"I would post this on the front page, but I'm too drunk to rememeber my login."
Warhammer Online.
I went to Target a few weeks ago and bought a presale box for a dollar and some deodorant. Drove home. Entered a bunch of codes, created some accounts. EA just loves to make simple things complicated. Whatever. Few weeks go by, and get invited to a preview weekend thingy. So I fired up bittorrent, downloaded the client and waited. Friday came. Whee! Fired it up.
OK, Disclaimer time. Few things about me. First, I have zero patience. This happens when you are a 38 year old grandfather with another on the way that works a full time job. Yea, not exactly EA Mythic’s (is this their name now?) target market. Too bad. Second, I’m a PvP kinda guy. Shadowbane Beta and all that. Phear my street cred. Whatever. Also, I’m not a writer. My rl job is to tell people where they are screwing up on projects. This doesn’t require writing skillz. Finally, I’m drinking. Jim Beam on the rocks, Good stuff.
Anyways, I played DOW! This makes me an expert on Warhammer. Or something. I remember the WAAAUG boards that you had to put up. How different can this game be? So I create a shaman greenskin. I’m hoping he does the “Orcs Orcs Orcs” chant like in DOW. Doesn’t happen. Oh well.
Being a longtime former EQ1, SB, AO, , wow (disc priest phear my 1610 2v2 rating) I do what I always did at level 1. Grab some quests and look for the giant rats to kill. Ok, I’m bored. Got level 3, these quests are the same old thing I’ve always done. I’m also getting a headache from trying to read these stupid quests. Remember how the Troll SK rollplayers in EQ used to type when they RP’d? Same language. They should have written them in dewd speak. I logout, and work on restoring my Cadillac (1967 Deville) for the rest of the weekend. I logged in on Sunday.
So I get another email for another preview weekend. It’s really just open beta starting two days early. Whatever.
Ok, this time I’m going to do research. What’s the most ovepowerd class? To google!! Bright Wizard!! Great, I can do this. Fireballs and whatnot. OK, so I start playing. I PvE to get to level 3, and I quickly realize that they nerfed leveling!! 1 week before release. Nothing smells like panic that Mythic nerfing leveling. I read on MJ’s blog that “IF it doesn’t feel like a grind, then leveling is too easy.”
Blech. I hate leveling. Just make me max cap so I can start the real game. Blizzard seems to have figured this out. Triple XP!! It’s not like I’m going to miss much by skipping the crappy WAR PvE content. I’ve been doing fedex quests since 1999.
So the folks in #hate tell me that I can level by just PvP. I can do BG’s (Mythic calls them scenarios) and some RvR and level. Also you can do these public quest things which involve you and anyone else in the area killing every Mob you see in a certain radius as fast as you can in order to get some lewtz. The more shit you kill, the better your loot. Anyone in the area can do it. Neat idea, if you are making a PvE game.
Side note: WHY DO THEY HAVE TO CHANGE THE NAME OF EVERYTHING TO BE DIFFERENT FROM WOW? Battlegrounds = Scenarios, Levels = Ranks, Mana = action points, blah blah blah. Look Mythic, we all know by now that all these games use the same mechanics. There should be naming conventions that follow the same rules as Web Browser standards.
Anyway, they nerfed XP. Blech. Horrible move.
Also, what the hell is going on with this feedback? I cast a fireball, I get a pretty animation. Did it hit? Did it miss, Did it lag out? I have no idea. I have some other spells the do stuff. Here is how PvP Goes.
Tab to target. Press 1, then 2, then 3 then 4. Standard MMP fare. Except I HATE HATE HATE being a newb again. I have maxxed out toons in Wow. I just don’t want to level anymore. Where are my abilities? I suck, Also, my Bright Wizard (I named her discoinferno) has neat tattoos, one eye, and a Mohawk. Some people care about this stuff.
Ok, its Tuesday. I’m level 6. Been some BG’s and stuff. This game has lots of bugs. Feels like it’s not quite ready. I’m playing Order, aka the under populated side that gets beat on. How can I STILL be level 6 after playing? How can this game be released in a week? They need 2 or 3 more months to polish this.
There are some neat things in WAR. You can have an offensive and defensive target at the same time. Nice idea for Healers. There are renknown levels, which is different from XP levels. What this brings to the table? I have no idea. I think it restricts gear or something.
At any rate, Mythic totally whiffed on the newbie experience for this one. Expect to get one and two shotted a lot by higher levels. They have some boosting thing that increasing your HPs, but leaves you with your crappy newb spells. The AI pathing is terrible, your spells randomly won’t cast, there are way too many bugged mobs that attack you that you can’t hit, pets are jacked, blah blah blah.
Overall, it will take Blizzard about 3 or 4 patches to ripoff all the good parts of WAR and stick them into WoW. Maybe I will resub to WoW.
Overall, the game isn’t done. I recommend waiting a few months.
