I think Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning may be walking on thin ice at the moment. I’ve been looking forward to this game for a long time, but I’m starting to wonder if it might be in a bit of trouble.
Mythic is holding a private "Guild-only" beta test that just started today. The idea is that guilds from other games sign up to participate in the beta to test out the guild system.
However, today when the beta started there were 4 less major cities than originally planned, and four fewer classes. The cities have been downsized to just one major city per racial class.
All things considered, that’s a pretty sizable chunk of the game to be chopping off as late as a beat test. It can be expected that certain things will be removed, but this is a big one.
WAR is going to be going up against a goliath like World of Warcraft, so it’s crucial to go into the fight without a flicker of wavering confidence. To say, "this huge chunk of our game just wasn’t working" might be sending the wrong message to the gaming community.
I’m in the middle of the road on this one. I can’t decide whether this huge cut says, "We know what is good for our game, and aren’t willing to sacrifice just to make it bigger," or if it says, "we spread ourselves too thin on this project and now the only way to balance things out is to just make massive cut-backs." (The latter is also known as Peter Molyneaux syndrome.)
Demetri and I have a one-on-one (two-on-one?) scheduled with the development team at this year’s Chicago Games Day (a Warhammer-centric event that’s a lot like a toned down Blizzcon). So hopefully we’ll be able to get some questions answered and/or a hands-on to find out for ourselves.
[via mmorpg.com]
