What the hell does that mean, you say? Let me explain with a quote from Snaffy that he made in this post over at The Greenskin:
You see, I’m not one for large warband vs. warband fights. Taking keeps, BFOs, and scenarios got old when I was in T3 let alone T4. I don’t have the stamina or interest for zone locking, nor am I very interested in participating in a massive 400 vs 400 fortress raid afterward. City siege is just a bunch more PvE once you get past the initial PvP stage, so that doesn’t interest me very much either.
I didn't realize that I felt exactly the same way until I read that article and thought about it more deeply. The novelty of keep seiges wore off early in tier 3 for me, and mid way through tier 4 I lost nearly all motivation to participate. Oddly enough, I wish there was more small scale PVP like WoW's arenas. Now hold on...I know that blasphemous statement will incite some nerd rage somewhere, but realize that I'm doing nothing more than stating an opinion. I happen to like the strategy of small scale fights versus large scale fights. I often feel that its only a matter of who gets the biggest zerg with the higher number of level 40's to win, that there is often little strategy involved. Yes, WoW has plenty of its own issues in regard to its PVP mechanics too. I'm not saying one is inherently better than the other, just that right now one appeals more to me than the other. While that may change, its my current feeling on the matter.
The large RVR fights in WAR are problematic to me for several of reasons, but I'll touch on the two that jump out at me the most. First is performance, I think that most people's only hope is to crank all their settings down to the lowest levels in large fights, even those like me (I upgraded recently) with very good machines. My CTD issues are probably only fewer because I play less, but last week while playing around with a warband doing a keep seige I crashed again and never logged back in for the rest of the week. There are still so many bugs that the game is patched almost daily. Secondly, these fights can get boring and last very long. There aren't enough different elements to seiging keeps to me. Break down two doors, rush the zerg in, kill the keep lord, win. There's never an alternate way to do this, the only thing that changes is how long it takes due to how many defenders show up. Once you've taken a keep in T2, you pretty much have a feel for how it goes for the rest of the game.
Then there's the "end game". I think the level of coordination and effort required to pull off killing a king goes way beyond what a casual player can commit to doing. You've gotta grind out the gear from instances, set up the alliances, coordinate and communicate the attack, and then put in the hours to actually execute a successful city seige. I'm sure I'm leaving alot out of this process. I equate this to the old school raiding of the elite 40 man dungeons in WoW, and probably worse from a time investment standpoint. No thanks, I can't dedicate that much time, yet another great piece of content in an mmo that I doubt I'll ever see.
I may have made a poor choice...
...on what class to play. I bought into the hybrid heals/dps bit hook, line, and sinker. The versatility of the Shaman is what lured me in so much. The truth is, it doesn't play out that way for my Shaman. I had better be fully heal specced, with lots of willpower and wounds if I want to live in RVR or scenarios. Between the Bright Wizards and the Witch Hunters I die with extreme ease to them it seems. Granted, I am not yet 40 so the next 5 levels may help more with that a bit. However, I think I need to be a healbot since that is what the Shaman does better, because my DPS in Gork mastery is laughable. I wish full Gork spec disabled my healing ability and put my dps on par with the pure dps casters, but that's probably asking a bit much. I probably should have gone with the class I spent the most time with in beta, the Bright Wizard. There's probably nothing more fun in open rvr than that class, and probably the route I should have gone.
Reroll a BW you say? Not until leveling by questing in WAR gets a big boost, its just entirely too slow right now. I haven't given up yet though. I know I haven't given patch 1.1abcdefg etc patches a fair shake yet. I think I still need to put in some time and then see how I feel.
Guild crumbled
I also think the fact that Casualties of WAR just completely drifting away from the game also hurts my motivation to dedicate more time to WAR. All that seem to be left there when I log in occasionally are the die hard players and those that may be new. I'm still glad to see that there is at least some core left there and playing, but it seems that the days of 20-30 players online at any given time are now a thing of the past. Then again, its all what you make of it and I shouldn't let that be a deturrent to me as there are still some great people playing there. Perhaps there will be a rebound in the coming months once WotLK settles into its repetitive mode.
WoW has a (death)grip on me
PVE is very accessible to me, with less time investment. Dungeon runs take 20-30 minutes for the most part now. The Death Knight is awesome fun, and I enjoy it so much more than I ever did on my hunter. I get small, controlled PVP very often playing on a PVP server. The game's population is through the roof, even though I'm behind the leveling curve now. The quests are amazing. Progression is very noticeable even in small spurts. The crafting and economy are fantastic. Arena season 5 just started.
Sadface...but maybe some fire will fix it?
Yeah, I really did not see things going in the direction they currently are headed way back in August when I was in the WAR beta. I put so much effort into WAR, from my beta videos to all the articles I wrote and how closely I followed the game. I'm slowly realizing that WAR has not shaped up to be the game I'd hoped it be. I'm not entirely upset or disappointed with WAR as much as I may seem to be either. I'm just upset that I've wound up not enjoying it as much as I thought I would, and liking WoW as much as I do. I'm still hanging on to WAR by a thread, perhaps rerolling that BW might do it for me, who knows...
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blog comments powered by DisqusSometimes... I feel like you. But... its like good old DAoC. Thats what i like.
My girlfriend plays more the BGs... ;)
Sounds more like you are getting MMO burn out? Or could be WAR is just not your game .. if so that's cool .. jump over and play WoW.
The idea of having few alts in WAR could be good. Seems problem these days is too many good MMOs out .. I am in WAR and WoW and now looking at LOTRO. AHHH!!! HELP :)
While I agree and wrote on this, I think many of us too easily forget what the flaws once were...
I think too many forget the reputation grinds, the later dungeons... I think people say "I'll just not do the long raids!!", and forget that if you do not, you are heavily weakened in PvP. Arena gear, you say? Even in the first expansion, certain slots simply did not compare to the PvE gear of WoW.
I am far too competitive to lose due to items and raid time invested... and far too busy to keep up on gear with everyone else.
Sadly I had more fun in PVP in WoW the other night than the tedious treadmill that was WAR. Plus the game just works better.
@rpthatway
Doesn't WAR suffer from this same problem though? Don't you need to run instances to get set pieces to be able to do city seiges which ultimately reward the best gear to compete? And by the way, outside of a scenario, when do you actually get a small battle? It rarely happens that you happen upon a single person in ORVR that is your level and with pretty much identical gear. You are usually in huge battles, where your gear discrepancy is probably not as noticeable until you get singled out. Not complaining, just saying it doesn't happen much. I just think that WAR isn't exempt from gear related issues either. It has its own grinds to deal with to get the best stuff too.
CoW is still going strong but the casual aspect of it is noticeable. That is a good thing to me, there is no pressure.
I agree the world RvR has some serious problems, but it has not bothered me all that much.
I don't have a huge amount of time to devote to the game (or any game), so I get everything in smaller doses. I log in for an hour or two max at one time and have a good time doing a few scenarios and doing a little bit of ORvR... then that is it for the day.
The level grind does seem quite long in WAR. I've been in T3 for what seems like for-ev-er. It's tough to find that happy medium as I don't want to level so fast the game seems over. Reading about WOTLK and how quickly some have blown through its content, I would be highly disappointed.
I enjoy big battles as well as small skirmishes. Mythic has seemed pretty fast to respond to feedback and if folks are complaining about this I wouldn't be surprised to see quests/missions/scenarios where you are only allowed to use small parties. It's be neat to have a quest where you must partner with 3 other players to take out a roving band of Destro or to infiltrate an enemy camp.
There's a lot of possibilities. I'm new to the whole MMO scene so not having experienced WoW or DAOC I keep saying to myself, this game has only been out since late September. It's still so new. Aren't MMOs supposed to grow and evolve?
You are clearly an expert on MMOs having played many and having been a part of WAR's beta. You have a finely tuned perspective and your views are probably not all that different from many MMO vets. For us noobs ... the game's fun with flaws but just like 1.1 giving us RvR Influence and reason to take part, I assume EA/Mythic will continue to improve the game.
well, I also had a few problems with WAR but all an all, its been good. And im suprised people would even judge the game, Wow is a bit more tweaked, but give WAR sometime. And you have a good point the economy in WAR is bad, and yea the population is kinda...*so...so* i should say, but the thing bout WAR that I like is just you dont need to be geared to be good, or *skilled* I should say. You could play the whole game wit hno armor and do pretty OK. Even though its not recommended.....
I really do love WAR and like you mentioned the performance for me is real bad. Granted I don't have the best machine but I am high above minimum and it still crawls like crazy when there are many players on the screen. I'm talking in the warcamps where people are running around and such. Morkain temple is bad for me but sometimes playable.
The leveling grind is a joke to me. I just cant imagine having to got to all 3 pairings just to get experience to level up. I play many Scenarios. Still with both combination's it seems like takes forever to gain a rank.
What kept me busy was playing different alts. I am a bit ovehwhelmed to think that when I get to 15-20 I would have to "grind" these guys up as well, so I haven't been in WAR for a while.
I hear they are really working on stability and such. I think i'll be on a bit of Hiatus with MMos for a bit. At least till early next year. I think that is when they will announce exactly what we are going to expect in the next months of WAR.
Just an update as it goes in line with leveling. Just release today for you Brent ;-)
"And now for some more holiday cheer! Starting today, December 18th, we are going to be speeding up the leveling curve in WAR for a few weeks. We’re going to increase the rest experience multiplier bonus in a hotfix today as well as reducing the time that it takes you to earn rested xp while logged out of the game, especially in Tiers 3 and 4. This will result in players’ time to level being approximately 10% faster in Tier 2 and 20% faster in Tiers 3 and 4. We hope you enjoy the changes and have a great holiday season as you speed through the Tiers faster than ever before!"
EA/Mythic are listening and the ORVR (with the new influence system) is live and well. And rewards are worth the effort. Most nights you will find keep raids, zone raids and pockets of PVP everywhere in all Tiers. Really good fun!
Keep up the good work mate!
Damn, it sounds like WOTLK swallowed you whole. But not that it's a bad thing. WOW has done alot of things right in this expansion. I'm beginning to believe nothing will ever take it's place in the MMO throne.
@rpthatway What PVP gear from raids are you talking about? In BC a few resilience items dropped in raids that were quite good but I believe now in WOTLK the PVE gear is nearly worthless in any PVP situation (except maybe wintergrasp... I use pve gear frequently there because I am rarely targetted or I am in a vehicle).
it just looks like war isnt the game for you after all, arena like fights? from what i've seen they would need to work on balance to make those work (hell, even WOW added arenas later if i remember correctly) because the only playable arena would be >5 vs >5, besides, i think most people who want those are already back playing wow (cant blame them)
also to CTD and performance, even though i dont play WAR i watch news from there very closely and they are making great progress on both client and server side, 600 people battling? thats more than enough
and one more thing: when talking about zergs, which way is wow different? from what i played there were couple of things that decided open-world PvP in wow(not counting if players are idiots/newbies): more people (aka same zerg as in war), better equip or if you play class/es made to OWN the opposing faction classes
also i dont mean it offensively, i seriously want to know as i cant compare yet
Maybe the recent increase in exp will help? I play WAR very casually, less than I'd want to.
It takes a combination of many factors to really get into an MMO, friends, time, content, and the effort you put into it.
Too much and you burn out, too little and you get left behind. :(
Meh, it's ok that you lost interest in WAR seeing as to how much time you have put into it, but WoW is still bunk!
I think sometimes you lot read to much from MMO's. They are just games, play for fun or do something else. Don't bother with level curves of other people or hitting the xp cap. Just play the classes you enjoy and take your time.
maybe you need a bigger server, on black crag i've gotten into random small fights with my black orc every 10 or so mins. (most of the time either me, or them running right back for a rematch.) or maybe since you said heal/dmg hybrid try a WP or DoK both are pretty damn formitable once they get their heal group on hit abilities.
WAR just isn't the game for you. From the beginning I had been expecting huge-scale PVP, as WAR is from the same developers of DaOC, and they have continually touted such combat in articles and previews. I'm not making a personal judgment when I say that WAR isn't for you, but I say that to mean that there is no need to "fix" WAR. To "fix" it to the way you want would not be a fix, but a significant change to its overall and original purpose.
Now for small-scaled team battles, besides WoW arenas, you should look into Guild Wars if you are willing to sacrifice some of the traditional MMORPG "feel." From what I've seen, the strategy involved in GW is on a whole other level from WoW's.
And I'm not precisely sure, but it seems like DoKs/WPs can do pretty well as a hybrid spec. Or maybe Engineer/Magus/SH/SW for utility-based abilities along with DPS? It seems like BW would be more of the same, just with a "DPS-" prefix instead of "Heal-" with the suffix of "-bot." I share your sadness about the lack of versatility of the Shaman, though; I wanted to roll an Archmage when I first read about the mechanic (now I'm a Squig Herder and enjoying its versatility).
You have to remember Warhammer is barely out of nappies. Things like keeps are limited while there is only one way in, but destructable walls will solve that. There are at the moment, nothing to drag the small groups away to attack. Since it tends to be warband vs warband.
But alot of these things have be dealt with in DAOC and will migrate over. The Warhammer RvR has yet to evolve into a more mature state and will benefit from the development done on DAOC. But with the advantage of being able take the DAOC model and improve on it.
It just takes time. We are just over 3 months in and honestly that's no time at all.
I've been following your blog + youtube/filefront videos for all the time you had been in beta, was, myself, in open beta myself and let me tell you, the game is great. Fact is that you just didn't find the one class for you. You were very excited about it and you should give it another go. I played WoW for 3 years and quit after Wotlk beta, it hasn't changed, Wow is still the same old grind-fest with new areas to do it. Still same OP classes imbalance, now even bigger differences between some after all new expansion changes. I've seen it all and was disappointed. War is still very young game, it has to grown and mature a little bit more. Some MMOs were really bad on release too, but now they're growing faster than expected. Hope you still give it a go rolling another class, and give up on Wow pls :) Thumbs up
Dont do it Brent that is a Mythic employee typing that crap about returning. I have left the game aswell and I might be looking for a place to land. I am totally bummed that WAR wound up to be a constant grind with all the zergs just trying to stay out of each others way to raid a keep and get the loot. I could sit home on my Xbox and get more out of any game i pop in imo I am gunna catch up with ya this week so maybe I can start another grind wherever it may be
Turn
I'm not sure at this point I'm really not, to be honest I ripped my WoW Cds and I even am thinking about going and buying it and doing it all over again :/ I just haven't put that much time in WAR though so we'll see Im not ready to give up on it yet
I dunno, I've had more fun in the WAR T1 RvR lake than I've ever had playing WoW. I also used to hate the zergs, but lately I have been in some big battles that were a lot of fun (I'm actually enjoying T4 now, having organized groups trying to flip or defend zones against greater numbers of destruction is a blast). Performance is improving all the time, at least on my side. My enjoyment of the game also completely depends on who I'm hanging with... Going solo: not so fun. Listening to a skilled tactician on Vent while trying to prevent a zone flip while outnumbered badly by Destro (and succeeding): best MMO experience ever. By far.
Anyways, this is just my opinion. But for all the flaws of WAR, it is definitely still my MMO of choice.
I finally decided to just play one MMO and not two. Rather than become frustrated and actually angry after playing, I decided to dedicate my time to one game versus two. It just wasn't fun trying to play both. I believe the anger and frustration was the result of not enough and too slow. It simply became too much.
I'm much happier after dropping one and dedicating myself to the other. The progression is happening faster which allows for my characters growth, hence, change. With change comes versatility and options on a faster time schedule thus providing a pleasurable experience. No or slow change can sometimes result in feelings of becoming stagnant which also may result in frustration and/or anger.
Although two is more, sometimes one is better. So, choose the one and solely dedicate. If that's not the one, choose the other. Give it 30 days and see if it's a fit worth wearing.
Tier 1 and 2 > all others.
I am leveling every single Order class through Tier 1 now.
I refuse to even think about my money endorsing the content and combat of Tier 4 atm. Mythic needs to get their heads out of their ass and fix RvR zones, preferably by actually making them like the "2/3 of the game, but rarely visited PvE zones". Then, tie influence for the new RvR rewards to competitive PQs that actually require actual participation instead of passive flip flopping of BOs/Keeps and zerg warfare.
I think I might just play out my subscription too then play Darkfall. I'm a bit dissapointed too because I was so excited and such a fanboy of this game and I loved it so much for the first couple of months.
Great article! Like you, I have been very disappointed with the "Healing Mechanics" which I thought would be much different. I also agree with everything you have said... I don't think this game is just "not for you" or you are "burnt out on MMO's". WAR has really not delivered on what they hyped.
But I will continue to play WAR....
What is different for me? I have 1 main and 19 Alts. The variety makes up for a lot! I also play in our Alt night every Monday and Wednesday, which has been an absolute blast, and completely different way of experiencing the game.
A couple things I will say. I really wish Mythic would realise they have 4 "Endgames" and allow people to turn off XP at levels 9, 19, and 29. The PvP in T1 is just awesome. The Nordland oRvR zone is the best zone in the game (Although I have not sacked any cities yet). I would love to keep multiple toons in each Tier! And it really would allow casual gamers to have an online alter ego that was a force to be feared in their given comfort zone....
Cheers,
TzuDevil
PS I hope the game develops into the Hyped version. Maybe 6-12 more months I would think!