Great Marketing.. Not so good game.
Ok here's my review. Let me start by just saying that I have played WoW (World of warcraft) and have done since it started. I would just like to point out that although I think most mmo's struggle to get close to it they all deserve a chance and some playtime, and tbh anything that will bring down WoW so i can play something else is always welcome.
I'll be honest.. I bought into the hype of warhammer online. Why? becasue I'm a gamer.. and i particularly have an interest in mmorpg games. Having played WoW and LotRO (Lord of the rings online) and Final Fantasy XI all at end game level i think i have some knowledge in the area.
Warhammer online unfortunatly does not deliver the goods to get straight to the point i will devide the next section into the good and the bad so you can see the pros and the cons, so here goes:
The Good:
Party Mode aka grouping up is what you come to expect from an MMO. It's clean and straight forward to figure out as are the chat channels etc
I particularly like the public quests. These are basically quests in a certain area of the map that open for everyone to participate in whether grouped or not and gain loot based on a personal score. I think that mos MMO's have missed a trick with this idea as i find it a really great idea.
Questing is nice and easy. There are alot of similarities between itself and LotRO.. infact it's almost like the questing engine was stolen from LotRO. Which is not a bad thing which is why it's here in the good points.
The interface is nice and clean, and easy to modify and customise.
Skilling up and getting the new abilities is easy and straight-foward.
All of the above however are all points i would expect to see from most MMO's
The Bad:
Ok where do i begin. Graphics... hmmm before i bought this game i was like "geez i hope the graphics are as good as WoW.. then i can play it and not feel guilty about not playing WoW" However.. i was very dissapointed. The reason is becasue the NPC'S and pretty much everything in game looks as though it's just been plonked there on the screen with no thought into how it will be viewed by players at all. I read somewhere before buying that everything would look "seemless" but again it was something i bought into and pinned my hopes on.. but after playing i know now that it's not seemless. When you see other player and npc's at a distance they appear 2D and not 3D which is hugely disappointing.
The next graphical problem are the abilities. Every so often when let off a spell you have no idea whether or not you have actually done it.. because sometimes the animation will drop out and not appear on screen.
Professions.. I chose apothecary and cultivation. Cultivation is just so well rubbish.. The gathering of seeds is straightforward but the cultivating take forever and leave you looking at the screen for about 2 minutes waiting to creating something to harvest. So in comparison to Lotro and WoW the professions don't even come close to being as good in terms of crafting times and enjoyment.
apothecary relies on cultivation alot and is just boring and tedius. Although the fun element is there with apothecary it just could have been so much more.
The Summary:
Just dissapointing. It could have been so much more and to say they have spent year on this game.. it actually looks like they just wripped off lotro and just added a few wow elements but created their own graphics..
Please please please see through the crap from most of the hard line warhammer fans that will love it no matter what it looks like and plays like and just see it for what it actually is.. and that's just an average MMO that still has not come close to toppling the capitalist pig of WoW. Who will do it?? Lotro came close but not quite and warhammer is behind that so..
Sorry it's a little short.. if i have the option to come back and carry on the review i will.