Profile: Soultice
Send PM  Forum Posts  Forum Topics 

Well I have never written a Blog and I am hesitant to write one now.  But, I wanted to try and post my journey thru the Warhammer Preview weekend and open beta week.  Take my opinion like a grain of salt as it is my journey and not yours.  I hate typing lol. 

I am not going to state all my credentials on the mmorpg's I played.  But I will give you a hint my son was in closed beta for EQ1.  I wanted to use my computer and he was beta testing the game and I looked at the game and said, " wow this is a stupid game son!"  He told me to try it out, I played it, and three hours later I was hooked. I have tried most of them and beta tested some of them. I am 54 years old.

Now all the WOW players try not to get upset and tell me I am nuts and warhamer is a WOW clone, you are right to an extent.  But WOW was a clone of those MMORPG's that came before it.  I even got to CB wow.  How many out there know what Warlocks wore in CB??? I played WOW for several years.

Well onto my journey.  My two son's have been bothering me for weeks to pre-order Warhammer and during this period I was a playing LOTR  (a great MMORPG for those that like to basically pve and learn  the oldest lore out there)  as a lvl 50 Loremaster.  I was getting bored but basically I prefer to wait a couple of months to let the game get out the launch jitters and then play it.  Ahh but my oldest son told ,"hey dad you can get a pre-order at target for .99 cents and can be in open beta."  Being the tightwat  that I am I went down and got it, thinking to myself well, if I do not like the game I only wasted .99 cents and got to try a Mythic game. I too thought it was going to b a WOW clone after looking at the videos.

Thursday rolled around and I downloaded the client and was off friday.  I thought I would try the patcher and to my surprise the preview had started.  Hell I was off nad thought lets check this out , I can get a headstart on the boys.  I logged in and to my surprise, I was at the character creation screen.  I was not very impressed with the character customization and it is limited.  I selected a Disciple of Khaine on the dark elf side.

Logged in and immediately knew this was not even close to being WOW. No cartoony graphics, but it did remind me of EQ with updated graphics.  I was pleasantly surprised by the familiar UI that resembled WOW's UI.  (IMHO the best UI out there) Great no long tutorials and another three days trying to figure out to set up my UI!    Off I went to my first quest giver and I had to kill some vile high elfs.  Next quest I got to use a ballista to snipe some high elfs (loved this) and then off to the main starting town for drk elfs.  Looking aound the graphic all fit into the warhammer lore. (I did notice alot of scantilly clad ladies using daggars. Later I read it was a gender specific class) 

I got my first quests and they are typically the same quests I have done in every other MMORPG.  Noyhing new here.  I was running out of town when a bell rang or something and I looked at the top of my screen and it was a public quest.  Well I was out there killing the baddies required and by stage 3 it was mob these guys or die and the dragon was not something you are going to solo.  Killed the dragon and to my surprise the computer was making rolls for everyone there that had enough points and I won a loot bag. Very innovative and it helps new players to form up and coordinate attacks on mobs.  Great team building tool for later on.  A CB tester was there and showed me the group tool on my avatar.  Truly another innovative idea. I had a blast at every other PQ. Be warned that in open beta teir 2 PQ's are not a solo thing.

During this period I clicked on the scenario quest and was wisked away to my first scenario and the computer had adjusted my stats to lvl 8.  All I can say is the scenario was a blast and you captured a flag and if you did not get out of the way during the detonation phase you were dead and the sites had to be re-captured.

Basically it was a zerg fest unti we got organized and then the zerg was not going to work on us anymore.  We won the third time there and got some darn nice xp. 

Off to other conquests and exploration.  Warhammer  is not that immersive for the explorer.  The world is dark and dreary. It is war.  I wish mytic and for that matter other Devs would get out to the darn mob standing round doing nothing.  Wolfs standing there while a rabbit is in front of them.  Hell the wolf can eat a bunny.  This world fit the warhammer lore to a tee and thats what mattered to me.

The warcamps and cities were great fun if you checked them out.  Dark elves mistreating vile high elfs, pets eating corpses it was great. You definitely knew it was a war.  Is i that hard to get some npc's have a voice over conversation?

Logged for the weekend and thought it over and I had a great time.  Thats what matters to me.  

There were alot fo bugs and to my surprise I read a Dev post stating all the mistakes and their priorities and their promiste to adress them by Open Beta.  I said to myself refreshing, but Dev's promise you the moon and all you usually get is some star dust.   

I logged in for the next preview and open beta and to my surprise the dev's actually delivered.  I was amazed at the polish.  (Graphics was still a problem in the distance)  I went off as I knew whatto do and gotto level 10 in no time and did my fist RVR and it was a god time but basically a zerg fest.  Later on I was I joined a guild and those boys and girls were organized and did some CB time and we all were told what to do and we layed the smackown on the Order Zerg. 

Off for some PVE and during the patching Mythic introduced the "cannot attack this MOB bug"  it was a game breaking in PQ.  The devs knew about it and it was fixed two days later.  After tha bug ad the better graphics being patch the game was great.  I made it to lvl 18 on my DOK and I tried some other classes and on the order side and settled on an engineer.  he is annoying and the dark side hates them.

I am not going into another long diatribe about my open beta experience.  I have typed more then I have in years.  Warhammer is not a PVE paradise, it is all about RVR and Mythic delivered for me anyways.  Having said that the PVE in the teir two areas were more realistic and the npcs were even assisting on the PQ.  I enjoyed the PVE side more here then in teir one.  Not having tried anything above this I cannot really tell a gamer what to expect.  The game was a blast , especailly fighting player controlled avatars.  Organized groups will definitely trump a zerg. Charater customization is lacking but, I think that has to do with having alot of players in the RvR areas.  (hint: Very Important!!  in RVR with alot of players go to your options and click on the fastest framerates. Even with high end machines, you weill be alot happier).

I would recommend this game to anyone that is tired of raids all the time, endless rep grinds, and more of the same dungeons that you have memorized to get that gear you just  have to have. Want to compete with real players in a realm vs realm game ? Come on down!   I had a great time and will be there in warhammer.