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Current State of The Game?
Astralglide
Member UncommonPosts: 686
So, how are things these days? I've come back twice and been dissapointed both times. I'll give it another try, but I want to know a couple things before I reinstall:
1) Population: Has the population improved?
2) Public Quests: Are people actually doing them?
3) Crafting: Is it still the worst system ever with reletively useless skills?
4) Loot: Has it improved in the last 6 months?
5) Scenarios: Still poppin'?
6) ORVR: Worth it yet?
A witty saying proves nothing.
-Voltaire
Comments
1. Across the board (T1-4) while T1, T3 and T4 are the most active at Karak-Azgal there are server differences but as long as you play around peak hours and not the off-hours action is guaranteed.
2. They are mostly done in case a zone lock needs pve, there are few high-end PQs that are still done in LotD though so they're not dead but game has moved from those a long time ago.
3. If you are looking for PvE this is not a game for you, crafting has it's uses and it's not a focal point of the game - never has and never will be.
4. There is plenty of opportunities, Lost Vale, LotD for PVE gearing and for PvP there are new RVR weapons that can be bought with scenario currency, armors can be bought with currency dropped by players and doing other rvr objectives.
5. Now more than ever actually with the scenario currency and streamlined scenario selection.
6. Of course, but this will depend on your perspective, what are you looking for - just grinding or trying to have fun? If you want to grind you can do that but will guarantee you boredom, there are opportunities for solo, group and warband play if you have imagination and sometimes correct class - be creative.
I just recently returned after quitting a LONG time ago, like about a month after launch. It was the last time I ever pre-ordered a game lol.
However, since then I have reduced my expectations of all mmorpgs (played most of them) and have removed the first-mmorpg-nostalgia-blues filters from my reasoning circuits. I tend to mmorpg hop these days. Just hopped from EVE and WOW back to WAR. That's my backstory, now to answer yer questions. I play on euro btw.
Overall, I love being back but have only played as far as lv11. I deleted all my old characters to start fresh.
Note. Questions answered in a different order, but they are clear enough.
1/ The game is a lot more stable than I remember. I have a new and decent PC, everything runs very smoothly and nicely on maxxed settings for me.
However, when I auto-ride mounts there are load-pauses every 8 or so seconds. I haven't tried any fixes yet but I never had load pauses on WOW or EVE. I ain't tried fixes yet as my new PC is Japanese (I live in Japan) and the kanji is tough to read so I need to get help from my wife when ever I wanna do some serious troubleshooting, which means I will get this sorted in a few weeks lol (my wife hates PC troubleshooting). I played WOW on us servers from Japan no problem (Japan has some of the fastest net connections in the world btw), so maybe it's because I am playing Japan to Europe? I dunno, but it is a wee bit annoying. To compound this, they still don't have an ingame UI to show latency or FPS so I have no idea what is happening there. I will try and sort out this issue soon, but just to let you know that some of us have these issues and don't have em on other games. I know most people don't have this issue in WAR so keep this criticism in perspective - this is a minor point specific to a minority of players.
2/ I still love the character animations and voices. Especially the greenskins. This was why I came back. Love the goblins, the look of them, how they speak and behave. This is a dealmaker for me coming back and playing lol.
3/ Population. OMG, the game on euro is down to two English servers, two German and - if memory serves me correct - one French. One English server has bonuses to playing Order and the other bonuses for playing Destruction. I play both and on questioning the player base I hear the faction balance is ok on each server.
Now a big change since launch is that they now have the three races auto start in one racial starting area. For example, greenskins and dark elves now start in the chaos starting area. This means the population in T1 and T2 is really, really solid. I am always surrounded by other players, public quests are always busy and groups are frequently forming for killing difficult PVE targets. This is my experience. Oh yeh, they have reduced the amount of public quests in each chapter which has also helped.
Now, there is an option to port back to your original racial starting area. I did this with one of my greenskins because I love the greenskin characters and quests. If you do this, then the game is dead as a dodo in those areas. I will rejoin the chaos areas with this alt for T2.
Also, the WAR battlegrounds (forget what WAR calls em, scenarios maybe?) are always popping real fast and they are more varied than when I first played. When I first played only one of those BGs used to start and it became repetitive fast, now they are more varied and this is a vast improvement.
So in-game population feels real healthy for me in T1 and T2, like it should have felt when I played originally. LOL, they should have had fewer servers at launch as I remember that being one reason for quitting was the feeling of a population empty game; too many players spread out over too many servers and starting areas, well this is no longer a problem.
4/ Crafting. No it's not great, and cultivating is still stupid. I went scavenging and talisman making with my main. This is the most useful, albeit uninspiring prof, as it gives you a steady supply of socket gems for your gear. My alt has the butcher and apothecary prof, but I die and res so much in battlegrounds I rarely use those pots and just vendor em for now.
5/ Get ready to switch off the Advice channel real fast. It is the general chat of WAR and full of retards that are equal to the nobs you will find in WOW trade chat. Switch it off ASAP for a massive improvement in gaming experience.
6/ Loot. As well as your usual vendor rewards (renown gear etc) they now have these tokens which drop in scenarios/battlegrounds. You can buy gear with them too. Other than that, I ain't played long enough to make a serious assessment of loot.
CONCLUSION
I ain't played enough to answer yer question 4 and 6, but 1-5 I am pretty mjuch happy with this game. It plays smoothly enough, the population is "artificially" solid (reduced servers and starting areas) but feels very active during play in T1 and T2 in Chaos vs Humans tiers, and above all I still love my precious goblin shaman and squig herder toons.
I will definitely play to T4 and see how it goes after that. For me, a casual player these days, that is a good few months of gaming for 9 pounds a month. Not a bad deal. It definitely wont keep me away from Cataclysm or the new star wars game, though.
As a temporary game-hop, I recommend it.
Cheers
melmoth
Can I revise what I just said lol.
After playing ok for the last few days I now get a patch error. Cannot connect.
Went to WAR EU forums and others have this problem for half a day now and there is a serious lack of reply from GOA.
Check back over forums and this seems a recurring problem. It happens regularly and last year apparently some people couldnt log in for about a week.
In some previous posts with this problem GOA often blame players ISP providers but some posters are saying it is an issue to do with their patcher having to connect to the player's account and timing out. I have played most mmorpgs and I aint had problems with my ISP provider, so the chances of me locking heads and corresponding with my ISP provider over ONE game that has issues is nil, I will just cut my losses and depart thank you very much.
The lack any GOA reply is a serious put-off and I am giving them 24 hours to reply - not fix it necessarily - but reply to the growing thread of discontent on this issue on the EU forums. If no reply then I quit this game for ever.
So much for my previous positive post lol.
You wanna come to WAR EU? Then take this post as a cautionary note. I will update on the resolution when it happens.
Regards
Melmoth
Ok, to be fair, GOA have replied and are looking into it.
Good enough for me.
Regards
Melmoth
Its a fun game taken in smaller doses, if you like PvP and/or rvr. Nothing else (as far as pvp) MMOs out there interests me, that said, it won't take a whole lot to pull me away, but i am not holding my breath waiting for one.
Scenerios are going down a path thats going to not be a lot of fun for some people and needs some changes. T4 endgame is supposedly under the devs microscope now, I don't have a lot of faith, but they really need to hit a home run with whatever they come up with.
Ok lets not go to "happy place in the past". The afk guys in scenarios problematic was ALOT worse after launch then it is now. They didnt even have the system where you stop gaining XP/renown if you dont move from the starting area that we now have. I still vividly remember 2-5 guys in every scenario being afk, it was one of the reasons i quit as it made scenario play outside of premades impossible and within premades mindblowingly boring.
Apart from that, yes it feels much better. Only played 2 days yet, but i can already see much more activity, and we are in the middle of the week. Also they fixed some annoyances, like giving us our own backpack for crafting, another one for currencys(tokens etc) and the one for quest items. So atleast crafting doesnt fill up my backpack anymore ...
If you quit mainly cause of lag, pop imbalances/lack or the stupid itemization that required pve to get decent pvp gear, yeah you should give it a go again. If you quit because of crafting, shallow/glitchy pve or class imbalances, better go with a free trial if at all. They seem to have fixed some of the class imbalances, but far from all.
I started on Ostermark, and then moved to Phoenix Throne, and I dont remember ever seeing afkers, nor do i remember gaining xp, and renown from not contributing, i don't think that was ever in the game, I could be wrong, but i'm pretty certain. I definetly remember always thinking how much better the scenerios were than in WoW, because no one sat there afk.
edit: just looked into it, and yea you're right, they fixxed it pretty quick after launch.. the scary part may be that it was a problem before, and they fixxed it, a probelm in the biggest MMO out there, and yet they were unaware it could be a problem by adding tokens? Or they just didnt care?
/sigh
I started on Ostermark, and then moved to Phoenix Throne, and I dont remember ever seeing afkers, nor do i remember gaining xp, and renown from not contributing, i don't think that was ever in the game, I could be wrong, but i'm pretty certain. I definetly remember always thinking how much better the scenerios were than in WoW, because no one sat there afk.
edit: just looked into it, and yea you're right, they fixxed it pretty quick after launch.. the scary part may be that it was a problem before, and they fixxed it, a probelm in the biggest MMO out there, and yet they were unaware it could be a problem by adding tokens? Or they just didnt care?
/sigh
The problem was actually twofold:
a) You gained experience/renown for doing nothing as long as someone else in your team did something. Also completing a scenario rewarded significant XP regardless of your activity in it.
b) If you were outplayed by the enemy faction for any reason then some people usually gave up, cause they literally gained nothing for loosing. Infact you could arrive at the conclusion you where helping the enemy by providing him free xp/renown. There was no difference between loosing 0/500, 100/500 or 490/500, so if people got conviced they where going to loose some just went afk or played without putting any effort into it just to get it over with.
The "fix" for a) obviously didnt completly solve the afk problem, it just mitigated it from those trying to exploit the system(or reading a book while "doing" scenarios) to only those who simply gave up due to enemy superiority. I believe the recent change of giving rewards out based on how well your team did was almost as important, because people see rewards even if they loose, aslong as they did well so they stay moticated even if their team appears to be loosing.
Obviously if your getting completly steamrolled some people will still give up, but then again thats not a situation you could salvage in the fist place anyway.
Obviously you have insight into a time where i didnt play though, i only played 1-2 months after launch and now, and i noticed that scenarios got alot better regarding afking. Also the scenario jumping seems to have gone away which was also leading to some really bad matches when 5 people from your side suddenly blinked out to another scenario.
P.S.: The xp/renown gain for not contributing is still in the game(the guy deffing the flag dutifully should not be punished because his teammates zerg around somewhere away from the objectives or something, he is contributing, just not in an easily measurable way). You gain xp/renown for simply being in the general area of a kill. What they added is that you dont get anything if you idle in the spawnarea, there is a popup informing you when that happens.
1) Absolutely, with only 4 servers now - I play on Badlands - and the Endless trial bringing in new blood, some of whom are buying subscriptions, I always see scenarios popping and keeps changing hands.
2) PvE is probably done even less now, but I like that. I don't play WAR for PvE content and really, nobody should - you'll be disappointed. It's a team based PvP game.
3) I find crafting to be useful for potions and such but really I ignore it; I play WAR for WAR! Not crafting.
4) They have a nice new scenario loot system.
5) See #1 - they pop more frequently than ever.
6) I think so, it's one of the most fun parts of the game for me.
Its a fun game taken in smaller doses, if you like PvP and/or rvr. Nothing else (as far as pvp) MMOs out there interests me, that said, it won't take a whole lot to pull me away, but i am not holding my breath waiting for one.
Scenerios are going down a path thats going to not be a lot of fun for some people and needs some changes. T4 endgame is supposedly under the devs microscope now, I don't have a lot of faith, but they really need to hit a home run with whatever they come up with.
AFKers were always a problem in WAR.. Which is why they added an auto boot feature in SCs if you are idle for 1 minute and also why they cut down the radius of getting exp renown for other players kills in SCs. Before you could stand still for an entire SC and get exp renown standing in the WC while the fights were happening across the map.
They weren't always a problem, they were a problem at launch (which i was corrected about), and they fixxed it shortly there after, and its been a really good (long) run without afkers.
Now, its a problem again, and as usual the development team has left me scratching my head...
Don't think he's asking anything about PvE in that question. He was asking about the crafting system and is it still bad (which it is), so not sure why that response.
Then it's followed up immediately with:
Might pay to not be so defensive about the game. There seems to be plenty of PvE opportunity to get gear by your own (and others) admission in this game now that the main RvR population is down to 3 or 4 servers from almost 100.
"TO MICHAEL!"
One of the things they're bound to fix anyhow and looking back their track record on correcting them is not that bad and it's still gazillion of scenarios, perhaps they will make it so that contribution will give you more in the future or so.
We will see in 1.3.5.
Still playing a few weeks into my third restart in this game. Might just actually stay this time since so many small things have improved. Just hoping that Bioware/Mythic makes a few smart design choices about the T4 campaign in the next patch (they will do something but it does not equate good so).
My take is that sub numbers are growing for the first time since the launch frenzy with subsequent wall crash and ICU stay.
Im playing on Badlands and the population is pretty strong and players say the others are as well. Ive also heard ingame that Badlands is one of the better balanced servers. The game has improved a lot in the last year. I came back for the 10 day re-enlist trial and am staying. And for the record im only running an 8800 GT, Pentium quad with 4 gigs ram and an xp OS and have no lag.
from lvl 1 to 10 ?yes about 100x !after that ?beats me!
Just hit level 17 today. SC's are popping and its hard to get to IC a lot of times do to city sieges.
Just hit level 17 today. SC's are popping and its hard to get to IC a lot of times do to city sieges.
You can go to the warcamp instead, it will appear below IC as flightpoint - it has all the services you need.
yea the population has started increasing again finally and all the zones are full of life. You may still have to wait for SC's to pop at odd hours but thats normal for every game.
The game is in urgent need of an expansion which is never going to come...
heh, unless you believe this:
http://warhammervault.ign.com/fullstory.php?id=39644
out of all the areas of Warhammer world, this is the worst idea... i've seen to expand upon
"nothing actually matters, we're just slightly evolved monkeys clinging to a dying piece of rock hurtling through space waiting for our eventual death." - Frankie Boyle, Mock The Week
I don't know who'd believe that today.
That was two years ago... on April 1st.
Well, I guess there could be some WAR fans who'd still fall for this. You see them asking about "expansions" all the time from Mythic not realizing the terminal state this game is in with probably around 50k-75k people playing Warhammer.
"TO MICHAEL!"
From the link:
Warhammer Online: War by Sea is slated to ship to retail approximately one year from Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. The expansion will require the original Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning game. This expansion will further develop the compelling experience which will come to define Warhammer and will be available through retail or online purchase and download. Other free expansion packs are planned to be released in the future.
The popularity of the game is evidenced by the fact that more than 600,000 people have signed up for the beta.
LOL!!!
WAR's fate, it seems, is up in the air at this point...
From the link:
Warhammer Online: War by Sea is slated to ship to retail approximately one year from Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. The expansion will require the original Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning game. This expansion will further develop the compelling experience which will come to define Warhammer and will be available through retail or online purchase and download. Other free expansion packs are planned to be released in the future.
The popularity of the game is evidenced by the fact that more than 600,000 people have signed up for the beta.
LOL!!!
WAR's fate, it seems, is up in the air at this point...
How is this post related to the current state of the game? Oh, I got it: nohow
From the link:
Warhammer Online: War by Sea is slated to ship to retail approximately one year from Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. The expansion will require the original Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning game. This expansion will further develop the compelling experience which will come to define Warhammer and will be available through retail or online purchase and download. Other free expansion packs are planned to be released in the future.
The popularity of the game is evidenced by the fact that more than 600,000 people have signed up for the beta.
LOL!!!
WAR's fate, it seems, is up in the air at this point...
How is this post related to the current state of the game? Oh, I got it: nohow
Yeeeeeah... what on earth does the PAST have to do with the present? It's not like anything that happened(or didn't happen) in the past has anything to do with the state the game is in now...
Like buying a house you couldn't afford a few years back has anything to do with you being bankrupt and homeless, now... it was all in the past!
It seems I've been pwned...
Unfortunatelly (for you :P ), dude, I'm a historian by profession, so I *really* know how many ways the Past can be connected to the Present, and how many (more) ways this connection can be interpreted
The original question was about the current state of the game. You know, 'current' means 'nowish', while 'current state' means the game's status in the Present. It's as simple as that.