Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Comments by Oli Welsh

Oh, sweet mercy, how many more 'subtle' announcements do we all have to endure, Amnesia?

First, you were the 50th person to sign up to EG and now you'll ask about me when 'you're out for a beer with the EG guys', neither of which have anything even remotely to do with WAR. Whatsover. Are we all like supposed to be impressed with these revelations and then take your words as gospel? Like somehow you have better insight than the rest of us, because you know 'the guys'?

/facepalm

I don't believe you've even played it because of your poor frame-rate observations with your supposed C2D and 8800. There is no way that I believe you'd have issues here because I have a similiar, if not identical, setup and its been silky smooth the whole way through.

Anyway, done too.

got to this thread late, but im impressed at both the gameplay and how WAR scales nicely across all computers of varying power.

i run it from a laptop and have no problems of framerate drops at all.

top game, lots of fun.

George the mental wrote:

"Dribbling fanboyism? All ive done is come here and set the record straight, when haters came shoving their way into the thread of an 8/10 game review. Typical of Mythic? Who have one game, pre-WoW, under their belts? Can't you even grasp that if armour-sets and 'cool' armour is so important that Mythic would address that for WAR? You've basically come here, said that because Mythic didn't do 'cool' armour in DaoC, to your liking, WAR will be exactly the same, without any kind of fact to back up your claims. Get a grip. "

Set the record straight? The arrogance is outstanding! Typical of Mythic, yes, DAoC's been running for years, with multiple expansions. Here comes WAR and it, in my view, suffers from a similar underlying issue as their previous releases, samey visuals. I was specifically looking for an improvement here because it's one thing they really got wrong, and I didn't see it, even early on. I did look out for it, I do have experience of the game to back up my claims. You can 'set the record straight' as much as you like, that to me is typical of the developer, and puts me right off the game.


"Some might be disappointed, as you are, and some may not, as i'm not. WoW has controls down pat. No question. So why not reuse them? Would you prefer Mythic to implement a completely different control scheme, just for that sake alone? Listen to what youre saying. "

Why don't you listen to what I'm saying. The controls are just part of what I was talking about. It *is* wow, everything is the same, not just the controls. The controls are the same because all the underlying mechanics are the same, the interface is the same. It's wow.

"What, a WoW expansion where all the WAR RvR ideas are implemented? a WoW expansion where you can play a thoroughly EVIL side, not some psuedo-evil, politically correct, side? A WoW expansion where the engine has been upgraded to actually take advantage of todays hardware? "

They're not WAR rvr ideas, they're Daoc rvr ideas, it's copied almost identically from Daoc. Playing an evil side? Who gives a damn other than hey nonny nonny roleplayer types? Everyone else just plays themselves.

"Why wouldnt Mythic want to take as much of what makes WoW good and implement it into WAR? Just as Blizzard did from EQ1. Just as SOE did from Meridian 59? "

Blizzard didn't take much from EQ, that's one of the reasons wow was so successful.

"From what i've seen so far its been a comfortable, accessible, enjoyable game based on a familiar interface and control scheme. Exactly what I wanted out of it, as i'm sure it will be exactly what other ex-WoW players will want to move onto. Minimal fuss, minimal confusion, straight into the game and the enjoyment. "

Yeah, more treadmill for the brainless wow zombies to march up, you're showing your true colours now George.

Oh and on the framerate, it stank for me, mostly when there's people on the screen. Pretty sure that's a network code issue rather than a performance issue, but it got old very quick.

Thought everyone had George on Ignore already.

Tell you what, I think Slim should join the Ignored. Just as mental to make a long post like that, instead of just letting it go.

I'm running it with 2gig of ram (ddr333), an 8800gtx and an opteron 175 cpu. Max settings, zero framerate issues. Its a good game, just not everyones cup of tea obviously.

One thing I'm a tad disappointed about is the comment about "Damage X debuff Y"...

Its not like any other MMORPG in a fantasy setting has got better than that (eg, WoW).

In fact, it has a number of extremely nice abilities: Knockbacks (not sure any other has these?), knockdowns, GTAoE, Turrets. It has alot more ability variation than most. Yes, alot of them are damage/debuff related, but lets be honest - that has to be the case.

The greatest thing by far imho is the fact that you dont need to buy (insert spell/ability here) Level 4 to upgrade it. Buy it once, and it scales. Hurrah!

That also means that there isn't much to look forward to for each level.

Truth is many people see Warhammer as a threat to WoW. They are afraid that WAR will manage to do what no other MMO did in these past years and topple the current king over. I am quite sure that is not going to happen. Regardless, I believe that many MMOs can co-exist.

I am an avid WoW player. Played the game for 3 years but stopped 4 months ago since I needed a break. Played Vanguard for a bit since then and loads of non-MMO games. It will be very hard (if not impossible) for WAR to be as good as WoW in its current state. Nonetheless I ordered the game and look forward to it. Why? I need a change. As good as WoW is it does get stale eventually. Everything does. I made the conscious decision of playing WAR over the WotLK expansion because I yearn for total change. I am sure I will eventually play WoW again some day even if I get to stick to WAR. I can imagine myself playing the two games on alternating months.

All this WAR hate is uncalled for. If you still love the MMO you are playing then stick to it. Why even consider WAR? If you are unsatisfied or plain need to get into something new, WAR looks like a good place to start afresh.

WAR is more fun than WoW if you enjoy social interation, PVP and group gameplay. If you like being in small groups or large raids in a mainly PVE enviroment then WoW is perfect for you. WAR is not trying to be WoW its doing its own thing.

"All this WAR hate is uncalled for. If you still love the MMO you are playing then stick to it. Why even consider WAR? If you are unsatisfied or plain need to get into something new, WAR looks like a good place to start afresh."

Just like you, I am interested in other MMOG's and look around and at them when a new one appears. If it's good, I might even take a brief hiatus and go there for a "vacation". If it's REALLY good it might become my new MMOG home.

That is why we consider WAR, played the beta, etc.. I, for one, did not write anything about WAR that amounts to hate. I did however, write that WAR is not deserving an 8/10 score, and I stand by that. It has potential, but too many flaws and outdated engine mechanisms at the time being to warrant an 8, which is after all, a very good score, and should be reserved for accomplished games. 9's are for pure excellence, and 10's barely exist.

So to all you who like WAR at this moment; good for you. But don't you dare tell us to shut up when we voice our, just as legitimate, opinions.

There's been just a tad too many arrogant fanboys in this thread.

/peers back in

@Wempler

"That also means that there isn't much to look forward to for each level"

Apart from a unique Ability, Morale or Tactic 'ability', trained at almost each of the 40 levels, you mean? There are about 5, distinct, levels between 1 and 40 that you don't get anything new.

What he said was, ability effects scale with your level. He didn't say that you get all your abilities at level 1 and then never get another ability.

/steps back out

Was this website around when WoW came out? If not then this is not a good review. When WoW came out it was worse then this and was down for days for fixes. So before this biased reviewer reviews games he should get it straight.

Being from the U.S, I'm sure i have not experienced the painful flaws of the game that all of you euro players have, however it seems very good and well done to me so far. You need to remember, this game shouldn't only be compared to what WoW is right now, but to what WoW was when it first came out. If you ask me, WAR destroys WoW in terms of release(i get to play in the head start tomorrow so I will be sure to update you all.

I'm having a great time with my Marauder.

Well worth a try, you might be pleasantly surprised.

So, after going through all 166 comments (as of this moment), I really wanted to quickly voice my opinion, despite probably never coming back to look into these threads. I played World of Warcraft for 3+ years, from the day it released, I am not a fanboy of either WoW or Warhammer, I understand the concepts behind both, and think both are well crafted in what they are attempting to accomplish. However I think Warhammer as a MUCH larger up-side to it than World of Warcraft ever did from launch. WoW undoubtedly did well in creating a fun experience, but all throughout the years, has never really accomplished in bringing us something NEW. Everything seems to be an update of what they brought us previously, that is all. WOW new 25-man instances to go run in, when most people didn't see the last, another 5 hour raid, for 4 minute boss fights to get 3 items. How can you honestly come in here and tell me this game does not bring about a better experience. Yeah, WoW has better combat animations (as of now) but that's all it has accomplished in its existance.

Also: Someone mentioned earlier that WoW released with PLENTY of high-end PvE content to keep players busy and variety in gameplay.

INCORRECT. While I agree WoW's animations were pretty strong, it was no way near as polished as it is now, and people need to stop looking at it so. Sides were unbalanced, skill trees, most were useless, and even now it's filled with cookie-cutter trees, classes were unbalanced, there was no end-game content to speak of outside of UBRS runs (1 instance? 1?) Dire Maul, Scholomance, Stratholme, Molten Core... all of these instances were added months after release. Nothing existed in this game, it was done for DAYS on end while they tried to fix servers, fix bugs.

I've played countless MMO's in my time, spending most of it with WoW, and this game has the largest looking UPSIDE to it in any MMO i've seen from release. A lot of you are just still burnt by Age of Conan (as was I, though I never got to experience it pre-release to see what it was like... It was all word of mouth from a friend). Do I think this is a WoW killer? No. I honestly don't think this game will ever get to the 10 million (box sales people not current subscriptions) mark, but that's just because I think WoW actually killed the MMO market for people. It sucked people in, gave a lot a bad taste, and turned them off to the possibility of many other MMO's succeeding. Others are fixated on the polished game that it (or other MMO's) has become has kept people sucking at its teet afraid to expereince something new.

Get over yourselves, MMO fans and all. You even come in here yourselves talking about how broken your game was long ago, and now it is fixed. Warhammer can do that with your issues as well. It will be a quality MMO worthwhile to check out, and in the time I got to experience it, was a lot of fun. I look forward to seeing any of you in-game tomorrow and beyond!

Personally I find this review quite completely off mark, it seems that the reviewer hasn't really tried extensively the parts of the game he criticizes (for instance crafting) and that has been skewed quite a lot by the low numbers of the european beta. One would think that a professional reviewer would be able to look a tad beyond that.

The impression I had is that the reviewer was trying excessively hard to find something to criticize, often artificially turning positive assets into flaws.

I've played the beta for a whole year, and I can definately say that the game is extremely solid, fun, with a GREAT endgame (and yes, there are quite a lot of dungeons too, maybe the reviewer didn't play enough to notice them?) and the world design is entirely awesome. Finally, the game is basically the MMORPG to reach the shelves with the most and most varied content at release in the entire hostory of the genere.

Anyway, to offer a counterpoint, here's my personal review. Careful because it's quite long:
http://classygamer.blogspot.com/2008/08/...

You'll find links to ton of in game movies and pictures in the same blog.

Thanks for your post Abriael, wow, from what you say there seems to be a lot more to this game than I initially got to see from my 2-day beta test... I am extremely excited, sounds crazyily overwhelming, though so was every other MMO at start...

I started the Head start yesterday, three times. Seems whenever I select another server, it proceeds to delete my previous character without warning. In the character field on the server list, it shows 0 characters. Has anyone else had this problem? Because I'm scared now to choose a different server to try an Order alt and lose my level 6 Witch Elf.

I've read a lotta comments in this thread, and the review, all after i tried the open beta since playin from open beta start til the end. I have played WoW for several years, done a ton of pvp and arena, but well, dont have the time to do upper end 25 man raids and totally absorb myself in the arena due to my 2nd shift job and family. I played EQ 1 for several years, played LotRO for a bit too, which i enjoyed, but switched to my rl friend's server on WoW where they played Horde and became totally immersed. We did a huge amount of pvp, which was my basis for wantiong to try this game. Anyways...

I am so pumped about playin this dam game after tryin it, my priest in WoW now sits in the World Ends Tavern while i type about this game, WAR. I had a lotta fun, solo, and especially, especially (!) as a dark elf witch elf in their tier 1 rvr scenario. The fact that both sides can get blown away by Khaine's wrath was pretty kool, imo, nice add there, totally unexpected and refreshing. I felt as though i pawned a vast amount of my oppenents, but yet was balanced when i came across the high elf shadow warriors ( dam them!) But hey, gotta die sometime! Was a lotta fun. Choppy, laggy yes (i ended up turning down my settings and then had no probs). But, i say if anyone remembers PoK from EQ1, zomg...War is not...not that bad hehe. My comp is very good, might need a better graphics card set up, which i wanted anyways. But anyways...i went into this with an open mind, like im sure many peeps have.

I came out looking forward to this game moreso than i have WotLK...i dunno. Time for a change maybe, for me anyways...yes. I was thinking long term as in, end game-ish as to how badass this could be with the city fights and such. I love pvp (rvr), hell even xbox games, Halo, Crimson Skies, ya know, lotta fun to take on real peeps...and to try this in a new setting with some toons that i think are pretty unique compared to what i have seen (as ive stated in my exp), this looks to be an exciting new challenge, and to get into something like this from the start well, thats worth my money, thats just my opinion and i hope peeps can keep an open mind with all thats coming, cause ide like to play along side the lot of ya, or...maybe kill some of yaz hehe. Have fun either way :)

@ HyperShadow i thought that had happened to me, but then i created another character and the old one was still there, presented on a sort of character carousel

@paulf

Hm, I'll have a look tonight, but its kind of odd that it didn't say that there was a character on the server list for the ones I had previously created.

One of the things that I forgot to write in my own review (and that most people forget to mention, despite it being a subtle, but quite important quality of the game) is that, due to the chance to enter RVR right from the start and the humongous amount and variety of thinsg to do as you progress trough levels, you'll log off every night with the feeling you accomplished something. In 99% of MMORPGS, leveling is more or less a farming run to the endgame. When you turn off your PC youjust think "I can't wait for when I'll be level X!". In warhammer when you turn off your PC, you'll probably feel satisfied and think "yay, I got level 12!"
Every level you earn, every tome unlock, every piece of equipment conquered, every scenario or open RvR battle you win, feels rewarding in itself, instead than just another little step in the rush for the endgame. Sure, there's anticipation dfor new content that awaits later in the game, but it's counterbalanced and made sweeter by a nice level of satisfaction.

My final point, is that the review we're commenting fails in noticing that the game is definately not a step short of true greatness. It's already a few steps ahead. The world isn't as streamlined as it's painted there (exploration, even of enemy zones, is encouraged and rewarded. It doesn't take much to notice it, and we're talking about 40 beautifully designd areas, bigger and better than most competition at launch), social hubs are definately present (Chapters, warcamps and the capital itself, which is necessary for tons of things, maybe when the reviewer played th capital was just rank 1 and as such had lots of it's features locked?). Forced storytelling? Did we play the same game? Warhammer's quests sport what's probably the best writing in the genre, and the setting is one of the most engaging fantasy backgrounds ever written.
Ultimately, EVERY MMORPG out there is highly dependant on it's population. WOW, AoC, down to every Asian MMO under the virtual sun, you won't have as much fun in an underpopulated server. But the fact that they didn't invite millions of people in the beta, expecially in Europe, doesn't mean that the game's servers won't be well populated. Even just the colectors' edition headstart (which means a very limited number of people) had a very healthy population, with fast scenario queues and a lot of people around. So there's no reason to predict underpopulated servers. EA distributed 1.500.000 copies at launch. Which is more than any MMO in history, and Mythic has a track record of providing a ton of content down the road.

WAR's future (and present) looks bright, very bright, and my biggest gripe about this review is that it doesn't show that. We aren't talking about a new kid on the block with a sling challenging the Blizzard Behemoth, We're talking about one of the most veteran developers in the genre's history backed by one of the biggest economic and marketing dinosaurs in the market.

@ HyperShadow - yeah i dont think it was listed on the server list, but i created another char and there the old one was - in the character carousel - one think they could fix though is having to agree to the t&c's everytime you boot the game !

@Hypershadow

Its a glitch. The server list says 0 characters but they will still be there. Just remember which server your characters were on.

Overall this is a fine game. Having played WoW, LothR and AoC this game is in very familiar territory. I finally got fed up with WoW as I didn't want to spend all my waking life in raid groups trying to get that last piece for the armour set. I also hope that Mythic don't listen to everyone and try to re-balance the differant classes in the first few days, which is what happened with AoC. Hopefully this will not happen to WAR, but we shall see as it is very early days in the life of an MMO. As people have already said it took Blizzard about a year to get everything near enough right.

Just a shame that Blizzard have brought forward the release date of WotLK to 13 November. That will probably kill WAR stone dead. As much as I like WAR I will not be able to resist buying WotLK and just know I'll get hooked into WoW once again.

Jesus, that review is poor. It pretty much describes the game as being a simplified, samey pile of crap, that relies too heavily on grouping and then turns around and gives it an 8/10

0_o

@FranticFire: i wouldn't count so much on the ability of WOTLK to kill or even damage WAR. Most of WoW's players are entirely sick of the re-heated soup blizzard serves them with every expansion and the game feels as old as it looks. Also, a big portion of WoW's PvP community is (rightfully) pissed at Blizzard's decision to allow PvE to PvP transfers. Most of the ones that plan on staying on WoW probably won't try other games and won't buy Warhammer at all. On the other hand, i'm pretty confident in Warhammer's ability to retain the ones that made the jump. It's an extremely solid game with a marketing giant backing it. No WoW challenger had those charactersistics since when wow came out.

@spudsbuckley: The review is extremely poor, but that's because it describes (wrongly) the game like that. It's an extremely oversimplified view by someone that should have given a much better and longer look to the game before even putting his fingers on the keyboard. The score is even too low (even not considering how senseless it is to give a score in a preview)

I share Oli's opinions and see were he's coming from on various areas.
It's not easy being in the closed beta for so long, having seen the game evolving from one end to the other and back, and still have an objective and fresh opinion about it all. I must admit I was tired of WAR at the end of closed beta. A years' worth of ups and downs, repeatedly seeing the same content handled differently... it takes a lot of enthusiasm out of you, and replaces it by scepticism.
Luckily the guild aspect returns to me in Live, and that makes up for a lot of things I missed :-)

@ SleepyMagpie

That is why we consider WAR, played the beta, etc.. I, for one, did not write anything about WAR that amounts to hate. I did however, write that WAR is not deserving an 8/10 score, and I stand by that. It has potential, but too many flaws and outdated engine mechanisms at the time being to warrant an 8, which is after all, a very good score, and should be reserved for accomplished games. 9's are for pure excellence, and 10's barely exist.

I find this a little surprising. WAR is an extremely polished, well-developed MMO. Keep in mind that there are ALWAYS bugs, balancing issues, and the like whenever any MMO goes Gold. For WoW, there were even more class-balance issues and bugs at the beginning of the game than there are for WAR. Considering that the game has just barely gone Gold, the classes are remarkably balanced and the game is incredibly polished.

Also, what is so outdated about the engine? If you're talking about the graphics engine, MMOs tend to be a little less graphically intensive compared to other games. However, it's not clear to me exactly what you mean, since you said "engine mechanisms."

In addition, I would highly recommend that people read RaistlinMaj's assessment of the review. Though I don't agree with every point he mentions, it is probably one of the best comments regarding this review of any of the 180 posted here (including mine).


NOTE that this is a criticism more of the review itself rather than an apology for WAR. I am refraining from criticizing WAR in my comment, though I do think it is not above criticism, since I am mainly focusing on how poor of a job the critic has done and hat an incorrect impression it gives of the game

Anyways, I'm not going to say anything about the number score given in this review, since it's hard to judge what that means. However, I get the distinct impression that most of the reviewers criticisms are not based on the merits/demerits of the game on its own, but rather how WoW-like it is. In other words, the article reads to me like he's criticizing the game for not being more WoW-like.

My main summary of my criticisms against his article: he's making the single greatest mistake that he mentions in the article himself-- "But we're forgetting ourselves; we're forgetting those three letters, scribbled repetitively in blood on every loading screens. We're forgetting the WAR." He's painting WAR as a flawed PvE-oriented game rather than a well-crafted RvR-oriented game, in addition to simply demanding that its elements be lifted directly from WoW for no sane reason that I can tell.

For example, he says that there are too many trainers and rally masters, too much equipment being given to players, and too much streamlining in the leveling process that there's no reason to visit each factions' cities or to backtrack. He also says that there isn't enough "silliness" or "the luxury to waste your time in a world you love." He says that quests are too much overshadowed by public quests and scenarios, lamenting that quests aren't even necessary to level up. He even criticizes the fact that there is "too much equipment" and that "incremental upgrades are just an hour or two away.

What kind of criticisms are these? WAR is simply a different animal from WoW. The leveling zones are there to give you a taste of each faction's flavor as you level up and learn how your characters' skills work, and yes, of course each zone is an island unto itself so as to assist the character in coming closer and closer to the endgame. It's just different, not worse I, for one, am glad that I'm not forced to go back to each of the capital cities every time I want to do anything. And no, WAR isn't a silly game like WoW is-- it has a different flavor, a different character to it. Also, there is less motivation to "waste your time" in WAR since WAR has dispensed with the vast number of the time sinks that WoW has put in place to water down its mostly PvE-oriented content. So what if quests, relatively speaking, take a back seat to other, more RvR-oriented, forms of leveling? What could possibly be wrong with that? Would anyone be so brash as to criticize Half-Life for not having the abundance of pink demons from Doom?

And as regards questing, I simply don't see how WoW's quests are that much better than WAR's. Granted, some of them are a much more sophisticated, and the monster mobs are a more varied. Then again, most of WoW's quests are still the standard "kill x monsters" or "loot x things from x monsters" or occasionally "collect x from the environment.

The crafting system is more than perfunctory in WAR. It just isn't as big a deal as in WoW. The author of this article failed to mention the positive aspect of this, and that is that it greatly decreases the need to endlessly grind for materials or gold to pay to other characters to craft for you. This is not a real flaw in the game, but rather a shifting of the focus to other aspects of the game.

The one positive comparison to WoW is with regards to WAR Scenarios vs. WoW Battlegrounds: "as good as WOW's handful of Battlegrounds are, this lavish banquet of PVP action shames them." The characterization of WoW's BGs as good makes me laugh. Most players recognize that they are dull, repetitive, and poorly designed. As for WAR's scenarios being better, they better damn well be-- WAR is an RvR game. This statement of the critic's makes it abundantly clear to me that he just doesn't get that WAR is RvR and WoW isn't.

And WARs mechanics are too gimmicky, and character abilities too generic? How is a spell "doing x damage and applying y debuff" any more generic than many of WoW's character abilities? I mean what, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Frost Bolt, Corruption, Shadow Bolt, Fireblast, Sinister Stirke, Mortal Strike, etc. are all really so much less generic? I really just don't know what to say about this odd criticism. Maybe he has a point, but he certainly didn't state it well enough.

I don't think WAR is perfect at all. However, I hope that this review gets swamped out of relevancy by reviews from other sites, because it is based on an absurd and unspoken premise, that WAR should be WoW to be good. It is a different animal and should be judged on its own merits and flaws.

It's a great game and has a ridiculously smooth launch for an MMO. I play it smoothly on a four year old pc with 1 gig of ram with hardly any frame rate issues. I think 8 is fair for the state it is in at the moment.

Gaol, is it your new hobby to try and take any new MMO apart?
You were all over the last big one AOC, and now you are all over WAR.

I am getting close to say like the "mythbusters" : Myth confirmed, you are doing viral marketing for Blizzard...

After my first few hours trying 6 different classes I was amazed at how poor my initial impression is

The animation is TERRIBLE. I am sure people who are coming from Eq2 may find it acceptable but it really is last gen.

The graphics are at best adequate.

And the combat is just wrong wrong wrong.

I has paid me cash so I will be trying to find a class I can enjoy but at the moment my chances of going past the intial 30 days are very slim.

Word of advice to developers. Starting zones MATTER.

@MaxiSleep

You bang on about how this is crap, or that is shit, yet you then continue about 'still trying to find a class that you enjoy'. If there's so much fundamentally wrong with WAR, what fucking difference will a class decision make? Or do I smell Troll spoor?

Yes, there are animation glitches. I dont like how my character flops about after being floored by a Troll, until the stun wears off, but it will be addressed and isn't anything near game-breaking.

The graphics are leagues ahead of the 'big hitter' and even EQ2, which I consider to have a very nice graphics engine. I stumbled onto a keep in WAR earlier today that was so magnificent (and Chaos controlled) I binned the UI and took screenshots, rather than be worried about the pasting I was about to get from the players and guards.

That armour is actually placed onto your body and isnt just an extension of the textures, makes the player characters stand out in a marvelous manner. MILES ahead of anything else. Adding dye into the mix and ive yet to see ONE other player who looks like I do. Not a single one. Not like the cookie-cutter dolls that run around WoW from levels 1-20.

Combat is wrong, wrong, wrong you say? And yet ive had some of the best PvP fun ive ever had in an online game, with WAR. Guess what? At no point did I stop and think 'hmmm, the combat is crap'. Not once. Not even when I was having my head smashed in by a hulking, clanking, armoured Chaos Warrior who actually LOOKED solid, as well as actually BEING solid, rather than some walking ghost of a Christmas tree in WoW, with zero sense of solidity or presence.

Of course, you paid the cash (apparently) so you have complete right to state your opinion. Its just that your opinion is wrong, which is kinda sad, with WAR being as much fun as it patently is to so many other people.

@George Roper

You will note that I am saying that the initial zones are really poor. Obviously this may change which is why I have caveated all my comments as "initial impressions".

The animations are rubish. They simply do not convey any sense of linkage with the action. And the spell animations (so far) are very damp squib. Good spell animations are very important to getting your sense of timimg correct, otherwise you spend your time looking at the cooldown bar.

As to melee combat - yeuck. It suffers from a really poorly animated cooldown bar and again has no "feel". A bad cooldown bar combined with poor animation means you spend your time looking at the coodown bar rather then reacting to the envionment and mashing buttons. It is not too my taste. Worst offender for me so far is Sword Master which really looks Beta.

The graphics at best match WoW in terms of quality or consistency. This is a very disapointing given how long the game is in dev. The texture resolution in particular is terrible even with all sliders set to full.

The only class so far that I have enjoyed is the witch elf. The combat animations gel well with the actions. Wish I was not forced to take a female toon but I can live with it. The writing and the general feel of the Dark elf campaign is miles ahead of the Greenskins or the Chaos side. The forces of order seam on both servers I have created to be suffering a bit in that they are not as popular and the writing is pretty turgid. This is clearly a much bigger problem for War then Ali v Horde on WoW but it is early days.

So at the moment Witch Elf it is for me - but I really cannot understand why they did not make the initial experience better.

If you had this kind of PvP in WoW, you'd no doubt have horde dominating.

I definately got the feel from Leipzig (one of the few conferences held in english, wooo!), the destruction is just going to overthrow everything else...

@MaxiSleep

"You will note that I am saying that the initial zones are really poor. Obviously this may change which is why I have caveated all my comments as "initial impressions"

Complete bollocks. The starting zones are some of the most fun places i've ever started a character in, in any MMORPG. The fact that youre by and large thrust straight into the chaos, rather than being told to hunt X rabbits, or collect Y rabbit ears, just shows what approach Mythic have taken with it.

The first time I stumbled onto the burning windmill, on Empire, was nothing short of stunning and theres nothing like that sense of scope in WoW, at any level under 60.


"The animations are rubish. They simply do not convey any sense of linkage with the action. And the spell animations (so far) are very damp squib. Good spell animations are very important to getting your sense of timimg correct, otherwise you spend your time looking at the cooldown bar"

All MMORPGs require players to look at the action and the hotbar. Every. Single. One. Otherwise all you're doing is spamming keys waiting for the refresh to occur. There is no difference here than in WoW.


"As to melee combat - yeuck. It suffers from a really poorly animated cooldown bar and again has no "feel". A bad cooldown bar combined with poor animation means you spend your time looking at the coodown bar rather then reacting to the envionment and mashing buttons. It is not too my taste. Worst offender for me so far is Sword Master which really looks Beta."

See above comment and remember, you're talking about a game which has been live for how long? Just consider the problems WoW had when that was released and compare to how solid WAR actually is, right at this moment. As ive said in another thread, Mythic have ultra-solid foundations with WAR. They can concentrate on bug fixes straight from the offset, rather than worry about how wobbly it will make the rest of the game.


"The graphics at best match WoW in terms of quality or consistency. This is a very disapointing given how long the game is in dev. The texture resolution in particular is terrible even with all sliders set to full"

Complete and utter bollocks. To imply that they match WoW, in any regard, is a joke. Either you're running on a poor PC or you've actually not played the game.

The graphics in WAR are so detailed, in terms of artistic quality and textures, and that I end up taking more and more screenshots, almost every session. For comparison, I never took one screenshot of my WoW characters until I hit the armour sets.

The fact that WoW armour is by and large just a texture replacement on the WoW player models, at the lower levels, proves how piss poor they are. To date, on my WAR character (level 13), i've got wristguards, headpiece, shoulder and a new tunic, all of which actually add more, distinctly different, armour to the character model and most of which are dyed. In fact, even by just level 13 ive had three different types of shoulder armour. In addition ive had a couple of baubles which also attach onto the extra armour. So i've got a shoulder piece with a little bauble hanging off it. Detail that WoW can only dream about.

I've not encountered one other player character who looks like I do. Not a single one. Every level 1-50 character in WoW, of the same race, looks near identical.

PvP objectives are fucking awesome. Not some poor, short, tower but a thundering, tall, keep with parapets, solid doors that need to be battered down and all sorts of other goodies. Again, they look solid . Thats what WAR impresses me most with. The game-world feels solid, thus feels tangible.

i must say in my first hour i felt a bit detached from the game, not knowign the interface or where i was, but it all slotted into place very quickly (far quicker than when i played daoc).

im still only sratching the surface but i dont feel like i need to rush to max level to start playing the "proper" end game. I already feel like im participating (and that in a nutshell is why i can see myself playing this game for years to come).

@George Roper

"Complete bollocks. The starting zones are some of the most fun places i've ever started a character in, in any MMORPG. The fact that youre by and large thrust straight into the chaos, rather than being told to hunt X rabbits, or collect Y rabbit ears, just shows what approach Mythic have taken with it. "

Well that is note the case for me for a lot of the areas. The Dark elf campaign though is much better then the others I think so far. I had not played the dark elf characters when I posted first

"See above comment and remember, you're talking about a game which has been live for how long?"

My experience with MMos is that if it is broke at launch it is a very long time if ever that stuff is fixed. Wow was better at launch then War is. I am happy with that viewpoint.

"Complete and utter bollocks. To imply that they match WoW, in any regard, is a joke. Either you're running on a poor PC or you've actually not played the game."

To expand my point a little. In Wow there is a very fine "clock" style update on the animation on the hotbar. You can glance for an instant at the hotbar and see how your cooldowns are running because the movement draws your attention. Without that effect in War I find that I have to keep rechecking. Poor combat animation also increases the need for "lookdown"


"Complete and utter bollocks. To imply that they match WoW, in any regard, is a joke. Either you're running on a poor PC or you've actually not played the game."

Look at the hillside textures in the Chaos start area. They are absoulutely dreadful. The draw distance is tiny. On a 512mb 8800 Gs in a pc with 4 gigs of Ram. The ships in the Dark elf starting area are no better then for example the Night elf ship models or the blood elf model ships in the sunwell Isle area. Plus the usual screen tearing and no option that I can see for anti aliasing. (welcome to be wrong on this one). What War has over WoW is a more traditional art style then I am sure many will prefer. But from a technical engine point of view I can see very little difference bar the shadowing.

It really is unfortunate that you are resorting to accusations of Trolling or indeed fabrication when someone disagrees with your viewpoint. Yes I did buy the game george and I object to your accusations of lying.

And I now have a second class which I like on the Chaos side - the Chosen. Still nothing on the order side though

@MaxiSleep

First off, sorry for taking an aggressive stance.

"My experience with MMos is that if it is broke at launch it is a very long time if ever that stuff is fixed. Wow was better at launch then War is. I am happy with that viewpoint"

Mythic are an experienced MMORPG developer. Ive had similar experiences to you, where bugs havent been fixed for an age, but they have most often been with SoE games. Namely Vanguard and EQ2. Be honest though, theres nothing game-breaking in WAR at the moment, is there?


"To expand my point a little. In Wow there is a very fine "clock" style update on the animation on the hotbar. You can glance for an instant at the hotbar and see how your cooldowns are running because the movement draws your attention. Without that effect in War I find that I have to keep rechecking. Poor combat animation also increases the need for "lookdown""

Yes but, again, to be fair WoW has been out for years and years. Blizz have had a long time to refine all aspects of that game right down to a fine art, of that I have no quibble. However, as above, whatever problems you see there, are not game-breaking. The cooldowns are displayed, with a seconds timer on the button. If this isnt obvious enough, just customize the UI and enlarge the hotbars so its more obvious. I'm having serious problems seeing what the major crisis is here...


"Look at the hillside textures in the Chaos start area. They are absoulutely dreadful. The draw distance is tiny. On a 512mb 8800 Gs in a pc with 4 gigs of Ram. The ships in the Dark elf starting area are no better then for example the Night elf ship models or the blood elf model ships in the sunwell Isle area. Plus the usual screen tearing and no option that I can see for anti aliasing. (welcome to be wrong on this one). What War has over WoW is a more traditional art style then I am sure many will prefer. But from a technical engine point of view I can see very little difference bar the shadowing."

I had exactly the same problem and after a very brief Warhammer Alliance forum search, discovered it to be the VRAM allocation. Set the slider to maximum rather than default, then more textures will get loaded in from the offset. Additionally I have a 786mb 8800GTX, which may just manage the textures better due to more ram, which is why I don't see any of it, any longer. /shrug

V-sync can be set in the Nvidia control panel and works flawlessly. As do AA and AS settings. I'm running at x16 AS an X8 AA.


"It really is unfortunate that you are resorting to accusations of Trolling or indeed fabrication when someone disagrees with your viewpoint. Yes I did buy the game george and I object to your accusations of lying. And I now have a second class which I like on the Chaos side - the Chosen. Still nothing on the order side though"

As I said at the start, I apologise for taking an aggressive stance. WAR represents everything thats good about MMORPG development and it pains me, sometimes, that when a good developer like Mythic comes along and releases something of this quality, the haters just jump onboard and point out problems and bugs without also considering just how well established other MMORPGs are and what their status was at release too.

I hope you come to enjoy WAR, find a class thats suitable and have fun.

@ Maxisleep

"My experience with MMos is that if it is broke at launch it is a very long time if ever that stuff is fixed. Wow was better at launch then War is. I am happy with that viewpoint."


Come on, are you kidding me?! did you even play that game at launch? instable awful servers, glitches/bugs galore, plenty of skills that were completely broken and didn't work, no content to speak of, and days spent with down servers and nothing to play. How could you tell me that WoW was a better game at launch than WAR was. How extensively have you even played WAR? Go check out the later content in WAR then talk to me again.

I'm just saying that the whole war vs woar seemed like a fanboy ranting,not trying to be a butthead!

Next, i am someone who reads the reviews before i buy the game, after reading this review i think he did a good job w/ review. I won't be buying this one it looks like another conan.


I'm out

"Next, i am someone who reads the reviews before i buy the game, after reading this review i think he did a good job w/ review. I won't be buying this one it looks like another conan."

How on earth can you tell if it is a good review if you haven't owned or played the game? I have tried to stay outta this thread, but that comment is crazy.

From what I played of Conan, I can confirm that WAR will not follow Conan's lead... into the sewer...

""My experience with MMos is that if it is broke at launch it is a very long time if ever that stuff is fixed. Wow was better at launch then War is. I am happy with that viewpoint."

Granted, I've only played WAR since Friday, and haven't been in the beta, but it seems to be in a much better state to me than WoW was at launch.

Coming from and endgame WoW guild that recently split, I only picked this up to tide me over until the release of WotLK, but based on my first week playing here, I'm not sure I'll bother going back to WoW in the near future, if at all.

To be honest, I didn't have particularly high expectations after being burnt by so many new MMO's in the past, but this feels different. The public questing system is fantastic and I'm sure it's something we're going to see in a lot of other games soon. The lack of "kill 12 badger!" type quests is refreshing too, though I'm sure some exist. I also really like the way the the RvR confilct is central to the game. PvP isn't something I've really bothered with since DAoC but I spent most of my weekend in WAR in the tier 1 scenarios or rvr zones.

I think what I'm trying to say is, if you give this game a chance, you'll have blast. The review isn't all that bad anyway is it? I'd always considered an 8/10 a decent score.

On the negative side, I'm getting kinda sick of the 30minute queues to log in, though I guess that's my fault for choosing destruction. Oh and it's also pretty lame that they censored the opening cinematic to get around German video game laws, though this is hardly a big deal.

I've been playing WAR this weekend and I think it's pretty good. It has some interesting ideas but it does lack polish in some areas especially the controls and animations. The public quests are interesting but are in reality just a repeating group quest without a formal party. The ones I've seen have turned into mad free-for-alls. Rather than promoting social interactions it just encourages players to act solo.

I do believe people root for WAR (or other recent MMOs) not so much for the quality of the game, but because they want to "de-throne" WoW. Some people will always love the underdog.

"Mythic has dutifully done everything it needs to to compete with Blizzard's jack of all trades and master of most"

you got it wrong..it should be "master of none"

I quit WoW about 6 months ago and will never go back because...well it's not good and I speak from experience. Yes it had a hayday of about a year but those days are gone. Comparing WAR to WoW is stupid.

Can I ask whoever wrote this, have you played WoW for any length of time at all? because I played it for a long time, and many other MMOs before it. Do you now what you're talking about at all here?

Lets talk about WoW as the primary example since you seem to have chosen to compare it to WAR to it in your review.

1)WoWs launch was full of bugs...if felt like a continued beta for the first year, but people gave it a chance in the hope it would improve I suppose. Had you been there at the time you probably would have remembered this.

2)WoW also "borrowed" many of it's game mechanics heavily from other previous MMOs, that is what MMOs do and how they evolve it would seem.

3) Crafting is woefully bad in WoW, and none consumable craftables have little or no use. crafting is a money and time drain and that is all. WoW does not "do" crafting better than any other MMO. anybody who has played WoW for longer than it takes to reach level cap knows this.

4)PvP in WoW was something tagged on by Blizzard haphazardly in order to loosely tout it out as a PvP game. It was badly thought out and remains so to this day. Cheating is the norm, exploiting win trading and leeching in arenas and battleground have crippled any honest PvP. The PvP/Arena reward system is horribly flawed and is hated by both those who love PvP and also those who raid for their gear alike. It is a mess.WoW does not do PvP well at all. There are very few Battleground maps and the ones that exist are commonly exploited. Anybody who loves PvP for its own sake eventually gets bored and leaves the game.

5) PvE in wow is a reputation grind. People ritualistically trawl though daily quests chipping away at their rep bars joylessly for scraps of gold and pointless reputation rewards. People who raid sigh and cry other the fact that you can get gear just as great as theirs by playing 10 arena games a week or buying your way into a team to get equipped. So they spend hours a week raiding then find they still get their butts handed to them by somebody who exploited the PvP system to get their stuff.

So lets not confuse popularity with quality shall we? Sims 2 sold 100 million copies but you aren't comparing WAR to that are you? (maybe you should)

WoW caters to the lowest common denominator....you don't need a brain...that is optional...you don't need great skill or an amazing tactical mind in order to get to level cap and kit yourself in epics. Anybody can do it. Some people play because..honestly some of them are just scared to leave.

Your review is unfair, and I suspect you've had some other ulterior incentive to give this game an 8- because unbiased journalism this is not.

You'd be qualified to speak about WAR in the same terms as WOW if you played both for four years then started comparing the apple to the orange.

end.

Ok, so here are the unbiased facts from someone who has played WoW at the highest level, and WAR extensively in beta and since release:

1) WAR runs pretty well for a new MMO. The graphic-design is very good, but it is let down by very clunky animations, and the overall 'feel' is worse than many other games of this type. You never really feel the damage your foes take, unlike in WoW. It's difficult to explain exactly what went wrong here, but combat is very unresponsive and weak. Static screenshots look very good. In action, not so much.

2) The way information is organised is very good. No more "Where do I go for this quest?!". It's all shown to you. The Tome of Knowledge is very nice. Questing in general is much more pleasant than WoW as there are less grindy quests and WAR makes it easy to figure out what to do and where to go.

3) Loot is very easy to come by. You participate in public quests and RvR scenarios and basically build up renown (aka Reputation) and this gives you loot. This happens very quickly. It's nice.

4) Many of the clases are very similar. There may be 20 of them, but a lot of them play almost identically. They could've made more of an effort to make each class unique.

5) Public quests. These are being lauded a lot as WAR's big new thing, but they are way, way more flawed that people claim. In the starting areas right now you can easily find people doing the initial public quests. Once you move out into the world though it is not the case any more. I'm up to level 12 in the live game and there just isn't anyone to do Public Quests with now. The population is too low and/or spread too thinly. Once people start to get spread out on the levelling curve the only way to do the PQs will be with an actual guild or arranged group which defeats the whole purpose of them in the first place. And that is now - just a week after launch. In 3 months time I can imagine PQs being impossible to do just because there aren't enough players at the same level as you to participate. Why on earth they did not make PQs scale with the number of participants I have no idea. PQs are an amazing idea in theory, but ultimately they fail. I've lost count of how many PQs I've been forced to skip now.

6) PvP. It's very cool being able to queue for the various PvP scenarios early on in the game and to get XP and loot from them. Right now though, they all seem to be very similar to me. Same games, just different maps basically. Hopefully this changes later in the game. PvP in general is badly let down by the clunky combat and feel of the game just as the PvE side is though.

Smumary:
WAR has some very nice ideas. Some very cool ideas. However the actual *playing* of the game leaves a lot to be desired. If you put the ideas in WoW's game engine it would be amazing. As it stands right now, WAR is a nice distraction for a month until WotLK hits but anyone who isn't a total WAR fanboy or WoW hater will just go back to WoW in November as the experience of playing that game is just far superior. It's a shame really. So much promise here, but ultimately let down by very flawed gameplay.

Here's the deal

Like PVP? Play WAR

Like PvE? Play WoW

Like crafting? Play Everquest 2

@ Lady_Seph

WoW PvP epics aren't very good for PvE and most good guilds will reject people that apply that have them. To get the top PvE gear you do need to know your class well and play well in a team. Very few people have Sunwell gear because to be frank most aren't good enough to get into a guild that goes there.

Also you have to compare WoW now, not 4 years ago. People aren't playing the game of 4 years ago, they are playing it as it is today. It's hard for game developers to catch up but that's how it is.

This argument will go on for a long time because like and dislike different aspects, and what appeals to one person will be a turn-off for another.

Hi.

I'm playing WAR and really liking it at the moment. I wasn't going to get the game, mostly because friends were split between the races and server types and it seemed like everyone would be split up all over the place.

However after having a friend bug the hell outta me, I used his lasses key to sign up and play the game. Ran through some starter quests, got to level 4 or 5 and did some public quests. I found them loads of fun, and I appreciate something said earlier where as the servers mature, there will be less and less people around to help with the public quests. I think less is better at times, last night me and a friend, and a few pickups played a PQ, didn't complete it as we struggled against the last guy as there was a large leap in levels. Found it much more fun as it was a challange.

The annoying thing about PQ's at launch is it a frenzy, too many people trying to get to the top of the leaderboard. And if you happen to get there the roll can rob you. If you complete the PQ with less people, a higher percentage are rewarded. The XP distribution is also across less people. With the added effort the task will seem more rewarding.

I don't find the graphics as offensive as many on this thred. My settings are on lowest of the low so I can get a decent framerate in RVR on my laptop.

For those screaming at each other in this thred, its like takeaway food man, war is indian and wow is chinese. If you try and get everyone to decide on which is best your gonna be here all fucking day. I like lamb passanda and chowmein, fuck off with your arguments on why one is better than the other.

Can people keep their comments as short as possible, I am way to lazy for this.
Really enjoyed WAR really hated RvR I was totally but fucked, felt like a fish in a net. Maybe I do not know what is going on.
Also I have not played any MMOs before but do I have to kill one creature at a time, I have a five foot sword can't I hit everyone in the room. I think I will go back to Final Fantasy, at least I did not have to die trying to use potions.

Been playing this all day. It's great. End of Story.


And can people stop saying 'pvp=WAR, pve=WoW'?

PvE in WAR is ten times what it is in WoW. I've not been bored once - jumping into a public quest as I come across them and even the 'standard' quests are more interesting in their execution.

Long may WAR reign, IMO