The Most Detailed Review You Can Get After Four Hours (And Six Levels) Of Play

OK, so, I'm an addict. I like trying MMORPGs. I wasn't going to try Warhammer, but the fact that it was approaching release without the usual weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth from beta testers about how it "Totally suxx0rz!" got my attention, and, with fear and trepidation, I sank money into it and bought it.

Anyone who was expecting a Revolution In Online Games will be disappointed. It's pretty much the same formula pioneered in EQ1 and polished/perfected through a half-dozen other games since then (and implemented poorly in two dozen more...). It adds a couple of nice twists and has a great deal of that terrifying word, "potential".

First, while you do not have to engage in PVP -- you can level to max entirely by questing -- the "WAR" part of Warhammer is firmly in place. You can only roll for one side (Order or Destruction) on a given server, though you can have multiple "alts". Each zone is "shared" between the two sides, and depending on who is in control, you may get buffs/benefits, even if you do not participate in the battle. On "core" servers, PVP occurs mostly in scenarios -- mini-game instances. On "open" servers, you can get ganked and teabagged just wandering around. I play on core. :) You can also help your side without PVP by doing quests or participating in Public Quests -- one of WAR's few innovations, which I'll discuss a bit later.

I rolled a High Elf White Lion -- basically, a pet using class, like a WoW Hunter or an EQ Beastmaster, but you only get one pet -- a, guess, lion! My favorite EQ character was Krikkit, a Vah Shir Beastmaster with a tiger, so, there you go. I like "pet" classes. You can't name your lion, though, a bummer. (I have an LOTOR Loremaster with a raven named Quoth.)

And so, I set forth on the inevitable series of "Go ye forthe and bringeth me six spleenes of the weazel!" starter quests. In good old EQ1, to find a quest, you had to engage in actual conversation with NPCs, which tended to go like this:

NPC:Oh, woe, I am hungry.
YOU: Why are you hungry?
NPC: If only I had some yummy weasel spleens, I could have weasel spleen pie.
YOU: What about the weasels?
NPC: I don't understand.
YOU: Do you want weasel spleens?
NPC: If I had some weasel spleens, I could have some pie.
YOU: Just give me the damn quest already!
NPC: I don't understand.

And so on. Sometimes, you wouldn't even know for sure if you'd been flagged for the quest or not, or how many weasel spleens you needed, and so on.

In WoW, they made it simple. People had big glowing punctuation marks over their heads, and you clicked on them, and you ignored the flavor text, and you were told how many weasel spleens to get. But you still, sometimes, had to puzzle out where the weasels WERE, and a little trial and error was needed to get the right KIND of weasel -- for example, it might be that only Grey Weasels dropped the spleens, while Angry Weasels did not. (They'd be for the inevitable sequel quest...)

In WAR, they not only give you the quest, they highlight the part of the map where the weasels live. It would take some doing to not figure out how to solve a quest. (Again, this is based on the earliest stage of the game, when they really want to avoid frustrating players. It might change.)

There's a handful of nice twists. Like LOTRO, you can uncover quests by your actions -- start killing a monster, and a page for that monster appears in your "Tome of Knowledge", along with a few revealed extra quests like "Kill 25 of the buggers". There's also plenty of room for additional unlocked quests, as well as odd hints like "Find a specific item". The Tome is like the one in the LOTRO, but on steroids -- it tracks every NPC you've talked to, every bit of lore you've uncovered, every monster you've killed, every quest you've done, and every igonominious defeat you've suffered. (I earned the title of "Pincushion" for dying 10 times, for example.)

But the biggest innovation in WAR is the idea of "public quests". Basically, it works like this. You wander along, minding your own business, and suddenly you stumble into an area where lots of people are killing lots of things, and you'll be told you're entering a PQ area. These are mini-scenarios in which Things Happen and you Do Something. For example, a bunch of dark elves are emerging from their fortress in waves. You kill X of them, and the second wave comes. You kill THAT, and then the giant hydra emerges. You kill THAT, and then you roll for Phat Lewtz, with a bonus based on your performance -- i.e, the more you contributed to each wave, the better the odds of you getting a decent item. It's still random, though, so the n00b who just wandered in and tripped one elf might get a better item than the guy who slaughtered two dozen of them. The two PQs I've found last about 5-10 minutes and 'reset' after a minute, so, there's an incentive to keep trying for a couple of iterations. These PQs encourage cooperation and meeting other players, the "MM" in MMORPG, and don't reward leechers. The two I've seen have been very straightforward and could be "won" by even 4 or 5 players working together; I'm going to guess there's more difficult higher-level ones.

PVP is important, too. On a whim, I signed up for a "scenario", basically a minigame of "capture the flag". You join a queue, and when there's enough players on both sides, you are teleported into the instance zone. There you run around slaughtering the enemy. Perhaps it's because everyone is low level, or hasn't formed uber-guilds that practice each run over and over, or whatever, but I actually had fun and felt like I was a)contributing, and, b)knew what was going on. The fact that we came, we saw, we kicked their ass, didn't hurt, either. There's no death penalty in PVP beyond a brief "time out", so if you die, you just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, summon your lion, buff your lion (there's a euphemism!), and rush back into the fray. Die, goblin scum! Again, I expect it to get a lot more complex over time, but if your intro to PVP is fun and not frustrating, you're likely to keep playing.

A word on the launch -- it went amazing well. I was able to connect 10 minutes after Zero Hour, the inevitable post-launch patch downloaded in five minutes, and I've only had one system crash in 4 hours of playtime. Trust me, for an MMORPG on release, that's spectacularly successful.

Disappointments? A few. The world, from what I've seen, is pretty small. I like large, expansive worlds with many continents and zones. Crafting is utterly confusing -- I've learned Talisman making and have NO CLUE what the frack to do with the ingredients. Worst of all, given the source of the game, the graphics for items and armor are (at low levels) bland and unvaried. In other games of this ilk, virtually every item has a unique graphic, but I've gone through three axes and two armor upgrades and each item has had the same, boring, image. I do not expect low level items to be the size of 747s and covered with flaming acid lightning, but I'd like to see my quest reward axe be at least a LITTLE different from my starting axe.

Monsters are not especially aggressive or smart. I only died once to monster AI, and that was mostly due to me not paying attention to how many of the buggers I'd trained onto myself. I also died when trying to solo a "Champion" level monster, which is my own stupidity. The classic EQ model where pulling was a major strategic skill is utterly dead. You basically fight as many monsters as you want to fight, no "Overpull!" or "Train to zone!" here.

The game is also...quiet. I've never been in a first-week-of-release game with so little -- make that NO -- chatter on "public" channels. Sure, such channels are usually nothing but an exercise in Chuck Norris jokes, bad grammer, and homophobia, but they also give the feeling of being part of a community, which is the appeal of this genre of games. Warhammer is quiet. Too quiet. There's people playing -- but they're not talking. People hearing without listening. The sound of silence. Or maybe I've got my UI settings screwed up.

So, not the ZOMG Revolution a few people might have been expecting, and, no, not a "WOW Killer" -- but a successful, well-done game which has a lot of room to expand and evolve. 

Solid review that seems to come to a common conclusion of many reviews thus far (my own included). There is a whole stickied thread of Warhammer reviews on the warhammer board. I wager Profred may be able to add yours into the mix

Added to review compilation.  I have been slack lately now that the game is out. 

Also..  very well written review.  I can relate to this really well.

 The game was never meant to be revolutionary.

But It turned out 2 be a solid game that is lots of fun to play with a few nice features that will certainly be copied by the up and coming "Revolutionary" MMO's.

Nice review, balanced and pretty accurate.

I recently quit WoW for WAR..very nice review it has given me quit a bit of info i needed befor i go out and buy the game (witch i was goin to do today)

Anyways im looking forward to anymore reviews you do.

Originally posted by tylerk194

I recently quit WoW for WAR..very nice review it has given me quit a bit of info i needed befor i go out and buy the game (witch i was goin to do today)

Anyways im looking forward to anymore reviews you do.

Wow.  

"The Most Detailed Review You Can Get After Four Hours (And Six Levels) Of Play"

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, and yes the review is well written but... should you really write a review at all after so little exposure?

Watch the date, this was months ago, someone just resurrected an ancient thread :)

Good review and this game is good for what it was meant to be - not revolutionary, not a WoW KILLER, just a WoW competetor and a fun GAME.

Try /petname. I name my Lion Tiberius. /petname Tiberius

Originally posted by Pheace

Watch the date, this was months ago, someone just resurrected an ancient thread :)

What's the point, a current review would be the same but better

Originally posted by Bruticus_XI

Originally posted by Pheace

Watch the date, this was months ago, someone just resurrected an ancient thread :)

What's the point, a current review would be the same but better

The point was explaining why the review was based on such a short playtime, sorry it ruffled your fanboy feathers apparently 

Originally posted by Pheace

Originally posted by Bruticus_XI

Originally posted by Pheace

Watch the date, this was months ago, someone just resurrected an ancient thread :)

What's the point, a current review would be the same but better

 

The point was explaining why the review was based on such a short playtime, sorry it ruffled your fanboy feathers apparently 

Lol since when does the date have anything to do with how long he played? He says it in the first sentence for all to see...

FWIW, I am still playing actively now, and don't really see anything which needs to be changed in my review. There's still problems -- poor itemization and character individuation, some bugged quests, some framerate issues when you do a fortress capture or have 60+ people in open RVR, and the PVE content is acceptable but not spectacular (though I was really impressed with Mt. Gunbad... huge, fascinating, zones with lots of great detail -- need more like that in the game!). Ultimate upshot is, I'm having fun, and am very close to "Ding 40" on my main -- this may be the first MMORPG to actually hold my interest long enough for me to make max level. (And I've been playing them since Island of Kesmai).

Of course, I'm on a well-populated server and part of a very active guild. That matters a LOT in this game. (And, also, my wife is playing, which always helps.)

Originally posted by Pheace

Watch the date, this was months ago, someone just resurrected an ancient thread :)

Doh!  I knew I hated Necromancers for some reason.

Originally posted by Bruticus_XI

Originally posted by Pheace

Originally posted by Bruticus_XI

Originally posted by Pheace

Watch the date, this was months ago, someone just resurrected an ancient thread :)

What's the point, a current review would be the same but better

 

The point was explaining why the review was based on such a short playtime, sorry it ruffled your fanboy feathers apparently 

Lol since when does the date have anything to do with how long he played? He says it in the first sentence for all to see...

Clearly Dterry is above you on the comprehension scale.