oops not the German death metal band I meant...
Games Workshop in conjunction with Mythic and EA (why cruel world) decided to vest their interests into a MMO after making their previous renditions all in the strategy based realm.
Peaking my interest from reviews, having been a long time MMO player(Everquest, FFXI, WoW, Age of Conan, etc), and giving me something else to distract my time from more responsible things since I didn't have enough to play, I decided to give Warhammer: Age of Reckoning the one month trial to see if it can stand up to the large and in charge competition.
The hardest part, in the testing of an MMO just to see if you like it or not, is the selection of which character class to play as. You can spend time trying out each, but the true play that you'll find is not the intro levels, but instead the mid to upper levels where the meat of the MMO can be felt (like the fax machine who said it was 18).
I was intrigued by a few classes and tried them each to about level (called rank) 5-10 but decided to stick with one that most MMOs seem to have trouble with which is a melee dps/healer hybrid. The class name is called Disciple of Khaine and as usual I promptly named my character after who I thought it looked like: David Bowie.
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Here's what I liked about the game:
1. Very large focus on PvP (RvR) which very few MMOs have.
2. It's relatively easy at least to level. Quests are manageable/descriptive and maps and markers light the way. Exp is given for so many different things from PvP, quests, exploring, new encounters, etc that it feels like they are just giving the milk away whether you want the cow or not. There are many ways to improve equipment from public quests to RvR rewards to random drops to chapter influence rewards (general participation in public quests).
3. The RvR is fun and has a decent variety. Scenarios (much like WoW BGs) can be joined anywhere at any time and types include capture the flag, hold the territory, capture all territories, attack/defend, etc. Raiding in the regular game is fun and holds guild oriented tactics and bonuses.
4. Guild life. The guild is a separate entity that receives experience from RvR and allows guild members to bask in rewards after new levels are attained including guild only auctions, to battle standards when raiding (bonus aura around person holding or where it is laid), to the opportunity to gain taxes and tithes from it's members, to even a guild calendar for scheduling.
5. RvR has a separate leveling system. You gain renown (exp) from contributing to any RvR and as levels are gained new equipment may be bought from vendors. The stuff that can be bought looks to be some of the best in the game in comparison to PvE drops. Leveling renown also unlocks extra points that can be spent on RvR only bonuses such as added exp, gold, or base stats during any RvR encounter.
6. Classes (can't tell if it's entirely balanced) are good variety and even healers or tanks can get in the fray. Playing disciple of khaine I found that even as a healer I was able to deal a decent amount of damage without being bogged down by only having to heal. Most heals are HoT type or are almost all instant cast.
7. Travel isn't annoyingly slow. The areas seem decently compact, walking speed is fairly fast, and level speed and new area progression keeps from staying in one area for what seems like forever. Mounts are available at later levels.
8. Public quests. There are random area quests in the game that have 3 stages each and anyone in the area can contribute to the overall progression of the quest. At the completion of the quests a random roll (1-1000) is done for the 10 ten contributors with bonuses applied to those that contributed the most of have done the quest and have yet to receive a reward. General participation also rewards you with influence points and after reaching certain amounts, a few pieces of equipment can be picked up without the expense of money.
9. Small aesthetics that create more individuality. Most major armor pieces in the game can be dyed different colors (2 areas of each piece) and vendors have general colors or more rare dyes can be created, found or bought. This makes for either looking different than everyone else no matter what the level or being able to all look the same as everyone else in your guild. The UI is also completely customizable without needing extra mods.
10. More benefit for helping random people. This aspect was something I really enjoyed and is only realized once you play it. This difference in comparison to other MMOs is hard to explain but there's a lot of RvR or public quests that allow you to just walk up and join in on the fun without having to say a word to anyone else. Most other MMOs force you to micro manage groups and this game has almost all but done away with it. Dungeons can even be run as large raids over and over until everyone has what they want instead of being forced into small party situations which put a lot of responsibility on individuals (may change in the future).
11. Money gained seems larger than most MMO. Most things are very inexpensive and not having a repair bill for anything saves quite a bit. The first mount in the game is attainable at lvl 20 and is only 15g. With the way the game scales cash rewards I could see this was going to be an easy feat.
What I Didn't Like:
1. Graphics. The look of the game seems odd to me. Understanding that a large scale MMO graphically can bog down everyone if set too high this game seems to take a mediocre graphic look and does away with a lot of possible small detail. I would place the graphics back toward EQ.
2. Lag. It is still early in the release of the game but no matter who you might be or what connection speed you have lag occurs. It can get very annoying or hard for quality RvR play. Damage can occur to you and make slow reactions to it that it becomes a preemptive guessing game more than a reactive game.
3. Visuals. Abilities when used can bug up or just look very simple and bland. Sometimes abilities will be used and no visual will happen at all which doesn't seem too bad until it was something used against you.
4. Very little differential ticklers for damage differences. Most games use rolling combat numbers (red is for damage taken and green is for heals) and scale size based on amount. This game barely scales the font up or down or sometimes is very slow and laggy to show you what the number is which can make for very slow or non-existent next moves.
5. Some crafts seem unnecessary. Apothecary (potions) seems unnecessary for the amount of potions that are rewards, drop. Cultivating (potion, dye, talisman ingredients) doesn't seem to reward you with anything worthy of using or at least anything of quality/necessity. Scraping can give you a lot of money but blocks you from other good crafts to pair it up with.
6. Upscaling of your level in RvR. To give you a better opportunity to play in some RvRs the game will auto scale you up to almost the highest possible level for that respective RvR. The problem is it scales only your base stats. You still only have what equipment you have on and the abilities of your level therefore you are still severely disadvantaged. The appeal of the rewards of RvR are too great to steer people from coming into it very under-leveled and can make your team as a whole become severely crippled if the differences is too large like most other MMO PvP.
7. The need to rely on others. If you wander into a PQ area and are all alone there is no way you can complete all 3 stages. If you log on during a time when no random people are around or possibly later when most core gamers are up in the higher levels with so few low levels being around this can become a giant issue and a loss of some great benefits. Communication with general areas is almost non-existent or easily lost in the default chat settings.
8. Party default settings. They initially set all parties to be open for anyone to join and the occasional weirdo can wander in asking to touch you where you may not like the digital handprint. The other default is for rolls on loot which are open for anyone to ninja the hell out of everything. Most gear is class/race restrictive and can come at such a fast speed in large parties that most leaders can have a difficult time observing who is playing nice and who is being a grabby grabberson.
9. Music, sound effects, ambiance. Very few MMOs can make sound and music work for them without the feeling of extreme repetitiveness so it's not a huge loss but this is one more thing that could of been improved upon creatively to put themselves ahead of the pack.
10. Friends/Ignore list. Barely works.
11. Huge RvR focus. Yeah if you have more of one you'll have less of the other and I'm guessing the end game PvE is probably non-existent in comparison to RvR. I'm not sure what exactly there will be to do beyond sweeping lands with your high level guild once you get to the top brass level section.
12. Not Mac compatible. Yeah it's not the first game but hell this is an MMO and those are all about the number of possible customers.
13. EA is involved.
14. The cost to play isn't less than any other MMO out there. MMO monopolies send your butt directly to jail if you can't pay their steep $15 per month with the initial cost of $50 for the game with one month free.
Overall the goodies are pretty big if not unique to this game. If you can muster up the courage to look past the first three dislikes the rest aren't too bad and Warhammer becomes the usual MMO mix of problems, i.e., a balance of what to spend the most time playing, financial issues, what are your friends playing or will something else better come up.
Update as of Oct 24th: I have since closed my WAR account as WotLK is coming out and I cannot foresee any reasonable explanation for paying for 2 WoW and 1 War accounts when I can only play one game or the other. If my guild had given up on WoW or was PVP heavy I would of probably chose the latter but thems the breaks.
1 comment:
Hmm sounds like a decent game but maybe not a wow-killer. So have you tried the full version of Spore yet? I was just wondering what you thought of it based on your aversion to EA.
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