1) Has any game in MMO history redesigned more core systems then WAR? Amazing to think what could have been added these last two years if Mythic could stop ‘fixing’ things every patch.
2) Adding a third, PLAYABLE faction would actually fix much of what troubles WAR. Good thing Mythic is strongly against actually doing that.
“It takes a lot of effort to bury an IP as great as Warhammer, and we’ll be damned if THQ beats us to it!” – Mythic
Hardcore Casual 
Sadly true
Chuck did I see it earlier don’t recall
I would have to throw out Star Wars Galaxies as being first on the list with WAR probably second. Thing is I don’t think the changes have been bad for WAR, but it has been for SWG.
Yeah, SWG. But aside from that, I agree with the sentiment. WAR has a lot of good parts, but the whole thing never really hung together correctly. I don’t know that a third faction alone would have fixed all its problems, but it surely would have helped.
Just to be a contrary semi-faniboi-
1) Has any game in MMO history needed more redesigned core systems then WAR? The only reason WAR is still going at this point is because (particularly over the last year) they’ve identified who their core paying customer base is, what they want, and have redesigned to serve that audience. The biggest change IMO is recognizing that they can’t and weren’t competing in the PVE area (which they clearly thought they could at launch), and have all but officially stopped supporting that aspect of the game in lieu of redesigned city sieges, scenario and oRVR currency, sovereign armor revamps,underdog and against all odds bonuses in oRvR, and the coming “packs” which will have no PVE content (and I expect add skaven as essentially an RVR-only 3rd faction). And that’s putting aside all the necessary fixes to things like performance needed.
2) I say this as someone who has played too much WAR (and still does almost daily), and Shadowbane in the day, but never played DAoC. think the 3rd faction is vastly overrated, especially by ex-DAoC players. The problem in WAR is that you had renown-gated end-gear progression, combined with the optimal renown gain paths coming from rvdooring/afking in warcamps, and top sets essentially available only via city sieges. So long as you have a significant fraction of the playerbase for which a significant fraction of their enjoyment comes from progression, you will have most everyone not at max renown rank avoiding each other to optimally grind renown. A third fraction would have meant you simply had a 3rd avoiding the other two. My impression in DAoC was that there was no single best gear, but that most to all of the best items were player crafted from materials found in pvp flagged zones. I suspect that this combo of a meaningful player economy coupled to pvp (note the parallel to EVE) is much more important than the 3rd faction.
Insofar as the 3rd faction supposedly balances the zerg/dominant faction, I think it’s a combo of playerbase convention and rewards structure. In DAoC, you only get renown (whatever it’s equivalent was) by killing people. In WAR, unless you’re a very good player in a coordinated small group, the best renown is from taking keeps/BOs/zones. I think that incentive structure would just lead to the two strongest ganging up on the weakest realm, rather than the weakest ganging up to fight the strongest.
Excellent post, while I disagree slightly to your 3rd faction assessment (yes I am an ex-DAoC player) . You nailed with ” hey’ve identified who their core paying customer base is, what they want, and have redesigned to serve that audience. The biggest change IMO is recognizing that they can’t and weren’t competing in the PVE area (which they clearly thought they could at launch)” Which “imo” is to bad. Besides the poor/cloned/plain questing, the Warhammer environment is great for PvE if you like that sort of thing.
Indeed, great comment. Skar covers why a third faction is huge for what was (is?) the major problem for WAR, RvR faction imbalance, along with just making PvP more interesting and dynamic.
And while focusing on your core audience is indeed commendable, can you imagine how good the RvR would be right now had Mythic focused on that core from day one? That’s my main gripe with the game; you have this amazing core of an engine, this amazing IP, and the history (DAoC) to take something great and push it to the next level.
Instead, you take a step (or ten) back in RvR to attempt to raise the PvE bar (which ultimately fails), and now, two years later, you are STILL trying to just get back to square one (DAoC) and get RvR ‘right’. From a fans standpoint, that sucks.
As a heavy DAOC player (5 years + )and a player of warhammer for 2 years now, plus the beta. The impact of a 3rd faction simply can’t be under estimated. What it brings to the table is more uncertainy on the battle field.
A 3rd faction doesn’t mean a faction avoiding the other. It will not necessarily balance out the zerg, its the opporunity to have 3 way fights, knowing with certainty that once the 3rd faction is killed the other 2 will turn on each other. I can’t begin to convey the joy/fun you have when you have 3 large groupings of forces spread out in a triangle or some other form, just duking it out. It was a great thing to watch. You had a true ebb and flow on the battle field. You don’t get that in a two way fight.
Fair enough on the 3rd faction as adding more uncertainity to fights; hopefully whatever they do with Skaven in the RvR packs gets at this. Having now played WAR almost continously since launch, and lucked out to find a good guild of good players, I definitely prefer the small-scale orvr and scenarios to the big massive battles. So I guess I personally would like to see what would have happened if they had structured the renown progressions and incentives differently, to promote more small-scale play, where I think you could get some of the 3rd faction uncertainty from having lots of small groups from two factions wandering around, coming together, and splitting apart. But that doesn’t necessarily jibe with the massive armies clashing which was a big selling point.
In terms of customer base, the thing that struck me as a non-DAoC player was that (IMO) the developers and players were using completely different definitions of RVR, and what the phrase “War is everywhere” meant. I watched all the videos, read all the interviews, obsessivley check the blogs and beta leaks. And from my perspective, it seemed like the devs used the phrase RvR to mean the high-level thematic campaign of Order vs. Destruction, both the PvP and PvE aspects, and that they had envisioned a game in which players combined both- very different than the specific open-world grouped pvp that at lot of players felt it meant. I very specifically remember a quote from Jeff Hickman about how you could progress via either the PvP or PvE routes, but would be more successful by combining both. And since I actually started the game with a PVE focus, doing all the Empire quests, it felt to me like war was everywhere, with the fighting npcs and questlines. It wasn’t until I really got into the PvP aspects and saw how devoid of NPCs and other ambient effects that the disconnect hit home.
Anyway, enough rambling,
It’s a shame they still haven’t fixed their combat though. It was still laggy, unresponsive and the animations didn’t always work.
Pity.
I invite you to take a stroll through Google and read all about Star Wars Galaxies. Trust me, WAR can’t even begin to touch what befell SWG.