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Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes: Closed Beta Impressions
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh and Bill Murphy recently had the opportunity for a hands on preview of one of the hottest MOBAs coming down the pike, Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes. They've both got the skinny on exactly how WoH plays and much more. Keep reading and then leave us a few comments when you're through!
Fast, furious and fun. That about describes the short hands-on time I had with Wrath of Heroes over the last weekend. I’d received the beta invite and missed the first beta session because I work on the West Coast and they were testing on East Coast time but I had two hours with it the next day. I logged in knowing that Bioware-Mythic were really just testing the gameplay and balance on the characters already in game. No tutorial or cheat-sheets were available, although some tool-tips – such as the commands for chatting to your war band and setting radio buttons which also had accompanying dings to gain quick attention during the hectic combat. Some quick clicking around and experimenting and I found out how to chat in the lobby, look over the characters, moused over their skills for a description and I joined a random battle. Big red button. Couldn’t miss that. Then it was a lot of trial and error as I tested the various characters out.
Read more of Carolyn Koh's and Bill Murphy's Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes - Closed Beta Impressions.
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Comments
Lets face it WAR was a train wreck. This and SMITE do indeed seem to have some potential though in their slightly more mmo-ish take on the MOBA genre in terms of your control over the character.
I look forward to giving them a blast.
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
This game is pretty fun, the people responsible for it are just such douchebags, that it makes it hard to play anything they are associated with.
I think their impressions were pretty spot on. The game is not really Warhammer...it's MMO combat with a Warhammer skin. And it was fun to just hop in, get into the match and then do it again.
I think there's a lot they could do with this game. Some actual character development, matches where you are actually part of a faction instead of just any character and even land ownership for guild vs guild type action. Global Agenda has zip for a 'world' and the Agency vs Agency works fine with their land ownership system. Or not. Whatever...the game is fun to play. :-)
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Fast, furious and fun.
Cheap, evil, and just like EA is what i call it. They did this just to extend the license instead of working on WAR.
BTW "The MMO style combat" HOTKEY LEARN THAT OR WE GET STUCK WITH IT FOREVER! It’s not MMO style its hotkey. Stop talking like a publisher. But that’s not the first time i heard "hotkeys made it feel fast and frantic" and certainly last time I disbelieve it. BTW if this is why it got MMO status I think I am done with this site.
It is best for the industry the MMO throne remains an dusty empty seat never to be filled.
I've been invited and I am passing. Zero interest.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
It's... okay. MMO-style combat with hotkeys and tab targeting wrapped in a shiny Warhammer skin. Fun for a few matches now and again, but nothing to really 'commit' to. I'd rather they'd spent the money and effort which went to developing this on their *actual* Warhammer game though instead of a quick, cheap cash-in on the MOBA craze.
I'll probably play it from time to time, but I can almost guarantee I'll never spend actual money on it.
Do you guys ever test *any* game and the end review isnt all rainbows, sunshine, and pure fun?
Im sorry, but after Earthrise, its hard to take any review from this site seriously. I wonder sometimes if you just swap out the title and use the same 2 or 3 reviews every other game.
I mean no offense, because i read different things on this site at least once a day. However, it just seems like every single game you "review" ends up being the next best thing and its always "very, very fun". Every time ive seen your readers post something along these lines it gets promptly deleted.
Your reviews need more "brutal honesty" really. After the shape that Warhammer Online is in, everything from account creation/returning player website and the monotonous process to even revive an old account to game balance to cash shops... i wouldnt give anything warhammer assosiated another 50 cents if i was a millionaire.
Just my opinion.
Got to say, I agree totally with Tristanryan. Reviews on this site are more like press secretaries for Heads of State, everything couched in positive lights and affirmations. After a handful of this sort of "reviews" one begins to feel that either the Reviewers in question are game starved and thus as easy to please as a kitten with a wadded paper ball, or they're being paid to endorse and thus misrepresent.
Like Tristanryan I mean no disrespect or offense, but you have to take a step back and realize how this positive only mania that the site is endorsing for a while now makes the credibility of your "reviews" highly suspect if not outright dismissible. I find it almost impossible anymore to not suspect someone's getting their pockets lined for their efforts, and that sadly is casting this site into the light of no longer a viable host to Reviewers of creditbility.
Even peace may be purchased at too high a price, and the only time you are completely safe is when you lie in the grave.
Great article! This game is definitely a great way to have some quick fun. Never played WAR, but I don't think they intended for it to be anything like the original. Of course, I cant tell you how off, wrong, or butchered it may be, as it sounds it is, compared to WAR, but what the game does that I like, I can say.
I absolutely loved the time I had playing this morning. It seems they are going the simple route and doing instant gratification, which it definitely gives you. Coming from a background of no 3 "faction" pvp, and getting into a similar style battle, I found that I absolutely love it... and wish for more games with it. Changing heroes on the fly is a great feature that I love. If you find that you and your team are dying too much you can switch to a healing based hero and keep your team alive and if you find yourself not liking the hero you picked... you aren't stuck with him until the rest of the battle. Getting in a warband(for the short time I was in one) completely enhanced the gameplay for me, because as usual people like to be uncoordinated and run off on their own in random games sometimes(I definitely did it too before I found a warband).
The game is definitely fun, if you like this style of game. Maybe some people will find that they can't play it all day(once its released of course), but while your playing I can guarantee you'll, at the very least, have a decent time. I only got to play it for the allotted 2 hours this morning, so I haven't found anything to complain about and hopefully it turns out that there isn't anything.
Having participated in the closed beta AND played War extensively, I think this article was spot on.
Is it an MMO? No. Is it a faithful adaptation of the Warhammer IP? Only in the most broadest sense.
But is it a fun diversion for times when you've only got an hour or two (or considerably less) to play a video game? I'd say YES.
If you loved scenario gameplay in Warhammer Online, but didn't care much for character progression or RvR, this is definitely worth checking out.
If on the other hand you're an old school, MMO-purist, rejoice: this alternative genre might be just the thing to keep those pesky casuals from "dumbing down" your favorite forced-grouping grindfest.
Seems like a win/win to me.
Any review can be usefull if you understand the baseline behind the reviews. The authors of this site rarely give any negative crtiques of a game, however, they can still be accurate on the positive side of things and it still gives a general feeling of what the game is or is not. Just know that before you go and buy something after reading a review of only positive stuff...that there is going to be negative stuff out there. Find it, examine it and then decide if something is worth the gamble. On free to play games though there really is no gamble other than the time to download the game and see for yourself.
The things to take away from this review: The combat and game is fast paced (IE no strategy and little or no tactics)
There is no leveling within each match, there is some sort of leveling on the account end of things
The game is not warhammer...it just has a warhammer cosmetic skin.
Seems to be made for the casual player...not the pro gamer type crowd.
Now for some people these things are +'s. Others these are big minuses. In any case this should at least be enough information to know if the game is worth checking out or not on a personal level.
I suppose I might try it at some point but jumping in and bashing heads for 20 minutes doesn't have a lot of appeal for me.
To each their own.
I tend to agree that most articles here are 'happy place' ones and that makes me tend to skim rather than really pay attention. I already know everything is 'good' (or great, or wonderful or the next greatest thing etc)
Why is anyone even talking about this game still? It's still live? News to me.
Well I am really giving the closed beta a chance. But there are a couple of things really bugging me:
- Graphics in no way improved
- The same scenarios
- and no real story behind it.
I would have never said such a thing before hand, but I would wish that Bioware would have put their effort into Warhammer online instead of making this silly looking arena game. The game could have had a blast with the time and effort put into it, but even the 'new' warhammer game seems to be no less then something made to go wrong. It's amaturistih and in my honest opinion not Bioware worthy.
That said, I am still playing it in hopes to find something in this game that keeps me playing.
Sounds like exactly what I expected it to be, I'll check it out when I have the opportunity.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
This game sounds exactly like the way Land of Chaos is. I dont know why they think its original because Land of Chaos was doing this about a year or 2 ago.
All I gotta say is
Mordheim
Warhammer has always been an awesome idea for a videogame, but a horrible idea for an MMO.
Does anyone really think playing as the Orks is going to end up being a good thing?
In order to stick true to the source material, the battle can only go on for so long before the Orks are wiped off the face of the planet in a holy flash of heretic-slaying light.
FOR THE EMPEROR.
You mean an Exterminatus? Pretty sure they didn't have those in the era Warhammer Online is set.
And in Dark Millennium Online, they'll have some pretty important stuff on the ground that they don't want to touch, lest they release Eye of Terror 2.0.
Sarcasm is not a crime!
If this is Free to Play, I'll try it.
Otherwise, sorry Charlie. I won't spend another dime on a Warhammer product. The vids I've seen look okay but I wouldn't pay to play arenaball.
"TO MICHAEL!"