So, in an interview with MTV, I said that it was important for the MMORPG market for WAR to succeed. Of course, this point has been taken a bit out of context by a few people (no shock there) who seem to think I’m a bit full of myself or a way too proud of WAR. Actually, neither is true. My point regarding WAR’s importance to the MMORPG market is based on a number of things:
1) Since WoW’s launch, no new Western, subscription-based MMORPG has sustained a population of 500K subscribers. While their exact numbers aren’t known, both LoTRO and AoC have failed to hit that mark. And as anyone who knows anything about MMORPGs could tell you, the one thing you don’t keep secret if you are doing well is your monthly subscription numbers.
2) Since WoW’s initial launch the market has seen a number of high priced properties crater spectacularly as well a number of MMORPG studios shut their doors. While back in the day, 100K monthly subs would have been seen as quite a success, if you are spending 50M or more on a game all in, 100K doesn’t quite cut it. Even 250K subs (30M gross + box sales for let’s say 10M in profit pre-tax), doesn’t look great to investors when you are spending 50M or more on a game and have continued high expenditures for updates, xpacks, etc. and lots of new competitors coming online.
3) With the increased competition of free-to-do-almost-nothing-fun games and other models, there’s a lot of chatter in the investment community about whether high-end, subscription-based MMORPGs are a good investment. As I said during a panel at GDC, there was a lot of very dumb money in this space (Hey, let’s give 25M to guys who know nothing about MMORPGs and sometimes nothing about online games other than they played them. What could possibly go wrong with that?) and that I thought the money would start to leave this space once some of the games I expected to tank did just that. The money guys run very, very hot and cold and right now, they are getting on their winter coats.
4) AoC’s apparent rapid loss of subscribers is encouraging talk that today’s players won’t stick with new MMORPGs very long any more. Now, I think this is total b.s. as I think today’s players will happily stick with great games (WoW) but won’t stick with mediocre or poor games. Thanks to WoW though, the bar has been raised so that games that might have been considered good/great 5 years ago are not considered that way by the players any more. This is no different than in Hollywood when a breakthrough movie raises the bar for the competition (think about the race for the best special effects in Sci-fi films).
5) Mythic is being backed on WAR by EA’s money and distribution system on one hand and by a fantastic license on the other hand. This leads to increased expectations and demands from the players.
6) This is the 3rd MMORPG that Mythic has worked on. While we have lost some experienced people from our DAoC days, we are still one of, if not the, most experienced MMORPG teams, especially in dog years.
7) Since 1997, you can count on two hands the number of MMORPGs that have held on to more than 200K monthly paying subs for any substantial period of time. OTOH, you would need all the fingers and toes of a baseball team to keep track of the MMORPGS that have failed to maintain that number and/or even launch. C’mon kids, you can try this experiment at home, no plastic bag required! Count all the MMORPGS since 1997 that have had great numbers and then think of all the abysmal failures. Not only have we had lots of failures to launch, we’ve had failures that set a new bar for failures.
So, knowing all this, why do I think that WAR is so important to the MMORPG market? Well :
1) If WAR fails, we won’t have the excuse (as some devs have had) of not having the money or the license.
2) If WAR fails, investors will rapidly look to other business models for MMORPGs especially ones that require less of an investment and development cycle to bring to market. We may be coming very close to the tipping point where investors have seen far too many games fail on release and even more of them fail to even launch for them to be comfortable investing large sums in this market. They will prefer to invest in safer things, like large-scale, cold fusion reactors.
3) If WAR fails, players will see yet again another MMORPG fail to live up to its promise. Given the high expectations and tremendous pre-sales we are getting, the fall will be that much harder to take. One of the problems of having high expectations for a game is that if you fail, the fall will be much longer and will hurt that much more when you hit pavement.
4) If WAR fails, publishers will be even less inclined to take on Blizzard whether it’s WoW or their next MMO. This will drive more developers out of the market and fewer AAA, subscription-base MMORPGs will start. Just look at how few MMORPGs are in development at studios (as opposed to getting outside financing) today. Does anyone really think that if WAR is a failure that this will increase the number of MMORPGs in development? If you think so and you happen to have a few spare million, I’d love to sell you some oceanfront property I own in Idaho.
OTOH, if WAR succeeds:
1) Investors will flock back into the market. Investors don’t mind taking chances if there is a decent chance of success and if WAR can break the 1M barrier in terms of monthly subs, investors will get excited about making lots money in this space.
2) The whole “Only Blizzard can do it” mentality will go away. The deeply ironic thing about this is that after DAoC was a success publishers/investors said over and over again, “If Mythic can do it, anybody can!” Nothing but love right back at ya baby!
3) The subscription model will be validated (again) to be alive and well in North America and Europe. This model has been pronounced dead more times than Kenny has been killed in South Park (well, maybe not but I love to get a South Park reference in there, I loved that show).
4) Publishers will be willing to take more chances in this space again.
Now, the same would have held true for AoC or any other MMORPG that has come out in the last 3 years. Unfortunately, only LoTRO can be considered any sort of success and even then it didn’t come close to WoW’s numbers (despite a license which in the past has been referred to as a license to print money). I’ve been making online games forever and I want this space to be hugely successful and continue to expand. However, if we developers can’t create games that people not only want to play at launch but play and pay for at least six months, then we are failing at our jobs and we deserve whatever happens to us as do our games.
Ego talking? Nope, just cold hard facts.
Mark
Garthilk
Sep 04, 2008 @ 01:27:42
I think even more interesting, is that when WAR does succeed, now we’ll have a AAA MMO without official forums, and a fansite community that has not only succeeded, but flourished.
Mark Jacobs
Sep 04, 2008 @ 01:29:19
That was my plan, hopefully it was the right one. As always, time will tell.
AOL Layoff Victim
Sep 04, 2008 @ 01:38:10
Love the title of the blog. AOL was never really good at predicting the future. From the TW merger to the way they fumbled with delivering broadband, they pretty much failed at every attempt to make the company a success. I guess that’s how it goes when you let ad revenues dictate your business.
Vundal
Sep 04, 2008 @ 01:48:41
Hey mark, very interesting blog. I’ve got complete faith in you and your team. after playing the PW for way to long (you guys owe me 12 hours of sleep) I can say this game is going to be a huge wow competitor (i never say killer, because that jinxes it 😛 )
also i think its great that you and your team keep up with the community on websites like Warhammer alliance. It shows a lot about how you guys care for the community, and i hope it continues after launch.
Best of luck in the coming weeks, can’t wait to hop in my squig Sunday.
-Vundal
Mark Jacobs
Sep 04, 2008 @ 01:55:45
Vundal, thanks. We will not be a WoW-killer as no game will be a WoW-killer. Only time and the developer can kill an online game and man, these things are hard to kill if they are great MMORPGs.
Sifo
Sep 04, 2008 @ 01:58:06
One thing that seems interesting to me is that some folks seem wary to jump right in to WAR because of their poor AOC experience. Alot of people feel like they got burned by Funcom pushing an unfinished game and they are going to wait to see what the WAR live version feedback is before they give it a try. Here’s hoping WAR has great success… I’m in it for the long haul.
Mark Jacobs
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:09:15
One thing I’ve said for years is that people should wait to judge the success or failure of any MMORPG until at least launch +30 days. I wouldn’t blame anyone who wanted to see how WAR launches and is then patched by us. What was true in 2001 is even truer today.
And as to Funcom, man, I wish they took a little longer on that game. It had/has so much potential. I do hope that they do turn it around like they did AO.
Siberwulf
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:14:01
I totally posted this on the wrong entry before….
Good read.
Has the mentality always been to conquer WoW? I remember a half-drunk Friday night talking with some fellow developers (we do advertising sites, not games) about what it would mean to pull in 2% of the market. For an Indie, that would be a huge profit. Course we’d need a VC or two to setup infrastructure and all…
But seriously, what is considered a success? I certainly hope your definition doesn’t include “beating WoW” While it would be nice as far as cash goes, and as far as Mythic as a company goes, does that send the industry in the right direction? Does that do anything other than what WoW does?
What percent market share, or subscriber count is a success?
I’m fascinated by the picky dynamics and the player mentality metamorphosis in this industry. You can’t really duplicate it in any other game genre.
Post a Comment
Mark Jacobs
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:18:49
LOL, I’m one of the few MMORPG developers who has said he isn’t expecting/trying to beat WoW’s numbers. When we were talking to EA prior to the acquisition, I made it clear that I wasn’t designing WAR to go after the same market share as WoW. It’s not that I don’t know how to try to do that, it’s just that I didn’t want to spend all the extra time and money it would take and even then, there’s no guarantee.
What is considered a success by me? If we get 1M paying monthly subs in North America and Europe, I’ll be thrilled. Could we get more that that? Sure but banking on it is foolish.
Finigol
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:21:24
My opinion doesn’t really count for much as my expertise is focused more towards …well I don’t have an area of expertise, but I feel like WAR’s real strength comes from these three areas.
1. It seems to acknowledge the fact that WoW introduced one of the most superior interfaces ever, and rather than trying to blow our minds with something new it keeps to that winning formula. That is not to say WAR hasn’t improved on the formula as I love the easy access I have to the “lock taskbar” and “show helm/cloak” toggles.
2. The game manages to be almost as graphically accessible as WoW, but looks about twice as good. 1-2 years down the line I can certainly see WAR having the sort of system compatibility and versatility that WoW currently enjoys.
3. The game focuses on an area of game play that WoW neglects quite badly, which is of course large scale PvP or as we call it RvR. This single area is and always has been my priority numero uno in the MMO world. I feel like there are enough people who will be attracted to this type of game play to pad WAR’s subs quite nicely.
In summary I guess I could say I feel like WAR will be successful because when I sent in front of the keyboard I feel like I am playing a better looking WoW with cooler environments, characters, and back stories. Most importantly though is that the endgame’s focus is so entirely different than that of WoW that WAR will attract a base of subscribers all its own. Hell I will probably keep my subscription to both of them active. To me WAR and WoW are about as different from one another as WoW and Counterstrike.
This is the strength of WAR as seen by a mildly educated and not so experienced layman.
Siberwulf
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:25:35
1M is a pretty decent count. Definitely good revenue.
In the biz world there comes a certain stigma with getting “too big”. (Just think of AT&T wireless..I hate them too). What happens when your number snowball? I know many people view WoW as the devil becuase it has become this huge monster that is seemingly crushing the competition and has set the bar so high. Call it jealousy, call it fear, call it whatever. It is still there. Of course, that isn’t to say that all big corporations are the devil Bobby, take a nod at Starbucks. There is just something about that company that people love. Maybe it is coffee, or maybe a bottom line that focuses on community as well as corporation… I don’t know, I hate coffee personally.
Bold hypothesis time…
How do you control that snowball of success? You obviously can’t turn away paying customers. You obviously can’t deliver anything less than your best. How do you mitigate “getting too big for your britches” (so to speak) ?
Aalynia
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:28:41
Great blog! I hate echoing previous sentiments because then I ooze unoriginality–but it’s hard to go without saying the tremendous impact that your personal involvement with the WAR community has made. Not all of us have the honor of posting in the Beta forums, and so you actively participate on non-offical forums; answering questions and concerns of people who haven’t even touched the game yet. It truly speaks of your character AND Mythic’s character.
As far as the MMO market–I completely agree with you. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been hyped up for a new MMO, bought it, and cancelled it within a month or so. “The graphics are great but the feeling, the UI, is off.” “The storyline is great but the class balance is horrible.” Or in EvE’s case: “WTF is going on here?! I want my dwarves back!” (What can I say, I’m a fantasy junkie) And then, lo and behold, I restart my WoW subscription. Yes, I went back to it–but something must have been lacking to make me quit in the first place.
And WAR is filling that gap.
I can honestly say that from my experience in the CE CB, WAR is going to be a successful game. Why? Because you’re similar yet different, because you were willing to cut back on content to make sure what you had was not adequate but perfect, and because you don’t try to please everybody. You know when to say “Sorry, that’s not the direction we want this game to take.” Sometimes, too much IS too much. I think that is the downfall of many games today. They want PvP, RvR, PvE, and pretty much any other __v__ you can think of. As a college student, I’m a tutor in my Writing Center. I always tell my students to be specific in their writing, or else he or she will never fully embrace or analyze a subject. And thankfully, WAR is specific. It fully embraces the PvP and RvR worlds–and it does so beautifully.
I’m sorry for the excessively long post MBJ, but I haven’t really been one to post how I feel on Warhammer Alliance etc. Also–if you guys need someone for editorial for PR releases or something, I’m looking for a job! 😉 Congrats on a wonderful game, good luck on launch, and I’ll see you more in the WAAAGH!
Scott Delphia
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:29:01
You are one smart cat Mr. Jacobs. I can’t wait to play WAR. I think Mythic is a rare bird. You don’t see many, if any, developers that are so in touch with their audience as you guys have been. I love you guys. In a totally Hetero way…
Red Asphalt
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:32:07
It’s official, now with a blog you’re one of the cool kids.
I agree that WAR pretty much has to be a success or else financing for AAA MMORPGs is going to take another huge hit. Funding something on that scale is tough enough, the last thing the world needs is another eight-figure “invest somewhere else” sign.
From what I saw in preview weekend it looks like a ton of fun, but the true test is what players are saying to their friends about it after the first week of release.
Yulian Kuncheff
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:33:48
This was a good read and insight into the MMO development world. A friend of mine and I have been throwing ideas and concepts around for our own MMO, though for maybe the first part of it I will be the sole developer, artist, designer, and all that jazz. So either we get distracted by playing WAR for the next 5 years (I personally think WAR will be a great success) or we will play it and do our idea in our free time. Hopefully someday our idea can stand in the likes of WAR and WoW, if it ever gets off the ground.
Thanks for making an MMO that I will probably be playing religiously for a good few years. And being so upfront and open to the community. Lots of lessons to be learned from you and Mythic. Hopefully all good.
(Ya seemed like my post was very butt-kissy or fanboish, but I really am genuine with what I say.)
Machineman
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:35:44
Mark – your comparisons seem to indicate you are concerned with whether or not the perception of available success is there, for investors or whatnot.
WHat’s your take on the potential fact that maybe, the market cannot support multiple games of the scale of WoW?
And Blizzard has set the bar SO high, calling that a bad thing is somehow a good thing?
Mark Jacobs
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:36:33
Siber: How would you handle a huge influx of players, Captain?
Prayer Mr. Siber, MMO gamers don’t take prisoners!
WOOT, first real movie reference.
In truth, it’s a high-class problem to have and one which we had to handle (albeit on a much smaller scale) back with DAoC. In 2001, Vivendi (our distributor) thought that we would only sell about 40K copies in the first quarter post-release. We sold over 100K copies the first month. 🙂
It’s 2008 and with 7 additional years of post-launch and development experience I think we’ll be fine. We’ll make mistakes I’m sure (everybody does except for those that refuse to admit it) but I think we’ll make up for it by our determination to do what’s right for the game and for the players. And if I’m wrong, players will leave as they should if we don’t do our jobs well.
Mark Jacobs
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:39:02
Scott, thanks for the kind words and the hetero love. It’s going to be an interesting couple weeks around here.
I’m so freaking proud of the guys and gals at Mythic. We’re not perfect and we’ll never be but those folks are busting their butts to make a great game and we will succeed.
Siberwulf
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:39:37
Mark,
I wasn’t so much talking about supply chain issues, (Nintendo is the best illustrator on how to deal with short supply…)
I’m just talking about the “Big bad company” stigma that can be branded due to your level of success. How do you become a Starbucks and not a AT&T?
Mark Jacobs
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:43:05
Aalynia, LOL, my posts are long, your post was just fine.
Thanks for the compliments, they are appreciated.
As far as a job at Mythic, well, in about 3 months we’ll know where we stand. Hopefully we’ll be hiring like crazy…
John Meierdierks
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:47:58
I’m going to have to go ahead and agree with Scott Delphia up there. You really do talk a lot of sense, which is something I think has been missing from game Developers for the past several years, if you catch my drift 😉
I really wanted to find a place where I could thank you personally for the hard work and dedication you and your team at Mythic have put into WAR. I was by no means into tabletop games at all nor particularly familiar with the Warhammer IP until I played the WH40k RTS games. I loved the art and the style so much, that when I heard there was an MMO and that it all stemmed from a fantasy universe (which I prefer to a premise of modern warfare) I had to check it out.
Well I started following your development and a few years later, I got to play the PW of the game I’ve been waiting and watching for, and I’m incredibly impressed as it is short of a few bugs (the most important of which have been addressed), it is everything I’ve looked for in a game since I was a kid.
Just wanted to give a big thanks for being the type of company to keep in contact with the community. Devs aren’t supposed to be mythological creatures. Talking to or hearing from them isn’t supposed to be like seeing a unicorn. You guys take an honest approach and tackle problems head-on and MOST importantly, you stick to your fundamental beliefs and keep your customers in the loop with important happenings because you realize that we are people instead of just numbers. In any type of industry, that is an extremely rare quality in this day and age, and I believe is absolutely essential to longevity and a deeper meaning of success.
See you guys at WAR. WAAAAAGH! 🙂
-John aka NeverDeath.
Zerged
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:48:33
Mark, I really enjoyed reading your post. It sounds like you guys have a clear goal and a true understanding where people are coming from in there gaming “careers.” I was fortunate enough to play the CE CB and the PW. With the OB right around the corner, you will potentially *crosses fingers* have a larger number of people playing. How are you planning on handling the WoW fanboies that are expecting WAR to be as polished as WoW?
It is definitely a hard mold to break (I admit I’m guilty of it). I am avidly looking forward to WAR’s release and can honestly say I hope you succeed in this endeavor.
Mark Jacobs
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:50:58
Red, I figured now was a good time to get started on this blog thing. Next month I might even look at some other cutting-edge tech that I have been avoiding for a while, it’s called a Model-T. 🙂 As far as your other points, QFT.
Yulian, thanks for your interest in our game and I hope we don’t disappoint you, we’ll certainly do our best not to.
Siber, I figured that’s what you meant. My point was that even with DAoC we could have let that success (which for the time made DAoC #2 MMORPG in NA, #1 in Europe) go to our head. Overall, we didn’t and when we did do stoopid stuff we learned a lot from it (and always tried to correct our mistakes). I think we’ll be smarter in 2008 than we were in 2001 and if we are, everything will work out just fine.
Siberwulf
Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:57:28
Good answer. Learning is…well it just is 🙂
I have a dev question (posted it to the alliance already, but no response).
In DAoC you guys did something unprecedented when you published the guild XML for each server/guild. This really allowed for some fancy stuff with people being able to track their guild through various third party sites (Such as the Camelot Gatherer…self plug).
Are there any plans to publish this sort of data outside your own site? If so, when do you think it would get off the ground. I think the community likes these kind of things (and by community, I most likely mean “myself”) 😀
EasymodeX
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:05:21
I drafted about 5 versions of this comment and scrapped them because they were either off-topic or just pointless, but this works:
“I really wanted to find a place where I could thank you personally for the hard work and dedication you and your team at Mythic have put into WAR. ”
I agree — DAOC was definitely the best online game experience I’ve had, and there was a lot of “magic” in it. MMOs have come and gone since, and there’s been so much stuff that’s gone by that I can see some science to it.
I think one of the most fundamental aspects that WAR will bring to the table is the “not forced, forced” grouping. This was a hot topic a long time ago, and has been kicked around with recent MMOs or “massively solo games”.
PQs, the quick and easy “public group” systems, and group and REALM effort will make WAR succeed in the end, IMO.
DAOC had that — realm-level cooperation and gameplay. MMOs have been missing that since, that level of community. It has appeared in some places, but mostly in out-of-game, player-driven venues.
From what I can tell, WAR will bring that back with in-game driven mechanics.
I’m so excited, it tingles. And oh yeah, the quote — thanks for WAR ;).
Scott
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:12:47
I just wanted to say, after dealing with the likes of Funcom, SOE, and a few other MMO Developers its damn refreshing having a man-in-charge be as forthright and upfront with us fans/addicts.
I’ve been following WAR since it was Cancelled (Climax Entertainment) and you Mythic Folks got the License.
Not trying to Ass kiss here, honestly. But when I heard you guys where doing Warhammer I knew it was gonna be good and I haven’t been disappointed.
Anyhow, thanks and I look forward to playing WAR soon!
P.S. Why didn’t the NA CE people get the freaking mouse pad too!? My Burning Crusade mouse pad is shot. I need a WAR one now!
Crexis
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:13:41
Mark,
I can’t tell you how happy I am that WAR is finally here. I’ve played MMO’s since 97 when UO first launched. I left UO to go to DAOC and still consider the post-darkness falls pre TOA DAOC to be the best combat system I’ve played. I played WoW as well. I’ve played Warhammer and Warhammer 40k for about 15 years.
I really think that UO’s style of play was the best as it pertains to the sense of ‘important’ pvp. When you died in UO you lost all your loot. That made the rush of pvp all the more heightened. Sure the lows were lower (when you lost your goodies) but the highs were higher (there was never a better feeling than looting your nemesis’ body when you killed them).
I also realize that many ‘old schoolers’ suffer from good-ole-day syndrome where they only remember the positives. However, it seems that most posts I read seem to say that PvP ended with Trammel in UO. I guess what I’m trying to say is, when developing a game, what discussions are taking place about the ‘penalities’ of dying?
I fully support the chicken mechanic and the ‘no ganking’ areas. The real quest is for meaningful pvp. What discussions take place on the balance between angering players by setting them back (I notice there is no loss of EXP for dying like in DAOC) and yet still making dying in game a meaningful event?
Coir
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:13:53
I have to disagree with WoW being a “great” game. it’s a good game. And having been involved in over 25 betas at varying stages I have to say that at beta it had as many issues as any other MMo out there.
Just because they have a huge paying customer base it may make them ‘great’ economically’ but I personally seek more substance and life from my MMO’s. WoW did have the opportunity to become a great game. The interaction with the environment gave Blizz the chance to create a truly great mmo Role Playing Game however we are finally given a MMO.
A lack of caring about the actions of the player base has resulted in cyborz in the Deep run tram and a dumbing down of MMO communities in general.
A huge criticism of mine was the insular nature of many Wow guilds in WAR beta. Closed groups running PQ’s solwly by themselves. This insular action I place squarely at the feet of a game that has done more to kill the community aspect of MMO’s.
I hope the RvR system and PQ’s can eventually re-educate players to a more realm based pride similar to what existed in DAOC. yes WoW and Blizzard have drawn some new players to the genre of MMO’s but I would question the education it has given these new players.
Bad CS and a willingness to not act harshly enough to deal with gold selling or multiple use accounts or even bots has left a jaded community whose sole motivation is to see them as an individual progress.
Propoganda could be argued to be a great form of communication since it impacts on so many people on such a base level and the message gets across. However the art of true meaningful communication suffers in light of that.
It’s been said before and I’ll use the comparison again. WoW is junk food for the masses and one day hopefully some of those customers will go seeking real food and be lucky to find CS, GM’s and developers that actually care about the community.
Marko
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:17:08
Interesting read, i would love to see some stories about “what was Mythic plan on making a war a good game” when it all started, what was the focus
Lahiri
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:18:10
Great read, thanks for the straight talk. Since we’re being brutally honest here with MMO numbers and all, bottom line, what do you consider necessary for WAR to be a “success”? How many subscriptions over how many months? Specifics, please!
Lahiri
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:24:15
Wow, this board moves fast, question already answered… 1 mil a month goal sounds great – good luck!
Mark Jacobs
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:26:11
Lahiri, bottom line, more than 600K sustained subs in North America and Europe. That would put us at #2 historically and that was my goal when we were bought by EA. Now, would I like more? Yeap but 600K would be the bottom line. Now, with less than that we would be successful from a financial standpoint but considering how hard the team has worked, the license that we have and being part of EA, I would be disappointed if we did less.
Now, do I think we can do better than that. I do but we’ll have to wait a bit and see what happens won’t we? 🙂
Oh, and I didn’t say that 1M was our goal (though we would love to do that) but rather, that’s a number that I think investors and publishers would get excited about (and of course EA) if we achieve.
ParaplegicNomad
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:31:22
@Coir, the market is no longer what it was; the very idea of an MMO is no longer what it was. The commercial success of WoW dictates the direction of the bankrolling, and that is towards a more casual, less cohesive community.
WoW is certainly a great game in the definition that matters to the market. And the direction of future MMO’s will head in that direction, and not in yours, unfortunately, because that’s where the profit lies.
You can never go back.
About 8 years ago, FPS communities were large, tight-knit groups that built relationships around mutual respect and familiarity. Then aimbots and wallhacks were introduced, and where once you would say to someone, “hey, nice shot,” it instead became easier to say, “you used a hack!” The point? I can tell you from experience that crying for the good old days will do you no good, and your (and Mythic’s!) best path will be to take – with objectivity and without judgment – what you have in front of you and think about how you want to shape it moving forward. Castigating the players will not help the cause.
jaysnooginz
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:35:23
Mark I just wanted to let you know how refreshing it is to see game developers that are so accessible through so many avenues of communication. I would much rather play an MMO where the developers didn’t seem to be behind an iron curtain of misinformation.
On a totally tangential note, I’ve always felt the success of World of Warcraft was a combination of so many factors combining into a perfect storm that it’s really unfair to compare other games to it. There were no games out during that period that were very successful, EQ II had just been released but was having problems, and no gamer really wants to sit on the sidelines for long with nothing to play.
This is sort of the same situation that Warhammer is in. Sure WoW has 11 million subs, but how many of those are just people like me waiting till something better comes out, but unwilling to sit on the sidelines until said game comes out? AOC was a devastating failure at launch, not unlike EQ II, and i think Warhammer is poised to capitalize on some pretty substantial momentum.
We as gamers need Warhammer to succeed like you said. If every Hollywood blockbuster suddenly stopped making money except for one studios movies, pretty soon every investor would be giving money to that studio to the exclusion of others. This cannot happen.
jaysnooginz
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:42:54
Oh, and Mark, if it seems we in the community are putting a lot of pressure on you and the folks at Mythic: We are 🙂
Edix
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:44:53
WAR is a very good game. Does anything more need to be said?
=)
cdude93
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:44:58
Very interesting read, Mark, keep it up.
Having plenty of experience with MMOs, I’m happy to say that it was a blast going through the PW and seeing a creative team present the same elements of MMOs we’re used to in a way so as to create a vastly different experience. It’s obvious to me now that anyone calling WAR a “WoW clone” simply hasn’t played both games. I expect that you’ll be pleasantly surprised by your success. 🙂
CaliforiaGamer.com
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:47:39
Mark – I believe. I’ve ended all other subs and wait for WAR to be released. Please continue to listen to the fanbase and stay involved. Thank you sir. I wish Mythic all the success it deserves.
Mark Jacobs
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:51:01
Jay, and I would expect nothing less.
Edix, not much more needs to be said by us. I expect the players to be saying a lot in a few weeks. I’ve both got plenty of body armor and kudospheres to handle whatever comes my way. 🙂
Cdude, thanks. I hope we’ll be pleasantly surprised, that’s the best kind.
Jay, your point about the Hollywood blockbuster is of course, spot on. When I said the same thing in the interview, it was seized on by some as inflated ego-talking. So, I’ll let you say it instead. 🙂
Mark Jacobs
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:55:02
CaliforniaGamer, as I’ve said forever, we’ll always listen to the player but we won’t always agree. Sometimes we agree at the right time, others at the wrong time but we always listen.
Rothsper
Sep 04, 2008 @ 03:55:17
Hi Mark,
I wish you and your team every success. I’ll be one of the masses.
As a mad MMORPG disiple (I kind of have a RL – barely) since 1999 starting with EQ1 I could waffle for hours about my dreams for future MMORPG’s. I’ll instead stick to a single thought.
I believe there is room for niche MMOPRGs within the broader market, where lower investment and lower subs giving good returns. To me, the focus seems to be on a giant titles that appeal to everyone. I think there is some truth to your Blog’s title.
Could the next phase, or an additional stream in the MMORPG development world, be work on lower investment titles focusing on niche segments of the community?
Myself as an example:
My first MMORPG was EQ. I was hooked for 3 years and sunk 110 days played into my main and had countless alts.
A very large part of the original EQ experience was the great unknown factor. You would explore, learn and uncover its secrets for yourself. It was fantastic and it wasn’t easy.
The point? While many of the current generation of gamers may not enjoy a game based on – there is a big unknown world out there, and that all we are going to tell you, go for it! Many of us would.
One could say ‘why not just get into the next game cold and not read any of the information’? Because it is more than that – there needs to be a world full of easter eggs to go with it.
Example – discovering a level 6 spell you have never heard off in a distant mage guild at the other end of the world – when you are level 38. Rather than having it all right infront of you at the trainer.
Example – having to sit on a boat for 10 minutes to travel to a distant land.
Example – when its dark, and you have no light source, it is BLACK.
Example – you discover a hidden quest through dialog with an NPC.
I am not sure I am doing the best job in conveying the concept…
A game, forging high end graphics with worlds rendered down to each blade of grass, but packed full of exploration and discovery, would catch my desire to relive the glory that was my first venture into MMORPG’s.
A world that was a world. Red in Tooth and Claw. I am sure I am not alone.
jaysnooginz
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:01:25
I think what most people don’t understand about games in general is that fun is a very hard word to define, and even harder to implement. It is also the only reason any game is ever successful. If your game is not fun, we will not play it.
That being said, I think Warhammer has nailed the fun factor. Most games always fail at large scale pvp battles and Mythic is one of the few companies with the experience to pull this feature off. Who doesn’t want to be part of a large battle if it is even remotely playable?
Mils
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:03:33
Mark I thank you for openness. But I am concerned that you tipping your hat to actual numbers your aiming for will mean everyone will compare you games success on reaching those numbers or not.
I think Dennis Dyack has taught us that speaking too much about your product can have rather negative repercussions on your ‘gamer’ profile and thus what your core vocal minority say. And these people are the ones all the fence sitters hear…
Good luck and yep I’ll be one of those who purchases your product on release.
Mark Jacobs
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:06:35
Mils, I agree and that’s why I’m using the same numbers I’ve been talking about for a while, nothing new about these numbers, I’m not that dumb. 🙂
Arpeggi
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:07:17
Mark,
Not that I feel this is possible (it’d be a cold day in hell), but if War DID fail, say in terms of low subs (100ish thousand or so) how long could we expect Mythic to continue running the game?
Mark Jacobs
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:09:45
Arpeggi, it won’t. And since I don’t have to worry about crossing that bridge, I’ll stay on this side of the Rubicon.
Enkidu
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:15:36
Mark,
Hats off to you, I have played a splash of CE and the PW and enjoyed them very much. That said, please please keep the content coming ie. this game is going to appeal to the power levelers out there who are not the majority but are the most vocal and when they sack an enemy city for the third time they will rise up on the boards and say ok…no content whats next.BUT..no content just for content sake but thought out ..(NO TOA type stuff)
I have been playing your games longer than most and even did room descriptions for your text mmo(Darkness Falls) heck beta’d Dragon’s Gate where you would call every one into the Spur and ask for thoughts and then regal em with your bowling triumphs. Keep the same focus and determination as you have and War will do well.
Final thought, the Destruction city can be confusing to navigate (heck Josh even had to get his bearings more than once in a vid)future cities can be large but should not be a maze.
looking forward to OB!!
nubScotty
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:20:08
I’ve gotta say, despite being a RvR based MMO.
I UTTERLY ENJOY every aspect of PvE in this game!
During CE/PW I just went through quest to see as much content as possible, however upon I release I am planning on reading all ToK entries, whether it be questing or unlocks.
Well done on PvE certainly more entertaining than DAoC, WoW, EQ2, SB etc etc
Mark Jacobs
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:21:14
Enkidu, that was a long time ago in DGate, I still miss those days, I had a lot of fun.
Eric Culley
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:23:19
The main thing I believe is most important for Mythic to succeed would be honesty.
No micro-expansions (Thing SOE and the EQ franchise). Releasing a small patch and calling it an expansion with a 20 dollar price tag is wrong.
Admitting faults and eliminating excuses. I thought the Preview-Weekend update you put out was great! Very humble.
Ashes
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:24:28
Good luck mark, I really wish you and all of mythic the best of luck. Only bad thing about WAR is that they you can’t pre-order it in my country :(.
ParaplegicNomad
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:26:22
Enkidu has a good point about longevity that I think you touched on in the blog post, anyway. The tough part is not box sales, but holding on to your players. If we say the future of the MMO market will be largely influenced by WAR’s success, and that WAR’s success will be largely influenced by its longevity, we see that logically the future of MMO gaming depends on how well you guys supply content. No pressure.
Seriously, ok, that might be thinking a little bit far ahead, but it’s probably not nearly as far as it feels, either. With DAoC’s shelf-life being what it is, I suspect you guys have Plans For That, anyway.
Ashes
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:29:59
*is that you can’t
Sorry, English is my second language.
damijin
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:31:05
I completely agree with your assessment of the situation, Mark. However, being that I work in web games (including indie web MMOs supported by microtransactions), I wish nothing but the worst for your title!
Actually… I have to be honest, quite a few of my friends have been breaking their NDAs and praising the game to me for a while now. And I suppose theres enough room in the world for all revenue models. Good luck 🙂
Andres Nummi
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:32:22
You’ve already raised the bar, Mark, great job.
Not necessarily in terms of actual development (don’t get me wrong, I love the game) but in your community development.
This is extremely evident in the passion displayed during all developer diaries, interviews, blog posts, and forum replies.
Whether its Barnett bellowing a monstrous WAAAAGH!! surrounded by Orc-wannabes; Hickman unveiling why WAR appeals to me and the countless other gamers; Drescher taking us through how true it is that you guys aren’t pulling our leg: you REALLY can level through RVR alone; or yourself and the level of passion you illustrate to us when you listen to your fans, interact with your community, and show that you’re willing to make some hard decisions (content cut) for the better of the game.
Thanks Mark, for fostering such a strong relationship between your player-base and the developers.
It’s become standard and that’s raising the bar.
Mark Jacobs
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:36:37
Dami, LOL, thanks.
Andres, thanks, appreciate the praise for guys like Paul who has worked so hard and given up so much to be at Mythic during this time and Josh who has really done a great job as well.
Ministry
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:38:07
As a long time gamer, I sometimes wonder if some of these newer mmo’s that have been released and failed did so because they are simply trying too hard.
When WoW was first released, it was much simpler than it’s current form. There was no real formal pvp and a single, rather buggy, 40 man dungeon. What made WoW standout and gain mass appeal was it was fun. Many things added up to make Wow funner than most games (great quests, loot, raiding, pvp) but if I had to single out one thing, the single thing, that seperated WoW from the rest was its fast, smooth, responsive user interface. Blizzard figured out knows how to make clicking fun. Period. And lets face it. Anyone who’s played an mmo hours on end knows how much clicking is involved; I’ve probably gone through 4 mice in 3 years.
Of course WoW had many other things going for it but it was the highly addictive gameplay mechanic that kept players coming back.
My wife, who despised video games before playing WoW is a testament to this fact. Blizzard’s simple, yet fun to use inerface had her hooked immediately.
Over the years, of course, WoW’s grown into something much bigger and more complex but the simple formula is still there adn has yet to be duplicated or trumped.
I played AoC and I’m currently playing Warhammer and I can’t help but think that to this day, the devs still don’t get it. The interface remains clunky, unresponsive, and lacks the crisp feeling of WoW’s and until they perfect that one area, mmo’s will continue to fail.
Tell the investor’s to put that in their pipe and smoke it.
Raideen
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:41:44
With the exception of getting romped by Black orcs on my engineer (I know engineers have been modified since the P.W.)I can say the game is completely fun, and in a different way then WoW. I played WoW for about 3 years and it was fun but the gear grind got old, especially just to start competing in pvp. War by design does not have this flaw, and therefore keeps my interest peaked just because I am there and able to contribute. Before I got my renowned gear I was still having fun at lvl 10 in my lvl 2 stuff.
All I can say is that I am proud to be a preorder customer and I am proud to play Warhammer. I have a few wow friends I am bringing with me, I only wish I had the money (poor old man college student) to keep a wow sub going just to recruit. I REALLY and sincerely believe in the Mythic team, I believe in you, in Paul in the game and in EA . I don’t say this to kiss your ass, I say this because you guys actually have the big picture in focus, in the end good or bad that is all we can ask for.
Thanks Mark and Co.
Adaram
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:41:47
It’s great to see the level of interaction you have made available through this BLOG, Mark. Thanks!
I look forward to seeing WAR in action. Myself and a bunch of friends are gearing up for Open Beta and Head Start right after that!!
Best of luck. I hope it is a resounding success!
Camoking
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:44:22
SOO is Imperator coming out?!?! man i wanted that game SOOOO bad but then yall started WAR and dropped Imperator or that was what yall where calling it back then
arcdrag
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:44:30
Amazing blog and so true. It seems quite obvious to me, but a lot of people just don’t get the fact that as more companies fail, less companies will try.
Also, the more companies that try, the better chance the player base has of seeing something truly innovative in today’s age of gaming where it seems everything has already been done before.
Tiresias
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:46:05
Putting the game itself aside, you know what I love about Mythic? The community interaction.
Here you have the VP of a company who is taking the time to interact with the community and blog during crunch time for his AAA MMO that is launching in 16 days. He is active on community forums and actively soliciting feedback from the community. I haven’t seen anything like this since I played City of Heroes (another fantastic Dev team, BTW).
They have people like Jeff, Josh, and Paul out there pounding the pavement and going to conventions to actually talk with people. They are passionate about their product and will give their sales pitch repeatedly to anyone who will listen. It’s such a different tack from the typical marketing schlock that I can actually appreciate the advertising. That’s right — I know I am being advertised to, but I enjoy it.
What happened to this? Why does it seem that Mythic is the only company that is excited about its games? Perhaps the problem isn’t ONLY the lack of polish and the terrible habit of “release and patch” that so many companies perpetrate upon their consumers these days, but that the people who sincerely love and get excited about their own products are few and far between.
You know Richard Garriott? “Lord British”? Eccentric, a little crazy perhaps, but completely in love with what he does. I admire that. Paul Barnett… probably a little crazier, but also completely in love with his job. Where have these people gone?
Has anyone heard of The Chronicles of Spellborn? It’s an innovative MMO from a small company. I was invited to their beta after following the game for literally YEARS. I tested it for exactly two months before walking away. Oh the game was fine, great even for a beta, but there was no interaction with the community. They didn’t give us anything to get excited about, and I was not convinced that the beta testers were even being listened to after searching their forums. I wish them the best, but they lost my interest and my business; I actually left the community in frustration.
AoC… I didn’t even touch that game because they kept the doors and windows closed until release. There was little community interaction other than to say “our game is great!”. They presented almost no proof of concept and kept their cards close to their chest. It was no surprise to me that their launch, while smooth, was also full of lies once you got past the glitter of the starting area.
Much thanks to the team at Mythic for being the exact opposite.
I am appreciative that you allowed me to beta test your game for a while and am anxiously looking forward to release.
Vonmanstein
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:53:26
Hey Mark, though I’m positive WAR is going to be successful, I just wanted to mention that, either way, you and your team have created a FANTASTIC game. I have been fortunate enough to have been in beta this whole year, and it is absolutely astounding how great this game has gotten. Kudos on making the first AAA MMO title in years.
BTW, I’ve got my Collector’s Edition preordered since I know already it is going to be great. I’m already trying to plan out my first week in game, and will be stocking up on Red Bull here very soon. I feel like a little kid again waiting for Christmas morning, and haven’t been this excited about a game release in a long time.
Ashes
Sep 04, 2008 @ 04:59:36
Mark, do you have any plans to make Middle East servers?
I know the answer is probably gonna be no, but I can dream, can’t I? 😀
Raideen
Sep 04, 2008 @ 05:00:08
I also wanted to comment on the game in regards to the casuals.
I grinded High Warlord in Wow. Took seven GRUELING months of literally non stop play. I took a 7 day vacation at rank 9 and it took me 3 weeks to make that up. It was a chore, a job but at times it was fun (as long as I was in the ‘Warlord’ premade. But the last 7 weeks were literally painful. I had major cramping in my hands, I was afraid of carpal tunnel, it was costing me my relationship, I took days off from work, family outings (with bro and his lil girl) were kept to a minimum. I mean I was a real loser, had to be to complete it.
It was good and bad. Bad in that I took time from people I loved to play a game. It was good in that it taught me that if I can play a game…if I can slave at a game for 7 months not always being a fun thing, then I can do anything.
So…Warhammer does not ask this of me and for that I can only applaud the dev team, BUT from what I tasted on preview weekend I would not mind spending 7 months straight, everyday for 6 hours minimum and up to 17 to fight and fight and fight in War. I WANT to be there, I WANT to contribute to the cause, I WANT to help my guild, I WANT to help my faction, I WANT to help my friends. I feel a great sense of camaraderie in this game, and I think other feel the same.
This is a GREAT game for couples, for family (given that cleavage does not freak the parents out), for the casual, for the solo and for the hardcore. Everything I did on PR was solo and I had a great time. I enjoyed ‘going left instead of right’ and earned the title ‘The Lizard Killer’ in doing so.
I also had terrible lag at about 2 fps in scenarios, had to log out, reboot, log in countless times (I think some of that is my provider and my 4 year old comp) but I still had fun. If that was WoW (not picking on them)I would have just alt-F4’d and called it a night.
BTW, sorry if this comment offered nothing constructive about the original post..I am just damn excited.
Callaway
Sep 04, 2008 @ 05:06:42
I’m impressed by your post, you seem to have an amazing grasp of finance and investor psychology.
As someone who was not drawn to WAR immediately, I’m shocked by the level of commitment and quality I’ve seen during my recent WAR research binge. You’ll get your high numbers because you earned them.
Mark, I myself have often had to explain that there is a difference between “cockiness” and “confidence”, you seem the latter. Perfect is not a state of being, rather a plan 🙂
CubanChaos
Sep 04, 2008 @ 05:11:39
Mark,
I have to say I was a late bloomer in the fact that the only experience I had with MMO’s until WoW was an UO trial account. People might bash me for having no credible MMORPG credentials but the fact is that perhaps I felt that single player games, with engaging gameplay and good story, were the best way to be immersed in my little fantasy world. Also, I never saw my friends as adversaries, I wanted to do things with them not AGAINST them.
Everyone grows though. When I started playing with Xbox co-op games like Halo(which people tend to hate as much as WoW because it came at the right time with the right gameplay) and Diablo/Starcraft I started seeing a revolution within me. I felt that the natural move would be into playing massive multi-player games where everyone can share their accomplishments and feel a part of something bigger.
Now I have come to a third stage in my gaming life. Even though I owe a lot to Blizzard for giving me easy to play and polished games, I have to move further. This new set of games wont necessarily be the most expensive nor will they be the ones with the most subscriptions. They will be the games that touch with the old roots of playing for just plain, silly fun with your friends.
I may not be a good writer but I hope you got my message. Mythic will be sparking a revolution that I hope moves into other forms of media.
CE preorder already in the bag!
CubanChaos
Sep 04, 2008 @ 05:18:17
Actually I wanted to ask when and where will we see something other than word of mouth marketing and the occasional viral site?
For example Gametrailers has the most god awful gameplay footage of the game and I haven’t seen a single commercial on TV or Magazines. My friends still lack faith in the game.
MArc Jacobs blog - The Older Gamers Forums
Sep 04, 2008 @ 05:24:14
Alby
Sep 04, 2008 @ 05:47:42
Mark
I hope the best for Warhammer Online, I know I’ll be in line on launch day. I do have a quick question though: Any plans for Mac support? I’m a college student who only has access to a Macbook Pro and I’d like to get my WAR on without hassling with Bootcamp and partitioning.
Might sound silly, but I think one of the (albeit smaller) reasons I think Blizzard has been such a monumental success is that they make games that run natively on OSX and Windows.
Thanks for any sort of reply,
Al
jay
Sep 04, 2008 @ 06:02:27
I feel very good about WAR, loved the PW and respect people who are honest and are willing to listen. That’s why I can’t wait to play WAR and it gives me a good feeling to know that smart and open people who care develop it.
I agree that WAR should be a success (for all the reasons you mentioned in your post) and I’m sure it will be.
I think it would also add to the game if you would somehow integrate user generated content. The team fortess 2 developer are doing a great job and also add community maps to the official version.
I guess releasing an editor for WAR to create your own dungeons might be too complicated right now but I’m sure this could open up doors to lots of new content that could be added to official servers after some quality checks.
Anyway, my girlfriend and me ordered the CE and we can’t wait to get our White Lion & Runepriest on the battlefield.
Btw is there an Asian server or similar coming? The ping from Thailand to Australia is great (55ms) but in Australia the connection bounces between Sydney and Melbourne back and forth until we end up with 300 – 500ms. There are threads in the warhammeralliance forum about it (Australian Server Forum). It would be awesome if you guys could maybe have a look into this issue.
Thanks!
Steve H
Sep 04, 2008 @ 06:14:08
Mark , just wanted to echo alot of the sentiments here.
Best of luck with the launch, though I dont think you will need it. From what I am seeing and reading you are making your own luck by ensuring you get it right.
I was an opening subscriber to DAOC and have my code downloaded for the OB and am eagerly awaiting it.
If I have one plea it would be to keep the pressure on GOA. The Euro community already are beginning to feel like 2nd class customers. Please make sure that you make them stick to the standard you set and I’m sure we will be delighted.
Have a great launch and let us know how hammered you all get after your inevitable launch party…
Skitch
Sep 04, 2008 @ 06:33:47
Hi Mark,
I just wanted to say how impressed i am with your responses to comments & forum posts. Its small things like this that really build a sense of trust and community.
All the best and none of the worst for the coming events!
Soraellion
Sep 04, 2008 @ 08:23:13
Nice read Mark, and so very true. I’ve been around a bit in MMO’s (played DAoC for 5 years) and as you stated earlier, only the developer can kill his MMO.
The MAIN thing, to me at least, is communication: being upfront, honest and not forgetting that it’s the customers who pay the bills. Only too often you see MMO’s/companies fail because they either never really understood that part or kinda forgot about it somewhere along the way.
Apart from that, the most important part of any game is that I need to see the sparkle, I need to feel that the DEVS went allout instead of folowing paths beaten to death and that I can envision them going “you know what? lets just do this complely different, just for fun”.
Having things done in boring, effortless and unimaginative ways does not a good product make, it’s just not a long term way of doing things.
Keep up the good work.
Khalus
Sep 04, 2008 @ 08:33:53
I’ve been saying this for awhile all over the net on many different forums, so here goes again for Mark! I’d say that 90% or more of the new gen of MMO players out there got started with WoW and only know WoW to compare their PvP experience and everything else with! They’ve prolly never played DAoC or have never seen or experienced what RvR is!
I fully believe that once those players get into WAR and get to see what all the craziness that is RvR is all about WAR will get a huge influx of subscribers!
My predictions has been for quite awhile now that WAR will get and hold steady at a minimum of 2,000,000 consistent subs within 3 months or less! PvP is what a majority of players are gunning for the most in MMOs these days and WAR delivers a solid PvP/RvR experience right from the start that no other MMO has in quite awhile if ever…
Can’t wait for WAR Mark…and the years of content to come…I’ll be there supporting you through it all!
Mandrake
Sep 04, 2008 @ 08:53:14
Mark every one here has already said how good this game is and realy there is nothing i could say ontop of that game wise. as i said to most any one who asks me what War is like i say it is “Awsomness in a can” which realy enought said.
but what i realy wish to say is this. game play aside is that you guys have made the bigist move in MMO history….. you know what it is>:?
This is the first time in 11 years of mmo history that a MMO has a server on australian Soil. If nothing else you will get 50k+ subcribers just for that 1 fact. at long last a MMO company has put faith in australia and trust you me WE WILL SHOW YOU IT WAS WORTH IT!!!!
Be propared to have to open up more Aussie servers as you suddenly see the masses finaly have a place they can play where they dont have 400ms+ pings!!!!! pinged your server and get back at max 60ms!!!!!!!
when i first heard that the server for OZ was actualy on OZ soil i almost fainted. i mean it!. its now one of y bigest selling point when i am trying to convert my friends into playing this game. because if nothing else this will for once and all Make other MMO companys think of putting servers here thus ushering in the new age of oz gaming history!!!!!!!
POWER TO MYTHIC!!!!!
Borric-LotD
Sep 04, 2008 @ 09:05:07
Mark,
I just want to say a quick thanks for the refreshing candor and presence that you guys at Mythic seem to exude. Here at LotD, we’ve seen developers and their titles come and go in the 14 years we’ve been together (yes, since DSO. Our core is a bunch of old grumpy bastards). We’ve been playing (and beta testing) MMORPGs for a long time, and this is one of the first times we’ve seen such active involvement from one of the higher-ups at a game company. So firstly, keep up that presence. I think you truly get how much it means.
Second, I’d just like to say well done. It’s readily apparent that you guys listen to the community. Without delving into any NDA breaking behavior, I must say that your Dev Team is the most responsive I’ve seen. They seem to think that beta testers actually provide valuable feedback. They also seem to have the knack of separating the standard whining from things that actually need to be fixed. That’s not an easy task. But Mythic’s relationship with the community is unparalleled. We know you may not agree, and may not ‘fix’ something, but we know you’ll listen and discuss it amongst yourselves. I wish the same were true with other companies.
And lastly, as a leader of (probably) the longest-lived PvP guild, the focus on RvR combat is so very refreshing. I’m well aware that most developers regard us as a niche market, and like WoW, develop games for PvE only players and then add in a few broken things for PvPers. The refreshing attitude towards player combat in a major title has got us all excited. We’ll be in WAR in force, and look forward to many years of meaningful sustained combat.
TheOnlyCoR
Sep 04, 2008 @ 10:12:17
Mark,
One thing I wanted to let you know – a little on and off topic.
I have been a LONG time MMO Gamer, and oddly enough, the cycle is repeating itself. My First MMO I played was Anarchy Online at launch, plagued by horrible performance, I never did subscribe. I then went back and played Diablo 2 for more time than was good for me. It was there a friend of mine told me about this new MMO called DAOC and that it totally rocked.
I admit, I was skeptical, But I bought it, and subscribed until about 5 months ago, on 3 accounts. I have played nearly every mmo since then as they come out, hoping for innovations, and most as you point out , are just money thrown at a wall hoping to get some to stick.
I am not in CB , but I did preorder and played PW, I want to sincerely thank you on behalf of the DAOC community for making DAOC2 ..err I mean WAR. Its nice to see developers and publishers who look at previous successes and learn how to come up something new and interesting for us to do but keep that core mechanic that made DAOC the BEST PVP/RVR mmo thats ever hit the market.
And as a side note…Dual Subscription for DAOC/WAR?..come on, throw us a bone 🙂
Cheers from someone else working in the industry, I unfortunately work in the console sector, heh but its gaming none the less.
tony
Sep 04, 2008 @ 10:23:20
The only thing I really wanted to say was THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for Oceanic based servers at launch. After being treated as something to pad out the offpeak server time numbers for a loooong time it’s refreshing to see a company recognising the market potential south of the equator for a change 🙂
Adrien (France)
Sep 04, 2008 @ 10:28:23
Of course it is not ego talk Mark !
It is sad but we all have to admit that your analysis is true…
In all markets, whatever the product is, having one brand trusting the market means only bad things for customers. And the same applies to MMORPG.
I’ve been playing MMO’s for almost ten years now, starting with Everquest and i saw like you all the good and bad things that happened to all the games that were launched during those ten years. All games (successfull or not) have improved the quality and the expectations of the customers, and as you said before, now you cannot release a game that is not finished.
One of the best news i read about WAR (believe me or not) is when you announced that you were giving up 4 classes and 4 capitals to focus on the rest on the game. I quickly tought : “very nice, we will have a finished product”, and franckly i prefer a finished product with a bit less inside than having a huge world full of bugs.
You with mythic have a huge experience of this market, i think DAOC teached you a lot of things and you know the errors to avoid, that’s why i was kinda confident when i started to have an eye on war a year ago.
The dev work before release is just the beginning, i hope everyone in mythic knows it, and if they don’t, remind them to not celebrate victory when 1 million suscribtion will be done at release. You have to keep your players with you, give them new content, patchs, etc… After 6 months of you still have your million players playing, you can offer the champagne to your whole team, because they will deserve it !
I really hope that Mythic will be sucessfull on that game, not only for my pleasure, but for the good health of this market, we all want very good games to play online and not choose beteween WoW or… WoW !
i wish you best luck of the next few months, i know that release wont be really a problem, the hardest work is coming after it, so work hard, and bind Paul if he disturb the team to much 🙂
Krennick
Sep 04, 2008 @ 10:29:38
Mark,
A suggestion for something to consider taking as a blog entry.
I have myself (on forums) made the point that RvR as a game concept is fragile and sensitive to population – both relative between the two realms and in absolute terms. If the world is thinly populated the fun of RvR peters out as you never actually find anyone to fight.
I believe this perspective is well understood by Mythic and one of the reasons why the initial RvR concept you can hear about in the earlier podcasts weigh scenarios higher than open world RvR. Further, I believe it underlines the heavy use of “War is everywhere” in marketing as well as other direct and indirect encouragement to go kill some people.
I think open world RvR is the real niche and the real appeal of the game, and I’m pleased to see the change of direction to make open world RvR as important as scenarios – and would personally like to see the pendulum swing even a bit further in that direction with scenarios only really being an escape valve for when open world RvR becomes too zergy and people seek a lower lag environment. I like how the open world zones are designed to encourage open world RvR, both in terms of objectives, but also in terms of geography and relative funnels encouraging potential aggressors to run into each other.
I have read and applaud your posts about having a preliminary population cap on servers and expanding that as players move up tiers. I think it is a good type of measure to encourage population density in RvR areas.
The direction I’d like to take this argument is towards other styles of gameplay. My core argument is that any style of gameplay that gives players something attractive and worthwhile to do in the game that is not open world RvR will default to hurting the open world RvR experience. This is the core argument that I would love to hear your perspective on.
I’ll expand this a bit and use some imaginary numbers to illustrate. I’m going to arbitrarily decide that if 500 people (per realm) or more are participating in open world RvR then the population density of open world RvR is such that it passes from ‘not that much fun’ into ‘really quite fun’. I’ll call this a critical mass for ‘fun’.
I’ll continue my imaginary example by stating that a server has 2000 people per realm. I’m going to arbitrarily decide that 1000 people are participating in open world RvR and 1000 people are doing ‘other stuff’. Other stuff includes exploring, crafing, PvE (challenging and otherwise), scenarios, searching for elusive Tome unlocks etc.
Let’s say someone discovers an elusive Tome unlock which gives a Tome tactic that is dramatically useful (ok, overpowered) if used in open world RvR, but it takes a pretty steady 40-50 hours /played doing nothing but PvE style activities. 800 open world RvR people hear about it and abandon RvR to get the new shiny.
While ths is a temporary time during which open world RvR population density is below the critical mass for ‘fun’ to happen it will have a residual effect. Especially someone just venturing into RvR for the first time will be mightily disappointed and might never return.
The same logic extends to.. well anything that isn’t open world RvR, be it PvE raids, challenging PvE dungeons, story/roleplay events, arenas, involved crafting/economy etc. It even extends to open world RvR itself. If we were to introduce a DAoC Darkness Falls type dungeon – we are creating more real estate in which open world RvR can happen. To follow this model we increase the critical mass for ‘fun’ from 500 to 600.
It actually means that with open world RvR being the niche product that people really want and like – we end up with a game that it’s terribly hard to create meaningful expansions for. The more attractive our non-open-world-RvR expansion content is – the more it will hurt open world RvR. The more new open world RvR zones we put in – the higher the critical mass for ‘fun’ becomes.
Now, I love open world RvR,and I find myself in discussions saying “I don’t want interesting PvE raids in the game regardless if I’d do them myself” and “I don’t want other people to sit in a tavern and roleplay” – I feel that there is a potential for terrific, attractive content to hurt the RvR experience on offer. The combination of absolute server (realm) population caps and critical mass for ‘fun’ in open world RvR creates something that must be a major game design headache.
There is of course a balance. And the ‘problem’ can be alleviated if you can continue to raise the population caps of servers when you include new types of activities or new RvR zones (assuming an influx of new players!)
If you think this type of thing is something you are comfortable sharing in a forum this open, I’d dearly love to hear your thoughts along any lines of this type of argument (beyond the obvious admission that ToA was the wrong direction for DAoC which is exactly an example of this perspective.)
Haarani
Sep 04, 2008 @ 10:41:28
Man i loved your southpark reference 😀
Im sure this game won’t be a fail!
You can compare it like southpark and simpsons, more people watch simpsons but southpark is Sooooooooo much more fun.
What does WARs success or failure mean for the MMORPG market? - Whirlpool Guild - Home of "Black Ork Down"
Sep 04, 2008 @ 11:10:51
Marc Jacobs blog - The Older Gamers Forums
Sep 04, 2008 @ 11:33:16
Kaldorn
Sep 04, 2008 @ 11:33:27
hey mark id like to say how much your game in the preview weekend which i got to experience far surpassed my expectations and made me 99% sure that ill be quiting wow to come and wage WARRGH! with all the people i can steal with me to your game.
it was great to see the community and sense of working with not against others. i have played wow for way too long and done everything possible within it to me anything beyond what they did when they released BC ruined the game.
i have been hoping someone would make a warhammer mmo because i also play the tabletop game and have done for 5 years or so it has made me very happy to see how well you have bought the tabletop game into the virtual world and made it come to life in fantastic fashion kudos to you and all the team at mythic for there amazing game imo.
P.S any chance of the dwarf hammerer coming back in 😛 i wanted to be one 😦
Melbourne
Sep 04, 2008 @ 11:45:38
Well not long now , I imagine it will be a big relief for all to get War out into the marketplace. For some reason the hype has really got to me this time so good job at the marketing department but maybe its because since the beta nda being lifted the feedback has been pretty bloody impressive.
Well good luck and as a customer I promise to give your passion a good three months no mater what happens but here hoping for another 3 year commitment like WoW…
Jessica C.
Sep 04, 2008 @ 13:06:43
Have to agree with you here. Game companies need to stop putting out half finished games.. WoW was a very easy game to play when it came out, a break from all the slash commands of the previous mmos. People who never played mmos before played this game because of the ease to play and the hamster wheel of grinding for gear to make you think you are progressing…
THAT is the feeling I got when playing WAR (not the hamster wheel part, but the easiness of the game and polished finish look).
I have great hopes for this game, you guys did a masterful job with DAOC, kept me coming back again and again for the past 7 years to play, I just hope WAR will do the same for me AND for everyone.
Haspes23
Sep 04, 2008 @ 13:10:47
Hey Mark,
Just wanted to take a few minutes out of my oh so boring morning and say great post here, was a very enjoyable read, and its actually one of the nicest things to be able to sit down and say you know that guy at the top of Mythic hes pretty cool. All the stuff that you guys are doing to help bring communication, understanding, and ease up the fears of your community is not only one of the best things I think you could do for your game, but its also just nice to see dev’s and other high up people realise that us the customer are pretty important to their game.
I have been playing MMO’s since earlier 2000 with friends of mine on eq1, I started my online games with Counter strike of all things, and just had a great time. But anyone who has had a dealing with SOE’s original CS policy will realise that the customer was not all that high on their priority list, GM’s didnt give a crap about the players issues at least not on the Inny server (IMHO of course).
You guys have one of the most anticipated MMO’s to date and from what I saw during PW it will be a very awesome game, and the fact that you admited to a few problems that were noticed during that weekend was really refreshing and rather reasuring.
It is also nice to know that you do not have any plans to be the killer of current MMO’s on the market, because its never a good thing to try and cater to everyone. There are to many people with different perspectives on what makes a game great, and many people who have different play stayles that are high lighted in the games that they play. Also it is good to have competition it will keep you guys on your toes and doing your best to provide us players the best gaming enviroment possible.
To sum up the last few years of following your game all I can say is good show, and it was well worth the wait. I hope that every thing happens for the best during launch and post launch as I am looking forward to enjoying the warhammer fantasy world in the years to come. (well at least till we get our hands on some warhammer 40k, then I plan to enjoy both worlds.)
Rafar
Sep 04, 2008 @ 13:20:40
I was thrilled to read this entry and see the comments posted here. It is refreshing to know where the priorities on this game / studio are. I look forward to playing WAR (love the MMO acronyms) for real (have played CECB and PW) and have been for quite a while. I myself have recruited about 8 others to pre-order based on my experiences in game and the comments from Mark only serve to strengthen my confidence in this company and this game!
My biggest disappointment in the MMO realm was Horizons, I was sad to see that game end up like it did. Honestly I think the biggest problem facing this industry right now is building potential customers expectations way to high by saying their game will have everything and then not being able to deliver, they promise the world and deliver a boulder or maybe a mountain in either case it doesn’t live up to what we were expecting. This is not because those things are impossible but because of time and money constraints. Mythic didn’t do that with DAoC and from what I have seen they have not done that with WAR.
Honestly I think that WAR has a lot of the same things going for it that WoW did when it was released, the biggest being the company behind it having a great reputation with prior projects. The biggest thing that will make a game truly great and lead to it’s success is obviously building and keeping the trust of their customers and that is made so much easier when there is a already a good impression from former customers!
Finally I do hope to see more of these “Types” of games on the market. It would be great to see other incredibly successful MMO’s because the more there are the better the new ones have a potential of being of course it also leads in some ways to potentially more giant failures too I suppose.
4 More Days Till Open!
Sep 04, 2008 @ 13:22:25
Mark,
It is great to see the business side of the MMO market, its also refreshing to see that you understand it! I cannot wait for WAR to come out, I just want to give a props to every one who created the game, the classes are fantastic! I can’t even pick which one I want to play because they are all waaaaay to much fun! Thanks again and best of luck with the launch, we all know its going to go very well.
Craig
Taea
Sep 04, 2008 @ 13:33:29
You had me at “crater spectacularly,” Mark.
It is wonderful to see an MMOG company take responsibility for their game, as you have here. You put the success or fail (as if!) on your own heads, instead of listing 10 other reasons why it wouldn’t be your fault.
Looking forward to these next few weeks!
solarbear
Sep 04, 2008 @ 13:34:39
I think you are right. Nothing will kill WOW until an innovative style of gameplay, something different and fun, for a MMO is thought up. At this stage, everyone is copying WOW, and is it really that different from EQ? Not really.
I think Eve has maintained its hold on its little market share by offering something totally different.
I reckon Bizzard will either start work on a Starcraft MMO or WOW2. If they took what was good about Tabula Rasa and got rid of the bad, put a Starcraft brand on it, it would do well.
Dave R
Sep 04, 2008 @ 13:57:56
I’m curious about the focus on marketing specifically to EU and North America, excluding the Asian market (which seems much bigger).
Then specifically in #7 above you challenge the reader to count the mmos with more than 200k subscribers since 1997. That challenge must be excluding Asian market, yah? Otherwise you’ll need a lot more fingers. (mu online, ragnarok, lineage 1, lineage 2, world of legend, etc. a lot of names unfamiliar to EQ/WoW/WAR fans).
Bobby
Sep 04, 2008 @ 14:12:15
The MMO market is still only just begun. Games like WAR need to flourish so that investors will continue supporting it and the genre can continue to evolve. I really think this game is the next logical step. It takes many pieces of an already-successful formula and makes it better while at the same time adding many new things that just make sense. I would love this to continue! Also, as a person who is currently going to school in the hopes of being a game designer, this is a genre I want to be a part of. But really, who wouldn’t want to create a new world?
mkuczara
Sep 04, 2008 @ 14:31:41
Mark thanks for a intersting read.
One question – How much combat responsiviness and animations improved in comparision with beta 3.3
It was almost very good at 3.3 but i want more 😉
Cheers.
Cripling
Sep 04, 2008 @ 14:40:48
Hopefully WHA won’t be the unofficial forums of WAR, too censored for my taste.
ravious
Sep 04, 2008 @ 14:48:52
Added to blogroll. I love your style Mark… so refreshing, even if you do claim you are an ex-lawyer 😉
(/me hopes to one day also be a game developing ex-lawer)
Vez
Sep 04, 2008 @ 14:55:55
I want nothing more than for WAR to succeed. I like to route for the new guy a lot. I played countless hours in DAoC when it was released and had a blast! I didnt have the same feeling when I logged into WoW the first time. I logged in on PW and had that same feeling all over again and think it is only right that others should get the chance to feel it too!
EBlitz
Sep 04, 2008 @ 15:04:46
Mark, nice blog post. Sometime I’d like to hear your impressions of EVE Online’s role within the MMO space. Obviously it is a niche, but it seems to me that it has been developed responsibly to fit that niche. However, that is just a player’s perspective, with no real knowledge of the economics. The reason I wonder about this, is that I think another sign of a healthy MMO industry will be whether viable niche products can survive. While Mythic is obviously shooting for the stars, and thats great, as most industries mature the costs to produce generally go down and niche markets can be economically served. I think MMOs will eventually get there, but I’ve thought that for a long time (ever since the idea of the Turbine engine being licensed out was floated and I said to myself..mmmm…that might be a way to dramatically reduce costs if my target market was properly identified and met.)
Any thoughts?
Emperor Guan Di
Sep 04, 2008 @ 15:22:03
I have to say I’ve been a huge fan of Mythic since the glory days of DQAoC. You guys were one of the few I saw stand up and admit mistakes and do something about them.
One question about something you said: Will Mythic publish their sub numbers? At present players can see the population of servers, but I was curious if you guys would be upfront about your numbers as you have been about everything else.
Another topic I’ve seen you comment on was about gold sellers and exploiters/hackers. Will Mythic be using info they have from UO and DAoC to prevent people from bringing the issues into WAR? My concern there is that while you may try to expel them as they come in, if you are able to set up a block for know ones to get into the game, you start off limiting their chances at launch.
I wish you guys the best of luck and I will be there the moment the servers launch. Hope everything goes fairly smooth as it seems you guys could use the chance to take a breath and relax a bit. 🙂
B-L
Sep 04, 2008 @ 15:31:15
I’ve been eagerly awaiting WAR for about a year now, and can’t wait to play it.
Even though I haven’t got a chance to play it yet there’s one thing I know that you have done better than any other MMORPG yet.
Your marketing and your way of keeping in touch with the community is something I’ve never seen similar to from other MMORPGs, Out of the 11+ wow players (current and past) I bet less than 1% of them can name 4 of the creators of the game, while with WAR half the community allready feel like their best friends with you, Josh, Paul and Jeff.
Keep up the great work!
driksna
Sep 04, 2008 @ 15:33:24
Well since you brought up WoW so much. I’ll let you know what other games can’t seem to figure out.
WoW figured it out, they relized to keep people subing and getting friends to sub they gave alot of game play to all types of players.
When wow first came out it had just a couple PvP servers and tons Pve. Then over time tons wanted more PvP so they made more PvP servers and fixed up the BG system to give great gera over time working for it.
Then came arena , its not prefect but people enjoy it.
They also listened to the PVE aspect and made it to 25 mans and even a 10 man. and next xpac all end game 25 mans can be done in 10 man format so more people can see end game content.
If you want WAR to make it don;t be like AOC and others , have end game ready for us. Its not like WoW anymore when it first came out people expect tons of diffrent things to do at cap lvl. Not one or two things over and over.
Have end game raids for those that like to raid, have plenty on 6 mans, 2-3 will not cut the cake anymore.
have PvP with rewards to work for.
IF WAR stays just mostly RvR sure you’ll have the faithfull 50OK that will stay on, but WOW made the new standard. If you don;t think close to a million of your starting subs come from WOW and will judge it from it you will fail.
Welcome to the World of WOW, mold to them or fail 🙂
Ashendarei
Sep 04, 2008 @ 15:51:00
Interesting blog. My biggest problem with DAoC was the apparent lack of communication with the playerbase. The game was extremely fun (although some things WERE rediculously annoying, the #1 thing for me was spell interrupts) and I look fondly back on my time playing DAoC, but between Buffbots, RP farming groups, and CC & class balance I had had enough.
I’m looking forward to seeing what WAR has to offer, but I won’t be picking up the game till a couple months after release, if all goes well.
Splut
Sep 04, 2008 @ 16:00:03
I absolutely agree with you Mark. I try to keep abreast of how healthy the MMOG universe is, and I’ve been feeling like the it’s right at the verge of a big exhale.
One game can’t sustain our pastime for long, so we need to have a continual cycle of great and profitable games coming in if we want to keep playing. With the poor numbers from AoC and LotRO, WAR really could be the last MMOG hurrah for a long while.
I’m a big fan of WAR and I know everyone over at Bullies is really chomping at the bit to get out and play the Gold version. So I know we’re ready to do our part to make WAR as successful as possible.
Mnemon
Sep 04, 2008 @ 16:10:08
Great post.
A lot of folks got burned by AoC, so I do think folks are hesitant to leap into another MMO. Hopefully WAR some good words early in WAR can convince folks. I know in my long time guild a lot of people are only dipping a toe into the pool. They are optimistic, but remember they were for AoC as well.
Very good points about the venture capital folks. I certainly don’t think things were helped by veteran MMO developing firms having pretty huge failures. AoC and Vanguard weren’t made by newcomers to the market who you could say didn’t know any better.
They were developed by people and companies who had successful pre-WoW MMOs and people figured knew what they were talking about and could deliver.
Now AoC is in a tailspin and people are saying things like “well if they make some changes and deliver on some promises, maybe people will come back.”
Vanguard is months into the same cycle.
Balthaazar1
Sep 04, 2008 @ 16:12:27
Mark, that was an excellent post. I and others on mmorpg.com have been commenting of it all morning.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/199043/page/1
Thank-you for seeing things on such a large scale of view, well thought out indeed.
Sinless
Sep 04, 2008 @ 16:22:56
Excellent read Mr. Jacobs. I agree with you 100% that WAR needs to succeed if we want to have MMOs in the future. Looking at the number of MMOs cancelled or indefinitely delayed shows a weariness in investors for MMOs. Why invest in a large capital commitment when you can invest in move-based videogames that pull in quick cash for little resources? Plus you are guranteed a release date to coincide with the movie.
I look forward to reading your future blogs and hope people understand how important it is that you interact with your community.
Allan Smith
Sep 04, 2008 @ 16:23:11
Nice blog Mark, well done.
You know, this is probably the one thing that make me have so much faith on mythic’s work. Not only Paul, Josh and Jeff appear all the time to talk with the community via podcasts, interviews, etc, but even you, the president of the company and lead designer, is always posting on foruns, answering questions, and now even has a blog! This kind of link between public – company, at last for me, its very important. When WoW was going out, I was completely fanatic about it, I knew more about the game then the developers =P, and I can say, i dont remember the faces of anyone from Blizzard. (Of course, WoW was, and still is, great, and the only thing I think they kinda missed, i this contact)
Now, about your post, I couldnt agree more. I’m still a student but my “plans” are to be a Game Designer myself, and certainly my favorite genre are MMOs. And, unfortunely, the numbers i’ve been looking at are not that great, as you said, many MMOs failed to have enought subs to even pay for its price, and it seens that the Game Industry is growing fast on console games, but kind of leaving the PC market (last time I saw the numbers, PC was only 10% of the market)
I really do hope War is sucessful, I do like Blizzard games, honestly, not only WoW, their games are great and usually a lot above avarage, and the problem with that is, recently, Blizzard announced Diablo 3, and I do think it will be a great game, HOWEVER, its release has not even been announced yet, probably will still take a year, and people already say its “ZOMG BEST GAME EVER” just cause of Blizzard behind.
Another reason for me to hope on War, is that im gonna play it =P and from what I saw on the PW, its certainly going to be a great game. My ONLY worry about it, is that Im afraid the MMORPG players are mostly PVE focused (WOW = PVE, Oriental MMORPGs = Grind/PVE… and so on) and War is all about RvR, mainly on PVP. Its great for me as Im fanatic about PVP, but im not sure about how great it is for the masses.
Anyway, sorry for the long post, very very good luck with the game, and keep up this close contact with the community, its absolutely fantastic.
Allan
WAR Success « Addicting Entertainment
Sep 04, 2008 @ 16:23:48
m3mnoch
Sep 04, 2008 @ 16:24:30
started writing a long, boring comment. decided to turn it into a long, boring blog post.
m3mnoch.
David
Sep 04, 2008 @ 16:34:05
I find it interesting that you never mentioned EQ2 as even though it doesn’t have the subs WOW has it is still a successful game. You talk about MMO’s that have fallen on there face like AOC, LOTRO and even DDO, you never mentioned games like Vanguard (I alpha/beta tested this one and even though it could of been a great game, Brad’s eyes were bigger then what he could deliver on). It seems developers under estimate the power gamers and how quickly they can chew through content along with the new standard that has been set by WOW when it comes to the ease of game play and having an end game that is ready at launch.
Overall I think your right in a since, if WAR falls at launch or a few months after people/investors every were will be hesitant to buy into the next MMO that comes down the pipe.
Scott A.
Sep 04, 2008 @ 16:34:47
Mr Jacobs,
As a dedicated follower of the MMORPG market, I think it must be said that your team at Mythic has honestly got Blizzard scared. – Just look at how they are rushing development of WOTLK. I think it’s amazing though that you have really painted the picture that you are not out to kill WoW. – And that says alot. – I think that you are right in saying that it should not be your goal to have 10M subscribers and completely blow WoW out of the water.
You are focusing on what’s important: Making a quality game, that people will like to play, and will bring friends to play with. – That’s the amazing thing about Mythic, is that it’s set the bar (at least in my mind) for what compelling group based PvP is all about. – And WoW can’t crack that. – I mean the closest they came to making PvP half as fun as the Lvl 20 BG’s in DAoC was AV – and that sucked due to imbalance. (Blasted Bridge!!!).
Anyway, to conclude this wall of text, I just think you should know how much I’m looking forward to giving WAR a try. I will prolly end up playing WoW again if it sucks, and honestly, my marriage can’t take that.
One Love
Sane
Sep 04, 2008 @ 16:44:34
This was a great read. It’s stuff like this that makes me really hope WAR does great. I love the fact that as a player I’m being told you are hearing me, even if you don’t agree.
I love the openness and the willingness to listen to the players, I love the fact that you never set out to try and ‘kill’ WoW.
I just want to say I have a huge dev crush on the Mythic guys, and I didn’t even play DAoC! You guys just seem like down to earth gamers, with realistic expectations… and if they are exceeded, great! It’s because of this I truly hope that WAR becomes a massive success, and it will have my support as long as possible.
Amulon
Sep 04, 2008 @ 16:53:29
Mark,
Great game! I have been involved in CB and PW. I was really impressed. I can’t wait to see the real game. I have me and 12 of my friends all set to play.
I am glad to see that we have a company that seems to listen to the community! I have tried to play several other online games and some of them just didn’t seem to hold my interest level up until WoW. So, I do feel that your points were more than valid. I have played a lot of games since WoW and some have been good. Others, have left me sad that they didn’t seem to care what the community was saying, but now we have WAR!
I love how you would constantly ask for feedback in game. Hopefully you will continue to do so ingame, since we don’t have an offical Forums. Are you considering putting something up for guilds?
I would love to see something compete with WoW as you have said. I think that it might show the industry what it takes to be successful and money isn’t always the only factor! I feel that WAR has done their homework and didn’t want to put out a game that wasn’t polished. It might not have everything, but it is polished, plays great and looks great. If anything can give WoW a run for it’s money I think WAR can.
Like you I was sad to see AoC do as poorly as it did. I really liked the look of the game and actually read about 10 Conan books because of the game. We had formed a guild and had a lot of friends playing it. I gave it as much time as I could and it really started to feel like an unfinished game. 1-20 was awesome! 20-60 was fun, but that is where I started to bump into several issues. 70-80 was horrible and not at all finished. I am not a hardcore player and it took me a lot longer to get to 80 then it did for several of my friends. We had even built a tier 2 city with walls, but it failed to deliver on what was promised and they didn’t respond to the community.
Does that mean investors shouldn’t invest in games? No, I think that it is like any investment. You need to look at the backing and the history, if there is any, as well as the leadership and then make an informed choice. Just like you would with any stock. That will probably mean that a lot of small companies trying to break into the industry don’t stand a big chance unless they can get some backing of a major player, but maybe there could be a niche market that gets created for that purpose.
Anyways, great game! I am looking forward to the 17th!
Thanks again for setting a new standard in how relations with your customers should be.
drogosl
Sep 04, 2008 @ 16:54:25
Mark,
As one of those who got bitten by the flaws of AoC, it is left to WAR to bring back my good faith in MMORPGs.
So far Mythic has exceeded expectations from me by joing the community and not trying to stifle or twist it on their own forums. The simple act of staying in touch and getting involved means so much to the people who want to enjoy your game. Respect goes a long way to keeping people onside.
So for that I give you and Josh and Paul a massive round of applause.
Roll on Sunday. Best of luck with your launch.
houstoncollector
Sep 04, 2008 @ 17:27:55
I have to ask, and the information is probably out there somewhere, but….
Why exactly does WAR not have official forums? Is it the same reason that Tabula Rasa pretty much said, that it’s not worth the expense to host forums and hire people to moderate them compared to relatively high noise to signal ratio?
Butler`
Sep 04, 2008 @ 17:30:26
I’d call bullshit on your LOTRO figures – I think it has done a lot better than you’d care to admit.
You are right about WAR needing to survive for the good of the MMO space, that’s for sure. I’m still not convinced it’ll do enough, though. I stand by my now year old prediction: “what LOTRO was for PvE, WAR will be for PvP”.
Abriael
Sep 04, 2008 @ 18:03:44
I have to agree with the analysis on the market. I honestly highly doubt that Warhammer Online will fail. It’s one of the few MMORPGs released after WoW that are well decked in terms of content (actually I doubt i can be proven wrong if, after being in the beta, I tell that WAR is the MMORPG that reaches the shelves with the most and most varied content packed in at release of the whole history of this market), has a definately above-average degree of polish even before the beta’s end, and is baked by the marketing and communication money of an industry leader of the size of EA. No MMORPG post WoW had all those characteristics packed together (and not even WoW had them to the same degree).
This definately gives me good expectations for the success of the game.
Rickymm3
Sep 04, 2008 @ 18:42:41
This seriously sounds like a cry for help. Personally, i had fun during the preview weekend (although i thought the game was extremely unpolished).
But it sounds like you are telling everyone, “If you want more MMO’s in the market other than WoW(which everyone who isn’t playing WoW has decided to hate), then you HAVE to buy our product and support us”
Seriously … its BRILLIANT PR. Whoever is your PR guy at mythic deserves a raise. But seriously … you said it yourself, if your game sucks, people aren’t going to play it. So whats with all these, “play our game anyway” posts?
beercan845
Sep 04, 2008 @ 19:47:03
WAR will be a great success. The main reason IMHO is because it really looks like Mythic knows their target audience very well. They are not trying to take away all of WoW’s subscribers but are going after a certain segment of WoW players – Most WoW players will not crossover to WAR. But a good deal of them will quit WoW and play WAR or even play both. Even if WAR grabs 10% of WoW’s player base WAR will be a huge success. I predict they will grab probably closer to 20% of WoW playerbase. It won’t be the end of WoW, but it will sting Blizzard and Activision pretty hard. WoW will still be king but WAR is coming and EA \Mythic is going to get my money each month as well as millions of others for sure.
Mark
Sep 04, 2008 @ 21:01:28
Very interesting read. I really don’t think that the failure of WAR would be a failure of the market. For certain, it would have a short term impact, but I think the future of the market is pretty much going to be inevitable given where the technology and user expectations are going. The world is more networked, online play is the norm with gaming these days and people just enjoy the social aspect of online gaming. The only question really is how is the best way to make money off of it.
I’ve been real disappointed with the MMO scene. I think most everyone is just following the game before them with little to no thought about what makes for a solid fun game. It’s like they take the core of the game before them, toss in a few gimmicks that’ll make for good marketing, then run out of money and push it out the door. It’s little wonder so many of the games have flopped.
Eric
Sep 04, 2008 @ 23:33:49
I think the main issue with the current success/failure is that most developers are pushing out products well, well before they’re even ready to be played, or… its technology was fundamentally flawed from the start. Take AoC for example. It was built on a really poorly designed graphic engine, that Funcom has been trying to fix for almost a decade. AoC released far far too prematurely as well, even though the dev team had spent more than 4 years in a development cycle on the game. Then, to slam the final nail in the coffin, they completely changed every game mechanic for playable classes within 2 months of release, pissing off every single subscriber they had. Funcom developers killed their own product. AoC had high potential for being a premiere game, but the devs botched it.
Blizzard at this state in the game has the resources and cash flow to hire and produce pretty much anything they want. However… they aren’t. Players are ticked off that even though they are generating more than 100M per month in subs, they aren’t spending it on the game. Enhancements are too slow. Not to mention, Blizz is also cutting off their own feet by changing fundamental game mechanics every 6 months, that players don’t view as ‘good for the game’. A lot WoW subscribers are chomping at the bit for the next “WTF that’s awesome game!”.
My only concern about Warhammer is that… in all honestly… it looks, feels, and smells far too much like Dark Age of Camelot. While I truly appreciate a Warhammer universe’s look and feel, the game play as well as classes, look a lot like carbon copies of DAOC classes and combat system, realm rank systems, etc. DAOC had many severe handicaps, especially in class imbalances and realm imbalances. At first glance, it seems those server handicaps are simply going to be replicated in Warhammer as well. If this is the case, it will be Warhammers downfall, as it was DAOC downfall. No one wants to play a PVP/RVR game, where imbalances kill your enjoyment of the game, especially when there is no other game play value that you can turn to IE PVE Raiding for example.
While I agree with your dissertation, that other MMO’s need to succeed beyond Blizzard in order for the market to stay fresh and healthy, I believe that the devs need to look at successful game models that draw a large successful population too them, and not develop games that they “think” players want to play. That is a hard, cold truth in the current MMO business.
Both EQ and WoW have perfected the MMO game model. EQ became to venerable to continue, and WOW was modeled exactly like EQ almost to the T. No other game has been able to match either of them, not even EQ2 or That other bastardized version of EQ, Vanguard..
If someone were to come onto the scene with a game that was as rich in PVE as WoW/EQ (including high end raids) AND had a rich PVP combat system, like DAOC, that would be the next generation MMO. That would surely break the ‘buy, try, abandon’ routine of current MMO players. However, that game needs to exist BEFORE its launched, not 6 months later. Otherwise, players will abandon the game early and never, ever look back again.
Is that game Warhammer??? Only you know right now. I guess we’ll see in 2 months. I hope that it is. Otherwise, were stuck in a Blizzard dominated market for the next several years. And like I said earlier… Blizz is racking in the cash and not forking it back out into their game, and we the player base have noticed…
Ghilin_MacAlister
Sep 05, 2008 @ 01:21:46
I think it’s absolutely incredible that in a couple of weeks we are going to have 2 gigantic players in the mmorpg market, both with great games in their own ways. Both leading the way for future devs to form solid foundations of communication and trust, work ethics and amazing ideas.
War could suck and you would still be leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the studios out there, just for your candor alone. Luckily for us, you’ve also delivered an amazing game! I’ve been gaming for longer than i care to mention and I am more psyched up for WAR than I can ever remember being for any game previously, and yet… in preview weekend… my expectations were not only met but exceeded… and that’s the truth.
WAR will be my home for a long time and I will do my part in spreading the word about this great game and great company behind it.
/salute
Kat
Sep 05, 2008 @ 01:32:15
Wow has so become nothing but gold farmers, spamming, trash talking little kids giving gaming a bad name that yes War must succeed for those of us that love to play. I like wow but everyones burned out at this point and wow seems to think they have no competition so they dont have to make their subscribers happy, so War comes at a great time and I agree you all do seem to want to stay in contact with your subscribers, its a refreshing change.
Michael Hartman
Sep 05, 2008 @ 07:49:50
>> fewer AAA, subscription-base MMORPGs will start
This would be a wonderful thing. The subscription model is the absolute worst thing for online games. I could list a ton of reasons, but I’ll focus on the main one.
In an online game _Players are content_. A subscription always results in some (if not many) players unsubscribing from time to time (if not permanently) for various reasons. This removes that content completely for everyone else who would have enjoyed interacting with them.
Thus, the whole concept of subscriptions is tantamount to entire zones in your game randomly disappearing for reasons beyond the control of the people who enjoy them.
Bad concept. It needs to die.
-Cambios
Blogging about Online Gaming and Virtual Worlds:
http://www.muckbeast.com
Capt Caveman
Sep 05, 2008 @ 18:35:54
I loved DAoC and I’m hoping I’ll love WAR. I have my OB key and my bottle of CabSav so I’m a happy bunny. If I win the 92 million in the Euro lottery tonight I might even hire you to make my own mpog. GL with the launch & thanks for the hard work!
MattH
Sep 05, 2008 @ 20:59:13
This blog is a great move. Us players/customers are dying to have more direct dialogue with developers and straightforward brain dumps like this make you guys feel like part of the MMO community, instead of just those “evil developers who only care about subs”.
Personally I am glad that War exists, though I worry it’s perhaps not enough of an alternative to WOW… that said, I still hope it succeeds, because as your post suggests, the genre needs it to.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on these MMOs (eg: Darkfall) that are trying to bring the sandbox PVP model back into the genre, and are really trying to take the genre into new directions.
Senta
Sep 07, 2008 @ 06:00:22
Mark, I really am glad you’ve been blogging stuff. I’ve got to say, I hope that WAR will do well. I agree with all of your points… the MMO market needs something new that can succeed, and show everyone that not only WoW can be successful. I’ve played quite a few MMOs (maybe not most of the big ones), but still it just seems that lately the market has been lacking. WoW was the second BIG MMO that I ever played, and I really enjoyed it. However, I also enjoy WAR… it’s much different than WoW. I like how it isn’t a total grindfest.
I wanted to say thank you for this blog… and also, thank you to the entire Mythic development team. (Please pass that on for me). Mythic has done a fabulous job, and they are extremely talented. I love how you personally talk to your customers, let them know what’s going on, and admit your mistakes. It’s quite refreshing.
Best wishes for WARs success!
Warren
Sep 07, 2008 @ 12:25:12
I don’t think he is saying that the market will fall, but that investors will be wary of putting money in to a triple A, highly polished and well developed subscription based MMO. Instead they will explore other ways of making money in the online space: Things like the game being free and you pay for items or ad based Online gaming. There is already talk around ‘teh intertbuez’ that the subscription based model is going the way of the dinobot.
I think he has a point: I was interested in AoC but when I heard about all the problems, that it didn’t have content past level 20, along with the game being touted as “Adult” (IE: Has virtual nudity in it..wooo…) I did not even try it.
I am a poor man, if I spend money on a game I want to know I can play it for at least 30 days and enjoy it 😉
I don’t want to see all Massive games go the Pay for Item or Ad supported model. However, if WAR does succeed (And I’ll see when I get home and play the open beta if I think it will or not) I think that it will help future high quality subscription based massively multiplayer products.
Da Bloody Twenty - September 11 « Waaagh! A Warhammer Online Blog
Sep 11, 2008 @ 12:22:03
Mark
Sep 11, 2008 @ 16:54:08
I think the triple A, highly polished MMO market has yet to define itself. Really the MMO games we’ve seen don’t really understand what they’re doing, they’re just putting a lot of graphics and flash into the market hoping for a 500k subscriber count.
And then when people come into the game and realize it’s an empty experience and leave we have publishers going “oh, I guess the market isn’t viable.” It’s a load of BS.
For example, these games are 100% about grouping up and having fun with people in the game. So why is it I’m pleasantly surprised to see that WAR has an amazing group finding system? It makes it very easy to get into groups, get to your group and have fun with other people online. This should’ve been standard in all MMO’s for awhile now.
PQs are also an amazing concept. It shouldn’t have taken a decade to see them in MMO’s. Leveling up via RvR alone? Again, why does it take 10 years to see that concept in a big MMO?
I think WAR will do well. It seems very much like it was done by an experienced team that was focused less on being a WoW-killer and more like they sat in a room with a whiteboard and asked “What makes a MMO fun, how do we design our game around that? Why did people play DAOC and how do we make a game focus 100% on that?”
Tesh
Sep 11, 2008 @ 20:52:07
The subscription model won’t be validated until WAR can maintain a healthy subscriber base for more than a few months. WAR will also have to show that the sub money makes the game as a whole better, rather than the WoW endgame grind extensions.
I think that’s possible, but just hitting 1 million subbers without good long-term viability will not validate the subscription model.
Taemojitsu
Feb 09, 2010 @ 06:13:27
sorry, especially to say this now, but the primary reason an MMO with so much development ends up failing is because of poor understanding of why people play games and how to create a design that addresses those desires.
Investment won’t die (just look at Aion and its global expansion), it just means that it’ll wait until an individual or company can come up with the right presentation that shows that they understand what the others did wrong. Even if it takes 10 years, for WoW-addicted teens to grow up and become directors of multimillion dollar companies and wonder why they don’t see similar games anymore and decide to fix it.
Benedict Meczywor
Mar 19, 2010 @ 17:31:49
Awesome post. Would you mind if I added your website to my link exchange directory?
capitanhook
Jun 19, 2010 @ 22:03:54
well i still think of nice days of ultima online and its never been created and upgreaed better its still more complex game than others…