Balance and Meritocracies - Wordplay and the Discourse of Video Games - page 149

size of that game franchise, but balance issues in two other games had far
larger negative impacts on their ability to function successfully.
Warhammer Online ( WA R ) was originally billed as a primary competi-
tor to take on, and possibly take down, WoW . Focusing on player ver-
sus player combat and sporting the support of Electronic Arts, the game
featured a large launch and then hemorrhaged players as many opted not
to subscribe after their free month of play. Eventually needing to merge
low population servers, the game only retained about 300,000 subscribers
roughly a year after its launch, 26 which stood in stark contrast to the 11.5
million subscribers WoW was claiming at a roughly similar point in time. 27
Although there are many reasons why WA R struggled to retain subscrib-
ers, several of the issues can be attributed to game balance. In designing
a game predicated on playing against other players, one of the fi rst things
expected by players is for the combat within the game to be 'balanced.'
Hence, in recounting a variety of reasons why WA R failed, many were con-
nected to a lack of balance in the game. 28
Instead of electing to take a relatively straightforward shortcut to bal-
ance by including three factions so two weaker sides could team up against
the most powerful one, WA R chose to use two. This meant that if one
side had more players or more powerful players or more skilled players
than the other, the combat in the game would cease to be balanced, pos-
sibly prompting players to leave the game. In practice WA R also suf ered
from substantial game design issues with balance, as certain classes, nota-
bly Bright Wizards and Warrior Priests, were wildly more powerful than
their opponents. The lack of balance in fi ghting other characters made the
player versus player combat that was supposed to be the grand contribution
of the game substantially less fun. Although the game worked out some
of the issues, “the damage is done and hundreds of thousands of former
subscribers are unlikely to give the game another chance after suf ering
horrible class balance for months on end.” 29 A second major balance issue
was with the population of the game. Players fl ocked to the Destruction
side character models that featured much better art and more compelling
stories than the bland Order characters. With one side vastly outnumbering
the other on many servers, many found PvP battles to be a fait accompli , as
the Order side was repeatedly overrun by the superior numbers of Destruc-
tion players. Add in the general bugginess that accompanies any MMOG
launch and suddenly lack of balance is a likely reason why WA R failed to
meet expectations. Players expected even, tightly contested battles reminis-
cent of the world designed by Trubshaw and Bartle, but when they did not
fi nd it, they simply moved on to other things.
A dif erent balance issue plagued Aion . Published by Korean company
NCSoft, Aion features a gorgeous world with complex combat systems
that encourage players to chain together a sequence of skills in smooth
and visually attractive ways. 30 The game is also designed in a way that
requires players to venture into contested space in order to complete quests