I just read somewhere about the 300k subscription, but in the same article it also mentions that that is about the same subscription base of EVE so its not like it isnt viable and is doomed to an early grave

I think the difference is EVE is done by a small development team and effectively runs one live server, and is so niche it has a core of die-hard fans. Compare this to the big development team demanding larger salaries, the multiple servers, and the fact that the game plays very similarly to other MMOs on the market and it isnt such a logical comparison.

You cannot compare Warhammer Online to Eve (CCP). Eves following is massive considering as Chris says its a small dev team and has a niche following. Warhammer should of been a juggernaut, they just failed like others in recent times.

On top of this look at Eve again, afaik it runs on one system, you will always have a chance of running into every player, unlike Warhammer which is designed to work over multiple servers, multiple servers because they assumed it was going to be that busy.

It seems that gone are the good old days of servers coming online for launch day only to be swamped by subscribers and crash again, until more are brought online. The most recent crop of MMOs have all launched with an ample amount of servers and then been forced to close and merge half of them a few months later when subscriber numbers drop off.

Quote from: Chris HIt seems that gone are the good old days of servers coming online for launch day only to be swamped by subscribers and crash again, until more are brought online. The most recent crop of MMOs have all launched with an ample amount of servers and then been forced to close and merge half of them a few months later when subscriber numbers drop off.

Subscribers numbers only drop because the companies fail to listen to testers. Releasing unfinished or seriously buggy games in this day and age is just pointless, people expect so much more now, gone are the days where the masses would just shrug off a bad launch, now it seems those bad launchs are one of the very problems forcing these games to downsize and eventually close.

It is a shame Warhammer is slowly bleeding subscribers, it definately had a good chance. One thing that bugged me about it, is the non official forums to, having to sign up to separate sites, i think almost every MMO i have played has had an official forum, i think that was a bad move also.

Quote from: Bacon

Quote from: Chris HIt seems that gone are the good old days of servers coming online for launch day only to be swamped by subscribers and crash again, until more are brought online. The most recent crop of MMOs have all launched with an ample amount of servers and then been forced to close and merge half of them a few months later when subscriber numbers drop off.

Subscribers numbers only drop because the companies fail to listen to testers. Releasing unfinished or seriously buggy games in this day and age is just pointless, people expect so much more now, gone are the days where the masses would just shrug off a bad launch, now it seems those bad launchs are one of the very problems forcing these games to downsize and eventually close.

It is a shame Warhammer is slowly bleeding subscribers, it definately had a good chance. One thing that bugged me about it, is the non official forums to, having to sign up to separate sites, i think almost every MMO i have played has had an official forum, i think that was a bad move also.

Partially, but in some ways they listen to testers too much. There are a few games that have been undeniably dumbed down or had radical new features altered because some of the testers became very vocal and had absolute hissy fits while the rest of the community just sits in silence. I imagine for a developer this would be an absolute nightmare, and to be honest modern MMO beta tests arent that at all. They are 95% full of people who just want to try the game before release.

I still have to disagree slightly. WAR could end up with a small group of hardcore players, I mean Id imagine there are a fair number of people that play Warhmmaer that play WAR? And if they have a small sub base, whats so wrong with merging the servers together and pigeonholing a small team to keep it going. They could follow EVEs model and itd be viable, whilst the rest of mythic works on other things.

I get a slight impression that since WoW, peoples standards have been raised a bit too high. All the major(ish) releases have been flops. Could it not be that for most, MMOs are a bit of an addiction, and limited really, and as most players will have played WoW, ultimately theyd rather stick with the addiction they know?

Quote from: zpyderI still have to disagree slightly. WAR could end up with a small group of hardcore players, I mean Id imagine there are a fair number of people that play Warhmmaer that play WAR? And if they have a small sub base, whats so wrong with merging the servers together and pigeonholing a small team to keep it going. They could follow EVEs model and itd be viable, whilst the rest of mythic works on other things.

I get a slight impression that since WoW, peoples standards have been raised a bit too high. All the major(ish) releases have been flops. Could it not be that for most, MMOs are a bit of an addiction, and limited really, and as most players will have played WoW, ultimately theyd rather stick with the addiction they know?

I dont think Mythic intended to be running a "niche" MMO.

And yes, most MMOs are an addiction, but the difference with WOW is, people who never gave the genre a chance are playing it, i would say 60-70% of every guild i have been in has been people who had never played a game like WOW previous to it, so that tells the success of it really.

The problem is Blizzard has set a high standard, people would rather play a stress free game, however, many of those same people are willing to give something else a chance, but most are not willing to endure the missing game features that were "promised", the game breaking bugs that should have been sorted pre release (these same bugs known about in beta), and countless other issues. So the standard has been set pretty high, but its not stopping other companies from trying new MMOs out, just look at my BETA thread, i posted about 8 links to new MMOs coming out, and there are plenty more, and most seem to be taking the Sci-Fi route, 2009 will be the year of Sci-Fi MMOs it seems, and i cant wait, i just hope one of them succeeds where so many have failed.

Think Bacon is right IMO.

I had never played a MMO before, but downloaded WOW free, and got hooked!!

I really enjoyed getting up to 70, but then as I was a Prot Warrior, every always relied on me in the guild, and it just didnt seem as good to be honest. Wish Id rolled another char, but couldnt be arsed levelling again.

Point being really that WoW is what the majority of people (like me) go for, and now Im not playing it, there isnt any others which interest me really....

Hes right, but it doesnt contradict what I was saying, or at least trying to say

I mean, its the same reason I played WoW to start with. It was my first MMO and I heard it was good, so gave it a shot. Could you not argue part of WoWs success has been down to a snowball effect. Word of mouth got people into it, and so on. I mean, if you have a million subs (Which is a lot, theres no denying) who are all saying its good, youre going to get more people, and they say its good etc. Without the snowballing userbase behind it, it would have just gone the way of the flops surely. And yes, the initial seed of success can be attributed to WoW being better than most, but I seem to remember there hardly being the selection of MMOs out back then as there are now. I think part of WoWs early success can be attributed to getting a lot of publicity early on, at a time when MMOs were a bit of a queit area.

Im sure people may disagree on the number of MMOs available back then, but Im talking about popular, widely known about ones, that a previous MMO virgin would hear about, rather than the ones that people mention having played for the last year and you are sat there going "played what?"

Another issue is that from memory, WoW was buggy as hell in the early days, no different than other MMOs. The problem is people have come to expect the polish of WoW, which has come from a massive base of users and quite a history. If any of the "buggy" MMOs are still around in a few years time, like WoW has been, Im sure they would be just as good.