Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

[potsherds]

[quote name='Ouroboros' post='1526706' date='Sep 22 2008, 10.42']So it was a good fight then?[/quote]
Heh. I'd say so by the sound of it. :P

[Cuellar]

I started a destruction on the ULTHUAN server. Joined the penny arcade guild there (about 300 members).

Having played about every decent MMORPG lately, I'll say that I'm having the most fun in any MMORPG since WoW.

First, the release has gone pretty flawless. There was some lag (I think that was what was causing the graphic lag) over the weekend, now that EVERYONE is allowed in.

Second, char creation and graphics are about the same as WoW, just the unique outfits and shit are not nearly as diverse as WoW.

Third, the classes are all fairly unique, with very limited overlap. Even chosen vs black orc, the mechanics are completely different, so there is much less overlap. The complete lack of retarded ass stuns and CCs make it more chaotic (gameplay) than WoW for each class.

Fourth, PvE is pretty similar to WoW mostly. Quests work the same, and travelling between areas is the same. The biggest difference is the PQs, which are a pretty cool feature. They generally have a nifty little bit of gameplay (and every one is basically different), and give you pretty awesome gear. It also lets you team up regularly with other people so you get into the habit of grouping for a while. I'd agree that they are really boring and repetitive, but if you visit all of the PQs at your tier, you can max out your influence without dying of boredom.

Fifth, PvP blows WoW out of the water. The game is basically designed FOR pvp. You can do it in the keeps and such (as SirRots talked about), or you can jump on a wow style game from anywhere in the world. The classes are WAY more balanced than in WoW, and they even buff you up if you are too low level for the level range. IE if you are L12 and in a T2 pvp scenario, you get buffed to L18 temporarily so that L21s aren't raping your virgin L12 ass.

The classes also have some really interesting mechanics with a lot more "flow" to the battles. Its hard to discribe, but it is sort of like when Alterac Valley first was introduced, with real strategy and battles, not just a zerg to win. I've been spanked plenty of times, and spanked order plenty of times as well. Most significantly, most games start PvP as an addon, and really it is for higher levels that are bored. WAR is the exact opposite, you can sign up as a newbie, and still have a chance (with the level buffs), and by L8-10 you can really get into the hardcore battles.

[Phospholipid]

[quote name='potsherds' post='1525833' date='Sep 21 2008, 00.05']I'm big on story line and such, and I'm having trouble really getting into WAR's. They've painted a very black and white picture of the whole conflict, something that I dislike. I always found it easy to relate with most of the Horde races (and found the Dranei nauseatingly goody-two-shoes). There's no ambiguity whatsoever in this game. And this perpetual war that's going on all around you no matter where you are is a bit much. It really loses all sense of realism, imo. :dunno:[/quote]

I've been doing some fairly evil shit on my Witch Hunter. I forced a father (who was too old to go to war) to relinquish his son to the Imperial war machine. In addition, I've been ordered several times to weed out heretics and kill deserters. I'm not really familiar with the Warhammer lore, but I consider the fanaticism of the Empire to be quite evil.

"These poor, simple folk - too fearful or too dull-witted to see the vulgarity and evil in their own midst. They wail and complain about my...uncompromising methods, but who among you can say that hanging half a village is too high a price to pay for the assurance that corruption has been exposed and destroyed this day?"

On the other hand, I'm finding the Greenskins to be hilarious, and in many cases cute. The writing is brilliant, and it really captures how I'd picture an actual (ridiculous...I know) Orc/Goblin to comprehend any given thing. There was even a Dark Elf who tried to take advantage of my goblin's primitive intellect.

The skill names are also hilarious :lol:

Such cute little fellers.

I really suggest you try 'em out if you're not digging the other race's storylines.

[Circle Breaker]

I have to refute that the release has gone flawless. People (myself included) with a GeForce 8800 card seem to be having massive issues. On a brand new PC with great hardware I can't get past character creation without the screen going black and getting "driver has stopped working" errors.

I've tried 4 different video card drivers (and updated every other hardware driver on my system) and still nothing but black screen crashes. I've also tried underclocking the card to reduce potential overheating (a long shot of course) and playing the game in window mode.

Pretty much ready to return this game if there isn't a fix out by week's end. Any one have any advice?

The irony is that I talked the game up to all my friends who are now running it flawlessly.

[potsherds]

[quote name='Phospholipid' post='1527993' date='Sep 23 2008, 06.08']I've been doing some fairly evil shit on my Witch Hunter. I forced a father (who was too old to go to war) to relinquish his son to the Imperial war machine. In addition, I've been ordered several times to weed out heretics and kill deserters. I'm not really familiar with the Warhammer lore, but I consider the fanaticism of the Empire to be quite evil.

"These poor, simple folk - too fearful or too dull-witted to see the vulgarity and evil in their own midst. They wail and complain about my...uncompromising methods, but who among you can say that hanging half a village is too high a price to pay for the assurance that corruption has been exposed and destroyed this day?"

On the other hand, I'm finding the Greenskins to be hilarious, and in many cases cute. The writing is brilliant, and it really captures how I'd picture an actual (ridiculous...I know) Orc/Goblin to comprehend any given thing. There was even a Dark Elf who tried to take advantage of my goblin's primitive intellect.

The skill names are also hilarious :lol:

Such cute little fellers.

I really suggest you try 'em out if you're not digging the other race's storylines.[/quote]
Heh. Umm....I maybe should actually read the entire quest intros, instead of just scrolling down to the summary. :dunce:
Oh, and call me sexist, cos I am, but I don't play male characters. I don't recall there being any female greenies, since I wanted very much to try a squig (sp?) herder (the game intro's bits with the herder were [i]hilarious[/i]).

I certainly agree that the religious-like fanaticism of Order is pretty clearly wrong. I uh, can't comment on if I think Chaos is any better or worse, I haven't gotten around to trying a demon-user, and probably won't. I think that there's an obvious amount of disdain and arrogance on part of the high elves, but I fail to see what's terribly wrong with the dwarves. They're drunkards, and plenty of quests involve getting, retrieving beer, and gathering stuff to make beer, but uh, I'd take that vice over religious fanaticism.


Instead of doing some of my hw tonight, I created a witch hunter to replace the range-DPS fire sorcerer (which I really disliked) and spent my evening leveling up a bit, playing the first RvR instance a number of times, and playing the Raven Host PQ. I uh, got more carried away with that stuff than is probably good. :wideeyed:

[Ouroboros]

On there being no female greenskins, it because in the fluff of Warhammer, both fantasy and 40k, greenskins are all gender neutral, they're a type of humanoid fungus.

[Shryke]

Yeah, GreenSkins are completely asexual.

[quote]I have to refute that the release has gone flawless. People (myself included) with a GeForce 8800 card seem to be having massive issues. On a brand new PC with great hardware I can't get past character creation without the screen going black and getting "driver has stopped working" errors.

I've tried 4 different video card drivers (and updated every other hardware driver on my system) and still nothing but black screen crashes. I've also tried underclocking the card to reduce potential overheating (a long shot of course) and playing the game in window mode.

Pretty much ready to return this game if there isn't a fix out by week's end. Any one have any advice?

The irony is that I talked the game up to all my friends who are now running it flawlessly.[/quote]

Aye, there's a few major bugs going round. It's also underoptimized, as it puts a SERIOUS load on both RAM and the CPU.

And then there's a group of random people, like yourself, who are having issues but shouldn't be.

It's about as smooth as WoWs release, which is as good as it gets really.

But hell, they had to get it out more then a month before WOTLK hit.

In response, it looks like WoW is/might be dropping the 3.0 patch tonight.

[Commodore]

wait till you get to Open World PvP in Tier 2, where they have Keeps you can siege, I was in a great battle the other night, Destro busted the door of our keep down and was in the lord room, but we made a stand and drove them all the way back to their warcamp, it was epic

once you get to Tier 2, don't just do scenarios, especially during prime time

[Daeric]

Another night gone and another keep battle. (through I was fairly useless in the defence since the I was lagging like hell when the numbers built up)

We decided to be ambitious and go for the Ostland Keep, this for those not sure is in the Empire, of course since we only have the Chaos city and Altdorf in at the moment most of the destruction hang around in these zones.

We quickly captured the two flag points and pushed to the keep, making short work of the few destruction around and broke into the keep, just as we were getting started on the Keep Lord enough destruction arrived to make it hard work and we came abit disjointed, all the tanks died on the inital push as the healers got overworked. We regrouped at the warcamp and waited a few minutes before going back, by this time Troll country keep was under attack so some destruction had left to that and we smashed past the few still here (door was still down) and made quick work of the keep lord, operation Manfred Hold was a success!

We then bunkered down to see what response we got, the first three waves were thrown back before they even reached the walls, two of them pushed a good few minutes down the road. Then the numbers on their side became too big to be viable to hold it outside we skirmished abit taking out what siege equipment we could before falling back. Then started the boiling oil out their heads escapaid, eventually they had to hack the door down by hand and it fell to the us tanks to hold the doorway which we did for about 5 minutes until the numbers became too great, all the tanks died there and so the massive amount of destruction poured in and we could clog them at the stairs.

We then switched to Troll country that was in Order hands and fortified that for awhile before even more destruction turned up, we did what we could but the numbers were too great for a single warband and a few follow ons to hold.

Then started the battle for the Warcamp road, we met with initial success as we pushed our way about half way back to the keep until numbers began to tell again, what followed was a game of cat and mouse as we lured them into cannon and Hellblaster range of the warcamp.

Fun night but there is some server issues to work out which makes it extremely hard to play.

[Brandon Stark]

We held a keep on Sat. night with a group of 12 from about 30 Chaos for nearly an hour; collision detection and the fact that it actually grants a sizable advantage to defenders gives the game a pretty epic feel.

[potsherds]

[quote name='Ouroboros' post='1528060' date='Sep 23 2008, 08.31']On there being no female greenskins, it because in the fluff of Warhammer, both fantasy and 40k, greenskins are all gender neutral, they're a type of humanoid fungus.[/quote]
:dunce: Oh.

Um, [i]fungus[/i]?!

[Ouroboros]

Certainly adds a whole new spin on classic orcs and goblins, don't it?

[Brandon Stark]

[quote]Um, fungus?![/quote]

Yep. They're basically set up to be a humanoid 'disease,' that a world can catch. They're so warlike they'll begin to fight each other if they don't have someone else to fight on a constant basis, and even then infighting is common if there's too long of a lull.

[Daeric]

Its the reason why in the 40k Universe once you get an orc infestation its near impossible to get rid of orcs from your world, you can beat the Waaagh but the blighters will just keep coming back.

Did some Temple scenario's last night with the guild and we had the funniest destruction team ever, to start with we had managed to get two groups of guildies into it by the time old trick of counting and pressing sign up for scenario at the same time, we had a balanced mix of healers, tanks mdps and rdps and we came across a team of 9 black Orcs and 1 goblin squig herder and to top it off about half of the Borcs were 2h trying to dps it took us awhile to hack them down but we managed it and they managed 40 points to our 500.

We had another game were the two guild groups got different scenarios were the one I was in had the tanks but no healers, the pug group we got had just dps off both kinds and we managed to match against a destruction team that had no healers, we got the artifact and it then was just chain carried between myself and the guilds main IB, all out slugfest war which we won by around 100 points mostly due to artifcat bonus kill points.

[Commodore]

anyone else think tanks are OP so far?

[Brandon Stark]

Only if you're melee dps trying to fight them alone. The game being based around group balance instead of individual balance can make it seem unfair sometimes.

[potsherds]

[quote name='Brandon Stark' post='1529529' date='Sep 24 2008, 16.37']Only if you're melee dps trying to fight them alone. The game being based around group balance instead of individual balance can make it seem unfair sometimes.[/quote]
Heh. That's exactly what I was thinking. Playing the first Order v Chaos RvR I kept going up against a guy named BigMac...I think because I thought that was a stupid name. Of course, my skinny little witch hunter died numerous times against that tank. :P

[Brandon Stark]

That being said, I can really appreciate the openness of the rock/paper/scissors mechanic in class balance being out in the open and an encouragement to play in groups.

Although Disciples of Khaine are mushrooms right now.

[Daeric]

They'll become very flat mushrooms higher up the levels as healing debuffs start to become more common, they'll still have to melee to get the most effect out of their healing but it wont be the unkillable melee that they are at the moment.

I have a theory at the moment (not tested of course) that alot of the destruction classes come out of the blocks sprinting and a fair few of the Order take abit longer to get working properly (Apart from IB, they get alot of the core skills earlier then other tanks)

[BlueRose]

I'm a tank, but I sure go down faster than those Chosen, they are tough! I make a point to go after them though :)

We randomly got a bunch of people together last night in the Empire RvR, and after taking over the whole thing, we went over to the Elf one and took all of that also.

My server is weird. Early in the afternoon/evening, Destruction owns all the areas. But the later it gets at night, the more Order takes over, and by the time we go to bed, Order is in control. I dont know if it's a weird timezone thing, or age of the players, or what. But it's working well for me so far!