In war, there will be casualties. This week, Mythic Entertainment revealed the extent of those casualties, saying that 43 North American and 20 European Warhammer Online servers have been closed, following mandatory character transfers.

While the server shutdowns could be construed as negative indicator of Warhammer Online's overall population, Mythic general manager Mark Jacobs believes the move was a natural step in fostering a healthy player experience. He also noted that the game's paying subscriber base continues to rise.

"As I've already said, if WAR was a PvE game, we wouldn't have closed those servers but since WAR is RvR-centric, leaving those servers open with their current population would not be a good idea," commented Jacobs in a forum post. "While these servers have been low population for quite a while once we told people to transfer off of them their population dropped too low for an RvR-centric game."

After peaking at 750,000 subscribers three weeks after launch, Warhammer Online's subscription base stood at 300,000, according to EA's most recent accounting in February. For more information, check out GameSpot's previous coverage of Warhammer Online.

Warhammer Online sheds 63 servers

A good move that will make the game tons more enjoyable since population is so critical to even playing it. Figured they would wait for this while they put in the rest of the game that was supposed to be in at launch.

All the classes will be in, well they are in technically if you did the live event.

Last I heard though city scenarios aren't popping with 7+ warbands queued up for them, and wards suck as much in practice as everyone knew they would in concept. Yay end-game.

Did they ever fix the randomness in keep/fort contribution?

Probably not. Really, the only fun in the game is killing other people. You can't keep objectives in mind because they are so useless. PvE was a joke, and what PvP objectives they tried to tout were so shallow and halfass thought through it's laughable that they were upset when people told them it was just a reskinned DAoC.

I resubbed to see the changes, but man this game just is no fun at all outside of killing people. And even that is more fun in Team Fortress 2.

I can't speak specifically for Warhammer, as I've only read peoples reviews....but why are MMO designers so afraid of linking PvP to the "resources" of the game itself?

I guess what I'm saying is that every MMO I've played lately that has PvP seems to want to separate the PvP into its own little corner where it has it's own little system that's totally separate from the rest of the game. Even Age of Conan did it. WoW is probably the worst culprit. Everything I've seen/heard about Warhammer suggests that it's at least somewhat similar...there's PvP, but everything I see on guild front pages is about killing PvE bosses.

Seems like designers are afraid of having people actually impacted by PvP. I dunno, just seems silly. I've used the analogy before, but it's like playing poker with fake money...it's just not the same.

I dunno, maybe I should be playing EVE.

I think the reason is that most people don't want to be impacted as you say. If that were a valid model, I'm sure Blizzard and others would be quite happy to adopt it.

I'm sure it's a valid model, just not...as valid?...as the current one.

I have no doubt that if a GOOD PvP game was released (Say, if Blizzard did it) that it would be profitable. Just not nearly as profitable as World of Hello Kitty Adventure Islandcraft is.

Right now it seems like the only fuckers willing to take the risk and put out a strong PvP game are people that can't afford to hire coders that have made it past the chapter on pointers in "C for Dummies".

Funny thing about that. Age of Conan did that. They made these resources that could only be looted/harvested in the borderlands pvp areas. These resources were the only things that could be used to repair your battlekeeps.

The whole purpose of this was to get people out of the 80 zone and away from areas with guards.

It worked for a week, then they removed the need for it, but left the resources. People moved back to the guarded areas.

I'm looking forward to a game called Global Agenda. It's the next Planetside, except it's going to be one world like Eve Online. That will be so fucking awesome.

God, I loved Planetside. FUCK YOU CORE COMBAT!

That was a pretty recent change, Given... are you secretly playing AoC?

I have been since January.

PvE or PvP server?

I also really loved planetside until core combat and the stupid mech's. I always felt if SoE updated the game play and graphics and kept the rest more or less the same they would still get a lot of subs out of it.

_________________

I decided to re-sub to WH for the 10 free days. Bored out of my mind.

Anything new and interesting? Anyone still playing?

Muligan and Xolar are destro on Skull throne, myself, Chod and Rippah are order on Skull Throne

not sure on anyone else.

Zeronus is on Destro as well. Dashal is on Order.

I thought 7 Dreams was on Order as well?

There are several more, just don't know who plays anymore or who has either rerolled or moved to another server.

This could really turn things around for Warhammer...

(Screencap taken from Wowhead's main page at 3:30am)

In all seriousness though, I considered turning on the 10 Day Reactivation Trial so I could play a Slayer/Choppa...but really I know it won't cause me to jump up and down begging to resub. Plus, I'm too busy with of Battlefield Heroes Beta...Champions Online Beta...WoW raiding...and Pokemon Platinum to bother with this.

I still think the game has its fun parts but there are a lot more shitty parts then I'd like to admit. I'm waiting to see what they do with their first "real" expansion before giving it another look.

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It got me back, but yeah... will it last past the 10 days? I had a level 22 marauder but playing him is painfully boring now - too slow to level, so I started a sorcerer instead. It'll get painfully boring to level too, but /shrug.

Question...

I love doing scenarios for exp and fun. I have a shaman I've been playing a bit here and there. When I do a scenario, I'm most often at the top of the healing done meters, but I get a TINY amount of exp. Is there a way to get as much exp/renown in scenarios as a healer? What am I missing?

I think that has been pretty screwed up for a while.

I was just complaining about the opposite jox. Xolar is a Zealot and absolutley burns the exp up and gets great drop rolls. He also has a T3 Magus which is even better. His Magus is always no. 1 in rolls and always gets top 3 exp.

DPS get rewarded the best, then healers and Tanks get the shaft. We barely heal if any at all and hardly produce any damage. I have suggested we get credit for a portion of the damage taken to help even out the reward distribution calculations.

Hey Muli.. You're 40, I'm guessing, right?

I abandoned the marauder and am playing a sorcerer - much more fun. Anyways, I'm level 24 after the past 2 weeks and the levelling is really starting to crawl. Can I expect the mid 30s to be totally brutal? Are the T4 scenarios more interesting than T3, and/or am I going to get obliterated by people in much better gear...?

Leveling does begin to crawl somewhat in the 20's and then into the 30's mostly because of the refocus on oRvR. However, it can really fly if you find PQ grinding groups. There are plenty of people rerolling that are not wasting anytime and they are pulling 100's of mobs and AE'ing them. I'm doing this right now with a DOK. I started with a DoK and then took a Blackguard through T4 but, having a tank isn't a major necessity like it was in other MMO's.

T4 scenarios can be pretty wild, they are fun but, most people are constantly RvR'ing, or Dungeon Crawling for gear. Being a Sorc, it really doesn't matter what level you are, you'll get owned if they are focusing on killing squishies first. You'll see no major difference, just hope you have good healers and some tough tanks using their absorbtion wisely.

When I play as my Shaman, I get focused on all the time...when I play my Choppa, I get focused and die a lot faster (damn Choppa's are always the main targets it seems). I see now why people bitch at the lack of healing now that I have been playing a Melee char. Sometimes, its there but other times...most of the time no haha

We had a good sized battle for a Keep last night in T2...fun stuff. I can't wait to see the new Keep upgrade system next patch. It will make it easier to defend when there is no one around, but make it harder to take the Keep if there are people defending it. We will see how it goes soon enough

As for leveling, it does slow down, but I do quests when I'm waiting for the que to pop. If you win battlegrounds, its good and fast exp...also, the new token system should be very nice for oRvR, and get people inside the lakes, Keeps and BO's. I'm looking forward to the tokens very much

Where can I get info on the new keep orvr and tokens?

Man, this game is just flat out fun as hell. I've in T3 now, doing a lot of keep taking and scenarios. I definitely picked the right class, sorcerer fits what I want to do in this game.

I've had so many laugh out loud events in the past few weeks. Things like having a 24-member warband wait inside a building at a random battlefield objective, wait for the order WB to run in, and then stream out and absolutely demolish them. Pit of Shades is particularly fun when you can find ways to use it without direct line of sight.

Keep Upgrade System Preview

Weekend Preview - v1.2.1 Patch

P.S. I'll find the thread and information about the tokens later. Seems to be hiding from me atm! I'm glad you are having fun with Warhammer. The Choppa class is a lot of fun, but I think it will be kinda of hard once I get to T4 with the char. Melee gets CCed so much they never make it to the casters/healers.

If so, I'll be a backline defender for our healers/casters and I will be using the Da Hitta spec for burst dmg. The crits are very mean, and the spec can destroy casters and healers like no tomorrow. I don't mind defending the healers because I'll live longer I think

The Battle for the Gates of Ekrund will be a blast! Its one of my favorite Scenarios in game. 6v6 should be be a lot of fun

If you find the class that is right for you, that is really the big ticket. I have seen many people just throw the game aside and then trash it when they never really gave it a fair shake. Once you find that class that fits you, the game is second to none in terms of fun.

Glad to hear that you are having such a great time. I have great moments every night. It's a really entertaining game to say the least...

New thread inc!