Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning officially shuts down, private server in open beta

[Russ Boswell]

Let's all take a moment of silence as another long running MMORPG takes its place in the annals of history. Mythic Entertainment has officially shut down the servers for its Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning title. This termination is coming just months after the game celebrated five years of service.

The main focus of the title was realm versus realm multiplayer, which had gamers battling against one another to capture and defend points across the game's world. It received great accolade in 2008, including some awards from IGN, Gamespy, and G4TV, and some believed that it might become the “next best MMORPG” thanks to EA's impressive bankrolls, Mythic's solid development skills, and Game Workshop's creative and imaginative Warhammer universe.

Unfortunately, it failed to put much of a dent into the massive community that had already flocked to World of Warcraft, and after Blizzard released Wrath of the Lich King, Mythic's hopes of domination all but ceased. The developer had planned to release a free-to-play version, as well as an expansion titled “Blood Hunt,” but neither idea came to fruition. “WAR,” as it was affectionately known to fans, managed to sell 1.2 million copies in its first two weeks, but unfortunately Mythic ran out of time and resources to keep what many consider to be a beloved PVP experience alive.

Above is one of the screenshots from a “final war” that developers set up for players to enjoy. Mythic released the following statement about their five-year run,

"We here at Mythic have built an amazing relationship working with Games Workshop creating and running Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning over the last 8 years," Mythic said earlier this fall. "Unfortunately, as with all licensing deals they do eventually come to end and on December 18th, 2013 we will no longer be operating Warhammer Online. As such we will no longer be selling 3 month game time codes or have the ability to auto renew your accounts for 3 months as of September 18th, 2013."

Any players who may have purchased time cards or were paying for “in-game time” will receive full refunds, and more information regarding the shutdown can be found on the official website's Refund FAQ's page.

If you're having a hard time letting go, you can still play on a private server, like this one that is currently in open beta. There were only around 95/1000 players online at the time of writing this article, so it definitely isn't as “epic” as the official Mythic servers were. Still, if you're itching to play this is your only option.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/55071-warhammer-online-age-of-reckoning-officially-shuts-down-private-server-in-open-beta.html

 

[wastedkill]

Only wish I played the game on official servers :/ never actually played it wanted to but didnt have time

 

[tomkaten]

Among all the flak that WoW has got, the truth is that it set the bar so high, that MMO's have been failing left and right. I can't count the times some projects had a huge hype rating on mmorpg.com only to fail miserably upon launch or soon thereafter.

The only one that looks promising enough to me right now is Star Citizen, and that's only because I've always loved Chris Roberts' games. But beautiful art and graphics alone don't make a game you want people to be playing for years, so we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[TitoBXNY]

I remember being so excited for this game that I got the special edition. The first 2 weeks were jammed packed with players. I took two weeks of because of work and when I came back I started to notice that areas were getting emptier and I could no longer do them alone. The game got really boring and became a wasteland as players got over the initial WoW Killer stage and went back WoW. Soon after I was done with it and I myself went back. The game had so much promise.

 

[yukka]

As an ex-dark age of camelot player and fan of the war hammer fantasy setting, I was looking forward to some epic open world rvr (realm vs realm) and ordered the special collectors edition with the comic book and figurines. Unfortunately open world rvr is pretty boring with only 2 factions (you need 3 to spice it up really) and the preference for instanced small scale pvp zones (10vs10) and questing being something you did killing time to get into pvp queues, it just didn't deliver any on any of the game changing promises offered prior to launch.

Fighting in an ongoing war, thinks that you did in lower levels filtering up to the higher levels and helping in the overall struggle.. feeling like a part in a massive whole etc etc. That all went to pot. And as already mentioned, the open group questing system broke as soon as people abandoned the lvling areas for instanced pvp games and the occasional dungeon. I lasted less than 6 months returning briefly and seeing other friends who played on when I visited their homes.

Still feel sorry for anyone who was really invested though. Leaving an MMO community is hard enough let alone having it forced upon you. Mythic were fighting an uphill struggle from the start. And in Europe we had to deal with GOA till they got kicked into touch..