So, since it seems the thing to do, my thoughts on WAR

Bintowe

THIS IS A LONG POST.

A quick background...I've played AC, DAoC, WoW, EVE, AoC, AC2, EQ, Vanguard, Horizons, CoH, CoV, GW, and plenty of FTPs.  I recently got into the WAR closed beta thanks to this "bone" that Mythic apparently tossed CE pre-orders, though I'm not too sure what it all was about.  (Think it had something to do with the apparent lack of difference between CE and SE pre-orders, though personally I wanted the figure.  Have been crossing my fingers for a map of some sort ala AoC CE.)  Anyway, me being the person I am, I most willingly chewed said bone, and here's some of the thoughts and such from my experience.  Hopefully, it will help others make their decisions.

First off, the torrent.  Hopefully, Mythic will choose DDLs for their choice of distribution of pre-downloads and NOT torrents.  Futhermore, there are several thousands of people out there who really need to seed.  Seriously.  But, this is really such a minor issue, even if it did set a bit of a sour note, but I decided to put it past me.  (Out of the goodness of my heart and all )  The install worked without any problems, and the patcher was standard issue beta patcher, which I assume will be replaced come launch time.  After the patching process, you're asked to log in through a rather bland login screen, which again will probably be replaced.  After logging in, you're taken straight to the opening logos then server selection, without any cinematic of any sort.  However, as there is a cinematic button at the bottom, I assume Mythic hasn't implemented it yet, and even then, this is a minor issue.  One note about the server selection is that, for some odd reason, many times the game will skip allowing me a choice and take me directly to a random server character screen.  This was an issue in the CB, although in the preview weekend it took me where I created my character.  Now, onto character creation.

The character creation is relatively standard affair.  You first choose a race, then you'll choose a class.  Your characters appearance will depend partially on your class, so that might be a slight issue for some.  Also, there doesn't really seem to be that much choice, and the character models can be kinda hideous, especially for females.  I remember creating a female Swordmaster, and the first model it showed me had a nasty scar and was missing an eye.  Not what I imagined an elf would look like.  You get to choose your characters face, hair, facial hair, skin color, eye color, scar, jewelry, and accessory/other color.  Oh, and the dwarves had a fantastic selection of beards, both male and female (kidding on the female part).  However, everything is pre-made, and I can see this being a negative in some people's eyes.  Then, of course, your name, and off you go!  Since I happened to like the dwarves better, I'll describe my experiences from their side.   I played an Ironbreaker, which is a kind of tank.

The first thing you start off in is a battlefield.  I don't usually pay much attention to any kind of lore, but I'll explain the little I understood.  Apparently, the dwarves are in the middle of a struggle to take back their homeland, which was taken from them by the greenskins.  There are racial pairings of one on each side, and as dwarves you'll be up against the greenskins, though you won't see them just yet, but the overall experience was EXTREMELY pleasing.  I felt like things were actually happening, even if they really weren't.  There was of course a quest giver right next to me, so I took that quest, which was to kill such and such number of such and such creatures or something like that, fairly standard MMO fare.  Most quests seem to either be collect the items, kill the monsters, or go find * person (who may or may not be alive.)  Of course, some are a bit more interesting, but again, most of it is standard stuff.  One plus in my opinion is that it's pretty quick, and for item quests there is a 100% drop rate.  No waiting 15 minutes for the rare mob to spawn only for it to not drop the item, hooray!  Of course, this is both good and bad, since it does mean you'll go through quests really fast, and I can see some won't like that.  Oh, and the items are automatically put in you're inventory, which is kinda nice.  But, overall, it was fun, but nothing ground-breaking so far.

Most of your equipment is going to come from the quests, while some of it will come from drops (which seems rather rare for the good stuff, and may not even be for your class.)  You will also get some from the influence system, which I will explain in a bit.  You'll also get alot of trash drops which seem to serve no purpose other then selling, though some can be used for crafting.  Also, although I didn't get involved with it much, the crafting system does not seem to have an equipment crafter, only a trinket crafter, which I assume is for accessories.  There is the potion crafter, however.  Also, it looks like these crafters will depend on the salvaging professions for the stuff to make their goods, after which the salvagers will be required to buy stuff from crafters, thus completing the great cycle of crafting (or whatever.)

On a more interesting subject, the much hyped PQ system.  I have only one word to describe PQs:  fun.  My first one came about as I was walking down the road to meet the next quest giver, and I literally ran into it.  It was the first dwarf one, I think, and it involved the dwarves trying to take back some village or something.  I didn't pay too much attention to the details, and only set about doing my realmly duty.  Killing greenies.  At this point, there were still no PC greenskins to deal with, so it was rather peaceful, but also kind of interesting.  Both working together with and competing against a random group of people you don't know was fun, and the objectives were rather clear cut and easy to understand.  I can't say what most of the others will be like, not having tried all of them, but this particular one entertaining, and I spent a few hours participating in it.  One cool thing is that at any time you can walk in and start participating, no matter what stage it's at.  Also, for participating, you receive influence, which you can eventually use to receive rewards from a local reward giver.  This will usually be a choice of potions for first level, a choice of standard equipment for advanced, and a good piece of equipment for the third.  It isn't, however, a perfect system.  For one thing, it depends on having others around, and at the times I can play the server population was generally low.  They are definitely not soloable, though you can build influence easily in the first stage.  Also, at the end, anyone who participated is put in the roll from 0-1000 for the loot bags, and the top certain number, which I think is based on the number of recipients, will receive bags which contain a choice of items that usually consist of crafting items or money, though there are different kinds of bags and better bags will contain equipment.  The system in place to reward hard workers is the contribution bonus, in which the people who did the most receive a certain amount of bonus points to their roll, up to 500.  However, it can and does happen where someone with no contribution bonus at all will receive a bag, while people with silver or even gold will place 10th or lower (and my luck SUCKS.)  Overall, it was a good experience, and something I look forward to come live.

Now, around the same time as this PQ, I started participating in the RvR scenarios.  In these, you and fellow realm-mates are thrown together into a random map to fight against folks of the other side.  As the dwarves, we were mostly fighting against the greenskins, though some from the other races would come and fight with them.  In the tier 1 scenario, people from level 1 to level 11 or 12 can join, and if you join at a level below 8 you will automatically have you're health and I assume your stats set to level 8.  However, you won't have the skills or equipment a level 8 is bound to have, and at low levels that means you are missing ALOT, so I really recommend waiting.  The cool thing Mythic has done is that you can level completely in the RvR scenarios, without once having to fight a mob.  Of course, you won't really have any equipment appropiate to your level, but it can be done.  Also, another interesting thing is that sometimes, enemy players will drop loot, although it looks like the loot is completely random and only limited to realm, and you will have to win the roll for it.  Most of the RvR scenarios seem to center around taking a certain number of points and holding them, until you win the point count and your realm wins.  You also get points based on kills, and this can tip the balance in a close match.  Of note to interest is that some classes seem to be a bit overpowered, though this could just be in the low levels.  Particularly, healers and mages were insane, with healers capable of keeping themselves alive for minutes, and mages capable of destroying tanks in seconds.  Furthermore, tanks don't seem to have too much purpose, since taunts don't work on PCs like they do mobs and you can't seem to put out enough damage to count for much.  As an IB, you do have the ability to Oath Friend a person, and all the additions you get from your skills, something I will describe later, will be added on to your oath friend.  You do get several dots, however, some with nifty slow capabilities and such.  You will also get renown, and make levels based on how much renown you earn, and use renown points from gaining levels in spending on skills at renown trainers, and receive things like extra protection against certain kinds of attacks, or extra strength.  If you've played DAoC, then you probably have an idea of what I'm talking about.  Overall, the scenarios were alot of fun, though, with some interesting and intense battles.

The rolling system for loot is standard stuff, you have need, greed, and pass.  Generally, I greed everything, but unfortunately anyone can need an item, whether they can use it or not.  I lost a good shield to a melee dps who I don't think could use it because of it .  This again is nothing new, but I'd hoped for a slightly better system in which only people who could use an item could roll for it.  Just my little dream there.

On the subject of the open world RvR, this is where it can get interesting.  Unfortunately, in most situations, it's going to end up depending on numbers, since most impromptu groups won't have much organization and so won't make effective use of their resources.  However, it is possible to win battles against a larger group with sound tactics if they are disorganized.  While you might not be able to take on the entirety of the server, you probably could beat a group that is half again larger then you.  On a more important note for some, if you are looking for a game where you will be the hero in all and be able to take on 20 at once, you should probably look elsewhere.  Even in 2v1s, you will be at a significant disadvantage, and chances are you will lose.  The game rewards teamwork between the various classes, and solo players may be left cold.  Of course, depending on circumstances, anything is possible...

Open RvR is just that.  However, at least in the initial areas where you first encounter your enemy, it seems you have to initialize rvr mode first before being allowed to attack others.  However, if you are in rvr mode, and someone who isn't comes up to you, they are pretty much given first hit, since that's how they will initialize their rvr status.  However, you can simply go about your business in most areas without any cares in the world as long as you don't attack anyone else, thought the npcs will still aggro on you.  There also seems to be PQs where the two realms compete against each other, but I don't know much about them because the greenskins seemed to significantly outnumber the dwarves, and the dwarves never put up much competition.  But, in the areas set aside for the RVR, there are objectives to take between the two realms, and it looks like they provide certain benefits to everyone in the area of that realm that holds them.  In tier one, the way you take an objective is to kill all the guards at the post, then hold that objective for three minutes.  The problem I see with this is, the enemy may not have time to rally a group to go take it back in three minutes, so it will be most likely an easy capture unless theres already a group nearby.  Then, after capturing it, it cannot be attacked for at least 15 minutes, so many times it's a bunch of shadow capturing.  (This is mostly about the elf/dark elf battlefield.  I noticed the human battlefield was MUCH more compact, and generally had alot of action.)

I don't know much about the various classes, since I'm mostly interested in heavy melee so I'll probably play an ironbreaker.  Ironbreaker was a lot of fun, and could put out some decent damage.  I need notice that the greenskin healers seemed to be able to put out as much damage as I could while also healing the same amount, and thought that was a little silly, but overall it was alot of fun.  I have to ask though, I've noticed that most of the time destruction outnumbers order by a fair amount, so please, guys, for all of the hot dwarves out there, give us some love and come join us.  Hopefully, I'll see you there.

And join me in smashing in greenie skulls.

P.S.  I have noticed that in the game there are alot of small issues and such, along with some pretty major ones.  The small issues are some things like misplaced text (for the elf creator), some missing icons, some misplaced icons, etc.  However, there are other issues like the CTDs.  I only experienced two during the preview weekend, and both happened in RvR, so I'm not sure if it's server side or me.  Also, I kept lagging a good bit in RvR, but this for sure I suspected was a problem with my computer or connection, and nothing on Mythics part, since I don't think anyone else said they were having lag problems.  Beyond that though, it's well worth the time.  Oh, and as my final note, I happened to like WoW.

ProfRed

Another great read!  Thanks for the post.  The torrent killed me too man.  At least the preview weekenders had fileplanet hosting.  I bet open beta will be the same.