Whose more insane, me or the rest of society? Read the following blog of bollocks and decide for yourself.
First Impressions
Published on September 10, 2008 By Scotteh In PC Gaming

Yesterday i managed to get my hands on Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (from here on refered to as WAR), the latest in a long list that threatens to de-throne World of Warcraft (WoW) from the top of the pile of currently existing MMORPG (Massivley Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games).

So far it's only an Open Beta view of the game, offical release doesn't begin until the 17th of September, never the less i got a good insight into the game mechanics as well as the look and feel of the game.

Upon logging in the graphics seemed awful at first, but after some investigating i was able to use my Nvidia control panel to actually force the likes of Anti-Aliasing etc. on, which improved things greatly. It's not as pretty as say Age of Conan, but let's be honest, Graphics keep you interested for about twenty minutes.

I decided to make a Dark Elf Character, a Sorcerer to be precise, and set about customising him, nothing out of the ordinary there, select the sex, hair type/colour, skin colour etc, how many ear rings you want, blah blah.

Upon entering the game you immediatley get the sense that your stood right in the middle of some fantasy warzone where all hell has broken lose. Not least because of the high pitched screams and chunking of metal, the awesome visuals of buildings and fleets on fire. It was an unsual introduction as opposed to WoW's daisy fields of boars and sheep.

The usual format of run up to someone and ask for quest prevails initially in WAR. Until you hit a point where you are suddenly told that your in something called a 'Public Quest', which is essentially a three staged story being played out by people in the nearby vicinity. I got told that i had to slay a certain number of High Elf defenders, i had noticed several people around me doing it, so began to zap away. After some time a message appeared informing me that some temple dudes were trying to perform a ritual to kill us, and sure enough they came running along and we began killing them. Some time later, (there's constant waves of npc's comming at this point, really great fun), all the temple guys are killed and then out of the sky comes a huge dragon, sort of like an end game boss you'd find in a dungeon somewhere in WoW.

There was initially three of us in the area at the time and had no chance of killing him, as we found out after several foolish attempts. Finally though our numbers swelled and we were able to take him. Upon killing him a slot machine type screen appeared. It listed the people whom were involved in the Public Quest, and the amount of influence they had (presumably the amount of damage or healing you had done) on it. This was then added to a randomized number, given you a final score. Those with the highest scores (top 5 or something) get a nice bag of loot that is extremly useful to your character (i've not once got something that i can't already use).

Public Quests are a nice touch, and sort of bring about the grouping expereince that is had in WoW without much effort, or any 'omg newb you don't know what your doing' sort of deal.

Next was PvP. Refered more so in WAR as RvR (realm versus Realm), because the idea is two realms facing off against each other (Order versus Destruction, good versus bad). I'll save that for my next article as there was a fair lot to talk about.

So far though the game is a lot of fun compared to the other MMORPG's i've played, not least because theres so much to do and at no point are you thinking 'Ok where i go or what should i do now?'.

Cheers for reading.

 


Comments (Page 1)
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on Sep 10, 2008

Nice post!

I've been trying the beta for a few days now and am happily impressed by it myself. The animations could use some work sure, but the game has a great environment and the scaling of the environment does wonders for the 'feel' of the game (by the I mean, buildings are actually quite large compared to your character, immersing you in the world)

The UI is a huge step-up from the default that other games provide you with, and it supports modding such as World of Warcraft has, so the possibility of improving the UI exists

The public quest was a big surprise for me, never encountering one before, but it was a blast and the way they designed it to share the loot based on contribution during the fight, despite whether or not you're partied, is awesome.

Definitely looking forward to what they do next with the game!

on Sep 10, 2008

Thanks for the preview.  I was a little worried about WAR but this gives me hope.  Playing the Demigod beta has gotten me to thinking about what it would be like introduce some kind of creep mechanic in to and MMO, rather than just spawns, to keep battle raging all over the map, and to give it a bigger scale and story than you just going around and adventuring.

on Sep 10, 2008

Sounds like some compelling aspects were added to the game. It's too bad because I have no time (and little interest) in mmo's.

on Sep 10, 2008

Yeah, it sounds less bad than I was prepared for it to be. Alas, I think WoW and my (admittedly short) venture into AoC pretty much used up all my desire to play medieval fantasy MMOs.

on Sep 10, 2008

Is it just me or does this sound like paid advertising for war?

Anyway, this game wont dethrone WoW, at least not at launch. People hate Wow, but they love it even more. Either people that love the fantasy MMORPG concept will dislike War because it does not bring anything new, or they will hate it because it will not have the same polish as WoW.

People expect a WoW 1.5, some even expect a WoW 2.0.       

What they'll get is a WoW 1.0, but with a different sugar coating.

Until developers start taking chances again, and start thinking outside the (WoW) box, we will not see another "big" MMORPG that will dethrone WoW.

on Sep 10, 2008

Gabal
Until developers start taking chances again, and start thinking outside the (WoW) box, we will not see another "big" MMORPG that will dethrone WoW.

Agreed.

on Sep 11, 2008

Its ok, and I can see it being a good MMO RPG , just not my cup of tea, I gave the BETA 3 full days, and I have concluded I hate most MMO's , except for EVE.

 

on Sep 11, 2008

Oh when will a really awesome 40K mmo come out?

on Sep 11, 2008

lordkosc
Its ok, and I can see it being a good MMO RPG , just not my cup of tea, I gave the BETA 3 full days, and I have concluded I hate most MMO's , except for EVE.

Playing again?

on Sep 11, 2008

I hate all MMOs including eve.

I love the idea of massively multiplayer online.

 

Why do those 3 words translate into tedium, boring watered down lowest-common-denominator gameplay, grind, and too high of cost?

 

WHy can't there just be a fun game with big servers instead of an unfun game with big servers?

 

 

 

The problem with MMO's is that they're treated as a game type, not a connectivity model..  They are all WoW or L2 clones.

on Sep 11, 2008

I think EVE is pretty bad. I played WoW, got to level 40 and got bored.

 

I like MMOs but fantasy isn't my thing, and EVE, although SciFi, is kinda bad. I'm looking forward the Star Trek, Warhammer 40k, and KOTOR though. My friend said Warhammer online was pretty bad

on Sep 11, 2008

I might go back to EvE once the weather turns crappy outside, when I was last there I had just gotten a Drake Battle Cruiser.

 

 

on Sep 11, 2008

WAR will likely be a decent/solid MMORG, but nothing will match WoW's success.

Any decent/solid MMORPG is going to seem extra fun at first - because everything is new and fresh, even if a lot of it is basically the same as ever.

The real test is to see if the game still feels enjoyable after a good month or so of playing, which for a live MMORPG, is usually when the free month runs out.  When your sub money is on the line and you have to pay or stop - that's when you really decide if a MMORPG good.

I'd say that more MMORPGs are bad than they are good, so finding one worth playing for more than the few hours it takes to realize it blows chunks is always nice.

I only tried WAR earlier in beta and found it to look like crap, play like crap, and it was utterly boring and very dumbed down (this coming from a WoW player who has to constantly read how dumbed down WoW is).  Also having played DAoC for about 2 years, I have little faith in Mythic's ability to ever balance classes (especially for PvP).  They have interesting ideas for PvP but often fail to comletely deliver.

So, maybe it seems great at first, most decent new MMORPGs do feel that way for a while, but only time will tell if it's truly a title worth paying a subscription for.

I think there are a few of good MMORPGs that are worth trying but when it comes to paying a sub, why pay for anything less than WoW?  (unless you're cool with paying multiple subs and flitting between MMORPGs - but I think most MMORPG players tend to stick with one game - heavily.)  And no matter how good other MMORPGs are, they're still noticeably below WoW in every measurable category.  That's the bottom line.

 

on Sep 11, 2008

Edit refuses to function, so, let me add that, I'd love to see another MMORPG as good and as worth playing (subbing to) as WoW, but it hasn't happened yet, and I don't see it happening anytime soon.  Just like a lot of PC devs/pubs in general just don't "get it" when it comes to a lot of things, most MMORPG devs just don't get it when it comes to designing a feature-filled and fun MMORPG.  Blizzard does "get it" - and they're games are generally a ton of fun, run on most PCs, are high quality, well designed, everything - and this is extra tough to compete with in the highly expensive and development-instensive MMORPG genre.

 

on Sep 12, 2008

Your right Voqar in that the real acid test of any MMO is whether or not you are still gripped by it a month or two down the road.

As for the dumbing down aspect, i initially felt this was the case, and certainly the game does have an idiot proof feel to it at times, but ultimatley the RvR, which is something i've yet to talk about properly, is where the game shines.

I'll go into more detail regarding this in my next article, but people saying it's WoW 1.*, really need to understand that WoW's PvP's offering where extremley limited and there was never any real objectives behind it (unless you refer to the dreaded PvP ladder system where you litterally had to play non-stop to achieve the highest rank).

For the record also, i played Eve since Beta 4, i loved the game, but they could never resolve the lag issue, that coupled with the introduction of POS warfare (which ultimatley resulted in more lag), was the final nail in the coffin for me. It's still the only game that has genuinley given me an adrenaline rush, had me shaking before a fight etc. Yet after 4 years, that feeling slowly goes.

Maybe they'll resolve the lag in eve, i certainly hope so and if they do i'll be the first to re-subscribe.

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