Loading... Will WAR Succeed?

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Loading... putting the 'Mo' in MMOG.

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn't enough, we also show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

Warhammer Online - 200 BPM
World of Warcraft - 194 BPM
Age of Conan - 70 BPM
Tabula Rasa - 20 BPM
Lord of the Rings Online - 15 BPM
EVE Online - 14 BPM
EverQuest II - 10 BPM
Stargate Worlds - 9 BPM
Vanguard - 8 BPM
Lineage II - 7 BPM

There are thousands upon thousands of people employed in the massively multiplayer online game industry. With numbers that large it is inevitable that a few of them aren't going to be particularly bright. Recently an Age of Conan GM participated in some cyber-sex shenanigans while on duty. Tricked rather easily into partaking in nasty talk, the GM was then informed that he had been deceived by the player who was in fact a male playing a male character. The whole situation is disturbing in a 'how dumb can you be' kind of way, although the "This is Sparta" shout by the player when he delivered the punchline was worth a laugh. Kotaku has the dirty details.

Erling Ellingsen, Product Manager had this to say to us.

"We have a very clear code of conduct for everyone working at Funcom, especially those working with customer service. This behavior is certainly not tolerated, and the individual involved is not working with Funcom anymore."

We quickly asked several celebrities for their opinions on the cyber-sex story,

"My name Borat. I like you. I like sex. Is nice! "--Borat

"For the last time, stop banging on my closet door!" --Tom Cruise

"I think that gay marriage should be between a man and a woman." --Arnold Schwarzenegger

I wonder what William Shatner would say about this or perhaps about the upcoming Star Trek Online (STO)
MMOG? Jack Emmert, Creative Director at Cryptic Studios recently revealed eight STO gameplay details while announcing the title at a Las Vegas Star Trek convention.

With Warhammer Online just around the corner our own Coby "got baby" Bye and Danny "Ralsu" Gourley revealed their own list of pros and cons. Will WAR Succeed? Cody tells all.

"One of the elements that may have had the biggest influence in WoW's success - and looks to have a similar affect on the end results of WAR - is the idea of a dedicated fan base that will automatically be interested in the game and be one of the most vocal groups in attracting more players to the game. Just like WoW had in 2004, Warhammer Online already has a dedicated fan base that has been created through the exciting antics of the WAR developers (more on that later), the popularity and success of other Warhammer-based video games, and the sheer popularity of the Warhammer Online miniatures game."

I agree with most of what Cody puts forth in his "pros" article. The gameplay is close enough to what people 'know' to be comfortable, but reaches far enough to make it feel different and new. The PvP (RVR) play will make or break the game.

As a long-time fan of the Warhammer tabletop game, I once owned a 5,000 gaming parlour filled with Warhammer tables and computers for EverQuest players, I have a skewed perspective. I enjoy the background story and perhaps more importantly I know the background story. I know what Altdorf is. I have already formulated opinions about the races and was disappointed that the Skaven weren't included as a race at launch.

Players who have no previous tastes of the Warhammer universe will be basing their opinion wholly on how much fun the game is to play. The subtle tastes and sentimentalisms aren't there to help the game along. I hope that the thousands of tabletop players give this title a try, but I'm not confident that they will. How much overlap is there between a group that builds and paints models, then sets them down on a intricately crafted tabletop to do battle with the group that hunkers down behind their 30" monitor to hack virtual bad guys to bits? The former group certainly has disposable income. Just buying the models for a Warhammer army can costs thousands of dollars. Will playing a single character be as appealing to them as playing the general who commands the army? I'm not sure, but I hope so.

Danny delivered the cons. Again I agree with some of them, especially that EA has no reason to love the Warhammer community. I can't explain how pleasant it is to deal with Mythic Entertainment. EA is difficult to deal with on any level. If Mythic is Jekyll, EA is Hyde.

They haven't stopped us from delivering Warhammer Online beta coverage. Today, compliments of Tony Jones you can read, The Good, The Bad, The Greenish - Dwarf Engineers.

Are you ready for WAR? Will you be playing? Perhaps you are waiting for Wrath of the Lich King to launch?

Share! The Loading Forums await you. Do you feel the need to contact me personally with naughty pictures or derogatory comments? Here's my E-mail.

[A big thanks to Phil Comeau for putting together the links and Real World News.]

19 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 87 in August! 2004 in 2008!

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Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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