MMORPG.com's Jon Wood has been playing the Closed Beta for Mythic Entertainment's Warhammer Online and today shares his impressions of the early game from the perspective of the Chaos and Empire realms.

Well, the time is upon us and it seems as though that pesky NDA has been lifted. While my time in WAR has been short due to other commitments and circumstances beyond my control, I do have some observations about the game and the functions that I have experienced thus far:

While I have to be honest and say that I haven’t really had a chance to do any extensive testing, but I have dipped my feet into the world enough that I can offer some initial insights to those of you out there who may not have had the opportunity to get your hands on it.

First of all, I’m going to take a minute to talk about the art style of the game. There are critics out there who say that Warhammer looks like WoW. While the stylistic concepts may share some elements, the reality of the visual gameplay is quite different. WoW, in maintaining the look of previous incarnations of the franchise, is a more animated-looking take on the visual design whereas Warhammer take a grittier, more realistic-looking approach.

Check out the article here.

You forgot a linky in your post to read the rest Jon! :)

Edit: NM...ya fixed it!

though the interview wasn't so interesting, i think too that the Concepts behind WAR are awesome; the problem imho was the lack of time, and therefore the humongus size of ideas couldn't fit in the game

i will give a deep shot to this product, but i think the game needs 5 months at least ( hoping for no Funcom style ) to be competitive

i think anyway WAR will score 1 Mil+ sells on release; let's see =P

I don't think it needs 5 months. They are working on it and fixing some of the lag issue already. Also, I suspect theres a big 'ole patch waiting on the 'special' test servers that will be implemented just before RTM. *shrug* Aside from some cosmetic issues (and yes there are a couple actual 'bug' things that need work) I think it's going to go in strong given another month before release.

As a 5+ year DAOC veteran and beta tester....I won't be buying the game in its current state.Stable ..sure...great pve..yep......RVR  a step backwards from DAOC.

Am I disapointed...sure.I think the games at least six months away  from consideration

I applaud your journalistic talent! You sound exactly like me (sorry, more professional, but the idea is the same) – I did not like the game in beta and not going to buy it but did not want to hurt feelings of huge base of Warhammers fan, so I masked the truth talking about small positives I managed to find.

I especially like the part about classes. This sentence “I found that these little differences took what could have been a very formulaic, static combat and made it a little bit more interesting.” Is perfect! I am not sarcastic or anything – you said it all yet you make it look almost attractive. For those who does not know: classes in WH are the same. Yes, the same – not only within the archetype but also in general. And Jon described it perfectly: “The War Priest has to perform in melee combat in order to rejuvenate his healing powers. The Witch Hunter builds power for pistol shots by attacking with his rapier and so on.” Visually, you do the different things, but in reality the only difference is that Priest use one weapon to get his action points and the Witch Hunter – another. And to make it worse you do not get any class-defining abilities. Not at the start, not anytime on the way up in levels. All you will get is many-many-many (really, a lot!) buttons doing the same thing – X damage. If it would be only one button with fast cooldown you would not noticed a difference.

Yes, some of these damage-abilities will have a side effect, like a chance to stun opponent. But this is really just a side effect, nothing more. It makes game-mechanic easy to balance for RvR, but god knows how boring PvE becomes!

Just make no mistake – this game is ALL ABOUT RvR. For that purpose “little differences” mentioned by Jon is all you need. But do not expect any uniqueness or deep immersion in to your class.

PvE is nothing more as grind. You feel its only purpose is to reach level, not to have fun. RvR is just a bunch of ideas, nothing ready to enjoy. WAR will have another unfinished buggy release which seems to be state of the art for current MMOs. I am not even sure the game will survive the first year but perhaps hype alone carries the game to a somehow finished state. Quality an fun will certainly not do the trick.

Well DAoC was a pretty good game when Mythic introduced it, until everyone got to RVR that is.  Then  the veil was removed to show it's flaws.  Flaws that weren't addressed and in some instances enhanced in their future expansions.

So, for me, once burned by Mythic,  you won't find me trying the game this year.  I will wait for the nerf a lot kids to do their dirty work first.

If the reviews keep coming out positive I will probably give it a try next year.

One thing you can be sure of, especially when dealing with Mythic, that the initial reviews will be good, but it will be the follow-up ones that will be the important ones.  The big question will always be, has Mythic learned from all it's mistakes with DAoC.

Originally posted by goemoe

PvE is nothing more as grind. You feel its only purpose is to reach level, not to have fun. RvR is just a bunch of ideas, nothing ready to enjoy. WAR will have another unfinished buggy release which seems to be state of the art for current MMOs. I am not even sure the game will survive the first year but perhaps hype alone carries the game to a somehow finished state. Quality an fun will certainly not do the trick.

Umm... ("Quality an fun will certainly not do the trick.") ??? That's two main things that makes a game, PVE should be a grind that's the point to levels in a game and as far as RvR just being a bunch of ideas... have you played beta? I agree this game needs a couple more months before it should be released but when it does get released on the 18th it won't be no different than most MMO releases it'll need patches, etc...

Originally posted by goemoe

PvE is nothing more as grind. You feel its only purpose is to reach level, not to have fun. RvR is just a bunch of ideas, nothing ready to enjoy. WAR will have another unfinished buggy release which seems to be state of the art for current MMOs. I am not even sure the game will survive the first year but perhaps hype alone carries the game to a somehow finished state. Quality an fun will certainly not do the trick.

I like how you covered your ass by saying the game will have an unfinished buggy release, but perhaps may get finished somehow due to magical powers provided by some MMO god.

You just, just incase you get caught actually enjoying the game a few months down the road and you have something to point to as an excuse.

As for the first impressions, they seemed about right. I hope you get a chance to more thoroughly enjoy the game after its released with more polish though.

any one else notice a fresh influx of haters with less than 20 posts?

ahh you gotta love the release of new games.....great write up as well

I concur.  Sounds like some people just created new accounts to create some anti-buzz.

Yeah, I'm actually a bit surprised by all the sudden hate.  Especially considering how great the game is.  I've been playing for a month now, and this is the most fun I've had since UO and DAoC.

Nice and well written review. Thanks for your incite. For a little constructive criticism, you use the word "honest" or "honestly" in almost every paragraph. It's just a crutch is all. Again, nice job overall.

Yeah I agree with the comments about the new wave of haters. 

I have been playing for about a week or two now and I have had an absolute blast.  There are still a few things I think could be fixed and may very well be .  For example, minor lag issues (which have steadily gotten better over the time that I have been playing) and disconnects from server(also seem to be going down in frequency).  There are other minor issues that I could give voice to but in all honesty none of things will stop me from buying this game at release.  It has plenty of fresh concepts and the game play of the different classes/careers is imo amazing.  

That being said I am eager to see what improvements they manage before release.

Originally posted by miagisan

any one else notice a fresh influx of haters with less than 20 posts?

 

ahh you gotta love the release of new games.....great write up as well

Lot of that going around. I expect all the AOC haters to be moving over soon to warhammer.

I've been playing the CB and honestly, don't let anyone tell you the game is not fun.  My gf and I both got in with the CE invites.  The game is awesome.  It's currently in contention for my personal favortie MMORPG ever.  I've played EQ, DAoC, WoW and various smaller names.  The game is just fun, always.  They took every grind element and either removed it or revamped it to make it not a grind.  If you're into grind, then this won't be fun for you (but the definition of grind means boring and repetative, so I don't know who likes boring).  The PvP is fun, you don't die in two hits, but it's not overly difficult to kill someone.  The PvE is fun, you know where to go and what to do.  The 100% quest mob drop rate speeds the quests up.  There are so many quests you will outlevel areas if you want to do them all (which of course I want to do).  The Tome of Knowledge is a cool added feature (but it really doesn't make or break the game).  The individual character mechanics are the most innovative I have seen so far.  PQs are just awesome, most of them have a ton of people running them all the time (although there are some out of the way PQs that can be pretty dead at times).

Look at it this way, the CE CB servers are hitting max pop regularly.  If the game wasn't fun, people wouldn't keep coming back for more.  That really is the main thing it has going for it.  It's fun, even if it's just for an hour you have to kill.

Originally posted by miagisan

any one else notice a fresh influx of haters with less than 20 posts?

 

ahh you gotta love the release of new games.....great write up as well

haters?

because they might have a different opinion than yours?

that's novel - haven't seen that before

Originally posted by gatheris

Originally posted by miagisan

any one else notice a fresh influx of haters with less than 20 posts?

 

ahh you gotta love the release of new games.....great write up as well

 

haters?

because they might have a different opinion than yours?

that's novel - haven't seen that before

 

lol...reread it again. I didn't say it was bad...just noting how they come out of the woodwork for every mmo release

Originally posted by miagisan

Originally posted by gatheris

Originally posted by miagisan

any one else notice a fresh influx of haters with less than 20 posts?

 

ahh you gotta love the release of new games.....great write up as well

 

haters?

because they might have a different opinion than yours?

that's novel - haven't seen that before

 

 

lol...reread it again. I didn't say it was bad...just noting how they come out of the woodwork for every mmo release

reread the posts you are commenting on

haven't seen a post just stating "that game suxxors!" - though i'm sure they exist somewhere on this site

i see explanations and reasons for their opinions

Killion is right this game is just plain ole fun!  I've played most of the different player character careers and found them to be significantly differenet from one another, enough so that I look forward to trying to level many of the classes up.  The Public Quests (PQ) are an innovation I'm sure most games will copy as its a blast and a good way to replace/supplement questing for xp and items.  The open RvR areas start very early and do a good job of  bringing new players into the realm verus realm atmosphere, and by all means don't pass up the early scenario RvR instant areas.  Only problem ther is some can take a while to get into.  In my opinion the RvR here is much better than DaOC was and the fights actually have some substance to them, haven't seen the gank fest mez disasters that DaOC had.

Originally posted by gatheris

Originally posted by miagisan

Originally posted by gatheris

Originally posted by miagisan

any one else notice a fresh influx of haters with less than 20 posts?

 

ahh you gotta love the release of new games.....great write up as well

 

haters?

because they might have a different opinion than yours?

that's novel - haven't seen that before

 

 

lol...reread it again. I didn't say it was bad...just noting how they come out of the woodwork for every mmo release

 

reread the posts you are commenting on

haven't seen a post just stating "that game suxxors!" - though i'm sure they exist somewhere on this site

i see explanations and reasons for their opinions

 

reread it again..no where in my post did i deny that these complaints are valid or invalid

Wow.  That first sentence is almost word for word what I wrote in my article.  I almost head to check my email to make sure I didn't send it over.  I guess this means I need to write a different article.

Originally posted by gatheris
 

reread the posts you are commenting on

haven't seen a post just stating "that game suxxors!" - though i'm sure they exist somewhere on this site

i see explanations and reasons for their opinions

A "reason" for their opinions is not "I got burned in DAoC and won't play Warhammer because it's from the same company." They judge the game before they've even touched it.

Also, perhaps you missed this lovely bit of hate...

Originally posted by goemoe

PvE is nothing more as grind. You feel its only purpose is to reach level, not to have fun. RvR is just a bunch of ideas, nothing ready to enjoy. WAR will have another unfinished buggy release which seems to be state of the art for current MMOs. I am not even sure the game will survive the first year but perhaps hype alone carries the game to a somehow finished state. Quality an fun will certainly not do the trick.

There is no explination, no "why I think this is a grind" or "why I don't think the RvR will work"... it's just uneducated hate by a troll.

Well, I will say that I started the beta intending not to like it.  However, AoC was such a major letdown as far as realized potential that I almost reactivated my WoW account.  I had seen some videos on betaleaks, and thought that WAR looked washed out and similar in style to cell-shading.  I suppose these videos were old, before the shadows were really fleshed out.

Anyway, I wanted to hate it.  I wanted to dismiss it as WoW 2.0, etc.  However, I have been surprised.  Normally, I prefer to PvE in games, but have found a new taste for it in WAR.  I think all of the classes are very distinct and individual (as long as you don't compare them to their cross-faction mirrors), and it was very difficult for me to narrow my choice down to a main for release.

The main thing that I love about the game is that you don't have to wait until end-game to start playing.  Yeah, I know you have to play to get to the end-game, blah blah...but what I mean is that the game starts at...mmm...let's say level 5.  I have, on a couple of alts, jumped into PvP at level 1 (the game gives you an artificial level boost to a competitive level of 8), and on others, I wait until level 5 or so, just to get a few abilities before jumping into the fray.

I've played minimum levels and nearly max level (Rank 32+), and the game feels the same to me as it does at level 5.  Well, by "same" I guess I should say that it is more intense, more involved, and there are more options at max level than at low level.  Chosen only have 4 abilities at level 5, so, working with 20 or more at level 32 is a lot more complex, but the essence and soul of the game are very similar.

For me, that's a good thing.  I'm tired of having to play games for a couple of months before I hit the meat and potatoes of the game.  I mean, look what Blizzard did with the XP curve and speed of levelling to rush people to 70.

So, Mythic changed my mind.  I approached the beta with very little interest, and negative expectations.  I was converted my first day.  It goes without saying that there are little things (I'd like to have more 2h Great Weapons available for my class, less disconnects, and classes that aren't bugged [Bright Wizard]) but I expect those things to flesh out over time.