backseatdev

Let me start off on a positive note, as I believe it is important.

Warhammer Online is finally becoming one of the best MMO’s on the market. I rarely run into any bugs or issues and the UI/battles feel polished and well done. Classes and abilities are for the most part pretty balanced and group vs group fights are fun and engaging. To anyone out there looking to get into MMOs or looking for a new MMO to play, I really and truly reccomend Warhammer as a great game to subscribe to! Every patch improves the game and it gets better and better.

While unfair and unrealistic to make this comment, if the game released in this state, in my opinion we would be giving WoW a run for its money. (assuming developers could have been working on content releases rather then bug fixes and polishes)

BUT

Warhammer Online content for people that have played since day 1, or even just for a decent amount of time, is incredibly stale. If there are people that have played from day 1 and are still kicking around, they are either hanging on by a thread in the hopes the next patch brings something big or are on their way to unsubbing due to “been there, done that” syndrome.

From my perspective as a Guild/Community Organizer, the summer is a slow period, then come fall people are looking to get into games. I plan to talk to all our members and see who can no longer jump back into gaming due to spouse/family etc.. and find those that are excited to jump into something. From what I can see, Warhammer will not be a game we will be promoting much. The core people that have stuck with Warhammer mainly feel the same way. I hold out hope that Mythic has somehow kept development secret and they are waiting on BioWare to choose the right time to announce an big content update, but at this point, I think anything announced would fail to beat games like GW2 or the new Star Wars to release.

When I started this article, I expected to do a bit of research into expansions and find that WoW and other recent MMOs had expansions every year, but that was not the case.

Warhammer Released September 18, 2008. First Expansion 9 months later on June 23, 2009.

Age of Conan Release June 2008. First Expansion 23 months later on May 11, 2010.

Looking at the dates of expansions, you might think they can be compared, but having played those games and thinking back, they don’t really compare at all. In WoW, expansions came and brought in huge content updates, but incremental patches also brought in a lot of new content. In fact, some normal WoW patches rivalled Warhammers LOTD Expansion in size and additions.

Age of Conan compares fairly similarly to Warhammer. It released and had a lot of wrinkles to iron out in its base game before it could add additional content. For the most part since release Age of Conan has been working on fixing/redo’ing itemization, graphics bugs, crafting system, pvp system and pve system. Content has not been new, but simply getting what was released working properly. Warhammer has been much in the same boat. Getting the classes they wanted to release in, balancing classes, getting the city working, getting instances (relatively bug free) and polishing the game. Age of Conan, released its first major expansion in May.

Warhammer released with not a lot of actual content, and over the past year a substantial amount of content has actually been removed in its updates. I am not complaining, I think the removed items did improve the game, but it does get mentioned.

In Summary, Warhammer, coming up on 1 year after Land of the Dead free expansion, and 21 months into the game has nothing announced, nothing to look forward to but more polishing of the base game. The teasers for the next patch, zealot mechanic changes and armour visual choices. These are great changes, I think back to when I posted both of these ideas in 2008 and early 2009 and can’t help but think Warhammer this polished would have been amazing in 2008.

Interesting note: The other day I was heading to the computer to help out with some scens, feeling more guilty about not playing with the guys much lately then actual desire to play, and I saw the hall needed vaccuuming. A MMO where you make your wife happy? A sad day indeed when that seems more to the veteran WAR player.