Monday, August 25, 2008

Can I get a WAAAGH?

Well the Warhammer Online preview weekend has come and gone. Wow (bad pun intended), I was having so much fun I completely neglected any of those normal responsibilities of being a human being. Cleaning, laundry, dishes, proper hygiene, all that stuff were secondary after around 6pm on Friday.

Let’s get the bad out of the way right off. Yes, it is a bit buggy in places but for the most part the game is quite stable. I believe most of the crashes were caused less by the game and more by running it on a laptop which overheats after a while. My major quibble is with mob pathing and line-of-sight, when a mob gets stuck in something and freaks out it is a bit annoying. Let’s see, other major flaws.... nope, that’s about it.


So the good stuff, open world RvR is sweet beyond belief, even with wholly uncoordinated pick-up groups. My best experience of the weekend was when I joined an open warband and we tore through all three of the middle-lower level RvR zones. Sixteen of us at the peak and time and again the forces of Order tried to stop us and failed. The only shame was that the third tier was locked out or we would have gone for that too.


Second best experience can be summed up in two words: Boiling Oil. One click and four kills? Oh yes, oh yes.


Another great thing was I was playing a healing class, spec’d for healing and took out two Order players who jumped me. That isn’t supposed to happen.


The time wasn’t entirely spent killing hapless stumpies and keeblers though. I did spend much time in the PvE and Public Quest parts of the game as well. Which I found to be well-rounded, clear and worth doing, it helps your realm take over zones and you get useful rewards. PQ’s are good practice for some of the RvR aspects anyway, some of the same mechanics are used.


Another thing, the “open party” system is so brilliant you have to wonder why it isn’t in every MMO. Yes, party leaders can make it closed if they want but hey, more people working towards the same goal just speeds things up.


There are many different MMO’s with different strengths and weaknesses and different styles of play. Take the obvious comparison, WoW. To level you pretty much have to do quests or grind and in the endgame you either have to raid to progress or do battlegrounds.


What WAR offers is options. Do you like grinding? PQ’s, Kill Collectors and Tome unlocks are there for you with bonus XP. PvE with a rich storyline? Heaps of quests and instances, you never have to kill another player if you don’t want to. Though if you do want to kill everyone you come across, oh man, the RvR is insanely fun and purposeful. Even if you are just bumming around in the city there are things to do to advance your character.


Essentially it feels like they’ve got their bases covered to keep players happy, both casual and hardcore.