Last week I started a WAR account. I played the trial for a day and decided to sub for a month to see what the game offers.  First let me state I have played MMORPG's since the late 90ies. I know the good and the bad. I loved Mythic's Dark Age of Camelot. I played that total for about 3 years. I have played WOW for 4 years. So I have both a feel for game play and mechanics.

So here is my review.

Starting out I decided my first character would be a caster with a pet. I went with a Magus. Warhammer has a very good tutorial to get me started. I did my quest's. The game from the start makes you feel you are really in a war. I like that concept! As I was progressing I had a taste of a (PQ) Player Quest. Talk about a cool concept. A quest which requires multiple players grouped or not to work together to win it! As I was leveling I did the PQs I could do a couple of times each. I received some very good magic items. Was very happy! I decided to subscribe!

The game play of my character was very fluid and solid. From reading the boards here I expected to see lag and multiple bugs. I did not see any. My character was designed well for its purpose. I love my abilities and my pet!

After leveling a bit I noticed something. This game was a bit intimidating. I realized that at level 7 I was just scratching the surface of this game. This game has much to offer. The scary thought, I was only in the first tier! In this game there are 4 tiers. Around level 7 I decided to see what the pvp was like. Since I found out you can only stay in tier 1 til level 12 I figured it was a good time to start.

I traveled to Ravens Edge. I joined a RVR  war band. The grouping system for WAR is awesome! Easy to do and one of the best group systems I have seen in any game! I picked up the pvp quests and traveled on. The War band I was with decided to hit the docks! There was a small party of Order there. We vanquished them efficiently. Our War band was a good size and the Order there consisted of perhaps 6 players. After finishing that battle object (Finishing a quest) we moved on to a town under siege. Talk about a surprise! We arrived only to meet up with a large Order war band. That was a tough battle! We fought there for almost a hour! I died once! Came back only to see everyone engaged. We finally pushed the Order off that town. Although it was short lived. They eventually pushed us back.

I RVRed for about 3 hours. I actually leveled while doing this as I completed many of the pvp quests that are repeatable. After RVRing I decided to give a scenario pvp event a shot. So I qued for all of them. I finally had Nordenwatch pop up. I joined it and found out  our objectives.  I had a quest for Nordenwatch. It was fun! But still got our hiney handed to us. Order was on a roll in that scenario. I fear the Lions! I played a few more of the scenarios, of which all were very fun! won some, lost some! What RVR and pvp is all about. I spent the rest of my leveling doing RVR and Scenarios. At level 11 with a healer at my side I was a fearful sight to the Order that came at me! My hands glowed with wicked demonic energy and my blasts were surely felt by enemy players.  I finally reached 12, capped out! Ran to the RVR area for T1 only to get converted into a chicken! Was very funny!

My start of Tier 2. Talk about surprised! I traveled to Ostland first. Grabbed all the quests I could and went to go complete them! Now the difference between tier 1 and 2 is the safe zones. In tier 1 most questing areas were free of enemy players. From T2 on that is not the case. When you quest you are doing so at your own risk. I learned the hard way of course! Got rolled by a couple of war bands doing castle sieges in the area I was at. I learned it was a good idea to go to a area in T2 where there is not much activity if you are questing. T2 is almost double the size of the T1 zones. Man do you know it! After completing a few quests I decided to see what T2 RVR is about. All I can say is WOW! Kick butt pvp AWESOMENESS. I hooked up with a war band that was mid size. We traveled around seiging castles and objectives while taking on smaller Order WBs. We knew a big Order War Band was out there. We avoided them as much as possible. Later we fought them and won. Thank the GODS for Castle Walls! Was very enjoyable! Most fun I have had in easily over a year!

If you are a griefer or ganker who played WOW only to go grief low level players this game is not for you. You will get rolled so many times you may revert to your console gaming! If you solo you do so at tier 2 or higher at your own risk. I recommend going back to WOW if you are one of those. Only REAL PVP is in this game!

After my experience with WAR I believe ill be hooked for a long while. Enjoy my new guild! I recommend this game for anyone who enjoys both pvp and pve in a game!

The Pros:

This games has very well thought of and balanced classes. They all have strong points and weak points. The Classes are very unique!

The game from what I have seen is very bug free!

WAR has the best pvp in a MMORPG that I have seen since Dark Age of Camelot.

This game offers alot of everything! I cannot tell you how many different things there are to do in this game. Did not even touch crafting!

The game is fun from the very beginning.

The WAR community is a very good community. They have been very helpful. Even has a "ADVICE" channel.

This game is very in-depth. I have not seen a single player who has been able to complete everything this game offers.

The graphics are very good as well.

This game has the most unique game mechanics I have seen in a long time!

Cons:

If you like solo pvp this game is not for you! While a opportunity may arise it is very infrequent. You will most likely get rolled over and over again.

This game is very very big! While feeling the AWE of its vastness you get a sense of loneliness from t2 on if you do not know the game mechanics and are still a noob. Took me a few minutes to figure it out.

The sporadic gold seller in general chat! Just annoying! But not very frequent!

T2 and above questing can be a chore if you are in a highly contested zone.

The options and complexity of War while inspiring can give you moments of frustration til you figure it out.

I rate this game 4 out of 5 stars. For MMORPG ratings I would give it a 9 out of 10. This game is well worth playing and paying for a subscription. If you are a fan of pvp and pve this game is for you! I HOPE TO SEE YOU IN WAR!

yeah war is a good game , if u don t play 10 hours a day , in a bomb group like i did on release.

just chill and play your way , if u power play u will see u hit rr80 in a couple months

Seriously? This game is practically dead at this point, except for the people playing the free Tier 1 trial, and NOW you're going to write a glowing review as if it were the best game of all time? Most people who wanted to play this game already have at this point and know exactly what a dull experience it becomes in Tiers 3 and 4.

1 - PQ stands for "Public Quest". Yes, they are one of the best features of the game. Many are very well done and fun. Other games are now starting to add similar designs to their systems. Which is a good thing.

2 - There certainly are bugs. Perhaps you were playing with your eyes closed?

3 - T1 Scenarios and the open RvR in Nordland is as good as the game gets. I don't mean that in a good way.

4 - PvE quest areas are not PvP-enabled. You can quest safely as long as you do not flag yourself for PvP.

The bugs are few and far between now. RVR has picked up alot, quite a few new players joining. Honestly the game is good but still needs some things added, like relics or something more DAOC like to make it a very good game.

90% of players wont go back to their previous mmo thats why they only get 1 shot at making it successful.

Not to crush this review but it mainly consisted of T1 experiences and its well known that T1 is by far the best part of the game.

Originally posted by goreesha

Seriously? This game is practically dead at this point, except for the people playing the free Tier 1 trial, and NOW you're going to write a glowing review as if it were the best game of all time? Most people who wanted to play this game already have at this point and know exactly what a dull experience it becomes in Tiers 3 and 4.

I don't play US servers but the EU servers, Norn and Azgal, are very active. It seems far from dead.

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

1 - PQ stands for "Public Quest". Yes, they are one of the best features of the game. Many are very well done and fun. Other games are now starting to add similar designs to their systems. Which is a good thing.

2 - There certainly are bugs. Perhaps you were playing with your eyes closed?

3 - T1 Scenarios and the open RvR in Nordland is as good as the game gets. I don't mean that in a good way.

4 - PvE quest areas are not PvP-enabled. You can quest safely as long as you do not flag yourself for PvP.

4 - Unless he's playing on an RvR realm. (realm vs realm realm? huh?). PvP realm. there.

Well. Let's just say this is one of the most positive reviews I've seen of the game since ... well.. it's release.

Good you're enjoying it, hope it lasts ^^

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

1 - PQ stands for "Public Quest". Yes, they are one of the best features of the game. Many are very well done and fun. Other games are now starting to add similar designs to their systems. Which is a good thing.

2 - There certainly are bugs. Perhaps you were playing with your eyes closed?

3 - T1 Scenarios and the open RvR in Nordland is as good as the game gets. I don't mean that in a good way.

4 - PvE quest areas are not PvP-enabled. You can quest safely as long as you do not flag yourself for PvP.

Pretty much sums it up, WAR's biggest problems comes when you reach T3 and T4, in T3 (actually starts in T2) you get to see the realm imbalance in RvR so unless you are running with 1-2 full warbands, there's no point in going to the RvR lake, and in T3 there's only 1 prominent scenario which is the lava one, as fun as it it, it gets old fast. And T4 (end game) is pretty boring, not to mention that's when you start seeing the blatant cheaters that never get banned ( we had this one cheater in Badlands that for over a year he got appealed and all the CSR's did was change his name).

I don't know what Mythic did right in DAoC's RvR, but they failed to copy it and "enhance" it in WAR, DAoC's as aged as it is, it's still graphically appealing and more fun than WAR.

Originally posted by BizkitNL

4 - Unless he's playing on an RvR realm. (realm vs realm realm? huh?). PvP realm. there.

Pretty sure they are all closed now.

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

Originally posted by BizkitNL

4 - Unless he's playing on an RvR realm. (realm vs realm realm? huh?). PvP realm. there.

Pretty sure they are all closed now.

Maybe the EU, but yeah the US ORvR servers were closed down with the 93% of the servers they shut down :)

if u like t1 u will like the next tiers too.

but if u power grind your realm ranks on lvl 40 then u will not enjoy this game.

remember back in your good old daoc days , where u playing 10 hours every day ?

not really , i was in one of the best bomb groups on my server ( eu/de ) and we only logged in 2 hours a day played a bit had fun and everything was nice.

but now days its wow and other soft mmos have changed your mind.

u want to win u want the best items and u want it fast.

so u will never have fun with any game what comes out in the next 10 years..

if u play war like daoc, log in every second day for some hours to meet with your group and pwn some other groups u WILL have fun!!!!