Warhammer Online - Closed Beta Apps

[PariaH]

Beta applications are now open, if you bothered to sign up for the monthly newsletter you'll already be aware and should register using that email address, if not head over to http://www.war-europe.com/ and register.

[Ludicrouse]

Well, im quite shocked at the stupidity of the form design, it will not let you enter a post code with more than 7 letters in it.

quite retarded...

[WiGgLr]

hmm, I didn't get an email but I am on the newsletter list

[Ludicrouse]

hmm, I didn't get an email but I am on the newsletter list

Neither did i m8... they are usually a few days late with mine tho.


OMFG, in the Video Chipset listing the highest they go is a fucking GeForce FX and Radeon 9800... fuck me, stoneage or what!?

This does not bode well...

[WiGgLr]

I stopped after it asked for dxdiag thing.. can't do that from work

[Ludicrouse]

I stopped after it asked for dxdiag thing.. can't do that from work

You might as well m8 it has about as good a chance of guessing your System Specs from work as it does on your home PC...

It guessed my processor was just an 'AMD Chip' rather than an Athlon64 which is logged right at the start of my DXDiag.


Worst beta form ever... wtb new Webmaster...

[Derekian]

uhm i can't complete the form....when i get to the end and press Validate it just starts all over again. :S

[WiGgLr]

You might as well m8 it has about as good a chance of guessing your System Specs from work as it does on your home PC...

It guessed my processor was just an 'AMD Chip' rather than an Athlon64 which is logged right at the start of my DXDiag.


Worst beta form ever... wtb new Webmaster...

you have to upload a dxdiag.txt to even get as far as selecting hardware.. I can't do it from work

[Maurgrim]

Yeah and I can't use the e-mail addy I use for the newsletter... bleh :x

[Gunhead]

Serves you right donnerwetter!

[Maurgrim]

Vuohenraiskaaja ! :mad:

[Guy]

You know what? I'm gonna wait on this one. I just don't have the time to dedicate to farting around with a beta at the moment, so I'll wait for the final code to come around, then if I hear good things I'll play, if not, I won't. I've beta tested pretty much every MMO that's ever been done, and I'm bored of playing buggy piles of crap in my free time. The only exception was prolly testing WoW because the beta was easily as solid as any other game's actual release code - stronger if anything.

[Hovis]

You know what? I'm gonna wait on this one. I just don't have the time to dedicate to farting around with a beta at the moment, so I'll wait for the final code to come around, then if I hear good things I'll play, if not, I won't. I've beta tested pretty much every MMO that's ever been done, and I'm bored of playing buggy piles of crap in my free time. The only exception was prolly testing WoW because the beta was easily as solid as any other game's actual release code - stronger if anything.

Word.

Unless I'm getting paid for it I'm not touching beta code again. :D

[justinalot]

It has always bugged me that they can release a game so You! the gamer can play it first lol

I always thought why play something thats only helping the Game developer for nothing, now i know people will say, that the games would take longer to release and cost more due to development, but really do they ever really change anything other than BUGS in Game play?

I have never seen a DEV say Yes your right we got it wrong that idea is silly well change it.

[Ludicrouse]

It has always bugged me that they can release a game so You! the gamer can play it first lol

I always thought why play something thats only helping the Game developer for nothing, now i know people will say, that the games would take longer to release and cost more due to development, but really do they ever really change anything other than BUGS in Game play?

I have never seen a DEV say Yes your right we got it wrong that idea is silly well change it.

You never played EQ2 Beta then... or City Of Heroes/Villains Beta's...

Hell even WoW Beta did a u-turn on more than one occasion.

[Bagpuss]

or even Vanguard beta... the devs there always did U turns at the players requests .... oh wait ... hang on...

[WiGgLr]

or even Vanguard beta... the devs there always did U turns at the players requests .... oh wait ... hang on...

I thought we had already established that the reason SOE are taking over is because the devs did nothing?

[Ironman]

I thought we had already established that the reason SOE are taking over is because the devs did nothing?

So the different is? :D

[Hovis]

SOE devs do what I tell them, e.g. the new Mossies, Sunderer assault vehicle. :D

[Ludicrouse]

SOE devs do what I tell them, e.g. the new Mossies, Sunderer assault vehicle. :D

So your to blame for PS being poorly developed, SWG bombing through the CU and NGE and Matrix Online being a pile of shit?



BURN HIM, BURN THE BREAD!!!!

[Hovis]

So your to blame for PS being poorly developed, SWG bombing through the CU and NGE and Matrix Online being a pile of shit?



BURN HIM, BURN THE BREAD!!!!

Bring it on Scholesy.

[Ludicrouse]

Bring it on Scholesy.

Hovis that is pathetic, not even Rebel could come up with an insult that poor, hang your head in shame.

Anyway, Scholes is one of the finest players to wear an England jersey in the past decade so being compared to him is a compliment tbh!

[Hovis]

Hovis that is pathetic, not even Rebel could come up with an insult that poor, hang your head in shame.

Anyway, Scholes is one of the finest players to wear an England jersey in the past decade so being compared to him is a compliment tbh!

Whatevah Evans.

By the way, hate to break back into topic, but does anybody know a damn thing about this game? I mean is there any reason at all for it to be any good?

As far as I see it LOTRO took the WoW, EQ2 sort of formula about as far as it can go, and it's not that great. Unless there's something revolutionary going on with the system in Warhammer it can fuck off.

[PariaH]

great 1 less person to compete with for a beta spot then.

[Hovis]

great 1 less person to compete with for a beta spot then.

As if I have to 'compete' with the peasants. :p

If I deem it worth my time to preview it I'll phone their PR.

[Ludicrouse]

WoW2.0 as rumour goes... ill let you make of that what you will...

[PariaH]

if it is like wow2.0 with more focus on pvp ill be very happy,

[Ludicrouse]

if it is like wow2.0 with more focus on pvp ill be very happy,

Its pretty much that i hear, there are a few gameplay videos on Youtube and tbh, it doesnt look too impressive really.

[Maurgrim]

They're in alpha boy :p

[Hovis]

From the gameplay it looks just like LOTRO. In other words, souped up Warcraft.

BORING.

Seriously, I'm tired of the same old shit. It might do well with grind junkies, but really these games have nothing to offer me. Age of Conan could break the mould because it's a game where, theoretically, you need some level of skill to play. I'm still doubtful though. I think WoW was so successful that it might have killed off the genre for me, developers look to emulate WoW, a game which embodies the worst elements of the time sink MMO, and ideas like Consequential PvP, supply and demand economies etc go out the window.

In other words, the best system I ever played was UO. No grind. No quests. Here's the world, here's some newbie kit, go to work. If you die, recover your kit, if you kill somebody, search that bitch and kill his horse. Item loss through lootings, unrecoverable bodies and just good old fashioned shit wearing out meant that the economy worked in a dynamic and logical way. The lack of a level grind meant that it was the skills of the player that made a character effective, not the time spent playing. And because there were no raids, no levels, no instances and no grind the hard dungeons were always tough. None of this level by level area progression so you see the world. If you wanted to see level three of the Terathon keep and you weren't a provo bard you needed cajones of steel. Best of all your characters weren't heroes, they were citizens, nobodies. If you wanted to be a legend you damn sure had to earn it, by impressing real people, not some NPC bitches.

The good old days it seems are gone. MMOs feature linear gameplay, where everybody is a hero that saves the world. Items last forever, or you fix them with an NPC, so the economy only works because of the level grind. Quest rewards mean you can't stab a guy and take his gear if you like it, because he'd probably sue you.

I have no faith left. Conan needs to be great.

[XIX]

From the gameplay it looks just like LOTRO. In other words, souped up Warcraft.

BORING.

Seriously, I'm tired of the same old shit. It might do well with grind junkies, but really these games have nothing to offer me. Age of Conan could break the mould because it's a game where, theoretically, you need some level of skill to play. I'm still doubtful though. I think WoW was so successful that it might have killed off the genre for me, developers look to emulate WoW, a game which embodies the worst elements of the time sink MMO, and ideas like Consequential PvP, supply and demand economies etc go out the window.

In other words, the best system I ever played was UO. No grind. No quests. Here's the world, here's some newbie kit, go to work. If you die, recover your kit, if you kill somebody, search that bitch and kill his horse. Item loss through lootings, unrecoverable bodies and just good old fashioned shit wearing out meant that the economy worked in a dynamic and logical way. The lack of a level grind meant that it was the skills of the player that made a character effective, not the time spent playing. And because there were no raids, no levels, no instances and no grind the hard dungeons were always tough. None of this level by level area progression so you see the world. If you wanted to see level three of the Terathon keep and you weren't a provo bard you needed cajones of steel. Best of all your characters weren't heroes, they were citizens, nobodies. If you wanted to be a legend you damn sure had to earn it, by impressing real people, not some NPC bitches.

The good old days it seems are gone. MMOs feature linear gameplay, where everybody is a hero that saves the world. Items last forever, or you fix them with an NPC, so the economy only works because of the level grind. Quest rewards mean you can't stab a guy and take his gear if you like it, because he'd probably sue you.

I have no faith left. Conan needs to be great.

Did u hafto remind me of how UO used to be in the begining :(

[justinalot]

Hovis I think you have a bit of a high standard and you seem to be looking for a game that will probably never happen within the next 5 years or so.
You know full well how long it take to develop a game and you also know that the money they spend on Games has to make a return on investment.
Games are becomming like Hollywood Movies a set formula with a twist to see if you can make some more money.
I am suprised you have this attitude as you write for a magazine, and you probably know more about whats comming than anyone here, I think the biggest problem we all have now is that we are getting older, and we dont consider what that the younger people have more time and more money than we did when where there age.
Lots of the people that still play WOW are younger than me and they love the game since the expansion, and found the original to hard (Tossers).

Planetside now has an older bunch of players and its rare to see hear younger players on TS.

As the ginding goes in games, I can understand why they do this as it ensures a Subscription for X amount of time. I think WOW made a mistake with there expansion in that the content was not enough as people where getting to level 70 within a week, hell a guy did it in less than 24 Hours on one server. With that in mind I imagine Blizzard will look back and not make the same error, in others words make a new game and draw it out as much as they can.
I get the feeling now a days that the Big games companies just dont care anymore.

The game I am looking for is a MMOPVPRPG which is on 1 Server across the world, lots of choice in the game to do what you want to do.

My one Idea I always had was to use Game Engines and MOD them to make a BattleGround across the world. Just mod each game to connect to a server which provides a World BattleField using games like Rainbow 6, Armed Assault, the one with the tanks, Some kind of Sea Game, and a RTS type game to command people what to do and when.

Register your game for example I like playing Rainbow 6 RavenSheild, which means I expect to play Spec ops and team Play With Other R6 people.

Example

Hovis Plays Lock-On
Justin plays Rainbow Six
Kampf plays (with himslef) :D A type of ground Armored game
Derek plays Lock-On
Shy plays Lock-On
Reb plays Rainbow Six
Skull plays Ground Type Game


So this means all the above players can Solo and do what they want or they can Alliance to make a Fighting Force.

Hovis is being hounded by Spec ops Teams killing his Fuel Supply from Kampf, so he then asks for protection form a Rainbow 6 player.
You earn Credits/Money by helping one another and pit yourself against other Alliances or just solo Players

I imagine a Mission Auction type Thing where you can bid for missions that offer the highest amount of Credits.

Imagine Sub Games Sea Games and Aircraft spec op games could all join in, SPec ops would need transport to complete a mission so would would need a ParaDrop to the Destination and if flying over the sea will need support from the Sea based game player. Just because 1 person is asking for assistance it does not mean he cant take on more offers from people flying through the airspace, he can offer support for as many as he thinks he can handle, if he fails to support you dont make your destination, which means you fail your attack, which means you can take an amount from him in compensation.

I see the World Map as an expanding Account Fest in which the areas become bigger as more people register, at the start of the game perhaps it will take no time at all to get to Scotland but once more people register the land mass will increase meaning you have further to get there, so for instance I live in the UK South in a village so thats my base of operations I have real estate for that area which means if I am online and someone wants to enter my airspace I charge them or I give them free pass, or I attack them. Which means I could quickly ask hovis who Flys planes to come a defend my airspace, meanwhile I am being attacked by ground forces on my base and i need Skull to come and fend them off, Out at sea, a player is offering assistance from his aircraft carrier but at a price, do i take up his offer or risk him being offended and attacking me also?
All of this could be shown live on a website so you can track the war during the day.
For instance you want to go on holiday so you pass your base to a player you trust, which means any requests to pass through your area will be answered by that person.
Credits and money are earnt by trading fuel offering support attacking and so on.

I imagine the Main server to deal with Requests and collect data from each Modded game and then Export the Data to another Modded Game.

Only the same Games can interact with each other, so you will not be able see the Rainbow Six players in action while in another type of Game.

You can View a Video from the RTS point of view and watch a stream of the game from there. ( Hovis has asked for me to go and assassinate a general of a player, and he wants to make sure the job is done or he can watch highlights if he was not on at the same time, kind of like a news feed)

The RTS side of the game will be managing the resources that are needed for an Alliance to work, meaning organising MOre fuel and Ammo to be deilivered to players in your alliance. The RTS side of the game can be managed by Leaders of the Alliance and its up to them to maintain the Defences and Plan Attacks and sort out permission for Airspace and GroundSpace to complete there goal. This would stop a small force heading to America as the real Estate on the way would be owned by many people and you would either have to fight your way through or just plain luck it. The RTS side of the game is the version in which the main parts of the game reside and Alliance plans can be made form there. Setting up trade routes and importing new advanced weapons from Factorys offering them, (which of course will need air defence and Spec ops defence to make sure they can develop more advanced weapons, this side of the game would be for the grinding games in which like EVE you mine for ore and BLAH boring boring, but people like different games.

People who like to write and find out information can make newspapers and promote themsleves so people want to read there stories, in this they can offer advertisement for Recruiting and perhaps even transmit Coded messages for the Innner cell who dont have as much access to the news. Basically some areas dont accept foreign newspapers and so on.

Each Area will be neutral until and aliance is formed or your are attacked.

The game would launch using 2 Modded Games of the Most popular and develop from there adding extra modded games to the list to offer more assitance as time goes on.

I know this is all a bit pipe dream stuff but in my world of thought its not entirely impossible to make this happen. I actually spoke with a modder for Rainbow 6 way back and asked if this sort of thing was possible and he was very keen to make maps for the genre.

All thats really needed is a company and team of developers to make the Main Database server and use the modding comunity to supply the addon for each game.

Well thats my big idea for a game. Ideally it would be best in 1 game but that will not happen as it will take too long to develop and you might as well use whats out there already, as you can just mod new games to interact with the server, ehich would mean the actual Money making side of the game would be off the back of Modders and people like Blizz and EA who would make all the Content, all I would do is change the content and use there engines to drive it forward.

[WiGgLr]

I decided not to sign up for beta with this game, going to hope for AoC beta instead.

In response to the posts by Hovis and Justin, I read this blog (http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/levelup/archive/2007/06/07/i-for-one-do-not-welcome-our-new-wii-overlords.aspx)yesterday. Your thoughts on the writers perspective?

[XIX]

Well justinalot i dont think Hovis is aiming to high after all what he wishes for has allready been released over 9 years ago... and if DF ever gets done and live up 2 half the xpectations will be so again.

And b4 that happends i know i will never play an mmorpg again UO set my standard 9 years ago and if they cant make something better then that old game im sticking with PS anad free PvP servers in UO.

[justinalot]

Yeah for me WOW ended up being my life and I did not like the fact you cant just join in.

I love PS and I think lots of people really want to play it again but just dont want to give SOE there money for the sub.

Lots where really let down by the Expansions and the extras they brought to the game years ago and it it is only now that the Devs are actually joining in and listening once again.

I really hope there is some sort of shake up in PS that will really turn the game over.

I can only think that a free SUB will do it. Biggest problem with that is lots of kids and hackers start to play.

[XIX]

Yea i like the overall "mature" players in PS atm think it tip the scale infavor despite crap new content and fewer players. My 2 biggest hopes (that i know never gonna happen) is 1. one empire per server 2. Remove BFRs i think those two things did most damage to the game.

[Hovis]

>snipped quote cos it was huge :D<

All that business with crossover game specialities is possible with ArmA in the medium to long term. The dynamic campaigns for that game are getting ever more sophisticated. I've monkeyed about with a military simulator that does something similar, allowing many different roles to be merged within one game.

The problem with big complex projects like this is first bugs and securing the system. I mean even a basic FPS these days will be buggy as hell, and you're talking about interfacing it with something else, that'd be tough. Second problem you've got is there is no one-size-fits-all FPS, which would be basically the core of the game in many ways. Some people like Quake-style, some like Armed Assault, some like BF2, others like Planetside.

The best solutions to this sort of deal is actually to go old school tech. Bring in the human factor so to speak. For instance take an idea from pen and paper RPGs and realise the combat element using a game engine, in other words appoint a referee or GM or whatever, have him determine objectives based on the success or failure of missions. ArmA is ideal for this because you can make the missions as you see fit.

Problem there is that you end up not having a PvP or even much of an MMO element to it, because you can't cater to hordes of people. But with the right game that's not a massive problem.

[Hovis]

I decided not to sign up for beta with this game, going to hope for AoC beta instead.

In response to the posts by Hovis and Justin, I read this blog (http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/levelup/archive/2007/06/07/i-for-one-do-not-welcome-our-new-wii-overlords.aspx)yesterday. Your thoughts on the writers perspective?

I think what the writer has failed to realise is that you can't compare the Wii with the X360 and PS3. The Wii is not a next gen console, it's a Gamecube re-release. It's just not capable of competing with Gears of War etc, and people don't want it to really. That doesn't mean that all there will be for Xbox in five years is Marioparty clones though.

[Ludicrouse]

In defense of the Bread i dont think his expectations are too high at all!

The MMO genre is unique in the fact that people seem happy with bug-ridden piss poor development, you just dont see in Single Player games.

There is absolutley no reason why MMO developers cant push the boundrys of the genre, it is not massively difficult to make a game people want after all PlanetSide was released yonks ago when MMO tech was still fairly primitive.

There is a fantastic article by the producer of Age Of Conan on CVG.com, in it he talks about the lack of evolution in the genre caused by lazy developers, greedy management and our (the gamers) complete sheepishness when confronting companys over releasing poor games. We as consumers dont vent our frustrations and unhappiness at developers and publishers very well, after all we are nothing more than their target audience whose whole part in the MMO market is to be kept amused and happy and the Developers just recently it seems have forgot the old saying 'The customer is always right'.

[Maurgrim]

Gief back Mechwarrior Online tbh :<
Best MMO evar for me.
You complete the training, then join one of the five great houses and off to war you go, conquering planet by planet. And so you don't get squashed in your (at first) light mech, you only get to play with peeps who have light to medium mechs. You earn higher ranks, which give higher pay and then you can buy better mechs to advance to the higher brackets e.g. from scouting missions with your light mech to full fledged frontal assaults in your heavy or assault mech.

[WiGgLr]

I think what the writer has failed to realise is that you can't compare the Wii with the X360 and PS3. The Wii is not a next gen console, it's a Gamecube re-release. It's just not capable of competing with Gears of War etc, and people don't want it to really. That doesn't mean that all there will be for Xbox in five years is Marioparty clones though.

I meant the part where he suggests that possible cash cow casual games (like the main part of the Wii's repertois aimed at encouraging non-gaming people to start gaming) which are quick and cheap to develop could push game developer and publishing companies into stopping time consuming development of more content heavy games for the more experience or hardcore gamer... Similar to the effect we already see that WoW has had on the MMORPG market.

[Hovis]

I meant the part where he suggests that possible cash cow casual games (like the main part of the Wii's repertois aimed at encouraging non-gaming people to start gaming) which are quick and cheap to develop could push game developer and publishing companies into stopping time consuming development of more content heavy games for the more experience or hardcore gamer... Similar to the effect we already see that WoW has had on the MMORPG market.

Ahh, well that could be the case. If games development follows the Hollywood model then it's certainly likely. I think however that what is achievable in gaming with a small team makes it more accessible than most industries. EVE Online was put together by a small team, Counter Strike was just a mod, and so on. To compete and beat the small developers the big software houses will need to provide something the little guys can't, that means big budget productions. If the likes of EA and Ubisoft start churning out minor, small time games they won't be able to compete with the independent developers.

[Omniel]

When reading the forums im thinking its great and intresting when sifting through
all those detailled and well (p)layed out PoV's /experiences/ debates, so thanks for that,
but sometimes im also thinking ur giving it way too much thought :p

[Daymare]

who the hell makes a signup form in flash? -.-
I can't see the part to upload my dxdiag file
my password was apparantly too long
what
the
fuck

[b00n]

Gief back Mechwarrior Online tbh :<
Best MMO evar for me.
You complete the training, then join one of the five great houses and off to war you go, conquering planet by planet. And so you don't get squashed in your (at first) light mech, you only get to play with peeps who have light to medium mechs. You earn higher ranks, which give higher pay and then you can buy better mechs to advance to the higher brackets e.g. from scouting missions with your light mech to full fledged frontal assaults in your heavy or assault mech.

Nooooooo, don't remind me of my misery.
MPBT:3025 rocked my world as well :(

[FuSs]

Anyone in yet?
Hope its worth the download time *grin*

[Kampf]

is it eaven possible to get into the beta as a single person?
a friend of mine got into the beta with a whole gild.
they got 28 keys.
i am personelly not intrested in this game at all.

[Derekian]

yep, yesterday they sent another wave of invites

they pick random ppl that have subscribed to the newsletter if im not wrong