Category: Warhammer Online

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Fever Pitch

This is what it’s all about. The day before you can first log in to a new MMO. Everyone’s talking about it. People are excited because this is the best game ever. People are holding off because all new MMOs need 6 months to really be ready to play. People are angry because it’s just more of the same old thing.

It’s a fresh start, a new beginning. New adventures with old friends. Old adventures with new friends. Finding a new guild or moving with the old guild. New game mechanics to figure out, or just to figure out they are the same as the old. A new class, a new race, a new sex. What name should I choose? Should I use the old name so people know me right away? What if someone grabs my name before me? Maybe I’ll choose a new name and new identity, I was kind of a jerk in that last game. I think I’ll create a character on each server to save my name. Ah, who cares if someone else gets my name.

What server should I choose? Maybe the first or last alphabetically? Oh I know, I’ll pick the coolest name so I will be on a popular servers. No way, I want a quieter server so I’ll go for the lamest name in the bunch. Nah, I’ll wait until they add a new server and I’ll join that one.

Anyway, for me this is where it all begins. A new game. Whatever you plan to do and wherever you plan to do it, I hope it is everything you had hoped for and more.

– Ethic

Witch Elf

Witch Elf Tobold talks about his Witch Elf in a way that defines “This thread is useless without pics.” So there you go. Want to know what she looks like in armor? That is her armor. Her armor is actually called “halter.”

Oh, and if someone is running away from you in PvP, throw a dagger in his back. Witch Elves get that at level 1, and it includes a snare if you hit the target in the back.

: Zubon

Shaman vs Rune-keeper

I’ve been playing a Shaman in Warhammer Online during beta on a regular basis and find the mechanic they use to encourage both healing and damage dealing to be entertaining. How it works is that basically the more damage you do, the more effective your healing spells become and the more you heal your friends, the more powerful your attack skills become. Therefore, the system encourages you to play the balance of damage and healing. No longer are the healers getting yelled at for attacking. It’s all part of the design and I find it quite fun.

Now along comes the Rune-keeper in Lord of the Rings Online. This is one of the new classes coming out with the Mines of Moria expansion. The thing that caught my eye here is a system called Attunement. The Rune-keeper is also a healer/damage dealing hybrid like the Shaman, but in this case Turbine has appeared to flip the design over. The more damage you do, the better you get at doing damage. The more healing you do, the better you get at healing. It seems to actually discourage you from filling both roles. Instead, I guess you must pick one role or the other before you start the fight. I can’t tell at this point if one will be more fun than the other but I plan to create a Rune-keeper when the expansion launches to test the class. My gut tells me the Shaman will be more fun, but I could be wrong.

– Ethic

A Week with Warhammer

Recommendation:
If you would like a sequel to World of Warcraft with a team-PvP focus, buy Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. If you are waiting for something new and original, keep waiting.

Take note: that is “buy it” not “buy it after the major bugs are fixed.” This is my fifth re-write, and it was only yesterday that it changed from “wait” to “now.” Once the new bugs from Thursday’s patch are fixed, the game is ready to go live.

I do not think I have ever said that about an MMO. There could be massive bugs and a lack of content hidden beyond the open beta level cap, but as far as I can see, they are almost good to go. Servers are solid, with only one crash to desktop and one server flop, and it is a fully competent implementation of DikuMUD with graphics. If you like MMO gameplay, the classes are good takes on it, and they are fun.

If you do not like standard MMO gameplay, had hoped for something new, or are waiting for something better, pass on it. Mythic added a couple of cards but did not shuffle the deck much. This could be a very large expansion pack to your current game, except for that “start anew” thing.

Continue reading A Week with Warhammer

Warhammer Public Quests Problem

A while back I read at The Cesspit and Nerfbat about some issues Warhammer Online will face. One quote:

Too many parts of Warhammer’s core design are strictly dependent on keeping a fine balance on the number of players participating, and so vulnerable. It’s not about PQs only. It’s about PQs, faction balance in open RvR, issues of overcrowding and depopulation in all the parts of the game. The *fun* strictly depends on that fine balance, to keep all the options viable at all times, and to keep the single option fun without suffering overcrowding or depopulation.

I hadn’t really seen it as an issue until it slapped me in the face last night. I was playing on the side of Order in the lower levels and the first two Public Quests I participated in could not be completed. There just was not enough people to take on the spawning mobs and people would not bother coming back if they got killed. I tried several times and eventually I got to the point that I would just slip into the PQ area and look at the quest progress to see if the mobs are being killed fast (the first phase is usually something like kill 25 somethings). If the numbers didn’t go up quick, I knew there was not enough playing and moved along – thus feeding into the problem more.

I’d hate to see what the early PQ’s look like a year from now (not to mention the even larger related problems mentioned in the quote above) if they don’t make some changes to address this.

– Ethic

Warhammer Briefs

My name is Cyndre, and I have a Warhammer Online addiction.

Now that that is out of the way, I will jump right in.  I will not be writing a review of the game or its mechanics, as this has been done ad nauseum in the MMO blogosphere, and a simple Google search would deliver numerous examples.  I just want to target some brief points that have me hooked.

Continue reading Warhammer Briefs

Further, More Positive First Thoughts

Twelve hours later, I have had more time to ponder my first night of WAR. Since I am neurologically hard-wired to be cheerful, the technical irritations have faded while the more enjoyable parts have been reinforced. My brain chemistry rules! Let’s add some happier things.

I should note again that those were “first impressions,” not “a review.” The first levels are your wolf-slaying levels, where an early quest is “find a mailbox” (not literally, in this case). The first six levels of any MMO are probably pretty similar.

But they are not entirely similar. WAR takes a different approach, getting players involved in the war and with each other very early. Continue reading Further, More Positive First Thoughts

WAR First Impressions

A fair implementation of DikuMUD with graphics, stable with relatively few bugs for a MMO in beta. That may be damning with faint praise, but as the man said, “I’ve already played Warhammer.”

I don’t know how much any of us are going to be able to say meaningfully from the open beta. You cap at level 20, and if you reviewed Age of Conan up to level 20, it was the game of the year. While level 20 is half-way to the cap here, half your leveling time is usually the last 10 levels, and holy crap they needed to add a cap of “half the levels” for a 10-day open beta? Is there some way to get open beta access without paying or having had closed beta access? It seems like a strange name. Anyway, these are thoughts from level 6 (class and RvR).

Continue reading WAR First Impressions

Is There Any Way to Find a Human from EA Mythic?

Update: problem just about circumvented, thanks Cyndre. I’m still getting “There was an error processing your request,” but at least it is not rejecting the code as invalid. [and, accepted, patching] If you make getting tech support difficult enough, players will find someone else to deal with the problem: a successful business model.

I seem to have a bad open beta access code. The other code on the card, for the head start and in-game items, works, but that does me no good right now. The Warhammer site apparently has no useful contact information, forums, etc., unless it is carefully hidden so that people with problems just find a forum to pester. There is a contact link: it asks you what in-game problems you are having with Dark Age of Camelot.

I know they’re busy and all, but “I paid for a code that doesn’t work, what can I do?” is not on the FAQ list. Right now, my Warhammer first impressions are that the game has an insurmountable log-in bug with no support or help button. I am open to the notion that there is some other problem in the process that I am up against, but given the lack of documentation or explanation, I am stuck.

: Zubon

There is a feedback form where you can send a question. It has a 10,000 word “Terms and Conditions” you must accept to ask a question. Once I’m done reading all that, I might be able to use the form. I guess use the “Customer Service Questions” link?

So how much staff do you have on-site for a Sunday launch?

Another Warhammer

Ardua reminds us about Warhammer 40K. Coming sometime to MMO, yes? In particular, he reminds us of the TV Tropes page for the game. Even if you know nothing about 40K, a category I share outside one RTS, this will give you a sense of the setting that went from “Warhammer in space” to “darker Warhammer in space” to “the World of Darkness is a bunch of fairies that fart rainbows” to “Cthulhu is a fairy who farts rainbows” and then one step beyond for the latest edition. You can still see the six WAR factions (one of which was eaten by bugs).

: Zubon