[WAR] is the best

[QueQueg]

It's not often that I feel compelled to gush over a game. Let me go on record and say I'm a recovering WoW addict (slash CoH addict, slash FFXI addict, slash Ragnarok addict.) WAR is what I've been looking for in an MMO.

People have called WAR the evolution of WoW, and in one regard I agree. I don't think any single feature of WAR could be described as revolutionary. However, taken in whole, the sum is pretty kickass, and (dare I say it?) revolutionary.

The Public Quest system is great. I'm in love with these things. I played for hours yesterday, and just did PQs and PvP scenarios. I've got a ton of quests in my quest log, but I couldn't pull myself away from the PQs until I got all the elite influence rewards (for each of my alts!) Too much fun.

The RvR scenarios are great as well. I love the fact that you get three to play with, right away, and they are all very fun and satisfying. Even at the lowest levels I felt like I was contributing. I also like the fact that, of all the classes I've tried so far, none of them felt left-out in RvR. It's obvious that PvP was designed into the game from day 1.

The zones are beautiful; the attention to detail is great. The monster and character models as well. I've played Games Workshop games since I was 15 (uh... 23 years, ouch.) I think Mythic has done a wonderful job visualizing the pen&paper details. The Inevitable City really blew me away.

I'm working my way through the classes that I find most intriguing, trying to decide which to put my full effort into. So far I've had the most fun with Magus and Witch Hunter. I haven't tried BW or Sorcerer yet, but plan to tonight.

[Ghostbear]

Welcome to the fold my brother.

[TrackZero]

Well, glad you're enjoying it. WoW after 3.0.2 though is kicking royal ass and I'm loving it.

[Ghostbear]

Well, glad you're enjoying it. WoW after 3.0.2 though is kicking royal ass and I'm loving it.

shush troglodyte! ;)

[ClannerDelta]

Well, glad you're enjoying it. WoW after 3.0.2 though is kicking royal ass and I'm loving it.

Have they added a glowing Tampon slot yet?

I'm enjoying WAR. More or less waiting to see what hits with the big Content patch they have on the way.

[sparkfizt]

Well, glad you're enjoying it. WoW after 3.0.2 though is kicking royal ass and I'm loving it.

I concur. Unfortunately Mythic did'nt really let me make the choice of what to play. There's a segment of us that get unplayable performance with decent to good specced machines. :(

I'll likely give WAR another try in 6 months after the game is more complete and less buggy.

[ClannerDelta]

I'll likely give WAR another try in 6 months after the game is more complete and less buggy.

They added shader optimization that helped me last patch. So, in 6 months, you should be set.

[kropotkin]

Whilst I'm enjoying the game I feel the need to point out some of its issues. The biggest one I have is the feeling of disconnect you have with the game since it's broken up into small zones. I've spoken about this before in another post but essentially the game does not have the vast and expansive areas WoW has. With WoW you can look into the horizon knowing that you can go there without any hint of a loading screen. By doing this you always have a sence of space.

Now granted my geography in WAR is getting better with me getting used to flight paths being in warcamps, even though you can't bind to them, and the combat zones being broken up into 'tiers'. Despite this I don't have a sence of where I am in the game as much as I did in WoW.

This along with the oversimplified chat which is silent most of the time (there be no 'Barrens Chat' here) and the inability to link items in said chat I'm not 100% convinced this game is a WoW beater. Again, to quote myself elsewhere in these forums , the only thing that can take down WoW is WoW itself. Blizzard have to screw up royally before that behemoth finally falls.

[QueQueg]

I see a lot of random conversations going on in /1. It's very reminiscent of barrens chat to me, and frankly I wish they'd just shut up sometimes :)

I have the same feeling you do about the zones, but I feel like it's because I haven't explored enough yet to really get my bearings. In WoW, I could look at a mountain range and think "if I could run over that mountain, I'd be in Stormwind" because I'd flown over it 200 times already. Once you "know" where you are on the big map (and the bigger map beyond) I think you get that feel for the enormity of a game world.

I hope that WAR gives me that feeling once I've put more time into exploring it.

[Kryopsis]

This along with the oversimplified chat which is silent most of the time (there be no 'Barrens Chat' here) and the inability to link items in said chat I'm not 100% convinced this game is a WoW beater.

I'd like to deal with the three points you have outlined here:

First, the chat was recently modified and, as such, channel 1 (/1) is now a Tier-wide discussion. Wait for it to pick up and surely the game will become a little more active. I'd have to agree that so far it is a little silent and only the dreaded guild chat is active.

Second, item linking will be added in the Fall update in a couple of weeks. It has been confirmed by Mark Jacobs.

Third, while every MMO currently being released theoretically aims to topple WoW, a PVP game is aimed at a slightly different market and, as such, could never beat World of Warcraft. The PVE market is much broader, as people play MMOs for the social, co-op aspect. Since Warhammer Online is built for PVP to begin with, it is unlikely to ever rival WoW. On the other hand, the launch was named the smoothest MMO launch ever by the professional press and the population is steadily increasing, with the 750,000 mark being passed last week. The game is popular so let's hope it's going to remain so and things will not go downhill like in Age of Conan. :0)

[Lint of Death]

You find region chat to be relatively silent? Maybe it's because all my characters are T2 or less, but there's so much blah blah blah blah that I had to sequester it all away in another tab, along with the super-spam of NPC dialogue.

[J Arcane]

Whilst I'm enjoying the game I feel the need to point out some of its issues. The biggest one I have is the feeling of disconnect you have with the game since it's broken up into small zones. I've spoken about this before in another post but essentially the game does not have the vast and expansive areas WoW has. With WoW you can look into the horizon knowing that you can go there without any hint of a loading screen. By doing this you always have a sence of space.

As far as I am concerned, this is a gloriously welcome sacrifice, because it now means I actually get to fucking play the game, instead of spending most of my time in transit from one place to the other.

I've been through enough MMOs now to be utterly and completely weary of a design philosophy that seems to believe that making me spend 75% of my time in the game trying to get to where I actually play is in any way fun.

In fact, in general, I find WAR to be gleefully free of a good amount of the deliberate timesinkery that defines every other MMO, including WoW.

[Hotcod]

I do miss WoW sense of place in the world but for the most part other than flying to cites you get a good idea of the zones that you level up through... one of my doubts about the game was people saying how disconnected you can feel but it's really not be to bad given that, like J Arcane said, it cuts right down on travel time.

Still i kind of liked the flying in WoW, could be frustrating at times but i did really bring the world to life... i often thought it would be fun to have it so that you either pay for instant travel or can go free if you fly... that way people can see feel connected to the world but not have to waste time if they have other things to be doing.

Then again the gyrochoppers or what ever they are are awful... i'm leveling a rune priest since 2 of my freinds are the other 2 dwarf classes and it would be neat for us all to run around... i just hate there stupid mount

[Lint of Death]

I recently realized that, more than anything else in the game, I like making enemy players' health bars slide to zero really fast :D

[Libuke]

Got into some spontaneous open PvP today and it just made me wish it happened more often.

Was playing my Chosen with my brother when I noticed some order outside the warcamp so decided to help the destruction players. Well things started escalating and next thing we are attacking the keep which brings in more order and destruction players until for about an hour we fought around the keep about 50 people total between both sides, then the destruction side started losing players so me and brother decided it was time to leave as well instead of thrown ourselves on the order swords. Was great fun and wish it happened more often.

[RandoM51]

Mythic has a lock on group PvP. Their PvE is great for a launch MMO but obviously cannot compare to the master, especially when the master has been running strong for years, adding new content.

The challenge will be making the post-40th RvR game worthwhile. As it stands now I think most classes die far too quickly at T4 for it to be anything other than a meatgrinder. The tactics are far too simple at this point for compelling longterm play, at least for a veteran of these games. WAR RvR is actually simpler than that of DAoC---IMHO---and as such there are fewer branches in the possible outcomes of your RvR adventures.

They need to focus on making the realmwar itself just as compelling as farming points in scenarios, they need to make it so that everybody knows where the fight is and can participate, not just the guild who might get alerted to their castle being challenged.

It needs to be like the Chromehounds realmwar, albeit perhaps longer in duration. :) Chromehounds beat you over the head with the zones being challenged and actively pushed you towards combat in those areas. As it stands in WAR you don't really know anything other than what very little rvr spam you might get in the zone/tier you currently are in... and even then much of it is false alarms leading to the boy who cried wolf syndrome.

[QueQueg]

It would be cool if you could join RvR Open World battles like you join scenarios. Go to a map that shows hotspots, pick the battle, and pop, there you go, you're in there. Then when you want to depart, you click another button and pop back to where you started.

That would kick ass. I'd be RvR battling constantly, while I waited for scenarios.

[Kryopsis]

The features are being implemented, RandoM51. The realm-wide alarm about the city being attacked, the Realmwar-specific Influence points and rewards and the other stuff. I am sure that by Decembre the game is going to be very compelling.

[digitalErich]

I agree, Keep sieges in the T2 and T3 zones have all but died off on my server and when they do happen it's a steam roll. They need a better way to alert players to RvR hotpots and more importantly they need a better way to measure the quality of RvR happening in a given area.

Too often I've flown to a zone just because some guy decided to take a few pot shots at one of the guards while running past. As Random already put, the 'boy who cried wolf' aspect has all but killed mid level sieges on my server and as such I'm playing less and less WAR because of it. PvE is Ok, but not good enough to hold my attention for long play sessions and playing scenarios gets old fast as 9/10 it's the same map for the given tier.

[RandoM51]

The features are being implemented, RandoM51. The realm-wide alarm about the city being attacked, the Realmwar-specific Influence points and rewards and the other stuff. I am sure that by Decembre the game is going to be very compelling.

As an old hand at MMORPG games I am unwilling to pay today for features that are coming somewhere in the future. When they arrive I'll consider resubscribing. Considering the fall rush of games it isn't like I'd be spending that much time with Warhammer even if those things were in at this point.

Come springtime though, it will be a perfect time to revisit.

[Squidbot]

With the addition of the new region-wide and RvR-wide chat channels we have seen a marked increase in Open RvR participation. In order to encourage this trend even further, we have made an additional adjustment to the experience awarded for killing enemy players in an Open RvR 'lake'. Previously we increased this amount by 50%. As of today, that bonus has been raised to 100%. With this change players killed in Open RvR will now be worth double the experience than those killed in scenarios!


Wooohoo! Great news.

[kropotkin]

I've read the posts concerning the travel issues and that forcing people to fly from one place to another meaning that you're not actually playing the game is a valid one. Having now reached 24 in WAR I am now getting a greater sence of place in the game despite the discrete zones the game is split up into.

As for open RvR I've done very little but what I have experienced has been fun if a little short lived. I spend most of my time in scenarios and questing PvE stuff between scenario bouts.

[QueQueg]

Let's talk about class balance. I know this might be fodder for a flame-war, but I'm interested in the opinions of CoG gamers, who I hold in high esteem.

I've been focusing a lot on Sorcerer the last few days, and this character feels pretty over-powered... until I get into a scenario with three Bright Wizards (or one good Witch Hunter, man those guys can mess me up fast.) If the Order team is dumb enough to let me live, I can wrack up huge damage numbers (24000+ at level 11, next closest on damage chart at ~ 9000.)

I felt a little bad about this, sensing that the nerf-bat would be coming, so I decided to spend more time with the other classes that interest me. Here's my brief experiences with each. I know judging a class based on the first 10 levels isn't fair, but these are the levels that make players decide whether to "stick with it" or not.


Witch Hunter -
The jury is still out on this one. The animations are great. The dual-wielding of gun and rapier is very stylish. I like the abilities so far, but having played a WoW rogue for 120+ levels, I find myself mentally connecting every WH move to a WoW rogue move. It kind of takes some of the magic away.
Disciple -
I like hybrid classes a lot (WoW Paladin, Druid, Shaman come to mind) and this class is quite fun. I don't get anywhere near the XP or reknown from scenarios, as compared to my Sorcerer, but in PvE he's just as fast of a killer, and much, much more survivable.
Warrior Priest -
I really enjoy this character, the class looks great, and the abilities are reminiscent of Paladin. I'm going to try to get into the teens on this one to see if the fun continues. Again, some damage, a lot of survivability, nice utility.
Black Orc -
Super fun. Self-healing whilst wacking on stunties is too much fun. My first scenario experience with Gragnuck (at level 4) involved 5 Order players beating on me, while one team-mate captured the fort, and living to tell the tale. I had a lot of luck in that fight I guess, but Da Toughest just kept proc'ing.
Chosen -
Very dissappointed. No self-heal yet, the aura's don't seem to make much difference in short RvR fights, not a lot of burst damage, and although the armor looks awesome, doesn't seem to protect me very much. This guy would go down in seconds in RvR, and felt very squishy, compared to BO.
Magus -
I want Magus to get a boost in the upcoming patch. The animations are great, the character looks great, the disk looks awesome. I am able to dish out decent damage in RvR, always second to Sorcerer, but close. I'd rather play Magus than Sorcerer, frankly, for reasons detailed below.
Sorcerer -
Nice damage output, I like the backlash mechanic. If they think this is too powerful, I think a fun nerf would be to make backlash damage AoE, hurting all your allies in 10 yards or something. Same for BW. How cool would it be to be in the melee lines, getting burned down by some BWs, only to have the one in the middle pop and take out all the clothies in the back. That would be great! My main complaint with Sorcerer is the animations. He looks like a fruit-cake, the way he holds that staff with his back arched. Magus is much cooler looking. This combined with the likelihood of a nerf makes me want to find another class to get "involved" with.

[Lint of Death]

I keep looking for classes I like more than Black Orc, but the other day I killed Nogaz the rank 20 warboss for a quest... and I was rank 15! That felt good. Granted, I don't have any other characters past rank 9, but I get the impression that not all classes could do that.

[Libuke]

Chosen doesn't have the self heal but when I play him with my brother I do not feel squishy at all. The damage he can dish out is actually fairly good from what I have seen even with a one hander, like you my experience is only into the mid teens but in tier one I was often near the top in damage with 1 or no deaths if we had a competent healer or two. The survivability let me out damage the more DPS classes as I was always in the fight.

For aura's they affect all enemies and everyone in your party, and if you want to it is possible to juggle two of them and have them both up pretty much most of the time. Whereas blackorcs from what little I have seen can only have one shout or whatever it is called up and it only affects himself.

It just seems to come down that well similar they have enough differences like many of the other classes that make them better at different things and in different situations.

[Lint of Death]

For aura's they affect all enemies and everyone in your party, and if you want to it is possible to juggle two of them and have them both up pretty much most of the time. Whereas blackorcs from what little I have seen can only have one shout or whatever it is called up and it only affects himself.

It just seems to come down that well similar they have enough differences like many of the other classes that make them better at different things and in different situations.

Black Orcs do have some forms of unselfish defense, though I would agree that they don't reach the great degree of it that Chosen have. They can share the damage of a single nearby ally, stop fighting and dramatically raise the defenses of everyone behind him for several seconds, and they have a morale ability that locks him and a nearby opponent in place. That's up through rank 16 at least.

[digitalErich]

So it looks like they are going to enable server transfers starting next week and they'll be free for a while.

I'm on an Open RvR server...anyone playing Order anywhere else?

[Lint of Death]

So you could switch your main or an alt to a server where you get bonus xp, then switch back when the bonus ends or before the free switching does? :eek: AMAZING!

[digitalErich]

Nope, they will be turning off bonus XP when transfers are free. Once that period is over, I think they'll turn it back on.

[Lint of Death]

Well, it's for the best that one can't take advantage like that. :o

[Libuke]

Black Orcs do have some forms of unselfish defense, though I would agree that they don't reach the great degree of it that Chosen have. They can share the damage of a single nearby ally, stop fighting and dramatically raise the defenses of everyone behind him for several seconds, and they have a morale ability that locks him and a nearby opponent in place. That's up through rank 16 at least.

Those are all skills they gave to every tank class, just like every MDPs gets sever nerve a their first moral ability.

[Lint of Death]

Those are all skills they gave to every tank class, just like every MDPs gets sever nerve a their first moral ability.

Oh. Well, Black Orcs get to have them with silly names.

[Libuke]

Oh. Well, Black Orcs get to have them with silly names.

That is true they put a lot of effort into the ork names and such.

[Savok]

Sorcerer -
Nice damage output, I like the backlash mechanic. If they think this is too powerful, I think a fun nerf would be to make backlash damage AoE, hurting all your allies in 10 yards or something. Same for BW. How cool would it be to be in the melee lines, getting burned down by some BWs, only to have the one in the middle pop and take out all the clothies in the back. That would be great! My main complaint with Sorcerer is the animations. He looks like a fruit-cake, the way he holds that staff with his back arched. Magus is much cooler looking. This combined with the likelihood of a nerf makes me want to find another class to get "involved" with.
[/LIST]
I feel obliged to mention that in the tabletop game, when an Orc or Goblin shaman got too much WAAAAGH! energy their heads could explode. If it got really bad the energy would leap to the nearest units and make their heads explode too.

[digitalErich]

Well, Bright Wizards and Sorcs have a mechanic in the game like that, but without a cool self destruct effect (yet, I'm hoping). And I believe that via mastery tree/talent spec, you can have that explosion hard other players around you.