The fact is, this is not a deep game like say EQ2 Vanguard or LOTRO where you have alot of aspects to the game that are not combat based. Such as housing, in depth crafting, serious roleplaying possibilities (playable instruments, faction based costume gear etc..). I know in EQ2, alot of the players that are left don't even participate in any combat at all, but just hang out in the taverns or travel around Norrath RPing with folks. This is not a game you are going to get lost in for hours wandering through pretty forests RPing with the local elves without fighting anything.
However, what WAR is, is a very good RVR/PVP game with some good PVE questing elements. It is first and foremost a combat game, and that's really about all it is. It does this very well. I'm having a grand ol time of it, when I get sick of button mashing and pwnin n00bs, I can always hop back over to LOTRO for some good ol fantasy RPing and immersion.
War is a niche game, as it is totally focused on one aspect of what we traditionaly think of MMORPGs, at least how they were before WoW. This niche however seems to be the biggest niche out there, which is hardcore combat based pvp.
Interesting to reads Jon's points on the PVP in WAR , I have never ever enjoyed PVP in any game until now that is. ! The Scenario's and Open RVR areas are a brilliant idea and if like me me you've always been scared of PVP well now their is no need as with WAR it gradually draws you in and before you know it your having a blast !
At first I was getting killed alot but a few Renown points and a trip to the renown gear seller started to change all that, I actually started to hold my own and even started getting a few solo Kills.
I have to say the first time I saw Destruction players actually running away from my Swordmasters onslaught was amazing !!
anyway Jon thanks for the great read and I think most of your points were spot on the mark !
I am having a blast with this game! I have been it since late beta and early head starts.
I knew RvR would be great but the three total shockers for me about this game are:
1. PvE is very well done!
Not to LOTRO level of depth, but as good as if not better than WoW. As far as questing goes though, I haven't seen much tight 6 man content grouping mechanics yet. But all other PvE aspects and content are very good, this was my big shocker.
2. PQ's are fun and bring something new to the mmo scene!
They are great from many perspectives, and yes they do have some inherent flaws, some of which can be worked out. Doing PQ's and how they work them into the game gives the game great fun and additional addiction factor.
3. Tome of Knowledge (Tok)
This may be a hit or miss for some but to me it is a great addition to the mmo world (yes LOTRO sort of did it first and WoW is sort of copying it). It adds a lot of different types of content to the game, not to mention the depth and ties to PvE and lore it helps build on to. Very well done and at times I find myself reading the ToK, my unlocks, and fun titles I have gained.
I don't need to mention the RvR and scenarios, they were the feature attraction and have lived up to it.
This game so far offers a great deal of FUN things to do that can be done in short time blocks. I think this will be one of its greatest "features".
First I want to really say that I enjoyed the article. I'm in the catagory that's having fun and having a hard time turning the game off when it's time to go to bed... and the fun thing is that it's not becuase I'll 'ruin' the group if I leave or let some one down or anything, it's just becuase I don't want the fun times to stop.
that said, one thing in your article... I'm confused... I mean I think perhaps I 'get' you on a certain level but you said:
"...you might to find that WAR feels a bit “cartoony” and “WoW-like”. -Jon wood.
now, other than the odd sentance construction, which leads me to believe that perhaps you had re-written that sentance and perhaps it's not saying what I think it means at all... but if I get the 'gist' of it, your saying that the Styling looks a lot like WoW.
so, on the level that they both have green Orcs, ... ok, on the level that they both use Pixels to show a picture, ya, ok, I get that too... but on the level that when I played WoW I went "oh my, this is different." I have to disagree.
so, since we agreed on so many things in your article, I thought I'd 'toss' this out there and see if it makes sense.
If you were to lump, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Asherons Call, and oh lets just say Earth and Beyond just for some flavor into one graphic styling for an MMO, and World of WarCraft, into another, into which group would you say that Warhammer Online more closely fits?
If you didn't say the first group, then seriously, I just gotta say "you, be crazy mon!" one of the things that I liked the most about the grafics of this game was the fact that I felt that they made a concentrated effort to stay away from the 'WAY cartoony' look of WoW, and went back to the 'MMO Standard,' shall we say of the old school days, with the requisite fresh coat of paint of course, to make it work in today's world of grafical wonders.
I just had to put that out there, becaus I really liked how the graphics were done in the game, and one of the biggest 'reliefs' was that, "oh thank goodness they didn't go with the 'WoW' style."
I was a MMORPG fan when I first started playing DAoC in 2001 and then switched to SWG in 2005. I can't say for sure if I am a MMORPG fan anymore though, because community is just as much a feature of a MMORPG as PvP or Raiding. The community since WoW came out in almost every MMORPG I've played has been rude, anti-social, and disrespectful with small pockets of mature people. This is the exact opposite of how the community was before WoW. Your last paragraph said that you would recommend the game to fans of MMORPGs, but I cannot say for sure if I am a fan of MMORPGs anymore. I love the idea of building a character over a long period of time with other people online, but I absolutely hate what the MMORPG community has devolved to. I guess the question is: Is the WAR community like the DAoC and SWG community before WoW brought several million people into our games, or is the WAR community like WoW's?
I couldn't agree with you more. This is the main reason I'm not bothering with WAR, or a lot of other MMO's now for that matter anymore. They're full of the young teens born in the late 1980's and early 1990's, or the Beavis and Butthead generation as I like to call them. Not all in that generation are bad I know, but a majority of them do have issues on how to act socially in a MMO.
Going out on a limb here, but I'm gonna bet that there's allot more to your 'withdrawl' from MMO's, perhaps life is getting more involved for you now that the 'salad years' of the old MMO's have gone? Sure, tiny boppers might add to the distaste, but for serious gamers, it's really not hard to find one of those "...small pockets of mature people,..." and get the same enjoyment that you got out of games back in the day.
Ok, had someone ask me what were my thoughts on Warhammer Online. Your now asking why listen to Jenner, when there is so many posters out there. Well, there is no real reason to listen to me, I do have 11 years of MMORPG experience and I will give an unbiased opinon the best I can (Yes, this coming from someone that believes The Death star was nothing more then an orphanage, only going where the Rebels caused death to save the children and all it's weapons were purely defensive).
Back to Warhammer Online. Anyone who has played wow will be fairly comfortable with Warhammer, in a alot of ways it is a Wow clone, but there is Several Major Differences. While you have your questing system in the game, It is geared for pvp and each Area (an area is Designed for every 10 levels) has it's own battleground, it's own Realm Vs Realm Area (you do not have to do either). When first entering the Battle ground, you will find that your Stats are bumped up to 3 levels below the area max (8, 18, I have not seen past that yet) While you do not have the specials or armor for that level, you can compete and was getting killing blows with a level 1 toon. The Battleground do give Experience points, so if you do not want to quest and just pvp, that path is open to you. The Battleground gives what is called renown and you can get armor and weapons with it (alot like the rep system in wow, except you can get pieces for your level starting at 1-11). Each area has what they call an Open Scenerio, it is like a open dungeon, The ones I have encountered has 3 waves, a normal mob for that area wave, easy to solo, a Champion Phase (they are kinda like trash mobs in an instance designed for your level in WOW, really hard to solo, but can be done) and a Hero Phase that sometimes has Champions Mixed in (Best way to describe a Hero is imagine having to fight Drake with only 8 60's) Depending on how hard the OC is, there are a Number of Loot at the end, the game ranks you on damage or healing you done during the 3 phases and depending where you place, you get a bonus to your roll of 1-999, First place gets a great loot bag, then there is bags below it. Now what happens if I do not win a prize. Well first you get a section type rep and if you stay and do it again, you get an additional bonus to your roll the next round called a persistence bonus. Graphicly it is a Beautiful game, I have been running it fine with a Amd 64x2 5800+ processor, 3+ gigs of DDR 3 ram and a nvidia 8600 GTS sli graphics card.
Overall I have not been this excited about a game since I saw the complexity of the Starwars Galaxies Crafting system at Launch. I am ultimately a Crafter first in MMORPG's and while WAR does not have a very good crafting system from what I have seen so far, The PVP/RvR systems has gotten me excited.
This is what I posted on my 2 wow guild forums on what I felt about the game.
" would you let any of your editors use the word... I hope you wouldn't."
WARNING!!!!!!
I fear that Mackdawg19 is an agent of Big Brother. oh man... oh MAN don't get me started on the idiotic nit picking requests for censorship and 'Politicaly Correct' word usage that seem to be cropping up here.
Mackdawg19, Go read 1984, (by Orwell here's a link) think about if you REALLY want the kind of Censorship you are requesting, and then hopefully mature a little bit.
You sound resonably intelligent, I'm just hoping that your young and havn't really thought out what your asking as far as censoring authors and curtailing their creative freedom. if you HAVE thought about it, and you really want to live in a world where words like 'fanboi' 'carebare' and 'ganker' are eliminated, you have to think of the hundreds and hundreds of words that would come before those ones to get 'edited' out of usage, and then who is making the decision on what is 'appropriate' and what's not? every one like you? do we all get to pick our lists of 'what offends?'
PLEASE don't go down that road. your asking an EDITOR to EDIT the Flavor right out of his writing style.
Grrrrrrrrraouuughrrrrr, I... I.. it's just, oh man. these kinds of things upset me.
BE FOR MORE FREEDOM OF SPEACH, man, not more Censorship and closed minded thinking.
and if you absolutly must get on some sort of 'book burning band wagon' then at least pick something to CENSOR that is at least a TAD more Socialy upsetting, like things that make light of the Holocaust, or, perhaps true hate speach etc, but.. but to chose your banner to be the elimination of the word "carebare" from an editorial having to do with MMORPG's... it's LUDICRIS!
I'll send this as a PM because I really want you to read it man, like I said, you seem smart, but the road you are starting to walk down is slippery, and the end of it is not the end that a sane, game playing fun loving, word reading man would want to end up in.
Great review Jon! You covered all the issues I look at when deciding if I should play a game. I don't see that very often and I appreciate the time you took to write that up.
I look forward to reading your articles in the future!
Hello! Jon I would like to thank you for giving an honest to God, GREAT Preview of this game. When i first looked at WAR I feared it might turn into a trivial "Cookie Cutter" MMO(massive Multi-Player Online Game) as my friends and I call it, But you showed me it may just be the game too bring me back.
From when i started MMO's almost 10 years ago with RuneScape's first beta test, I have seen great communities, and bad communities all over the place. From all of the comment people have left it seems that WAR is a relatively great community game. And from your review with common terms as "Care bears" heh it was easy too read and made me chuckle. . So Jon Great review I hope that WAR is everything you listed it would be for a player as my self...
And if your your wondering, I am a player who likes PvE, but loves PvP. I hate how some games show One-shot kills, because honestly without out beheading or a sniper rifle.. That's just not logical .
I have seen the good and the bad of PvP, from the ingenious system of areas where fighting risks everything you have on you, and where other times you just gain reputation. the thing that always lacked was a long and expansive fight that took some sort of skill over just luck, and binding one player immobile while you "thrash" him. So this long fight with more HP, seems to fit me just right. I also like how someone noted that you can level by fighting peopel instead of just questing and doing PvE. That my friends is Genius.
One last note to all of the haters of this post. Those whom found his word usage unprofessional or found him to have missed things. Well No ones perfect for one, And as many of you pointed out most gamers now Range as young as 12. So why should he write a review with terms that are boring and rather annoying, Instead of generalizing and adapting him self as a writer and person to what he thinks is best. Dissing him as a writer is stupid because it's HIS Preview not Yours! So shut it! If your a Nay-Sayer go somewhere else .
Sincerely,
Falleus Rowe
Made by Bionix on the forums of AruaRose.
Shadius is usually my IGN on games. I am currently not playing any Massive Multiplayer Online games(Commonly referred too as MMO's) Due to the fact of school and putting real life first.
Comments
Mr. Wood makes some good points about this game.
The fact is, this is not a deep game like say EQ2 Vanguard or LOTRO where you have alot of aspects to the game that are not combat based. Such as housing, in depth crafting, serious roleplaying possibilities (playable instruments, faction based costume gear etc..). I know in EQ2, alot of the players that are left don't even participate in any combat at all, but just hang out in the taverns or travel around Norrath RPing with folks. This is not a game you are going to get lost in for hours wandering through pretty forests RPing with the local elves without fighting anything.
However, what WAR is, is a very good RVR/PVP game with some good PVE questing elements. It is first and foremost a combat game, and that's really about all it is. It does this very well. I'm having a grand ol time of it, when I get sick of button mashing and pwnin n00bs, I can always hop back over to LOTRO for some good ol fantasy RPing and immersion.
War is a niche game, as it is totally focused on one aspect of what we traditionaly think of MMORPGs, at least how they were before WoW. This niche however seems to be the biggest niche out there, which is hardcore combat based pvp.
Thank you, Jon. I love your style.
Interesting to reads Jon's points on the PVP in WAR , I have never ever enjoyed PVP in any game until now that is. ! The Scenario's and Open RVR areas are a brilliant idea and if like me me you've always been scared of PVP well now their is no need as with WAR it gradually draws you in and before you know it your having a blast !
At first I was getting killed alot but a few Renown points and a trip to the renown gear seller started to change all that, I actually started to hold my own and even started getting a few solo Kills.
I have to say the first time I saw Destruction players actually running away from my Swordmasters onslaught was amazing !!
anyway Jon thanks for the great read and I think most of your points were spot on the mark !
right off to go find a better Sword !!
Great review. I love your approach.
I am having a blast with this game! I have been it since late beta and early head starts.
I knew RvR would be great but the three total shockers for me about this game are:
1. PvE is very well done!
Not to LOTRO level of depth, but as good as if not better than WoW. As far as questing goes though, I haven't seen much tight 6 man content grouping mechanics yet. But all other PvE aspects and content are very good, this was my big shocker.
2. PQ's are fun and bring something new to the mmo scene!
They are great from many perspectives, and yes they do have some inherent flaws, some of which can be worked out. Doing PQ's and how they work them into the game gives the game great fun and additional addiction factor.
3. Tome of Knowledge (Tok)
This may be a hit or miss for some but to me it is a great addition to the mmo world (yes LOTRO sort of did it first and WoW is sort of copying it). It adds a lot of different types of content to the game, not to mention the depth and ties to PvE and lore it helps build on to. Very well done and at times I find myself reading the ToK, my unlocks, and fun titles I have gained.
I don't need to mention the RvR and scenarios, they were the feature attraction and have lived up to it.
This game so far offers a great deal of FUN things to do that can be done in short time blocks. I think this will be one of its greatest "features".
Enjoy!
First I want to really say that I enjoyed the article. I'm in the catagory that's having fun and having a hard time turning the game off when it's time to go to bed... and the fun thing is that it's not becuase I'll 'ruin' the group if I leave or let some one down or anything, it's just becuase I don't want the fun times to stop.
that said, one thing in your article... I'm confused... I mean I think perhaps I 'get' you on a certain level but you said:
"...you might to find that WAR feels a bit “cartoony” and “WoW-like”. -Jon wood.
now, other than the odd sentance construction, which leads me to believe that perhaps you had re-written that sentance and perhaps it's not saying what I think it means at all... but if I get the 'gist' of it, your saying that the Styling looks a lot like WoW.
so, on the level that they both have green Orcs, ... ok, on the level that they both use Pixels to show a picture, ya, ok, I get that too... but on the level that when I played WoW I went "oh my, this is different." I have to disagree.
so, since we agreed on so many things in your article, I thought I'd 'toss' this out there and see if it makes sense.
If you were to lump, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Asherons Call, and oh lets just say Earth and Beyond just for some flavor into one graphic styling for an MMO, and World of WarCraft, into another, into which group would you say that Warhammer Online more closely fits?
If you didn't say the first group, then seriously, I just gotta say "you, be crazy mon!" one of the things that I liked the most about the grafics of this game was the fact that I felt that they made a concentrated effort to stay away from the 'WAY cartoony' look of WoW, and went back to the 'MMO Standard,' shall we say of the old school days, with the requisite fresh coat of paint of course, to make it work in today's world of grafical wonders.
I just had to put that out there, becaus I really liked how the graphics were done in the game, and one of the biggest 'reliefs' was that, "oh thank goodness they didn't go with the 'WoW' style."
and that my friend, is my 2 Cents.
-zWolf out.
(Wade Hone)
Thank you,
zWolf -out.
I couldn't agree with you more. This is the main reason I'm not bothering with WAR, or a lot of other MMO's now for that matter anymore. They're full of the young teens born in the late 1980's and early 1990's, or the Beavis and Butthead generation as I like to call them. Not all in that generation are bad I know, but a majority of them do have issues on how to act socially in a MMO.
Going out on a limb here, but I'm gonna bet that there's allot more to your 'withdrawl' from MMO's, perhaps life is getting more involved for you now that the 'salad years' of the old MMO's have gone? Sure, tiny boppers might add to the distaste, but for serious gamers, it's really not hard to find one of those "...small pockets of mature people,..." and get the same enjoyment that you got out of games back in the day.
Thank you,
zWolf -out.
Ok, had someone ask me what were my thoughts on Warhammer Online. Your now asking why listen to Jenner, when there is so many posters out there. Well, there is no real reason to listen to me, I do have 11 years of MMORPG experience and I will give an unbiased opinon the best I can (Yes, this coming from someone that believes The Death star was nothing more then an orphanage, only going where the Rebels caused death to save the children and all it's weapons were purely defensive).
Back to Warhammer Online. Anyone who has played wow will be fairly comfortable with Warhammer, in a alot of ways it is a Wow clone, but there is Several Major Differences. While you have your questing system in the game, It is geared for pvp and each Area (an area is Designed for every 10 levels) has it's own battleground, it's own Realm Vs Realm Area (you do not have to do either). When first entering the Battle ground, you will find that your Stats are bumped up to 3 levels below the area max (8, 18, I have not seen past that yet) While you do not have the specials or armor for that level, you can compete and was getting killing blows with a level 1 toon. The Battleground do give Experience points, so if you do not want to quest and just pvp, that path is open to you. The Battleground gives what is called renown and you can get armor and weapons with it (alot like the rep system in wow, except you can get pieces for your level starting at 1-11). Each area has what they call an Open Scenerio, it is like a open dungeon, The ones I have encountered has 3 waves, a normal mob for that area wave, easy to solo, a Champion Phase (they are kinda like trash mobs in an instance designed for your level in WOW, really hard to solo, but can be done) and a Hero Phase that sometimes has Champions Mixed in (Best way to describe a Hero is imagine having to fight Drake with only 8 60's) Depending on how hard the OC is, there are a Number of Loot at the end, the game ranks you on damage or healing you done during the 3 phases and depending where you place, you get a bonus to your roll of 1-999, First place gets a great loot bag, then there is bags below it. Now what happens if I do not win a prize. Well first you get a section type rep and if you stay and do it again, you get an additional bonus to your roll the next round called a persistence bonus. Graphicly it is a Beautiful game, I have been running it fine with a Amd 64x2 5800+ processor, 3+ gigs of DDR 3 ram and a nvidia 8600 GTS sli graphics card.
Overall I have not been this excited about a game since I saw the complexity of the Starwars Galaxies Crafting system at Launch. I am ultimately a Crafter first in MMORPG's and while WAR does not have a very good crafting system from what I have seen so far, The PVP/RvR systems has gotten me excited.
This is what I posted on my 2 wow guild forums on what I felt about the game.
url=http://www.enjin.com]
[/url]
WARNING!!!!!!
I fear that Mackdawg19 is an agent of Big Brother. oh man... oh MAN don't get me started on the idiotic nit picking requests for censorship and 'Politicaly Correct' word usage that seem to be cropping up here.
Mackdawg19, Go read 1984, (by Orwell here's a link) think about if you REALLY want the kind of Censorship you are requesting, and then hopefully mature a little bit.
You sound resonably intelligent, I'm just hoping that your young and havn't really thought out what your asking as far as censoring authors and curtailing their creative freedom. if you HAVE thought about it, and you really want to live in a world where words like 'fanboi' 'carebare' and 'ganker' are eliminated, you have to think of the hundreds and hundreds of words that would come before those ones to get 'edited' out of usage, and then who is making the decision on what is 'appropriate' and what's not? every one like you? do we all get to pick our lists of 'what offends?'
PLEASE don't go down that road. your asking an EDITOR to EDIT the Flavor right out of his writing style.
Grrrrrrrrraouuughrrrrr, I... I.. it's just, oh man. these kinds of things upset me.
BE FOR MORE FREEDOM OF SPEACH, man, not more Censorship and closed minded thinking.
and if you absolutly must get on some sort of 'book burning band wagon' then at least pick something to CENSOR that is at least a TAD more Socialy upsetting, like things that make light of the Holocaust, or, perhaps true hate speach etc, but.. but to chose your banner to be the elimination of the word "carebare" from an editorial having to do with MMORPG's... it's LUDICRIS!
I'll send this as a PM because I really want you to read it man, like I said, you seem smart, but the road you are starting to walk down is slippery, and the end of it is not the end that a sane, game playing fun loving, word reading man would want to end up in.
Wade Hone -out.
Thank you,
zWolf -out.
Great review Jon! You covered all the issues I look at when deciding if I should play a game. I don't see that very often and I appreciate the time you took to write that up.
I look forward to reading your articles in the future!
Cheers.
Hello! Jon I would like to thank you for giving an honest to God, GREAT Preview of this game. When i first looked at WAR I feared it might turn into a trivial "Cookie Cutter" MMO(massive Multi-Player Online Game) as my friends and I call it, But you showed me it may just be the game too bring me back.
From when i started MMO's almost 10 years ago with RuneScape's first beta test, I have seen great communities, and bad communities all over the place. From all of the comment people have left it seems that WAR is a relatively great community game. And from your review with common terms as "Care bears" heh it was easy too read and made me chuckle.
. So Jon Great review I hope that WAR is everything you listed it would be for a player as my self...
And if your your wondering, I am a player who likes PvE, but loves PvP. I hate how some games show One-shot kills, because honestly without out beheading or a sniper rifle.. That's just not logical
.
I have seen the good and the bad of PvP, from the ingenious system of areas where fighting risks everything you have on you, and where other times you just gain reputation. the thing that always lacked was a long and expansive fight that took some sort of skill over just luck, and binding one player immobile while you "thrash" him. So this long fight with more HP, seems to fit me just right. I also like how someone noted that you can level by fighting peopel instead of just questing and doing PvE. That my friends is Genius.
One last note to all of the haters of this post. Those whom found his word usage unprofessional or found him to have missed things. Well No ones perfect for one, And as many of you pointed out most gamers now Range as young as 12. So why should he write a review with terms that are boring and rather annoying, Instead of generalizing and adapting him self as a writer and person to what he thinks is best. Dissing him as a writer is stupid because it's HIS Preview not Yours! So shut it! If your a Nay-Sayer go somewhere else
.
Sincerely,
Falleus Rowe
Made by Bionix on the forums of AruaRose.
Shadius is usually my IGN on games. I am currently not playing any Massive Multiplayer Online games(Commonly referred too as MMO's) Due to the fact of school and putting real life first.