Can anyone provide a brief history of warhammer?

[Fidopro]

so after reading some 1.2 patch notes(and thinking about the choices made so far) I cant help but shake my head and wonder if I'm only playing this game because of the star wars name power...

 

 

Ive read bit and pieces on the forums about how most of these devs came from Warhammer..what happened to that game? did it fail?

 

even reading some of their quotes make me think this is a big troll...does anyone have faith in these developers?

[Cruxe]

What from I understand the open world (ie. Ilum) PvP team is from Warhammer. So it's not the entire development team.

[yukirshiro]

WAR started ok, but they couldn't find a way to stop people trading objectives in the open PVP. They went through a cycle of ridiculous buffings and nerfing of classes, creating a very strong FOTM cycle. They triied to introduce capital city sieges, but got the details all wrong. Then they tried to save the game with a PVE free expansion, which sucked because no one played WAR to PVE.

 

The game died as a result.

[Fidopro]

What from I understand the open world (ie. Ilum) PvP team is from Warhammer. So it's not the entire development team.

 

Ive read many times the PvP lead developer came from Warhammer...so I assume he is involved in balance changes as well?

[Ucsimplyme]

What from I understand the open world (ie. Ilum) PvP team is from Warhammer. So it's not the entire development team.

 

That is hard to believe. The WAR development team understood open world PvP. This team has made all the rookie mistakes expected of a team with no experience in the matter.

[Fidopro]

WAR started ok, but they couldn't find a way to stop people trading objectives in the open PVP. They went through a cycle of ridiculous buffings and nerfing of classes, creating a very strong FOTM cycle. They triied to introduce capital city sieges, but got the details all wrong. Then they tried to save the game with a PVE free expansion, which sucked because no one played WAR to PVE.

 

The game died as a result.

 

interesting..thanks for the info.

 

So in your opinion is this deja-vu with this game?

[getdownsb]

WAR started ok, but they couldn't find a way to stop people trading objectives in the open PVP. They went through a cycle of ridiculous buffings and nerfing of classes, creating a very strong FOTM cycle. They triied to introduce capital city sieges, but got the details all wrong. Then they tried to save the game with a PVE free expansion, which sucked because no one played WAR to PVE.

 

The game died as a result.

 

Are you sure you're not talking about SWTOR?

[xxdragonragexx]

I played warhammer for a long time.

Here's what killed it for me-

 

PvP abilities were meant for Open World PvP which meant that warzone pvp balance goes out the window. We have group heal that is great in Open World PvP but totally destroyed warzones. Warzones ALWAYS end up in a spawn camping gameplay because one side have better healing.

 

For example, in swtor, even if one side has better healing and rezing, spawn camping hardly happens cause players die and there is no group heal that is very easy mode healing in pvp. In warhammer, dying doesn't happen if your side is better at healing, and dps in warzones.

 

Then we have tanks that can't be killed like black guards. They die in open world pvp but in warzones, they don't die at all.

 

====================================================

PvE Trinkets

 

PvE trinkets give too much advantage in PvP. I don't like PvE so I never got them which meant I was in a disadvantage against players who have it. For a game that focuses on pvp, giving a huge advantage to pvers or raiders is not a good idea.

 

 

Other than that, I thought Warhammer was a great game. I like warzones too much though so I quit when I realized they are never going to tone down group heal for better warzone gameplay.

[DarkDruidSS]

I don't think this game will end up like WAR because WAR was advertised and sold to be THE PVP game. It fell short in the one area everyone bought it for. The PvE was more like a side event.. yea you had quests and even public quests... but the content was lackluster compared to the epic seiges in the 1-30 bracket. Once you got to the endgame PvP it sucked... the zones mechanics were broken, it lagged to hell.... and the players ended up trading castles for gear.

 

Ilum was showing very similar signs. Unlike WAR this game has solid PvE and they are introducing rated pvp, premade pvp teams and a new PvPvE warzone. It could buy them the time they need to redesign Ilum for the PvP crowd.

Edited March 21, 2012 by DarkDruidSS

[MartyrLXXVII]

Class balance was fair at the start, just one caster really out of wack, and AoEs were way unbalanced, none of the balance issues were really resolved but pvp was still fun.

 

Open world pvp failed completely. It was all about who ever had a serf at at a particular time of day. So thing were traded off every day. But worse, because or faction imbalances capitals were regularly crushed without a fight. They had great ideas but you simply can not balance two factions for open world pvp, one side always has a numbers advantage and that's all that matters.

 

Their instances pvp was lots of fun though, and the few times big open world fights started it was a blast. But sadly class balance got farther and fartjer apart imo, that and the population issues made me quit a game I otherwise loved completely.

 

That being said, I have no faith in mythic now, but its also not likely to even be the same people now on swtor.

 

Edit: regarding you asking another if you thought this was a repeat. I would say no, class balance is actually really good here, but then swtor has true mirrors, WAR had mirror-like classes. But the pvp in swtor is an after thought, the limited content, terrible ilum, and bad reward system all so they put almost no time and money into pvp.

Edited March 21, 2012 by MartyrLXXVII

[mangarrage]

I dont see any similarities aside of ilum

 

The warhammer guys didnt really have a FOTM. I mean maybe they did after I left but BW/SORC were so OP it was pretty stupid

I played a BW and I played in a group with a war a wp and a cleric and we could just wade into 10 people and kill them np

 

We used to go out the back boor of a castle during a siege and take on the opposing force by oursleves

 

It was really that bad

 

Plus as someone also said it was always go to bed everything blue wake up and everything was red

 

Pretty pointless

 

And the "endgame" pvp was actually pve and pvp and it all came down to the randomness of who got queued where

 

Warhammer honestly made me realize most people want to just take objectives and simply not pvp

[coldserpent]

Ive read many times the PvP lead developer came from Warhammer...so I assume he is involved in balance changes as well?

 

I believe you're talking about Jeff "Witch" Hickman there. He was one of those devs who turned Warhammer Online PvP into a bad mess, and then pulled a Marie Antoinette attitude right afterwards.

 

If I remember correctly, it was....2009, patch 1.2(an ominous portent, perhaps) that turned the downhill plummet into a terminal velocity drop, when the dev team(all Order faction players except for one dev) decided to gut the Destruction faction and swing things horribly off balance.

 

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/239/feature/2807/page/1

 

I still remember the hornets' nest that he squatted on when people read about his class balance section of this interview, and saw firsthand the effects that happened afterwards.

[Anarchico]

warhammer was an amazing game it had no pvp but rvr and thats the amazing thing in it...swtor lacks of pvp cause sorry i dont think huttball is pvp..even if they create a good pvp wz it will never be such real pvp as the open world pvp/rvr....

[Hethroin]

Things that were wrong with Warhammer:

 

Taking falling damage from getting stuck on a rock, or a twig, or any piece of dark elf architecture or weaponry. This was a big deal. If I "fall" from a 6" height I should not take damage as if I fell off a bridge in Dragonwake. Physics is important.

 

Non-mirrored mirror classes. "The what?" you might be asking. Mirror classes were not the same. Some of them had gear and spec options that the other did not, though generally they could fulfill the same general role in a group one side was better from a min/max perspective.

 

Mechanics. DoK / WP mechanic became nullified completely when they changed their top tier gear set, you ended up being able to spam your group heal without any worry that it may run you out of juice. Sorc/BW mechanic was a bit out of control, granting them a near 100% crit rate and a 150% crit damage multiplier at the minor inconvenience of being hit for ~10% of your life when activating skill (easily offset by group heal, see above).

 

PvEmpty-Instance. The biggest joke at the end of it all was the instanced city sieges. Players would use the "scenario scoreboard" to quickly determine that they had "win" or "fail" instance and would decide to leave or stay (much like warzones). As a result what was supposed to be the culmination of all that is PVP ended up being a raid against NPCs that did not fight back. They followed a path and 'did stuff'. Well technically they were supposed to be 'prevented from' or 'protected while' doing the stuff, deepening on what faction you were and the city you were in.

 

Population Is Fine? On Iron Rock the population was so balanced that we were "defending" (lol see above) Inevitable City, the destruction capitol, every 3 to 6 hours. There would be one instance where destruction would manage to have a full raid, order players would leave this instance (I can't blame them for this, as it was usually a bunch of Pug-order and a pre-made raid of destruction). And there 3-6 instances where it was a full raid of order against half a group +/- pugs, who also had no choice but to leave.

 

I will not comment on the Skaven 'expansion', other than to say it wasn't good.

[Demarcc]

RvR in Warhammer was a sad joke. I bought the game looking foward to the RvR, Initially there was to be NO RvR in warhammer, it was going to be a pure WZ based game for PvP. the outcry on the Alpha forums lead to oRvR being added later in the games development.

 

That the developers of DAoC handed out the POS that was Warhammer to us was an insult. We expected better. The DAoC community near on-mass joined the Warhammer band wagon, and most of us left within the first two months. Its was a pale shadow of DAoC and a dissapointment.

 

The fact that RvR was only added due to tester feedback should have been telling, I guess we just put too much faith in Mythic (based on DAoC)

[LancelotOC]

I was in close beta for Warhammer and they had a tight schedukle to release in 2 1/2 years. Their first internal pvp design fell flat and the were forced to delay release 6 months and redo it. By the end the workload pre release was so much and EA was so persistent that it must release they just released it unfinsihed and it was all downhill from there.

 

This game is run by Bioware who has a very good track record for their games. Bioware absorbed Mythic which was the company that made Warhammer. Bioware actually runs Warhammer currently.

 

With that merging Mythic employees, like Mr. Hickman, were incoporated into Bioware. The big MMO project that EA tasked to Bioware was Swtor. The Mythic guys were the ones with the PVP experiance and MMO experiance so naturally they handled much of this type of work/design.

 

Warhammer by the time I was gone was also mostly about warzones as well.

[Erevis_Cale]

From my experience on WAR, for the year I played, it went like this: The game had some classes at the beginning that needed some tweaking but overall it was fairly balanced. The scenarios(warzones) were pretty fun and had a wide diversity. The open pvp was pretty fun as well (at least for awhile), but the capital city pvp was very disappointing. Pve was basically worthless on that game, but then again it was advertised as a pvp game.

 

After that, some of the classes were nerfed to the ground (my poor Dwarven Engineer). Others were never buffed properly (sorry Shadow Warriors). While a few were never toned down to a reasonable level (I hate you Bright Wizards). And, in my opinion, the overall downfall was the terrible balancing done to the classes, which heavily affects a game with a strong pvp focus. At least it influenced my eventual departure.

[Sabredance]

I played WAR from release till TOR and it was despite its flaws the best MMO experience i had so far.

 

The engine was really bad -probably the biggest flaw- still better than Illum tho

and once you had collision detection you never wanna miss it.

 

They messed up class balance over time , didn´t listen to the community and lost their vision.

 

Than came EA and introduced Pets with stat increases and permanent speed boost for real money in the EA store.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Sabredance

[AutoCocker]

The above posters pretty much summed it up. Perhaps one of the worst mmo's i myself have played however tbh. Everything was broken all the time. It really was a game that had great potential but in all honesty really was a steaming pile of dog poo.

 

It is kind of funny though because i feel bad for some Mythic employee's. This game ruined the name mythic forever but what most people do not know is only 2 or 3 ppl that had anything to do with daoc were still at mythic for the development of war. WAR itself was handled by an entire team of rookies for the most part that played WoW more than they played their own game (look it up).

[Fidopro]

Good stuff, this thread has pretty much confirmed my fear that the dev team balancing this game are the same people who failed to balance warhammer...would this be accurate?

[clearsighted]

I believe you're talking about Jeff "Witch" Hickman there. He was one of those devs who turned Warhammer Online PvP into a bad mess, and then pulled a Marie Antoinette attitude right afterwards.

 

If I remember correctly, it was....2009, patch 1.2(an ominous portent, perhaps) that turned the downhill plummet into a terminal velocity drop, when the dev team(all Order faction players except for one dev) decided to gut the Destruction faction and swing things horribly off balance.

 

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/239/feature/2807/page/1

 

I still remember the hornets' nest that he squatted on when people read about his class balance section of this interview, and saw firsthand the effects that happened afterwards.

 

He's talking about Gabe. (Otherwise known as the Jonah Hill of the MMO industry).

[EternalFinality]

There are a few things that killed Warhammer but the biggest one was this:

 

Bright Wizards, at launch, had one of their dot abilities bugged - every tick dealt the full damage the dot was supposed to apply for the entire duration. This bug persisted FOR MONTHS.

[MartyrLXXVII]

Good stuff, this thread has pretty much confirmed my fear that the dev team balancing this game are the same people who failed to balance warhammer...would this be accurate?

 

Yeah, but I do think the class balance is pretty good here. People complain about the sorc/sage but they are nothing compared to the balance issues war had, but then swtor has true mirrors not claimed mirrors lile WAR.

[BelphagorAD]

had one of their dot abilities bugged - every tick dealt the full damage the dot was supposed to apply for the entire duration..

 

Hmm, something like that might make Maddness/Balance's 31 pt skill worth taking. Ok maybe not full damage, but 50% of current skill's damage every tick might be an ok buff.

-

I was in WAR for the first few months trying out every class/mirror up to KotBS/blackguard/choppa/slayer additions. The dead PvE in the upper tiers was very similar to what you see in SWTOR at most levels today. They have a similar fizzle out feeling, where at the end of the 3 month subs it died pretty quick... will 1.2 keep it alive or kill it faster?

Edited March 21, 2012 by BelphagorAD

[Exfire]

One thing I will say about Warhammer - I got in one of the final betas and it was, hands down, the MOST FUN I've ever had in World PvP on any game. I was a Ironbreaker (Tank) and my wife was some healie type. Everyone was capped at 20 (I think..) and the noob pvp area was flooded. There were constant 50+ person battles running in that area. With Collision Detection it was incredibly fun to be a tank in that game.

 

After it went live, it never happened again (in the time I was there). The PvP areas were mostly ghost towns.