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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.
Guild Wars got my money because it works on Linux.
Savage got my money because it works on Linux.
Defcon got my money because it works on Linux.
NeverWinter Night got my money because it works on Linux.
There are many more but you get the idea.
If you want my money, make sure it works on Linux!
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
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.
Seriously.
More like World of Warhammer... Craft...
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
I've been in the open beta too and I'm impressed so far. There are a few bugs, but fewer than I recall seeing in WoW at this same stage of release. I have to agree that the public quests are great. They're easy to get into (no worrying about joining a party) and fun. I like what little I've seen of the RvR too.
Here's what I want from a medieval MMO:
Unlike most players I met in WoW, I find no fun in comparing the size of virtual âoeswordsâ or in optimizing numbers in a game of statistics. I want immersion. The way WoWâ(TM)s world is just some immutable scenario ruined immersion to me.
Prescriptive grammar:linguistics
There's a few things that standout in this game.
When you kill a person in RvR you get EXP. You get loot (money and items that come from a random pool, not the dead players pockets).
There are repeatable quests for RvR. You join the RvR scenarios (similar to WoW battlegrounds but a faster pace and with more on the line) simply by clicking an icon on yuor screen from anywehere (though your likely to be in a queue for a few minutes before actually getting into the scenario). You have repeatable quests in those scenarios. You truely can level in this game with just RvR.
On the PvE side Public Quests are very well done. Open groups are very well done. In both cases you just walk up and your "part" of something. No need for invites. No more "we don't need a tank, we need a healer" rejections.
Now, the games not perfect, but it's well done. It certainly is linear in many ways (from zones to loot). And it misses the mini-game casual play of WoW. There's no mini-pets or fishing in WAR. Some like that, some dont. But it will have an impact on the total player base.
Anyways, Massively's got a lot of info on the game that anyone interested should check out so not much more I can really say besides it gets a thumbs up so far.
"PvP is a much more important part of..."
Ok, so they got a focus group together, and looked on the internet, and people said "More, better PvP!"...
Too bad the niche hardcore players are the only people who speak up in those forums. Here's a big hint to everybody making this type of game: All those casual players that make Warcraft and Diablo crazy, stupid successful.... They play for the co-op and social aspects. They don't PvP. People who post on internet forums and create feature wishlists for these types of games (probably 90+% of the people who read this) aren't representative of the bulk of players no matter how vocal they are, or how important they think they are. If you cater to those players, and "being the next WoW" (in terms of paying playerbase) is your goal, you will fail.
While there is certainly nothing wrong with developers targeting Linux, Linux heads need to stop pretending like they are a major market. Linux on the desktop isn't all that common, and Linux on the desktop in a gaming situation is extremely rare. Thus this idea that developers really need to be targeting Linux is silly. To me it seems Linux is finding it's stronghold in business type markets. That's wonderful, but not a target for games.
People only want to enjoy the game, not get their char ganked by some "PvP elite".
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
You know, I played WoW up to 70, and the BG's and isntances were just boring to me.
How does this game play in relation? Is it just another WoW? If you hated WoW would you hate this?
I'm holding out before dishing out 50 bucks for something that may not be innovative.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
WoW has got 10 million with the mac and just google for 'wow wine' to see just how active a subject it is.
Blizzard apparently cares enough to have reversed its stance on Wine as being a hacker tool earlier. If the market is so small they could have simply kept it banned but they didn't. Explain please if they don't care about linux users.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I'm an active WoW player and am on the fence on picking up WAR. A lot of people I play WoW with are in the same boat.
The problem is this: We like raiding.
We may also like PvP. Several of us have 3 regular arena teams and are in full S4. But, still, we like raiding.
Now, everything I read on WAR trumpets the virtues of their PvP and RvR system while promising us that there is some sort of mythical PvE endgame without really describing it.
In short, can anyone confirm that there is a PvE endgame where you group up with X friends and fight tough bosses (where X >= the number of fingers you possess)?
That would get my kind of folks interested.
Tell that to every korean MMORPG that has PvP.
The problem is that western MMORPG's do PvP wrong, they do open world PvP and that just doesn't belong in a level based game. Warhammer does things different, far closer to Guild Wars. Wether it will work is anybodies guess, but PvP done well with no ganking could easily attract a large enough userbase to make the game succesfull.
Anyway, it is not like the industry needs another PvE MMORPG.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
And your laundry list of "features" pretty well demonstrates the difference. People play MMOs to have fun with other players. What you would make a good solo game for a micromanager.
Just consider your "ecology"
So what happens when a griefer guild shows up and slaughters all the wolves and bears in your forest? How do prevent this or can they even?
economies: much as I hate to admit it (I like the idea of a player economy as well), player based economies are actually very destructive to game enjoyment. The "Auction Hall" global market with instant results just provides massive encouragement for goldselling services and the resulting rampant inflation. The more resources and money supply is controlled by the publisher, the more the econommy winds up in control of the goldsellers.
If it is so darn "not difficult", why haven't you written your own game and have a few hundred thousand subscribers already?
However, the idea of allowing players to have a real impact on the game world is a good one, but once again darn near impossible in an MMO. Making real changes requires that new content be constantly generated to replace that which is no langer valid. Example: THe players have finally ended the zombie chicken infestation at Farmer Brown's. No longer will zombie chickens trouble the farm. Ever. So what new content do you propose for the beginning characters? Perhaps they could work on the rat infestation over at Farmer Smith's? What if someone gives Farmer Smith a pregnant cat(reproducing)? Oh the ecological horrors - plus the destruction of more content intended for beginning players.
Just ramp up those examples for "end game" content and you get a glimmer of the problem. It just takes too long to come up with new storylines/adventures. So players making real changes in games like this will be best done as solo games.
Or the games will have to have multiple "sub-games" built into them to keep folks occupied. (See Eve Online) which does have a failry robust and involved (although unfortunately corrupt) economy and PvP system.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Compelling PvP cannot exist without these 3 things:
Conflict, consequence and subjectivity.
Players must have a struggle and fight for something in the game. This creates a conflict that players will get involved in and fight over.
Players must feel repercussions for their decisions. Jumping and ganking the wrong people will result in total destruction of everything you and your friends have built by the community you have violated.
Finally, the sides must not be clearly defined at the beginning of the game. Your allies shouldn't be a gameplay decision based on what side of a coin you flip. Alliances need to be built out of a common desire to survive. You cannot possibly have a real hatred for an enemy just because your predisposed to them. But more importantly, you are forced to ally with those you may not want to because you are on the same side.
These static gameplay issues are the same reason WAR will be as interesting as WoW in terms of PvP and that is to say it won't be. Well, it will be fun objective based, tactical PvP.
But the game lacks *real* conflict, any type of consequence and subjectivity.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
Sorry... what were we talking about again?
crazy dynamite monkey
I get what you're saying. I can point you to a million page thread on the main WAR forum where I bought up WAR is a niche game.
However, what you're missing is you think Mythic wants to be WoW. Sure, they'd love the WoW numbers, but they, and the high-ups at Mythic have said this very thing, they don't need WoW numbers to make money or to have a great game.
WAR is not your typical RvR game anyways. It's not the cutthroat gank fest that other games are. It is a little more casual friendly then you might think. But one thing you have to respect is that the developers are making the game they want without varying the design for a cash grab.
And yet at the end of the day the numbers playing WAR will be very large. It won't be WoW, but it doesn't have to be to make them money and to give the people that do play it what they want.
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.
WoW PvP is a sad, pathetic, unbalanced POS. What's worse is the devs know it and have acknowledged it. They are trying to fix it in the upcoming expansion. Problem is, they let it go on all these months and it's soured a lot of people, including me, to arenas, which is WoW's PvP focus at this point. It reminds me a lot of CMs (combat medics) in SWG and their ridiculous DoTs, turning people off to PvP in that game too.
As a fire mage, my option if I want to do arenas is respec ice. Bah! If I wanted a pet, I'd have rolled a warlock! I do respec PoM/Pyro on weekends for battlegrounds, which is a total blast, but all the best gear comes from arenas, so it's crap knowing I'll always have second-best gear.
Balance. It's all about balance. That's the one thing I'll be looking for in WAR. If they can get that right, I'll give it a try. As long as there's no CMs, SHS rogues, MS warriors, or resto droods running around ruining the fun with their FoTM class.
a movement penalty for carrying all that gear and gold on your person as you quest online ...
Seriously, the amount of stuff I can carry is ridiculous!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Please don't format the headline - I got A WoW Players Guide to Wa ... in my RSS reader
I have played wow off and on since about release, and it always ends up the same way: fun at the beginning, but in the end you end up having to spend too much time to do anything to have any sort of sense of progression/enjoyment. Nowadays I am spending my gaming time on TF2, since I can just join in, but I kind of miss the mmporg setting, just not its time constraints.
I would like to know if it's possible to, say, jump in for 1/2 an hour and get something done in PVE or PVP/RvR, or if it's going to be like another WOW where once you hit max level you have to start thinking in terms of 'if I can't stay logged for at least 2 hours it will be pointless' and then you just end up hanging out in shatt treating wow like a chat room basically.
The whole concept of 'open groups/quests' seems interesting, but I am wondering if it will just degenerate into people kicking people they don't know or that they perceive are not 'geared enough' etc.
-- the cake is a lie
Star Wars Galaxies at launch had this sort of scope. I made it very fun for some folks, but most want spoon-fed content rather than a real sandbox.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
PvP stands for Player vs. Player, PvE stands for Player vs. Environment. What does RvR stand for?
they feel free to perform actions which, if done in the real world, would merit anywhere from a punch in the nose to lengthy jailtime.
That's really the problem isn't it. Toons cannot be punished by other players.
Without death or jail, there is no impetus to create any form of government. Without a method for one player to punish another, there can't be any heroes, only villains.
I once proposed adding a jail and everybody said "we play this because we want to get away from real life." I guess if we somehow got resurrection in real life our world would turn into a huge grief-fest?
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
http://silentmmo.blogspot.com/ taken at a world pvp objective (something wow can't manage to get players to care about).
I am not sure if you are trying to be funny or not, but there is some truth to this. Installing the windows codecs under Xine allowed me to watch all movies I have under Linux, when not all of them played (at all) under windows. I have always found that to be rather interesting.
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
Regnum Online: Realm vs. Realm fantasy 3D MMORPG produced by NGD Studios, an Argentinian game company. Has just opened up their first English language server, is completely distributed over the web, AND has a native Linux client (that runs flawlessly on Slack 12.1 with ATI drivers).
I was in the closed beta briefly, and have been playing the open beta since it started. So far, my observations are:
Overall I like the game, but it's really only for PvP. If you're not into the PvP in other games, there's really nothing for you in WAR. Being so heavily PvP-based, though, Mythic has made sure all of the classes have a decent survivability.
The pace of the game is very fast--on my healer, just a few seconds of not casting is enough to fully replenish my action points (WAR's version of mana/rage/energy). The fast pace makes the RvR scenarios very chaotic at times. I suppose you could say that WAR is to MMOs what Diablo was to RPGs.
There are a few other things about the game I don't care for, but I think these they will eventually end up tweaking. For instance, the mail system is a pain to use, and there's no auto-loot feature.
If you're just a random member of the public and would like to take a sneak peek at how this new game is going to play out, the beta remains quite closed. This is a closed beta, period. "Open" means that anyone, regardless of whether they have already fronted $50 for the game, would be able to play.
Well, it's sort of open. I pre-ordered the game and I haven't paid a dime towards it yet until it ships out. If, at any point during open beta I decide that I hate the game, I can cancel my pre-order and not pay anything.
But you don't have to pay $50 to pre-order. Many retailers will not charge you if you pre-order online. I know EBGames doesn't. In-store, you probably have to pay a $5-$10 reservation fee.
Frankly it's enough to make me think that they have something to hide, and they can bet that I won't be going anywhere near this game until the proper reviews are out.
Many people have been involved with the closed and open betas of this game. If there was something to hide, it would already be out. Massively, as well as many other online magazines, blogs, and journals, have already covered this game almost daily and extensively - with ALL of the good and bad features reviewed.
There have also been several people on the Warhammer public forums that have expressed both good and bad opinions. Believe me, they're not trying to bait-and-switch the public.
Is this how they were hoping to capture WoW's audience, or is it an indication that they've abandoned hope of that possibility?
They were never hoping to capture WoW's audience. This game is very different from WoW, both in a good way and in a bad way. Mythic has repeatedly stated that they are not attempting to compete with WoW. They already know that people who are familiar with the tabletop version will be interested, and there will also be some people who have played WoW and want to try something different.
I do agree that their version of an open beta, which means that anyone with a pre-order can play, is different than the traditional open beta other game companies have put out. But you're still not paying a CENT (Euro / AUD or whatever your local currency is) until the game ships out or you go to the store to pick up a copy.
Best "String" Ever!
UO launched with that failed model, and it quickly degenerated in just that: a bunch of people worked real hard and made it their goal in life to get whole species extinct.
The problem is that it's a one-time stunt. You give _one_ player per server the satisfaction of being the one who got the last wolf extinct. (Ok, maybe two.) Then another one who got the bears extinct, and so on, so maybe you made a dozen players happy. Total. You have tens of thousand of players on that server now who have nothing more to hunt. Congrats, that was the dumbest possible idea in gaming history.
UO tried the same with the economy, btw. There'd be a finite amount of ore in the world, and more would be generated when old swords and armours are destroyed or sold. But then some players took it upon themselves to ruing the economy, e.g., by hoarding as many items as possible, to keep the ore from respawning. Not to corner the market or otherwise make a profit, but just for the sake of fucking up the game for someone else.
Needless to say, that was another model that was discarded very quickly.
So be careful what you wish for, it might not be what you expected. Stop thinking that it would be _you_ who's the big cheese and who'd leave your mark upon the world. You'd most likely be the victim of someone else who left his mark on the world by making your life shitty. E.g., by making sure there are no more wild animals in the world, so leatherworkers are shafted, and so is any hunter who needed a pet, and all hunting quests become impossible.
For some people, being annoying to many, is the only glory they can hope for in their pathetic little lives.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"To participate, you either have to pre-order the game which nets you an invite code or you have to be a preexisting closed beta tester."
Tell that to the tens of thousands of people that got them without pre-ordering or being in the closed beta from community sites such as Freddyshouse and Multiplay to name but two.
R Tape loading error, 0:1
Yea, they released probably on the order of 100 000 - 200 000 free keys to the beta in the US and Europe. Got mine from a single batch of 50 000(!) completely free keys!
Pre-order is just one way of getting in. They have also been releasing huge numbers of keys free to the public. I got my EU key from a single batch of 50 000 keys via Fileplay.com. I got my US key from a free batch via Warcry.
Of course, the number of free spots aren't unlimited, but they probably have 100 000 non-preorder people in the beta, total. Which seems pretty open to me.
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.
you know, there were once couple of guys who had nothing to do. So they developped a light machineoriented programming language. The idea was that it would be easy to port it on different architectures. They needed it for their new OS. Imagine only if they hadn't bothered at that time ;-) as I am quite sure there was not really that big a market for C and UNIX back there.
Thats already $93,000/y at @15/month in subscription fees alone...
6,211 linux users * $15/month = $93,165/month.
$93,165 * 12 months/year = $1,117,980/year.
Numbers look a little better, don't they?
I'd like to know where the 6,211 figure came from. I'd be wiling to bet that with the number of linux users in other countries, that number is higher.
And yes, I'm a US Linux WoW subscriber.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
"a movement penalty for carrying all that gear and gold on your person as you quest online ..."
That'd be just swell, because moving at a glacial pace because you found one decent item too many would add tons of fun to the gaming experience.
Doing the Beta now, and I have to say...I'm glad that I bought just the beta-code cheap and didn't invest whole hog in the game yet.
The gameplay is weak at best. The combat and targeting systems are sluggish, and the inventory is incomprehensible (no real identifiers on items, so you lug around crap not knowing if your class can use it or not, if you can use it later, etc). Also, having to pay to use new level abilities (via trainers) is also just lame, and only encourages "grinding for gold."
What really made be bow out though was just the general slow game pace. Combat was unexciting, and targeting is a pain (no auto-targeting at all, but you apparently have to use the mouse to target and the number pad to attack...all while using arrow keys to move). Worst of all, there is no "default attack" so it's not like you can just map a mouse key and be done with it. Pre-order bonuses are kind of lame also, and the quest lines are predictable. I can't see myself paying $70+ every six months to have slow-motion combat for lame, predictable quests.
Compare and contrast Conan Age of Empires. FANTASTIC graphics, engaging combat (there's also no real "auto-mash" option either, but combat is much easier to initiate and keep going), good PvP (despite gankers), engaging quests, and fun group quest/chat options. The pre-order/Collector's Edition code items are actually useful and rather cool (how can armored pachyderms NOT be cool?). I can see myself paying for Conan (which I am) but not Warhammer. I'll consider the $$ I spent for the Beta and Early Access code for Warhammer spent and cut my losses.
I've played both games quite a bit, and I think this is a great post. Just reverse the logic on everything he said, and its 100% accurate!
Dude, you so need to get a Second Life!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Hey, with all due respect, I stand by my evaluation of Warhammer. Love Conan, hate this. It's your nickel.