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Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning: Taking Another Look - Post 1.3.2

StraddenStradden Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696

MMORPG.com's Jon wood has re-entered the world of Warhammer Online to bring us his initial thoughts on the changes that have been made since he last left the game, with special focus on the recent 1.3.2 update.

When Warhammer Online first launched, I was excited. When MMOs aren't the focus of my time in front of the computer, highly competitive PvP FPS games are. So, in watching the development of WAR, I was excited about the prospect of a PvP MMO in such a familiar and iconic setting.

When the game launched, I wasn't one of the people who railed against it from the beginning. I actually quite enjoyed my time in the game, levelling a shocking number of characters through to the middle of Tier 2 while my primary character worked his way through T3.

Read Taking Another Look - Post 1.3.2.

Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com

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Comments

  • tryklontryklon Member UncommonPosts: 1,370

     New leadership can make miracles.

    If only Bioware people took a more "direct" interfearence in the game...

  • _Jord__Jord_ Member Posts: 228

    Third! (just kidding).

    WAR was one of the biggest disappointments in my personal gaming history. No. I take that back. It was THE biggest.

    It would take some free play time to have a prayer at winning me back. 14-day retrial for previous members? Might be just what they need to get the numbers up a bit.

    ------
    Played - UO, FFXI, WAR, WoW, EVE
    Currently - Bored.

  • KaylessKayless Member UncommonPosts: 357
    Originally posted by _Jord_


    Third! (just kidding).
    WAR was one of the biggest disappointments in my personal gaming history. No. I take that back. It was THE biggest.
    It would take some free play time to have a prayer at winning me back. 14-day retrial for previous members? Might be just what they need to get the numbers up a bit.

    If you login to your Mythic master account and click reactivate you should be given 10 days for free

  • googajoob7googajoob7 Member Posts: 866

    i did the ten day welcome back they deleted my squig herder which i enjoyed playing . i tried to get back into my rune priest but i met one person in the game world in 3 days and i got fed up with waiting for scenarios to start . which took about 20 to 30 mins each time . warhammer just does nt feel like an mmo its more like team forttess with a  game world tacked onto it these days but at least with team fortress theres not half an hour waits or monthly fees .

    do what ddo did change it to a free to play model with an item shop or close down the game  because theres no way most people are going to pay to play this .

     

     

  • Silverthorn8Silverthorn8 Member UncommonPosts: 510
    Originally posted by googajoob7


    i did the ten day welcome back they deleted my squig herder which i enjoyed playing . i tried to get back into my rune priest but i met one person in the game world in 3 days and i got fed up with waiting for scenarios to start . which took about 20 to 30 mins each time . warhammer just does nt feel like an mmo its more like team forttess with a  game world tacked onto it these days but at least with team fortress theres not half an hour waits or monthly fees .
    do what ddo did change it to a free to play model with an item shop or close down the game  because theres no way most people are going to pay to play this .
     
     

     

    The bg queues in wow were hideous back in vanilla, 30 minutes is around the time it took to get into Arathi Basin only to get obliterated by a fuckiing pre-made horde team.

     

    This game should have been released in 2004 tbh, it has missed the boat!

  • tryklontryklon Member UncommonPosts: 1,370
    Originally posted by Silverthorn8

    Originally posted by googajoob7


    i did the ten day welcome back they deleted my squig herder which i enjoyed playing . i tried to get back into my rune priest but i met one person in the game world in 3 days and i got fed up with waiting for scenarios to start . which took about 20 to 30 mins each time . warhammer just does nt feel like an mmo its more like team forttess with a  game world tacked onto it these days but at least with team fortress theres not half an hour waits or monthly fees .
    do what ddo did change it to a free to play model with an item shop or close down the game  because theres no way most people are going to pay to play this .
     
     

     

    The bg queues in wow were hideous back in vanilla, 30 minutes is around the time it took to get into Arathi Basin only to get obliterated by a fuckiing pre-made horde team.

     

    This game should have been released in 2004 tbh, it has missed the boat!

     

    But at least in wow theres somethings interesting to do while we waited for the g's to start. The same cant be said about WAR =P

  • JpizzleJpizzle Member Posts: 371


    Originally posted by googajoob7

    change it to a free to play model with an item shop  


     
    ^ This.
     
    W/ potions that increase token drops, XP, Talismans, and a variable other plethora of items they could make a cash shop for, this game could thrive. But, like the above poster said – the shallow PvE experience, repetitive RvR and the requirement for large active populations, it's just not worth a monthly fee.
     

  • jawalijawali Member UncommonPosts: 195

    I wonder how many subscirbers there are in Warhammer, and if they really turn f2p with item shop or they just close this game

    (remember Tabula Rasa? It never went f2p they just have closed servers)

    image
  • DarkPonyDarkPony Member Posts: 5,566

    Mostly polish and measures to focus the server population then ...

    In Holland we have a saying "Even when a monkey wears a golden ring, it is and will remain an ugly thing."

    The reasons why WAR disappointed so many don't have much to do with the problems they have been addressing now, I'm afraid. They are much deeper; repetitive rvr, shallowness in crafting, handholding and restrictions around every corner, a world with an artificial, rather than a natural lay-out and death meaning nothing at all.

    You can't fix games with too many deeper issues like that. It has been the exact same for me with AOC and luckily I managed to refrain from touching Aion with a 10 foot pole.

    I am playing EVE and Fallen Earth now; much more challenge, freedom and opportunity for your own talents and intelligence to shine.

     

     

  • summitussummitus Member UncommonPosts: 1,414

      I'm just at the moment thinking of going back to WAR so your veiws are certainly very interesting to be thinking about ... thanks ! 

  • YamotaYamota Member UncommonPosts: 6,593

    They can improve the game all they want but the game is fundamentally flawed. Fighting over cities that can never really be lost or won will quickly get boring and the only reason to do them is to get drops.

    Also the world is tiny and doesnt leave much room for exploration. The game can be best described as shallow. Once you got bored of the PvP in scenarios and done a couple of city sieges there isnt really much reason to stay.

     

  • ZiglugZiglug Member Posts: 69

    I came back with 4 friends and it was a great choice.

     

    I started doing things other than the RvR when it starts to get repetitive. There are tons of tome unlocks and rewards for unlocking certain ones I've been rolling around doing.

    The new LOTD stuff is all pretty cool and in depth.

  • SoulticeSoultice Member UncommonPosts: 112

    Had some of the best times in War and will never go back.  The game is basically a objective and keep swap.  Mythic took out the forts as they could never fix the lag and crash issues.  So there went a part of the game that was fun when it worked.

    Actively managing the server populations has not and is not happening.  The biggest flaw with the game.  Tough to play the game when you start winning or for that matter losing and everyone rerolls on the winning side or just rolls on another server. Server poopulations must be managed when you have two factions going at each other.

    Another game stopper for me was having to play end game and lower level players get to participate in it.  Boggled my mind you have to have certain wards to  kill the bosses.  Oh wait you have to be level 40 to get them after mindless farming for months.  Hit the city only to have players that cannot do squat in the end game instance.  Even better is having lvl 20 players roll on level 65 tokens.  Great game design.

    The world is small and after 6 months of fighting in three zones I could not take it anymore and will not go back.  T1 - T3 was a blast T4 was all about who could get off their CC first, your rooted in place while they burn thru 11,500 HP.  Stupidest game design I have ever seen.  Casters were gods and could walk into a pack of players and basically drop every player there with two healers to back them up.  Not to mention they also had all the CC for the most part in the game.

    Instead of fixing the glaring issues with the game they introduce 4 new classes, and  LOTD.  Great time being lvl 40 RR 66 and doing level 25 bosses.  The best thing about that zone was watching the lower level players get owned. 

    The pvp areas are basically deserted areas and could have used some NPC's in it to help with the zergs or hmm to help with anything.

    War had its chance and blew it more then any IP I played in years.

     

  • AstralglideAstralglide Member UncommonPosts: 686
    Originally posted by Soultice


    Had some of the best times in War and will never go back.  The game is basically a objective and keep swap.  Mythic took out the forts as they could never fix the lag and crash issues.  So there went a part of the game that was fun when it worked.
    Actively managing the server populations has not and is not happening.  The biggest flaw with the game.  Tough to play the game when you start winning or for that matter losing and everyone rerolls on the winning side or just rolls on another server. Server poopulations must be managed when you have two factions going at each other.
    Another game stopper for me was having to play end game and lower level players get to participate in it.  Boggled my mind you have to have certain wards to  kill the bosses.  Oh wait you have to be level 40 to get them after mindless farming for months.  Hit the city only to have players that cannot do squat in the end game instance.  Even better is having lvl 20 players roll on level 65 tokens.  Great game design.
    The world is small and after 6 months of fighting in three zones I could not take it anymore and will not go back.  T1 - T3 was a blast T4 was all about who could get off their CC first, your rooted in place while they burn thru 11,500 HP.  Stupidest game design I have ever seen.  Casters were gods and could walk into a pack of players and basically drop every player there with two healers to back them up.  Not to mention they also had all the CC for the most part in the game.
    Instead of fixing the glaring issues with the game they introduce 4 new classes, and  LOTD.  Great time being lvl 40 RR 66 and doing level 25 bosses.  The best thing about that zone was watching the lower level players get owned. 
    The pvp areas are basically deserted areas and could have used some NPC's in it to help with the zergs or hmm to help with anything.
    War had its chance and blew it more then any IP I played in years.
     

    Wait, they got rid of Keeps? So all they have are underpopulated RvR lakes and underpop scenarios? Lamesauce.

    A witty saying proves nothing.
    -Voltaire

  • SensaiSensai Member UncommonPosts: 220

    I think the reviewer's points are pretty accurate.  I too went back over the past couple of weeks to see how WAR has changed.  Despite all the things listed I think what is the most disappointing is that population is still unbalanced.  Destruction still outnumbers Order handly on all but one server and there its just somewhat equal.  I also was disappointed to see that they adopted the WoW melee combat system that allows you to be hit with melee attacks even if they are 10 yards away.  The game is definitely improving, but the core problems of population imbalance, class imbalance, and meaningless pvp unfortunately will continue to prevent this game from being anything close to what it should have been.

    image

  • FrobnerFrobner Member Posts: 649

    Thank you John for posting this.   It finally got me to spend some time to write abit about my 1 month back at WAR.   I play on European servers - that just like in US - are alot fewer than before.  That included my server for the main - server that once was highly populated and had a first kill of Altdorf king.

    Much like you - I kinda lost intrest in WAR over time based on technical issues and population imbalance.  Some things have changed in WAR - but others have not.  You mentioned few but since you started after 1.3.2 launched - Its abit harder for you to see it how it was before.  I started 2 weeks before patch and I saw the diffrence.  Some was good - some not so good.  In the last month I played my main (lvl 40 WP and a copy lvl 21 WP) plus few others from start to tier 3.  All in all - 5 characters were played on 3 diffrent servers.

    Population and faction balance.

    This has always been a major factor in WAR.  And sadly - after 1.3.2 nothing has changed.  The dominating faction is still dominating.  And if something - its even worse than ever.  It got so bad at 1 point that destro did 3 city invations in less than 24 hours.  You can imagine the effect this has on players over long time - including those that are just trying to get into the city to trade and upgrade their character.  But this is not all. 

    What I found out playing on this many servers - is that if one faction is dominating higher tiers - the weaker faction is usually dominating the lower tiers.  You might think thats fine and should balance to game - but when you think about it a little more - you realise that the players playing in lower tiers are most likely players that ALREADY have character in higher tiers and are beeing overrun there.   Every night that there was a city invation  - the lower tiers filled up with the defending faction.  You would have thought they would defend.  But when defending for 7 days in a row... even 2 times per day... it just gets pointless.

    So.. what can be done ?  OFC what should have been done right away when it became glarinly obvious that the game was gonna be controled by domination of one faction - instead of actual RVR.    You try to create balance - instead of creating unbalance.  Giving out extra experience and renown points to one faction does not call for balance.  If something it creates more unbalance in the lower tiers - that is ALSO part of the game and is highly effected.  It doesn't solve issues to have Order dominating tier 2 and 3 getting destro to roll on another server or just quit when in those tiers.  You should Encourage balance - and that is not what Mythic is doing.

    So how to create balance in each tier ?  One way would be to give the underdogs some rewards - and this is something Mythic is working on.  My fear is that the underdog system is going to effect only highest tier.  Meaning that the journey through the earlier tiers becomes pointless and totally diffrent.  It also calls out for alot of "nubs" showing up in tier 4 - not knowing how to play RVR and giving up when on the loosing site for the 10th time in one week.

    I would like to see Mythic use Influence and Renown to control the game flow alot more.  Not only in diffrent tiers - but even in diffrent maps.  That way they can create controlled flow of balanced content.  For example.  If one faction is beeing dominated 5 against 1 in tier 3 (like is happening alot) then the underdogs should get alot more renown points and influence rewards for fighting back.  Overall they should get the same amount of Renown and Influence as the 5 times bigger number of the other faction.  It sounds like alot.... but then.... this also calls out for balance - meaning that the underdogs will be played more than before and bringing more fun to the entire tier.

    Alot of talk about balance - but then it is the most important part about RVR game like WAR.  Its the biggest issue the game has and it has to be tackled. 

    Other things that you did not mention here is the Action point changes that seems to be kind of a hidden part of the patch.  Basicly Mythic changed the game back to the action point system - where every class is restricted to using talents based on action points.  This means that players can no longer spam spells - cause ususally you run out of AP after hiting 2-4 buttons, depending on the cost of the spell.  Before 1.3.2 this action point system had been deactivated - imo beccause it slowes the gameplay down alot.  But acording to Mythic  it was a bug.  I dont buy it tho.  

    I could go on and on.  But I will stop here.  My last comments will be around the quality control at Mythic.  Or in this case - the lack of it.  It is just not acceptable to see some of the issues that this patch brought up.  Coming from WOW I simply can't understand how a gaming developer like Mythic can still be in buisness with such glaring issues that I noticed.   Since I played chosen it ofc became very obvious because the entire Aura system was buggy and it took week to fix it.  Another one was that an entire scenario froze when players dropped flags at dropping points.   BUt the most shocking one that I noticed (maybe it was also there before) is that my white lion pet actually runs through the sky with me when I fly off to diffrent maps....  I mean... where is the quality control ? 

    Finally - about starting guild and advice.  Both of these will probably be removed cause they are defently not doing what the devs wanted to see. 

    And the very very last. You totally forgot to talk about the apprenticheship system. Something that I consider to be a good sign of how way off the developers are in the actual issues this game has.  The only effect that I have seen of this system tho - is when a player turned into chicken in PQ cause one of the ppl joining was flagged for RVR.  And since the chicken was more than 100 feets from the other person he was playing with..  well - he gave up and flew off in chicken form....  

    I dont know if that system is actually implemented tho.  I hope they drop it cause it is the last thing that the game needs.  Having chickens running around because the go 100 feet away from the other player in RVR is something this game can defently do without. And in terms of balancing... adding higher lvl characters into lower tiers with some restricion on spells and lvls... OMG.. why not first start fixing the big balance issues....

    Personally  -Im right now waiting for my Dragon Age copy and I will not sub for WAR again any time soon.  That doesnt mean I wont be playing it tho.  I regularly create a new trial account and play out one class for 10 days - just to enjoy the best part of the game - and the most rewarding one.  TIER 1 !!!   And heck - who cares if it runs out in 10 days.  I will stop playing the game one day -even when I have 50 rank 40 and RP 80.  Knowing that it has time limit actually makes it more fun for me.  Cause even devloping a player 10 lvls can still be rewarding - while developing 40 can be a nightmare.  And... if you get bored of the trial account character.. you just log off and dont play it again.  No obligation.  And this is why WAR should be free to play... It simply isn't worth long term sub for me.

    Cheers - Off to play Dragon Age. 

     

     

  • FrobnerFrobner Member Posts: 649

    One post here to point out that almost all posters have mention one issue.  Issue that Mythic has not done anything about - even tho everyone knows it.

    Population balance - faction balance.

    Why is this game now down to couple of servers in US and EU?  Cause the biggest issue of it all was not fixed. 

  • DistopiaDistopia Member EpicPosts: 21,183
    Originally posted by Astralglide


    Wait, they got rid of Keeps? So all they have are underpopulated RvR lakes and underpop scenarios? Lamesauce.

    There are still keeps all over.

    A t3 keep siege a few days ago.

    For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson


  • heroofnoneheroofnone Member UncommonPosts: 10

    One thing that I didn't see mentioned was the aprentice system, which is one of the most useful parts of this patch. now if you have alts or new friends you want to play with and even level up a little bit more you can take them into the warband and temp boost their level to something within the other player's range.

  • mindw0rkmindw0rk Member UncommonPosts: 1,356

     Mythic had their chance to get me. WAR was my dream MMO on paper and complete fail when i got my hands on it. They need to make something extraordinary for me to return, not just add some polish and free t1 battles

  • KaylessKayless Member UncommonPosts: 357
    Originally posted by googajoob7


    ...but i met one person in the game world in 3 days and i got fed up with waiting for scenarios to start.

    I'm presuming you're on the EU servers? I'm in the UK and got fed up with those too. I've just moved over to the US servers and they're pretty busy.

  • SensaiSensai Member UncommonPosts: 220

    "Other things that you did not mention here is the Action point changes that seems to be kind of a hidden part of the patch. Basicly Mythic changed the game back to the action point system - where every class is restricted to using talents based on action points. This means that players can no longer spam spells - cause ususally you run out of AP after hiting 2-4 buttons, depending on the cost of the spell. Before 1.3.2 this action point system had been deactivated - imo beccause it slowes the gameplay down alot. But acording to Mythic it was a bug. I dont buy it tho. "

    This is what I like to call "The Mythic Special."  They did the same thing in DAoC: have a system, ability, etc. in the game for 1-2 years then come back and take it out saying its a "correction" or an "adjustment", certianly not a nerf.  Sorry, but anything that becomes so engrained into a game that persists for 1 or 2 years becomes part of that game by default.  Any reversal has to be a nerf by default.

    image

  • crainey92crainey92 Member UncommonPosts: 17

     My initial experience of warhammer was simliar, Me and my friend were looking forward to the release so much and quickly jumped into it followed by 2 more of my friends and we played it through and talked on ventrilo at the same time sharing our experience which was great fun, we lvled our characters to about T3 and got bored of the game as it was getting a bit repetitive and was a drag, so we started trying different classes, it didnt take us long at all to come to the conclusion that all of the skills and classes were pretty much the same and the experience gains at the start of each area seemed somewhat unbalanced. Most of my friends got sick and tired of the games careless nature and decided to stop playing, i payed for my second month and played on taking 2 or 3 more characters through to T2/3 and then also gave up on the game, i was deeply disapointed. Several times i have tryed coming back to the game and although there is many noticeable changes (Particularly to UI) the game had seems to have died out and the servers were half empty(at best). Recently i have been watching people talking about how the game is becoming a little run down and looking at the changes theyve made such as free T1 (I believe) and reduced the monthly sub price which to me is attempts my the company to revive the games life but also unfortunately shows the games poor performance. Personally im just waiting for the game to go F2P which would be great for F2P people but a major blow to the developers, i feel for them really.

  • shamus252shamus252 Member UncommonPosts: 226

    I like most of the new changes, but I hate that they removed Forts.

    Sic semper tyrannis "Democracy broke down, not when the Union
    ceased to be agreeable to all its constituent States, but when it was upheld, like any other Empire, by force of arms."

  • Agent_JosephAgent_Joseph Member UncommonPosts: 1,361

    This game killing baby crying community.

    I still enjoining  playing with mature players after  main work time.

     

    They should back forts!!!

     

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