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Warhammer Online Review
ProfRed
Member UncommonPosts: 3,495
From my blog:
Now that the NDA is lifted I will share my experiences in Closed Beta regarding various aspects of WAR.
I just want to start by saying this game is different than most MMO's out there. The focus is on RvR and PvP, but the PvE is innovative, fresh, and is done extremely well. All classes have health, and action bars. Action points are used to execute any skill in the game. All characters have a flee ability which completely drains their action points, keeps them from regaining them while fleeing, and also drains any class specific pools (righteous fury for warrior priests, accusations for witch hunters, etc.). All classes have some sort of low damage ranged attack that can be used while running so it is much less frustrating than other games when you have to chase players down. All players will have morale skills of different ranks. These can be equipped to your morale bar and as you fight this bar grows in rank. Once your morale is high enough to execute one of these skills they light up, and are very powerful. For ranged dps the first rank may be a very powerful attack, or for a healer it may be an insane heal. The different skills perform differently across classes. A Witch Hunter gets a rank 2 morale skill which drains 200 action points from an enemy which is very useful as Witch Hunters run out of action points very easily.
- Atmosphere -
The atmosphere in WAR works really well. The sounds, lighting, character designs, and animations all go together nicely to give a very unique and engaging atmosphere. The feeling of RvR and other WAR based encounters like Scenarios felt extremely tense and had me on the edge of my seat as hours flew by like minutes.
The game has a great social feel. Finally a MMORPG where you will ALWAYS be interacting with other players is on the verge of release. Public quests create an atmosphere where you will be questing and come upon a huge quest where tens of other players are cooperating in a short quest line and it is always easy and engaging to jump into the battle. Also open parties mean that as you cross into new areas or when you login you can click a little icon by your character portrait and see all of the open parties in your area. They are tagged as PVE, RVR, and PQ and as you highlight them you can see what public quest they are doing and you can see how many are in the party. All you have to do is hit join and you become a member of the party which is always more rewarding then doing the same task solo. Finally RvR creates a very dynamic experience where you will always be a part of an ongoing struggle of power.
- Public Quests -
I know that something like public quests may seem like a small feature but it is not a small feature at all. All over the World as you roam you will come across these and join allies to defeat them, and reap the rewards. The top contributors earn bonus points to their random roll of 1000. First place earns 400 bonus points, and the bonuses trickle down over the top contributors. Each contributor has a random roll of 1000 and their bonus is added. The top 3-4 scores get loot bags from a chest that spawns, and when these are opened you can choose from 6-8 rewards ranging from crafting items to armor pieces or gold/silver. They reset within a couple minutes and these quests are always living evolving entities throughout the World. You will get a quest in town to kill X number of enemies and those enemies will be part of the first stage of a public quest. Even if you don't win you still earn Influence points for the current area or zone which can be used to purchase very nice pieces of gear for your character. They tied into the story and the zones, and they are very immersive, interesting, and socially stimulating.
- PvE -
PvE is largely affected by Public Quests as mentioned above, but aside from that the kill quests are 100% drops, and you get the reward the second the creature dies. This makes for fast, and low punch the keyboard out of frustration questing. The typical quests are interesting and enough to tell the story and move you forward in the game, but there isn't much new aside from the Public Quests. I did not get to experience end game PvE but I have talked to many who have in Closed Beta and they all seemed to enjoy it immensely when not RvR'ing.
- PvP/RvR -
So towards the end of each of the four tiers, or every 10 levels, there are areas in the zone that are marked off for RvR. Each side of the battle will have an outpost right on the outskirts of the area where players can receive repeatable RvR/PvP quests, have armor and weapon merchants, influence vendors, class and renown trainers. The battle seemed to always flow as groups were pushed back against the wall and then pushed the attackers all the way back as they took the objectives. Small scale and large scale battles break out all across the zones, and near the outposts players can control cannons to push back attacking players.
Renown is earned by RvR/PvP'ing whenever you kill another player, capture an objective, or complete some other task in the RvR area. Your renown is like a separate leveling system which you can use to further customize your character. Upgrades you can purchase early on are things like increased XP from RvR, increased gold from RvR, and stat enhancements. As you progress down the tree though more customization becomes available.
At Tier 2 keeps are introduced where players can build siege objects, and try to take keeps as well as battlefield objectives. Objectives are guarded by an NPC hero or champion of the top level of that tier so they can't be captured solo even if no enemies are around usually. Keep bosses are stronger, but so are the rewards. If your side owns a keep you can buy great class gear as long as your renown and regular rank are high enough. (First keep in T2 requires rank 10, and renown rank 6). These items are a huge step forward in making your class look more powerful, unique, and like the screen shots we've seen of our favorite classes.
Each race vs. race combo has T1-T4 and you can quickly travel to another Order or Destruction races battlefield from any other battlefield via a flight NPC so travel between the battles is almost instant. I highly suggest flying around and fighting in the different battles as each one is very different for its tier.
From anywhere in any zone you can queue up a scenario from your mini map. They often come with XP rewards just for doing them on top of the XP earned while doing them. When the battle is ready you can either join immediately or wait a few seconds and finish up what you are doing before joining. You will zone straight there, and upon completion you will come back into the World exactly where you left it. This makes Scenarios very easy and accessible and a lot of fun. They are like little tournaments that you can join whenever you want.
Once you out rank a tier's RvR if you try to go back you will turn into a chicken that is silenced and can't really do anything but die like only a chicken could.
- Classes -
I have always played human classes, and I always will. I don't know why but I just do. I tested many of these classes. I will talk about the Warrior Priest, Witch Hunter, Magus, Zealot, and Chosen.
Warrior Priest - Healer + Melee DPS - These are melee healers. You have a righteous fury pool of 250 and as you cast heals this pool drops. ALL of your damage/melee skills build this pool back up, and there is also a skill that converts your action points into Righteous Fury if you need to heal away from the front lines. They do pretty good damage, and have good heals. In PvE they are easy to play as you should never really die, but you still kill a lot slower than DPS classes. In RvR these guys are great as are all healers. There is something about being able to get up in your targets face and smack them with a giant hammer while healing though. I know from being on the receiving side of this that these guys can be very frustrating to fight.
Witch Hunter - Melee DPS - These are straight up melee DPS with some sneakiness thrown in. You have accusation points which are earned by performing most of your melee attacks. These attacks range from dots to pure damage. Then there are execution skills which use these points to perform an execution of varying strength depending on how many points you have built up. Executions also range from pure DPS, dots, and channeled DPS. They also have positional DPS like if you attack from behind you ignore armor. There is also a skill that ignores all positional requirements of all skills for 10 seconds on a 60 second cool down which is a nice twist to these type classes. They also have a sort of sneak skill which makes them stealth while absorbing their action points making the stealth very non permanent. Also there is a full 60 second cool down when you first get the skill. There are attacks from stealth that do various things like pure damage + 15 damage to the victim each time they attack in the next 15 seconds + 2 accusation points. They also have a basic pistol attack that can be fired while running. Most executions are performed using the pistol while most skills to build up accusations are sword based. These classes are a lot of fun to play in both PvE and PvP. You are DPS with low armor who has to get up close though, so expect to die a good bit more often than a healer, tank, or ranged DPS'er. Also these guys run out of action points very easily which can be frustrating.
Magus - Ranged DPS + Stationary Pets - These are the counterpart to the engineer in a way. You will do pretty good ranged DPS, and have access to an array of stationary pets that perform differently. The best way to describe a Magus is that it’s a defensive ranged DPS’er. The first three pets you receive are a pink demon, blue demon, and a flamer. The pink demon has long range single target attacks. The blue demon has short range AOE attacks, and the flamer has moderate range DOT attacks one AOE and one single target. You always fly on your disc which changes as you level. You have direct damage instant spells, some melee range spells, and some buff/debuff spells. Their ranged DPS alone seems less than the pure ranged DPS classes, but with their pet and under the right circumstances they can do very well in RvR. They really shine though in PvE and Public Quests. In RvR they seem to do best in a defensive roll, hiding behind the front lines. The only problem is their disc is like a huge target, and I find that I get targeted and taken out before even healers quite often.
Zealot - Healer + Ranged DPS - These are ranged DPS healers. They stay back to heal and DPS, and they have special skills which grant buffs and abilities to members of their party(or themselves). The first one for example is a strength and intelligence boost which grants a skill that causes a moderate amount of instant direct damage on a 60 second cool down. These skills can be very useful to the party because if all of the team members were to use them at once it really adds up. They also have channeled DPS spells, instant DPS spells, and DOTs which all do moderate damage. Of course there damage is not on par with any of the direct DPS classes, but it is enough to come out on top in some 1v1 fights while mixing in some healing. They have direct heals, heal over time, and also a shield that absorbs damage and heals the recipient for a moderate amount of health when it expires. These guys are a lot of fun, are awesome at PvE and are always needed in PvP for their healing and group assistance.
Chosen - Tank + Group Buff - These guys are less of melee giants than they appear. They can take a beating, but they also have great buffs for the group which also come with mirror like AoE debuffs for the enemy. They are called curses and they can have up to 3 active. At the beginning you will cycle between a couple which do things like boost your allies strength, while lowering your opponents or boosting your allies toughness while lowering your opponents. After they expire they exist for another 12 seconds so in big fights you can get even more active. They have standard DPS attacks, dot melee attacks, and do moderate damage while still taking a beating. Many of their melee attacks reduce the armor of the opponent, and one grants + damage bonus to the next hit for everyone in the party. They are big giant ogres of damage soaking debuff/buffing goodness. They also get a skill called 'Hold the Lines' which protects anyone within 40 feet behind them and themselves reducing 40% or ranged damage taken. They perform very well in PvE as it will be very hard to die, but it will still take longer to kill enemies than one of the pure DPS classes. They are also very useful in RvR for blocking, buffing, taking hits, and basically annoying the hell out of the enemy.
Bonus: So I lied. I tried a White Lion also.
White Lion - Melee DPS + Pet - These guys are pure melee DPS, but with a pet who will also melee DPS or tank. They have a large range of melee DPS skills and most of their specialty revolves around their summoned White Lion which is with them from the minute they create their character. The player has a choice to focus on their character tanking while the Lion strategically attacks the enemy for higher DPS, or allowing their Lion to tank while the player strategically attacks the enemy for higher DPS, or a mix of both. This is a fun class if you like pets for sure and it performs well in PvE, and in RvR, but like the Witch Hunter you have to get into the fray and your armor is not the strongest. At least with these guys you can send your pet in for some distraction.
- Balance -
The RvR seems incredibly balanced all things considered. I mostly stayed in Chaos vs. Empire areas as that is where the largest number of players were flocking. While destruction seemed to have far more tanks, order made up for it with healers. When logging in there was always a display of the population count, and it was pretty even. Destruction almost always had 5-10% more players, but the battles were incredibly even. It almost always continued to sway as one side was pushed back before rallying. In my testing destruction lacked healing, but employed more zerg tactics to win anyway. I think removing the classes they did was smart, and may have had something to do with balance as it seems very balanced right now. With tons of order knights to go with tons of warrior priests Order may have had an upper hand. Destruction also has more hardcore players for sure as on my server the first players and groups to get to T2 and get the keeps was destruction. Still the game is very balanced, and the population seems much more balanced then I would have though. From my experience Order seems to do better in scenarios due to zerg tactics not being viable in a set number vs. set number match.
In the beta there were only two classes I would say need adjusting. The pure ranged DPS casters (Sorceress and Bright Wizard) are extremely powerful. They do have drawbacks as their spells backlash and hurt them as well but they can still sit behind the front lines and kill someone of equal level in 1-3 hits. It can be very frustrating especially those battles where half the people were Bright Wizards. Anyone that got close just got fried before getting to do much. Their punishment or backlash for casting their heavy spells doesn’t matter when you can’t get to them. However, if you can get to them they drop fast. I think they need some tweaking though as they are the only classes that seemed in any way unbalanced. There is one per side though so it isn’t that bad. I just worry that if they aren’t altered in a way 50% of the players will end up playing one of these and it can make the battles very frustrating and not so fun for the people on the receiving end of their pew-pew.
- Closing -
In closing the beta has been thoroughly impressive. There were a few bugs, but the major ones were fixed with quickness. The game is fun through and through. The party quests, the RvR, the PvE, the different classes playing styles, and everything in between was fun. The game is pretty fast paced, and it really feels like a War is going on all around you. Mythic did an incredible job, and I look forward to playing this game for years to come.
I have one piece of advice. This game is an incredibly different game depending on what class you play. It is immersive and fun from the start so I highly suggest playing around with alts, and even on different servers. I plan on having 5 characters across 5 different servers to experience the different balances on different servers, and experience the game in a different way as I play the different classes. No matter what though you will have fun, and it may damage you for life. I don't know how I can ever play an MMO again which requires hundreds of hours of play just to get to the fun when this game delivers it in a far superior method after just a few hours of play.
I'll answer any questions anyone has. Keep in mind I only played through Tier 2 as I didn't want to get too far and spoil it for myself.
Comments
Great review. Thanks a lot. Seems they really worked on the weak points of other MMOs, encouraging grouping... this is very good.
Yeah one of my biggest gripes with WoW was how you could create a character and get to level 20 without ever grouping, and actually people seemed like it was a bother to even help you out as it took from their questing.
In this game in the first minutes you will be thrown into large quests and doing events with a huge amount of other players and it just feels more like an MMO.
a nice post prof,I am glad someone who's posts I normally follow and trust has posted a review,only problem I had is you never played a runepriest but I can let that slide
Again thanks mate your review has got me in high spirits.
If someone had came up to me in 1980 when I was on my Atari 2600 and said we will be playing games with thousands of people at the same time.I guess my response would have been,"but I only have 2 joysticks"
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/235780/page/8
Yeah one of my biggest gripes with WoW was how you could create a character and get to level 20 without ever grouping, and actually people seemed like it was a bother to even help you out as it took from their questing.
In this game in the first minutes you will be thrown into large quests and doing events with a huge amount of other players and it just feels more like an MMO.
not insulting the game but is it a necesity to be in a group for these quests? if so, when the game is older and there are fewer and fewer low levels will it even be possible to level again? will it be a 5 hour lfg fest like it is with ff11?
-----------------------------
IVE PLAYED WOW AND LIKED IT SO IM A FANBOI PLZ FLAME MY THREADS CUZ I MIGHT MENTION WOW
Great review. Thanks for taking the time to write up that big wall of text. I appreciate it.
Yeah one of my biggest gripes with WoW was how you could create a character and get to level 20 without ever grouping, and actually people seemed like it was a bother to even help you out as it took from their questing.
In this game in the first minutes you will be thrown into large quests and doing events with a huge amount of other players and it just feels more like an MMO.
Also thanks for the review, especially the magus part. I'm planning on playing that to start off with. And just fyi, I got to max level in WoW on a couple of different toons without ever grouping at all, lol.
Yeah one of my biggest gripes with WoW was how you could create a character and get to level 20 without ever grouping, and actually people seemed like it was a bother to even help you out as it took from their questing.
In this game in the first minutes you will be thrown into large quests and doing events with a huge amount of other players and it just feels more like an MMO.
not insulting the game but is it a necesity to be in a group for these quests? if so, when the game is older and there are fewer and fewer low levels will it even be possible to level again? will it be a 5 hour lfg fest like it is with ff11?
No the quests in the game are completely solo friendly grouping can make it funner easier and faster, not that they are already easy or fast , but groups are good thing to have for PQs as after the first stage usually its unsoloable of course there are dungeons you have to group for as well in the later tiers which offer a huge amount of xp ( when your done with these you could probably lvl 2-3 times)if you get all the quests for it or maybe youll get lucky and when you get into the gunbad dungeon there will already be a group doing it .
No such thing as luck, just believing in it is what makes it real to you and really...thats all you need.
Im on nobodies' side but my own.
Well ya beat me too it Prof...great post. I played with the squig herder myself and thoroughly enjoyed it. The way they've balanced the game he's rather viable for once for a pet class. Obviously you can't run up and solo a tank or a melee dps character but a caster is usually pretty fubar'd by a ranged pet class. Disruptions are wonderful Heheh of course turning my squig onto aggressive mode also made for some chaotic fun.
They've really set up the world well so that tall grass, rock outcroppings, trees, crumbling walls and stairs are a player's friend. Sometimes the world's bushes & grass is so thick you won't see the an enemy player or npc until they're attacking you. I love using tanks as a hiding spot, the black orcs are fun to hide behind and then just plink away at the unsuspecting.
Of course standing on th ekeep walls I can send my squig down to do the hard work while I simply shoot at whatever is around. The pets have an impressive range.
One of my favorite things about WAR is the way groups are handled. Normally games are like 'group or die' or so solo there's never a reason to sit in town and look for a group. Now I can just go out in the world see other people doing the quest I am and join them immediately to group. It makes it easy to jus tget going and avoid all the long winded wait. Even pugs have a chance to succeed if they take amoment to communicate with each other to regroup. It all comes down to a player mind set. I normally hate grouping due to the way other games handle it....WAR makes it so damn easy and efficent and worth while I love it...it didn't take long for me to get a title for Grouping with so many different people out of the Tome lol.
The RvR areas vary per race I know by Tier 2 for the Greenskins vs Dwarf its RvR areas are split up. There's a section with a Keep and 2 world objectives on the first part of the map and then when you go the next chapter on another map for Marches of Madness (same Zone just a different map) there's another Keep and 2 objectives. Its a pain in the ass to travel between them by yourself thankfully the flight master will fly you between the two rather easily if you dont' die trying to reach one of them Hehe (fell off a cliff into an rvr zone and died a horrible death).
I only poked around at the human areas as a Bright Wizard and a Witch Hunter...i suck at casting ... tho the Bright Wizard is incredibly fun as you set everything on fire in firey awsomeness lol.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
These are just public quests and are an enhancement to PVE. I enjoy them immensely but they are spread out all over the place. There are often times when there won't be enough players around to finish them but they are an addition to the PVE and don't have to be done at all. They offer nice rewards, and influence so that you can buy nice rewards or potions also with it and save your money. The first stage of public quests can be done solo so you can still get the influence.
In this game you can level:
a) RvR
b) Scenarios
c) PVE Solo
d) PVE Public Quests
All of them are viable.
Yeah the Magus is a lot of fun. Just try to stay back and think of playing a defensive ranged dps'er. As your side of the battle pushes keep moving your pets up to the front line and try to stay back far enough so the enemy can't focus fire you, and you can really do some great damage with the right setup.
Thanks! Yeah I still really want to try a Squig. I think in the rest of the events i'll be trying them. It's crazy how many classes I want to try in this game. Pretty much everything you described are the things that really make this game great for me. I think they did a great job of solving the grouping dillema that went from FFXI extreme to WoW extreme over the course of the years. I need to Bright Wizard haha. They look like a pyromaniacs wet dream.
I just got on the beta this morning and i was impressed. Great post!!!
I played a white lion and aside from the sometimes unresponsive lion pet I found the white lion class to be excellent. I even managed to get a few RVR kills even being the lowest lvl in the RVR group.
Great Post!!!!
Played : WOW, LOTRO, COH/COV, EQ2, SWG, and WAR.
Playing EVE Online and AOC.
Wtg for SW:TOR and WOD
awesome review. thanks a bunch for all the info!
Yeah one of my biggest gripes with WoW was how you could create a character and get to level 20 without ever grouping, and actually people seemed like it was a bother to even help you out as it took from their questing.
In this game in the first minutes you will be thrown into large quests and doing events with a huge amount of other players and it just feels more like an MMO.
Yes, but you dont HAVE to. You can easily level to 20 without ever talking to or grouping with anyone. In fact, the public quests dont even require you to group, as long as you are stood in the general area.
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
Great post. I too agree that while the public quests seem basic they are a great part of the game. It is fun to run up and jump into a great ongoing quest line with folks without having to search for a group.
Also, the open groups is another small, but cool feature. This allows you to join any group that is listed as open and see what they are working on. This is particularly effective for RVR WAR bands.
Oddly, I have been more traditionally a PVE player but I really enjoy the structure around PVP/RVR in the game. Shades of DAOC, maybe, but handled well.
There are also scenarios which are like mini-game quests to gain Reknown (PVP levels) which last 15 minutes and are a blast. No need to group with theses either. You run around doing what you want after flagging yourself for a scenario and when enough players have jumped in you get notified and can go straight to the action, or not, if you choose to bail.
It WILL get many a WOW clone comment as it has the stereo typical MMO features and graphically it is similar (due to Blizzard wanting originally to use the Warhammer universe and spinning off that). Also, I would say the graphics are better than WOW (and should be with tech advancements) but no where near AOC.
Anyway, Enjoying the beta a great deal and plan to keep playing. More Order players are needed to hold the lines (Which may be my only issue with the game which is the imbalance of order vs Chaos and how that impacts RVR).
I never understood why people insist on solo playablity. If they can't get to max level solo, they don't like it. Honestly, what's the point of playing an MMO when all you want to do is play with yourself? Kind of defeats the purpose IMO.
Nice review man, I do have two questions however.
For one, how would you liken the combat to that of WoW? I know, a tired comparison, but for melee classes (like the witch hunter) is it mostly instant attacks they use? (Kind of like a rogue using Sinister strike). How would you say the combat pacing feels?
Also do you (or anyone reading this) have any experience with the Maruder? It seems like the class I'm thinking of going when Open beta / launch hits and I'm curious how they are
Yeah one of my biggest gripes with WoW was how you could create a character and get to level 20 without ever grouping, and actually people seemed like it was a bother to even help you out as it took from their questing.
In this game in the first minutes you will be thrown into large quests and doing events with a huge amount of other players and it just feels more like an MMO.
not insulting the game but is it a necesity to be in a group for these quests? if so, when the game is older and there are fewer and fewer low levels will it even be possible to level again? will it be a 5 hour lfg fest like it is with ff11?
The PQ's that ive seen have three stages, the first is easy to solo, after that your gonna need some help
When I said i had "time", i meant virtual time, i got no RL "time" for you.
Yea the Squig Herd is fun im pretty chaotic so having a crazy mad Goblin Squig Herder named Snixlplix was awosme. I tried a bevy of classes though so I have plenty of alts for the future hehe. The best Squig is the Battle Squig...I got a chance to toy with him a few weeks ago when we were given Tier 4 Template Characters.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
Yeah one of my biggest gripes with WoW was how you could create a character and get to level 20 without ever grouping, and actually people seemed like it was a bother to even help you out as it took from their questing.
In this game in the first minutes you will be thrown into large quests and doing events with a huge amount of other players and it just feels more like an MMO.
not insulting the game but is it a necesity to be in a group for these quests? if so, when the game is older and there are fewer and fewer low levels will it even be possible to level again? will it be a 5 hour lfg fest like it is with ff11?
You can level toon’s up solo I tried it on both the order and destruction side with little to no issues. Once you have the basic mechanic's of your character down you be up to Tier 2 with in 5 hours of play almost never touching a PQ. For grinders they have a kill bounty quest that is a rinse and repeat in each area which can get you exp. You will end up playing a mix of solo PQ and RVR regardless. Each area has plenty to do.
I would say a witch hunter is close to a rogue in WoW in that they build up points and then have a finishing move. They are different in that there is a lower dependance on stealth, and they have an ability which ignores positional requirements. On all skills there is a 2s global cooldown so as you use skills there is a small pause before you can go again. Basically almost all instant skills have a 2s cooldown, but some will have longer. Most of the melee classes skills are instant. As far as selecting an attack from a bar it is similar to a lot of other games in that regard.
Marauder is a lot of fun. They are a melee dps class with low armor. Their twist is they have mutations and skills available with different mutations. I don't know all the mutations but I know that they each perform different tasks having to do with whether you need to be AOE'ing or direct damaging, or be more ranged or up close and personal. They look like barbarians armor wise, and their mutations look really cool.
Did you see the cg vid of the battle squig? It looked so cool. Makes me want to play one. I think I am adding another alt to my collection. I figure i'll make one of each class on different servers if there are enough servers to support it. I'm normally not an altaholic either.
There is so much content right now even at endgame it never gets boring!
Also the enviroments fit the universe very well! I am not dissapointed at all with the game at its current state.
Awesome man. The combat really was my only worry, glad to hear that a lot of stuff is instant (and a 2s GCD isn't bad).
Downloading a Maruder video from CB now
. The mutations do sound awesome though, from what I understand is you have an AoE mutation, a single target DPS one and then I think more of a utility one or something.
Outlined below are some top line comments from my beta experiences.This is not a comprehensive rewiew...but top of mind feelings and comments about WAR as I saw them.
I am a 5+ year veteran of DAOC.I have been in the WAR closed beta for about a month.My net net on WAR...great pve game.....weak rvr game.Certainly not nearly the fun ...class differentiation....or advanced rvr I expected as Mythics next generation rvr game. Because there are only two capital city's all high level combat is concentrated into about two main areas. The result......mega zerg.You like zerg 24/7 ....this will give it to you.
CRAFTING....I have only seen apothecary in the game.Few crafted because the items you could make were expensive to make and the effects of the potions very limited.Never saw weapon or armor crafting.
RANGED DPS......the constant player lament was.....casters and other ranged attackers were glass cannons...but ALL glass and NO cannon(they had trouble bringing down any non ranged dps class...a lot of trouble).Shadow Warriors...just like any other caster..they bring nothing special to a group. Engineers.....their turrets are lite hitting and often don't fire at enemy....again they bring nothing special to a group if they already have ranged dps mages.Game has MINIMAL CC (crowd control) so mêlée run quickly to cloth wearers and finish them off .
MELE DPS...king of the hill...hard to kill....game seems very mele oriented.
KEEP SEIGES.....there are keep outer and inner walls.keep sieges ...at the outer wall seem very limited. Siege weapons can do some dammage.....casters and archer range limitations do not allow them to hit much AT ALL..So not much for defender to do at outer wall.Inner wall keep fights.Minimal windows to shoot through or cast through.Casting shooting ranges made hitting outside attackers difficult.
PVE XP great fun.The public group concept is brilliant for pve and rvr.I hope it is copied by many future games.
Graphics.......ok..certainly not ground breaking and thats ok.Less cartoon like than I feared.
NET NET for me..today. I'm not buying a copy of the game, as of now.I hope and expect it will get better. IMO it's not as close to the RVR game I expected from the creators of DAOC.The next generation rvr...not hardly. I will keep following the game and hope to see a lot more progress.