This review will have three parts to it: -Review. -Forum Posts. -Personal Comments.
This review will have three parts to it:
-Reviewing sections of the game (based on personal gameplay and forum discussions for feedback before being posted).
-Reading what people on the forum have to say (based on what people thought what was wrong about it instead of just saying they hate it).
-Personal Comments.
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No Socialization - The chating system is so poorly set up that you'll be seeing it change quite often as you move around; that doesn't at all help matters that there is almost no socialization in this game. The only time I get whispers or /tells as some people know them is when a gold farming is advertising his site every five minutes and the ignore function is "ignoring" my requests to put said person on it. It was a bugged function for quite a while during live even though it's probably fixed by now... But the damage was done as the same people kept on advertising on the same names and with the same sites. There was also no easy way to report them as you had to go through the whole process with the menu instead of just right clicking on their name.
Public Quests - While a good idea to implement (though not the first MMO or game to do so) they were poorly placed and too spread out for anyone to see anyone else trying to do them as the game has progress; even in the first tier in the game it has become scarce. There are quite a few of them as well as they are all over the place with no real incentive to do them as you could just grind normal monsters of each public quest to get a full bar for the rewards. What's the point in fighting several stages of a public quest or spending hours for people to do it with you just for a crappy green that most likely doesn't relate to your class at all? Though I managed to do most in the first tier I just decided to grind as it was much faster and much easier to do when I was waiting for the ques over and over again to do the same thing over and over again.
Scenarios - Which brings me to the scenarios.... I'd much rather just be playing Savage 2 or Tribes or Unreal Tournament.... Or even Halo for that matter and have no ques whatsoever for the same experiece.... Nay for a less stressful experience. Many a time I have found myself saying outloud "man I'm bored" when actually IN a scenario for the hundreth time. Heck... By the forth time it's just completely boring what with the uninspired combat system as opposed to these other free PvP games that provide scenarios in a much better way and grander scale. They try to make it an even playing field but it never is; even if people are boosted to rank eight there will always be a group of rank 11s out there whom are in a group (what with rank 11 being the max rank in the first tier of scenarios, just using it as an example). Nothing balanced about that at all as opposed to the before mentioned FREE games.
Renown - Oh, I really want to spend all my time in ques and waste time on the "world map" doing quests and the like. Honestly, who wouldn't pay each month for this? To get PvP gear is to be leet; actually, it's the only way to get gear period, at least in the beginning tiers of the game.
EXP: Honestly, what's the point of doing quests or grinding when you are able to get so much expierence from scenarios and killing other players in them? There is none. It's just something to do to hide that fact that the game is solely dedicated around scenarios at least in the beginning and so that people who have been online gaming since it started won't realize what the game really is at the core.
Bugs: Nothing more to say in this part other than the fact they rushed this game too fast; it should've been a late 2009 release with the amount of bugs it has but to be fair they're patching at an okay rate of time. But still, as I read on a forum post, this genre is about 11-12 years old now (with Ultima Online having it's 11th birthday and me having a ten year account >_>;) and people are expecting full releases of games and not just a mish-mash of bugs that could've been worked out if serious effort and time was put into it. There is no excuse for a rushed job from a buyer point of view, albeit maybe one from a business point, but in general people aren't going to stand for it much longer to be the laughing stalks of all the genres with their bugged games that they have to pay for each month.
Emotes - There is no ability to sit or to even walk? Well then.... I guess I'll run to someone two feet ahead of me just to talk to them and make a custom emote to sit even though I'll just still be standing. Yay me.
Collector's Edition: The collector's edition was a big disappointment for me; I like the box contents but the in game stuff was a waste of money if that's all you intended to get it for. The "extra" faces were almost all bad save for the orc's metal face.... But I guess if less people use them it makes them even more "exclusive". There's a silver lining in most things if you're able to find it.
Graphics: There are areas in Warhammer that seem uninspired Graphics wise; but for the most part I did enjoy exploring areas such as the Greenskin areas and trying to act the part of a Black Orc: "Wez are da biggest an' da baddest! Gut dese worthless gitz an' show dem da might of the WAAAAAGHHH!" and so on.
Combat: This game has tremendously boring combat. Well, to be fair I only played the Witchhunter, the Black Orc, Swordmaster, and the Disciple of Khaine. But they all felt like the same combat system no matter what their "charge ups" were appropriately named. Whether it was getting five acquisition points to do a finishing move, three balance positions after attacking three times to perform a final dance attack, or "da good plan" or "da best plan" as the Black Orc charge ups were.... It all ended in performing an attack that used those charge ups after getting them. It's hard to believe anyone could honestly not see that at the core they are all the exact same and it became apparent to me after leveling so many classes; they all felt the same in some strange way.
Resource Hog: I've a 2.4 dual core processor, 3GBs of RAM, and SLI 9600 x2 cards and I still found it difficult to switch between websites and the game for casual entertainment while I was waiting for "entertainment" with the scenarios. It was either that this game was poorly made or.... Well, that's just about the only conclusion I could come up with when it comes to its scripting and programming.
PvE: Very poor; the public quests are disappointing, the combat system is a bore, and basically the PvE that was done is just a mish mash of quests where the pinpointed where you need to go on the map to finish it while you are waiting for the que to fight in a scenario that gets repetative after the fourth or fifth time playing it; there's very little reason to even play order nowadays due to tremendous lack of balance as gestalt11, a five star elite member with 3204 posts says "...Playing order is pointless. Therefore the game is pointless unless you are destruction and only want to PvE. And on many servers its just plain boring." (Full post in the forum section of this review).
This game has a long way to go if it is to survive through the trials of the coming years; it doesn't help matters much that EA is it's benefactor either. They said they would keep out of it but it's EA; they say things. The fact that the public quests are so spread apart is a typical Ultima Online move they pulled what is releasing too many expansions and lands too quickly and spliting a community in whole; their influence is no doubt showing in some way.
If people really want to swear by this game then it's their own prerogative.... But I've seen many a person shout out "Waaagh" after playing a week of this game.... Though it wasn't a warcry; it was just a cry.
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Foreign Forum Posts (What other people think).
mmorpg.com WAR forum
Most of these people are five stars or four stars on the forum.
Newhopes:
I find the pvp in war extremely weak and boring 9 time out of 10 you can tell who's going to win before it's even begun, the system also has the same weakness as WOWs pvp with melee completely dominating the game.
OP gestalt11:
Many criticisms of this game are frankly quite wrong and woefully misinformed, saying its just like WoW or that PvE is all handed to you. Etc Etc.
Those are not the reasons. I am pretty sure I will not subscribe because:
With the recent taking of Altdorf and the 2 other very close calls i realized the RvR is currently basically broken. Further 90% of destruction are in complete denial about this and simply lord it over the other side as much as possible.
Realm imbalance. Most server are extremely unbalanced and there is very little recourse for the unbalanced realm. In addition RvR is directly affected by PvE things like PQ.
Population problems. Many servers have extremely low population and are basically a shell of a game. If the game is a 9 on hihg population its a 4 on low pop. Some of the servers in most dire need were completely ignored in the last run of "fixes"
T4 PvP is messed up for classes. A couple class match ups like Marauder to White Lion are way off.
T4 RvR bugs. Zone control and and bugged keeps are borked. Order can barely make it to the first unlock if at all. Destro does it three tiems as fast with the same setup.
T3 and above is a horrible PvE grind without PvP scenario xp. Even with the recent changes it is not any better.
Everyone of these issues benefits Destruction. Playing Order is pointless. Therefore the game is pointless unless you are destruction and only want to PvE. And on many servers its just plain boring.
If they fix the zone control bugs and fix the insta-gib aoe in t4 and you roll on a server that by some miracle has decently balanced populations across most playtimes then the game can be a lot of fun.
However that is a lot of "IF"s. I don't pay for a game with that many "if"s. Mark Jacobs responses to these things on the VN boards, while honest, do not leave me with any confidence that anything other than possibly the zone control bugs will get fixed or changed anytime soon.
Ghist:
Weaknesses of WAR are Chat interface needs total rework, actually hampers the community feel. Mail system is obnoxious. Lag is always an issue with the lag correction being non-existant. Graphics are relatively retro. PVE is a simple design given its there to tie in different PVP zones. Class Balance still needs work. Order/Destruction balance has too much effect on servers. Crafting is an afterthought.
Teala
Sooner or later the developers and the publishers will wake up and realize that this is no long a new genre and that the people that they are targeting to play their games will not play them if they are not good games right out of the box.
Kyleran
You sound a lot like me OP, former DAOC player looking for DAOC 2, similiar game but improved.
WAR is definitely not that game. Sure, it might make some folks happy, but those who really loved DAOC for what it was won't more often than not. (IMO).
Mythic's attempt to make the game fun by making everything easy, friendly and with little grind basically built a shooter inside an MMO world.
I know some people think this is the greatest thing ever, but not me.
NeonShadow
Funny seeing people tell the OP that this game isn't for him. Notice him saying that he's played DAoC for 7 years? This game was supposed to be for him. This game was supposed to be the next step for DAoC players. Instead it's a casual game for ex-WoW and FPS players.
Tikovoo:
...unfinished rush job and nasty repetition.
I agree it's terrible.
We can only pray it will get better and i am sure it will maybe by 2010.
Three2six
This game has to be in the top 5 most boring, least intelligent and biggest let down I have ever played. And I've played nearly everything. This game makes WoW look difficult. Asian Hack N Slash games are even more challenging. But, the game being 3 year old friendly isn't why I dislike it. EVERYTHING is bugged in one way or another. The game is probably a year from being tuned to finish. There are still items in the game for classes that have long since been removed from the game.
Quests make you choose a reward even if there is only 1 reward. Boss mobs sometimes run off only to come back fully healed. Targetting system is unreliable. blah blah blah...I could go on and on mentioning every aspect of the game. Scenerios, bugged... Guild system, bugged.... Alliance system, bugged... Your mastery tree gives bonus to abilities 3 levels before you can even get the ability to take advantage of the bonus. WHAT?!?!?
The community, you ask? How is the community? Let's just say, it seems that most of the gimps from WoW who have never played an MMO besides WoW are now playing WAR.
Anyway, I'm just a tad let down by this game. Especially after waiting for 3 years and being a 7 year DAoC player.
I understand there will be a few of you that disagree and will choose to try and insult me in your clever little ways. Feel free but the fact remains, WAR is weak. It doesn't compare to WoW in PvE content and is laughable compared to DAoC in RvR. LAUGHABLE!!
Clada:
I think a lot of people are feeling this way, the amount of threads that bring up much of what you say is scary.
Maseloc:
could't agree more.
Astralgeth:
Fair assessment.
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It's hard to believe that so many people could swear to a game that promotes a rage that occured almost fifteen (15) years ago in the gaming community. What am I talking about?
Starsiege Tribes.
That game had up to 100 V 100 battles where everyone had the same gear available to them and NO ques whatsoever. Well, that's essentially warhammer but with a popular brand name, a world map to pass the time with doing quests that their world map shows you where to go so you actually do them, and then lo and behold it's time for another scenario. Yet another difference is this time you have to pay $15 a month for this craze in addition to having less people in it and some twenty different classes that are all oddly similar to one another except for the fact one might get "acquisition" points as opposed to "balance" points or soul points and THEN use their skills. What grand replayability that has!
Warhammer has a great lore but this game in its current state is a mockery of our intellect in paying for monthly games and it seems that thus far only the ancient veterans of online gaming know this to be true. You could seriously just download an Unreal Tournament demo and get the same experience as all of these scenarios with no ques and people to talk with as opposed to waiting in a que and doing quests by yourself and just hoping everyone knows what they heck they're doing when you finally get into a scenario setting.
Do I just say this to be spiteful? Certainly not; as I actually did what I'm preaching and reinstalled both tribes and unreal tournament and played them all night after getting tired of the boring scenarios I had to do to get renown and progress. What I found was that I had a TREMENDOUS amount of fun just playing a game and not WORRYING about all of this crap while paying $15 a month just for that same worry!
Worse yet they offer a great amount of EXP for doing this ques which pretty much makes me just want to sign up for them and level up again and again and not do any quests at all; in fact I wouldn't of if they hadn't given me the exact location in which to do said quests. But in the end I just started playing ANOTHER game while playing this one, which is a bad sign all together.
In the end, if you want a game that is JUST LIKE War Online then look up Savage 2: A tortured Soul.
It only costs $29.99 but has free online play and provides BETTER PvP action what with you having one commander building a base for you while you and your comrades try to raise or capture enemy bases/territory respectfully on many more maps. It even has better graphics.