Monitor losing its signal and going black while still being able to hear the game sounds is exactly what was happening to me not too long ago with a couple other games.  It was driving me nuts because I have a GTX 280 OC, a case with exceptional cooling, and a more than sufficient power supply.

Guess what?  My card was overheating.

Get a program called RivaTuner.  The first thing you want to do is turn on its monitor and leave that running with a graph of the GPU core temperature.  Also find a review of your card online that includes temperature performance so that you'll know what is considered normal for your card.  (The GTX 280 for example runs a good 20 degrees hotter under load than any other card I've ever seen, but that's normal for it.)  You'll be able to see very quickly just how hot your card is getting, and it can be set to keep a log file.

If you are indeed having a heat problem, you can use RivaTuner to set up profiles such as "FanSpeed 80%" and "FanSpeed 100%".  Then you can schedule those events to occur within specific temperature ranges.  When I'm playing my games, my card gets hotter and RivaTuner starts speeding the fan up to compensate.  Now when I play WAR or other games the card stays comfortably in the high 60's (which is the fan 80% range for me) and only occasionally spikes to over 70 (which is when the fan jumps to 100%).  I've never had a problem since.

nVidia's drivers with the performance monitor are supposed to control fan speed.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work worth a damn.  RivaTuner works well. 

The only way to effectively and permanently get rid of gold sellers is to cause the market to dry up.  If nobody is willing to buy, then it's no longer profitable to to work the game.

The only way to dry up the market is to take an approach that I doubt any company will have the guts to do:  very publically announce that if you buy gold, you'll get banned and then follow through on that. 

Gold sellers don't care about the accounts that are being used.  It's just a numbers game to them.  Players, on the other hand, make an emotional investment into the game and their character.  They're not buying gold because they don't enjoy or don't really care about the game; they buy gold because they enjoy the game a little too much.  If it comes down to continuing to play or buying gold that they'll never get to enjoy, they'll choose not to buy every time.  And once the market dries up, the farmers will go to greener pastures very quickly.  They can only afford to absorb the cost of banned accounts so long as there are profits from enough gold sales.

A couple days ago there were period popup messages on the screen that were all done in character with variations on how "purveyers of false currencies have been burned at the stake" or some such ignoble demise.  It was actually funny, and at the same time sent a clear message that Mythic is actually trying to do something about the problem.

Originally posted by skeaser

I've been looking for boss lairs...I think I've failed thus far.

Here are a couple that I know of:

• In Elf tier 1 (either faction) the RvR takes place on a big island.  If you swim around the northern edge of that island you'll find three caves, and each one has a rune inside.  If you activate all three runes, a door opens on the island itself with a level 11 multi-group boss in it.  You cannot attempt this boss if you're 12 or over due to the chicken effect.
• Also in High Elf tier 1, Blighted Isle:  Near the Thanalorn Forest PQ there is the Fire Crystal Caverns.  If you go into that cave and drop into the first large chamber, then start tab-targeting as you go up the ramp out of that chamber you'll find Gorthlak.  He's a level 40 multi-group boss.  To actually get to him, you need to go outside the caves and find a way up the mountains there.

Originally posted by bodypass  

All the time you get the feeling of being led through small passages and tunnels (and despite the views you don't have that immersive "free to go wherever you want" feeling like Outland or even basic Wow.

Let's take a good look at Outland's "free to go wherever you want" nature:

1. Hellfire Peninsula.  No choice here.  That's the only way in unless you get a warlock to summon you someplace else or a mage to portal you to Shattrath.
2. Zangarmarsh.
3. Terokkar Forest.
4. Nagrand or Blade's Edge (You will have to do at least some in both.)
5. Netherstorm or Shadowmoon Valley (You will need to do at least some in both.)

With 4 and 5, the only choice you have is which you want to do first.

You could go places out of that order, but WoW's aggro rules mean that you'll be spending a lot of that time doing corpse runs or strictly sticking to established roads.  I dare you as a level 60 to go to Blade's Edge and explore off the roads.

In fact, speaking of Blade's Edge, have you noticed how many impassable mountains there are that use up big chunks of the map?  How linear the quest progression is there?  In other words, exactly the same things you complain about WAR for.  And as for flying, you can only do that once you're level 70 (68 if a druid).  So for 69 of your character's levels the flight argument doesn't apply.

Now for WAR:

1. Tier 1.  Empire/Chaos OR High Elf/Dark Elf OR Dwarf/Greenskin.  You only need to do one.
2. Tier 1.5  You get to a war camp and can easily go to any of the other three.
3. Tier 2.  Empire/Chaos OR High Elf/Dark Elf OR Dwarf/Greenskin.  If you're only doing PvE, you'll need to do about half the content from one of the other pairings, too.
4. Tier 3.  Empire/Chaos OR High Elf/Dark Elf OR Dwarf/Greenskin.
5. Tier 4.  Empire/Chaos OR High Elf/Dark Elf OR Dwarf/Greenskin.
6. Tier 4.5  Deeper into Empire/Chaos OR High Elf/Dark Elf OR Dwarf/Greenskin territory.

To put it another way, as you're playing through ALL of WAR's content you always have three choices for where to go PvE.  You ALWAYS have three zones that have content appropriate to your level, and getting between these zones is quick and easy.  You simply can't use Outland as an example of how non-linear WoW is compared to WAR.  Sorry, but it doesn't work.

Back to the OP's points:  I did encounter an invisible wall (of sorts) yesterday.  In High Elf Tier 2.5 you get to the ocean, and there's an island just off the map.  If you try to swim to it, you cross an invisible line and start taking massive damage over time.  So there's no physical invisible wall, but there is an effective one.  Which took me 20 levels to find.

Originally posted by Zorgo

Originally posted by TrueWarrior1

Its funny the fanbois say war is open world. When alls you have to do is take a look at WARs ingame map. It has lines to each spot for christ sake. would that not make it linear? Come on now. Stop the crusades for nothing and let go of it from being this GREAT game. Its the saem old.

 "Well GEE True its not supposed to be anything new. They took all the great parts of an mmo and made it better" BULLSHIT. Would u buy a new cellphone(WAR) where alls they did was made it "better" but it works and looks EXACTLY like your old cell phone(WoW)? HELL NO

 Come on now people use your head. Cause now i am starting to get mad because every game company is spoon feeding us the same bullshit, and im getting sick of it i want something new. Not Sandbox not Linear i dont care. Just give me someonething new. Not what they call "Refined" because thats some bullshit.

 

=p talk about using your head......

First, who gives a rats ass if its an open world or not. The question is, did they do a good job with the way it is constructed. VG has a huge open world, most of which never had content developed for it. Open world, bad execution. WoW has a more closed world, linear pathed strategically placed cliffs and impenatrable forests. It was done well. WAR does not have an open world, but the world it has was done well.

My favorite color is blue. I have a choice between a Green bicycle and a blue turd. I'm taking the bicycle....I don't care what color the turd is. So WAR isn't an open world, its still a bicycle compared to the turd of VG*

*analogy purely for emphasis, I actually am o.k. with VG although, I do think the open world is under utilized.

Second,  sometimes, people do, in fact, get a new cell phone for just minor differences. Sometimes its for a different function on the phone (like RvR - which your WoW phone did't have), sometimes people will lose a function on their phone they never used (old people downgrading because they can't text message = no need for massive raid content when all you want to do is RvR), and sometimes people just get a new phone because it just looks cooler (AoC).

And last.....

you may be used to the mechanics. you may have seen stylized lower end graphics before. you may have very well played pvp games before. But if so you should know primarily that RvR/PvP is just a playing field. The 'game' is what you make it. Do you turn on Monday Night Football and say.....same player positions, same goal posts, same yardage, same uniforms and helmets.....football is feeding me the same BULLSHIT each game and now I'm mad!!!! Of course you don't. RvR/PvP's world is just a playing field. Get into an organized guild and start playing the game as a team and look for your fun there. You say you want them to stop spoon feeding you the same BULLSHIT, well, apparently, that's exactly what you are asking 'feed me my fun - i don't want a playing field, I want fun force fed down my throat, and btw, I'm allergic to all the food you've fed me before'.

Tell me this. In any other game can you turn it on and see that you don't have access to some of your merchants because the other side captured all your keeps? And then did you organize or have to become part of a movement to take them back over? And one night you might find a whole raid force of enemies while another night you are able to one shot scampering loners and then another night the battle front is in their zone, one night you are defending, another you are on the offensive. tell, me, in what other mmo can player actions effect those kind of dynamics on an hourly, daily, weekly and monthly basis? And all this can be done with random pick up groups and are chaotically fun -or on the other hand you could become part of a guild that is a well-oiled fighting machine and get a completely different experience in pvp/rvr.....

Yeah, using your head, same old bullshit. If you stop trying to play WoW while in WAR, and actually try to participate in the WAR, you will see that all the similarities between this game and other mmo's are thin and on the surface. The entire objective and purpose of playing is different from those games.

The bitching I hear sounds to me like: Baseball is exactly like football. They both have team members with specific roles (same ol' classes), they both have balls (same ol' loot), they both score points (same ol' quests), they both happen in stadiums (same ol' fantasy  world).

In reality, they just happen to be completely different games. Now, that's using your head.

 

 

QFT  Give the man a cookie.

It's great to see such a well placed analogy, and coherent argument.  Very good post.

Originally posted by truuk

Originally posted by buegur

You do understand why they have the shoot the bolt quests right?  They are to show you what is in store for you later on seige weapons and how to use them.. I really thought this was a great idea to get the players involved with the dynamics of RvR possiblities.  Lets be honest, there only so many ways you can do quests and these are as good as any I've seen from EQ2 or WoW.  If your looking for something dramatically different, your going to be disappointed for a long time as no MMoRPG seems interested in changing that fact.  Thats another reason why some really like the fact you don't have to do a single quest, or grind in this game, just do RvR, PQ's and Scenario's instead! Variety is the spice of life and Warhammer has much more than most MMoRPG's I've seen.

 

Know what? Look at the game informer article this month on star trek online. I think there is a link to it at the appropriate forum here. No, I won't go get it, yes I'm lazy.

  To summarize, the quests there will play like an episode. You have to , for instance pilot your ship to a specific zone, with an ambassador onboard that you need to safely get to his respective destination. once there, you get off your ship and on the planet that was your destination. you then fight your way to the destination . Then you find out the ambassador is actually a spy and he takes off with the klingons. They stated each of these episodid quests could take like an hour. Now thats a quest. (I depise trekkies, but that caught my eye)

Think about the word "quest". ...quest=an epic adventure. "hey, see that guy right there...yeah, that guy 10 feet way.....take him this note". That is hardly "epic". I remember in eq one when you did your epic weapon quest. man, you felt fucking high when you completed it! Do people not want that anymore? has the wow generation really sunk to the depths that they appreciate a reward they got for running 9 feet and killing 4 rats?

FFS, do what you are supposed to do developers..........DEVELOP!

There is nothing new in WaR. Tired pvp (yes geeks, I know its rvr , not pvp ..as if it matters) ,tired quests, tired graphics, tired zones, tired character models, very very tired loot, joke crafting,. ..........

It isn't bad , per se at what it does. it just so happens that what it does........is boring and done to death.

Hmm.  Let's put that step-by-step  in terms of game mechanics:

1. Travel to X location.  ( pilot your ship to a specific zone, with an ambassador onboard )
2. Escort Y to Z location.  ( an ambassador onboard that you need to safely get to his respective destination. once there, you get off your ship and on the planet that was your destination. you then fight your way to the destination )
3. Talk to so-and-so.  ( Then you find out the ambassador is actually a spy and he takes off with the klingons. )

Yes, that's a huge deviation from the current MMO mechanics. 

What makes any of that stuff interesting is things like flavor text, and any events that happen along the way.  When it comes to the flavor text, most people don't bother reading it.  They just click through the quest dialogues because they don't really care about any of that boring reading stuff.  (I'm not one of these people; I'm just pointing out how most people look at it.)  So what we're really left with is what happens during any one of these phases that might make things interesting.

Here are a couple more examples of what sorts of variations could be added in STO terms:

1. Go to X location.  You're sent to sabotage Klingon outposts that Starfleet Intelligence has discovered on a planet in Federation space.  As you get near the planet you receive  a distress signal; the planet is under attack by the Borg!  When you get to the scene you see a bunch of other ships battling a Borg cube.  You could jump in and help, but you also see that the planet has some orbiting defense platforms and you tap into them to fire on the Borg.
2. Talk to so-and-so.  You're told to go negotiate with a newly warp-capable species and ask them to help defend the Federation against the Klingons.  There are several "tribes" of them, and it turns out that some are perfectly happy to ally with you.  Others, though, would rather shoot at you instead of talking.

These are both twists on the classic quest mechanics, just like what you described when talking about STO.  You probably even think they sound pretty cool.  But you know what?  Both of these are also in Warhammer Online right now, today.  In fact, they're both quests that you encounter within your first six levels as a High Elf (first example -- the Chapter 1 public quest against a hydra, with ballistae that you can fire) or Empire character (second example -- recruiting the farmers to help defend the town).

As long as you're talking about "epic" stuff -- real quest-type stuff -- I also feel obliged to mention that today I finally completed two quest lines that I started along about rank 7.  These quests formed two continuous stories that each spanned two tiers of the game world and ultimately 12 of my character's levels.  (In other words, a quarter of my career.)  One actually started in the elven lands, went through a couple maps there, then headed off through two maps in the Empire lands before finally returning to elven lands for a couple more maps.  Epic stuff.  Real quest-type stuff.  Not that a lot of people would ever realize just how interesting and cool it was, since they don't like reading quest text.  But who's fault is it in the end?  It's not the developer's fault.  After all, Mythic did indeed provide engrossing storylines that cover a long span of time.  It's entirely the player's fault for glossing over everything that makes Mythic's work stand out and reducing it to the basics of "My mini-map says I need to go here and kill X."

Originally posted by truuk

Originally posted by aurick

Originally posted by truuk

Originally posted by aurick

I would think equipment freaks would be overjoyed.  After all, they've been playing WoW for a long time now, where everyone looks the same with their particular tier of class armor until the devs release a new tier and everyone has to farm for that so they can look exactly the same again.

WAR does have multiple variations at each level range.  You can dye your armor for more individuality.  You can also put up to five trophies on your character, which are visible to everyone. 

 

 

You are kidding right? WoW WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY greater diversity in armor styles.

 

No, I'm not kidding.  WoW has two options:

1. THE FASHION DISASTER.  This style is made up of whatever armor gives the best stats.  Very often, it clashes with everything else you're wearing, and very often the best stats come with the worst color and style.
2. THE COOKIE CUTTER.  You have three dungeon sets that nobody wears unless they're noobs.  You have six raid sets, but only the three from Burning Crusade see much use anymore because the ones from before BC were immediately outclassed by some of the earliest quest or dungeon rewards in the expansion.  Then there are three PvP sets and four arena season sets.  When it comes right down to it, there are only about 5 sets that regularly get worn by anyone.  Unless you're mixing sets (and in so doing, completely blowing your set bonuses), you look exactly like everyone else with NO variation.

In Warhammer, there are no fashion disasters.  This is due to the fact that everything you wear is part of a visual set.  For example, the Witch Hunter bandoliers all go well with any other piece of Witch Hunter gear.  But within that set there is a significant amount of variation.  And thanks to the ability to dye your armor you don't get all the cookie cutters.  There are about 400 possible color variations.  I personally dye my armor in a style that I have yet to see anyone else use, and it looks great.  My friends and guildmates can spot me instantly.  Anyway add in trophies, and the number of possible looks jumps into the 100's of thousands.  After all, there are well over 100 possible trophies.  You can wear five of them at level 40.  And each one can go into multiple places.  For example, the Witch Hunter's bandolier has six or seven places where a trophy can be placed. 

In short, everyone in a particular class on a server could wear EXACTLY the same armor, yet still look somewhat different from any kind of distance, and with greater diversity still being seen when you get close to them. 

 

you left out the arena sets, the pvp sets, the crafted sets, the rare crafted sets, ..................

 

dude, dont. Just dont. Do not lie topeople and get them to believe this game has more gear choices than wow. That is an absolute lie. And I HATE wow.

www.wardb.com/search.aspx

Here are the Witch Hunter sets that are known so far.  Notice that even within those sets, there are pieces that aren't pictured because nobody has found them yet.  We only know that the pieces are part of a full set because the tooltip states how many pieces are in the set.  We also have no idea how many end game sets there actually are because nobody has ever seen the major end game content like city sieges.

The number of known sets is smaller than the number of WoW sets.  I'm not denying that.  However, there may be many more sets that we don't know about.   Also, the number of known sets in the game right now at launch exceeds the number of sets that WoW had at launch.  Heck, the Raid 1 set in WoW was placeholder graphics at launch.

And as I've tried repeatedly to explain, two people with the exact same set in WAR will not look the same unless they want to.  The same CANNOT be said for WoW.

Originally posted by Krogan

Yes that is what i hear as well, the gear will always look pretty much exactly the same from lvl 1 to lvl 40 end game gear.

Not true.

The armor will have the same overall theme from levels 1-40.  That is NOT the same as saying that you look exactly the same all the way through the game.

• At your earliest levels, you're just wearing a loose shirt, pants, belt and gloves.  Nothing fancy with any of it.
• In your teens you'll start wearing coats and bandoliers.  Hats will start to appear as well.  All pieces start to look fancier.
• By 40 you'll have long coats, armored shoulders and chest plate, and a lot of very elaborate detailing. 

A level 40 character looks really cool, and very different from a level 1 character, even though they're both obviously witch hunters.

Originally posted by truuk

Originally posted by aurick

I would think equipment freaks would be overjoyed.  After all, they've been playing WoW for a long time now, where everyone looks the same with their particular tier of class armor until the devs release a new tier and everyone has to farm for that so they can look exactly the same again.

WAR does have multiple variations at each level range.  You can dye your armor for more individuality.  You can also put up to five trophies on your character, which are visible to everyone. 

 

 

You are kidding right? WoW WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY greater diversity in armor styles.

No, I'm not kidding.  WoW has two options:

1. THE FASHION DISASTER.  This style is made up of whatever armor gives the best stats.  Very often, it clashes with everything else you're wearing, and very often the best stats come with the worst color and style.
2. THE COOKIE CUTTER.  You have three dungeon sets that nobody wears unless they're noobs.  You have six raid sets, but only the three from Burning Crusade see much use anymore because the ones from before BC were immediately outclassed by some of the earliest quest or dungeon rewards in the expansion.  Then there are three PvP sets and four arena season sets.  When it comes right down to it, there are only about 5 sets that regularly get worn by anyone.  Unless you're mixing sets (and in so doing, completely blowing your set bonuses), you look exactly like everyone else with NO variation.

In Warhammer, there are no fashion disasters.  This is due to the fact that everything you wear is part of a visual set.  For example, the Witch Hunter bandoliers all go well with any other piece of Witch Hunter gear.  But within that set there is a significant amount of variation.  And thanks to the ability to dye your armor you don't get all the cookie cutters.  There are about 400 possible color variations.  I personally dye my armor in a style that I have yet to see anyone else use, and it looks great.  My friends and guildmates can spot me instantly.  Anyway add in trophies, and the number of possible looks jumps into the 100's of thousands.  After all, there are well over 100 possible trophies.  You can wear five of them at level 40.  And each one can go into multiple places.  For example, the Witch Hunter's bandolier has six or seven places where a trophy can be placed. 

In short, everyone in a particular class on a server could wear EXACTLY the same armor, yet still look somewhat different from any kind of distance, and with greater diversity still being seen when you get close to them. 

The quest path in each zone is linear.  The zone itself is not.  In fact, there are tons of things to discover in each zone, with tome unlocks to reward you for your efforts.  There are something like 24 boss lairs to find, some of which are very difficult to locate and others are easy to find but hard to figure out how to open.  The edges of the zones are unobtrusive, and are designed to look like natural parts of the terrain.

The overall size of the world is very difficult to actually guage.  Each racial pairing is a single zone, split between two maps.  (More at tier 4)  To simply run from one end of a tier 1 map to the other end of its adjoining map (there's no instancing between maps; only between tiers and pairings) would take about the same length of time as getting from one end of the Barrens to the other in WoW. The width is equivalent to the width of the Barrens for travel time, as well.   So figure that tier 1 is equivalent to three Barrens zones.  Tier 2 is about the same size as tier 1.  Maybe just a little larger.  That brings us to a total of six Barrens-sized zones.  Tier 3 is a good 50% larger than tier 2.  Tier 4 is a lot larger than tier 3.  When you add all of this up across all three racial pairings, you've easily got a game that rivals the original WoW for size.  In truth, I think that each racial pairing is about equal to one of WoW's continents.  That would bring the total size of the world to about equal with WoW/BC.

In short, the world is certainly not open and non-instanced like Vanguard.  But it's also certainly not small, nor is it lacking in places to explore.  Additionally, WAR has a lot of atmosphere that Vanguard lacks.  For example, there's wildlife all over the place.

To answer your RvR question, it depends on the server type.  Core servers confine all PvP to the scenarios or the RvR "lakes" that make up a portion of every map.  Also, you can't gank because if you outlevel the area then you turn into a chicken upon entering one of the RvR areas.  And if you're too low of level for the area, you get bolstered up to three levels below the area's max.  (Tier 1, for example, bolsters you to level 8 if you're 1-7.)  This scales up your stats and abilities, but doesn't give you anything you haven't learned yet.  If you play on an Open server, almost all bets are off.  PvP can happen anywhere, and there's no bolstering.  The chicken effect also only happens if the person is two or more tiers higher in level than the area he goes into.  So open servers are much more like WoW's PvP servers.

I would think equipment freaks would be overjoyed.  After all, they've been playing WoW for a long time now, where everyone looks the same with their particular tier of class armor until the devs release a new tier and everyone has to farm for that so they can look exactly the same again.

WAR does have multiple variations at each level range.  You can dye your armor for more individuality.  You can also put up to five trophies on your character, which are visible to everyone. 

Originally posted by Hendora

First of all let me start by saying that i have only played the beta for 3 days before the launch so much have (hopefully) changed to the better by now.

 

But those few days in the beta was very disapointing IMO. Here are a list of things i really din't like about the game:

• All the bugs! (I know it was beta, but only 3 days until the retail, have they really made it?)

The day before open beta ended they introduced a new patch that fixed a huge number of the problems people were having.  I've played many MMO's at launch, and WAR is -- bar none -- the most stable with the fewest major bugs.

• I had high expectations of the design and the graphics but got very disapointed. The graphic engine was okey but was working bad. The design was also very disapointing. It was too much random stuff everywhere and i din't feel like the develpoers had any structure when they created things in the world and puted them into place. (Like in WoW or Lineage II)

That's personal opinion, which I respect.  My own feeling is that the world is very well laid out and feels a lot more real and alive than WoW does.  But that's just my opinion.  As for the engine working poorly or not, I've had almost no problems with it.

• I expected smooth controls as in (ofcourse) WoW and even though it's better than many other MMOs, it's still way to stiff IMO. I'm just annoyed over things like this when they HAVE a game that shows how the controls are done right.

Things are smooth for me.   But of course, everyone has different systems. 

• The character customization. Why does so many game suffer from this problem! Who doesn't want to feel unique and how hard is it to create a few more diffrent looks! Jee.

Are you a 3D artist?  If not, then you're talking out your arse on that one.  For the record, I am a 3D artist, and it's very complicated for any sort of dramatic differences.  Facial textures are easy, but have minimal impact farther away than a couple feet.  Same goes with things like facial morphs.  Body morphs are harder, since they also affect every single piece of armor applied to the character.  Also, morphs require system resources, and the designers obviously felt it was more important to get more players in one place without killing the engine than getting some more body shapes into the game.  For the record, there is a lot of customization that is actually distinctly noticeable on your character.  You can dye your armor with primary and secondary colors.  There are MANY armor styles.  You can add trophies to your armor, etc.  And unlike WoW, putting on a helmet doesn't give you a haircut.  If you have long hair, it will stick out from under your helmet.

• Maybe not a bad thing for some but for me the interface have way to much big buttons that could be much better placed (The meny at the top of the screen, WTH?). And once again, i don't like the design of it.

The UI is the most customizable out of the box, without addons or special programming of any MMO I'm aware of. There's a Customization button at the top of your screen. You can scale the interface as a whole. You can move and scale any part of the interface. You can affect windows as a group if you choose. There's a lot of power, and it's easy to use.
 

• I had high expectations of the quests and even though i only played to level 6, the quest i had done so far was medicore and some where really lame. (Ex when you shoot with the cannons in the beginning... A desperate try to make something new. To bad it sucked) I don't know what they did wrong because the dialog is often prety good, but even so, i don't feel anything for the quests. They feel so heartless for some reason.

The whole reason for the siege weapon quest there was to show you that siege engines actually do exist in the game and give you a chance to use one immediately.  This encourages later exploration, because RvR areas have siege weapons and they can make a significant difference.  If you didn't know about them, you wouldn't even think to use them.  (Thanks to WoW for that one.)  For the record, I've found some really awesome quest lines in the game.  Ultimately, it's the storytelling that makes a difference with quests.  After all, there are only so many things that mechanics allow.  The flavor text of WAR is exceptional.

• The "i r orc" language. It's just a pain in the ass and it hurts my eyes when reading it. (No i don't feel more like an orc because the developers can't spell)

 I do agree on that one.  It would be nice to be able to turn that off and read normal language.  Oddly enough, some people love it to death.  There's even an addon that turns everything into orc-speak.

Don't get all worked up now

WAR may be awsome in PVP and i really have played it way to little to out judge it yet. This was only my first impression of the game and unfortunalety it was a bad one for me

 

 

Originally posted by ProfRed

Originally posted by bodypass

Our WoW PvP is more player oriented (more CC): be the flashy hero to rescue the princess (flag). Theirs is more group based with not much CC and to me a bit boring.

The only things I hate is that most WAR players just bash on Wow without arguments (:)). XXX sucks etc ...

To the first quote:  Did you realize that there are 12 scenarios?  One of them is a capture the flag scenario and when you capture it 'Destruction Flag Was Captured by 'your name here'!!' flashes huge across the screen.  Only it has a really cool twist to prevent turtling.  Over time as you hold the flag you start to slow down, lose defense, and eventually you lose the use of all skills besides morale abilities.  It plays out a lot like Warsong Gulch but honestly is a bit cooler, and the anti turtle thing works really well.  I know you didn't play much but you should check out the 12 scenarios.  They are really well done, and if Blizzard looks at them maybe they can learn a thing or two and incorporate some of their elements into some new BG's.  All of the scenarios play out very differently.

To the second quote: Oh so this is worse than WoW fanboys coming to WAR forums and spreading misinformation like 500/500 server caps as fact to back up their WAR bashing while at the same time promoting their most favorite game?

 

Not to mention Stonetroll Crossing, which is another capture the flag with big twists.  The flag is in the center of the map, on top of a spire.  Once captured, it needs to be taken to three places on the map, which you have to use successfully.  Points are awarded for each, and more points for all three.  But if you try to take your time or turtle, the timer will run out and the flag resets.  If you try to camp the top of the hill waiting for the flag to reset, then as soon as it comes available you'll get bombarded by boulders from the nearby trolls, knocking you off the top.

This scenario is probably the most fun I've seen anywhere.  It's all about fast, smart play.  The groups that break into mindless hordes and just PvP anything in site lose.  The groups that play as a unit to keep the flag carrier moving at all costs are the groups that win.  And anyone who claims there's no crowd control in WAR has obviously never played this scenario.  This one is all about slowing down or stopping the flag carrier, and slowing down or stopping the enemies that are trying to interfere with him. 

Like with character progression, scenarios are an introduction for Tier 1 and then move to more complex stuff for Tier 2.  I can't wait to see Tier 3.

• Warhammer provides a more diversified experience during your journey to max level.  PvE, world RvR and scenarios (battlegrounds) are all equally viable ways to level your character.  
• If you don't like PvP in WoW because of all the ganking, you're likely to enjoy the PvP in WAR due to the balance systems.  Someone who goes into a PvP area that's a tier below him gets turned into a chicken.  Also, someone who goes into a PvP area gets his existing abilities scaled up to 3 levels below the area's max, unless he's already that level or higher.  For example, if you're level 1 and go into a tier 1 RvR area or scenario, you'll be bolstered to level 8 since tier 1 content is for levels 1-11.  In short, you can participate effectively.  I personally avoided almost all PvP in WoW, but love it in WAR.
• You don't need to wait for max level for raid-type content.  PQ's are like mini raids or dungeon bosses, except that you don't have to spend time hunting for a group, and you don't have to invest hours of time.  They give great rewards, and feel pretty epic.  (Ganging up with a bunch of random folks who happen to be in the area so you can fight a dragon or a tree-toppling giant at level 4 is pretty darned cool.)
• End-game raiding isn't designed as a gear grind, and it's very unpredictable.  That's because it's built around the RvR system, which means you don't know in advance what tactics will be used.  More challenge means more satisfaction.  But really impressive RvR stuff actually happens already in tier 2 (out of 4 tiers), with assaults on keeps.
• Guilds are much more meaningful in WAR.  They level up, with abilities that unlock as this happens.  (Taxation system, guild bank, guild-only auctions, calendar, heraldry, standards, guild tactics, communal guild hall, officers' hall, etc.)

There's more, but those are the big points.  As a player who has leveled a half dozen characters to 70 and had been really looking forward to WotLK, I have now cancelled my preorder for that game and may never play WoW again.  I just find that WAR has more depth and more fun from day one rather than playing one game (which is pretty much only PvE) from levels 1-69 and then another game (which is mostly gear grinds) at level 70.

One word of warning, though:  WAR uses a different leveling paradigm from WoW.  It will take until level 11 before you have really encountered all the mechanics that go into the leveling and combat systems.  You don't get your first morale ability until 8 and your first (PvE-granted) tactic typically comes at 11.  Mastery training also starts at 11.  You get your core abilities during tier 1 -- the stuff that defines each archetype.  Tier 2 starts expanding into crowd control and other "gotcha now, sucker!" abilities.  It's sort of like how a Hunter matures in WoW; you can't just assume from the first few levels that you know how the class plays or how much fun it will be.

Funny, but true.  For my part, I hate your freaking Chosen with a passion as purple as their auras.  Forget trying to be mobile when one's around.  You can't get through his armor unless it's six against one, and thanks to that aura you can't get away from him to go after a softer target.  If he's got his beady little eyes on you (at least, I assume there are eyes under that helmet), you're well and truly screwed.  Your only hope is that something will distract that pea brain of his.  ;)

Originally posted by Mizab

Originally posted by Noggin

Originally posted by Mizab

Well I go to log into the game today and can't. So I figure what the hell starting looking into it and find out they have made my account inactive because I haven't entered my retail CD key. So now you probaly figure this is my fault for not entering the key in. But wait I ordered the game directly from EA/mythic and they just haven't gotten around to sending my copy of my CE.

They are happy to have charged me the 80 bucks though. So after about 5 trys of calling them only after googling their phone number( pretty much only way to get it) I sit on hold for about 2 hours. I get some supposed customer service repersentive and he tries to tell me for about 10 minutes I need to contant my retailer about fixing this problem. After I get it through his think head that I ordered it from them he promptly tells me well you need to check the status of where my CE is I tell him I have and it sounds like still in limbo. He tells me well it shouldn't be more then 7 more days or so. I promptly ask why the hell did I order the CE for the headstart to be locked out for 7 days? He just can't comprend that I think I should either be allowed to keep playing the game i payed for or some kind of compensation is due. He pretty much tells me too bad I could go buy the game at a retailer that has it in stores and just not accept my order and in 4-6 weeks I would get a refund from EA. So I ask to speak with his boss. Well after another 45 minutes I get to speak to the boss. This guy is even a bigger dick and pretty much tells me too bad nothing going  do for me tries to make it sound like this is somehow my fault.

So thats some pretty great customer service you have there EA/Mythic.

 

Nothing to do with Mythic, your issue is with Electronic Arts retail store.

 

No EA and mythic made the game togther when the mythic has even when I called the number the rep referred to himself as a EA/mythic employee it wasn't till I got pissed off he tried your same excuse. I mean hell I log into support n the mythic site and it takes me into a EA site I think those things mean the game is both of theirs so they share the blame.   

Let's put this another way.

EA is a big company.  They're a publisher, and a storefront.

Mythic is a separate company under EA's umbrella. 

Mythic created the game.  EA is distributing it.  EA is the company that actually took your money, and EA is the company that actually shipped the box to you.

I know the names are linked, but that doesn't change anything.  Look at AOL/Time Warner.  You don't call up Time Warner when you have a problem with AIM.  Or if you do, you shouldn't be surprised when you don't get the answers you're looking for.

Mythic is ONLY responsible for the content of the game.  They have little if any control over publication and distribution.  They also make only a tiny portion of every box sale.  The lion's share of the sale goes to the publisher and distributers.  Look at the whole business that just took place with GOA in Europe.  (I hope I got the acronymn right.)  They're the European distributer, and when they had a snafu right before launch there was very little that Mythic could do about it. 

I think people get disappointed with the Magus because they see this character floating on a disc while casting spells and immediately think, "Cool nuker!"  I know that's what went through my mind at first, and why I ultimately wound up disappointed with the class.

Eventually I realized that the Magus is the mirror for Order's Engineer, and went, "aha!"  Once I understood the concept of the class for what it really is rather than what it appeared to be, I understood where it could be fun to play.  There are other classes I enjoy more, but I ultimately had fun with the time I played an Engineer at the end of open beta.

It's just a matter of getting the right perspective.

I feel the opposite.  I started playing this game as something that could be fun until WotLK comes out.  Now that I've played a while and found out how much depth there is, I seriously doubt that I'll even bother with WoW's expansion.  WAR to me feels like the next step beyond WoW.  Not a revolution, but certainly an improvement.

I took mine off.  I just talked to a merchant and chose the Dye option.  Then I removed the promotional item by dragging it back to my inventory.  It's now in the bank.