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Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
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leon's Review
They made a bold promise, and they delivered.
Every day computer user, a video game addict, former WoW player, casual player
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SEP
16
2008
This version of the MMO was developed by Mythic, the creator of Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online and is based on the Warhammer lore. Yes, Warhammer the table top miniature game that evolved into a pen-and-paper RPG that challenged Dungeons and Dragons for the hearts, minds, and imaginations of hard core geeks everywhere (myself included.)
Three months ago I started reading about Warhammer Online: The Age of Reckoning. Mostly I saw videos and interviews with Mark Jacobs: that completely arrogant and hilarious front man for the design team. He made a lot of crazy promises about the game. And the short version of the review is this: He delivered on every one of them. They've made a game that will easily replace World of Warcraft for me permanently.
PvP/RvR
The main point of the game is player vs. player, or in Warhammer parlance, realm vs. realm. Each realm on the Order side (the good guys) are matched with a realm on the Destruction side (the bad guys). Dwarfs vs. Greenskins (Orcs and Goblins). Empire (humans) vs Chaos (demented, mutated humans), and High Elves (posh English people) vs. Dark Elves (posh English people on Opium.) The world RVR is great: there are set zones where the two factions come together and fight for control of keeps or towers. The side with control of both gets a benefit to their leveling in that zone (bonus experience points). Plus there are quests you can't get done if you don't control all the keeps in the zone. Besides the fact that RVR can make leveling in PVE faster, the best part is you get XP for killing other players. And while you can loot their body, they don't lose their stuff, so getting killed isn't all that bad.
Maybe the best reason to RVR is the renown points. Every time you kill an opposing player, or help capture a battlefield objective, or play in a scenario, you get renown points. The points translate to ranks, and the ranks unlock special gear, special abilities, and allow you to permanently boost some of your stats (you can spend a renown point to add 3 to your initiative, for instance.)
So far every class I've played has been viable in PVP from level 1. That includes tanks, ranged DPS, pure healers, and hybrid healers (see below.) With 10 classes there are bound to be balance issues but so far they have come very close to a balanced game.
Gankage
Ganking -- the art of getting killed by a player of much higher rank than you, usually while you are in combat -- is limited by a few key mechanics: if you go into an RVR zone that is significantly below your level (ie you are a level 40 going into a level 10 RVR zone) you get turned into a chicken with 1 hit point. I've already killed 5 or so. Its fun. Every time I do it I think to myself "that is for Stranglethorn Vale, jackass." Feels good. Also, in a "core rule set" server you are only flagged for RVR when in the specific zones, or when you chose to flag yourself. So if you are out questing, minding your own business, you should have no issues. And lastly, when you enter an RVR zone, you get a buff to your stats to make you the equivalent of 80% of the max level for that zone. So if you are level 1 going into a level 1 to 11 RVR zone, you immediately get the health and stats of a level 8 character. It doesn't help the abilities you have trained or the gear you have, but it does help a ton.
Scenarios
These are the WAR equivalent of "battlegrounds" in WoW where teams of Order and Destruction are competing in a timed game with specific objectives. Each RVR zone (dwarfs/greenskins, empire/chaos, and high elves/dark elves) have their own scenario in each tier (tier 1 is 1-11, tier 2 is 10-21, tier 3 is 20-31, and tier 4 is 30-40), and they are unique. You have to be in a zone to play that zone's scenario -- ie if you want to play the human v. chaos scenario you have to get to the human v. chaos zone or group with someone who is there and you can queue as a group. There are several different styles, but the tier 1 scenarios all seem to be "domination" games where you try to maintain control of resources for points each second, and the first to 500 wins. Also, there are usually quests near your starting zone for your scenario which you can turn in every time you play so there is even more experience points to be had in the scenarios. Plus another quest to kill 10 players on the opposing team which is easily accomplished in most scenarios even if you lose. At level 3 I was contributing to the team's success and clearing about 5500 XP with quest turn ins each time I played. Plus, there was a ton of renown ranks earned.
PvE
The PVE content I've seen so far is pretty cool. The quests chain to make sense, they do a good job of introducing you to the lore and your class's abilities. Maybe the coolest thing is that they have built into the map notations showing where you need to go to complete quests. So you run around an area, grab all the quests you can get, and then look for the red zones on your map. Go there, and start killing. I should also point out that the quest rewards are always appropriate for your class: you never again have to vendor a quest reward thinking "pally gear." You only get stuff you can use.
Public Quests
Public Quests (PQ) are maybe the coolest part of the game. A public quest is an in-the-open mini-event that everyone in the area can participate in. Its like a mini-instance that isn't instanced and everyone in the area can participate in. You usually have several quests that will lead you to the spot where a PQ is and once there, a message pops up on your screen alerting you. They are usually in stages: kill a lot of mobs, kill some champion level mobs, kill a hero/boss mob. At the end of the event everyone who helped rolls for loot and you get a bonus to your loot roll based on contribution (damage taken, damage dealt, healing, etc.) There are usually 3-5 "green" loot bags and some lower level white bags as well up for grabs each time the PQ is completed. Each bag has several items in it and you can choose one. Again, the armor and weapon loot is always for your class.
For doing public quests you accumulate "influence points" for that area (in this case the area is called a "chapter") that are also redeemable for special gear.
The Tome of Knowledge
Another innovative feature in Warhammer Online: The Age of Reckoning is the Tome of Knowledge. Basically, the game keeps track of every mob you have killed, every interesting place you have been, and even loot you've had. The tome gives titles for in game accomplishments too. Some are serious ("the xxxx slayer" after killing a certain number of mobs of type xxxx), some are funny ("the showoff" for completing quests naked), and some are a little of both ("the singed" for Bright Wizards who blow themselves up a number of times -- trust me, it happens.) You get to choose your title that shows under your character's name in the game, and you can switch between any one the ones you have earned at any time. Its pretty cool actually, and a nice conversation starter: "The Snob? How did you get to be The Snob?" "Well..."
Also, the Tome is where all the lore you learn about goes: quest text, stories about the people, places, and events in the Warhammer history. I love the fact that I can focus on leveling now and go back later a read all about the environment in which I'm playing. I never got that in World of Warcraft, and its a nice touch. Plus the lore itself has decades of development behind it, so its deep. Very deep.
Careers
In WAR, what I've always known as a class is called a career. There are a ton of careers to choose from: 10 on each side. And while most of them have mirrors on the other side, the mechanic is always different, and usually different enough to make you think about it. All the normal MMO roles are here: tanks, melee DPS, ranged DPS, and support/healing.
Each career also has three mastery paths similar to WoW's talent point system. Starting at level 10 you get a mastery point every other level and a level 20 you get a mastery point every level, for a total of 25 points. This mastery point can be spent enhancing one area of your character's abilities. That is, if you are a tank and you put a point in your "defensive" mastery path, _all_ your skills and abilities in that area get a bonus. Each mastery path has 15 levels and 7 special skills available (each of which also costs a mastery point but you don't have to train those skills). So if you went deep in one path and took every special skill, you would have 3 points left over at 40 to put into another tree. Or, you could put 15 points one mastery path, take none of the special skills, and have 10 points to put into another. Lots of options, and options are good.
You start off with just 2 or 3 skills, but you train new skills every level so very soon you have full tool bars and lots of options in battle. I would say most careers come into their own at about level 10 or so.
There are two other means of tweaking your character to match your play-style or your battle situation. In addition to normal abilities you occasionally will train a "morale" ability. These are typically big damage or big heal abilities. As you fight and keep fighting you build up morale. There are 3 tiers of morale, each enabling a bigger and badder morale ability, and for each tier you can have one ability slotted to become available as you hit those plateau. Usually a morale ability resets your morale to zero, so you have to decide if you want to pop the level one skill or let morale build to higher levels. Eventually you will have many tier 1, 2, and 3 morale abilities. Before battle, you have to decide which ones to load up depending on the situation: as a hybrid healer, maybe you want to balance heals and damage, or if you are raiding with your guild, you want to load up on heals, etc.
Tactics is another tool for tweaking your character for specific situations. Tactics are like buffs: always in effect while you have them active. You can have up to five active at once, and can have six predefined groups of tactics so you can switch them out easily. Tactics would be things like "+5% damage against orcs", for instance. And like morale abilities you can change them out, but not during combat. I think of tactics and morale abilities as something like a talent build in WoW, but one that you can switch free of charge.
Healing
Healing classes deserve their own mention. The creators of WAR didn't like the way healers are typically played in other MMOs: stand in the back and hit one or two keys repeatedly. Order and Destruction each have three healers: one pure healer, one melee healer, and one caster healer. For both the melee and caster healer to be truly effective they have to both attack and heal. For the Archmage, the High Elf healer caster, every offensive spell adds a point to your "tranquility" up to five. For each point of tranquility, your next healing spell is more effective: the cast time can be shorter, or the strength of the heal goes up, or it has an increased chance to crit. And it works the other way: heals add a point to your offensive spells, up to five, that make the next cast more effective. For melee healers, you have to be in combat, hitting and getting hit, to build up your healing ability. Its a great innovation, and keeps everyone fighting.
Living Guilds
My friends and I have plans to form a guild but we haven't done it yet. I'll update this later. I can say the theory is interesting: guilds level just like characters, and as they level they get more abilities and capabilities. Many of these revolve around having a battle standard. The standard provides a buff to those fighting around it and can have tactics as well that apply to the whole guild fighting near the standard. Yet another way to tweak your combat experience for each unique situation.
Living Cities
Cities, like characters and guilds, have levels in the game. Only two right now, but they are each side's capitol city: Altdorf for Order and the Inevitable City for destruction. At first, the cities are not in very good repair, but as the realms battle and get active, conduct commerce, etc, the city will gain levels and new areas and abilities will open up. As of now, Altdorf is still a level 1 city, so I don't have much to say here except that I love the idea of helping my capitol city to level. The end-game RVR also involves capturing the other side's capitol city, so the cities. I'll reserve judgement until I see it, but the idea is certainly interesting.
Sumary
In short, its been a blast for the 2 weeks I've been playing. The official launch in on September 18, so you can get in on the ground floor. And if you are a MMO fan, whether coming from Dark Age of Camelot, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, EverQuest, or World of Warcraft, I think you'll really like this game.
Last edited on Sep 16, 2008
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is recommended by leon
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