WAR: Did Mythic Give it the Chance it Needed?
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Warhammer Online was laden with an insane number of bugs right out of the starting gate. I tried to accept the fact that gameplay bugs would always be something that every MMO would suffer from at launch but in WAR's case, it was ridiculous. If it wasn't in-game problems like combat and quest bugs, it was client problems like constant crashes, latency lag and the most un-optimized engine I'd ever played.
If you've read any of my past editorials, you might remember what a fan of accessibility I am. It's the key to almost any MMO's success; all you have to do is look at games like World of Warcraft, or the newer Free Realms, to see how powerful the "accessibility factor" can be. I'm not one of those gamers who tend to whine about low FPS if I'm playing on machine with an integrated GPU and 512MB of RAM. I agree that if you want enjoy modern PC games, you have to spend a little money on hardware. But at the same time, if I'm using a laptop with 4GB of RAM and a semi-modern GPU, I don't think I should have to deal with 20 FPS when I'm playing a game at 800x600 on low graphics settings, for God's sake.
The client and optimization problems coupled with the endless array of gameplay bugs and imbalances seriously made me feel like I was shelling out $15 per month to play an MMO that was still in beta. I actually took a two-month break from the game in late November because I didn't want to keep paying for a game I couldn't enjoy until all the "wrinkles" were ironed out.
Speaking of November, launching a new game two months before the release of the world's most popular MMO expansion probably wasn't the brightest idea Mythic ever had, either. Wrath of the Lich King's release dominated the market and stole away thousands of Warhammer subscribers. I remember guilds looking back and referring to it as "the mass exodus," when huge groups of players ditched WAR to focus their efforts (and money) on facing Arthas in Northrend.
