Atlantica Online: First impressions.
I had a chance to play Atlantica Online earlier this week in-between being sick and playing Warhammer: Online. For a game that is in beta, it seems to want to be treated as a game that has been already released, claiming in its advertisements: “Love it, or we’ll give cash for your character!” This caught my eye specifically and made me want to try the game, not because I wanted to love it; I figured I’d hate it, since I’m a bitter shell of a man, and could get some cash out of it. However, if you take a look at the details of the ‘offer’ it sounds more like they’re trying to get cheap power-leveling out of their players than actually convince you to play. Offers aside, we’re here to discuss my first impressions, so let’s get on with it!
Graphics/UI: 5/10 - ‘Meh’
The graphics are nothing innovative. They’re similar to most eastern games on the market. This game is particularly similar to Sword of the New World, a MMORTSRPG(?) I had the chance to try last year. I don’t normally review games at the login screen, but this one wants to be. I had never in all my years seen a login screen with so many, many random colors. I think it was depicting a large-scale battle, but to me it seemed like an orgy of fairies and daemons on a rainbow chessboard. Once I survived the seizure-inducing login screen, it was time to create my character. Character customization is very limited, not only at the character screen but in-game as well. I only had about five hairstyles to choose from, two outfit types, and a…weapon? Well, anyway, once in-game the graphics didn’t get that much better. After playing to about level 10(I think), I had gotten quite a few pieces of armor. Instead of evenly distributing them between myself and my mercenaries I figured I’d put them all on my “visible” character to upgrade his appearance. Where’s my helmet? Where are the new pants I got? The character looked exactly the same as it did before I equipped anything on him.
Now, let’s make something very clear. The game needs to have low system requirements in order to function properly, as battles will eventually become very, very large. This is not why the game’s graphics are ‘meh’. World of Warcraft and Warhammer: Online both had relatively low system requirements when released as compared to the available technology at the time. However, the way they depicted their characters, the landscapes, the spell effects, was very original, and relevant to the world they were basing the game on. Atlantica Online just seems to have copied and pasted a combination of Lineage 2 graphics, with Sword of the New World graphics, and other eastern games. That’s harsh, perhaps, but it seems to be the way the game wants to be treated. “Old MMOs not ‘WOW’ing you?” it proudly boasts in its advertisements, suggesting that they have something new and refreshing to offer. It certainly isn’t in the graphics department.
Gameplay/Chat/Community: 5/10 - ‘Who’s my special little boy?’
This section of my first impressions review will not focus on the combat aspect of the game. That’s a separate aspect altogether as they seem to want it to be. As soon as you start playing, the game will assume that you don’t know how to use your mouse or keyboard and will simply ‘lock’ you to the tutorial NPC. It will explain the world to you a little bit, and how to get started on completing your first quest. This is where the game also makes another assumption: it seems to believe that you’re too dumb to find battles on your own, so it will go find them for you. That’s right, there’s an ‘auto-move’ option that will automatically move you to your active quest’s objective. From there, all you have to do is either talk to NPC X or kill monster Y.
Perhaps an aspect that the tutorial should have expanded on was how to use the chat interface. I kept seeing only one person in my chat log, and they seemed to be talking to themselves. Not in the sense that there was no one else for them to talk to, but in the sense that they seemed to be answering questions and holding a conversation while there was no one else in the chatroom talking. Maybe I didn’t know how to use the chat, or maybe the game packs an auto-ignore feature that will ignore people it knows you won’t like automatically.
Now, one feature I sort of liked is the player’s ability to post in-game advertisements that are displayed at the top of your screen for goods and services players are interested in trading or selling(some services which I didn’t understand, such as ‘teaching pants’). This automatically made me think that goldsellers would be filling these advertising spaces with goldselling links. At the same time, though, it’s much less intrusive than those long whispers we get on other games, or the huge chunks of text in public chatrooms. If the feature were to be moderated, goldselling advertisements could be removed almost immediately.
Battle system/leveling system: 6/10
At last we come to Atlantica Online’s innovative feature. Okay, now that we’ve had a good laugh, it’s serious time. Let’s talk about how the battle system works:
- When you right click a mob to attack, a Final Fantasy-esque transition will take you to a battle sequence.
- You select the character you want to ‘move.’
- You then choose what you want your character to do. There’s attack, use item, use magic, all the standards.
- You will have a time limit, after which the enemy will make their move.
- You are now taking turns hitting each other with random things until one group is dead.
This is supposed to be the best part about Atlantica Online. Strategic turn-based combat that makes you think carefully about what you’re going to use on your opponent for maximum efficiency. The timer was so short, however, that I found myself frantically clicking enemy monsters while hitting “q” over and over so that every now and then a magical ability would go off. I had 4 characters to move on a 15 second timer. It completely removed the ’strategic’ part out of combat. Not to mention, it took me ten levels to figure out how to remove that annoying camera thing in battles where characters would take a ’solo.’ A ’solo’ is when your character decides he’s better than every other mercenary there and will take up the whole screen to show off his magical abilities in greater detail. Problem is: the timer is still running during this sequence, so if your guy decides to summon Knights of the Round or whatever, then by the time the sequence is over, so is your turn.
The combat system ended with me hitting two buttons over and over. I felt if I hooked up a Rock Band drum peripheral to my computer I could get through the battle easily by dropping some freestyle beats. My characters seemed to be a lot stronger than anything they encountered, so there was no need to think on anything. It’s a race to see how fast you can click enemy targets with a 15 second limit. Last thing, what’s up with the looting? When the mobs are dead, I have to loot them to claim my prize, but there’s usually 4-6 mobs to loot, and it uses up a character turn to loot a mob. So if all 4 of your mercenaries can move in a given turn you can loot 4 mobs, then you have to wait until the enemy corpses make a move before you can loot the remaining ones. What the hell?! Why even given corpses a turn?
The leveling system also had me a bit confused. I know each mercenary gains levels and they’re all displayed in the UI outside of combat. A lot of things required “level 20″ and it made me wonder what exactly that meant, though. An average of the levels of all your mercenaries? The level of your main character? Another thing was the random number in brackets next to my name. I saw it on every new player I ran into. I figured it wasn’t my level since it said “18″ and my character’s level at the bottom clearly said “Lv.1″. In the end, I decided it was my character’s age. A strapping young lad with a cannon on his back and a pocket full of dreams.
Overall: 5.5/10 - Nothing further, your honor.
Even though the game is still in beta, it seems to be advertising proudly things that it can’t really offer. If you hated the game, and want to take them up on their offer for cash, you have to get to level 50 first. “Old MMOs not ‘WOW’ing you” I see what you did there. Thanks, but I’d rather go back to World of Warcraft and endure the tedious scripted instances with several people who didn’t know a giant beam or orb was coming right at them, and that it wasn’t a good thing.
In the end, if you like these types of games, you know, the free, eastern, copy-paste-insert-item-mall-instant-cash games, then you might have some fun with this one. It’s a little bit different than other released MMOs, even if it’s not innovative in any way whatsoever.
Atlantica Online: First impressions.
I had a chance to play Atlantica Online earlier this week in-between being sick and playing Warhammer: Online. For a game that is in beta, it seems to want to be treated as a game that has been already released, claiming in its advertisements: “Love it, or we’ll give cash for your character!” This caught my eye specifically and made me want to try the game, not because I wanted to love it; I figured I’d hate it, since I’m a bitter shell of a man, and could get some cash out of it. However, if you take a look at the details of the ‘offer’ it sounds more like they’re trying to get cheap power-leveling out of their players than actually convince you to play. Offers aside, we’re here to discuss my first impressions, so let’s get on with it!
Graphics/UI: 5/10 - ‘Meh’
The graphics are nothing innovative. They’re similar to most eastern games on the market. This game is particularly similar to Sword of the New World, a MMORTSRPG(?) I had the chance to try last year. I don’t normally review games at the login screen, but this one wants to be. I had never in all my years seen a login screen with so many, many random colors. I think it was depicting a large-scale battle, but to me it seemed like an orgy of fairies and daemons on a rainbow chessboard. Once I survived the seizure-inducing login screen, it was time to create my character. Character customization is very limited, not only at the character screen but in-game as well. I only had about five hairstyles to choose from, two outfit types, and a…weapon? Well, anyway, once in-game the graphics didn’t get that much better. After playing to about level 10(I think), I had gotten quite a few pieces of armor. Instead of evenly distributing them between myself and my mercenaries I figured I’d put them all on my “visible” character to upgrade his appearance. Where’s my helmet? Where are the new pants I got? The character looked exactly the same as it did before I equipped anything on him.
Now, let’s make something very clear. The game needs to have low system requirements in order to function properly, as battles will eventually become very, very large. This is not why the game’s graphics are ‘meh’. World of Warcraft and Warhammer: Online both had relatively low system requirements when released as compared to the available technology at the time. However, the way they depicted their characters, the landscapes, the spell effects, was very original, and relevant to the world they were basing the game on. Atlantica Online just seems to have copied and pasted a combination of Lineage 2 graphics, with Sword of the New World graphics, and other eastern games. That’s harsh, perhaps, but it seems to be the way the game wants to be treated. “Old MMOs not ‘WOW’ing you?” it proudly boasts in its advertisements, suggesting that they have something new and refreshing to offer. It certainly isn’t in the graphics department.
Gameplay/Chat/Community: 5/10 - ‘Who’s my special little boy?’
This section of my first impressions review will not focus on the combat aspect of the game. That’s a separate aspect altogether as they seem to want it to be. As soon as you start playing, the game will assume that you don’t know how to use your mouse or keyboard and will simply ‘lock’ you to the tutorial NPC. It will explain the world to you a little bit, and how to get started on completing your first quest. This is where the game also makes another assumption: it seems to believe that you’re too dumb to find battles on your own, so it will go find them for you. That’s right, there’s an ‘auto-move’ option that will automatically move you to your active quest’s objective. From there, all you have to do is either talk to NPC X or kill monster Y.
Perhaps an aspect that the tutorial should have expanded on was how to use the chat interface. I kept seeing only one person in my chat log, and they seemed to be talking to themselves. Not in the sense that there was no one else for them to talk to, but in the sense that they seemed to be answering questions and holding a conversation while there was no one else in the chatroom talking. Maybe I didn’t know how to use the chat, or maybe the game packs an auto-ignore feature that will ignore people it knows you won’t like automatically.
Now, one feature I sort of liked is the player’s ability to post in-game advertisements that are displayed at the top of your screen for goods and services players are interested in trading or selling(some services which I didn’t understand, such as ‘teaching pants’). This automatically made me think that goldsellers would be filling these advertising spaces with goldselling links. At the same time, though, it’s much less intrusive than those long whispers we get on other games, or the huge chunks of text in public chatrooms. If the feature were to be moderated, goldselling advertisements could be removed almost immediately.
Battle system/leveling system: 6/10
At last we come to Atlantica Online’s innovative feature. Okay, now that we’ve had a good laugh, it’s serious time. Let’s talk about how the battle system works:
- When you right click a mob to attack, a Final Fantasy-esque transition will take you to a battle sequence.
- You select the character you want to ‘move.’
- You then choose what you want your character to do. There’s attack, use item, use magic, all the standards.
- You will have a time limit, after which the enemy will make their move.
- You are now taking turns hitting each other with random things until one group is dead.
This is supposed to be the best part about Atlantica Online. Strategic turn-based combat that makes you think carefully about what you’re going to use on your opponent for maximum efficiency. The timer was so short, however, that I found myself frantically clicking enemy monsters while hitting “q” over and over so that every now and then a magical ability would go off. I had 4 characters to move on a 15 second timer. It completely removed the ’strategic’ part out of combat. Not to mention, it took me ten levels to figure out how to remove that annoying camera thing in battles where characters would take a ’solo.’ A ’solo’ is when your character decides he’s better than every other mercenary there and will take up the whole screen to show off his magical abilities in greater detail. Problem is: the timer is still running during this sequence, so if your guy decides to summon Knights of the Round or whatever, then by the time the sequence is over, so is your turn.
The combat system ended with me hitting two buttons over and over. I felt if I hooked up a Rock Band drum peripheral to my computer I could get through the battle easily by dropping some freestyle beats. My characters seemed to be a lot stronger than anything they encountered, so there was no need to think on anything. It’s a race to see how fast you can click enemy targets with a 15 second limit. Last thing, what’s up with the looting? When the mobs are dead, I have to loot them to claim my prize, but there’s usually 4-6 mobs to loot, and it uses up a character turn to loot a mob. So if all 4 of your mercenaries can move in a given turn you can loot 4 mobs, then you have to wait until the enemy corpses make a move before you can loot the remaining ones. What the hell?! Why even given corpses a turn?
The leveling system also had me a bit confused. I know each mercenary gains levels and they’re all displayed in the UI outside of combat. A lot of things required “level 20″ and it made me wonder what exactly that meant, though. An average of the levels of all your mercenaries? The level of your main character? Another thing was the random number in brackets next to my name. I saw it on every new player I ran into. I figured it wasn’t my level since it said “18″ and my character’s level at the bottom clearly said “Lv.1″. In the end, I decided it was my character’s age. A strapping young lad with a cannon on his back and a pocket full of dreams.
Overall: 5.5/10 - Nothing further, your honor.
Even though the game is still in beta, it seems to be advertising proudly things that it can’t really offer. If you hated the game, and want to take them up on their offer for cash, you have to get to level 50 first. “Old MMOs not ‘WOW’ing you” I see what you did there. Thanks, but I’d rather go back to World of Warcraft and endure the tedious scripted instances with several people who didn’t know a giant beam or orb was coming right at them, and that it wasn’t a good thing.
In the end, if you like these types of games, you know, the free, eastern, copy-paste-insert-item-mall-instant-cash games, then you might have some fun with this one. It’s a little bit different than other released MMOs, even if it’s not innovative in any way whatsoever.
Warhammer: Top 5 Issues
Well here we are about a month after the release of Warhammer Online, and I wanted to take some time to talk about some of the top issues in the game at the present time. I have previously written about two of the early issues already which no longer seem to be glaring problems to me, Server Queues and Goldspammers. I want to preface this article by saying that I do enjoy the game so far, but for the purposes of this I will be zeroing in on what I see as the top issues that I feel have the potential to derail the success of the game. If you read my early review of the game, which has been published on a variety of sites, then you should know that my goal is to be as objective as possible. Let’s start the constructive criticism.
1) Overworld Rewards
This is issue one for me and a lot of the community at the moment. The entire premise of Warhammer Online is the war in the overworld. I don’t think anyone bought this game to do instanced battlegrounds, but at the present time they seem to be the most rewarding option in regards of using RvR to advance your character.
Scenarios are by far way too beneficial and the overworld is far less rewarding at the present time. Scenarios require no effort to get into, you simply sign up and wait for it to let you know when to zone you in. The longest any given scenario can run is 15 minutes, and can yield large amounts of experience and renown. Overworld RvR requires you to physically travel to the front in hopes of serious combat going on. Overworld doesn’t lay a finger on scenarios in terms of experience points, and unless you are in a major bloodbath you won’t be coming close to the same amount of renown, especially when compared to what can be earned in a 15 minute scenario.
The good news is that Mythic seems to have been reading the feedback. They recently announced a 50% increase in leveling experience in the overworld RvR areas, and they are promising to announce some changes in the next week about renown. This issue is critical because most people will opt to take the fastest route to advancement, and if the overworld becomes empty this game will fail.
2) Class Balance
Since release we have seen a variety of bug fixes go in, but we have seen little in regards to class balance. Now I understand where they are coming from in this regard, but there are some balancing problems that need to be addressed or people will get turned off from RvR. If people are finding themselves saddled into a class that is extremely weak, it may lead them to cancel out of frustration with their class if they don’t have the strength to tough it out or reroll. These are my observations as someone who plays Order in Tier 4, so take it with a grain of salt as I will try to be fair.
Shadow Warriors and Squid Herders are in desperate need of a boost. Both of these classes are one of the rarest played from my experiences, and for good reason. These ranged DPS classes as they are marketed need a bit more DPS or a bit more range. I play a Shadow Warrior in Tier 4, and it is a hard life compared to some of the other classes that are capable of far more damage and have much better survivability. A Shadow Warrior wears the same level of armor as a Bright Wizard and does far less damage. If I am at my maximum range and shoot at someone running towards me, they will be in melee range by the time the move is finished executing. Kiting is not even close to being a viable option in RvR. My root barely works and is a melee attack, so by the time someone is close enough that I need it, I’m dead anyways.
Magus and Engineers need to be looked at as well. These are also uncommon classes because they suffer from similar problems. Both of these classes have an ability that is going to ruin this game if it is not fixed. Electromagnet on the Engineer and the Magus version is an ability that sucks in all plays from 65 feet away, has no casting time, only has a 20 second cooldown, has no line of sight check (can pull people through keep doors in sieges), and snares! I wasn’t surprised when I found out that the addition of this spell was something that happened right near the end of beta, so probably has not undergone the proper testing. The sad thing is that this is one of the few good tools these classes have at end game, so they need to be brought up a little while this ability gets fixed.
Witch Elves strike me as a bit out of control. I often find myself unable to fight back almost every single time they attack me, even with all of my counter-measures up. They can kill me in about 4 seconds flat while incapacitating me. Now as someone who wears light armor I guess that might be feasible, but Ironbreaker guildmates of mine have been destroyed almost as fast. The ability that damages you for moving has no limit to how much it can do, and when factored with how easy they can kill when you aren’t moving there is little anyone can do in most cases. There is nothing fun about not being able to fight back, something DAOC was notorious for.
3) Performance
This is another major issue that needs to be worked on as soon as possible. The end game envisioned by Mythic and its customers is large scale overworld fights. If your computer crashes you to desktop, or reduces you to watching a slide show, then people will eventually quit. My computer is an absolute beast, and even I have found it being brought to its knees in some of the battles we are seeing in Tier 4 at this point. These battles will only get worse as more people level up, so they need to continue to tweak the code. Nothing sucks worse then crashing to desktop during a city raid, then logging back in 1 zone back and unable to rejoin because all of the guards have respawned blocking your way.
I have heard rumors that the game is sending too much data as a reason for some of the performance issues. Some have said that buff refresh data is being updated too frequently, or that chat being logged too often could be possible causes. There are some mods out there trying to experiment with these issues, but I have yet to try any to see if they work. The good news is that the game is running noticeably better after the last patch when I am in large scale battles, so I look forward to seeing if there are more changes coming that will help streamline with before everyone else gets to Tier 4.
4) Itemization
This is a minor annoyance at the present time, but could be a big problem as we move on into the coming months. If you go to the merchants in your capital city who sell the high end RvR gear, you can take a look at some of the rewards and stats on the gear we get to look forward to earning.
The problem is a lot of those high end armors have stats that don’t make a lot of sense. Many of my guildmates report to me that they are seeing the epic RvR gear with very odd stats such as willpower and intelligence on melee class armors and weapon skill for casters. Some of the items are not only lacking in the primary areas for their respective classes, but they have stats on them that are of little value to their class. If these items are deemed as junk by the player base, it will diminish the reward from RvR, and make people less motivated to try to earn them. Now I understand that a lot of these items are sets and have set bonuses, but a lot of these just flat out suck without the rest of them. Maybe they rushed them because the game was close to release and they knew nobody would get them for a long time, but they definitely need to be gone over again.
5) Bugs
These most likely won’t make people quit, but they will test the nerves of the players. The guild interface is absolutely amazing, but it has bugs that need fixing. Some players in my guild have to be manually promoted by typing out the command because the interface hates them. The alliance tab has some glitches making it hard to read at times. The guild heraldry shows to other players, but on my screen I don’t see it unless I toggle it off and on every time I zone. Altdorf still causes me crash almost every time I go there for no real reason. I still can’t join a scenario from some zones randomly. I could go on but you get the drift.
By far one of the most annoying things is the current state of the mail system. It literally took me 5 minutes to open 3 mails and remove the items attached to them. As someone who is in a guild where people are always sending each other stuff, this can make going to the mailbox a dreadful experience. Every time you buy an item at the auction house you have to go get it from the mailbox, so if you buy some material for crafting or a set of new armor, you might as well go to the bathroom and drop a duece while you wait for your mail to get sorted out.
Conclusion
Overall the game remains solid for what it is. The overworld RvR is enjoyable when it happens, and the gameplay is overall good. When you compare this game in its present state after 1 month to games like WoW and Age of Conan, it definitely has a lot going for it. These issues however summarize what I believe are the top concerns of the community, as you can find on most forums and in game whining.
The good news is Mythic is definitely listening to the player feedback. Recently they made a change in a patch that has reduced the number of gold spammers noticeably. People were upset about the leveling curve in certain tiers of the game and Mythic reacted by increasing the quest experience in these areas of the game. They are keeping a sharp eye on the community and reacting to their needs. If they continue to maintain this level of communication and honesty with the players, this game will be around for a long time.
Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
www.inqguild.com
Warhammer: Top 5 Issues
Well here we are about a month after the release of Warhammer Online, and I wanted to take some time to talk about some of the top issues in the game at the present time. I have previously written about two of the early issues already which no longer seem to be glaring problems to me, Server Queues and Goldspammers. I want to preface this article by saying that I do enjoy the game so far, but for the purposes of this I will be zeroing in on what I see as the top issues that I feel have the potential to derail the success of the game. If you read my early review of the game, which has been published on a variety of sites, then you should know that my goal is to be as objective as possible. Let’s start the constructive criticism.
1) Overworld Rewards
This is issue one for me and a lot of the community at the moment. The entire premise of Warhammer Online is the war in the overworld. I don’t think anyone bought this game to do instanced battlegrounds, but at the present time they seem to be the most rewarding option in regards of using RvR to advance your character.
Scenarios are by far way too beneficial and the overworld is far less rewarding at the present time. Scenarios require no effort to get into, you simply sign up and wait for it to let you know when to zone you in. The longest any given scenario can run is 15 minutes, and can yield large amounts of experience and renown. Overworld RvR requires you to physically travel to the front in hopes of serious combat going on. Overworld doesn’t lay a finger on scenarios in terms of experience points, and unless you are in a major bloodbath you won’t be coming close to the same amount of renown, especially when compared to what can be earned in a 15 minute scenario.
The good news is that Mythic seems to have been reading the feedback. They recently announced a 50% increase in leveling experience in the overworld RvR areas, and they are promising to announce some changes in the next week about renown. This issue is critical because most people will opt to take the fastest route to advancement, and if the overworld becomes empty this game will fail.
2) Class Balance
Since release we have seen a variety of bug fixes go in, but we have seen little in regards to class balance. Now I understand where they are coming from in this regard, but there are some balancing problems that need to be addressed or people will get turned off from RvR. If people are finding themselves saddled into a class that is extremely weak, it may lead them to cancel out of frustration with their class if they don’t have the strength to tough it out or reroll. These are my observations as someone who plays Order in Tier 4, so take it with a grain of salt as I will try to be fair.
Shadow Warriors and Squid Herders are in desperate need of a boost. Both of these classes are one of the rarest played from my experiences, and for good reason. These ranged DPS classes as they are marketed need a bit more DPS or a bit more range. I play a Shadow Warrior in Tier 4, and it is a hard life compared to some of the other classes that are capable of far more damage and have much better survivability. A Shadow Warrior wears the same level of armor as a Bright Wizard and does far less damage. If I am at my maximum range and shoot at someone running towards me, they will be in melee range by the time the move is finished executing. Kiting is not even close to being a viable option in RvR. My root barely works and is a melee attack, so by the time someone is close enough that I need it, I’m dead anyways.
Magus and Engineers need to be looked at as well. These are also uncommon classes because they suffer from similar problems. Both of these classes have an ability that is going to ruin this game if it is not fixed. Electromagnet on the Engineer and the Magus version is an ability that sucks in all plays from 65 feet away, has no casting time, only has a 20 second cooldown, has no line of sight check (can pull people through keep doors in sieges), and snares! I wasn’t surprised when I found out that the addition of this spell was something that happened right near the end of beta, so probably has not undergone the proper testing. The sad thing is that this is one of the few good tools these classes have at end game, so they need to be brought up a little while this ability gets fixed.
Witch Elves strike me as a bit out of control. I often find myself unable to fight back almost every single time they attack me, even with all of my counter-measures up. They can kill me in about 4 seconds flat while incapacitating me. Now as someone who wears light armor I guess that might be feasible, but Ironbreaker guildmates of mine have been destroyed almost as fast. The ability that damages you for moving has no limit to how much it can do, and when factored with how easy they can kill when you aren’t moving there is little anyone can do in most cases. There is nothing fun about not being able to fight back, something DAOC was notorious for.
3) Performance
This is another major issue that needs to be worked on as soon as possible. The end game envisioned by Mythic and its customers is large scale overworld fights. If your computer crashes you to desktop, or reduces you to watching a slide show, then people will eventually quit. My computer is an absolute beast, and even I have found it being brought to its knees in some of the battles we are seeing in Tier 4 at this point. These battles will only get worse as more people level up, so they need to continue to tweak the code. Nothing sucks worse then crashing to desktop during a city raid, then logging back in 1 zone back and unable to rejoin because all of the guards have respawned blocking your way.
I have heard rumors that the game is sending too much data as a reason for some of the performance issues. Some have said that buff refresh data is being updated too frequently, or that chat being logged too often could be possible causes. There are some mods out there trying to experiment with these issues, but I have yet to try any to see if they work. The good news is that the game is running noticeably better after the last patch when I am in large scale battles, so I look forward to seeing if there are more changes coming that will help streamline with before everyone else gets to Tier 4.
4) Itemization
This is a minor annoyance at the present time, but could be a big problem as we move on into the coming months. If you go to the merchants in your capital city who sell the high end RvR gear, you can take a look at some of the rewards and stats on the gear we get to look forward to earning.
The problem is a lot of those high end armors have stats that don’t make a lot of sense. Many of my guildmates report to me that they are seeing the epic RvR gear with very odd stats such as willpower and intelligence on melee class armors and weapon skill for casters. Some of the items are not only lacking in the primary areas for their respective classes, but they have stats on them that are of little value to their class. If these items are deemed as junk by the player base, it will diminish the reward from RvR, and make people less motivated to try to earn them. Now I understand that a lot of these items are sets and have set bonuses, but a lot of these just flat out suck without the rest of them. Maybe they rushed them because the game was close to release and they knew nobody would get them for a long time, but they definitely need to be gone over again.
5) Bugs
These most likely won’t make people quit, but they will test the nerves of the players. The guild interface is absolutely amazing, but it has bugs that need fixing. Some players in my guild have to be manually promoted by typing out the command because the interface hates them. The alliance tab has some glitches making it hard to read at times. The guild heraldry shows to other players, but on my screen I don’t see it unless I toggle it off and on every time I zone. Altdorf still causes me crash almost every time I go there for no real reason. I still can’t join a scenario from some zones randomly. I could go on but you get the drift.
By far one of the most annoying things is the current state of the mail system. It literally took me 5 minutes to open 3 mails and remove the items attached to them. As someone who is in a guild where people are always sending each other stuff, this can make going to the mailbox a dreadful experience. Every time you buy an item at the auction house you have to go get it from the mailbox, so if you buy some material for crafting or a set of new armor, you might as well go to the bathroom and drop a duece while you wait for your mail to get sorted out.
Conclusion
Overall the game remains solid for what it is. The overworld RvR is enjoyable when it happens, and the gameplay is overall good. When you compare this game in its present state after 1 month to games like WoW and Age of Conan, it definitely has a lot going for it. These issues however summarize what I believe are the top concerns of the community, as you can find on most forums and in game whining.
The good news is Mythic is definitely listening to the player feedback. Recently they made a change in a patch that has reduced the number of gold spammers noticeably. People were upset about the leveling curve in certain tiers of the game and Mythic reacted by increasing the quest experience in these areas of the game. They are keeping a sharp eye on the community and reacting to their needs. If they continue to maintain this level of communication and honesty with the players, this game will be around for a long time.
Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
www.inqguild.com
Who Said War was Bad?
Of course I’m talking about the recently released Warhammer Online and not actual war. As you might have read from Malcom’s review below, Warhammer is a crap load of fun, so I’m not going to post another review of the game, instead I’ll post my opinion on what I think thus far.
Currently I have two characters, a Battle Priest, lev 11 on a normal server and a Dwarf tank, lev 10 on a open RvR server. Alliance all the way!
First I’ll start of when what I don’t like, cause quite frankly it’s a pretty short list.
Game Map - The main map does not provide any indicators of towns or outposts at all, even locations you visited. Now some towns/outposts are obvious just by looking at the map, however many are not. So when traveling between location and wanting to look back, it’s hard to remember where things were. Minor inconvinience which hopefull will be corrected in the near future.
Mobs - My main problem here is the respawn rate and the amount of time they chase you when running away. The respawn rate in some areas is so fast that it’s rediculas and frustrating to do quests in that location. The chasing is just as annoying because to me it feels as though they chase you for twice as long as any other MMO I’ve played. Put these 2 in together and some quests, even easy ones, just became very frustrating.
Public Quests - While I love the idea, I don’t really like how they work. PQs are broken into chapters, I believe there are 28 chapters in the game, with each chapter having multiple PQs to complete. Then each PQ is broken down to stages, each stage becomes harder until you complete them all and finish the PQ. You can complete a chapter by getting points by participating in PQs, however you don’t have to complete any of the stages or more than 1 PQ. You can farm the first PQ and just do the first stage over and over until you get enough points to complete the chapter. This becomes extremly boring and tedious as you’re killing the same things over and over. The other problem is that when you do complete a PQ, it’s normally no where near the amount of points needed to complete the chapter, so in my experience so far, players just do the same PQ over and over until they have enought points, which again is very boring. As I said I love the idea, I just don’t think it’s implemented correctly.
Now on to what Warhammer Online does right, which is everything else. In some of my previous posts, I sometimes come down hard of PvE, but to be honest, I don’t mind it that much. PvE can be fun, I just hate being forced into it and having no options to do anything else. Within 20 mins of starting Warhammer online, I was doing PvE quests, in the waiting queue to participate in a RvR senario quest and joining others in PQs. A few hrs later once I gained some levels I then entered some RvR areas and joined a warband to kick some Destruction ass.
Having joined both servers with either low or medium population, I have yet to wait in line to login and the waiting queue for RvR is very fast, normally 3-5 mins. The best part of RvR senarios is that you can do other things while waiting, then you get a popup asking you if you want to join. Great way to keep the game exciting and constantly changing up what you’re doing.
PvE quests are your normal run of the mill MMORPG quests, however if you don’t want to do any of them, don’t, you don’t have too. Don’t like RvR, join a normal server and just play the normal PvE quests. The best part of Warhammer Online is that it doesn’t force you to do anything you don’t want to. I love that!
I think it’s safe to say Mythic has a kick as MMORPG on their hands with Warhammer Online and I definietly have a new home game wise.
I’ll be playing exclusively now on the open RvR server, much more fun imo and will post some updates as I get further into the game. I hate to be Funcom right now considering a good PvP game just came out. Ouch!
Who Said War was Bad?
Of course I’m talking about the recently released Warhammer Online and not actual war. As you might have read from Malcom’s review below, Warhammer is a crap load of fun, so I’m not going to post another review of the game, instead I’ll post my opinion on what I think thus far.
Currently I have two characters, a Battle Priest, lev 11 on a normal server and a Dwarf tank, lev 10 on a open RvR server. Alliance all the way!
First I’ll start of when what I don’t like, cause quite frankly it’s a pretty short list.
Game Map - The main map does not provide any indicators of towns or outposts at all, even locations you visited. Now some towns/outposts are obvious just by looking at the map, however many are not. So when traveling between location and wanting to look back, it’s hard to remember where things were. Minor inconvinience which hopefull will be corrected in the near future.
Mobs - My main problem here is the respawn rate and the amount of time they chase you when running away. The respawn rate in some areas is so fast that it’s rediculas and frustrating to do quests in that location. The chasing is just as annoying because to me it feels as though they chase you for twice as long as any other MMO I’ve played. Put these 2 in together and some quests, even easy ones, just became very frustrating.
Public Quests - While I love the idea, I don’t really like how they work. PQs are broken into chapters, I believe there are 28 chapters in the game, with each chapter having multiple PQs to complete. Then each PQ is broken down to stages, each stage becomes harder until you complete them all and finish the PQ. You can complete a chapter by getting points by participating in PQs, however you don’t have to complete any of the stages or more than 1 PQ. You can farm the first PQ and just do the first stage over and over until you get enough points to complete the chapter. This becomes extremly boring and tedious as you’re killing the same things over and over. The other problem is that when you do complete a PQ, it’s normally no where near the amount of points needed to complete the chapter, so in my experience so far, players just do the same PQ over and over until they have enought points, which again is very boring. As I said I love the idea, I just don’t think it’s implemented correctly.
Now on to what Warhammer Online does right, which is everything else. In some of my previous posts, I sometimes come down hard of PvE, but to be honest, I don’t mind it that much. PvE can be fun, I just hate being forced into it and having no options to do anything else. Within 20 mins of starting Warhammer online, I was doing PvE quests, in the waiting queue to participate in a RvR senario quest and joining others in PQs. A few hrs later once I gained some levels I then entered some RvR areas and joined a warband to kick some Destruction ass.
Having joined both servers with either low or medium population, I have yet to wait in line to login and the waiting queue for RvR is very fast, normally 3-5 mins. The best part of RvR senarios is that you can do other things while waiting, then you get a popup asking you if you want to join. Great way to keep the game exciting and constantly changing up what you’re doing.
PvE quests are your normal run of the mill MMORPG quests, however if you don’t want to do any of them, don’t, you don’t have too. Don’t like RvR, join a normal server and just play the normal PvE quests. The best part of Warhammer Online is that it doesn’t force you to do anything you don’t want to. I love that!
I think it’s safe to say Mythic has a kick as MMORPG on their hands with Warhammer Online and I definietly have a new home game wise.
I’ll be playing exclusively now on the open RvR server, much more fun imo and will post some updates as I get further into the game. I hate to be Funcom right now considering a good PvP game just came out. Ouch!
There is no time for peace; there is only WAR.
With Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning seeing its release on September 17th, there hasn’t been a lack of people wanting to share their views on how good or bad EA Mythic’s latest MMORPG is. Unfortunately, for me, it has taken a while to be able to get a chance to sit down and write my thoughts on the game, because I have spent nearly every waking hour playing it. Finally, I decided to take the time to be able to write my first impressions, and throw out yet another review to the hungering behemoth that is the internet.
I. Decisions, decisions.
Let’s face it, we all love having choices. We love choosing how to look, where to go, what to do, and what reviews to bookmark to read and enjoy over and over. Warhammer Online is a game that will flood you with choices right from the beginning. You will have to choose what server to pick, what type of server to pick(Open RvR, Core, Role-play, or the only Open RVR/RP server), and what faction you’re going to play for. Now, the sad truth is that Destruction is over-populated. This seems to cause long waits in the match-making system for scenarios, meaning as Destruction you will normally be waiting a hell of a lot longer than Order to get into a fight. Originally, I thought I would go Order only because Destruction had so many people, but the first witch hunter named “Vanhelsing” I saw sort of turned me off and convinced me to make the switch to Destruction. Now, even though I play Destruction, I’m going to say that Order has some really cool and unique classes, which completely break the warrior, rogue, healer archetypes into a more complex type of role, and even though Order seems to be yet another Middle Earth-esque faction, it has a very distinctive spin to it.
Once you’ve picked Order for the sole purpose of making wait times for my Marauder shorter, you will have to decide what
class you want to play. Mythic presents you with another tough choice, but gives you the benefit of reading a small description which indicates what your main role in the game will be. The way the classes have been laid out overall is incredibly refreshing. In fact, I can think of no other word except refreshing when describing any of the many classes included in Warhammer Online.
On to the actual classes:
- Healers - Healers are actually very, very fun to play. They either combine offensive spell-casting with their healing, or melee DPS with their healing. Yes, you read right. You’re not restricted to being a robe-wearing scholar who desperately swings his staff if anyone gets within three feet of him. No, you’ll be running into the fray, swinging your weapons purposefully while assisting your fellow comrades in battle with the heals you build up through your attacks.
- Tanks - It’s finally possible for tanks to have a role in PvP. Tank game-play varies, with some tanks having focus on melee damage, and others having focus on supporting their allies. Still, the way tanks have been implemented into the game is astounding. For one, taunts work on players. Taunts give debuffs to your target, or give the tank a buff against their target. This buff wears off if the targeted player attacks the tank x number of times, which gives incentives for people to attack the tank. This is just one of the many ways in which Mythic has created a more than satisfactory role for tanks in PvP.
- Melee DPS - They’re there to do what they already do in every other game. Hit things at close range until they drop dead. There’s nothing really different in the way the melee DPS plays their class as compared to other games, but the abilities they receive make them unlike any other type of melee DPS you may have played in the past.
- Ranged DPS - These are not very different in what their ultimate purpose is, either. They’re there to throw fireballs or shoot arrows at people until they are face down on the ground. However, Warhammer once again surprises all of us by delivering these classes in a very unique manner. For example, Bright Wizards build up combustion with their damaging spells. As combustion goes up, the wizard’s critical chance with spells go up, but if they build up too much they will risk having their spells explode and damage them instead.
Since there’s no pressure for performance if you’re just starting out, you can explore all the classes and archetypes until you feel comfortable enough to master one.
II. Player vs Player/Realm vs Realm
Finally, a game that delivers on what they promise. This is all-out war; there are no rules, no fouls. You simply
pick a side and you work towards exterminating the members of the opposite faction, taking their keeps, and taking their land. Scenarios, although reminiscent to instanced PvP in other games, are perhaps one of the most popular forms of RvR in the game right now. The good thing is, however, that the objectives don’t treat you like a child. Unlike other games with similar instanced PvP content, you’re not there to play a friendly game of capture the flag with your enemy; you’re there to kill them.
Rare in MMORPGs is the fact that you can gain levels in PvP, or doing something other than killing monsters(i.e.: crafting). While you can not obtain higher levels in Warhammer by crafting, you can obtain higher levels by engaging in PvP or RvR combat. Every player you kill will give you XP, renown, and some money. Renown increases your renown rank, which lifts restrictions on gear available from renown merchants around the world; that is, the higher your renown rank is, the more gear you will have available to purchase. Luckily, although there are two separate types of ranks, you can increase them both by doing just one thing: PvPing.
The world objectives are also highly enticing. While dependant on server population, there’s usually battles going on to decide the fate of a particular piece of contested land. I’ve been having a lot of fun just randomly showing up to the northern part of Nordland to engage in random RvR with other players there, outside of scenarios. The downside is that there are normally a few higher level players that will be able to turn the tide of battle.
That brings me to my last point in their PvP system: levels, and how they affect PvP. In this game, you have the ability to jump into a scenario as soon as your character is created and you’ve gone through the introduction cinematic. In Scenarios, your level will be increased to a certain point, so that you can stand a better chance against enemies in the higher ranks of the scenario. For example, for Tier 1 scenarios, your rank will be bumped up to rank 8 if you’re lower than that. This will give you more health, and allow you to survive better in a battle. I randomly made a sorceress this morning, and went into Khaine’s Embrace(a Tier 1 scenario) at rank 3, and ended up second to a rank 11 witch elf in damage dealt. This encourages people to jump into the PvP system as early as possible so that they make all their mistakes early on and learn how to properly play their class by the time they’re out of tier 1.
III. PvE / Grouping
Well, we come to one of the parts that a lot of people don’t like about the game. To be fair, the game is not intended to have you gather 20 people and go kill a boss in an instance. At the same time, however, many feel like the PvE aspect of the game could have been given more attention. Right now, PvE seems to be mainly in place to create a sort of linear progression that guides you from tier to tier, or from chapter to chapter of public quest. Next, if you enjoy grouping with other players to do quests, or enjoy social aspects of MMORPGs, you will not find it easy to get accustomed to Warhammer Online. Meeting new players is difficult, because rarely anyone talks in the public channels, and there’s rarely a need for groups.
The only thing that requires a group of people are public quests, but those people don’t even have to talk to each other to get them done. Public quests display objectives globally, so when any player kills a certain mob, or does a certain thing, it will count for all the players in the area. Even if you’re nowhere near the public quest when it starts, you can join in when it’s halfway-through simply by entering the public quest area. What this means is that there can be six of us in a public quest area, ungrouped, completing the objectives, finishing the stages of each chapter, taking our loot and going home without having to even know their names.
It’s obvious, but if you are a fan of PvE games, raiding instances, and the like, you will not enjoy Warhammer Online in the least. There just isn’t enough PvE content to keep fans of item hunting and repeating bosses happy.
In the end, if you’re searching for a game that will satisfy your PvP needs, then this game might just be it. Keep in mind that although the PvE is not bad there’s just not enough of it to keep someone playing it if they enjoyed a type of game-play more like Lord of the Rings: Online. If you rarely PvP, and want to try something different, by all means give the game a shot.
As for my opinion, I haven’t had this much fun with a game in a long, long time. Not since the days of vanilla World of Warcraft, where I would stay up to 3 AM in the morning trying to get rank 11 in battlegrounds. This game has the “what the hell, it’s 3 AM already?!” factor to it, and all the games I have played lately have not been able to keep me hooked in such a way.
There is no time for peace; there is only WAR.
With Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning seeing its release on September 17th, there hasn’t been a lack of people wanting to share their views on how good or bad EA Mythic’s latest MMORPG is. Unfortunately, for me, it has taken a while to be able to get a chance to sit down and write my thoughts on the game, because I have spent nearly every waking hour playing it. Finally, I decided to take the time to be able to write my first impressions, and throw out yet another review to the hungering behemoth that is the internet.
I. Decisions, decisions.
Let’s face it, we all love having choices. We love choosing how to look, where to go, what to do, and what reviews to bookmark to read and enjoy over and over. Warhammer Online is a game that will flood you with choices right from the beginning. You will have to choose what server to pick, what type of server to pick(Open RvR, Core, Role-play, or the only Open RVR/RP server), and what faction you’re going to play for. Now, the sad truth is that Destruction is over-populated. This seems to cause long waits in the match-making system for scenarios, meaning as Destruction you will normally be waiting a hell of a lot longer than Order to get into a fight. Originally, I thought I would go Order only because Destruction had so many people, but the first witch hunter named “Vanhelsing” I saw sort of turned me off and convinced me to make the switch to Destruction. Now, even though I play Destruction, I’m going to say that Order has some really cool and unique classes, which completely break the warrior, rogue, healer archetypes into a more complex type of role, and even though Order seems to be yet another Middle Earth-esque faction, it has a very distinctive spin to it.
Once you’ve picked Order for the sole purpose of making wait times for my Marauder shorter, you will have to decide what
class you want to play. Mythic presents you with another tough choice, but gives you the benefit of reading a small description which indicates what your main role in the game will be. The way the classes have been laid out overall is incredibly refreshing. In fact, I can think of no other word except refreshing when describing any of the many classes included in Warhammer Online.
On to the actual classes:
- Healers - Healers are actually very, very fun to play. They either combine offensive spell-casting with their healing, or melee DPS with their healing. Yes, you read right. You’re not restricted to being a robe-wearing scholar who desperately swings his staff if anyone gets within three feet of him. No, you’ll be running into the fray, swinging your weapons purposefully while assisting your fellow comrades in battle with the heals you build up through your attacks.
- Tanks - It’s finally possible for tanks to have a role in PvP. Tank game-play varies, with some tanks having focus on melee damage, and others having focus on supporting their allies. Still, the way tanks have been implemented into the game is astounding. For one, taunts work on players. Taunts give debuffs to your target, or give the tank a buff against their target. This buff wears off if the targeted player attacks the tank x number of times, which gives incentives for people to attack the tank. This is just one of the many ways in which Mythic has created a more than satisfactory role for tanks in PvP.
- Melee DPS - They’re there to do what they already do in every other game. Hit things at close range until they drop dead. There’s nothing really different in the way the melee DPS plays their class as compared to other games, but the abilities they receive make them unlike any other type of melee DPS you may have played in the past.
- Ranged DPS - These are not very different in what their ultimate purpose is, either. They’re there to throw fireballs or shoot arrows at people until they are face down on the ground. However, Warhammer once again surprises all of us by delivering these classes in a very unique manner. For example, Bright Wizards build up combustion with their damaging spells. As combustion goes up, the wizard’s critical chance with spells go up, but if they build up too much they will risk having their spells explode and damage them instead.
Since there’s no pressure for performance if you’re just starting out, you can explore all the classes and archetypes until you feel comfortable enough to master one.
II. Player vs Player/Realm vs Realm
Finally, a game that delivers on what they promise. This is all-out war; there are no rules, no fouls. You simply
pick a side and you work towards exterminating the members of the opposite faction, taking their keeps, and taking their land. Scenarios, although reminiscent to instanced PvP in other games, are perhaps one of the most popular forms of RvR in the game right now. The good thing is, however, that the objectives don’t treat you like a child. Unlike other games with similar instanced PvP content, you’re not there to play a friendly game of capture the flag with your enemy; you’re there to kill them.
Rare in MMORPGs is the fact that you can gain levels in PvP, or doing something other than killing monsters(i.e.: crafting). While you can not obtain higher levels in Warhammer by crafting, you can obtain higher levels by engaging in PvP or RvR combat. Every player you kill will give you XP, renown, and some money. Renown increases your renown rank, which lifts restrictions on gear available from renown merchants around the world; that is, the higher your renown rank is, the more gear you will have available to purchase. Luckily, although there are two separate types of ranks, you can increase them both by doing just one thing: PvPing.
The world objectives are also highly enticing. While dependant on server population, there’s usually battles going on to decide the fate of a particular piece of contested land. I’ve been having a lot of fun just randomly showing up to the northern part of Nordland to engage in random RvR with other players there, outside of scenarios. The downside is that there are normally a few higher level players that will be able to turn the tide of battle.
That brings me to my last point in their PvP system: levels, and how they affect PvP. In this game, you have the ability to jump into a scenario as soon as your character is created and you’ve gone through the introduction cinematic. In Scenarios, your level will be increased to a certain point, so that you can stand a better chance against enemies in the higher ranks of the scenario. For example, for Tier 1 scenarios, your rank will be bumped up to rank 8 if you’re lower than that. This will give you more health, and allow you to survive better in a battle. I randomly made a sorceress this morning, and went into Khaine’s Embrace(a Tier 1 scenario) at rank 3, and ended up second to a rank 11 witch elf in damage dealt. This encourages people to jump into the PvP system as early as possible so that they make all their mistakes early on and learn how to properly play their class by the time they’re out of tier 1.
III. PvE / Grouping
Well, we come to one of the parts that a lot of people don’t like about the game. To be fair, the game is not intended to have you gather 20 people and go kill a boss in an instance. At the same time, however, many feel like the PvE aspect of the game could have been given more attention. Right now, PvE seems to be mainly in place to create a sort of linear progression that guides you from tier to tier, or from chapter to chapter of public quest. Next, if you enjoy grouping with other players to do quests, or enjoy social aspects of MMORPGs, you will not find it easy to get accustomed to Warhammer Online. Meeting new players is difficult, because rarely anyone talks in the public channels, and there’s rarely a need for groups.
The only thing that requires a group of people are public quests, but those people don’t even have to talk to each other to get them done. Public quests display objectives globally, so when any player kills a certain mob, or does a certain thing, it will count for all the players in the area. Even if you’re nowhere near the public quest when it starts, you can join in when it’s halfway-through simply by entering the public quest area. What this means is that there can be six of us in a public quest area, ungrouped, completing the objectives, finishing the stages of each chapter, taking our loot and going home without having to even know their names.
It’s obvious, but if you are a fan of PvE games, raiding instances, and the like, you will not enjoy Warhammer Online in the least. There just isn’t enough PvE content to keep fans of item hunting and repeating bosses happy.
In the end, if you’re searching for a game that will satisfy your PvP needs, then this game might just be it. Keep in mind that although the PvE is not bad there’s just not enough of it to keep someone playing it if they enjoyed a type of game-play more like Lord of the Rings: Online. If you rarely PvP, and want to try something different, by all means give the game a shot.
As for my opinion, I haven’t had this much fun with a game in a long, long time. Not since the days of vanilla World of Warcraft, where I would stay up to 3 AM in the morning trying to get rank 11 in battlegrounds. This game has the “what the hell, it’s 3 AM already?!” factor to it, and all the games I have played lately have not been able to keep me hooked in such a way.
Review: Warhammer Preview Weekend
Review: Warhammer Preview Weekend
For this entry I am going to try something new and take a break from ranting about the usual MMO debacles. Instead, I am going to give my impressions of the Warhammer Preview Weekend from the perspective of an MMO veteran, guild leader, and a gamer coming off the of the AoC disaster.
As a guild leader, I and my members were recently burned badly by the Funcom bullshit. I approach Warhammer Online with heavy scrutiny while trying to recover from the burns Funcom gave me and my members.
Character creation is nothing to write home about honestly. I found it to be quite lackluster, and I could see where this could give people a negative first impression. I wasn’t thrilled about my option, but like most MMO’s, my armor covered me up after a few levels and it became a non-issue to me at least. I guess it could be justified that a lack of options helps performance in large scale PvP, I am not going to speculate to the validity of this theory, but after AoC’s performance I could see it having merit.
The user interface is probably one of most glaring similarities to World of Warcraft that will catch your eye. It literally shares an almost identical positioning and style to WoW, which could be viewed as a positive if you liked this interface. The good news is the user interface is fairly customizable, and Mythic has left the door open to 3rd party UI mods which will surely be in abundance.
As a guild leader, I am extremely thrilled to see a real Guild Interface akin to that of Everquest 2. Guild Functionality has always been important to me, and Age of Conan’s left a lot to be desired. The Warhammer Guild UI offers multiple tabs showing roster that is sortable, and gives me the ability to make notes next to each name to labels alts and such. It also gives me the ability to rename all my ranks, set their permissions, an unlockable calender, a log showing me recent events, and guild battle standard options. Guilds level up through the members PvPing and new functionality becomes unlocked.
The graphics in this game have been the subject of a lot of debate among the community. Obviously no one will contest that Age of Conan has far better graphics, but these graphics are a lot better then WoW IMO. Are they cutting edge? Not be any means, but they get the job done. Again I think some will argue that the games graphics will make it accessible to a wider audience, and help performance in RvR. I do think some people are giving this game a lot more heat than it deserves in this department, once I turned the resolution up, it looked good, and in large scale PvP I ran smooth as a baby’s ass.
Character Customization comes to you in a variety of ways. While I found the creation process lacking, as you progress through the game will you see that there are some ways for you to tweak your looks and skills to fit your playstyle. First you will be able to tailor your “Tactics Abilities” to suit your needs. These are basically passive abilities that you can put into the bottom right of the screen to enhance your character. They deliberately limit the number you can use at a given time to force you to decide what to best use in a situation. These can be changed at any time however, and I think you can cycle through layouts of these as easy as you cycle your hotbars depending on your situation.
There are also “Moral Abilities” which remind me of TP moves from FFXI. The longer you fight and stay alive, the more jacked up your character gets. He is able to then perform super moves that get stronger as he gets more moral built up. These can be interchanged again to fit your playstyle, and add another layer of tactics to the combat.
The RvR rewards come in the ways of both gear and points. The gear is strong enough to make it a viable alternative to gear earned through PvE, and better in some cases. The points are spent much like talent points or AA points. If you played DAOC, you are very familiar with their PvP reward system, which is fully functional and in the game unlike a certain rival game which still has yet to give an ETA on their system.
One other aspect of this game in regards to customizing your appearance in the use of armor Dyes. This was one of the better features of DAOC that I am shocked was never stolen by more recent MMOs. It gives you the ability to make yourself look a little different and it gives guilds a chance to add uniformity to their members. Changing your armor colors can be done very easily by visiting a merchant. A nice dressing room screen comes up where you will be able to see the colors before you buy them.
The PvE aspect of the game is pretty run of the mill from what we have seen in recent MMOs. The game follows the same lame quest format of collecting X amount of dingleberries, killing Y amount of orcs. Nothing to write home about honestly. The game does break Quest mold from recent games by adding public quests. Doing these will get you rep in that local area, and this rep can be used to claim rewards, which are usually very good if your rep gets maxed. Luckily, maxing out your rep in a given area does not seem to take very long at all, and the public quests are always fun as long as other people are there. They can be compared to the Besieged Mode found in FFXI where you are rewarded for your contribution, and acts a nice diversion from the collection quests. At the end of the day, the PvE is just a means to an end, and that end is the RvR.
The RvR is where this game really shines. Finally I feel like I am getting the RvR that World of Warcraft promised me but never delivered on. You can PvP from level 1. You get exp from PvP, and quests to kill people in PvP. This helps makes PvP a viable way of leveling if you so chose. The games does have a battleground type system called Scenarios, which honestly I am not a fan of being an overworld guy myself. To their credit though, they are well thought out and usually contain some sort of interesting twist instead of the makeshift deathmatches we got in AoC. I hope Mythic will make world PvP enticing enough to minimize the desire to play in these. On the flip side, if you play on a server where the population is imbalanced, these do provide a level playing field somewhat. If you are under leveled, the game gives you a buff to your level to help you remain useful, but a true level 10 is stronger than a buffed level 10 because he has better gear and new spells that a level 5 won’t have.
The castle sieges are very well done. Finally we have real capturable objectives to fight over, and they are meaningful in the struggle to push your enemy back to the city gates. Siege weapons are easy to get and funner to use. Giant cannons that put you in an FPS view with a crosshair to bark fire on the oceans of enemies inside the castle or outside. Rocks can be seen flying through the air from catapults, and it really adds a wildcard to the battle as well as making things a bit more chaotic in a good way. It also helps give melee something to do in situations where enemies are out of reach. After playing these sieges, I have no desire to go into the scenarios, and hopefully the population who plays will see it the same way.
Most of the PvP is group on group. Do not expect to be some WoW superhero 1 shotting people like a God. Combat in this game takes a bit longer, and as such I think a bit more skill. If I wanted to 1 shot everyone I would stick with Call of Duty 4. You feel like you are a unit in an RTS game, no one person is so superpowerful. This makes it a very team oriented game, and hopefully the Community will be good. Some have complained about the combat speed and a global cool down, but honestly it never occurred to me until I started reading whining on the forums. The combat to me felt interesting, tactical, and I was not spamming the same ability over and over like other games.
In conclusion, the game is fun even though it lacks major Innovation. First and foremost I think that fun is why we play. The game delivers on its promises. Mark Jacobs at Mythic has been honest about talking about flaws and problems with the game and I appreciate his straight talk. It upset a lot of us with AoC that they were in denial about the game’s missing features and short comings.
This game will live and die by the RvR and the endgame. The RvR looks amazing, the endgame we won’t know until we get there. If it is anything like DAOC, then hopefully we will have a good RvR MMO that will last us a long time, made by a company that seems to be honest and competent. I am hoping this game will help heal the burns Funcom gave me, my guild, and so many others like me. Only time will tell.
Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
inqguild.dkpsystem.com
Review: Warhammer Preview Weekend
Review: Warhammer Preview Weekend
For this entry I am going to try something new and take a break from ranting about the usual MMO debacles. Instead, I am going to give my impressions of the Warhammer Preview Weekend from the perspective of an MMO veteran, guild leader, and a gamer coming off the of the AoC disaster.
As a guild leader, I and my members were recently burned badly by the Funcom bullshit. I approach Warhammer Online with heavy scrutiny while trying to recover from the burns Funcom gave me and my members.
Character creation is nothing to write home about honestly. I found it to be quite lackluster, and I could see where this could give people a negative first impression. I wasn’t thrilled about my option, but like most MMO’s, my armor covered me up after a few levels and it became a non-issue to me at least. I guess it could be justified that a lack of options helps performance in large scale PvP, I am not going to speculate to the validity of this theory, but after AoC’s performance I could see it having merit.
The user interface is probably one of most glaring similarities to World of Warcraft that will catch your eye. It literally shares an almost identical positioning and style to WoW, which could be viewed as a positive if you liked this interface. The good news is the user interface is fairly customizable, and Mythic has left the door open to 3rd party UI mods which will surely be in abundance.
As a guild leader, I am extremely thrilled to see a real Guild Interface akin to that of Everquest 2. Guild Functionality has always been important to me, and Age of Conan’s left a lot to be desired. The Warhammer Guild UI offers multiple tabs showing roster that is sortable, and gives me the ability to make notes next to each name to labels alts and such. It also gives me the ability to rename all my ranks, set their permissions, an unlockable calender, a log showing me recent events, and guild battle standard options. Guilds level up through the members PvPing and new functionality becomes unlocked.
The graphics in this game have been the subject of a lot of debate among the community. Obviously no one will contest that Age of Conan has far better graphics, but these graphics are a lot better then WoW IMO. Are they cutting edge? Not be any means, but they get the job done. Again I think some will argue that the games graphics will make it accessible to a wider audience, and help performance in RvR. I do think some people are giving this game a lot more heat than it deserves in this department, once I turned the resolution up, it looked good, and in large scale PvP I ran smooth as a baby’s ass.
Character Customization comes to you in a variety of ways. While I found the creation process lacking, as you progress through the game will you see that there are some ways for you to tweak your looks and skills to fit your playstyle. First you will be able to tailor your “Tactics Abilities” to suit your needs. These are basically passive abilities that you can put into the bottom right of the screen to enhance your character. They deliberately limit the number you can use at a given time to force you to decide what to best use in a situation. These can be changed at any time however, and I think you can cycle through layouts of these as easy as you cycle your hotbars depending on your situation.
There are also “Moral Abilities” which remind me of TP moves from FFXI. The longer you fight and stay alive, the more jacked up your character gets. He is able to then perform super moves that get stronger as he gets more moral built up. These can be interchanged again to fit your playstyle, and add another layer of tactics to the combat.
The RvR rewards come in the ways of both gear and points. The gear is strong enough to make it a viable alternative to gear earned through PvE, and better in some cases. The points are spent much like talent points or AA points. If you played DAOC, you are very familiar with their PvP reward system, which is fully functional and in the game unlike a certain rival game which still has yet to give an ETA on their system.
One other aspect of this game in regards to customizing your appearance in the use of armor Dyes. This was one of the better features of DAOC that I am shocked was never stolen by more recent MMOs. It gives you the ability to make yourself look a little different and it gives guilds a chance to add uniformity to their members. Changing your armor colors can be done very easily by visiting a merchant. A nice dressing room screen comes up where you will be able to see the colors before you buy them.
The PvE aspect of the game is pretty run of the mill from what we have seen in recent MMOs. The game follows the same lame quest format of collecting X amount of dingleberries, killing Y amount of orcs. Nothing to write home about honestly. The game does break Quest mold from recent games by adding public quests. Doing these will get you rep in that local area, and this rep can be used to claim rewards, which are usually very good if your rep gets maxed. Luckily, maxing out your rep in a given area does not seem to take very long at all, and the public quests are always fun as long as other people are there. They can be compared to the Besieged Mode found in FFXI where you are rewarded for your contribution, and acts a nice diversion from the collection quests. At the end of the day, the PvE is just a means to an end, and that end is the RvR.
The RvR is where this game really shines. Finally I feel like I am getting the RvR that World of Warcraft promised me but never delivered on. You can PvP from level 1. You get exp from PvP, and quests to kill people in PvP. This helps makes PvP a viable way of leveling if you so chose. The games does have a battleground type system called Scenarios, which honestly I am not a fan of being an overworld guy myself. To their credit though, they are well thought out and usually contain some sort of interesting twist instead of the makeshift deathmatches we got in AoC. I hope Mythic will make world PvP enticing enough to minimize the desire to play in these. On the flip side, if you play on a server where the population is imbalanced, these do provide a level playing field somewhat. If you are under leveled, the game gives you a buff to your level to help you remain useful, but a true level 10 is stronger than a buffed level 10 because he has better gear and new spells that a level 5 won’t have.
The castle sieges are very well done. Finally we have real capturable objectives to fight over, and they are meaningful in the struggle to push your enemy back to the city gates. Siege weapons are easy to get and funner to use. Giant cannons that put you in an FPS view with a crosshair to bark fire on the oceans of enemies inside the castle or outside. Rocks can be seen flying through the air from catapults, and it really adds a wildcard to the battle as well as making things a bit more chaotic in a good way. It also helps give melee something to do in situations where enemies are out of reach. After playing these sieges, I have no desire to go into the scenarios, and hopefully the population who plays will see it the same way.
Most of the PvP is group on group. Do not expect to be some WoW superhero 1 shotting people like a God. Combat in this game takes a bit longer, and as such I think a bit more skill. If I wanted to 1 shot everyone I would stick with Call of Duty 4. You feel like you are a unit in an RTS game, no one person is so superpowerful. This makes it a very team oriented game, and hopefully the Community will be good. Some have complained about the combat speed and a global cool down, but honestly it never occurred to me until I started reading whining on the forums. The combat to me felt interesting, tactical, and I was not spamming the same ability over and over like other games.
In conclusion, the game is fun even though it lacks major Innovation. First and foremost I think that fun is why we play. The game delivers on its promises. Mark Jacobs at Mythic has been honest about talking about flaws and problems with the game and I appreciate his straight talk. It upset a lot of us with AoC that they were in denial about the game’s missing features and short comings.
This game will live and die by the RvR and the endgame. The RvR looks amazing, the endgame we won’t know until we get there. If it is anything like DAOC, then hopefully we will have a good RvR MMO that will last us a long time, made by a company that seems to be honest and competent. I am hoping this game will help heal the burns Funcom gave me, my guild, and so many others like me. Only time will tell.
Paragus
Co-Leader of Inquisition
inqguild.dkpsystem.com
