Warhammer Online Open Beta To Begin September 7th 144
Mythic Entertainment has announced that the open beta for the long anticipated Warhammer Online will begin on September 7th, eleven days before the finished game goes live on September 18th. We've previously discussed WAR's delays and the content cuts involved in reaching this deadline. In the meantime, Mythic's Road to WAR website (which we talked about earlier this month) is still available. The press release notes, "Players can get into the North American open beta by pre-ordering Warhammer Online from select retail partners."
The NDA is lifted, as well (Score:5, Informative)
I'm an elder beta tester, and here is my review:
The poor graphics gave me a really bad first impression, but the graphics are honestly better than WoW (not saying much), and we all know that graphics aren't everything, gameplay is king.
So, I decided to give it another shot with the 3.2 patch and jump into RvR.
So far I'm having a blast. You can level and XP in this game through either PvP or questing; you don't have to quest or grind at all. For me this is a major plus because I love levelling through PvP.
I wanted to talk for a second about some of the unique mechanics I noticed, which you might have already heard about before. The archmage I'm playing has a mechanic known as high magic, which the shaman also has, but it's called Waagh!. Basically, how it works is like this: If you cast damage spells, your healing counter goes up from 1 to 5, by a point for each damage spell you cast. If you cast healing spells, your damage counter goes up from 1 to 5, by a point for each healing spell you cast. This counter is like a charge that can be saved, but if you stop casting spells for 10 or 15 seconds you lose all the charges you have. If you cast a bunch of damage spells and build your counter up to 5, your next healing spell that normally would take 3 seconds to cast will be instant, and will heal for more. Likewise, if you build your healing counter up to 5, your next damage spell will hit harder. This unique dynamic encourages people to not just be healbots, but to be in the fray of battle, dishing out damage, and tossing out heals constantly. Every class has a similar unique mechanic, which will be refreshing for those of you used to filling a simple role (like healbot).
The RvR minigames are really well done and I jumped right into a queue with a level 3 archmage (healer, DoT archetype) and was able to contribute to battle right away. Think of instanced battlegrounds, but more fun because there are events that happen during the battle. For example, the RvR I was playing had 2 control points. If Empire or Chaos captured both of those points and held them for 10 seconds, a fireball would shoot out of the points, engulfing everything within about 100 feet and insta-killing everyone that was in it's path. It made things very dynamic because you could capture both points, and everyone would have to run out, resetting the points and allowing them to be captured again by you or the opposing team.
There are also keeps to capture in open RvR (world PvP), and with siege weapons such as catapults, burning oil, doors to break down, etc, it can be very epic. I've been in battles with over a hundred people on each side and the performance is pretty amazing considering how many people are participating.
Not only do you get XP for fighting in RvR, you also get RP, which are like PvP XP. You have two different levels, your Rank which is like your PvE level, and your Renown Rank, which is like your PvP level. When you get to certain Renown Ranks, you get access to buy
WARDB (Score:2, Informative)
This coming weekend is Preview Weekend. I gather the idea is to stress-test the servers, not actually start the beta early.
Re:The capital cities have been removed (Score:5, Informative)
When you play the game and realize that those cities are not just static cities like WoW, with NPCs that stand there and don't do anything, you'll understand why.
Each one of those cities is a full raid type environment designed for end-game players to capture, defeat several bosses within the city, and finally defeat the king of the city himself.
What happens is this: If one side, order or destruction, controls the keeps in all 3 pairings (dwarves v. greenskins, empire vs. chaos, high elves vs. dark elves), they have the ability to challenge the opposing side's capital city. This involves completing massive public quests within the city such as burning down buildings, killing champions (elite mobs), ransacking libraries, overtaking the sewer system, etc. The entire time, you're not only trying to complete these public quests in the opposing capital city, it's being defended by the opposing faction.
So, they chose to leave out 4 of 6 of the capital cities because it was just too much content to balance, especially because the content is not just PvE raid level bosses and the King himself, but also PvP content, essentially trying to kill the bosses and King while you're tackling PvP at the same time. It's just a lot to balance and tune effectively, and they decided it would push the release off too much.
They may release the cities later. I applaud them for wanting to make sure that the parts of the game they do release are of high quality, and not completely full of bugs.
Re:I'm in CE Closed Beta (Score:5, Informative)
And since they just lifted the NDA I can openly talk about this.
Yes, the game has some rough edges, but damn its got a lot of content.
Way too much content so I ended up skipping a lot of it just to explore areas.
Anyways, coming from the background of a GW fan, I will say that Mythic has captured the atmosphere quite well. There is always something to do and I never found myself saying to myself "Hey... I'm just grinding."
Yeah some of it was, but it wasn't a boring grinding.
There isn't an economy to speak of, but I believe maybe that was the best design decision ever to make a game without an economy rather than a broken economy that inspires gold farmers and imbalances the game.
Re:The capital cities have been removed (Score:2, Informative)
I played WoW at release, and it always amazes me how many people either forgot how crappy it was or pretend they know how it was, even though they joined a year after the game was out.
1) The servers were unstable and it was often impossible to summon pets, access the bank or the auction house.
2) At peak hours, the servers would crash about once an hour.
3) Somethings were incomplete, for example, getting your mount as a paladin involved talking to an NPC in IF instead of the quest line it was supposed to be.
4) Parts of the game were horribly unbalanced or obnoxious. Some classes had talent trees that were a joke. Etc.
It was still a good game, but don't pretend that WoW set this "High standard for the release of an MMO"
Re:The capital cities have been removed (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, WoW never tried to put out 24 classes either. SO when they implement another 10, that's a good comparison. At their rate, if they add it to the next expansion, it will have taken them 5 years. I bet WAR does it faster.
As for the capital cities- it may actually come out for the best. With 3 cities it was going to be very much 3 separate wars with no effect on each other. Now it will be a series of interconnected battles- someone fighting on Empire/Chaos cares about Dwarf/Greenskin and Elf/Dark Elf, because if any 2 of the 3 are captures the city can be sieged.
Re:Oh yes... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Oh yes... (Score:3, Informative)
What he said.
I'm in the closed beta too, and while I've not played as extensively as I could have (got in the day before going on holiday, how cruel...) I've had a hell of a lot of fun.
It does lack some polish in some areas, but given it's competing with a title that's been out what, nearly 4 years, it seems very complete. The various ways RvR takes place are all good. My particular favourite aspect is the lack of one-shotting in PVP, you'll never get close to that, so battles are more strategic, and a good positioning/formation makes a huge difference.