Jmo’s Gaming Blog

So, this week it was announced by Mythic that Warhammer Online is now down to only about 300,000 active subscribers. That’s way down from the almost 800,000 they touted just a couple months ago.

Sister Julie from the No Prisoners, No Mercy PodCast had this questionaire up at their Google Group. Here’s my answers, but what do you think?

1.) People who played WoW tried it, liked it better and went back to
WoW as Blizzard claimed happened with Age of Conan?

-I think this is a major part of it. WotLK launched not long after WAR. This HAD to hurt them at least a bit. And in the long run, the WotLK reviews were so good, that even the people who had held out on re-subbing, eventually did.

2.) Did they fail to deliver promised content?

-Not entirely. They promised an Open RvR centric game, problem is the players prefer the Scenarios. The promise was there, but the players weren’t in on it.

3.) Was Tier 4 too hard to get through and players just moved on, not
necessarily back to WoW

-Again, I agree with this. From all I’ve read, Tier 4 is a horrendous grind. Hell, I got worn out trying to get through Tier 3. It’s a shame too, and what I believe to be the main reason that those who rushed for Rank 40 are “lonely at the top” and jumping ship.

4.) Was the pvp too easy?

-I think they nailed it as close to on the head as possible. No other game that I’ve played has as well of a thought out and balanced PvP system. But again, it’s supposed to be Open RvR centric and players are sticking to the instanced Scenarios, leaving the world pretty much desolate.

5.) Was it the lag and crashes in the fortress battles?

-I’m sure this was part of what’s keeping the T4 players in scenarios and out of the open world. And instead of working on server stability, Mythic decided that they would just cap the number of players allowed in the battles. As I said when I was a guest on the Podcast: “When Napoleon raided a city he wanted to take over, the weaker troops were not teleported back to their home city, or nearest war camp.” If you’re touting massive battles, you can’t cap it.

6.) Was it a matter that the game was hyped so much by Mythics
pitchman Paul Barnett that it failed to live up to expectations and
after the trial period players just let their accounts expired?

-Paul Barnett is a great spokesman. He, and Mark Jacobs, both spent months talking up Warhammer. So much so that people may have been expecting more than was even promised, and Mythic couldn’t deliver on that. This could possibly have been their biggest snafu. But then again, if you don’t hype your game, who’s going to buy it? Such a double edged sword.

7.) Was it a combination of the above?

-Yes, and more. The majority of players to Warhammer came from WoW, looking for something completely different. But in the end, they really just wanted WoW. What is it now Sr.? The 1 Ton Gorilla?

8.) Was it something else?

-There could have been a number of factors that I didn’t even think about. I’m looking forward to all of the other replies.

or

9.) Whats Warhammer Online?

-Huh? Do you mean World of Warcraft? =p