Warhammer Online Servers Closing 'To Maintain An Engaging Experience'

Developer Mythic Entertainment is set to close down three of its Warhammer Online servers in an effort to "maintain an active, competitive, and engaging experience" in the multiplayer online game. Two of the North American servers, Iron Rock and Volkmar, will close down over the coming weeks, while an additional EU server, Carroburg, will also be dropped. Free transfers to other servers are being offered, allowing players on those particular servers to move across and retain their characters. "Multi-realm ability" has been enabled on the free transfer servers, for the cases where players already have accounts setup on those servers. All three servers will be retired after three weeks, and any players who are yet to move their characters will be provided with the option for the free transfer. James Nichols, community coordinator for Warhammer Online, commented that "the game play experience of our customers is something we highly value". "We don't make changes like this lightly. A lot of metrics and analysis accompanies this type of decision. We feel that these changes will help to ensure that server options continue to facilitate that best RvR experience out there." Mythic was previously forced to close 63 Warhammer Online servers back in 2009 to consolidate the game's decreasing online population. The title has become something of a cautionary tale in setting high expectations for a major MMO launch. Much was made of the title's potential to reinvent player combat and social dynamics in an online world, and the outspoken enthusiasm of Mythic co-founder Mark Jacobs played a role in the broad view that WAR represented EA's ambitious bid to challenge WoW. But the title's launch was anticlimactic; despite drawing an impressive 500,000 subscribers in its first week, that number saw a rapid drop-off soon after, and a wave of server consolidations followed, giving the game's humble performance quite a visible profile. Jacobs has since left Mythic.