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L13; my initial take on WAR
Vesavius
Member RarePosts: 7,908
Well, I gave in and bought WAR, seduced by the fact that it's Warhammer, British (at least in spirit), new, and the fact that nothing at all else is grabbing me right now.
First, the disclaimer; I am not a natural fan of this game, and certainly not the target audience. I am a social PvE co-op player at heart, but I feel that I have an open mind. Saying this, I admit that I personally have a big problem with casual lite solo quest grind MMORPGs, mainly based on the way this style of game destroys what makes these games special- the communities. I am not against solo quest grinders existing, diversity is good after all, but it is a big problem for me that EVERY game now has to be like this, or so we are told, to make money, or so we are told. Usually by the investers who want to see WoW sized returns on their capital.
My personal view is that if you wanna play solo ALL the time, don't play a MMORPG, go play The Witcher. Which is excellent btw.
Why this is all relevant will become clear 
At this time I am only a L13 Witch Hunter playing on the World's Edge server (English Core ruleset). I am learning as I go, so I apologise for any newbie errors and really am not gonna be offended if you set me right :P
First then, what I like about WAR;
- The art direction. Not to be confused with the graphics quality, the art direction is very pleasing, with the environments and character models being both immersive and 'cool'. The spirit of Warhammer is evoked very nicely, and it does feel like the Old World should.
- The PvP. Yep, even as a social PvE gamer I am enjoying the PvP in this game. It seems, at this time, well balanced and fluid.
- Keep raids. Fun, fast, and challenging. Yes please.
- Public Quests. Yep, at least in concept.... There never seems to be anyone doing them on my server though, which is a real shame. I had the idea that these areas would be like play hubs where everyone went to join in and participate in a spot of instant grouping and fun. A kind of casual gamers paradise where they can drop in, achieve something and then leave to do whatever is that casual gamers do (lol). Instead, at least on my server and at my level, they are more like very boring 50 mob kill grind quests, hoping that maybe 1 or 2 other players will turn up before you need the extra muscle. So, PQs? Yep, they win on concept, but, at this time, are failing for me in play. We shall see.
- Zone layout. The areas are intuitive and flow very nicely.
- The Tomb. Yep, great idea that works very well. The discoveries and way lore is revealed is a really nice combination. Kudos.
- The Map. Yep, another success. Not as hold-the-hand dumb as AoCs, but still essential to not getting lost in a big world, WAR's map is excellent, and the way it links through to the Tomb is great. Full points.
Now, what I don't like;
- Way too much solo quest grind. Yep, this one had to come first. I am not liking the way that you are expected to solo solo solo. I get that you can PvP your way up, but I like lore and story, and the lack of group content to explore the PvE world is VERY boring to me.
- Regionally restricted servers. I live in England, but to be honest I hate EU servers in MMORPGs, and I hate being forced to play on one. Even though some are marked 'English', the fact is that many that play here do not have English as a first language and do not feel confident about typing, let alone speaking, makes general banter difficult. This means that a huge chunk of people do not participate socially or communicate on even a basic level, which to me is frustrating. I far prefer playing on a US server, where the language thing isnt a problem (mostly lol
). Why not go down the EQ2 route here and LET US CHOOSE where we play? Annoying. - Poor Social tools. From the clumsy chat interface, to the lack of a guild recruitment window, to the poor LFG system (that I have found anyhow). The community in this game is non existent, from what I have seen on my server anyhow. With no community this game has no 'soul', which imo is essential for a MMORPG to last the distance.
- NO INTEGRATED VOICE CHAT. Really... what? A modern PvP orientated MMORPG with no int VC? This is such a basic thing it makes me boggle how it was left out. No wonder the early PvP scenerios (at the least) are usually a mindless zergfest, with noone having time to type out anything. Yeah, I get that guilds have already set up Vent or whatever, but PUGs (including joining a scen as a solo) need this so badly.
- Slow PvP Scenerio queues. The wait at this time is just too long. 30-45mins for a PvP match is rubbish.
- Graphics engine. Not to be confused with art direction, but the engine seems very... basic. I get that they wanna keep the specs down, but it would be nice that those of us with semi decent machines could upscale.
- Very boring/ non existant dungeons. I love a good dungeon, and this game isnt delivering for me right now.
- Static 'safari park' mob groups. I really thought we had left the EQ model of fields filled with milling trolls or whatever, just standing waiting for you to kill them... Such a rubbish way to populate a virtual world.
- No Death Penalty. Why should I care if I live or die in this game? Where is the fear of fail? With no threat of failiure, where is the joy in success? At this time WAR PvE is very beige and bland. I get that it is principally a PvP game, but if thats so true why not at least make PvE challanging?
- Boring itemisation. My Witch Hunter looks 90% idenical at L13 as she did at L1... Boring. Dropped items? Really boring. Why is there such distinct lack of 'proper' nameds and decent loot off them? The dull itemisation is really not helped either by the fact that each class has the same weapon/ gear template... Every WH has to dual wield a pistol and sword? Why? Why not 2 rapiers? 2 pistols? Why not a long rifle? With the ability to swich between them as sets? I just get the feeling that I am following a pre-set gear line in this game, just going through the motions to get the same as everyone else. This might be casual friendly, but it's, again, boring.
- No interdependance. No interdepence means no inter reliance, which means all kinds of bad things for a MMORPG. See 'community' above'.
Anyhow, thats it for now, more might come to me, but I gotta go out.
Just thought I would share :P
Comments
hehe you know what? After rereading my last post, something occured to me...
90% of the stuff I dislike about WR, I also disliked about AoC...
In fact, just take the graphics engine off AoC and put it on WAR...
lol
You r a social PVE co-op player at heart.Ever thought this game isn t for you?
Well, I said I was enjoying the PvP, and none of my issues were with the PvP...
So, no, not really...
Or are you meaning the poor and clumsy social tools? Do you mean that the fact that WAR dosent do these well at all makes it a game not for me?
Everything I have said is just personal opinion of course, and in the long term WAR might not be the game for me, but it's good to share :P
No love...
Guess I should have insulted someone to start a flame war or something to get more responses... well, despite everyone claiming to hate trolls it's kind of what drives things around here I guess, so...
lol this game suks, what a wow ripoff, all you fanbois suk as well, you all live in your mom's basement, epic fail, wait for Darkfall.
etc.
I agree with some of your negatives, especially about the solo quests... I personally can't stand soloing, it gets super boring. I'm sure Mythic will add a lot of group content down the line though. On Bretonnia, keep sieging is becoming very common now, so that's a very group oriented activity that I absolutely love.
I'll also agree on itemization, however I understand why Mythic chose to do it like this. Having classes look similar to other members of their class represents the style and direction of the tabletop version of Warhammer. But in the end, I like unique looking items... again, I think Mythic will add tons to this department as well.
Pretty good take overall though, well done.
Quick fix for solo questing. click the open group button, join a group. it has their distance away from you in time so you can go by that to see if they're probably doing the same quest as you.
I actually have only done about 25% of my quests solo. Most I joined up with friends or random people to do, and with PQs it's almost a must.
If you do a PQ in a group you're much more likely to get high up on influence. Anytime I'm in a 3 person group and it's obvious that no one else in the pq is grouped I always send them an invite, if they dont except I just laugh to myself because 9 times out of 10 me and those other 2 people in my group are 1 2 3 in contribution.
Also your scenario wait time is mostly due to your server's population. The downside to this game that I've seen so far is that it's very population dependent. On a high/full server I run a scenario about every 5 - 10 minutes no matter what pairing I'm in.
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I live to fight, and fight to live.
Just some comments
Well, it's a good review with very valid points. Hard to dispute many of them, especially here, since the fanboys here aren't nearly as fanatical as on some of the fansites.
The points I agree with the most are the lack of a death penalty that motivates you to not zerg and die, and the socializing part. Between the chat system, no voice, no official forums, and PQs (good in theory, but meh), it really works against meeting and getting to know new people in game.
lol,
Well, if you want an opinion (and NO I don't live in my mother's basement ; ) I think you are not the right person for the PvE aspects of the game. edit: as far as my play style the solo quest grind (if you can call it that) is perfect for me so I applaud it. It's easy, light fun that allows me to do some stuff and then when I'm ready I can pvp. If I want to group there are public quests. So I suppose I'm the perfect demographic for the game.
As far as most reviews I've seen, they've all said that the PvE portion was fun but it was clear that the PvP portion was really the thrust of the game.
As I said in anther thread, you can't go to an action movie and complain about the characterization or lack of proper love story. Well, you could but that is not what action movies are about.
I agree with the lack of Guild Tools but I've seen many games that lack them. One gets by. Heck, Lineage 2 (my former main game) had no guild tools at launch. We did everything ourselves.
Now, you can say that "that was then and this was now" and I would be inclined to agree with you but again, games like LOTRO don't seem to have much in the way of Guild Tools and that is a recent game. I'm not sure why dev's don't pay more attention to that but apparently this is an issue and it doesn't seem that modern mmo's are immune.
Same with voice chat. I have seen many statements that players wouldn't use included voice chat as they use TS or Vent. I personally think the inclusion of Voice Chat is important for those that do use it (I hate it and never use it or only will listen when needed) but I wonder if that is somehting that just needs to be added later. I don't know of any game that has released with included voice chat.
I can't speak to Public Quests as I have enjoyed them. When there arent' enough people I just move on. I like the idea of them scaling but at the same time I think that would be hard to implement as it woudl have to be on some sort of immediate sliding scale. I could see people arriving and completely destroying the encounter or getting wasted because people left. Which might be a way to grief people.
Or just take the encounters for what they are and if there people then play them, otherwise move on. That tends to me my attitude.
Otherwise, Warhammer is more a pvp game and includes PvE as just another way to paly but really wants to concentrate on PvP. I see nothing wrong with this.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo