Personal Review of WARHAMMER ONLINE - Open Beta

(This is a personal review and does in no way reflect the thoughts of my wife, my cats or the federate states of the Moon, Jupiter and Alpha Centauri. Also by reading this you are compelled to take your flaming to another thread where someone actually cares what you write and you hereby agree under the laws of online gaming to not flame. Constructive critisim and own experiences are though welcome!)

I spent two nights now playing WAR and some different classes. I do enjoy it a lot as it is new things to discover and new things to do. But I do have some concerns and thoughts, perhaps it is just me but anyways, that I would like to discuss and give my thoughts, this is a first impression and will try to update it in a week or two, see if I changed my mind and so on.

* Skills
There seem to be quite few skills per class overall, main thing that seem to differ classes are 3-4 different abilities. Perhaps it is me that have not played that much but would like to hear what you guys think, are there too few skills? Or is it good to keep it simple? So far I noticed myself doing the exact same thing in PvP and PvE about how I setup my kills and attacks. I mostly played an engineer so been a bit tactical thinking behind it also to give it an extra dimension. Still finding new spots to put my little turret to annoy the Destro people, but the turret overall do not do much that annoy other players. I am hoping there will be more skills added to widen your options on what to do in the future instead of the same thing and tactic over and over. A lot of options in what you can play keeps the players happy! I can also relate to keeping it simple, as not all players are interested in complex fighting system and wants to keep it basic, have the 2-3 buttons they hit as they run around chasing enemies. But you cannot keep it too simple, as then players will leave, there is only so many times you can do the same thing over and over again.

* Classes
The class balance seems overall to be pretty good, but one thing I seen many talk about in chats and so on forums is the lack of classes. I think this relates to the different skills all classes get so a lot of them are quite the same with a little twist. This is something that probably will change in an expansion with more classes added, but a bit thin at the moment I have to say. I know they pulled a couple of classes quite close to open beta and release, but from what I understand they had their pretty close counterparts in the game so it would not have changed that much. What I would like is a bit more "different" classes, something that is really out of the box compared to the classes that are in game at the moment. Especially for players like me who end up with ton of alts :). Perhaps adding "hero" classes for each class there is at the moment, giving all classes 2-4 options on a hero version that would differ them more would help out, as we all do enjoy variety in our gaming, not fighting that same guy who plays the same way every time you see him. (You would think that shaman would have learned to stand in a different spot after you killed him 10 times, but he is stubborn and keeps coming and dying!)

* PvE
I done a lot of the basic quests, classic of kill that, pickup that and talk to him/her. Most enjoyment I have gotten is from exploring and opening things in my tome of knowledge. But I see the PvE is going to get very dull when you have leveled up a couple of chars as it is the same thing over and over again with a change in mob name and background as the main changes. Of course I know the PvE is not the focus of the game, but still, need to be a bit stronger on that side to keep people motivated and enjoying playing up new chars. And think WAR needs to improve on the PvE side, I know a lot of people who enjoy the PvE side the most, and it is good to attract that side of gamers also to WAR, not filling it with bloodthirsty Pauls screaming "this is not Crafting online, its WAR ONLINE!" *Paul chews on a tree to calm his berserk* :) The PvE players do add a lot to a game, even if the main focus is PvP, and I hope the game will cover all aspects to be appealing to as many as possible.

* PvP
After quite a lot of PvP I have to say I am enjoying myself quite a lot. A bit of a unreal tournament feel over it almost (probably because I fire a gun at people from weird spots hehe) but a big flashback of WoW in it. At least in the scenarios, feels like stepping into the WoW BGs. I like the part where you gain xp for both PvP and PvE when doing the scenarios, brings up the PvP and past the PvE as you can get most you need from just player versus player. But again, I am afraid that after a few months of PvP, you will be stuck in a grind in the same places you been to so many times before. I wake up at night sometimes screaming "FARM, COVER FARM!" after countless nights of doing same thing over and over again in WoW, and I really hope I won't have the same feeling about WAR. Perhaps you who have been in beta for a longer time can give your input and ensure me that it is not the case, would make me feel better :) A small side note to this, AFK:ers are already in the scenarios leaching a little xp and rr, they don’t get so much but people will still do it as they gain a little bit, and in the process they weaken their side and cause grief to his / her fellow players. I do hope WAR will take care of this, instead of the Blizzard attitude and "over looking" this issue, even though claiming they hit down hard on AFK botters.

* Balance
The sides seem a bit unbalanced when it comes to population; all servers when I looked last night had more Destro players than Order. This makes me want to play order to help out on the underdog, but could lead to problems later on, as it is very hard to balance population unbalance with NPCs, but let’s hope for the best! The class balance seems good, but know too little to say anything really, we will see more when premade teams start playing eachother.

* Grahpics
Graphics are a bit cartoonish, a lot of lookalike to the WoW theme, but fitting in to the WAR type of looks pretty well. I would of course have had enjoyed more realistic type of feel to it, more brutal and hard instead of the happy joy joy graphics the world have. Don't take me wrong, enjoy looking at my game and playing it, just a personal preference on it. So no real complaints at all, graphics are okay but have room for improvement.

* Sound
Not much to say, it’s there and it’s working. Never been much for sound myself, I usually play music anyways to keep me in a certain mood. (Nothing beats beats trying to run away from 5 angry Black Orcs and listening to Run to the hills – Iron Maiden, it gives me +10% to movement! No JOKE!)

BEST / WORST LIST

BEST
Dye! Finally finally finally! ?
PvP giving xp for both PvE and PvP! ?
Black Orc, I cannot die when I play him it seems! Bring it on! ?
My gun turret as engy, me luv u long time! (its weak, but its mine!) ?
Finally a game that fits me and the wife! ?

WORST
AFK:ers already ingame leaching ?
Lack of classes ?
Lack of skills ?
Weak pets! ?
No RP servers! ?

def need more content, pvp is getting old already as its the same over and over. that will come when the smoke settles from the launch i would guess.

Yes at level 3 the classes lack skills, thanks for the review.

Honestly, what the hell? If I would have counted  basic abilities, morales and tactics plus the renown and specialization skills you can obtain back on my rank 31 template .. well fuck that, you guys are crazy uninformed.

I agree that is super-silly to complain over the lack of abilities on such a low level. Ah screw that, it's ridiculous to review a game after a couple of days /played anyway.

..edit: unless you are a beta tester ^^

got to love the fanbois jumping in.

its his review and if you act a bit mature and write in a way that is not laughable perhaps you would get a better resposne. just my 2 cents

Sorry to see that you had a negative experience.  Everything is flawless for me so far, I have been in beta long before CB and PW.  I just wanted to note I felt totally opposite to your thoughts and beliefs. I say beliefs only becuase you are very wrong in your misinterpretation of the game.  I felt as though you have lied or exagerated heavily in your post.  Im not going to crit the people here with a wall of pink text but I do have one question. Did you make it to lvl 40? Hell even past lvl 25?  Only reason I ask this is becuase you are very wrong on the number of spells and abilities along with differences between classes.  I honestly did not have enough bar space (all 4 bars full) for my Shaman, BOrc, or Squig Herder at the lvl 30+ range.  Also they all felt super unique and none of their abilities crossed over to one another.

Once again, hope you play the game longer next time before making such an articulated post when you really don't have the knowledge.  You almost sound as if you are just spouting out what you heard others complain about.  Just my 5 Canadian cents.

PS. I voted an 8 on your poll.  I have not found a MMO or game that deserves a 9 or 10 in 10+ years.   Every videogame is lacking something nothing out there that cures all my tastes.

Forget about skills, animations, and even content. The giant 300 pound ape in the room is the population issue, and its a serious concern since Mythic still haven't figured out a way to balance RvR pop that actually works. Trust me on this, once a server pop start out imbalanced, it stays imbalanced. A few hardcore guilds might join Order here but they're just a drop in the pond in the overall scheme of things.

Order is the new Hybernia, and they're going to get rolled across all servers. More than anything this is the issue that cause the average Joe to cancel his/her account.

Originally posted by PinkCat

Sorry to see that you had a negative experience.  Everything is flawless for me so far, I have been in beta long before CB and PW.  I just wanted to note I felt totally opposite to your thoughts and beliefs. I say beliefs only becuase you are very wrong in your misinterpretation of the game.  I felt as though you have lied or exagerated heavily in your post.  Im not going to crit the people here with a wall of pink text but I do have one question. Did you make it to lvl 40? Hell even past lvl 25?  Only reason I ask this is becuase you are very wrong on the number of spells and abilities along with differences between classes.  I honestly did not have enough bar space (all 4 bars full) for my Shaman, BOrc, or Squig Herder at the lvl 30+ range.  Also they all felt super unique and none of their abilities crossed over to one another.

Once again, hope you play the game longer next time before making such an articulated post when you really don't have the knowledge.  You almost sound as if you are just spouting out what you heard others complain about.  Just my 5 Canadian cents.

No no, dont take it wrong here. Just me taking up things I think can become issues and so on. I would not spend time here writing if I was not playing the game, then I would just have cancelled and left it to that.

On your other comments I can only say that you belive as you wish about my review, I wrote it as I wanted to take up some things just and if you think I am lying and exagerate that has to stand for you. :) And if you read the header of the post I clearly state I am new and its based on my little time here.

Average raiting on poll atm is at ~5,7. Was hoping it would be higher I have to say, but prolly many who have had bad experience with launch of beta and so on dragging the score down.

Originally posted by PinkCat

Sorry to see that you had a negative experience.  Everything is flawless for me so far, I have been in beta long before CB and PW.  I just wanted to note I felt totally opposite to your thoughts and beliefs. I say beliefs only becuase you are very wrong in your misinterpretation of the game.  I felt as though you have lied or exagerated heavily in your post.  Im not going to crit the people here with a wall of pink text but I do have one question. Did you make it to lvl 40? Hell even past lvl 25?  Only reason I ask this is becuase you are very wrong on the number of spells and abilities along with differences between classes.  I honestly did not have enough bar space (all 4 bars full) for my Shaman, BOrc, or Squig Herder at the lvl 30+ range.  Also they all felt super unique and none of their abilities crossed over to one another.

Once again, hope you play the game longer next time before making such an articulated post when you really don't have the knowledge.  You almost sound as if you are just spouting out what you heard others complain about.  Just my 5 Canadian cents.

 

PS. I voted an 8 on your poll.  I have not found a MMO or game that deserves a 9 or 10 in 10+ years.   Every videogame is lacking something nothing out there that cures all my tastes.

LOL man, you did not even read this thread.

I never saw the graphics as "cartoony", really.

The Chaos are a bit misshapen, but that fits them.

And the squig = freakin' awesome.

Originally posted by Kexin

Forget about skills, animations, and even content. The giant 300 pound ape in the room is the population issue, and its a serious concern since Mythic still haven't figured out a way to balance RvR pop that actually works. Trust me on this, once a server pop start out imbalanced, it stays imbalanced. A few hardcore guilds might join Order here but they're just a drop in the pond in the overall scheme of things.

Order is the new Hybernia, and they're going to get rolled across all servers. More than anything this is the issue that cause the average Joe to cancel his/her account.

I am sure that Mythic going to get a lot of good stuff into the game as we move along on the road that is WAR so not worried about that. Just brought up some things I experienced so far in the game.

But I hope it wont come down to the old DaoC days when some realms just got owned while the other 2 forces moved across the fields. That was painful!

Originally posted by theratmonkey

I never saw the graphics as "cartoony", really.

The Chaos are a bit misshapen, but that fits them.

 

And the squig = freakin' awesome.

 

Have to admit my next char is a squig herder, just to play around with that lil cutie! hehe

Originally posted by PinkCat

Sorry to see that you had a negative experience.  Everything is flawless for me so far, I have been in beta long before CB and PW.  I just wanted to note I felt totally opposite to your thoughts and beliefs. I say beliefs only becuase you are very wrong in your misinterpretation of the game.  I felt as though you have lied or exagerated heavily in your post.  Im not going to crit the people here with a wall of pink text but I do have one question. Did you make it to lvl 40? Hell even past lvl 25?  Only reason I ask this is becuase you are very wrong on the number of spells and abilities along with differences between classes.  I honestly did not have enough bar space (all 4 bars full) for my Shaman, BOrc, or Squig Herder at the lvl 30+ range.  Also they all felt super unique and none of their abilities crossed over to one another.

Once again, hope you play the game longer next time before making such an articulated post when you really don't have the knowledge.  You almost sound as if you are just spouting out what you heard others complain about.  Just my 5 Canadian cents.

 

PS. I voted an 8 on your poll.  I have not found a MMO or game that deserves a 9 or 10 in 10+ years.   Every videogame is lacking something nothing out there that cures all my tastes.

Irony at it's best, questioning another person's experience and calling his own "flawless". You either have the devils luck or a blind eye or two if you've never run into *any* problems during your *beta* experience :)

Originally posted by PinkCat

Sorry to see that you had a negative experience.  Everything is flawless for me so far, I have been in beta long before CB and PW.  I just wanted to note I felt totally opposite to your thoughts and beliefs. I say beliefs only becuase you are very wrong in your misinterpretation of the game.  I felt as though you have lied or exagerated heavily in your post.  Im not going to crit the people here with a wall of pink text but I do have one question. Did you make it to lvl 40? Hell even past lvl 25?  Only reason I ask this is becuase you are very wrong on the number of spells and abilities along with differences between classes.  I honestly did not have enough bar space (all 4 bars full) for my Shaman, BOrc, or Squig Herder at the lvl 30+ range.  Also they all felt super unique and none of their abilities crossed over to one another.

Once again, hope you play the game longer next time before making such an articulated post when you really don't have the knowledge.  You almost sound as if you are just spouting out what you heard others complain about.  Just my 5 Canadian cents.

 

PS. I voted an 8 on your poll.  I have not found a MMO or game that deserves a 9 or 10 in 10+ years.   Every videogame is lacking something nothing out there that cures all my tastes.

Maybe you should read what the OP writes here before acting all Nestor about this.

Nothing personal, but you talking about your 5 canadian cents, canadian dollar is a quite weak currencty is it not? Quite funny

Originally posted by Auxer

got to love the fanbois jumping in.

 

its his review and if you act a bit mature and write in a way that is not laughable perhaps you would get a better resposne. just my 2 cents

I am pointing out the OP does not know what he is talking about and deeply apologize for using rude language on our divine mmorpg boards.

If you want me to provide numbers to make your contribution to this thread look even more pathetic I will do it for you.

On his way to lv40 a "Black Ork" recieves 22 skills, 15 tactics and 8 morale abilities alone at the career trainer. Through mastery training another 3 skills, 3 tactics and one morale ability. Additionally there is the renown trainer with another truckload of tactics and stats customization.

Certain buffs will allow special usable abilities too.

You are able to equip 4 morale abilites, 5 different tactics (which are passive btw) and your regular arsenal at max level and the only reason to complain about the lack of skills or customization I can think of is that you played too much EVE.

Now I have not tried the engineer myself but I'd say some classes play more "complex" than others, try another long range DD maybe you will like those better. For example the "Squig Herder" is able todo crazy things with the Squig.

Originally posted by Mattissimo

Originally posted by Auxer

got to love the fanbois jumping in.

 

its his review and if you act a bit mature and write in a way that is not laughable perhaps you would get a better resposne. just my 2 cents

 

I am pointing out the OP does not know what he is talking about and deeply apologize for using rude language on our divine mmorpg boards.

If you want me to provide numbers to make your contribution to this thread look even more pathetic I will do it for you.

On his way to lv40 a "Black Ork" recieves 22 skills, 15 tactics and 8 morale abilities alone at the career trainer. Through mastery training another 3 skills, 3 tactics and one morale ability. Additionally there is the renown trainer with another truckload of tactics and stats customization.

Certain buffs will allow special usable abilities too.

You are able to equip 4 morale abilites, 5 different tactics (which are passive btw) and your regular arsenal at max level and the only reason to complain about the lack of skills or customization I can think of is that you played too much EVE.

Now I have not tried the engineer myself but I'd say some classes play more "complex" than others, try another long range DD maybe you will like those better. For example the "Squig Herder" is able todo crazy things with the Squig.

 

 

If you would care to read the OPs first few rows again perhaps you will realise why you just look, well no offence here but, stupid. He never claims to know all or jump on anyone like you are doing here, he has written a review on what he has experienced. And if you lack the ability to understand that others think different from you perhaps you should not reply at all.

I dont agree with a lot of the stuff he thinks or what he has agreed, but guess what, I dont whine about it and start trashtalking him for that. We are all different, learn that and you will prolly get better social skills.

Tada

ps. yes, a bit grumpy today, tierd of fanbois who think their way is the only way and so on. Sorry all.

I did not mean for this thread to become a flame feast and getting called a liar and exagerator. So gonna see if I can get a moderator to close the thread down. Was hoping a bit much getting a constructive discussion and helpful information from players who knew more, instead it became almost harassments sadly.

I will try posting it on a more mature forum again :)

Thanks to you guys who acted civil and gave some good feedback and comments.

Originally posted by Deridium

Originally posted by Mattissimo

Originally posted by Auxer

got to love the fanbois jumping in.

 

its his review and if you act a bit mature and write in a way that is not laughable perhaps you would get a better resposne. just my 2 cents

 

I am pointing out the OP does not know what he is talking about and deeply apologize for using rude language on our divine mmorpg boards.

If you want me to provide numbers to make your contribution to this thread look even more pathetic I will do it for you.

On his way to lv40 a "Black Ork" recieves 22 skills, 15 tactics and 8 morale abilities alone at the career trainer. Through mastery training another 3 skills, 3 tactics and one morale ability. Additionally there is the renown trainer with another truckload of tactics and stats customization.

Certain buffs will allow special usable abilities too.

You are able to equip 4 morale abilites, 5 different tactics (which are passive btw) and your regular arsenal at max level and the only reason to complain about the lack of skills or customization I can think of is that you played too much EVE.

Now I have not tried the engineer myself but I'd say some classes play more "complex" than others, try another long range DD maybe you will like those better. For example the "Squig Herder" is able todo crazy things with the Squig.

 

 

 

If you would care to read the OPs first few rows again perhaps you will realise why you just look, well no offence here but, stupid. He never claims to know all or jump on anyone like you are doing here, he has written a review on what he has experienced. And if you lack the ability to understand that others think different from you perhaps you should not reply at all.

 

I dont agree with a lot of the stuff he thinks or what he has agreed, but guess what, I dont whine about it and start trashtalking him for that. We are all different, learn that and you will prolly get better social skills.

 

Tada

 

ps. yes, a bit grumpy today, tierd of fanbois who think their way is the only way and so on. Sorry all.

So what you say is, if I visit the other forums and write reviews claiming that, for example, LOTRO lacks quests or that AOC has awesome end-game-content, people should not post and proof the opposite?

Now that would be a really great discussion forum.