If people thought that Warhammer Online was not going to be as popular as its chief competitor, World of Warcraft, signs are that those people we very, very wrong. By early August, a month before it scheduled release, over 50,000 people were let in as Beta testers. But more impressively, in the short time that preorders have been available, 130,000 different people have already pre-ordered the game. That is 130,000 people pre-ordering Warhammer Online before hardly any advertisements, any news of its release other than some gaming sites, and any real buzz due to its delayed release dates.
Not Bad
The real question now is whether or not this game is going to be a serious competitor in the MMORPG world. There have been several dozen games that have attempted to compete with WoW, but all of them have come up significantly short. Asking any non gamer to name more than 3 is almost impossible, and that is how you know that the games did not generate the same amount of popularity - when none of them have become a part of mainstream culture. Warhammer Online appears to be breaking that mold, however. Though not everyone knows its full name yet (Warhammer Online: Game of Reckoning) there has been mention of it casually, with everyday people, non gamers, referring to the game in some roundabout way (most commonly "that Warhammer game").
While that may not seem like a big accomplishment, again, this is with absolutely zero effort trying to market this game to the mainstream public. Beta testing just now started, and it has not nearly had enough time to cause word of the game's success to spread. The best part is the anticipation. If the game is going to be a failure, we should know very quick, because you will hear some quick bad reviews and then official news that the game will be delayed for something like 6 months to "fix bugs." If the game is going to be good, slowly but surely word of its gameplay will start to build up on the mouths of gamers until suddenly the game is released and it takes the world by storm.
Now We Sit and Wait
With no way to know for sure if this game is expected to take off or not, those of us that are looking forward to its release have to sit and wait for word of mouth to start its journey. But if the early success of Warhammer Online is any indication, chances are this game is going to make a tremendous splash on the MMORPG market.
I, for one, cannot wait.
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