WAR (Warhammer Online) Forum » General Discussion » Warhammer shuts down half the servers: News?

So, with the transfers apparently complete, Mythic has closed off 26 of the 56 servers to new players.  These servers are low/low and are obviously not going to grow or become active.

And yet, I have not seen one official word from Mythic saying these servers are now effectively shut down.

Furthermore, nobody on the gaming websites seems to be noting it.

I thought it was noteworthy if a game closes half its servers within 3 months. 

Someone should notify a gamespy "reporter" or something.

Jacobs is pretty up front about things and if there closeing down servers he will say something or should.

Its cause the servers arent shut down, simply click more and you can see and access them.

However, they are put on the back burner. Everyone on those servers has/had their chance to leave, and are staying out of choice. Thats why they arent shut down I guess, mythic is giving them the option.

Originally posted by Pyrostasis

Its cause the servers arent shut down, simply click more and you can see and access them.

However, they are put on the back burner. Everyone on those servers has/had their chance to leave, and are staying out of choice. Thats why they arent shut down I guess, mythic is giving them the option.

But new players cannot join them.  I've also heard that people have gone back to those servers just to check it out and were the only single person on the server.

These 26 servers are dead.  They just haven't pulled the plug.

They are not "on the back burner".  If you try to create a character on them, you are unable to.

Originally posted by holdenhamlet

Originally posted by Pyrostasis

Its cause the servers arent shut down, simply click more and you can see and access them.

However, they are put on the back burner. Everyone on those servers has/had their chance to leave, and are staying out of choice. Thats why they arent shut down I guess, mythic is giving them the option.

 

But new players cannot join them.  I've also heard that people have gone back to those servers just to check it out and were the only single person on the server.

These 26 servers are dead.  They just haven't pulled the plug.

Are you sure you cant create a toon?

I was told otherwise.

Yes, I am sure.  The option is greyed out when you're on those 26 servers.  I just tried today on all of them, as research for a discussion on another message board.

You cannot make new characters on them.  They are shut down.

Weird, I just created characters on 5 of these supposibly locked servers (stopped at 5 since I doubt if I could on 5, I could not on the others). You do get a message stating that they are a low/low pop server that mythic is suggesting that you transfer off of but they are not preventing new people from creating characters on them.

Originally posted by holdenhamlet

Yes, I am sure.  The option is greyed out when you're on those 26 servers.  I just tried today on all of them, as research for a discussion on another message board.

 

You cannot make new characters on them.  They are shut down.

When they are shut down Im sure it will make the news. Your saying that not being able to make new characters = shut down, but that isnt the case. If i can log onto a pre-existing toon and level, how is the server shut down?

Nobody in their right mind is playing on them.  Yes, you can go onto them, but when you're the only person on the entire server logged in, it doesn't really make sense to play on it.

If theyr'e not dead, they're in a coma.  In any case, it's pretty significant if you ask me.

And to the guy above you, no, you can't make characters on the servers.  Just to be specific, try to create a character on Eerie Downs.

Hint: Click on the "more" button to see all of the shut down servers mixed in with some active servers.

Yea, pretty obvious step if you ask me.

I think it's safe to say that they did overestimate their player base, so what? They will, sooner or later, shut down these servers and that does not change a thing, the game has more than enough players to stay alive, just not enough to be the next MMO saviour like so many said during the development period...

M

LOL, 56 servers for a theme park game which is no better than WoW.

 Did you miss reading the server transfer letter? Everything stated is right there in that letter. Any other "new" news about it will be posted. Mark never misses the chance to let his sidekicks know the deal-e-yo. And you can make characters on those servers, I just did. And you are not the only one on the server. I joined in on a t1 PQ after hitting level 6 with around 5 others. Somehow the fact that you can't read and that you have troubles making a character is pretty sad. Maybe you should just take a break from gaming, things seem to be getting to hard for you aparently. 

Originally posted by Samuraisword

LOL, 56 servers for a theme park game which is no better than WoW.

Wow, since when are theme parks bad? Last time I visited Six Flags I enjoyed myself. So are you trying to say I would enjoy WAR? I swear the internet has turned people into idiots. It started with fanboy and now theme park MMO? So when did we start using words that reflect good things to diss on someone or something? I mean it doesn't even sound right. What next, people going around saying OMG this game is such a cheesecake. Or how about, OMG your such a poptart. Or better yet, OMG this game is so bad and anyone who follows it is such a ferrari. Yeah, makes no sense. Im done here, work on dissing please. 

56 is just one region. There's over a hundred servers in total.

Wow, since when are theme parks bad? Last time I visited Six Flags I enjoyed myself. So are you trying to say I would enjoy WAR? I swear the internet has turned people into idiots. It started with fanboy and now theme park MMO? So when did we start using words that reflect good things to diss on someone or something? I mean it doesn't even sound right. What next, people going around saying OMG this game is such a cheesecake. Or how about, OMG your such a poptart. Or better yet, OMG this game is so bad and anyone who follows it is such a ferrari. Yeah, makes no sense. Im done here, work on dissing please. 

careful, mackdawg19, u might start a trend.  dont be such a cheesecake 

Originally posted by mackdawg19

 Did you miss reading the server transfer letter? Everything stated is right there in that letter. Any other "new" news about it will be posted. Mark never misses the chance to let his sidekicks know the deal-e-yo. And you can make characters on those servers, I just did. And you are not the only one on the server. I joined in on a t1 PQ after hitting level 6 with around 5 others. Somehow the fact that you can't read and that you have troubles making a character is pretty sad. Maybe you should just take a break from gaming, things seem to be getting to hard for you aparently. 

Maybe Mark should come and have a look at the state of the EU servers, as WAR in the EU is still WAR and the state of the servers here is far from good!

Originally posted by mackdawg19

Originally posted by Samuraisword

LOL, 56 servers for a theme park game which is no better than WoW.

 

Wow, since when are theme parks bad? Last time I visited Six Flags I enjoyed myself. So are you trying to say I would enjoy WAR?

You forget a lot of people in the MMO community have a superiority complex. They like to dictate to us that Carebear or Theme Park gameplay is A BAD THING and anything that is Sandbox and Risk Vs. Reward is A GOOD THING. Their pretentiousness knows no bounds.

Somewhere along the line they forgot that people have different tastes.

Poptarts. The lot of them.

They HAD to open those servers at game launch, but now they don't need them anymore...bigdeal...

Originally posted by Ogrelin

They HAD to open those servers at game launch, but now they don't need them anymore...bigdeal...

No they didn't. They opened the servers because they thought WAR would be more popular and wanted to be ready for the storm of people joining their game.

And for over 3 weeks it looked as if they had done the right thing. At least in EU, there were many queues and many mid/mid servers. The crucial point here is "3 weeks", because after that population dropped. Now I won't pull numbers out of my behind or fix myself on any guesswork.

But even the most rabid fanboy would agree that population dropped, maybe not devastatingly fast, but it dropped significantly, every source you look at seconds this, from your experience on the servers to biased online gametime counters.

Now is this a bad thing? - Simple answer. No. Other games, my favorite example is LotRO, flourish with a much lower but dedicated fanbase. Remember, EQ2 e.g. has about 5 european servers total, LotRO has 8...

So WAR can only be a disappointment for people who expected it to "be the WoW killer", out of hatred towards WoW, out of fanboyism, I don't know. But for people who enjoy the current state of WAR, it has more than enough players to survive and be a decent long-laster...

M

Originally posted by Zayne3145

Originally posted by mackdawg19

Originally posted by Samuraisword

LOL, 56 servers for a theme park game which is no better than WoW.

 

Wow, since when are theme parks bad? Last time I visited Six Flags I enjoyed myself. So are you trying to say I would enjoy WAR?

You forget a lot of people in the MMO community have a superiority complex. They like to dictate to us that Carebear or Theme Park gameplay is A BAD THING and anything that is Sandbox and Risk Vs. Reward is A GOOD THING. Their pretentiousness knows no bounds.

Somewhere along the line they forgot that people have different tastes.

Poptarts. The lot of them.

LOL

It does seem that some want everyone else to be actors in their own personal MMO! Actors that follow a script of how they alone 'know' a MMO should be played. Deviate from that and you're 'playing it wrong'. :D
 

It may be that they are dissapointed, but what´s so interesting about that?

Should they have refused to sell the game to people who wanted to play those first three weeks? If they had not opened all those servers at all ...don't you think that would have been an even larged dissapointment for alot of people who wouldn't been able to play at all?

Mythic has made it possible for people to transfer of those empty servers, the remaining people should all be happy.

Back when the EU-daoc servers died...none got an option to transfer of the server, so I think WAR did it alot better.

Its a sad day in gaming when every game is determined by WOW...I Played WOW for 3 yrs and it was fun for a while but it lost its charm... just because a game doesn't need you to get 20-40 other half wit people together to play doesn't make it a bad game. It just makes it different. I think the server merger is a good thing. It will bring more people together to enjoy the game. I just don't understand why you have to trash on games that you don't like. Its all personal prefferance. Just a thought tho.

"remember, opinions are like a$$holes, everyones got one and they all stink"

This is what MJ had to say on the subject back in July (my quote).   You can bet that the reason they are being so sneaky about it is because they want to avoid the word 'merger' as much as possible.  But when you allow free transfers off of a server and prevent character creation on that server, that is as close to a merger as you can get without using the word.

Warhammer is down to about 250k players, which is what the internal bean-counters at EA were projecting so I guess it is ok.   From all indications, the bleeding has mostly stopped in NA, but EU still has a way to go (pops still declining pretty drastically).

All the people who though Warhammer was going to be competition for WOW were wrong... it's no more competition then EVE or LotRO.   All the people who think the plug will be pulled on Warhammer are wrong, since the internal guys at EA were expecting 250k.   This could change if there is another noticable drop in subscribers but for right now, it looks like about 3-5% drop per week.

Mythic has essentially managed server mergers with out the mess. They did it in the best manner ever implemented by an MMORPG developer AND they did it extremely early, rather than allowing the problem to fester and bring down the game.

Kudos to Mythic.

The OP seems maybe a little disappointed that this was handled so intelligently and with out the fanfare of "server merges".  Sorry if they didn't play into the drama you seem to have desired.

Mythic opened way too many servers early. They over estimated the initial success and traded better access to the game in the opening weeks for long term concerns. They also have been able to increase the population caps on the servers beyond their original goals.

So, yes, you can say that the game is not as successful at this point as they hoped, but this wasn't the only factor that led to underpopulated servers.

Also, don't forget, with populated servers having a large play advantage over underpopulated ones, many people have fled those low pop servers, but are still playing the game. This trend started before the transfers, with many people opting to start over on servers where the game was more fun.

Mythic can now actively tune server capacity moving forward. I just hope they have learned their lesson and will never repeat the "server cloning" fiasco. I also hope they will never allow free transfers off of currently heavily populated servers. When they need more capacity, they should just create a new server, ONE at a time, and only add more as absolutely needed.

It's not news.

They had too many servers to start with. Insted of showing players a populated server, they sent a bunch of people forward into several dozen uselss servers with low populations.

By offering a transfer they allowed all the large consolidated members of their player base to move into a more populated area. They'll have more transfers for the stragglers in the future, so closing these servers won't be painful at all.

They'll even have extras as the game makes whatever gains over the next few months. Smart.