WAR NDA officially lifted. Post pics and info!

[Kasi]

You had fun doing the levelling the first time through for each side. Like Draegan's post, you get funnelled towards areas. Once you're doing STV for about the third time, you just want to get it over with. I do agree that I really enjoyed SFK and Deadmines as well as some of the other dungeons. The problem was that once everyone was past that it was difficult to find groups. This could be a problem with WAR as well if the entry zones get barren post release and it will be interesting to see how Mythic handles that.

Sure it was polished content, but the sad fact was the content didn't matter. Every piece of gear you did was just a placeholder. In fact for most it was faster to just buy AH greens and grind until the latest levelling changes. There was no appeal to pvp'ing pre cap, unless you wanted to stay in a bracket and twink. You might as well sell all your leveling shit and buy AH greens of stamina since that will get you more use in PVP. And whats the best way to get from greens into raiding for most classes? Grind pvp.

The fact is WoW has always been about the endgame. It's just how it is. There is good content (both quests and dungeons) along the way, but its all pretty transitory, especially because you know you can do the levelling stuff all casually but suddenly at endgame everything becomes planned/organized.

There is nothing worth doing anymore in 1-5 man outdoors/dungeon stuff and it all becomes arena/raiding. This is why my wife and I refuse to play WotLK. We know the zones will be great, there will be some good dungeons, but once we hit that 80 we know all progression will be raiding/arena.

WAR is appealing because from what I've read/seen from level 1 you can go right out of the gates and start having fun. And that will be a miniature version of the fun you'll have at max level, but it will still be the same kind of fun. I think that transition is what makes this game different. You know that at max level the fundamentals of the game don't change. (unless they pulled what they did with DaoC and make a PVE expansion, hopefully they learned from that)

[Draegan]

My next article (sometime next week maybe) will be "Casual Vs. Hardcore: Who plays what more?"

I think it's going to be an interesting question to ask as the game gets older. I think WAR lends itself to 30min - 1hour play chunks than longer ones. You can level PVP or PVE solo to the max level and arn't forced to do either. And most of the PVE stuff are accessible through public quests and open groups.

[Dashal]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

I did play the White Lion

I called it.

Seriously though I can absolutely see you getting a bad impression if you played that particular class on preview weekend. The AI in general was just off. Having played it for a week or so before without those issues though it really didnt concern me at all.

Oh and yes, that crossbow is gonna be really busy at launch. They should move that up a bit to allow players to throttle through better. The other pairings have theirs up a bit in content iirc and it wasnt a problem.

[Itzena]

Originally Posted by Dandain

No worries, if War is that good, Blizzard will just adapt large quantities of their best ideas into the third WoW expansion. =p

Never mind expansions, I'm fully expecting to see Blizzard adding public quests into WotLK content patches.

[Draegan]

You already have public quests sort of. They are the silithus dust quests, and the halaa quests. Real world objectives in different zones.

But they suck.

[Mist]

What Warhammer does, that WoW doesn't, is it rewards just about every possible activity in an incremental way, from 1-40, in a way that accumulates from the start all the way to the endgame. On top of these fairly persistent reward mechanisms, it has a fairly persistent world state in the RvR areas. Not permanent changes, but still persistent. WoW has nothing persistent at all. Everything feels increasingly ephemeral as the game goes on and on.

[Brikker]

I'm going to be one who keeps WoW for PVE raiding and plays WAR for good PVP.

WTB more infoz on Engineers; of course, if they're re-doing them as someone said earlier, it doesn't really matter currently!

Hopefully they make them good, that class looks awesome in concept and I plan to play it come Open Beta and release.

PS. Downloading 10 gigs for Open Beta right now, fuck you DSL slowness.

[gremlinz273]

I know it's pretty basic, but the simple fact that you can queue for bg's from anywhere, then have it return you to exactly where you left off, is fucking amazing. I was begging for that shit in WoW from the day they released wsg.

[Oblio]

I am an ALT-aholic anyway, but this game may take it to a whole new level for me. The fact that you can level through PvP is just Win! A good gaming buddy of mine has no ALTs in WoW, he hates that he has to go through 70 levels to get to PvP that matters. When we talk about WAR he is actually excited about ALTs, I think PvP XP is a great design that will cater to a lot of people out there. IMO the more max level characters you have the more likely you are to stick around in a game; I think this design will help their subs.

[TheCutlery]

Originally Posted by Rep

WAR NDA officially... 08-27-2008 03:05 PM Wow, you swear a lot
WAR NDA officially... 08-27-2008 02:52 PM Take a Midol and calm down.
WAR NDA officially... 08-27-2008 02:50 PM Suck WoW's cock more dick waste.

Oh noes, I swored.

My point stands. EQ was going strong and WoW came out...what did everyone say? "Man, I've been level 70/75/whatever for so long, it's gonna be nice to actually level up again. I'm gonna take it slow, and play the game casually. You know, enjoy the scenery."

A week later "Well, after my 3rd level 60, the barrens is pretty fucking boring"

Yeah, good job taking it slow, enjoying the scenery. The game begins at level 1. You just don't want to play a level 1, you want to play a level 60/40/100/whatever. That's why you level. It has absolutely nothing to do with the game, and everything to do with your mentality, and the people you play the game with. You're obviously not gonna take 3 months to level to 25 while your friends are all 60.

Hate the playa, not the game. We'll see how long it takes for the bitching to start about Warhammer because you're all max level and don't have anything to do except boring battlegrounds that are always the same map (wonder where we've heard this before). I'm guessing sooner, rather than later.

PS : Neg faster, shitbrains. I'm not sucking any game's cock. I'm explaining to the retard playerbase while they'll never be happy with any game.

[Necrolyte]

Originally Posted by TheCutlery

100% utter fucking bullshit.

From the very start of the game, the leveling grind 1-60 was way, Way, WAY more polished than the level 60+ game. Anyone who wanted real fun had it, leveling all the way up thru mostly immersive (fuck the barrens) zones and some of the best instances were the low level ones. Anyone who rushed to 60 and missed doing SFK at level 25 got shafted out of an experience. That's not game design, that's the playerbase deciding what's important.

No one's fucking stopping you from taking your time, being "casual" and leveling slowly. It's just that everyone only gives a shit about the top end and that's the way it'll always be. There's a good argument to be made about WoW wasting some of the best dungeons they had (SFK,Deadmines, etc) on fucking level 25's.

The game starts when you want it to start.

The point people are trying to make is that games like WoW are raid-centric. Their end-game is all about raids and PvE, and progressing your characters in that way.

So what's the point of doing SFK, Deadmines, etc? Sure, they are great experiences, but they have no lasting impact on characters and progression, and they are not raids. To get to the meat of WoW--raiding--you have to hit the level cap and get the gear to start raiding. With every expansion, what is introduced? New raids. How are you going to access them without being at the new level caps? So people rush, again and again, to get to the "end-game."

In WAR, the end-game is RvR and PvP. However, the developers let you contribute and progress in this "end-game" from L1. Your Renown Ranks and Points carry all the way to "end-game" in WAR, so people take their time and the game becomes about the journey and not necessarily just the end.

Simple design choices like these sway players to "start" the game at different time points of their character careers. WoW chose to sway players to rush to cap. WAR chose to allow players to start from L1. This a huge part to why players are having so much fun at low levels in WAR, without ever trying the end-game sieges yet.

[Harkon]

Originally Posted by TheCutlery

Hate the playa, not the game. We'll see how long it takes for the bitching to start about Warhammer because you're all max level and don't have anything to do except boring battlegrounds that are always the same map (wonder where we've heard this before). I'm guessing sooner, rather than later.

Except as far as PvP goes there are many more scenarios and world PvP objectives at launch then WoW has 3 years after launch. WoW really needs to overhaul its PvP game because the only PvP that matters in WoW is Arena. While in WAR taking and holding objectives (keeps) actually does matter.

[Necrolyte]

Originally Posted by TheCutlery

Oh noes, I swored.

My point stands. EQ was going strong and WoW came out...what did everyone say? "Man, I've been level 70/75/whatever for so long, it's gonna be nice to actually level up again. I'm gonna take it slow, and play the game casually. You know, enjoy the scenery."

A week later "Well, after my 3rd level 60, the barrens is pretty fucking boring"

Yeah, good job taking it slow, enjoying the scenery. The game begins at level 1. You just don't want to play a level 1, you want to play a level 60/40/100/whatever. That's why you level. It has absolutely nothing to do with the game, and everything to do with your mentality, and the people you play the game with. You're obviously not gonna take 3 months to level to 25 while your friends are all 60.

Hate the playa, not the game. We'll see how long it takes for the bitching to start about Warhammer because you're all max level and don't have anything to do except boring battlegrounds that are always the same map (wonder where we've heard this before). I'm guessing sooner, rather than later.

PS : Neg faster, shitbrains. I'm not sucking any game's cock. I'm explaining to the retard playerbase while they'll never be happy with any game.

I don't think it has to do with mentality.

Take myself for example, I've been at the forefront of a couple MMOs, rushing to level caps and competing for world-wide firsts. I was one of the first Priests to 60 on WoW launch, etc, etc.

WAR, however, is the first game where I just don't feel that need to rush to level cap. Why? Everything I do at L1 contributes to my character at WAR's end-game. My Renown Points carry over. My Renown Rankings carry over. Everything I do at L1, helps how I perform at L40 in end-game PvP.

In WoW, in EQ, and other PvE-centric raid-centric MMOs, what you do at L1 does not matter. Are you getting AAs at L1? No. If you did, they were very inefficient. Does it matter what gear you get in WoW in Deadmines? No, you transitioned out of it in a few levels. Are there even raids in WoW before the various level caps from launch->TBC->WotLK? Nope.

In those PvE-centric games, nothing you do at low level contributes or carries over to how you perform at level-cap and at their PvE-raiding end-game. In fact, as soon as you reach end-game, you literally don entire new gear sets from the first few raids, change your specs to tailor to raids, and begin doing activities that are not even close to what you did leveling up such as grinding for reputation. The fact those games change entirely at end-game in gameplay and mechanics, is why people rush to end-game.

It's not the players' fault that nothing they do while leveling up matters or influences their end-game.

EDIT:: I don't know if some people are familiar with Shards of Dalaya, an EQ-emulated server and shard that is quite popular. In that game, they had raids all throughout the leveling, and guess what? Players didn't rush to level cap. Players would in fact cap their exp, just so they could group with others to do low level raids. See how game mechanics can change how a player plays a game?

[Harkon]

Whats got me hooked on war is that it has such a good mix of activities and options available. You don't have to PvE all the time, you can PvP and get meaningfully rewarded for it. Then after PvPing for a bit you can take a break and do some PvE. Run a few public quests which are fun to do at least once. And hell after that look for title / book unlocks, for example I ran into a dwarf tavern once and got a title unlock for eating some Squig meat on a stick.

WAR so far has just seemed to be the natural evolution of how gaming should be in an MMO. WAR has some bugs and the combat / UI needs to be tightened but the beginning experience so far has been a real pleasure.

Not since WoW's release have I enjoyed playing an MMO so much.

[machineman]

Originally Posted by Necrolyte

I don't think it has to do with mentality.

Take myself for example, I've been at the forefront of a couple MMOs, rushing to level caps and competing for world-wide firsts. I was one of the first Priests to 60 on WoW launch, etc, etc.

WAR, however, is the first game where I just don't feel that need to rush to level cap. Why? Everything I do at L1 contributes to my character at WAR's end-game. My Renown Points carry over. My Renown Rankings carry over. Everything I do at L1, helps how I perform at L40 in end-game PvP.

In WoW, in EQ, and other PvE-centric raid-centric MMOs, what you do at L1 does not matter. Are you getting AAs at L1? No. If you did, they were very inefficient. Does it matter what gear you get in WoW in Deadmines? No, you transitioned out of it in a few levels. Are there even raids in WoW before the various level caps from launch->TBC->WotLK? Nope.

In those PvE-centric games, nothing you do at low level contributes or carries over to how you perform at level-cap and at their PvE-raiding end-game. In fact, as soon as you reach end-game, you literally don entire new gear sets from the first few raids, change your specs to tailor to raids, and begin doing activities that are not even close to what you did leveling up such as grinding for reputation. The fact those games change entirely at end-game in gameplay and mechanics, is why people rush to end-game.

It's not the players' fault that nothing they do while leveling up matters or influences their end-game.

EDIT:: I don't know if some people are familiar with Shards of Dalaya, an EQ-emulated server and shard that is quite popular. In that game, they had raids all throughout the leveling, and guess what? Players didn't rush to level cap. Players would in fact cap their exp, just so they could group with others to do low level raids. See how game mechanics can change how a player plays a game?

Unless I don't fully understand how renown points work, they are like a combination of honor points and reputation. In WoW, any reputation you earn for a given faction at Level 1 does in fact contribute to your character in something you might want to do at end game. Do Renown points get "spent"?

Also I am pretty sure you can't raise your renown rank to higher than your character level. Now I am not sure if you just do RvR stuff if that's enough to keep up with each other, or are you waiting for one to catch up to the other....