Ratboy’s “Rant”icles #4

Breaking the Market?

Now GW Kiddies won’t have to leave the store!

I used to play a lot of Warhammer, and when I say ‘a lot’ I mean A LOT, and when I say I ‘used to’ I really mean I USED TO. A certain MMO changed all that and I am now spending more time playing online games then I am actually getting in games of Warhammer Fantasy or 40k. Considering the game I got suckered into was not Warhammer Online, I shudder at the thought of how many GW players might get taken out of the hobby when Warhammer Online does come out.

Using my hometown as an example of a Warhammer community; there are very few people here who play Fantasy, instead my city is considered much more of a 40k place. The majority of players in my area are all Warhammer 40k players, with a large percentage of them being in the 12-18 year old range. Most of those 40k players are interested in Warhammer Online as a lot of them play WoW, and ever since they started WoW their tabletop gaming time has seen a drastic decrease. I am still unsure if this is a bad thing or not…

Since there are a fair number of “Kiddies” who have recently gotten into GW games, the atmosphere has changed a lot from when I first started playing tabletop games. There is a lot more emphasis on coming down to the local gaming store and getting wrangled into a game with someone, playing maybe 1-2 games and then heading home. Back in my day (and I’m not too old mind you) there used to be an emphasis on planning your games, taking a good pause after a game and talking about what happened and how you could have improved. With the recent rush of people into the GW hobby there is less emphasis on the game & learning it, and more emphasis on playing games. In one respect I hope Warhammer Online takes these players away, and in another respect I don’t want to see them ruin WAR.

Tabletop games are a social interaction, which means that players need to be willing to sit down and talk to people, work out any kind of rules disputes, and generally try to have a good time together. MMO’s are an entirely different beast, emphasizing social interaction in simply a “getting along” aspect with no requirement of making others enjoy the game. Since Warhammer Online will be attracting a wide variety of gamers including those who play tabletop games, RPGs, and even other MMOs there will hopefully be some variety (just like in most games) in terms of how players will interact and what the game will be about to people.

Since a large portion of tabletop gaming consists of 1v1 action, I am still uncertain as to how those players will integrate into the MMO community. Warhammer Online is based around team fighting and realms fighting realms. Since there is a stark contrast between the tabletop game and the online environment there will be a development period once the game is launched to see how the Tabletop players are able to adapt to the online world and realize that the game itself is not about 1v1 action but instead is dedicated more around players helping players and defeating players on other teams through group actions.

Most of the Warhammer players in my city are at least interested in giving Warhammer Online a shot, and they have never been interested in doing any sort of MMO gaming, this of course is another benefit to basing an MMO off an existing game universe (like WoW did) as it has a pre-ready fanbase willing to play the game. Warhammer has been around for a long time now and has attracted a group of loyal fans who are both old and young; the main audience of the MMORPG. It will be good to see some new blood in the MMO industry, and hopefully their tabletop manners won’t make the game unbearable to play!

There is one other sub culture I would like to mention here because I think it’s important, and that would be the “GW Store Kiddies”. For the most part these are kids who spend their time at their local GW store begging and pleading for Mommy/Daddy to buy them “just one more box”. I know for a fact that it is harder and harder for kids to get involved in MMOs these days. Since not every young kid has access to a credit card or has the time/access to acquire game cards it is simply harder for them to get into the MMO industry (not impossible though). I assume that most of the GW kiddies will sucker their parents into getting them a subscription, and in turn I assume that a large majority of them will drop off the face of the Earth and hide in their basements playing WAR all day long. I can see lots of benefits to this game already…

All in all there are going to be bumps in both the online and tabletop community when Warhammer Online comes out. Players will be getting involved in WAR and then possibly switch back to tabletop gaming, or maybe even forsake tabletop gaming entirely for WAR, there are a lot of possibilities. I just hope that both of the gaming environments can do well as Warhammer Online starts to make its grand debut appearance. Of course I haven’t even mentioned the RPG players who will be affected, or those who aren’t interested in WAR at all, because there’s just too much to talk about if I do that. Plus RPG players aren’t real… ok maybe they are… I am one after all!

-Ratboy Away

-Ratboy

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