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Mythic Launches Warhammer Online
Posted by
Soulskill
on Thu Sep 18, 2008 04:20 PM
from the going-to-WAR dept.
from the going-to-WAR dept.
After four days of "head-start" players getting the run of the servers, Warhammer Online launched today to the rest of the public. Mythic took the opportunity to explain why they think World of Warcraft players should give them a chance, highlighting their focus on PvP (or Realm-vs-Realm in this case), and their desire to keep time-intensive activities to a minimum. Creative director Paul Barnett says it's "a bit like Batman." 1.5 million copies of the game have already been sent to retailers, so they're clearly expecting a solid launch. The folks over at Massively have developed an excellent series of guides for players looking to get into the game. They explain and contrast general career choices and look at individual classes as well. They also have a variety of interviews and descriptions of gameplay.
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A Look At the Warhammer Community 169 comments
Gamasutra is running a story examining the development of the Warhammer Online community since its recent launch. The author explains how the gameplay and rules tend to affect social interaction. GamerDNA has a related piece looking at numbers for actual players involved with Warhammer's launch, and how it's affecting populations in other MMOs.
"Getting on the computer to play WAR apparently reminded the WAR fanatics that they had a computer, because overall, their gameplay went up as a whole. They logged in more often to titles like COD4, Oblivion, and even AOC. But the MMO bug bit hard, and logins to LOTRO and EVE more than doubled after the launch of WAR."
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Support for Mac? (Score:3, Insightful)
As soon as the release a Mac version of the game I'll join up! For now, WoW is getting my money
And, no. Bootcamp is NOT an option
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Bootcamp requires:
- buying Windows
- re-partitioning the main hard drive
- losing hard drive space to yet another OS + extra room for things like swap space, etc
- time to do all that
Re:Support for Mac? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Support for Mac? (Score:5, Funny)
PC stands for "Personal Computer", which by definition includes Macs
That's a common myth. In actuality, Macs long ago left the realm of personal computing and evolved into a status symbol and fashion accessory. Most powerbooks sold these days don't even have a processor in them, just an etch-a-sketch, since they just look good with patched jeans, a 5 o'clock shadow and carefully mussed-up hair while letting the owner feel artistic.
Parent
Sorry but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I may not be your "typical" MMORPG gamer, but I actually "like" PvE-style play. I find it tedious and frustrating to play in a PvP realm, where every snot-nosed 12 year old is hiding behind a tree, waiting to gank my level 2 warrior.
Therefore, no need to move off of WoW for WHOnline. There's enough for me there today.
Re:Sorry but.... (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
You can't be ganked like that (Score:4, Informative)
Mythic has extensive experience with PvP and has put controls in to remove the griefing of lower level players as much as possible.
The game is divided up into four "tiers." The level ranges for the tiers are (roughly, I'm not positive) 1 through 11, 12 through 21, 22 through 31, and 32 to 40. If a Level 12 players enters a Tier 1 zone and goes looking for some Level 2 warrior to gank, he won't succeed. The level 12 player will be "chickened." He will literally be transformed into a chicken with 1 hit point and an attack that does 1 damage.
Even on the open PvP servers where you are always "flagged" for RvR (there are no safe PvE zones like on the Core ruleset servers) they have kept a reduced form of the "chickening" mechanic. It's just been extended down a tier, so a level 15 character can go into the tier 1 zone without being chickened, but a level 23 character WILL be turned into a chicken in the tier 1 zone (but not in tier 2).
There is also the "starter" area, which is a subset of the tier 1 area, where anyone from a higher tier will be turned into a chicken regardless, to allow the newest players time to level up to 2 or 3 before going out and fighting.
Parent
Playing Since Tuesday (Score:5, Interesting)
The other thing I particularly enjoyed were the PQs (Public Quests) that anyone can participate in. You come across these areas and there are objectives (kill 100 things, then smash 15 of these, defend this, etc) and anyone can assist in completing the objectives and the tallied points for them are persistant (save for the timed ones which if not completed autofail then reset the encounter). The loot is done in such a way in that if you took part in some way you are rewarded.
Not saying it's perfect, but so far I am enjoying myself.
Re:Playing Since Tuesday (Score:5, Interesting)
I played WoW from initial release until a month ago. The game has fundamentally changed, and not for the better. PVP servers were great back in the day, and there were some really fun evenings spent raiding Orgrimmar and just open warfare in Southshore or Stranglethorn. Then came the instanced PVP and the constant losses on the side of the Alliance. Sure we had instant queues, but we lost pretty much every single match. To be fun, it has to have some semblance of balance. Blizzard failed on this front in every possible way. Arenas included.
The PVE aspect was an endless treadmill of gear rewards that, while imbalanced and a bit of a pain pre-TBC (but still mostly fun), went completely out of control at level 70 when the lucky few people started sporting Sunwell and Hyjal/BT gear. Those of us who didn't raid every night were quickly left in the dust and watching our res timers while trying to farm the 2890478213784290478829 primals needed for that next (less-impressive) tailored item.
Realistically though, it was the decline in the player-base age/maturity that led myself and many of my former guild-mates to throw in the towel finally. Simply, the game became vastly overpopulated with young kids and the world chat channels became their sandbox of inappropriate chat. Once again, Blizzard did nothing to stop the blatant racism, sexism, and rampant spamming.
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I've been playing Open Beta and Headstart in Warhammer a good bit. It's been a blast. I love my Chosen for both PVE and PVP, and the Disciple of Khain I made just for PVP is a fun break from the normal healer role. Seriously.. a dual-sword-wielding healer that smacks the piss out of people just to heal better. If only Warcraft had made priests this awesome.
Warhammer has, so far, been vastly preferable in terms of player age and conversation. It has a similar feel to WoW when it first came out. People just help you out just for the sake of doing it. Public Quests are fantastic and I love that you just walk up and participate without having to "LFG!". Even if you don't get loot from it, if you stick around and do it again (3 minutes to reset!) you get a roll bonus that stacks each time you play, so just by hanging around you are guaranteed to get something from the chest plus your rep bonus loot from the village.
PVP is fairly straightforward and fun. None of the scenarios are terribly difficult and the balance of winning/losing seems to sway back and forth just like it should. I absolutely love that you gain XP while PVPing, as well as cash and loot drops. This has got to be the most awesome thing ever. I've seen some nice drops during my PVP matches.
Warhammer has done PVP right, and I hope the 'end-game' PVE turns out just as good.
Parent
chriskovo (Score:5, Insightful)
More PVP? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:having "war" in the name probably isn't the... (Score:5, Informative)
...best idea if they're trying to dethrone WoW.
Someone should have told them that 20 years ago when they came up with the name!
Parent
Re:PvP/RvR (Score:4, Interesting)
If I hadn't lost my motivation to play games I would probably try it out. I guess sometimes getting older does that to a person..
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You do realize it is not WoW right? PvP in WoW sucked since it was a majorly overlooked portion of the game where WAR is built around the combination of PvE and PvP. You wont have to kill another player if you don't want to. However you can also level by only doing PvP. Warhammer will not just fade away like many other games have in the past.
Re:PvP/RvR (Score:5, Insightful)
My least-favorite part of WoW. I guess I won't be spending my money on Warhammer.
Is that because the PvP aspect in WoW isn't fun or just because you prefer the PvE aspect of MMO's?
I never enjoyed WoW's PvP once they implemented the BG system. Tarren Mill v. Southshore fights were quite fun for awhile.
The only time I had much fun PvPing in the Burning Crusade was following around a well geared friend as a healer.
Don't assume that because PVP is bad in one game that it will be in another.
Parent
Re:PvP/RvR (Score:5, Informative)
To WoW's fault, WoW PvP was as after thought crammed into a PvE game.
To War's defense, War RvR was the fundamental of the game, PvE seems more like it is there to give you a story and 'down time' progression and another option of game play.
War is NOT a WoW PvP server. On the core servers, you can voluntarily flag for PvP at any time. You are only involuntarily flagged if you enter a RvR area. When you enter an RvR area, if you are below rank ?8 you will be bolstered to rank ?8 (for instance, a rank 12 person in the T2 content will get stats like a rank 18 person) to even the playing field. If you enter an RvR area that is a tier of content lower then you (say a rank 15 person, should be in T2, heads to T1 thinking they'll gank some newbies), you are immediately turned into a chicken. You have 0 armor and 1 hit point. All you can do it run around squawking at people until they kill you, or you leave the RvR area.
So you can still level in peace, and it goes pretty fast. I think at 4 hours played I was rank 8. And the faction grinds are a breeze. Gone are the 4 week grind fests of WoW where you had to grind instances and the same 2 camps of mobs for butt feathers or toad nards to get to exalted. For the most part, if you complete 2 public quests in a chapter, you'll be exalted. And since there is great gear to be had doing PQ's, it's totally worth it to run 'em once or twice, and there are usually 1-4 PQs per chapter.
The game still needs some polish. Crafting is a bit of a pita, talismans are so-so, the mail box functionality needs improvement, no loot linking over chat... but its all just polish stuff. RvR and PvE are both solid in performance and entertainment.
-Rick
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:While it looks good and all.... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:While it looks good and all.... (Score:5, Insightful)
See that's the thing, I hate instanced PVP. I don't want to "Hop into a queue"
I want real territory control and player owned areas.
Parent
Re:Warhammer 40k more interesting. (Score:4, Informative)
I would have preferred to see a WH40K setting
Amen to that. Instead of trying to compete with WoW in yet another fantasy setting, why not compete in a sci-fi setting? 40K has a lot of background material, they're constantly updating it with new races and new storylines, and it's just overall a lot more fun as a setting. It feels like they went with the fantasy setting because that's what every other game has done, and that's just dumb.
Parent
Re:Warhammer 40k more interesting. (Score:4, Informative)
Because THQ owns the license to WH40K and not Mythic. =/
Parent
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm as much against slashvertisements as the next guy, but considering how much of a behemoth the WoW machine is anything that has the potential to challenge it is newsworthy. Warhammer might equal WoW. They may even beat them eventually.
Parent
Re:Awesome game (Score:5, Insightful)
WoW has become to AOL of MMORPGs, where any retard can get a 1700 arena score and be shining in purples.
Yeah. Heaven forbid that just *anyone* could get the most out of the game they pay to play. That should be saved for the elite, and everyone else should just be grateful little peons.
Parent
Re:Awesome game (Score:5, Insightful)
Heaven forbid that just *anyone* could get the most out of the game they pay to play
That's just the point, isn't it? Competitive gameplay usually means that someone wins and they get rewarded for it. In WoW, anyone can "win" regardless of how good they are, which can make the game less appealing for competitive people. How appealing would football or basketball be to play or to watch if, at the end, everyone was declared a winner and they hugged it out?
I'm not saying one or the other is better, just that some people will prefer a game that's more accessible to everyone and some people will prefer a more competitive atmosphere.
Parent
Challenge != Punishment (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry but games need to be more challenging. I'm tired of MMO's where you have no penalty of death. It's like....Run around get killed, come back to life and do it all over again.
Hey, I'm all for having more challenge in games. A lot of games, and WoW stands out here, are quite easy in the main (WoW has a few moments, but generally the "challenge" comes from party members who are "challenged").
But I'm bloody sick and tired of people who say "I want more challenge... there should be a penalty for death!" Because you know what? Being penalized for death isn't challenge, it's punishment. MMOs are already "punishing" enough as timesinks, they do not need additional punishment for what is supposed to be FUN!
And the punishment doesn't make the game harder, it just makes people who don't succeed the first time (regardless of how easy or hard the game is) realize how retarded taking punishment from a game is and quit. I guess maybe that's the point, drive away the noobs, but it's nothing to do with whether the game is actually hard or not. You could have an extremely hard game with no penalty for death, and hey, it'd be hard! Using punishment as a substitute for challenge just means you can't figure out a real way to make the game hard without also making it cheap.
And cheapness is the biggest reason I'm against punishment in games, because most of them are cheap. UO had a huge penalty for death -- you lost all the gear on you. And if you were a mage/archer and that's the skill that got nerfed into oblivion that patch while the other got buffed to ridiculous levels, then you'd get whacked in two seconds. Or you would get lagged entering a dungeon so you're frozen in place while the gankers on the inside stabbed you to death and took your stuff. How is that "challenge"? Diablo II had a big penalty for death in Nightmare and Hell, in the form of perhaps hours worth of experience lost if you died. It also had retardedly imbalanced mini-bosses who could kill you in one shot before you realized they were there. How is having to spend those extra hours regaining your gear or regaining the exp "challenging", as opposed to "annoying and cheap"?
I don't get what the big deal of "Run around get killed, come back to life and do it all over again" is. If you make the game actually challenging instead of cheaply punishing, and it takes someone 147 deaths before they figure out what they were doing wrong and beat the encounter, why is the extra 10 hours it took them not punishment enough?
Parent