Aside from World of Warcraft, the most popular MMO in the US today is… The Lord of the Rings Online, which from what I understand, has about 500K subscribers — about what the original EverQuest had at its peak.
LotRO was clearly the breakout hit of 2007.
But all we hear about is WoW, all the time, WoW. Because as successful as LotRO has been, it’s nothing compared to the behemoth that is the World of Warcraft.
This year, we have two new shinies coming out — Age of Conan and Warhammer Online. AoC would be wildly happy, I imagine, if they got 100K subscribers. They’re going after a niche market, misogynists, and don’t expect WoW players to flock to their game. (Sorry, Bildo. I just can’t support a MMO whose big controversy recently was whether their women could both be decapitated and have visible nipples. In the US, that answer is “yes, the naked women you decapitate will have full nipples, proudly erect for your enjoyment”).
Warhammer has loftier goals. Since Mythic was bought out by Electronic Arts, simply making a more modern update to their groundbreaking Realm-vs-Realm MMO, Dark Age of Camelot, was taken from the table. EA/Mythic is just as large a company now as Activizard, and their goals are just as large to match. You may like pie, but why settle for a slice when you can open a pie shop? Your friend just opened a pie shop!
Microsoft, after all, killed its Marvel Online superhero game because it just wasn’t going to be WoW level. And we can look back a couple of years and wonder if that was the real reason they gave up on Vanguard — because it just wasn’t shaping up to be a WoW killer (among the obvious problems with the development team itself that we’ve all heard about).
So now, the hype machine is in full motion. People are slitting their wrists and selling their souls to be part of the beta. EA/Mythic is whipping people into a frenzy through skilled marketing. And people are buying into it so much, that even though EA/Mythic is quite upright and says, this is the game to play if you want to have the snot beaten repeatedly out of you, and in which you can do some aggressive snot removal of your own if you put enough time into it, make it your serious hobby, people everywhere are saying, finally, an alternative to WoW.
Let us, in our teaming millions, wave sadly to Orgrimmar and sell our farms in the Westfields. The Defias Smugglers have won. Let the fires of Ironforge be banked. Let the undead citizens of the Undercity return to their rest. Let the endless snows muffle the cacophony of sword and spell on the slopes of Mount Hyjal.
Because Warhammer is the promised land.
The question isn’t why people expect Warhammer to be anything like a WoW replacement or WoW 2.0 when, aside from a similarity of visual styles, they are very different. Rabid Warhammer fans will insist they look nothing alike and anyone who says otherwise is a doodoo head, but come on.
The question is, why are people so desperate for an alternative to the World of Warcraft, that can’t be satisfied by one of the many OTHER fine MMOs out there? LotRO and EQ2 are both absolutely fantastic, popular games with enough similarities to WoW to be easy for a WoW player to pick up, yet different enough to give a new experience.
It’s because these games are simply not popular enough. How can they take a chance on a game that only has 500K subscribers?
It is the best interest of every World of Warcraft player to buy into Warhammer and MAKE SURE it has millions of subscribers. Why? So they can finally quit WoW with good conscience. Get on WoW and tell someone you’re leaving WoW for EQ2 and you’ll be laughed from Ratchet to Gadgetzan. Get on and mention that you’re going to be heading to Warhammer when it comes out, and all you’ll see is a chorus of “me too!”.
Warhammer isn’t just a game. It’s being marketed to WoW players as step #1 in a 12 step program to help wean them from Warcraft. Finally, a way for them to stop playing WoW with a clear conscience. Look! Looks kinda WoW-ish, has all the battlegrounds you love so much, and you don’t even have to group up to do some quests!
And then when they find out that Warhammer really is quite different than WoW, they’ll be able to more easily move on.
People love Warhammer because it is the MMO world’s first self help program. And that’s all there is to it.
34 thoughts on “Why Warhammer hype works so well.”
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Odd
Estimations put LOTRO at about 200-300k though. Now…do you maybe have a scoop we dont?…lol
http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart2.html
As to differences…I think EQ2 and WoW are similar, but mechanics are slightly different, and each offer their own unique experience.
LOTRO takes mechanics from both games and made their game…and in doing so, made a lackluster copy in my opinion…overly boring and the whole pretty on the outside, ugly on the inside analogy works for that game.
Now, speaking of analogies…YOURS….lol….talk about nail/head. WAR looks and has the feel of WoW (their acronyms are even each the 3 letters…lol). But, then if people do NOT go to WAR (haha…funny…I made a pun), I think there may be a MAJOR shakeup in the MMO field. Eventually people will get sick of the MMO play style, and move on to to other avenues of entertainment. All things come in cycles (Disco, Parachute Pants, Presidents, Consoles), that eventually if there is not “change” then it will be lost and forgotten…
Either that or Blizzard will finally release THEIR next MMO and start domination all over again.
Later
Last figures I saw were from last fall and were about 400k, and I figured they would have hit 500k by now. And as to whether or not LotRO is a fantastic game, well, *I* was bored, but the 200k EQ2 subscribers vs the 400k (or whatever) LotRO subscribers tell me that I am wrong. I am willing to concede that having tried all three games, WoW players, LotRO players and EQ2 players have all chosen the game that works best for them. The fact that I believe EQ2 is twice the game of any of those is, clearly, just my opinion.
Parachute pants are coming back?
I do think your being alittle harsh on AoC and Misogynist’s (thank you for linking the definition) everywhere. We’ve been beating and decapitating nipple-erect, topless men forever with no grips. However, with times as they are I’m sure it won’t be too long after AoC is released that some goober in Oklahoma (no offense to any Oklahoman’s intended) is emulating the game in some horrid fashion.
I do think that AoC is going to flop bad no matter how many times they push the date back or how much they try to polish it. Of course I’m the same guy who thought that Cindi Lauper was going to be a huge break out star and that hussy Madonna was going to fall to the waist side back in the early 80’s so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
I was never a big fan of Warhammer or table topgames so the branding holds no weight for me. I looked at their site though and thought it looked alittle too cartoony for me and dismissed it without much of a second thought till the hype machine you mentioned kicked into play.
Finally, I don’t think it’s WoW players necessarily looking for WoW alternatives. I think other MMO’s are just trying to take some of their core base. They probably feel that WoW has cornered the market and the only way for them to be successful is to take what the base that WoW has. I think any MMO developing companies need to focus on their love for the game they are making and make sure that love show’s through during development long and long after the game’s released. But again, Cindi should be a shining star right now so, what do I know 🙂
p.s. thanks for the thought invoking blog 😀
Well, of course MMOs want some of WoW’s base. There’s two ways of getting it — make an excellent game and hope WoW players discover it, or target WoW directly and say if you liked these parts of WoW, well, WE’LL do them better.
Pre-EA, Mythic was doing the former. Post-EA, the latter.
I don’t remember decapitating anyone in any game I have played. I doubt I would play that kind of game. I don’t really fantasize about how to kill people in gruesome ways. And I am not really objecting to the nakedness of the women (I’m pretty used to naked women by now) so much as the depersonalization of my entire gender. Maybe if the game had to decide if male monsters and NPCs would have penis lengths at just one foot or two to three feet and what happened if you were to cut them off, you’d sympathize. Cuz that’s how I feel about this game.
And now that I have entirely driven away the male readers of my blog…
Thanks for reading 🙂
Parachute away
http://nickmarino.blogspot.com/2007/07/future-predictions-2008.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/17/style/rsuzy18.php
Oh NOES!!!11
As to LOTRO…the game that almost made me QUIT MMO’s…The issue has been the revolving door issue for the game…content is not king for the game, and people hit max too fast, and just leave as otherwise they must play the same 2 (or maybe 3 now) raids, with minimal selections of races and classes (no altoholics for that game)…but, some stick around for PvMP..overall, the game bleeds customers as fast as it makes them..based on various sources..
Hopefully they get it together.
Oh, 80s, why can’t you die?
wow….not only did u make the front page of gax but also a mention on massively….gratz!!!!
Simple truth about blogging — if you want people to read it, mention WoW or Warhammer 😛
Do that, and be controversial and you’ve got instant headline coverage across the blogosphere.
Question, is this the reason you don’t think enough people stick with alternative MMOs to WoW?
If so, then I have to disagree. Considering most server caps are around 3-5k players, you’d almost never feel as though you’re playing an underpopulated game.
The primary reasons I think people have a hard time giving up any MMORPG:
— Investment – They’ve put in so much time, it’s hard to give up all their accomplishments and start over from scratch
— Familiarity – When people have played a game for so long, they become attached to the look, feel, and mechanics… it’s very hard to move into a new, alien environment
— Nostalgia – When the majority of your peers are playing a game, it is much more difficult to jump into a new one… MMORPGS are meant to be social, but just like in real life, we don’t easily (or want to) make new friends
Hey Tipa I think you hit the nail on the head I have always wondered why people look down on everquest 2 and lotro and it prolly is because “everyone is NOT doing it”. So the question arises will you (random person who reads this) be able to overcome your lemming/cattle instincts and see through the hype to what is really there in each game and pick the best one for you? 🙂 (btw I enjoyed this article a lot ty for it)
No, I don’t write articles just to be controversial or widely read. It’s just, when I do talk about WoW or WAR, it gets more interest than if I talk about, say, EQ2. Just the facts of life 🙂 Now, if I were making money by writing, I might do it more often on purpose….
There’s a lot of reasons why people stick with games, and your points could be applied to almost every game; people talk of EQ1, Ultima Online, Asheron’s Call and DAoC with the same sort of investment, nostalgia and all.
Social factors, as you suggest, can be a powerful reason to stay with a game. I don’t have a problem with that — that’s the entire REASON to play MMOs. That’s what they are for, and if you play to hang out with friends and have a good time — that’s great.
But that’s not whom I’m talking about.
I’m talking to the people I met so often in WoW. The ones who can’t conceive of a life without WoW, who seem to be playing the game all the time, who may want to try another game but because it is not WoW, they cannot. They have an insatiable hunger for loot (even though a new expansion may trivialize their accomplishment). They have no patience with new players. They will use their guild until it no longer suits their purpose, then move on.
Every game has these types, but I’ve never seen it in such numbers as in the World of Warcraft. Seriously. These people need to step away from the computer and do something else. Someday they will wake up and realize that all their virtual accomplishments are worthless, and they let a game take over their life.
I can’t tell you how many people I saw who fit that description as I leveled in WoW. When I started raiding — oh my god — can people be this way?
They need an intervention. Warhammer is aimed right at these people. Paul Barnett is saying right on his video that he hopes people will make this their hobby and put a lot of time in it. He’s saying, here is a game that welcomes the obsessive you. Maybe he’ll get some people off WoW and into WAR. It’s cartoony like WoW, has hot bars and mana bars and stuff like WoW — and once a player finds they can play another game, maybe WoW’s hold will be broken and they find they can enjoy other games, or even maybe some real accomplishments.
Games for social ends — fantastic! Games to pass the time — definitely! Games because you feel you have no choice — that’s bad.
I am going to have to agree with Snafzg’s on this one. Personally I cannot wait for WAR to hit, but that’s mostly because my friends are going to be coming with me to play it (we are more into the pvp/rvr it offers). I am a little in disagreement about people playing MMOs to just follow the crowd as you have put out, but who doesn’t want to play a game where you are going to see a lot of other people? I have played LoTRO, and have actually really really enjoyed it. The RP, deeds, and titles you can gain are actually really fun to pursue, even though they could be construed as just another time sink (character customization is fun!). However, none of my friends (IRL or I have met through WoW and previous games) have any interest in the game. That to me really puts a damper on the game, and makes me question whether I am going to continue to play it after my 7-day trial is up.
Also on another note, a lot of the MMOs out right now other than WoW have pretty unpolished UIs. To me, before I get anywhere in the game the UI pops out at me, because its the first piece of the game you are going to have contact with for the rest of the time you play (other than your actual avatar). I know it’s one of those silly things, but it really irks me for some reason. It’s the little things, the polish that goes into an MMO that really attracts big crowds, and WAR by all accounts is going to have those little things, that polish, that made WoW successful. To me part of the fun of these games is playing out a story (or escape) with your friends, and if the little things don’t add up, well, it’s not a very believable story. I think that is also a large part of the WAR-hype (for me at least).
I”m referring to the marketing tactics mentioned previously where you say that pre EA, Mythic was doing the former (being making a great game and hoping that the WoW players notice) and that post EA, they’re doing the latter (being pointing out what WoW did great and saying they’re going to do it better).
I haven’t seen an interview (and I’ve watched them all) where any member of Mythic says “We do x better than WoW.” In fact they always say “We’re not trying to beat WoW, we can’t beat WoW, so we’re going to be something completely different.” I just think your statment is flawed for saying that.
I’m not going to be able to give my opinions on WAR beta cos of NDA reasons – but I have played a lot of other mmo’s, I played both EQ’s a lot, and I dabbled in WOW so I’ll try and focus on those.
I think the biggest problem with the EQ’s and SOE in general, is that they dont particularly bother with how the game plays and ensure that they release a polished product. My opinion of this company is that they release expansion after expansion, and many bugs remain still. I understand there are a lot of variables when you’re trying to create an MMO, but someone should at least focus on consumer satisfaction.
This is WOWs biggest strength and I think it comes from Blizzards overall mantra – they wont release a game until a good proportion of it is done. I cant tell you how often I’ve played an SoE expansion to find content barely finished [Hey SoE… remember Sleepers Tomb? Yeah I loved killing the mob lovingly named !StaticShoutOne :)]
I lost interest in EQ2 after awhile, but regained it when some old guild buddies of mine brought me back into the fray on Nagafen server – The pvp was great, and running with Onyx was pretty cool too.
So for me, RVR will be great given how much I found out I really enjoyed PVP that matters. Especially since there were artificial limits in EQ2 to stop high level people ganking you for no reason or benefit. That was one of my main gripes with WOW.
Also, EA Mythic has already demonstrated their prepared to push back the release of their game to make it great. Just add some great imagery – The artwork we’re seeing on their website is pretty sweet and some of the models are great.
So verdict? Yeah I’d say WAR is going to be huge… I’m even going to probably guess its going to go past that million subscriber number given almost everyone I’ve spoken too has either heard about it, and many (if not most) of those people are wanting to try it. Marketing has started the snowball, I think the momentum of the hype surrounding WAR will be enough.
I wouldn’t consider WAR a self help game. It’s more along the lines of replacing cocaine with heroine. Sure it’ll get you off the first but then your going to be pulled in a little deeper.
WoW as a gateway drug?
That’s scary 🙂
Tipa said, “They’re going after a niche market, misogynists“ about AoC.
Tipa… do you sincerely think of me as a misogynist? If not, then that’s kind of a broad, uninformed, and generalized statement, no?
I don’t know whether or not you are. I don’t think you are, but I know you’re a huge advocate for the game, hence my apology in advance. You can read that, as I intended, that I didn’t mean any insult to you personally, but that I felt the game has a strong misogynist bent — something that shouldn’t surprise you, I’ve said that many times on your blog. The recent announcements breathlessly reporting that YES, the game is bloodier and more gory than ever, and YES, those naked women you ogle will have NIPPLES! WHEEE BOOBIES, are absolutely convincing arguments AGAINST playing the game for any potential female gamer. However, I expect teenage boys will be shut in their rooms playing it for hours at a time.
(Should point out that the original stories were pretty misogynistic as well, which was okay, considering the target market for the pulps for which he wrote were Depression-era teenage boys, and that was clearly another time. They were also extremely racist, and I find it inconsistent that Funcom chose not to emphasize the naked black slaves used for arrow fodder in the stories. I think they could have taken both racism AND sexism out of the milieu and made it a fun game for everyone. This is not the 1930s.)
I won’t be shut in my room… rather in my office. Does that make it better? 🙂
Just a quick link to direct your attention somewhere awesome, Tipa: http://www.champions-online.com
Spring of 2009 can hurry up now please… forget about WAR and even AoC… I want CO. But then again, it could be wretched like everything else… sigh.
I don’t want WAR to be a WoW-replacement. I’m hoping WAR will be a real world PVP game that feels truly epic in scope.
If Mythic puts out a game where I can work my way from Empire Soldier (and be expected to stand in ranks with a sword) to an Elite Empire Greatsword (still expected to work in ranks/formations), to unit champion, to hero, to general, while fighting against the flood of Chaos, with 100s of real people controlling the characters in a massive battlefield, then I’d be in it in a heartbeat.
However, I don’t think that’s what we’ll get. I’m figuring we’ll get a game that’s built around PvP, but is mostly more of the same as far as the actual flow of how an MMO works. Mostly, because I don’t think a game that encourages you to be a cog in a giant PvP machine is something you can sell to the mass market.
Heh…. well played.
I was a big Champions fan back in the 80s and into the 90s. I wrote a cool character generator in BASIC that I wish I still had, it let people make their own abilities. I don’t know how they can possibly take the coolest things about the game and translate it into an MMO, since like most PnP games, the fun was all about being absolutely creative whereas MMOs send you down narrow little paths; and making your character was something that took a few days, usually, balancing the positives and negatives, keeping with your “theme”, making sure your origin and secret identity fit in with the game world, deciding which organizations you would be allied or opposed to, having people you cared for who could be put in danger… like most PnP RPGs, Champions was extremely heavy on story and role playing, since only by RPing and being creative could you possibly get another point for completing a mission. Yup. 1 point. MAYBE more if something extraordinary happened. No levels. No skillups. Just spending points to increase your power or to buy out drawbacks. Five points! I can lose my annoying boyfriend who is always in trouble! YAY!
ANOTHER thing about Champions — you don’t start out weak! You’re strong! You just get STRONGER! You can buy initially as many or as few powers as you like, as long as you have the points and your drawbacks don’t nerf you out of the game (hence requiring GM approval) (oh, you are powerless when out of water? well, that’s going to keep you out of, say, 99% of your missions… and your power is that you can summon fish? I dunno Aquaman… I don’t think we can use you in this game.)
Well put, Tip.
I’m going to be watching it closely, and regardless of how it turns out… I’ll be trying it. I’m anxious for something more action-oriented as of late and this aims to feed that. But like you said, I hope the Hero System that is “inspiring” the char-gen is good.
Er… rather, I hope the Hero System “inspired” char-gen system Cryptic makes up is good. Jack Emmert has always said that Champions was his inspiration behind CoH but that because of NCsoft they had to dumb down the gameplay and character creation… here’s hoping being that Cryptic is able to publish this one themselves they can do it right, or at least mostly right.
@Hexx — I can’t imagine EA/Mythic is planning on forcing people into formations. Now, your GUILD might expect you to do formations, in which case, you’ll probably totally rule PvP. I think you’re correct when you say you don’t expect many radical differences from current MMOs. EA/Mythic has too much money in this to take chances. The more they spend, the more they will want a guaranteed hit. And that means, catering to WoW players, since if even a tenth of the ten million WoW players become WAR players, they will have a hit on their hands.
Im eagerly awating WAR myself, but praying to everything holy in this world that 99% of WoW players stay in WoW. Only thing worse then the game itself is the community powering it. But im an old man, and prolly way outside of WoW’s target audience.
WoW = Waiting On Warhammer.
Ok first off it’s Westfall not Westfield and 2nd there is no snow in Mt Hyjal, so i can assume you’ve played alliance till level 40 quit and now your an expert. The real reason people are looking for a WoW alternative is because the game is cliche and filled with casual carebear children. As for WAR, i played Dark Age Of Camelot for 3 years so yes the PvP will be nice but the graphics look like WoW and from what Ive heard alot of other things. Im not interested in a WoW clone sorry. Aoc has me interested because of the blood, mounted combat and the M-rating to keep most children at bay. Aoc will have much more innovative ideas combined with action based PVP not just button mashing. So enjoy Daoc 2 with WoW graphics and ill be where the party is at.
Well, 60 troll priestess, but you were close 🙂 I haven’t played WoW for a couple of years. Mt Hyjal wasn’t in when I played, but the roads leading to it were snowy. Anyway, details, details.
I find it interesting that you think the M rating will keep children away, though. That certainly has not been the case with the Grand Theft Auto series, which every teenager I knew (through my son) played. Since AoC is coming out for the Xbox 360 as well as the PC, I expect it to appeal MAINLY to teenagers — and the ‘M’ rating, sex and over-the-top violence will attract teenage boys like moths to an inferno. Have you caught the Funcom interviews at GDC? YOU may say you want to play for the innovative elements. FUNCOM is saying — we’re gonna splatter blood on your MONITOR! Sex everywhere!
Sounds like teenager heaven to me 😛
[People love Warhammer because it is the MMO world’s first self help program. And that’s all there is to it.]
Sorry to jump into the conversation a little late. But I’m afraid I have to disagree.
People love Warhammer because it will be a game with MEANINGFUL PvP (the fabled RvR, that brings along such levels of involvement and pride that mere guild vs guild you find on most other games can’t even hope to reach), because it’s based on one of the most fascinating, coherent and deep fantasy worlds ever created, and ultimately because it’s the comeback of Mythic: a company that gave many of us old gamers what probably was the best MMORPG community to ever be born on the internet, and that ultimately gave us many good memories due to the involvement stated above.
It has actually nothing to do with WoW, it’s shallow community tainted by thousands of lines of l33t sp33k, and it’s mechanics based on hundreds of hours of mindless grinding. Not to mention it’s IP, that managed to turn an already half copied (from Warhammer) and half assed one, into something even more messy and shallow.
So people that come to warhammer from WoW will find themselves quite surprised, and since for most of them WoW has been the first MMORPG, will finally learn what a true MMORPG is. An experience, a community, a place in wich you can’t be an idiot to the one appearing on your side in the starting zone, because in a few levels you might find yourself having to rely on him to save your silly rear while you’re defending a fortress or trying to push trough a blockade.
That’s how real communities are born, and a few legends between them.
Well, Abriael, you’re pretty much agreeing with me, when you say people will give WAR a try and finally find a game worthy enough to tear them from WoW.
However, I have to disagree that WAR will inspire camaraderie among players. People are loyal to their friends; often they are loyal to their guilds; but I have never been in any game where people were loyal to their faction. That’s just too nebulous and arbitrary. I imagine most of the people who come to WAR from WoW will be best motivated by what benefits them the most.
I’m not sure how long and extensively you played Dark Age of Camelot, but there people were definately loyal to their realm. People didn’t invent the expression “Realm Pride” just to give Mythic a catchphrase to advertise on 😀
Of course in other games, where factions are nebulous and not actually involved in any meningful war between each other (like Wow for instance, in wich being part of the horde or the alliance just determines the kind of jokes one will be subject to, probably one of the worst and most anticlimatic flaws of the game), people won’t show any kind of loyalty to their faction.
Camelot was different. Most probably Warhammer will be as well.