Hi all, I was a closed beta tester, for the Oceanic servers, and we could only access the first two tiers I think, worth of stuff. During the 2 weeks or so before closed beta ended, i tried most of the character classes to at least levels 5-6 and my favorite ones to about level 13, which was my highest i think. You can get Mounts at level 20 but wasn't avail in Closed Beta. I played from like 6pm till midnight each night, had work in morning.

PVP gear is awesome, and I managed to have a full set straight off by level 10, here's what i did:

First off u can go into pvp arenas: scenarios even as soon as u enter the game 1st time.

I made a Maurader, which so far has been one of my fave to play, great solo class with high DPS.

Brutality FTW 

There's a mini map at top right of your screen, and at about the 10 o clock area on the mini map there's a small round icon about 2-3mm which when clicked on gives you the option to join a scenario. Join as solo then you can either go do your first quest or just wait till you get a message pop up on the screen which asks if you are ready to join. You get a few choices: join, gimmie 30 secs or don't.

Once you join a scenario, your level and stats get adjusted to about level 8 I think, for the duration of the scenarios then back to normal when you exit. So even as a noob you still can kill enemy players. while running round in the scenario which is basically capture and hold flags till one side reaches 0 or 500 first, i forgot whether it counts down to 0 from 500 or goes up to 500 from 0. either way, every kill someone on your side makes when you are near, you gain renown points (purple bar under your toons name.) You get points when you kill as well of course. If your side wins the scenario it gets like 1000 renown points and exp.

You also get exp as well as renown points so your gain levels in PVP - YAY .

At the end of the scenario you get kicked back into the main world where u last were (not good if you were already almost surrounded by several high level mobs b4 u went in)

So i got to like lvl 6 with about level 5 renown b4 i even started moving in the main world and accepted my start quest.

WARNING:

The first ranks of pvp are levels 1-11 if you reach level 12 and try to join you get turned into a chicken, and get kicked out of the pvp area. You have like 1hp all you can do is flap around or jump onto buildings until you suicide off a cliff to kill yourself so you can restart in your last save location.

EXTRA WARNING:

Dont be tempted to buy new armors when you get to the 1st town that has a weapon and armor vendor

and a nearby PVP quest. (You are about level 8 ish by then unless you ran ahead too early) Much better to save your funds until lvl 10) and get the Sweet PVP gear

MAKING MONEY:

Easiest way I found to make lots of money fast in the closed beta was Butchering. Basically they only had one trade skill available to try during the beta which was apothecary. you could get a second trade skill which helped the first (scavenging corpses, Butchering and last was gathering herbs i think, cant rem)

I don't know if scavenging or gathering would make cash faster, i didn't try those.

I chose butchering, never made a single potion or tried to as closed beta was limited time and I wanted cash for loot and Dying my armor and PVP gear of course. So after a few levels of PVP , once you reached level 5, you can learn the skills. Then i did grinding on wolves etc and other furry critters and butchered each carcass then sold everything, only returning to a town when I had full bags.bags you seen to get free at higher levels. 3 at level 10 if i rem correctly.(inventory space).

YOUR GOAL:

Achieve lvl 10 with rank 7 renown and about 1 gold and 50 silver, which should be enough to buy a full set of Tier 2 Armor, a Tier 2 Weapon, and 4 rings and an amulet and a cape. then you are a twink in Tier 1 arena till you reach lvl 12. My T2 armors looked way cool and had like 100+ def when most others are in like 20-60 def armors, my T2 Axe had tons DPS and like +19 str, i had 4 rings with +11 str and similar amulet. - Pwnage Used my left over cash to Dye my new gear and Cape at a General merchant in any town.

WHERE TO BUY PVP GEAR:

Ok this part is the easiest... almost. Depending whether you go order or destruction makes a diff to where you start in the world, basically you can open your main map(+ on mini map then world map i think) or try pressing M. scroll through nearby areas till you find a keep. Here's the kicker, your side has to first capture the keep before you can go buy your PVP gear (there may be other places to buy but i didn't find any).

Just run through several maps till you get to the keep. If your side already has possession of it you are home and hosed. Run up to the top level past the Keep Lord to the roof where you will find the nice NPC PVP weapons and armor vendors. As long as you have rank 7 renown and level 10 and enough cash buy up large.

Make sure you get weapons with the lowest numbers for weapon speed eg: 2.0 is better than 3.5.

BAD PART: If your side doesn't hold the keep you then have to organize like 20+ much higher level people in like the lvl 20+ range to go siege and take over the keep, killing the keep lord in the process.

In my Opinion: Siege warfare is Friggin Awesome in this game, Im ditching my WOW acct to swap for good to War upon release, already got my pre-order collectors edition.

In your side town near the Keep you can buy from the siege vendors: siege weapons like:

Mountable ballistas ( Big as Crossbows with sniper mode for shooting enemy defenses or fools standing on the keep roof in full view)

Trebuches: Giant catapults for smashing stuff in front.

Battering Ram: for knocking down their main gate prior to storming inside and wrecking carnage on the defenders hapless fools inside

Enemy defenders can even poor boiling oil down on those below at the gate and can shoot arrows and fireballs etc if ranged or mage classes from the parapets at the attackers storming up the hill to the keep gate.

There's several locations or circles on the ground where attackers can deploy bought siege weapons to assist with attacking. Likewise defenders can deploy mounted siege gear on the roof to defend.

If you dont have your PVP gear yet don't buy siege gear, they cost like 20 silver + to buy each, wait till you got your Tier 2 gear first.

Siege Battle as a Tank: i had a level 13 Chaos Warrior with full T2 PVP gear, rings n amulets.

Destruction had the Keep in Troll Mountains i think the area was called. Order had like 30-40 players starting to deploy and attack as i got there, I got ganked trying to rush into the keep to help defend when i tried to run in the front. @nd try i went round the back and ran round the sides and made it into the keep. Went up to the roof for a quick survey of the attackers then ran back to help defend the inside of the gate. About 20 Destruction players held off like twice as many order for over half an hour till i got DC'ed then i tried a new char when i got back on.

Chaos Tank has a skill called: Hold the line. this puts up your shield and u lean your shoulder into it, friendly nearby toons get bonuses to def etc while staying behind you. Me and 3 other tanks blocked the inside of the keep gate and when the attackers broke it down with their battering ram, we all "Held the Line"

None of us were in a guild at this stage but most seemed to all know their roles perfectly, so im guessing most were veteran gamers like myself ( Im 39yrs old and been gaming since i was like 5yrs old - pong, space invaders arcade etc) or all experienced guildies from other games.

Healers and mages were behind us, and they kept us tanks alive for repeated attempts to get in the door while the mages peeled them back safely from our cover then we chased em all back down the hill a few times then retreated back inside the door to get healed then defend all over again. From memory they breached the foyer of the keep twice but never even made it past us to the first flight of stairs to the next level.

Definatly the most fun i have ever had in any PVP type action in any game and I play crap loads in over 30yrs believe me. All this and i was only level 13, imaging high level sieges..... WOOT

I also had a go attacking when order was defending, equally awesome fun, i was a level 11 marauder with a ballista siege weapon deployed at the base of the keep hill. When you enter sniper mode your character stands motionless next to the ballista, but u only see the cross hairs and front of the bow. I was happily shoot at peeps on the top on the keep until i noticed a large bunch of order guys running towards my Ballista through the scope...

Died soon afterwards. But it was funny as watching the destruction lvl 8-10 nubs running round in front of the keep like headless chickens  while the experienced players were doin the Business.

SUMMARY: Sign up for the open beta which starts in two days if there's any spots left, after open beta, i'll be very surprised if you all don't stop subscribing to every other online game your playing and tell your boss your going in for open heart surgery and need several months off work so you can play on sept the 18th and

JOIN THE WAR............ OMFG I cant wait.

ps: (no im not an employee of the makers of war) just a very excited veteran gamer.

quality info, me wubs you!

You have the best of intentions, but many of the things you wrote about have changed.

Sorry I can't be more specific.

Yes im sure that some things will change since closed beta, this is just a rough description of my limited experiences so far that i managed to see during closed beta, feel free to up date this info to help those about to start in open beta, which is my main intention.

Originally posted by kingtofu

Yes im sure that some things will change since closed beta, this is just a rough description of my limited experiences so far that i managed to see during closed beta, feel free to up date this info to help those about to start in open beta, which is my main intention.

I would love to, but that info is still under NDA.

On the plus side it will be free of that very soon.

oh blimmin heck i forgot about NDA, i hope i didn't mention anything i wasnt supposed to???

I don't think i have because im sure i've seen most of what i mentioned in bit n pieces on other sites and wiki's

Originally posted by kingtofu

oh blimmin heck i forgot about NDA, i hope i didn't mention anything i wasnt supposed to???

Nope, everything before and during the Preview Weekend is fair game, post what you like about that. :)

OMG Thank Frig for that, was having mild heart seisure there for a moment 

Originally posted by kingtofu

OMG Thank Frig for that, was having mild heart seisure there for a moment 

hahaha

You're all good.

Cheers for the heads up, why don't you post your experiences that are safe to post to help the people planning on trying open beta as well?

Anyone else that was in closed or has tried war please post your thoughts and experiences to help those about to start open beta, thanks

Thank for sharing your experience. I am happy to see positive feedback for this game for it is the most anticipated game for me, personally. However I am very dissapointed by the drop content, namely the capitol cities and tank classes. Doh, how are Dark Elves supposed to play a racial PvP without a tank?...

I find it interesting there is still an NDA during open beta....

drop content may improve for the full retail version, remember its still in beta so there will be changes made before during and after launch most likely.

i did also play dark elf Disciple of Kane, they are a dps/healer hybrid, also very hard to kill in pvp

the beta is takein me like 300 mins to get in line for the download

Originally posted by kingtofu

Hi all, I was a closed beta tester, for the Oceanic servers, and we could only access the first two tiers I think, worth of stuff. ... You can get Mounts at level 20 but wasn't avail in Closed Beta.

...Basically they only had one trade skill available to try during the beta which was apothecary. 

... Im ditching my WOW acct to swap for good to War upon release, already got my pre-order collectors edition.

...

 Im 39yrs old and been gaming since i was like 5yrs old - pong, space invaders arcade etc...

JOIN THE WAR............ OMFG I cant wait.

ps: (no im not an employee of the makers of war) just a very excited veteran gamer.

 

Thanks - a lot of good info there - but I quoted a couple of bits that caught my attention.

You pre-ordered?  But you say that much of the higher level content was in-accessible?
(Mounts, Tier 3 and only one trade skill?)

Now, call me a cynic - I know I am - but has Age of Conan taught the MMO Community nothing?
In your case, you have been around long enough to see all the MMO disasters?

Don't get me wrong - I played a little bit of the WAR Beta too (didn't get as far as you) and I liked much of what I saw) but there is no way I would pre-order any MMO ever.

Wait a month is my advice.  See how it goes live.  It will still be there.  I will probably sub up at some point myself - but not until I see things settle down a bit - the fanboi reviews are out of the way and the real players have had a bit of time to poke it with their pointy sticks.
 

Good points you made, however i tend to usually pre-order the big name MMO's and normally get a collectors edition. Even if a title flops later, which in this case i very much doubt it will, collectors editions and pre-orders give bonus in game items etc and tend to hold a bit more resale value if i decide to give up a game and sell my copy.

Originally posted by kingtofu

drop content may improve for the full retail version, remember its still in beta so there will be changes made before during and after launch most likely.

i did also play dark elf Disciple of Kane, they are a dps/healer hybrid, also very hard to kill in pvp

No offense, but keep in mind this is an RvR game, not PvP.

of the stuff that was inaccessable to us was because the closed beta for oceanic servers were all only the 1st couple of tiers and all 1st time players. Other beta testers in the usa have had access to all game tiers and end game content. This game already has the end game content before full release.

Hope all those starting open beta for the first time love it as much as i have so far

I been playing open beta now for last 2 days and some of the lvl and renown reqs have changed sinced closed beta, seems u cant get tier 2 type good gear till lvl 14 now so u cant really pwn in lvl 1-11 no more, makes it more fair for all