WAR: A Look At The Greenskin Starter Zone
MMORPG.com Warhammer Online Correspondent Todd Lundberg writes this short introduction to the Greenskin starter zone in Mythic's Warhammer Online.
The starting zone of the Greenskins in Mythic Entertainment’s Warhammer Online, Mount Bloodhorn, is very fitting for their race. It has a dark foreboding feel to it. You start your journey inside the mouth of a small cave shaped like an Orc Head, with the opening resembling his mouth. When you first exit the cave you find it is very loud and you can hear yelling and grunting in the background, along with the sound of clanging metal. Crudely made wooden structures are strewn about with the occasional dwarf skeleton hanging from them, and giant trees made into torches sticking up from the ground. Greenskins live in stark contrast to the technologically savvy dwarfs that they are entrenched in battle with.
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Upon exiting the cave, the very first quest given is a small yet fierce goblin named Scribbiz, he asks, well more tells, you to go and take a look at the Bloody Sun Boyz Banner. He is not a very friendly goblin but you will find most aren't. Orcs judge your worth on size and this leaves the tiny goblins on the lower end of the totem pole. What they lack in size, they tend to make up for in cunning and find creative ways to get what they need. Examining the banner unlocks a piece of Lore in your Tome of knowledge, which is basically a running encyclopedia of everything you come in contact with in the game, and also keeps tracks your achievements, good and bad. This first unlock of the Tome starts to try to draw you in to the rather large lore of Warhammer. The lore can seem a little overwhelming but you’re introduced to it slowly and not just thrown in blindly.
Your second quest giver is a very intimidating fellow named Skarzag, a giant Orc decked out in full Armor, including shoulder pads made of boars, holding a giant axe and shield. He is also sitting on a very large, angry, and hungry looking dragon. He gets you right into fighting. You must go kill some dwarfs, or as they are called by the Orcs, Stunties, the mortal enemy of the Greenskin. You proceed down a short path to your left, and are kind of taken back by the site of giant statues of Dwarfs, flanked with dwarfs charging all around it in a futile effort to gain ground. If you are not familiar with Warhammer lore, you quickly realize that this area was once home to the Dwarfs, and it was taken from them by The Bloody Sun Boyz. The dwarfs try to capture it back, but are simply outnumbered by the Greenskins. You run into this area and get your feet wet with some killing; this is what we all came here for right? You do your standard quest, kill 5 dwarfs, and return. It is not enough to kill these dwarfs, we must also humiliate them. So as a follow up quest, we have to take a handful of mud, and cover a dwarf statue in it, just to rub things in.
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Once you've had your fill of Dwarf killing and humiliating, you return to the area at which you started. You are then told to go down a road to the right; it is a sharp downhill path that leads you to a giant mud pit. Once there you need to do some random tasks, such as digging through some piles of muck to find some needed items. You then walk through the muck onto a beach, where there is a constant battle of Orcs and Dwarfs. Your first mission is to grab the swords or choppas, which is what Orcs call swords. You see, the language the Orcs use sounds very much like what the object actually does. So, you grab the choppas from some wounded solders because we definitely do not want them going to waste. Then you are in search of the Orc's next greatest passion after war and weapons.... beer. You have been instructed to search some barrels on the beach for dwarf beer and bring it back. However, each barrel that you open has a pissed off naked Dwarf in it, which you have to fight and kill. You're probably wondering, how the hell did these dwarfs end up naked in barrels?
Next, you are thrown right into the action, literally. You hop onto a giant wooden catapult and are then shot over the wall of a dwarf castle. There, you are tasked with killing some dwarfs and destroying as much of their stuff as you can. Next, you stumble upon a quest to find an unconscious dwarf. Once you find this dwarf and bring him back, you are told to stuff him into a barrel. Once he is loaded in the barrel you push him off the castle into the water, which suddenly makes the barrels being full of naked dwarfs make a lot more sense. Your next task in the castle involves killing a powerful dwarf priest, and then taking his skull back down near the starting area, right near the dwarf statues. You then take his skull and place it on a pike to show those dwarfs you mean business. This pretty much concludes your experience in the starting area as you wander along into other small camps and public quests.
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The Greenskin’s starting area is your first introduction to your race and faction. The overall impression you are left with is of dirt, grime, aggression, and most of all war. You truly begin to find yourself drawn into hating dwarfs, and feeling the raw aggression of the Orcs. Not to mention, the goblins remind you of a shady car salesman trying to get over on you at every turn. The impression you gather here stays with you throughout the game. At any starting point in any game, it is important that you are drawn in and feel a part of the game. Mythic has done a great job of this in the Greenskin's starting zone; it quickly grabs a hold of you and reels you in for the ride. The Greenskins and the Orcs in particular, are a lot of peoples' favorites because of their simple language and caveman like instincts. They are a comic relief of sorts, and that really comes across in their starting zone. What's not to love about beer swilling, brawling giants that talk like toddlers, and pushing around their smaller brethren, who in turn try to outwit and scam them at every turn? Sounds like an episode of Jerry Springer, and is just as fun to play...
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