Warhammer Online - Will you play?

[Rhuobhe]

I hope the game works out. I don't really have any other PC game to look forward to in the distant future. The only thing I can think of is starcraft2.

[Tudana]

Originally Posted by Rhuobhe

I hope the game works out. I don't really have any other PC game to look forward to in the distant future. The only thing I can think of is starcraft2.

I`m actually hoping KotoR starts showing some sign of life in the next couple years. once its pops up, all my attention will be diverted to it everything before that is filler.

[krinkled]

Originally Posted by Torrid

As for the game, there are very legitimate complaints about it that have been brought up. And frankly there is a fanboy vibe coming from some of you. I spent a non-trivial amount of cash to upgrade my machine just for this game, and I intend to sub, so just keep that in mind when reading this.

Basically, the best thing going for WAR is that all the other MMOs suck. WoW's PvE doesn't suck (and indeed, will still be king), but its PvP does. Despite WAR's flaws, there simply is NOT anything better to play PvP wise.

Regarding WoW combat vs. WAR combat-- what has been said previously is true. WoW simply has better play control and is more responsive. In WoW, I can do things such as jump while running from my opponent, turn 180 degrees, cast cone of cold mid-air to snare my pursuers, turn another 180 degrees, and land. You can't really pull off twitchy maneuvers like this in WAR right now. But to be fair, ALL MMOs I've played aside from WoW are like this. However a PvP centric game should really strive to have great play control. Frankly this should have been addressed at a very early stage.

The game feels unpolished in a number of ways, but it's not too bad. Apparently there is only one implemented non-gathering trade skill though, even this close to release.

The game feels a bit simplified in a number of ways outside of combat, such as your bags are simply given to you as you level, and you'll end up buying entire suits of gear from vendors when you reach level X. This trend is not at all unique to WAR though. Removing tedium also removes complexity, and has been the trend since EQ's successors. I just wish they would fill the void with something. This is more of a genre rant than a WAR rant I guess.

This is almost exactly what I said and is spot on. I gave WAR a 7/10 and called it a good game. I gave WotLK a 9/10 and said that for the reasons listed above it is overall better (even though it has less total PvP options).

Be prepared to be personally attacked for pointing out that WAR still has some major issues, especially with the simplistic inter-character combat mechanics.

Here again is what I said, when two differrent members specifically asked me for a review:

Originally Posted by krinkled

Sorry didnt realize people would really want my opinion on specifics.

So here we go:

PvE This one is no contest whatsoever, WotLK offers more complexity, strategy, depth, polish, and just a ton more content than WAR. If you like PvE your choice is easy, stick with WotLK as WAR doesn't even really come close. WAR does have public quests which are a great idea on paper, but they really are limiting when it comes to complexity and depth and are in no way a sufficient substitute for the huge variety of content offerred in WotLK.

PvP This one is not so clear at all, and I would rate WotLK and WAR about even. Whether you like PvP better in WotLK or WoW is really going to come down to your personal preference. If you like world PvP and Battlegrounds then there is a good chance you may enjoy WAR more. WAR is full of world objectives and RvR. However, I would offer the following caveats: WAR PvP mechanics are less complex, there are way fewer strategy type moves and counters. There is a lot of mindless zerg. It is also my opinion that the combat in WAR feels less responsive. YMMV.

Graphics/Art This category offerred the biggest suprise for me. I really expected WAR to blow WotLK out of the water. Not so. I was very impressed by the graphics upgrades in Northrend. In fact in some ways Northrend graphics look superior to WAR. (draw distance is a great example). WotLK is a much bigger graphics upgrade over TBC than TBC was over vanilla WoW. Blizzard really impressed me.

Overall I would give WotLK a 9/10 and WAR a 7/10. Both are good games, but only one really has the polish, depth and variety that will keep me playing 12 months from now.

Here is how normal members responded who are not part of the WAR fanboy squad:

Originally Posted by The Ancient

Thanks for writing that out, most descriptive and seemingly non-biased comparison I've seen yet.

Originally Posted by Xenrauk

Thanks for the mini review. I wasn't expecting War to compete with WoW with PvE content at this point, one has had 4 years to polish and expand their content and encounters.

But sounds like PvP isn't going to change much in wotlk. My preference is battlegrounds than arena so guess I'll stick with War.

More non-biased posts in agreement with me:

Originally Posted by Arrr

I can't really comment on Warhammer, but wotlk's graphics upgrades are pretty huge, imo. The lighting and shadows make a huge difference. At times, it feels like a completely different MMO. Not very cartoony at all. A lot of the visuals seem darker and more gritty.

Originally Posted by miber

As far as I'm concerned, an MMORPG's PvP system is only as good as it's combat.

Back when I played WAR the combat was just utter trash. Far too slow paced, laggy, and generally boring. And the worst part was the dev's would comment saying that slow combat was intended.

Apparently they've fixed many of the issues, but from what I hear (and from what you suggest) it's still not as good as WoW's combat. And that would certainly be a huge consideration if I were deciding on a PvP MMO.

Originally Posted by Morannon

The lack of flow, poor fluidity of the combat system I can forgive in the PvP scenarios, but in PvE, it's just.. excruciating (even though public quests in some cases are almost enough to make me forgive the terrible feel of combat play). When I'm in the mood for some MMO PvP, I would so much rather play WAR in its present state than WoW, even with the combat responsiveness issues (they really did that good a job, and I think it's obvious I'm not a Mythic fan from previous posts, and the WAR fanboy negative internets I've gotten), but with waits between scenarios as bad as they are, I am left twiddling my thumbs far too much for my satisfaction

Originally Posted by Believe

Game seemed decent from the beta. But still, it doesn't beat WoW in my opinion. So probably going to stick with WoW until I get bored of WotLK.

Originally Posted by Mist

Well, it's hard for a game to be based around skill when it takes 1-2 seconds for abilities to fire off. If they can fix that stuff it'll be a good game, but still, too few of the abilities are counters/strategic type stuff. Almost the entire game revolves around HoTs, DoTs and finisher moves, either through secondary resources like Accusations or Combustion or your big Morale moves. The game just seems more fun than competitive, which is fine, imo.

[Daezuel]

No one asked for a WoW review, I'm pretty sure 99% of the people that use this board have played WoW at some point. You can't see this post anyways so it'll fall on deaf ears. If I'm one of the so called Warhammer fanboys then why I have repeatedly listed concerns I have with the bugs in Warhammer? Because I like the game and will be playing it, or because I'm one of the people who call you out on your shit when you claim your opinions are more valid than other people's because you make a lot of money?

Someone quote this for me so he reads it. :P

-edit fixed poor spelling but it was quoted before I could.

[Lyrical]

Originally Posted by Daezuel

No one asked for a WoW review, I'm pretty sure 99% of the people that use this board have played WoW at some point. You can't see this post anyways so it'll fall on deaf ears. If I'm one of the so called Warhammer fanboys then why I have repeatedly listed concerns I have with the bugs in Warhammer? Because I like the game and will be playing it, or because I'm one of the people who call you out on your shit when you claim you're opinions are more valid than other people's because you make a lot of money?

Someone quote this for me so he reads it. :P

Can you guys (on both sides) please stop nerd-raging over WAR? I haven't seen this much nerd rage since Vanguard launched.

[Twobit Whore]

No, not going to play.

Only because I think I am done with MMOs.. at least as they exist now. But if I were forced to play one I think WAR would be it. It's not a bad game. It does what it claims to do which is about all you can ask of a game these days.

[krinkled]

I see your quoted post. Actually I was specifically asked to compare WotLK to WAR since I am in both closed betas.

[woqqqa]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

No, not going to play.

Only because I think I am done with MMOs.. at least as they exist now. But if I were forced to play one I think WAR would be it. It's not a bad game. It does what it claims to do which is about all you can ask of a game these days.

I'd have to say I agree; until MMO developers start producing more open ended worlds where you're not pigeonholed into doing a few things over and over, I think I'll pass. Something like a combination of Spore and UO, with a few Eve gameplay mechanics thrown in sounds nice. Warhammer looks like a very good implementation of PvP, but somehow that just doesn't work for me anymore. I think the community in most MMOs tends to put me off them, too. That said, assuming they fix the ability lag and pathing problems, I see this becoming the next WoW, especially if it's being released in Asia.

[Horse]

Originally Posted by spronk

But the flip side, WAR RvR will become the exact same thing after a few months. Everyone is praising it now because its nice, new, different, etc. I hate all the WoW battlegrounds and I suck at arena, there is nothing really in WAR that makes me think "omg after 4 months of playing this ITS GONNA BE AWESOME EVERY DAY!". No, its gonna be the same shit - ah fuck, I need 5000 more renown points to get widget #83, and I need to grind some gold so I can buy some black dye for my new pants. I will have an uncanny ability to pick the server & side that always gets roflstomped in T4 and scenarios, so it'll be an endless panorama of losing all the time.

I agree with this except one bit is that war may finally implement guild legacy in PVP. So really its like having a FPS team where you can log on a couple times a week and kick people's asses.

The prob with WoW PVP and why WAR might be fun every day:

~ when you're obligated to play for points just to become viable. WAR doesn't appear to have that

~ small scale organized guilds have a place. Alliances between guilds and levelling guilds are a good carrot

~ the ability to impact the world with small group play. Wow's small group play is crushed by retardation in the other raid slots in the bg, they have no bearing on the overarching world, and then arenas shit on guilds because noone wants to bring "undesirable_class_001" to the party

~ there is enough variety in place to entertain. WAR seems to understand that the mitigation for utter pvp tedium is 1. more maps, 2. more rulesets. In just preview weekend we had:

1. fights over contested PQs (nothing nearly as entertaining has happened in WoW due to the monolithic nature of the world targets. Camping level 1 spies and the ease of wiping someone who's fighting a boss. Whereas my favorite time in wow was the open world pvp in felwood while levelling)

2. I played 4 different scenarios up through level 10. all of them impacted the larger world via victory points (some feedback on how much you helped/failed would be nice at game end). If the assumption is 1 per racewar per tier, that's nearly double wow. Of course all that matters is how many more there are at level cap

3. tons of open world pvp clustered around places of interest and integrated into the questing/levelling process. They obv need to work on the pve scripting and AI but even if they just removed the pve elements from those POIs they'd be fine.

They've already achieved the larger scale PVP. It would be seemingly trivial for them to add WoW's arena system, or even 5 man scenarios. Deathmatches... on the flipside wintergrasp is pretty much all over war, at various rvr checkpoints. Whoops.


If they do what you're saying and cop out by adding a new scenario every X months with a new vendor associated with it... snore. But if you like PVP I don't see any other options screaming out as being superior.

If they can snare people who like the repetition of shooters to the point that they can log on and play a few rounds while getting upgrades AND not being seriously behind other people - the upgrades helping out other aspects of the game like open world RVR - they've won.

With wow I get the bug to play now and again, and log in to find i'm severely behind in some new way that makes entertaining their concept of class/group balance a chore while playing the same few maps and rulesets.

If suddenly that same burden is in WAR, fine - it's easy to cancel. At the first whiff of that it's easily over. But the ride towards it is still looking to be enjoyable.

Here again is what I said, when two differrent members specifically asked me for a review:

Nobody asked for your review, they asked you to stop wasting their time by posting bullshit sweeping generalizations. Never mind that you're comparing apples and oranges: an expansion of a PVE centric game that's about 4 years old should not be on the same fucking "grading system" as a PVP centric beta, unless that grading system is "Special Ed Krinkle's Opinion About Fun." The request was if you're going to post such drivel, at least expand what the fuck you're talking about.

My 12 year old cousin has been in WoW beta for longer than you and his opinion has more bearing than you saying the shadows and graphics make it gain 1.6 krinkle phun pointz. Yeah, we get it.

PS -> how are you rating WOTLK's pvp? Exactly what are you considering in that "score?" To me, and anyone else who's access to both, it is no contest because you're comparing an entire game's system to a small facet of another game that isn't complete.

To put it another way: if warhammer's keypresses and "polish" was identical to WoW right now, which pvp game would be better? If you think for a second that they're even in the same league depthwise, I think that takes a huge shit all over your credibilty.

Likewise, if WoW were able to thoroughly lift WAR's concepts, given both games current state of polish, WoW would clearly be the winner.

In the end, someone stating you're essentially being a douchebag is not "flaming" or whatever internet rhetorical meat-curtains you're hiding behind. You've posted your opinion and are clinging to it. We get it, move on.

No more posts about how you're ignoring people.

[Dashal]

Eh there is bound to be shitloads of nerdrage about WoW vrs WAR. It's an obvious comparison. Both games are very good imo. I'm not a big WoW player but I have a ton of respect for the game.

I prefer WAR because I enjoy the open world RvR and I'm sick of the PvE centric MMOs.

When it comes to PvE, I would expect WoW is still king content wise. If you like scripted progression Raid level PvE, WoW is your game no doubt. That's what they do and they do it very very well. The edge WAR has in PvE is it's innovations like open groups, Public Quests, Tome of Knowledge. For the players who dont raid, these are not trivial things. I cant speak to the dungeons or scripted encounters as I havent experienced them in WAR.

PvP though from what I've seen it's not even close in my mind. WAR is so focused on making PvP accessible and fun that there's no way WoW can be considered on that same level.

[krinkled]

Originally Posted by Horse

Never mind that you're comparing apples and oranges: an expansion of a PVE centric game that's about 4 years old should not be on the same fucking "grading system" as a PVP centric beta

Why not? Both games will compete in the same marketplace. Unfortunately for WAR it has to compete with WoW as it is today, not as it was 5 years ago.

WAR should no longer be given the "but its in BETA" excuse. The game will be live in about 3 weeks.

Originally Posted by Horse

, unless that grading system is "Special Ed Krinkle's Opinion About Fun."

Personally attacking me because you don't agree with my opinion about WAR does not make what you have to say any more valid.

Originally Posted by Horse

My 12 year old cousin has been in WoW beta for longer than you and his opinion has more bearing than you saying the shadows and graphics make it gain 1.6 krinkle phun pointz.

Blah, blah more derogatory personal attacks.

Originally Posted by Horse

PS -> how are you rating WOTLK's pvp? Exactly what are you considering in that "score?" To me, and anyone else who's access to both, it is no contest because you're comparing an entire game's system to a small facet of another game that isn't complete.

I said it was a toss up and different people would make different decisions. WotLK has far superior inter-character combat mechanics. WAR has a far superior number of ways to participate in PvP.

Originally Posted by Horse

To put it another way: if warhammer's keypresses and "polish" was identical to WoW right now, which pvp game would be better? If you think for a second that they're even in the same league depthwise, I think that takes a huge shit all over your credibilty.

If this were the case then WAR would be better at PvP and WoW would be better at PvE. But this is just conjecture, currently WAR's inter-character combat mechanics just don't come close to WoW.

Originally Posted by Horse

In the end, someone stating you're essentially being a douchebag is not "flaming" or whatever internet rhetorical meat-curtains you're hiding behind. You've posted your opinion and are clinging to it. We get it, move on.

Actually Lost Ranger and a few of his WAR fanboy cronies have literally followed me around this board and tried to start personal shit wherever I post.

I post on topic and then they derail with a personal attack.

I finally decided to take the high road and just ignore them.

[Daezuel]

Originally Posted by Horse

2. I played 4 different scenarios up through level 10. all of them impacted the larger world via victory points (some feedback on how much you helped/failed would be nice at game end). If the assumption is 1 per racewar per tier, that's nearly double wow. Of course all that matters is how many more there are at level cap

From my understanding there are probably between 16-20ish scenarios in tier 4. Which ones you can queue for depends on the status of world/zone control. i.e. You can queue for these 2-4 scenarios if Order has control of the 1st RvR zone in Empire, while you can queue for these other 2-4 scenarios if Destruction has taken over the 2nd tier of the Dwarf areas. This pattern continues all the way up through the city sieges.

There are a wide array of objectives in these scenarios as well, for instance : One game the map is shaped in a V, the object is to get to the middle, salvage parts, and try to get them back to your base before someone kills you. Another game is more like Cod4 Domination where you have to cap flags by standing in a certain radius and cap those flags in a succession of points. There is yet another form of Domination where flags only become capturable at different points.

All of these of course contribute to zone control and instead of just having the ability to queue for 20 scenarios all at once, fragmenting the playerbase and having perhaps 2-3 that get played while the rest are ignored, you queue based upon what level of zone control the game is currently at.

Honestly, you could ignore the open rvr zerg all you want in this game and still have wildly varying objective based pvp fun against even numbers and still contribute victory points to your side.

[Pyros]

Too early to compare wow and wotlk however. To put it simply, currently wow's PvP is shit. Wintergrasp is not working for the most part, besides giving free honor so you can buy gear that's not even itemized correctly. The new BG is mostly broken, and is just an instance wintergrasp anyway, for whatever reason they felt it was necessary to have 2 vehicles based pvp zone, one outside and one as a bg. Retarded is probably the best term. While I'm on the vehicle subject, vehicles currently disconnect you if you use mouselook. Keyboard turning planes is not that fun.

Then most classes are broken. Some skills aren't working, class balance is totally retarded(I'm pretty much 2-3shotting everything on my DK, with unmitigated 5-8k crits) and there's a severe lack of people/class spread to be able to even test anything. Arenas are not working afaik.

To be honest, there's nothing to compare here, unless you compare BC live wow to war. WoTLK is not nearing finition, it's not even close, it's months away from a release and most of it is broken in some way. Even if it wasn't broken, from a design perspective, the new pvp content is terrible at best. I'll wait until I see the 2 new arenas, but the whole vehicles shit is crap. They're not balanced for shit against people without vehicles, and they offer very limited gameplay experiences since they have like 2-5abilities each, which are pretty much all similar(the only redeeming one is the goblin shredder). If I wanted vehicles PvP, I'd play battlefield, and I think it's a huge mistake to bet all their PvP enhancements on vehicles(other than arenas that is). Again, wintergrasp and strand of ancients are both the same thing, mistake #2. They should have added more variations of the existing gameplays, like a goddamn new CTF map. It's probably one of the most fun system, yet we only have WSG for it, it's fucking stupid.

Now if you compare PvE, the little I've seen in wotlk that's accessible beats pretty much everything in war. But most people won't buy war to play pve. So it's mostly a non factor in a decent comparison.

TLDR version: It's way too early to compare wotlk with anything, because wotlk isn't finished. But even if you want to compare, war pvp is currently better than wotlk pvp by far. Probably has to do with wotlk not having any serious pvp yet, see first sentence.

[NativityInBlack]

Good to see most of you guys (60%+) will also play it right away, it will be fun.

[Tolanin]

the thing i like is that you can do rvr and bgs at the same time pretty easily. We were queuing for bgs all night while fighting over a keep and since you come back from the bg at the exact spot you zoned in from its pretty easy to fight the scenario, come out, fight rvr while you wait on the queue and so on. I bet thats gonna be what alot of people do especially if queues get long.