Two Weekends with Warhammer: Online
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
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Days always seem to whip right by, don’t they? Well, not when I was waiting for Warhammer: Online Age of Reckoning (WAR), the newest MMO from EA-Mythic. It was originally slated to released before World of Warcraft back in ’04, but WoW was so similar, they were forced to essentially recreate the game and find ways to be “different.” Well, it is different, there are 21 classes, but they’re unique per race, yet they all feel so similar that there might as well only be four. Ranged DPS (Damage Per Second), Melee DPS, Tank (person who takes a beating while the squishies [DPS’ers] stand back unharmed) and Healer. So really, there are only four classes, but the individual unique classes all have special abilities, gimmicks and play differently enough that you could play two of them in the same category and feel differently. For example, Dwarfs (that’s how it’s spelled in-game) get Engineers, ranged DPS that use gun-powder, grenades, and turrets to blow stuff up and shoot the crap out of things. Whereas the Elves have Shadow Warriors, who have the longest range in the game, are skilled marksmen with a bow, and are decent at melee, but specialize in long-range, single-target DPS. Whereas the Engineer is more AoE/Utility, the Shadow Warrior is essentially a bow sniper. Way cool and totally different to play one way or the other. I’ve played both extensively and thoroughly enjoyed.
Both preview weekends took play from a Friday morning until a Monday morning and had the first two areas on both sides of every conflict (Dwarfs Vs. Greenskins, High Elves Vs. Dark Elves, Chaos [Bad Humans] Vs. Order [Good Humans]) with a maximum level to 20. There are quite a few unique features to this game. Public Quests that anyone can join in on at any stage (there are three stages) which I didn’t really find to be that fun because no one works together or even really talks. It’s just lame zerging. Not fun, EA-Mythic. Then scenarios, which are instanced PvP, they’re alright, but a little small. Finally, there’s a world PvP area similar to an instance, but no real rules other than to capture nodes. Can be loads of fun or boring as hell, depending on who’s on and the numbers on the sides.
That’s really about it, nothing else is particularly groundbreaking or special…after waiting five years, I was expecting a bit more.
The world is small, but the maps are huge, so it’s disorienting to go anywhere or find anything. You can finish up and whip through a zone in under an hour or draw it out, but I don’t know why you would. Zones are packed so tight with so much crap, you never feel the need to explore because every 10’ you’re bombarded with more quests than you can handle. You’re out-level most areas before you’re even halfway finished with them, even if you don’t PvP or grind.
Watch my PvP video
There are, of course some unique elements to PvP: You gain XP per kill, dead players can drop loot, you gain renown ranks like levels. And renown ranks give you points you spend to improve your characters stats in an odd fashion by “equipping” traits you can buy with your renown points. Weird. There’s also PvP gear you can buy with it. It’s a much better PvP system than WoW. And there’s always war somewhere in WAR, I.E. you can always find someone to fight.
Right now I’m writing this as I feel the burn-out of hardcore playing. How many times can I level to 20 before I get bored? I’m waiting for the real game now, because at the end of every preview weekend and beta, all characters on all servers are deleted. No fun. I’m waiting for a character I can actually keep and see grow to maximum level and do end-game content with.
Character models are hideous, bodies are fine, except faces…even of the elves, are all so ugly, I cringe everytime I look another character in the face. Ugly Tree. Every branch on the way down.
Graphics also suffer, in that they look mostly like World of Warcraft’s, illustrating just how ready to go the game was back then and these years of development have been spent on the gameplay and design, nothing else.
In the end, what we have here is a pretty good game, one that will run on all systems (never mac, though, “kek”) fairly well, that has a lot of good ideas that aren’t particularly well-done, but clearly well-thought-out.
I’m sure it’ll achieve a level of success that’ll be the closest to World of Warcraft any MMO will have come so far, but still leagues behind it. Try it if you’re bored of WoW and want something new.
Watch my video of logging in and the character creation screen
Skip it up if you’re still waiting for that amazing “WoW-Killer.” I, on the other hand, ordered the $80 collector’s edition and will be playing like mad until I bore myself of it in about six months. Then I’ll proceed to wait for that next “WoW-Killer.”
Beta is never a judge of a good game: Player dynamics will change, lag will dissipate (before it returns), servers will be bigger, I can see the whole of the game (yowza!) and you never know what bugs will be fixed or what play aspects will be tweaked. Look for my review in the October 1 issue of The Commuter this year.
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