WAR (Warhammer Online)

How big is the game world?

How many world zones total?

How many on each side are exclusive to that side and how many are shared?

Does each race have it's own starting zone and how do they branch off from there?

How does the size of each zone compare to an average WoW zone?

More subjectively, how much does the game world offer to players who enjoy exploring? Are there interesting finds off the beaten path for those who go looking?

Anyone?

Originally posted by fiontar

How big is the game world?

How many world zones total?

How many on each side are exclusive to that side and how many are shared?

Does each race have it's own starting zone and how do they branch off from there?

How does the size of each zone compare to an average WoW zone?

More subjectively, how much does the game world offer to players who enjoy exploring? Are there interesting finds off the beaten path for those who go looking?

1) Big

2) Hmm lets see 4 tiers per paring 3 parings.  4x3 = 12.  12 unique zones unless I am missing some, I have been up for 24 hours. I am not counting the Capitol cities they are a zone all to themselves. 

3) Each paring shares the zones usually split in half by an open RvR area to fight over. The RvR areas alone are as big or bigger than say Alterac Valley since you seem to know WoW.

4) Yes and then they flow naturally throught the rest of their Tiers.  Of course you are welcom to hop a flight master and visit the other tiers.

5) Overall i would say the zones are bigger.

6) Well you will not find a Vanguard sized world to explore, there are certanily things to see and you do have an entire Tome to unlock by talking to famous characters and finding little unknown things in the world that you can discover.  For instance clicking on a specific headstone in a grave yard will give you a tome unlock and title Skeleton hunter.  Finding and killing some NPC's will unlock some tactics or give titles, little things like those will keep you busy exploring and looking behind every rock. Tome unlocks if people actually read them are very rich in lore and story line. 

Originally posted by Chillwolf

Originally posted by fiontar

How big is the game world?

How many world zones total?

How many on each side are exclusive to that side and how many are shared?

Does each race have it's own starting zone and how do they branch off from there?

How does the size of each zone compare to an average WoW zone?

More subjectively, how much does the game world offer to players who enjoy exploring? Are there interesting finds off the beaten path for those who go looking?

 

1) Big

2) Hmm lets see 4 tiers per paring 3 parings.  4x3 = 12.  12 unique zones unless I am missing some, I have been up for 24 hours. I am not counting the Capitol cities they are a zone all to themselves. 

3) Each paring shares the zones usually split in half by an open RvR area to fight over. The RvR areas alone are as big or bigger than say Alterac Valley since you seem to know WoW.

4) Yes and then they flow naturally throught the rest of their Tiers.  Of course you are welcom to hop a flight master and visit the other tiers.

5) Overall i would say the zones are bigger.

6) Well you will not find a Vanguard sized world to explore, there are certanily things to see and you do have an entire Tome to unlock by talking to famous characters and finding little unknown things in the world that you can discover.  For instance clicking on a specific headstone in a grave yard will give you a tome unlock and title Skeleton hunter.  Finding and killing some NPC's will unlock some tactics or give titles, little things like those will keep you busy exploring and looking behind every rock. Tome unlocks if people actually read them are very rich in lore and story line. 

I would like to add to number 6. Lairs. There are places in the world that are......way off the beaten path (one that my guildmate found required platform type jumping to reach). Now granted once you find these you wont be able to solo the mobs in the area, but its a neat thing to find when you do find it. Then you say WTF as you get mauled by the Hero in the area :)
 

The game world is pretty damn big... the good news is it is not wasted space, there is always something new or different around the next corner.

I hate games where they have a huge world and it is full of empty space, this is not hte case with Warhammer online

I'm not going to answer your questions the way you framed them. I am going to briefly explain my beta experience. I have beta tested for about 4+ mos.

This game is extremely fun and IMO plays/runs great. It will be around for a long time. However, I will be canceling my pre-order and not subbing. Here's why.

My playstyle is pve, I have never cared for pvp..in any form. This game from my experience is totaly focused on pvp. I like a game world to explore on my own. This game world is very liner and there is no reason to come back to a lower level part of the world once you have out leveled it. The game map goes from  Tier 1 to Tier 4 in a straight path across. The pve that is in the game is leading you ultimately to pvp...and if you don't pvp/rvr then you can pve PQ's that helps the rvr players. The npc's in the game are MOSTLY the opposing faction races....so when you are engaged in pve... most the time you are still fighting against the opposing faction...only the are npcs..instead of pc's. You will not see alot of variety in the mobs you fight.

I am saying all of this because this is not a game for explorers and achievers....there is no endgame raids or dungeon/instance crawls. Just pvp/rvr or pve which is just against opposing faction npcs.

Having said all that.... the game is fun, well polished, and the rvr I did was fun as well I like the classes and the abilities I played.  There will be alot of battle strategies to develop as the game grows. I think it will be a big hit but to me it is ultimately one big halo bg...that constantly resets.

Originally posted by Socman75

I'm not going to answer your questions the way you framed them. I am going to briefly explain my beta experience. I have beta tested for about 4+ mos.

This game is extremely fun and IMO plays/runs great. It will be around for a long time. However, I will be canceling my pre-order and not subbing. Here's why.

My playstyle is pve, I have never cared for pvp..in any form. This game from my experience is totaly focused on pvp. I like a game world to explore on my own. This game world is very liner and there is no reason to come back to a lower level part of the world once you have out leveled it. The game map goes from  Tier 1 to Tier 4 in a straight path across. The pve that is in the game is leading you ultimately to pvp...and if you don't pvp/rvr then you can pve PQ's that helps the rvr players. The npc's in the game are MOSTLY the opposing faction races....so when you are engaged in pve... most the time you are still fighting against the opposing faction...only the are npcs..instead of pc's. You will not see alot of variety in the mobs you fight.

I am saying all of this because this is not a game for explorers and achievers....there is no endgame raids or dungeon/instance crawls. Just pvp/rvr or pve which is just against opposing faction npcs.

Having said all that.... the game is fun, well polished, and the rvr I did was fun as well I like the classes and the abilities I played.  There will be alot of battle strategies to develop as the game grows. I think it will be a big hit but to me it is ultimately one big halo bg...that constantly resets.

I've been beta testing WAR for over a year now, having joined last August.

Leaving all opinions aside, I really need to correct you here. There is no endgame raids/instance crawls? This is a 100% fabrication and in fact one of my favorite parts of the game. Granted, people on the general servers and not in the elder program didn't have access to all the dungeons/raids etc so you may have just been unaware, as we were/are under a seperate NDA as well.

Not only are dungeons available as you level up, but unlocking the final city opens up numerous *epic* dungeons & *raids*, as well as various other dungeons for just about all level ranges.  I love the variety and scale of the dungeons and really thought the raids were well paced and well done. I can understand that YOU may not have been allowed to test these and play through them, but hundreds of us have, and had a great time. So to say "There is no endgame raids/instance crawls" is a 100% lie that could really give people the wrong idea.

While I enjoy RvR, I enjoy it around PvE rather than as the be-all-end-all of a game, I just cant pvp all day like I can PvE. And for me, the high end PvE that I experienced/ am playing through in Beta is something I'm extremely excited about getting back to on release.

As for the rest of it, yes, a lot of the game is RvR based, but you don't have to RvR to get access to these dungeons/raids. But I'm guessing you'll want to, I'm finding it very addictive.

Either way, rest assured there *are* endgame dungeons and raids, and we did a lot of focus testing centered around these.

Thanks.

One quick edit, regarding "You will not see a lot of variety in the mobs you fight". What server *were* you on? Trolls, Harpies, Spiders, Fairies, Imps, Dryads, Sprites, Chimeras, lions, bears, vultures, skeletons, ghosts, mutants, dragons, wyverns, drakes, lizards, ogres, bats, boars, unicorns, screamers, demons, skaven, beastmen, giants, hydras ...there's a ton out there.

Granted you do fight orcs, goblins, chaos etc if you're good and elves, dwarves, humans if evil  as well as monsters - but I think it's fair to say you fight more monsters than PC models in PvE, and that there's a much larger variety of mobs than you're letting on.

Thank you for the replies so far.

It sounds like it may not be as big as I had hoped, but I do like the Tome system to reward exploration and achievements.

I use WoW for reference,  just because it's a reference most people have had experience with. I think WoW at  launch was just about the perfect size. Games I've played that were smaller than that have always ended up feeling too small, assuming the rest of the game was good enough to keep me interested to the upper levels.

I enjoy some end game activities, structured PvP (battlegrounds and RvR), but what keeps me in a game long term is replayability. The ability to play through other classes/races and not have to repeat the exact same leveling route is key for me.

I was encouraged by some comments I've read recently that mentioned that PvE content is so plentiful that you often graduate to the next tier with at least 30% of the previous zone's content untapped. If so, that should be sufficient for me; replay with in a race's tier progression, plus six races. The ability to easily travel to another race's zones also would allow mixing/matching in where you chose to level a particular toon.

Are my assumptions close to correct?