Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3"So you gave us two full pages of blathering about War and WoW, but what do you think specifically about this game? You can do a review without getting specific!" Ok, back mob, back! I agree, time to get down to brass tacks and wrap up this mammoth review. I'm going to pick some random topics and give my thoughts on them:
Immersion...the sights, sounds, and feeling of War.
Excellent job here Mythic! War is everywhere, and that point gets drilled home to you as soon as your level 1 character's feet touch the ground. BOOM! Cannon explosions everywhere, relevant ambient noises, and relevant starting quests feed you with the feeling that you are here to fight, and its time to get started with your contribution. Everything from the flaming windmills in the Empire starting area to the floating eyeballs in the Inevitable city felt like it was fitting and supposed to be there. I felt very immersed in this world, and I could find few areas that felt truly lacking from an immmersion standpoint.
Community.
There are no official forums. The only official word we have is via the Warhammer Herald. However, the community for War is outstanding. There are many sites, forums and blogs dedicated to War. There are plenty of web tools from the likes of wardb.com and others, including Mythics own realm war site that shows various statistics from the game. I give this part of the game a big thumbs up. It will only get better from here on, imo.
Classes and balance.
I find that the classes are outstanding and well done. Look on this site to see game play video of nearly every class available, I've played them all. Mythic puts a unique twist on each class, from their game play mechanic (i.e. Ironbreaker's grudge) to their look (i.e. Witch Hunter's hat and pistol) and everything in between. One of the consitent things I hear from people is that it is very hard to choose a class in War, because they are all so good. I will confirm this, as it took me nearly a month to settle on one to pick, and yet I'm still not sure I can settle on just one. Overall I feel the classes are pretty well balanced. Every class has a weakness in some point of the game, there is no overall best class for every situation.
PVP/RVR focus...and not balanced primarily for PVE.
This is the reason I started following this game, and its current implementation is why I may very well be playing Warhammer for years to come. I am done with raiding treadmills, where I raid for hours and hours against a scripted encounter until I conquer it...only to repeat the process for the next level of dungeon awaiting me. That type of PVE gaming is only good in small doses, and that is what War gives you. Small 6 man dugeons are bound to be less stressful than 24/40 man raids, and take less time to experience. But the PVE is secondary to the PVP and RVR. This game is balanced around PVP first and PVE second, we shouldn't be seeing overpowered classes in PVP because tweaking a class might render it worthless in PVE. PVE is not what drives this game. Its balanced for War. Scenarios and keep raids are the order of the day, and there is no guide for how to beat the boss in RVR.
Less time sinks, more fighting. Yay!
The death penalty is not very harsh. Its easy to get back into the fight, so I like the death mechanic in War. There are no item repairs, so there's no "grinding cash" so that you can go out and do what you wanna do in the first place, which is usually to smash someone face. The flight system is fast, pick an area and load into it with a small animation. No need to go afk 20 minutes to fly to a far away area. No running to an npc to get into a mini game, you can get into a scenario from anywhere, and return to that exact spot when done. The map and minimap show quest objectives to help you from wandering aimlessly as well.
Tome of knowledge.
Its a great addition. It makes managing quests, titles and rewards easy. Many parts of it are linked with the quest tracker and the map. Its a resource that I wonder how I lived without in other mmos, and I'm sure I have yet to uncover some good things about it. For lore nerds and explorers I'm sure its one of the best things in the game. To me, its mainly fluff, but still a great thing to have.
Public quests.
There's some good and bad here. For certain player types (like myself) it doesn't really encourage grouping. If I'm just wanting to get the influence rewards, which tend to be better than the loot bags, I'm better off just grinding out the phase 1 or 2 objectives alone. Perhaps this could use something to encourage grouping more, like making the PQ loot better than the influence loot. I do see how they can be a great place to hang out and meet people though, the ones closest to the camps seem to have a constant stream of players coming in and out. However, some PQ's just collect dust and have little to no participation. Perhaps its because many people don't know where they are? All in all, I think they are more of an improvement than a detriment. At minimum, they are different and a change from the normal questing we do in mmorpgs.
Tradeskills and crafting....bleh.
It is very simple to do crafting in War. Its not very complicated and to get started you can use the ingredients available at most merchants. The problem is that its very shallow right now, with only Talisman making and Apothecary available. I hope that this is a point of expansion soon for Mythic, because there needs to be more crafting in the game in my opinion. It doesn't need alot more, because the focus is Warhammer, not Crafthammer, I get that. But just two skills that allow you to make things seems like it needs more depth. Crafting also lacks the ability to creat multiple items at a time, or at least it needs to be clearer how to do bulk creations from stacks of ingredients instead of one at a time.
Stability and bugs...yeah, its a new mmo for sure.
The "black screen of death" seems to be the newest one. Screen goes black and your system reboots. This one is #1 on my priority list that must be fixed asap. The rest that I've experienced can be labeled as minor. The chat window resets itself to weird positions every time you load the game. My camera zoom resets every time the game loads and doesn't remember its position. Icons over NPC's heads go missing at random times. And god, please don't alt tab out of the full screen game cause you will regret it. The servers however have seemed very stable, but we also have yet to see the full force of the community logging in post launch so it could go south really quickly. However, I do have full confidence that the game can be running bug free relatively soon. If not, we'll be putting yet another mmo out to pasture and looking for our next one. The good news is that the bugs I see as game breaking are very few, but the bad news is that they are there at all. The official launch to the world is tomorrow by the way, there might be a few more people than just me squaking about it real soon.
UI, mods, and macros...oh my!
There appears to be full support for the modding community, as there are already mods available to use. Making macros is possible, although lackluster due to the automation limitations currently in place. Only one line of execution allowed per macro makes for some very limited usefulness. I like the fact that there will be a mod community on par with that of WoW. I do think that the default UI still needs work in respect to unit frames and warband frames as well. Its not intuitive when switching from normal warband frames to scenario party frames, and I've seen this confuse people quite a bit.
Server queues and realm balance.
I have already experienced the pain of server queues first hand. I worry about realm balance as I don't know if I can find anything official from Mythic that gets very specific about how they will combat unbalanced realms. These things can come back to bite Mythic if not effectively addressed, and very soon.
Expansions and updates.
Luckily we know that Mythic has alot they can put into the game. Or should I say back into the game? There's room for crafting expansion as well as new lands to fight over and abilities for the various classes. Mythic should be able to deliver some stellar stuff here and I think we'll all be looking forward to the free and paid content and features to come in the future.
Is it better than WoW?
That is subjective. It might be for you, but it isn't for me. I love many things about War and see them as improvements on WoW. I get asked this question alot, so all I can honestly tell you is to try the game, spend a month or two with it, then make your own call. For me, the answer is a resounding yes. I think it is better than WoW, and I'm a long time WoW player and fan of Blizzard. I put alot of thought into that answer, so I don't think I'm making a mistake in stating that opinion. Due to my play style and the things I like in an mmorpg, War wins. I don't even plan to buy the next WoW expansion.
Conclusion...I love War! So far, so good.
What did you think I'd say? Yes, of course there are any of a 1000 problems that if not addressed correctly will ruin this game. Despite a good IP in Warhammer, despite Mytic's previous experience with DAoC, and despite the backing from behemoth EA, this game can fail if not managed well. Its still a fear that I have, some new game play mechanic will be broken or overpowered. Some exploit will go unadressed. Some poor management decision will be made and things will go down hill. Hopefully, we don't see any of that happen and we all have great years ahead of us in Warhammer Online.
This concludes my 3 part review of Warhammer Online.
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blog comments powered by Disqusnice review, i really liked it. looking forward to the game, only 10-20 hours left :D . really hope GOA dosent screw up the registration again tho, as they did with the open beta (EU). anyways thanks for a great review and Waaagh!
Great review. But I am still on the fence. Not sure if I want to play 2 MMos at the same time...this and wow. But your review and videos are really convincing me to give this game a shot.
Great review,I totally agree with everything you said and I'm keeping my fingers crossed so that Mythic don`t screw things later.The wait is over and the game will be launched in a few hours
Man this was an insane review. Great work.
Yeah Great Review Brent and I couldnt agree with you more. Ive been reading your Blog for a while now and I think on the same level as you do mate. Ive been playing games since the days of the Sega Master System 2, however only recently found the joys/woes of MMOs.
I like you also played AoC from release I was amazed at the games graphics but that was it. Too many critical issues, no communication and poor patches which kept breaking the game and eventually killed it for alot of people. (I still standby the game was more stable at release than in its current state). I stuck it out for nearly 3months before deciding this game was going nowhere and fast and I saw how the server I was on turned into a ghost town.(Levelled a Bear Shaman from Level 1-40 with only meeting half a dozen other people along the way)
A few mates from AOC managed to get into the CB of War. They kept me updated along the way. But they all said the same thing. It was fun, it was balanced and it was stable. Something AoC never managed. Realistically, all MMOs will have bugs and will have something that someone else doesnt like and its fact of life. Mythic seems to be on the ball and quickly addresses any issues/bugs and keeps the community informed of their progress.
Game mechanics/classes may not be revolutionary, but as you stated "while at some very fundamental levels, it is a true statement". That applies to nearly all Fantasy MMOs, hell at a fundamental level you can compare AOC to WoW. I know over on the AOC forums they nicknamed it "WoWhammer" without realising that what they are playing is basically the same thing with a twist just like WAR.
The twist though, is what makes or breaks an MMO. Will WAR kill off WoW of course not (AoC maybe) but thats a good thing. It makes Devs more competitive, which in turn means better games as they duke it out to get the upperhand. Personally, I think PC development has been in a slumber for sometime and I see WAR as bringing it back into line.
So cheers for your excellent Blog mate and all the info you have provided and I look forward to the release of the game tomorrow and wish the game to be a massive success. (Which atm it really looks like its going to be).
Ps. Sorry for the big comment!
Hey, Thank you for sharing your opinion with us!
That goes not only for this one, but for all the good work you've done with your reviews.
I've always been sure that I'll give WAR a shit,
but your comments really made me optimistic.
Especially after the disaster of AoC ;)
Good stuff here, keep it going.
But more importantly than that: Keep on playing.
hf, and sorry for my not so good Switzerland school english.
well, I wanted to say "give it a shot"...damnit >_<
first, i know when you say "the game i love was ruined". swg (pre-cu) was very innovative and complexity, just by the way.
soe you failed.
back to topic.
very nice review.
i've played the open beta in germany which runs not so smooth as in the us. although only a few hours in the game convinced me to buy it.
the only thing i don't like is the sever queues. you're constrained to make twinks on other servers or you wait of entrance.
in my opinion, to displace wow from #1, i don't believe it. the main thing is, solid servers and enough players.
sorry for my english or not? ;-)
Great review. I'm really enjoying this game.
I had a question that you may be able to answer. I was involved in the second PQ in the dwarven area. I was excited because there finally enough people in the area to do the quest. I was also queued for the RvR scenario. The PQ finished I had my best finish so far and I won a green bag.
Before I collected my green bad, the enter scenario box came up. I accidentally clicked enter. I was unable to find a way to escape the scenario to collect my bag. :(
My question is, is it possible to leave a scenario early without logging out?
Thanks
Yes, there is. You just need to run back to your starting point in the scenario and you should see a 'gate' so to speak. You can notice it easily from the Order or Destruction symbol floating in mid air. Just run through it and it will exit you from the scenario.
Regards,
Boof
I would disagree that the PQ chest rewards are worse than influence rewards, thats counter-intuitive to how the system works. In almost every PQ I've seen so far in the game, the chest rewards are slightly better than the "elite" influence rewards and can be significantly better if you get a rare bag.
It really is worth your time to group up and do all parts of a PQ for the chest at the end if you have the people, and you only take a minimal drop in influence gain.
As an example, in chapters 8 and 9 in T2 where the elite influence rewards are nice blue items, the top reward from the PQ chests in those areas is typically an epic item (woot purples).
@jjgchetsu
I should put out a disclaimer that my experiences are only with Tier 1 and some Tier 2 PQ's, when I was in beta. Now in the live game (during the head start) where the servers are much more populated and I have guild mates available. Grouping to do PQ's is more commonplace for me and grinding out influence is merely something to do while waiting on a scenario or for more people to log on.
I think my perspective was skewed by beta and often being alone, which is not the case now. Also, I haven't seen some of the upper level PQ's you mention. So thanks for pointing out what I don't know, now my outlook on PQ's is getting more positive.
In closed beta, I either rolled a character to level 10 or so, or I made a level 31+ toon to playtest the end game stuff, so I have not seen much t2 and have not stepped foot in a t3 zone at all. I also wanted to save that stuff for launch so I focused more on trying classes and RVR.
Yeah I got up to 21 in the Open Beta, which by the final weekend was essentially live "lite" and thought the PQ loot, influence and chest rewards, was well balanced.
Although I did my share of influence grinding simply because there wasn't a substantial T2 population on my OB server, but in nearly all cases getting a group together to finish the PQ was worth the effort when you could manage it.
A good quick example I can think of is that a certain Dark Elf Chapt 2 PQ gives some nice green boots for the green lot bag and those stayed on my character into Chapt 4 and beyond.
There may be some PQ's out there that need tweaking loot wise but judging from what you experienced in closed beta and what I've seen so far in OB/Live it wouldn't be hard to imagine Mythic making appropriate changes where necessary.
Pretty good review. I personally had played clsed beta for a while and loved it, all my wow buddies though simply looked for reasomns to hate the game. Some went as far as to say that not only did the graphics suck (on the closed beta) but aparently they weren't even emersed in the world.
I'm trying to pull people in, but the big problem I think, is that wow is farmilar to some people, and now they are afraid of learning a new game. Pretty pitiful...
Awesome review Brent. I've only started following this game for about a week now but its been gripping me how great the game looks. Your PVP videos brought me here and the blog doesn't dissapoint. Great review, you've made a follower out of me :)
Great review. I absolutely agree on everything you mention here, especially the example with steak. I just can't stand when people compare the very very basic level of the game to WoW and automatically hate it. That's just shallow to me, you can't judge a game unless you played it for at least a couple weeks.
Great review once again.
I've loved every single bit of your blog I have read. However, I think the review here is lacking on one special thing which I as an old school WHRPG/Tabletop player find interesting:
How well has Mythic transferred the world, background and lore to WAR?
The main emphasis of the original WHRPG was on the Chaos Gods spreading their influence into the Empire, corrupting the dwarves and elves on their way and causing disturbance using greenskins and skaven as their 'troops'.
The review, as beautifully written it was, was focused only the game's playing elements and not so much on the lore and saga. For me, being an explorer and socialiser, that would be of most interest.
MOOOOOO!
Shame on you Brent!!! Shame on you for making those awesome videos and for writing those awesome and impartial reviews! After playing WoW for 3 years I finally quit, being disappointed by the lack of content for those of us who got a job and don't have enough time to raid all week long and who didn't like the PVP. I promised myself never to play a MMORPG again, seeing how time consuming WoW was but ended up trying out the failure that AoC turned out to be. That could have been the ultimate end of my MMORPG-career but then I came across your wonderfull blog and you convinced me not to give up hope that I might find a game that suits my playstyle. I bought WAR on the first day and I simply love it! ;-) And thanks to you I rolled a bright wizard and am totally amazed by this class. Set your enemy on fire, burn them to the ground, it's just like you said "It's hell (pun intended? ;-) of fun if you are a bright wizard and you can get away with it." So, thanks Brent! Thank you very much for all the efford, for all the time you invested to bring us this all this informatiom before launch. I'm sure I'm not the only one who gave WAR a try based on your blog.
@copra As far as I can say, the lore and background was fantastically implemented. A friend of mine knows more about the world of Warhammer Fantasy then me and he was amazed to meet important NPCs in WAR and the atmosphere is great giving me the feeling that WAR is really everywhere. A world much more gruesome and hard then in WOW which suits the setting very well. While chaos attacked the empire having a new champion which leads their forces in their conquest, the dark elves knowing that the forces of the dwarves would heed the call of the empire asking for help influenced the greenskins to raise a Waaagh against the dwarven kingdom to force the empire to turn to the elves, leaving Ulthuans defenses weak and ripe for an attack. There is lots of lore, important people you can meet, lots of action going on and not just for show but you are able to participate in it as a player. Altdorf is just awesome much more impressive then for example Stormwind (at least for me). Hope that answers your question in some way. ;-)
Sorry for the big comment by the way. ;D
@copra
You are right, unfortunately I am ignorant of the lore. I never even heard of Warhammer before this game believe it or not. I have no concept of how well it was translated, but must rely on folks like you to know that it was done well.
@Netherthor
Thanks much for the kind words, and have fun burning up the bad guys! I think we may have found an mmo development team that understands that these kinds of games aren't just for those that have endless amounts of time.
Thanks for the concise response, both Brent and netherthor. It's the first time I've seen anything along those lines stated in a blog (or comment for the matter). Which I think is a shame.
It seems that people are playing the game more than playing the Game. What I mean is the ancient fact that it seems that people are playing to win the game somehow instead of playing the content. Which, IMHO, is a shame.
Thanks and keep blogging. You MOOO!