Warhammer Online is one of the small handful of games that continues to make steady progress throughout the years of its life despite a less than stellar launch. MMORPG.com's Som Pourfarzaneh gives a nod to that fact and has our latest re-review of WAR. Check out what Som discovered about WAR and then let us know what you think in the comments.

As we mentioned in our Review and Re-Review, WAR didn’t have the best launch and experienced a mass exodus of players that resulted in several server merges, a streamlining of starter areas, and the general feeling that very few people are playing the game outside of the free trial area. Mythic has done excellently in responding to player feedback about the structure of the game’s World PvP, known as Open Realm vs. Realm (ORvR), added a bunch of new content, and made the Tier 1 starting area an endless free trial, doing a pretty bang-up job in trying to keep the existing population happy and bring in new players.

Read more of Som Pourfarzaneh's Warhammer Online: Come for PvP, Stay for WAAAGH!.

Perfect example of "too little, too late"

This game had tons of wasted potential...

I can summarise the important points here:

Pros: Endless free trial that caps at end of Tier1 (level 15) 

Cons: Small player base outside Tier 1

In conclusion, as long as you don't mind a slight limitation in content, play it for free and enjoy nearly constant Tier 1 rvr. Win win. To be honest, I never enjoyed the transition into Tier 2 anyway since everyone and his grandmother gets knockbacks which makes combat a fairly frustrating affair being bounced about the place every time you try to cast a heal.

WAR would do much better under freemium due to the lack of playerbase outside of tier 1 or max level. It seems Mythic is afraid of the freemium model and it's literally impossible to ask players that want new characters to pay to play a game that is 75% deserted. At least freemium would add players to the game and make ORVR more interesting.

Personaly  I loved the nedless free trail i had a blast while playing it and loved the look and the feel to the game what kill me was there is not many players. I think if this game went free to play like AOC did it would be great or if they made there sub like 9.99 instead of 14.99 . I think that would help alot to

The game stinks, end of story.

Warhammer is the best MMORPG ive been played.  This game isn't for those fanboys from WoW. Really, I tried WoW but it so retarded. For those who love PvP, never will forget the adrenaline seeing the timer going down when you get in a pvp lake.

I miss War so much, and I hope to get back to this game next year :)

Meh... I'l keep an eye on it to see if it will get any love at all once Heroes is out and running.

My personal bet is not a chance in hell but who knows maybe they can pull this mess together and punt out a GOOD expansion (looking at games like WoW and City of Heroes here) instead of the ten penny stuff that have come out so far.

Also... Woodelves please =P

Overly harsh?  o.0

Pretty far from it.  In fact I'd characterize this re-re-review as overly charitable if anything.  WAR has languished for months (if not years) with minimal updates - most of which consisted of removing content rather than adding it (streamlining is the buzzword du jour).

While what you say about the Tome of Knowledge, the PvE and so on is true at the core, it's irrelevant as the PvE areas are deserted the vast majority of the time.  Because of the aforementioned lack of attention - PvP is the only thing that matters in the game, which means anyone that is leveling an alt avoids PvE like the plague.  Reason being, if you gain character levels faster than you gain renown rank (the PvP experience point ladder) you'll wind up in Tier 4 vastly underpowered compared to what you can do if you maximize your renown rank ahead of your character level.

So, you're left with half a game that demands a premium subscription rate.  Half a game that receives very very few updates relative to other games that command a similar price.  That alone would be enough to downgrade the rating from what has been given here.

If EA ever decided to devote a reasonable amount of development resources to the game again (i.e. post SWTOR launch) and try a more inventive subscription plan (freemium or something new) it might be worth rating WAR higher - but as it stands this is a game with a lot of potential that needs to receive a failing grade for implementation.

still not freemium?. Still not playing!.

I loved this game when it first came out, tier 1 was a blast.  Then I hit tier 2 and the fun just stopped.  I hung on for a long time just making new chars and having fun in pvp until level 19.  I went back a while ago and the open world events are deserted so you cant really do them anymore.  This is a game that was built around group play and sadly, the sub base just is not there to support group play anymore.

WAR was very fun up until end game, then there wasn't really much to do. But up to T4 was probably some of the most fun, if not THE most fun I've had in an MMO. But as said, the game really only strives on having an active community. But sadly, the community just isn't there anymore and I don't see that changing unless they go F2P.

I don't think WoH will breath new life into WAR while it still has a subscription fee. Especially when people will soon be able play a game like GW2 without a sub fee which will have a lot of the features (and vastly improved upon I might add) that WAR totes. Namely dynamic events and WvWvW PvP.

I never noticed that much in terms of change with this game...it feels about like it did three years ago.

I wanted this game to succeed but did not expect it with only 2 factions. They might have accomplished improvements but not worth my money when I quit during PvP where I could not see anything from the lag and finally catch up to be losing health rapidly being in middle of enemy army or already dead. It was funny to a degree but so many were having the issue because so many of us that it just ended all my desire to play. 

Hope it finds enough people to continue but would much rather see a DAoC 2 released.

It's a shame about WAR. This game really, really, really needs to go Freemium. I think this is a good re-review, but the game's continuing problem is its lack of a population after Tier 1. EA and Mythic are making a big mistake in keeping it at the $14.99/mth pay scheme. I would gladly go back if it went Freemium. I had a lot of fun with it for several months after its launch.. specially with the PVP and the Siege Captures.. but once you hit Tier 2 is Dead-City! Empty landscapes and what have you. EA and Mythic really need to think outside the box and come up with a good F2P strategy to bring back customers or this one will be unplugged soon.

Make it $19.99 to unlock tiers 2 and 3 f2p, then charge $4.99/month for tier 4.  Continue selling cosmetics, pets, mounts, etc at the origin store, and create adventure packs all aimed at tier 4 priced $7.99 every 4-5 months= profit

Originally posted by jakin

Overly harsh?  o.0

Pretty far from it.  In fact I'd characterize this re-re-review as overly charitable if anything.  WAR has languished for months (if not years) with minimal updates - most of which consisted of removing content rather than adding it (streamlining is the buzzword du jour).

While what you say about the Tome of Knowledge, the PvE and so on is true at the core, it's irrelevant as the PvE areas are deserted the vast majority of the time.  Because of the aforementioned lack of attention - PvP is the only thing that matters in the game, which means anyone that is leveling an alt avoids PvE like the plague.  Reason being, if you gain character levels faster than you gain renown rank (the PvP experience point ladder) you'll wind up in Tier 4 vastly underpowered compared to what you can do if you maximize your renown rank ahead of your character level.

So, you're left with half a game that demands a premium subscription rate.  Half a game that receives very very few updates relative to other games that command a similar price.  That alone would be enough to downgrade the rating from what has been given here.

If EA ever decided to devote a reasonable amount of development resources to the game again (i.e. post SWTOR launch) and try a more inventive subscription plan (freemium or something new) it might be worth rating WAR higher - but as it stands this is a game with a lot of potential that needs to receive a failing grade for implementation.

I agree.  I enjoyed this game quite a bit for about a year.  It had its problems, but it also did quite a few things really well.

It became apparent that EA/Bioware/Mythic were not going to support WAR as a AAA game, allowing it to languish in maintenance mode now for years.  If they were to really make an effort and spend some money on real development, making some necessary changes and a whole lot of additions, it could be at least a moderately successful game.  As it is now, it is simply languishing until eventually they'll pull the plug.  What a waste.

war is ok!! and by no means fantastic or great, it could be though!! all they need to do is reign back on the rvr and start working more on the pve aspect of the game, maybe even make the pve side to the game slightly sand box, allow guilds to construct keeps of their own in pve territory and introduce resources and crafting into the game.

as it stands war is to put it simple! pvp onle. the pve content is utterly pointless as it is. the loot is not useful in any way, and the quests are so lonely due to the poor rewards that no one really does the pve aspect of the game,  war is also a giant linear gear grind. every one races and grinding renown rank to unlock that all important next set of armour to make them a little more effective in pvp.

sure the rvr side of the game is probably the best pvp out there on the market todate, but its destroying other aspects of warhammer online which could potentially make the game a great game.  i think mythic are missing the boat here.

its ok but it could be oh so much better, they could even take more of the warhammer world and introduce it into the game and have scale and scope unrivaled by any other game.

i stopped playing because its just pvp. and pvp is only entertaining for a few weeks a month at best. take a break come back a few months later have another month of pvp get bored play something else.

if they fix that vicious little circle the game will be great.

Originally posted by bumuscheekus

I can summarise the important points here:

 

Pros: Endless free trial that caps at end of Tier1 (level 15) 

 

Cons: Small player base outside Tier 1

 

In conclusion, as long as you don't mind a slight limitation in content, play it for free and enjoy nearly constant Tier 1 rvr. Win win. To be honest, I never enjoyed the transition into Tier 2 anyway since everyone and his grandmother gets knockbacks which makes combat a fairly frustrating affair being bounced about the place every time you try to cast a heal.

I got capped exp wise at Level 10, but I can finish T1 though.

I do love the Waaagh