If you're a WOW player, you know there was no doubt a substancial exodus of players who, a little over a month ago, left to go to WAR. You could feel it in the guild: suddenly, you weren't raiding as much as you used to being that the main tanks and healers enlisted in the WAR. Shatt seemed eerily empty. And even now, with the undead rising in anticipation over the new expansion pack, your group seems to be just a few players short of an army. However, this is a trend Blizzard CEO Paul Sams says is on the decline, as Blizzard reports that over half of the playerbase that left to go to WAR are already coming home.
Sams goes on to say it's typical of most new MMO releases:
"We've certainly had some of that happen, which is the same thing we experienced with Age of Conan and each time an MMO has come out we've seen some amount of reduction of use... The good news is that we've seen a significant number of people, well over half, that cited Warhammer as their reason for leaving - they've already returned.It surprises me because Mythic is a very good company and it doesn't surprise me at the same time because it's really hard, what they're trying to do and what we've done,
We respect those guys over there a lot and certainly wish them well to succeed but having registration troubles, having server troubles, these are things that come with the territory when you're talking about managing a game as big as World of Warcraft or Warhammer or anything like that. So, it's not a surprise because it is really difficult."
Warhammer: Age of Reckoning at last report had a playerbase of 750,000, which is quite impressive given it's competition. However, no one should see this dip in playerbase as anything suprising as, after all, it was the same thing that happened with Age of Conan. AOC managed to hold positions in the top spots of the PC charts worldwide, and was being heralded by everyone, including myself, as the next big thing. It was just a shame they did the first 20 levels fantastically well and the rest of the game was absolute rubbish. But what will come of WAR?
Mythic really shot itsself in the foot with WAR shortly before its release in completely removing 6 of the 8 cities and four entire classes. What they handed players was something half made, even if the existing half at least didn't crash or have game stopping bugs. I found it a bit like Mythic was making promises they couldn't keep and letting the playerbase know that back when we could still redeem our preorders. It's one of the reasons I, MMORPG addict that I am, won't touch this title with a ten foot barge pole, they've simply set themselves up to fail. The "epic" PVP promised by the title turned out to be nothing more than instanced battlegrounds, only this time you do it for grinding experience; And raiding keeps is alot of effort for a small reward, as the gold to hold onto the keep will leave even the richest guilds dry in a matter of hours.
Couple that with the fact Mythic went about ripping off the art design of World of Warcraft with the same fervor of the makers of Limbo of The Lost put into their patchwork title, almost to the point of copying the code directly and pasting it into their game. Not that it wasn't to be expected, Mythic is quite good at stealing their ideas, as seen in Dark Age of Camelot when they practically ripped off every noun that wasn't nailed down from celtic/norse mythology....
...sorry I am getting off on a tangent. Where was I?
Ah yes, did you know 90% of all restuarants fail in the first year of business? I suspect now that World of Warcraft is on the scene and here to stay we can expect the same fail rate with MMORPGs. And I think the key in succeeding will be niche appeal. Developers are just going to have got to stop making fantasy MMORPGs, Blizzard obviously has that field covered. I think the Bioware title in development, Star Wars: The Old Republic, at least stands a chance at being an MMO alternative to elves and orcs. But other than that, what hope is there? I get the feeling players return to WOW, like myself, not because it's WTFawesome, but because its the social MMO title with the least amount of suck out there. And let's face it, those are pretty low standards.
Welcome back from WAR.
