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A WoW Player's Guide To Warhammer
With Warhammer Online just around the corner, Zonk wrote up a guide which compares it to the current top dog of the MMO market, World of Warcraft. He highlights the fact that despite the appearance of "War" in both names, Warhammer is much more focused on the struggle between factions, in gameplay and artistic style. Warhammer's open beta started on Sunday, doing well in the US but stumbling in Europe. The full version launches on Sept. 18th, but people who pre-order the game will be able to access live servers up to four days before, thanks to Mythic's head-start program. Mythic CEO Mark Jacobs recently launched a blog to answer questions about the game.
I'm sure they'll mourn the loss of all five of you Linux gamers.
And all the tens of dollars you bring with you.
The beta launch was handled horribly by GOA, the account activation was opened just a few hours before the servers went live and it completely collapsed. It wasn't just the numbers it seemed to be thoroughly broken. There's a reason you allow a few days before launching to let people sort out their accounts and keys.
However now that I'm in I'm enjoying it. The public quests are brilliant fun, the scenarios (think WoW BGs) are easy to get into and the classes are varied and have creative play mechanics.
remains to be seen if I'll still think it's great at level 30 when grind sets in but it's incredibly promising at this stage.
I was in the WAR closed beta for a couple of months, and now in the open beta. Much about the game has already been covered so I'll skip it, but I have a few things to say.
First of all, I do love the game.
WoW did well with a (relatively) unknown lore and translated it into something sophisticated that touched the whole game. WAR does the same with its great lore set. Architecture, monsters, speech text, the ways the classes play, it all fits very well.
The graphics in the closed beta were bad, texture wise at least. In the open beta, they're significantly better. Hardly any graphic settings are changeable in game currently, so I figure they had a crappy default on the closed beta, a slightly better one now, and when you can tweak it to use your full system, it will be able to rival AoC.
The main point about WAR is, it is two games. It is a PvE game - you can do quests, public quests, instances, raids and never even go RvR enabled, if you so choose. It also has a full RvR game - scenarios, RvR enabled areas, RvR quests (from doing PvE activities within RvR areas, so actually killing players as an objective), a beautifully designed tiered RvR hierarchy, the lot. You can sign up for a scenario at Rank 1 and go right into PvP if you so choose, never looking back. Of course, the strength is when you do a little of both and have a lot of fun.
So far my impression is the RvR stuff is stronger, but the PvE is pretty damn good too.
Crafting, I've had a play with. I'll need more of a look. It feels a bit limited compared to WoW's "become the best blacksmith and make a fortune" ideal, but both innovative and with a fair element of chance that things won't come out as planned.
The interface was great in the closed beta, but not much handholding. They've added that in now and it's easy to get around and the early quests seem as graceful a learning curve as WoWs, but perhaps even more fun - more dark humour and some cool ones (shooting ballistas at NPCs etc)
It's worth mentioning again the classes and the beautiful way some of them work. Bright Wizards and Disciples of Khaine are my favourites. The first is a caster who the more spells they unleash, the more damage and crit they get, but the more chance to blow themselves up (and their teammates) too. The Disciple of Khaine is a healer, but their mana is generated through doing melee damage combos. No more standing at the back spamming Renew. It encourages, nay, requires, strategy rather than tactics.
Speaking of strategy, tanks intercepting attacks make formation hunting *very* powerful. The healer is hiding behind the tank? You can't hit him, target him, lob a fireball, chances are the tank intercepts it. And you can't just run through him. Finally! :)
In my second ever scenario, while a large skirmish was going on, a few of us outflanked the enemy and *ripped them apart*. The way it should be.
Overall the beta launch has been smooth. Even in Europe, where I play. I was in the WoW open beta as well, and it was nowhere near as smooth as this. People do forget that, a couple of years on. It's been playable almost all the time, which hey, is pretty good for a beta.
Speaking of beta, one thing I was impressed with was during closed beta, the level of interaction required from players. Lots of surveys on performing actions (how was that last quest, last scenario, etc) and looks like the developers have been very good at picking things up.
Overall, I think it's great. May not be for everyone, but I'm having a lot of fun.