Why Warhammer Failed

Lister1

https://ealouse.wordpress.com/2010/10/12/hello-world/

Comments relating to the old republic dont bode well....

Hi everyone,

I would think myself to be part of some noble cause, like the original EA Spouse trying to save her husband from a hellish work environment at EA. That had a happy ending, however, with tons of publicity and a total change of overtime wages and salaries and how they are handled within the company. I do not expect a happy ending, so I’ll be personal and selfish, and this is just for me.

So just call me EA Louse.

I found out recently that I will be dismissed from Bioware Mythic during the next round of layoffs EA coming this November. I’m sick of seeing EA outsource their art and find every excuse to get rid of us and still not achieve anything. Mythic is dying, and its not us who killed him but we’re taking the fall.

But if you want to know what really went down with Warhammer, I’ll tell you right now.

First, the project leaders did not know what they were doing. Jeff Hickman was the saddest excuse for a producer I’ve seen. All he did was drink the Koolaid and suck up to the right people. He was the perfect yes-man, and this reached down to almost all managers.

My boss who will not be named, again and again would tell us that Rob Denton, one of the original owners, said we should “do this” and “do that” and we would say “omg it makes NO sense, please explain A, B, and C to him. “And then he’d come back and tell us, after we thought he had gone to talk with him,” No, Rob wants in this way. Jeff agrees, this is what we’re going to do. Understood? ” They never actually talked back to Rob. We didn’t talk back to them.

Rob said jump, our leaders said, “How high?! And on who?”

So we shut up and did what we were told, by people too afraid to tackle real problems. It is a culture of fear, especially since Mark Jacobs was fired.

Oh, he left voluntarily you say? No, he was fired, and everything placed on his shoulders by those closest to him so they could divide his salary and annual bonus. I bet Rob is enjoying that sweet new Maserati he bought after leaving the knife in his partner of 15 years.

Want to know more? Keep reading. I can keep ranting.

Rob was never there during the development of Warhammer. We always joked about when his next weekly holiday was coming. (Answer? Next week!) Mark was not available, was way too head down trying to design his own contributions or whatever. Rob always handled things. We were told NOT to speak with Mark in person, never, or else we would be explaining to Rob.

The coup began long before Warhammer, and Jacobs did not even realize it.

And yet, this is common gossip in the company, and nobody in this industry seems to get it. So get it! Rob was responsible for the entire project, then blamed Mark when things went wrong.

Ah, but could not do it alone. No, he needed Jeff Hickman, promoted from customer service to produce the Warhammer project. Wait, let me let you have that sink in. The man running customer service, on the theory that the management of a large team of CSRs qualified him to run a game development project, was put in charge of a $50 million project with no previous experience.

And he needed Eugene Evans, the man who brought you the almost non-existent marketing campaign behind Warhammer. We could not even believe how bad they ****ed up the marketing campaign. There was almost none. We slaved for years, and this is how we were rewarded for it by Eugene and the people of EA? Being told that Warhammer was not “worth” a lot of money spent on it? LOL. Now he’s in charge of Bioware Mythic.

Oh yeah, and he needed Paul Barnett. You know him as the crazy British dude that appears in random videos at EA to promote his latest bull****tery. We know him as the crazy British dude who we have no idea of how he still has a job. This man was supposed to be the savior of Warhammer’s vision and design. Now all he can do is promote his strange ideas about his little secret project web Ultima game that’s been almost universally criticized by all of us and focus groups. What’s that? You didn”t know Paul loves one of those old Ultima games sooooo much he’s making a literal copy of it for Facebook? Well, the cats outta the bag. Too bad it sucks ass.

So what do they all have in common? All of them failed, badly, in Warhammer, and each of them is in a position of authority in the new company, while the rest of us are facing pink slips. How do they sleep at night? They spin aruond, blame everything on Mark, divide his old salary between them, and never speak about it again. Oh, and they **** us little guys as well.

Almost makes me congratulate them for having the balls, but after watching them work, it’s obvious they don’t have any. They’re cowards running scared trying to hide under the wing of Bioware, now that Rob has become a general manager of EA.

And Bioware? Don’t make me laugh. They’ve spent more money making the Old Republic than James Cameron spent on Avatar. **** you not. More than $ 300 million! Can you believe that?

And you know what they’re most proud of? This is the kicker. They are most proud of the sound. No seriously. Something like a 20Gig installation, and most of it is voiceover work. That’s the best they have. The rest of the game is a joke. EA knows it and so does George Lucas,they’re panicking , and so most of Mythic has already been cannibalized to work in Austin on it because they can’t keep pushing back launch.

Old Republic will be one of the greatest failures in the history of MMOs from EA. Probably at the level of the Sims Online. We all know it too ……

Anyway, back to Warhammer. We shouldn’t have released when we did, everyone knows it. The game wasn’t done, but EA gave us a deadline and threatened the leaders of Mythic with pink slips. We slipped so many times, it had to go out.

We sold mor ethan a million boxes, and only had 300k subs a month later. Going down every since. It’s “stable” now, but guess what? Even Dark Age and Ultima have more subs than we have. How great is that? Games almost a decade make more money than our biggest project.

So there it is. Rewarding the incompetent. Firing the competent.

I say it anonymously so I can keep my next few paychecks coming.

So I’m a louse. A big fat EA louse.

Drakar

Silly ranting aside, I dont think people stopped playing WAR because it was "unstable". I wonder is it even fair to say WAR "failed". It's making money presumably (or it wouldnt still be around). I think like all non-wow MMOs, they found its tough out there to make your product sticky enough to get gamers to keep coming back and not write it off as the same old thing. LOTR again is a good MMO, but its numbers werent great before they did the free model. WAR did bring some really good ideas to the table (some of the pvp classes seemed very fun, but Im not sure how pve held up at endgame).

It would be good for the MMO ecosphere if there were some genuine wow competitors. Boo.

Playboy

WOW! A lot of ppl going to be really disappointed about the Old Republic Cant believe that DAoC and Ultima have more subs than Warhammer lol! Makes me think I should go back to DAoC!

It truly is a sorry state of affairs when nobody can seem to get another MMO right! Every one of them fails on numerous levels. I mean how hard can it be when you have a budget in excess of $50 million to do some rigorous analysis of the market like Blizzard did with WoW. MMO's were around long before WoW but Blizzard revolutionised it by examining the competition and improving what made the other games great. The only thing that they haven’t got right is PvP but ppl will dispute that.

AoC came close but killed itself by releasing too early. The combat system was fresh and innovative and the world was mature and the gfx excellent. If they had developed the world to the extent that they done had up to Tortage then it would have been amazing. A little more time thinking about the raiding and PvPing and they would have been there! When are these companies going to realise that MMO's get one bite at the cherry. If the launch isn’t close to perfect then they can kiss all their hard work and investment goodbye!

Off the top of my head from the MMO's that I have played I could come up with a near perfect MMO. If you focus on the ingredients rather than overarching concept then you will have a winner Too many games try too hard to be different or are too much like a clone of another game.

Lets have a look at what MMO’s have done better than anyone else and imagine what a game if we combined the concepts.

1. AoC gfx - Stunning looking game
2. DAoC endgame PvP concept - Open world PvP with a wider purpose as well as character progression
3. DAoC 3 realm concept - different realms with different identities e.g. Hibernia - Magic, Albion - Hybrid, Midgard - Melee. None of this mirror class bull. What is the point in having two/three realms if the classes are going to be more or less the same? Balance is overrated... you will always have idiots whining about balance but as long each realm has a fair chance of beating each other in group combat then individual class balance shouldn’t matter so much. 3 realms are also way more fun than two!
4. WoW - PVE is fantastic... endgame raiding alongside good a levelling and questing system. Maybe doesn’t encourage grouping at the lower levels as much as it should.
5. Warhammer - PvP levelling option... Good idea for those people who hate PvE. Good quality PvP available at all stages of the game improves the whole experience of going through the levels immensely and makes you forget about grinding!
6. Crafting - not sure if any game I have played has got this right. In DAoC for a period the best gear in the game was crafted gear and crafting still has an influence on people’s templates. Horrible process but it was excellent that crafted items had a real purpose at end game rather than everyone having full Raid/PvP sets.
7. Community - Eve - Fantastic community experience in a sense that player politics dominated then world and individual Guilds had a really strong identity.

Probably missing loads but I don’t have the time to spend thinking/writing about it. MMO’s which I havent found inspiring – SW Galaxies, Aion, City of Heroes, and Champions Online.

Haven’t played Ultima, LOTRO, Final Fantasy, Guild Wars (well only very briefly), Lineage II (beta test only), Darkfall, Everquest, so maybe im missing a trick.

copeyhagen

jesus that was a great read.

i got WAR for free, a years subscription for free and i still played it for about 2 months, with the boards people. i thought it sucked and wasnt for me. i was right!!

feel sorry for all the lower level people losing their jobs while the fat cats get fatter...

Lister1

I never played WAR long enough to comment on it. What I did see I liked but only had room for Lotro and just havent really ever given another mmo a good try.

The comments regarding STOR I would take with a pinch of salt as there is a lot of bitterness here....

GO_Bear

Playboy wrote: »

WOW! A lot of ppl going to be really disappointed about the Old Republic Cant believe that DAoC and Ultima have more subs than Warhammer lol! Makes me think I should go back to DAoC!

It truly is a sorry state of affairs when nobody can seem to get another MMO right! Every one of them fails on numerous levels. I mean how hard can it be when you have a budget in excess of $50 million to do some rigorous analysis of the market like Blizzard did with WoW. MMO's were around long before WoW but Blizzard revolutionised it by examining the competition and improving what made the other games great. The only thing that they haven’t got right is PvP but ppl will dispute that.

AoC came close but killed itself by releasing too early. The combat system was fresh and innovative and the world was mature and the gfx excellent. If they had developed the world to the extent that they done had up to Tortage then it would have been amazing. A little more time thinking about the raiding and PvPing and they would have been there! When are these companies going to realise that MMO's get one bite at the cherry. If the launch isn’t close to perfect then they can kiss all their hard work and investment goodbye!

Off the top of my head from the MMO's that I have played I could come up with a near perfect MMO. If you focus on the ingredients rather than overarching concept then you will have a winner Too many games try too hard to be different or are too much like a clone of another game.

Lets have a look at what MMO’s have done better than anyone else and imagine what a game if we combined the concepts.

1. AoC gfx - Stunning looking game
2. DAoC endgame PvP concept - Open world PvP with a wider purpose as well as character progression
3. DAoC 3 realm concept - different realms with different identities e.g. Hibernia - Magic, Albion - Hybrid, Midgard - Melee. None of this mirror class bull. What is the point in having two/three realms if the classes are going to be more or less the same? Balance is overrated... you will always have idiots whining about balance but as long each realm has a fair chance of beating each other in group combat then individual class balance shouldn’t matter so much. 3 realms are also way more fun than two!
4. WoW - PVE is fantastic... endgame raiding alongside good a levelling and questing system. Maybe doesn’t encourage grouping at the lower levels as much as it should.
5. Warhammer - PvP levelling option... Good idea for those people who hate PvE. Good quality PvP available at all stages of the game improves the whole experience of going through the levels immensely and makes you forget about grinding!
6. Crafting - not sure if any game I have played has got this right. In DAoC for a period the best gear in the game was crafted gear and crafting still has an influence on people’s templates. Horrible process but it was excellent that crafted items had a real purpose at end game rather than everyone having full Raid/PvP sets.
7. Community - Eve - Fantastic community experience in a sense that player politics dominated then world and individual Guilds had a really strong identity.

Probably missing loads but I don’t have the time to spend thinking/writing about it. MMO’s which I have found inspiring – SW Galaxies, Aion, City of Heroes, and Champions Online.

Haven’t played Ultima, LOTRO, Final Fantasy, Guild Wars (well only very briefly), Lineage II (beta test only), Darkfall, Everquest, so maybe im missing a trick.

I agree with Taeeeeeeeeen , Tinneth here by the way :P

one more thing is up the group limits if you want better pvp , around 7/8 is ideal , and yes we both played DAoC ;p an no we are not just trying to argue for a clone ! , just some core elements that worked well

Warhammer 40k has a nice premise , 4 different realms and 1 NPC faction, hopefully they don't screw it up >.<

Playboy

GO_Bear wrote: »

I agree with Taeeeeeeeeen , Tinneth here by the way :P

one more thing is up the group limits if you want better pvp , around 7/8 is ideal , and yes we both played DAoC ;p an no we are not just trying to argue for a clone ! , just some core elements that worked well

Warhammer 40k has a nice premise , 4 different realms and 1 NPC faction, hopefully they don't screw it up >.<

Haha how you doing m8! Long time no see! I was wondering who the other DAoC fanboy on the forum was lol! You should give the WAR free trial a go and join me! What are the other guys up to? Anyone still playing DAoC or other MMO's? Would be nice to get the group back playing a MMO

GO_Bear

Playboy wrote: »

Haha how you doing m8! Long time no see! I was wondering who the other DAoC fanboy on the forum was lol! You should give the WAR free trial a go and join me! What are the other guys up to? Anyone still playing DAoC or other MMO's? Would be nice to get the group back playing a MMO

Doing grand , am up in Dublin now !

I might give war a try so i I get a chance over the next few weeks , I already have an account anyways.

I have been playing Eve the last two years or so with Daly. Jim is now playing WoW. Thats about it I think , the other don't play any more , every so often we open our DAoC accounts for a [ii]'s and run a grp etc, phear my rr7 zerker :P , and rr1 smite cleric xD (with an awesome smite template) such a waste of time making that.

But other than that we don't really play DAoC

Necron99

copeyhagen wrote: »

jesus that was a great read.

i got WAR for free, a years subscription for free and i still played it for about 2 months, with the boards people. i thought it sucked and wasnt for me. i was right!!

feel sorry for all the lower level people losing their jobs while the fat cats get fatter...

+1 to that

It's nice to see the opinions of the people who actually made the game, I think Kno Won response was very enlightening and articulated better heh. Hopefully some of the higher ups in their corporation actually see this and do some good with it. Not much a hope but you never know.

Can't agree with the rant at the Art in the game, I thought they did a very good in capturing the grim and terrible reality of the WH IP. I know I'm a bit of a zealot character fanboy but the dirty cloths and flayed skin he wore plus the absolute eye hurting color combination I came up with just made me like the chaos character all the more
Visiting the order and destruction place in the game did make it feel like WH.
My favorite starting area was the Orc and Dwarf area, got the old WAAAGH going

My biggest gripe was always the lack of content and substance of their questing every game has it's go collect 20 basilisks spleens or whatever but WAR had the chance of doing alot more dynamic quests. Storm the lichs stronghold and don't come back until you've defeated it and its army or died trying.
Also when the player base started going down Mythic took far to long to merge servers. Ghost town servers just made more people quit who had invested alot of time into their characters instead of starting from scratch on a more populated one. That was the case for me.

GO_Bear

Hey Taen ,
Downloaded the endless trial , forgot how much I liked the art work off all the different classes.

Only problem is my laptop is pants and RvR is far to laggy, have to wait till I get a new rig me things :I

Playboy

oh thats a shame m8! When you thinking of upgrading your machine?

GO_Bear

Playboy wrote: »

oh thats a shame m8! When you thinking of upgrading your machine?

on my current salary of a PhD student ..... some time after the next 4 years

Well we will see how much money I can scrounge outta relatives at christmas, and I will try selling my body in coppers also.

It can handle sceanarios just not open world RvR.