It’s the game you love to hate, but secretly hate yourself for loving, isn’t it? I get this feeling that there’s this huge undercurrent of people that know about WAR and possibly have tried it, that just won’t take the plunge because of how easy it is to give into the trolling haters on the internets. It’s all too frequent that a complainer will spout off the usual bullshit about how bad WAR is, then follow up a few comments later with his experiences at launch (entirely annihilating the point you see). WAR sold a lot of boxes at launch, and for a lot of people Wrath of the Lich King sucked them right away from WAR. Was the game really as bad as stated? Obvious fanboyism aside, I think not.
People are fucktards you see. While there were legitimate complaints, WotLK gave these players an easy way out. The only thing the players needed to do was justify their actions with something besides “hurr, it’s WoW”. What initially didn’t begin as hate per se, quickly devolved into it. People being the fucktard sheep that they are felt the need to explain their actions so they didn’t appear to be as sheepish. One person gives their statement as to why they were leaving, and the next one needed to have a different reason so they’re not leaving for the same reason. This wildfire of justified excuses went rampant for weeks as servers began to crumble into the wastelands we knew shortly thereafter.
60+ servers began losing population like crazy and for a game focused on RvR, population is a necessity. The steady flow of players back to WoW spurred more and more dead servers, then when the first round of servers began to get merged it was obvious to many of us what was going on. The RvR lakes went quiet and scant with activity, where before you couldn’t sprint across without entering combat. Hundreds of guilds on each server shed numbers with blinding speed, leaving behind the empty husks that could have been something great. I know, as I own two of these. One of the best PvE aspects of the game, being PQ’s, went silent and unplayed. Eventually, the servers began to merge and the world started to make sense again. The mistake made here, was in waiting too long for players to come back.
Community is a stronger driving force than anything else among us MMO players. It’s rare that gameplay is so BAD that a game can no longer sustain itself (oooh APB jab). In fact, WAR is widely celebrated for having gameplay well above the average and top-notch PvP on the market. Having highly accessible PvP and RvR as a focus point is exactly how this game has sold itself, so people getting hung up on PvE seems a little silly. I think really the community at large wants to be good at PvP and WAR has come closer than anything else to bring PvP mainstream. Make WP’s melee healers again, and a couple more solid nerfs to the BW/Sorc careers and they’ll be onto something. Of course, that’s been the trick for nearly two years hasn’t it? Figuring out why so many left, and how to get them back?
I think that’s how it started anyway, and that’s what Land of the Dead was for. The first expansion that was supposed to pull back all those players that left for WotLK. Reality however, was that they weren’t coming back. Mythic held out for as long as it could, and when the servers didn’t start flooding from LotD being released, axes started flying everywhere. The sky was falling, the game was dead, the party was over. None of that is true obviously, just the pursuit of their million subs was over. Keeping the RvR players and Warhammer fans wasn’t a challenge consider how much crap they’d already gone through. It was the end of an era, the era of the Warhammer Online Pipe Dream.
Enter the age of 1.3.x, AKA “Fuck the Mainstream, this game is RvR”. Everything from this point forward was done with minimal resources and a skeleton crew. Polish, balance, revamps, all things that can be done with a few handfuls of people working in the company. That’s all we’ve had for a solid year or so as well and the game is still humming right along. Sure there was the City Siege overhaul, but that didn’t add new content. I think it’s safe to assume that 95% of the stuff coming with 1.4 and the RvR packs will be recycled content, or things pulled out of their “already developed, but unreleased” treasure trove of toys. Upcoming new developments? My bet is on tunnels and caves. They’re easy to do, take up little space, and require the bare minimum of new art to be created if anything at all.
So what does this mean for all the hateful commentors at various gaming sites around the internets? It means nothing. You’re not the target audience anymore, so get over yourselves and bugger off. Mythic isn’t wasting anymore time trying to make this game WoW enough that you’ll log off forever. They don’t even care anymore. The people they cater to these days are the ones playing the game, cruising the forums, and checking out blogs (like this one). A few random people out there might see what we have going on, sub up, and be blown away like so many new players that continually stream into the game, but that’s just the by-product of being a DAMN FINE GAME that knows where the hell it’s going.
So for all those hottie mainstream chicks out there that would totally get WAR hot and heavy, I think instead what I’m getting at is a big Fuck You. Obviously, you have no idea what you’re missing, and we really don’t give a shit anymore. So go on with your bad self, keep bitching and whining that WAR is terrible, no one is really listening or caring anymore. This is the game we love, and there ain’t shit you can do about that.
Cheers motherfuckers.
Grimnir's Grudge 
The Ramsay of MMO psychology. lolI do think that the community is almost always to blame for an mmos failure. However I wander why these people are so quick to jab a stick into the belly of the beast. I do not think WoW is to blame solely. Sure it propelled the carrot on a stick into stardom and simplified what pvp is but even then I think there is some psychological reason why players now look to destroy every mmo once they launch.Every mmo I have seen come out in recent years has met resistance as soon as they launch. Perhaps this was around even before I started mmo gaming.
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I award this post 9 Badgers of awesomeness. Waves of new people appearing on my server and lots of old faces returning. Despite what the haters that haven’t played in a long time (if ever) say, it looks like WAR is on the up. About sodding time too.
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Couldn’t agree more. Can’t wait for those rvr packs. I wants an orkapult. I needs it.
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Dude. Awesome. ‘Nuff said.
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Thumbs up.Great writing..
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Hehe, I was reading a whine post on WHA and thinking about how much I want to slap these negative, good-for-nothing sissies. Then I read this. Felt good.Also, I think I know why there are so many haters trying to shoot down new MMOs. It’s because when they try the game, it isn’t what they dreamed it will be. Which is something like:Not skill based while still allowing a carebears to compete.It’s not a loot fest while still giving you loot.It doesn’t have carrots while still making you play every day.The content is all unique with no grind fillers.It’s immersive while still allowing the community to do whatever the hell they like.The player can experience unique content while not being locked out of the content others experienced.Contradictory game features ad infinitum…In short, they want a perfect MMO. They still haven’t realised that such a game doesn’t exist, and until they do they’ll continue trying games getting more bitter and disappointed with every new MMO.PS: I would like to let you all know that Cee Lo Green’s song was first embedded on my blog and Grim copied it. Thank you. 😛
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Great job! You summed up what I’ve been saying for months. Not as a fanboi (because I am somewhat) but because people are not even giving it a chance because of the word of mouth. I was at gamestop paying off my Halo: Reach Legendary Edition and the girl was asking what games I played (yeah she wanted me lol). I told her a long list of games and finished with my favorite and most played game WAR. She actully groaned and said “ugh WAR”. Now I could not let that pass even though my 2.5 year old was bringing me every game case in the store with Dario and/or Wuigi (Mario and Luigi) on the cover. I asked her why she didn’t like the game and to my astonishment, / sarcasm, she had never ever played the game. After some persuasion she agreed to try the free trial. The follwoing Monday night, while I was waiting in line to pick up the afformentioned Halo, she sought me out to tell me she loved the free trial. She may even sub now imagine that. Anyway…….. PS. Can I link to this article the next time Massively posts a ridiculous article and I have to answer the haters in the comment section?
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Feel free to link away! The only people I have issues with are the ones that repost the entire thing and leave a token link at the end of it. lol
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Your post inspired me to comment, but then my comment got too long so your post inspired me to post 😀http://monkeyfish.mmofansites.com/posts/1898-war-vs-wow-the-little-guy-vs-economies-of-scale
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Excellent post and agree with just about everything in it. A point that was not really mentioned and never got talked about much was the over all economic climate that hit right at that time. I remember very well on one post that when this was mentioned that some one wrote that this never played into the factor of WAR not doing so well at the time. “How can someone not afford $15 a month sub” Well at the time I knew of three people personally that lost there homes that were playing WAR and had to quit. Hard to play a game with no roof over your head. I played on as many did over dead – merge -dead – merged servers hoping for these up coming better days. It’s unfortunate that for my wife and myself we lost much in the way of community that many talk about that WAR has. Frankly speaking I think WAR has been one of the loneliest MMO’s I have ever played…but really it must be me. One more thing I have to comment on another poster here that made me Laugh with him as it speaks volumes to me personally and brings back not to long ago memories: Tastedbigwo”Now I could not let that pass even though my 2.5 year old was bringing me every game case in the store with Dario and/or Wuigi (Mario and Luigi) on the cover.”Excellent still laughing, now I have to ask is he/she beating you yet on those games? I know mine is…
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That was a good entry. Pretty much on the money. Gamers really struggle to let go once they have instigated hate on a particular game. To be honest I think a lot of it comes from being male and a build up of testosterone. I always think that a mainly pvp game can expose your gamer faillings. Yep it can’t just be the fact they have better gear !!! Thougn in War it’s a very good get out of jail card. PS – Removed you from my blog list recently, since I thought you had given up the ghost. I will readd tonight.
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I love this post! I’m still not going to play the game tho. Nothing is wrong with WAR, I’m just a carebare PvEer and WARs PvE is boring. I love Mythic, but I’m not too keen on WAR. I don’t even like the setting. I was wrong to even think I would like WAR, but like many other WoW carebares, I thought I was a hardcore PvPer. The game just doesn’t suit my playstyle. To all the WAR haters… go lick a dead dogs ass!!! I love WAR if I don’t have to play it. To this day I still follow all the great blogs and any WAR news. I am a fence-fanboy
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“Obviously, you have no idea what you’re missing, and we really don’t give a shit anymore.” Psychologically speaking, this whole post says otherwise. But honestly? The reason people left WAR is the same reason people will leave LotRO on November 13th. They are just playing these games as filler until what they really want to do comes out. It has nothing to do with being “carebears” (a term which is just as stupid as “fail” in my book) since there are a lot of serious PvP’ers in WoW and other games (DAoC for instance). WoW players are just there until the next expansion and honestly have absolutely no intention of sticking around regardless of whether the game is pvp or pve.
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Psychologically eh? Maybe your interpretation of it all leads you to believe that I’m defending WAR because it’s an awesomesauce game and obviously the community is stupid for hating it. I guess if you read into it the whole post speaking otherwise could apply.How about the fact that WAR is judged for something that it isn’t rather than something that it is. Wrap your head around that and get back to me. Mythic understands this now and instead of trying to square peg that round hole, they’re grabbing a bigger drill so they can fit that oversized e-peen in there instead.Also, I can think of somewhere you can stick it.Cheers!
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Psychologically eh? Maybe your interpretation of it all leads you to believe that I’m defending WAR because it’s an awesomesauce game and obviously the community is stupid for hating it. I guess if you read into it like that, the whole post speaking otherwise might apply.How about the fact that WAR is judged for something that it isn’t rather than something that it is. Wrap your head around that and get back to me. Mythic understands this now and instead of trying to square peg that round hole, they’re grabbing a bigger drill so they can fit that oversized e-peen in there instead.Also, I can think of somewhere you can shove it. Would you like a diagram?Cheers!
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Fucking LOVE IT! I don’t think people get how awesome it is to play a game where the devs are no longer trying to please the masses and instead trying to please their current player base. The game makes money, they have jobs, and they get to spend their day working on a game just for the fans. We get to play the video game equivalent of an indie rock band.So let the fuckers go play their video game equivalent of Justin Bieber.
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