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Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning | List Price: $49.99
Discount Price: $24.99
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Platform: Windows XP
Brand: Electronic Arts
Binding: Video Game
Release Date: 2008-09-16
ESRB Age Rating: Teen
Features: - Undertake a wide variety of PvE quest types related to an army's war efforts,
- Based on Games Workshop's popular Warhammer fantasy world. Dominated by force of arms and magic, this world provides a rich setting for hundreds of thousands of players to experience the epic nature of war and the glory of battle.
- Join one of six Armies and fight for the Armies of Order (Dwarf, High Elf and Empire) or the Armies of Destruction (Greenskin, Dark Elf, or Chaos). Wage war across three unique battlefronts.
- Next generation Realm vs. Realm game system integrating both PvP combat and PvE quests on the same map in support of the greater war.
- Engage in four levels of RvR combat
Warhammer for PvP [Posted on 2008-11-23]
I bought this for my husband. He says the graphics and pvp capability are far beyond WoW, though WoW is fun in its own way.
Very buggy - read for examples [Posted on 2008-11-26]
General Opinion: as you have probably read the 5 star reviews I wont go into the new features and concepts that make the game fun and unique. The world is very pvp focused and that can be a lot of fun. You can log in and out and always have some pvp action going on. The synthesis between constant action and traditional RPG development is done quite well. In the end though I had to give the game a 2 star rating because it is essentially a beta in release... it crashes, is half implemented, takes huge amounts of system resources and is in general quite buggy. I don't think consumers should accept such unpolished products no matter how many innovative ideas they attempted to implement. I imagine after a year of paying beta the list below will be eliminated.
Issues: After playing the game for a couple months some of the coding is driving me to just not want to play. I did not have this experience with WOW, LOTR, Everquest etc. As a programmer who worked on the original Everquest I have some bias as to what a game should be before it is released. There is something to be said for having the design team and programmers in the same building. (or country for that matter)
- the crafting system is largely unimplemented, or balanced. For example when your salvage skill goes up you get a message saying " your trade skill --- has increased to -"
- The game map blanks out intermittently, both in the upper compass and the overall map will have huge squares blacked out... the next time you open the map the blockage may clear.
- As you run around the world you are often caught either floating above the world or stuck underneath it. The only way to fix it is to re-set your height by dying or logging out.
- After RVR your often stuck casting a spell, you can take no action until you cast another spell to cancel the affect.
- When exploring if you are in a group you cannot see any other groups in the area, this makes it very hard to consolidate. In addition there are bugs in the war band/scenario system causing your scenario group to be invisible if you joined from a war band. You cant see groups out of your immediate vicinity either.
- The game uses over 1.2 gigs of ram and runs very slow, during pvp battles where the game should be at its peak the lag is often so bad you have to click 10 times on an ability for it to go off. ( I have tested on three platforms, the newest power machine runs it in a playable fashion)
- Some resolution choices result in the user interface overlapping and becoming unusable.
- Only a couple emotes are implemented.
- The text output on many abilities, skills, quests as a result of in game action is either missing or implemented like the first item in the list.
- There is no auto-balancing to scenarios, most of the time when you jump into a RVR scenario the score ends up being 500 to less than 100 on one side. Exp is based on score and it's a 15 minute endeavor so it can be quite a waste of time. There is a 10 lvl range per scenario tier, but nothing prevents one team from having an average lvl of 19 and the other an average of 12. It would have been nice to see some algorithms for team balancing.
I could keep going but I think you get the idea....I'll check on the game again in a year and see if they work out some of the deficits in coding.
Great game, lots of variety [Posted on 2008-11-26]
I've been playing Warhammer since its release, and despite a few instances of frustration and bugs, I've been highly impressed with the game as a whole. I began playing MMOs at the launch of the first EQ then moved to WoW upon launch- I've never been a be-all, end-all of MMOs, but I've seen my share of all night raids and 48 hour marathons waiting for the AC in Ocean of Tears. I've focused my comments on the theory behind the game, not the simple variables that will inevitably change if you're up to the time with your hardware (i.e. graphics- mine run as well or better then WoW, WAR is both realistic and entertaining).
Here are some of the things I appreciate most about WAR:
1) Instant action, no programmed playing time. No matter when you sign into the game, you can expect to have fun and set realistic, achievable goals for each play session. If you've got a life outside of your game, WAR is for you. All too often I've had to set aside Friday and Saturday nights as that pivotal priest needed for <>. With WAR joining parties, public quests (PQs), battle grounds, etc. is easy and allows players to come and go as they please. There isn't a robust and (virtually mandatory) party instance system- although there are instances in the game should you be interested. Please note, I haven't played the tier 4 material yet, but I'm sure the commitments will be much higher.
2) Progression strategy: In WAR you won't waste a lot of time wondering where to go to next because the PQ chapter system goes in a logical order with plenty of options for how to progress the chapter. Similiary, each of the major conflict areas (Empire/Chaos, Dwarves/Greenskins, and Highelves/Darkelves) has its own story line and doesn't require an absorbent amount of exploration to progress. Each of the three major conflict areas has more than enough content to level a character though the next tier. (Side note: my first server I leveled a few Chaos toons to tier 3 material and tried to do everything with all of them- this created a confusing jumble and a lot of fighting "grey" (low level) mobs. I moved to Order on another server and made a primary character for each of the three major story lines (they don't cross continents) and have absolutely LOVED it).
3) Gathering skills: simple but fun, the gathering skills (cultivation, salvage, butchering, and magical salvage (basically disenchant)) are fun and keep you engaged in extra looting opportunities. I've noticed a lot of newer players are very attracted to cultivation because it's one of the first common loot items you'll find, veterans are generally salvagers because the items sell for a lot more. Though variety is good I feel that the gathering skill could benefit from balance tweaks.
Now for a couple of WARs not-so-great points:
1) Marathon PVE content: Remember the first time you brought down Prince? Or Lucy? Or Trac? Chances are you won't get that all night bragging rights in WAR for some time to come. PVP raids are certainly a thing to look forward to once more of the player base gets max level, but in the mean time folks who belong to upper echelon PVE will not find much content in WAR (from what I've seen and experienced).
2) Trade skills: From my experience, the entire trade skill system (read here, things you make from gathering skills) needs to be completely overhauled. The talisman making skill is WAY too hard to level and the alchemy skill seems to have a "so what ?" effect. You can't design rifles or epic armor like in so many successful MMOs in the past (EQ had a system that was WELL ahead of it time). I find this negative particularly shameful because I actually enjoy the grind of finding rare materials and recipes (yea, I'm a bit of a sicko).
I hope you've found this article beneficial in your decision. I'd recommend any fantasy fan check out the game and give it an unbiased shot. See you in game!
~Matt
One of the Very Best MMO's... [Posted on 2008-11-28]
Pros:
-Excellent PvP (player vs player) system, one of the best among MMO's.
-Public Quests are a wonderful PvE feature with great Rewards.
-Tome of Knowledge - A neat feature that stores info and facts about your characters.
-No Grinding Quests. (i.e., Slaying 50 or 60 wolves just to get 5 "hunk of wolf meat" drops).
-PvP and PQ's are easy to access.
-Great Graphics!
Cons:
-Numerous bugs (including crashes-to-desktop) that are still not fixed, even 2 months after release.
-Lack of solid PvE Endgame content.
-No official community forums.
-Game was launched with too many servers; depending on the server you choose, you can have a hard time finding other players willing to do Open PvP.
Overall: Great game! Definably worth trying.
Install problems with DVD version [Posted on 2008-11-28]
As much as I dislike reviewing a product without having played it, EA gives me no choice in the matter. My DVD version of the game was not able to be installed. This is not an isolated incident but from what I've gathered online it is a widespread problem with the DVD version. Those who downloaded the game are lucky (or wise?) Support will run you through many "fixes" which do not work, as I'm sure they know before they tell you. Seeing as how the game takes such a long time to install, having to install the entire game, uninstall, and reinstall again wasted at least 10 hours of my time, which I'd like back please EA, thank you very much.
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