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A post from WarMongers guy who got to play some WAR.
zippy123
Member Posts: 172
By Don Callahan AKA Mortrid of the Warmongers 7/4/2008
It didn’t take but 1 minute after the doors opened for me to have claimed a terminal for the Warmongers. In fact, we claimed a whole Kiosk of terminals and they would carry our banner for the rest of the day. Sure it wasn’t packed at the start, but as the day grew older, more and more fans had overtaken the WAR booth.
Finally, I started the game, and it was time to choose my character. Mythic had already pre-built classes you could choose from, so there was no playing with character customization. A Shadow Warrior became my first choice as I usually don’t like playing casters and such, plus I didn’t want to play a tank role first since this will be my role when the game launches. The game launched in the usual fashion with a starting area and some starter quests. From this point on it was PVE play and checking out all the bells and whistles.
For time sakes I will break down each part of the game I had the opportunity to play.
PVE
PVE is what all characters will start in. I had a good time doing the quests and trying to follow the story. Being rushed for time though, I didn’t read much of the quest text so shame on me. I will however say the PVE portion of the game is enough for those who choose to play less RVR. You can see from the map how big the zone was and how much exploration could be done. Quests were like everything else you have read up to this point. Go here, get this, kill these, find this etc. We didn’t do a whole lot of quests but in 1.5 hours we were up to level 6 already. One of the really cool things about the PVE exploration was the map. It doesn’t tell you exactly where you need to go for your quests but it circles an area in red to indicate where you need to be looking. To me, that is cool. I don’t like someone holding my hand and directing me to everything. That is part of the adventure and thankfully it appears this will be present for all quests. Above the minimap there is also a meter to show who is controlling the zone. The meter reads red and blue to show if order or destruction has more control over the zone. My character and my party were the only group in the zone, and we were all order characters so the meter stayed Blue to show Order controlling the zone. The more we killed and did quests the more the meter filled with blue.
After completing some more quests and doing a public quest, I received my first trophy. It was a cool looking skull that I could place on my character in different locations like on my character's hip, around the neck, on the shoulder, and I am sure other places I didn't try. The detail of the trophies are cool and you can clearly see them on your character while playing. This is another way to customize your character and reflect how bad A$$ your character is.
Tome of Knowledge
For those of you that don't know about the Tome of Knowledge, it is like your own little journal for your character. It will record everything you do, from where you have adventured to what you kill and how many. It shows up on your screen like a book in which you can page through with 3 main sections. I can't remember the name of the sections, but one was for lore in which you could learn about the story or unlock more about the warhammer story, NPCs and such as you adventure. Another section contained the Beastery or list of all creatures you have killed and how many. You get more XP and rewards as you kill more of the same creature. It lists how many of the specific creature you need to kill to achieve the XP or rewards. Details of the creatures themselves are also shown for you to learn more about them. You can view all your active quests from the Tome of Knowledge as well as extra little details about the quest like the characters involved or area details. What more can I say? Cool! This is definitely one of the things that will contribute to setting WAR apart from other existing MMOs. It has everything in it and it tracks everything. The ToK will be another time sink addition to the game that can be used for reading, learning and looking at what you have accomplished. This is the book of your character's life.
Public Quests
This is something we spent quit some time playing with. My first encounter was a public quest in the High Elf Tier 1 area. You walk into an area and it pops up on your screen telling you about the public quest you are now able to be a part of. Details are easy to follow as you just click on the quest and it tells you what needs to be done. Eventually we made it to the last part of the quest and for those of you who don’t know by now, it was a Hydra in which our little group of 4 had no business messing with. After 4 wipes and one, run like a little girl, we were instructed to restart the machines for RVR Scenarios. After the scenarios we flipped sides to Destruction characters and did the PQ from the Dark Elf Tier 1 area. We finally took down the dragon at the end of the PQ and with just the 6 of us it took some time. After the dragon fell a treasure chest appeared. At this point you could click on an icon and find out how much you contributed to killing the dragon. I saw that each member involved received a medal indicating their performance and even though I received a Silver medal I came in 5th place and with the luck of the roll I didn’t get a loot bag but that was no problem. As I was shaking my head to not getting a loot bag from the dragon kill, I realized that I still had influence points, indicated by green meter on the right of my screen. The more influence the more points and this goes up as you do all parts of the PQ. I could then go to an NPC and trade in these points for rewards. The more points the better reward. I didn’t cash in yet. I went out and did the PQ again till I filled it up. I returned the NPC now and this time I could get the best reward, which turned out to be a nice sword better than what I already had. It’s obvious there will be a huge number of different items in the game just from watching the other players turn their influence points in.
Scenarios – RVR
As I was saying, Mythic finally got everyone to reset their machines for RVR scenarios. We played about 5 or 6 different scenarios in total, all of which took from 10 to 15 minutes to play, that’s because they were timed. Once the timer ran out, the scenario was over and the points rewarded to the winner. The scenarios actually showed me how easy it was to get in and out of them. You will have an icon on your screen by your mini map that you can click and queue up for a scenario from anywhere in the zone. You have the option of going in as a group or going in solo. The wait will be shorter if you choose to go in solo. Each scenario was different and with different goals. We had one where you had to capture the flag and then run back to a certain point, which in turn causes the flag locations to explode and you get the points. Careful, because if you are anywhere near these flags when they blow up, you can consider yourself toasted. Another scenario had a king of the mountain effect to it and while one team controlled the mountain or top I should say, the other team would get a bonus that dropped and made a player more powerful. Scenarios are cool. With the build wee played, I could see that when the scenario was over, my character was returned right back to the location where he was before entering the scenario.
Summary
Overall the game rocks, and I was not disappointed in any way. The Shadow warrior was really fun to play and the Marauder is totally cool looking. It is hard to explain but the Marauder is very animated to watch, from his morphs to his skin changing in color like a virus.
We didn’t get to see the crafting or any guild feature. The graphics of WAR are definitely more realistic compared to WOW, but the game plays very similar. Those with WOW experience will have no problem jumping into WAR. When I say it plays like WOW, I am referring to the controls and UI, but the game features are surely a league apart. In the end I found myself coming back home and saying to myself, “Damn, I want to play more, give me WAR”
Sounds like its shaping up pretty good so far from this guys short time with the game.
Comments
great read...and its good to know that you are brought back to the same spot that the join the scenarios at...instead of getting put to the entrance..
but again great read and i can't wait to play it at Comic con
Very good text. Some haters are in for a surprise.
http://revolutionwar.guildlaunch.com/
I think everyone pretty much knows this.. but you can already see what the trolls are going to be saying post launch.
Dunno about the rest of you, but I actually WANT WAR to play a bit like WoW. I am not looking for an innovative UI and controls. Go play AoC if you want that (lol).
If they dont hurry up and release this game, my tombstone is going to say "Killed by Suspense"
I think everyone pretty much knows this.. but you can already see what the trolls are going to be saying post launch.
Dunno about the rest of you, but I actually WANT WAR to play a bit like WoW. I am not looking for an innovative UI and controls. Go play AoC if you want that (lol).
agreed on the UI and controls i mean all WoW was smooth out the UI and controls i mean no game moved like WoW....character flowed..i mean sure i loved DAoC and SWG (pre-NGE, CU didn't mess up EVERYTHING)...but no game was a smooth as WoW......
but again thats about all that i enjoyed from that game
Great read, cannot wait for WAR! I hope I will be able to play soon. I'm glad to see that the RvR and even the PvE is doing great in terms of polish and fun.
Can't.... wait...
Thanks for the post. Interesting read.
I like hearing what people who have played the game think more than anything else we get.
Sent me an email if you want me to mail you some pizza rolls.
Hot damn! Can't wait to play this.
Can't wait to play at Gamesday Chicago (7-26-08).
So you didnt get a closed beta key at the event? Were they handing them out?
Great read! I cant wait to get in this game, sounds like everything I was expecting.
Out of every 100 men, 10 should not be there,
80 are nothing but targets, 9 are the real fighters.
Ah, but one, ONE of them is a warrior,
and he will bring the others home.
-Heraclitus 500BC
What surprise? You do understand that some of the "haters" (if you want to call them that) have also played the game and found it "meh"?
What surprise? You do understand that some of the "haters" (if you want to call them that) have also played the game and found it "meh"?
And that's why there are opinions. I think the haters he is refering to are the ones that go around screaming how terrible this game is going to be and that it will be another AoC...blah blah blah, but have never played the game.
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Guys! I'm hopelessly lost in a mountain of mole hills! Them damn moles!
Oh and I too really enjoyed this post. Get's me really excited for OB
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Guys! I'm hopelessly lost in a mountain of mole hills! Them damn moles!
Some very nice design elements. I like the Public Quests, the loot chest that drops, and the fact that you can turn in influence for rewards. It's also interesting to see how much you contributed to a PQ.
Sounds like a strong PvE game, which is good. I like RvR, but I like to be able to switch between RvR and PvE since you never know what's going to be happening with the RvR, and either one by itself, gets old after a while.
Will be interesting to see how the Guild features shape up. Hopefully we'll get some reviews on that soon.
Excellent post sounds like all I had hoped for. Going to PAX so with luck they will have it setup for play so I can see it for myself. Waaaaagh!!!!
Yeah I thought the same thing, even a simple thing like being returned back to where you were at in the world is a nice idea, instead of having to travel all the way back again (WoW timesink)