Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Warhammer Review, from the perspective of a long time beta tester (very long read)
xRand0mx
Member Posts: 71
Disclaimer:
This is an extremely long post. For those of you who have no interest in reading a long post please don’t comment or just move along. Also keep in mind that this is entirely my own opinion and not that of anyone else’s. You can take from this what you please. Please do not turn this into a flame thread just because my opinion is different than your own.
For any of you to take me seriously I should probably give a tiny bit of background information to show where I am coming from. My first MMO was World of Warcraft but I had been playing online games years before that (not nearly as much as I do now). I played WoW for over two years while also dabbling with other MMOs during that time. Since I quit I started trying out different games, from DaoC to EQ to LotRO (played it for 4 months) to AoC (…sigh) to Vanguard (still playing it) and Eve (almost a year played and still playing). I’ve beta tested LotRO, Pirates of the Burning Sea and obviously Warhammer Online. Both LotRO and Pirates were short lived beta tests, I was near the end of both of them. Warhammer is my first beta test where I have been in from almost the very beginning. I was invited to Warhammer beta over a year ago and have been playing it consistently (when it is up) since then. Here is my rather long review. REMEMBER THIS IS ONLY A REVIEW OF BETA, ALL OF WHICH I TALK OF IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE.
I’m not going to break this up into pros and cons of the game, but more of less of how I feel about the game. More like a Yahtzee review, just without the fast talking, humor or lack of punctuation (ok so not really a Yahtzee review). Just a general review of what I think is important.
Warhammer Online dumps you into the world of Warhammer. The epic struggle of Order vs Chaos and some say good vs evil (although I tend to disagree). Order is the bright and shiny side, the side that will most likely be very popular for the not so PvP centric crowd (massive generalization I know). The main city, Altdorf, is the prime example of how good Order looks and feels. I loved walking through the city and checking out different areas within the city. There are plenty of small quests and fun little PQs to get involved with and as well as many banks and auction houses spread throughout the city. Although I find it quite small, it does feel like a living breathing city and even with the low population numbers of beta this main city felt alive due to the numerous NPC who seem to just be living out a day in Altdorf. My biggest gripe about Order (actually a little bit on both sides) is that you will see the same buildings multiple times. The grand Temple of Sigmar model is reused throughout the different level Tiers. But considering that’s my biggest gripe, you can tell that there really isn’t much wrong with Order from that standpoint.
Destruction is the opposite in every way. The best example of this can be seen by the Chaos vs Empire zones and careers. It’s my feeling that Destruction will outnumber Order on many servers, just because it seems like most PvP guilds tend to lean towards that faction. Beta numbers also show that the majority of people are playing or prefer Destruction. The Inevitable City is the Destruction’s main city and is one of my least favorite cities in any MMO. It might have something to do with the doom and gloom of Destruction, but it just doesn’t feel like it is alive. It was impressive the first time I saw it but after playing a few destruction careers I started to hate it. It feels much larger than Altdorf which is caused mainly because of a rather strange layout. The whole city feels like a dungeon turned into a city. It is lifeless (some people might see that as a plus) and to be honest, boring. The city uses the same buildings over and over again (Altdorf does the same but it is not nearly noticeable) using the same shade of blue. Just is not nearly as interesting as Altdorf and I really hope that the Greenskin and Dark Elf cities help offset the Inevitable City’s lack of life.
Careers in general all have a unique feel to them. There are obvious mirrors like the Witch Hunter and Witch Elf, with only a few slight changes. And then there are some careers without a clear mirror like the Squig Herder or even the Shadow Warrior (each use a combination of other careers abilities and don't have a particular mirror). I’d love to start talking about each career, but I don’t think anyone would want to read a novel. Besides I couldn’t do each career justice given that I haven’t been able to play all of them. What I have played the most is the Witch Hunter, Squig Herder, Engineer and the Disciple of Khaine. All of which have their own unique and fun qualities. But, at the end of the day they all felt like rehashes of the same old classes we’ve seen before. You will start to see patterns on how people play, especially the Witch Hunter who has an extreme lack of skills, clicking the same combinations of buttons over and over again. I used the same 3 or 4 buttons until it became clock work and found myself burned out of the class I was planning to play at release. I just got tired of it in a little under 3 months and I’m not an altoholic which is bad because I used the same character the whole two years I played WoW. Even still I really shouldn’t be too harsh on all of the careers. The squig herder is one of my favorites and has gone through many changes throughout beta. Now it is one of the most unique classes in the game and I’ve enjoyed testing during these later beta tests. The Disciple of Khaine is probably the best dps/healer hybrid I’ve played in a long time. Is there room for improvement? Yes, very much. But is it good enough for me and the rest of this current MMO crowd? Sure. I’ll give them the tip of my hat for at least trying out different types of classes.
Tactics, Morale and the Mastery Abilities help to flesh out each career into what you want it to be. Tactics are more or less passive buffs which will give you a variety of buffs. Some of which are better in a PvE setting some are better in a RvR (renown tactic obviously are focused on RvR). You can have different sets (I believe 10 in total) of tactic buffs that can be changed before going into combat. After that you are stuck with whatever set of tactics you have active. Morale abilities are abilities that tend to be extremely powerful. They can come in the form of debuffs, buffs, damaging and healing and there is usually a mix for each career. Morale abilities are tiered, 1 being the “least” powerful and 4 being the “most powerful, and you have to fill up your morale bar to use each ability. The morale bar fills up based on how long you have been in combat and is also tiered so that when you reach the 1st tier your tier 1 morale ability becomes active. Mastery Abilities is where the most the character customization will take place. Mastery trees are specific to different types of abilities. For healers it is a lot easier to show this. With the DoK for instance, there is one tree that gives bonuses and abilities for your healing, one tree that increases damage and gives debuff abilities and a third that is more of a buff/damage hybrid build. It is an all around decent system, whether or not its revolutionary is up to you to decide. To me it feels like a more complicated looking spec tree that does the same as WoW’s talent trees. There will be cookie cutter builds and there really are not that many different morale abilities and none of them change the way the class is played. And I think that is important to note, these won’t change the way you play the game, just change what you focus on. Each class, like the DoK, already has a predefined role and these won’t change that. Again I’m not sure if that is a bad thing or not, just presenting what I believe is a slight issue. And I won’t even begin to talk about balance. Balance is going to be a problem from the start of the game till the die that it eventually fades away. I give it 10 minutes before the first nerf post appears on one of the various fansites after release.
In terms of PvE (I’ll try to keep this short) PQs are the king. You will not find many dungeons in WAR, but you will find tons of public quests. The thing I really like about PQs is the fact that it is a small open world event. Some of the PQs are just plain fun, with many different challenging encounters. However there are just as many boring PQs as well, the ones that basically have you grinding for eternity. PQs in general follow a very specific pattern. Nearly all have 3 different levels. The first level in nearly every PQ is the kill X amount of mobs. After that you will progress to the next level. Most of the time it will have you kill more challenging mobs but that is not always the case; the second level is most unique among PQs. The third is almost always a boss level and for the most part the bosses have been rather challenging and always rewarding (*NOTE* not all PQs work in this fashion). While in a PQ you will also gain “influence” which you can use to receive some very nice items. Filling up the bar will give you access to some of very gear. Everything else about PvE is the same as most other MMOs. Quest givers will have you kill X amount mobs, escorts, get this item, etc. Nothing new in that aspect. As for dungeons, well….I can’t really say. I have yet to see a dungeon so this part of the game will be completely new to me (unless they have us test one right before release). On your travels you will also gain experience from the Tome of Knowledge. There are literally hundreds of different pages within the tome. The most common XP giver within the Tome would have to be exploration. Finding people and places of interest will be added to your Tome and give you a good bit of XP. There are tons and tons of other things that I could list off, but that would be longer than this post and I don’t think anyone would want that. All and all the PvE for me is just the same old stuff I’ve seen before. PQs are nice, but I wouldn’t necessary call them revolutionary. They are just simplified dungeons and help out players who don’t have that much time on their hands to commit to a dungeon crawl.
Now to what most people are interested in, RvR (edit: I also cover massive gameplay elements other than RvR). RvR is a lot of fun, it just isn’t always enjoyable. RvR scenarios are all very fun to play and are much more creative than all other PvP mini games I have played. Mythic decided to use a lot of PvP elements and incorporated them into their scenarios. You’ll see variations of capture the flag, king of the hill and all those other classics as well as some very interesting new ideas (locking timers, bombs, and much more). The only slight problem I have is that the later scenarios might get boring after a while. However, I don’t think that will be the case given how many there are and how a lot of them do actually require a good bit of teamwork. Especially considering many people continue to enjoy running the same battlegrounds on WoW for years now.
Scenarios are all good and fun but open world RvR is what everyone hears and talks about. And I am not a huge fan of it so far. The biggest problem is zergs. There will, I repeat, will be zergs. There is no way to combat it with the current system. Doesn’t matter if you have the best RvR group with the best gear, if the opponent zergs you, you are dead. Praag for instance has many choke points that large numbers of people will just sit at and fight over and over again without any tactical thought whatsoever. And I think that is going to be a problem because you don’t really have to think to RvR in the open world. Keeps will be zerged, battlefield objectives will be zerg and spawn points will be camped. That’s just what I have seen thus far and that includes the guild betas. Keeps also work the same way, there is no difference between each keep other than how many siege weapon spots there are or how many doors the attackers have to get through. Otherwise it is the same thing, and will run like clockwork a few months after release. Part of the problem is the design of the game, and part of it is my own feelings on MMOs. People will throw themselves over and over again because there is no death penalty at all. Why worry when you’ll be back in the battle in 15 seconds? Everyone is just going to smash their highest damage abilities and healers will try to keep their tanks up. It is all basic gameplay. A larger group will always beat out a smaller group, zergs don’t need to use tactics, and you as a player don’t even have to think. I really get depressed when I see this type of gameplay being slapped around as “fun”. Well I care more about enjoyment than fun and sometimes there has to be a little pain. I understand that there are a lot of people that worry about the “funness” level of a game. Especially players that can’t play 24/7/365. But today’s MMOs seem to focus more on dumbing down everything claiming that it makes the game more fun. That’s not something I like to see especially in an open RvR setting. I’ll leave on a positive note that some of these problems are fixable even after release. I also didn’t mention city capture but I don’t really want to talk about it at this point.
Slight edit: I do want to expand a little bit more on keep warfare. After going through my review I realized that I was a bit harsh and in fact in some areas wrong about keep warfare. What I have already wrote still stands, but I wish to give more positives to this review. Keep warfare is definitely something straight out of Dark Age of Camelot. If you’ve played that game then most of the keep warfare is going to feel familiar (this is a good thing for most people). The biggest reason behind my change of heart was the past few weeks of RvRing. I wrote this a few weeks prior to when I believe the NDA was going to be lifted and have experienced a bit of good from keep warfare since then. Keep seiging in the beginning is really all about the zerg, but towards the end when you are fighting to gain control of the zone the keeps really do start to shine. In one particular example we were fighting in Riekland and destruction was defending a very large keep against an Order zerg. There were many tactics by both sides (I was in the defense in this particular case) of this one particular battle. The defense couldn’t hold the outer wall gate but managed to hold the Order zerg from overwhelming the keep. It was a great long fight, I alone spent nearly 5 hours just fighting away at the keep. It turned out to be our eventual loss though, as we could not compete with the numbers being thrown at us, but still it was a blast. Keep warfare might get stale after a while, but by that point I believe Mythic will have something to keep us busy.
Warhammer Online is really nothing revolutionary. I don’t think many people were expecting it to be, but I think it’s a shame that it’s not. Warhammer follows the same gameplay elements we have all seen before and doesn’t try to break out and try something new. Nothing jumped out and made a big impact on me. The game is super linear, all you have to do is look at the map to realize that. You are basically directed where to go and what to do and there is no deviating from that course. I think that is the complete opposite direction MMOs should be headed in. Again this is purely my opinion but I think we should be seeing more player freedom within an MMO. This game could have been amazing if there were contested areas where players were free to control territory and build their own keeps. But alas Warhammer is going to be centered on the idea of city capture and I highly doubt we will see anything like player territory or guilds. Don’t take that as my way of being shocked. I’ve been in the beta for over a year and I knew coming in that the game was going to be similar to DaoC. However, that doesn’t change the fact that I wish there was more meaning behind the game. In a game like Eve you felt like you were actually risking something and that forced you to fight harder and longer to make sure a group didn’t come in and destroy everything you had. Gear is still just as if not more important than skill and of course zerg > skill *almost* every time. But even after saying all that I most likely will be playing Warhammer. Why? Because it’s the best thing coming out and because I know so many people that are going to play it. Does that mean I think this is still a great game? No not truly, and it certainly doesn’t want to break the mold that World of Warcraft has set. My only hope is that people will see this game for what it really is: riding the success of World of Warcraft.
If you don’t feel like reading the whole thing, at least read this: Warhammer Online is a good game, it’s just not revolutionary. It doesn’t try to break boundaries and it doesn’t try to become anything more than what’s already been put out before. I think MMOs need to change. For too long we have been seeing the same thing and those few companies that try to think outside the box get kicked to the curb. I hope that somebody will change this and create a new breed of MMOs and give us addicts a much needed experience.
*Update* Literally last night we beta tested a dungeon within Altdorf. That's all I'm going to say on that matter because of the NDA which covers that specific server. Just letting people know that there are dungeons in the game.
-------------------
If ever there was a time to rise if ever there was a time to join hands with our brothers that time is now. At this exact junction in history we have within our grasp the means to loosen our tormentors hold and win freedom for our kin. Opportunities are there to be taken.
Brothers, we must rise.
-Malaetu Shakor
Comments
I apologize in advance for some of those paragraphs. I didn't realize when writing this that it was going to turn into a wall of text.
**RESERVED**
-------------------
If ever there was a time to rise if ever there was a time to join hands with our brothers that time is now. At this exact junction in history we have within our grasp the means to loosen our tormentors hold and win freedom for our kin. Opportunities are there to be taken.
Brothers, we must rise.
-Malaetu Shakor
Did you even read my post? I've been playing and continue to play Eve for a year now. I'm looking forward to Darkfall (if it ever comes out) and Mortal Online. I am no WoW fanboy by a long shot. Did I play WoW? Yes. Did I quit it massive frustration from Blizzard dumbing down a game to near oblivion and making me as a player feel worthless in a themepark world? Yes. WoW fanboy? You figure it out.
-------------------
If ever there was a time to rise if ever there was a time to join hands with our brothers that time is now. At this exact junction in history we have within our grasp the means to loosen our tormentors hold and win freedom for our kin. Opportunities are there to be taken.
Brothers, we must rise.
-Malaetu Shakor
QTF
As much I thanks you for your review on the game I feel it a little biased by the fact you compare it too much to WoW and taking it as The Good Game.
Also without being fanboish WoW didn't brought much new to MMORPG so there's not many "different" styled MMO that work there way to fame.
Awesome review OP.
"Negaholics are people who become addicted to negativity and self-doubt, they find fault in most things and never seem to be satisfied."
^MMORPG.com
Interesting take on things.
I don't think I agree with you about the way open field RvR will turn out but it is certainly possible.
There, i summed up your review for you, wowfanbois.
Did you even read my post? I've been playing and continue to play Eve for a year now. I'm looking forward to Darkfall (if it ever comes out) and Mortal Online. I am no WoW fanboy by a long shot. Did I play WoW? Yes. Did I quit it massive frustration from Blizzard dumbing down a game to near oblivion and making me as a player feel worthless in a themepark world? Yes. WoW fanboy? You figure it out.
Don't listen to them. For years we've been hearing, "Oh just wait till the NDA drops, they just can't tell you how great the game is yet." Well now the time has come and those who still can't except that war isn't the best thing since swiss chocalote will be in denial.
Ah this has been brought up twice. The reason I compared it to WoW is because it has been clearly influenced by WoW. Everything about the game reminds me of WoW: different specs, classes, even some of the zones. I'm not going to sit here and compare to Eve or to EQ or something like that. And it bares little resemblance to DaoC so what am I going to use as a reference? I chose WoW because of that, I'm not a fanboy and I don't think World of Warcraft is the be all end all of MMOs. I was hoping I drove that point home with the bit at the end.
To say it plainly: I am not a WoW fanboy and only use it as a reference because WAR is so similar. That is all.
-------------------
If ever there was a time to rise if ever there was a time to join hands with our brothers that time is now. At this exact junction in history we have within our grasp the means to loosen our tormentors hold and win freedom for our kin. Opportunities are there to be taken.
Brothers, we must rise.
-Malaetu Shakor
Great review, OP. Thanks for your input
Thanks for the personal review.
I don't mind the op refering to other games, its a good way for me to reference their views of games we have played in common.
Great review. Even though I haven't been in beta from what I know about the game i agree completely. As i believe you said in the review, I dont think the goal of Warhammer was ever to be a very innovative game, and before the fanbois flame me to death, believe me, I am looking forward to this game as much as I have any other, and have preordered it. Warhammer is taking elements of past games like WoW and Daoc and making a new game out of them. Does this make War a bad game? Absolutely not, but it doesn't make it a fresh game. We won't be seeing any revolutionary features, at least not at launch. Obviously aspects of mmos like keeps in daoc, or scenarios (battlegrounds) in wow have been very succesful, and I can only hope the good from former games was taken and improved in warhammer online.
I think what the OP (and a very large market of other gamers) is looking for is a sandbox mmo. Many players want to be able to explore a world without boundaries, to influence the world within the game they play. In many ways mmos are becoming more and more like singleplayer rpgs. You are essentially instructed what to do via quests until you reach max level, at which point you can A. Open world RvR B. Fight for a keep. C. Do scenarios, or D. Raid, and this is what we have seen from MMOs since the release of WoW. Obviously this method isn't really bad. WoW was and still is extremely succesful, but many players are looking for something fresh. We have done everything that will be available to us in warhammer in other games, while these things are still fun, many gamers want more. In my humble opinion the depth of MMORPGs has been moving backwards since world of warcraft. Star wars galaxies was in my opinion the greatest mmo ever made, and players are looking for that kind of sandbox experience again.
Did you even read my post? I've been playing and continue to play Eve for a year now. I'm looking forward to Darkfall (if it ever comes out) and Mortal Online. I am no WoW fanboy by a long shot. Did I play WoW? Yes. Did I quit it massive frustration from Blizzard dumbing down a game to near oblivion and making me as a player feel worthless in a themepark world? Yes. WoW fanboy? You figure it out.
Don't listen to them. For years we've been hearing, "Oh just wait till the NDA drops, they just can't tell you how great the game is yet." Well now the time has come and those who still can't except that war isn't the best thing since swiss chocalote will be in denial.
looooool
neither you or the OP have any idea what you're talking about.
Everything he complains about in that review is either just wrong (e.g. about inevitable city.... it is, in fact, a master piece of architecture and the environment is amazing... not to mention the sound effects... and shadow warrior ISN'T a mirror of the squig herder AT ALL) or is clearly biased!
Of course i'd be biased towards the first MMO i ever played... and i AM! Everquest! Even though my experience with it WASN'T that great, I still consider it to be the best MMO experience i've ever had. This guy is clearly a WoW fanbois, as you can see in my previous post where i've condensed everything he's said.
Bottom line: Don't listen to wow fanbois (who may, in fact, be WoW techies) ... WAR is looking incredible.
you did a nice job on that wall-O-text.. i must say got half way down and found it felt like i was reading War & Peace.. lulz.. but still thanks for the review ^_^ the only gripe i have is you compaired it too much to WoW. but owell WoW has become the staple now for mmogs
THOUGH... i wouldnt gripe too heavy on the classes right now as from what i have read on WAR the classes are not finished so the hunter might get more skills come release who knows...as for the temple thing... thats just how it is in warhammer major empire cities all have the temple of Sigmar. as he created the empire to the warhammer world hes the messiah of the empire people... (suggest you read/buy Heldonhammer the black library it deals with the creation of the empire.. good book imo.)
so in my op. warhammer will most likely reuse some buildings purely do to the BG that warhammer TT has the only differnce might be the capital cities. but as im still jealous that your in beta and im not even though i signed up back when the other warhammer was still being made and then this one started ...
still a nice job on the review 
thanks for your thoughts on the game either way 
Did you even read my post? I've been playing and continue to play Eve for a year now. I'm looking forward to Darkfall (if it ever comes out) and Mortal Online. I am no WoW fanboy by a long shot. Did I play WoW? Yes. Did I quit it massive frustration from Blizzard dumbing down a game to near oblivion and making me as a player feel worthless in a themepark world? Yes. WoW fanboy? You figure it out.
Don't listen to them. For years we've been hearing, "Oh just wait till the NDA drops, they just can't tell you how great the game is yet." Well now the time has come and those who still can't except that war isn't the best thing since swiss chocalote will be in denial.
looooool
neither you or the OP have any idea what you're talking about.
Everything he complains about in that review is either just wrong (e.g. about inevitable city.... it is, in fact, a master piece of architecture and the environment is amazing... not to mention the sound effects... and shadow warrior ISN'T a mirror of the squig herder AT ALL) or is clearly biased!
Of course i'd be biased towards the first MMO i ever played... and i AM! Everquest! Even though my experience with it WASN'T that great, I still consider it to be the best MMO experience i've ever had. This guy is clearly a WoW fanbois, as you can see in my previous post where i've condensed everything he's said.
Bottom line: Don't listen to wow fanbois (who may, in fact, be WoW techies) ... WAR is looking incredible.
QFT really.. I dont understand why people show such "loyalty" to a game where they feel they have to scrutinize a game simply because its not the same game they worship.. Its a game.. Anyone and everyone can play them, why not leave personal stuff out of it and just state facts and let others decide if they like it or not?
Reviews are supposed to be unbiased and factual. I CANNOT WAIT for this game, simply because even though it may LOOK like a certain game, from the videos that I have seen and the feature list I read about on the official site, looks to be what Warhammer is about.. which is WAR..
The OP sums it up nicely, I think. Warhammer isn't anything revolutionary, but it isn't bad either.
Except for the PQs, the game offers nothing that hasn't been done before. It just does it reasonably well.
------------------------------------------------
Playing: Final Fantasy Online: ARR, Destiny
Most memorable games for me: UO, GW1, LoTRO
LOL, it's not even out yet and you're saying it's not doing as well as WoW, or won't do.
tarded wow fanbois that way <------------------------
p.s. he doesn't explain it well, or unbiased in any way. Frankly, i'd be surprised if anyone who's played WAR will EVER go back to WoW. And to be honest, i hope you WoW lot stick to your 3 arenas LOL. We don't want our player base to be corrupted like yours is.
WAR's player base is already corrupted if you play it.
"Negaholics are people who become addicted to negativity and self-doubt, they find fault in most things and never seem to be satisfied."
^MMORPG.com
Thank you for the review.
To some above posters. . . WoW is the game most people are familiar with because it has. . . THE MOST PLAYERS!!! So of course people are going to refer to it as a comparison.
Yeah that was poor wording on my part, I will go ahead and change it to make it more clearer. The shadow warrior and squig herder are on that "not so obvious as to what they mirror" careers. Not that they are actual mirrors. Although I did say they take things from different classes. I disagree about the inevitable city. Feels boring to me and "masterpiece of architecture". How so? It is setup like many other cities I've seen before with a center and everything flows around it. They just decided to make the paths extremely annoying (like the one from the flight master to the monolith). Oh well I think I'm feeding a troll but I wanted to clear that up.
-------------------
If ever there was a time to rise if ever there was a time to join hands with our brothers that time is now. At this exact junction in history we have within our grasp the means to loosen our tormentors hold and win freedom for our kin. Opportunities are there to be taken.
Brothers, we must rise.
-Malaetu Shakor
Did you even read my post? I've been playing and continue to play Eve for a year now. I'm looking forward to Darkfall (if it ever comes out) and Mortal Online. I am no WoW fanboy by a long shot. Did I play WoW? Yes. Did I quit it massive frustration from Blizzard dumbing down a game to near oblivion and making me as a player feel worthless in a themepark world? Yes. WoW fanboy? You figure it out.
Don't listen to them. For years we've been hearing, "Oh just wait till the NDA drops, they just can't tell you how great the game is yet." Well now the time has come and those who still can't except that war isn't the best thing since swiss chocalote will be in denial.
looooool
neither you or the OP have any idea what you're talking about.
Everything he complains about in that review is either just wrong (e.g. about inevitable city.... it is, in fact, a master piece of architecture and the environment is amazing... not to mention the sound effects... and shadow warrior ISN'T a mirror of the squig herder AT ALL) or is clearly biased!
Of course i'd be biased towards the first MMO i ever played... and i AM! Everquest! Even though my experience with it WASN'T that great, I still consider it to be the best MMO experience i've ever had. This guy is clearly a WoW fanbois, as you can see in my previous post where i've condensed everything he's said.
Bottom line: Don't listen to wow fanbois (who may, in fact, be WoW techies) ... WAR is looking incredible.
I'm sorry to break it to you but WoW changed the face of MMO gaming forever. There's no going back. Everything will be viewed under the wow microscope from now on until someone with balls does something different, like OP says. You pre-wow mmo'ers have become irrelevant. Those days are gone. The only reason games like everquest and daoc were great and had a following is simply because they were a new genre. WoW took their ideas and made it better and mass marketable. People put up with any number of things in the older games because it was the new thing but mythic can't get away with it now. Gone baby gone, gone gone gone.
You're not feeding a troll.
You just sound INCREDIBLY biased. And yes, i read everything you wrote. I just, personally, cannot see how you can begin to compare WAR to WoW.
WAR= RvR heavy pvp... a seamless world where PvE and PvP intertwine VERY nicely (revolutionary in itself)
WoW= Boring PvE, worthless PvP (epics are a dime a dozen and you aren't worth 2 cents if you don't arena! And arena is VERY limited!)
WoW is like Halo 3. It's crap, but everyone still plays it.
Finally, i have been waiting for someone else aside from me that played CB that feels the same way, Im sure glad im not the only person that thinks this way about the MMO industry!!!!!
Yeah that was poor wording on my part, I will go ahead and change it to make it more clearer. The shadow warrior and squig herder are on that "not so obvious as to what they mirror" careers. Not that they are actual mirrors. Although I did say they take things from different classes. I disagree about the inevitable city. Feels boring to me and "masterpiece of architecture". How so? It is setup like many other cities I've seen before with a center and everything flows around it. They just decided to make the paths extremely annoying (like the one from the flight master to the monolith). Oh well I think I'm feeding a troll but I wanted to clear that up.
Don't sweat the people that want to counter your opinion with theirs saying one is absolutely right the other wrong.
Thanks for the review, it's pretty in depth and it's good to have some dissent on the forums to get a clear view as to what the game is about. Personally, I've already pre-ordered, it looks like fun, but I like seeing the whole picture.
As for the WoW comparisons, I played WoW for one month years ago, so it's lost on me, but comparisons help by giving people a frame of reference, so using the most popular mmo out there right now would be the obvious choice.
http://www.youtube.com/user/br3ntbr0
This youtube channel has a lot of WAR videos and he narrates them VERY WELL. He has an unbiased view and explains the game very nicely. Although he played WoW, he ISN'T a wowfanboi.
Bottom line: This game looks amazing and the time I had playing at the paris convention was too.