My Post-NDA Writeup of Warhammer Online

August 19, 2008 – 2:53 pm

Thanks to Book of Grudges for the inspiration of this format! This what THEY want to see in a post-NDA writeup, so I hope it’s what YOU want to see too.

Was it fun?

Overall, I found the game fun, although some experiences were more fun than others, while others were not fun at all. Some of the most fun experiences could also be very frustrating, given different circumstances. For example, running around in a scenario with well organized allies could be extremely fun, but running around in that same scenario with a disorganized bunch of muppets could make you want to rip your hair out (or just run for the zone wall on your next death). I had several friends in beta, but organizing our play schedules was quite challenging, so I probably had less fun than I would have if I’d had people to play with.

I’m generally a solo kind of guy, but I found this game to be not so fun without people to play with. RvR requires group coordination if you really want to accomplish anything, so I don’t think the the core of this game will appeal to the solo types very much. There is a chance you’ll find other solo people running around but the time to kill is so long in most cases (which is kind of nice for a change), that someone else will probably end up passing by and joining the fight (with or against you), ruining the solo encounter. The best a solo player can really hope for is lurking around larger groups of people and hoping he doesn’t get singled out (but then you’re technically not playing solo). Alternatively, you could pick an Open-RvR server and run around the enemy’s PvE zones.

If you can get yourself into the group mentality, which is admittedly pretty easy, your fun factor will increase dramatically. Also, given the amount of career choices and how cool they are, I think everyone can find something they will have fun playing in WAR.

What irritated you?

The biggest irritations were probably the bugs, like zoning into a scenario while mounted and not being able to dismount until an enemy damaged you, or crashing to desktop for no apparent reason. It was to be expected since it was beta, but it was still irritating.

Another annoyance was dying very far away from a city/camp respawn location and getting ported so far away from getting back to where you wanted to go. You don’t always port back to the nearest encampment. Also, not every camp has the NPC you might be looking for (Renown Trainer, Flight Master, Healer, etc.), so there is a lot of travelling about, which is inconvenient.

Another irritation is the distance that mobs chase you when you’re trying to get away. It’s about twice as far as it was in WoW, which is really annoying if you’re in a densely populated area full of aggressive mobs.

None of these are overly major or game killing, but they were irritating.

What makes this game different?

It’s different from most MMOs because the main focus is RvR. One would think that other MMOs that have opposing factions, such as Alliance and Horde from WoW could easily implement something like this, but in WAR you actually feel like the sole purpose for your existence is to exterminate your enemies. Other MMOs I’ve played just don’t give me this feeling.

Even its predecessor, DAOC, doesn’t have this deep-seeded sense of war on the same level that WAR does. RvR in DAOC is very sandboxed compared to WAR. In DAOC, RvR was only in the frontiers and battlegrounds. WAR brings the war right to your doorstep within the first tier. You aren’t killing flopsy bunnies or crunchy insects to get from level 1 to level 2 in WAR… you’re killing NPC representations of your most hated nemeses.

What makes this game the same?

Most of the mechanics will be exceptionally familiar if you’ve ever played an MMORPG before. It’s still a game with melee and ranged combat. You still have the traditional GUI. You still progress by gaining XP and improving yourself through gear and abilities. WAR does not reinvent the MMORPG genre. It does what WoW, LOTRO, and AOC did… refines it and takes it another step forward.

Did you try anything nuts?

Unfortunately, I was pretty tame. I guess the most nuts thing I did in PvE was jump off some extremely high dwarf battlements in the greenskin starting area, trying to land in some water so that I wouldn’t die. I am one for two… In RvR, the craziest I got was on my Shaman, who I would run into the middle of a large group of enemies and press my ‘Eeek’ ability, that would send everyone flying off in random directions. Doing this on the edges of steep cliffs was most fun.

What is the core of the game like?

I guess you could say there are two individual cores in WAR making up the main core of RvR: the PvP game and the PvE game, which are both fairly sound.

Realm vs. Realm isn’t just PvE or just PvP… it is the combination of both. RvR is participating in a public quest to kill 100 dwarves faster than the competing enemy public quest to kill 100 orcs. Whoever wins, moves on to stage II. RvR is also gaining control of your enemies’ keeps so you can push the war to their fortress, and ultimately siege their city. RvR means that the majority of this game is designed to make your realm compete against their realm.

This is an evolution of DAOC where the stakes are much higher and much more interesting. RvR is Mythic Entertainment’s bread and butter, and they do it like no other.

What do you think the biggest issues are going to be?

Biggest issue? Balance! I don’t think this game is horribly unbalanced, but I don’t think they’ve quite nailed it yet either and doubt they ever will because it’s extremely tricky.

Firstly, they canned four classes and moved a bunch of their abilities onto other classes. That means the DoK and WP became much more tanklike. Great for PvE, but try taking on one of these guys in RvR… Have fun with that. What’s going to happen if they patch in the four missing careers? Are they going to nerf the improved WP and DoK? Yeah, I’m sure people will take that well… If not, everyone else will be pissed off. Catch 22.

Secondly, they are balancing Order against Destruction not pairing against pairing. So for example, you get the High Elves with access to four careers whose primary enemies throughout tiers 1-3 are the Dark Elves with access to only three careers. The High Elves will just be more well-rounded, especially in certain scenarios. Sure, people can travel to various allied zones and participate in their specific scenarios, but the vast majority of people will not. I made a greenskin to level throughout the greenskin tiers, thanks.

Balance is always the biggest issue in PvP-centric games and I highly doubt WAR will break free of this curse.

My second biggest issue is Zergs. Given the zergs I’ve seen in WAR, you’d think this game was made by Blizzard (Starcraft joke for the uninitiated). Far too often, open-world (i.e., non-instanced) RvR degrades into giant zergfests. Massive quantities of players form a giant mob and swarm keeps and battlefield objectives, obliterating everyone in their path. DAOC had a big zerg problem too, but I was mostly able to avoid it by joining a nifty 8-man guild, so I’ll probably overcome it in WAR too. I still think it’s boring, talentless, and generally uninteresting to participate in any form of zerg combat and it may become an issue for the larger gaming audience if it becomes too rampant at release.

What wasn’t there?

I got into beta at a later phase, so I wasn’t ever able to test the four cut classes before they were chopped. I was never able to see the four cut cities either, even though we tested Altdorf and The Inevitable City fairly extensively. Well, I didn’t test the cities because I wasn’t very interested in them to be honest, but others did. I ran around Altdorf for about an hour as an Archmage and found the city to be pretty decent. I ran around the IC for about 20 minutes and got extremely frustrated with it’s ridiculous layout and general lack of flair.

What was the beta experience like?

I’ve learned something about myself throughout the beta process: I’m not really beta tester material. I have way too many other things I’d rather spend my time on than freely testing a buggy product for some company that will make millions off my efforts. Also, those same RL things are a hindrance to making me want to invest much time in a character that will be wiped after each phase is complete. I applaud everyone who put in a much greater effort than I, but this is the LAST beta I will ever sign up for. I don’t really enjoy it and it would be better for the game if they gave my spot to someone who does.

I gotta say, the only reason I even bothered to stick it out is so that I could provide you guys with something to read. I enjoyed blogging about the game ten times more than I enjoyed testing it!

Did you find any good bugs?

I wouldn’t say I found anything earth-shattering and I’m sure that hundreds other people probably reported what I did find as well. The one thing that impressed me the most about this entire process is how insanely improved each new phase of beta turned out to be. Mythic employees must have been pulling 14 hours shifts seven days a week to make all the fixes. The UI updates were pretty crazy as well. I would log in during one phase and say, “Wow, this looks great!” Then the next phase would come around and it would be completely revamped and I would say, “Wow, this looks even better!”

Conclusion

If I’m being perfectly honest with you all, I still think they need to delay this game for another month, but I realize they won’t change their tune again. Even though they have been working exhaustively to make improvements, there are still features that haven’t been perfected (balance, player economy, full campaign, etc.) and there are other still that are intended but I still haven’t seen in (banking, auction house, etc.). I was really hoping Mythic would knock everyone on their collective asses by releasing a 100% complete and solid product on September 18 that didn’t need several weeks of insane patching and bugfixes, but I just don’t see it happening.

I’m sure the easiest explanation is that it was all because of money (though I don’t know all the technicalities behind it), but I’m still curious why they changed their tune of “We’ll release when it’s finished” to “We’ll release September 18″ when I still don’t think the game is totally finished. Maybe they believe we’ve all come to expect endless patches, balance tweaks, and bug fixes after an MMO launch. Given the backlash we’ve seen at Age of Conan lately, you’d think they’d want to avoid this like the plague (btw, WAR is way way way more finished than AoC, but it won’t launch flawlessly - mark my words).

I guess the shadow of WotLK must be very long and dark.

To end this on a positive note, I think there’s a chance Mythic can tighen up the relatively minor loose ends before release. I have seen them make massive changes in beta over periods of 1-2 weeks, so if anyone can pull it off, I believe it’s them. There are now more people testing the game than ever before. That bodes well for my hopes…