YouGamers.com

Previews

Warhammer Online - First Impressions

Warhammer Online - First Impressions

Mythic's much-delayed MMO, Warhammer Online, is finally going live on next week (18th of September) simultaneously in US, Oceania and Europe. Mythic is best known for their first major MMO, Dark Age of Camelot, which they self-published. This time EA has picked up the tab - Mythic Entertainment was actually called EA Mythic for a while, and they are still a subsidiary of Electronic Arts. Last time Mythic managed to make a noticeable dent to the subscription numbers of EverQuest, but this time the competition is not fumbling at every step like SOE was back then. Just like DAOC, Warhammer Online takes player vs. player combat seriously, twisting the familiar formula more towards "Kill other players, not stupid AI monsters". We took a quick spin with the WAR Open Beta to see if Blizzard has any reason to be worried.

Warhammer Online has actually a lot in common with World of Warcraft, even beyond the cartoony visual look. So much, that you could honestly call it World of Warhammer. Online. Craft. However, that's because Blizzard used Games Workshop and Warhammer Fantasy Battles as one of their sources of inspiration back when they were cooking up Warcraft. After all, in game development it doesn't really matter if you steal features and ideas from the competition - all that truly matters is if the final mash-up of ideas - both "borrowed" and your own - combine into a good game. With Dark Age of Camelot, Mythic took what EQ had done, and did the same thing, only better, and this time they are very much trying for a repeat performance - take what World of Warcraft (and Dark Age of Camelot) did, and do the same thing, only better, and with additional bias towards PvP/RvR gameplay.

So, How Does It Play?

I must say, my first reaction was definitely a positive one. Even if GOA tried hard to mess things up with their epic failures with the European account management and Open Beta registration, once I finally did get a working account everything Just Worked.

Visually Warhammer Online looks a lot like World of Warcraft, only with slightly higher resolution textures. There are also a few more polygons spent on the environment. Characters unfortunately do not appear to be quite as detailed, but this could be traced back to the decision to build the game around RvR. When you have 100+ person battles going on, nobody has time to look at the shiny texture map covering the face of each character - it's all about quickly recognizable shapes and spell effects. Visually the game is quite passable, even if it does look a bit dated for a game released in 2008.

But the visuals are not that important. What matters is the UI, Controls and the Gameplay. In this regard, Warhammer Online does many things right, and in a way it's the first MMO launched after World of Warcraft that seems to "get it".

The Good

• Well-designed default user interface, fully programmable and customizable with LUA

Yes, you can mod it just like WoW with programmable AddOns written in LUA. The default UI is also very well designed, presenting all the important information clearly and with smooth high-resolution fonts. In these post-WoW days you just can't do a MMO without a fully customizable UI, and Mythic is the first company to truly get it.

• Consistent art direction

While the engine is a tad "low tech", what you get is consistent and the visuals fit the game. 2D visual elements (icons, UI elements) are especially good.

• Solid set of lore, drawn from the massive archives of Games Workshop

One of the big strong points of Warhammer Online. It's clear that the Warhammer license was a good idea, and it's been milked for every penny. Greenskins in particular are just hilarious - so hilarious, in fact, that I fear there may be population issues because many of the available races are not as cool as Orcs and Goblins.

• Can (theoretically) run on a fairly low-spec system

The minimum specifications are very low, and the game is theoretically playable on 3-4 year old computer. Sadly it doesn't quite translate to reality when the action heats up - when players pile to a small area, weaker systems start to sputter. We've added some preliminary YouGamers recommendations to the Warhammer Online entry at the Game-o-Meter. Check it out to see what kind of system you should have to play the game smoothly.

• Public Quests

Best idea since... I don't know. I predict every other MMO "ripping off" this idea very quickly. So what is a Public Quest? In Warhammer Online every area has a couple of locations where a quest event is almost constantly in progress. A Public Quest may initially tell you "kill 100 of these buggers" - allowing everyone in the area, grouped or not, participate in the massacre. Once the quest objective has been completed, the event moves to the next stage (kill/gather/whatever X of this and that) and again players can scurry around working to complete the quest. Finally a big boss appears and everyone gets to participate in a grand bash to keel it.

Everyone who participates gains Influence (used to buy rewards specific to each area) and everyone gets to roll for loot from a big chest that pops up in the end. Everyone is ranked based on the amount of work they did towards the quest goals, and top players get a bonus to their loot rolls. It's a great cooperative competition for nice rewards - plus you get experience from it all.

• Experience from PvP

Zomg! You can actually level up by just doing PvP/RvR. In Warhammer Online questing is optional - just hit the scenario queue (think "battlegrounds") from level 1. In scenarios your character gets temporarily bumped up close to the maximum level of the scenario, so no major issues even if you are not at the maximum level. Alternatively, once you get some levels under your belt, head to the local PvP hotspot (shown on the map) and gank some Order weenies for fun and experience points. This is a bit radical move, but at least so far it appears to actually work! Not sure how well this will go over on Open RvR servers - where "anything goes", including mindless ganking of people trying to do quests. Still, at least on the "Core" ruleset it seems to work great and there is no need to "stop leveling" to participate in PvP.

As far as the rule sets go, effectively "Core" = plenty of PvP but you can optionally avoid it, "Open RvR" = open season gank fest, Order vs. Destruction.

• Gear from PvP

You can also gear up your character from PvP. This side is still apparently a bit work in progress, but the stated goal of Mythic is to allow you level up and gear up completely from RvR battles, without doing any PvE, if you so choose.

• Good server and service stability - in the US

Mythic has done this before, and there has been very little issues with the US servers and infrastructure. Could be one of the smoothest MMO launches in history.

• GOA game servers have actually worked

While EU has suffered from account & billing service issues due to GOA's fumbling, the actual game servers have worked very well. Almost completely lag-free and stable. I can only hope they stay that way...

• Siege PvP that actually works

Unlike Funcom and their epic mess-up that is Age of Conan, Mythic has a proven track record with DAOC's keep sieges, and while I haven't tried those included in Warhammer Online yet, everyone is saying that they actually work and are good fun.

Page 1: Introduction, The Good BitsPage 2: The Bad, The Ugly and Initial Verdict

Related Stuff

Tags