WAR (Warhammer Online)

NO YOU CAN'T HAVE MY ACCOUNT. I only got in for the Preview Weekend, which ends tomorrow. Target is selling the pre-order box for $1. Go buy one and you can play on the 7th.
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Maybe my expectations were too high. I don't know. All I can say is that WAR was too much like WoW, and with all the bugs and crashing and stupid quirky things that just weren't right, I'd rather be playing WoW (which is to say not at all). To give a little background, I played a Chosen and made it to Rank 10, Renown 7 within a few hours. My issues are not with the Chosen class, I liked it very much, but with the game as a whole.

RvR and PvP
RvR is a bit of a mess. Nobody has a clue what they are supposed to be doing. Good luck finding people to group with, everyone (including people who rolled healers) just run into the fray head first and start spraying spells. On the realm I played on, Destruction won every time hands down, but it was still like walking into a meat grinder. The Order players would all bunch up at a bottleneck and toast anyone who came too close. Not that this is a bad thing, but it's far flung from the dynamic, PvE/PvP mixed battlefields I was expecting. I also felt the RvR areas were a bit small, but that's probably because they were in the early game and the zones were focused more on PvE questing. I'm sure they get bigger towards the upper tiers.

Community
The community is not bad so far, but it's very very quiet. I've seen the usual "it's still in beta so your opinion doesn't matter" trolls, people who steal kills, people who get upset because they can't solo PQs or whatever. I've also had random strangers save my life, random strangers answer cryptic questions with detailed answers, random strangers offer to give away loot that's not for their class. Overall I'd say it's pretty balanced, and a little better than you'd expect from any MMO.

PvE and Questing
The PvE element is, to be totally honest, a complete joke IMO. I would frequently have to turn off my auras (Chosen are like reverse Paladins) to avoid aggroing every mob in the area, including non-hostile mobs and even level 1 critters. Even if I did aggro them all, I had no problems soloing 5-6 mobs at a time, as long as they weren't Champions (WAR equivalent of 'Elite'). NPC damage is a joke.

I would often have mobs run away for no reason, even before I had done any damage. At first I thought maybe this was part of the AI, but as I played on it became obvious that even mobs who shouldn't run away (such as Champion mobs) were still tucking tail and running. I can only assume it's a bug.

I think people are expecting to be able to level from RvR alone, and I can tell you now that doing so would be painful. It would take easily 3-4 times as long to do it that way. The quests give HUGE amounts of experience, and you simply can't compete with that in RvR. Also, the gear that you can buy once you've reached a certain Renown Rank also requires a PvE Rank, usually higher than the Renown Rank. This means you'll have to do a lot of PvE questing/grinding to get where you need to be.

Money
That brings us to the money issue. Even playing as far as I did, saving every bit of money I could, gathering skills and all included, not to mention all the extra grinding I did just to farm money, I was still able to buy only 4 of the 12 pieces of the Dominion set. There were times where I struggled to be able to afford even my basic class spells. Needless to say, prices on gear and spells are too high, or money drops are too low.

Crashes
As was mentioned several times before, I believe, crashing is a serious issue right now with the game. My own client crashed roughly every 30 mins, and it seemed to get much much worse when I tried to do RvR. Often after a crash I would lose levels or quest credit, and I'd have to do it again. I thought maybe it was my system causing it to crash, but after doing a little research I found hundreds of posts and dozens of comments in game from all kinds of people who were having the same issue. It seems to be totally random, and a problem with the client rather than with our systems.

Collision Detection
In my experience, the collision detection didn't work properly either. Sometimes I would get hung up on small objects (like a brick in the road) and other times my character would teleport on top of objects that he clearly couldn't climb (like trees or lamp posts). Player collision was sketchy at best, and worked roughly half the time. It was also frustrating being a tank and getting blocked in by my own team mates. I think collision detection would have worked better if it didn't apply to people of your own faction.

Conclusion
I won't tell you not to play this game, because I do have a sincere respect for what they were trying to do. I think, though, that they shaved it a little too close to the WoW cookie-cutter and focused a little too much on the aesthetic decoration. Maybe the game will be better closer to release, but I doubt it. With about 3 weeks to go, "it's only beta" doesn't really hold water anymore. All we can do is wait and see.

EDIT: I tried to break it up a bit so it's not such a wall-o'-text. I hope it helped.

EDIT 2: Added a few points that I forgot, and a notice at the top. Please stop sending me PMs to beg for my account!

All i can say is play it later in levels, but to each their won. This game is a gem to me. Bottom line is not everyone likes the same things. Now back to preview weekend.

maybe the game is just not for you.

or maybe you shouldent beta test games :p you expect to mush from a beta.

hopefully they will fix all this by release......lets hope that they dont do what aoc did....

Keep it on topic people.

Thanks.

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Originally posted by SgtFrog
maybe the game is just not for you.

or maybe you shouldent beta test games :p you expect to mush from a beta.

hopefully they will fix all this by release......lets hope that they dont do what aoc did....

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To be fair, I expected bugs and issues, and ultimately they aren't what made me stop playing. I just didn't expect them to be so serious. I am honestly disappointed, I really wanted to like this game, and I was hoping it would turn out great so I'd have something to do. Now I'm back to the drawing board, so to speak.

PM sent.

Thx for an excellent review OP, you give an un-bias review and that is what i am looking for, there are so many people here that talk so good of Warhammer they forget all the 'realistic' stuff about the game and other potential players interest.

Yeah thanks for the honest review. Looks like if Mythic doesn't fix things in time then 2008 will be a complete bust for mmo games.

As far as money goes,the auction house hasn't been put in yet.So there is another money maker that will help when it is introduced.

Don't forget this is game is still in beta.