Warhammer Online... or offline?

That time has come around again when I am feeling a little restless, I've got the pre-patch blues. As a regular WOW altoholic I PUG a lot and the upcoming LFG system has got me pretty excited, no more hanging around Dalaran hoping for a party.. maybe!

So I thought I'd check out an old flame, Warhammer Online. I used to think Warhammer had some of the best PVP on the market, Scenarios totally whooped the arse of WOW's battlegrounds. I eventually threw in the towel really because I ran out of stuff to do, when my Chosen hit Tier 4 it was virtually empty and the world PVP was starting to feel a little directionless (musical keeps anyone?), I enjoyed Scenarios, I wanted to do more instances but if there were lots, they kept them really well hidden!


So I've just had a quick spin on my old account for a couple of hours... hmmm. Technically the same is better, it is faster, more stable, a lot less bugs for sure but unfortunately the open game seems to be even emptier than it ever was. I played 3 characters, different tiers and on every single character the world was virtually dead, tumbleweed city, you know what I'm talking about?


I'm sure there are people around, in Scenarios there are for certain, the rest doing their own private shit I guess? Hell this is supposed to be an MMO! It's not about private shit, if I wanted to do that I'd go play Left4Dead or something.


In WOW I can go nearly anywhere in the world and there are people, I'm not just talking Northrend. I could go to the middle of Thousand Needles, at least one person would be trying to kill Arikara, at least one person would be doing the chests quest. I could stand in the middle of Freewind Post and I know there would be at least a couple of other people there with me. 

I know WOW has 11mil subs or whatever, but hey, they're not all on my server! Aren't something like 8mil in Asia or something? Who knows... I just know they're not all on my realm.


It makes me a little sad, I really wanted Warhammer to work. In essence it's a solid game, all the niggles that were there at launch appear to have gone, I don't think it would have taken much to push this one into the AAA league, but for whatever reason it missed the mark.


I listened to the latest Warhammer Alliance podcast and I was shocked to hear that at least half of the podders didn't even have active subs any more! Wow, that really is a sign of the game, how can you talk about a game that you don't even play any more!



Now that EA own Mythic and Bioware and I'm getting pretty excited about SW:TOR, I mean who isn't? What kind of future does Warhammer Online have? What kind of future does Mythic have?


I won't give up just yet, I've paid my sub for a month and I'm damned well gonna get my moneys worth... well at least until 3.3 comes out, hehe. If I change my mind and look back in horror at this article I'll let you know :P