Updated Third Impressions: Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
Playing Second Fiddle: PvE
I know that I’m oftentimes given to being long-winded, so I’m going to put this next part as bluntly as I possibly can: If you don’t like PvP, do not buy WAR.
PvE in the game is nothing to write home about—that is to say, there’s not really anything that stands out as particularly good or bad about it, it’s just a whole lot more of the same.
Right around the year 2003, Western MMO designers all seem to have gotten together and arrived at the singular conclusion that players would no longer stand for just being told to go off on their own with no guidance, find a secluded corner of a dungeon somewhere to set up camp, and grind until they capped out.
To remedy this, they came up with a diabolically ingenious new solution: Quest grinding. Offering players the illusion of choice by having thousands of quests available to carry them from the very first moments of the game all the way up to the cap, and beyond.
Do not be fooled by this trickery. You’re still grinding all the same, just moving around a bit more, with your quest log keeping track of which particular mobs you’re supposed to grind, and where.
Warhammer Online is the latest poster child for this design philosophy, with the PvE game largely consisting of the same handful of basic objectives rehashed ad infinitum.
Unless you relish the thought of doing nothing but standard-issue FedEx, rat killing, and item retrieval quests for 40 levels straight, PvP is going to be where you’ll spend the bulk of your time as a player.
If you aren’t a big fan of PvP in general, you’re out of luck. While it is conceivable that you could go through the game never having engaged in it, by sticking exclusively to the “safe zones” surrounding contested areas, in doing so you would be cutting yourself off from the majority of its premier features, the things which largely serve to separate it from the competition.
Even the highest-end PvE content in the game can only be reached through PvP: The main purpose of the RvR campaign, unlocking access to the enemy’s capital city, also unlocks the chance to do battle against the faction leaders themselves, where the greatest challenges (and by extension, best loot) are to be found.
But, all of this doesn’t really hurt the game too dearly in my eyes. Slaying dragons is a dime a dozen. Good MMO-scale PvP is hard to find. I doubt that the PvE crowd is who they were gunning for in the first place, and what the genre really needs is a high-quality PvP-centric game on the market.
The Tome of Knowledge
Equal parts Wikipedia, quest log, and Xbox Live achievement system, the Tome of Knowledge weaves it way through nearly every facet of the game.
It starts as a largely blank slate, but, from the moment you log in you’ll start unlocking its entries—most likely, strangely enough, starting with a note that you’ve encountered a member of your own race for the very first time after speaking to the starter quest NPC.
The Warhammer universe has been around for 25 years—longer than many of the people who are going to be playing WAR have even been alive. In that time, Games Workshop has generated an encyclopedic amount of lore involving the universe—such that it takes an encyclopedia in the game just to catalogue and distribute it all.
If you don’t know what a skaven is, or a squig, or why the Dark Elves are such stereotypically evil bastards, the Tome will tell you.
But, it also goes much further than that. Nearly everything you do is either recorded for posterity or serves to unlocks something deeper in the Tome. Your hours played, how many times you’ve died, how many people you’ve killed, the mobs you’ve encountered, important NPCs you’ve met… Even the act of unlocking things itself unlocks even further things down the line.
The depth and breadth of the Tome is likely to keep diehard achievers busy for years to come, and is one of the game’s more interesting features.
[...] was published in January, 2008. Nearly all of the information in it is currently out of date. Please click here to read our updated impressions published August 28, [...]
[...] The interview actually took place a few weeks back at E3, but I’ve been sitting on it until now to allow it to become a companion piece to my updated impressions article, which you can read right over here. [...]
Pretty much dead on, though I would point out that AoC was already at 415k by the end of June, so they are probably a heck of a lot lower now. I know a lot of the more committed people quit in mid-July, you can see it on all the forums.
As for the feeling of PVE shallowness in WAR: I think a lot of things contribute to it. The slower combat (good for PVP, makes it easy to run from mobs though), marked map, tooltip quest directions, instant scenario queues, unlimited hearth, shallow crafting, linear zone design, lack of gear (used to be too much gear, actually), bland graphics (sliders set to med-low settings for beta) and bad mob AI (was good in the past, broken for PW, said to be fixed). The writing is good, but hidden in the ToK, not something I’m going to bother with during a beta.
I found myself mostly alternating PQ’s and scenario play, doing maybe 2/3 of the quests along the way if convenient. It was a heck of a lot more mixed up and social then the average WoW solo leveling treadmill, where you might see a new dungeon every 3-4 nights. I have heard reasonably good things about the open dungeons at higher levels, and although there are only a few of them I hope they add another significant wrinkle to the content.
I have never enjoyed MMO PVP, though I have enjoyed competition in online shooters and fighting games. I really enjoyed the PVP in WAR; it seemed that every situation was different and gave you a lot to think about. So anyone who thinks they might like PVP should give the open beta a shake.
Nice Preview/Review, I am actually an old DaoC player and no other MMORPG has ever got my adrenaline pumping and heart beating like the first Large scale RvR battle I experienced.So I am eagerly anticipating WAR.
On a side note,I find it odd how Negative the reviewer was 6 months ago,granted you should be negative if its needed,but in this review your totally unbiased.
Obviously that’s a good thing but your also allowed to show your impressed or excited if the experience merits that.
What’s so special about the PQ’s. It just sounds to me (from this review) like a normal quest chain like you get in any other mmo. i.e. it starts of feasy and gets harder as you get to the ‘boss’ in the final quest.
What’s special is that you don’t actually get it from anyone - you just see a huge crowd and some text on your screen and realize something crazy is about to happen. It’s actually the best part of the PvE game so far - though it seems like it forces players to co-operate more than actually encouraging it. I know people tend to try and grab kills and objectives for selfish reasons because they want a better chance at the loot.
If you’re in it for a cool boss spawn or world event, it’s great. Waiting 5 times to get the loot you want is about the same as every other mmo I’ve ever played.
You know, I think that if someone is really excited about pvp in other games (like wow) and is getting bored - this is a good one. I don’t see it grabbing many roleplayers though. Maybe it’s just the beta rush, but only two people have even answered my hello since starting. (well, I’m sure it’s the beta rush) I haven’t found an emote that works yet either.
Still, more fun than the average grind - I do like that I can get experience from players.
Pretty spot on review. Now with release Id like to add a few more things. Apparently theres a pretty major memory leak. I use a 64 bit OS and have 8G of RAM. After running war for about 3 hours Im using over 85% of my memory. Its easily corrected by restarting the client but who wants to stop and reload every few hours.
IMO the PVP is where it is at. Ive done a mix of PVP, PVE, and PQ up to level 7 and then went pure PVP/RVR for for the next 7.
I think this is a very “good” and fun game but I honestly believe, if you wernt a fan of the genre already this is not going to be the one that brings you in. Its very much more of the same with a few improvements and additions.
[...] That’s the gist of my first week in WAR. So far, I’ve found the PvP side of the game to be fast-paced, fun, and exciting, with the PvE side being exactly the opposite–dull, repetitive, the sort of things we’ve all seen before. Not much changed from my third impressions piece prior to launch. [...]
[...] http://www.mmogamer.com/08/27/2008/warhammer-online-third-impressions [...]
Is the “living guild” really a new idea? I haven’t played EQ2 for several years, but I’d swear that guilds leveled up in that game back in 2004 or 2005
Living guild isn’t really a new idea but I havn’t seen a lot of MMO’s use it. I played Ragnarok Online a lot a few years ago, and they had a leveling system for the guild that allowed for guild skills (depending on a Tax % of your leveling experience your guild leader chose for you =P) But it consisted mostly of allowing more players into the guild, or bonus stats for the war of emperium fights. (Guild Vs Guild fighting over a castle, by destroying/defending the emperium in the deepest part of the castle) Although in a normal basis the guild level didn’t help unless it was for the WoE fights (or more people) .