself only realized how impressive is until a bit before finishing this text while seeing a video on youtube comment this, only then it dawn of me how impressive it is.

Sure, MMOs, despite most doom prophets in forums, are though beasts to kill, unless you screw things up to a unbelievable level or you pull the plug, the can keep going for long time and how knows, some of them, even after troubled launched might managed to grow good numbers along the way.

Keep in mind, WAR for the most curious reasons, was kept in subscription mode all time – sure, back there, the knowledge of how free to play could "save" some mmos wasn´t so well spread or know. Not that just turning in free to play would save something, because what really matter is how well handled the process is.

As I said earlier, during all of this issues, WAR find it self in this strange situation, it had no way to really expand or having a expansion like other mmos, because there was already too many classes and fronts. The only expansion the ever got, was one that featured the Tomb Kings, in the least interesting way – it was just this huge dungeon, where Order and Chaos fight to reach something and there was a mechanic that both side need to control the outside if they wish to enter or leave.

But long before this I already left the game...

So if you wonder why, well – I kind wonder that too, because at one point, I just stopped playing it, not because I suddenly dislike it or something like that... my one thread don´t offer much answers, because the forum which I was posting was dying so there was less and less people and after a while I stop posting but I continue playing.

Maybe one reason was the convoluted way to buy more credits they got for Brazil, which require you to buy those time cards sold on shops, but there wasn´t many of them selling this cards, which make buy every single one kind annoying process, so I had to order from a shop and wait they send one. To make things even more weird, they sold those card (which was just a small piece of paper) inside those cd/dvd boxes...so you got a rather large box for much no reason...

The game around the time I left, was improved a lot, but I guess, even I did found the thing was going without much direction and for me in my last days, there was much lag. Another possibility was the fact that I was playing mmos for a rather long time, since I started with Ragnarok Online and later did play a bit of Guild Wars, Lineage 2 and City of Heroes, so was mostly like a bit tired of mmos and also I was more interested in playing other games. Not that I now hate mmos or anything, I was just bit tired, specially, since in Ragnarok I was a officer at a guild, which made things a bit more tiresome.

Random Thoughts:

I save here for some small thoughts about the game. Sorry if I got way too vague here.

Inside of some place in the High Elf front.

World Design: while not bad, it wasn´t memorable, at least what I could remember. Now while the the capitals where the main attraction and main reason to fight, for some strange reasons, you kind wouldn´t see until very late on, unless you go out of the way to go early there. Like I did when I send a character to Altdorf for reaching the auction house.

Inside the Empire Capital

Gear: I remember mostly of begin ok or good overall, the game did feature a craft system, which I have no memory of using it or how it worked. One cleaver thing they did was that during pvp/rvr character would drop items like monsters (I mean not their gear, but random stuff).

At the end of public quest you could get those loot bags depending of how well you did do.

Tome of Knowledge: Another nice idea was that the tome would register all stuff you did, so you could complete a quest, even before you actually start it, as it would register that you, per example, already killed x number of boars. Now I have to be fair, I can´t remember if this worked as I register in my thread...

Open Party System: The idea was that the game would show to you all parties around you and with a simple click you could join them. I remember liking this a lot, having not nice memories of begin unable to find parties in WoW and begin forced to skip some dungeons.

Scenarios: They where WAR´s battlegrounds, with a difference that you could easily teleport in to one and they begin much shorter in time, around 15 minutes. Compared to by bad experience in WoW (note: despite this I did liked a lot the time I played WoW), where many matchs (this was after Burning Crusade but before Lich King) which lasted 30 minutes and often turn suffering where my team can´t win nor lose and the whole thing just keep going and going on or begin plagued by twinked characters (like gnomes rougues with two daggers), I liked WAR a lot more on this aspect.

WAR´s scenarios where rather small and with much smaller time limit which made matchs more fast and fun.