Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
...best idea if they're trying to dethrone WoW.
Someone should have told them that 20 years ago when they came up with the name!
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
Blizzard had to do it, there were so many unbalanced realms that one faction would have instant queues and the other faction would have 4-5+ hour waits. When I was still playing I would log in as soon as I got home from work, queue up every BG then wait 2-3 hours to get in one.. some evenings I would never get in AV after waiting for 5 hours.
If I hadn't lost my motivation to play games I would probably try it out. I guess sometimes getting older does that to a person..
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
You do realize it is not WoW right? PvP in WoW sucked since it was a majorly overlooked portion of the game where WAR is built around the combination of PvE and PvP. You wont have to kill another player if you don't want to. However you can also level by only doing PvP. Warhammer will not just fade away like many other games have in the past.
My least-favorite part of WoW. I guess I won't be spending my money on Warhammer.
Is that because the PvP aspect in WoW isn't fun or just because you prefer the PvE aspect of MMO's?
I never enjoyed WoW's PvP once they implemented the BG system. Tarren Mill v. Southshore fights were quite fun for awhile.
The only time I had much fun PvPing in the Burning Crusade was following around a well geared friend as a healer.
Don't assume that because PVP is bad in one game that it will be in another.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
I got in early due to pre-order and I must say that I am enjoying the game thus far. Only up to rank 10 (they say rank instead of level, but whatever) but I have had experience with both the controlled RvR (these you click a button for on the compass and it puts you in a queue for them, the only one I've experienced is very capture and hold, but fun) or the open quest areas which you can roam around in. Detaunt actually serves a purpose in this game when you go against other players, which makes playing a mage class a little easier as I'm no turned into beef jerky the instant a tank rolls up on me.
The other thing I particularly enjoyed were the PQs (Public Quests) that anyone can participate in. You come across these areas and there are objectives (kill 100 things, then smash 15 of these, defend this, etc) and anyone can assist in completing the objectives and the tallied points for them are persistant (save for the timed ones which if not completed autofail then reset the encounter). The loot is done in such a way in that if you took part in some way you are rewarded.
Not saying it's perfect, but so far I am enjoying myself.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
To WoW's fault, WoW PvP was as after thought crammed into a PvE game.
To War's defense, War RvR was the fundamental of the game, PvE seems more like it is there to give you a story and 'down time' progression and another option of game play.
War is NOT a WoW PvP server. On the core servers, you can voluntarily flag for PvP at any time. You are only involuntarily flagged if you enter a RvR area. When you enter an RvR area, if you are below rank ?8 you will be bolstered to rank ?8 (for instance, a rank 12 person in the T2 content will get stats like a rank 18 person) to even the playing field. If you enter an RvR area that is a tier of content lower then you (say a rank 15 person, should be in T2, heads to T1 thinking they'll gank some newbies), you are immediately turned into a chicken. You have 0 armor and 1 hit point. All you can do it run around squawking at people until they kill you, or you leave the RvR area.
So you can still level in peace, and it goes pretty fast. I think at 4 hours played I was rank 8. And the faction grinds are a breeze. Gone are the 4 week grind fests of WoW where you had to grind instances and the same 2 camps of mobs for butt feathers or toad nards to get to exalted. For the most part, if you complete 2 public quests in a chapter, you'll be exalted. And since there is great gear to be had doing PQ's, it's totally worth it to run 'em once or twice, and there are usually 1-4 PQs per chapter.
The game still needs some polish. Crafting is a bit of a pita, talismans are so-so, the mail box functionality needs improvement, no loot linking over chat... but its all just polish stuff. RvR and PvE are both solid in performance and entertainment.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
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.
I have been playing in different phases of beta for a little over a month now. I like warhammer so much I suspended my warcraft subscription. I am really excited about all of the new content in warhammer, and the pvp focus mythic promises is what I was hoping to get out of blizzard for a long time. Should be a healthy thing for the MMO industry to have more than a single AAA mmo title in the marketplace.
I'll have to disagree with the general sentiment that Warhammer won't succeed. I've noticed many, many, many former WoW players in love with this game, including myself and my boyfriend. The RvR is amazing, the classes are well balanced, and there's no cheesy stun-based PvP system. Will it "replace WoW?" God I hope not. WoW has become to AOL of MMORPGs, where any retard can get a 1700 arena score and be shining in purples. It's utterly ridiculous and so far, Warhammer has been the breath of fresh air serious PvP'ers have been waiting for, and it will be a success in its own right. If you're a carebear and you want to raid instead of melt faces, that's fine, but don't come to Warhammer. We don't want you.
Sure baby, I'll give you my phone number...in Hex
Think more 'Dark Ages of Camelot' v2.0 than WoW, given that it's Mythic. From my experience in the beta, the PVE game exists only to teach you how to fight, and to lead you around to collect loot and XPs. The public quests in particular are very much 'Repeat these until you max your local faction out, collect a few greens, and hop in the local RvR queue.'
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.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
I would have preferred to see a WH40K setting
Amen to that. Instead of trying to compete with WoW in yet another fantasy setting, why not compete in a sci-fi setting? 40K has a lot of background material, they're constantly updating it with new races and new storylines, and it's just overall a lot more fun as a setting. It feels like they went with the fantasy setting because that's what every other game has done, and that's just dumb.
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."
Mythic has extensive experience with PvP and has put controls in to remove the griefing of lower level players as much as possible.
The game is divided up into four "tiers." The level ranges for the tiers are (roughly, I'm not positive) 1 through 11, 12 through 21, 22 through 31, and 32 to 40. If a Level 12 players enters a Tier 1 zone and goes looking for some Level 2 warrior to gank, he won't succeed. The level 12 player will be "chickened." He will literally be transformed into a chicken with 1 hit point and an attack that does 1 damage.
Even on the open PvP servers where you are always "flagged" for RvR (there are no safe PvE zones like on the Core ruleset servers) they have kept a reduced form of the "chickening" mechanic. It's just been extended down a tier, so a level 15 character can go into the tier 1 zone without being chickened, but a level 23 character WILL be turned into a chicken in the tier 1 zone (but not in tier 2).
There is also the "starter" area, which is a subset of the tier 1 area, where anyone from a higher tier will be turned into a chicken regardless, to allow the newest players time to level up to 2 or 3 before going out and fighting.
As always, Penny Arcade has already made fun of you.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
I'm as much against slashvertisements as the next guy, but considering how much of a behemoth the WoW machine is anything that has the potential to challenge it is newsworthy. Warhammer might equal WoW. They may even beat them eventually.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Because THQ owns the license to WH40K and not Mythic. =/
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?
The enemies of Democracy are
Bit of mixed message though.