I love MMOs. There is just something wonderful about getting to roam around in a world rich in lore and history, spending time within something you previously would only get to read about or play in tabletop form. There are few fantasy worlds more beloved than that of Warhammer, so anticipation has been high for their latest offering, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.
I spent a few hours within the WAR world, have talked to friends and foes alike who have pretty much lived within the game since launch, and have my personal impressions here for you. Is this the WoW killer everyone has been waiting for, or will it go the way of Hellgate: London and Age of Conan?
Beauty and Majesty
Initially, on logging in, I was struck by how beautiful a game this is. WAR's art style tends toward the extravagant, with gorgeous cities and breathtaking scenery. I was particularly impressed with the character design. The Greenskins move exactly as you would expect them to, be they large loping creatures or short, darting goblins. I don't necessarily agree with the choice to make classes race-specific. You end up having a dozen or so classes that really are just reused over and over again with different names. Then again, how a Dark Elf handle magic is going to be vastly different from how a Dwarf interacts with it. So while it looks like an over complication of a simple system, I can accept the argument for their choices in class design if defended in the name of lore.
A PvPers Wet Dream Sours
Yes, it's a crude description, but it's true. Those people playing WoW specifically to slaughter other players, you really should check out WAR instead. Not only is this game completely designed around PvP, when you kill other players you get the chance to loot their gear. This means that I would be loathe to wear my best pieces while stepping into Realm vs. Realm combat for fear of losing it.
The upside to WAR is also the downside, I'm sorry to say. The public quests, and later the Realm vs. Realm quests, (there are three per chapter) enable players to group up for PvP. The trouble is that most players tend to only do the first public quest and then skip the other two. If you try to attempt to complete these objectives on your own, you get slaughtered, since the guards are extremely buffed up on steroids. I wish there would have been a blend of Tabula Rasa's node system here. While PvP is the focus of the game in WAR, players who are dealing with low population servers are left frustrated and unfulfilled. Personally I was never able to experience the Scenarios because after 3 hours of waiting in the queue no one showed up to the fight. If they had added a support force of NPCs, the PvP would have been more meaningful. There is a lack of purpose in the WAR PvP that leaves even the PvP lovers wanting more.
In the end I left my experience with WAR loving the visuals but being bored by the gameplay. Basic quests were too buggy to complete, but I can chalk that up to being a newly launched game. On the other hand, they've pushed the launch date back several times, so you would hope that the starter zones would be bug free after all that extra testing. Looking back on it, my time in WAR was more of a chore reminiscent on EQ II, only there was no brilliant crafting system to lure me into the basement to make cloth. I love the concepts that WAR is trying to work with, and I'm truly excited that there may be another MMO out on the market. But really, my little Dark Elf Sorceress will languish untouched because for me, WAR really wasn't all that fun. WoW killer this is not, but on the other hand, perhaps it doesn't have to be.


