Casualties of WAR Goes Multi-Game

The WAR guild that I’m a member of, Casualties of WAR (COW), is discussing branching out into other games.  Based on the COW forum posts it appears to be inevitable. In all honesty, this concerns me.  You can’t keep people in a game they don’t want to play and people do play multiple games, yet it worries me that the focus will drift away from Warhammer Online.

Oh well, it is what it is.  I don’t have an interest in playing any of the other MMOs currently being discussed except, EVE Online.  I have no interest in WOTLK.  As much as I loved EQ2 crafting the leveling aspect bores me to tears.  I suppose I could stomach LOTRO.  I’ve read that they improved the solo ability and having an active guild would help to have fellowship members when needed.  But honestly, if I’d wanted to play those games, I’d have kept my subscriptions.  EVE stays on the list of “would go back” because I could play in a very passive manner if I wanted, and being in a Corporation of people I liked and trusted, would let me explore avenues of the game that I didn’t have a successful chance at doing last time around.

I could be wrong and hopefully I am.  However, this feels like, “…the foot steps of doom,” for maintaining a large presence in WAR.  People will say now that, “that isn’t the case,” but as busy as the average person is, and even though you can play multiple games, I think there is only one true mistress.  I’ve been subscribed to as many as 4 or 5 MMOs at once but I wasn’t really playing all of them.  Even at two MMOs, I’m playing one while in maintenance mode on the other.  Perhaps that’s just me. *Sigh*

Only time will tell.  I won’t be leaving WAR simply because others might be leaving.  I’ll leave WAR when it no longer works for me or the content becomes very inaccessible because of a lack of players.  Or I decide that MMOs are just too much bother and go find a good RPG for a while.  Ugh, it doesn’t help that none of the hot under development titles interest me in the least. 

I can’t get excited about a game that’s years out from releasing.  Puhleze.  I could be a bag lady by then.  The Internet could have blown itself up with the fury and self-righteousness of its participants.  The sun could have gone super nova and turned us all to dust.  I could have outgrown enjoying this particular pastime.  Too many things can happen on the way to releasing a game, so I just can’t bite the hype years out.

Comments

[Hudson]

I dont think of it as something disastrous, but if we can keep the same group of people talking and mingling in any of the games listed then more power to it.

We have a ton of members that just never really last longer than two months in any game as well. Myself included lately until I just went back to what I played the most. The new games just don't do it for me. I don't know why honestly.

[Saylah]

True. If I could have voted for EVE twice I would have. *Smile* As it was, I only voted for one game even though we were allowed two votes, simply because I don't have any interest in the other games. I might have tried City of... if it was in the list because it's the one I haven't played but the others right now are, been there done that.

And while it's not the end of the world, there is chance that it will divert the focus and dilute the members. Only time will tell.

[Saylah]

P.S. Interesting and telling that Age of Conan didn't make the list. Several of our existing members were playing AOC. I wouldn't have voted for it but did find its absence curious. :-)

[Pete S]

I look at it as a way for those of us who enjoyed CoW but left WAR to still maintain a connection to the community.

[Chris]

You can easily solo LotRO from 1-60 no problems whatsoever, any class, in my opinion. There are _so_ many quests that don't require a fellowship, and even those that are listed as [full] fellowship quests can be done by three even-level folks who know where they're supposed to be going.

I was in WAR for 1.5 months and really enjoyed it. I decided to drop it for "a while" because I felt that population issues were troubling (I couldn't find those above-mentioned 'three folks' to do PQs, I hated the idea of grinding scenarios for renown when Open RvR areas were barren, etc.).

The moment I logged back into LotRO, I realized that this was _such_ a more complete game than when I'd beta tested it. I mean, people craft items- items that are USEFUL! And look nice. And there's player housing, player-made music.

Yes, joining a guild [kinship] helps. Within five seconds, literally, of getting the guild invite, I was involved in conversations with real people, about travel plans, kids, real-world stuff. In _one minute_, I'd conversed more with players than I had in 1.5 months of WAR.

Sorry for spouting so much, but, well, I like the game and would love to see you in it.

[Saylah]

No apology needed. All reasonable thought out responses are welcomed regardless of length. My problem with leveling in EQ2 and LOTRO is that, well, as odd as it may sound, I don't like quests! HEHE. I know. I know. I'm a strange duck when it comes to how I prefer to level and that's on top of wanting to solo in MMOs.

EQ2 was the most egregious in this aspect for me with the Heritage quests, which in my world mean, LONG ASS QUEST CHAIN and time sink. LOTRO ran a close second when I tried playing at launch.

I need the ability to grind mobs a bit more while I wandering the landscape. I actually prefer to go kill 10 rats versus running back and forth carrying tales between idiot NPCs. :-) Lawd help me, but that's why I like the leveling pace in WAR, as I did in WOW. Both games allow me to skip lots a bulk of the quests and just go kill things while seeing pretty places.

All that said, if WAR becomes barren wasteland and COW is in LOTRO, I'd be inclined to give it another looksee. I own a copy of every game that was on the list of options. *sigh*

Thanks for wanting to see me there. :-)

[Grimjakk]

I'm not planning on playing anything other than
WAR in the near future... but having options is nice.

And if the guild grows as a "cross-game" community, we might actually pull in a few new WAR recruits from other games.

[saylah]

@Grimm - I hope that's the case. Let the server collapsing begin or something. I just want to play WAR with a crap load of players on both sides!

[Marchosias]

I like WAR, but I'm a multi-gamer so I re-subbed to LotRO to see what MoM had to offer. LotRO is the closest thing I've found to AC2 in terms of graphics and the whole explore the world type feeling.

I think WAR will be a lot like DAOC, where everyone shoots for the end-game RvR, but finds some niche RvR in the lower level areas as well (like people not levelling out of Thidranki).

I'm seriously considering re-subbing my EVE accounts as well, but that will probably have to wait until after the holidays. I'm sure I'll be waffling between WAR and LotRO quite a bit in the mean time.

[Solidstate]

> I have no interest in WOTLK.

Why not?

I understand why *in the past* you lost interest in WoW, but WotLK is a new ballpark... with new, greener, grass... :)

[Saylah]

@Solid - I have no doubt that I'd enjoy the leveling as I always did in WOW. It's what's left to do after that I'm bored of doing for months and months at a time, in between them releasing new content.

Contrary to what some believe, Kara showed me that less people actually means more precision is required. It's actually harder to have people using off specs in a 10-man dungeon than it is with 40 or 25. This leads me to one of the things I really dislike about being able to participate in the varied content in the end game, you often "need to spec a certain way" - raids to see the content, 5-mans to see content or arenas with a decent team, which mostly leaves doing BGs. And if that's the case, then I like WAR's Scenarios better AND there is still some level of Open RVR too.

Lastly, while I could buy the box just for doing the 10 levels. I'm a bit sour on having purchased several titles this year times 3 that haven't been played thru to the end game. I'm not in the mood to do that again right now.

[Openedge1]

Ugh...so many people suggesting LOTRO, with the boring quest after quest after quest
Ugly models, bad UI

Stick to WAR. I personally think it is a better choice.

[Saylah]

WOW won the vote but by a very small margin (4 votes). EVE online was in second place, followed by LOTRO.

The guild is going to roll Order on a PVE server but starting from level 1 for now. NO WAY IN HELL, I'd start a level 1 character in WOW. I don't care what content they add. Unless there's a level to to 70 button after you create the character, no way in hell. LOL

They will be accepting higher level characters at some point. If you want the whole skinny on what's going on, go to Bildo's blog: http://ramblings.rebelutionstudios.com/.

So while they are doing WOW first, there's hope that maybe in 2009 they'll branch out into EVE.

[JoBildo]

Yep, we're not done expanding. The issue at hand is that as we expand we need to recruit more in each game, so none get left as "stagnant".

One thing's for sure though, Saylah. I'm thinking we should have made one WAR guild now... we'd have a nice huge guild if we were all on one side.

[Saylah]

Yes, I read your comment about that on the COW forums and actually agree with you. I would have rather been in a situation to place my 2nd or third choice in a class/race versus having us divided now that the world populations are an issue. But who knew this is would be the case.

[JoBildo]

Yeah, it's an oddity. But what can we do? Barring forcing one side to re-roll a different realm, we've just got to recruit and carry on.

Shouldn't be a problem really. There are LOTS of unguilded players it seems still, some of which might be perfect for CoW.

[Alysianah aka Saylah]

I'm not sure it would have worked out anyway. I think some people were really bent on playing a certain WAR faction and class. My favorites ended up being Order but I was interested in the Destruction Shaman too. So I would have gone either way but others might not have like that idea.