The Rise and Fall of Warhammer Online

[@madseasonshow]

Click this link sponsr.is/bootdev_madseasonshow and use my code MADSEASONSHOW to get 25% off your first payment for boot.dev. That’s 25% off your first month or your first year, depending on the subscription you choose.

[@joezar33]

23:18 holy sh*t , no wonder they nuked that server , way way safer as a fanmade Private Server .

[@KingMonkeyMon]

The fact EA was making shouldve told em something after the destroyed the best RTS series which was Command and Conquer EA is the same as activision all they care about is short term profits.

[@greatgameplayswalkthroughs660]

I like the idea of making videos about more games, not only wow. You have the expertise, you can make super INTERESTING videos about so many games !

[@teddybear273]

EA Louse! Great Woman!

[@derknusperhase_ivi]

does this heretical youtuber plays the omnissiah credo music from the adeptus mecanicus even if they dont exist in the age of sigma....purge him?

[@madseasonshow]

Possible new series where we cover the development, rise and fall of mmos that have shut down. Let me know what you think and if you have any requests or suggestions!

[@BigWhoopZH]

Age of Conan.

[@quitegud3743]

It hasn’t shut down, but I think you could do an unbelievable doc on Tibia. There is such a vast and interesting history behind the game; between players, developers and the game itself!

[@kongojira1788]

Yes holy shit this is awesome! And I agree Age of Conan

[@os8856]

Yes, great idea mad, plus I’d like to see a series on where you think they could take Warcraft as a new mmo

[@Lemmings19]

Collab with Josh Strife Hayes for an episode on it!

[@Akeche]

I honestly feel like Return of Reckoning should've gotten a larger segment in the video. What they've accomplished is astounding.

[@Grockstube]

And they've been going for twice longer than official servers did lol

[@JG99582]

I agree. Keeping this game alive and even updating such a niche game is a huge effort.

[@fu102]

too bad the devs are tools, but it is a great private server

[@Ketiseb]

No, the game's many issues persist and admins are clinically insane. Return of Reckoning is a terrible experience.

[@Grockstube]

@@Ketiseb lets not pretend that its different from live or even most currently live MMOs where pvp modes are neglected (while game is raking in millions $$$) Its the same shit as everywhere else, just a bit more stale since the game is 16 years old without real major updates

[@MegaDook56]

I was a QA tester at EA when this game launched. Mythic offered any employee an account with a free lifetime sub, but our shady overlords said, "no not for you." One mad lad did what we were told never to do; he contacted the devs and they were kinda pissed. Gave us all our free accounts. Had a blast with all the folks for a solid few months or so.

[@Bandoolero]

EA Is just so evil lmao

[@Idontwannashutup]

EA Sports.

[@bozimmerman]

That's messed up dude. We got free "lifetime" accounts for SWTOR for almost a decade, but with the switch to Broadsword, they've been taken away too. :( BTW, did you know Matt Shaw or Michael Manning? Was Michael the fella who worked on yall's patcher? I've been trying to remember that guys name...

[@no-nonseplayer6612]

@@Bandoolero it wasnt EAS decision to not allow emplyed get live tiem subscribtions it was Games Worksophs idea

[@ixpu4246]

This one of my biggest heartbreaks. I followed this since the beginning and was an active WoW player and ready to jump ship. And worse I was a huge DAoC fan too

[@fuzzylumpkins6034]

NOthing bad about being a DAoC fan. I played it for years and was so ready for WH online to have an updated rvr engine. I could not take wow seriosuly because it was candy af. Baby pvp and Baby dungeons but int he end it was what the masses wanted and instancing was the right move. Leaving the games life up to the amount of players and how players chose to balance the realm, killed daoc and wh ol. Even wow was not free from all horde or all allie servers but there is no consequence to same side servers in wow as they have instanced pve and cross realm pvp.

[@ixpu4246]

@fuzzylumpkins6034 totally agree! I just mean that I was hoping the creators of DAOC would promise a great product, which they did, but modernized their game to feel more like WoW instead of their own property. Probably because EA didn't feel like Warhammer Online wouldn't appeal to audiences. Good reply!

[@worth5867]

You & me both, this story is very familiar to me.

[@Getorix]

Same here, except I did jump ship. Warhammer online was a great game. The way they did pvp in the open world was beautiful. Basically what DCUO copied from. This game was a fuckin masterpiece. The only thing that would have made it better was the daoc style of siege warfare. Out of all the mmos that have come out, I think this was my favorite. Closely followed by daoc. The only reason is because the gameplay was more modernized and pushed the envelope itself. It was basically dark age of Camelot, with more modern gameplay, but without the siege warfare.

[@IscariottActual]

The return of reckoning free shard is pretty good if you want to re experience

[@StinkyBagel]

Wow as someone who still plays on the private server project to this day, super excited for this one!!

[@alexhomer25]

How is the private server doing? Been a long time since i played. 2019 i think

[@StinkyBagel]

@@alexhomer25 they’ve made some decent changes overall since 2019 on balancing, and events and player incentives. But in the last year some big guilds have taken breaks and have demands on balancing, so the community is a little fractured at the moment. Still very lively on most EU nights, and NA has a decent growing player base and representation compared to 2019 with the guild Tegridy. What’s nice is your chars are always there to play so I encourage you to check it out again

[@iSkollz]

@@alexhomer25 It's the same. play order and auto win.

[@MiniSynnYT]

​@@alexhomer25Wargrimnir is still a cunt, and still very much at the helm of the ship. Not much else to be said really 💀

[@BsetXOXO]

@@alexhomer25 its bleeding players and a boring zergfest where giant groups of players roam around in a zerg looking for something to fight - the bulk of the game is just running around in circles looking for fights. Almost all events reward you with items that decay over time so you can stay on that treadmill. It's a terrible gameplay loop.

[@RangiSawaiki]

Warhammer Online is one of my favourite MMOs. It had the best low-leveled PvP I have ever played.

[@naejimba]

The foundation on which PvP is built is SOOOO much better with healers using energy and having things they can cast while moving, and with tanks having an actual role. I feel like if WoW stole their ideas it would be considered revolutionary even today haha.

[@joezar33]

You do know there is a private server for Warhammer online

[@druid8295]

This was an amazing game. People didn't give it enough time to grow into its own.

[@dmtaboo_truth7052]

I was a WoW addict at the time and I hated this game. Played for about 8 hours and never touched it again.

[@fuzzylumpkins6034]

Devs leaving players to determine how rvr went was always going to be its death, same as daoc. When everyone went hib in DAoC, long term players like myself quit. I did not want to start over in hib as I already had a RR12 cleric. That was millions of player kills. Had the servers instanced or capped players in realm wars, it would have been sustainable but made it as cheesy and carebear as WoW pvp

[@Electromash92]

Top many low pop servers on launch killed the game early, very few servers actually experienced the game as was intended with enough players to make the content run as intended.

[@dmtaboo_truth7052]

@@Electromash92 Yeah, I couldn't do any of those public quests. There was nobody else helping.

[@xKinjax]

​@@Electromash92because it had nearly a million players on release and they did what every new MMO does, added more servers to appease the angry people who couldn't get on. Problem is that back then server technology was very primitive to what it is now and they couldn't just easily and dynamically merge servers into each other as things died down. So you were left with dozens of ghost towns a month later when everyone's free sub ran out and 60% of the population didn't resub for a second month. Beyond that it was mostly screwed by developer incompetence and EA starting to cut staff just six months after release when it became clear the game wouldn't be the gold egg laying goose they had expected. People also expected the game to have the same level of content that Blizzard already offered with Wrath and that was never going to happen.

[@Honyakusha]

Me and my friend puts our lives and souls into this game. I still remember the sieges we fended off to protect our keep, how one of our dumbarse officers got a speed ticket because he wanted to catch the siege, how wonderful the overall vibe there was, and delightful the whole fantasy warhammer universe was. I still don't think any other game nailed the faction and group play like they did to this day. It was such a heartbreak to see the mismanagement and closure of it.

[@teddybear273]

Ashes of Creation will be the best!

[@bozimmerman]

In 2010 or so, while working for EA/BioWare on the SWTOR project. We visited the Mythic offices to chat with one of the developers about using their launcher/patcher for SWTOR. There was room after unlit room of empty cubicles -- it was spooky as heck. I'll never forget that. I really did like their patcher tech though, and for a brief time we were not only using their patcher for SWTOR, but I integrated their asset storage file structure into the game client as well. Good times.

[@joezar33]

Seriously older MMORPG like Retail WoW, SWTOR should start making controller support for console players can DL the game , it would only up the player base

[@MsPreciouslittleones]

that was a great read, thank you. can you share anything else you know about Mythic while there?

[@Dalron1121]

@@Dirtnoseswtor sucks

[@cattysplat]

@@Dirtnose Yeah it's basically Kotor 3 with the amount of voice acting and story content. It's what Bioware was good at. Shame they had to chase the MMO dragon as EA overlords decreed.

[@bozimmerman]

@cattysplat Believe it or not, that was all BioWare, not EA. The Good Doctors entered into a partnership with LucasArts and put our tiny (for an MMO) office in Austin to producing the game. However, if EA had not bought us and thrown money at it, I kinda doubt it would have launched -- we just didn't have the resources, and some technology hail-marys we threw weren't working out. But EA got us from a hundred devs to over 400, and the game was finished.

[@Krunkeridleios]

CONTINUE THIS SHOW PLEASE I LOVED IT! And dudes, I played Return of Reckoning for the past 2 months and i absolutely love it. Try it out!

[@kingbeeYT]

Down with the Order. Chaos reigns! Lol

[@nahuelflash]

You can still play it currently, as Warhammer Online Return of Reckoning. Adding to the video the ways in which the game could still be played would be a great boon to the small communities still pushing these classic.

[@Arenumberg]

Wholeheartedly back that. Most MMO's have pretty good communities still around after their "failure" that keep the games going, sometimes with additional development meaning new content continues. The endorsing of a specific City of Heroes (I believe) community with an actual official license and thus an approved way to play the game might be a sign of shifting tides towards "dead" games, though probably not.

[@DoctorEviloply]

@@Arenumberg Possibly, but out of all the CoH servers NCsoft picked the sketchiest one. That will come to bite all of us in the behind if NCsoft take a longer look at Homecoming's financials and the way they treat their "staff".

[@GonarchPlays]

Nah, avoid this server like the plague, the glory days of 2020 and 2021 are long dead and the server has become extremely toxic with a community that rather cannibalize the game than help it improve.

[@marcjansson1039]

​@@GonarchPlaysHow so?

[@GonarchPlays]

@@marcjansson1039 Simple, community keeps making the game rather unplayable with exploitation of broken mechanics/classes, dev team maintaining a long routine of questionable balance changes listening to a top 0.01% of their favorite pet players... I assume you don't play RoR from your comment, because the game has been on a steady decline on player numbers since 2023 which there's no end in sight.

[@jamesmanley3d]

I still remember being on the Karak Norn server the moment it shut down. I walked into the orchard after that and just looked into the distance for half an hour not thinking anything. The grief hits very hard even to this day.

[@pirken66]

Karak Norn ❤

[@tommykristoffersen7536]

was also on Karak Norn for all 5 years of the games lifespan. squig herder named Dagskar. will never forget

[@tropik5724]

I was also on Karak Norn.

[@ShadowPhoenixMaximus]

As was I

[@VintageSlates]

Karak Norn as well and there at the closure, was a very sad day.

[@patrick8099]

Great video. I had the pleasure of working on this game from 07 to 09. We where on top of the world at launch, and less than a year later over 100 of us got let go one cold morning. Incredible talent went into making this game, and I made lifelong friends at Mythic. Its a shame what happened to this project. Got me a bit misty and nostalgic watching this, thank you!

[@awfulplayertv6351]

I was a GM for the german team - my time in Dublin with the boys, watching Charlie the unicorn during nightshifts, revealing our GM Avatars to drunk players or flying in GM Mode from public quest to public quest documenting what is happening in each PQ because nobody at our office knew what the fuck is going on - man these times were so great. I miss the boys.

[@cattysplat]

Come to candy mountain Charlie! Shun the non believer, shun! Charliiiiiiie. Ah they took my freakin kidney!

[@Xsorus]

If ya wanna know how much warhammer online change how you play games, it was the first MMO with public quests and an achievement system.

[@gg2fan]

The private server is incredibly good and I would highly advise anyone watching this video to go play it, once you wrap your head around the game it's SO much fun

[@fonfi97]

Name of the server?

[@Celadonis-the-Lore-Seeker]

@@fonfi97 Return of Reckoning.

[@Zabuchi25]

the game can be "fun" at times BUT the devs are ass hats Xrealmers decide what happens at all times in game and pretty much no matter what you are just canon fodder once you hit 40 until you can get much better gear

[@GonarchPlays]

No it's not. lol

[@SpaceElvisInc]

Could you imagine if shit turned out differently we could be playing world of warhammer

[@kingbeeYT]

The private server is actually really well done and is fairly active. I play it every so often

[@gordo6908]

​@@kingbeeYTreturn of reckoning, or is there a wow pserv modded to resemble warhammer fantasy?

[@kingbeeYT]

@gordo6908 return of reckoning

[@Amel-vp9he]

@@kingbeeYT When I started a character there all mobs in leveling starter zone stood still with no animation. Kinda ruined the immersion for me

[@kingbeeYT]

@Amel-vp9he when was that? Some Mobs sit still but most people pvp all the way to 40. You can start at level 1

[@WaxPaper]

Man I was working for an MMO news website when this came out, and after covering it for a first-look, I really fell in love with it. I wound up playing it (and covering it) for the game's entire run. They did have problems with balancing and other game issues, but the two main reasons it failed was the lack of funding/support from Mythic, and then WoW's Wrath expansion came out and it never recovered from the hit in players that caused. It was an excellent MMO, though. PvP was so good. I played a Magus, which was also one of the most neglected classes, lol. Just a great time, though.

[@snowblack90]

I still cry about this in the heart of night, sometimes

[@snowblack90]

hell, I'm 8 minutes in and the feelings are too much

[@snowblack90]

time to reinstall return of reckoning

[@snowblack90]

goddamn you, Madseason

[@McMTG]

@@snowblack90 Save yourself some time the game is boring. RoR is dead as fuck

[@snowblack90]

@@McMTG sadge

[@vinni3c]

Warhammer Online was ahead of it's time. I bet a Warhammer MMO now would pop off now... Or at least 40k is as big as it ever was

[@no-nonseplayer6612]

and see how games workshop mircomnanages i tto hell as develpers need run every decision by them if they agree or not and kets be honets eveyroen will paly some kind space marien or you arenallowed play as space marine not thta i would i would play as filthy xenos or heretic but yegh that kidna gme woul die in 5-6 motmnsh depending how stupid games workshop or they woud but pricing lie kthey od thei minsi whis woudl be astronomical soo no thnak you

[@vinni3c]

@@no-nonseplayer6612 lol wtf

[@christianweibrecht6555]

I say no because one look at other games shows how minor imbalances in PVP will instantly snowball in modern games

[@Ry_315]

I’m so happy I found this video. I’ve thought about this game every now and then the last 15 years. Now I know there’s servers out there I can check out, thanks 🙏🏼

[@u3pyg]

Funny thing is, back in the day Blizzard wanted to make Warhammer RTS, but Games Workshop did not agreed to give the IP. So Blizzard took what assets they already made for the game, and made the first Warcraft game, Orcs and Humans.

[@VS666]

this game had huge potential for me. I can’t describe it but it had that feel good cozy feeling that wow gave me. I really enjoyed my time playing this, I remember it vividly ❤

[@BusinessPlot]

Stll the best mmo imo. You faction actually felt like a team

[@adiscerningdunmer9311]

I still go back to the Return of Reckoning private server every now and again. The PvP was a genuinely good time, and I can only wonder what could've been if the original game wasn't mismanaged into the dirt. Makes me wonder if this next attempt at a Warhammer MMO will be any better.

[@sarmelionbloodweaver4789]

Next attempt?

[@adiscerningdunmer9311]

@@sarmelionbloodweaver4789 A new Warhammer MMO was announced to be in the works sometime last year, IIRC.

[@aquaticpears3183]

I remember playing this on release for a few months and loved it. I liked the gritty aesthetic

[@Celadonis-the-Lore-Seeker]

I just started playing on the Return of Reckoning server, this video couldn't have come out at a better time !

[@Thandwar]

really liked it! can't wait for you to cover the conan MMO! i'll always remember it as on of the best "early game" experiences i had in an mmo, and the moment you left the tutorial island and got to "main game" everything was an unfinished barren boring wastelands. really interested what you could dig up on that one!

[@Zombgetsu]

Yea... Return of Reckoning is still running very strong playerbase aswell.

[@rock2k14]

The Tome of Knowledge is still to this day one of my favourite Systems in a game, it had SO MUCH depth to it, just the fact that it had a Bestiary of everything you fought with some lore about it was great. Now no developers even bother with such a feature, such a waste.

[@volkfidde4269]

I agree. Though, as a long time table top player, I will admit that I probably enjoy the lore more than most.

[@Azurantine81]

I arguably had more fun in this mmo than I did Wow, its lore and setting just appealed to me more, it was a sad day indeed when it closed, but the return of reckoning fortunately took its mantle.

[@techno8958]

Nice work on the video! Was nice to go down a trip on memory lane. Return of reckoning is still going strong for those that are interested in checking it out, the server has plenty of custom live events and content for those interested!

[@fuzzylumpkins6034]

I really appreciate you bringing up DAoC and WH online. My wife and I played DAoC for 5 years and it was at its peak after the ToA xpac. We both had high RR toons (11.5 and 12.6.) and we were seriously excited for WH Online. It was such a let down. RvR made DAoC and it was a fluke that can never be repeated. There were a million players in DAoC over 20 or 30 servers. You would still get a lagfest in keep takes and today this would be much more stable but a company would have to cap the number of players in instanced rvr and that would be useless in an rvr game. It would mean you could not guarantee playing with your clan or zerg. WoW was easy, had rubbish pvp and instanced dungeons. To this day wow is still more player friendly than DAoc or WH OL could be even with more stable servers. Mythic games required a massive amount of players in 1 area where WoW can instance dungeons for 5 10 20 and 40 players (at the time.) Very different games, very different players. WoW was for anyone or any level of play (even the top play was questionably simple if you could learn a 5 move pattern with 3 button gameplay), DAoC and WH OL were for players that only cared to pvp/rvr all day. CoD on roids. When we left to play WoW, it was evident what type of gamer would prevail in wow and in which area. Our guild migrated in full from DAoC/WH to WoW during TBC and at the time we had no idea it was big deal to clear BT. We didnt understand legendaries at the time but we did have raid son farm very quickly. It was annoying they had lock out so we only lasted in WoW until the end of WotLK. 3 years was a long time to play a mild game that thought it was hard. Edit: I just noticed my yt tag is the name of my cleric from DAoC, Fuzzylumpkins. Lasting impact.

[@vainkaiju]

Yes it's honestly hilarious how people think wow is hard in any way at all 😂

[@fuzzylumpkins6034]

@@vainkaiju wow was always the poor players "hardmode" but it sold very well for the every casual player to be a pretender

[@greycreeley2038]

there is another private server other then return of reckoning. Works well, its just lacking population, it feels closer to live imo. server is called Flames of War. It has its own issues and bugs but last i played they fixed them pretty fast

[@TheShawnMower]

I have the huge collectors edition on my book case next to me to this day

[@Venomousse]

I have mine on the floor next to the book shelf

[@cattysplat]

It's been 16 years guys, that's a lot of dust.

[@JuMoraf]

ESO was developed by a lot of the guys and gals from Mythic and the PvP zone Cryodiil shows. It's incredible to see how far that sieging system has come and still holds up to this day.

[@whiplash5643]

I fell in love with this game back in the day man. Renown rank 100 Bright Wizard, who took down the Destruct Emperor, and got the Sovereign Robes. Damn, those were good times.

[@bjmw93]

Oh, super cool video idea. Haven't even watched it yet, but I'm excited. I played and enjoyed WAR at launch and for a few months. But like many people at the time, I was still in love with WoW and went back to that over time.

[@paragongaming9666]

holy shit hearing the menu music almost made me tear up i loved this game so much man

[@erikj1996]

I joined RoR in 2020 Right in the pandemic and oh Boy let me Tell you. It was the Most fun i‘ve ever had in a mmorpg. I sadly rolled with a Withhunter (good bye City Sieges) but the best Memory was a Battle of 600 vs 600 Players. Almost the whole Server in one Zone was insanity.

[@klnz1107]

Loved this game. The oublic quests and pvp were awesome. Was young and my computer sucked eventually couldnt run it. Classes were so unique too even if they were mirrored. Shadow warrior and the goblin one were awesome. Would never even think of playing a goblin in any game but had to in this one to fight inside the squid

[@sant1xani]

EVE Online. Thanks for bringing back memories of me playing WHO. I was there on the release. HAD so much fun! True hardcore PVP game.

[@pdpMASTERP]

Played this on launch. The race cinematics were SO GOOD

[@xanianjamfalcon]

Seeing a Griffin Mcelroy article from way back was a trip. Downloading Return of Reckoning right now, though.

[@trolleurdurden5534]

I've never been a MMO player but back in the day, I got roped in by friends to play it with them. I have very fond memories of my adventures as a marauder with a mutated arm.

[@TheOneTrueOfficialLordGod]

Fun Fact: Warcraft was originally going to be a Warhammer game and Starcraft was going to be a 40k game until Blizzard lost the license

[@nostrius-t1z]

Only Warcraft, and they never had the license, GW turned them down in the concept stage.

[@joezar33]

I played the private server few months back , only for the Witch Hunter class , they remind me of a Rogue & Pally hybrid class

[@tomaslekis3262]

One of the most fun MMO’s I played back in the day. Still have fond memories of the PvP.

[@Sweggabeg]

Warhammer is still the only MMO that I've found to have genuinely fun pvp

[@MarkusEEE]

This game was so good, leveling through pvp was super fun. You would level through scenarios (battlegrounds) which would also drop gear for your team to roll on when enemy players were defeated. I remember being sad when the servers announced to be going down. The game never got a real expansion.

[@StormWildSpace]

I am STILL mad about EA pushing this out the door WAY too soon. The game had amazing promise... now we have a watered down warhammer MMO in wow

[@adamorth5335]

I’d watch more of this. My suggestion would be to try and give a little more detail on some of the balance issues/mechanics. Not a ton, but a little taste of the systems that were there

[@solaurelian7638]

I played this game when it came out, I had a really fun time and thought it was really interesting, the PvP especially was a blast. I was quite young to be fair but honestly kind of sad it died so fast.

[@trolltalwar]

the biggest problem with the population in the factions was that there were only two factions. having 3 factions in a free for all like dark age helped regulate this issue. i think WoW suffers greatly from not having three factions when it comes to PvP as well. had they made a third faction for warhammer that consisted of ogres, skaven and beastmen, i think it would of been much better. i know these races are a somewhat unlikely alliance, but for the context of the MMO i think these are the best ones that can be grouped together. no way EA would let them spend more time developing though. EA genuinely did more damage to warhammer than anything else. EA also did an excellent job running dark age into the ground. late 00's were when we really started to see the effects of corpos on our games

[@midwestbox]

At least wow sorta balanced it out making pvp an optional mode later on that encourages player giving a bonus for exp and such. Definitely agree, I kinda wish there was a neutral/gray faction of sorts to balance out the main two. Planetside 2 does a decent job with the 3 way faction balance imho

[@trolltalwar]

@@midwestbox yeah i think warhammer online just came out at the wrong time and mythic had the worst company possible in EA buying them and breathing down their necks. mythic legit was not trying to be a wow killer they just wanted to bring the warhammer world to life and EA just wanted to cash in

[@brightestlight9462]

beastmen should be chaos, and put orcs with ogres and skaven, and you got a deal

[@xKinjax]

A third faction was being worked on for the game's first expansion. It would have been Skaven, Vampire Counts and I think Ogre Kingdoms. There wasn't much work done on it before everything started to fall apart but what little there was got reused later when they added the playable Skaven in RvR. More came to light in some leaks and in bits that would later be found in the game files by the people who worked on the private server emulator.

[@Kemachris]

Yes this! I wish more devs would realise that a 3 faction system is basically adding autobalance, because if one faction gets too strong the other 2 will band together to take the third faction down. This is what happens in DAoC still to this day on private servers.

[@ZergS4uc3]

i still play warhammer online from time to time, it has some of the most unique systems that still havent been used anywhere else

[@GloriousGrunt]

Fun Fact, this game has a series of novels attached to it that are pretty comfy gritty Warhammer reads.

[@burgzaza]

Ah I loved this game My little goblin heala was named Greenstik ;D The roleplay between greenskins was so funny

[@miiniipa]

If someone had told me of this game back then, I think I would've really enjoyed it. Watching this makes me feel like I missed out on a gem.

[@vainkaiju]

The private server is very alive, I missed out on it back in the day too but it's still around :)

[@Grimprospect]

Great video! So glad to see you branching out from WoW! Small suggestion but towards the start of the video I felt like your voice was being overpowered by one of the songs. Just a friendly suggestion.

[@BausofHogs]

This was great man! I started playing WoW Classic about 6 months ago, I’ve gotta 48 Dwarf Priest. First time ever playing WoW. My buddies been trying to get me into since launch when we were in HS and I finally dove in. Love your content man. Seriously some of the best wow content out there. I hate when I have to watch someone else’s stuff to get info actually. Speaking of that, I would suggest making guide videos for things like Pre BIS, how to play certain roles, how to do or prep for certain dungeons or Raids, just all the stuff you haven’t covered in WoW Classic or didn’t cover in great detail. If it ain’t mono tone I ain’t listening, ya herd? Just a suggestion, keep up the good work!

[@redsledgeblu5234]

That transition tonthe boot dot dev advert was flawless! You sly dog you 🍻

[@vainkaiju]

As someone who has played wow for years, I tried the private server last year and I can honestly say it was the most fun ive ever had playing an mmo. Wow is garbage next to this and its not even funny. They absolutely need to officially bring it back, afterall Warhammer is swelling with popularity these days too.

[@AlaskaSaedelaere1]

What do you mean fall? It's still running well. In my heart I mean not on servers. God I love this game

[@HootMaRoot]

It's still up and running and has been for many years return of reckoning, and the original devs were there for the release of the new version and we get so many balance updates huge game updates they also stream now and again on twitch

[@troyschnierer2940]

Loved playing my White Lion. Such fond memories of this game, playing with my younger brother. Enjoyed the lower level RvR, the skirmish maps and generally exploring the world. Great art design and feel. Good times.

[@Tecni9363]

Great video with a lot of things I had no idea even was in the game, and I played it back in the day lol. I would love to see you cover Wildstar at some point!

[@martineriksson6123]

First song: Children of the Omnissiah. Absolute masterpiece. Great choice!

[@XIronelfX]

Hey MadSeason, this was a game I have such nostalgia for. Like you said, the game's private server Return of Reckoning is such a great/strong community. You should do a video about the private server to bring more attention to it, especially since the type of game it is, relies on more and more players.

[@warhammerguy]

This game will always have a special place in my heart.

[@MrSBGames]

And rise again. Return of reckoning is a beast.

[@maddyleaf]

Playing this game in pservers years after release is such a joy. It's a great MMO, sadly it didn't have too much content outside of the mass scale PvP, there is some yes, but it's hardly enough to keep people engaged for a long time. I would've loved to see expansions and big content patches for it. I HIGHLY recommend playing a character to max level, especially if you're even slightly into the Warhammer universe. I'm getting the itch to go play my Marauder right now, such a unique class.

[@erikj1996]

But no witchhunter though xd you wont get taken in the City Sieges :(

[@volkfidde4269]

Are there any pservers other than Return of Reckoning?

[@Jdkieddj]

You could make content about any game and its going to be enjoyable. Glad to see you make another video like this.

[@Painbow]

I had years of fun thanks to this game and made many friends. It will always hold a place in my heart.

[@riptors9777]

I bought the collectors edition.... it still stings today XD I will never understand how they simply tanked this game even thought everything was in their favour... the IP, the inbuilt fanbase, the experience after creating DAOC... and yet they completly messed it up. The class balance? Non existant, the siege mechanics? Barely functioning. Public quests? Awesome brand new (at the time) concept but shoddily implemented. The PVE content? Simplistic and allmost non functioning (bind on pickup loot would drop from endgame dungeons for classes that werent even in the group etc.) Endgame sieges where a zerg merry go around.. there was no incentive for guilds to actually hold onto their keeps because defending them didnt net you any gear.. gear came from keeplords so it was more adventagious to not engage the enemy warband and instead go for undefended keeps. And after you pushed the enemy back into their capital and finaly broke in? PVE Dungeons! Thats the reward for slogging through the ardious RvR implementation. The PvE players where pissed that the highest tier endgame PvE was hidden behind a PvP wall, and the PvP players where pissed that their reward was PvE.... And then there was the arrogance of the developers telling people they where simply wrong about the skewed class imbalance, that they had all the metrics, AOE wasnt out of control, CC wasnt crippling the game. unkillable melee healers werent an issue etc. etc.

[@Itsjumbomuffin]

wildstar next.

[@necropola]

Yeah, would love that.

[@FormerGovernmentHuman]

One of my minor regrets in life is dismissing warhammer and warhammer 40k. I even kind of wished for it to fail as a WoW player when age of conan, GW2 and warhammer online were supposed to be the WoW killers. Nowadays I hate wow and am obsessed with 40k.

[@KnightedDuck1421]

Funny how I had a bit of nostalgia about this game a couple days ago that I watched some old and new reviews on this gem, then you upload one.

[@serrion1394]

Thank you for the blast from the past! I was there... 3000 years ago... playing a chaos marauder :D I remember to this day how I got stuck like 100 times just trying to walk past a root on the ground XD

[@connorburchell4909]

Cool video! I didn't even know there was a warhammer MMO! As always you put out great polished content Madseason thx!

[@whoopsie321]

They should really look into doing another Warhammer MMO with all the knowledge for mmos we got now. I had fun with it for a bit when it released but never stuck with it cus mainly my friends played WOW but I did the private server for this game and had a blast they improved it a bunch over Mythic.

[@joshuafishbaugh1549]

didnt fall, Return of Reckoning is still fine

[@kingbeeYT]

I actually play on this every few days. Still has plenty of people imo

[@Mister_Kage]

Trove was my first and only real MMO I spent a lot of time on, it's still going but not by much. I would love to see if you could look into what happened :]

[@Wolfchamane]

I remember the hype my friends and myself got for this game. We get into the beta, we even buy the game on it's release day, which did offer 30 days trial w/out subscription fee. Noone of use continue playing after those very first 30 days. Not because the game was bad, but because it was a pain in the ass to play it: login queues, lag, continuous server dc'd .. And that was when there was not a RvR event going on.

[@mattbrown5511]

You only bring us the best of content. I look forward to your future projects. MMORPGs or otherwise.

[@nooboshie]

great vid, do wildstar next

[@Madmeerkat55]

Awesome video, really interesting! I love this format and it's got some serious legs if you continue with it!

[@ClosedGame75]

This was the MMO I truly wanted to succeed. The one I had all my hopes up for. And then I got to play it. I bought the collector's edition version ... you know, the boxed set with the book of art and everything and I was hyped beyond WORDS for this. I wanted to try practically every class, every race, -everything-. I just wanted to enjoy Warhammer in a new, exciting way. I pretty quickly ended up throwing in with the Dark Elves. I enjoyed them above the other races, though I WAS still alt'ing a few others. And things just went downhill at an almost impossible speed. I won't say it was from day one, but it very nearly was. First of all, the forces of order had a numerical superiority so overwhelming that it absolutely beggared belief. Any PvP, realm-versus-realm ... any capital attack ... anything that involved the two factions squaring off was so one-sided that pretty quickly, people began leaving the side of the bad guys and making new mains with the side of order. There were STRONG and very, VERY persistent rumours going around at the time, that the developers of the game were themselves playing the game and secretly buffing specific classes, most notably the Bright Wizards, to a level where they were basically unconquerable. I don't actually think that WAS the case, but I did witness some very, very odd things. I remember, for instance, more than one situation where the forces of chaos were trying to hold a keep against attackers from the forces of order, where you'd simply see a group of four bright wizards walking lined up behind everyone else. They'd then cast their AoE-spells and even fully geared, maxed-out chaos warriors and black orks just ... melted like candlewax in a hot furnace, whereas when the opposite situation happened, the forces of chaos, even with twice that number of maxed out sorceresses and chaos sorcerers, couldn't make so much as a dent in the health of the enemies. It was enough to cause suspicions to rise and players who had stuck around, hoping it'd get better but instead got to witness things get worse and worse, just began throwing in the towel and leaving the game. Eventually, I gave up too. It wasn't fun, by the time I stopped playing. There was never a single chaos capital in one piece. They were invaded and laid to waste usually around within an hour or so after respawning, on repeat. As swiftly as they could be reached, at least. I remember one of the last things I got told in my guild at the time, was the guild leader who was a VERY dedicated player and who was really, really good at PvP, told us that she had decided to give up ... since she hadn't won a PvP match in two months, and she no longer felt the game was even trying to be balanced. I remember her saying "If this is what the developers wanted, why didn't they just make it an MMO where you could play order factions and go up against PvE content, and where you could choose how difficult you wanted that to be?" The next day, she dissolved the guild, and I realized there was no reason to even keep trying. I've sometimes considered going to play on the private server, but ... the bitter taste of what it was like back then just won't leave my mouth and I'm not going to even bother anymore. I AM glad that the Return of Reckoning is working out and that it seems to be a lively, vibrant and fun community these days ... but I don't have it in me to give it a go, at this point.

[@daiblaze1396]

When the game came out, even with it being unfinished, it was a breath of fresh air. Graphics was way ahead of WoW, remember my little dwarf walking along a path near a cliff : shadow and texture were a pleasure to see. XP was so fun with the variety. Hipe is buildding up more and more, imagining what's ahead once max level battling in RvR mode. Then you realise that it's unplayable : server lag, computer lagging with all the AoE splash. So sad, it wasn't able to keep it promise. Well EA at its best once more! Nice of you to bring the memories back!

[@Sigffrid]

Awesome video as usual. One of my favourite mmos of all times. Sad when they closed it, but thankfully I discovered Return of Reckoning in 2014 and have been playing there ever since. The work done by the devs and community is insane and they make the very special soul of this somewhat unusual mmo persist. Thanks Monotone man for talking about this great game :)

[@stockvillain]

This is the first MMO that ever played a healer, because my buddies & I got tired of losing matches. Healinstein was so much fun! Then we tried some squigs, played some black orcs and had fun kickin' 'em in the jibblies! My absolute favorite times were playing Lava Golf with my ranged knockback as a magus. Good times, man. Good times. Of course, those pesky bright mages would always show up and ruin the fun . . .

[@Zdrajev]

Thanks for this cool video. I've always wondered what WH Online was like, but never tried it for various reasosns. It was good to get this insight. Very entertaining and informative as usual. Keep up the good work!!

[@bencemervay]

Oh, that intro music! Now I have to listen to Mechanicus' soundtrack again!

[@EatMyVlogs]

If you as a viewer are seeing this, check out Return of Reckoning. After seeing a random video about this game I was interested and googled it to find it is still playable and has a decent playerbase for a game of its age and the fact it has had next to no marketing. Been playing it for a few hours today and running around the greenskin beginner zone was a blast of nostalgia I didn;t know I needed. Also had a chance to check out the RvR gameplay and yeah, right out the gate you can queue for BG's and off you go in a matter of minutes. I hope RoR blows up from all of these videos...

[@lunar_arcus]

Would love to see one of these about Rift. I’m sure I’m one of a few, but I loved that game.

[@Samlem14]

Dog this is some incredible content, you amazing level of detail and story telling that usually comes from your wow content but now with other games, I am so for this. Incredible job as always and really excited to see what game comes next. Couple games I’d be curious to see you cover: ffxiv 1.0, toontown(weird one but curious to see your take on a video on it), meridian!!

[@johnnytwobyfour2592]

Definitely make this a series!

[@shred5]

One thing that really killed Warhammer was the fact that devs kept buffing Order and nerfing Destuction. I played on a popular server and it got to the point while we were waiting for better balance and they continued buffing order and destruction players just quit entirely or quit RvR, waiting for a fix and eventually quit when it didn't arrive. We went from 100 on 150 battles to 20 destruction players getting camped at spawn by 200 order players. Great job, EA! The input lag whenever there were 40+ players in your area as also pretty bad. It really never improved during the lifespan of the game. However the PVP was really fun. It was cool how there was player collision, so tanks could wall up to protect the casters and so forth.

[@Sanvone]

Yea. Devs tried to encourage people to play order cause destro had better aesthetics.

[@shred5]

@@Sanvone yeah that is definitely true, and also they played order themselves. But it was crazy unfair and seemed to have contributed to a huge subscriber loss from people who simply quit in protest. By total accident, I had became my faction's RvR leader for a while too until there was no one to lead. Was actually a lot of fun.

[@Sanvone]

@@shred5 Game had plenty of imbalances TBH. All because they didn't exactly mirrored classes for each side. Engineer was better than Magus (cause he could AoE heal), Witch Hunter better than Witch Elf (cause more ranged executions) etc On other side Choosen was better than KoTB from graphical design alone as it allowed easier body/vision blocking and Disciple of Khaine was better than Warrior Priest due to his morale pumping strat. My Pet peeve was that initial patches were kind of hit or miss balance. Initially stealth classes (WH/WE) were dominant so they got nerfed which in turn allowed Bright Wizards and Sorceress to get out of hand, now that they finally didn't get countered by stealth. Lack of crowd control limits and no AoE cap together with some bad RvR Lakes design (places where paths were 3 models wide yet you had over 1.000 players fighting in them) also highlighted engine issues. I remember watching and reading about PvP from top guild/player on Karak-Norn (or was it Karak-a-Karak? Can't remember) and he was playing destruction. In the end those differences didn't matter much but skill (mechanical) gap was tremendous. I'll never forget that video he recorded when his single party defended a keep against 100 Order players for whole hour. Before servers went offline he got immortalized as top killer realm wide with 20.000 or was it 200.000 kills. Truth was that against best zerging was just pointless as they were constantly moving and downing between 7-11 players with every AoE. He had top gear though and they had voice communication when it wasn't standard yet. Still it was really impressive.

[@shred5]

@@Sanvone BW's and Sorc's were pretty powerful near the beginning after several rounds of nerfs. However the BW barely got nerfed in comparison, the basically could cast pit of shades and shadow knives together because SK was a proc for them. For a while, destruction did reign supreme despite that. A lot of it was we had better leadership. I'm not saying that as a self plug by any means but other warband leaders knew I always led a warband and asked me what to do and people scouted and reported to me and we messed with the order bad who didn't see it coming. The problem was a lot of destruction players quit RvR in protest and they never got them back - until the final days of retail at leas.

[@Getorix]

I absolutely loved this game. Best MMO ever. Better than wow imo. What happened to this game? The fan base wasnt loyal and jumped ship as soon as a game called Aion came out. Miss playing my ork Choppa Boogapikka Snotrolla. Used to steamroll (snotroll) those bgs.

[@JF-iq3qk]

Return of reckoning is free private server

[@elgrifolorian]

One of my favorite mmos next to Asherons call, DAoC, and Eve online . I still have a sealed collectors edition of this game