Warhammer's Billing Debacle

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR) recently had a little 'oops' moment with their billing system that caused many players to be billed several times for their monthly subscription.  Some players were charged for over $500 dollars.  Normally this is an isolated issue, but the most recent update on the Warhammer Herald confirms it was widespread:

As you may be aware, recently some customer accounts were billed multiple times unintentionally. We regret any difficulty this event may have caused you, and we remain dedicated to resolving the issue with our vendors and customers.

This is about as bad as it could get for WAR, a game still considered down and out in the MMO industry.  WAR has enjoyed some success thanks to their endless free trial and I suspect that is where the majority of their new players come from.  This faux pas won't inspire anyone interested in subscribing to trust Mythic with their credit cards and not everyone is willing to enter game time cards every month to keep on playing.

However, I really don't want to talk about WAR right now.  More interesting to me is how rarely we see such a problem as this.  Off the top of my head I thought about the things I have on "set and forget" payment methods online:

1. eBay fees
2. Phone bill
3. Cable and Internet bill
4. Netflix
5. Donations to favorite websites

None of these has ever had a billing issue with multiple charges.  And if one did, I doubt it'd be to the magnitude that was seen with the WAR charges.

Also, I wonder how long it would take me to notice.  I certainly wouldn't see it right away as I use credit cards mainly and my credit limit is high.  At the end of the month, I would notice on my credit card statements, but if it wasn't several identical charges I may glance over it.

This is a wake up call I guess to online payment methods and keeping an eye on charges.  It's easy to say "its your own fault for not paying attention", but how many of these services make it an inconvenience to customers who do NOT use automated online payments?  To me, its half customer ignorance and half trends towards automated systems in favor of human powered systems.

With automation comes consistency and speed, which reduces some errors.  With reduction in error, comes reduction in support requirements.   This really puts everyone in a bad place, because when it comes to money its not acceptable to hear "it'll take 3 days to fix" which leads to lost customers.  Yet, the costs to have better support isn't justified for the 99% of error-free time.

I'm wandering now.  I'll forget all of this once the WAR billing fiasco is over and done with.  But just maybe I will pay more attention to the next credit card bill or when my wife is reviewing it, I won't just go "sounds right to me honey!" before staring back at the computer screen.

Warhammer Online and Bioware K I SS I N G

Warhammer Online and Bioware in a tree, K I SS I N G, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the expansion from Bioware.

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"BioWare talks Warhammer Online's forthcoming expansions" is the title of an article over at Massively.

In a recent GDC 2010 interview with UGO, BioWare's Dr. Ray Muzyka said of Warhammer Online, "Right now it's [a] really profitable business unit within my group." Muzyka went on to say they've actually seen more people come into the game since enacting the free-to-play model on the game's earlier levels, and that he personally felt they were working.

In fact, by the sounds of it, Warhammer Online is due for some interesting announcements in the future. Another of Muzyka's comments on the title was, "We have new content planned and all kinds of cool expansions for it." We don't know how much more clear cut a message can be than that. And hey, it's good news! We're looking forward to our playable Skaven and Lizardmen, Mythic and BioWare.

I know Mythic and Bioware merged to create an "MMO group" within EA, but up until this point it was portrayed as though Mythic was responsible for Warhammer.  It is very strange to see Warhammer Online and Bioware mentioned in the same breath and have Bioware's talking head dictating where WAR is headed.

If Bioware is becoming more involved with the game, this may be the breath of fresh air that WAR needs.  Any expansion will have to rely on work from some of Bioware's development teams as the layoff train hit Mythic pretty hard.  With new developers, new ideas. But, new ideas need restraint.  We don't want another of the infamous "New Game Experience (NGE)" from Star Wars Galaxies all over again. 

Another question is whether the money-handlers behind the game will approve sweeping changes that may affect the bottom line in the slim hope of increasing it over the long term.  There aren't many success stories of MMOGs coming back from underwhelming launches.  Change is always met with resistance.

Now, in the past I've had my own ideas for changing WAR:

I would start the year by pulling a Chronicles of Spellborn and announce that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is 100% free to play. However, development has been frozen as the game is prepared to be launched as a Free 2 Play game supported by micro-transactions.

From the original quotes in the Massively article, the success of the free trial is touted.  Could this be a signal that more free 2 play is in WAR's future?  I would welcome the idea.  Even with Allods Online's cash shop debacle recently, I still like the fact that I can log in whenever I want and play for a few minutes.  I've thought several times about return to WAR, but have only been able to do so during a recent 10-day freebie.

I am interested to see where Bioware/Mythic/EA can take WAR.  At a minimum, it will serve as a case study of how Bioware's development practices can influence other projects.

A Self-Serving PC Gaming Wish-List

It's not my birthday, but I was inspired by Alec Meer's birthday post over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

I want these things.

• A Free 2 Play Warhammer Online.
• A fantasy-based EVE Online (where is World of Darkness anyways?).
• A Shadowbane that doesn't make me want to vomit on my keyboard.
• Battlefield 1942 recreated in Battlefield: Bad Company 2's engine, destructible environments and all.
• An announcement from 38 studios on what their MMOG will be.
• To figure out what ever happened to Project Offset.
• Some sort of hypno-therapy that makes me incredible at FPS games overnight.
• To never see or hear the phrase “dumbed-down” again
• A loaf of bread.
• My kid's two front teeth (teething sucks btw)

NOTE: Yes, I stole a couple of Alec's ideas and changed or did not change the words slightly.

A Challenge, a Free idea, and Warhammer Online

Bootae has issued a challenge:

A challenge for my fellow bloggers!

First take the assumption that the game isn’t in the alleged maintenance mode and there’s not only money for new content, but you have access to new content that’s been in development over the last year. So we’re writing this in a happy place. Now then, if you had control of Mythic what would be your plan for WAR in 2010?

Broken down into Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, what would be your strategy for changes, improvements and expansions to the game?

Follow on past the jump for what I would do if I were Mythic in 2010.
Spring

I would start the year by pulling a Chronicles of Spellborn and announce that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is 100% free to play.  However, development has been frozen as the game is prepared to be launched as a Free 2 Play game supported by micro-transactions.

The lead up to summer will be full of hard work and long hours as the rebirth of WAR is put into place.

Summer

Tentatively known as the "Relaunch", Summer would feature the Free 2 Play version of WAR hitting the market.  Major changes would be:

1. Consolidation to a single server.  Zones are instanced into multiple copies as they are filled up.
2. Tiers 1-3 are completely Free 2 Play (similar to the current endless free trial).
3. Access to Tier 4 content and capital cities is subject to a Tax System (see notes below) for level 31+ characters.
4. Capital cities will be centers for live events that start on a bi-weekly basis.
5. Capital cities will become the center for almost all end game activity and content.
6. Scenarios will be restructured to coincide with the new live events.
7. Capital city sieges will be moved to live events on a bi-weekly basis, Fortresses would be included as stage 1 of the sieges.
8. The end game would be re-focused to the new live events system.

Tax System

It was tough to think of a micro-transaction system that is unique, yet simple.  What I came up with was a Tax System.  To access certain tier 4 zones or cities, players are required to pay a Tax or carry a Debt.  The Tax can be paid by a pool of funds purchased for real money, called WARCOINS.   WARCOINS are tradeable in game to other players.  After paying the Tax, access is granted for 24 hours to the content.

If a player is unable/unwilling to pay the Tax, they can opt to carry a Debt.  That debt decreases the effectiveness of the player's character and gets worse the longer the Debt is incurred.  The Debt can be cleared in one of two ways:  paying the Tax for the area or electing to purge the Debt (instant death, sent back to a tax-free zone.  Or its purged after leaving a Tax zone for a non-Tax zone.).

Example:  Joebob wants to join a Tier 4 scenario.  For a Tax of 1 WARCOIN he can enter without a penalty or he can join with a Debt and be subject to decreased effectiveness.  After leaving the Scenario, he can rejoin and start a new debt or if he paid the Tax, he is paid up for 24 hours of access.


Fall (seriously, who calls it autumn?)

Two additional capital cities will be introduced: Greenskins and Dwarves.
New dungeons and new live events in each.

Winter

Two additional capital cities will be introduced: Dark Elves and High Elves.
New dungeons and new live events in each.

Misc. details

Along with the Tax system, traditional micro-transactions and account services would be available: bag space, bank space, mounts, name changes, class changes, etc.

All transactions would be completed in-game if a linked payment method is available.

WARCOINS would be given out via contests, live events, and possibly for in-game achievements.  Again, they would also be tradeable between players in game.

Tax Debt is only active for the current zone.  Changing zones starts a new Tax Debt and does NOT add to the previous Debt.

Game Developers Should Play Games :The Lesson Learned From Reading George RR Martin

There's a great post over at Suvudu: The Lesson I Learned From George R. R. Martin. The author explains how they've taken lessons from exploring some of Martin's smaller works:

The lessons I learned from reading three straight George R. R. Martin novellas played into my own short story writing process, George a silent mentor whether he likes it or not.

continued...

The lesson to be learned from this: Most authors, when giving craft advice, tell hopeful writers to read almost as much as they write.

This circles back around to a debate often had among MMOG bloggers. Should game developers play other games? Often times, gamers feel developers should not as it will just lead to clones of other games. However, I don't feel that is the case. If it works for a craft such as writing, it can work for game development.

It's not whether they play, it's the games that developers choose to play that matters. As in the linked article, the author did not go for Martin's big titles. Instead they focused on his short stories, which are condensed examples of what makes his bigger works successful.

This has to be extrapolated a bit for game development as games often comprise teams of developers compared to the general rule of one author per story. We can take the comparison of World of Warcraft and Darkfall Online. If a game developer really wants to improve their craft and input to their team, what game should they play?

World of Warcraft will show them a great game, but how much knowledge will be gained? How much will a budding author learn trying to dissect the entire Song of Ice and Fire series by George RR Martin? Unless they are the next George RR Martin or Blizzard, not much. They'll have a great experience that they want to duplicate or improve. Yet, they will be trying to duplicate or improve components which are above their immediate understanding. It will not work.

On the other hand, if they take some time to explore Darkfall Online they are going to have a different experience. Darkfall is rough around the edges, but has dug out it's niche in the market. Playing Darkfall should allow a game developer to see how staying focused and delivering on community expectations can create a successful game. At the same time, they will find core components which can be improved.

This sort of knowledge often feels missing from bigger developers. I wonder, often, how many of the bigger developers have many core designers that have even played any games outside of the few big titles that hit every year. In interviews, few developers ever mention games outside of World of Warcraft or Modern Warfare 2.

I date back to Paul Barnett of Mythic. Leading up to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR), he spoke up in an interview about having to actively discourage team members from playing WoW. Not because WoW was a bad game, but that it gave them poor perspective. Paul Barnett understood that playing WoW lead to an experience that many designers wanted to, but could NOT duplicate.

This is not the post to debate WAR's short comings, but the game misfired somewhere and in retrospect, maybe the developers spent a little too much time playing WoW (I'm generalizing here). I've posted before where it seemed that the internal Mythic propaganda favored blaming Wrath of the Lich King instead of themselves.

There is not an exact science for being good at something. Some great game developers and book authors have come with little to no experience. However, I suspect the majority of good developers/authors spent a lot more time with The Hedge Knight than they did playing Aion.

Looking Back on 2009, Heartless' Predictions Reviewed

Its that magical time of year where I get to review my predictions for the previous year. Read my original predictions post here.  My commentary is after the jump:

1. The economy will not "collapse", but it isn't going to get better until the governments of the world leave it to the free market to correct itself.

The economy didn't collapse and the government's inability to leave the free market to itself has made the situation shittier than it has to be.

2. The weak economy will encourage smaller, fiscally responsible game development projects. This will lead to a bunch of interesting stuff coming out in the MMO space, whether technically massively multiplayer or not is yet to be seen.

I was correct on this one.  We saw smaller projects like Free Realms become a success. 

3. Even with number 2, subscription based MMOs will still be king of the revenue stream at the end of 2009. Thank World of Warcraft for giving MMO developers false hope everywhere.

I'm going to call 50/50 on this one. World of Warcraft still promotes the wearing of Money Hats and had another solid year,but many other subscription MMOGs are struggling. Micro-transactions are becoming popular, but  they are tough to monetize properly even with a good game such as Free Realms or Battlefield Heroes.  Both titles have struggled to find the money-generating balance with micro-transactions and F2P.

4. World of Warcraft will not get a new expansion, but something will be announced. It will focus more on new hero classes, the Alliance vs Horde conflict, and high end raiding.

WoW did not get a new expansion in 2009, but WoW: Cataclysm was announced.  I was way off on the details of what Blizzard had planned.  However, I like the concepts of Cataclysm!

5. WAR will still be around by the end of 2009, but who remains around to develop it may be drastically different.

I was dead on for this one: Mark Jacobs gone and most of the development staff laid off.

6. More MMOs will close their doors. The true sign of doom will be when SOE starts closing down some of its B-team living painfully on Station Pass.

Matrix Online (a Station Pass B-team member) and Tabula Rasa are the two major shutdowns this year.

7. Speaking of SOE. The doom and gloom continues as SOE continues to push RMT practices on its non-RMT games.

Wrong.

8. An MMO project will come out of left field this year and surprise us all. Scott Jennings may or may not be involved, but he’ll blog about it regardless.

See this post: Scott Jennings in Left Field, Finds Dust

9. The world will end if Diablo III and Starcraft II are both launched in 2009.

Well, I'm still here and that must mean these games didn't launch together. Leaves a slot open for 2010 world-ending predictions.

In The Year 2010, Heartless' Predictions

Its nearly 2010 and without further hesitation, here are my predictions:

1. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning will be sold or shut down by EA.

2. Star Wars: The Old Republic will NOT launch this year.

3. Already launched MMOGs, not named World of Warcraft, will have a rough year.

4. Newer, quality F2P games will storm the market and one will challenge WoW for the mainstream playerbase.

5. WoW will remain the king cash cow as the subscription model continues its dominance.


6. Digital distribution will start being taken seriously by market analysts as Steam proves the platform's power on the PC market.

7. Digital distribution will quietly replace boxed sales completely for PC games.

BONUS REAL LIFE PREDICTION: A political uprising will shock the world and the mainstream media will only find out about it after checking their Twitter accounts.  Three days later, they will realize it was simply a mis-spelled #hashtag and re-purposed Youtube videos.

10 Days of WAR: Day Ten

The final day of my return to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning ended with a resounding thud as my bright wizard ate dirt for the thousandth time at the hands of a Choppa.  To some, the last ten days may seem like an excuse for me to bitch about a game I once supported wholeheartedly.  I want to say up front that I wanted to give WAR a fair shake, even if I didn't have plans on returning to a subscription.   Unfortunately, at the end of the day, WAR is still the same sub-par game I left months ago, even if it has a new zone and better technical performance.

The new positives begin with the endless trial.  This has brought new blood into the game and the newbie zones were hopping.  Whether this is translating into subscriptions is unknown.  My fear is that the experience in a well populated tier 1 zone leaves an impression that can not be held up by tier's 2 and 3.  Players that come off the free endless trial may become bored quickly as the population hits rock bottom once outside of the trial zones.  My suggestion would be to extend the free trial all the way to the end of tier 3.  Yes, that's a lot of game for free, but tier 2 and 3 are a general waste of resources as it is.  Allowing trial players into these tiers will spice life up a bit and give them a glimpse of what the end game of WAR offers in tier 4.

The new positives end with the Land of the Dead.  As I stated, LotD is the model which all tier 4 zones should follow in WAR.  The concept of separate RvR lakes does not work and actively hurts WAR's community as players do not mingle across play styles.  If the principals of LotD (minus the gating mechanic) were to be applied across all tier 4 zones, WAR would be a better game.

I'm not going to retread over my gripes about WAR.  There are pockets of greatness within the game, but they are so disconnected that the game feels choppy and unfinished.  Its a snuggie that doesn't cover your toes.  It accomplishes the job, but is it really worth the cold toes?

Sorry, Mythic.

10 Days of WAR: Day Nine (Set pieces)

My ninth day and disapointment in my return to WAR can be summed up by this picture:

That is a tank sitting in the Empire starting zone of Nordland.  It hasn't moved in almost two years (and not a spot of rust anywhere!). 
This tank could single-handedly change the tide of battle, but it just sits there as Empire players are slaughtered ten paces away.  My disappointment at this fact can not be denied.  It's a disappointment set up in two ways:

First, the opening cinematic features a massive city siege set upon by all manner of siege vehicles and flying machines.  This is classic Warhammer, armies marching on armies, siege engines included.

Secondly, Mythic's prior game, Dark Ages of Camelot featured fully intractable and movable siege engines.  WAR features static pads that siege engines can be placed upon (if they haven't been destroyed).  WAR received a very gimped version of a tremendously popular feature of DAoC.

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is a good looking game.  The world and environments are amazing.  The set pieces within are saddening to see, relegated to on lookers remorse.  With that said, WAR does do better than a lot of games that feature a world full of blocks and hills.  Still, I believe this is another missed opportunity in the development of WAR.


Come back for the final day and my conclusions tomorrow.

10 Days of WAR: Day 8 (Live Events)

Merry Christmas!  For my eighth day of WAR I'm going to talk about Live Events.

Live events in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning can be summed up by the following:

1. A quest in the RvR lakes
2. Incentives to kill other players
3. A "limited time only" scenario
4. More quests

This somewhat satisfies my gripe that the RvR lakes in WAR are empty of content, but the limited nature of Live Events still doesn't promote players to spread out.

The current live event is Kegs End.  There are pub crawls, beer drinking, ogre killing, and general mischief to be had.  Unfortunately, there isn't much guidance to the player outside a list of tasks in the Tome of Knowledge.  The world does not feel like it is alive with the spirit of the Kegs End holiday.  If there wasn't floating icons and Kegs End names above the Live Event NPCs, players would probably never know the difference.

Participating in the Live Event is easy enough, players do what they normally do: queue up for scenarios and zerg the RvR lakes for kills.  The more interesting aspect, to me, was the pub crawls, where players scour their capital city in search of different types of beer!

The capital cities of WAR, Altdorf and The Inevitable City, are still awe-inspiring to me.  The artwork and amount of stuff to discover is stunning.  However, there is little incentive to doing so outside of Tome unlocks and exploration experience.  The pub crawls are a perfect way to send players to destinations they may have otherwise missed.  There may even be a surprise around a corner or two!

Live Events, another OK, but not great part of WAR.  Come back for day nine, working title: The Hangover.

10 Days of WAR: Day Seven (PvE)

For my seventh day of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning I did some PvE.

One of my first posts about WAR on this blog was about the importance of PvE:

WAR, without PvE, is just a mess waiting to happen.

I took a lot of flack for suggesting that WAR needed PvE.  WAR was going to be the ultimate RvR game, pitting throngs of players against each other in epic battles.  PvE was only a momentary distraction!  How wrong those people were.  It is suicide to attempt to push out a triple-A game that focuses solely on PvP-oriented conflict.  The player base is NOT there to support a game of WAR's budget size with only PvP.  Plus, with only PvP minded players, the battlefield becomes very stale, very quickly.

Ranting aside, WAR does have a good amount of cooperative PvE (I'm not talking about solo content today).  The end game features dungeons and loot progression.  The early game features a few dungeons and plenty of public quests.  Both ends of the spectrum benefit from an open grouping system that allows players to find groups on the fly in their current area.

With my time limited, I was not able to get into any dungeon groups on my rank 40 Ironbreaker.  I logged into my level 8 White Lion and journeyed to Nordland and Norsca to enjoy some public quests.

Public quests is WAR's best feature!

I can't emphasize enough what a great feature public quests are, both for community building and sheer fun.  Unfortunately, the number of PQs in WAR far outpaces its player population, limiting the success of the system.  In a more popular game, with more players per zone, a public quest system is absolutely golden. 

WAR, at launch, did have the player populations to support most public quests.  One problem that hurt the PQs though, was the fact players were using instanced scenarios to grind out their levels.  Since scenarios could be joined from anywhere within the world, players often went *poof* in the middle of a PQ.  This problem still exists today, and is very evident in tier 1.

However, PQs have been readjusted accross the zones.  Instead of most of them requiring full groups and perfect setups, several out of the way PQs are geared for small 2-3 person groups.  A quick look at the open groups screen in Nordland lead my directly to a 3 man group (slayer, archmage, white lion).  An hour later we had burned through several PQs and joined up with a larger group farming PQs in Norsca (the next zone up).

I lost track of time quickly.  Many of these PQs I had never seen and I have leveled a dozen alts through these zones.  Mythic made the right changes to PQ difficulty and with the new endless trial, the player density in tier 1 fully supports the system.  What this means in the middle tiers is unknown as I really only have characters of level <12 and level=40.  My suspicion is the player density hits rock bottom in tier 2 and 3, making PQs sort of pointless.  Tier 4 picks up, but most PQs are unrewarding for a rank 40 character, so most PQs go unused except by those leveling.

Also, as my first rant against WAR during these 10 days, there are no PQs in the RvR lakes.  This is an absolute tragedy at this point and my biggest misunderstanding of WAR prior to launch.  

Next: day eight, keep it straight!

10 Days of WAR: Day Six (Crafting)

I was inspired by the furious pace of Santa's elves to meet the Christmas demand and for my sixth day of WAR I crafted.  The crafting in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has always intrigued me.  The concepts are solid, but the execution was lacking at launch. The basic premise is that most monsters and player kills would result in crafting components.  Crafted items are mostly consumable items.  There wasn't traditional blacksmithing or weapon making: there was apothecary for potions, talisman making, and cultivation (which is a gathering skill, but I consider it a craft).

Often times crafting far outpaced a character's progression in WAR due to the mismatch of ingredient levels to a player's level.  The result was often piles and piles of crafted items that were unusable for several levels.  This was not only frustrating, but also impossible to avoid unless a player ignored crafting until they were max level.  To highlight this issue, I created this screenshot a long time ago:

As can be seen, level 30-32 ingredients resulted in level 38 potions for a character that was level 30.

Since that time, there have been general improvements to WAR crafting.  While I do not have the time to list everything, let alone test everything, I will give my general thoughts after an hour of dabbling.

The first noticeable change is the addition a separate inventory bag for crafting supplies.  No longer does a player need two alts with entire banks dedicated to holding crafting supplies.  Everything can now be maintained under one character.  Organization wise, there is no more searching through a backpack full of quest rewards, currency items, and random junk to find single crafting components!  No longer does a player need a half dozen crafting UI addons to survive!

The second improvement actually occurred while I was still playing originally.  The gathering professions were re-balanced.  Butchering and scavenging were changed to focus on a specific craft: butchering for apothecary, scavenging for talisman making.  Previously, scavenging was by far the best gathering skill for both.

Then there is cultivation hanging out to the side.  Its considered a gathering skill, but it requires components to be combined to gather an item produced.  To me, that is crafting.   As a big-time gardener in real life, I've always loved cultivation in WAR.  It was changed to produce more apothecary related ingredients, which was a very welcome change after the butchering/scavenging reworks.  However, I didn't care enough to buy seeds and didn't touch my cultivator.

I have every crafting skill up to 200. The only gathering skill I am lacking on my characters is butchering. This adds up to a self sufficient account.

Apothecary Impressions

The basics of Apothecary felt the same. However, the most common ingredients were changed with the scavenging/butchering changes. With scavenging changed to result in talisman making ingredients, I was forced to use the auction house. Without knowing the names of the items I needed, I headed to the web for a WAR crafting wiki. Minor gripe here, the WAR auction house search is horrible (anyone have any addons for this?).

An addition to Apothecary is hybrid potions that boost two stats at once.  From my research, these were the best to make for individual use.  As always, healing potions appear to be the most sought after potions by other players and where apothecaries can make some money.

Another welcome change, which I did not realize at first, is that potion effects persist through death.  Originally, potion effects were canceled by death, which is a dumb idea in a game that actively promotes dieing, a lot!  Great change in my book.

Talisman Making Impressions

Talisman making also features some tweaks that make it more enjoyable. End-product talismans are more predictable and I don't believe they have timers associated with them any longer (anyone confirm?). Also, they FINALLY have level restrictions on talismans, preventing low level twinks from using talismans meant for rank 40s. This diminishes the consumable market for talismans some, but its not detrimental as my next point will demonstrate.

There is a glaring problem: the raw materials for talisman making are STILL worth far more than the talismans. Why? Because rare components can lead to extraordinary results. Unfortunately, the majority of the time a low end component will produce the same result as an ultra-rare component. This makes scavenging, where the rare components come from, a more profitable venture than the crafting. So, talisman making is best done for a player's own characters and not as a for-profit trade.

Come back for day seven!

PS.  It took me six days to notice returning players get a quest for a neat 7 day buff:

Unlimited Free Trials are the New MMO Hotness (Age of Conan, Champions Online, Warhammer Online, and more!)

Apparently I missed the memo.  Free trials with unlimited playtime, but level and gameplay restrictions, are popping up everywhere.

Age of Conan - LINK
Details:  Unlimited playtime. Players can play up to level 20, but only if registered for the trial before Jan 1st, 2010.  Trading and player chat limited.

Champions Online - LINK  
Details: Unlimited playtime. New players can create an account and play the beginning zone of Champions Online for as long as they want.

Warhammer Online - LINK
Details: Unlimited playtime. Players are restricted to the Tier 1 Empire vs Chaos zones, but can access all scenarios.  Trading and player chat limited.

Alganon - LINK
Details: Unlimited playtime. No leveling or zone restrictions, but trial characters are deleted after 30 days and must be re-rolled.  Limited skill progression and limited chat options.

10 Days of WAR: Day Five, Metaplace shutdown

For Day Five of my return to WAR, I took a break.  However, to fill space, I want to talk about the Metaplace shutdown that was announced yesterday:

Today we have unfortunate news to share with the Metaplace community. We will be closing down our service on January 1, 2010 at 11:59pm Pacific. The official announcement is here and copied below, and you can read a FAQ guide here. We will be having a goodbye celebration party on January 1st at 12:00noon Pacific Time.

I'm conflicted on what to think. On one hand I don't see how the product could ever generate revenue, but on the other hand I could see it had potential. In the end, the first was proven correct and the latter will be left to our imaginations.

Avatar movement was clunky and it felt like my character was always floating. Most interaction seemed to boil down to launching another website or some form of web content (videos, music, etc).  Nothing in Metaplace ever felt like a game.

However, I don't feel it was supposed to and that is not what Raph Koster set out to do. Unfortunately, Koster is known for his involvement in MMOGs, so that was what many of us expected.  Games could be built using the Metaplace tools, but it was not its sole or even advertised purpose.  However, what its true purpose was, I could not tell you.  I messed around with Metaplace only long enough to know it wasn't any good for hosting an online game.

The meta places were tiny and then they tried to offer more world space for larger worlds, but that extra space cost money, unless a builder wanted to use just the small world spaces offered for free.  Then there was an additional cost to have more than ten people in your world at once and the pass to allow more than ten people at a time only lasted a single day. Then there was Metaplace coins that could be used for many things.  Builders could even charge to access their world.  IT WAS CONFUSING!

Metaplace was so confusing that I gave up on it.  I didn't know what I could or couldn't do and I had no idea where I was getting all my coins from that were letting me buy things.  I couldn't find any meta places that felt polished or professionally done.  It all felt like crappy Neverwinter Nights user modules that I downloaded from IGN back in the 00's.

I'm not trying to be mean about Metaplace.  I'm sticking to my long held belief that 99% of user generated content is garbage.  Metaplace was trying to get people to PAY to both make and use that 99%, which to me was a failure from the start.

However, I saw a glimmer of possibility within the system.  If it could have been expanded to allow for large, seemless worlds, it could have been amazing.  If the community had built better tools, novice builders could of climbed out of the 99%.  Lastly, if the business model had just made sense, people may have known what they could spend their money on.

Sorry Raph.  Sorry Cuppy.  I respect what was being attempted, but as a gamer and web enthusiast it didn't hold my interest.

10 Days of WAR: Day Four

Day four of my return to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning was spent in Tier 1 scenarios.  As I stated on Day Three, tier 1 is my favorite part of WAR.  Also, I commented that the limitless trial was one of the best things going for WAR. Unfortunately, after last night, my mind has been slightly changed.

I've never had a problem with instanced content and it fits well in WAR.  Instanced scenarios offer quick and easy action and offer varied challenges. However, I was not having much fun playing last night.

My problems with scenarios in WAR are two fold: teams are rarely balanced and some scenarios aren't worth playing.  Unfortunately, both of these are worsened by the limitless trial.  This came as an unwelcome shock to my plans to play the limitless trial in the future.

The first side effect of the limitless trial is evident in the tier 1 scenario of Nordenwatch.  It is the only scenario that limitless trial  players are allowed to join which means there is almost always a Nordenwatch match active.  Update: All tier 1 scenarios are available to trial players, but my point still stands.  For the casual player looking for a quick skirmish, Nordenwatch will probably be it.  Patience and luck are needed to get into a match for any of the other tier 1 scenarios.

This highlights my first issue with scenarios.  It's almost pointless to queue up for the other tier 1 scenarios as they are unlikely to open compared to the trial stuffed Nordenwatch.  This problem follows in later tiers as the majority of scenarios that are not rewarding enough are NEVER played compared to the few over-popular scenarios that are ALWAYS played.  This can be fixed, easily, by simply standardizing the reward gained across all scenarios.  Players can then choose the scenarios that are fun to play, not just the ones that will give the quick and easy rewards.

Secondly, since trial players are limited to 10, there is an abundance of level 10 twinks.  A normal player quickly levels out of tier 1 because they gain experience rapidly from completing content.  At most, a normal low level twink will only be around for a few dominant scenario or open RvR performances.   This limits the effect of traditional twinks.

However, level 10 trial players are the opposite.  They are hard capped allowing them to stick around without fear of leveling out of the tier. Essentially, the WAR trial has its own end game.  This is great for the trial players, but I can see why veterans and paying players are upset by this.

That brings me to my second beef with scenarios: team balance.  I hate loading up a scenario only to find my side camped into their spawn point because the system put a team full of level 10s against a team with a highest level member of 5.  This non-balance is true in ALL tiers.  Mythic does NOT have a match-making system ala World of Warcraft arenas or similiar ELO rating systems.  Its frustrating when a dominant team is allowed to steam roll the fast spawning scenarios, exasperated by the fact its impossible to get the other scenarios to open due to lack of players.

The limitless trial is still the best thing WAR has going on, but I can see how it alienates paying players.  WAR has a lot of scenarios and Mythic needs to do something to make sure all of them reward equally.  Scenarios are fun when the sides are balanced, but it happens too rarely to make the system shine.

10 Days of WAR: Day Three

For Day Three of my 10-day return to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, I ventured back into tier 1 to see how the new limitless trial was working out.  I rolled the one Order class I haven't played: the dwarf slayer.  Instead of starting in the dwarf lands, I was transplanted in the Empire starting area of Nordland.  This is meant to make sure that new players are concentrated into a single zone, allowing for the key features of WAR to shine (PQs, RvR, lairs).

I took a screenshot of a new item, the Rune of Transport, that describes exactly what it is all about:

Not only does it highlight the new combined starting area, it also makes a statement about the way the player density in WAR has been heading: down. However, the new starting area is good for WAR and it helps tremendously to hide the player density issues of the later tiers.

Playing at 11 PM on a Saturday night, I was shocked that so much was happening in Nordland.  New players were everywhere and most public quests were hopping.  Also, the RvR lake was packed and scenarios were starting on a regular basis.  Asking around, I found that A LOT of the "new" players were on the limitless trial and after some observation it was apparent.


Players were not behaving as I had expected.  Many were willing to repeat the PQs well after maxing their influence bars.  Others showed no interest in progressing at any reasonable speed. Some even explored the far reaches of the zone!  It was obvious that rank 10 (the max in the trial) was the end game and it was only a stones throw away.  There was no need to rush.  This spurred my optimism as I am now seriously considering playing the limitless trial after my 10 days are up.

Tier 1 has always been my favorite experience in WAR.  This is the tier of content that sold me on the game in beta and the weekend previews.  This was the tier of content that every beta tester agreed was "polished" and all Mythic needed to do was copy it four times over for a successful game.  It was all false hope as Mythic did not copy it and the current state of the game stands as evidence.  I would be curious to see how many veterans would rather spend time in tier 1 compared to tier 4.  I know I would!

Even with my love for tier 1 flowing, I still despise the RvR lake setups.  Tier 1 is worse off than tier 4 as there are no keeps or mounts for fast transport.  Fortunately, Nordland has the best of the tier 1 RvR lakes and is the only RvR lake in the game where I agree with the warcamps being close together.  It's tier 1 and players NEED to be put close together to spur action.  The Dwarf and High Elf starting RvR lakes are terrible in comparison.  Mythic chose the right zone for the new "new player experience".

Still, there is almost NOTHING outside of the battlefield objectives and zerg warfare in the tier 1 RvR lake.  No PQs, no quests, and little PvE content.  There is a lair to complete, but its out of the way and requires a solid group of coordinating players.  Its a stupid design, a waste of resources, and a missed opportunity.

Over three days, it is apparent what one of my major gripes with WAR is.  I truly thought that Mythic was going to incorporate all aspects of WAR into awesome end-game RvR zones that would attract both the PvP and PvE players.  This blend of play styles was going to put in place a varied platform for future growth.  I was fooled into thinking that RvR was something more than just PvP, but in WAR it is not.

What will I do for day four?  Come back tomorrow and find out!

10 Days of WAR: Day Two

Day two of my journey back into Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning landed me in the Land of the Dead.

After checking out the map of the zone I noticed that the Public Quest (PQ) markers showed how many players were present and participating. The PQ nearest the starting area was one short of the recommended group size, so I joined in the fun. The first monster I attacked, a giant condor, didn't fall over dead as I had expected. Instead it took flight with me in it's claws and headed up to the mountainside to deposit me in it's nest! I was shocked: MMOG monsters are supposed to die and give me loot, not try and feed me to their children!

Completing this PQ reminded me why I had such high hopes for WAR. PQs are brilliant and fun when enough players are present. Unfortunately since Order just unlocked access to the LotD zone, only the PQ nearest the warcamp had any players participating.

Referencing back to Day One, there are no PQs in any of the tier 4 RvR lakes, which is a damn shame considering that is where Mythic encourages players to spend their time.  Again, it frustrates me that NOTHING has been done to the RvR lakes to encourage players to visit outside of a zerg keep or objective fight.  Also, to highlight the poor design decisions, keeps and battlefield objectives reward increased experience/influence gain in zones where there is NO FUCKING CONTENT! 

I refuse to use the term zone for the RvR areas, as they are one-dimensional lakes.  Players returning to WAR to jump into the tier 4 RvR action are going to find the same sub-par game they left in the first place.  Anyways, back to LotD.

After a few runs of the PQ, I decided to see the rest of the zone. What I found next, blew my fucking mind:

Its fairly obvious that I am not a fan of zerg vs zerg PvP.  I enjoy smaller conflicts where each and every player matters and the action lasts minutes, not seconds.  Larger conflicts are welcome, but not when they are the majority.  There needs to be incentives for players to spread out.  WAR could accomplish this by  filling out the tier 4 RvR lakes with PQs, quests, and other PvE content.   A keep siege should be a significant event, not an hourly occurrence and certainly not the ONLY attraction to the RvR lakes.

That is why the above situation blew my mind.  The content in LotD spreads the players out across the multiple PQs, lairs, and instances.  There is no single point with a flashing timer or a zone-wide broadcast that signals every player in the area to come rushing over.  Players form small groups and head out to their content destination of choice which can lead to...

...dare I say it...

small-scale RvR!  I spent the next 30 minutes chasing down Destruction players with a couple random Order players.  I even succeeded in finding and winning a 1vs1 fight with a Shaman, something I only dreamed of originally. 

I spent about an hour in LotD and I'm convinced it is a model for the rest of the game.  It features a well designed zone that combines all aspects of WAR: RvR, PQs, PvE quests, instances, and lairs.  Outside of the gating mechanic, which I don't fully understand, LotD gave me hope that WAR might make it as a niche game.  Mythic needs to transplant the combination of features that LotD offers to the rest of the tier 4 RvR lakes.

For day three, I am going to look at the tier 1 situation and the effect the limitless free trial has had.

10 Days of WAR: Day One

I started my holiday-inspired return to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning by logging into my level 40/ RR 35 Ironbreaker on Badlands. The first order of business was restoring my UI. WAR's default UI serves its purpose, but there are a few things my minimalist gamer brain needs: clean unit frames, consolidated info bars, and easily customized hotbars.

Rebuilding a lost UI can be aggravating, but for WAR, there is a great tool available from Curse for management and automatic updates/installs of most UI elements. I highly recommend the Curse Client.

For clean unit frames, I settled with Pure. Hotbars are managed via Vertigo. Info bars are kept organized with Warboard. The rest: Phantom, Squared, and MOTH.

 

After thirty minutes of  UI customization, I was ready to helicopter on out to the Tier 4 RvR lakes.

The first and immediate change noted upon logging into WAR is the new RvR summary page.  Upon login, it details all of the current RvR hotspots and offers a quick teleport to the warcamp nearest the action.  The teleport is only usable once every 8 hours, somewhat lowering the convenience of the tool, but keeping the game balance in check.

The action was in Eataine and once on the ground, I headed out.  It wasn't long (about 30 seconds out of the warcamp) before I was eating dirt thanks to a full on zerg of Destruction players.  My second run out was more fruitful as I skirted down the river and entered the RvR lake well outside the view of the enemy.  However, this brought me back to a reason I quit WAR the first time around.   The damn warcamps are too close together. 

If a player is smart, like me, and runs around the immediate action, they are greeted with  boredom as almost no one ventures out to the corners of the RvR lakes unless an objective is being contested and they have a zerg in tow.  Its absolutely frustrating that Mythic has done nothing to encourage players to enter the tier 4 RvR lakes for anything more than mindless zerging back and forth between the warcamps.

This really soured my attitude and I ended up logging for the day.  Day Two will see my first adventure into the Land of the Dead.

10 Days of WAR

I've run the gambit of thoughts on WAR, my final verdict after months of play was that WAR had pockets of greatness, but the overall design was poor. Also, some technical and stability issues arose directly related to poor design that really aggravated me. However, since quitting, I've wanted to go back. So, I've decided to take advantage of the re-enlistment campaign for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

With that will come the following list of nifty gifts:

I have no honest plans to resubscribe because I lack the time to make $14.95 a month a justifiable expense.  However, stranger things have happened.

The End WAR

Disheartening news has leaked out that a chunk of the recent EA job cutting spree has hit EA Mythic hard:

Mythic laid off 80 people today, which is about 40% of the company and responsible for 90% of the content. According to a friend of mine who left before this happened, they're putting Warhammer into "maintenance mode."

I am not sure if there's been an official announcement, but my friend said that I was free to mention it, because it's surprising it's not out already. (I actually knew about it on Friday but not the numbers.)

There is no hiding it. Many of us (me included) were wrong about WAR. The game has floundered since launch and performed misstep after misstep the entire way. Its only logical that the game's development would be scaled back.

The laundry list of canceled, dieing, or dead MMOGs at the feet of EA is legendary: Earth and Beyond, Motor City Online, The Sims Online, Ultima Online's sequals, etc. It makes one wonder how much the EA merger affected the Mythic office.

Currently, I am part of a company undergoing a similar assimilation by a much larger company and player in our industry. Even with a positive attitude overall in the office, constant commentary from customers about the merger and half-assed quotes from officers of the company easily put people on edge. An environment of mistrust is being born and people rightfully question whether project A or B will exist next week.

In the case of Myhic merging with EA, it should have resulted in a better game. More resources, more manpower, and probably more marketing. However, if the merger created any doubts about the direction of the project, more of everything would have been needed just to keep the ship sailing straight, effectively nullifying any positive gains.

The question now is whether Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is going to be around much longer. Will EA cancel a game that may be costing too much to keep alive or will they dramatically change the way it is managed? Maybe to a point where the game has no chance to do anything other than float on by for a another year before being canceled.

Is there any truth into the "EA = poison" mythos that has been created around MMOG projects they've acquired? Do we need to fear for Star Wars: The Old Republic? IMHO, yes.