Snafzg of The Greenskin posted his response to a post made by Syp of Waaagh! answering a number of What If…?‘ questions. I thought I’d play along too, so here are my answers.

…What if WAR hadn’t been delayed, but would’ve been released in early June to go head-to-head against Age of Conan?

I wouldn’t see much of an issue as GameStop sales numbers, and the fact that WAR was ranked #1 on Amazon when the preorder became available, it’s fairly clear that Warhammer Online is beating Age of Conan in terms of sales so far. AoC will surely sell well, but being multi-platform would surely limit the scale on which it could operate as it has to accommodate for many more factors.

…What if WAR is delayed into 2009, despite reassurances from Mythic that it doesn’t look like that would ever happen?

It’d just give me more time to make this site significantly more prepared for the launch of the game AND almost guarantee that the game has that extra level of polish at launch that many MMO’s take months (if not years) to get. Of course, it would be very disappointing too and I’m sure many fans/trolls would announce their hatefulness of Mythic and the fact that they will never play WAR now (except we know they will).

…What if Order becomes the “underdog” faction instead of Destruction, a la Horde in World of Warcraft?

That would really be disappointing as I’m rolling Destruction and I love to be the underdog! However, I don’t consider it much of a concern. The way Hickman talks so confidently about balancing out the sides, it makes me think Mythic has some secret plan to do so effectively. Also, with the faction login cap, even if one side is technically larger, the effects will be negated if that cap has been reached on both sides.

…What if Age of Conan gets fair-to-middling reviews, and ansy gamers twiddle their thumbs all summer waiting for the next big thing?

Then I expect a decent supply of AoC fans trying to defend their bad decision making on WAR forums by saying they’re very disappointed with Mythic and WAR.

…What if Blizzard is holding back a huge surprise — or two! — from their list of Wrath of the Lich King features?

Then I guess Blizzard’s world domination scheme will progress further…I’ve said too much.

…What if WAR’s 24 classes contain massive imbalances on launch day?

I’ll roll the most over powered class, do as much destruction as I can, get all the gold, equipment as I can, and then sell all that stuff in game and transfer the money to my Goblin Shaman when the imbalances are fixed. I’m an evil genius, right?

…What if Joystiq creates a WAR Insider?

Then surely this blog will be in trouble! But seriously, they probably will, and it will probably be a pretty useful resource  but I always find Joystiq blogs to be relatively impersonal (and swamped with irrelevant ads). WoW Insider may be insanely popular but there are many alternatives that still have their fair share of fans, and all the current WAR blogs have the upper hand as we’re doing it for the fun (for now, muahahahaha) and can gain the readership of fans who have been following WAR for years. A trend amongst the larger blogs is to report on the larger news too as  they need to appeal to the masses, so there will still be plenty of room for blogs to report on smaller news such as city sieges, huge guild battles etc (all that fun in game, server-specific goodness that often gets missed out on).

…What if Mythic includes those cool Paul Barnett sunglasses in the CE?

I will punch anyone who I see wearing them to prove my dominance and then ask them to join my guild.

…What if I’d never stop wearing them?

You’d have a lot more problems then could be discussed in a singular post.

…What if WAR launches, it’s a good game, but it never gets more than 200,000 long-term subscribers?

That’s still 200,000 people to play with, and as long as they aren’t spread across the servers it seems like a non-issue for the gamers. However, I’d be concerned about how much EA would want to continually invest in a game not going up against even some of the smaller (yet still popular) MMO’s.

…What if none of my guildies from WoW come over to WAR, and I have to find a new guild all over again?

Join "The Warhammer Gamers Official Guild" - coming to a keep near you at the release of WAR.

…What if Keen changes his blog banner-o-the-week to Hello Kitty Online?  Because, seriously, that would be sweet.

A little piece of myself would die.