Warhammer Online to shut down this December

[Icoyce]

Sad to see another MMO go. There's barely been any news out of WAR the last few years, so I suppose it was no surprise.

A little bit of pre-launch trivia. WAR was AoCs biggest competitor as they were (seemingly) both targeting the casual and mature PvP crowd and launched within 6 months of each other. There was a lot of rivalry going on, Funcom and Mythic would constantly jab at each other and not always good-naturedly. Mark Jacobs of Mythic would remark that if we had wanted to make a game to target the biggest audience, he would have gone with a "matured themed" game with nudity and gore to draw in the kids. Gaute, on the other hand, would of course say that WAR were the ones targeting the broadest audience with its computer-friendly cartoonish graphics, leaning heavily on WoW. For some reason, both sides were quite adamant about not trying to be the next WoW.

There was also an instance where a Mythic employee would trash talk Age of Conan's technology and graphics, saying it was out-dated. His claims were proven to be wrong, but it still caused quite the uproar. An ex-Funcom employee went on a posting spree on the most popular WAR fan forum (you may recall, Mark Jacobs and Mythic were completely against an official forum), spreading a lot of venom and hate.

I don't think any MMOs before or after have had such a rivalry that WAR and AoC did. Sad to see another MMO go, good to see that AoC outlasted its most bitter rival.

[Argantes]

Eh, there goes the AoC-killer... I still remember the days when ppl were leaving AoC for WAR only to (most of them) come back in a month or two, same goes for the next big thing - Aion (then Mortal Online, Rift etc. etc.)

Also people may be b1tching about AoC 24/7, how big fail it is and whatnot, but they probably don´t realise that the game is out for 5 long years and still being (kinda) alive and (more or less) supported, which is quite an achievement in the video games industry. Could it be better? Sure. But it could be also dead as several of its competitors.

[Asharoth]

Eh, there goes the AoC-killer... I still remember the days when ppl were leaving AoC for WAR only to (most of them) come back in a month or two

I think generally at the beginning it was a timing issue, DAOC had taken a nosedive and a lot of people were waiting with baited breath for WAR to release as a replacement, so they were looking for something temporary to fill the gap, along came AOC at the perfect time, people played it while they waited and then moved on when WAR came out, finding out that WAR was a big let down and returning.

It wasn't so much people deserting AOC for WAR but AOC being there to fill a gap inbetween games, which was fortunate for AOC because people who would have never touched it tried it found it good and when WAR turned out to be a let down came back.

We would probably never have had a lot of the players we did at the start if it wasn't for that timing.

[Religolibri]

Well, another one bites the dust. When I see how the announcement is made to the player, I would feel insulted and really disappointed.

Hey ! We're stopping the game in 3 months, kthxbye.

[-Tutu-]

Sad to see it go, it was fun game but lacked more investments in it... maybe someone will remake it in future :-) Waaaaagh!

[Asharoth]

Well, another one bites the dust. When I see how the announcement is made to the player, I would feel insulted and really disappointed.

Hey ! We're stopping the game in 3 months, kthxbye.

Greetings Warhammer Online Subscribers,


We here at Mythic have built an amazing relationship working with Games Workshop creating and running Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning over the last 8 years. Unfortunately, as with all licensing deals they do eventually come to end and on December 18th, 2013 we will no longer be operating Warhammer Online. As such we will no longer be selling 3 month game time codes or have the ability to auto renew your accounts for 3 months as of September 18th, 2013. If you would like to read some additional thoughts from one of WAR’s Producer please check out http://www.warhammeronline.com/. From all of us here at Mythic we thank you again for your dedication and support over the last five years.

If you have any questions please feel free contact us via email at support@warhammeronline.com.

Waaagh!

Warhammer Team

Reflections on my experiences with Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
Carrie Gouskos, Producer

I was first introduced to Warhammer Online, when it was added last minute to GameSpot.com’s E3 2006 stage show. As one of the hosts of the show, my responsibility was to research the game and the franchise, gather questions from the audience, and give a thoughtful informative interview with whomever had been sent over from the development team.

I never could have anticipated what happened next. Jeff Hickman (Executive Producer) and Paul Barnett (Creative Director) gave one of the most memorable interviews in my career – and suddenly I was thrown into their universe. The online chat channel soliciting questions from the viewing public was spammed with directives like “No more questions, just let them keep talking” – which is not surprising if you’re at all familiar with Jeff Hickman’s indefatigable charisma and Paul Barnett’s passionate humor. The tone, candor, and refreshing quality of how they spoke about this game that they so clearly cared about made you just want to be a part of it. What was more surprising, however, was what followed – a large group of developers, perhaps delirious after three days of non-stop game demos, partly exhilarated by the positive response to the game, showed up at the GameSpot booth and invited me to their studio E3 party. I declined, because they scared me a little bit, but in retrospect it’s not hard to imagine how I ended up – three months later as a designer working at Mythic on Warhammer.

I made an offhanded comment the other day to someone on the Warhammer team that I spent six of the last seven years of my life working on Warhammer. There were breaks in there, but most of them still related to Warhammer in some way. Some aspects of these efforts never saw the light of day. For example, we completed, passed review, and ultimately opted not to release an iPhone companion application that would allow players to monitor the realm war and their guild status – three whole years before the studio decided to take mobile by its horns. We also spent over a year on a version aimed at the Asian markets that would convert the entire game free-to-play. The Vampire themed Blood Hunt expansion would have been a marvel. And in under a year we produced a spin-off product Wrath of Heroes, a MOBA-style game that used mostly Warhammer assets – which despite being a tremendous learning experience, never made it out of Beta. There are many memories like this, ones that I feel comfortable sharing now – including the fact that we do have two of the four remaining fully built cities (Karaz-A-Karak and Karak Eight Peaks which are truly truly beautiful but would take months and months of optimization before they could match the changes we made to the game along the way). And one of the greatest lessons I ever learned as the young unpolished Tome of Knowledge designer “Never put anything in the game that isn’t done yet and hint that it’s coming soon – see: The Cards system”. There were some beautiful ideas that were left on the cutting room floor. And they represent only a fraction of how much heart went into the game.

Most everything else made it, and Warhammer despite its flaws was a valiant effort into the MMO space. I don’t think any of its critics would ever call it boring. It struck out boldly, and some of the game’s novel features are now considered industry standard for MMOs. The credit goes to far too many to list it out here, and it’s almost irrelevant. The point is that some of the most talented people in gaming made Warhammer possible. They worked insanely long hours, and they put their heart and soul into trying to make this beautiful IP a living and breathing universe. World class artists. Genius engineers. Designers and content implementers who would put in 100 hours a week and not complain. Hard-ass producers who you would follow into battle anywhere. Writers that truly transported you. QA that wouldn’t let us get away with a thing. And so many others. For those that are still with Mythic and those that have since moved on, we couldn’t have asked for a more driven team dedicated to bringing this amazing franchise to life.

And finally, the players. If I were to list out all of the great experiences I’ve had with you, this would be a novel, so I want to say thank you from all of us to all of you for sticking with us so long. Even when you didn’t like the changes, even if you thought we made mistakes. The community made this game possible. And a special shout out to Tink for Pink – which was truly the measure of a community coming together to do something right.
Games Workshop has cultivated a world class IP. We were lucky enough to play in their universe for nearly a decade, with five great long years live. However, like all things – our contract has come to an end. Both Games Workshop and Mythic agreed to part ways, despite how hard it is emotionally on us to let the game go. It has been a tremendous honor to work with Games Workshop and even though we may be parting ways, our relationship with them remains strong. And now, hopefully, because this may be the last thing I ever write about Warhammer, I’ll be allowed to acknowledge the existence of Chaos Dwarves. Or maybe not.

We look forward to seeing you on the battlefield… at least until the war is over… and once again, we thank you humbly for five amazing years.

quite a bit more than just "Hey ! We're stopping the game in 3 months, kthxbye" i'd say.

[Slith]

ah damn. WH is a great property, I am very surprised that it floped so hard.I still remeber WAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH threads saying how WAR will eat AOC alive. Glad that we are still here.

On the other hand I actually bought the game, loged once for 3-4 hours and never loged back again. Worst money ever spend, it felt clunky, static and boring in general, Mythic didn't do very good job at capturing WH world (unlike FC nailing Hyboria).

[bandytaz]

Eh, it is always sad when "big" mmos go away - it reminds us that not a single game in this genere will last forever.

Like Slith, I did buy game, but I wouldn't call it my best purchase. I enjoyed it for couple days than I got bored, never reached level cap.

I got to admit that since I played AoC for the first time I just can't play any other MMO for longer than couple weeks.

[Religolibri]

quite a bit more than just "Hey ! We're stopping the game in 3 months, kthxbye" i'd say.

I still say it's "kthxbye" ^^
They do the same to Age of Conan and I cry. But I'm a bit more sentimental than you probably.

[Ythor]

I'm pretty happy that this awesome IP got away from such an incompetent company as Mythic. Hopefully someone is already working on a new Warhammer MMO that will be a blast. (I read somewhere that Creative Assembly is already working on a Warhammer Total War episode, can't wait!)