With EA Mythic's Warhammer Online NDA recently lifted, the internets have been flooded with new information about the new MMO on the block. While the game won't be released until September 18, people are already forming their final opinions. Some are proclaiming WAR the "WoW Killer", while others are simply writing it off as a "WoW Clone". Comparisons between the two are inevitable-- with Blizzard setting the MMORPG standard, one is practically forced to talk about Warhammer in terms of Warcraft.
So that's what I'll do.
This is a summary of my experiences in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning during the final Closed Beta phase.
(Disclaimer: All screenshots were taken using the game's lowest graphic settings)
From the get-go, new players are faced with the daunting task of creating a character. There are two armies, six races and twenty classes to choose from. To assist the uninformed newcomer with their selection, each class's description is labeled with what we MMO junkies like to call a class "role". Everything is represented-- Tank, Healer, Melee/Ranged DPS. Fans of the Warhammer franchise will be pleased to see that WAR breaks away from the ultra-generic "Warrior, Mage, Priest" set in favor of lore-appropriate class titles such as "Squig Herder" and "White Lion".
Once in the game-proper, I was greeted by the oh-so familiar WoW GUI layout.
Mini-map in the top right, targeting info in the top left, action bars on the bottom... everything's pretty much the same. But oh, wait! I soon discovered a very neat little feature--
This interface allows you to drag and position different GUI windows to suit your tastes. A useful option, to be sure-- but as a man who has spent many a lonely night in front of the WoW interface, I decided to leave things be and dive headfirst into some good, old-fashioned MMO action.
Which, of course, means completing quests! And oh, are there ever quests.
Most of the quests I completed during my time in the game were the same sort I encountered in every other MMO. I say "most" because, after every handful of "kill/collect X of those/these", you get to do some really cool shit. Lobbing my Orc over Dwarfish battlements using a catapult, arming and firing a hellcannon... these are all nice little distractions from the hum-drum of mindless slaughter.
Speaking of mindless slaughter, I might as well talk about the combat.
Critics of MMORPGs frequently cite the "click" combat as a weak point of games in the genre. Those people will not like Warhammer.
Combat in Warhammer is almost identical to combat in World of Warcraft. Using the different skills and spells your character amasses by leveling up, you slaughter hordes and hordes of (quickly) respawning enemies. You are rewarded for this with experience, quest items, and lovely, lovely l00t. There are also Achievements-- those measures of worth that are becoming ever more prevalent in modern gaming. You get them for doing all sorts of things-- and some of them even unlock special player titles which let you show everyone you meet how much better you are than them.
Now, up to this point I have been mainly prattling on about things Warhammer has that every other MMO in the world has-- let me now shift gears and talk about some of Warhammer's more innovative (that word we all love) features.
The Tome of Knowledge may not seem very exciting to some people, but I quickly found myself lost within its virtual pages. It is essentially a record of everything your WAR character has ever done, ever. It records your kills, playtime, areas visited, quests completed, achievements, races encountered... everything. It is a handy reference tool for keeping up with the game's ongoing plot (more on that later), reading up on bits of lore and information on important characters... all the stuff nerds like me love.
Excited yet? No? Let's talk about RvR-- the cornerstone of Mythic's marketing campaign.
While I consider myself more of a PvE-oriented MMOtard, some people would simply prefer to PvP. Those people are able to immediately jump into the battleground scenarios. These instanced zones operate like objective-based quests that pit the armies of Order and Destruction against one another. Those PvPers will be excited to find that killing other players and completing objectives yields experience. In theory, this means one never really needs to complete normal quests to level up. Even if you enter one of these fights at a low level, your stats are curved based on those of your higher-level opponents (gear and skills remain the same) in order to even the playing-field. Participating in PvP battles also yields a special type of "PK experience" (PKP, if you will) that can be used to purchase new equipment.
There is also a bunch of stuff to do with controlling territories for your character's army, but I didn't have time to get into all that.
Public-Quests are another selling-point of Warhammer. These are cooperative PvE scenarios that have large groups of players working together to finish special quest objectives. The Public-Quests are also a method through which one "progresses" in the game's "story". Also, I should mention, they're fucking fun.
Completion of Public-Quests requires a much higher degree of teamwork and tactic than normal fare. Depending on the scenario you'll have to work with your group to defeat large numbers of enemies, fight off huge bosses, use special items, and use the environment to your advantage to succeed and rack up not only ph4t l00t, but also "influence" that can be used to (you guessed it) purchase new equipment.
While I've left out a lot in this preview (partly because I ran out of ideas, and partly because the beta did not include most of the game's content), I think I have summarized most of the big talking points. Warhammer is shaping up to be a solid MMORPG-- one that is certainly fit to step into the ring with big boys like World of Warcraft.
So that's what I'll do.
This is a summary of my experiences in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning during the final Closed Beta phase.
(Disclaimer: All screenshots were taken using the game's lowest graphic settings)
From the get-go, new players are faced with the daunting task of creating a character. There are two armies, six races and twenty classes to choose from. To assist the uninformed newcomer with their selection, each class's description is labeled with what we MMO junkies like to call a class "role". Everything is represented-- Tank, Healer, Melee/Ranged DPS. Fans of the Warhammer franchise will be pleased to see that WAR breaks away from the ultra-generic "Warrior, Mage, Priest" set in favor of lore-appropriate class titles such as "Squig Herder" and "White Lion".
Once in the game-proper, I was greeted by the oh-so familiar WoW GUI layout.
Mini-map in the top right, targeting info in the top left, action bars on the bottom... everything's pretty much the same. But oh, wait! I soon discovered a very neat little feature--
This interface allows you to drag and position different GUI windows to suit your tastes. A useful option, to be sure-- but as a man who has spent many a lonely night in front of the WoW interface, I decided to leave things be and dive headfirst into some good, old-fashioned MMO action.
Which, of course, means completing quests! And oh, are there ever quests.
Most of the quests I completed during my time in the game were the same sort I encountered in every other MMO. I say "most" because, after every handful of "kill/collect X of those/these", you get to do some really cool shit. Lobbing my Orc over Dwarfish battlements using a catapult, arming and firing a hellcannon... these are all nice little distractions from the hum-drum of mindless slaughter.
Speaking of mindless slaughter, I might as well talk about the combat.
Critics of MMORPGs frequently cite the "click" combat as a weak point of games in the genre. Those people will not like Warhammer.
Combat in Warhammer is almost identical to combat in World of Warcraft. Using the different skills and spells your character amasses by leveling up, you slaughter hordes and hordes of (quickly) respawning enemies. You are rewarded for this with experience, quest items, and lovely, lovely l00t. There are also Achievements-- those measures of worth that are becoming ever more prevalent in modern gaming. You get them for doing all sorts of things-- and some of them even unlock special player titles which let you show everyone you meet how much better you are than them.
Now, up to this point I have been mainly prattling on about things Warhammer has that every other MMO in the world has-- let me now shift gears and talk about some of Warhammer's more innovative (that word we all love) features.
The Tome of Knowledge may not seem very exciting to some people, but I quickly found myself lost within its virtual pages. It is essentially a record of everything your WAR character has ever done, ever. It records your kills, playtime, areas visited, quests completed, achievements, races encountered... everything. It is a handy reference tool for keeping up with the game's ongoing plot (more on that later), reading up on bits of lore and information on important characters... all the stuff nerds like me love.
Excited yet? No? Let's talk about RvR-- the cornerstone of Mythic's marketing campaign.
While I consider myself more of a PvE-oriented MMOtard, some people would simply prefer to PvP. Those people are able to immediately jump into the battleground scenarios. These instanced zones operate like objective-based quests that pit the armies of Order and Destruction against one another. Those PvPers will be excited to find that killing other players and completing objectives yields experience. In theory, this means one never really needs to complete normal quests to level up. Even if you enter one of these fights at a low level, your stats are curved based on those of your higher-level opponents (gear and skills remain the same) in order to even the playing-field. Participating in PvP battles also yields a special type of "PK experience" (PKP, if you will) that can be used to purchase new equipment.
There is also a bunch of stuff to do with controlling territories for your character's army, but I didn't have time to get into all that.
Public-Quests are another selling-point of Warhammer. These are cooperative PvE scenarios that have large groups of players working together to finish special quest objectives. The Public-Quests are also a method through which one "progresses" in the game's "story". Also, I should mention, they're fucking fun.
Completion of Public-Quests requires a much higher degree of teamwork and tactic than normal fare. Depending on the scenario you'll have to work with your group to defeat large numbers of enemies, fight off huge bosses, use special items, and use the environment to your advantage to succeed and rack up not only ph4t l00t, but also "influence" that can be used to (you guessed it) purchase new equipment.
While I've left out a lot in this preview (partly because I ran out of ideas, and partly because the beta did not include most of the game's content), I think I have summarized most of the big talking points. Warhammer is shaping up to be a solid MMORPG-- one that is certainly fit to step into the ring with big boys like World of Warcraft.
