With the launch of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning approaching, we are witnessing a unique period in the history of MMO games. Almost like the alignment of stars, some of the industries biggest and brightest stars will soon shine together. RadarX examines some commonly discussed challenges EA Mythic will need to overcome this fall including three highly competitive products and why Warhammer Online will likely do just fine despite them.
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Competition. To some this word inspires fear that only the prosepect of having to watch another Uwe Bolle movie could inspire. To others it makes muscles tighten and brings a fiery stare which sends their enemies fleeing. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning releases amongst a few other major contenders which will make this one of the most interesting times in MMO gaming history to date.
Running against both PC and console titles how will it fair towards the fall?
I honestly don't think WAR has anything to worry about. I left WoW because I realized PvE grinding wasn't for me and I like PvP and RvR sounds promising. Even with AoC releasing May 20th I highly doubt it will take away from the player base. I plan to give AoC a try and if it is a good game I will keep playing it, but when WAR comes out I will try that too and if I end up enjoying both well I will play both, but I will have to decide which one to play on a more casual basis because I only have time to be hardcore with one MMO at a time.
Yes I did buy GTAIV yesterday, but I baught it to tied me over till AoC comes out then I will play AoC till WAR comes out. To be honest I think the release of these three games and their timing couldn't be more perfect for me because it will keep me happy the rest of the year regardless what other games might come out, lol.
There is something ppl are forgetting about Warhammer... No matter how many other games are released or expansions (WoTLK for WoW is going to be epic for 3 months till everyone is lvl 80 and then get bored agian) Warhammer has almost 700000 ppl signed up for beta... thats just ppl signed up for the beta and this is going to spread... i am currently spreading the poison on my WoW server so more ppl are coming.
If Mythic is smart, they will only be worried about the things they can control. They can't control other games or players, so those are not things they should worry about, as they are outside factors.
Here are the things they should worry about:
1) Account Security
It's fairly common knowledge that WoW accounts have been getting ripped off because of Blizzard's lack of improving the security. Mythic needs to have a non-keyboard (i.e. use the mouse) validation system to making sure a keylogger isn't used to steal your account info. Blizzard has actively stayed on the sidelines allowing gold-sellers to hack accounts, and their lack of action is as good as they themselves committing the acts. Account hacking will be WoW's downfall, and Mythic needs to make sure it's not a factor with their game. Saying that they have the most secure login system of any MMO would go a long way to attracting gamers.
2) Live up to the Hype
Make sure the game lives up to all the damn hype they've created. This is probably the most hyped PC game I've seen in a long, long time. It's hype is epic. They are already in a losing position because of all the hype they've created. Living up to the hype will be near impossible, but they need to do it unless they want many people to simply be writing off the game as yet another hyped up game that flopped at living up to it (see Hellgate: London).
3) Stability
Bugs are the death of many games. If it's unstable, crashing, unplayable, it would have players leaving in droves and will kill the game. Again, look at Hellgate: London, an EA game, that got shoved out the door undone, with enough game killing bugs and missing content to simply give it a bad name and keep gamers away forever. The launch is so critical, and with all the pushbacks they've had, this game needs to be more stable than any other MMO ever released.
Those I think are the three key factors. Failing on those will hurt the game drastically. And those are all factors Mythic can control, and should control. If they cannot live up to all three of those, then they are in trouble, and people will avoid the game.
ScytheNoire makes an excellent argument as usual, and brings up several important factors to any game's success.
That aside, based on what was mentioned in the Article...
~Age of Conan:
Well, in a way it's quite different from WAR for another reason beyond the fact of guild vs. guild and PvP skirmishes, and that is that, despite the different regional differences, all of the player characters are human. While not greatly important in the actual game play mechanics necessarily, it does make some difference.
~World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King:
Hmm, this is a bit tricky, but I think that Shaidar made a point somewhat stating that after they reach level 80 and possibly finish much of the bonus content(which can be achieved rather quickly for some people...), a lot of people will likely look into other games, if they weren't already playing AoC or something else to tide them over until the Expansion actually came out.
~Grand Theft Auto IV:
Personally, I don't see this as any sort of contender really in regards to WAR. First off, it's a completely different kind of game. Second, with its date of launch, anyone that has it on console would realistically have "finished"(though I suppose in some ways it never truly ends if a person feels like it) the game quite a long time before WAR launches. For those people that do not have a console for some reason or another, and buy it for PC as their first means of play, then I suppose it might take some of their time, but quote honestly I can't see it taking all that long to finish it.
I might have a slight bias, since I don't find the GTA series particularly entertaining for the main story, though I suppose some of the non-story elements can be fun, as I do remember messing around in GTA 3 getting cars and tanks, and driving around, and fighting the FBI guys... but still, I simply don't see it taking away players of WAR for any extended period of time.
~The Holiday Season:
Well, I can't really say anything in regards to this, except that I suppose a few people might opt to save their money... but I doubt it will really affect it much.
Scythe Noire makes two excellent points:
Security and Stability.
Perhaps a user chosen token that is randomly inserted into a grid, and must be chosen correctly as kind of a failsafe? But of course, you could only have so many tokens in the database.
But more importantly, stability.
I know EAMythic is going into this situation gearing up for the worse, but hoping for the best. In all honesty, when you want to get 3/4 a sever's population into one area, I don't think you can be too ready.
The sheer scale of the battles in this game will be supremely taxing on servers, and if you aren't more than adequately prepared, servers will be crashing every day of launch week.
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Keeping a strong Positive Mental Attitude that I'll get into beta since April 7th.
Warhammer Op/Ed: Five Things to Worry About
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