Jump to navigation
Advertisement

WAR factions balanced, says Mythic News

MMO PC News by Oli Welsh

21 January, 2009

Mythic has posted some data on the balance of player populations between the Order and Destruction factions in its MMO Warhammer Online. The stats suggests that it's as close to 50/50 as makes no difference.

In the game's early days the evil Destruction races were noticeably more popular, which led to some problems in terms of server and battleground queues, and balance in the game's realm-versus-realm warfare.

Mythic predicted this would balance out, and it seems it was right. Across all North American servers, player accounts are only 51 per cent in favour of Destruction, while experience and renown gains are equal across both factions. The biggest recorded difference is 44 per cent Order versus 56 per cent Destruction on the Monolith server, but even in this case the Order players are putting enough extra effort in to balance out the experience and renown tallies.

Developer Jess Folsom stressed that these figures are based on currently active players only, implying that many of the Destruction fans were fly-by-nights who weren't committed to the game long-term.

"We have seen some shifting with free server transfers that has, in truth, improved the Faction population differences," said Folsom. "On average, the Faction population difference on each server is negligible; and surprisingly, it is not always the same Faction that has the higher populace."

Advertisement

Are you excited about Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning on PC?
View Eurogamer readers most anticipated games

Thanks!

Want to comment on this article? Log in, or register!

Comments: 1-7 of 7 in total

Poster
Comment Low-scoring comments hidden. Log in to see them!
Gurgeh
21/01/09 @ 12:52
#1
0
You buried this comment
Comment below viewing threshold
Show
"Developer Jess Folsom stressed that these figures are based on currently active players only, implying that many of the Destruction fans were fly-by-nights who weren't committed to the game long-term. "

Or they stopped playing because the faction numbers were so imbalanced at the start. I guess losing a chunk of subscribers is one way to fix a balance issue.
Hypercube
21/01/09 @ 13:22
#2
0
You buried this comment
Comment below viewing threshold
Show
@Gurgeh: Not necessarily, in the early levels faction imbalance isn't really as important, since you're only really doing scenarios and capturing battle objectives in the tier 1 RvR area.

Even in later areas, I think faction imbalance is less of a factor than actual server population - the server I started on became pretty empty, but now I've transferred it's pretty busy all the time.

Of course, this is all from my subjective viewpoint ;)
Slabbathepave
21/01/09 @ 15:25
#3
0
You buried this comment
Comment below viewing threshold
Show
I stopped playing WAR because nobody else did. The only PvP i got was through scenarios and i had nobody to group with at all....outside of scenarios the game was a barren wasteland with boring spammable moves. Admittedly the PvP (when i actually got some) was excellent and by far and away the best yet.

Swings and roundabouts.......innit.
Fleisch
21/01/09 @ 16:04
#4
0
You buried this comment
Comment below viewing threshold
Show
I know its a PVP focused game but they should try and enhance the PVE a little, leveling was boring as the areas were all just dead as a dodo.
JediMasterMalik
21/01/09 @ 16:06
#5
0
You buried this comment
Comment below viewing threshold
Show
Their server caps were too low, not allowing enough people on a single server means no one is in the same area at the same time, which is particularly true for low level areas.
Orange
22/01/09 @ 01:27
#6
0
You buried this comment
Comment below viewing threshold
Show
Far too many servers on release as well.
biscuittooth
22/01/09 @ 08:59
#7
0
You buried this comment
Comment below viewing threshold
Show
@ Fleisch:

The PVE is great. The game launched with 15 instances several of them located in the capitals, and the public quests get more and more interesting as you progress. The main issue is server population, as stated. However, this is easily addressed by rolling on, or transferring to, a server with a high population.

Comments: 1-7 of 7 in total

Want to comment on this article? Log in, or register!

X View gallery