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Mythic Launches Warhammer Online
After four days of "head-start" players getting the run of the servers, Warhammer Online launched today to the rest of the public. Mythic took the opportunity to explain why they think World of Warcraft players should give them a chance, highlighting their focus on PvP (or Realm-vs-Realm in this case), and their desire to keep time-intensive activities to a minimum. Creative director Paul Barnett says it's "a bit like Batman." 1.5 million copies of the game have already been sent to retailers, so they're clearly expecting a solid launch. The folks over at Massively have developed an excellent series of guides for players looking to get into the game. They explain and contrast general career choices and look at individual classes as well. They also have a variety of interviews and descriptions of gameplay.
Another /. advertorial attempt. Who cares?
My least-favorite part of WoW. I guess I won't be spending my money on Warhammer.
As soon as the release a Mac version of the game I'll join up! For now, WoW is getting my money
And, no. Bootcamp is NOT an option
Now I hope and pray that I will But today I am still, just a bill
I may not be your "typical" MMORPG gamer, but I actually "like" PvE-style play. I find it tedious and frustrating to play in a PvP realm, where every snot-nosed 12 year old is hiding behind a tree, waiting to gank my level 2 warrior.
Therefore, no need to move off of WoW for WHOnline. There's enough for me there today.
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Seems like you guys are bitching about the game and not even looking at it really. PVP is a hell of alot better in this game and the classes are well intergrated and balance each other on each side. The PVE side also has very intersting quests and story lines. Also the tome of Knowledge is awesome. You can just be exploring around and you just get a blurb added to it about the skeleton you just found or the creature you just killed. It gives you xp, titles that can be displayed and even some cool items to use. Check out the game before you just shrug your shoulders and roll your eyes. The game is not WOW.
See that's the thing, I hate instanced PVP. I don't want to "Hop into a queue"
I want real territory control and player owned areas.
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Good, I won't have to bother. It's not WoW's PVP, I've seen it in a dozen games, each of which has claimed to "do it right." Despite what some people say, not "everyone really, really likes PVP down underneath it all, you know... if it's done RIGHT."
Is WoW PvP horrible? Yes, I will always admit that. However, just because I raid doesn't mean I'm a carebear. Just wanted to make that distinction.
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WoW has become to AOL of MMORPGs, where any retard can get a 1700 arena score and be shining in purples.
Yeah. Heaven forbid that just *anyone* could get the most out of the game they pay to play. That should be saved for the elite, and everyone else should just be grateful little peons.
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That's what the whole game is based on. They call it RvR. The fact you call it "WoW version 2.0" in an earlier post makes me think you haven't even read up on the game...
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I'm sorry but games need to be more challenging. I'm tired of MMO's where you have no penalty of death. It's like....Run around get killed, come back to life and do it all over again.
Hey, I'm all for having more challenge in games. A lot of games, and WoW stands out here, are quite easy in the main (WoW has a few moments, but generally the "challenge" comes from party members who are "challenged").
But I'm bloody sick and tired of people who say "I want more challenge... there should be a penalty for death!" Because you know what? Being penalized for death isn't challenge, it's punishment. MMOs are already "punishing" enough as timesinks, they do not need additional punishment for what is supposed to be FUN!
And the punishment doesn't make the game harder, it just makes people who don't succeed the first time (regardless of how easy or hard the game is) realize how retarded taking punishment from a game is and quit. I guess maybe that's the point, drive away the noobs, but it's nothing to do with whether the game is actually hard or not. You could have an extremely hard game with no penalty for death, and hey, it'd be hard! Using punishment as a substitute for challenge just means you can't figure out a real way to make the game hard without also making it cheap.
And cheapness is the biggest reason I'm against punishment in games, because most of them are cheap. UO had a huge penalty for death -- you lost all the gear on you. And if you were a mage/archer and that's the skill that got nerfed into oblivion that patch while the other got buffed to ridiculous levels, then you'd get whacked in two seconds. Or you would get lagged entering a dungeon so you're frozen in place while the gankers on the inside stabbed you to death and took your stuff. How is that "challenge"? Diablo II had a big penalty for death in Nightmare and Hell, in the form of perhaps hours worth of experience lost if you died. It also had retardedly imbalanced mini-bosses who could kill you in one shot before you realized they were there. How is having to spend those extra hours regaining your gear or regaining the exp "challenging", as opposed to "annoying and cheap"?
I don't get what the big deal of "Run around get killed, come back to life and do it all over again" is. If you make the game actually challenging instead of cheaply punishing, and it takes someone 147 deaths before they figure out what they were doing wrong and beat the encounter, why is the extra 10 hours it took them not punishment enough?
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Heaven forbid that just *anyone* could get the most out of the game they pay to play
That's just the point, isn't it? Competitive gameplay usually means that someone wins and they get rewarded for it. In WoW, anyone can "win" regardless of how good they are, which can make the game less appealing for competitive people. How appealing would football or basketball be to play or to watch if, at the end, everyone was declared a winner and they hugged it out?
I'm not saying one or the other is better, just that some people will prefer a game that's more accessible to everyone and some people will prefer a more competitive atmosphere.
I have no intention of buying or even really trying it, but as a big WoW fan, I hope it does well. Competition, or at least, the fear of competition from this and AoC appear to have made Blizzard make some really nice changes to the game. I'd love for Blizzard to have an active and large competitor.
So, while I'm sticking with WoW, because I love my pally and have been playing Warcraft series games since around 94 or 95, I hope it does well, people have fun playing it, and the WAR team comes up with some good ideas for Blizzard to copy. :)
It's not so much the lost revenues from sales to Apple users (which will be low compared to Windows) that they should be worried about. MMOG are by nature group games, I want to play with my friends. Even if 10 of us are using Windows, if one of my friends can't play because of the lack of a Mac version then we will find another game.
This is one thing that Blizzard understands, and it has made them a lot of money. I would be surprised if Mac users make 10% of their revenue for WoW, but the addition to their total revenue due having multiple versions will be huge.
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The same could be said of anything, though. The more time you spend at it, the better you get. I would be a lot better at painting, I just don't take the time to grind the paint. I would be a lot better at trivia, I just don't read wikipedia all day. WoW just happens to model this with an experience and item system; arguably this levels the playing field more effectively than not having it, since it rewards everyone who plays it rather than just those who mash buttons.
Say what you want about it, in the end it comes down to personal taste. Millions of people love WoW, so obviously they're doing something right.
If you get XP for PvPing, isn't it like saying "everyone please use bots to level" ?
Were we playing the same game? My brother got in on the closed beta and I played around some on that. The gameplay was about as interesting as playing with cardboard cut-outs.
I don't give much hope for this mmo, and it's a shame because the Warhammer universe is a LOT more interesting than WoW could ever be. I've been a fan of WH40k for years and everything they've been doing with the game has sounded incredible, but playing it... I just don't see how they could have improved the gameplay enough to compete with the WoW addiction.
Most previous MMOs have been PvE games, balanced around PvE, with PvP tacked on as an afterthought. I can only think of just a couple exceptions, which judging by your statement aren't games you're coming from.
Warhammer, on the other hand, is a PvP game with PvE balanced around the PvP. That's not to say PvE feels tacked on in this game like PvP does in others (they did some really cool things with PvE I think), although it is clear that the greatest effort went into the PvP core.
All of that is by way of saying, if you just absolutely detest PvP, Warhammer may not be for you. Then again, I know a lot of people who hated PvP and were strict PvE'ers, but after trying it in Warhammer thought, "Wow, this is actually FUN!" If, on the other hand, you're worried about PvP breaking the PvE, then don't, because the PvE is balanced around the game's PvP core to begin with.