Dark Days

If it’s not the tanking economy, the depressing election or Hannah Montana, then it’s the ominous tides of black pessimism that’s seemingly descended upon the Warhammer community — especially if you keep tabs on as many blogs as I do (and forums, but hey, forums don’t count, unless you want to feel slightly superior about yourself in comparison to the blathering trolls that lurk at those depths). Everywhere you go, it seems, the Voice of Doom is booming loud and clear: “Warhammer is in trouuuuuuble.” Hey, when Heartless_Gamer, Mr. Self-Proclaimed Warhammer Fanboy #1, announces as such, it must be true, right?

Of course, if it weren’t for the MMO community, the Voice of Doom would be on much harder times. I’ve seen the VoD come and go so many times for so many games that it no longer has true weight with me. Players, myself included, are like easily-frightened schools of fish, willing to go with the crowd and turn at a moment’s notice or the mere inkling of danger. So it takes a discerning eye and a steady heartbeat to sift the meaningless panic from the meaningful signs. Is Warhammer in trouble?

On several points, most are agreed. Warhammer had an incredibly stable launch, world-wide, no less. It got many good reviews, several great ones. People widely applauded features as “meaningful” open world RvR, PQs, the Tome and living guilds. Mythic is proving itself quick to act on key issues and work hard to fine-tune the game.

Yet there’s been a growing discord of worry over population imbalance, character imbalance and — especially now — RvR imbalance, in that most people seem to be heavily favoring scenarios over open world RvR for their PvP fix.  There are bugs, features and abilities not working properly.  Some people are disquieted over things they can’t exactly put their finger on — like combat not “clicking” as well as it should, or the world being a bit too lifeless or empty in parts — but it keeps them from feeling comfortable in their decision.  And some of it can simply be chalked up to MMO culture shock, the unrest that comes from assuming features from past, familiar MMOs would be in this title and from having to adapt to a new system.

I’m not here to say that WAR is perfect, or that your feelings on the subject are any less important than my own.  But I think that doomsaying is a popular MMO pastime in these communities, and it’s taught me a few lessons from observation and personal experience:

1. Game devs, on the whole, DO listen to their players (who are, after all, their paying customers) and over enough time do act on the feedback and concerns that players have.  Mark, Paul and the rest of Mythic’s whizkids aren’t sitting back in their chairs counting up cash right now, as evidenced by the amount of patches, events and upcoming content that’s been announced.
2. As a result of constant development and refinement, MMOs get much, much better over time.  Yeah, there are stumbles you can point to, but nobody can doubt that World of Warcraft 2008 is a far superior game than World of Warcraft 2004 post-launch.  Or, heck, even Ultima Online over 10 years later.  The game we see at launch is actually the WORST version of the game that we’ll probably ever see.
3. Sometimes you have to shut out the voice of the community when it’s saying something contrary to what you’re experiencing or believe.  If you like your class, great, just don’t let forum posts tell you otherwise.  If you’re really, truly enjoying WAR and feel like it’s on the right path, then by all means just ignore the blogosphere at large.  I think people as a whole are too easily swayed by what the majority (or loud minority) says and thinks, and on the internet that’s rarely positive.
4. The first couple months post-launch of any MMO title is a rough transition period, to put it kindly.  We’re shifting gears from “Hype” to “Reality”, from “Idealized” to “Actualized”.  People who flood into the game at launch sometimes find it’s the place for them, and others don’t.  After these few months, stability in the community increases because the people playing really want to be there, instead of consisting of a lot of people just trying out the free month.

I’ll be honest with you: WAR isn’t everything I thought it would be.  Some of it is way better, some of it disappoints.  But I do like my experiences in the game, and I’m really excited with how fast and hard Mythic is moving with its updates and content.  There’s a lot of hope for this title and a great future — it hasn’t plateaued yet, and I don’t think it will for quite some time to come.