Waging WAR: Warhammer's new online store
Filed under: Fantasy, Warhammer Online, News items, Opinion, Waging WAR
This week's Waging WAR catches a whiff of recent happenings on the internet and with Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Greg dives in face-first, grabs a fist-full of the news, and delivers a fast-ball rant on the issue.
Well, apparently the RMT has hit the fan, and the resulting spackle is starting to plaster the proverbial walls of the blogosphere and beyond. Recently, some information was released about what players can expect to buy at EA-Mythic's new store. Although only a few items are actually available now, there's a pretty extensive FAQ on the server transfer service, and we'll have to wait a little longer for the Progression and Personality packs, as they're set to be released along with patch 1.4. Naturally, the drama is building up some nice momentum, and it will be interesting to see how the whine will affect this particular cheese over at the Mythic official forum.
For now, you can read past the break and enjoy my rant.
Well, apparently the RMT has hit the fan, and the resulting spackle is starting to plaster the proverbial walls of the blogosphere and beyond. Recently, some information was released about what players can expect to buy at EA-Mythic's new store. Although only a few items are actually available now, there's a pretty extensive FAQ on the server transfer service, and we'll have to wait a little longer for the Progression and Personality packs, as they're set to be released along with patch 1.4. Naturally, the drama is building up some nice momentum, and it will be interesting to see how the whine will affect this particular cheese over at the Mythic official forum.
For now, you can read past the break and enjoy my rant.
The item that seems to be getting the most attention is the Specialized Training pack, which offers a War Tract for $9.99 US. The use of the tract is extremely limited; it is only useable once per character per account, making this particular item mind-bogglingly expensive. Seriously, one level for 10 bucks? Really? You've got to be kidding me. If this item gets even one sale, I will eat my keyboard. OK, that's an exaggeration, because I know there are folks out there who would gladly throw away 10 dollars to see such a thing. But I digress.
Another item that concerns me is the Herald Pet Pack for $9.99. Although the pet is described as a "vanity" pet, the addition of the words "This pet will follow you around and give you a boost!" really sticks out. A boost? What kind of "boost" are we talking about here? Well, a little research goes a long way. Without actually going and buying one, I checked the forums, and there are already players enjoying a 3% movement speed increase. OK, now I'm getting concerned. That much of a speed-boost is huge. This is where pay meets win, and the line has been crossed. I'm seriously concerned about this item, and how it will affect the game. Knowing that it is a 3% boost, I'm seriously thinking about getting this item, and I'm almost certain that there are hundreds of players who have already capitalized on this opportunity. Hopefully it's not so game-breaking that everyone and his 2nd cousin twice-removed has this item, but I can definitely see that happening. Having the Warhammer world populated by these ridiculous little creatures scratching at everyone's heels could become quite obnoxious. I've yet to login and see these little buggers everywhere, but I fear the worst.
Now, we've known about the Progression Pack for some time, but up until now, the impression I was given (or was apt to take) was that the pack would simply increase the RR cap to 100, and nothing more. But now, the description of the item leads me to believe that there's more there than I had initially been told. It seems as though the pack will also offer accelerated RR gain through 1-80 and possibly beyond -- which, coincidentally, I was also aware of as a new feature coming with patch 1.4, but I was under the impression that it would be game-wide, offered to all characters and players. My first reaction -- taking all other forms of acceleration that have been offered in the past, with server new character incentives, Weekend Warfronts (+10% RR all weekend for one particular scenario), single and double aegis (+10%, +15% XP/RR for 60 seconds, 10m cooldown), Librams of Insight (+15% RR/INF/XP for two hours, with a 24hr cooldown, three charges) -- is that this type of enhancement would not be all that special, game-breaking or game-transforming on any level. I suppose the real factor is the amount of acceleration offered by the pack, exactly how often such an item or feature would be in effect for a character, and how many characters on the account are affected.
Given the fact that all or most of those other RR/XP boosts have existed since the game went live, I'm not particularly negatively impacted by such an offer. In fact, I'm actually interested. I would love to pick up a map to easy street and get my Archmage RR capped. I've even started up a whole stable of toons on Badlands with the intention of taking full advantage of such a pack. I'll feel disappointed (and cheated, actually) if the pack is offered on a per-character basis, rather than on an account-based level. Ultimately though, the price-point is the real question. I would pay $10 for this pack if it's account-level. Otherwise, I'll be passing on this item and (again) questioning the validity of my subscription. Up until I had originally heard about this item, I was quite happy to continue grinding my Archmage to RR80, and that progression stopped dead when the information on the RvR progression pack was first released. My will to continue leveling at those high levels was completely sapped. How Mythic plays this card in the future will determine the fate of my main character.
The Personalization Pack actually holds the most interest for me. I can't wait for it. I have several highish-level characters whose hairstyle or other feature choice I regret. For example, I would love the opportunity to remove the collector's edition blindfold from my Archmage. Ever since I put on my first circlet, the blindfold has come across as looking like nothing less than a really awful pair of shades straight out of the '80s (yes, worse than Mr. Barnett's stylistic trademark, even). I miss my old Archmage and how she looks from the really old screenshots of her back on Dark Crag.
What all of this comes down to for me is my position on RMT in general. And generally speaking, I'm opposed to it when it comes to games that also offer a subscription payment model. As I scan over some of the items that will eventually be offered for WAR, I'm not particularly offended by any of the items except for the possible precedent being set by the War Tract item and the must-have nature of the Herald Pet. I might even be convinced to throw down five bucks for a bunch of cool-looking trinkets, if only to have a handful of "I conquered the e-store and all I got was this trophy" trophies. Oh, and of course, I may have to spend the obligatory $9.99 for the Herald pet, if only to stay competitive. Ugh. /facepalm
The comments section is below. You know the drill.
Every Saturday afternoon, Waging WAR hits the cover of Massively with the latest and greatest in all things Warhammer Online. From patch news to career reviews, Greg Waller writes about it all. Email comments and questions to greg@massively.com.
While this item is absurd to even consider financially feasible for all but the wealthiest of island owners in the WAR community, the precedent that it sets is far more concerning. What this is basically saying is that levels can actually be sold for some real money equivalent. The next natural step in this direction is to begin selling character templates at a considerable "discount" compared to the war tract. Why buy a War Tract and gain a single level one time for $10 when you can buy a fully outfitted and leveled toon for $X? What would you pay for a 40/40 character fresh out of the box -- $40? $50? More? If the War Tract item sticks on the Mythic store, I honestly don't see anything stopping the devs from adding premade templates to the menu in the future. That's what concerns me, anyway. If and when that happens, I'll be seriously considering the value of my subscription. Hint hint. For all the time and energy I've spent leveling and playing characters in WAR, to have them instantly and irrevocably invalidated by some time-constrained golfing fanatic with a taste for F2P-esque MMOs would be a brutal falcon-kick to my subscription's groin.
Another item that concerns me is the Herald Pet Pack for $9.99. Although the pet is described as a "vanity" pet, the addition of the words "This pet will follow you around and give you a boost!" really sticks out. A boost? What kind of "boost" are we talking about here? Well, a little research goes a long way. Without actually going and buying one, I checked the forums, and there are already players enjoying a 3% movement speed increase. OK, now I'm getting concerned. That much of a speed-boost is huge. This is where pay meets win, and the line has been crossed. I'm seriously concerned about this item, and how it will affect the game. Knowing that it is a 3% boost, I'm seriously thinking about getting this item, and I'm almost certain that there are hundreds of players who have already capitalized on this opportunity. Hopefully it's not so game-breaking that everyone and his 2nd cousin twice-removed has this item, but I can definitely see that happening. Having the Warhammer world populated by these ridiculous little creatures scratching at everyone's heels could become quite obnoxious. I've yet to login and see these little buggers everywhere, but I fear the worst.
Now, we've known about the Progression Pack for some time, but up until now, the impression I was given (or was apt to take) was that the pack would simply increase the RR cap to 100, and nothing more. But now, the description of the item leads me to believe that there's more there than I had initially been told. It seems as though the pack will also offer accelerated RR gain through 1-80 and possibly beyond -- which, coincidentally, I was also aware of as a new feature coming with patch 1.4, but I was under the impression that it would be game-wide, offered to all characters and players. My first reaction -- taking all other forms of acceleration that have been offered in the past, with server new character incentives, Weekend Warfronts (+10% RR all weekend for one particular scenario), single and double aegis (+10%, +15% XP/RR for 60 seconds, 10m cooldown), Librams of Insight (+15% RR/INF/XP for two hours, with a 24hr cooldown, three charges) -- is that this type of enhancement would not be all that special, game-breaking or game-transforming on any level. I suppose the real factor is the amount of acceleration offered by the pack, exactly how often such an item or feature would be in effect for a character, and how many characters on the account are affected.
Given the fact that all or most of those other RR/XP boosts have existed since the game went live, I'm not particularly negatively impacted by such an offer. In fact, I'm actually interested. I would love to pick up a map to easy street and get my Archmage RR capped. I've even started up a whole stable of toons on Badlands with the intention of taking full advantage of such a pack. I'll feel disappointed (and cheated, actually) if the pack is offered on a per-character basis, rather than on an account-based level. Ultimately though, the price-point is the real question. I would pay $10 for this pack if it's account-level. Otherwise, I'll be passing on this item and (again) questioning the validity of my subscription. Up until I had originally heard about this item, I was quite happy to continue grinding my Archmage to RR80, and that progression stopped dead when the information on the RvR progression pack was first released. My will to continue leveling at those high levels was completely sapped. How Mythic plays this card in the future will determine the fate of my main character.
The Personalization Pack actually holds the most interest for me. I can't wait for it. I have several highish-level characters whose hairstyle or other feature choice I regret. For example, I would love the opportunity to remove the collector's edition blindfold from my Archmage. Ever since I put on my first circlet, the blindfold has come across as looking like nothing less than a really awful pair of shades straight out of the '80s (yes, worse than Mr. Barnett's stylistic trademark, even). I miss my old Archmage and how she looks from the really old screenshots of her back on Dark Crag.
What all of this comes down to for me is my position on RMT in general. And generally speaking, I'm opposed to it when it comes to games that also offer a subscription payment model. As I scan over some of the items that will eventually be offered for WAR, I'm not particularly offended by any of the items except for the possible precedent being set by the War Tract item and the must-have nature of the Herald Pet. I might even be convinced to throw down five bucks for a bunch of cool-looking trinkets, if only to have a handful of "I conquered the e-store and all I got was this trophy" trophies. Oh, and of course, I may have to spend the obligatory $9.99 for the Herald pet, if only to stay competitive. Ugh. /facepalm
The comments section is below. You know the drill.
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20101107205741im_/http://www.blogcdn.com/www.massively.com/media/2010/08/wargreg2.jpg)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Duulin said on 4:16PM 11-06-2010
This is awesome. In my opinion I am getting far more entertainment from the mismanagement of this game than the game itself ever provided. What will be even more entertaining is when the SWTOR community finds out that EA is testing the waters with WAR in the same way Turbine did with DDO.
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Greg Waller said on 4:35PM 11-06-2010
Oh, don't be mistaken. SW:ToR absolutely will have an e-store. There's almost no doubt about it.
Read about it here: http://pc.ign.com/articles/113/1132509p1.html
Fel said on 5:17PM 11-06-2010
Don't most MMOs these days have e-stores? Is this really shocking that TOR would?
crsh said on 8:48AM 11-07-2010
@ Fel
Sure, but it matters a great deal what is sold on it; love it or hate it, Blizzard hasn't gone down the stupid path with their e-store as they strictly only sell vanity pets and mounts that offer no "boost" of any kind. Not yet, at least.
Selling levels or pets with a movement increase = playing with fire; even if they don't end up selling fully-leveled characters, giving an advantage to those who shell out extra money basically makes it mandatory to stay competitive. It'll get ugly fast, and it'll possibly blow up in their face too.
Xsorus said on 4:28PM 11-06-2010
Rofl.. Wow i don't even know where to begin..
The War Tract has been in the game for months now , You can get one from Chapter 4 of both the Empire and Chaos Lands if you complete the influence of that Chapter, Plus it's one of the "prizes" given to the people who were over billed.
now if your argument is "Well they're not selling you a free level" then you simply have to go back to the Collectors Addition of the game, and see the 15% boost of XP you can get, Over time, It would equal out to close to a level. No one seems to have trouble with an XP boost which is basically a free level over time.
Next is the 3% speed boost, Yea.. that's so awesome, just like the 6% boost you can buy for officers tokens in game, that no one uses. If a person catches you in WAR because of a 3% speed boost, you were caught anyway.. 9/10 if you "get away" from anyone in this game, the first thing they're going to do is mount up and chase you down.
Seriously this whine post of yours is sad.
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Dumac said on 5:09PM 11-06-2010
Since you are not objecting i have to ask you, why do you want to be charged for stuff that, as you say, you can already get for free? Why do you want to be subjected to this type of treatment?
Fel said on 5:23PM 11-06-2010
Dumac:
...The stuff that is IN the game is still IN the game. I think you are confused. This is no change in "treatment," there's no change in "subjecting" us to things we can already get. If another player wants to pay for what I can get for free, I'm not going to object. I have no problem with the general idea of microtransactions, and every MMO I've played recently has them, even *gasp* WoW!
The speed boost also comes from a pet, so you get a vanity pet if you want one. *shrugs*
Qehb said on 5:06PM 11-06-2010
inc Free to Play?
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Fel said on 5:11PM 11-06-2010
I don't see how this is mismanagement. This is an attempt to move the game in a different direction so keep it sustainable with a smaller player base.
1) You can pay for a buff that is half as good as what you can get in game.
2) You can pay for an item you can get in game.
It is rampant speculation to believe you can expect them to put out premade level 40/rr40 characters. The WAR Tract exists in game, so it is not surprising to see them offer them for sale. It is another beast entirely for them to create premade characters you can pay for... there is no precedence for that in this game and thinking they would do so seems to be, well, dumb.
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Greg Waller said on 8:04PM 11-06-2010
Mythic already has a history of offering pre-leveled characters for UO.
See for yourself: http://www.uogamecodes.com/store/prod_detail.asp?ProdID=UOADVCHAR&CartID;={BD4042E9-D377-4B20-AF4F-4040B04623A7}&PromoID;=996
Iconic said on 5:11PM 11-06-2010
I assume they're just using WAR as an experimental cadaver in order to determine what kind of shenanigans they can get away with in TOR.
It's a shame that they have so little regard for their existing loyal customers.
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Pandemic said on 5:19PM 11-06-2010
Not sure what all the fuss is about. They said quite along time ago that they would offer some things for cash from a store that wouldnt give you any advantage in the game in pvp.
This is exactly what they have done. The 1 level you can buy (usable just once) is already available in the game as a chapter award - for free. Given you can go from rank 1- rank 40 in 3 days in game played I dont see how this affects the game.
Same with the 3% speed boost; as mentioned above theres already speed boots in the game you can buy with medallions, most players dont bother. I've seen players with the 3% speed boost pet and they didnt play any worse or better.
They are just a way of raising cash from people; so its a good idea.
Not sure where all this talk of 'payable templates' come from. They wont ever put this in the game for 1 simple reason - it would take players out of tier 1-3 and they dont want that to happen. Remeber this is a pvp game not a pve one, they need players in t 1-3.
Have to laugh at the article poster, not thought his arguements through very well. buying a 3% speed boost to remain competitive. ha ha rofl.
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Greg Waller said on 8:07PM 11-06-2010
But what if they offered pre-leveled tier specific templates, and introduced another "entitlement" at the same time, allowing one to "turn off" xp gain?
eLdritch said on 1:51AM 11-07-2010
3% movement speed increase IS a big deal... when you have 2 characters who are equally fast and one is chasing the other but is just out of melee range, he will never catch up unless some other factor intervenes. If the chasing player moves faster, even if it is just 3%, he will catch up! it won't even take super long if he is really just half a meter out of range... I've been playing a Retri paladin in WoW from vanilla til wotlk and ever since they introduced the 8% movement bonus and JoJ I was able to kill sooooooo much more in PvP which would otherwise just have gotten away...
and iirc that "6% movement increase that is already ingame" isn't that a talisman with an 8h duration?? that means you have to give up a talisman slot which is 20-odd points of stats and you will have to rebuy the thing all the time depending on how much you play.... so yeah a 3% increase that is permanent and doesn't take up any sort if slot is better.
It's not the most evil play to win thing I've ever seen but it definetely and without a doubt falls into that category... progression pack is even worse for everyone who is taking WAR PvP seriously... that is pretty much a forced buy... those 20 additional Renown Ability Points and the new, higher Tier sets at RR100 will make a HUGE difference...
I was really stoked when they announced Skaven, but now.... meh
Sighmunde said on 6:34PM 11-06-2010
It has to be said that the current pet you can buy at the EA Store only gives you a 3% speed boost in PvE. During RvR the pet is unusable. I think this is a huge point that needs to be made clear; the reason no one has noticed a huge difference is because there ISN'T one most of the time. RvR has been unaffected. Reading this article I don't think you understood that.
I don't know if the 1.4 pets will have the same restriction, but if they do then you have nothing to be worried about in terms of competitiveness.
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Aru said on 7:19PM 11-06-2010
The game is almost certainly going free to play. Whether they go completely or try an SOE thing remains to be seen.
I agree with a lot of what Jack Emmert had to say about the direction the MMO business is moving, and I've shared similar ideas in comments I've made here in the past regarding various games and issues.
Fact is, many games simply cannot offer everything at release that a well produced, well established game with a very large community can. This fact is made even more obvious when you have a hype machine the likes of Warhammer's during its development, which makes many promises that it cannot possibly deliver, and releases to the disappointment of everyone who plays it. Age of Conan, Aion, and recently Final Fantasy XIV have seen what this can do to their consumer base and reputations as well. We have yet to see a game rebound completely from this sort of thing without completely changing their business model (i.e. going F2P).
Turbine understood all this too, and even though DDO wasn't doing so well, which prompted their business model change, LOTRO wasn't doing that bad from what I understand. However, Turbine is now doing better all around, all without the subscription model. EQ2 soon followed and now CO (and STO soon after no doubt), and this recent news about WAR along with EA's F2P dabbling (BF Heroes, Battle Forge, and the latest Play4Free BF announced) all lead me to believe this is EA Mythic setting WAR up to go F2P any day now. I just can't see this game surviving or being worth their continued development without it. I still wonder if Mythic/EA (And Games Workshop?) have recouped all of their development costs for this game. My guess is they have not, and without a radical change in game plan, they may never.
Summary: Incoming F2P/Play4Free announcement soon.
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Carson said on 8:14PM 11-06-2010
I agree entirely, except I wouldn't use the phrase "without the subscription model" when discussing Turbine, since of course they provide a hybrid model with both a subscription option and a pay-as-you-go option. Subscriptions are certainly still there, and in LOTRO's case, I would definitely argue that it is the right choice for all but the most casual players.
Aru said on 8:43PM 11-06-2010
@ Carson,
Good point. Most of the F2P MMO game converts do offer a subscription-like "membership" or what have you. I guess what I should have said was, "with this business model change from a purely subscription based offering to one of the recent F2P/Hybrid membership choice models/Cash Shop", etc.
Hardy said on 7:22PM 11-06-2010
I don't see the issue, though I STILL think the game would be more successful being F2P with an in game store.
I have no issues with any of those purchases. Especially if they only affect PvE.
And XP boosts mean nothing since there's a level cap.
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Firebreak said on 7:56PM 11-06-2010
Am I missing something, the war tract does seem to be account wide and not one character.
"Hunker down and learn your skills quickly with the Specialized Training Pack. Purchasing this pack will grant all characters on the account one War Tract that will allow them to immediately advance one full level when used.
The War Tract will be delivered via in-game mail to all characters on an account, including characters created in the future. The in-game mail for each character will be generated the first time the character is logged in and be available for 30 days. "
I am not sure how a feel about either way though.
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