10:30 AM. I'm sitting inside the Warhammer Online meeting room with three Warhammer Online devs all for myself. One was french. My day was looking up.
You see, Warhammer Online is a bit of an enigma for me. A bit of an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in a riddle kind of thing. I know it's an MMOG, I know it carries with it a very heavy IP (Warhammer has an obscene amount of fans worldwide), but I also know people usually don't mention it when they're talking about MMOGs. It's as if it didn't exist or something.
People don't say it suck. They use games like Asheron's Call 2 when they're referring to a sucky MMOG. Yet nobody counts it a player either. Nobody groups it in with the big boys, SOE/Sigil/WoW. Or, when we're talking in the middle of the road MMOGs, we throw around terms like City of Heroes, Asheron's Call, EVE even.
Warhammer Online? It just kind of sits there and plods along. It gets more Euro press, no question about it, and it has a dedicated community around it, but it's not one I usually think of as a player. Well. I still don't. I do see it having more success than I originally predicted though. Here's how it went.
I sat down, they at first treated me like a two year old, not because I look young actually, but because it seems journalists at large, the media if you will, doesn't actually 'get' MMOGs. They just don't understand them, and can't help try and contain them in some Pong type of stereotype. At least how it seems, which is why when you talk to an MMOG developer they're like: "so, this is a Video Game. Can you say Video? Good. Our game is special because you can play with lots and lots of people. Yes. Lots of people. No, they don't need to be in your house to play."
Naturally, my response to them was: "uh, actually, I follow MMOGs fairly closely. I know about Warhammer, and Warhammer Online, etc"
This made the situation somewhat more pleasant. As you guys know, my interviews tend to go a little strangely. Not exactly like most other interviews. I don't see the point in asking the same questions everybody else asks. In fact, I'd rather just sit quiet and watch than ask those questions. Just the kind of person I am.
I did ask a few questions though, tried to weasel out their thoughts on loot, character advancement, quests, in game social orginization, etc. The stuff I think you guys would be more interested in.
First of all, the engine does indeed look better in motion than in stills. That's just a fact. It's not amazing, but it's not as bad as I thought. The biggest complaint I have, visually, is I think the character models are aren't very good, and I know the animations need a bit of work. Oh, and when I say not very good in regards to the character models, I mean torturously bad.
That said, they have some things going for them visually. They are creating a dark gothic game. Not the dark gothic game I'd visually like (Ravenloft is an IP I think would make a kick ass MMOG), but at the same time, very middle ages, very oppressed, gritty even. This in my opinion is a large bonus in their favor because there's a market that's really interested in that. Hell, I'm interested in it.
Where Warhammer Online differs is mechanically, and this is where it will either be moderately successful or a bomb. They have some very interesting ideas. For example, they have a roaming monster mob AI. The monsters roam through the seamless world, and gather other monsters as they aren't killed. Eventually, these monster gatherings will get large enough and attack a city/town, whatever. They said they are playing with the idea of having these organically occuring world events dynamically affecting the in-game quests.
Very neat. On the other hand, they have no conning system. The only conning is done visually, as in, you looking at a bad ass creature and saying: "wow, that's a bad ass creature" then bending over as you're promptly violated. They say that there will be visual style clues that will give you an idea as to what difficulty the creature is. So say an easy goblin will just be in a loin cloth with a club, while the harder goblins will be in a full suit of armor.
Interesting idea, but I have to vote with it being dumb. I mean. Really dumb. Why? Because yes, I'm a bitch and I like knowing when something is going to kill me and I don't even have a shot at it. That's an important part of the 'fun' experience for me.
There's more. Their game is skill based advancement, ala, Ultima Online. You use a skill, you advance in it. Characters are almost completely malleable in what skills they choose to advance, but will only be able to access certain skill trees at a time, therefore retaining some semblance of balance. Interesting idea, will it work? Without being wildly broken? I'd bet against it.
When I asked them about tradeskills and the such, we talked a bit about what kind of game Warhammer Online is targeted to be. And I quote: "the thinking man's MMORPG". Uh. Okay. I don't entirely know what that means, but one thing Warhammer isn't, is a Crafting Man's MMORPG. They'll have some tradeskills in as a bonus, but the loot you want will be dropped off monsters.
Kind of EQish, cool. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have any plan for item sinks. At least from what I could tell. I didn't directly ask about item decay, but there was no mention of it and I didn't get the impression that it's going to be in. And we all know that a game with no item sinks ends up creating serious problems in the future. Mmmmm, nothing like a bit of a trivialization based economy to make people blink.
Here's a neat thing. Social orginization? They'll have a guild system of some sort, but here's what's interesting, there will be a guild advancement system. So the better run your guild is, apparently, special bonuses open up for those in your guild. It's an interesting idea, no question about it. Of course, if these bonuses are game affecting in anyway, can you imagine an uber guild cockblocking content from other guilds because they've unlocked extra power for themself? Sounds messy.
So, as you can see, they have some interesting mechanics they are planning to implement, but I fear their lack of MMOG experience may seriously cripple them in the future. The teeter totter teeters... or something. Here's the reality though, hard and cold and truthful. The MMOG industry is becoming less and less friendly for games. You need more and more to successfully compete.
More hype, more content, more mind blowing visuals. The game devs said to me that they are interested in making the perfect game. This means no release date, though they promised beta this year. Uh. Beta. This year. That means EQII and WoW will be out, Vanguard will be well on its way. Can this game compete for a piece of the pie?
I don't see it competing against the major players being released as late as it will. Normally, I'd say this game would be a bomb, and pick up maybe 30k subs if they're lucky, Horizons style, not because it's as bad as Horizons, but because there are so many more really 'big' games they will be pitted against. On the other hand, it is 'Warhammer' and only a fool would completey disregard that IP. I think if the game is good, it could be another Asheron's Call. There's a market waiting for a gothy type of game, there's a prebuilt community around the Warhammer world, so really, there's a hole waiting to be filled.
Warhammer Online doesn't have to be amazing to be moderately successful, they just have to stick with what they're doing and make a decent game, the nicheness of their IP will fulfill itself.
Oh. And they have to redo the character models. They burn like gonorrhea... uh.
Basically, I'll start paying a slight bit more attention to this game, and it's subsequent rise or fall, though I'm still predicting at best a moderate success, and that not even on the positive merits of the game, but the popular license and the fact that there is no other dark gothic MMOG out there competing with them.