As WAR's one-year anniversary rolls around, there's a lot about the game that has gone well, a lot that has not gone as planned, and a lot to come in the future. Warhammer Alliance caught up with Producer Jeff Skalski to talk turkey about WAR over the past year, as well as get some tidbits and teases about what's coming in the 1.3.2 patch.
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=310154Tell us a little bit about how specifically RvR has changed over the year since WAR came out. What do you think were the best changes and adjustments made to the system? What are the current issues you're observing in RvR besides what's already been mentioned/addressed (City Siege and Keep Taking)?
Since our launch in Sept ’08, we’ve revisited our RvR mechanic every patch by improving the experience, expanding it, and really just reacting to our players’ concerns along the way. For me, some of the RvR feature improvements we’ve added that I feel very positive about are the RvR token system, RvR Ward rewards, Land of the Dead Purge mechanic, recent city siege improvements along with how city instances get populated, the second Keep ramps, RvR status updates (icons, timers and zone control detail bar) and finally being able to queue for Scenarios from anywhere. Now, we couldn’t do everything, but we still have several more cool ideas to spice up the RvR playing field. As we finesse and introduce new things to the RvR experience, our main goal is to make sure we are encouraging players to magnetize towards each other and fight. Those are the fun moments we want players to never forget.
As for the biggest issue, we’re now focused on how not enough players are experiencing the end game content, revisiting the purpose of Fortresses in the Tier 4 campaign, and population imbalances. And just to clarify what I mean by imbalance, I’m not just referring to situations where this side out numbers that side 2 to 1, but also areas where one side just never catches a break and is always being dominated. These are the challenges we knew we were going to face in doing an RvR game with just two factions. There will always be one winner and one loser. We’re taking a hard look at systems to make sure we don’t continue to always allow the rich to get richer, and make sure to give the underdogs a chance. One thing we have learned is the winners and losers do flip flop back and forth, but sometimes not as much as we would like. And dominating your opponents all the time can get old since the challenge isn’t always there, so we have some things in the works. More details on that soon. =)
Coming up on one year since release, what are the things you think were done well when it came to WAR? What about things that could have been a bit better?
I think one of the best decisions we made early on was to not focus the whole team on a boxed expansion. We directed the whole development staff on the live product. Now, I read boards and know there is a group of players (you know who you are ) who feel our time could have been better spent fixing other issues in the game rather than introducing our free content expansion, the Land of the Dead. One thing I like everyone to understand is that the main team who was responsible for that awesome content was tasked with LotD from the day we launched. At that time, we felt players would be crying out for new PvE content nine months out from launch. Of course, being an RvR game we had to add an RvR twist to that concept, which gave birth to our purge mechanic and how the land is RvR gated via the campaign.
If I could rewind time I would not have launched with so many servers. It really just wasn’t needed, but you live and learn and move on. A lot of what we know now, I wish we knew back then, but quite honestly I don’t think we would have been able to come to the conclusions we have now (which, by the way, we are addressing) without seeing how players played WAR and watching the servers matured over 6+ months.
There's a lot of "woulda/shoulda/coulda" when it comes to the process of releasing an MMO like WAR, especially coming up on a one-year milestone. How do you address this notion of hindsight among the WAR community, both now and in the future, to build confidence in your product?
First and foremost, we need to be a little more transparent with our community about where we are and where we are going. My monthly producer’s letters we’ve been releasing are just one piece to support this initiative. The Executive Producer’s letters that Jeff Hickman wrote over the summer are another example. I hope you’ll continue to hear more from all developers on the team to gain a better insight into our process and decision making. We’ll continue to strive to keep you guys and girls in the loop on our priorities.
What else can you tell us about 1.3.2 and beyond? Anything you can reveal that will give the players insight on your future plans?
I pretty much covered most of it in my last letter, but the one thing I left out by accident was details on our career balance fixes going in, and the boards burned me for that. =) Now, this by no means is everything we wish we could do in time for 1.3.2, but it’s the most we could get done while making sure we retired stun out of the game and introduce stagger correctly to continue the positive changes we’ve be making since 1.3.0b on CC and AoE. Here are a few examples of what we are thinking…key words “few” and “thinking.”
1. Magus: Add Throwing Arm ability, like the Engineer has.
2. Black Guard: Add "Bodyguard" to mirror the Ironbreaker’s Oath Friend.
3. Marauder: Clone main hand weapon stats/dps to offhand weapon with a proc added based on Mutation.
4. Witch Elf: Change Kisses to match Bullets as long duration buffs that proc off finishers.
5. And more. Don’t worry Order you’ll get some love too. We’re just fleshing them out.
It's pretty clear that the MMO landscape is going to get a bit more crowded with titles like Aion and Champions Online coming in September. What are you or the Mythic team thinking of doing to best maintain WAR's viability and life throughout these next very competitive months?
In the coming months, we plan to stay focused on our 1.3.2 and 1.3.3 goals and, more importantly, keep improving the elements in WAR—such as open RvR and our city end-game experience—that our competitors simply don’t poses. Meanwhile, we will continue to address player concerns and introduce more polish across the board.
Tell us how you guys are going to be celebrating one year for WAR. We've heard all about The Wild Hunt Live Event, bonus items, unlocks, and rewards, and the like, but what can you tell the community about these things that you feel will give them incentive to participate, to say "I WANT to do these things?"
Wow, if The Wild Hunt dungeon, all the bonus items we’re throwing out there for our players and great improvements we’ve made with 1.3.1 is not enough, I’m not quite sure what anyone could do. =) Event cloaks giving speed buffs and fancy Veteran Rewarded banners with Renown Point and Experience Point gain bonuses sound like a good start to me. The Wild Hunt goes live on August 31st, so get your group ready! You can read more details about our veteran rewards for our loyal players here.
Your recent patching cycle appears to be a deviation from previous patching processes in terms of communication, number of things introduced, and overall execution. Is this a perception that is true and regardless of if it is, how have you seen a significant shift in how you're fixing problems, bugs, and issues since WAR's release?
I’m glad you asked this question. The answer is definitely “Yes.” Over the summer, we made some changes and took a hard look at the game with the help of our players, people we trust outside of the studio, internal Mythic devs, and our new brothers and sisters at BioWare. We pretty much tossed out our old patch plan and refocused it on the top issues in the games from you, the players. This started to trickle in with 1.3.0b, and the first wave just hit with 1.3.1. We have a lot more in the works for 1.3.2 and beyond. The only thing I will say is, I wish our launch of 1.3.1 was smoother. Let’s face it—the first four days of 1.3.1 were rather problematic. The issues were mostly driven by server and client stability issues, which have all now been addressed, along with a handful of content issues. I wish we could have caught these sooner, but even with three full weeks of Game Update 1.3.1 being tested on PTS, it didn’t matter. Rest assured, we have things in place for future patch releases to catch such things, and the WAR team and I are committed to making patch days as headache free as possible.
What do you have to say to those players who haven't stuck around for WAR but who may be watching for something to draw them back in? In coming upon one year with the game, what do you think are the main things that will hook these folks back into the WAR effort?
We’ve made huge performance improvements since launch, and have a few more things cooking that I think will make both our PC and Mac users happy. Career balance fixes continue to be introduced to help support a more fun and engaging play experience. We’ve made it easier to stay connected with your friends in-game, and this trend will continue as we introduce the apprenticeship/hireling system in 1.3.2. This new feature will allow players to play with their friends anywhere, regardless of Rank. The Land of the Dead offers exciting new challenges through our PQ system for those PvE-centric players out there, while making it an experience filled with danger and thrill, since you never know exactly when your enemies will arrive to kick you out. The first phase of our city siege revamps have occurred, making the end-game even more entertaining and action-packed. And lastly, players can now acquire Wards needed for higher level content through both PvE and RvR tracks that are no longer tied to gear.
The key drawing points for WAR remain the same, and if anything they’re stronger now than ever before since we’ve had a year to tweak and polish them. WAR is all about RvR play experience where your actions have outcome, slaughtering your enemy, capturing enemy objectives and assaulting their city—and if you’re good enough, defeating and capturing your enemy’s king. From day one, we offer an RvR play experience while also bringing you a blend of fresh new PvE content through our Public Quest system, living guilds that grow and change depending on your decisions, and competitive Scenario game-play that is always just a click away.
From an RvR perspective, where are your priorities here at the one-year anniversary of WAR? What on the long list of fixes and issues takes the highest priority now and for the coming months?
RvR priorities right now are our upcoming Fortress changes and new and improved Keep difficulty system. Both of these are on target to go live with 1.3.2 along with an underdog system to help encourage more balance between the Realms. Removing the Fortresses will allow more players to experience the new revamped cities and the new Keep difficulty system will better reward players for fighting each other around Keeps, along with clearly showing up-to-date Keep status on the map.
As for the long list of fixes, we’re looking at fixing things such as the contribution distribution on the rams, and pricing adjustments to the Ordinance system. For additional features, we are discussing ways to spice up the Tier 4 open-field RvR experience, introduce an RvR component into the city Warlord and King encounters, and bring a new purpose to Fortresses now that they won’t be tied to the Tier 4 campaign.
How's the morale or feeling around the office? From my brief interactions with your team, you're definitely a "work hard, play hard" type of office.
Definitely. Some of the most passionate people I have ever worked with are here at Mythic. We all play MMOs, tabletop games, TCGs, and console games. I think general impression of our one-year anniversary for WAR coming up is disbelief. It’s hard to believe one full year has already past. It feels like five to me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been fast, but it just seems like it was a long time ago when we launched. There are a lot of cool things coming down the pipe for Warhammer that I can’t wait to share. Till then, enjoy 1.3.1, and be on the lookout for more 1.3.2 info over the coming weeks. After you play a few hours of those “other” games and are left feeling there’s just something missing, remember we’ll be knocking on the gates of your capital city and you’re only a click away from joining the action
