by Cody
“Micajah” Bye



When the Ten Ton Hammer team traveled to the Leipzig Games Convention a
few weeks ago, we knew that the Warhammer Online team was going to be
announcing the last two races for their game, the High Elves and Dark
Elves. What we didn’t expect was the immense amount of people
that would be swarming into the WAR booth on a daily basis, hoping to
nab a fifteen minute play session with the game. Lines for the game
were so long that they stretched out into neighboring booths and
beyond.

style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: right; width: 148px; height: 185px;"
border="1">

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/11759"
title="AGDC Pictures 059"> src="/image/view/11759/preview"
width="200">

Mark and Cody
discussing the future of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning at AGDC.

While at the show, the editorial staff at Ten Ton Hammer concluded that
our Best of Show award would be handed to Warhammer Online, not
only for their fantastic presentations and gameplay but for the sheer
amount of fan interest that was being displayed at their booth. Only a
week after the German convention, Cody “Micajah”
Bye was on his way to the Austin Game Developers Conference, and while
attending the show he met up with EA Mythic’s general
manager, Mark Jacobs, to discuss Warhammer Online and what was next for
the upcoming MMOG.



As a first hand observer of the sort of craziness that was going on at
the Warhammer Online booth, my first concern was to ask Mark what sort
of response had he seen post-Leipzig. “It’s been
overwhelming,” Mark said. “If you look at the
number of people that were at the show and how many of them filled our
booth on a daily basis, I think it’s fairly safe to say that
we did pretty well. There was even one guild that drove forever to get
to the show and then truly did nothing but circle around the line to
play on our machines.



“People coming to see something? That’s
hype,” he added. “People staying to play the game?
That’s when you know you’re on the right track.
Obviously we’ve done really well on the “buzz
factor”, but to have people stand in line simply to play
through the game over and over again… What more can you
ask?”



Anymore it seems that most of the MMOG hype has been controlled by one
giant gorilla that sits in the corner of the room and its name is
“Blizzard.” However, Warhammer Online had a
comparable booth presence to the Blizzard products at the show and was
certainly no slouch in the hype department. For those who may not be as
familiar with the Warhammer universe, I asked Mark why he thought the
game had already generated so much fan responsiveness.



“Two reasons,” Mark answered. “We have
the advantage of a very well known and very well loved IP. Warhammer
isn’t as popular as, let’s say, Lord of the Rings.
But what Warhammer does have is a really loyal and really committed
fanbase that spends a lot of time and money playing their game. While
we may not have the sheer numbers that the Lord of the Rings or Star
Wars may have, we do have people who just LOVE this IP.”



“Combine that with a very good marketing plan and the cool
stuff we have in the game, and people know that we’re not
just trying to make WoW 1.5,” Mark added. “People
also know from our previous product (Dark Age of Camelot) that
we’re not going to be a vaporware company. They know that
they can look at this game and believe a little – hopefully
believe a lot.”



But at the same time, there have been times in the past where
individuals (myself included) have been sorely disappointed with the
eventual look, feel, and play of the game that they’d hyped
for months, even years. Asking for Marks’ opinion, I wondered
what his thoughts were on looking at a game before it even hits store
shelves.

style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: left; width: 148px; height: 185px;"
border="1">

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/10107"
title="WAR_WarriorPriest"> src="/image/view/10107/preview"
width="200">

Warhammer has an
extremely loyal fanbase who are more than willing to drive for hours to
play as this priest.

“Never judge a game until at least thirty days after it has
launched,” Mark said. “At points, back when we were
releasing Dark Age of Camelot, I’d tell the community not to
get terribly worked up over the game. Don’t expect that the
game will do everything AND bring you coffee in the morning. Look at
the game, and if you like what we’re doing and believe in us
that’s great. Keep it simple and don’t go
crazy.”



“Doling out messages like that, especially to the Warhammer
fanbase, is a great start,” he continued. “Then you
need to look at the history of online gaming. Generally when a game
gets to be around three years old, you really begin to see the
population of the game going down. It happened in Camelot, and it
happened in Everquest. You now have a lot of people entering their
third years with their respective game.”



I’ve heard that same sort of response, “numbers
lie”, from multiple people in many different areas of my
life. However, if a game’s numbers lie, which set of digits
should we believe?



“The monthly subscriber numbers,” Mark answered.
“In Warhammer or Camelot or WoW, it’s easy to see
our numbers. But some free-to-play games claim that they have nine
million people playing their game. No they don’t! They just
have nine million people who have given them their information.
I’m simply interested in the monthly subscriber.”