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[kalaratiri]

No idea if any of you play it, and if you do then you probably know already, but after five years live Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is closing its doors.

http://www.warhammeronline.com/article/Warhammer-Notice-Shutdown

[Esna Pitoojee]

I had not played it, but have heard it featured fairly open gamplay and PvP-ish elements as things go. I'll be sad to see another sandbox go.

[Myyona]

Played it for a couple of months when it first came out. Was pretty nice on a PvP server, though, content start to lack/become repetitive on the higher levels. Not much sandbox about it imo. In fact, I get the memory of my visit to Disney World and its rides and shows when thinking about the content in Warhammer Online.

Still, it was far from the worst themepark MMO around and variation in classes was pretty good. But with no official forums and communication from Mythic and EA being completely crap, I learned to appreciate CCP on these matters. I see they are not even able to communicate the announcement of closure to their customers in any proper way. *Reminder to self: Underline previous Reminder to self about never to purchase an EA game again.

[Anja Suorsa]

I played on release for just under a year, long before I discovered EvE. The RvR was great. Really absorbing. I could and often did spend hours on the keep seiges. The trouble was the server hosts to start with on top of the overhype. As mentioned communication issues abound as well. It was handled really poorly. Too many unreliable servers, people got fed up thinking they'd been lied to and with no communication to say otherwise, it wasn't exactly false. So they started to leave.

That was what killed it. Without the numbers the RvR didn't work, so more left and it became a fail-cascade. By the time Mythic did something to save it, the damage was done. In all honesty, I'm a little surprised it lasted this long.

A crying shame really. The IP deserved better and I think the game was pretty good too. I'll remember it fondly and hope someone picks up the baton and makes a Warhammer game that will stick around for a while for the right reasons (being good).

[Kala]

I had not played it, but have heard it featured fairly open gamplay and PvP-ish elements as things go. I'll be sad to see another sandbox go.

I didn't find it so, personally.  I will leave my 'state of the modern MMO' rant for another day, but would not have described it as sandbox.  While it did have mechanics that sounded promising (such as faction ownership of territory) in practice it didn't seem to any particular real world effect (well it did, you got a buff)  I dunno.  That particular mechanic just seemed gimmicky and lacking in substance to me.

It was still very much run over here, collect a load of quests, run over here and hand them in.  There were these constant kind of co-op quests that were always running and you could just walk in on, too.

But then, like others mentioned, I tried it at release and didn't stay, so perhaps it developed somewhat.

Or maybe I'm misremembering  I recollect being distinctly underwhelmed, though.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Fair enough. My info came from an old friend (who also played EVE, and so would have had context for "sandbox"). He described it as such, so I was basing it off of what he was saying.

[Ollie]

Or maybe I'm misremembering  I recollect being distinctly underwhelmed, though.

No, that was a pretty good summary as was Anja's breakdown of 'what went wrong'. RvR was a great idea, used in previous games of theirs but for some reason not quite implemented in the way people thought it might be. It also launched with too many servers - this was back in what? 2008? When everyone was trying to beat WoW at their own game.

After a while they realised that falling numbers meant less PvP and RvR which was the main difference between the game and its contemporary competitors - the 'gimmick' as Anja said which they were hoping would keep drawing players in and keeping them there. Their numbers stabilised at the usual core of people that like the game despite its faults and at around the same time they consolidated servers, which improved RvR enough to keep things going with those subs for the next 4-5 years.

So in the end not a WoW killer, just another niche game that (eventually) seemed to do okay on its own terms.

The article seems to note that GW have decided not to renew the license with Mythic and that's the reason for the game's closure? Is that accurate or is it just PR for 'falling subs, inevitable doom, Danger! Danger! ... time to cash out'?

[Steffanie Saissore]

Read the article and am not surprised that Warhammer Online is going down.

I had started following the progress of the game well before it was released. When Mythic started getting closer to the original release date for the game, they started to announce there would be delays and soon it was revealed that the reason for the delays was that EA had purchased the company.  The programming team stated with access to more resources and other tools they were going back to retool some of the features. At the time, I thought this would be a good thing.

I got to try out some of the beta, and it seemed neat, but I was concerned by the fact that some of the factions still were missing class details and screenshots. I missed getting into the game at launch but learned that at least one race was released without one if not two classes actually completed. Several friends of mine had played it for a while before I gave it a shot and though it was a nice change from WoW, I was somewhat disappointed at what I experienced; despite it having had several patches and updates, it appeared that Mythic (despite the resources made available by EA) had failed to come close to delivering on what they had promised in all the release notes leading up to the game going live.

I did go back to it, about a year or so ago (around when it was free-to-play up to lvl 10) and it still lacked something...even subbing for six months, the game had a very "unfinished" feel to it which is a shame cause I've always liked the Warhammer Fantasy setting and had hoped the game would live up to expectations.

Like I said, I'm not surprised it was failing and now being shut down. Partly because every MMO that has been released after WoW that took on the mantle of "the game to dethrone WoW" have failed; whether this is a cry from the player-verse or the company itself, the results are the same, they line up against WoW and can't deliver. A few years ago, I read an article where an analyst was asked about what a company would need to go up against WoW and the answer was a minimum investment of around $2 billion into development. I don't know how much time and money was put into Warhammer, but it was not a WoW-killer.  The second reason I'm not surprised it is shutting down is: EA. Lately, EA seems to be the kiss of death to many potentially great games and software companies.

[Anja Suorsa]

I got to try out some of the beta, and it seemed neat, but I was concerned by the fact that some of the factions still were missing class details and screenshots. I missed getting into the game at launch but learned that at least one race was released without one if not two classes actually completed. Several friends of mine had played it for a while before I gave it a shot and though it was a nice change from WoW, I was somewhat disappointed at what I experienced; despite it having had several patches and updates, it appeared that Mythic (despite the resources made available by EA) had failed to come close to delivering on what they had promised in all the release notes leading up to the game going live.

That was another of the problems. At launch the Orc Choppa and Dwarf Slayer (Mirror classes) were left out, which caused a furor. When they did get around to putting them ingame they were so ridiculously imba that everyone was playing them. The Game was handled really badly throughout and yes, EA definitely have to take some of the blame for it.

At a base level I think they were just trying to do too much and because of that in the end did nothing* well.

*I say nothing, but I did enjoy the game. levels 10-20 was some of the most fun i've had in an mo.

[Steffanie Saissore]

Oh, I had some good times playing Warhammer, especially the second time around when I would hook up with a couple of friends and do pvp instances and stuff.  There were neat concepts and the game had potential...just either it ended up being rushed before it was ready to go or they really didn't have a good handle on what they were trying to accomplish; which doesn't make too much sense as Mythic had MMO experience before.

Too bad it died the way it did. Which reminds me, I thought I had heard somewhere that a Warhammer 40K MMO had been in the works, but can't recall by whom or if the project is still under development.

[Esna Pitoojee]

WH40K Dark Millenium Online is basically dead in the water at this point; they first cut the MMO aspect for a traditional RPG/multiplayer arena kind of thing. Then THQ died, and they pretty much threw up their hands and quit.

[Ollie]

I think this was at E3 this year.

http://www.eternalcrusade.com/

[GoGo Yubari]

Mildly interested in that Eternal Crusade (thanks for bringing it to my attention!), but really not surprised about Warhammer Online. I really wanted it to be do well and all that, since I've loved the setting for so long, but the game wasn't really all that magnificent. I know some folks hate to hear it said, but it was a basic incarnation of WoW crap (Everquest for you old geezers). Yes, it had with better and interesting open world PvP/RvR for sure, but it sucked otherwise to be quite blunt (the eternal problem of "WoW killers" is that they keep making a worse product). For me the graphics/animations, style/execution-wise were way too sub par, which is odd as i can overlook that kind of stuff usually.

[orange]

I think this was at E3 this year.

http://www.eternalcrusade.com/

... WoW ... In Space ...

Seriously.    Unless it departs wildly from any existing templates.

I do not think an MMO can do justice to the 40k IP.   Even the core table top game it is written to support has trouble adequately portraying the scale of conflicts that occur.

[Anja Suorsa]

I think this was at E3 this year.

http://www.eternalcrusade.com/

... WoW ... In Space ...

Seriously.    Unless it departs wildly from any existing templates.

I do not think an MMO can do justice to the 40k IP.   Even the core table top game it is written to support has trouble adequately portraying the scale of conflicts that occur.

Weird. I thought that was going to be a Planetside 2-esque game set in the 40k IP... No idea how or where I got that impression, but I remember reading it somewhere