I'm going to jump right in and start with character creation. Here I make a male BW and cruise through the avatar customization options available at the time the video was captured. Anyone used to WoW may not be shocked, there isn't much here. The options are pretty slim:
Next, my Bright Wizard named Wildfire (cool name, eh?) will land in the Empire starting area. Its a small village with a few quests and trainers around. Its not much, and it seems that its just enough to get you a feel for your character before taking off. In this video I just show the UI editing features and move a few elements around and talk about that process:
Right away the quests send you on your way into a story line about invaders (Chaos) terrorizing the nearby villagers. Wildfire goes off and completes the quests, exploding the bad guys and bringing general fiery pain along the way. Here you'll see a few fireballs going off and the basics of the first early quests:
Here's a short clip showing another one of the very early empire quests. I thought this was exceptionally cool, and drove home the idea that "War is everywhere". This was actually one of the first 5 quests I picked up, and like the first 2 or 3 I had already completed, it further sets up the Empire vs. Chaos story line and adds to the immersion factor. Shown in this clip is a very simple but fun quest where you have to take control of a cannon and blast some of the invading bad guys below. One thing worth mentioning is that nearly every pairing has a quest like this. I did many of the dwarf starting quests and there is a similar quest like this where you control a cannon and shoot orcs on the other side of a mountain. Also of note is that the way you interact with this cannon and control it is key for your later career in defending keeps. The seige weapons you will purchase and use in defending keeps works exactly the same, the mechanics are identical. So the other benefit of these quests are that they prepare you for seige weapon warfare later in the game.
So now that I've done some PVE questing, how do I get busy with this War stuff? Well the most immediate way is to join a scenario, and that can be done right from level 1! That's right, as soon as you come out of character creation you can be in the PVP fray via scenarios. Since I've already done a few quests and explored some, Wildfire is already level 3 when I decide to put the breaks on PVE and jump into the Nordenwatch scenario. I don't recommend this path unless it is just plain fun for you, but you will inevitably be crushed by level 11 players that have all their skills in this bracket. The bolster buff will bump you up to level 8, but it doesn't give you the skills you will learn as you actually level up. Regardless, it is still fun and actually possible to level this way...especially if you win!
After more questing, PQ's, scenarios, exploration and such, our hero Wildfire is now level 10. I've now discovered that there is a set of gear to be had for anyone that meets the requirements of being level 10 and has a minimum renown rank of 6. I set off to acquire this gear, dye it, and show it to you along with the inside of a tier 2 keep.
In my opinion, War does a beatiful job of gracefully placing your smack dab in the middle of RVR. Don't worry, you get warned when you are entering an RVR zone so you can not go in if you don't feel up to the PVP/RVR challenge. War does facilitate easy grouing so you don't have to go it alone, and you can get quests done in these areas to boot. Here's a few videos of Wildfire in open Nordland's open RVR areas:
In closed beta I started during a phase of testing where all I could do was start with a brand new character. Later, I got the opportunity to remake Wildfire as a level 31 with a complete set of gear to test the tier 4 content. So here I'll wrap up this first dose of Warhammapalooza beta videos with my level 31 version of Wildfire. I've already been to the tier 4 keep and purchased his renown rank 16 gear and will show the armor dye options. After, I'll show some tier 4 open RVR in a huuuuge battle in Reikland:
Pre-NDA drop beta verdict:
The Bright Wizard is hella fun to play. I don't remember if I touched on it much in these videos, but there are distinct styles of play with the BW and each is a fun and valid way to play the BW. You can go with good direct damage, high dot damage or aoe. While easy to kill and being very brittle, the BW will absolutely wreck people if left alone long enough. If high dps is what you like and you want to play Order, this is the class for you. On the flip side, the Sorcerer/Sorceress plays almost exactly like the BW with some small differences so you may want to try that out. This class was so fun that I've put it in my top3 classes to choose from as my main come launch day. If not my main,this will definitely be my 1st alt. Great class and I recommend it!
Well that's a wrap! I have many more videos to make available so off I go. I hope these videos can give you a good basic feel of Warhammer Online's Bright Wizard. I'll try and post more on the BW in the weeks and months ahead.
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blog comments powered by Disquswhen you say "renown rank 16" gear, is that the highest level gear available? I thought renown ranks went all the way up to 80
Yep, renown ranks do go to 80. That should give you an idea as to where the real leveling in War comes from. In this phase of beta, we were able to make any character we wanted based off a template. The template gave us a level 31 character with a starter gear set and some gold. Those template characters were renown rank 25, but I have no idea where there might have been other rr gear to buy as the only vendors I could find were the ones in the Tier 4 keeps so rr 16 was the bets I could find.
The rr 16 gear is green (uncommon), but I have seen purple (epic) rr gear on vendors in the inevitable city. I forget their requirements but I bet it was steep.
so basically that armor is only less than 1/4 of the epicness to come?
Looks like it. Check out the Bright Wizard armor sets listed at the new Wardb.com:
http://www.wardb.com/search.aspx?browse=7.11
cool. and those purples still only require 30 renown. Do you know if higher level armor will look cooler and unique or do you think they re-use designs?
Can you ressurect in scenario or you have only one life?
Will you make a video of the Sorcerer/Sorceress as well? Or are Bright Wizard and the Sorcerer/Sorceress very identical?
thanks so much for the videos, those comments are great.
looking forward to the archmage & zealot footage!
greetings from germany
kickass jobs with the videos man - really well done. appreciate you posting them!
What spec did you use for the http://files.filefront.com/bw+lvl31+rvr3wmv/;11461172;/fileinfo.html video, which is great btw :)
Also did you find Immolation or Conflagaration more effective/useful?
I found Immolation to be the most dps, you can have 3-4 dots running on a target and can make it almost impossible for a single healer to keep someone alive through it. I did not test a conflag build as much as I wanted, but some BW's I talked with like it alot also.
Silly question but do you know you can do both primary and secondry dye on items? just you only do one colour in the vids I seen :P
oh great vids by the way!
Not silly. I really didn't know that when I shot these videos lol! Several people have told me, now I know :)
Great job on these videos, Since the disaster that is AoC came out I have almost written off any new MMO until its had time to develop after release.. looks like with WAR I will be there right at release. Keep up the good work - Geo
i've got a giant smile on my face as i'm watching these videos. i am hardcore psyched for this game and start getting down with my warrior priest.
Well played Warrior Priests are damn near unkillable unless you have lots of help ><
just a quick question. i noticed the huge battle in the last video, is the RVR always this intense or does it quiet down at time?
@killfest
Large RVR tends to happen in the Empire/Chaos areas more than anywhere else. Since these pairings are home to the only remaining capital cities, that seems to draw players here. Couple that with Chaos and Empire having the most popular classes and there's always alot of open RVR in all tiers.
You can always go out to the dwarf/greenskin or high/dark elf areas for smaller scale RVR. But yes there is a variety of RVR happening and I suspect it will even out post launch.
Well, if you are interested, as many imperial cities and names got kind of a german background Emskrank would be pronounced like an american would pronounce "Emskrunk" as in german the "a" sounds like an "u" in english. Awesome vids about the BW btw. This seems to be a top choice for those of us who don't like to get all close and personal with the enemy. ;-)
I'm sure I'll give this class a try.
the "a" would sound like an "Ah" -emzkrahnk-
anyways... brent!!1 love the vids amazing how much they've been viewed in youtube. and i wanna play with you at launch lawl
Really? I didn't know that, although I don't know any words in english which feather "Ah". Maybe you could give me an example here? As I am from Germany, I'm can say for certain that the "a" is pronounced like the "u" for example in trunk.
Awesome vidoes loved the commentating and constant information. You twisted my arm in playing a bright wizard.
Play order!! and dont role a smelly Shaman as your main
/Gomez
Amazing Videos, really given me something to think about with the BW, going to be tough to decide what my main will be now!
Thank you for these video's, they were by far the best preview of the game I have found (and I've looked)! Very informative for us interested in the BW, I love the mage class (or archtype) and I can say for certain I will be rolling a BW as one of my favorites... though the first week will be spent trying all the different classes available. Have you tried other classes and will there be more videos? I downloaded all of em, and really hoping to see more...
THanks!