Since a lot of my friends are giving Warhammer Online’s “come back and play for 14 days free” offer a try, I decided that I would as well. Why would I want to try it again?
a) All I ever see from the fans of WAR are statements about how the game has changed so much. I wanted to see for myself.
b) Mythic claims changes to the game and has proposed changes to RvR which are on the way.
c) It’s been two years. They’ve had two years to improve the game.
After playing tonight in the lower brackets, it didn’t feel much different at all. In fact, in two years it feels like they’ve taken away from the game more than they’ve added. Am I wrong or did they take out several quests from the newbie zone and streamlined it? Aside form 1 shotting everything on my Bright Wizard, I did maybe one quest with a followup from that first town when I remember at least 4-5.  I queued for a scenario too and it was exactly like it was two years ago: One side out-levels and out-heals the other and it’s a 400-20 victory.  I didn’t ‘feel’ 2 years of development.
Not very relevent to the gameplay itself, but I do want to note that that game looks like it has aged and not gracefully. Anyone else notice that?
I didn’t see any different in the other tiers either. I got into some T4 RvR and it felt exactly the same.  Perhaps I expected a miracle to have have happened in the two years. Maybe there are some subtle differences that are more apparent and impactful to the player who is an actual subscriber and playing the game actively. For someone who played at launch and a few months after, this feels like the exact same game.  Where are the two years of development hiding?
PS: Why can’t I move my Destruction characters to Badlands? It’s not on the drop-down.
Biggest thing for me was the improved performance. Yes they did redo the starter zone. I cant say how much was removed as I never did much of the PvE stuff at all, I usually just hopped straight into the RvR lakes and scenarios. I did take some time to go through the PvE quests this time though, I thought they flowed fairly well and led me nicely to the first warcamp for tier 1.
Your scenario example…yeah that still happens some times, I think its more due to organization than levels, Ive played with 3 friends and together we could destroy an unorganized full group in a scenario.
Other changes I noticed were the change to the keeps themselves. They added a new ramp to get to the keep lord, so now you dont all pile up on that silly little one in the center like you used to.
Did you get a chance to see the “against all odds buff”? Its a nice motivator to get out and PvP even when it is 2:1 odds against you.
I cant speak on the dated graphics, I always liked the way WAR looked and I think it does a good job staying true to the IP as far as looks go.
All that said, Im mainly looking to see what the 1.4 patch is going to be like, it could go either way. There is a really good article on massively that talks about why its a good change, but how the players can @%#$ it all up if they dont adapt. http://www.massively.com/2010/10/09/waging-war-the-new-rvr-are-we-there-yet/
It’s too bad these 14 days won’t be during the patch that changes things. That would have been a much better way to say “hey look what really changed, come try it”.
Feels like a detrimental mistake to me.
You can use the time to get on the test realm to check out the new changes. According to Massively there is one more focused test scheduled for Tuesday Oct. 12 at 8pm EDT. I’m gonna be stuck at work but it might be worth getting some people together for.
I went back a couple months ago for a few days when I found out a friend at work was playing it. They have VERY much streamlined the beginning zones (down to 2 zones instead of 4 I think it was) and dumbed down the starting quests etc. The graphics did seem a little downgraded to me but I chalked that up at first to using a different PC from the last time I played. I noticed that almost all of the activity was on 2 servers and one of the, Badlands I think, was really laggy. That may have been fixed by now I dunno. I too would like to see whats up after the big patch but unless you guys give it rave reviews and get back to playing I probably wont myself. Would be fun to play with Keen as opposed to chasing his annoying goblin arse all over the RvR lake.
Just so you won’t get attacked over ‘not really having played the game’: it’s supposed to be a _5_00-40 victory
There’s a “new” grapichs-option called “Oh shiny” it wasn’t there at lauch at all…
a High-level character can now “apprentice” a lowlevel player so that the lowbie “becomes” the same level as the “Master”
Against All Odds feature gives the outnumbered realm up to 400% exp and rp bonus in the rvr-lakes.
oh and about Badlands…it has serious overpopulation issues so I guess they turned of transfer to that server.
I’ve too jumped on the reenlistment and been testing the game, and here’s my thoughts on your comments:
The game looks dated? Wut? It looks better than ever especially if you use the “Ohh shiny” gfx option. Armorsets had a major overhaul adding more detail and the lightning effects gave the already awesome environment a even better look. Dunno I love the art style and the gfx are decent enough. (IC looks bland and always has, make a Order char and head to Altdorf, it looks amazing imo and I’ve stopped several times just to look at the amount of detail to things like buildings that most people just run past every day)
You are right, there has been little to no changes done to scenarios (bar class changes/balance and additional SCs being added), the changes have been made mainly to oRvR and questing. The questing part I could not care less for, yes they have some awesome stories and they have streamlined and ruined lots of the exploration that the game had at launch but what we got in return is a Tier 1 that flourishes with activity making RvR, what the game is really about, a lot more active and fun.
Get your ass on the PTS and try the new zone lock system, thats where the green grass is which you’ve been hearing about. The current campaign (on live) have had changes like adding a secondary ramp to keeps to make defending harder etc, but it’s nothing compared to the changes you’ll see on PTS. The PTS is what gets me excited about the games future, but the current zergfest rolling through T4.
Another change that has impacted SCs somewhat is the change to combat overall, people should be harder to kill nowadays making combat take longer and tactics more important. That said if you’re in poor gear (anything below rr55 is utter shit now) you WILL bite the dust quite fast and hard, especially if not in a group where you are guarded and teamplay is good.
Sadly the game is now even worse than WoW when it comes to casual play, you need good gear which means a long boring grind to get the gear and even more the renown rank to actually equip the gear.
It requires a group with good coordination so being a random casual player is a frustrating endeavor where you’ll be spending a lot of time waiting for a rez.
They are planning on changing that with the upcoming RvR pack or patch 1.4 or whatnot, rrank 80 should be easier and faster to get to making you competitive much faster and after that rrank 80-100 should give you a edge that is lesser than it is today.
I dunno, I still keep on hoping for this game to get to a playable state, but even today its a long boring RR grind and once you’re there it’s still a bombfest where AoE trumps choosing the right target to focus dps, which imo is retardedly boring and the main reason I quit the game in the first place.
So to end my wall of text, I have some reasons to not like and play WAR atm, but none of those you mention are valid to me. My hope is in 1.4 and the RvR pack hopefully breaking up the zerg and giving me small group combat, but whether that happens only time can tell.
Ohh and yes, the reason you cant transfer to Badlands is probably because it’s not on the list of target servers. Had a similar issue when I wanted to transfer my Destr chars away from Karak Norn so I could play Order with some old friends, I was not allowed to because Karak Norn is a target server and not a source, so I could transfer chars there but not from.
Meh, the terrible combat and animation sync makes WAR virtually unplayable for me, and it always will. If they fixed it they’d have a great game but they still persist in thinking that it’s something OTHER than the the combat that’s causing the problem.
I’ve heard some others complaining about that but I’ve never experienced such problems myself, might be a issue on your end or a latency issue?
I think a better reason to return would be to try out the new ORvR changes on the test server … or wait until it all goes live. In fairness, it has been two years, but the changes coming to ORvR are pretty ambitious. This return and subsequent post seems a little untimely and awkward.
I’ve been playing WAR again for the past 3 months. I played on Beta and a couple months after release and I can tell you the game has changed quite a LOT since then.
You won’t notice the changes if you only do a few Scenarios and Quests. Their focus has been totally in changing the RvR mechanics and it has improved tremendously in my opinion.
The main improvement I think is that doing RvR is rewarding now. You are not only getting lots of Xp and Renown, but you get Crests at a much faster rate, so you can keep up with good gear and not only depend on chest rolls that happen when you get or defend a keep.
Another thing that changed the RvR campaign positively was the introduction of Against All Odds (AAO) buff. If a realm has less players in a lake, they can get up to 400% bonus in XP, RR and Influence for that pairing. In the past, whenever there was a much larger zerg in a lake, the other realm would just let them cap everything and wait for a city siege, because there was no way they could do anything to stop that and it was not rewarding in any way. Now, with AAO, smaller groups are using guerrilla tactics to slow the zerg advancement and getting TONS of renown in the process. Now, on Badlands at least, flipping zones can take hours, because people will fight for the last Battlefield Objective. No more zerging a lake around and taking undefended BOs and Keeps and waiting for a flip.
Also, the city siege mechanic has changed quite a lot, and I think it is a lot more dynamic and fun. No more PVE to be made inside a city Siege and I think that’s great.
So the changes may not look apparent for someone that just came back, but believe me, they are there and have changed the flow of the RvR campaign and it feels a lot more fun imo. Also, I believe the game is pretty well balanced as far as classes go. I can’t think of any Order class that is not good at this point and don’t have a roll to fit. Remember that this is a team based game!
The “problems” with Scenarios that you mentioned… Well, how come me and my pug friends will beat an organized premade?! There are many premades out there and if you want to have more success doing SCs, get into a guild that has people interested in doing that or just go to Region chat and try to assemble a team with at least 1 Tank, 2 Healers and 3 DPS classes and assisting each other. It makes a world of difference!
I’m enjoying myself quite a lot in WAR this time around. I believe also that is the case because I’m in a really cool guild that do events pretty much every night, so I’m never alone when fighting Destro. I’m on Badlands and the reason you can’t transfer your characters to this server it’s because it is so overpopulated that they blocked transfer there. I wouldn’t play in any other server though…
Forgot to add. One thing I hate about WAR though, is that it is still very “buggy”. You can get stuck at several things, mob path finding is ridiculous and the client is still a bit unstable. It doesn’t feel as polished as some other MMOs out there and I think I pretty much blame this on their Engine of choice, Gamebryo.
@Kill
I think the instability of the client is prolly a little more on your end, to be honest. I can agree that the mob pathfinding can be pretty annoying sometimes, but that’s rare for me as well. I can honestly say that the product on release.. and the product now… are almost not the same game. The gamebreaking bugs that existed back then are almost non-existant now. Which is what stopped me from continuing in the first place.
Not to mention the changes to RvR. Or the changes still to come.
If you combine my and KillTrash’s tips you’ll end up rerolling Order chars on Badlands and having tons of fun xD
I just rerolled Order on Norn (got another account for it) to play with my friends as well as being on the underdog side. Not for the AAO buff but because I like a challenge and the organized Order guilds on Norn are doing well fending off the Destro zerg, and I much prefer being outnumbered winning by skill than winning by sheer mass.
But 1.4 will determine whether or not I continue with WAR, cos what I REALLY want is the smallscale RvR as mentioned.
@keen
did you say why cant you move your destro toons to badlands? lolol, they are talking about breaking the server up due to over population, thats why you cant.
also i noticed you were talking about quests….in tier 1? LOL, ITS A PVP GAME. They have been working on the RVR experience this is not for game PVE PLAYERS.
ive been subbed to WAR since feb, i have 76WE a 46Zealot and a 40Sorc thats like RR 20 or something cus i powered leveled it during double xp weekend a few weeks ago lol. I never been more addicted to a game before and I’ve played WoW since launch. The PvP in this game is unmatched, at least, by any other MMO out right now.
AAO is amazing (against all odds)
Scenario Weapons are a great way to help gear up through PvP only, before that it was pretty much PvE based for weps.
Scenario Weekends are fun.
You are comming in at the wrong time btw, come back in a few months when the RvR pack is out. At least read up on the notes about it.
Every game (bar WoW) seems to have a free trial or even “Endless Trial” going now and along with Conan (I can’t get Funcom to actually send me my password) I’ve also wanted to get back on WAR to see how it’s changed.
But even after installing the whole game it seemed to want to download 11 Gig and install it again so that experiment failed too 🙁
Will try again sometime soon as I really want to see the performance updates.
I knew when posting this that I would get a lot of heated feedback from WAR fans defending their game. That’s what I want. However, I want it in a form other than “You’re wrong Keen!”. I’d like constructive feedback.
Can you give me some actual feedback on where I can go in the game to see this new stuff; where I can go to see the two years of changes?
I didn’t know about the test server being playable with the 14 days of free play time. I’ll check it out — after all, I really am here to see how the game has improved.
The few comments here giving actual feedback tell me to see the “against all odds” buff. I’ll have to check that out as well.
As for the graphics, even the “shiny” (aka post processing) stuff doesn’t do it for me. Something about the game looks old to me. I also noticed a severe lack of AA which doesn’t help at all. I seem to recall a similar problem with the game a year+ ago and I forced it on with my card.
@Ludo: I’m not sure how it’s untimely or awkward on my part. Mythic gave out a 14 day free-return-trial and the last day to accept is tomorrow. I HAD TO return now.
@JT: It’s not a PvP game. It’s a hybrid game at best.
So the final verdict then from you guys is:
– Try the Test server because that’s where I’ll find the meaningful changes.
– There’s a buff that attempts to even the odds in ORvR.
– The game has become even more gear intensive.
Anything else?
I dunno how I could be more constructive in my post bar using less words saying the same, also I did not claim you wrong in any way, rather I said that the reasons you had to not like it where ones I don’t feel valid for me (IE I don’t agree).
The big changes are in oRvR lakes, if you want to experience them then that’s where you’ll have to go. Looking for major PvE changes will do you no good as even Mythic has stated that RvR is their main focus and PvE takes the backseat, always.
But again, what you’ll find on live servers today is still the same zerg you saw some year(s) ago, nothing much changed there. And you can expect to hit the dirt fairly often considering your gearlevel (in T4), rusty skills and lack of guild group with practiced coordination.
Wasn’t talking to you Prox. 😉
– Try the Test server because that’s where I’ll find the meaningful changes.
* Yes, for sure!
– There’s a buff that attempts to even the odds in ORvR.
* No, not really. It doesn’t give you anything to even the odds in terms of character power etc. The only thing it does is boost the XP and Renown you get while being outnumbered, thus giving you an incentive to actually head out in the lake and harass the zerg to reap the rewards and thus gear/rank up more quickly.
– The game has become even more gear intensive.
* Well dunno if it has become more, it’s just that more people are now RR80 and wearing Tyrant etc, thus outgearing the newcomers in T4 quite heavily.
I need to add though that they have made changes to loot distribution making it a LOT easier to actually GET the good RvR gear. If you have shit rolls on all keeps you’ll at least get some emblems which you can trade for gear, and they’ve also recently buffed the amount of emblems you get so getting the RR55 gear (Conqueror iirc) is not too bad, fact is with a guild you’ll prob have the set before you can wear it cos the renown rank grind is the hard part.
(ofc less of a grind with AAO :P)
<
Why don’t you guys try UO again? Graphics might be old but the gameplay is the best. There is a new server going up this week that will probably have a very big population. Custom map and old school play. uorevelation.com
The reason I disagreed with you, honestly, is because from your blog.. it felt like you took a very narrow-minded approach to actually seeing the game again. You barely touched the game and made vast judgements on it. I personally don’t see the problem with streamlining questing to make it easier and faster. The game has never been about it’s leveling. It’s always been about two warring factions gnawing at each other any chance they got.
Also, I don’t see anything wrong with the graphics, personally. They’re no older looking than any real MMORPG released in a while. I think what you’re having problems with is less the graphics, and more the atmosphere they provide. Almost everything in the game looks like a wartorn battlefield. Which is how it was meant to look. Which can give a feeling of emptiness. That’s the point, though. You’re meant to feel like you’re on the battlefield, and let’s face it. No battlefield is ever pretty.
Most of the changes you’re going to be looking for can only be seen in RvR. Be it in the lakes or in the new zone, Land of The Dead. Even still, a lot of those changes are bug fixes. Which was what made RvR such a bad experience in the beginning stages of the game. Keep doors work properly. The lag is a lot better. I have a pretty low end computer by current standards and I run it without much problem. Crashes caused by RvR is gone. I’ve yet to crash out of any heavy RvR fight. Especially in a Keep, where it happened most before.
The game isn’t really too gear intensive, either. You can run 6 man dungeons right off the boat at 40 that will get you gear equivalent to some of the higher tier RR sets. It just requires some time. What game doesn’t, though? Also, the RR grind isn’t really that bad until about 50+. When I hit 40, I got almost 20 ranks over the course of three days.
You’d also need to do a City Siege. They’re much better than they were before. Don’t expect much as a fresh 40, though. You’ll be helpful, but you’ll mostly be fodder. It’s really no different from any other game with PvP released in the last 5 years. Games aren’t about running around for hours looking at environments. Or spending weeks maxing out a collection of skills that make you exactly like everyone else.
Skill grinds have been replaced with gear grinds. In reality, it’s not much different. Take UO for instance. Sure, you could play how you wanted.. but.. you really had to play a certain way or you were always behind. You were either a crafter or a caster. Especially in old UO where casting was king. Now, instead, you have a collection of classes and you get gear for them. Which, in reality, is a far less tedious experience than sitting on the same tree.. or same mob for days on end to farm one.. maybe two skills.
Graphics wise, here is what I do. Im a sucker for good AA, cant stand when a game doesnt have it and I cant force it on(looking at you Vanguard). I use an ATI card right now. I force on AA, but the big differance for me is the mipmap quality. I turn it all the way up for WAR.
Here is an example…On my system it makes everything much more clearly defined. Take the Warrior priest, there is a low tier armor piece that has some words written across the chest. Without the mipmap setting up, I cant read them for anything, they are just blurry. Now turn it up and its clear as day.
WAR is one of those games that to make it look its best you need to not only adjust the in game settings but also mess around with your graphics card settings as well.
No, you shouldnt have to do this and I think its a big fail from the developers but it is what it is so to speak.
Forcing settings on the graphics card does indeed make it look better. Still looks a bit aged, but I’ve been playing alphas/betas of games coming out with really amazing graphical qualities.
The biggest issue is/was AA and a lack of clarity.
“You are comming in at the wrong time btw, come back in a few months when the RvR pack is out. At least read up on the notes about it.”
Well, I’m sold! Where do I sign up /rolleyes/
WAR’s a PvP game. It just is. The PvE is there to provide stuff so you can do better in PvP afterwards. Crafting boils down to craft stuff for PvP: mainly potions, or talismans for your gear. So don’t expect “amazing questing” or “awesome instances”. Most of the stuff is there as a complement, so you can rest from PvP for a while. Btw check Land of the Dead, probably you haven’t seen that if you only played at release. It’s mainly PvE with some decent encounters. But guess what, in there you got the best gear for PvP that it was possible to get for lots of classes (Tyrant). And it’s still pretty good PvP gear. So, yes, PvP.
Graphic-wise, I think it does a good job at depicting the lore from the tabletop game. It does lack AA and shiny stuff but with a decent GPU you can force it yourself, so no biggie. Although it looks a bit less beautiful than it used to be, mainly for performance sake. And it now performs pretty good. It’s only when more than 100-150 people converge in the same place that the engine starts to stagger a bit. And, well, that’s 150 people bashing each other in the open! Real guys, not mobs. It’s pretty fun.
The main problem WAR has, is that it’s not a friendly game. You’re going to die. And not only die, you’re going to get utterly annihilated by organised groups of proficient people. You’re going to get farmed to oblivion in RvR or scs by premades. And the only choice is to organise yourself too, and get better at killing people. Then you’ll either be the one farming weaker people, or fighing 1 on 1 with other competitive groups and having fun. That’s all there is to WAR, and I love it.
So… how do I play on the test server again?
@Preguiceiro: The direction of WAR’s development pre-release and for the following 6 months after showed that it was clearly meant to be a hybrid of RvR and PvE. It failed miserably at both, and Mythic knows it (as do any that followed the game closely).
It appears that Mythic’s attention has turned toward making WAR a game about RvR (or PvP, it seems like semantics but there’s a difference). They’re playing catch-up and hopefully make some headway with their RvR patch. Let me clarify. At this point there is nothing they can do to change the overall SCOPE of the game. It’s like they devoted half to PvE and half to PvP, and now they’re just trying to make the PvP half they have left as best as it can be. They’re even streamlining the PvE half to shift focus to the PvP half.
Had it always been about RvR from the beginning then the “RvR Lake” concept would have been universal throughout the game. WAR is essentially the outcome of a failed attempt to copy DAOC’s SUCCESSFUL hybrid RvR/PvE model yet make it more accessible/simplified. The result was removing the soul of the game, but that subject is too deep to hash out in a comment.
No third faction. My biggest gripe of all time with WAR.
Three factions and a more contiguous world with universal RvR are mine.
@Keen: Open the folder where WAR is installed and run testpatch.exe, that will download the PTS patch and let u play, whenever u wanna play PTS just use the same launcher.
I checked out WAR a few months ago and didn’t feel that much had changed. Like you (justified or not) I was kinda expecting some amazing changes and was a bit disappointed to see it hadn’t evolved much. Compared to say the progress of EQ2 2 years after launch and it’s not particuarly exciting.
To me WAR feels like a defeated game, originally pumped full of money and now utterly deflated like someone’s just popped it with a pin.
@We Fly Spitfires: Your words sum it up for me as well. EQ2 is a great example.
@Proximo: Thanks!
The problem is you have this overblown idea of what WAR should be, and that it should basically be DAoC 2. When it’s not. It’s a completely different game, period. If you keep looking for a game to give you the same feeling of a game that pioneered it’s genre you’re always going to be disappointed. All you do is compare. When you should be looking at Warhammer for what it is. I don’t care if it’s not like DAoC. I don’t care if it doesn’t have the PvE depth of WoW. I DO care that it’s a good game for it’s intended purpose. Which has ALWAYS been RvR. NEVER has it been about PvE.
Even the PvE contributes to.. you guessed it.. the RvR. “Oh my god. EQ 2 did this and it did that!” So? What did WAR do? It did Public Quests (Which was an incredible innovation that almost every game being developed now is adopting). It did ORvR on much larger scales and drive than any game in a few years. Why is that not enough? Why does it have to be like 7 games that came before it? I’ve said this in another Blog discussion you posted. If you keep looking behind you, you’re never going to be able to move forward.
I’m prepared to agree that WAR has not seen the development and improvement that I’d want to see, by far not.
But, if you go back to a game having too high expectations chances are high that you’ll be disappointed and won’t stick around. This is pretty much common sense.
And there’s also something else that ruins many peoples gaming experiences, and that’s going into it with the expectation that it sucks. Sometimes, very very rarely you’ll be positively surprised, but more often than not you’ll just be looking for reasons to not like the game and go back to playing whatever it was you where playing before. And you will find reasons, reasons that you might have been able to live with (or maybe even not notice) if you actually tried to enjoy the game instead of shredding it to pieces.
I’m not saying this is what happened to y’all and calling you out on it, but I’ve come to realize that I’ve done this several times myself, even with WoW. I started enjoying WoW bout 5 months ago and it was only because I started to look at what I enjoy instead of what i hate about the game.
@Shadrah: I disagree about looking back and being unable to move forward. That adage does not apply when the past seven years have been moving backwards and/or lateral.
You want to know why the industry hasn’t gone anywhere productive? It has no foundation. Why? Because of bogus statements about looking forward all the time with a blind eye to what works.
Never, ever, forget history.
@Proximo: I’m on the test server right now and there are four Destruction that I’ve been able to find in T3 and T4 combined. We grouped up and went looking for a fight and couldn’t find one.
Taking objectives felt similar. It all felt similar. Maybe there needs to be a lot more people for the changes to be revealed? So far, not seeing a single difference.
Shadrah posted while I was typing, just gotta say I agree with you and it’s quite in line with what I was saying.
Going into a game looking for something else is something I’ve done before. At first I didn’t like Aion because it was not WoW, but then I stopped and did as with WoW in my post above, I took a different approach and I started to not only like but REALLY enjoy the game (until I hit the grinding phase that is).
@Keen: Yer it’s pretty dead at times since people play their mains on Live, just make sure you’re there tomorrow on the event that Mythic puts up, they’ll hand out Vent details and eavesdrop on y’all while u play ^^
And no difference? You haven’t noticed that there’s no NPCs at the BOs? That’s one change that you’ll find reflected in the Keeps, no guards and Keep Lord, hence less PvE.
Also if you die you spawn inside your keep instead of the WC.
You cap a BO, it will spawn a resource carrier after 3 (ish) mins, click it to send resources to your WC. The carrier can be killed by the opposing faction and if they do they can pick up the resources to steal them (25% of them atm).
BO’s further away from your WC yields more resources.
Resources boost your keep rank.
Rank 1 more armor for the carrier.
Rank 2 the carrier is mounted.
Rank 3 you get some siege equipment, cannons etc and you can use a flying mount in your keep to assault the enemy keep from the air (or drop on top of the walls).
Rank 4 NOW you get the ram and can start the siege, only the ram can damage the doors (and skaven brawler once thats out)
Rank 5 some more flying mounts etc
I’m sure I’ve missed one or two things or maybe even missed on what rank gives what.
Once you’ve succesfully entered both doors and into the keep you need to stay alive at the room where the Keep Lord was before for 30 sec to cap the keep, if you do then you lock the zone.
It’s not perfect, it’s still alpha, but it’s a very good change if Mythic pulls it off correctly imo.
Ohh forgot, all pads are gone, you know the ram pad the siege pads. Cannons etc can be placed freely wherever you can mount and ram is not bought anymore, you pick it up at your keep and run it over to their keep and put it at the door.
Same goes for cannons etc btw, no more buying them.
The flying mounts gives melee something to do during sieges, you can fly and bomb the people on the walls, putting a strategic bomb on top of the oil will keep people from pouring it over your ram people. Or they can drop down and kill people in the face, like carrie puts it ^^
@Keen … you hit it on the head … they have been remaking the game these past two year putting an emphasis on RvR and PvP. It has been a lot of little things that have led to Patch 1.4 which will go live in Decemeber.
Mythic’s promotions group seems to have put the cart before the horse on this one. 1.4 and three RvR Packs (expansion-like new content) will be coming near the end of the year and I would’ve waited till then to draw old and new players in.
That shift has been a series of steady improvements, class balancing, and a whole new end game (amongst a bunch of other stuff). The Mark Jacobs’ regime was ousted as their promises of killing WoW proved false and the big money given to build such a game appeared to have been frivolously wasted somewhere as the game had its issues at launch.
The past two years have truly been a mulligan. Personally I think you should come back in January as the metamorphosis will be complete.
Unless it’s Aion or Guild Wars 2 … graphics are mediocre in most MMOs, aren’t they? Even some of the Cataclysm screenshots I’ve seen don’t look so cutting edge.
@Proximo: Uhhh.. there were plenty of NPC’s at the BO I was at in Eataine. They spawned too quick for us to take them out and cap it.
The resource thing sounds cool. That’s a change I can’t possibly experience to its fullest without a live and thriving RvR server though. Sounds neat though.
As for the siege weapons, all I have to say is “finally”. Flying mount sounds great. I’ll give that an A+ for cool factor.
As for not being able to look at WAR for what it is vs. DAOC, that’s something I’ll never be able to overcome. It’s like having authentic mexican food then going to Taco Bell. Does Taco Bell taste good? Yeah it can be okay but it’s not the real thing. I can lie. I can lie and say it’s delicious and try not to gauge it against what I know is better… but that’s like pretending something doesn’t exist just for the sake of fooling yourself. I bet some people like Taco Bell better than anything else, and to them I say: “How lucky you are to have exactly what you want. They’re even open late!”
Am I being fair? Probably not. Can’t help the way I feel though.
I guess its chaos/empire T3 only then, try heading to High Pass and check there, should be no NPCs. Also the flying sounds a bit cooler than they are, they follow a static route so u cant control them, but it’s far better than what we had before!
I agree that the game was meant to be a somewhat hybrid PvP/PvE invention at the start. But it was mostly due to hype and wrong assumptions of “we’re going to beat WoW”. Which is a sad mentality for a developer to have.
Hence the shift towards RvR. They wasted lots and lots of time in PvE in my opinion, not because PvE is not of my liking, but because there’s a huge amount of it embodied in the same old WoW quest system. “Epic storyline with very nice lore! Now go and kill 10 orcs”. Public Quests are better, but they’re just some repetitive event that gets old fast.
I stand by what I said earlier: think of the game as a RvR experience and organise yourself with good players, and you can have a very good time. PvE or crafting, while there, have always assumed a secondary role, either because it was intended like that or because it was weakly implemented.
I don’t understand where people got the idea that Mythic was out to beat WoW. I was a WAR fanboi for a year and a half prior to launch, watched every video released prior to launch and read every piece of interview and article they wrote about it, and I’ve NEVER heard them utter something even remotely similar to that!
Nor did I ever hear about the mentality to beat WoW. It’s the mentality to be DAOC 2.0 that I picked up and now begrudge them over.
@Keen: You learn from your past and adapt. Adapt =/= copy. That’s the problem all gamers have these days. They want everything to be to their specifications, right down to the last detail. When it’s not, they bash the game and move on to their next disappointment. Instead, you should be playing a game for what it offers. That’s the ONLY way you will EVER be able to give a game a real chance. Hell, that’s the only way you’ll EVER be able to judge a game objectively.
WAR is NOT DAoC 2, despite how much people may want it to be. It never will be. You knew this going in. Hell, you knew it going in for the second time. Yet, you still tried it. Why? Was it because you thought it would magically be that? Or because you actually wanted to give the game a chance? Because if you REALLY wanted to give the game a chance, you would stop comparing it. I don’t mind that you don’t like it. However, I do mind when the reasons given are because you want it to be something it’s quite obviously not.
Mythic are the ones who pushed DAOC 2.0. They changed the game mid-development to try and pursue that goal.
You can’t adapt by starting from scratch, either. Forgetting what worked just to try and be new doesn’t work.
The engine still plays like you’re stuck in molasses. That’s something they cannot fix without an entire back end re-write, as the netcode is atrocious.
@Keen: No, Mythic pushed a game with a DAoC feel. That’s all they pushed from what I remember. I think it has just what they said it was. An RvR driven game where everything you do for your realm goes towards your realm’s victory. DAoC was still just an RvR game. All of the realm pride, so forth and so on wasn’t something coded into the game. That was what the community turned it into.
@Dark: That could be problems on your end. The game runs smoothly for me. I’ve not experience poor performance in the two months since I’ve been back.
@proximo
I got more out of your description of the upcoming RvR changes then even the Massively articles. Didn’t realize the couriers were integral to keep taking, just thought they offered a buff.
@coppertopper: Happy to hear that you found some of my endless ramblings useful 😀
Keen, what mmo besides WOW would you give 14.95 per month to right now?
Come on keen． You’re comparing something that exists (WAR)to something perfect that is in your imagination (DAOC2), of course WAR is going to lose out.
Your analogy is flawed, because you’re comparing to existing items that already have an established bias. Daoc2 is a perfect fantasy.
*to = two, could murder for an edit feature.
also, noted this over at Penny Arcade
http://www.joystiq.com/2010/10/07/lord-of-the-rings-online-doubles-revenue-since-going-free-to-pla/
@Jay p: The only MMO currently doing enough to earn a $14.99 subscription is WoW. A lot has to do with consistency. At one time or another I have given my $14.99 to MMO’s that deserved it, some currently still running but at this time do not deserve my patronage.
@St. Pierre: I never said it was fair. I have absolutely no qualms owning up to the fact that I am comparing WAR to DAOC and DAOC2.0, a game that does not exist. I judge it based upon the potential it had and the potential it has even now as it has been released for two years.
Someone at EA Mythic/Bioware Mythic/Whatever they call themselves now realized something was wrong. Dozens were fired. Fixes are in the pipes. I judge them based upon their own realization that there is a problem, and I judge their actions to solve that problem. I know how I would fix WAR, and I’ll be dumbfounded if they don’t.
As for LotRO, of course. It’s F2P. What do you expect? I’m glad revenue is not an indication of quality.
So the combat and animation sync still hasnt been fixed? Looks like you saved me some time and harddrive space here. That is the one thing that drove me away from the game, until games come with the same amount of polish as WoW no amount of ohh shinys will force me to play them.
Looks like I’ll wait on Rift a little longer.
I had one event yesterday when on my Engi and I was running away from Destr, had a Mara and a BG on my tail and to me it looked like they where a good 30 meter behind me, but their melee abilities where still hitting me ><
It was this one time only though so I reckon it was due to lag or sumfin, but I don't see this happening in WoW ever so it's a poor excuse anyways.
If number of comments to a posting is any indication of popularity, War seems to be 2nd in popularity, or interest, to wow. 66 posts in little more than a day.
33 of them is me rambling over several posts cos I never get my head fully out of my ass before submitting though…