Super Smash Bros. Brawl’s chart domination in the US has come to an end at the hands of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. More US sales stuff inside...
***Tracking pre-orders of the collectors edition of course, it doesn't release for months!***
Ugh... MMOs + school = epic fail. Literally. I was really looking forward to wasting my summer on this game.
However, I think this should work out for them in the long run as long as they can drum up some hype again before it launches. We've seen plenty of games fail recently due to being pushed out the door early (the most spectacular of which have been MMOs) so it's nice to see a dev team take this into account when setting a release date. Assuming it won't get pushed back again (this is what, the 3rd time now?) an autumn launch will throw a lot more competition their way as far as the general gaming market goes, but with a late spring launch they would have had to launch concurrent with Age of Conan [i]and[/i] Wrath of the Lich King. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the release dates of those titles.
The Warhammer Online:Age of Reckoning Collector's Edition is now available for Pre-Order. Includes Open Beta Access, Live-Game Head-Start, a Graphic Novel, 224-Page Artbook, in-game bonus items, and more!!!
Electronic Arts has announced that PC MMORPG Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning won't be released until the autumn.
News of the delay was revealed this morning by producer Jeff Hickman. He was speaking at a press conference in Paris attended by the editor of Eurogamer's brand new MMO channel.
@Thumper, I would agree with every point you make if this was the Warhammer 40,000 universe. However since this is a fantasy game and the people playing WoW have a love/hate relationship with that game, I am not sure what appeal WO:AR would have for anyone but the most intense hardcore players. Sadly, most casual players also have very little interest in PvP and treat MMOs are chat rooms that let you kill things with friends.
The key to this MMO posting any recognizable numbers will be the "no-grind" aspect of leveling. Whether it is "you cannot grind in this game" or "you can grind but you don't have to" is something else to watch for.
I think they're gambling on the MMO population being sick of WoW and it's mechanics and the reason there's so many subscribers for that game being only that there's nothing better out there. Whether this is true or not, I guess we'll see.
If they manage to pull off their "no-grind" philosophy it should end up being pretty big. However most MMOs seem to promise that and none have yet delivered. Regardless, I think this should attract a significant number of PVP players and should be the most popular MMO out there by a wide margin (next to WoW! of course).
Valid point and I think we should not include the fan base to heavily in our prediction. But I still think the current prediction is in the correct range, this game is one of the most anticipated MMO's of 2008 (if you believe the PR talk)
Examples of high popularity:
- Well over 600,000 Beta applications - MMORPG.com counts the hits on its pages for each game and this game has been the most popular over the last year and it hasn’t even been released yet.
A lot of signs point to a popular game, but still a risky bet, all depends on the developer’s implementation of the game play.
If Dungeons and Dragons Online couldn't stand up to the WoW juggernaut, what hope do we have of Warhammer fantasy doing any better with a smaller dedicated fanbase that D&D?
I would be surprised to see this pass 1.2M copies sold, with even smaller retention on active players than D&D.
2
thanks for noting that. i tend to dislike articles that point to amazon's listings because i don't know how meaningful the data can be.