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My review, and then i'm done with mmorpg.com for awhile
Bladin
Member UncommonPosts: 1,089
I'm honestly tired of the sandbox trolls, the flat out just bitter trolls. Honestly it's okay to not like WAR it's just a game not a lifestyle, move on with your life if you don't like it.
1. Graphics. 8.5/10
I feel the game looks great, and has a very nice atmosphere. Admittedly it isn't as complex as AoC or Crysis, or the like but for the style and accessability they were going for. They absolutely succeeded. My main complaint about the graphics is actually tied to animations. While most of these are pretty good, i'd have to say that there are some which are simply... not very good. I'd like to draw attention to the squig herder's shots. It honestly took me awhile to realize what class was attacking me, since rather then being attacked by arrows, it was like being shot with a big light gun that sprays out colorful lights.
2. Sound 8/10.
The voices the characters sometimes emit are nice. The voices when interacting with npcs are kinda repetitive but traditional mmorpg fair. Some attack sounds(such as again the squig herder) are pretty terrible, but otherwise there's really nothing exception or game breaking.
3. PvE 8/10
The PvE base design is decent, but it was obvious the game was designed for a much larger population then it actually has. I rarely get PQ's done, generally it's always farming the PQ's first stage, and then ending at the 2nd till it resets. While there are times when they get finished.
Admittedly it's not a problem in game design, but rather, just a issue with the playerbase. It still basically makes any real PvE content meaningless. It still is great design though.
Quests are easy and fun to do, since theres no grinding out 100 mobs for 5 teeth, but the exp rewards are quite low. The average quest at 20, gives about 2-3.5k, whereas doing a scenario can net me anywhere from 16k-25k exp, at the same time i get renown from PvP, so where is the bonus for doing PvE quests?
4. Itemization 4/10
What did they do? Hire AoCs itemization teams? Mythic obviously has no clue how any class actually works, because the stats don't seem to have real reasoning behind them. As a brighwizard, i am constantly assaulted with toughness/initiative/willpower, and i don't want need or even have a use for these. The thoughts behind it are "more survivability justifys it's use." Provided i was a tank, then i'd be stacking these pieces. But as any class, unless i stack them i'm not gonna recieve much benefit from them. And if i stack them i basically destroy my offense, and my purpose in the battles.
Wounds is a great stat, and imho the ONLY important one for dps classes, since it'd give them a larger amount of time up when dpsing and a way to avoid the instant burst of classes such as a sorc/bw. But instead toughness etc are on everything. Looking at the bw renown gear show's how terrible they are.
Honestly it's worse then the enormous amount of spirit that was on gear in wow at release.
5. PvP 10/10
The scenarios are fun, theres a large amount of them, at least on my server the queues are decent, and the rewards are nice. A lot of people are just out there to have fun, which really shows when they are just playing and not trying to win. But it's hardly the zergfest some people make it out to be, since teamwork, and strategy win the day everytime. Heck even two people working together can change the entire outcome. For example, when i played in stonetroll with my bw with a runepriest, we basically rocked the entire dest team, i came out 50k dmg ahead and with way more kbs then anyone else, we won the game at 500 after about 9 minutes as well.
6. Open RvR realms 1/10
Seriously, these are terribly designed, and mythic should get slapped across the face for even releasing these.
Normally i like open rvr, but the way WAR is designed it SUCKS. Each PvE area is basically seperate from the other sides, and when you do cross into the other side, you are at a higher level then the other side by a good 6-10 levels, and it's enough to just afk your way through them. The population imbalance in favor of dest is even more killer.
You basically NEVER meet people your level, and the only pvp encounters you get outside of the RvR zone, is being ganked, or going over to their area and ganking them. Theres not really ANY conflicted areas where you both are fighting head to head at equal levels over the same rewards.
Then the 1 tier below you rule. Which frankly ruined the open world rvr zones. Since they removed level scaling, you can't even enter the zone untill 18ish if you want to do anything. And even then it's not a rare sight to see someone way higher in the next tier, and they just ruin the system.
Frankly with how it was originally designed, being stuck in your own tier, it was a much better system, and almost everyone i've met on the server wishes they would have leveled somewhere else.
7. Bugs and the like-comments only-
First off, the main and only substantial bug in WAR is involved with pathing, rooting, and collision detection. The teleports caused by collision detection in pvp, and the fact that mobs chase you with their model in pve when you root them. Other then that, almost all the quests and pqs are way better then most mmos at release when it comes to bugs, there are the occassional problems. But nothing game breaking.
Another issue is the gold spam, i have never played a mmo worse. And to make matters worse... THE IGNORE FUNCTION IS BROKEN.
8. The tome of knowledge 10/10
For what it is, it's perfect, but it's not a vital function to the game by any means, though the achievements are fun to get, it doesn't extend further then that.
9. Gameplay 9/10
It's fast paced, there's little downtime, you can work to your classes roll without have to worry about going OOM and being useless untill you die. The classes all have their own flair(the really similar mirrors are... really similar, but not all classes are the exact same though they have a mirror ala WL/Mara and squig/sw).
My favorite thing is the lack of hard cc that was in daoc and wow. In wow you can't really pvp without getting feared stunned silenced, sheeped, rooted, for your entire lifebar. whereas in war, while there are roots, snares and stuns. They aren't the single class defining spammable mechanics. Snares, yeah you can be snared the entire time, but you are going to be in melee range the entire time.
My root breaks when they get hit most of the time, the stuns come from morale abilities or mastery lines, and aren't super cc trucks.
Beyond that, each class feels to have a solid role in PvP(except shadow warrior) and they all are fun to play.
Overall 8.4/10
A solid game, and doesn't have any glaring flaws. But like all games, you won't like it if you don't like it. Don't let it affect your life, and cry all night because of that.
Comments
I agree with the item part 100% lvl 11 and i still look the same
. Thought the biggest part of warhammer was customization. Anyways, other then the loot, the game is pretty fun
I gotta comment on this. You see the zone design obviously meant for the core rule set type of server. You level up on your PvE side and go into the RvR area to fight without worry about being gank.
On an open rule set server, it's a different story. Although I don't see as going to their side is to gank them. Despite the level differences, you can still do damage to higher level character. I have seen many times, 5 - 6 people could kill a person 10 level above them, with casualty, of course, but it could be done. The enemy has to respawn way back in their zone, not like they are being able to run right back. So, while I still see red and purple enemies running around in the area, people can still drive them back, it's actually pretty fun that way. At least it's how it goes in Dark Crag anyway. You have to admint, it will always be like that in any PvP game. It's not like in WoW having a group of level 70 running in your level 20 zone killing everyone, you can actually kill them if you try.
The way you see that is because the game still too new. As servers age, more and more items being discovered and enter the market. If you were at a game like WoW when it was release, you would know that it's completely different from what it looks right now. You don't really get items with different looks until you hit your first instance, and even then, the first 2 low level instances in the game does not really offer anything that look impressive though. Low level blue and sets barely look any different than trash drop or store bought items. Plus you can't even change the color.
Now if you look carefully, WAR itemization is not that bad, you start to have unique armors set as soon as rank 6. Where are they? From world RvR objectives and from tome unlock. They have quite unique looks and very good stats. More and more armor sets are being discovered. Remember WoW does not look that impressive until you hit level 60 which is the first level cap before expansion where they fill in all kind of raid drops and PvP sets and then level 70 which is another cap. In WAR you have the trophy options which would really make you look different, you can dye every piece of your armor with primary and secondary color and also those tome unlock item looks very very unique.
Nah, I think it's a pretty fair review, to be honest.
However, I would be interested in Bladin's thoughts on the social/community aspect.
I'd agree that its a fair review.. altho I think some of the scores were to high to be honest.
I wouldn't have rated the graphics as high. Altho I'm sure that's something which will change.
I just would add a few things:
1) Scenario's: some are well designed but many are like "wtf were you thinking". Which is pretty much why everyone only uses a certian pairing per tier.. as its the least annoying scenario.
2) Open RvR.. I don't mind that I may run into a higher level player. What I do find odd is that I can run around for hours and not see any other player. I could do that on Bossiney cluster in DAoC already.
(this is going to vary by server but c'mon this is a brand new game. today there was a siege.. one destruction showed up and was shooting the gates of a keep with cannons... yes you read that right ONE guy).
3) Items.. well the items are pretty much on quality with the Random items from DAoC to be honest. However, they do make a little more sense. DAoC never did well with items until spell crafting was introduced and you could just make it the way you wanted. Accessories were still a pain tho.
WAR is a decent game... what bothers me is that a perfect game would be a 10/10... so in my mind say an 8/10 should be pretty awesome.
I find the game average... that's not bad.. but its not great either.
I feel that its moving backwards from what DAoC was.. when it should be moving forward.
So while I can't crap on the game... and I could recommend it.. I doubt I'll play more than 30 days.
To make a comparison.. I played DAoC from the end of beta.. until 3 months ago... and WAR is maybe gonna hold me a month.
Nah, I think it's a pretty fair review, to be honest.
However, I would be interested in Bladin's thoughts on the social/community aspect.
I'd agree that its a fair review.. altho I think some of the scores were to high to be honest.
I wouldn't have rated the graphics as high. Altho I'm sure that's something which will change.
I just would add a few things:
1) Scenario's: some are well designed but many are like "wtf were you thinking". Which is pretty much why everyone only uses a certian pairing per tier.. as its the least annoying scenario.
TBH the reason why certain pairings dominate is because people are generally too lazy to queue for each one, so they just choose the most popular/favorite scen.
2) Open RvR.. I don't mind that I may run into a higher level player. What I do find odd is that I can run around for hours and not see any other player. I could do that on Bossiney cluster in DAoC already.
(this is going to vary by server but c'mon this is a brand new game. today there was a siege.. one destruction showed up and was shooting the gates of a keep with cannons... yes you read that right ONE guy).
I have to agree here, i see surprisingly few people... and i'm on a medium order
3) Items.. well the items are pretty much on quality with the Random items from DAoC to be honest. However, they do make a little more sense. DAoC never did well with items until spell crafting was introduced and you could just make it the way you wanted. Accessories were still a pain tho.
WAR is a decent game... what bothers me is that a perfect game would be a 10/10... so in my mind say an 8/10 should be pretty awesome.
Heres where you and i differ, there will never be a perfect game deserving of 10/10. Therefore no game can ever reach it, and the new "max score" will be 9.5 and soon that will be the best rating games get, then how do you judge games? by going lower, soon 9.0 will be the perfect game, and you have to go lower, rinse and repeat. 10=/=perfect, rather it equals to a "done well enough above the average that, while there is still flaws, the realistic chance of a game being better is low.
I find the game average... that's not bad.. but its not great either.
I feel that its moving backwards from what DAoC was.. when it should be moving forward.
So while I can't crap on the game... and I could recommend it.. I doubt I'll play more than 30 days.
To make a comparison.. I played DAoC from the end of beta.. until 3 months ago... and WAR is maybe gonna hold me a month.
please note that, that I was not refering to actual appearances of armor, but rather the stats that got put on it rather sillyly
And let's not forget the completely pointless crafting system, which seems to have been tacked on the game with little concern as to how necessary it is.
Very good review although it should be fair to mention that the open RvR problems refer exclusively to Open RvR servers which are, as was pretty obvious to anyone closely following he game from the start, quite obviously broken.
Imo Mythic's single greatest mistake was caving in to teh hardcorez crowd and jury-rigging an open RvR ruleset to a game that was quite meticulously designed around core.
Core RvR is much better, more focused and fair. In addition it is more common where it counts - the contested RvR zones. I really suggest you try the game as it was meant to be played - on a core server.
Personally I'd give open RvR 8/10 with quite obvious venues for improvement which would give it a flat-out 10/10. Giving incentives for individuals and small groups to enter RvR zones regularly and fixing the pesky memory leaks that are lurking around.
I gotta comment on this. You see the zone design obviously meant for the core rule set type of server. You level up on your PvE side and go into the RvR area to fight without worry about being gank.
On an open rule set server, it's a different story. Although I don't see as going to their side is to gank them. Despite the level differences, you can still do damage to higher level character. I have seen many times, 5 - 6 people could kill a person 10 level above them, with casualty, of course, but it could be done. The enemy has to respawn way back in their zone, not like they are being able to run right back. So, while I still see red and purple enemies running around in the area, people can still drive them back, it's actually pretty fun that way. At least it's how it goes in Dark Crag anyway. You have to admint, it will always be like that in any PvP game. It's not like in WoW having a group of level 70 running in your level 20 zone killing everyone, you can actually kill them if you try.
I'm sorry but this is downright false, in the open world, someone 6 levels higher will stomp your face into the curb without much effort, i can basically DoT someone up, root them, and then run around in circles and laugh as they die(except healers, i might have to throw in a fireball)
A group with 1 person in the next tier, will win every single fight against the other team with the other side of equal balance team but with just that tier. In the RvR section of areas, there is no benefit to the people in that tier to have higher people coming in, except to basically ezmode their way into keeps. In fact i'd go as far to say don't even go into the T1 open rvr zone unless you want to die, on my server when i first entered the rvr section in T1, there were multiple T2 people there, and they were so drasticlly stronger it ruined the experience.
And you do know that you go into T3 as level 20/21, and 40s can come there and stomp you. so compare it which is comparable to 70s camping 35s.
My main complaint is simply that you don't lace together = level enemies into the same conflicts, it's always higher levels vs lower levels.
*editing in*
My thoughts on the community are mixed, it's a lot more of a private community rather that wows spam chatter fest. is it a good or bad thing? I really can't say.
Play o/n core man... and communities do need time to grow. Even my RL friends who started playing seem strangely reticent in chat.. they're simply overwhelmed by a new world, new mechanics and concepts etc.
Imo most new players up to almost T2 are too busy trying to absorb everything and grasp what this game is all about. Leave em be. Chatting up in a completely new environment may be too much for many - even I who am as talkative and egregious as a clown with a chainsaw found myself pretty quiet until level 7 or so.
I can't play on a core server, my friends are all on this server, basically 2 of em and their guild moved here, i followed, and then i had my friends move here as well.
The effort to go core is too much for me at this point, unless someone had a core destruction server they played on simply because it's something dif then order.
I can't play on a core server, my friends are all on this server, basically 2 of em and their guild moved here, i followed, and then i had my friends move here as well.
The effort to go core is too much for me at this point, unless someone had a core destruction server they played on simply because it's something dif then order.
That's a problem that was discussed to death on warhammeralliance before the release - how to name server types. "Open RvR" - sounds too much like PvP ... and "Core" seems like vanilla PvE thing, not-PvP if you will.. The consensus was to at least make Core servers "Core RvR" to avoid this association that one is "more" RvR than the other but sadly one ruleset got "RvR" and the other got "Corebear".
Well it just goes to show how you can (unintentionally in this case) lead people on and mislead them with something as simple as a brand name or a phrase.
On my core server there's ocassionally plenty of RvR outside the RvR lakes due to the way the progression takes you in and out of your opponents areas but nothing more than fun skirmishing with an occasional larger scale brawl (screwing up orks' PQ in MoM FTW!). RvR lakes are the places where action is concentrated and due to bolster it is always at least minimally fair and meaningful.
To OP,
Nice review and I'm pretty much going to start taking some time out from forums for a while as well. You'd swear the earth is ending tomorrow by forum reckoning. Starts to wear a bit think after a while.
Only comment I have are 2:
1. Sounds like you are on an Open RVR server. Those servers are completely unsuited for RVR as they were designed for WAR. What happens is you will get much higher levels RVRing in lower tier and lower tier players being sideliend because they aren't bolstered like on the core servers.
2. For RVR, toughness is king even for squishier classes. Wounds is good against 1 person attacking you whereas toughness will mitigate against all damage all the time, no matter how many oponents. If in melee range, toughness should be considered more highly ranked than wounds as toughness mitigates spike damage for a mor eprolonged period of time than wounds can. But you are right, some stats don't belong to some classes.
otherwise good review.
4. Itemization 4/10
What did they do? Hire AoCs itemization teams? Mythic obviously has no clue how any class actually works, because the stats don't seem to have real reasoning behind them. As a brighwizard, i am constantly assaulted with toughness/initiative/willpower, and i don't want need or even have a use for these. The thoughts behind it are "more survivability justifys it's use." Provided i was a tank, then i'd be stacking these pieces. But as any class, unless i stack them i'm not gonna recieve much benefit from them. And if i stack them i basically destroy my offense, and my purpose in the battles.
Wounds is a great stat, and imho the ONLY important one for dps classes, since it'd give them a larger amount of time up when dpsing and a way to avoid the instant burst of classes such as a sorc/bw. But instead toughness etc are on everything. Looking at the bw renown gear show's how terrible they are.
Honestly it's worse then the enormous amount of spirit that was on gear in wow at release.
Seems you were bummed out about bright wizard items. I would imagine the quite common wounds/intelligence/toughness items are intended to be used with an aoe spec. Personally I would rate itemization 7.5/10.
Agreed with most comments on open world RvR, not to be confused with the server type named "open rvr". Open world RvR on a core server is probably the most fun aspect of the game. There is sometimes problems finding the action but once you do it is a riot.
MMORPG
The issue with that, is that toughness won't save a bright wizard if he's being attacked, and the amount you need to make a noticable difference completely destroys any chance you have at actually burning through enemies.
If a witch hunter doesn't have enough str he can't dps down healers etc fast enough, if he doesn't have enough weapon skill he can't ignore enough armor to do damage to medium/heavy targets.
The issue with itemization is that they place toughness initiative and willpower on the items as their main stats and ignore major ones.
For example the level 40 renown gear for bright wizards isn't worth using! the gear i have at 20 is better then the lvl 40 armors! If that isn't a sign that somethings wrong, then i don't know what is.
Int is twofold for BW, it increases are damage, and it reduces disrupt chances. Which is vital especially against healers since the large amount of +willpower increases their disrupt chance.
Toughness is not going to save a light dps class from a dps train coming down on him.
It'd be like playing world of warcraft in pvp with nothing but stamina and resilience. You'd get raped because while you'd live for ages, you couldn't actually DO anything