Updated Third Impressions: Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
Public Quests
Many people hammered my last article for not mentioning what they seemed to feel was one of the game’s key defining features: Public Quests.
Perhaps they might not have hammered quite so hard if I mentioned why: At both of the events I was able to play the game prior to writing, the two available PQs were not properly working.
As I’ve since been able to play through a number of them first-hand, I now feel a bit better equipped to discuss them.
The game’s various zones are broken up into “Chapters” in the Tome of Knowledge, and there are roughly three PQs per chapter.
Essentially, Public Quests are a chain of interconnected objectives that all bleed into each other, which anyone within a designated area can join or leave at any time.
The quests each consist of several steps, the first of which tend to be soloable, with the final one usually culminating in a boss fight requiring one or more full groups with tanks and healers. This could prove to be a problem for the now tank-less Empire and Dark Elves, unless their PQs are rebalanced prior to launch.
The steps generally consist of things you’d probably already be doing during ordinary questing—killing mobs, breaking things, picking things up—only you and the other participants have to do a lot more of them, and with a time limit.
Aside from experience, PQs also carry the added reward of Influence, which can help tip the balance of power when trying to take control over a zone, and earning enough of it in each chapter unlocks special rewards of items and gear.
If you complete a PQ, there’s a random roll for loot—the more you participated, the higher your roll will be—and the winners of the roll have their choice of items or coin.
Once a PQ is over, there’s a brief cooling off period before it resets. In my experience, the period might be a bit too short. I understand the appeal of broad accessibility, but it’s somewhat discouraging when you walk past a PQ you’d just completed moments earlier with great effort, to find that all of your hard work has magically reset itself in the time it’s taken you go get another Coke.
“Oh, there’s that dragon we killed five minutes ago… I guess death didn’t take.”
Still, they are a novel concept, and one that I’m sure many other games are going to copy in the years to come (imitation, more than just flattery, is the lifeblood of the gaming industry).
But, while they’re certainly a value-add for players, I’m not quite seeing the criticism that “He didn’t even mention Public Quests in his last article! He missed the point of the entire game!”
Open Groups and Living Guilds
Back in the Warhammer Online conference call in May, Josh Drescher stated that the holy grail of gaming is to trick players into having a social life.
One of the ways WAR tries to accomplish this is the Public Group system, taking the old “Groups” tab available in most games and running with it to a whole new level.
Every group in the game starts out by default in an “open” state. This means that other players can request to join without having to be actively sought out and invited by the leader.
Upon entering a new zone, the system automatically checks for open groups in the area, and if any are found, lists them on screen, letting you join at your leisure. This is a definite improvement to the days of standing around shouting “LFG” for six hours straight, and is another item I’m sure many other games are going to “borrow” in the years to come.
A second feature designed to entice players into interacting with each other is the living guild system.
Guilds in the game are “living” in the sense that they level up as the players within them do. Higher levels allow for certain benefits, such as designing and locking in a unique guild banner (it’s been claimed that there are 1.5 million possible banner combinations, and no two will be the same) which can then be carried into battle. And, at the highest levels, guilds can take over keeps in contested areas, claiming them as their own.
I haven’t been guilded in the game long enough to glean much more than that, so I’ll have to leave it there, for now.
Conclusions
At the end of the last article, I said that it was going to be a horse race this year for a new number two MMO between Conan and WAR.
Conan, of course, has already thrown its cards down on the table. FunCom had been telling players for years that they were holding a royal flush… but turned out to be bluffing with a pair of deuces, promising to deliver the flush on the next hand, when the expansion comes out.
The game launched strong—with claims of a million boxes shipped to retailers and over 800,000 sold… but then, from all quarters there came complaints of bugs, substandard play, and unfinished features.
By one of Conan’s producers own accounts, the game has lost half of its playerbase since going live.
The door has now been left wide open for Warhammer Online to carve out a niche for itself out at the top of the MMO heap. All they have to do to pull it off is to spend the next three weeks working as they have never worked before to get the game as polished as humanly possible, out the door, and launched smoothly.
Whatever happens, we will of course be bringing you a full review of the game shortly following its release.
[...] 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) .